CHAPTER 2 Proving That There Is A Plurality In The Godhead.
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God and men: He could not draw nigh to God, and treat with him about the peace and reconciliation of his people, much less effect it, or be a ransom for them, as he is said to be in the following verse. As to Galatians 3:20. I do not take it to be a direct proof of the unity of God, and have therefore neglected it in my collection of proofs. The meaning of the text, I apprehend, is this: A Mediator supposes, at least, two parties, between whom mediation is made. “Now, says the apostle, a mediator is not of one, that is, of one party, but God is one”; i.e. one party: Now as Moses (for of him the apostle is speaking) was a Mediator between God, as one party, and the people of Israel as the other: So Jesus Christ is a Mediator between God, and his elect people. I shall conclude this discourse, on the unity of God, with a passage ascribed to Ignatius: “Whosoever asserts the one only God, to the exclusion of the divinity of Christ, (and, I may add, of the Holy Ghost)” is a defamer, and an enemy “of all righteousness”. CHAPTER 2 Proving That There Is A Plurality In The Godhead. Having, in the preceding chapter, proved the unity of the divine Being, or that there is but one God, I now proceed, II. To prove that there is a plurality in the Deity, which shall endeavour to do; First, From the plural word Elohim, so frequently used when the divine Being is spoken of; and that in different forms of construction: As, 1. It is sometimes in construction with a verb singular, as in Genesis 1:1. “In the beginning God, or Elohim, created the heavens and the earth”. Elohim being a word in the plural number, and Bara, which is rendered created, being singular, many think It is designed to express the truth of a plurality of persons in the unity of essence. Moses might have made use of some of the names, or appellations of God in the singular number: He might have said, Jehovah Bara, Jehovah created; a name by which God had made himself known to Moses, and by him, to the people of Israel; or he might have made use of Eloab, the singular of Elohim, which he has made use of in Deuteronomy 32:15, 16. So that he was not obliged to make use of this plural word, from any want of singular appellations of God, or from any barrenness in the Hebrew language. And when we consider that one design of Moses writings is to oppose and extirpate the polytheism of the Heathens, it may
