4. I have quite a little difficulty in
meeting the second charge. Whoever condemns those who assert that
the Godhead is one, must of necessity agree with all who maintain many
godheads, or with those who maintain that there is none. No third
position is conceivable. The teaching of inspired Scripture does
not allow of our speaking of many godheads, but, wherever it mentions
the Godhead, speaks of it in the singular number; as, for instance,
“in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead
bodily.”
Col. ii. 9. And again;
“for the invisible things of him from the creation of the world
are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even
his eternal power and Godhead.”
Rom. i. 20. If, then, to multiply godheads is the
special mark of the victims of polytheistic error, and to deny the
Godhead altogether is to fall into atheism, what sense is there in this
charge against me of confessing one Godhead? But they make a
plainer disclosure of the end they have in view; namely, in the case of
the Father to agree that He is God, and consenting in like manner that
the Son be honoured with the attribute of Godhead; but to refuse to
comprehend the Spirit, though reckoned with Father and with Son in the
idea of Godhead. They allow that the power of the Godhead extends
from the Father to the Son, but they divide the nature of the Spirit
from the divine glory. Against this view, to the best of my
ability, I must enter a brief defence of my own position.