We were interested, of course, in referring to these passages from the Fathers (they are given at length in Calvin’s Refutation); and, though disappointed in finding them less cogent and conclusive than we had expected, we yet discover the germs of almost all that is more fully developed by Servetus in connection with the subjects of which they speak. ‘Tertullian,’ says he, ‘declares, that to conform with things human, God, in former times, assumed human senses and affections, and made himself visible to man in the divinity of Christ; and that the words Person and Son of God are used in Scripture because God, invisible, intangible in himself, was made visible in Christ. He who spoke with Adam in the garden, with Noah, with Abraham, and came down to see what the Babylonians were about, and so on, was no other than Christ or a prefiguration of Christ. He who spoke with Moses, too, at different times was Christ--the Relucent visible Image or Figuration of the invisible Deity. In the essence of God there is no real distinction between the Father and the Son; they do not constitute two invisible entities such as the _Tritheiti_ imagine; it is no more than a _formal_ distinction that is made between the invisible Father and the visible Son. It is the idea of prolation or procession of one thing out of another that has given occasion to certain _dispositions_, _dispensations_, or _modes_ in the Deity being turned into so many entities, and so into a Trinity of Persons. Quoting St. Paul, Tertullian says that “in the face of Christ is seen the very light of God;” and to this I myself refer repeatedly in my Third Book on the Trinity; but Calvin, persisting in his blindness, will not see God thus.’ From Irenæus we find little that is not repetition of what is said by Tertullian. ‘The Jews,’ he says, ‘did not know that he who spoke with Adam and Abraham and Moses in human form, was the Word, the Son of God. But Jesus, as the Image, as the Word, was then the Divine manifestation of God, being at once, but without real distinction, both Word and Spirit; for in the spiritual substance of the Father was comprised the figuration and representation of the Word. Abraham was taught and knew that the Angel who visited him was the representative of the Word which was, or was to be, the future man, the Son of God--dost hear, Calvin?--the Word was the figuration of the man Jesus! The Word is always spoken of as something visible; so that when John says, “In the beginning was the Word,” we are to understand the prefiguration of Christ in the Deity: invisible in himself, God the Father is visible in the Son. The Logos and the Spirit imply nothing of personal distinction in God so that, when it is said, “God made all things by his Word,” it is himself as Creator, and not another, that is to be understood: the Word and the Holy Ghost are not to be thought of as distinct entities, but as dispositions in God.’