By the assistance of Divine revelation we are enabled further to pursue our inquiries concerning this very important subject; and without which, we should be involved in great darkness and uncertainty, not only respecting his moral perfections, but the _mode_ of his existence. And this must be a matter of superior interest to mankind, or our adorable Creator would not have communicated it, which he evidently has done through the medium of the Scriptures, written by Divine inspiration. Moses, having received by Divine revelation instruction concerning the origin and formation of the world, conducts us at once to its great and adorable Architect. “In the beginning GOD created the heavens and the earth.” Here he adopts a phraseology to express the supreme Being, which is generally used in the Old Testament for the same purpose, and is very important and necessary to be understood, as it gives us information after what _manner_ he exists. ‘The original word אלהימ _Elohim_, God,’ says a great linguist, ‘is certainly the plural form of אל _el_, or אלה _eloah_, and has long been supposed, by the most eminently learned and pious men, to imply a _plurality_ of persons in the divine nature.’ As this plurality appears in so many parts of the sacred writings to be confined to _three_ Persons, namely, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, hence the doctrine of the TRINITY. It is very remarkable that we no sooner open the Bible, than this doctrine is presented to our view. The laws and ordinances established among the Jews were designed to guard that people from idolatry, which in Abraham’s time had become very general. On the recollection of this circumstance it appears extraordinary that Moses, when he is describing the creation of the world, should, in order to express his conceptions of the Divine Being, introduce a term which implies _plurality_; and, frequently connecting it with verbs and persons singular, should use that term _thirty_ times in the short account of the creation, when the language afforded other words in the singular number that would have answered his purpose equally well; nay, if he did not wish to express a _plurality_, that grammatical accuracy should have led him to adopt. When he made use of a plural noun for the name of God, which he has done, perhaps, _five hundred_ times more in one form or other in the five books of his writings, this _plurality_, I apprehend, was the idea he meant to convey to mankind. He, or rather the HOLY SPIRIT, by whom he was inspired to write his history, meant to give some hints and intimations of a doctrine more clearly to be revealed in future ages.[6] The ancient Jews understood _Elohim_ as conveying the idea of a plurality in the Godhead. “Come,” says one of them, “and see the mystery of the word _Elohim_: there are _three degrees_, and each degree by itself _alone_, and yet notwithstanding they are all _one_, and joined together in one, and are not _divided_ from each other.”[7]