Ib.  Lect.  XXI. p. 225.

In like manner, if we suppose God to be the first of all beings, we must, unavoidably, therefrom conclude his unity.  As to the ineffable Trinity subsisting in this Unity, a mystery discovered only by the Sacred Scriptures, especially in the New Testament, where it is more clearly revealed than in the Old, let others boldly pry into it, if they please, while we receive it with our humble faith, and think it sufficient for us to admire and adore.

But surely it having been revealed to us, we may venture to say,—­that a positive unity, so far from excluding, implies plurality, and that the Godhead is a fulness, [Greek:  plaeroma].

Ib.  Lect.  XXIV. p. 245.

  Ask yourselves, therefore, ‘what you would be at’, and with what
  dispositions you come to this most sacred table?

In an age of colloquial idioms, when to write in a loose slang had become a mark of loyalty, this is the only L’Estrange vulgarism I have met with in Leighton.

Ib.  Exhortation to the Students, p. 252.

Study to acquire such a philosophy as is not barren and babbling, but solid and true; not such a one as floats upon the surface of endless verbal controversies, but one that enters into the nature of things; for he spoke good sense that said, “The philosophy of the Greeks was a mere jargon, and noise of words.”

If so, then so is all philosophy:  for what system is there, the elements and outlines of which are not to be found in the Greek schools?  Here Leighton followed too incautiously the Fathers.

[Footnote 1:  Works of Leighton, 4 vols. 8vo.  London 1819.  Ed.]

[Footnote 2:  ‘Statesman’s Manual’, p. 230. 2nd edit.  Friend, III. 3d edit.  Ed.]

* * * * *

NOTES ON SHERLOCK’S VINDICATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. [1]

Sect.  I. p. 3.

Some new philosophers will tell you that the notion of a spirit or an immaterial substance is a contradiction; for by substance they understand nothing but matter, and then an immaterial substance is immaterial matter, that is, matter and no matter, which is a contradiction; but yet this does not prove an immaterial substance to be a contradiction, unless they could first prove that there is no substance but matter; and that they cannot conceive any other substance but matter, does not prove that there is no other.

Certainly not:  but if not only they, but Dr. Sherlock himself and all mankind, are incapable of attaching any sense to the term substance, but that of matter,—­then for us it would be a contradiction, or a groundless assertion.  Thus:  By ‘substance’ I do not mean the only notion we can attach to the word; but a somewhat, I know not what, may, for aught I know, not be contradictory to spirit!  Why should we use the equivocal word, ‘substance’ (after all but an ’ens logicum’), instead of the definite term ‘self-subsistent?’ We are equally conscious of mind, and of that which we call ‘body;’ and the only possible philosophical questions are these three: