A Nineteenth-Century Witness to the Oneness of God

The following quotations are excerpted from a book published in 1834 and written by
Joshua Leonard, a Presbyterian minister who was a member of the Presbytery in Cortland, New
York. While the book was in production, charges of heresy were filed against him because of it,
whereupon he resigned and resumed his previous status as an independent congregational
pastor. The full title of the book on its title page is Solemn Reasons for Believing That God Is
One: and for Withholding Assent to the Proposition That God Is Three, and the short title on its
spine is Unity of God. It was published by the Press of J. F. Fairchild and Son in Cazenobia, New
York. The book was made available to the Forward by George Luke II, United Pentecostal pastor
in Truro, Nova Scotia, Canada.

“The Supreme GOD is not the Man Jesus. And the Man Jesus is not the Supreme GOD.
United, they are one complex being, and object of worship….I call God and Man united, my
Savior, or my Lord, or by the proper name (by usage become a proper name) Jesus Christ” (page
98).

“The Divinity of Christ was, therefore, the ‘Jehovah,’ and the ‘Holy Ghost,’ of whom Isaiah
spoke: the self-same person: so clearly the same, as absolutely to exclude first, second, and third
from the whole account” (page 185).

“It is maintained by Dr. Watts, and by those
who believe with him; and is the doctrine I
advocate: that the Godhead of Christ, is the very
same as the Godhead of Christ is the Jehovah of
the old testament; or, ‘I am that I am’” in sundry
passages denominated the Holy Ghost” (page 187).

Paul informed them [the Ephesian disciples
of John in Acts 19]; and baptized them ‘in the name
of the Lord Jesus:’ that is in the name of The Son.
This was sufficient. ‘He then laid his hands on them;
and The Holy Ghost’ (of which they had not before
heard) came upon them; and they spake with
TONGUES, and PROPHESIED.”—Acts, xix. They,
too, shared in the miraculous influence and its
miraculous effects….These miraculous gifts and wonders shed forth, are called the Holy Ghost
shed forth: which Holy Ghost, Peter says, they ‘saw and heard’” (pages 181-82).

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