reason, would carry you away from this fundamental doctrine. Teach your children, and your children's children, the existence of the three gracious Persons in the "one" only "living and true God;" and accustom them to render the due and appropriate homage to each of the names into which they were baptized.

SERMON XI.

ON TRINITY SUNDAY.

1 JOHN, v. 7.

“There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one."

IT T is a peculiar excellency of our Church, that, while she preserves in purity the morality, she is not negligent of the doctrines of Christianity. By the perfection of her arrangements, all the grand doctrinal truths of the gospel are, in the course of the year, presented to her sons for special contemplation. By this means she secures from neglect or perversion, those points of faith which are the essentials of our religion, and, at the same time, renders unnecessary, those frequent disputations upon doctrinal subjects, which do not make men either wiser or better. Having lately exhibited to us the mercy and holiness of God, the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, and the descent of the Holy Ghost to abide with Christians, she to-day calls us to collect our thoughts and contemplate that mystery of revelation, the holy and eternal Trinity. A subject this, solemnly sublime, and offered to finite minds as a matter for belief, not comprehension. Every endeavour, with merely human faculties, to comprehend this mystery must prove futile; for "can we by searching find out God? can we find out the Almighty to perfection? It is high as heaven; what can we do? Deeper than hell; what can we know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea." The business of the Christian to-day

is, not to indulge in human speculations; not to be beguiled by the pride of human reason, but to recur with humility to that fountain which Deity has set open for his instruction, and to draw thence the truth with which his Church now requires him to refresh his memory. Impressed with these sentiments, I have selected as a guide to your thoughts, the plain and explicit declaration of John, which was read at the opening of this discourse: "There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one."

In discoursing from these words, I shall endeavour to show: First, that the Godhead is one.

Secondly, that in this unity of the Godhead, there is a Trinity of Persons; and,

Thirdly, that the Persons of the Trinity are co-equal and coexistent.

The illustration of these several points, will be adduced almost wholly from Scripture; for I aver that such is this mystery, as to leave it altogether improbable, perhaps impossible, that it should have been devised by the human mind; and that, therefore, we indulge our vanity, and our aversion to spiritual truth, when we look for the circumstances of it elsewhere than in the records of divine revelation.

This premised, I proceed to show, in the first place, that the Godhead is one. The unity of the divine essence is, throughout the sacred volume, made the fundamental article of true religion. It is probable that information upon this point was communicated to man when in a state of innocence he conversed with his God, and that it descended by tradition to after generations, till it was lost in the commixture of human corruptions. So consentaneous is it with pure reason, so essential to the rational idea of a supreme cause, that we find it separated from the crude mass of polytheism, by the most enlightened heathen sages, who possessed as clear perceptions of it as could be expected among nations whose gods were as numerous as the whims of fancy, and who were idolatrous by institution.

When Deity, that he might revive and preserve among men a knowledge of himself, gave to the Jews the Old Testament revelation, he founded their temples, their rites, and their obedience upon the truth: "The Lord he is one God, there is none else beside him." The universal language of the Old Testament is: "I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me, there is no God." When in the fulness of time the whole counsel of the Most High was manifested by Jesus Christ, mankind were taught that eternal life depended upon knowing the "one living and true God." The acknowledgment of the Redeemer is not more essential to Christianity than a belief in one Supreme Creator of all things, and Governor of the universe, the true and incomprehensible God. We have one Father, even God. To us there is one God. There is none who doeth good but one, that is God. So that whether we consult with reason, with the historians and prophets of the Old Testament, with Christ himself, or with the writers of the gospel, we shall be taught the unity of the Deity.

I now proceed to show, secondly, that in this unity of the Godhead, there is a Trinity of Persons. Unable to comprehend perfectly the nature of Deity, man, of himself, can predicate nothing concerning the mode of his existence. All knowledge upon this point must come from the oracles of truth; and they abundantly substantiate the present position. My text, in as plain words as can be written or spoken, declares, that three divers Persons in heaven, were active in and about the redemption of man; and that these three existed in the unity of the Godhead. "There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one." I know that the authenticity of this passage has been disputed, and that the foes of the orthodox faith have parried it by calling it an interpolation. The objection evinces the difficulty of clothing the passage with any other construction, than that which has been given, and thus secures it from that perversion, which, to accommodate human reason, or rather human ignorance, many passages of the New Testament have

been made to endure. Admitting, however, that the authenticity of this passage is not certain, our position does not depend upon this one passage of sacred writ for support. At the baptism of Christ, the Scripture history exhibits to us the Holy Three severally engaged: the Son receiving this sacrament, the Spirit descending upon him, and the Father proclaiming his character. The apostles wish to their brethren, the grace of the Lord Jesus, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. The Saviour himself, when commissioning his ministers, commanded them to baptize "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." To adduce no more of the texts, which everywhere abound in the gospel, to waive the traces of this truth in the writings of some heathens, and in many of the acts, titles, and adorations of the Supreme Being under the Jewish dispensation, and to avoid mentioning the conjectures of wise and good men, concerning the symbolic representation of the Trinity, in every created object, let me ask, what the opponents of the doctrine will do with the passages above quoted? Will they make these vital parts of the gospel, interpolations? No. They prefer giving to them a sense of their own. Instead of humbly following the direct and literal signification of Scripture, upon a subject infinitely above their comprehension, they have warped and bent the word of God to their own conceptions, till some, with Arius, have "denied the Lord who bought them," reducing Christ to a mere creature; others, with Sabellius, have rendered the conduct of Jesus, and the institutes of his religion, ridiculous, by supposing them to have commanded Christians to be baptized and blessed, first, in the name of the Father, the one entire Deity, and then, in names appropriated, not to different beings, but to energies of that same Deity; and others, with Socinus, who make the Redeemer of our souls a mere human being. These schemes, and the various branches of Unitarianism, diverging from each of them, are not the result of a candid reading of the Scriptures; but of finite speculations concerning the secrets of heaven, and foolish endeavours of