SERMON XIV.

JOHN xvii. 17.

SANCTIFY THEM THROUGH THY TRUTH: THY WORD IS TRUTH.

WHAT day so meet to speak largely of the truth of God, as that on which the central act of which it speaks was accomplished? You must be aware, beloved, this is the day on which that which gives its foundation to the call of God for your faith and allegiance was effected. Is it not the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ, upon which God, having first of all reconciled himself to the world, does call upon the world to be reconciled to Him, that they may be one in affection? I must be allowed therefore, first of all, to state with some fulness, if God shall enable me, the great outline of his truth, and then, as my purpose is, to show you what ample confirmation is given to that statement by the words which the Lord in this chapter utters to his Father.

In this chapter is the prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ in the guest-chamber, when He has finished his discourse with his disciples, and immediately before He proceeds to endure his last sufferings. And you must have perceived that the words of the text naturally lead me to this order, as well as to this great outline of discourse; because, if there be an object which you and I ought to be pursuing, it is our sanctification,—that is, our being made like unto God, that we may be his meet and accepted worshippers. And the text directs us in what way to seek our sanctification: that God's way-for we are sure Christ did not pray wrong; we are sure that Christ's prayer was an opening of God's mind as to what his course with those whom He sanctifies should be-this text therefore directs us to the truth, a large knowledge of the truth, as the mean which God employs for making man to be like himself. And we are then told what that truth really is, or rather, where it is to be sought; namely, in God's Word; not meaning the Bible,-you will find that as we proceed,-not meaning the Bible, the Scriptures; but meaning that message of divine truth which God had first of all committed to Jesus, and then through Jesus committed to his apostles. How could He possibly refer these men, the apostles, in behalf of whom this prayer is distinctly made,— how could He refer these men to the Christian Scriptures, when not a page of them was yet written? It must have been something else then that He referred

to as "thy word," or (according to the emphatic form of the original)" that word of thine;" meaning, the particular word of God; what not only had the character of being God's word, but that word by way of eminence; "that particular word of thine;" meaning the word with which He had entrusted, first his Son, and then his Son's emissaries.

I proceed then according to the plan I have proposed; and I beg of God to give me a calm and distinct utterance.

Beloved, the truth of God must commence with God himself. Now I have often noticed to you what we are properly to understand by God; that we are properly to understand a single Person, the God and Father. But then this God and Father does not subsist alone; in his substance, the same substance with himself, are comprehended two other Persons with Him. Now, as I have often had occasion to remark, I believe that right reason, taking the fact that there is a God, would be brought to the conclusion that this God cannot subsist as a single Person, but that there must be two other Persons with Him. For example,let me say by way of illustration; and remember it is only in the way of illustration that I urge it,—the substance of God, if there be a God, must be an infinite substance, and (we could not therefore doubt) an infinite spiritual substance. Now an infinite substance, as such, cannot apply itself to a finite action. There must therefore be a Person in this substance who can

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thus represent the infinite as proceeding to a finite action. And again, this Person who proceeds to the finite action, whilst He is distinct from the infinite substance, from Him who represents the infinite substance, -must also be distinct from that Person whose immediate application of himself produces the finite result. Now this may serve to illustrate the fact that there must be in the substance of the Godhead,-admitting that there be such a substance at all,-there must be one that bears the relation of substance to two others, of whom one has the relation to Him of faculty, the other has the relation to Him of energy. These, I say, are the deductions of right reason. But we are not referred to right reason,-meaning by right reason something distinct from inspiration,-for our knowledge of the Godhead. We have it distinctly unfolded to us by the divine word; using that term in the same sense in which I have already declared,-not meaning the Scriptures, but meaning the message which God by his authorized communicators has delivered to the world. We by that message are distinctly instructed that a Person, whom we preeminently call God, has two other Persons comprehended with Him in the same indivisible substance, who have the relation of distinct eternal necessary origination from Him, and who stand therefore in subordination to Him, whilst they are strictly his coequals. Now this is the basis of the truth,—the being of God such as He is; an infinite spiritual substance, having his two fellows and

coequals in a gradual subordination united with Him in one substance.

From this, as the central point, we must proceed to the operations of this Being: say rather, for this we are plainly taught in this chapter, as in other places,— of this Person; for you must have distinctly perceived that, throughout the sacred volume, even as throughout this message which we have derived from another source, from the oral teaching,—both these sources of intelligence, which concur in their testimony, declare to us that the operations of the Godhead are to be traced to the First Person, to the God and Father, as He is distinctly called, for their origin, source, or spring. Then what are those operations of the Godhead? They are reducible to a plan. It is, as we might well expect, a connected system of action, which God has been pursuing from the beginning, even as He devised and ordained to pursue it from everlasting, in past eternity strictly so called. This system of action then has in the first place an end; and that end is beautifully expressed in the collect which we have been using during the former part of this week,—“ of thy tender love towards mankind;" if you only understand that mankind is the central creature of God. Do not let me embarass you with terms: by "the central creature" I mean that with which all other creature is connected as a sort of source, a made source or spring, just as a circle issues from its centre; mankind is the central creature, in the sense in which