ture, because the fame Word of Truth has made SERM. an equal Declaration of both. To say these two V. are inconsistent, is no less than refusing the Record of God, and making him a Liar. It is 1 John unbecoming those who are but of Yesterday to v. 10. enquire how it can be. When the Father of Lights has exprefsly told us, thus it is.

He will be adored for Perfections that we cannot comprehend, and reports that we cannot explain. We may as well pretend by fearching to find out the Fulness of his Being, as to defcribe the manner of it. Had all his Words come down as low as our Apprehenfions, and revealed no more than Man's Wisdom teaches, he had not spoke like a God: But as his Ways are not ours, fo neither are his Thoughts. He has told us as If. lx. 8. much as he would have us know, and by faying no more, has thrown a Bar upon all foolish and unlearned Questions, that we may not break through to gaze. We may fay of Faith as Chrift Exod. does of Duty, what is written? How readeft xix. 21. thou? And leave all Diviners, and Dreamers, and Difputers of this World, to talk like thofe who know nothing of another.

The Question is not whether we fhould have imagined any Plurality of Perfons in the divine. Nature, or how many of them there are, but what the Scripture itself has told us, and what the Spirit who fearches the deep Things of God has bound upon our Belief. No matter whether Eye has feen it, or Ear has heard it, whether it is to be matched with Similitudes and Illuftrations of our own; or whether the Heart of Man is able to conceive it under clear and distinct Ideas: We believe it, because he has faid it; and without a Faith so unlimited and abfolute, we receive the Record of God with no more Veneration than we do that of Man.

If

SERM.

V.

1 John

v. 9.

If there are ten thousand Difficulties in conceiving that there fhould be three Perfons, they all diffolve in the Report of Him that cannot lye. He has a Right to tell us what he pleases, and we can no more pass a Judgment upon a Doctrine, than we do upon a Command: We are doers of the Law and not judges, receivers of the Truth, and not choofers. If he has avowed a Trinity, it is a Trial of Skill and Wisdom with him, when we dare to deny it. If we receive the Witness of Men, the Witness of God is greater, which he has given of his Son.

There is a Mystery in no more than one God, and no fewer than three Perfons; because, it is true, we cannot difpute it; because it is myfterious, we cannot explain it: And therefore the only Thing our Souls have to do in the whole Enquiry, is to examine whether God has said it. How far the Diftinction of Perfons reaches, and how much the Unity of Nature comprehends, is a Matter unequal, to those who are but of Yefterday, and know nothing: But when we read of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that there is a Difference between them, we conclude it from the very Sound of the Words. There are certain Boundaries fixed to the Minds of Men, that they make it neither too much, nor too little. have an open Road between two Extremes, and can eafily tell what is falfe, though we are not able to fathom all that is true. Let thine Eyes Prov. iv. look right on, and thine Eye lids ftrait before thee. Ponder the Path of thy Feet, and all thy Ways fhall be established.

25, 26.

We

1. It is making the Diftinction too great to say they are three Gods.

2. It is making it too little to fay, they are only three Names, or Powers, and Relations.

1. There is nothing in this Form of Baptifm, that will fuffer us to wander into the Conceit of three Gods. Wicked and unreasonable Men have determined to dafh us upon one of those Rocks, Sabellianifm or Tritheism, but God has thrown us upon neither, and the Faith once delivered to the Saints, keeps us clear of both. They are equally our Abhorrence, the Scripture has poured out a Flood of Arguments against them: And we need not confront the one with the other, but reject them both at once, as divers and ftrange Doctrines.

Indeed the Arians have made the Notion of a Trinity abominable, who tell us of one unoriginated God, and of two derived ones; one fupreme, and two fubordinate. They are the only People who have made three Gods, or rather two and a half; for as to the Holy Spirit, to show how little he knows of them, it's apparent they know nothing of him: They have taken none of bis Counfel, or covered with his Covering.

I call them by the Name of Arians, though they are somewhat diftinguished from them. I would call the French by the Name of Papifts, though they do not adhere to all the Peculiars of Rome. They have the Grofness of their Idolatry and the Spirit of their Perfecution, whatever Degrees they may want of a compleat Subjection to the Man of Sin. And fo it is here; from thefe People alone we have had a Plurality of Gods: They are the only Faction, that have the Confidence to talk of a Repeal of the firft Commandment.

Now though this Form of Baptifm tells us of thofe whose Name is called upon us, yet there is no Divifion of Nature, no Subordination of Exift

SER M.

V.

r

If.xxx.

SERM. ence, for he who is not fupreme, independent, V. and eternal, is not God over all.

(1.) The Notion of three Gods is against all the Light of Nature, I mean as we come to the right Ufe of it fince we had the Key of Revelation. If If any one delineates the Religion of Nature with a Bible in his Hand, he will make it a quite different Thing from what he finds it in the best of human Philofophy.

The greatest Attainments that we read of among the Gentiles are, firft, in the Wisdom of Egypt, then, in the Learning of the Chaldeans, and laftly in the polite Searches of the Athenians: And yet it may be faid of them all, the leaft in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than they. They never knew the true God, they never adored him as One, they paid no Deference to his Perfections, but rather fuppofed he might be worshiped with Mens Hands, as though he needed fomething. A Sheep was the Abomination of 26. the Egyptians; Nebuchadnezzar had a TreasureDan. i. 2. Houfe for his God; and the Grecians thought that the Godhead was like to Silver and Gold, graven by Art and Man's Device. But whereever Christianity came, Reafon began to open its Eyes, and to feel its Way; fo that a Chriftian is as unfit to fettle the Religion of Nature as a Pagan is that of Revelation.

Acts xvii.

25.

Exod. viii.

AQs xvii.

23.

The Jews held out this in the Front of their Law, that the Lord their God is one Lord. Chriftians in all the Parts of the Earth are at a Point about this as a Maxim in Nature, that there can be no more than one fupreme eternal Caufe, who gives to all Life, and Breath, and all Things. He to the Heathen was an unknown God.

V.

(2.) The Doctrine of three Gods is what the SERM. whole Revelation of the Old Testament is level'd againft. When the Lord called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees, he drew him away from inferior Deities, and ftill took care that his Pofterity fhould never relapfe into that Opinion. And therefore had we been baptized into three Names, our Saviour had deftroyed the Law, which he Matt. v. came to fulfil. But his appeal to Mofes, his 17. Improvements upon him, his Connexion of Doctrine with him, let us fee that they both acted according to the Pattern in the Mount. The one in giving Images of Things in the Heavens, Heb. ix. and the other in the beavenly Things themselves.

23.

xxxii. 17.

A few would never dare to be a Convert among us, if we put new Gods upon him, Gods Deut. whom his Father knew not. They seemed to fhake off their Idolatry with their last Captivity, and does Chriftianity bring them back to it again? No, no, they had got enough of subordinate and originated Deities already. The Scribe knew that our Lord had taught no fuch Doctrine, when he told him, Mafter, thou haft faid the Truth, for there is one God, and there is no Mark xii. other God but he. And in this Confeffion he 32, 34. anfwered difcreetly, as one not far from the Kingdom of God.

(3.) The Notion of three Gods would make our Religion a very wrong one for the Converfion of the Gentiles, and yet they are to come to our God from the End of the Earth: faying, Surely our Fathers have inherited Lyes, Vanity, and Things wherein there is no Profit; they had made themfelves Gods which were no Gods. It Jer. xvi. was their Practice and their Crime to worship 19, 20. thofe who by Nature were no Gods; they had Gal. iv. 8. Gods many and Lords many, and would it have 1 Cor.

I 2

fignified

viii. 4.