endeavours to live according as you are there taught; you have then good ground to believe that you do really believe it, and shall as certainly obtain what is there promised, as you sincerely perform what is commanded in it.

Wherefore, in the name of Christ our Saviour, I beseech you all not to satisfy yourselves any longer with the bare hearing of God's word; but, whensoever you hear it read or preached to you, "receive it as it is in truth the word of God," and act your faith accordingly upon it, that so it may "work effectually" in you, both while you hear it, and whensoever you call it to mind again. As, for example, you have lately heard how you ought to worship and glorify God, and how to serve him daily in his house of prayer, and often at his holy table; these things have been plainly delivered to you out of God's own word. Now, though you have hitherto seemed not to regard God's holy word, nor so much as to believe it to be his word, in that you have not done it; yet now that you are put in mind of it again, "shew "shew your faith by your works," manifest to the world, and to your own consciences, that you believe God's word, by your constant performing the foresaid duties, and whatsoever else you hear to be there required of you. And whensoever you have the Gospel preached to you, do but receive it with faith, and you cannot but receive benefit and comfort from it: then every sermon you hear will do you good, and you will have cause to thank God for it; and so shall we also who preach God's word unto you: for then we may truly say to you, as the apostle here saith to the Thessalonians; "For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because when ye received the word of God, which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe."

SERMON IV.

THE SACERDOTAL BENEDICTION IN THE NAME OF THE

TRINITY.

"The

2 COR. xiii. 14.

grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all."

It would be great rashness in us, who know so little of our own, to inquire into the nature of him that made us, any further than he himself hath been pleased to make it known unto us in his holy word. But it would be the height of impudence and presumption to offer at explaining the incomprehensible mystery of the most glorious Trinity; how three distinct Persons subsist in the same individual nature, so as to be all one and the same God. It is sufficient for us to believe what is written, that there is but one living and true God; that "the Lord our God is one '" Jehovah, one being. That the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, these three, are one being, one Jehovah, one God; that the Father is of himself, the Son of the Father, the Holy Ghost of the Father and the Son, and yet none before or after other, none greater or less than another; but the whole three Persons coeternal together, and co-equal. This we are bound to believe, because it is revealed by God himself, and,

1 Deut. vi. 4.

therefore, revealed by him, that we may believe it upon his word, although it be above the reach of our finite understandings, as he himself knows it is; and, therefore, doth not require us to understand, but to believe it and hath made known as much of it as he thought good, for that purpose only, that we might know what he would have us to believe concerning it.

Now, one very remarkable thing revealed in the Holy Scriptures concerning the most glorious Trinity is this, that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, although they be all one and the same God, yet they often exert and manifest themselves and their divine perfections severally, as well as jointly, and so have their several ways of working in the world; as appears from many places, and particularly from the words I have now read: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all." For here we have three divine Persons distinctly named: the Son, called the Lord Jesus Christ; the Father, here called in an especial manner God, as being the root and fountain of the Deity, as the primitive writers style him; and then here is the third Person, expressly called the Holy Ghost. And to each of these Persons here is a several property or perfection attributed, the apostle wishing to the Corinthians the grace of one, the love of another, and the communion of the third: which does not only shew that they are three distinct Persons or subsistencies, but also that they have distinct operations, or their several ways of working and manifesting themselves in the world. Which, if rightly understood, would give us great light into what we ought to believe concerning each Person; and how we ought to exercise our faith upon all and every one of them, according to the discoveries which they are pleased to make of themselves, with respect to us. And, therefore, I shall endeavour to explain it as clearly as I can, being a matter of so high a nature; humbly beseeching him, of whom I speak, so to assist and

direct me, that I may say nothing but what is agreeable to his holy word, and becoming his divine majesty.

For this purpose, therefore, we must first consider, in general, that this Almighty, most glorious, and eternal Being, which we call God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, hath been graciously pleased to shew forth and manifest himself and his divine perfections many wonderful ways, particularly in the creation and redemption of the world. In the first he manifested his infinite wisdom, power, and goodness; in the other his infinite love, and justice, and mercy, and truth to mankind; in both the infinite glory of his eternal Godhead. And it is much to be observed, that in both these great works that he hath done, whereby to set forth his glory, we find three distinct Persons specified, or particularly named by himself, as concurring in the doing of them, and each in a way peculiar to himself. The account that he himself hath given us of his creation or production of all things out of nothing begins thus; "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Where the word in the original, ', which we translate "God," is of the plural number; but it is joined with a verb of the singular, as it is almost every where in the Old Testament. Now although I will not say that an argument can be drawn from hence to convince a gainsayer that there are just three Persons in the Godhead, because a word of the plural number may possibly signify more: yet seeing that in Hebrew, where there is likewise a dual, three is the first plural number; and seeing the first must in reason be preferred before all other; and seeing God himself hath in many places of his word acquainted us that there are three Persons, and no more, in his Godhead; we may reasonably from hence infer, that God calleth himself by this name of the plural, and joins it with verbs and adjectives of the singular number, on purpose to put us in mind of the Trinity in Unity, that he is three in one, and that every one of these divine Persons is to be

אלהים

adored and worshipped alike; that being, as I take it, the true notion of the word. For though the root from whence "Eloah" comes, be not preserved in the Hebrew tongue, it is in the Arabic dialect; where "Alaha," signifies "to worship, or adore :" and accordingly "Eloah," signifies "one that is to be worshipped;" and in the plural number 'n “Elohim,” "Persons adorable," such as are and ought to be worshipped by all things that are; as he, to be sure, ought to be, by whom all things were made, and were made by him for that end, that he might be worshipped by them. And it is very observable that in the next chapter, when the creation was finished, he is called by two names, on n', the one of the singular number, the other of the plural; the one signifying his essence, the other the Persons subsisting in it. But in all the first chapter of Genesis, while he was doing this great work, he is not so much as once called by any other name than "adorandi," or "adorabiles, persons to be adored;" but by that he is called above thirty times in that one chapter: whereby, I humbly conceive, he hath signified his pleasure to us, that when we consider his creation of the world, we should ascribe it to all the three Persons, and adore them for it. And, indeed, that they were all concerned in it appears from the history of the creation itself; wherein although the Creator, as I have shewn, be all along called ', "Elohim," divine Persons in the plural number; yet that name being as constantly there joined with a verb of the singular number, the unity of the divine nature, or Godhead, is likewise signified by it. In which sense it is said in the second verse, "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters:" that is, the Spirit of that One God, who is Elohim, divine Persons; of which the Spirit here spoken of must needs be one, forasmuch as he operates in the creation, which none but God the Creator could do. So that we have here two distinct Persons, the Spirit of God, and God himself, whose

אלהים