their nature; and if the Arians, &c. could lay aside theirs, and cease, on the contrary, to understand that of their nature, which is said of their offices; we should soon be all of one mind. But whether ever they will have candour enough to do this, or not, one thing we must do, which is, ever firmly to believe, there is but one Divine Nature, one only God, in whom there are three Persons, all equally divine by nature, but distinguished by a subordination in their offices, as well as by different signification of their names; and one of them by the assumption of an inferior nature. This makes the exposition and reconciliation of all the Scriptures, relative to the Trinity, easy and natural to us.

It would also greatly help to extricate our opponents from their difficulties, if they would seriously consider why the properties and operations of the one Person are often ascribed to another; namely, because each person is God; and therefore God in one place, is said to do that, which, in another, the Father, the Son, or the Holy Ghost, is said to do, in virtue of attributes and powers common to all the three. And, farther, they would do well to consider, which indeed they are apt enough to do, but for a wrong purpose, that the actions of one person are often ascribed to another; because the one, in the divine economy, acts by commission from the other, as both Christ and the Holy Ghost are, in different places, distinctly said to regenerate and sanctify us; and farther still to consider, that the Father, being the fountain of the Deity, and by the economy, the sender, while the other persons are sent, is sometimes called God in passages where neither the Son, nor the Holy Ghost, is so styled; not because they are not God, or less properly God than the Father, for each is often set forth as God, and there is but one God; but purely because, equal as they are in nature with the Father, they act in the work of our salvation by authority and mission from him. If God hath a Son begotten of him, a Spirit proceeding from him, may he not send and employ them without derogation to their nature? Does it follow, that, because they are sent, they are therefore of a different or inferior nature? Or, if the Scriptures often call them God, are we nevertheless to understand they are not truly God; because, in the same passage, where the two last are mentioned by their personal appellations, the first,

without his personal appellation, is mentioned only by the name of God? He whom the Scriptures in many places, or even in one place, call God, is God, although in ever so many other places they should happen to call him by another name, and not by the name of God; since in none of those places do they say, or so much as intimate, that he is not God. I speak as plainly as I can; but I shall perhaps make myself more intelligible by an instance. In the first Epistle to the Corinthians, xii. 4-6, we are told, that there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; differences of administrations, but the same Lord; and diversities of operations, but the same God, which worketh all in all.' Here the second and third Persons are mentioned by the names of Lord and Spirit, while the first only is styled God. But does it not appear from this very passage, that, if God works all,' he must work the gifts and administrations, as well as the operations? And what follows, but that he who confers the gifts, and he who performs the administrations, is God, as well as he who works the operations? But, supposing this did not so clearly appear from the passage, as it does, is the Son, or the Holy Ghost, to be deprived of their title to the divinity, merely because they are not here directly called God, when, in so many other places, they actually are? This, if it were rightly attended to, might serve for a solution to above one half of all our difficulties. But to return a little closer to my text.

I may venture to lay it down as a rule, that, in treating of God, and his revelation, especially of that which is most mysterious in reference to either, we ought to proceed with at least as much method and caution as we do in lower sciences, wherein there is not so much danger of error, nor so much mischief arising from it. We are, therefore, not to reason about God without axioms to found our reasonings on; nor to build on certain axioms at one time, and to depart from them at another, just as our caprice, or the pinch of an argument, may tempt us. Now what is the grand axiom of Christianity? Is it not agreed, that the Scriptures are the word of God, and, as such, implicitly to be believed? If this is the case, our apprehensions have nothing to do, but to imbibe the plain notices of Scripture; nor our reason, but to argue from Scripture. What master in any science dis

putes the axioms, or self-evident propositions of that science, or asks a reason for them? Who, in physics, asks a reason why the whole is greater than any of its parts? And what Christian, in theology, shall ask a reason for that which the Scripture affirms? Although what God tells us in Scripture is not evident of itself, but requires his veracity to evidence it; yet, when once it is so evidenced, common sense will allow, it is then on a level with that which is self-evident; or, rather, is more evident; for God's affirmation can give more evidence to a thing, than any thing can give to itself. We may take that for self-evident which is not; but God cannot be mistaken.

Now I have given abundant proof, that God affirms his own unity, as also the divinity of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. To ask a reason for either, or how the one can consist with the other, is to speak like a Deist, or an Atheist; is to doubt whether the Scriptures are the word of God; or to deny the veracity of God, and to prefer reason, in a matter confessedly above reason, to his word and affirmation. Let our opponents, therefore, tell us, whether they mean to enter into debate with us, as Christians, or Deists (for it is indeed no easy matter to distinguish, when we are every moment to be dodged from bare reason to Scripture, and back again from Scripture to independent reason), that we may know under what principles or axioms we are to dispute. If they declare for Christianity and Scripture, and then tell us our doctrine of the Trinity is unintelligible and inconsistent; we confidently answer, there is not a more intelligible doctrine in the world than that of the Trinity, as we hold it. This and other inexplicable doctrines of our religion were not revealed, either as mysteries, or as trials of our faith. The doctrines themselves, like the works of God, are plain and obvious, so far as we are concerned to know them; and never become dark or mysterious to us, till we begin to pry farther than our wants require, or our capacities extend. The mystery therefore lies not in the doctrine itself, but in the application of our understandings to it. Now, as this happens in all other parts of knowledge, let us only deal by religion as we do by other things, and every difficulty will vanish. Let us believe and practise, as far as we understand, and not attempt to examine, much less to pronounce, a hair's breadth

beyond those bounds, to which God hath confined our intellect. And do we not understand the doctrine of the Trinity? Can any thing be more easily understood than these propositions? There is but one God. The Father is that one

The Holy Ghost is that

God. The Son is that one God. one God. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are three distinct persons.

This is the doctrine of the Trinity, which every clown can understand; and our adversaries perfectly well understand it, or they could not ask us to account for the consistency of the propositions which contain it, nor argue against that consistency in the manner they do. Now it is nonsense in them to ask for this, without premising, that they cannot believe in contradictions, and that those propositions appear contradictory to them. How contradictory? That is contradictory, and nothing but that, which affirms and denies the connexion between the same set of ideas and terms. Surely this is not the case here. Do we say there is but one God, and yet three Gods? Or, do we say there is but one Divine Person, and yet three Divine Persons? Or, do we, they, or common sense, ever say, God and person are synonymous terms? Do we, or can they, say, Scripture makes them synonymous? Where then is the contradiction? But they say, they cannot conceive the possibility of three Persons in one God. In this they express themselves ill. They should say, they cannot conceive how it is possible. If they will be so modest as to say this only, we will say the very same; for although we take God's word for it, that it is so in fact, and therefore must be not only possible, but true, yet we own we cannot see how; that is, we cannot shew the very possibility; and we give a reason which ought to silence them; for they agree with us in it; namely, because God is incomprehensible. Before, therefore, they can have a right to proceed one step farther with us, they must give up this point, and prove to us, that God is, in respect at least to the point under debate, comprehensible to them and us. But, previous to this wonderful demonstration of omniscience in man, we beg they would let us see whether they comprehend any one of all God's works; for it would be a strange presumption to attempt the infinite before they have made themselves competent masters of the finite. Here God rebates

their vanity, and sets them at an infinite distance from himself; for they are utterly unable to comprehend any thing, even a mite, or a grain of sand. 'How marvellous are thy works, O Lord God Almighty!' How infinitely more great and marvellous thou thyself! Great things dost thou, which we cannot comprehend;' how then shall we comprehend thyself!

Notwithstanding what hath been said, the persons we have to deal with still insist, that our doctrine of the Trinity is contradictory. Although the words God and person, say they, are not synonymous, yet God and Divine Person are. They define a person to be an intelligent being or agent, and say, God is a Divine Person; and therefore, according to them, to maintain that there is but one God, and three Divine Persons, is the same as to affirm, that there is but one God, and yet three Gods.

It is obvious, that this objection to the doctrine of the Trinity is purely philosophical; that the Scriptures nowhere give us any term for person, nor define the idea of personality; that revelation, neither expecting to find all men philosophers, nor intending to make any man a philosopher, speaks to us, as to plain illiterate men, in common and ordinary words, whereby ideas familiar to us are usually conveyed; and that therefore we are seldom or never to examine or interpret its doctrine by the vain philosophy and refinements of men. Nay, it is farther to be observed, that God, speaking in condescension to the capacities of the vulgar, sometimes delivers that which, although most true in effect, and in regard to the purpose for which it is spoken, is nevertheless, if literally taken, inconsistent with the known nature of things. His word, for instance, tells us that the sun stood still in the days of Joshua; which was true in effect, for the day was protracted. But had that which was true in philosophy been said; namely, that the earth stood still, it could not have been understood. Whatsoever philosophy may dislike in this manner of speaking, it hath less reason to be surprised, that God, in communicating the knowledge of high and mysterious things, particularly of himself, to the bulk of mankind, that is, to the unlearned, should shadow those things by others that are common and familiar to their apprehensions; because thus only it is possible, even for the most knowing, to conceive any idea of that which is supernatural