SERMON XXXIII.

1 JOHN V. 7.

For there are three that bear record in heaven,the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

ALL religion supposes the worship of a God; and therefore, in all worship, the first thing to be considered is, who that God is; or what sort of a being is to be worshipped. The Heathens worshipped a great many gods; as many as thirty thousand have been mentioned but all Christians admit that there is but ONE only, the living and true God. Now all the knowledge we have of God is from the Scriptures. If God had not been pleased to give us the Bible, we should to this day have been worshipping idols, as the former inhabitants of this country did, and as many millions, of Pagans now do. Reason alone, never yet led any people to the right knowledge of God, nor ever will. The learned Greeks and the wise Romans knew no more of God than

the savage Indians. The knowledge of God, which Noah and his sons had, was gradually lost and corrupted. But God made himself known in a particular manner to Abraham, and to his posterity the Jews; among whom the knowledge of the true God was perserved till the time of Christ; and now, by his gospel, this knowledge is given to us, and to all who receive the Scriptures as the word of God.

Now, the same Scriptures which assure us there is but one God, speak of him under the three names of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and our text plaiuly declares that these three are one. This doctrine is generally called the doctrine of the Trinity, which signifies Tri-Unity, or, three in one. This doctrine has

been thought by most Christians to be very plainly revealed in the word of God: nevertheless there were some persons of old, and there are some now, who dispute or deny it; and these people are called Arians, or Socinians; and some of them now call themselves Unitarians. We ought to be much on our guard against those who would rob us of the faith once delivered to the saints,' and of which this is an eminent part. For you will please to observe, that those who deny the doctrine of the Trinity, seldom stop there; they generally deny also the atonement of Jesus Christ, and the work of the Holy Spirit on the heart, and so leave us very little of the gospel to believe. Indeed, many who begin their apostacy in the denial of the Trinity, complete it in becoming downright Infidels and Atheists. As the right notion of God is connected with all true faith and holy practice, it is of great consequence for us to be well established in this doctrine. It shall therefore be our present business to prove, that

In the Unity of the Godhead, there are three divine Persons.

lt may be proper to remark that, with respect to this doctrine, it is not necessary that we should be able fully to explain it, or shew how the three divine persons subsist. This is, and must be, a mystery. There are many people, in this Age of Reason, as they call it, who dislike and reject every thing mysterious; but this arises entirely from their pride. There are many mysteries in nature; we are mysteries to ourselves, we know little of the nature of our own bodies, and still less of our souls. Is it any wonder, then, that we should know little of God, or that the divine nature should be mysterious to us? Let us beware of pride, especially the pride of our understandings. This pride ruined the angels who fell. It ruined our first parents; and it will ruin us eternally, if it be suffered to prevail. As we should never have known any thing of God but by the Bible, let us be content to take the Bible account of God, which is, indeed, his own account of himself. And let us remember what our Saviour said to his disciples when he discovered the workings of pride among them. Matt. xviii. 3. Having set a child in the midst of them,

he said, Verily, I say unto you, Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.' A little child is obliged to take upon trust what his infant capacity cannot yet comprehend; and it is also the office of Christian faith to take God at his word.

I would also remark that, in our reception of this scripture doctrine, we are not bound to adopt the mode of expression used or enforced by any particular divines or churches. Some good men, in their attempts to explain this doctrine, have rather perplexed it. Some of our divines have said, that the Father is the fountain of Deity'-that he communicated his whole essence to the Son' that the Son is eternally begotten of the Father,' and that he is very God of very God.' these expressions are only private interpretations of a 'Bible-truth, we are at liberty to admit or reject them, as they appear to us to be scriptural or not.

As

Now let us proceed to a brief proof of the doctrine advanced, viz. In the Unity of the Godhead there are three divine Persons. By Godhead, we mean the divine nature. We maintain the Unity of the Godhead; that there is but one God; yet we assert, as our text does, that there are Three in the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and that these three are one.* There is but one God. It is impossible there should be more. Reason itself shews that there cannot be more than one being, who is first. God is the first cause of all being; and we cannot conceive of two or more first causes. God is also a self-sufficient being; he existed alone; he can do every thing of himself; he needs not the help of other beings. Now, if there were two such beings, they could do no more than one could do: if they could, then one

* Perhaps you will be told that this verse is not found in some ancient manuscripts of the New Testament, but has been added by the Trinitarians. But we are assured by men of the first learning and credibility, that it is found in the most ancient copies; and whoever examines will find that the sense of the chapter is not complete without it. But the truth of the doctrine does not depend on a single text, as we shall plainly prove.

could not be self-sufficient and all-sufficient; each of them could not be God, if they could want or receive any help from one another. There cannot, therefore, be two Gods; for if one is all-sufficient, the other would be needless and useless.' It is the great doctrine of scripture that there is one God.-1sa. xlv. 5. I am the LORD, and there is none else; there is no God besides me.'-Deut. vi. 4. Hear. O Israel; the LORD our God is one LORD.'-Mark xii. 32. There is one God; and there is none other but he.'-Jer. xxiii. 24. 'Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord.'1 Kings viii. 39. For thou, even thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men.' This is the God who alone ought to be worshipped. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.'

The adversaries of this doctrine now call themselves Unitarians, by which they mean to intimate their belief. of only one God, and insinuate that we who believe the Trinity, admit of more than one God. But we deny the charge. We maintain, as strongly as they, that there is only one God; and we think it perfectly consistent with this belief to acknowledge three persons in the Godhead. We allow that the word persons is not found in scripture, and may, perhaps, convey an idea somewhat too gross. But this is owing to the poverty of our language, which does not furnish us with a better term. And we think it justifiable, because personal properties and personal acts are ascribed to each of the divine three. Bnt we contend not for the word, but the thing. It is enough for us to say, with the text, There are THREE that bear record in heaven, the FATHER, the WORD, and the HOLY GHOST.

That there is a plurality in the Deity is evident from the Old Testament. This, you know, was written in Hebrew; and the name which is generally translated by the English word God, is in the Hebrew plural, and signifies more than one. It is Elohim, which is in the plural number, as Gods would be in English; and this word is often joined with the Hebrew word JEHOVAH, which is translated Lord; and whenever you find the word Lord in capital letters thus (LORD), it means Jehovah, a name which signifies the essence of God,

He who was, and is, and is to come.' Now there is a passage in Deut. vi. 4, where you have both these names, and which fully proves the doctrine of the Trinity. 'Hear, O Israel! The LORD our God is one LORD.' If the word Lord and the word God signified just the same, the passage would be nonsense; it would be only saying the Lord is Lord, or one is one; but the meaning is that JEHOVAH, our Elohim, our covenant God, Father, Son, and Spirit, is one Jehovah. He is one in essence, though three in person. The Jews

are unwilling to own that this is the meaning of the name of God in Hebrew; but it is entirely owing to their hatred to Jesus Christ. If any are converted to Christianity, as some have been, they own it immediately.* Thus John Xeres, a converted Jew, about 70 years ago, when he published his reasons for becoming a Christian, says, The Christians confess Jesus to be God; and it is this that makes us look upon the gospels as books that overturn the very principles of religion, the truth of which is built upon this article, the Unity of God. In this argument lies the strength of what you object against the Christian religion.' Then he undertakes to prove that the unity of God is not such as he once understood it to be, a unity of Person, but of Essence, under which more persous than one are comprehended; and the first proof he offers, is that of the name of Elohim. Why else," says he, is that frequent mention of God by means of the plural number? as in Gen. i. 1, where the word Elohim, which is rendered God, is of the plural number, though annexed to a verb of the singular number, which demonstrates that there are several persons partaking of the same divine nature aad essence.

This plurality is restricted to a Trinity of persons, namely three, whose names we have in the text. And

* See an excellent treatise entitled The Catholic Doctrine of a Trinity proved by above a hundred short and clear arguments in the words of Scripture, by the late Rev. Mr. Jones, Rector of Pluckley, &c., printed for Rivingtons.