that they differ: that is, in essence they are united, but not in personality. If it had been a person that was spoken of, then it would have been proper enough, to have spoken of it under the notion of things. But inasmuch as it is the essence, and not the person, that is here intended, therefore it is said, one thing: if we would read the words literally, it is, "these three are one thing," that is the meaning of them and so they should be rendered.

(3.) Hereupon it is very rational to conclude, that when it is said, there are three that are united in this one thing, that it must also be understood, they are three and no more, as by one is meant only one, so by three is meant only three. Whereupon,

(4.) It must with equal reason be concluded, that these three which are three, and no more, must needs be some eminent three, and of some very eminent order. And do but pause here a little, and see if light do not spring into your minds about this matter: when it is said there are three (it being by parity of reason to be understood, three and no more) in hea ven, Pray what three in heaven can there be, that are three, and no more, of one eminent order, but they must be three divine persons? Bethink yourselves of it a little: it cannot be three angels, for then it cannot be said, there are three and no more in heaven: and you have not heard of any higher creatures than angels, any superior order of creatures above angels, of which there are three and no more and it cannot be three Gods, because the Godhead is but one; there is but one God and no more. Then I beseech you, What is there left? It is not three angels, it is not three of any sort of creatures superior to angels, of whom there are three and no more. And the Father is here mentioned as one of them, of whose Godhead there can be no doubt: and then pray consider, What can these three be? Not three creatures, not three Gods; therefore, they can be nothing but three persons, three substances in the Godhead. Thus then you are gradually led on to see, that this is the plain doctrine of the text, and if you can be convinced that there is in it, veritas rei, the truth of the thing, there will be no doubt at all but that it is veritas loci, the truth of this place.

2. And that is it I now come to, that is, to evince to you veritatem rei, the truth of the thing, that there is a Trinity in the Godhead, that there are three that are all of them this one God. And, I shall (with all possible brevity) labour to prove it to you positively, from other scriptures and scriptureconsiderations, and then-shew you the unreasonableness of

what is pretended against it, how irrational the pretence is against such a thing. That is, that there should be three who in some one respect are truly to be said and called three, and in some other respect are as truly to be called, or said to be But,

but one.

(1.) I come to the positive proof. And because, concerning the personality and deity of the Father there is no question; there is none that will contend with us about that matter, therefore our business will relate to the other two. And concerning them, that is, the Word (as he is here called) and the Holy Ghost, I shall endeavour to evince to you these two things that they are persons, and-that they are divine persons.

[1] That they are persons. And here (as I have told you) we have not a fitter notion under which to conceive of them, nor a fitter word in our tongue by which to express or speak of them. Not that we can think, that person being afterwards to be clothed with the notion of divine, can be the same thing with God as with us; because it is impossible any thing can have one common notion to him and to us. That would be altogether inconsistent with the perfection, the universal perfection of the divine Being, to suppose that any notion could be common to him and the creature. For then, he should not comprehend all entity in himself, if there were a notion common to him and to us; for that must import something superior to both, and that were comprehensive of both, and so it would make God but a part of being. Therefore, the word person as any other word whatsoever, that is wont to be applied to, and spoken of God and of us, must be spoken of us but analogically, not univocally, not as if it signified the same thing when it is spoken of him, and when it is spoken of us. And therefore, we are not to judge of a divine person by a human' person, or by a created person. The difference is infinite, and the distance is infinite between God and any creature. So any thing that is spoken of him must infinitely differ from whatsoever may be spoken of us under the same name. Therefore, when we speak of a person, among creatures, as signifying an intelligent suppositum, being, neither suppositum nor intelligent can be the same with him and with us. His intellect and ours differ infinitely: and it is so little known how individuations are made among creatures, that it is infinitely more impossible how they are made with God. But that being premised, that these two, the Word and the Holy Ghost are so spoken of in Scripture, as that we have no other way of conceiving otherwise than that they must be spoken of as persons; this I shall endeavour to evince.

First. As concerning the Word, I only premise that which is in itself evident, that by the Word here, and the Son of God elsewhere, must be meant the same thing. As is plain in the first of St. John's Gospel: "In the beginning was the Word:" that which is called the Word there, is called the Son of God presently after, in the same chapter: "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." The Word and the Son are all one. Then, what is there and elsewhere called the Word sometimes, and sometimes Son, or the Son of God, that must needs mean what we can conceive of no otherwise than under the notion of a person. That is, we find the action, from time to time, ascribed to this Word, or this Son, of an intelligent agent, of one that did act understandingly and with design. And we can have no better signification of a person, no clearer notion of one than that is. He is constantly spoken of as an intelligent agent; and concerning that, there can be no difficulty, nor indeed is there any controversy between us and our antagonists, concerning his personality; only they will have him to be but a human person, which we shall in its own place consider by and by. And,

Secondly. Concerning the Holy Ghost, that he also is a person, or such a one as we can conceive of under no other notion than that of a person; that is, as acting intelligently and with design even so is he most apparently spoken of, from time to time, in Scripture. Hereupon it is said, He bears witness in heaven; as he did in heaven, and from thence, testify concerning Christ, that he was the Son of God, to be heard and obeyed and submitted to as such; and as a dove, descended in visible glory upon him from the heavens. This speaks the act of an intelligent, designing cause on his part, as to what he did in testifying, and so he is very frequently spoken of, as coming for such and such a purpose. "When he is come he shall convince the world." John 16. 7, 8. And (which is most observable) in several parts of these chapters, of the 14. 15. and 16th of that gospel, even there, where he had been spoken of under the name of the Spirit before, when one would expect, in correspondence to that name spirit, it would have been said, it, it, being neutral, a word of the neuter gender, it is said he; when he is come, not when it is come, he shall convince the world of sin yea, and even the very laws of grammar and syntax are waved, as if it were on purpose to hold out this one thing to us, that the Holy Ghost was a person, an intelligent Being, working and acting with design: for when we have the word spirit, presently he doth follow upon it: and at a very great

distance, in one place, (several verses being interposed) from any other antecedent but spirit. Indeed, in the 14. and 15th chapters, there was the comforter as well as the spirit, to which he, might have reference: but still, spirit was the nearer antecedent. But you will find, in the 16th chapter, the 13. and 14th verses, that there is no antecedent for many verses together, besides spirit, and afterwards immediately subjoined he, and not it, on purpose to signify (and we cannot imagine what it should be to signify besides) the personality of the Holy Ghost. And it is a very unreasonable supposal, that in the form of baptism which we have, Matth. 28. 19. "Go ye, teach all nations, baptizing them, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ;" that the two first should be persons, (as they are confessed on all hands to be) and that there should be put in the same order with them a quality, as our antagonists would teach us to conceive concerning the Holy Ghost, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and what? of a quality, in the third place. That is, that when the design manifestly was there to state the Object of all practical religion, of the whole of our Christianity, into the believing whereof we are to be baptized, there should be a transient quality put into conjunction with those two great persons, the Father and the Son. Surely, it needs but to stay and to pause here a little, to have light irresistibly strike into the mind of any one that will do so, that will consider how unreasonable it is to imagine, when the design is manifestly to represent and state the entire object of whole Christianity, that is, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, that the two first of these are persons, and the third but a quality. Therefore, that being very plain,

[2] The second thing that needs to be evinced is, that they are divine persons, and much is done towards that already. It appearing they are persons, they cannot be created persons, they cannot be angels, of which it can be said there are three and no more. But we hear of no intervening order of creatures, above angels and below God. And then what should they be, since they are persons, (as is plain) but divine persons, that do subsist in the Godhead ? And to evince this a little more distinctly, but very briefly,

First. Concerning the Word, or the Son, (which you see are both of them names of the same person) how expressly is he often said to be God? In that mentioned first of John, nothing can be spoken more openly nor in plainer words. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." And Psalm 45. 6. "Thy throne O God is

for ever and ever," which the author to the Hebrews (chap. 1. 8.) allegeth to be plainly said to the Son; "And to the Son he said, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever." So Romans, 9. 5. Of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever." And that, 1 John 5. 20. "And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true; and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life :" most fitly spoken of the Son who was to be the spring of life to us, according to what had been said a little above in the same chapter, "This is the record, that God hath given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son hath not life.”

It is, I know, alleged with a great deal of triumph by some of the adversaries, that he is excluded in another place from being the true God, and that that should not be said of him, when we are told, (John. 17. 2.) "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." If the Father only be true God, then the Son is not. But the inconsequence of this will easily appear to them that shall but consider, how the word only is placed. It is placed so as to assert the predicate, and not the subject in the latter proposition. It is not said, Thou only art the true God, and so, that doth not exclude the Son at all. The Father is the only true God, and the Son is the only true God, and the Holy Ghost is the only true God. But it cannot be said that either the Father only is the true God, or the Son only is the true God, or the Holy Ghost only is the true God: but they are each of them that God which is the only true ore, and of which there is but one and no more. Do but observe that the word only affects not the subject spoken of, but the thing affirmed, or spoken of that subject. The case is but like this, as if I should use these words, "This is the only London." It may be true for ought we know, that there is no other London, but this which is famously called so by that name, but if one should say, "This only is London," that is, this place where we are, and there the only should limit the subject, that were false; for there are thousands of places in London as well as this, there are a great many assemblies in London, a great many places of worship and societies besides this: but we may say, "This is the only London," so the difference is plain to any that will consider it.

I might insist much more largely, (but it is not needful to say every thing that might be said in a plain case,) concerning the Son, to prove his divine personality by most manifest attri