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a union quite as inconceivable to us as the union of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost in the Godhead. If, therefore, man's limited comprehension is to be set up as the standard of possibility, we must deny the omniscience of God. We must also deny his eternity, his omnipotence, and all his other Divine attributes; for they all equally surpass our comprehension. Thus religion would be completely driven out of the world, and all mankind would become atheists. Nor, were they consistent in their principles of reasoning, would they stop here; but would go on to deny their own existence, the union of soul and body, the existence of light and heat, and a thousand other things, of whose truth we are absolutely certain, but the nature and manner of which we are utterly unable to explain.

If, on the contrary, there be amongst the Socinians one modest and real inquirer after truth; one whose doubts respecting the Trinity do not arise from intellectual pride; such a one may still, with the Divine blessing, be recalled from the paths of infidelity, by reflecting how little he actually knows of the most familiar works of God. How entirely ignorant, for example, he is of the origin of his own existence, and the manner in which it is supported.

"How the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child;" and how food contributes to the preservation of life. Knowing, therefore, so little even of his own nature, he will not be offended because he cannot "find out the Almighty to perfection ;" and instead of making his ignorance an excuse for continuing still in error, it will now only incite him to a more diligent examination of the Scriptures, for the purpose of certifying himself whether they do indeed contain the doctrine, concerning which he has been so unhappy as to doubt. Such an examination, properly conducted, cannot fail to create in him a thorough conviction that the doctrine of the Trinity is contained in the Bible.

If he still find any difficulty in believing it, convinced of the unreasonableness of that difficulty, and that it can only proceed from the obscurity and imperfection of that organ of faith, by which spiritual things are discerned, he will earnestly pray for the illumination of the Spirit. Encouraged by the promise of our Lord Jesus, saying, "Ask, and it shall be given unto you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you;" he will continue reading, searching, pray

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ing, inquiring; till at last, by continual knocking, the door of separation between his heart and the kingdom of heaven shall be opened; his spiritual eye shall be enlightened, and he shall "behold wondrous things out of God's law," which were before hidden from his view. All his doubts will be dispelled. He will embrace the holy doctrine of the Trinity with full assurance of faith, and through it discover the whole mystery of godliness. And if he continue steadfast in this faith, still diligently searching the Scriptures, with prayer and supplication, and thanksgiving; resolutely holding fast his integrity and his humility; and manfully resisting every temptation which the devil may throw in his way, he will doubtless go on unto perfection, "growing in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever.-Amen."

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DISCOURSE IV.

ON FAITH.

Preached on the Thursday after TRINITY SUNDAY, 1824.

HEBREWS, III. 12.

"Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God."

"WHO knows not the story of Adam's fall? Who hath not heard of the sin of Eve, our mother? If there were no Scripture, yet the strange irregularity of our whole nature, which all the time of our life runs counter to order and right reason; the woful misery of our condition, being a scene of sorrow, without rest or contentment;" and, above all, the appalling, and otherwise inexplicable visitation of death, to which we are every day liable,

though endowed by our Creator with a living soul; "all this might breed some general suspicion, that from the beginning it was not so; that He who made us lords of his creatures, made us not so worthless, and vile," and transient," as we now are; but that some common parent of us all had drunken some strange and devilish poison, wherewith the whole race is infected. This poison, saith the Scripture, was the breach of God's commandment in Paradise, by eating of the forbidden fruit." Through" an evil heart of unbelief," man" departed from the living God," and yielded to the enticements of the devil; who, though only permitted to appear in the odious, unengaging shape of a serpent, yet succeeded in persuading him to eat of the tree whereof the Lord had commanded him that he should not eat, "for in the day he did eat thereof he should surely die."

Thus was the devil, as Christ has declared, "a murderer from the beginning;" for all the death and misery that have since desolated the world, have been occasioned by this his act of treacherous and deliberate malice. He is also " a liar, and the father of it;" for whereas God assured our first

1 Joseph Mede.

2 John, viii. 44.

3 Ibid.

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