SERMON II.

PREACHED ON TRINITY SUNDAY, 1829.

2 CORINTHIANS, Xiii. 14.

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

SCRIPTURE is the revelation of the will and character of God; displaying his nature and attributes, just so far as is necessary for the salvation of man, and no farther; it is not its intention to gratify a vain or presumptuous curiosity; and therefore, when it speaks of the mysteries of the eternal world, it does not condescend to explain how such and such things are, but simply asserts the fact, and then goes on to build on that fact our duty concerning it. We are all assembled here this day, as professed members of the church of Christ, to com

memorate, and derive personal benefit from the contemplation of that doctrine, which distinguishes Christianity from every religion of man's device; the doctrine of the blessed Trinity, to which, as members of the Church of England, we each give our assent in the language of the first article.

Our belief in this doctrine is not founded on any researches of human wisdom; it stands fixed on the Rock of Ages, the word of The Unchangeable; if we believe the Scriptures to be his word, we require no farther evidence; we wish for no collateral proof of a fact which comes to us clothed in the simple, but glorious panoply of his truth, " Thus saith the Lord.'

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We bend the pride of reason before his throne, where angels and archangels bow and veil their faces; and the admonition comes as a cloud to quench the burning torch of human wisdom, "Be not proud, for the Lord hath spoken." Let it be but proved that this truth is once asserted in Scripture, and then a doubt of it in any of its parts, involves-not a distrust of an isolated doctrine, but-a disbelief of that revelation, without which we are thrown back into the gloomy chaos in which heathen nations are still in

volved but with the added condemnation that "the light shined in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not."

In the services of this day we have already heard this truth twice asserted by the inspiration of God. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," and " God said, let us make man in our own image after our likeness," (Gen. i. 26.) Who the persons alluded to in the plural number, are, we learn from the 2d verse," the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters,' compared with John i. 3, where it is declared of the essential Word, Jesus Christ, "All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made."

These are the three divine persons who revealed themselves to human perception at the baptism of Jesus, when God the Father, and God the Holy Ghost, bore their united testimony to the divinity of God the Son.

The prophet Isaiah relates the commission delivered to him by the King, the Lord of Hosts, whom he saw "sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and his train filling the temple of heaven, (Isaiah vi.) while the beloved disciple declares, that "these things said Esaias,

when he saw the glory of Christ and spake of him," (John xii. 41.) And the Apostle Paul adds his testimony to the same message, when he says, "Well spake the Holy Ghost by the mouth of Esaias the prophet," (Acts xxviii. 25.) Thus, when Isaiah heard the voice of the Lord, saying, "Whom shall I send and who will go for us," it was the voice of the triune God he heard, and his glory he beheld.

Again, St. Peter, "filled with the Holy Ghost," (Acts iv. 10-12,) declares, that "Jesus of Nazareth, whom God raised from the dead, is become the head of the corner, neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved." Isaiah, also, long before, inspired by the same Holy Spirit, records these words-" Thus saith the LORD, before me was there no God formed, neither shall there be any after me. I, even I, am the LORD, and besides me there is no Saviour." But how are these two declarations to be reconciled? Evidently by that word of Jesus, I and my Father are one:" and he who thus makes himself equal with God the Father, combines the Holy Ghost in the unity of the same God

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head, where he commands his disciples baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." (Matt, xxviii. 19.)

Proofs, I mean Scriptural proofs, of this truth, multiply before me; but I recollect that I stand here, not in the armour of controversy, but as a shepherd, whose office it is to "feed the church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood:" and my object should be rather to impress on your hearts the doctrine to which, as professing Christians you cordially assent, than to defend that doctrine from the attacks of cavillers and sceptics. If, on the ground of Scripture, any present doubt this truth, I invite them to join me in private to examine the subject; and above all, I beseech them to address the Lord, in humble prayer for teaching from above," to search the Scriptures daily, whether these things are so." If leaving the rock of Scripture truth, and standing, or rather falling, on the quicksands of his own wisdom, which (be it remembered) is "foolishness with God," any question this truth, let him come and explain to me the nature of the union between his own soul and body; or between light and heat; truths, which are