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blessings are wished to them as from three fountains, which ART. imports that they are three different Persons, and yet equal for though in order the Father is first, and is generally put first; yet here Christ is named, which seems to be a strange reversing of things, if they are not equal as to their essence or substance. It is true, the second is not named here, The Father, as elsewhere, but only God; yet since he is mentioned as distinct from Christ and the Holy Ghost, it must be understood of the Father; for when the Father is named with Christ, sometimes he is called God simply, and sometimes God the Father.

This argument from the threefold salutation appears yet stronger in the words in which St. John addresses himself to the seven Churches in the beginning of the Revelations : Grace and peace from him which is, which was, and which Rev. i. 4, 5. is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne: and from Jesus Christ. By the seven Spirits must be meant one or more persons, since he wishes or declares grace and peace from them: now either this must be meant of angels, or of the Holy Ghost. There are no where prayers made, or blessings given, in the name of angels: this were indeed a worshipping them; against which there are express authorities, not only in the other books of the New Testament, but in this book in particular. Nor can it be imagined that angels could have been named before Jesus Christ: so then it remains, that seven being a number that imports both variety and perfection, and that was the sacred number among the Jews, this is a mystical expression; which is no extraordinary thing in a book that is all over mysterious: and it imports one Person from whom all that variety of gifts, administrations, and operations that were then in the Church, did flow: and this is the Holy Ghost. But as to his being put in order before Christ, as upon the supposition of an equality, the going out of the common order is no great matter; so since there was to come after this a full period that concerned Christ, it might be a natural way of writing, to name him last. Against all this it is objected, that the designation that is given to the first of these in a circumlocution that imports eternity, shews that the great God, and not the person of the Father, is to be meant: but then how could St. John, writing to the churches, wish them grace and peace from the other two? A few verses after this, the same description of eternal duration is given to Christ, and is a strong proof of his eternity, and by consequence of his divinity: so what is brought so soon after as a character of the eternity of the Son, may be also here used to denote the eter

ART. nal Father. These are the chief places in which the Trinity is mentioned all together.

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I do not insist on that contested passage of St. John's 1 John v.7. Epistle: there are great doubtings made about it: the main ground of doubting being the silence of the Fathers, who never made use of it in the disputes with the Arians and Macedonians. There are very considerable things urged on the other hand, to support the authority of that passage; yet I think it is safer to build upon sure and indisputable grounds so I leave it to be maintained by others who are more fully persuaded of its being authentical. There is. no need of it. This matter is capable of a very full proof, whether that passage is believed to be a part of the canon,

or not.

:

It is no small confirmation of the truth of this doctrine, that we are certain it was universally received over the whole Christian church long before there was either a Christian prince to support it by his authority, or a council to establish it by consent: and indeed the council of Nice did nothing but declare what was the faith of the Christian church, with the addition only of the word consubstantial for if all the other words of the Creed settled at Nice are acknowledged to be true, that of the Three Persons being of one substance will follow from thence by a just consequence. We know, both by what Tertullian and Novatian writ, what was the faith both of the Roman and the African churches. From Irenæus we gather the faith both of the Gallican and the Asiatic churches. the whole proceedings in the case of Samosatenus, that was the solemnest business that passed while the church was under oppression and persecution, give us the most convincing proof possible, not only of the faith of the Eastern churches at that time, but of their zeal likewise in watching against every breach that was made in so sacred a part of their trust and depositum.

And

These things have been fully opened and enlarged on by others, to whom the reader is referred: I shall only desire him to make this reflection on the state of Christianity at that time: the disputes that were then to be managed with the Heathens, against the deifying or worshipping of men, and those extravagant fables concerning the genealogies of their Heroes and Gods, must have obliged the Christians rather to have silenced and suppressed the doctrine of the Trinity, than to have owned and published it so that nothing but their being assured that it was a necessary and fundamental article of their faith, could have led them to own it in so public a manner;

since the advantages, that the Heathen would have taken ART. from it, must be too visible not to be soon observed. The I. Heathens retorted upon them their doctrine of a man's being a God, and of God's having a Son: and every one who engaged in this controversy framed such answers to these objections, as he thought he could best maintain. This, as it gave the rise to the errors which some brought into the church, so it furnishes us with a copious proof of the common sense of the Christians of those ages, who all agreed in general to the doctrine, though they had many different, and some very erroneous ways of explaining it among them.

I now come to the special proofs concerning each of the Three Persons: but there being other articles relating to the Son and the Holy Ghost, the proofs of these two will belong more properly to the explanation of those articles: therefore all that belongs to this article is to prove that the Father is truly God; but that needs not be much insisted on, for there is no dispute about it: none deny that he is God; many think that he is so truly God, that there is no other that can be called God besides him, unless it be in a larger sense of the word: and therefore I will here conclude all that seems necessary to be said on this first article; on which if I have dwelt the longer, it was because the stating the idea of God right being the fundamental article of all religion, and the key into every part of it, this was to be done with all the fulness and clearness possible.

In a word, to recapitulate a little what has been said: the liveliest way of framing an idea of God, is to consider our own souls, which are said to be made after the image of God. An attentive reflection on what we perceive in ourselves, will carry us further than any other thing whatsoever, to form just and true thoughts of God. We perceive what thought is, but with that we do also perceive the advantage of such an easy thought as arises out of a sensation, such as seeing or hearing, which gives us no trouble: we think without any trouble of many of the objects that we see all at once, or so near all at once, that the progression from one object to another is scarce perceptible: but the labour of study and of pursuing consequences wearies us; though the pleasure or the vanity of having found them out compensates for the pain they gave us, and sets men on to new inquiries. We perceive in ourselves a love of truth, and a vexation when we see we are in error, or are in the dark and we feel that we act the most perfectly, when we act upon the clearest views of truth, and in the strictest pursuance of it; and the more

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ART. present and regular, the more calm and steady that our thoughts of all things are, that lie in our compass to know, present, past, or to come, we do plainly perceive that we do thereby become perfecter and happier beings. Now out of all this we can easily rise up in our thoughts to an idea of a mind that sees all things by a clear and full intuition, without the possibility of being mistaken; and that ever acts in that light, upon the surest prospect, and with the perfectest reason; and that does therefore always rejoice in every thing it does, and has a constant perception of all truth ever present to it. This idea does so genuinely arise from what we perceive both of the perfections and the imperfections of our own minds, that a very little reflection will help us to form it to a very high degree.

The perception also that we have of goodness, of a desire to make others good, and of the pleasure of effecting it; of the joy of making any one wiser or better, of making any one's life easy, and of raising his mind higher, will also help us in the forming of our ideas of God. But in this we meet with much difficulty and disappointment. So this leads us to apprehend how diffusive of itself infinite goodness must needs be; and what is the eternal joy that infinite love has, in bringing so many to that exalted state of endless happiness. We do also feel a power issuing from us by a thought, that sets our bodies in motion : the varieties in our thoughts create a vast variety in the state of our bodies; but with this, as that power is limited to our own bodies, so it is often checked by disorders in them, and the soul suffers a great deal from those painful sensations that its union with the body subjects it to. From hence we can easily apprehend how the Supreme Mind can by a thought set matter into what motions it will, all matter being constantly subject to such impressions as the acts of the Divine Mind give it. This absolute dominion over all matter makes it to move, and shapes it according to the acts of that Mind; and matter has no power, by any irregularity it falls into, to resist those impressions which do immediately command and govern it; nor can it throw any uneasy sensations into that perfect Being.

This conduces also to give us a distinct idea of miracles. All matter is uniform and it is only the variety of its motions and texture, that makes all the variety that is in the world. Now as the acts of the Eternal Mind gave matter its first motion, and put it into that course that we do now call the course of nature; so another act of the

same Mind can either suspend, stop, or change that course at pleasure, as he who throws a bowl may stop it in its course, or throw it back if he will; this being only the altering that impulse which himself gave: so if one act of the infinite Mind puts things in a regular course, another act interposed may change that at pleasure. And thus with relation to God, miracles are no more difficult than any other act of Providence: they are only more amazing to us, because they are less ordinary, and go out of the common and regular course of things. By all this it appears how far the observation of what we perceive concerning ourselves may carry us to form livelier and clearer thoughts of God.

So much may suffice upon the first Article.

ART.
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