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is but what you knew if I had never said it, and which you knew to be so true, that you would have counted me a liar if I had said otherwise; for the sum of all that I have said is, that if you do not believe, and leave your sins, you cannot be saved. Here lies the plain truth, and I earnestly pray God to stir you up to the consideration and practice of it. For, O! how happy should I be to see you all in heaven! Believe me, I do not give one of you over. And I must and will beseech you, every soul, to lay hold on everlasting life, while I have yet the power of begging any favour of you. Return, return, my dear brethren, why will ye die! Ah! cease not, give not yourselves rest day nor night, until you can truly say, "I believe in God."

SERMON IX.

ACTS xvi. 30, 31.

What must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.

AFTER having shown you the nature of divine faith, I proceed to set before you the object thereof, to wit, God in Christ, as expressed in the first words of the Creed, "I believe in God." We must now go on to explain more at large what is included in these introductory words. And this is the doctrine of the three Persons in the divine nature, distinguished by the relation they bear to each other, and by their respective offices towards us, together with the happy effects on our parts resulting from our true belief in this Trinity.

Though there is but one God, yet the Scripture teaches us to own three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, subsisting inconceivably together in the divine nature; as is sufficiently manifest by the form of baptism, and by the apostolical benediction, as well as by a large variety of Scriptures which declare this great mystery with incontestable plainness to the humble and unprejudiced mind. Wherefore we are taught by our church to 'worship one God in trinity, and trinity in unity, neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the substance.' Whereby is understood, that God is the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and again, that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are one God. Concerning which it is needful to observe, that there is both an union and a distinction in the Godhead. The union is, that the three Persons are one in nature, one in the same undivided Godhead; that is, though the Father be God, the Son God, and the Holy Ghost God, yet they are not three distinct Gods,' neither have they three different or separate parts of the Godhead, but one with another and one in another they are one and

the same God. Nevertheless, although not separated and divided, yet are they distinguished; the Father is not the Son nor the Holy Ghost, neither is the Son the Father or the Holy Ghost, nor the Holy Ghost the Father or the Son. They subsist distinctly, though undividedly, in the same Godhead, the whole three Persons co-eternal together and co-equal.'

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In speaking of the three Persons in the divine nature, we are to consider the relation they bear to each other, and their respective offices towards us.

The first Person in the Godhead is the Father.

Now Father, being a relative term, hath reference to a Son, without which there could not be a Father. The property of the first Person, considered as subsisting in the Godhead, is to beget, to wit, the second Person, who is therefore called the Son. When you read in Scripture of the Father's begetting the Son, you must not conceive thereof as you do of one creature's begetting another, for there is an utter differénce. Creatures beget their offspring in time, the Father the Son from eternity. The Father begets the Son by communicating to him his whole essence; which cannot be done by creatures, because so they would be themselves reduced to nothing. When the Father begets the Son, that Son is not a Being separate from the Father, as is the case in all other generation, but they subsist together in the same undivided essence.

Thus you see what relation the first Person bears to the second, and for what reason he is most eminently entitled the Father. But because of this relation he bears to the Son, who hath assumed our nature that he might redeem us, the Father also is the Father of those who believe in the name of his onlybegotten Son. For although God be in one sense the Father of us all, inasmuch as we are made by him, yet that peculiar interest in him, which is implied in the title Father, we forfeited by sin, and it is only restored to us by grace, so that he is the Father of those only who believe. And to all these he is a Father, "for as many as received him (Christ), to them gave power to become the sons of God."

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The meaning of the words therefore is, I believe in God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, as my Father in him.' Wherein these several things are implied.

First, and principally, a profession of faith. I believe that God the Father is a Father in Christ Jesus to all them that believe, and my Father in particular. The Creed is our confession of the assured and steadfast belief we have of the truth of the Gospel, that is, of God, as he has manifested himself in mercy unto us by, Jesus Christ. Consequently to say, I believe in the Father, is to say, I believe that he is reconciled, no longer a consuming God, but an affectionate Parent unto his church, in and for the sake of his dear Son. Now, do we believe this? Are we fully and unquestionably persuaded, that “when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, that we might receive the adoption of sons ?" That notwithstanding our guilt, and the curse of the law, yet coming humbly to God, and pleading the merits of Jesus Christ, God actually receives us? As far as we fail here, it is manifest we come short of a full belief of the sufficiency of the Gospelmethod of salvation. But as far as we are steadfast herein, that God is the Father of all them that believe, we shall also believe that he is our Father too in particular, confessing our sins, and coming to him by Jesus Christ. It is true, if we do not confess our sins, and come to God in his own way, he is no Father to us. But then it is not less certain, that if we do confess our sins, and humbly sue for his mercy in Christ, he is actually our Father; and if so doing we yet do not believe him to be our Father, the real reason of it is, that we do not steadfastly, as we ought, believe the reconciliation that is in Christ Jesus, and that, for his sake, God is a Father to the Lord's people. It is an artifice, I suppose, of the devil, to get a charge of presumption to be laid upon any that shall think God to be reconciled to them, and their Father. And what makes me the rather suspect his hand to be in it is, that this false notion, covered over with a show of humility, does secretly strike at the sufficiency of Gospel-salvation, the truth of God's promises, the comfort and growth of God's people. The faith of God's church is, "I acknowledge God to be the Father of all them that believe." And shall it then be said, it is presumption for any man to apply this personally and particularly to himself? Should any one say, I do indeed believe that God is a Father to his church, but I am a vile unworthy sinner, how can he be my Father? let

such an one know, that he does not steadfastly, as he imagines he does, believe that God in Christ is reconciled and a Father to his church; and that in reality his want of a particular faith respecting himself is owing to a defect in his general faith concerning the church. I do not say that God is not a Father to such, because I am told the contrary, none that come are cast out, though they come trembling. Have they but so much faith as engages them to come, they are received. But then this does not afford a proof that there is no sin in such misbelief and doubting suspicion of the Gospel-declarations. It is very dishonourable to God's mercy, truth, wisdom, and justice, set forth to our faith in the Gospel. And every one that confesses with his mouth, "I believe in God the Father," ought at the same time to be able to say in his heart, I believe he is actually the Father of all that believe; and, seeing this is the faith which I therefore confess, because I rest my own soul upon it, I believe him to be my Father also. Let us not seek excuses for the great sin of unbelief, but, confessing our sins, let us pray that we may steadfastly believe God's promises, that he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and is a Father unto us for his Son Jesus Christ's sake, to the glory of his grace, and to the comfort and establishment of our souls.

Secondly." I believe in the Father" implies a child-like confidence. I look upon God as a Father, and as such I have confidence in him. "Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." The spirit under the law was ministered according to the peculiar design of that dispensation, which was to be a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. And what there was in that dispensation suited to beget bondage and fear, the apostle tells us when he says, "Ye are not [now under the Christian dispensation] come unto the mount that might not be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, which voice they that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more (for they could not endure that which was commanded); and if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart. And so terrible was the sight, that Moses

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