the Holy Ghost, nor the Holy Ghost the Father. And God is these Three, and nothing else; that is, He is either the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Ghost. Moreover, God is as wholly and entirely God in the Person of the Father, as though there were no Son and Spirit; as entirely in that of the Son, as though there were no Spirit and Father; as entirely in that of the Spirit, as though there were no Father and Son. And the Father is God, the Son God, and the Holy Ghost God, while there is but One God; and that without any inequality, because there is but One God, and He is without parts or degrees; though how it is that that same Adorable Essence, indivisible, and numerically One, should subsist perfectly and wholly in each of Three Persons, no words of man can explain, nor earthly illustration typify.

Now the passages in the New Testament in which this Sacred Mystery is intimated to us, are such as these. First, we read, as I have said already, that God is One; next, that He has an Only-begotten Son; further, that this Only-begotten Son is "in the bosom of the Father;" and that "He and the Father are One." Further, that He is also the Word; that "the Word is God, and is with God;" moreover, that the Son is in Himself a distinct Person, in a real sense, for He has taken on Him our nature, and become man, though the Father has not. What is all this but the doctrine, that that God who is in the strictest sense One, is both entirely the Father, is entirely the Son? or that the Father is

God, and the Son God, yet but One God? Moreover, the Son is the express "Image" of God, and He is "in the form of God," and "equal with God;" and "he that hath seen Him, hath seen the Father," and "He is in the Father and the Father in Him." Moreover the Son has all the attributes of the Father: He is "Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty;" "by Him were all things created, visible and invisible;" "by Him do all things consist;" none but He "knoweth the Father," and none but the Father "knoweth the Son." He "knoweth all things;" He "searcheth the hearts and the reins;" He is "the Truth and the Life;" and He is the Judge of all men.

And again, what is true of the Son is true of the Holy Ghost; for He is "the Spirit of God;" He "proceedeth from the Father;" He is in God as "the spirit of a man that is in him;" He "searcheth all things, even the deep things of God;" He is "the Spirit of Truth;" the "Holy Spirit;" at the creation, He "moved upon the face of the waters:" "Whither shall I go," says the Psalmist, "from Thy Spirit ?" He is the Giver of all gifts, "dividing to every man severally as He will;" we are born again "of the Spirit." To resist divine grace is to grieve, to tempt, to resist, to quench, to do despite to the Spirit. He is the Comforter, Ruler, and Guide of the Church; He reveals things to come; and blasphemy against Him hath never forgiveness. In all such passages, it is

surely implied both that the Holy Ghost has a Personality of His own, and that He is God.

And thus, on the whole, the words of the Creed hold good, that "there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost; but the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is all one,-the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost. And in this Trinity, none is afore or after other, none is greater or less than another; but the whole Three Persons are co-eternal together and co-equal; so that in all things, as is aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity, is to be worshipped.”

Lastly, it is added, "He therefore that will be saved, must thus think of the Trinity;" on which I make two remarks, and so conclude. First, what is very obvious, that such a declaration supposes that a person has the opportunity of believing. We are not speaking of heathens, but of Christians; of those who are taught the truth, who have the offer of it, and who reject it. Accordingly, we do not contemplate in this Creed cases of imperfect or erroneous teaching;--or of what may be called misformation of the reason; or any case of invincible ignorance; but of a man's wilful rejection of what has been fairly set before him. Secondly, when the Creed says that we "must think thus of the Trinity," it would seem to imply, that it had been drawing out a certain clear, substantive, consistent, and distinctive view of

the doctrine, which is the Catholic view; and that, in opposition to other views of it, whether Sabellian, or Arian, or Tritheistic, or others that might be mentioned; all of which, without denying in words the Holy Three, do deny Him in fact and in the event, and involve their wilful maintainers in the anathema which is here proclaimed, not in harshness, but as a faithful warning, and a solemn protest. May we never speak on subjects like this without awe; may we never dispute without charity; may we never inquire without a careful endeavour, with God's aid, to sanctify our knowledge, and to impress it on our hearts, as well as to store it in our understandings!

SERMON XXV.

PEACE IN BELIEVING.

ISAI. vi. 3.

"And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of Hosts."

EVERY Lord's day is a day of rest, but this, perhaps, more than all. It commemorates, not an act of God, however gracious and glorious, but His own unspeakable perfections and adorable mysteriousness. It is a day especially sacred to peace. Our Lord left His peace with us when He went away; "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you';" and He said He would send them a Comforter, who should give them peace. Last week we commemorated that Comforter's coming; and to-day, we commemorate in an especial way His great gift, in that great doc

1 John xiv. 27.