to this dispensation,) supposing that work to have been accomplished by any perfon lefs than very God; but admit the Divinity of Jefus Chrift, and the inquifitiveness and the incapacity of men and angels will by no means be unaccountable. All this, I trust, will afford a moft ftrong argument, that the faith which the Apostles preached after the ascension of our Saviour; the faith which was firft delivered to the chriftian Saints; the faith which we are required to hold faft without wavering,* and to build up ourselves upon, † is a faith in the incarnation of the eternal Son of God; or, in other words, in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, as it has all along been held in the Chriftian Church. In confequence of the removal of a popular objection against all this, I hope in the enfuing difquifitions to set in a still clearer point of view the great doctrine before us.

*Heb. x. 23.

+ Jude 20,

DIS

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DISCOURSE III.

T1

ACTS I. 3.

By many infallible proofs.

HESE words immediately refer to the great event of our Lord's refurrection, but in confequence of it to the divinity of his perfon. Of this therefore I shall proceed to lay more proofs before you, taking first this opportunity to obviate the following popular objection; that, notwithstanding all that has been, or can be advanced, the doctrine before us is not fo abfolutely clear and indisputable as we would have it thought, and as a fundamental article of faith ought to be; in as much as no text can be produced which precisely, and totidem verbis, speaks

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speaks the language of the first article of our Church; viz. "in the unity of the Godhead "there be three Perfons of one substance,

power, and eternity, the Father, the Son, "and the Holy Ghoft; or of the fecond ; "two whole and perfect natures, that is to "fay, the Godhead and Manhood are joined

together in one Perfon, never to be di"vided, whereof is one Christ, very God "and very man; or of the fifth; the Holy "Ghost, proceeding from the Father, and "the Son, is of one fubftance, majefty, and glory with the Father and the Son, very and eternal God."

To all this, I apprehend, we may readily reply, that if there be any real force in fuch objections, it will operate much farther by neceffary confequence than the objectors themselves can be fuppofed to defire it fhould. For it will fupply the perverfe, or idle caviller with pretences and exceptions against all the divine properties and attributes, as far as they are afferted in the first article. There is no one paffage in the Scrip

ture

ture which literally tells us, that "there is "but one living and true God, everlasting, "without body, parts, or paffions, of infinite

power, wisdom, and goodness, the Maker "and Preserver of all things both visible and "invisible." The divine fuperintendency, &c, ufually called Providence, is justly reputed one of the capital doctrines of religion. Yet, upon the principles of these objectors, it should be no doctrine at all. For we meet with no fuch term as Providence, in the fenfe demanded, either in the old or new Teftament. So that this doctrine muft inevitably fall to the ground, unless it be maintained and supported by natural inference; or unless we are at liberty to make use of a proper term to exprefs our fense of it. He who objects to the term-Trinity—as unfcriptural, fhould confider by, what texts he will undertake to prove the Unity of the Divine Nature; which, in the fenfe required by his argument, is a term no more to be found in Scripture than the other. In fact, upon the principle of our opponents, we shall be under a neceffity of expunging a

great