deceased friend, that at last I set about sending them abroad into the world. I found the manuscript to need no more than a bare revisal for the press, except altering the method in two or three places, as the author directed me.

I am not afraid of recommending the following discourses to the candid and pious reader. We have had a great deal wrote of late years on the Deity of Christ; but some have thought there was room to be more large and distinct on the divinity of the Holy Spirit. I hope it will be found that some farther light may be thrown on this necessary point of divinity, from our author's nervous and masculine performance. The proof of the real Personality of the Spirit, he has very much laboured; but as I have been engaged in controversy with the Gentleman whom he has opposed, I shall say no more of this part of the work, leaving it to the reader's judgment. In the other Sermons many things are very judiciously handled, which are not commonly treated of.

It has cost me a great deal of labour to fit this work for the press; but I shall think my pains well spent, if it is made useful, to establish the faith of Christians in those prime articles of our religion about which it treats; that it may be So, I recommend it, and those who read it, to the blessing of that good Spirit, whose glory is pleaded for in it, and who, with the Father and the Son, is the one supreme blessed God; to whom be all glory and praise, now, henceforth, and for evermore. Amen.

August 12th, 1734.

ABRAHAM TAYLOR.

A

PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE

CONCERNING THE

DIVINITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

SERMON I.

PREACHED JULY 1st, 1729.

Ì COR. iii. 16.-Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?

INTENDING, if the Lord pleases, to discourse upon the Deity, Personality, Office, and Works of the Holy Spirit, I have chose the words now read, as a foundation of what I shall offer concerning the first of these, the Deity of the Holy Ghost. As the subject is very necessary, important, sublime, and difficult, I do not only desire the prayers of my hearers, but also humbly invoke the assistance of him, concerning whom I am to speak, that he may lead me into the truth, and enable me to speak of him the things that are right, and that may be to his glory, and our edification and comfort. As he is the fountain of all wisdom, from whom we receive the holy scriptures, and a right understanding of them, we cannot see but by his light, nor know or acknowledge him but by his assistance. As therefore the apostle prayed for the Ephesians, that they might be endowed with the spirit of wisdom and revelation; and prayed to the Holy Spirit, on the behalf of the Corinthians, that he would communicate, of himself to them, in those words, The communion of the