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SERMON VI.

PREACH'D ON SUNDAY MARCH 22, 1795.

IN

N my two last discourses I have been pretty copious and explicit on the fubject of the Trinity. I have laid before you the infinite importance of the doctrine; I have pointed out feveral fingle texts of Scripture declaring the true and proper Divinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghoft; I have suggested some methods whereby every plain and fincere, however unlearned reader of the Bible may fully fatisfy himself on this point; and for his farther affiftance I have recommended.to his notice a fhort and cheap treatife on the fubject. I have alfo remark'd to you, that all fuch paffages of Holy Writ as either exprefs or imply an inferiority of the Son to the Father, are capable of a plain meaning by applying them to the human nature affum'd by Chrift; and when fo understood, are perfectly re

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concilable to the doctrine of the Trinity. Let me here add, that the Author of the book recommended has been peculiarly fuccefsful on this point; having fairly produc'd every text urg'd against us by our adversaries, and compleatly obviated and invalidated every argument attempted to be grounded upon them. I will here farther obferve, that whoever ftudies the Scripture on Trinitarian principles, will find the fyftem of Man's Redemption and Salvation by Chrift, however wonderful and mysterious, yet uniformly confiftent throughout, and a steady foundation of rational faith and hope: while on the contrary, the Unitarian will meet with nothing but a dark and confus'd Chaos of inconfiftencies and contradictions, without any fure ground of faith or hope; and not improbably will proceed in the beaten track of what is call'd modern Philosophy, from Unitarianifm to Deifm, and thence into the gloomieft depths of Atheism.

I now proceed to the justification of our Church for retaining in her Liturgy that admirable Creed call'd the Athanafian. This is the grand mark whereat the envenom'd fhafts of our adverfaries are principally levell'd; on account of this we ftand charg'd not only with bigotry and abfurdity, but what

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what is still worse, with the most Antichristian uncharitableness. A ferious and a cruel charge this, at any rate; and if falfe and groundless, fuch as I hope and trust I shall prove it to be, words can not adequately exprefs it's unparallel'd malignity and impudence. Nay should it even be granted to reft on fpecious or plaufible grounds, ftill it can not be vindicated from indecency, from arrogance, from ingratitude. The national Church is an effential part of the national Conftitution: that Conftitution not only protects in their civil Rights, but indulges full liberty of confcience to all who refufe to conform to that Church; permitting them to ferve God in their own way, and that publicly, and without moleftation: but it does not permit them to flander and revile the establish'd Church, and the national worship. The lenity and indulgence of Government have at least a claim upon their gratitude.. The well-known Act of Toleration, whereon all their privileges and immunities are founded, contains an exception with regard to all fuch as deny the Trinity; and more than that, there is a Statute now exifting in full force, and which was pafs'd fome years fubfequent to the Toleration Act, in the fame Reign; whereby it is enacted, that if any perfon, educated in the Christian Religion, or profeffing the fame, shall by writing,

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writing, printing, teaching, or advised speaking deny any one of the Perfons in the Holy Trinity to be God, or maintain that there are more Gods than One; he shall undergo certain penalties and difabilities therein specified. Were Government inclin'd to carry this Law into execution, which as it never has been done, fo I fincerely hope it never will; but if it should, I fee but one fubterfuge left to the Unitarian, but that one not devoid of truth namely, that he does not profess the Christian Religion, but another Religion, of quite a different nature and complection.

But let us now attend to our adversaries charge, not against Creeds and Articles in general, all of which they are for sweeping away indiscriminately; but against the Athanafian Creed in particular. Our Church, we are told, denounces with awful vengeance the everlasting punishment of Hell against those who do not believe in a Creed which they can not understand; a mysterious Creed, drawn up by fome unknown writer in the dark ages of the Church. Hereby we incur a breach of true charity, and by fo doing depart from the pure model of primitive Christianity. This is the charge, which must be examin'd and refuted; but it may not be amifs previously to fuggeft to your notice fome

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fome obfervations on the nature of Chriftian Faith, and of the modes or forms of profeffing that Faith, which are adopted by the Church of England.

The neceffity of Faith is obvious. He that cometh to God, must believe that he is. To the Atheift, who fays there is no God, the very name of Religion is an unmeaning found. The Deift acknowledges there is a God, but grounds his belief on the works of nature, and the deductions of reafon; rejecting as both false and needless the light of Revelation. But we are the difciples of Chrift, profeffing ourselves Christians: and our opponents lay claim to the fame privileges and diftinctions. Our Faith then must depend on Revelation: in other words, we are bound to believe whatfoever God has been pleas'd to reveal to us in Scripture. That Scripture acquaints us with the original creation and subsequent fall of Man; together with his Redemption and final falvation by the means of a wonderful Perfonage nam'd Jefus, or the Saviour. The Old Teftament was written before the appearance of this Jefus in the world; the New Teftament after it. The former is prophetic of what was to happen to Him; the latter is historical of what actually did happen to

Him.