unhappy wanderers, such a course as I have now recommended might have saved from the depths of delusion, it is not for me to determine.

The remaining parts of this subject will be wholly practical, and those must be omitted till another occasion.

Now may the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, direct and bless us.

Amen.

LECTURE VI.

THE DOCTRINES OF A TRINITY APPLIED.

2 THESSALONIANS ii. 16.

And hath given us everlasting consolation, and good hope, through grace.

LET us at length hear the conclusion of the whole matter. We have seen that there is a Trinity of persons in the God-head, and that each of these persons properly possesses the Divine nature; but of what avail is all this abundance of revelation, and for what just reason has been our discussion of it, unless it can be shown that God's glory and our own interest are involved in it? We trust it will be made to appear that they are : at all events, it will now be attempted; and we feel a pleasing confidence that those who have thus far seemed to love the truth for its own sake, will not be less attentive, when their dearest interests, when the beauty of God's character, and their own immortal hopes, are to be discovered in it.

I. We think we can discover then, that the doctrine we have been defending, EXHIBITS A

GLORY, NOT OTHERWISE DISCOVERABLE IN THE CHARACTER of God.

We speak not here, though we might perhaps, of the relation which such a distinction of the God-head may have to His own essential happiness. It is certain, that the persons of the Holy Trinity are represented as dwelling together, speaking to each other, and enjoying a high and ineffably holy communion. Now, what relation this may have to the independent happiness of Deity, what of essential glory was thus provided for in the eternal ages of God's sole existence, or what of any other perfection, we do not pretend to determine. It is one of those subjects on which little is revealed, and where the deepest reverence becomes us. We do think, however, that we can see something of it. This distinction is a perfection-we are sure it is, because it exists, and we think we can see it to be so.

Let us

come then to its effect on God's declarative glory; and here we remark,

1. That the doctrine exhibits a beautiful order and harmony in Deity. In every important operation, and in the display of every well planned scheme, order and agreement

are of the first consequence. We all know their advantage in carrying on a complicated labour. Every department must there have its proper agent; and yet must there be the most perfect harmony-a common motion and a common object.

It may perhaps be objected, that we ought not to apply such a comparison to God's mode of existence. There is nothing imperious in it, however, if we do not thereby propose fully to explain that existence, but only to show of what an infinitely superiour harmony he is the author. We say, then, that the beauty and advantages of this principle of order may be found in God, as existing by a Trinity of persons. For each of these persons has appropriate offices attributed him in the works of God. In the work of creation, for instance, it is the property of the Father, as such, to preside and will its existence it is the property of the Son to create, and of the Spirit to brood on the abyss, and reduce creation to order. So also, and more strikingly, does this order obtain in the works of redemption. It is the property of the Father, as such, to give and send his Son the Son's, to come in obedience, and to make himself a sacrifice, in order to provide pardon and reconciliation; and it is

the province of the Holy Spirit to apply these benefits in the conversion and sanctification of the sinner. But in all these operations, it was necessary that the most perfect harmony should be preserved; and this is also provided for, in that these several persons are one in essence still, as God. We have then, in this distinction, the superiour advantage over any other conception of Deity, that it distributes his works-all of which are such as to require Divine agency in the most appropriate order-and yet makes the whole harmonious. We remark,

2. That a provision is found in this distinction, for displaying the force and sanctity of certain attributes of Deity more fully than they otherwise could have been displayed. We will suppose, for instance, it had been revealed to us, aside from any idea of this distinction, that God was perfectly just and perfectly merciful-could we, I ask, have ever entered in the conception how rigid that justice is, and how great that mercy, as we now do, in having heard that God gave his equal Son to die for sinners? The fact is, my brethren, that we feel but little what God's perfections are, by simply hearing them announced : we nced to see them illustrated; and now I take it upon me to say, that, as far as yet ap