ceive, (without clearly perceiving any Thing) SER. VII. to border upon an Abfurdity, may be not fo in itself, but merely owing to our Want of more extenfive Views. One Proof from a Matter of Fact should weigh more to confirm a myfterious Doctrine, than all the ideal and metaphyfical Arguments, which fall fhort of Demonftration, to disprove it. Because we are very competent Judges of Matter of Fact; but all our Ideas about the intrinfic Nature of God are short and indiftinet and where our Ideas are indiftinct, our Knowledge, which is founded upon them, must be foo too. One intermediate Idea, which is wanting, might, if taken into the Account, make our Conclufion quite different: And one foreign Idea, which has intruded where it has nothing to do, will, like a little Leaven, spread and diffuse itfelf, and give a Tincture to the whole Mafs of our Reasoning.

This is only a general Answer to the Difficulties with which this Doctrine is attended. Under my fecond Head, which must be referved for another Difcourfe, I shall remove particular Objections.

SERMON

SERMON VIII.

Preached at the

Lady MOYER'S LECTURE.

On the Doctrine of the TRINITY.

MATTHEW XXVIII. 19.

Go ye therefore and teach all Nations, bap tizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

T

HE Deity is to human Minds, SER. VIII. what the main Ocean is to nar

row Veffels: They may take in as much Knowledge of his Nature, as their fcanty Dimenfions will admit; and yet there will remain an infinite Surplus ftill, which we want Capacities to receive'*;

* See Cudworth's Intellectual Syftem.

SER. VIII. wishing, that human Nature was raised to an higher Perfection, that the divine Natute may be better understood, more perfectly loved, and more worthily praised.

The Chain of Beings afcends upwards, from Brutes to Men from Men, in a beautiful and regular Gradation, to Angels, Archangels, and all thofe thousand thoufands, that ftand before God, and the ten thousand times, ten thousand, that minister unto him. The Tranfitions in this Poem of Nature, from one Kind to another, are fo extremely fine and delicate; that we fcarce can diftinguith, where one ends, and the other begins. Yet the Dignity of the noblest of these Beings, bears no more Proportion to his, who dwelleth in unapproachable Glory; than a gilded Cloud, on which the Evening Sun has impreffed it's Beams, and enriched with beautiful Stains of Light, does to that great Abyss of Light, from which it derives it's reflected Beauty. He can still make Beings, which fhall as much furpafs an Archangel of the highest Class as an Archangel of the highest Class furpaffes the most groveling Infect. For every finite Creature, how great foever; muft be infinitely beneath an

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all-perfect Being. This, however, is the SER. VIII, Being, whofe Nature we would meafure by our own, and make God after our Like nefs, inftead of humbly endeavouring to be as like him, as we can. The most advanced Notion, which we can form of him, as diftinct from all his Creatures, is merely' negative, excepting the Idea of neceffary Existence, which may imply fomething pofitive. For Existence, Power, Goodnefs, Wisdom, &c. are not his peculiar and incommunicable Properties. When they are ascribed to him without Bounds, then they are Ideas diftinctive of him, though Ideas purely negative, as implying only a Negation of Limits. We cannot extend

even our Conjectures concerning the divine Nature, beyond those Ideas, which are derived from Senfation and Reflection: Yet, with these forry Materials of Knowledge, fome attempt to dethrone their Saviour and the Holy Ghoft, and to degrade them into the Rank of Creatures.

I have already proved, from Scripture, that there are more Perfons than one in the divine Effence.

I now proceed to clear this Doctrine from'

the principal Objections against it, from the Reason of the Thing.

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