know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him. Would he have left a positive injunction, that all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father (a); if the Son was not equally divine? How would it sound, if a lawgiver was to enact, "That all men should honour the angel Gabriel (for instance) with the same honour which they render to God?" we should tremble with horror; we should be overwhelmed with consternation, at the prodigiousness of such impiety. And why? Because the honour due to God is peculiar to God, and cannot, without sacrilege, be transferred to any inferior being. I conclude, therefore, that, seeing the Redeemer of sinners lays claim to divine honours, he is and must be a divine person. If not, the consequences would be dreadful indeed. From the Arian and Socinian hypothesis, that he is, at most, but the first and highest of created beings, it would follow (I speak it with horror; but follow it inevitably would), that the Jews did right, in branding him for a blasphemer, and in prosecuting him as an impostor. There is no possible medium. Either he was and is what he professed to be, "equal with the Father, as touching his Godhead;" or, he must be deservedly ranked with the most impious and execrable of all human characters. If Christ were not very and eternal God, Christianity would be the most refined system of idolatry, and consequently, the most exquisitely dangerous religion, under heaven.

Nothing short of Trinity in unity could justify the commission, which our blessed Lord gave to his apostles and their successors, to baptize in the name or into the knowledge and worship, of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost (b). If the Son of God were not God the Son, if the Spirit of God were not God the Spirit, the administration

(a) John v. 23.

(b) Matth. xxviii. 19.

of baptism in their name would be an act of the highest profaneness and idolatry. The doctrine, therefore, of a trinity of persons in the unity of one divine nature, is a doctrine of express revelation; a doctrine of the utmost consequence; and which lies at the very root and foundation of the Christian system.

In te omnis domus inclinata recumbit.

Give up this, and you give up all. The whole of Christianity is but an empty name, without it.

Blessed be God, the faith of our own church, respecting this capital point, most exactly harmonizes with the law and the testimony; for she affirms, that, "in unity of this Godhead, there be three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost (a)." And, elsewhere, she thus speaks: "That which we believe of the glory of the Father, the same we believe of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, without any difference or inequality (b)."

IV. God's everlasting love to his people, and his gratuitous election of them to grace and glory, constituted another branch of that doctrine, which was taught and preached by Jesus Christ the righteous. He declared, in a solemn address to his Father, made in the hearing of his disciples, Thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me (c). Now, the Father's love to Christ was truly and properly eternal. It knew no commencement, nor will know a period. For it follows, in the very next verse, Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. Consequently, if the Father loved his people as he loved his Son, he must, according to our Lord's own words, have loved them from everlasting. Hence proceeded his choice and appointment of them in

(a) Art. i.

(6) Communion Service. (c) John xvii. 23.

Christ to eternal life, as the end; and to faith and sanctification, as the means. That he has so chosen and appointed them, is evident from the express, repeated declarations of Christ himself. I thank thee, says he, holy Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes; even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight (a). Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven; but to them it is not given (b). Many are called, but few chosen (c). Shall not God avenge his own elect, who cry day and night unto him (d)? Rejoice, because your names are written in heaven (e). To sit on my right hand and on my left, is not mine to give, except (f) unto those for whom it hath been prepared of my Father. I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen (g). There shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders: insomuch that, if it were possible, they should deceive the very elect (h). For the elects' sake, whom he hath chosen, he will shorten those days (i). He shall send his angels, and they shall gather together his elect, from the four winds, from under one end of heaven to the other (k). Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared from you from the foundation of the world (7). On which passages, and a multitude of others to the same effect, all of which strongly assert a personal and immutable election; I do not know a more scriptural and judicious comment, than those words of our own church: "Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby, before the foundations of the worlds were laid,

(a) Matth. xi. 25, 26. (d) Luke xviii. 7.

Matth. xx. 23.

(b) Ib. xiii. 11.
(e) Ib. x. 20.
(g) John xiii. 18.

(i) Ib. xxiv. 22. with Mark xiii. 20.

(1) Ib. xxv. 35.

(c) Ib. xx. 16. (1) Αλλ' οις ήτοιμαται, (h) Matth. xxiv. 24. (k) Matth. xxiv. 31.

he hath constantly decreed, by his counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them, by Christ, to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour (a)." Of these "vessels made unto honour," she declares the church at large to consist: "The true church," says she, "is an universal congregation or fellowship of God's faithful and elect people (b)." Hence, in perfect harmony with scripture and herself, she prays, that God would, "make his chosen people joyful (c);" that he would "shortly accomplish the number of his elect (d) ;" and declares, that "Almighty God hath knit together his elect, in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of his Son Christ our Lord (e)." Neither doth this blessed doctrine, if taken as it is revealed in scripture, and as it stands from thence adopted by the church, tend, either directly or remotely, to the relaxation of human diligence, or to the detriment of good works. The apostle hath declared, that we are chosen to salvation (f) through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth, and no otherwise. And the church, who justly affirms, on one hand, that "The godly consideration of predestination, and of our election in Christ, is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons (g); takes care, on the other, to remind her children, in the second homily on alms-giving, that it is "by their obedience unto God that they declare openly and manifestly, to the sight of men, that they are the sons of God, and elect of him unto salvation."

V. The covenant of grace and redemption, which subsisted between the three divine persons, before all worlds, in behalf of the church and people of

(a) Art. 17. Service.

(b) Hom. for Whitsunday, p. 1 (c) Daily (d) Funeral Office. (e) Collect for All-Saint's Day. (f) 2 Thess. ii. 13. (g) Art. 17.

God, held a distinguished place in that scheme of doctrine preached by the Lord from heaven. He termed his precious blood, the blood of the new covenant (a): because he shed it in consequence of his own voluntary stipulation with the Father and the Spirit. He told his disciples, I covenant a kingdom unto you, as my Father covenanted unto me (b). A little before his last sufferings, he said, Father, the hour is come. (c): the tremendous, the important hour, agreed and fixed upon, when the counsel of peace was between us both. I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do (d); and which I promised to execute, when I entered into covenant with thee for the salvation of lost sinners. One of the last words he uttered on the cross, was, It is finished (e): I have accomplished all my fœderal engagements, and completed the designs of grace, for which the Lord God and his Spirit sent me (f) into the world.

Nor does our excellent establishment lose sight of this momentous article. She makes express mention of God's" counsel secret to us (g)." She declares, that Christ "took upon him, or engaged and stipulated, "to deliver man (h)." She directs give most humble and hearty thanks to God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, for the redemption of the world by the death of

us to "

(a) Called "The New Covenant," not in respect of its date (for it is truly and properly eternal), but with respect to the revelation of it to Adam. The covenant of grace, made with Christ before all worlds (Gal. iii. 16. 2 Tim. i. 9. Tit. i. 2.) was not discovered and made known to our first parents, until after they had broken the covenant of works; which latter, being first revealed, is therefore styled The Old Covenant. Adverting to which important distinction, ì. e. with a view (not to the manifestation but) to the real date of the covenant of redemption, the apostle terms the blood of Christ, the blood of the everlasting covenant. Heb. xiii. 20. καθως διεθελο, Luke xxii. 29.

(6) Διατίθεμαι (d) Ib. xvii. 4. (g) Art. 17.

(e) Ib. xix. 30.

(h) Te Deum.

(c) John xvii 1. (f) Isa. xlviii. 16.