bave called them.* Once more. The Holy Ghost is indiscriminately called the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of Chrift; and the Gospel of God and the Gospel of Christ are terms equivalent; and the Apoftles are sometimes ftiled fervants of God, and fometimes fervants of fefus Chrift; and the Holy Ghost is faid to make overfeers over the flock; as God the Fa ther hath fet fome in the Church, firft Apostles, &c; and as the Son gave fome, Apostles; and fome, Prophets, &c. And, laftly, the very terms of our falvation are reciprocated. St. Paul teftified to Jews and Greeks repentance towards God, and faith toward our Lord Jefus Christ; and among the principles of the doctrine of Chrift, the Apostle reckons repentance from dead works, and faith towards God. Our Saviour fays in one place, he that believeth on. the Son bath everlasting life; and in another place, be that believeth on him that fent him bath everlasting life. The general scripture doctrine is, that we are faved by the mercy of God through the merits of our Redeemer; *Acts xiii. 2. + Acts xx. 21. D 3 and and yet our falvation is fometimes afcribed abfolutely to the mercy, or grace of Jefus Chrift. Thus St. Peter declares his and his brethren's belief, that both Jews and Gentiles Shall be faved through the grace of the Lord Jefus Christ;* and St. Jude exhorts Chriftians to keep themselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jefus Chrift unto eternal life. To all this we may add, that the title of Lord, (which is one unqueftionable character of fupremacy,) is common to the three Perfons in the Holy Trinity; to the fecond it is applied as well as to the first in places almost numberless; and to the third beyond all doubt in the following: the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and inte the patient waiting for Chrift; § now God himfelf, and our Father, (where, by the way, the word-HIMSELF does not appear to be more emphatical than in the text fometime fince cited,) and our Lord Jefus Chrift direct our way unto you; and the Lord make you to increase, and abound in love one towards another, &c; to the end he may ftablish your * A&ts xv. 11. † Jude 21. bearts bearts unblameable in bolinefs before God, at the coming of our Lord Jefus Chrift.* For that by the Lord in these texts we are to 'understand the Holy Ghost, is, I apprehend, demonstrable from these two confiderations; firft, because it is his peculiar office to direct the heart, to make us to increase in love, and to fiablish our hearts unblameable in holiness; and secondly, because, according to any other conftruction, we shall at beft make but very indifferent sense of either of these paffages. From this inverfion then and reciprocation, of which we have produced fuch a number of inftances, the Divinity of each Perfon in the Trinity may reasonably be inferred; especially as the fenfe of many at least of the texts I have produced is obvious, and altogether uncontrovertible. Again; this great point is evincible from the neceffary sense, or natural import of certain paffages. Let us turn to a few of the most remarkable. Li The fin against the Holy Ghoft is pronounced by our bleffed Lord himself to be of all fins the most damnable." I fay unto you, all manner of fin and blafphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the blafphemy against the Holy Ghoft fhall not be forgiven unto men. And whofoever Speaketh a word against the Son of Man it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever speaketh againft the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come. Now without staying to inquire here into the precife nature of this fin, or how far it may be abfolutely incapable of remif'fion, or in what fenfe our Saviour's audience understood him, or he meant to be underfood, it will be fufficient for our purpose to remark, that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity in general, and particularly of the perfonal existence, and coequal divinity of the Holy Ghost with that of the Father, and of the Son, is plainly and truly though covertly comprehended in the above texts, and in their parallels in the other Evangelifts. For otherwise we shall be unavoidably driven into * Matt, xii. 31. the the following abfurd and execrable conclufions, viz. that the highest degree of impiety and profaneness against God the Father is a mere venial fin; and that a blafphemy, or a fin, a fin, humanly speaking at least, without hope, or poffibility of pardon, may be committed against a Being less than the fupreme God; and even against a kind of spiritual chimera, a motion, a virtue, a quality, or an operation. Again. As touching brotherly love, fays St. Paul, ye need not that I write unto you; for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another.* Now that by him who in this place is abfolutely styled God, we are to understand Jefus Chrift, I have little or no difficulty to pronounce, for the two following reasons ; first, because, though we may very properly be faid to be taught of God, when we are inftructed by the mouth, or by the preaching of his prophets, or apoftles, or others commiffion'd by him, yet the doctrine of univerfal love and charity was more immediately |