proper humility that others will not submit their understandings to receive them. Nevertheless our Saviour Christ requires no belief of unintel

some that are supposed master-builders present us with, to edify us in our most holy faith.

"We are now to consider the order of those persons in the Trinity, described in the words before us, Matt. xxviii. 19. First, the Father, and then the Son, and then the Holy Ghost; every one of which is really and truly God; and yet they are all but one real and true God. A mystery which we are all bound to believe, but yet must have a great care how we speak of it; it being both easy and dangerous to mistake in expressing so mysterious a truth as this is. If we think of it, how hard is it to contemplate upon one numerically Divine nature in more than one and the same Divine person? Or, upon Three Divine persons in no more thau One and the same Divine nature? If we speak of it, how hard is it to find out words to express it? If I say, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost be three, and every one distinctly God, it is true: but if I say, they be three, and every one a distinct God, it is false. I may say, the Divine persons are distinct in the Divine nature ; but I cannot say, that the Divine nature is divided into the Divine persons. I may say, God the Father is One God, and the Son is One God, and the Holy Ghost is One God; but I cannot say, that the Father is one God, and the Son another God, and the Holy Ghost a third God. I may say the Father begat another who is God; yet I cannot say, that he begat another God. And from the Father and the Son proceedeth another who is God; yet I cannot say, from the Father and the Son proceedeth another God. For all this while, though their nature be the same, their persons are distinct; and though their persons be distinct, yet still their

ligible, mysterious doctrines, nor commends any faith but that which influences the heart to virtuous practice. "But (to use the words of an author of good account) this pretence of a necessity of humbling the understanding is none of the meanest arts, whereby some persons have invaded and usurped a power over other men's faith and consciences. But he that submitteth his understanding to all that he knows God hath said, and is ready to submit to all that he hath said, if he but know it, denying his own affections, and ends; and interests, and human persuasions, laying them all down at the feet of his great master Jesus Christ, that man hath brought his understanding into subjection, and every proud thought into the obedience of Christ; and this is the ὑπακοη πίσεως, the obedience of faith,

nature is the same. So that though the Father be the first person in the Godhead, the Son the second, the Holy Ghost the third; yet the Father is not the first, the Son a second, the Holy Ghost a third God. So hard a thing is it to word so great a mystery aright; or to fit so high a truth with expressions suitable and proper to it, without going one way or another from it.".

Part ii. pp. 48, 49.

-Bp. Beveridge, Private Thoughts,

When we read such puzzling, unintelligible mystery, and see such mighty stress laid on it, how thankful ought we to be for the good sense and simplicity of the gospel of Jesus which leads us by no such dark and intricate roads to heaven; but as one of his chief apostles speaketh, Acts xx. 21, requireth no more of all men but repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

which is the duty of a Christian."-- Taylor, Liberty of Prophesying, p. 30.

The first Christians saw so far into this great truth, that piety, benevolence and integrity, are the end of the divine commandinent, and of all the various communications of light and knowledge to men, that they readily admitted their virtuous heathen progenitors into the Christian's heaven, to be saved by Christ, though they never heard of his name; as thinking, and thinking rightly, that the grace and mercy of the kind Parent of the universe, revealed by Jesus Christ, would be extended to all those in all times; who had diligently improved, and walked according to the measure of light afforded them.

"Think not," saith Irenæus, "that Christ came for those only who believed on him in the time of Tiberius, or that the Father hath made this merciful provision only for the men that now are it is for all men whatsoever, who have lived from the beginning, and, according to their power, have feared and served God in their generation, and acted righteously and charitably towards their neighbours, and have desired to see Christ and hear his voice." Lib. iv. cap. xxxix.

They that have formerly lived (and they that now live) agreeably to reason, are Christians, and in a secure and quiet state." Justin Martyr, Ap. i. p. 83.

"Therefore before the coming of Christ, philosophy was that which was necessary for salvation to the Greeks"-and then again-" it was their schoolmaster to Christ, as the law was to the Jews." Clem. Alexand. Stro. i. vi.

And Origen, on Romans ii. 10, 11, 12: "This is spoken of the Gentiles, who having no law are a law unto themselves, who shall not lose the reward of their good deeds, in being just and chaste, and governing themselves with prudence, temperance and humility." Vid. Whitby, Diss. Sacr. p. 232.

But as Christians multiplied, and increased in power and wealth, their charity towards those who dissented from them grew less, in relation both to this world and the next; and the mansions of bliss would be thinly peopled, if their anathemas and proscriptions of their fellowcreatures were to be ratified there.

Then first entered among Christians the narrow, unbenevolent doctrine, that none could be saved but those who held exactly the same faith and opinions in all points with themselves. And hence, in following times, each church and sect was nursed up in the contempt and even abhorrence of every other but the one in which they themselves had the good fortune to be born; and hatred and animosities among Christians, dissenting from each other, were made. perpetual. Whereas, it should be the first and

last lesson to young and old, to esteem the vir tuous and the good alike, of every persuasion, and never to think disrespectfully of those who worship their Maker in a way different from themselves, or less favourably of their future state and condition than of their own. For if they be equally sincere in seeking the truth, and living up to it, they will be equally accepted with God; and of their sincerity he alone is the Judge, and not we.

At the first planting of the gospel, before all the apostles of our Lord were gone to their rest, many strange doctrines and errors sprung up among some of their followers. But in a very few years after, such extravagant systems concerning God and the invisible world were grafted on the simple truths they had taught, that the wildest mystics of later times have produced nothing more frantic and absurd. See Dr. Lardner's History of the Heretics of the two first Centuries after Christ. Printed for J. Johnson, St. Paul's Churchyard, 1780.

Irenæus, of whose work we have little more than an old Latin translation remaining, hath written at large against these heresies, as he calls them; and by his labours, and those of others, their contradiction to the Scripture and absurdity, was in some respects so fully exposed, that men grew ashamed of them, and they died mostly away of themselves.