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be taught it. To fuch then I would fuggeft the propriety at least, if not the safety, of listening to their own Pastors, in preference to Strangers. In spite of any fneers of the Diffenters, I fcruple not to affirm, that to our charge is the care of their fouls committed by the Bishop; and if we teach them untruths, we shall have it to answer for at the dreadful day of Judgement, while they fhall ftand acquitted on the fcore of their ignorance. God forbid that the poor unletter'd Papift should be condemn'd for that Idolatry which he knows not to be fuch, and which his Priests daily inculcate. I grant indeed that the Sectaries fpare not to infinuate how much better men and better Christians themselves are than the Ministers of the Church; but judge of them by their works: remember the Parable of the Pharifee and the Pub and know that boafting is no proof of ex. cellence.

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How, or in what manner the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost can each be God, and yet not three Gods, but one God, is equally unknown to the most learned Divine, as to the most ignorant labourer. We deduce this doctrine from Scripture, which Scripture we know to be the word of God; which God we know cannot lie. Therefore we impli

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implicitly believe it ourselves; and therefore as induty bound, we prefs the fame implicit belief on you. That fuch is the declaration of God in Scripture, you can but have our word: that fuch is not the declaration of God in Scripture, you can but have their word. Their appeals to reason are ridiculous: the doctrine being infinitely above reason. Still more ridiculous are their fuggestions of the folly of believing what we can not comprehend. Alas! it is no more than we are oblig'd to do every day. We know that we have a foul, and we know that we have a body. We know farther that the union of foul and body conftitutes a living man; and that their feparation from each other leaves only a dead carcafe. But how are these two join'd? how are they parted? when did the foul first enter the body? how does it act upon it? why can not the body even fubfift without the foul, but on being depriv'd thereof immediately tends first to putrefaction, and then to diffolution into it's original duft? To thefe, and a thousand more fuch questions, the answer of the wife man and the fool is the fame,-We can not tell. Nor can we tell of the Trinity how it is, but barely that it is. But if any among the unlearned of my flock fhall be unwarily feduc'd to hearken to the infidious infinuations fo zealously inftill'd by our opponents,

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and rather take the word of a Sectary than that of their proper Paftor, I would advise all fuch inftantly to quit the Church for the Meeting-house fince I fee not how they can with a clear confcience, and without idolatry, join with us in humble fupplication to the holy, bleffed, and glorious Trinity, three Perfons, and One God, to have mercy upon us miferable finners.

Thus much being premis'd, I now come to the main drift of this difcourfe; which is, to fuggest some few methods whereby the plain reader of the Bible may, as I apprehend, obtain full fatisfaction for himself on this contefted point. Acquir'd learning, critical skill, knowledge of the original languages, are not here demanded: all I afk is common sense, freedom from prejudice, a pious difpofition, and a fincere heart. Of thefe, if common sense be wanting, all reasoning must be nugatory; if prejudice prevail, the jaundic'd eye fees every object of it's own colour; without a pious difpofition, the Bible has little chance to be read at all, ftill lefs to be read with due attention; and without a fincere heart, it will moft probably be read as it is by the modern fceptical Atheists, ufurping and difgracing the title of Philofophers; who read it with the fole view of ridiculing and picking holes in it. To fuch

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then as would wish to fatisfy themselves whether the doctrine of the Trinity be really fcriptural, or not, without pinning their faith on Creeds, Churches, or Preachers, it can not but be seasonable, nay it is a duty incumbent on the Chriftian Minister to give every affistance in his power. And this is what I now purpose to attempt.

First then, whoever confults the facred volume with a view of regulating his faith, as well as his practice, must remember that he is to take his faith from the Bible, not to bring his faith to it. If he have already form'd a preconceiv'd opinion, and fhould meet with any text which feems to militate against that opinion, he will find himself tempted to twift and torture that text till he can bring it to a feeming conformity; nay probably, for it often has been done, will fooner give up the text than the opinion. To avoid this abfurdity, I would recommend to the pious and humble reader, to take all fcriptural expreffions in the plain sense fuggested by the words themselves at firft view, in their most obvious acceptation. On perufing the Gospels, he will find that they contain a narrative of the life and death of a man, whose name was Jefus, a man, born of a woman, and as fuch, of few days, and fullof trouble that He taught a new religion and was

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put to death for fo doing. All this might have been competent to any other man. But he will find many circumftances recorded of this man, which could not be competent to any other man. His birth, as well as the time and place of it, had been foretold many ages previous to the event; his name was fix'd by an Angel before He was conceived in the womb; his conception was miraculous, his Mother being a pure Virgin, impregnated by the Holy Ghoft; or as Saint Luke expreffes it, overshadow'd by the power of the Highest; and therefore, fays the Angel to Mary, therefore that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. As the reader advances, he will perceive the whole complection of his life in full confiftency with the wonders of his birth; that He fpake as never man fpake, and did the works which no other man did. Attend Him to the cross; there behold Him bleed, and expire; thence fee his lifeless body convey'd to Jofeph's tomb. Here will the reader paufe. This man, he will fay, was certainly a moft extraordinary Character, and every thing hitherto has bespoke the Son of God; but now I fee He could be no more than Man; for alass! the common fate of mortality has arrested Him: there he lies, dead, and buried. Such feem to have been the fentiments of his own disciples, even of

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