she took; she fell down speechless immediately, and died in the place. A liar is not fit to live in a commonwealth. Lying takes away all society and converse with men; how can you converse with him whom you cannot believe what he saith? Lying shuts men out of heaven, Rev. xxii. 15, “Without are dogs, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie." And as it is a great sin to tell a lie, so it is a worse sin to teach a lie, Isa. ix. 15, "The prophet that teacheth lies." He who broacheth error teacheth lies; he spreads the plague; he not only damns himself, but helps" Ephraim compasseth me about with lies." to damn others. (2). Truth in words is opposed to dissembling. The heart and tongue should go together, as the dial goes exactly with the sun. To speak fair to one's face, and not to mean what one speaks, is no bet-blasphemy, Rev. ii. 9, "I know the blaster than a lie: Ps. lv. 21, "The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart." Some have an art at this, they can flatter and hate. Hierom, speaking of the Arians, saith, "they pretended friendship, they kissed my hands, but plotted mischief against me." Prov. xxix. 5, "A man that flattereth his neighbour, spreadeth a net for his feet." Impia subdulci melle venena latent,—falsehood in friendship is a lie. Counterfeiting of friendship is worse

than counterfeiting of money. This is contrary to God who is a God of truth.

2. We must be true in our profession of religion. Let practice go along with profession, Eph. iv. 24, "Righteousness and true holiness." Hypocrisy in religion is a lie; the hypocrite is like a face in a glass, there is the show of a face, but no true face, so he makes show of holiness, but hath no truth of it, it is but the face in the glass. Ephraim pretended to be that which he was not; and what saith God of him? Hos. xi. 12,

By a lie in our words we deny the truth; by a lie in our profession we disgrace it. Not to be what we profess to God, is telling a lie; and the scripture makes it little better than

phemy of them that say they are Jews, and are not." O! I beseech you, labour in this to be like God; he is a God of truth; he can as well part with his Deity as his verity; be, I say, like God, be true in your words, be true in your profession; God's children are children that will not lie, Ps. li. 6. When God sees "Truth in the inward parts," and "lips in which is no guile," now he sees his own image in you; this draws God's heart towards you; likeness draws love.

BUT ONE GOD.

QUEST. V. THE fifth question is, Are

there more Gods than one?

ANs. There is but one only, the living and

true God.

are called 'gods,' Ps. lxxxii. 6, "I have said, ye are gods," viz. set in God's place to do justice; but dying gods, v. 7, " Ye shall die like men." 1 Cor. viii. 5, 6, "There be that are called gods;" "but to us there is but one God."

Argument 1. There is but one First Cause that hath its being of itself, and on which all other beings depend. As in the heavens, the primum mobile moves all the other orbs, so God gives life and motion to every thing existent. There can be but one God, because there is but one First Cause.

That there is a God hath been proved; and those that will not believe the verity of his essence, shall feel the severity of his wrath, Deut. vi. 4, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord." He is the only God,' Deut. iv. 39, "Know therefore this day, and consider it in thy heart, that the Lord he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath, there is none else." Isa. xlv. 21, "A just God and a Saviour; there is none 2. There is but one infinite Being, therebesides me." There are many titular gods; fore there is but one God. There cannot be kings represent God; their regal sceptre is an two infinites: Jer. xxiii. 24, "Do not I fill emblem of his power and authority. Judges heaven and earth," saith the Lord? If there

K

please God. There is but one God, therefore there is but One whom we have chiefly to please, namely, God.

make a god of pleasure, 2 Tim. iii. 4, "Lovers of pleasure, more than lovers of God." Whatever we love more than God, we make a god. -2. Others make money their god; the covetous man worships the image of gold, therefore he is called an idolater, Eph. v. 5. That which a man trusts to, he makes his god; but he makes the wedge of gold his hope, he makes money his creator, redeemer and comforter. It is his creator,-if he hath money, then he thinks he is made; it is his redeemer,-if he be in danger, he trusts in his money to redeem him out; it is his comforter,-if at any time he be sad, the golden harp drives away the evil spirit; so that money is his god. God made man of the dust of the earth, and man makes a god of the dust of the earth.-3. Another makes a god of his child, sets his child in God's room, and so provokes God to take it away. If you lean too hard upon a glass, it will break; many break their children by leaning too

A. 4. If there be but one God, then we must pray to none but God. The Papists pray to saints and angels: 1. To saints. A Popish writer saith, "when we pray to the saints departed, they being touched with compassion, say the like to God for us, as the disciples did to Christ for the Canaanitish woman, Matt. xv. 23, 'Send her away, for she crieth after us.'" The saints above know not our wants, Isa. lxiii. 16, Abraham is ignorant of us; or, if they did, we have no warrant to pray to them. Prayer is a part of divine worship, which must only be given to God. 2. They pray to angels. Angelworship is forbidden, Col. ii. 18, 19; and that we may not pray to angels, is clear from Rom. x. 14, "How shall they call then on him in whom they have not believed?" We may not pray to any but whom we may believe in; but we may not believe in any an-hard upon them.-4. Others make a god of gel, therefore we may not pray to him. There is but one God, and it is a sin to invoke any but only God.

their belly, Phil. iii. 19, "Whose god is their belly." Clemens Alexandrinus writes of a fish that hath its heart in its belly,—an emA. 5. If there be but one God, who is blem of epicures, their heart is in their belly, 'above all,' Eph. iv. 6, then he must be they mind nothing but indulging the sensual loved above all. 1. We must love him with appetite; they do sacrificari lari,—their a love of appreciation; set the highest esti- belly is their god, and to this they pour mate on him, who is the only fountain of drink-offerings. Thus men make many gods. being and bliss.-2. We must love him with The apostle names the wicked man's trinity, a love of complacency: amor est compla-1 John ii. 16, "The lust of the flesh, the lust centia amantis is amato, ACQUIN. Our love of the eye, and the pride of life;" the lust of to other things must be more indifferent; the flesh,-pleasure; the lust of the eye,— some drops of love may run beside to the money; pride of life,-honour. O take heed creature, but the full stream must run to- of this! Whatever you deify besides God, wards God; the creature may have the milk will prove a bramble; and fire will come out of our love, but we must keep the cream of of this bramble and devour you, Judg. ix. 15. our love for God; God who is above all, must be loved above all, Ps. lxxiii. 25, “There is none upon earth that I desire besides thee." Use 2. Of caution. If there be but one God, then let us take heed of setting up more gods than one: Ps. xvi. 4, "Their sorrows shall be multiplied, that hasten after another God; their drink-offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips." God is a jealous God, and he will not endure that we should have other gods. It is easy to commit idolatry with the creature: 1. Some

Use 3. Of reproof. If the Lord Jehovah be the only true God, then it reproves those who renounce the true God, I mean, such as seek to familiar spirits. This is too much practised among them that call themselves Christians. It is a sin condemned by the law of God, Deut. xviii. 10, 11, "There shall not be found among you any one that consults with familiar spirits." How ordinary is this? If people have lost any of their goods, they send to wizards to know how they may come by their goods again.

What is this but consulting with the devil? | good and how pleasant a thing it is, for bre

And so you renounce God and your baptism? What! because you have lost your goods, will you lose your souls too? 2 Kings i. 6, "Thus saith the Lord, is it not because there is not a God in Israel, that thou sendest to inquire of Beelzebub?" So, is it not because you think there is not a God in heaven, that ye ask counsel of the devil? If any here be guilty, be deeply humbled, ye have renounced the true God; better be without the goods ye have lost than have the devil help you to them again.

thren to dwell together in unity!" It is as the sweet dew on Hermon, and the fragrant ointment poured on Aaron's head. If God be one, let all that profess him be of one mind, and one heart; this fulfils Christ's prayer, "that they all may be one.”—2. If there be but one God, let us labour to clear the title, that this God is ours, Ps. xlviii. 14, "This God is our God." What comfort can it be to hear that there is a God, and that he is the only God, unless he be our God? What is Deity without property? O let us labour to clear the title! Beg the Holy Spirit; the Spirit works by faith; by faith we are one with Christ, and through Christ we come to have God for our God, and so all his glorious fulness is made over to us by a deed of gift.

Use 4. Of exhortation. If there be but one God, as God is one, so let them that serve him be one. This is what Christ prayed so heartily for, John xvii. 21, "That they all may be one." Christians should be one, 1. In judgment; the apostle exhorts to be all of one mind, 1 Cor. i. 18. How sad Use 5. What cause have we to be thankis it to see religion wearing a coat of divers ful, that we have the knowledge of the only colours; to see Christians of so many opi- true God? How many are brought up in nions, and going so many different ways? It blindness? Some worship Mahomet; divers is Satan hath sown these tares of division, of the Indians worship the devil; they light Matt. xiii. 39. He first divided men from a candle to him, that he should not hurt God, and now divides one man from another. them. Such as know not the true God must -2. One in affection. They should have needs stumble into hell in the dark. O be one heart, Acts iv. 32, "The multitude of thankful that we are born in such a land, them that believed, were of one heart, and where the light of the gospel hath shined! of one soul." As in music, though there be To have the knowledge of the true God, is several strings of a viol, yet all make one more than if we had mines of gold, rocks of sweet harmony: so, though there are several diamonds, islands of spices; especially if God Christians, yet there should be one sweet hath savingly revealed himself to us,—if he harmony of affection among them. There hath given us eyes to see the light,—if we so is but one God, and they that serve him know God as to be known of him, as to love should be one. There is nothing would ren- him, and believe in him: Matt. xi. 25, we der the true religion more lovely, or make can never be enough thankful to God, that he more proselytes to it, than to see the pro- hath hid the knowledge of himself from the fessors of it tied together with the heart-wise and prudent of the world, and hath restrings of love, Ps. cxxxiii. 1, “Behold how vealed it unto us.

OF THE TRINITY.

QUEST. IV. How many persons are there in the Godhead?

ANS. Three persons, yet but one God. 1 John v. 7, "There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one."

God is but one, yet are there three distinct persons subsisting in one Godhead. This is a sacred mystery which the light within could never have discovered. As the two natures in Christ, yet but one person, is a wonder: so three persons, yet but one

or ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled; before the hills, was I brought forth." Which scripture declares the eternal generation of the Son of God. This second person in the Trinity, who is Jehovah, is become our Jesus. The

Godhead. I am in a great deep: the Father God, the Son God,-the Holy Ghost God, -yet not three Gods, but one God. The three persons in the blessed Trinity are distinguished, but not divided; three substances, but one essence. This is a divine riddle, where one make three, and three make but one. Our narrow thoughts can no more comprehend the Trinity in Unity, than a lit-scripture calls him the branch of David, Jer. tle nut-shell will hold all the water in the sea. Let me shadow it out by this similitude: in the body of the sun, there is the substance of the sun, the beams, and the heat; the beams are begotten of the sun, the heat proceeds both from the sun and the beams; but these three, though different, are not divided; they all three make one sun: so in the blessed Trinity, the Son is begotten of the Father, the Holy Ghost proceeds from both; yet though they are three distinct persons, yet but one God. First, let me speak of the Unity in Trinity; then of the Trinity in Unity.

xxiii. 5, and I may call him the flower of the virgin having assumed our nature. "By him all that believe are justified," Acts xiii. 39.

I. Of the Unity in Trinity. The Unity of the persons in the Godhead consists in two things:

3. The third person in the Trinity, is the Holy Ghost who proceeds from the Father and the Son; his work is to illuminate the mind, and enkindle sacred motions. The essence of the Spirit is in heaven, and every where; but the influence of it is in the hearts of believers: This is that blessed Spirit who gives us the holy unction, 1 John ii. 20. Though Christ merits grace for us, it is the Holy Ghost works it in us: Though Christ makes the purchase, it is the Holy Ghost makes the assurance, and seals us up to the day of redemption. Thus I have spoken of all the three persons. The Trinity of per1. The identity of essence. In the Trinity sons may be proved out of Matt. iii. 16, there is a oneness in essence: the three per- "Jesus, when he was baptized, went up sons are of the same divine nature and sub- straightway out of the water, and he saw the stance; so that in Deo non est magis et Spirit of God descending like a dove, and minus, there are no degrees in the God-lighting upon him; and lo, a voice from heahead; one person is not God more than ven, saying, This is my beloved Son." Here another. are three names given to the three persons. He who spake with a voice from heaven, was God the Father; he who was baptized in Jordan, was God the Son; he who descended in the likeness of a dove, was God the Holy Ghost. Thus I have shown you the unity of essence, and the Trinity of persons.

2. The Unity of the persons in the Godhead consists in the mutual in-being of them, or their being in one together. The three persons are so united that one person is in another, and with another: John xvii. 21, "Thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee."

II. Let me speak of the Trinity in Unity. 1. The first person in the Trinity is God the Father: he is called the first person, in respect of order, not dignity: for God the Father hath no essential perfection which the other persons have not; he is not more wise, more holy, more powerful, than the other persons are; a priority, not a superiority.

2. The second person in the Trinity is Jesus Christ, who is begotten of the Father before all time, Prov. viii. 23, 24, 25, "I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning,

Use 1. It confutes the Jews and the Turks, who believe only the first person in the Godhead. This cuts asunder the sinews of our comfort. Take away the distinction of the persons in the Trinity, and you overthrow man's redemption; for God the Father being offended with man for sin, how shall he be pacified without a mediator? This mediator is Christ, he makes our peace. And Christ having died, and shed his blood, how shall this blood be applied, but by the Holy Ghost? Therefore, if there be not three persons in