Sold by HAMILTON & Co. No. 33, Paternoster-Row; and Pollard, Printer, Exeter. Sold by HAMILTON & Co. No. 33, Paternoster-Row, London; SUBSTANCE of a DISCOURSE, &c. -0 "THERE ARE THREE WHO BEAR RECORD IN HEAVEN, THE FATHER, THE WORD, AND THE HOLY GHOST; AND THESE THREE ARE ONE." 1 JOHN v. 7. WHAT I propose on the present occasion, is to submit to your consideration a plain scriptural statement respecting God. My aim will be, to exhibit to you just what Revelation developes relative to the Divinity. That a God exists, you require no proof. You have proof enough, both in yourselves, and in every existing thing included in the vast circle of the creation. That is to say, you see in the effects produced, a standing demonstration of some universal cause adequate to their production. Conscious of our own existence, and of the real entity of all the objects with which we are encompassed, we seem to feel equally conscious of possessing an existence which is not self-originated, but which is derived from some superior Being, and dependent on him for its continuance. We entertain the same opinion of all other things; namely, that they are none of them self-existent, but that they are all indebted for their origin to some great Eternal, whose power is without limit, and whose understanding is infinite, as his being is without date. This opinion the Scripture countenances, when it declares the heathen to be without excuse, because they did not retain God in their knowledge, notwithstanding that "the invisible features" of the Divinity were developed in the creation of the world; even his Eternity, Power, and Godhead.* But whilst we confess his existence, what God is we know not. He dwells in light inaccessible. He himself is light, and in him is no darkness at all. But he is light of such a splendour as puts our eyes out. When we would investigate the Deity, it is as though we would rush into the bosom of the sun, and penetrate to the centre of that orb of fire. Our mercy is, to be satisfied at a distance, and through the medium of the atmosphere encircling our globe, with the solar rays, which impart to us their light and heat. It is likewise our mercy to contemplate God through the medium of his word. A somewhat of him is legible in the book of nature; we there read his wisdom, goodness, and power. But we must shut up that volume, and fasten the eye of faith on the more luminous page of inspiration, in order to arrive at a satisfactory knowledge of the true God. A brute might as well undertake to give a description of man, as for a man to pretend to describe God. The attempt always betrays his folly. The world by its wisdom never knew God. The brightest display of its wisdom was the confession of its ignorance, when, in the centre of science and on the favourite spot consecrated for ages to philosophy, it erected an altar to "the unknown God". Him, whom the Gen* Romans, i. 19-21 |