knowledge of God the Father. 1 Pet i. 2. It is the Father who has bestowed this love upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. 1 John iii. 1. It is he, who, of his own will, has begotten us again, by the word of truth. Pure religion is a thing before God and our Father. Jam. i. 18,-27. This holy Father keeps us through his own name. 1 John xvii. 11. Our faith and hope fixes upon him, who raised up the Lord from the dead. Rom. iv. 24. Grace, mercy, and peace come from him. It is the Father's good pleasure to give us the kingdom. Luke xii. 32.

We have no other word than that of Father, to express his personal honour. To say that he alone is called God, or that he is distinguished by the name Jehovah from the Son and Spirit, will so entangle a great number of scriptures, that we shall be hard put to it, to find either truth or sense in them.-Religion has taken care, in all our homage to him, who bought us with his own blood, to preserve a duty to the Father whom no man has seen, nor can see. The apostle John calls him anti-christ who denies the Father and the Son, 1 John ii. 22, 23, 24, and goes on with his argument, whoever denies the Son, the same has not the Father. They have no separate inter-, est or divided glory. Let that therefore, saith he, abide in you which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning, remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father. 2 John 9. And in his second epistle he repeats what he said

in the first; whoever transgresses and abides not in the doctrine of Christ has not God. He that abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son. Truly our fellowship is with the father, and with his son Jesus Christ. 1 John i. 2.

2. We are also baptized into the name of THE SON, as plainly as that of the Father. Thus Peter exhorted the Jews, repent and be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus; Acts ii. 38. Sometimes it is called the name of the Lord. Acts x. 48. The jailor was to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and then he was baptized. Acts xvi. 21. His communion in those titles that are used to signify the divine nature, you have often heard. He is called the mighty God, the judge of all the earth, the everlasting Father. Isa. ix. 6. This is not to express his personality; but either to show that he thought it no robbery to be equal with God, or to signify that he is the author of eternal life to men and angels. He is Jehovah, the God of Israel, to whom every knee shall bow and every tongue confess.

In this ordinance of baptism we are to consider him two ways. First, as one with the Father in nature and perfection; and, secondly, as distinct from him in character and operation. He is that life who was with the Father, and is manifested to us. 1 John i. 2.

The titles that express this difference are chiefly these two; the Word and the Son of God. The former signifies a nearness of communion, the latter an identity of nature.

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Though each of these names are used among men, yet, in this case, they are as much above all reason and argument as they are above all blessing and praise. For "who hath ascended up into heaven or descended? who hath gathered the winds in his fists? who hath established all the ends of the earth? who hath bound the waters in a garment? what is his name and what is his Son's name, if thou canst tell?" Prov. xxx. 4.

The Father has been pleased to reveal himself, under no other personal name, but what signifies a relation to the Son. The Son indeed goes by the abovementioned two; but when he takes them both, it is to show us, that we must not compare spiritual things with carnal. We are not to think, as we speak, after the manner of men. A word is nearer to us than a son. It is either a principle within us, or the voice that is uttered by us. It is what we either have or do from ourselves; but it can never be a person. It is only our own. The most intimate friend has nothing to do with it. On the other hand, a son must be a person as distinct from us as any other man in the world; no nearness of relation hinders a separate subsistence.

These two names can never meet in a creature. It would be ridiculous to call a word a son, for it is not substantial enough. As absurd would it be to call a son a word, because he is too substantial for the name. No mortal ever talked of begetting a word, or of speaking a son. God therefore never designed, in

using this language, that we should confound and entangle it with our own. The very names themselves are wonderful. There is not distinction enough between a man, his word, and his spirit, to be called three; and yet there is too much distinction between a father and a son to have them called one in person. If Christ had never gone by another name than that of the Word, we should not have imagined his distinction from the Father; and if he had never been called any thing but a Son, that name would not have signified, the intimate, inseparable, and eternal union, which he has with him. But when he is said to be the Word of God, it shows us that he has his nature; and when he is said to be his Son, it declares that nature under a personal distinction.

To this Son, this Word, are we resigned in baptism. We consider him as that Sovereign whose name is called upon us. We desire to be known in our relation to him, and declare the same homage to him, that we do to the Father, for these reasons,

1. This Son has made us; and therefore in baptism we only take our share in that universal duty, that he demands from the whole action. Why do we worship and bow down before the Lord; but because he is our maker. We are the work of his hands, and the sheep of his pasture? Ps. xcv. 6, 7. This is said of Christ, if the Apostle has understood David right. Take heed, says he, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God, Heb. iii. 12. 14. for we are made partakers of Christ.

Of this homage, baptism is both an entrance, and an earnest. We read that the Gentiles turned from dead idols, to serve the living and true God. How did this appear? The first evidence they gave of it to the world, was their baptism. I. Thess. i. 9. The argument to turn them from their idols was this; that they were now bowing to Gods who never made them, whose offspring they were not; and, that pure religion called for their duty to Him, in whom we live and move and have our being. And it would have been in vain for the apostle, to persuade their taking upon. them the name of the only true God, if that name was given to any person who is not God.

This is an article of mere revelation. Though the light of nature might tell them there was one supreme cause, who by the things that are made, had given proofs of his eternal power and Godhead; Rom. i. 22. yet could that ever tell them of the Son of God, and that all things were made by him? Heb. i. S. John i. 3. Would this ever have let them know, that there was a plurality of persons in the divine nature, or have attributed the frame of the Universe, to any more than one? And yet

This is the plain language of the Bible; that by Christ Jesus all things were created, whether in heaven or in earth, visible and invisible, thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers; all things were created by him, and for him. Col. i. 16. Therefore, when this doctrine of the scripture was to be overthrown, it was the safest way to write an appeal, not to a Jew or