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THE
bOCTRINE
O'r THE
TRINITY,
['SEEM.
%LIP.
Thus
I
have
finished
the
second general head
of
dis-
course,
and
shewn
that
these
are the glorious
and divine
methods, whereby, such guilty and sinful
creatures,
as
we,
have
access to
God
the
Father:
This
is
the
mediation
of
his Son
Jesus
Christ,
who
procures peace and reconci
.
liation
for
us
:
and
these are the inward
-and
powerful
operations
of
his
Holy
Spirit, whereby our
hearts
are
re-
conciled
to
God, and trained
up
to
a fitness
for
his
hea-
venly presence.
In
that
presence there
isa
divine ful-
ness
of joy,
and
at
his
right
-hand
are pleasures
for
ever-
more;"
Ys. cvi.
1I.
The
third general
head,
contained
in
my
text,
is
the
union
of
all
nations
in
this
last and best
of
religions,
which
God'
ever taught
the
children
of
men:
Both
Jews
and
gentiles have access
to
the
Father
in
this
way,
that
is,
through
this one
Mediator,
and
,by
one Spirit.
From the
first
apostacy
of
Adam, till the days
of
Abraham,
all
the forms and instituted
ordinances
of re-
ligion,
which
were
given to men, were
designed
as
a ge-
neral instruction
for
all
the
nations
of
the
earth,
to
shew
them,
in
what- manner,
such
guilty
and
sinful
creatures
might hàve access to God, and
find
acceptance
with him.
And these
forms and
ordinances,'
which
were
of
such infi-
nite
importance, should
have
been
preserved
alive,
by-
'constant tradition,
amongst
all mankind.
Whatsoever
divine instructions God
gave to Adam
and Noah,
were
the appointed
methods
of,
worship and access
to
God
for
all
their
posterity,
that
is,
for
all
the
world,
till
God
should reveal
some new
methods
to
them
:
for
each
of
those
two
patriarchs
were the
fathers
of
all mankind
;
one
before,
and
the
other after
the
flood.
But when
Gad
called Abraham, he
favoured hire,'
and
his household,
with
peculiar privileges,
and
appointed
to
them
new
and peculiar
forms
of
worship,
and
access
to
himself. And here began. the
distinction
of
the world
into two
parts
:'
Some were obliged to the religion
of
Abraham,
the
rest
left
to the religion
of
Noah. But
as
most of the
postérity
Of
Nòah
soon
forgot the
true God,.
and degenerated into various
forms
of
idolatry,
so
the
re-
ligion
of
Abraham
was also,
for the most part, lost
among
the
families
of Ishmael and the
sons
of
Keturah,
and
was
chiefly
retained and practised
in
the household
of
Isaac,
.
and
in
the tribes
of
Jacob,-
surnamed
Israel.