gaged to effect your salvation through grace, love, and communion, and will confirm it: "The Father will perfect it for you, his mercy endureth for ever; he will not forsake the works of his hands," Psalm cxxxviii. 8. The Son will "daily load you with benefits; for this God is our salvation, Selah, this God is a God of perfect salvation to us; and to God the Lord belong the issues from death," Psalm Ixviii. 19, 20. The Holy Ghost is "our God for ever and ever; he will be our guide even uuto death," Psalm xlviii. 14. Rev. xiv. 13. For these reasons we ought to deny all our own works, devices, and contrivances, with respect to this matter, to cast all our care upon him, and depend in a holy manner on him, Psalm xxxviii. 5.

5. Improve each Person distinctly with respect to his special work of grace. Do ye need justification, and all that pertains to it, let the love of the Father be your refuge. Do ye find yourselves empty and destitute of necessary grace, betake yourselves to the Son; for "of his fulness we all receive, and grace for grace," John i. 16. Do ye perceive that ye are estranged from the Lord, have recourse to the Holy Spirit, whose proper work it is to introduce to communion with God, by teaching the soul, by. leading, and bringing her to God, and by comforting her; but beware of ending or resting in the Son or Holy Spirit, but end and rest through them in the Father; for by the Son we have an access through the Spirit unto the Father," Eph. ii. 8. That we may receive all things again of the Father through the Son and Holy Ghost; therefore the Lord Jesus said, xvi. 13, 14, 15. The Spirit of truth will guide you into all truth; for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak; and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me; for he shall receive of mine, and show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine; therefore said I, he shall take of mine, and show it unto you," See also John xiv. 16. 6. Live and converse much in union and communion with the divine Trinity," that your fellowship may be with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ," 1 John i. 3. This was the petition of the Son for you to the Father, John xvii 21. Therefore it behooves you to present the Lord before your eyes, and to "set him always before you," Psalm, xvi. 8, " to follow hard after him," Psalm lxiii. 8, to be near him, and to draw nigh to him," Psalm lxxiii. 28. James iv. 8, yea, "to walk" and converse "with him, and before him," Gen. v. 22, 24, 27.

7. Be also, according to this great pattern, most closely united to one another, and exercise frequently, the communion of saints.

How greatly did it redound to the glory of the first Christians, that

the multitude of them that believed were of one heart, and of one soul," Acts iv. 32. We must "all be one in the Father and in the Son, as the Father in the Son, and the son in the Father, are one," John xvii 21. “Be like-minded, have the same love, being of one accord, of one mind," Philip. ii. 2 1 Cor. i. 10. "The Lord hath given you all one heart and one way, that ye may fear him," Jer. xxxii. 39. "Therefore endeavour to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, and one baptism. One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all," Eph. iv. 3-6.

8. Behold now also your great portion and possession, since this infinitely glorious God is yours. By your entrance into the proffered covenant of grace, "ye have avouched the Lord to be your God," Deut. xxvi. 17. How great then is your portion! yea, the Lord cannot bestow aught upon you greater or worthier than himself; ye may indeed challenge the world to show you a portion better than yours. See Deut. xxxii. 31. Jer. x. Yea, all that the Lord hath is also yours, 1 Cor. iii. 21, 22, 23. Doth it not please him to communicate much of himself to you at present, ye will hereafter be so much the more filled and satisfied with him for according to Psalm xvii. 15. "Ye shall behold his face in righteousness: ye shall be satisfied, when ye awake, with his likeness,', Amen.

FAITH IN GOD THE FATHER

IX. LORD'S DAY.

Psalm cxlvi. 5, 6. Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God which made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that therein is: which keepeth truth for ever.

Q. 26. What believest thou, when thou sayest, "I believe in God the Father, Almighty Maker of heaven and earth ?”

A. That the eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, (who 'of nothing made heaven and earth, with all that in them is; who likevise upholds and governs the same by his eternal counsel and providence,) is for the sake of Christ his Son, my God, and my Father; on whom I rely so entirely, that I have no doubt but he will provide me with all things necessary for soul and body and further, that he will make whatever evils he sends upon me, in this valley of tears, turn out to my advantage; for he is able to do it, being Almighty God, and willing; being a faithful Father.

GOD,

OD, the Lord, willing to reveal himself unto Moses, as far as his capacity would admit, promiseth him that "he should see his backparts," Exod. xxxiii. 23. Moses had prayed to the Lord to "show him his glory," vrs. 18, wishing to see his face in a posture in which his fore-parts were toward him; but the Lord informs him that no mortal was capable of seeing him thus, "Thou canst not see my face; for there shall no man see me and live; my face shall not be seen," vrs. 23. The Lord was nevertheless too kind to deny him request altogether, but granted it fully, when he said, "Thou

shalt see my back-parts." The Lord God, being a spirit, hath nei. ther fore-parts nor back-parts: but this is a figurative manner of speaking, taken from men, whom we behold in a posture in which their back-parts are toward us, and thus know imperfectly, by their erect and well-formed bodies, their shape and ordinary gait. Thus also the Lord God, who is one in essence and three in Persons, can. not be seen in a posture wherein his fore-parts are toward us, and face to face, but is perceived in a posture wherein his back-parts are toward us. But what are the back-parts of the Lord? in the first place, the divine virtues and perfections, which Moses saw, "when the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth," &c. Exod xxxiv. 6 And also the works of the Lord which are, as it were, his gait, and goings, particularly in the sanctuary, Psalm lxviii. 24. The Lord reveals himself by his works even to the heathens: "For his invisible things from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead," Rom. i. 20. This wa sufficient indeed to render them inexcusable, but it could not conduct them to salvation: it taught them indeed the eternal power and Godhead of God, but not the manner in which the sinner must be reconciled to him: God is not only one in essence, but also three in Persons: we must also know him as such, if we shall be saved: "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, i and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent," saith the Saviour, John xvii. H 3. But who is able to behold this in a posture in which the fore-parts of it are toward him? no mortal; he becomes blind, when he gazes at this sun: he must therefore endeavour to survey this God in a posture wherein his back-parts are toward him, to wit, in the saving operations of the three Persons. It hath indeed seemed good to the divine Persons to contrive unitedly a council of grace, and that each Person should contribute his part, in order to effect the salvation of the sinner: the Father should love the sinner with a saving love, the Son should purchase grace, and the Holy Ghost should render the sinner a partaker of the love of the Father, and the grace of the Son. This Paul teacheth us, 2 Cor. xiii. 13. Therefore the catechism proposing to exhibit God to us as Triune, discovers him to us in a posture, wherein his back-parts are toward us, to wit, by his works in the division of the articles of the creed, speaking in the eighth Lord's day, of God the Father and our creation, of God the Son and our redemption, and of God the Holy Ghost, and our sanctification. This being thus briefly proposed, each Person is exhibited

to us with respect to his particular works in order. Since now the Father is the first in the order of subsistence and working, therefore faith in God the Father, Almighty Maker of heaven and earth, is first treated of.

Two particulars require our further consideration here:

1. The object of the Christian's regard, "God the Father, Almighty Maker of heaven and earth."

II. The Christian's believing exercise, relative to that object, "I believe."

I. When mention is made here of God the Father, Almighty Maker, &c. it is evident, that this relates not to God considered essen tially, but personally and indeed to the first Person, whose personal property it is, that he is the Father, as will appear more fully hereafter; and therefore he is distinguished here from the Son, the Redeemer, and from the Holy Ghost, the Sanctifier. Wherefore we shall inquire, 1, why he is called "God," 2, why "Father," and 5, why "Almighty Maker."

It is known that the Father is called God more frequently than the Son, and the Holy Ghost. We see this John xvii. S. "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." See also Rom. iii. 25. 1 Cor. xiii. 13. Gal. iv. 6. This is a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence to the Socinians, as though the Father were God rather than the Son and the Holy Ghost, while nevertheless the Son and the Holy Ghost are God coessential with the Father. But this mystery contains another, to wit, that the Father, according to the distribution of the work of grace among the divine Persons, undertook to display in his Person the majesty of the Godhead, and to reveal it in its glory, as the Son undertook to make himself of no reputation, and the Holy Ghost to act as the ambassadour of the Father and of the Son. See John vi. 13, 14, 15. For this reason he is to be considered as the first cause of all things: "We have but one God, the Father, of whom are all things," 1 Cor. viii. 6, as the all-sufficient, "who is able to make all grace abound," 2 Cor. ix. 8, whose also the wisdom, to contrive a way of reconciliation, 1 Cor. i. 24, the holiness to reveal it in purity, to the salvation of sinners, John xvii. 11, the justice to avenge himself of sin, and to forgive it, Rom. lii. 25, 26, the love for the manifestation of all grace, 2 Cor. xiii. 13. Yea, the Father is considered as the end, to whose praise we must refer the whole work of grace, Rom. xi. 33-36. Therefore the favoured people of God must not end in the Son and Holy Ghost, but must, through them end in the Father, with all their exercises Ee