It is highly probable, that if God should please to reveal unto us this great mystery of the Trinity, or some other mysteries in our holy religion, we should not be able to understand them, unless he would at the same time think fit to bestow on us some new powers or faculties of the mind, which we want at present, and are reserved till the day of resurrection to life eternal.  “For now,” as the apostle says, “we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face.”

Thus, we see, the matter is brought to this issue:  We must either believe what God directly commands us in Holy Scripture, or we must wholly reject the Scripture, and the Christian religion which we pretend to profess.  But this, I hope, is too desperate a step for any of us to make.

I have already observed, that those who preach up the belief of the Trinity, or of any other mystery, cannot propose any temporal advantage to themselves by so doing.  But this is not the case of those who oppose these doctrines.  Do they lead better moral lives than a good Christian?  Are they more just in their dealings? more chaste, or temperate, or charitable?  Nothing at all of this; but on the contrary, their intent is to overthrow all religion, that they may gratify their vices without any reproach from the world, or their own conscience:  and are zealous to bring over as many others as they can to their own opinions; because it is some kind of imaginary comfort to have a multitude on their side.

There is no miracle mentioned in Holy Writ, which, if it were strictly examined, is not as much, contrary to common reason, and as much a mystery, as this doctrine of the Trinity; and therefore we may, with equal justice deny the truth of them all.  For instance:  It is against the laws of nature, that a human body should be able to walk upon the water, as St Peter is recorded to have done; or that a dead carcass should be raised from the grave after three days, when it began to be corrupted; which those who understand anatomy will pronounce to be impossible by the common rules of nature and reason.  Yet these miracles, and many others, are positively affirmed in the Gospel; and these we must believe, or give up our holy religion to atheists and infidels.

I shall now make a few inferences and observations upon what has been said.

First:  It would be well, if people would not lay so much weight on their own reason in matters of religion, as to think everything impossible and absurd which they cannot conceive.  How often do we contradict the right rules of reason in the whole course of our lives!  Reason itself is true and just, but the reason of every particular man is weak and wavering, perpetually swayed and turned by his interests, his passions, and his vices.  Let any man but consider, when he hath a controversy with another, although his cause be ever so unjust, although the world be against him, how blinded he is by the love of himself, to believe that right is wrong, and wrong is right, when it maketh for his own advantage.  Where is then the right use of his reason, which he so much boasts of, and which he would blasphemously set up to control the commands of the Almighty?