distinctly to acknowledge the Three Persons of the Godhead ; and to pray, that " the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, may be with them V]
But this distinction of Persons in the Godhead will more clearly appear, by considering,
II. The particular offices which they severally sustain in the economy of redemption —
God the Father is the fountain from whom the whole of salvation proceeds —
[It is he who " sends his Son," and " delivers him up for us all." It is he, also, who " sends the Holy Spirit," to apply to our souls the benefits which Christ has purchased for us. On this part of our subject it is unnecessary to enlarge, be- cause respecting it we are all agreed.]
The Lord Jesus Christ has come to procure salva- tion for us —
[As Mediator, God and man, he was the Father's ser- vant1, sent to effect for us this great salvation. In under- taking the work, he voluntarily engaged to redeem us ; saying, " Lo, I come : in the volume of the book it is written of me ; I delight to do thy will, O my God : yea, thy Law is within my heart m." In executing the work, he acted freely through- out, " giving himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice unto God of a sweet-smelling savour" :" yea, on the very cross " he, through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot unto God0." And, as he voluntarily laid down his life for us, so by his own power he resumed itp; and went up to heaven to " intercede for us q," and " to prepare a place for usr," and to administer to us all needful grace s: and in due time he will come again, and take us to himself4, and invest us with crowns and kingdoms like his ownu.]
The Holy Spirit applies to us what the Lord Jesus
has procured —
[As by the Spirit's agency the man Jesus was enabled to execute the whole of his work; so, when the Saviour was gone to heaven, the Spirit descended, to complete the work which Jesus had begun. " He testified of Christ," by the miraculous powers which he imparted to the apostles on the day of Pentecost x.
k 2 Cor. xiii. 14. > Isai. xlii. 1. m Ps. xl. 6—8.
n Eph. v. 2. ° Heb. ix. 14. p John x. 18.
q Heb. vii. 25. r John xiv. 2. s Eph. i. 22, 23.
1 John xiv. 3. u Luke xxii. 29. x John xv. 26.