My dear Silas,<\/p>\n
I take up my pen to invite your attention to a subject the most exalted and sublime in its nature, and the most important in its relation to the whole scheme of Redemption. The doctrine of a Trinity of Persons in the Godhead is so closely interwoven with every part of the sacred volume, and feature of Christian experience, that every new creature in Christ Jesus might be expected to admit, although he cannot comprehend it. Indeed if we determine to admit no more than we can comprehend we shall soon find ourselves on the high road to Atheism, but allowing Jehovah\u2019s testimony of himself to be true, and attending to its influence in every Christian\u2019s heart, we shall flee firom the regions of scepticism, and take up our abode in the pure air of gospel truth. The whole testimony of scripture from Genesis to Revelation maintains this doctrine. In the first of Genesis we have this striking phrase, \u201cLet us make man,\u201d and in the last of Revelation we have a description of the throne of God and the Lamb which corroborates the same truth: yea, the whole of the sacred pages form one grand epitome of the covenant engagement and work of the triune God, making known the sovereign love of God the Father\u2014the voluntary suretyship of God the Son and the efficacious grace of God the Spirit.<\/p>\n
But \u201cHe that believeth,\u201d saith an inspired apostle, \u201chath the witness in himself,” and I need only refer you, my dear Silas, to your own experience for a satisfactory evidence of the fundamental doctrine which is the subject of this letter.<\/p>\n
When first your eyes were opened to spiritual things, and your ruin by sin was discovered, was not the idea of approaching Deity terrific to your mind? Did you not feel conscious that you must obtain pardon at his hands, or perish forever? And yet were you not afraid to draw nigh to him for it, lest his vengeance should consume you? And could you ever look up to heaven with confidence until you discerned the way of access through the person of Christ? Then, like the Holy Psalmist, you exclaimed, \u201cbehold, O God our Shield, and look upon the face of thine Anointed.\u201d Assured from God’s own word, that all men are required to honor the Son even as they honor the Father, you felt encouraged to adore him as \u201cover all God blessed for ever,\u201d trusting your eternal all in his hands, believing his personal and official declaration, \u201cno man can come to the Father but by me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Take a retrospective View, my dear young friend, of those sacred moments of delightful emotion when Jesus first manifested himself to you as the sinner\u2019s friend and surety,\u201cmighty to save,\u201d having all the fulness of the Godhead treasured up in himself, yet, proving his distinct personality by being sent forth from the Father; and ascending again to the Father; stooping to earth to rescue you from hell, and ascending to heaven to prepare you a mansion, and to Secure your entrance into it. Have you not trusted your soul with all its vast concerns in his hands, under the sweet assurance that he is able to keep that which you have committed to him against that day? And upon what can that assurance be founded, but his eternal power and Godhead?<\/p>\n
The guilty, and helpless, and curs\u2019d,<\/p>\n
By nature a rebel and slave;<\/p>\n
In Jesus your God you can trust,<\/p>\n
Because he is \u201cmighty to save.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Precious Jesus! how thy glories, personal and official, delight the souls of thy ransomed family, and call forth their best affections, their strongest confidence, and their highest adoration. But no man can call Jesus Lord but by the Holy Ghost, whose express office it is to testify of Jesus; and my dear Silas will at once perceive that the office of the Holy Ghost proves his personality and his Godhead. You had never known your guilt and ruin, so as to mourn over it and escape from it, but for his divine teaching; you had never melted in contrition before God, but for his mighty operation upon your heart; you had never seen any beauty in Jesus, but for his heavenly illumination; nor would you ever have hated sin and loved holiness, but for his transforming power. What power but omnipotence could effect what has been effected, in your soul? Once you were darkness, but now are you light in the Lord\u2014Once you were enmity itself against God, but now, love to God is the reigning principle in your breast\u2014once you were dead in sin, but now you are alive to God through Jesus Christ: and how was all this effected? \u201cNot by might nor by power, but by my Spirit saith the Lord.\u201d Thus you have the witness in yourself, as a believer, that the Spirit is Jehovah, or he could not have wrought such a work in you\u2014that the Redeemer is Jehovah, or he could not have been your Saviour\u2014that as God-man he is your Mediator and without a Mediator you dare not approach an offended God.<\/p>\n
Moreover, your daily communion with heaven confirms this glorious doctrine: you do not always find yourself in a devotional frame of mind, when the seasons of retirement return. No, you have often found it difficult, yea, impossible to glance a thought half way to God; and even while you have used the language of prayer, your heart has been full of unbelief, or wandering like the fool\u2019s eye to the ends of the earth; but when the Spirit has helped your infirmities, and, made intercession for, you, with what holy fervour have you wrestled with God\u2014with what sacred delight have you communed with the Father\u2014with what strong confidence have you relied on the merits and intercession of the Son\u2014and what a rich supply have you obtained of the comforts of the Holy Ghost! Then how contemptible did all terrene objects appear, and how precious did Jesus become to your soul, \u201cthrough whom you found access by one Spirit to the Father,\u201d \u201cand rejoiced in hope of the glory of God? Then you knew what is meant by \u201cpraying in the Holy Ghost.\u201d Take encouragement, my dear Silas, from these things, to look for greater discoveries of the divine persons and perfections of the Godhead to your soul.<\/p>\n
It is promised that \u201cwhen he, the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth and Christ\u2019s declaration of himself, is, \u201cI am the truth;\u201d it becomes, therefore, the express office of the Holy Ghost to lead our minds into the fulness of Christ, and through him up to the covenant love of God the Father; so that under his immediate influence we exclaim, \u201ctruly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
The Father sheds his love abroad in our hearts by the power of the Holy Ghost\u2014the Son manifests himself to us as he does not to the world, by the discoveries of the Holy Ghost\u2014and the Holy Ghost himself bears witness with our spirits, that we are the children of God: here are personal acts performed in the believer’s experience by each of the persons of the Deity. Can any man, who is the recipient of these divine favours, want further evidence of the doctrine which they establish? If more were necessary to be said, I might advert to the promises of God, and shew you, that though they are spoken by God the Father, and are said to be, yea and amen in Christ Jesus, yet you never enjoy their preciousness, but as they are applied to your heart by the power of the Holy Ghost.<\/p>\n
Again, the blessings of the gospel are all covenant blessings, and as the gifts of God the Father, they are received by God the Son as our covenant head, who is said to have received gifts for men; and of God the Holy Ghost, Christ says, \u201che shall receive of mine and shall shew it unto you.\u201d Moreover, the distinct offices and relations which the triune Jehovah sustains, are further confirmations of this important doctrine, which will find an echo in your experience. The filial affection with which you have approached Jehovah as your Father\u2014the paternal kindness which you have received at his hands,\u2014yea, the very corrections with which he has visited you, are proofs of his eternal love to you. The vital union formed by faith between your soul and Christ, as your elder brother, (who is not ashamed to call his people brethren,) the sweet correspondence you hold with him in this endearing relation, and the soul reviving communion, you have been enabled to keep up with him, as your brother, forbid your calling in question either his personality, or his eternal power and Godhead. And, the unction of the Holy One resting upon you, in his quickening, comforting, and illuminating influences are standing and experimental proofs, that \u201cthere are three that bear record in Heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.\u201d That you, my dear Silas, may live in the enjoyment of the Father’s everlasting love, upon the fulness of grace treasured up in the Son, and under the special influence of the Holy Ghost,<\/p>\n
Joseph Irons<\/p>\n
Is the Prayer of yours, &c. in the Lord,<\/p>\n
Almighty Father, own me as thy child,<\/p>\n
And bid me own thee with a filial cry.<\/p>\n
In thee Jehovah Jesus, I confide,<\/p>\n
The Father’s equal\u2014and the sinner\u2019s friend.<\/p>\n
And thee eternal Spirit I adore,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
My sanctifier, comforter and guide.<\/p>\n
A triune God, distinct in persons, yet<\/p>\n
In essence, ONE INCOMPREHENSIBLE!!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n