Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 10.djvu/27

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A


SERMON


ON


THE TRINITY.


(First printed in 1744.)



I EPISTLE GENERAL OF ST. JOHN, V. 7.


For there are three that bear record in Heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these Three are One.


THIS day being set apart to acknowledge our belief in the Eternal Trinity, I thought it might be proper to employ my present discourse entirely upon that subject; and I hope to handle it in such a manner, that the most ignorant among you may return home better informed of your duty in this great point, than probably you are at present.

It must be confessed, that by the weakness and indiscretion of busy, or at best of well-meaning people, as well as by the malice of those who are enemies to all revealed religion, and are not content to possess their own infidelity in silence, without communicating it to the disturbance of mankind; I say, by these means, it must be confessed, that the doctrine of the Trinity hath suffered very much, and made Christianity suffer along with it. For these two things must be granted: first, that men of wicked lives would be

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very