I know the word blessed, when it is applied to God or Christ, generally signifies, that they are the objects of our blessing or praise, and it is thus translated from the originals, ברוך or ευλογητος: But in our tongue this word signifies also happy, and the original words אשרי and Μακαριος are frequently rendered blessed, to signify happiness, as in my text. Though, if our translators had always observed the distinction, the precise lease of the original had better appeared. Footnote 26: See the note toward the end of this part of the sermon, p. 151. Footnote 27: This discourse was delivered above twenty years ago, and the reader will observe some warmer efforts of imagination than riper years would indulge on a theme so sublime and abstruse. Since I have searched most studiously into this mystery of late, I have learned more of my own ignorance: so that when I speak of these unsearchables, I abate much of my younger assurance; nor do my later thoughts venture so far into the particular modes of explaining this sacred distinction in the godhead. There appears to me good reason to doubt, where there can be three distinct and different principles of consciousness, and three distinct and different wills in the one God, the one infinite Spirit. I was afraid to assert it in this sermon heretofore, and I am more afraid to assert it now. Reason and scripture join to teach me, that there can be but one God, and this God is a Spirit. What distinctions may be in this one Spirit, I know not: Yet, since I am fully established in the belief of the Deity of the blessed Three, though I know not the manner of explication, I dare let this discourse appear now in the world, as being agreeable so far to my present sentiments on this subject. A larger and more particular account of my most mature thought on the doctrine of the holy Trinity, may be seen in the last sermon of my third volume.—_April 8, 1729._ TWO SERMONS _On our Appearance before God here and hereafter._ Delivered in Sir Thomas Abney’s Family at Theobalds in Hertfordshire, at the Evening-worship, Nov. 25, and Dec. 9, 1716. _To the Right Worshipful_ Sir Thomas Abney, Knt. and Alderman of London. WORTHY SIR, While you were restrained by the laws of men from public worship in that way which you have chosen, I also suffered the same restraint, by the providence of God confining me to long sickness; during which time I enjoyed in your excellent family, many happy conveniences, toward the ease of my affliction, and the recovery of my health.