I might here take notice, that the three that bear witness on earth to the truth of the gospel, _viz._ the spirit, the water, and the blood, may be expounded agreeably to the foregoing discourse. The blood may signify the pacification of a guilty conscience by the atoning blood of Christ. The water, may intend the sanctification and purifying of our natures from sinful appetites and practices, as by the washing of water: And the spirit may imply that efficacious influence which a believer receives from the Holy Spirit, both toward the pacification of his conscience, and the purification of his soul. All these witness to the truth of christianity; though others are of opinion, that the Spirit in his miraculous operations, the water, or purity of the nature and life of Christ, and the blood, or his violent death, and the attendants on it, are the three witnesses on earth which the apostle designs; nor can I absolutely determine which is the right. Before I conclude, I would lay down one caution and one reflection. The caution is this: That though I exclude all human religions from the honour, power, and glorious effects of christianity, as being utterly incapable of them, yet the Jewish religion, and that of the ancient patriarchs, which were divine, are not hereby totally excluded from this honour, and these characters, but only in part: For there were many souls in whom these beginnings of eternal life were wrought under those dispensations, but not with that glory and evidence as under the christian. And indeed Judaism was but a sort of infant christianity, a veiled gospel. The christian religion is Judaism fulfilled, or the gospel standing in open light. All that holiness and happiness which was found among the Jews or patriarchs, is entirely owing to Christ and his gospel, to the sacrifice, and the spirit, and grace of Jesus, which were typified by the legal atonements, and blood, sprinklings and washings; and which wrought powerfully this divine life in their souls, through all those types, but with feebler conviction, and in a fainter light.