Page:Sermons on the Lord's Prayer.djvu/115

 fitted for the kingdom of heaven. But it is necessary now to get a clear idea of what is meant by believing in the Lord and keeping his commandments. Let us, then, consider these two points.

To believe in the Lord, means, to believe the Lord Jesus Christ to be God, and the only God; to look to him in his Divine Humanity as the Omnipotent Saviour—one, who, as his own words declare, has "all power in heaven and earth;" and to worship him and pray to him as such. The three Essentials of Divinity, termed Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are to be viewed, not as three Persons, but as three Principles or Essentials dwelling in the One Person of the Lord Jesus—the Father signifying the pure invisible Divinity, the Son the Divine Humanity, and the Holy Spirit the Divine Proceeding or Emanation: all these are in Jesus, for he himself said, "the Father dwelleth in me," and "he that seeth me seeth the Father;" and he himself, also, breathed on the disciples, saying, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit." To believe in the Lord, then, is to fix the thought upon the Lord Jesus as the one and only God; to behold, in thought, his Person, glorified and Divine—as he was beheld transfigured on the mount, "his face shining as the sun, and his raiment white as the light;" to look to that Divine Person in daily prayer, morning and evening; and to ask him for strength to keep his commandments, and do his will.

To believe in the Lord implies, moreover, an understanding of the Lord's work of Redemption. Jehovah,