Irenaeus Tertullian and even Origen himself who is called the Father of Interpreters are most express and positive in this matter For Ignatius was the Scholar of Polycarp who was a Disciple of St. John and Justin Martyr lived in the next Age to that of the Apostles and Origen was a man of infinite learning and reading and in his Comments upon Scripture seems to have considered all the Interpretations of those that were before him So that if this which Socinus is so confident is the true sense of St. John had been any where extant he would not probably have omitted it nay rather would certainly have mentioned it if for no other reason yet for the surprising novelty and strangeness of it with which he was apt to be over-much delighted So that if this interpretation of Socinus be true here are two things very wonderful and almost incredible First that those who lived so very near St. John's Time and were most likely to know his meaning as Ignatius Justin Martyr c. should so widely mistake it And then that the whole Christian World should for so many Ages together be deceived in the ground and foundation of so important an Article of Faith if it were true or if it were not should be led into so gross and dangerous an Error as this must needs be if Christ had no real existence before he was born into the World And which would be necessarily consequent upon this that no man did understand this Passage of St. John aright before Socinus This very consideration alone if there were no other were sufficient to stagger any prudent man's belief of this Interpretation And as to the Novelty of it Socinus himself makes no difficulty to own it nay he seems rather to rejoice and to applaud himself in it Unhappy man that was so wedded to his own Opinion that no Objection no difficulty could divorce him from it And for this I refer my self to his Preface to his Explication of this first Chapter of St. John's Gospel where you shall find these words concerning the Passage now in controversy quorum verus sensus omnium prorsus qui quidem extarent explanatores latuisse videtur the true sense of which words says he seems to have been hid from all the Expositors that ever were extant And upon those words v. 10. He was in the World and the World was made by him he hath this expression quid autem hoc loco sibi velit Johannes à nemine quod sciam adhuc rectè expositum fuit but what St. John means in this place was never yet that I know of by any man rightly explain'd And Schlictingius after him with more confidence but much less decency tells us that concerning the meaning of those expressions in the beginning and of those which follow concerning the Word the ancient Interpreters did ab Apostoli mente delirare went so far from the Apostle's meaning as if they had rav'd and been out of their wits Which is so extravagantly said and with so much contempt of those great and venerable Names who were the chief Propagaters of Christianity in the World and to whom all Ages do so justly pay a reverence that nothing can be said in excuse of him but only that it is not usual with him to fall into such rash and rude expressions But the man was really pinch'd by so plain and pressing a Text and where Reason is weak and blunt Passion must be whetted the only weapon that is left when Reason fails And I always take it for graned that no man is ever Angry with his Adversary but for want of a better Argument to support his Cause And yet to do right to the Writers on that side I must own that generally they are a Pattern of the fair way of disputing and of debating matters of Religion without heat and unseemly reflections upon their Adversaries in the number of whom I did not expect that the Primitive Fathers of the Christian Church would have been reckoned by them They generally argue matters with that temper and gravity and with that freedom from passion and transport which becomes a serious and weighty Argument And for the most part they reason closely and clearly with extraordinary guard and caution with great dexterity and decency and yet with smartness and subtilty enough with a very gentle heat and few hard words Vertues to be praised whereever they are found yea even in an Enemy and very worthy our imitation In a word they are the strongest managers of a weak Cause and which is ill founded at the bottom that perhaps ever yet medled with Controversy Insomuch that some of the Protestants and the generality of the Popish Writers and even of the Jesuits themselves who pretend to all the Reason and subtilty in the World are in comparison of them but mere Scolds and Bunglers Upon the whole matter they have but this one great defect that they want a good Cause and Truth on their Side which if they had they have Reason and Wit and temper enough to defend it But to return to the business That which I urge them withall and that from their own confession is this that this interpretation of theirs is perfectly new and unknown to the whole Christian World before Socinus and for that reason in my opinion not to be bragg'd of Because it is in effect to say that the Christian Religion in a Point pretended on both Sides to be of the greatest moment was never rightly understood by any since the Apostles days for fifteen hundred years together And which makes the matter yet worse that the Religion which was particularly design'd to overthrow Polytheism and the belief of more God hath according to them been so ill taught and understood by Christians for so many Ages together and almost from the very beginning of Chistianity as does necessarily infer a Plurality of Gods An inconvenience so great as no Cause how plausible soever it may otherwise appear is able to stand under and to sustain the weight of it For this the Socinians object to us at every turn as the unavoidable consequence of our interpretation of this Passage of St. John and of all other Texts of Scripture produced by us to the same purpose notwithstanding that this interpretation hath obtain'd in the Christian Church for so many Ages Now whosoever can believe that the Christian Religion hath done the Work for which it was principally design'd so ineffectually must have very little reverence for it nay it must be a marvellous civility in him if he believe it at all All that can be said in this Case is that it pleases God many times to permit men to hold very inconsistent things and which do in truth though they themselves discern it not most effectually overthrow one another Secondly Another mighty prejudice against this Interpretation is this that according to this rate of liberty in interpreting Scripture it will signify very little or
men the Man Christ Jesus by whom we are to offer up our Prayers to God And that we need not look out for any other since the Apostle to the Hebrews tells us that he is able to save to the uttermost all those that come to God by him seeing he lives for ever to make intercession for us And for this reason the Church of Rome is altogether inexcusable in this Point for introducing more Mediators and Intercessors more Patrons and Advocates in Heaven for us And this not only without any necessity for who can add any vertue and efficacy to the powerful and prevalent intercession of the Son of God but likewise in direct contradiction to the express Constitution and appointment of God himself who says there is but one Mediator between God and men and they say there ought to be many more not only the B. Virgin but all the Saints and Angels in Heaven Besides that by this very thing they revive one notorious Piece of the old Pagan Idolatry which God so plainly design'd to extinguish by appointing One only Mediator between God and Men. By this Condescension likewise God hath given us the comfortable assurance of a most powerful and a perpetual Intercessor at the right hand of God in our behalf For if we consider Christ as Man and of the same Nature with us bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh so very nearly allied and related to us we may easily believe that he hath a most tender care and concernment for us That he sincerely wisheth our happiness and will by all means seek to procure it if we our selves by our own willful obstinacy do not hinder it and resist the kindness and the counsel of God against our selves For if we be resolv'd to continue impenitent there is no help for us we must die in our Sins and Salvation it self cannot save us But to proceed it cannot surely but be matter of greatest consolation to us that the Man Christ Jesus who is now so highly exalted at the right hand of God and who hath all power in Heaven and Earth committed to him is our Patron and Advocate in Heaven to plead our Cause with God Since we cannot but think that He who was pleased to become Brother to us all does bear a true affection and good will to us And that He who assumed our Nature will heartily espouse our Cause and plead it powerfully for us and will with all possible advantage recommend our Petitions and Requests to God But then if we consider further that He did not only take our Nature but likewise took our infirmities and bore them many years in which he had long and continual experience of the saddest sufferings to which human Nature is subject in this World and was tempted in all things like as we are This gives us still greater assurance that he who suffer'd and was tempted himself cannot but be touched with a lively sense of our infirmities and must have learn'd by his own Sufferings to compassionate ours and to be ready to succour us when we are tempted and to afford us grace and help suitable to all our wants and infirmities For nothing gives us so just a sense of the Sufferings of others as the remembrance of our own and the bitter experience of the like Sufferings and Temptations in our selves And this the Apostle to the Hebrews doth very particularly insist upon as matter of greatest comfort and encouragement to us that the Son of God did not only assume our Nature but was made in all things like unto us and during his abode here upon Earth did suffer and was tempted like as we are For verily says the Apostle he took not on him the nature of Angels but of the seed of Abraham Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his Brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful High-Priest in things pertaining to God For in that he himself suffered being tempted he is able to succour them that are tempted And again exhorting the Jews who were newly converted to Christianity to continue stedfact in their Profession notwithstanding all the sufferings to which upon that account they were exposed he comforts them with this consideration that we have at the right hand of God so powerful an Advocate and Intercessor for us as the Son of God who is sensible of our Case having suffered the same things Himself and therefore we cannot doubt of his compassion to us and readiness to support us in the like Sufferings Seeing then says he that we have a great High Priest that is passed into the Heavens Jesus the Son of God let us hold fast our Profession For we have not an High-Priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without Sin From whence he concludes that having such an Intercessor we may with great confidence and assurance address our Supplications to God for his mercy and help in all our wants and weakness to supply the one and to assist the other Let us therefore says he come boldly to the throne of Grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 grace for seasonable relief So that our B. Saviour and Redeemer now that he is advanced to Heaven and exalted to the right hand of God is not unmindful of us in this height of his Glory and Greatness but with the tenderest affection and compassion to Mankind doth still prosecute the Design of our Salvation and in vertue of his meritorious Obedience and Sufferings which he presents to God continually he offers up our Prayers to Him and pleads our Cause with Him and represents to Him all our wants and necessities and procures for us a favourable answer of our Prayers and supplies of grace and strength proportionable to our temptations and infirmities And thus by vertue of this prevalent intercession of his with God for us our Sins are forgiven and our Wants supplied and our Requests granted and the gracious assistance and supports of God's H. Spirit are seasonably afforded to us and we are kept by the mighty power of God through Faith unto Salvation In a word all those Blessings and Benefits are procured for us by his Intercession in Heaven which he purchased for us by his Blood upon Earth So that in this Method of our Salvation besides many other gracious Condescensions which God hath made to the weakness and prejudices of Mankind our B. Saviour hath perfectly supplied the two great Wants concerning which Mankind was at so great a loss before namely the Want of an effectual Expiatory Sacrifice for Sin upon Earth and of a prevalent Mediator and Intercessor with God in Heaven And he hath in great Goodness and Condescension to our inveterate Prejudices concerning these things taken effectual care fully to supply both these Wants having appeared in the
World And if the Author of this Epistle does affirm these words of the Psalmist to be spoken of Christ then they must acknowledge Christ to be the true God who made Heaven and Earth But the Author of this Epistle does as evidently affirm these words to be spoken to or of Christ as he does the words of any other Text cited in this Chapter And for this I appeal to the common sense of every man that reads them These Interpreters indeed are contented that the latter part of this Citation should be spoken of Christ but not the former But why not the former as well as the latter when they have so expresly told us that all the words of this Psalm are manifestly spoken of God What is the mystery of this Could they not as easily have interpreted the former part which speaks of the Creation of Heaven and Earth concerning the moral World and the new Creation or Reformation of Mankind by Jesus Christ and his Gospel as well as so many other plain Texts to the same purpose No doubt they could as well have done it and have set as good a face upon it when they had done it But why then did they not do it It was for a reason which they had no mind to tell but yet is not hard to be guessed at namely that if they had admitted the former words to have been spoken of Christ they knew not what to do with the latter part of this Citation They shall perish but thou remainest they shall wax old as agarment and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up and they shall be changed What shall perish and wax old and be changed Why the Earth and the Heavens which the Son had made that is the moral World the Reformation of Mankind and the new Creation of things by the Gospel All these must have undergone the same fate with the natural World and must not only have been defaced but utterly destroy'd and brought to nothing This they would not say but they did see it tho they would not seem to see it And we may plainly see by this that they can interpret a Text right when necessity forceth them to it and they cannot without great inconvenience to their Cause avoid it But when men have once resolv'd to hold fast an Opinion they have taken up it then becomes not only convenient but necessary to understand nothing that makes against it And this is truly the present case But in the mean time where is ingenuity and love of Truth And thus I have with all the clearness and brevity I could search'd to the very foundations of this new Interpretation of this Passage of the Evangelist upon which the Divinity of the Son of God is so firmly established and likewise of the gross misinterpretations of several other Texts to the same purpose in this Evangelist and in other Books of the New Testament All which Interpretations I have endeavoured to shew to be not only contrary to the sense of all Antiquity of which as Socinus had but little knowledge so he seems to have made but little account but to be also evidently contrary to the perpetual tenour and style of the H. Scripture Before I go off from this Argument I cannot but take notice of one thing wherein our Adversaries in this Cause do perpetually glory as a mighty advantage which they think they have over us in this Point of the Divinity of the Son of God and consequently in that other Point of the B. Trinity namely that they have Reason clearly on their Side in this Controversy and that the Difficulties and Absurdities are much greater and plainer on our part than on theirs Here they are pleas'd to triumph without modesty and without measure And yet notwithstanding this I am not afraid here likewise to join issue with them and am contented to have this matter brought to a fair Trial at the Bar of Reason as well as of Scripture expounded by the general Tradition of the Christian Church I say by general Tradition which next to Scripture is the best and surest confirmation of this great Point now in question between us and that which gives us the greatest and truest light for the right understanding of the true sense and meaning of Scripture not only in this but in most other important Doctrines of the Christian Religion I am not without some good hopes I will not say confidence for I never thought that to be so great an advantage to any Cause as some men would be glad to make others believe it is hoping to help and support a weak Argument by a strong and mighty confidence But surely modesty never hurt any Cause and the confidence of man seems to me to be much like the wrath of man which St. James tells us worketh not the righteousness of God that is it never does any good it never serves any wise and real purpose of Religion I say I am not without some good hopes that I have in the foregoing Discourses clearly shewn that the tenour of Scripture and general Tradition are on our Side in this Argument and therefore I shall not need to give my self the trouble to examine this matter over again Now as to the Point of Reason the great Difficulty and Absurdity which they object to our Doctrine concerning this Mystery amounts to thus much that it is not only above Reason but plainly contrary to it As to its being above Reason which they are loth to admit any thing to be this I think will bear no great Dispute Because if they would be pleased to speak out they can mean no more by this but that our Reason is not able fully to comprehend it But what then Are there no Mysteries in Religion That I am sure they will not say because God whose infinite Nature and Perfections are the very Foundation of all Religion is certainly the greatest Mystery of all other and the most incomprehensible But we must not nay they will not for this reason deny that there is such a Being as God And therefore if there be Mysteries in Religion it is no reasonable Objection against them that we cannot fully comprehend them Because all Mysteries in what kind soever whether in Religion or in Nature so long and so far as they are Mysteries are for that very reason incomprehensible But they urge the matter much further that this particular Mystery now under debate is plainly contrary to Reason And if they can make this good I will confess that they have gained a great Point upon us But then they are to be put in mind that to make this good against us they must clearly shew some plain Contradiction in this Doctrine which I could never yet see done by any Great Difficulty I acknowledge there is in the explication of it in which the further we go beyond what God hath thought fit to reveal to us in Scripture concerning it the more we
to mean no more but the Chief of the Angels These were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dii Superi and Dij Caelestes superior and heavenly Gods The Scripture terms them the Host of Heaven meaning the Sun Moon and Stars which they supposed to be animated or at least to be inhabited by Angels or glorious Spirits whom they called Gods Other of their Deities were accounted much inferior to these being supposed to be the Souls of their deceased Heroes who for their great and worthy Deeds when they lived upon Earth were supposed after Death to be translated into the number of their Gods And these were called Semidei and Deastri that is half Gods and a sort of Gods And as the other were Celestial so these were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a kind of Terrestrial Spirits that were Presidents and Procurators of Human affairs here below that is a middle sort of Divine Powers that were Mediators and Agents between God and Men and did carry the Prayers and Supplications of Men to God and bring down the Commands and Blessings of God to Men. But in the midst of all this Crowd and confusion of Deities and the various Superstitions about them the Wiser Heathen as Thales Pythagoras Socrates Plato Aristotle Tully Plutarch and others preserved a true Notion of One Supreme God whom they defined an infinite Spirit pure from all Matter and free from all imperfection And all the variety of their Worship was as they pretended in excuse of it but a more particular owning of the various representations of the Divine Power and Excellencies which manifested themselves in the World and of the several communications of Blessings and Favours by them imparted to Men and Tertullian observes that even when Idolatry had very much obscured the Glory of the Sovereign Deity yet the greater part of Mankind did still in their common Forms of Speech appropriate the Name of God in a more especial and peculiar manner to One saying If god grant If God please and the like So that there is sufficient ground to believe that the Unity of the Divine Nature or the Notion of One Supreme God Creator and Governor of the World was the Primitive and general belief of Mankind And that Polytheism and Idolatry were a corruption and degeneracy from the Original Notion which Mankind had concerning God as the Scripture-History doth declare and testify And this account which I have given of the Heathen Idolatry doth by no means excuse it For whatever may be said by way of extenuation in behalf of some few of the wiser and more devout among them the generality were grossly guilty both of believing more Gods and of worshipping false Gods And this must needs be a very great Crime since the Scripture every where declares God to be particularly jealous in this Case and that he will not give his glory to another nor his praise to graven Images Nay we may not so much as make use of sensible Images to put us in mind of God lest devout Ignorance seeing the Worship which Wise men paid towards an Idol should be drawn to terminate their Worship there as being the very Deity it self which was certainly the Case of the greatest part of the Heathen World And surely those Christians are in no less danger of Idolatry who pay a Veneration to Images by kneeling down and praying before them and in this they are much more inexcusable because they offend against a much clearer Light and yet when they go about to justify this Practice are able to bring no other nor better Pleas for themselves than the Heathen did for their worshipping of Images and for praying to their inferior Deities whom they looked upon as Mediators between the Gods in Heaven and Men upon Earth There is but one Objection that I know of against the general Consent of Mankind concerning the Unity of God and it is this That there was an ancient Doctrine of some of the most ancient Nations that there were two First Causes or Principles of all things the one the Cause of all Good and the other of all the Evil that is in the World The reason whereof seems to have been that they could not apprehend how things of so contrary a nature as Good and Evil could proceed from one and the same Cause And these two Principles in several Nations were called by several Names Plutarch says that among the Greeks the Good Principle was called God and the Evil Principle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Devil In conformity to which ancient Tradition the Manichees a Sect which called themselves Christians did advance two Principles the one infinitely Good which they supposed to be the Original Cause of all the good which is in the World the other infinitely Evil to which they ascribed all the evils that are in the World But all this is very plainly a corruption of a much more ancient Tradition concerning that old Serpent the Devil the Head of the fallen Angels who by tempting our First Parents to transgress a positive and express Law of God brought Sin first into the World and all the Evils consequent upon it of which the Scripture gives us a most express and particular account And as to the Notion of a Being infinitely Evil into which this Tradition was corrupted after Idolatry had prevailed in the World besides that it is a Contradiction it would likewise be to no purpose to assert two opposite Principles of infinite that is of equal force and Power for two Infinites must of necessity be equal to one another because nothing can be more or greater than infinite and therefore if two infinite Beings were possible they would certainly be equal and could not be otherwise Now that the Notion of a Principle infinitely Evil is a Contradiction will be very plain if we consider that what is infinitely Evil must in strict Reasoning and by necessary consequence be infinitely imperfect and therefore infinitely weak and for that reason though never so malicious and mischievous yet being infinitely weak and foolish could never be in a capacity either to contrive mischief or to execute it But if it should be admitted that a Being infinitely mischievous could be infinitely knowing and powerful yet it could effect no Evil because the opposite Principle of infinite Goodness being also infinitely Wise and Powerful they would tye up one another's hands So that upon this supposition the Notion of a Deity must signify just nothing because by virtue of the eternal opposition and equal conflict of these two Principles they would keep one another at a perpetual Baye and being just an equal Match to one another the one having as much mind and power to do good as the other to do evil instead of being two Deities they would be but two Idols able to do neither good nor evil And having I hope now sufficiently cleared this Objection I shall proceed to shew how agreeable this Principle that there is but
had the same Notion from the Jews which made Amelius the Platonist when he read the beginning of St. John's Gospel to say this Barbarian agrees with Plato ranking the Word in the order of Principles meaning that he made the Word the Principle or efficient Cause of the World as Plato also hath done And this Title of the Word was so famously known to be given to the Messias that even the Enemies of Christianity took notice of it Julian the Apostate calls Christ by this Name And Mahomet in his Alchoran gives this Name of the Word to Jesus the Son of Mary But St. John had probably no reference to Plato any otherwise than as the Gnosticks against whom he wrote made use of several of Plato's words and notions So that in all probability St. John gives our B. Saviour this Title with regard to the Jews more especially who anciently call'd the Messias by this Name Secondly We will in the next place consider What might probably be the Occasion why this Evangelist makes so frequent mention of this Title of the Word and insists so much upon it And it seems to be this Nay I think that hardly any doubt can be made of it since the most ancient of the Fathers who lived nearest the time of St. John do confirm it to us St. John who survived all the Apostles liv'd to see those Heresies which sprang up in the beginnings of Christianity during the lives of the Apostles grown up to a great height to the great prejudice and disturbance of the Christian Religion I mean the Heresies of Ebion and Cerinthus and the several Sects of the Gnosticks which began from Simon Magus and were continued and carried on by Valentinus and Basilides Carpocrates and Menander Some of which expresly denied the Divinity of our Saviour asserting him to have been a mere man and to have had no manner of existence before he was born of the B. Virgin as Eusebius and Epiphanius tells us particularly concerning Ebion Which those who hold the same Opinion now in our days may do well to consider from whence it had its Original Others of them I still mean the Gnosticks had corrupted the simplicity of the Christian Doctrine by mingling with it the fancies and conceits of the Jewish Cabbalists and of the Schools of Pythagoras and Plato and of the Chaldaean Philosophy more ancient than either as may be seen in Eusebius de Preparat Evan. and by jumbling all these together they had framed a confused Genealogy of Deities which they called by several glorious Names and all of them by the general Name of Eons or Ages Among which they reckon'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the Life and the Word and the only begotten and the Fulness and many other Divine Powers and Emanations which they fancied to be successively derived from one another And they also distinguished between the Maker of the World whom they called the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New And between Jesus and Christ Jesus according to the Doctrine of Cerinthus as Irenaeus tells us being the man that was born of the Virgin and Christ or the Messias being that Divine Power or Spirit which afterwards descended into Jesus and dwelt in him If it were possible yet it would be to no purpose to go about to reconcile these wild conceits with one another and to find out for what reason they were invented unless it were to amuse the People with these high swelling words of vanity and a pretence of knowledg falsly so called as the Apostle speaks in allusion to the Name of Gnosticks that is to say the Men of knowledge which they proudly assum'd to themselves as if the knowledge of Mysteries of a more sublime nature did peculiarly belong to them In opposition to all these vain and groundless conceits St. John in the beginning of his Gospel chuses to speak of our B. Saviour the History of whose life and death he was going to write by the Name or Title of the Word a term very famous among those Sects And shews that this Word of God which was also the Title the Jews anciently gave to the Messias did exist before he assumed a human Nature and even form all Eternity And that to this eternal Word did truly belong all those Titles which they kept such a canting stir about and which they did with so much senseless nicety and subtilty distinguish from one another as if they had been so many several Emanations from the Deity And he shews that this Word of God was really and truly the Life and the Light and the Fulness and the only begotten of the Father v. 5. In him was the Life and the Life was the Light of men and v. 6. And the Light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not and v. 7 8 9. where the Evangelist speaking of John the Baptist says of him that he came for a witness to bear witness of the Light and that he was not that Light but was sent to bear witness of that Light And that Light was the true Light which coming into the World enlightens every man And v. 14. And we beheld his glory the glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth And v. 16. And of his fulness we all receive c. You see here is a perpetual Allusion to the glorious Titles which they gave to their Aeons as if they had been so many several Deities In short the Evangelist shews that all this fanciful Genealogy of Divine Emanations with which the Gnosticks made so great a noise was mere conceit and imagination and that all these glorious Titles did really meet in the Messias who is the Word and who before his Incarnation was from all eternity with God partaker of his Divine Nature and Glory I have declared this the more fully and particularly because the knowledge of it seems to me to be the only true Key to the interpretation of this Discourse of St. John concerning our Saviour under the Name and Title of the Word And surely it is a quite wrong way for any man to go about by the mere strength and subtilty of his Reason and Wit though never so great to interpret an ancient Book without understanding and considering the Historical occasion of it which is the only thing that can give true light to it And this was the great and fatal mistake of Socinus to go to interpret Scripture merely by Criticising upon words and searching into all the senses that they are possibly capable of till he can find one though never so forc'd and foreign that will save harmless the Opinion which he was before-hand resolved to maintain even against the most natural and obvious sense of the Text which he undertakes to interpret Just as if a man should interpret ancient Statutes and Records by
consider the Light and advantages which the Jewish Nation had above the Gentile World That so by this Means and Method he might wean them by degrees from their gross conceptions of things and rectify more easily their wrong apprehensions by gratifying them in some measure and in a gracious compliance with our weakness by bending and accommodating the way and Method of our Salvation to our weak Capacity and imperfect Conceptions of things Fourthly And that God hath done this in the Dispensation of the Gospel will I think very plainly appear in the following Instances in most of which I shall be very brief and only insist somewhat more largely upon the last of them 1st The World was much given to admire Mysteries in Religion The Jews had theirs several of which by God's own appointment were reserv'd and kept secret in a great measure from the People others were added by the Superstition of after Ages and held in equal or rather greater Veneration than the former And the Heathen likewise had theirs the Devil always affecting to imitate God so far as served his wicked and malicious design of seducing Mankind into Idolatry and the Worship of himself And therefore the Scripture always speaks of the Heathen Idolatry as the Worship of Devils and not of God So that almost every Nation had their peculiar and celebrated Mysteries most of which were either very odd and phantastical or very lewd and impure or very inhuman and cruel and every way unworthy of the Deity But the great Mystery of the Christian Religion the Incarnation of the Son of God or as the Apostle calls it God manifested in the flesh was such a Mystery as for the greatness and wonderfulness for the infinite mercy and condescension of it did obscure and swallow up all other Mysteries For which reason the Apostle in allusion to the Heathen Mysteries and in contempt of them speaking of the great Mystery of the Christian Religion says without controversy great is the Mystery of Godliness God was manifested in the flesh c. Since the World had such an admiration for Mysteries he instanceth in that which was a Mystery indeed a Mystery beyond all dispute and beyond all comparison 2dly There was likewise a great inclination in Mankind to the Worship of a visible and sensible Deity And this was a main Root and Source of the various Idolatries in the Heathen World Now to take Men off from this God was pleased to appear in our Nature that they who were so fond of a visible Deity might have one to whom they might pay Divine Worship without danger of Idolatry and without injury to the Divine Nature even a true and natural Image of God the Father the Fountain of the Deity or as the Apostle to the Hebrews describes the Son of God the resplendency or brightness of his Fathers Glory and the express Character or Image of his Person 3dly Another Notion which had generally obtained among Mankind was concerning the Expiation of the Sins of men and appeasing the offended Deity by Sacrifice upon which they supposed the punishment due to the Sinner was transferred to exempt him from it Especially by the Sacrifices of Men which had almost universally prevailed in the Gentile World And this Notion of the Expiation of Sin by Sacrifices of one kind or other seems to have obtained very early in the World and among all other ways of Divine Worship to have found the most universal reception in all Times and Places And indeed a great part of the Jewish Religion and Worship was a plain Condescension to the general apprehensions of men concerning this way of appeasing the Deity by Sacrifice And the greatest part of the Pagan Religion and Worship was likewise founded upon the same Notion and Opinion which because it was so universal seems to have had its Original from the first Parents of Mankind either immediately after the Creation or after the Flood and from thence I mean as to the substance of this Notion to have been derived and propagated to all their Posterity And with this general Notion of Mankind whatever the ground and foundation of it might be God was pleased so far to comply as once for all to have a general Atonement made for the Sins of all Mankind by the Sacrifice of his only Son whom his wise Providence did permit by wicked hands to be crucified and slain But I shall not at present insist any further upon this which requires a particular Discourse by it self and may by God's assistance in due time have it 4thly Another very common Notion and very rife in the the Heathen World and a great Source of their Idolatry was their Apotheoses or Canonizing of famous and eminent Persons who in their Life time had done great things and some way or other been great Benefactors to Mankind by advancing them after their Death to the Dignity of an inferiour kind of Gods fit to be worship'd by men here on Earth and to have their Prayers and Supplications address'd to them as proper and powerful Mediators and Intercessors for them with the Superiour Gods To these they gave the Titles of Hero's and Semidei that is half Gods though the Notion of a Being that is just half-infinite seems to me very hard to be conceiv'd and defin'd Now to take men off from this kind of Idolatry and to put an end to it behold One in our Nature exalted to the right hand of the Majesty on high to be worshipped by Men and Angels One that was the truly Great Benefactor of mankind One that was dead and is alive again and lives for evermore to make intercession for us 5thly To give but one Instance more which I have already intimated The World was mightily bent upon addressing their requests and supplications not to the Deity immediately because their Superstition thought that too great a presumption but by some Mediators between the Gods and them who might with advantage in this humble manner present their Requests so as to find acceptance To this end they made use of the Daemons or Angels and of their Hero's or Deifyed Men whom I mentioned before by whom they put up their Prayers to the Supreme Gods hoping by their Intercession and Patronage of their Cause to obtain a gracious answer of them In a gracious compliance with this common apprehension and thereby more easily and effectually to extirpate this sort of Idolatry which had been so long and so generally practised in the World God was pleased to constitute and appoint One in our Nature to be a perpetual Advocate and Intercessor in Heaven for us to offer up our Prayers to God his Father and to obtain mercy for us and grace to help in time of need And for ever to take us off from all other Mediators we are expressly told in Scripture that as there is but one God to whom we are to pray so there is but one Mediator between God and
plainly see this every year There are many things likewise in our Selves which no man is able in any measure to comprehend as to the manner how they are done and performed As the vital union of Soul and Body Who can imagine by what device or means a Spirit comes to be so closely united and so firmly link'd to a material Body that they are not to be parted without great force and violence offer'd to Nature The like may be said of the operations of our several Faculties of Sense and Imagination of Memory and Reason and especially of the Liberty of our Wills And yet we certainly find all these Faculties in our selves though we cannot either comprehend or explain the particular manner in which the several Operations of them are performed And if we cannot comprehend the manner of those Operations which we plainly perceive and feel to be in our Selves much less can we expect to comprehend things without us and least of all can we pretend to comprehend the infinite Nature and Perfections of God and every thing belonging to Him For God himself is certainly the greatest Mystery of all other and acknowledged by Mankind to be in his Nature and in the particular manner of his Existence incomprehensible by Human Understanding And the reason of this is very evident because God is infinite and our knowledge and understanding is but finite And yet no sober man ever thought this a good reason to call the Being of God in question The same may be said of God's certain knowledge of future Contingencies which depend upon the uncertain Wills of free Agents It being utterly inconceivable how any Understanding how large and perfect soever can certainly know beforehand that which depends upon the free Will of another which is an arbitrary and uncertain Cause And yet the Scripture doth not only attribute this Foreknowledge to God but gives us also plain Instances of God's foretelling such things many Ages before it happened as could not come to pass but by the Sins of Men in which we are sure that God can have no hand though nothing can happen without his permission Such was that most memorable Event of the Death of Christ who as the Scripture tells us was by wicked hands crucified and stain and yet even this is said to have happened according to the determinate foreknowledge of God and was punctually foretold by Him some hundreds of years before Nay the Scripture doth not only ascribe this power and perfection to the Divine Knowledge but natural Reason hath been forced to acknowledge it as we may see in some of the wisest of the Philosophers And yet it would puzzle the greatest Philosopher that ever was to give any tolerable account how any Knowledge whatsoever can certainly and infallibly foresee an Event through uncertain and contingent Causes All the reasonable satisfaction that can be had in this matter is this that it is not at all unreasonable to suppose that infinite Knowledg may have ways of knowing things which our finite Understandings can by no means comprehend how they can possibly be known Again There is hardly any thing more inconceivable than how a thing should be of it self and without any Cause of its Being and yet our Reason compels us to acknowledge this Because we certainly see that something is which must either have been of it self and without a Cause or else something that we do not see must have been of it self and have made all other things And by this reasoning we are forced to acknowledge a Deity the mind of Man being able to find no rest but in the acknowledgment of one eternal and wise Mind as the Principle and first Cause of all other things and this Principle is that which Mankind do by general consent call God So that God hath laid a sure foundation of our acknowledgment of his Being in the Reason of our own Minds And though it be one of the hardest things in the world to conceive how any thing can be of it self yet necessity drives us to acknowledge it whether we will or no And this being once granted our Reason being tired in trying all other ways will for its own quiet and ease force us at last to fall in with the general apprehension and belief of Mankind concerning a Deity To give but one Instance more There is the like Difficulty in conceiving how any thing can be made out of nothing and yet our Reason doth oblige us to believe it Because Matter which is a very imperfect Being and merely passive must either always have been of it self or else by the infinite Power of a most perfect and active Being must have been made out of nothing Which is much more credible than that any thing so imperfect as Matter is should be of it self Because that which is of it self cannot be conceived to have any bounds and limits of its Being and Perfection for by the same reason that it necessarily is and of it self it must necessarily have all perfection which it is certain Matter hath not and yet necessary Existence is so great a Perfection that we cannot reasonably suppose any thing that hath this Perfection to want any other Thus you see by these Instances that it is not repugnant to Reason to believe a great many things to be of the manner of whose Existence we are not able to give a particular and distinct account And much less is it repugnant to Reason to believe those things concerning God which we are very well assured he hath declared concerning Himself though these things by our Reason should be incomprehensible And this is truly the Case as to the matter now under debate We are sufficiently assured that the Scriptures are a Divine Revelation and that this Mystery of the Trinity is therein declared to us Now that we cannot comprehend it is no sufficient Reason not to believe it For if this were a good Reason for not believing it then no man ought to believe that there is a God because his Nature is most certainly incomprehensible But we are assured by many Arguments that there is a God and the same natural Reason which assures us that He is doth likewise assure us that He is incomprehensible and therefore our believing Him to be so doth by no means overthrow our belief of His Being In like manner we are assured by Divine Revelation of the truth of this Doctrine of the Trinity and being once assured of that our not being able fully to comprehend it is not reason enough to stagger our belief of it A man cannot deny what he sees though the necessary consequence of admitting it may be something which he cannot comprehend One cannot deny the Frame of this World which he sees with his eyes though from thence it will necessarily follow that either that or something else must be of itself which yet as I said before is a thing which no man can comprehend how it can be