Communion And not to pretend to give a perfect Catalogue of Fundamentals I shall only give a taste of this in some few particulars which have given occasion to the fiercest Disputes in the Christian Church 1. I shall begin with the Doctrine of the holy Trinity which hath in all Ages been accounted a fundamental Article of the Christian Faith and hath as good reason to be thought so as any other since we are baptized into this belief For to baptize into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost according to the most proper signification of the words and the exposition of the Catholick Church signifies to baptize into the Faith and Worship of the sacred Trinity as I think I could easily shew at large were it proper upon this occasion And how essential this belief is to the right understanding of the Doctrine of man's Salvation by Jesus Christ which is the comprehensive fundamental of Christian Religion will easily be acknowledged by any man who carefully considers how each Person in the ever blessed Trinity is concerned in the Oeconomy of man's Salvation The Father in infinite pity and compassion to fallen man gives his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him might not perish but have everlasting Life He gives him to become man and to die as a Sacrifice for sin and to seal a Covenant of Grace and Mercy in his blood The Son moved by the same love and pity gives himself becomes man dies for the attonement and expiation of our sins rises again from the dead and takes possession of his mediatory Kingdom becomes the Lord and Judge both of the quick and the dead and according to his promise sends his Spirit upon his Apostles in miraculous gifts and powers to qualifie them for the work of the Ministry and bestows the same holy Spirit upon the whole Christian Church and every sincere member of it as an abiding principle of Sanctification and a new Life The holy Spirit accordingly comes and dwells in his Church and in good men as in his Temple sanctifies them in this World to be vessels of Honour and will hereafter raise their dead bodies into immortal Life So that each Person in the Sacred Trinity is peculiarly concerned in the Salvation of Mankind and we cannot truly believe the great fundamental Doctrine of Salvation by Christ without the belief of the holy Trinity of Father Son and holy Ghost one eternal and infinite God The God-head of the Father is acknowledged by all but whoever denies the Godhead of the Son and of the Holy Ghost overthrows the whole Doctrine of Salvation by Christ as it is taught in the new Testament and makes it quite another thing and a very little thing too as to shew this briefly He who makes Christ to be either the most excellent Creature as the Arians did or a meer man as the Socinians do mightily lessen the Grace and goodness of God to sinners which is represented as such a stupendious act of Love that God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son now if this only begotten Son be only the most glorious and excellent Creature especially if he be but a meer man the love and the design is not so stupendious and astonishing for God has an equal propriety in all his Creatures and it is no such prizing Mystery that a good God should give one of his Creatures though never so excellent especially if he be but one excellent man for the redmption of so many Millions especially when he promises to reward this undertaking with such a superexcellent degree of Glory and Power The love of God in redeeming us by what means soever is very great but his love in giving his only begotten Son for our redemption where Christ himself lays the emphasis if this only begotten Son be but a Creature or a man is not so wonderful Thus it sounds very odly for a Creature to be the Saviour of mankind to be the object of a religious Faith and Hope and Trust and Dependance The Worship of Christ cannot be divine Worship if he be not God and a made God is a contradiction in the terms unless we mean only a titular God and a titular God cannot be the Object of Religious Worship It is unintelligible how the blood of a Creature can make a proper atonement and expiation for sin and therefore the Socinians who deny Christ to be God are very consistent with themselves in denying his satisfaction A Creature is not capable of infinite and omnipotent Power no more than a finite Nature as the most excellent created Nature is can be the Subject of infinite perfections and therefore if Christ be not God he cannot have all Power in Heaven and Earth committed to him he cannot have it in his own Person because he is not capable of it and cannot exercise it He can at most only bear the name but the Government of the World must be in another hand which is able to manage it Let us then now consider what a fundamental difference the denyal of the divinity of our Saviour makes in the Doctrine of Salvation by Christ which I shall represent by drawing two Schemes of the Doctrine of Salvation one proceeding upon the belief of the Divinity of our Saviour the other upon supposition that he is only an excellent Creature or meer man Christ the eternal Son of God 1. God out of infinite love to fallen man gave his eternal and only begotten Son to be our Saviour 2. This eternal Son of God in the fulness of time appeared in the World in humane nature preached the Gospel confirmed his Authority by miracles which he wrought by his own divine Power purchased and redeemed his Church by his own Blood by which he made a full and perfect expiation for our sins and sealed the Covenant of Grace and Pardon 3. This incarnate God according to his promise on the third day raised himself from the dead by his own divine Power and took possession of his mediatory Kingdom as the reward and the purchase of his death 4. Which consists in his Power to forgive sins as a Priest in vertue of his Sacrifice offered on the Cross to give Commission to his Apostles to preach Repentance and forgiveness of sins in his Name to send the holy Spirit into the World to protect his Church from all Enemies and finally to judge the World to raise the dead topunish the wicked and unbelievers and to reward his true and faithful Disciples and all this by his own Power and Authority inherent in himself though received from his Father Christ an excellent Creature or meer man 1. God sent his most excellent Creature or created a most excellent man to redeem sinners 2. This glorious and excellent Creature or this excellent man was at the prefixt time born into the World and preached the Gospel and God confirmed his Authority as he did the Authority of other
St. Paul expresly tells us Being justified freely by his Grace Rom. 3.24 25. through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus whom God hath set forth to be a Propitiation through Faith in his Blood For though Faith in Christ is very often used in a very large sence for the whole Gospel of our Saviour and to comprehend all Acts of Obedience and a holy Life as the Principle from whence they flow and no other is true justifying Faith but that which includes Obedience and a holy Life Yet sometimes Faith is distinguisht from Repentance and a holy Life and so has Christ and in a peculiar manner his Blood for its Object Thus the sum of St. Paul's preaching was Repentance towards God Act. 20.21 and Faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ And the Commission Christ gave to his Apostles was Luke 24.47 to preach Repentance and Remission of sins in his Name that is through Faith in his Name So that Faith in Christ is distinguisht from Repentance in the work of Justification and so denotes a particular respect to the expiation of Christ's death as the meritorious Cause of Pardon Under the Law a Sacrifice was available only for those for whom it was offer'd but under the Gospel instead of offering a Sacrifice to God we must believe in that Sacrifice which is already offered which does particularly apply the merit and vertue of it to our selves as the Oblation of the Sacrifice did under the Law for if we would have Christ for our Saviour or have any interest in the expiation of his death we must choose him for our Saviour by Faith in his Blood For I cannot see but why Repentance may be as well accepted from us without a Sacrifice as without respect and relation to a Sacrifice and yet the only thing that can entitle our Repentance in particular to the vertue of Christ's Sacrifice is Faith in his Blood which I think is a plain argument that the atonement of Christ's death is a fundamental Doctrine of Christianity because it is essential to a justifying Faith But then there are a great many other opinions relating to the atonement and satisfaction of Christ's death which are true or false but not fundamental For as St. Paul observes the Foundation is Christ but yet men may build upon this Foundation either Gold and Silver or Hay and Stubble that is true or false Doctrines which are of great use in the Christian Life or of very dangerous consequence but yet while they retain the Foundation though their works perish i. e. the superstructure of their private Opinions be condemned and rejected yet they themselves may escape though with great difficulty so as by fire Thus while men heartily believe that Christ dyed for our sins and has made expiation for them by his Blood and expect the Pardon of their sins only in Christ's Name that is in vertue of his Sacrifice and Intercession they may fall into great mistakes about the Nature Extent and Application of this Sacrifice and yet not err Fundamentally though their Errors may be dangerous and always are so when they betray them to sin Of this Nature I reckon some of those unhappy Disputes which have torn and divided the Church in these late days of Liberty and Confusion Whether Christ bore our sins or only the punishment of sin whether he were the greatest sinner or only the greatest Sacrifice for sin Whether he suffered the same Punishments which all sinners should have suffered had they been damned for their sins or suffered that which was equivalent to it and which God accepted for a complete and perfect satisfaction Whether the expiation of Christ's death was so absolutely necessary to the Pardon of our sins that God could not forgive sin without it or whether God choose this way as most agreeable to the wise methods of Government and the most glorious Illustration of all his Attributes Whether the death of Christ made satisfaction to a natural vindictive Justice and was paid to God as the offended Party or as the Governor of the World Whether Christ made a general atonement for sin or satisfied only for the sins of the Elect whether all the sins of the Elect were actually laid upon Christ from Eternity and actually pardoned before they were committed or whether they are pardoned in time when we repent and believe Whether what Christ suffered for us is so imputed to us as if we our selves had done it which makes the greatest sinners perfectly Innocent and looked upon by God as never to have sinned or whether it be imputed to us only for our Pardon and Justification Whether the active as well as passive Obedience of Christ be imputed to us for Justification These and such like Doctrines some of which are of a very dangerous nature and a great state of temptation yet are not fundamental Errors because they do not destroy the Foundation the atonement and satisfaction of Christ's death is acknowledged on all hands though some of these Doctrines do greatly obscure the grace of God and his stupendious wisdom in the redemption of the World by Jesus Christ and therefore must be reckon'd as Hay and Stubble built upon the Foundation which will prove a great loss and dammage to such Builders when every man's work comes to be tryed But to proceed among the fundamental Doctrines of Salvation by Christ we must reckon not only the atonement and expiation of his death but the gift of his holy Spirit to renew and sanctifie us For this makes him a complete Saviour to deliver us from the punishment of our sins and from the power and dominion of them Now that it is fundamental to the Christian Religion and to the Doctrine of Salvation by Christ to believe the divine influences and assistances of the holy Spirit to work Faith and all other Christian graces in us appears from these considerations 1. The gift of the holy Spirit is the most glorious effect of Christ's Power and Intercession and therefore one of the principal fruits and benefits of his Sacrifice by which we may understand the value and necessity of it to deny the intercession of Christ whereby he daily dispenses and applyes the merits of his Sacrifice does as much alter the Doctrine of Salvation by Christ as to deny the atonement of his death and to deny the assistances of the divine Spirit is in effect to deny his Intercession of which the Communications of divine Life and Power is the principal part 2. To deny the assistances of the holy Spirit turns the Gospel into a meer external Ministration which makes as fundamental a difference in the Christian Religion as there is between the Ministration of the Letter and of the Spirit 3. This in a great measure takes away the Office of the holy Spirit in the Oeconomy of man's Salvation and consequently destroyes his Worship which is peculiar to the Christian Religion The light of nature directs us only to
which the Members of the Natural Body have for each other So that Christian-charity necessarily preserves Christian-unity and Communion and whoever rends and divides the Church is void of this Christian-charity This I have already proved at large in my Defence of Dr. Stillingfleet Defence p. 183. c. both from Scripture and the Ancient Fathers and it were easie to add numerous Quotations more to this purpose This is the principal thing St. Augustine insists on he frequently applies that of the Apostle 1 Cor. 13. where he shews how unavailable all other Attainments are without Charity Aug. de baptismo l. 1. cap. 9. l. 3. cap. 16. alibi passim to signifie such a Charity as preserves the Peace and Communion of the Church and does every where assert that that man is void of Charity who does not love the Peace and Unity of the Church if then Christian Charity be so necessary a part of Christian Holiness and consists in preserving the Peace and Unity and Communion of the Christian Church whatever other good Qualities Schismaticks may have they want the chief branch of Holiness without which no man shall see God and therefore though a holy man shall never miscarry or fall short of Heaven yet a Schismatick with all his other good Qualities may 3. Since the best men must be saved by Christ and not by their own Righteousness or Merits we must expect to be saved by Christ only in such a way as he himself has appointed It is all free Grace and therefore we must be contented to receive it in such a way as he is pleased to give it He is a Debtor to no man and therefore may well be allowed to make his own terms Heaven is a supernatural State of Happiness which the best Man setting aside the consideration of his many Imperfections and Defects cannot challenge as the Reward of his best Services and therefore God is under no other Obligation to bestow Heaven on any man but his own Promise made to us in Christ Jesus and therefore can be obliged no farther than his own Promise reaches If any hard and pityable Case happens he has the soveraign Power in his own hand and can do as he himself pleases but we must expect no more from him than he has promised The not considering this is apt to confound mens Notions concerning the undertaking of our Saviour and our Redemption by him It runs some men into Socinianism to deny the Satisfaction of Christ and others who cannot be so subtil as to distinguish themselves out of so plain and express an Article of our Faith and therefore do heartily and sincerely believe the Satisfaction of our Saviour that he dyed as a true and proper Sacrifice to expiate our sins and purchase Eternal Life for us yet have no clear Conceptions of the Reason of this which will not well comply with those other Notions they have of God and his natural Obligation not to call it natural Necessity to love and reward good men I do as firmly believe God's Goodness to good men and his Love to true Holiness where-ever he sees it as I do any Article of my Creed but then I consider that Heaven is a supernatural Happiness and not the natural Reward of an earthly Creature as man by Nature is And therefore the best man considered as a Man has no more reason to expect That God as a Reward of his Vertue should translate him from Earth to Heaven than that he should give him wings to flie in the Air and to visit the several Planets all that can be expected from God upon account of the Goodness or Justice of his Nature is to bestow such a Happiness on innocent or deserving Creatures as their Natures were made for that is an earthly Happiness on an earthly Creature which was all that was promised Adam in Paradice an immortal happy Life in this World So that if we consider the State of mankind we shall find that the whole Work of our Redemption is wholly owing to free Grace that is that which was neither due to our Natures nor what we could reasonably expect from God considered only as our Maker Man in Innocence was but an earthly Creature 1 Cor. 15. the first Adam was of the Earth and earthy And an earthly Creature cannot challenge as his natural Birth-right an heavenly and divine state of Life For Flesh and Blood though innocent and pure cannot inherit the Kingdom of God A gross earthly Body cannot ascend into Heaven nor dwell in those pure Regions of Light and therefore such a Creature can no more challenge Heaven as its natural Portion and Inheritance than it can that God should change its Nature and refine an earthy into a spiritual Body If we consider man in his lapsed State he has forfeited even an earthly Immortality and cannot now challenge an immortal Life in this World much less in the next For what natural Reason can there be when we suffer Death as the Punishment of sin for God to raise our dead Bodies out of the Dust again into an immortal Life So that whatever may be the Reward of Vertue in this World an immortal Life after Death cannot be the natural Reward of it for then it could not be in the Evangelical Notion of it the Gift of God or the Purchase of Christ And we may consider farther that as man is now designed for a supernatural state of Happiness in Heaven so much advanced above the original state of humane Nature so there is required a divine Holiness and Vertue to fit and qualifie him for this supernatural Happiness Upon this account our Saviour so earnestly presses the Necessity of the new Birth that we must be born of Water and of the Spirit if we would enter into Heaven For that which is born of the Flesh is Flesh but that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit Whereby our Saviour signifies to us that we must attain to such a pitch of Goodness as is as much above the original Attainments of an earthly and fleshly Nature as Heaven is above the Earth For that saying of our Saviour That which is born of the flesh is flesh is true in a state of Innocency Innocent flesh is flesh still and therefore we must be born into a diviner State than innocent flesh if we would enter into Heaven that is we must attain to such a divine and spiritual frame of Mind as raises us above this World and prepares us for an Angelical state of Life For there are different degrees of Vertue fitted to the different states of a reasonable Nature Unless we will say that the Vertue of a Man and of an Angel is the same That degree of Vertue which is sufficient to teach a Man to use the good things of this World innocently and happily is not sufficient to raise a Man above the World and to make him contemn all bodily Pleasures and earthly Satisfactions
to the same passions nay he asserts the divine nature it self to be passible And I think I need not shew how this overthrows the fundamental Doctrine of Salvation by Christ which proves it to be a fundamental Heresie I shall only observe that Leo Bishop of Rome in his Letter to Flavian who was then Bishop of Constantinople and was afterwards murdered by the Eutychian Faction in the packt Council of Ephesus confutes the Heresie of Eutyches from the very Principle Et ad resolvendum conditionis noslrae debitum natura inviolabilis naturae est unita passibili ut quod nostris remediis congruebat medlator Dei bominum homo Jesus christus mori posset ex uno non mori posset ex altero Leo ep ad Flavian on which I have all along proceeded because it destroys the Doctrine of Salvation by Christ For says he to discharge the debt and obligation of our lapsed State a nature which cannot suffer is united to a nature which can That so as our Redemption required the Mediator between God and man the man Christ Jesus might be capable of suffering and dying as man and exempted from all possibility of dying as God This I think is sufficient to shew how fundamental the belief of the sacred Trinity and the Incarnation of our Saviour is in the Christian Religion Salvation by Christ is a fundamental Doctrine or nothing is fundamental in the Christian Faith and yet the Doctrine of Salvation by Christ is necessarily founded on the belief of the holy Trinity each sacred Person being peculiarly concerned in the Oeconomy of man's Salvation And I confess it does mightily confirm me in this way of stating the notion of Fundamentals that it does so plainly discover the necessity of that Faith which has always been accounted sacred and inviolable by the Catholick Church This is the Faith we are baptized into according to our Saviours Command to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost This is the sum of all the ancient Creeds The Apostles Creed being little else than the explication of the form of Baptism what we are to believe of God the Father what of God the Son and what of God the Holy Ghost And when Hereticks arose who corrupted this Faith the Catholick Church expressed greater Zeal in nothing than in preserving this Faith pure and sincere This was the occasion of the first general Councils wherein Arius Nestorius Eutyches Macedonius and such other Hereticks were condemned This occasioned the Nicene Constantinopolitan and the Athanasian Creeds which contain only the Catholick exposition of the Doctrine of the Trinity in opposition to these ancient Heresies And it would be very strange if that which is the chief nay almost the only Subject of all our Creeds should not be thought a fundamental of our Religion And yet it is as strange that is should be a fundamental if it be only an abstruse and difficult speculation which is of no other use nor valuable upon any other account than pure Orthodoxy which is the only reason that can be assigned why any men who believe the Doctrine of the Trinity should not express a great and warm Zeal for it because they do not observe how the whole Gospel-Doctrine of Salvation by Christ depends on it The end of Christian Faith is a holy Life and if men may lead a very holy Life without the velief of the Trinity some think this Faith cannot be absolutely necessary to Salvation but now this must be a great and dangerous mistake though we should suppose that men may live very holily without the belief of the Trinity unless we suppose also that a holy Life will carry men to Heaven without Faith in Christ or Salvation by him for we cannot rightly believe in Christ for Salvation without this Faith And thus I might shut up the Doctrine of Fundamentals for indeed I know nothing strictly fundamental in the Christian Religion but the Doctrine of the holy Trinity and the several Acts and Offices if I may so speak of each sacred Person in the Oeconomy of man's Salvation which I have already briefly hinted But having entred upon a Discourse of such vast Importance to give the greater satisfaction to inquisitive men I shall venture one step further and I think no man need go any further 3. The next inquiry therefore shall be what is fundamental in the Doctrine of Salvation it self Now this our Saviour briefly comprehends in that Commission he gave to the Apostles to preach Repentance and Forgiveness of sins in his Name Luke 24.47 i. e. to preach forgiveness of sins to all true Penitents through Faith in his Name Rom. 3.24 25. or through Faith in his Blood as St. Paul expounds it Now not to dispute this point at present with the Socinians all who believe that Christ died to make atonement for our sins must acknowledg the atonement and expiation of Christs death to be a fundamental Article of the Christian Faith whereon the Doctrine of Salvation by Christ is built For therefore he is our Saviour because he saves his People from their sins and how this is we are often told viz. by dying for our sins the just for the unjust that he may reconcile us to God Now if this be true as I shall at present take for granted then it must be a fundamental Doctrine upon these two accounts 1. Because the belief or the denial of the atonement of Christ's death makes a specifical change in Religion A Religion with a Sacrifice and a Religion without a Sacrifice differ in the whole kind the first respects the atonement of our past sins and our daily infirmities it respects God as the Judge and avenger of wickedness as well as the rewarder of those who diligently seek him the other is a kind of Philosophical institution to train men up in the practice of Piety and Vertue That is a Religion without a Sacrifice is at most but half as much as a Religion with a Sacrifice and that half wherein they agree of a quite different nature from each other That Religion which requires an expiatory Sacrifice to make atonement for sin and to obtain the Pardon of it does also strictly enjoyn the practiee of an universal Righteousness which is the whole of a Religion without a Sacrifice And yet this practical part of Religion is vastly altered by the belief or denial of the Sacrifice and expiation of Christ's death Those who deny the death of Christ to be an expiatory Sacrifice for the sins of the World may pay all that Homage and Worship to God which is due to the great Creator and Benefactor of mankind and may observe all the duties of moral Righteousness but there are some new Acts of Religious Worship or some new instances of Duty or new degrees and respects of Vertuâ—â—… which necessarily result from the expiation of Christ's death which either cannot be
great Prophets by Miracles and when he was persecuted for it he owned the truth to the very death and set a great example of constancy and patience and submission to God in his sufferings as other great Prophets had done before him though not in so extraordinary a manner 3. This crucified Jesus was raised by God from the dead the third day though being but a Creature or a Man he was not able to raise himself and was advanced by God to great Power and Glory 4. Which Power consists in all those Acts which are specified in the opposite Scheme with this difference that his Power is not owing to his Priesthood or Sacrifice nor has any dependance on it but he is a Saviour forgives sins c. by a Soveraign Power given him by God not by Merit or Purchase or the expiation of his Sacrifice And there is this contradiction in it that a Creature is invested with Almighty Power and this riddle in it that God should make a Creature the Saviour of mankind and this Blasphemy that God should advance a Creature to be his own Rival or Partner in divine Honour This short account makes it very evident what a fundamental difference the belief or denial of the Divinity of our Saviour makes in the whole Doctrine of Salvation by Christ The first makes it an Act of stupendious love in God in giving his own Son to be a Propitiation for our sins the second is a great act of love in saving sinners but the manner is not so full of Wonder and mysterious Goodness The first makes it an act of infinite Love and Condescention in Christ to become Man a Minister and a Servant and to submit to an accursed death for our sakes That though he were rich yet for our sakes he became poor that we through his poverty might be rich But the second infers no such thing as I can see If he were nothing greater than a man it was no condescention in him to be made a man especially if he had no being before he was born of the Virgin Mary it was no more matter of his choice to become man than it is of any other man who is born into the World and therefore could be no Act of Love or Condescension Nay suppose that Christ were the most glorious and excellent Creature yet being a Creature there is not such a vast difference between the most perfect Creature and a perfect Man as there is between a God and the most perfect Creature it is no such mighty debasement for the most glorious Angels to appear in pure and untainted Flesh and Blood especially upon such a glorious design as the redemption of mankind Though the disguise and appearance may be thought below an Angelical Nature yet the Character with which he appears as the great Prophet and Saviour of the World is as much above it The meanest state and condition of humane nature a poor despised and laborious Life the most painful and ignominious death which makes the most excellent Creature the Saviour of mankind and advances him to be Lord and Judge of the World is so far from being an Act of condescending love in the most glorious Creature that it is above his Ambition and would be like the pride of Lucifer to be equal to God To become man to suffer and die for the redemption of the World and to be made the Lord and Judge both of the quick and of the dead can be an act of condescending love and goodness only in God So that to deny the Divinity of Christ alters the very foundations of Christianity and destroys all the powerful arguments of the Love Humility and Condescention of our Lord which are the peculiar motives of the Gospel Thus the belief of the Divinity of Christ makes God to be our Saviour the object of our Faith and Hope and Relyance the denial of it makes a Creature to be our Saviour and the object of a Religious Faith and Worship which I think differ as much as the Worship of God and of a Creature The first contains a visible union of our Nature to the Deity which is a visible demonstration of God's love and tender regard to mankind the second deprives us of this sensible Consolation The first exhibits to us a Saviour by Purchase and by Redemption which is both more endearing and a greater security to our guilty fears the second makes Christ a Saviour only as a Prophet or a King may be a Saviour who saves by wise instructions by preaching the way of Salvation or by Power The first respects the guilt of sin and the just Wrath and Displeasure of God which is the Object of our guilty fears It offers a Saviour to us who is a Mediator between God and man and powerfully intercedes for our Pardon in vertue of his meritorious Sacrifice The second has no respect to the atonement and reconciliation of God which is the only security to a guilty Conscience but only contains proposals of Peace and Reconciliation without a Sacrifice A thing which mankind will not easily believe when they are thorowly convinced of the evil of sin and the inflexible purity and holiness of the divine Nature not to take notice now how irreconcileable this is with all the ancient Types of the Law of Moses In a word he who believes Christ to be perfect God as well as perfect man is easily satisfied of his Power to save as well as of the Vertue of his Sacrifice For omnipotent Power is essential to the Notion of a God and when God becomes our Saviour he can exercise all that Power which is necessary to our Salvation but he who believes Christ to be but an exalted Creature can never understand how he can exercise omnipotent Power which is peculiar to God For I think it is somewhat harder to understand how a Creature can be made a God and be possest of divine Perfections such as omnipotent Power is than to believe that God can take a Creature into a personal union with himself This I think is sufficient to satisfie any man what a fundamental Change the denial of Christ's Divinity makes in the Doctrine of Salvation by Christ It makes a new Gospel and a new Religion and therefore the Divinity of Christ must be acknowledged to be a fundamental Doctrine because the denial of it subverts Foundations Thus to proceed our Salvation by Christ does not only consist in the expiation of our sins and the proposal of terms of Reconciliation and the promise of Pardon and a Reward but in the Communications of divine Grace and Power to renew and sanctifie us and this is every where in Scripture attributed to the holy Spirit as his peculiar Office in the Oeconomy of man's Salvation and it must make a fundamental change in the Doctrine of divine Grace and assistance to deny the Divinity of the holy Spirit For can a Creature be the universal Spring and Fountain of
divine Grace and Life Can a finite Creature be a kind of universal Soul to the whole Christian Church and to every sincere member of it Can a Creature make such close Applications to our minds know our thoughts set bounds to our Passions inspire us with new affections and desires and be more intimate to us than we are to our selves If a Creature be the only instrument and principle of Grace we shall soon be tempted either to deny the grace of God or to make it only an external thing and entertain very mean conceits of it All those miraculous gifts which were bestowed on the Apostles and primitive Christians for the edification of the Church were the gifts of the Spirit all the graces of the Christian Life are the fruits of the Spirit The divine Spirit is the principle of Immortality in us which first gives life to our Souls and will at the last day raise our dead bodies out of the dust works which sufficiently proclaim him to be God and which we cannot heartily believe in the Gospel-notion of them if he be not Thus we see how fundamental the doctrine of the ever blessed Trinity is in the Christian Religion because we cannot rightly understand the Doctrine of Salvation nor the Covenant of Grace without this belief which seems to be the true reason why the more perfect discovery of this was reserved for Gospel-times and only obscurely hinted under the Law because the peculiar use of it is under the Gospel each sacred Person having a peculiar interest and concernment in the work of our Redemption And therefore all those who expresly deny the Divinity of the Son and of the holy Spirit as many ancient Hereticks did of old and as the Socinians do at this day do err fundamentally however God may be merciful to their ignorance or prejudice which it does not concern us to meddle with But though it is necessary and essential to the Christian Faith to acknowledg Father Son and holy Ghost to be one eternal God yet there are a great many little subtilties started by over-curious and busie heads which are not fundamental Doctrines and ought not to be thought so God forbid that all the nice distinctions and definitions of the Schools about Essence Subsistence Personalty about eternal Generation and Procession the difference between Filiation and Spiration c. should be reckon'd among Fundamentals of our Faith For though we understood nothing of these matters as indeed we don't and it had been happy the Church had never heard of them yet if we believe the Divinity of each Person we believe enough to understand the Doctrine of Salvation And though that fatal Dispute between the Greek and Latine Church about the Filioque be of more importance than such Scholastick subtilties yet I cannot see that it concerns the foundation of our Faith For the Grâ—ek Church did firmly believe the holy Spirit to be true God though they would not own that he proceeded from the Father and the Son but from the Father only And though we must acknowledg this to be a mistake yet it is not a fundamental mistake for the Doctrine of Salvation is secured by believing the holy Spirit to be true God without defining the manner of his Procession 2. Upon the same account that the Doctrine of the sacred Trinity is a fundamental Article of our Faith the Doctrine of Christ's Incarnation also and what he did and suffered in order to our Salvation the meritorious Sacrifice of his death his Resurrection from the dead Assenscion into Heaven Intercession for us at God's right hand and that he shall come again to judge the World to reward his faithful Disciples with a glorious Resurrection and eternal Life and to punish the wicked with eternal Death must be reckoned also among the Fundamentals of Christianity because we cannot rightly understand nor rightly believe the Doctrine of Salvation by Christ without a belief of these Matters This is so obvious at the first proposal that I need not insist on the Proof of it And therefore those who deny Christ to be true and perfect man as well as those who deny him to be God err fundamentally for he could not die for us nor expiate our sins by his blood if he were not man As for the Modus of this Hypostatical union how the divine and humane nature are united in Christ it must be acknowledged to be very unconceivable by us and it is no great wonder it should be so when we do not perfectly understand any one sort of natural union not so much as how the parts of matter hang together much less how the Soul and Body is united to make one man But yet it is fundamental to the Christian Faith to believe that the divine and humane nature are united in Christ that the same Christ is both perfect God and perfect man or we must err fundamentally in the Doctrine of Salvation by Christ for neither God nor man distinctly and separately considered can be our Saviour according to the Gospel-notion of Salvation God cannot suffer and die and the death of a man cannot expiate sin nor his Power save us and therefore we must acknowledg that God and man is so united in Christ that the Actions and operations of each nature do as properly belong to one Christ as the distinct Operations of Body and Soul are the actions of the same man Upon this account the Catholick Church condemned the Heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches For Nestorius divided not only the Natures but the Persons in Christ only united them in Authority and Dignity And thus Christ was not an Incarnate God in one Person but the Man Christ was taken into a nearer relation to the second Person of the Trinity than any other Man or Creature is but not so as to become one with him which destroyes the Mystery of our Redemption by the Blood of God For whatever Dignity and Honour were conferr'd upon the man Christ by his relation to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or divine Word yet his Blood was not the Blood of God because notwithstanding this Relation to God the Son he remained as much a distinct Person and Subsistence as any other man is The Heresie of Eutyches is certainly equally dangerous for he ran so far from the Nestorian Heresie of two Persons that he denyed two natures in Christ He did not deny but that there was a humane and divine nature before their union but he asserted such an union of natures in Christ as made a mixture and confusion of natures That Christ did not remain perfect God and perfect man after this union but the humane and divine natures were so blended together as to become one nature as well as one Person 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Niceph. Calist l. 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. l. 15. cap. 6. And therefore he denyed the very Body of Christ to be of the same nature with our Bodies or subject