all the most absolute perfections of being in Substantial Subsistence but likewise out of pity to the pressing necessity of Mankind because it was necessary and seasonable wholesome and profitable to Men to save their Souls from the Deceits of this present World 2. Atheism and Polytheism being provided against by the two former forms of Covenant it appears if men be not Psychical or Epicurean Divines in consequence of their own opinions they are to acknowledge the truth of the Natural Trinity So that Deists Jews Mahometans and all Genuine Philosophers will joyn with the Trinitarians when they please to reason warily upon their own Principles which when they do it may somewhat dispose them to a better opinion of Christianity if they please to remember that this sublime Doctrine was the institution of the Holy Fishers and withal take notice that they had been with Jesus CHAP. XIV Of the Christian form of Baptism 1. HAD Christianity been nothing else but Natural Religion yet this account might have been given why we should have made a formal recognition of the Blessed Trinity at our foederal initiation into it but because our Religion is a Mystery of Godliness and Baptism a Mystical Rite of that Religion we are further to observe that God having given us as far as is possible an ocular demonstration of the Trinity by sending the Son and the Spirit visibly into the World Cap. 10.8 our Saviour Jesus Christ being the second Person in the Mystical Trinity and in that state commanding all Mankind to be Baptized in the Name of his Father Himself and the Holy Ghost Math. 28. his and his Fathers Spirit it is plain by this Command he obliges all formally and primarily into the confession of the Christian Mystical Trinity but noâ— of the Natural Trinity saving as in consequence thereof 1 Pet. 3.21 and because Baptism does now save us upon this Recognition heartily made the acknowledgment of this Mystical Trinity by this institution of Christ is become necessary that we may be instated with the peace of God in the Rights of the Divine Kingdom 2. This is evident from the very foundation of the Christian Religion which is that Jesus is the Christ for he that believes that Jesus is not the Christ is lost beyond all Redemption 1 Cor. 3.11 but he that believes that Jesus is the Christ believes that Jesus Christ is one and the same Person And he that believes that Jesus the Son of Man is Christ the Son of God does believe that the Son of Man and the Son of God is one and the same Person and because this Jesus is so the Son of Man as to be himself Man and this Christ so the Son of God as to be himself God therefore God and Man is one and the same Person even Jesus Christ And because this same Person that is God and Man is so God as to be the Son of God therefore there is another Person beside even his Father that is God In the confession of Jesus to be the Christ Cap 1â— 8 9. there is included then the acknowledgement of two Personal Subsistences of the Godhead and because the one of these is in Personal Union with Man therefore both he himself and his Father are Persons of the Mystical Trinity 3. But because God and Man was not always united in one Person it is to be considered by what Power this Union was effected If he that is to be Baptized knows not he is first to be instructed before he may be Baptized yea though he hath had some initiative engagement to believe in Jesus he is to be taught and baptized again as the case of those Ephesians shews Asts 19. But should the person demanding Baptism be so profligate an admirer of the power of darkness as to aver that the Infernal Powers did unite the Godhead into this personal Union with Man and then Inaugurate this Person into his Office by a visible descent upon him and authorize him to teach the Doctrine which he taught and impower him to work Miracles for its confirmation and afterwards in ostentation of his power over God and Man first ignominiously put him to death and then raise him from the dead c. this heighth of flagitious obloquy and horrid blasphemy being never to be forgiven he is never to be baptized but utterly rejected as an eternally unpardonable Reprobate But if the Union of God and Man in one Person be acknowledged to be effected by the Divine Power Cap. 11 6. Câ—p. 1â— 10 then the Holy Ghost which is the Divine Power thus operating is the Spirit of the Father of Jesus and the Spirit of Jesus and consequently is a Mystical Person of the Blessed Trinity Therefore our Confession of Jesus to be the Christ does contain in it the acknowledgment of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost in the Mystery of the Blessed Trinity And this is the Faith which the Church in all Ages is to contend for into which it is to baptize all its visible Members and to explicate in its Symbols or Creeds For the shortest abridgment or foundation of the Christian Faith is Jesus is the Christ The next is the Mystery of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost in the Baptismal Stipulation and the next the Creeds 4. The practice of this Faith is briefly deduced thus Since the natural Trinity is become Mystical by the incarnation of the only begotten Son of God Cap. 10. Cap. 12. and thereupon the Universal Kingdom of God is put under the government of God in that Mystical state of the Divine Nature wherein as such God the Son made Man is the first in the Address the same honour therefore belongs to the Son as to the Father And in the retrospect since Christ says that the Father hath totally committed the government of the Divine Kingdom to the Son John 5. John 5.22 23. and that because he is the Son of Man that is the word made flesh and thereupon all are to honour the Son even as they honour the Father and that he that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father this duty supposes the belief of the Mystical Trinity as that belief inferred this duty For we cannot understand how to go about the discharging this duty unless we believe the Father and the Son either to be two several equal Gods or being they are two different Persons to be each equally one and the same God For to honour one Person in my heart as I honour another whose personal perfections at the same time I believe to be inferiour to the others is such a thought as no Mans Mind can think though â—e would never so fain But every one honours the Son as he honours the Father who believes that the Father is God and that the Son is the same God conceived and with infinite truth and reality living and subsisting himself in that conception and that
delivers her Faith is justified by these the sole Authentick Judges of such Controversies and for the truth of the thing refers her self to the Authority of God in Nature and Scripture 3. Now though this be abundantly sufficient for this verbal Controversie yet we may observe that in accord with this sense of the word Person the Scripture it self teaches us in many cases to distinguish betwixt a Man and his Person as when it says both that God accepts no Man's Person yet that in every Nation he accepts the Man that feareth God and worketh Righteousness Whereby we learn that God accepts the righteous man yet accepts not the righteous man's person I observe then every Spiritual Nature is voluntary and no Nature whatsoever is capable of any Personal Subsistence at all that is not voluntary which being premised it is easie to observe that according to the Classical and Scriptural use a Person does not precisely signifie the Being of a voluntary Nature but a voluntary Nature subsisting with a Reciprocal Aspect upon somewhat as it were mutually fancying one another in which Reciprocal Aspect the voluntary Being is considered directly in no other than its voluntary Capacity Thus it is in all persons made by Prosopopaeia in all Mimical Histrionical Hypocritical and all other persons whose Personality is fictitious so it is in all real persons both necessary and arbitrary in Civil Political persons in Bodies Politick that is one person consisting of many Men in Moral and Natural persons Now the Three Persons of the Trinity are plainly of this last sort being persons from the nature of the thing in it self For the Divine Nature being spiritual that is a voluntary Being and subsisting as has been shewed in three real distinct subsistences it has in every one of these three subsistences a distinct reciprocal aspect upon it self in its other two real subsistences and therefore the Deity subsisting in any one of these real subsistences is a real Person and consequently the Deity is in himself three several distinct Persons in the propriety of the word Person Nor would it be otherwise were the account to be given not in the antient Native but in the present English use of the word Person wherein the reciprocal aspect always implyed in Personality is that of a thing upon it self as when we say every Mans Person is himself For according to this acception of the word if we should say the Father is himself the Son is himself and the Holy Ghost is himself then every ones self here is the Person of him whose self it is Therefore the same difference that is betwixt the Father himself and the Son himself and the Holy Ghost himself the same there is betwixt the three Persons but the Father is not the Son but as has been shewed is really distinct therefore the Person of the Father which is himself is not the Person of the Son C. 5.9 10. consequently here are two really distinct Persons and the Holy Ghost by the like reason is the third 4. And the Course which the Latine Church took to establish the Ecclesiastical use of the word when it began to be questioned does very little if at all differ from this account Hypostasis englished Person Heb. 1. is of Divine Authority and Persona did intend the very same thing in the Latine Church For Hypostasis signifies the subsistence of a Nature or Being in its Station or State and since it is plainly apply'd Heb. 1. to a Voluntary Nature whose State is Personal the Divine Authority of the Greek warrants the use of the Latine as an Original does a Translation done with due allowance of Idioms This appears by the method used afterward on this occasion For to express the real subsistence of the Being in its state the Latine Schools used the term suppositum which hath in its make a manifest reference to the Family of the Greek Hypostasis And because this was the Hypostasis of a Spiritual Nature which is always Personal to answer that voluntariness of the suppositum they added rationale and so defined a Person suppositum rationale which as they understood rational was very allowable For the Schools intended their Definition of Person should reach not only Minds Incorporate but likewise Mind Coelestial And they likewise generally Taught that Angels had their knowledge not by ratiocination collecting from what they know already the perception of what they know not but by intuition therefore they here took rationale not in the imperfect sense for the faculty of reasoning but for the conscious perception of the formal reasons which are the very Nature or Essence of things And in this sense not only Angels are rational but likewise God himself is most eminently rational accordingly Cicero attributes to the Divine Nature Summa Ratio According to this intention the Schools definition of a Person agrees to every Being that is a Person and to none else Howbeit I have thought the Personal Capacity of any Being consists in its voluntariness more immediately than its rationality because the chief if not only consideration of a Person respects decent undecent praise dispraise right wrong merit demerit misery happiness now all these have their proximate aspect on the Will and not the Reason I confess when any of these are concerned in a Persons actions consideration uses to be had whether the actions were done wittingly or not but this is not enquired after for it self or directly but only as a sign of their being done willingly For should a Man contrary to all reason give away his Estate from his own most intirely Beloved Son to his greatest Enemy in the World the Right in Nature will pass by his meer Will though he declares that wittingly and without any reason and contrary to all reason but his own Will he so disposed of it I have therefore given the account of personality not from the rationality but voluntariness of the Suppositum though I know no inconvenience in the School Definition but that we cannot so expediently argue upon it and for my dissent in such a formality I presume that is enough In short the first Consideration does vindicate the Churches Right to the use of the Word the second proves that she used her Right well and the third that it is not now in the Power of the Church honestly to disuse it as being agreeable in its proper significancy to the reason of the thing and from all we learn that in the three distinct real Subsistences there are three distinct real Personalities I shall therefore conclude here the Natural Evidence whereby I suppose it is sufficiently manifest that the Churches acknowledgment of three Persons and one God is so far from being Contradictious to reason that the denial of it is repugnant to the condition and reason of the Divine Nature 5. And though by this means the Adversaries Artillery is turned upon themselves yet it is done with no hostile
it hath a Substantial Subsistence that Nature is very properly begotten in such a Subsistence by that Conception 4. Wherefore since it hath appeared by the Natural Reason of the Supream Being that the first Person is the Deity in its Parental Subsistence and the second in the Filial Chap. 5.14 And the Scripture teaches the first Person is the Father and the second the Son we are hereby assured that the Scriptural and the Natural Account of the Trinity are the same in the general only Nature teaches the bare thing as in it self and the Scripture in its Religious state Having said this to justifie the main of the process I shall now proceed to Evince that the particular Characters of the three Persons are the very same in Scripture with those I have delivered from the Light of Nature But I must first advise the Reader that I am not now so much to prove the Trinity from Scripture which has been done abundantly by many others but to compare the Natural Doctrine with the Scripture and shew their accord in all the branches of each which I shall do a briefly as I can 5. Reason taught us that the Divine mind in its first Subsistence does Subsist Conceiving the Divine Nature Chap 4.10 Cap. 5.10 this is confirmed by the Holy Oracles of the Father to the Son Thou art my Son this Day have I begotten thee We learn from the Divine Nature that the first Person is really distinct from the second Chap. 5.9 10 and we learn from the Scripture also that besides the Son that bears witness of himself there is another even the Father that bears witness of him and these are the two distinct witnesses But yet the reason of the thing assures us that it is one and the same Divine Nature that Subsists in these two distinct and real Subsistences Chap. 5.12 And accordingly Divine Revelation teaches us I and my Father are one ◠one nature or one thing 6. Natural Light instructs us that the second Subsistence of the God head is a Substantial Subsistence Chap. 5.9 10. The Holy Scriptures conformably affirms That in him dwelleth all the fulness of the God-head bodily that is Substantially The Son himself is Naturally God even God by himself and that by Nature Chap. 5.11 13. The Scripture attests the same styling him God even God blessed over all and warns us of the future appearance of the great God even our Saviour Jesus Christ That the Deity in its second Substantial Subsistence is the Son and that not by Adoptive Reputation but Real Generation appeared from the nature of the thing Chap. 5.14 and this is confirmed by the Testimony of Gods word which says This day have I begotten thee That the Son conceives his own Divine Nature is a Natural Document and likewise that this is neither more nor less than his own Essential Subsistence Chap. 5.15 Both these the Sacred Dialect teaches declaring that he Lives in him is Life And as the Father hath Life in himself so hath he given the Son to have Life in himself The Son begotten of the Father is one and Eternally the same as reason teaches Chap. 5.16 and the Religious institution stiles him therefore the only begotten of the Father The Son Conceives the Divine Nature but with a Conception that do's not Procreate another Subsistence of the Deity as was shewed Cap. 5.15 And accordingly as the Scripture teaches that there is but one which is therefore the only begotten of the Father so it teaches there is but one the same that is the only begoten Son of God confirming the Natural Doctrine that there is but one only Substantial Subsistence of the Divine Nature by any Conception of it whatsoever But yet nevertheless the Fathers Conception and the Sons Conception are equally creative of all other things as is taught Chap. 5.17 which the Scripture witnesses For the Father worketh hitherto and I work and whatsoever the Father doth the same the Son doth also All things are of the Father and by the Son all things were made that were made and without him was not any thing made that was made He laid the Foundations of the Earth and the Heavens are the work of his hands and in him all things consist Thus we see in all points the Principles of Natural Truth and Instituted Religion do harmoniously accord But let us with the like brevity touch the other Scriptural Characters of the Son and observe how exactly they are conform to the natural condition of his Person for since the Essence of any Being as conceived is properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Word of God The Word therefore the Deity subsisting in Conception is properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and consequently this second Subsistence of the Divine Nature both according to the reason of its Nature and of the Religious Style will either be turned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Emphatically the WORD or else Explicitely the WORD OF GOD because Reason teaches that this is the Divine Nature in a Substantial Subsistence Cap. 5.10 This will be properly signified by affirming the Word it self to be God and that in it is Life all which St. John distinctly takes notice of 1 John 1.23 Telling us likewise Explicitly Rev. 19.15 That THE WORD OF GOD is his Name or the Character given him from the condition of his Person 2. TRUTH The reality of the Divine Nature Subsisting in the second Person consists in the Essential truth of the Divine minds Conception as was shewed Cap. 5.10 This person is therefore with peculiar respect to this condition of his Being to be called the TURTH as we read he is I am the TRVTH THY Word is TRUTH And St. John inculcates this so vehemently that it 's manifest he puts a special remark upon it that we might not omit to take particular notice of it 1 Joh. 5.20 We know that the Son of God is come and hath given unto us an understanding that we might know him that is TRUE and we are in him that is TRUE even in his Son Jesus Christ he is the TRUE GOD and Eternal Life 3. For the like cause this person will be styled the Light as he oft is that is the intellectual Light of a Conscious Life seeing his Subsistence is in the perspicacious Conception of the Divine Mind as the Nature of the thing teaches Cap. 5.10 4. And because what is perfectly conceived is thereby thoroughly understood and it is an infinite wisdom to understand all the perfections of the Divine Nature and their true excellencies for God is all in all Therefore this Wisdom conceiving is the personal Wisdom of the Father but then this Wisdom Subsisting Substantially by being conceived is the Son or it is Sapientia nata as St. Austine speaks distinguishingly after an Elaborate disquisition of this matter And as I have shewed the Reason if the Supream Spirit does teach this Cap. 5.10 11 12 13 14. so it is
he is nevertheless God for his being Man For it is plain such a one cannot deny the Divine Being of the Son but he must deny the Being of God the Father or deny any perfection to be in the Son but he must deny the same of the Father Therefore according to the reason of the Mystical Divine Kingdom and the Testimony of our Saviour This equal honouring of God the Father and the Son is the Moral and Religious form of all Christian Worship and Service Which proves that though the Doctrine of the Christian Trinity be speculative in the disquisition of it as even Justice and Temperance are yet it is such a speculation that without the attainment of that Faith in our Minds we can perform no Religious Duty truly Christian a Christian Life it self being nothing else but the Praxis upon the belief of the Kingdom of God as governed in the hand of Christ by the Mystical Trinity We are then to receive the institutions of Christ not as the Ordinances of a Moses a Mediatory Angel or a Vicegerent but as the Orders of a Lord in his own House Heb. 3.2 3 4. which is the whole Family of Heaven and Earth 5. Having pointed out the practical use of this Doctrine in general I need not descend to the particulars It s other uses are first the Political for the re-establishing the state of the Divine Kingdom by reconciling all things in Heaven and Earth so that the part that had made a revolt might upon satisfaction given be re-instated with the peace of God into the Blessed Society and all things in Heaven and Earth become one And 2dly the Spiritual for redintegration by physical or if you please supernatural efficiency quickning all things with such Divine Life as is requisite to the happiness of the Subjects of Gods Kingdom that are in his favour But I desire to be excused from medling with these because the Antitrinitarians generally now denying the Sacrifice of Christs death whereon the political force does depend and scarcely confessing the Resurrection of the Body which is the most conspicuous effect of the reâ—integrating vertue of the Divine Life in Christ I intend not to enter into any Dispute upâ—â— these Points yet if I might not displease them I would as a Frienâ— remind them that as I hope it does now competently appear 〈◊〉 their opposition against the Trinity is grounded upon a Metaphysâ—â— presumption of theirs wherein they take it for â—â—anted that thâ—â—â—pream Spirit must needs subsist only in one real Subsistence fo◠〈◊〉 Reason because it is impossible for Matter or any Created Spiriâ—â— have any more which now is found to be no reason at all 〈◊〉 doubt not but upon due examination they will find that their deâ—â— of Christ's Satisfaction is built upâ—â— a false System in Morality 〈◊〉 Politicks and their scruple about 〈◊〉 Resurrection upon an arbiâ—â—â—â—â— and insufficient Hypothesis in Physicks 6. But whatever they do since we have found that the Reason 〈◊〉 Nature of the Thing and the Testimony of the Scripture the Myâ—â—â—ry in the Incarnation of the Son of God God manifest in the Flâ—â—â— and the Obligation of our Vow in Baptism do all concur to conâ—â—â— us in the belief of the Blessed Trinity let us who have attaineâ— the acknowledgment of the Truth as it is in Jesus be sure to hold 〈◊〉 Mystery of the Faith in a pure Conscience and then we shall both â—â—ceive the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ the Love of God and Communion of the Holy Ghost and likewise give Glory to God Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost Three Persons God Holy Blessed and Eternal For his is the Kingdom Power and the Glory for Ever and Ever Amen FINIS
confirmed in the Scripture where we read of a Wisdom Subsisting with God which was brought forth conceiv'd or begotten from Everlasting brought forth before the Depths the Hills or ever the Earth was and such the Second Person of the Deity in Reason is for ever for in him are hid all the treasures of Wisdom 5. This Second Person being Divinus Conceptus Chap. 10.15 is not the Image of the Divine Nature for he is the very Divine Nature Subsisting really in this Personal Subsistence and in him the first Subsistence does really Subsist but in the Reverse or Antitype as it were this Nature dictates Chap. 4.7 Chap. 6.8 Therefore though the Son be not the express Image of the Divine Nature yet he is according to the Reason of the thing and of the Holy Language as we find Heb. 1.3 the express Image of God the Father which being so critically expressed by that Divine and Accurate Author do's manifestly point out to us the very Account which from Nature I have offered of the Subsistence of the Second Person For indeed all these Scriptural Characters are so agreeable to the reason of the thing that they leave us no rational doubt in this matter 7. The third Subsistence of the Deity is by volition and volition is the agency of the Spirit of the Divine Mind this was proved by Reason ch 5.20 ch 6.11 and this is attested by the Scriptures as often as they style the Third Person the Spirit of God or emphatically the Spirit which is so frequently that I need not hint the places This Person proceeds and is not begotten as appears by the reason of the Divine Nature cap. 5.21 accordingly the Scripture no where says the Spirit is begotten but that it proceeds from the Father and is the Spirit of the Son and sent by the Son The Nature of the Deity taught there is one and but one substantial subsistence of the Godhead by procession ch 5.22 the Divine Oracles confirm this for there is one Body and one Spirit even one and the self same Spirit This Spirit creates according to the condition of its subsistence in Nature cap. 5.23 which we also learn Psal 33 6. where all the Host of Heaven and Earth are Created by this Divine Breath This Person is a real distinct subsistence by it self of the Divine Nature cap. 5.24 and the Scripture teaches he is not the Father being sent by the Father nor the Son being sent by the Son And whilst this Spirit like a Dove did alight upon Jesus at his Baptism the Father at the same time by an audible voice from Heaven did own him for his well-beloved Son and the Son declares that the Spirit is another from himself and as Nature ch 5.25 so the Scripture teaches he is the third in order by the Ordinance of Baptism in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost We learn from Nature that the Spirit is God ch 5.27 which is averr'd by the Scripture teaching us that lying to the Holy Ghost is lying to God and ascribing such perfections to this same Spirit as are incommunicable to any other Nature But let us proceed to the other Scriptural properties of this Spirit which we may observe to have a singular Congruousness with the natural Condition of this third Divine Person For since the third Person subsists by the Almighty Volition of the Divine Spirit c. 5.20 According to the Reason of the thing and of the Sacred Language it will exegetically be called the Power of the Most High and the Finger of God as it is Luke 1.35 c. 11.20 and because it subsists in the Divine Benevolence ch 5.19 with some peculiar attribution will this be styled the Good Spirit as Nehemiah 9.20 Thou gavest them thy Good Spirit Psal 143.10 Thy Spirit is Good and this Spirit of the Lord accordingly is directly opposed to the Evil Spirit and the prime Communication of this Spirit will be Love to all the World of Spirits because Moral Truth consists in the constancy of the Will c. 5.21 therefore this is the Spirit of Truth in the Moral sense as the Scripture often teaches which is an eminent vertue in a Witness or a Friend But above all we are to mark that according to the Nature and Reason of the thing this Person subsists in the Eternal Unchanged Holiness of the Divine good-will ch 6.5 because the Most Famous Character which the Scripture gives of this Person is that of the Holy Ghost So punctually doth the Testimony of the Scripture agree with the Doctrine of Nature 8. From the Natural Condition of the Three Persons the Consequents were that they are Coeternal Three in Number Coequal each intirely God inseparable self-subsistent and mutually inexistent and one Principle only In confirmation of all this the Scripture teaches the Father is God from Everlasting to Everlasting that the Son is set up from Everlasting whose goings forth are from Everlasting that he indures and his years have no end that the Spirit is the Eternal Spirit It likewise teaches us there are three but no more and in the same order as Nature doth the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost And again the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost one of these Three accounts it no Robbery to be equal with another asserting all to be his which the other hath that he was with the other and in the beginning with the other that he is not alone but the other is with him yea one mutually inexistent in the other I in thee and thou in me and as the one hath life in himself so the other hath life in himself 9. Nature Scripture then we have seen do both teach each of these three Persons is God and yet notwithstanding Nature assures us that there is not therefore three but only one God as is taught ch 5.26 and the Scripture every where confirms this Natural Dictate assuring us that there is but one God Thou shalt have no other Gods but me I am and there is no God besides me There is but one Uncreated Self-sufficient Almighty Eternal Incomprehensible One Supream in Glorious Majesty according to the Evidence given by Reason ch 6.9 Now though the Scripture as has been shew'd does attribute the perfections of the Divine Nature to every one of these Persons as well as reason did yet no where doth it speak of more Eternals more Almighties more All-sufficients then one only And there being in Nature but one energy upon the Creatures abroad ch 6.10 the Scripture concurs herewith teaching there is but one Creatour one Saviour one Sanctifier one King one Law-giver one Judge one Lord one Adorable Being or Object of Religious Worship and one Majesty According to the voice of Nature Truth and Moral goodness have a substantial subsistence in God ch 6.11 12. this is asserted by the Scripture as often as it says God is Light or God is Love That the Spirit of God is free
Nature tells us ch 6.14 and the Scripture affirms it Psal 51.12 Establish me with thy free Spirit which Spirit is the Fountain of all liberty Natural and Moral for where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty When the Scripture teaches that God swears by his own Life we are sure he therein doth no more than what he had a right to do and therefore he has his life in the disposal of his own will which he gages as he pleases and so all things stand in the infinite holiness of the most absolute free-will of God both by Natural and Supernatural Evidence 10. Lastly Nature teaches these three real distinct Subsistences are really Personal ch 7. and the Scripture owns it for Christ acknowledges the Holy Ghost hath Personal Rights but that he should not speak of himself but should take of that which was the Sons and shew it to the Disciples and presently thereupon informs us of the distinct Personal Rights of the Father and the Son all things that the Father hath are mine says the Son where we see though they all have right to the same things yet each hath his own distinct right here asserted according to that all thine are mine and mine are thine and therefore each of the three is a Person When St. Paul teaches that the Spirit does act dispose of and bestow things by the disposition of his own will this is what nothing but a Person can do nor can any other Person do so justly but the Owner or Lord of the things so disposed or bestowed I have thought for a Heathen Hierocles guess'd ingenuously that God did Create all the material substance of which the World was made or else he could not justly have framed the World because he would have medled with what was none of his own 11. Thus Nature by the reason of things and Scripture by the reason of speech do both teach the same Trinity in all Points the one by natural the other by instituted significancy Gods Works and Gods Word conspiring to assure us there is one God and three Persons For the Coincidence of the Rational and Scriptural account in all particulars I take to be the proper evidence of this truth because had the account been given upon an Hypothesis the coincidence of it with the Scripture had been only a proof of the good contrivance of its Maker but being all deduced from the very first Principles of Sense and Reason the Coincidence proves the truth of the thing it self and demonstrates there is no contrivance in it for where Nature leads there if no room left for invention but things must be taken as they are found in themselves The Arians begged a Days or a Minutes time for the making of their second and third God in this was a blunder in the device it self for a God cannot be made in less time than a Triangular Circle But I am not exposing their pretence in point of ingenuity but observing that when they say there are such made Gods without the evidence of Nature or Scripture this is Hypothesis and Fiction and therefore it will then be time enough to write serious Confutations of such imaginary Beings when it is become fashionable gravely to prove at large that Romances are not Histories 12. To the Divine Revelation of this Doctrine I might subjoyn the Authority of the Catholick Church whose Faith is delivered in our common Creeds and evince that these are perfectly conform to the Doctrine of the preceding Discourse but these being so well known I shall seem in the judgment of the intelligent Reader to write the same things over again out of meer formality Yet because the Adversaries do boast of their late attempts against the Athanasian Creed with such an insolence of glorying it is not amiss to remark particularly that there is no expression in all that Creed about the matter of the Trinity but what hath been above distinctly accounted for from Reason and Scripture what there concerns Christs Incarnation I shall consider afterwards I might also observe that the common Institusion of the Christian Schools giving an account of the Second Person from the Divine Wisdom and of the third from the Divine Love or Benevolence cannot be understood to differ from the main reason of what has here been taught So that besides the Divine Evidence Natural and Supernatural we have all that can be accounted Ecclesiastical Authority to confirm us in this Belief And as the Creeds and their Expositors so the form of Baptism in the Name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost which is the very Text that all the Creeds themselves were purely designed to expound and is of Divine Appointment and irrefragable Authority does as a foederal Rite give further confirmation of the Truth of this Doctrine But being to give an account of the Mystery of the Trinity what concerns the nature of the Trinity in that Stipulation shall be there considered with its Covenant-use in the Christian State CHAP. IX The Adversaries Interpretations of the Scriptures IN the mean time having before shewed how the Unitarians have dealt with the Evidence of Reason I must here observe how they use that of Authority For having resolved all the General Councils and the Christian Doctors and Schools into the number of Adversaries they disclaim all Ecclesiastical Authority and assume to themselves the right of being their own Judges which Office so assumed in consequence they are to execute without a deference to the Judgment of the main body of Christians and if they be haughty with defiance to it Their demur to the Authority of the Christian Church being somewhat extraneous to the Merits of this Cause I need not examine Though Protestants indeed allow it not to be a proper jurisdiction yet all sober Christians must confess that it hath an argumentative force next to that which is Divine But since these Men had rather want so great a confirmation of their Faith then not to please themselves even to themselves be it the Rights of God and of his Church cannot be vacated by such Judges as Create their own Office 2. Though these men do not formally disown the Divine Authority of the Bible yet they treat all the Scripture proofs of the Trinity with great contempt and that they might seen to do so with less absurdity they take no notice of the great accession which that sacred Evidence acquires by the concurrence of so many circumstances in such a great number of Testimonies and variety of Expressions which adds a mighty force to what they would have if they were only to be considered asunder as we experience in all sorts of Evidence which is given us of the Existence of things And yet even against the single Texts they have nothing to alledge but some Evasions which are manifestly so far fetched that if charity did not bid us hope better they would tempt us to suspect instead of a serious Paraphrase
import their constitution in the Sacerdotal State of the Universe But I must here lay no stress upon this lest I beg a Principle of those that will not grant it I note it however for the sake of them which know the Truth that they may discern the whole of what I include in the compleat notion of a Christian Mystery 2. Nature instructs us in the knowledge of Gods Eternal Power and Godhead Rom. 1.20 Acts 14.17 Rom. 1.32 and of his Providence and Righteous Judgment and likewise teaches that his Subsistence is such as belongs Naturally to the Supream Self-Originate Spirit what that is I have shewed above But that God is Incarnate that he now Governs the World in Humane Nature and will Judge the World in the man Christ Jesus is not to be learned from Natural John 1.14 Mat. 28.18 Acts 17 31. but only from Supernatural Revelation Nothing then that depends upon these as all Religious Mysteries now do can be proved otherwise than from the Scriptures 3. From the Natural Reason of the thing we have therefore no evidence to assert that Christ is God Mark 1.1 Joh. 20.13 but there is nothing that the Gospel makes more certain then that Christ is the Son the only Son the only begotten Son of God this being the grand assertion of the New Testament And this being made certain to us by the Gospel the former discourse whereby we naturally learn there is one only Son of God does assure us that whoever or whatever Christ is Cap. 5. though he be even a man he is himself really and truly God and yet not God the Father nor the Holy Ghost This is all that our present undertaking obliges us to say in demonstration of our Saviours Divinity 4. But that I may not wholly baulk the expectation of the Reader I shall annex the sum of a large Scriptural evidence made ready to our hands as I find it recapitulated by the excellent Dr. III. Serm. of the Trinity P. 86 Wallis after a particular inforcement of it He therefore who is as Christ has been shewed from the Scriptures to be God the true God the Mighty God the Everlasting Father the Eternal God the First and the Last before whom nothing was and after whom nothing shall be That Was and Is and Shall be the same Yesterday and to Day and for Ever the Almighty by whom the World was Made by whom all things were Made and without whom nothing was Made that was Made who Laid the Foundations of the Earth and the Heavens are the Work of his hands who when the Heavens and the Earth shall fail His Years endure for Ever who searcheth the Hearts and the Reins to give to every one according to his Works who is Jehovah the Lord God of Israel the Supream Being who is over all God blessed for Ever who is the blessed and only Potentate the King of Kings and Lord of Lords who only hath Immortality to whom be Honour and Power Everlasting Amen That God says he of whom all these things are said is certainly not a meer Titular God who is called God but is not a Creature God or only a Dignified Man for if these be not Characters of the True God by what Characters shall the True God be described 5. We are now to observe how the Natural Doctrine of the former Discourse does correspond with all these viz. That Christ is Man and is the Son of God is God but not the Father nor the Holy Ghost First then Of the Humanity of Christ about which more anon we must remember that there is no Created Nature Cap. 5.5 Cap. 5.10 but has its Being wholly by being Conceived in the Divine Mind therefore Christs Humanity is a Nature Subsisting by being Conceived by God 2. The Divine Nature in its second Subsistence is the only begotten Son of God as being God Conceived therefore Jesus Christ being the Son of God is God conceived and being but one and yet Man he is God conceived one with Man or he is God conceived and Man conceived in Unity by the Divine Conception and therefore by vertue of the Divine Essential Truth God conceived one with Man is thereby really one with Man Thus Christ abideth ever God and Man in one Cap. 5.5 6. But because it is God conceived that is thus one with Man therefore it is neither God the Father or the Holy Ghost that is one with Man For God Conceived or Begotten is the Deity in its second subsistence Christ therefore is the Son of God even of the Father and from him and the Father proceeds the Holy Ghost 7. Since Unity hath several significations it will be impossible in some sense for God in any subsistence to be one with Man therefore we must observe that God the Son being Eternally God conceived is Eternally God and Eternally conceived he therefore is not changed in his nature nor subsistence which being still the same he ceases not to be God nor the Son of God by becoming Man And we may say more generally he ceases not to be what he ever had been but begins to be what before he was not There is therefore neither a Conversion of the Godhead changing it from a Divine into a Humane Nature nor yet a confusion whereby upon the union of the two Natures there results a third which is neither of the two as when a blew thread is dipt into a yellow Vat there comes out a third colour which is neither blew nor yellow but green so that the Properties Natural and Personal of the Son of God remain the same unvaried by this Union 8. Jesus Christ being one who is God conceived and Man conceived in the unity of the Divine Conception he is the Son of God both in his Divine and Humane Nature This subsistence therefore of the Son of God in Union with Man is Mystical in the full and adequate notion of Mysticalness for the Divine Nature might have been and have governed the whole Creation Cap. 10.1 though in no one of its Personal subsistences it had been one with Man Jesus Christ therefore the second Person of the Blessed Trinity hath in him a Mystical subsistence of God and Man become one and therefore is a Mystical Divine Person 9. And because this Mystical Union was effected by the unity of the Divine Conception therefore God conceiving the Divine and Humane Nature is one Rom. 15. in as such the God and Father of Jesus Christ and therefore is as such the Divine Nature in its first subsistence become Mystical 10. And the Holy Ghost proceeding from the Father and the Son in this their Mystical subsistence being as such the Spirit of the Father of Jesus 1 Cor. 2.12 and the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of Jesus is the Divine Nature as such in its third subsistence hereby become Mystical Rom. 8.9 Gal. 4.6 Phil. 1.19 Cap. 10.1 So that