bring to our remembrance the Body and Blood of Christ offer'd upon the Cross for us to make us Partakers of them and to be Pledges of all the Benefits which we receive thereby And as the Eucharist was appointed by Christ in the room of the Paschal Supper so Bread and Wine were in use among all Nations in their Religious Worship and nothing can more fitly express our Communion with God and with one another than to be entertained together at God's Table So that since there must be Sacraments or External Rites and Ordinances they could neither be fewer nor more suitable to the simplicity of the Gospel and to the Wants of Christians than the Sacraments of Baptism and of the Lord's Supper are CHAP. XXIV Of the Blessed TRINITY I Am not here to prove the Doctrine of the Trinity from the Scriptures but to suppose this to be the Doctrine which the Scriptures teach and to shew that no reasonable Objection can be brought against the Christian Religion upon that Account And indeed this was supposed to be the Doctrine of the Scriptures and objected against by (k) Lucian Philopatr Heathens long before the Council of Nice Which is a strong proof for the Truth and Antiquity of this Doctrine when it was so well known even to the Heathens that they upbraided the Christians with it in the second Century and in all probability from the very beginning for we find it then mentioned as a known and common Reproach Supposing then this to be the Doctrine of the Scriptures that the Father Son and Holy Ghost are but one God I will shew I. That there is no Contradiction in this Mystery of our Religion II. That other things are and must be believed by us which we as little understand III. That the Belief of this Doctrine doth mightily tend to the advancement of Vertue and Holiness and hath a great influence upon the Lives and Conversations of Men. 1. There is no Contradiction in this Doctrine We are ignorant of the Essences of Created Beings which are known to us only by their Causes and Effects and by their Operations and Qualities and our Reason and Senses and Passions being continually conversant about these our Notions are formed upon the Ideas which we frame to our selves concerning the Creatures and this makes us the less capable of understanding the Divine Essence besides the infinite Disproportion between the Nature of God and Humane Faculties When we say that God is an Infinite and Incomprehensible Being we speak the general sense of Mankind and no Man cavils at it but because the Scriptures represent this Incomprehensible Being to us under the Notion of Father Son and Holy Ghost that is Matter of Cavil and Dispute Whereas God being essentially Holy and True we must believe him to be what he declares himself to be in the Scriptures and he being Incomprehensible we may not be able to comprehend it If God be infallibly True why do we not believe what he delivers concerning himself And if he be Incomprehensible what Reason can be given why the Divine Essence may not subsist in Father Son and Holy Ghost These are styled Three Persons because we find distinct Personal Acts and Properties attributed to them in the Scriptures and we may suppose Three Persons in the Unity of the Divine Nature without any appearance of contradiction This will be evident if we consider 1. The Distinction of the Three Persons in the Deity 2. The Unity of the Divine Nature 3. The Difference between the Divine Persons and Humane Persons 1. The Distinction of the Three Persons in the Deity The Divine Nature is in Three Persons the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost in the Father Originally without either Generation or Procession in the Son as communicated to him by the Father not in any such way as Sons amongst Men have their Nature derived to them from their Fathers but yet in some such manner as is best exprest to our Apprehensions by styling him the Son of God tho' the manner of his Generation is altogether incomprehensible to us The Holy Ghost has the Divine Nature communicated to him from the Father and the Son not in the same way whereby the Son has it communicated to him from the Father but in some other different incomprehensible manner whereby he is not begotten but proceeds both from the Father and the Son The Divine Nature is communicated by the Father to the Son by Eternal Generation and by the Father and the Son to the Holy Ghost by Eternal Procession We have nothing further revealed to us of the Generation of the Son but that he is begotten or received the Divine Nature from the Father in some such way as for want of a fitter Word we can best understand by the Term of Generation and the Scripture teacheth us no more of the Procession of the Holy Ghost but that he is not begotten of the Father as the Son is but proceeds from the Father and the Son some other way and not by Generation But as he that would Discourse to a Man born Blind concerning Light must use many very improper expressions to make himself tho' never so imperfectly understood so it is here we have no words that are proper but these are sufficient to teach us all which we are capable of knowing at least all that is necessary for us to know of the Godhead 2. The Unity of the Divine Nature To say that Three Gods are one God or that Three Persons are One Person is a manifest Contradiction but to say that Three Persons are not One Person but One God is so far from a Contradiction that it is a Wonder how it should be mistaken for One by any who understand what a Contradiction means The Father is God the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God and yet they are not Three Gods but One God For neither of these Three Persons is God distinct and separate from the rest but they all are but One God One Lord Jehovah not Three distinct and separate Lords and so not Three Eternals nor Three Incomprehensibles nor Three Uncreated nor Three Almighties distinct and separate from each other but all the Three Persons together are One Eternal Incomprehensible Uncreated Almighty Lord God It is Matter of Dispute what is the Principle of Individuation in Men or what it is which causes one Man to be a different Individual Person from another and it is still more difficult to find out the Principle of Individuation in Beings which are purely Spiritual and have nothing of Material Accidents to distinguish them But whatever the Principle of Individuation in Men may be it is certain that the Consequence of it is that two Men may exist separately both as to Time and Place and that one may know more or less than the other they may live at a distance the one from the other and can never at once sill the same Numerical Place nor
is their Knowledge the same there is nothing in their common Nature to determine them that they should be born or die together or that there should be any mutual communication of the Thoughts and Operations of their Minds much less that their Life and Death and Operations should be all the very same So that this Principle of Individuation whatever be assigned to be it cannot belong to the Divine Nature which is Omnipresent Eternal and Omniscient the Existence Knowledge and Local presence of Men are Personal not Essential but Omnipresence Eternity and Omniscience are Essential Attributes of God and not Personal or do not belong to each Person as they are distinguished from one another but as they are united in the same Essence for they are predicated of the Father as God of the Son as God and of the Holy Ghost as God and not of each severally as Father as Son and as Holy Ghost Every of these Essential Attributes therefore cannot be numbred with the Persons in the Deity but can be but One as the Essence itself of the Deity is and tho' the Father be Eternal the Son Eternal and the Holy Ghost Eternal yet they are not Three Eternals or Three Individual Beings of Eternal Existence as Three Humane Persons are Three Men of a Finite Existence It is a Contradiction that there should be Three separate Infinite Persons for their being separate must suppose them to be Finite or to have a limited and confined Subsistence and therefore Three Infinite Persons can be but One God or One Being which has all the perfections of Personal Distinction without the imperfection of the Division of Persons 3. From hence appears the Difference between the Divine Persons and Humane Persons The Persons of Men are distinct Men as well as distinct Persons but this is no ground for us to affirm that the Persons in the Divine Nature are distinct Gods because the Divine Nature is acknowledged to be Infinite and Incomprehensible and when we speak of Three Persons in it we do not mean such Three Persons as Three several Men are But we read of the Person of the Father Hebr. i. 3. and of Three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these Three are One 1 Joh. v. 7. and when we speak of Three Intelligent Beings we can have no Conception of them but under the Notion of Persons We learn from the Scriptures that there are Three Persons in the Deity which bear that Relation to each other which is best express'd by the Terms of Father Son and Holy Spirit but the Terms of Father Son and Spirit are not therefore so to be understood as they are in Humane Relations and the word Person is not to be understood as it is of Humane Persons and therefore whereas we use the word Person the Greeks call them Subsistencies but acknowledge that they mean the same thing under that difference of words And yet this is all the foundation of any pretence of contradiction in the Notion of the Blessed Trinity that Men will needs understand the Terms of Person and of Father Son and Spirit when they are applied to God as they do when we speak of Men and from thence they conclude that Three Persons in the Divine Nature must be Three Gods as Three Persons amongst Men are Three Men and that the Father must be Superiour and Elder than the Son as it is in Humane Generations But this is all Mistake Adam is stiled the Son of God in a sense of the word peculiar to himself Luke iii. 38. God is in one sense the Father of all Mankind and in another sense he is the Father of the Regenerate only and when in either sense we call him our Father we take not the Word Father in the same sense that we take it in when we apply it to Men and when we say he is the Father of his only begotten Son this is another sense of the word Father very different from all the former The Relation between the Father and Son is not the same in the Nature of God that it is amongst Men nor are the Divine Persons such as the Persons of Men are but these are the fittest and the most proper and significant Terms to express the Nature of God to us that Humane Language and Humane Understandings are capable of We must acknowledge that there is a vast disproportion and impropriety in these expressions and that they give us but a very imperfect conception of the Divine Nature but it is the most perfect that we are able to have of it or that it is necessary for us to have of it in this Mortal state and if we will but allow for the incompetency of our own Faculties to have Words and Notions adequate to the Divine Nature and will remember that God is God and that we are but Men there will appear to be no contradiction in the Notion of the Trinity The Divine Nature is such that it has Three distinct Principles of Operation and Subsistency which are so described and represented in the Scriptures by Personal Acts and Properties that we know them to be as really distinct as Humane Persons are which yet being but One God cannot in this respect be like Humane Persons And whoever will oppose this Doctrine of the Holy Trinity must prove that the Three Persons of the Trinity cannot be as really distinct as the Persons of Three Men are tho' they are not such Persons as the Persons of Men. And to prove this he must understand the Nature of God as well as he understands the Nature of Man for otherwise he can never be able to prove that Three Divine Persons may not be One God tho' Three Humane Persons cannot be One Man That they are distinct Persons is revealed and that these Three distinct Persons are but one God is revealed but wherein the Distinction and the Unity of these Three Persons consists is not revealed nor is it possible for us to understand it at least without a Revelation The Distinction of the Persons of Men is founded in a separate and divided Subsistence but this cannot be the foundation of the Distinction of the Divine Persons because Separation and Division cannot belong to an Infinite Nature There is then not Repugnancy in saying that there are Three Subsistencies or Three distinct Principles of Personal Acts and Properties in one undivided Infinite Nature or that the Persons in the Trinity act as distinctly and personally as Persons do amongst Men but are united in one Infinite Nature which is uncapable of existing in separate Subsistencies tho' not of acting and subsisting in Three distinct Persons or as distinctly from each other as the Persons among Men do act and subsist The Summ is that in the most perfect Unity of the Divine Nature do subsist the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost between whom is a real Distinction which tho' not the same yet is equivalent to the Distinction of Persons among
were kept of every Family made them have a more separate and distinct Interest in every Tribe and a more exact Account of Times and perfect Knowledge of things in every Family and therefore they were not so capable of being imposed upon in things of this nature as the People of other Nations might be where Marriages and Inheritances are promiscuous and no occasion is given for the like emulation and watchfulness over one another and where no such Remembrances and Notices of the Transactions of Affairs are to be consulted by any one of every private Family In the wilderness of Sinai on the first day of the second month in the second year after they were come out of the land of Aegypt Moses and Aaron assembled all the congregations together and they declared their pedigrees after their families by the house of their fathers according to the number of their names from twenty years old and upward by their poll Num. i. 1 18. and this was done again in the Plains of Moab at the end of Forty Years chap. xxvi And these Genealogies we preserved not only during the Captivity Ezra vii and down to the Reign of Herod but even to the time of Josephus who in his First Book against Apion says That they had the Genealogies of their Priests then still extant for two thousand Years By which means it came to pass that every Tribe had a kind of separate Interest which was the occasion of Korah's Sedition against Moses And every Man amongst their Tribes might certainly hereby know how many Generations he was removed from those who first took possession of the Land of Promise and might find the Names of his Ancestors registred who were in the Wilderness with Moses or came with Joshua over Jordan And this must make the memory of their Ancestors more dear and familiar to them and it must make them have a greater regard for any thing they had left behind them especially for a Book upon which their Rights of Inheritance and the Title they had to all they enjoyed depended This was the Deed by which they held their Estates and the Last Will and Testament as it were of their Ancestors amongst whom the Land was divided But it is certain Men are more careful of nothing than of the Writings by which they enjoy their Estates and there is no great dauger when a will is once come to the hands of the right Heir that it will be lost or salsified to his prejudice but if the Books of Moses were altered it must be upon the account of some advantage to such as must be supposed to make the Alterations and consequently to the disadvantage of others who therefore would have found themselves concerned to oppose such Alterations But as the Books of Moses were in the nature of a Deed of Settlement to every Tribe and Family so they were a Law too which all were obliged to know and observe under the severest Penalties And being so generally known and universally practised it could no more be falsified at any time since its first Promulgation than it could be now at this day For 2. Another thing which made the People of Israel less capable of being imposed upon in this matter was That they were by their Laws themselves obliged to the constant study of them they were to teach them their Children and to be continually discoursing and meditating on them to bind them for a sign upon their hand that they might be as frontlets between their eyes to teach them their children speaking of them when they sate in their houses and when they walked by the way when they lay down and when they rose up to write them upon the door-posts of their houses and upon their gates Deut. xi 18 19 20. Nothing was to be more notorious and familiar to them and accordingly they were perfectly acquainted with them and as Josephus says knew them as well as they did their own Names they had them constantly in their mouths and thousands have died in defence of them and could by no Menaces or Torments be brought to forsake or renounce them And to this end One Day in Seven was by Moses's his Law set apart for the learning and understanding of it The Jews have a Tradition That Moses appointed the Law to be read therice every Year in their publick Assemblies And Grotius (q) Grot. ad Matth. xv 2. is of this opinion However the Scripture informs us that Moses of old time had in every city them that preached him being read in the synagogues every sabbath-day Act. xv 21. It is indeed the common opinion That there were no Synagogues before the Captivity But then by Synagogues must be understood Places of Judicature rather than of Divine Worship for there is no reason to question but the Jews had their Proseuchas or Places of Prayer from the Beginning since it is incredible that those who lived at a great distance and could not come to Jerusalem on the Sabbath-days and other time of Divine Worship besides the three great Festivals when all their Males were bound to be at Jerusalem should not assemble for the Worship of God in the places where they dwelt nay they were by an express Law obliged to it on the Sabbaths The seventh day is the sabbath of rest an holy convocation ye shall do no work therein it is the sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings Lev. xxiii 3. They must therefore have places in all their Dwellings to resort to where they held their Convocations or Assemblies and these they went to on the New Moons as well as on the sabbaths 2 King iv 23. which made the Psalmist lament that the Enemy had burnt up all the synagogues of God in the land Psal lxxiv. 8. And being met together there is as little doubt to be made but that they read the Law which was to be read by them in their Families and much more in their Publick Assemblies on their solemn Days of Divine Worship The Books of Moses therefore were â—ead in their Synagogues in every City 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from ancient Generations or from the first settlement of the Children of Israel in the Land of Canaan And then at the end of every Seven Years the Law was read in the most publick and solemn manner in the Solemnity of the Year of Release in the Feast of Tabernacles Moses wrote a Book of the Law and commanded it to be put in the side of the Ark Deut. xxxi 29. as the Two Tables of Stone were put into the Ark it self chap. x. 5. and this he delivered to the Priests and to all the Elders of Israel and commanded them saying At the end of every seven years in the solemnity of the year of release in the feast of tabernacles when all Israel is come to appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their
infinite or without any end or bounds Matter therefore cannot be divisible in Infinitum since all Division is into Parts and all Parts are capable of being numbred that is they are more or fewer even or odd And it will not suffice to say that Matter can never actually be divided into infinite Parts tho it be capable of infinite Division so as that there can be no end of its divisibility For the Parts into which it is divisible must be actually existent tho not actually divided for nothing can be divisible into parts which it hath not and all parts actually existent whither they be divided or only divisible are capable of being numbred or must have a determinate number and therefore cannot be infinite But to say that these Parts of Matter are indefinite but not infinite is only to confess that we know not what to say of them for they are indefinite in respect to us not in their own Nature we cannot determine their Number or what end there can be of dividing them but this is an argument of our own ignorance and proves nothing as to the nature of the thing Again nothing is clearer to every understanding than that all the parts into which the whole is divided being taken together are equal to the whole yet it seems many ways demonstrable that any single part is equal to the whole I shall give but one such Proof of this as may be most obvious It must be granted that in any Circle a line may be drawn from every point of the Circumference to the Center Suppose then the Circle to be the Aequator or a line drawn round the Globe of the Earth and that ten thousand lesser Circles are drawn within the Aequator round the same Center and that a right Line is drawn from every point of the Aequator to the Center of the Globe every such Right Line drawn from the Aequator to the Center must be of necessity cut thro the ten thousand lesser Circles drawn about the same Center and consequently there must be the same Number of Points in a Circle ten thousand times less than the Aequator that there is in the Aequator it self And because there may be a Circle drawn from any point of the Diameter the lesser Circles may be multiplyed to as many as there are points in the Diameter which are innumerable and therefore the least Circle imaginable may by this demonstration have as many points as the greatest that is it may be as big as the greatest or as big as one never so many thousand times bigger than it self For all the Lines drawn from the utmost Circumference terminate in the Center which proves that the Center or the least Circle imaginable immediately next to it must be equal to the Circumference never so much bigger than it For to answer that the lesser Circles have as many points but not so big as the greatest is against the supposition because I suppose a line drawn from every one of the least points of the greatest Circle thro the least Circle to the Center and the least points in the greatest Circle must be as small as any in the least Circle there being nothing in the nature of Circles or Points to hinder it and the every Line passing from the Circumference to the Center is supposed to be of the same bigness in all its parts and therefore all the Points of Intersection must be equal with those in the Circumference This proves that we may lose our selves in the speculation of material things for when we once abstract them from sense and consider them in the Theory they become inexplicable Because our Faculties were never designed for such speculations and are not made for them nor are capable of them at least in this mortal state But this is no Argument that our senses rightly disposed and in due circumstances may deceive us in things which are the Objects of sense or that we may be deceived in trusting to them Because what is the object of sense is the proper object for us to judge of by notions derived from our senses or by the Informations which we receive from them Our Faculties were designed not for meer speculation and curiosity about matters which perhaps it is impossible for us Creatures fully to comprehend but for our use and welfare they were designed to prevent our being deceived in things which are the objects of sense and therefore all the absurdities which are charged upon the Doctrine of Transubstantiation are truly urged because they are concerning an object of sense and all such Maxims as the part is less than the whole c. must hold true when they are applied to objects of sense tho it be past our understandings to conceive how they should be applicable to things which do not fall under the perception of our senses for these notions were implanted in us to guide and direct us in the course of this life and we must rely upon them when they are applied only to their proper objects rather than upon any speculations which are too nice and high for our conceptions And it is as absurd to believe what contradicts our senses in an object of sense as to extend these Maxims to objects which are insensible and only in Idea The seeming domonstration of these and such like contradictions arises from the applying of the Maxims taken from Physical and Material things to Mathematical Idea's which are in the mind only and have no existence in the Nature of things And the same absurdities may be started upon any other subject by confounding the several Notions and Properties of things of different Natures That the whole is greater than part of it is a Physical Axiom and obvious to sense but that Lines are formed by indivisible Points is purely Mathematical Speculation and the work of Reason So again that Matter is divisible is an object of sense but that divisibility is inseparable from Matter is mere speculation and a deduction which is made from sense of which our senses can give us no assurance but that our Reason may be mistaken in it And whenever we pass the proper bounds of each Faculty and judge the of difficulties concerning the objects belonging to one Faculty by abstracted Notions belonging to another we must necessarily fall into error and confusion And therefore this must needs happen when we reason about objects which we know only by Revelation and which are the Natural and Proper objects of none of our Faculties There are proper Notions and Maxims which belong to the several Natures and Kinds of things and these must of necessity fail us when they are used about things of another Nature Thus if a man should judge of Sounds by his Ideas of Colours or of Colours by his Notions of Sounds he might multiply contradictions without end and yet these are not more different than sensible objects are from insensible and material from immaterial God may see it
Gross God was pleased therefore to display his Glory before the Angels and by several steps and degrees to excite their Praise and Love and Adoration which moved them to Songs and Shouts of Joy and by this means his Glory and their own Happiness was advanced much beyond what it would have been if all things had been created and disposed into their Rank and Order at one Moment They look'd into the first Principles and Seeds of Things and every day presented them with a glorious Spectacle of New Wonders the first Seven Days of the World they kept a continual Triumph or Jubile and thus their Voices were tuned and raised as I may say to those Praises which were to be their Employment and their Happiness to all Eternity the more they saw the more they knew and the more they knew of the Works of God the more they for ever loved and adored Him This affords us a Reason why so much more time was spent in the forming of the Earth and the Creatures belonging to it than in the formation of the Heavenly Bodies Because the Heavens are of a Uniform and Similar Nature and a vast Vacuum is now supposed to be in them and therefore the Nature of them might without any successive Production be displayed at once to the Angels but the Earth being of a Compound Nature and containing Creatures of very different kinds it required more time to give a distinct perception of the several Parts and Species of it And the Planets being of the like Nature with the Earth since the Earth the Seat of Man's Habitation was framed by such leisurely degrees as might give a suitable Idea of it the other Planets might be framed at once there being nothing more in them than what was observeable in the Formation of the Earth or they might be framed together with the Earth by the same Measures and Degrees But according to the Mechanical way the Angels would have only the Prospect of a vast Chaos rolling and working for many thousands of years perhaps before any thing considerable could have been framed out of it And those tedious delays must yet according to this Notion have been carried on by such certain Methods that there could have been little wonderful in it to an Angel when the Mechanical Philosophers themselves think they can point out the several Steps and Motions by which all was done The making of Man was the last and finishing Work of the Creation when the World was prepared for the Reception of him and he was made with much solemnity Let us make Man in our Image after our Likeness Gen. i. 26. and the Man and the Woman were made apart For Adam was Created with all the Perfections suitable for him both as a Man and as the first Man out of whom Eve was to be formed As Man he was to have all the Parts and Faculties which Men have now but in greater Perfection as the first Man he was besides to have a Rib or (c) Dicunt etiam Vnam ex eostis ejus idem esse quod unam ex partibus ejus vel unam partem ejus quam explicationem confirmant ex eo quod in Targum vocabulum Tzelah costa redditur per Setar ut Tzelah costa Tabernaculi redditur in Targum per Setar latus Tabernaculi ita hic dicunt Mitzalotar idem esse quod Missitrohi Maimon More Nevoch Part 2. c. 30. Part out of which the Woman was to be made Which being the Principal and as it were the seminal Matter no mention is made of any other but as Animals and Plants are properly said to come from the Seed tho' they are not made of that only so Eve was properly made of Adam's Rib tho' other Matter besides might go to her Composition This way of Formation was to betoken that Love and Duty which ought to be between Husband and Wife And as the Creation and Happiness of Man provoked the Envy of Evil Angels so no doubt it occasioned the Joy and Praise of the Good ones 2. By this successive and Gradual Production and Disposition of things in six days at the Creation the Glory of God is likewise more manifested to Men than it would have been if all had been done at once or by slow and tedious Methods This gives us a more clear and distinct comprehensive Notion of the Works of God than we could otherwise have had It is acknowledged that Moses has given such an Account of the Creation as is more intelligible and better adapted to the Capacities of the generality of Men than that which any one would now obtrude upon us as a true Account of it But whatever Reasons can be assigned why the Creation should be described as it is in the Book of Genesis the same Reasons will prove that it was fitting it should be so performed If it be more suitable to the Capacities and Apprehensions of Men that the Creation of the World should be delivered to us as finished in six days rather than in a less or a longer time it was fit that it should have been really finished in this space of time and should be indeed so performed as might make the History the more useful to us For in respect of God it was alike to Create all things in an instant or to do it successively in a shorter or a longer time and in respect of Mankind no reason can be assigned why the History of the Creation should be delivered so as to represent it to Men as performed in this manner but the same Reason will hold why it should have been in the same manner performed God Blessed the Seventh day and Sanctified it because that in it he had rested from all his Work which God Created and Made Gen. ii 3. and so Exod. xx 10 11. the Observation of the Sabbath or of one day in Seven to the Honour of God is established upon the Worlds being Created in six days and therefore if it be reasonable to keep one day in Seven Holy in Remembrance of the Creation it must be reasonable that the Creation of the World should have been performed in six days since the Obligation to observe a Seventh day in remembrance of the Creation implies that God rested on the Seventh day after he had Created the World in Six or in the same space of time which is contained in six days God saw it fitting that a day should be set apart to Commemorate the Creation and to Praise him for all his wonderful Works and that this day should return at such a distance of time and he observed such Order in the Creation that every day between these Periods of time might bring some particular work of it to Remembrance and every Seventh day might conclude in the Commemoration of the whole Creation Our Saviour answers the Pharisees when they proposed the Question to him about Divorces by putting them in Mind of the Order which God used in the Creation Have