are hence the Distinction of a Specifical and Numerical Unity and of a Specifical and Numerical Essence though I take Essence to be a common Nature or General Idea taking in several things at one view and that there is no such thing as particular Essence distinct from particular Beings so that there is no multiplication of Essence in several Divine Persons or Beings Now as to those three being One it may be meant in any way whatever so far as those words alone import but there are other places of Scripture and there is a connexion and analogy of our Faith from all places compared together which oblige us to believe that the Son and Holy Ghost have the same Divine Nature and Essence with the Father derived and communicated to them Eternally Permanently and Perpetually and that they are in the Father as in the Fountain of their Being and are naturally and inseparably united to him and that he is the self-existent Unoriginated Principle the Root and Fountain of the other two and therefore they are One with him because though having real Beings and subsistences of their own yet they are from him and in him But still it will be objected that each of them is God the Father is God the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God and then there must be Three Gods and yet but One God which brings the contradiction still upon us I Answer The One God is spoken of God the Father in Scripture as I have shown you and as a great many * Ignat. Irenae Athanas Greg. Naz. Euseb Novat Hilar. Ambrose Austin Calv. Zanchy Comen Petav. Bull. c. and particularly Bishop * Art 1. Pearson upon the Creed observes That the Name of God taken absolutely is often in Scripture spoken of the Father and is in many places to be taken particularly of the Father and from hence says he he is stiled One God the True God the Only True God and this he sayes further is a most necessary Truth to be acknowledged for the avoiding multiplication and Plurality of Gods He laying the Unity mainly here as I have done so that though the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God which they are not often call'd in Scripture which rather reserves and gives the name of God absolutely and peculiarly to the Father * Observandum est quod plerumque Paulus suis Epistolis no nen Dei Patri tribuit in Novo Testamento plerumque tantum prima persma vocatur Deus Flac. Illyric Clavis Scripturae in verbo Deus as God loved the World God sent his Son and the like yet neither of them are meant by that one God which the Scripture speaks of when it speaks peculiarly of the Father They indeed having the Divine Nature and the Divine Attributes and Perfections belonging to them may each of them be properly called God and the Divinity does certainly and truly belong to each of them but then the Word God is not taken alwayes in one and the same Sence but it is sometimes meant of one Person and sometimes of another or of all being taken either Essentially or Personally as all Divines own and generally if not alwayes in Scripture taken absolutely and spoken so of one God it is meant of God the Father which may give us such an account of the Trinity and of the Unity Vbi enim est diversa significatio non estcontradictio Affirmantis negantis Aequivocatio enim impedit contradictionem Aquin Sum. P. 1. Qu. 13. as may take off all the charge of a contradiction since they are not one three nor is each of them God and all of them God or one God in the same respect sense and meaning of the words but in different Those Terms being not alwayes taken in the same adaequate Univocal Sense but are used often Equivocally The Father is the only self-existent unoriginated Being the Cause and Root 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the other two as the Antients often call him and so is the most absolutely Perfect Being and God in the highest Sense and the Scriptures Creeds and Christian Offices call him so absolutely and by way of Eminence and Prerogative The Son is produced of the Father and so is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or God in that Sense as the Father who is from none but is God of God and is very God as having the Divine Nature and Perfections belonging to him but Communicated and derived from the Father as the Holy Ghost from both 3. As by our Faiths being Mysterious and Incomprehensible and Unaccountable to our Reason I do not mean that ' its Idea's or Terms destroy one another or imply a contradiction which is to make it contrary to it self so neither is it contrary to any certain Principle of Reason nor to any Natural Truth whatsoever known to us If it were it could not be true for one Truth cannot be contrary to another and what is true by Nature cannot be false by Revelation for then God the Author of both and the God of Truth would lye and contradict himself There are common notions Principles of Reason and some Natural Truths known by Sense and Experience which we are as certain of as of our Beings and which are the Foundations of all Knowledge and which we have such evidence of that to give them up would be to run into boundless Scepticisme and own nothing to be True or False but that God hath made us of such faculties that we might be deceived in every thing now Revelation can by no means destroy these as that the whole is greater then a part that one is not three nor three one in the same respect and meaning that a Body cannot be in two places at once that our Senses are true and the like and therefore Transubstantiation cannot be true nor can that be the Sense of those words this is my Body but now in the Trinity there is nothing contrary to any Natural Truth or to any Principle of Reason for that God should have a Son of the same Nature and Divinity with himself and that an Eternal Spirit should proceed from both tho' it be a Truth by it self and of pure and immediate Revelation which our Reason could not have found out from any known Property of the Divine Nature nor from any Reason and Necessity in the thing it self yet there is nothing in it contrary to the Natural Notion of a God or to any other certain Principle of Truth or Reason The only thing that can be pretended is that of the Divine Unity which is thought to be such a Natural Notion as to be inconsistent with any more Divine Persons then one and therefore has been objected against the Trinity by all the Adversaries of this Doctrine by the Jews and Mahometans by the Samosatenians the Photinians the Arrians the Macedonians and the Socinians who have all charged it with Tritheism and Polytheism contrary to the Divine
v. 30. So that they took up stones to stone him as guilty of Blasphemy because being a Man he made himself God v. 33. There were some Hereticks of old and are so now in our days who call themselves Christians but are much of the Jews Opinion and think Christ is but a mere Man or a Creature and that he is not the Son of God in a true and proper sense nor One with the Father as to the Divine Nature though they do not like the Jews take up stones to throw at Christ as challenging this to himself yet they are if not so angry yet more disingenuous than they upon one account that they deny the true sense and meaning of Christs words as he spoke and understood them which the Jews fairly acknowledged and accused him upon it The Jews owned the words of Christ in his and in a right sense but denyed the truth of the thing the Arrians and Socinians deny both the truth of the thing and the true meaning of the words Now 't is a matter of very great importance to be satisfied in both to know and believe that that great Person whom we call our Saviour in whom we put our trust and confidence and hopes of Salvation whom we worship and pray to to whom we devote our selves in our Baptism and at other times that he is not a mere Man or Creature but as he said of himself the Son of God in a proper sense and one with the Father as having the same Divine Nature and Essence and Perfection with him that begot him and so a proper object both of our Faith Hope and Worship which he could not be without both Internal and External Idolatry if he were not thus God and the Son of God and One with the Father in respect of the same Divine Nature with his Father It shall be my business at present to Prove this after I have made a few General Remarks upon this passage and these words of our Saviour The First of which shall be this That the Jews understood our Saviour in this sense they supposed and concluded that he made himself God by saying That he was One with the Father and the Son of God for this was all we know he said He did not say directly and expresly that he was God so far as appears by the account given by the Evangelist And a great Man observes Cardinal Cusa in Cribrat Alcoran lib. 1. cap. 11. Cardinal Cusa Christus Filium Dei se nominavit Deum Patrem non Deum cum nominatio Dei sit nominatio Patris Christi And an Eminent Protestant Flaccius Illyricus agrees with him Flac. Illyric Clavis Scriptur in verbo Deus In Novo Testamento plerumque prima Persona vocatur Deus plerumque Paulus in suis Epistolis nomen Dei Patri tribuit But to be one with God was to be understood to have one Nature with him and to be the Son of God was to have this Divine Nature communicated to him from God the Father and so to be God or to make himself God or assert and declare himself to be so in that sense Thus the Jews took our Saviours words and thus understood him and they probably had very great and particular Reason so to do from the Phrases and Expressions then in use and from some Learned Writings or Authors of Credit among them at that time 't is certain they immediately put this sense upon them And this was the Ground and Reason of their charge of Blasphemy against Christ that he made himself God by making himself one with the Father and the Son of God and no doubt this was the true sense and meaning and import of our Saviours words according as they understood them especially 2. Because our Saviour did not deny this nor any way disown this sense of them nor say any thing to show they were mistaken in the sense of his words or to correct and undeceive them Now he would certainly have done this both to have corrected their Error and to have defended himself against their Charge had it not been true that he made himself God by those words of his as they understood them Had his words been to be taken in the sense which our Socinian Adversaries would now put upon them That he was One with the Father only by Consent and Agreement and not by Nature and the Son of God only by Adoption and Favour or upon the account of his extraordinary Human Birth his Resurrection from the Dead his Mediatorial Office and great Authority to which he was advanced after his Ascension though it had been a strange Prolepsis to have called himself so then upon the three last accounts and not as the True Proper and Natural Son of God our Saviours words had then given no ground or occasion for such a Charge as they laid against him and he might easily have took it off and vindicated himself by telling them that they mistook his words and that he did not mean them in the sense in which they falsly understood them and this no doubt he would have done had it been truly so and had not their sense of them been true and allowed by our Saviour It would have been hardly consistent with his Sincerity and Probity his Integrity and Honesty as a Man if he had not been God too as he was the Son of God and One with the Father to let the Jews understand his words in such a wrong sense and lay such a high Charge of Blasphemy against him upon it and not to say any thing to show they were mistaken and to correct their Error and to prevent their Sin and to vindicate and defend himself for otherwise it will look as if he had been willing to let their Mistake pass though he knew it to be so and to assume to himself the Vanity of being thought to be God and by his words to make himself such tho' he had never said it or thought it but knew the contrary which is an intolerable Reflection upon the meek and humble Jesus and not only upon the Truth of his Divinity but even his Honesty as a Man 3. The Argument which our Saviour used to defend himself against their Charge This does not invalidate as our Adversaries imagine the truth of his being One with the Father by Nature and the proper Eternal Son of God 'T is this at the 34 35 36. Ver. Jesus answered them Is it not written in your law I have said ye are gods If he called them gods unto whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be broken Say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world Thou blasphemest because I said I am the Son of God These were called Gods in the stile of the Jewish Scriptures and particularly Psal 82.2 who were called by God to be his immediate Ministers and Officers as Moses and other Magistrates therefore whoever
used that Name was not according to them to be charged presently with Blasphemy much less he whom the Father hath sanctified chosen and appointed to the great Office of Messiah and then sent him into the World to execute it Whether there be any force in what some observe (a) Quod alii ad humanium tantum Naturam restringunt ego extendo ad totam Christi Personam nam ex tribus Persnis in Coelo hic unus fuit selectus ad hoc Officium Mediatoris Zanch. de trib Eloh p. 124. that the Father chose him the Second Person of the Trinity rather than the Third and that there is also an Emphasis in the words And sent him into the world after he was first sanctified and appointed by God the Father in Heaven where he was before his Natural Begotten Son (b) Maldonat in loc and afterwards sent into the World This I shall not insist on but only allow that this was Argumentum ad homines as we say such as Christ thought the fittest and properest to offer at that time to those gross and stupid and ignorant Jewish Accusers and that was indeed only a minori ad majus whereby he designed only to wipe off the blackest and foulest parts of this Charge but not to inform and instruct them so fully and perfectly in a Truth they could not bear and were not prepared then to receive however he would not deny but did own and acknowledge their Charge of his making himself God in their sense And if this be not proved from these words of his here yet it is no way disproved any more than when he was asked whither he were the Christ or Messiah his not answering directly proves that he was not or his not instructing his Disciples so fully about his Crucifixion or Resurrection proved he was not to Dye or to Rise again Neither the Jews nor the Disciples themselves could bear some Truths at first nor the full opening the Mystery of the Gospel all at once nor had Christ dispatched all the work of his Life nor was then willing to dye or be stoned by them for a direct Charge of Blasphemy And therefore though he did not deny the Charge which he would have done had it been false yet he avoided it and defended himself against it as far as his Infinite Wisdom thought then prudent and convenient But there are other places and other Arguments to prove Christs Divinity to us his being one with the Father in Nature and the Natural and Eternal Son of God which I shall now produce and then show the usefulness and necessity of this Doctrine I shall not produce all but only select some that are the most plain and considerable The First shall be his Title and Character here given by himself The Son of God and his making God his Father which is to be meant in a proper and most excellent and natural sense upon the account of his Divine and not his Humane Nature or any thing belonging to that as he was the Son of God antecedently to his being born of the Virgin being begotten of the Father from all Eternity and having his Divine Being from the Father of the same Nature with himself For tho' the Title of the Son of God is given to others in Scripture and to Christ himself upon other accounts as God calls the Children of Israel his Son and his First-born Exod. 4.22 as being in a state of Favour and Covenant with him And Christians are thus more especially the Adopted Sons and the Children of God in the Scripture stile And Christ himself is called the Son of God upon several other accounts as upon his Extraordinary Humane Birth and Conception by the Holy Ghost Luke 1.35 upon account of his Resurrection his being the First-born or First-begotten from the Dead St. Paul applying to him the words of David in the second Psalm Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee upon this very account Acts 13.33 and as afterwards upon his Ascension he was made Heir of all things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Col. 1.15 The first-born and heir of the whole Creation But there is a higher Ground and Reason than all these of this great Character given to Christ in Scripture the Son of God namely his Eternal Divine Generation his being begotten of the Father in his own Likeness and Image and having his Divine Nature communicated to him for this is the first and most proper Notion of a Son Another Person or Being for nulla res generat seipsam as St. Austin sayes de Trin. l. 1. c. 1. produced or begotten in the same Nature and Likeness with its Father or Producent That Christ was thus generated of the Father and of the Substance of the Father and not Created or Made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Arrians held and that he was the Son of God and God his Father in this proper and excellent sense as the Christian Church has alwayes declared and believed so the Scripture bears witness to it in all those places where it calls Christ God and ascribes the Divine Nature and Divine Perfections to him as I shall show it does and sayes he was in the beginning before the World or from all Eternity with God and that he was in the Form of God and thought it not robbery to be equal with God i. e. as having the same Nature with him which must be by that Communication of it which we call Generation for he had not this from himself or from none but from another who is therefore call'd his Father But on this Head I insist only upon the propriety of those phrases his being the Son of God and God being his Father which are to be understood in the proper literal and natural meaning as all persons would understand them when spoken of a Humane Father and Son and so they are to be taken when there is not a Connotation or a particular Reason expressed to denote an improper and Metaphorical use of them And there is one word frequently used in Scripture which I think is a sufficient proof of this and that is when Christ is call'd not only the Son but the only Son and the only begotten Son of God as John 1.14 John 3.16 1 John 4.9 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a verbal signifying as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or uni-genitus is one who has no partner or sharer in that Sonship which is ascribed to him but Christ as an adopted Son has many Brethren and therefore it must be meant of that Divine Generation and Sonship which belongs to him alone and God by sending his only begotten Son intended to express his utmost Love to Mankind and to that purpose St. John uses the phrase God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son But nothing raises this Love so high as his sending his own Natural Son a Person of the highest
Dignity next to himself and one of the same Divine Nature with himself whereas if he were only an Adopted Son or a Son upon the other accounts only neither the Love of the Father nor the Condescension of the Son would appear in such Great Characters as the Scripture designedly sets them out by I have insisted longer on this Title of Son and only begotten Son because they are the only words in the Apostolick and the oldest Creeds to express the belief of Christs Divinity thereby designing to answer a great Objection of our Adversaries I shall be more brief on the rest 2. As Christ is called the Son of God so he is called God also in Scripture in several places John 1.1 The Word was with God and the Word was God My Lord and my God John 20.28 God blessed for ever Rom. 9.5 And in others especially those taken from the Old Testament and applyed to Christ in the New Now what can our Adversaries say to this Sometimes they say The Word is not meant of Christ But that is so undeniable in some places that they cannot but own it And therefore they say Christ though having only the Humane and not the Divine Nature is called God in a certain sense viz. by Office as Moses and other Magistrates who were the Ministers and Deputies and Embassadors of God and upon that account have that Name sometimes attributed to them and Christ by having that extraordinary Office of Messiah and that extraordinary Power over all things committed to him as Mediator after his Ascension is upon this account they say God and may be called God and the True God and the most High God as Socinus Stichlingius Smalcius Ruarus and others of them speak but still they deny that Christ is God by Nature or that he has the True Divine Nature the same with the Father belonging to him but only as a Man he is made and exalted to be a God by being advanced to an extraordinary Power and Authority over all other Creatures but this leaves him still in the rank and order of Creatures nay makes him a God of a meer Man a Late not an Eternal God One who had no Being before he was Born of the Virgin and no Divinity till after his Resurrection and his Ascension into Heaven so that they may date his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and know exactly how many Years and Dayes he has been God in their Ridiculous Blasphemous and Heathenish Sense of the word God But God is an Eternal Infinite All-perfect Being who was and is and is to come whose Existence is Necessary and not Contingent Eternal and not of Yesterday who has the True Divine Essence and Nature and the Incommunicable Excellencies and Perfections belonging to it And in this sense Christ is God and True God and God by Nature as I shall prove evidently from Scripture He is not indeed God the Father or God from none 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in that sense we believe in One God the Father Almighty and to us there is but One God the Father as the Apostle speaks 1 Cor. 8.6 and Christ is the Son of this God the Father who had his Being and Nature from him but he is God of God very God of very God as the Nicene Creed expresses it has the Divine Nature and Divine Perfections Naturally belonging to him and in that Sense is true God This I shall prove further 3. From his being joyned with the Father in the Baptismal Office and in the Christian Form of Benediction as we have them Mat. 28 19. 1 Cor. 13.14 Now can we think that Christ and the Holy Ghost would be joyned together in both those with the Father if they were only Creatures though of the highest Dignity and Quality and were not truly God and of the same Nature Honour and Dignity with the Father We may as well and much better suppose that a Charter of Priviledges should be Granted in the name of the King and of two of his greatest Subjects or Homage Sworn to them and to the King both together and that they should be joyned in the same Royal and Sovereign Acts of Favour and have the same acknowledgements and Oaths of Fidelity made to them as that God the Father should be joyned with two mere Creatures in such Solemn Religious acts of Christianity Baptism is the Highest and most Solemn Devoting and Dedicating our Selves to God and professing the Christian Faith by the special and distinguishing Characters of it as containing the Belief of Father Son and Holy Ghost which are the Fundamental 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Christianity as distinct from natural and Jewish Religion Now to do this to Creatures or in the name of Creatures as well as God would be a strange anomally and unaccountable absurdity The Jews indeed were Baptized into Moses in the Cloud and in the Sea 1 Cor. 20.2 as our Adversaries often remind us but this was only Mystically and Figuratively and almost into the Religion delivered by Moses they were not Devoted to Moses but to the God of Israel nor were Baptized in the name of the God of Israel and of Moses joyned together as Christians are in the name of Father Son and Holy Ghost nor was there ever any Benediction given in the name of Moses or of Abraham and the like but only in the name of God the God of Israel who would not give his Glory to another nor allow any Creatures to be his Rivals or share with him in the most Religious Acts of Homage and Fealty and in the incommunicable rights tenders and acknowledgments of Divine Honour payed to Him or in the Grants and Donations of special Favour that flowed and issued from himself alone So that I take this Form of Christian Baptism and Christian Blessing to be a very strong Evidence to all but perverse Unbelievers of the Divinity both of the Son and of the Holy Ghost who are thus joyned with the Father in very short and solemn Forms as of equal Honour Power and Dignity with him to whom Christians are alike to Devote themselves and to expect like Blessings and Favours from all of them 4. The Divinity of Christ is fully proved and Demonstrated from such Divine Acts and operations such Divine Excellencies Attributes and Perfections as belong only to God and the Divine Nature and which are expresly ascribed to Christ in the Holy Scriptures as to Create and make the World to be Omnipotent Omnipresent Omniscient Eternal and the like The Notion we have of a God is a being endued with these Infinite Persections which cannot belong to a Finite and Limited Creature however excellent unless we confound the Idaea's of Finite and Infinite of God and a Creature and bring the one down so low or raise the other so high as to make no difference between them These are the proper Attributes Properties and Excellencies of the Divine Nature and he that hath these must have the Divine
in Isa 6.3 Holy Holy Holy Galatinus and Voisin and other Rabbinical Writers produce many such Instances out of the Jewish Writers to this purpose notwithstanding which I doubt the Notion of the Messiah as a Divine Person and as the Son of God in our Sense was lost among all the latter Jews who looked upon him only as a Temporal Prince and an Earthly Monarch and though in many places of the Old Testament and especially in the Book of Psalms there are several Proofs and Authorities for the belief of a Trinity and the Messiah's being a Divine Person yet there is nothing in their Revelation that has any Evidence of it equal to that of the Gospel and therefore notwithstanding all imperfect and obscure Revelations of it before it is called there a Mystery which hath been hid from Ages and Generatiins but is now made manifest Colos 1.26 Which was kept secret since the World began but now is made manifest Rom. 16.26 Which in other Ages was not made known unto the Sons of men as it is now revealed unto us Eph. 3.6 Our Socinian Adversaries will allow the Christian Faith to be a Mystery upon these two Accounts I have mention'd And I must confess the word Mystery is generally used in Scripture in these Sences but it is not so much the Word as the Thing we are to Consider namely whether there be any Truths in Religion Incomprehensible to our Reason And this is the Third Reason why I would have the Christian Faith called a Mystery which they so much Expose and Ridicule and which I shall endeavour to Defend as it contains 3. Something Incomprehensible and Vnconceivable and Vnaccountable to our Reason and Vnderstanding even after it is the most fully and clearly revealed by the Gospel By which I do not mean that we have no Idaea Conception or Knowledge at all of what we do believe concerning it for then it would be just such a Mystery as it is to those who know nothing at all of it a Thing perfectly unknown a Nullity a Non-Entity which is no manner of Object of our Faith and concerning which we can neither affirm or deny any things not have any Perswasion or Disswasion about it The Trinity would then be only an empty word or sound without any meaning or signification like the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the unlearned Greek Scribes mention'd by St. Hierome Epist 136. put for the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but we know very well what is meant by those words of Father Son and Holy Ghost or Spirit though to connect and unite those Idea's and to make such Propositions out of those Terms as are agreeable to Faith may be a difficulty 2. Yet neither are we so to joyn and unite those Idea's nor to make any such Propositions out of those Terms as shall be inconsistent with themselves and destroy and contradict one another as to say that they are One and that they are Three in the same respect the same sense and consideration The doing this or endeavouring to do it has wretchedly perplext our Christian Faith and made it be called by its Enemies a Mystery of Nonsense Absurdity and Contradiction and exposed it as such to our Heretical Adversaries whereas had we gone no farther then Scripture the only Rule of our Faith in this matter and held with that that to us there is One God the Father One God 1 Cor. 8.6 Eph. 4.6 John 17.3 and Father of all who is above all and had we known him the onely true God as Christ calls him not exclusively but eminently and by way of Excellency and Prerogative by which the Name and Title of God is peculiarly praedicated of God the Father in Scripture Calvin in Protheses Valent. Gent. as Calvin ingenuously delivers it to use his own words Ingenue tradimus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dei nomen Patri proprie ascribi And another Protestant Divine his Follower Zanchius de tribus Elohim L. 5. C. 5. Patrem sic vocari Vnum solum Deum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quia totius est Deitatis fons which is the great Reason given by the Fathers of the Divine Unity and in this the * Peculiaritèr 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tribuitur Patri nomen Dei Ravanell Bibl. v. Deus Persona Papists agree with them Had we considered this plain Scriptural account and observation that one God is spoken and praedicated of the Father and meant of him when it is said both in the Old Testament and the New The Lord thy God is One God Deut. 6.4 Mark 12.32 and there is none other but he or besides him we had not given occasion for that objection of our Adversaries against our Faith of its implying a Contradiction or of its setting up more Gods than one The One God whom we Pray to in the Lord's Prayer and in other Christian Offices and Addresses whom we profess to believe in in our Creed and whom the Scripture calls so is God the Father Almighty and he hath an onely begotten Son of the same Nature and Essence with himself who is the brightness of his Glory and the express Image of his Person and there is also an Holy Spirit proceeding from both and sent by both who hath the Characters and Attributes of Divinity plainly ascribed to him and who is joyned with the Father and the Son in the Office of Christian Baptism and in the Form of Christian Blessing and against whom the most high and unpardonable Sin may be committed This is our Christian Faith which as it lies in the Scripture has no contradiction in it that I know of nor do the several terms whereof it consists destroy or oppose one another These three are one is the only thing in Scripture or in our Faith that sounds as a Contradiction and in one and the same sense it must be owned such a downright contradiction that it cannot be true some would therefore suspect and throw out that passage and are very willing to find some Copies of the Bible without it it being the only place of Scripture that sayes this but our Saviour sayes He and his Father are one John 10.30 and three may be one as well as two We must therefore consider the true sense and meaning of the words which was not to teach us a new way of numbring or to destroy the nature of numbers no more then when it is said Man and Wife are One Christ and Believers are One and the many hundred Converts to Christianity were of one Heart and of one Soul there are several sorts of Unity there is an Unity of Consent and agreement which may be amongst a great many of Power and Authority which may be possessed and executed by several Persons who may be all one General Admiral Chancellor and even one Sovereign and Royal Monarch A great many Individuals may be one in Nature and Essence as all Mankind
in the Material World that lyes before us 2. In our own Minds and in Spiritual Beings 3. In Arts and Sciences 4. In Natural Religion 5. In Revelation or the other parts of it besides the Mystery of the Trinity and the Christian Faith 6. I shall add that the Socinians and other Adversaries to Mysteries run into greater Difficulties and Incomprehensible things in their Schemes than those they oppose But these and what remains upon the second General Head of Discourse to wit how we are to hold the Mystery of Faith in a pure Conscience I shall leave to the Afternoon THE MYSTERY OF THE Christian Faith AND OF THE Blessed TRINITY VINDICATED SERMON II. 1 TIM iii. 9. Holding the Mystery of the Faith in a pure Conscience I Proposed to Discourse from these words on these two things I. Why the Christian Faith is called a Mystery II. How we are to hold it in a pure Conscience The Christian Faith was a Mystery I have shewn upon three Accounts 1. As it was not knowable by Natural Reason without an Express and immediate Divine Revelation 2. As it was very Imperfectly and Obscurely revealed before the Gospel and the Coming of Christ 3. As it is Incomprehensible to our Reason and what we cannot fully Conceive and Apprehend even after it is clearly Revealed The Socinians and other Adversaries to Mysteries and to the Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity are for Believing nothing which they cannot Comprehend and Understand and will admit nothing Mysterious in Christianity and therefore are for rejecting such Doctrines those especially of the Trinity as are so and will allow the Christian Faith to be a Mystery only in the two former Senses but not in the latter and they expose and ridicule all Mysteries and the believing things they do not understand as the most absurd and unreasonable Opinions as the believing only so many words without any sense or meaning as destroying the certain principles of Truth and Reason and unmanning our selves to become Christians and swallowing down the most monstrous Absurdities and Contradictions and calling them by the name of Faith and Mysteries I have shown that our Christian Faith even that of the Trinity is not liable to those Objections that by its being Incomprehensible we do not mean that we have no Knowledge or Conception at all of it or that it is only so many words without any sense or meaning understood by us or that it is contrary to any natural Truth or to any Principles of Reason known to us or that it implies a Contradiction or has any Inconsistencies in it but only that we cannot understand it fully and every thing that belongs to it that there is nothing else we know to which we can compare it nor have any perfect likeness or resemblance of it by any thing in visible Nature or in our own Minds that it is a Truth and an Object by it self made known to us purely by Revelation and such a Complex Idaea or Connexion of Idaeas that we have no other Idaea Similitude or Representation that exactly answers or comes perfectly up to and therefore it is Incomprehensible and Unconceivable by us and an Object too great and too big for our weak Reason and Imperfect Faculties fully to understand That there is something in it beyond all our Knowledge and all our Conceptions and yet that it is not upon that account to be rejected and disbelieved by us but since the Truth and Reality of it is made known and discovered to us by Revelation the Difficulty and Incomprehensibleness and Mysteriousness of the thing is not a sufficient Argument or Reason for our not believing it To Prove and Maintain this and to Defend the Mystery of our Christian Faith and the Doctrine of Mysteries in General I proposed to show and make out that there are a great many other things which are Mysterious and Incomprehensible to us and which we cannot fully Conceive or Understand and yet do no way doubt the Truth of them but Mankind are very well satisfied and assured about them As 1. In Visible Nature and in the Material World that lyes before us 2. In our own Minds and in Spiritual Beings 3. In Arts and Sciences 4. In Natural Religion 5. In Revelation I mean the other parts of it besides the Mystery of the Trinity and the Christian Faith 6. Lastly To these I shall add That the Socinians and other Adversaries to Mysteries have as many Difficulties and Incomprehensible Things in their Schemes as those they oppose 1. There are many things in Visible Nature and in the Material World which are Mysterious and Incomprehensible to us Indeed all Nature is full of Mystery and showes the admirable and incomprehensible Wisdom of its great Author and Contriver the Heavens above where are so many glorious Luminaries so many shining Worlds and new Earths so much bigger than ours so many Globes of Fire that are maintained we know not how that keep such exact Order and Distance to us and to one another and move in their Liquid Aether in such exact Lines by Causes unknown to us as if so many Intelligencies guided them rather than the whirling Streams of their own fluid Vortices The Earth also beneath where are so many Animals of such curious Make and Structure that the formation of them their Life Motion the Composition and Uses of all their Parts are things to be admired not comprehended by us where every Fly and Mite and Insect and every Spire of Grass we tread on is beyond all our Knowledge and Phylosophy to give a full account of and the greatest Theorist can no more understand all that belongs to 'em than he can make ' em These are sufficient Instances of the Imperfection of our Knowledge and of the Greatness of Gods we that know so little of them and of our selves how we live or how we move so much as a Finger how our Bodies were wonderfully formed and curiously wrought in the Womb and how Blood and Spirits make their brisk Sallies through every part and by such various Fermentations keep up Life and Heat in us and how the solid parts are nourished and increased by them and how every new Fibre and Muscle is woven and knit about them what an admirable Net-work and unaccountable Mechanism is in the Eye Brain Heart in every part and in the whole of us We that comprehend and understand so little of this and of our own bodily Nature how can we be supposed to understand and comprehend every thing that belongs to the Divine Nature and not be as much puzzled and confounded about the knowledge of that as we are about our own If we knew any thing perfectly it should be matter surely and what lies just before us and yet we know nothing of that but its outward accidents and a few of its qualities its colour and figure and hardness or softness or the like but its inward substance and what is the subject
to be capable of Divine Worship to pray to him and trust in him as a God and hope for Salvation from him and yet to believe him to be only a Man is an Absurdity so gross so contrary to all Notions of God and a Creature and confounding all this Infinite distance and difference between them and so destroying all the Reasons and arguments of giving Divine Worship to God only and such a Principle of Paganism and Idolatry so directly contrary to Christianity that nothing is comparable to it were it never so true but which with the greatest falseness they object to the contrary side It does highly aggravate and increase this difficulty and absurdity and no way lessen and abate it to ascribe as they do all the Divine Perfections of Almighty Power and Infinite Goodness and Vertual Omnipresence to this mere Man and born Creature which is not only robbing God of his Incommunicable Attributes and giving his Glory to Another but taking away all the strongest Arguments for proving God to be Almighty and All-perfect by making a man to be so and therefore capable to make and Create the World as well as God himself for if he is capable of such Perfections as belong to God he is capable of doing the same things and so of taking his Work out of his hands and then we cannot prove a God from the Creation since a man a Creature if as powerful and as perfect as God which they make Christ to be under this consideration may be able also to effect and Redemption is a Greater and a more Glorious work then Creation and if that may be accomplished by a mere man and we can owe our Salvation to him as such then we owe more thanks and greater praises and acknowledgments and more gratitude to him to the Lord that bought us than we do even to the Lord that made us I might Instance in a great many other Particulars but I must proceed to The Second General Head of Discourse How we are to Hold the Mystery of the Faith in a pure Conscience By which these several Things may be implyed 1. That out of Regard to the Revelation and out of Conscience of believing whatever God reveals to us we firmly assent to it and bring our Vnderstandings to comply with it notwithstanding the Difficulty and Mysteriousness of the Thing 2. That we do not out of Vanity or Singularity or from any faults of the Will or Sinister Ends and Designs pervert or corrupt or deny this Mystery of Faith 3. That we hold and maintain it with Christian and Good Tempers 4. With a Good Life in General and with a Conscience so pure as to be void of all sin and wilful wickedness 1. That out of regard to c. Otherwise we take away both the Truth and the Authority of Divine Revelation Christianity not Mysterious pag. 38. and make it with a late Author Not a motive of Assent but only a means of Information Or as he further words it Not a Ground of our Perswasion or a Reason we have to believe a Thing as if we were to receive it only because revealed which he will not allow but only from the evidence in the thing it self and the clear Conception we form of it If so then Revelation is only to lay such things before us and we are to judge of the Truth of them our selves and the truth of things depends not upon the Revelation nor is our belief of them to be resolved into that but into our own Conceptions so that we are not to believe them because the God of Truth reveals them but because we have other reasons to know they are true This is setting aside the Infallibility and Authority of Divine Revelation and Judging the matter over again by our own Reason and making that Superior to it So that if what God reveals be never so clear and plain and the sense and meaning of the Words be never so evident yet if there be not an Evidence in the thing and it do not carry its own Conviction in it and we have not a perspicuous and distinct Conception of it then we have not Reason to believe it as true At this rate Revelation must never go beyond our Natural Knowledge and let God say or reveal what he pleases to us yet we are not bound to believe it barely upon his Word without some further reason or some other ground of perswasion from the thing it self This is a most Arrogant and Impudent treating of God and the Holy Scriptures and barring them from revealing any thing and excusing us from believing it if we have not some further ground and reason for it But surely God is true and his Word to be Credited for it self alone without any further Security or Evidence of the thing it self and if we are once satisfied about the Revelation and do own that to be true we are not to demurre to the plain sense and meaning of it though there be no other Evidence in the thing nor any other ground of perswasion for the Truth of it but only that and sure we are as much bound to bring our Reason and Understandings to submit to the Truth of what God says as our Wills to the Obedience of what he Commands though we have no other reason for the Truth of the one or the goodness of the other and though both may seem very difficult to us Else we make our selves and not God Judges of what is true and false and either prejudge a thing not to be true whatever he says of it and so prevent any Revelation about it or else Judge it over again by other Measures and condemn and reject it if it comport not with those and be not conformable and agreeable to our Reason and Conceptions of things though we know nothing of it but by Revelation and that both clear and evident and undoubted 2. Our holding the Mystery of the Faith in a pure Conscience implies That we do not Pervert Corrupt or Deny it out of any Vanity and Vain-glory Singularity or Affectation of Novelty or out of any corrupt Inclination and fault of the Will or any Sinister and by-end whatsoever Most Heresies have proceeded from some such Causes as these and therefore are by the Apostle call'd the works of the Flesh Gal. 5.20 The Error having had its first Rise and Original not so much from the Weakness and Infirmity of the Understanding as from the strength and Obstinacy the Corruption and Depravity of the Will and it has had its chief tincture of Malignity and poyson from this root of Bitterness and from this corrupt fountain from whence it sprung and arose A proud and conceited opinion of Mens being Wiser not only than their Teachers but than the whole Christian Church and a natural itch after Novelty and Curiosity and the pleasing vanity of being Singular and Remarkable or of being the Heads of a Party and giving the Name