Unity but this has been from not understanding what the Divine Unity was and wherein it truly consisted according to the Scriptural account I have given of it which wholly takes off this Objection There are several things I own in the Blessed Trinity Incomprehensible to our Reason and Unconceivable and Unaccountable to our Finite Understandings when they are imployed about so great and Infinite an Object which is too big for them and so much above them As why and how an Infinite All-sufficient God should produce an Eternal Son and Communicate the same Nature to him with himself whether this were by a voluntary or a necessary Production and Emanation and how the Procession of the Holy Ghost differs from the Generation of the Son any otherwise than as that was an Emanation from both and not from the Father alone and how three such Infinite Persons are so distinct from one another as not to be confounded or be the same tho' Omnipresent and in the same Infinite Vbi and tho' so Inseparably united yet the one to take flesh and be Incarnate and not the other These and other things relating to this Mystery of our Christian Faith are I say Incomprehensible Unconceiveable and Unaccountable to our Reason by which I mean only that we can compare 'em to nothing else that we certainly know that we have no perfect or absolute likeness of them in any thing else that we have no adequate Idea simple or complex no similitude or Representation of any such thing in our minds from any thing else in Nature but that 't is a Truth purely known and manifested by Revelation joyning together and connecting such Idea's concerning God and so presenting them to the mind as united together under one view and so compounded and complicated with one another that tho' they do not disagree nor are contrary to one another yet we see not perfectly their agreement or connection but have only an obscure and general and confused view and conception of them as we have a sight of such Objects which are too high or too remote for our eye thoroughly to ken and yet we see them tho' not by the naked Eye yet by the help of a glass or Telescope so as to be satisfied of the Truth of them Revelation is as a Telescope and our Reason and Understanding is as the Eye which could not by its naked Power discern or find out those high Objects and supernatual Truths of our Christian Faith but now by Revelation they are discovered to us and our Reason and Understanding as the Organ without which we cannot see or believe any thing does plainly see and discern them but it is as through a glass darkly as having something of Cloud and darkness about them or as we see the Sun which is an object too dazling and illustrious to look fully upon with our weak Eyes The Sun with ' its coeval light and heat is an usual resemblance of the sacred Trinity and is the best material one that is in Nature but light and heat are but qualities and motions not substantial Things and are though not divided from the Sun yet without it and not in it so the fountain River and streams are but imperfect partial Resemblances as having the same water in all and not being cut off or separated from the Fountain but all material likenesses must fail when applyed to Spiritual things Our own Soul is the best Image of God and without it we should not know what God or Wisdom or any of his Perfections were the two faculties of Understanding and Will are the most like to the Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Wisdom and to the Divine Spirit power and Energy and in allusion to these the Schoolmen would have the Son to be begotten per Intellectum by a direct act of the Divine Mind conceiving an Idea of ' its Self and the Holy Ghost to proceed by a reflexion per amorem by an active Love of it self upon such a Conception But these men have been the most rash and bold explainers of the Trinity which is a Truth and an Object by it Self to which nothing else is perfectly like and of which we can have no Comparative knowledge nor no compleat and adequate Idea or Comprehension for the two sacred Originated Persons are not two faculties but two substantial Persons and Real Beings the Scripture ascribing as distinct Properties Relations Attributes Characters Acts and Operations to each of them as to any other distinct Persons and Beings whatsoever as the Son to be begotten of the Father to be sent into the World by the Father to pray to the Father and mediate with the Father Now the same Being and Person cannot be Father and Son to it Self beget and be begotten of it Self send and be sent by it Self pray to and mediate with it Self and the like may be said as to the Spirit These are not therefore like one and the same mind with two faculties or two acts or operations or only as variously considered two ways nor are they one thing or one Being diversified only with three Names Titles Offices Characters Capacities Respects or any three differences whatever belonging to one Person or Being but three true proper real Divine Persons The One the Father the other the Son the third the Spirit of both Now nothing in our own minds or in visible Nature is perfectly like these or to which we can compare them or from whence we can draw a Similitude Representation or Idea of them and therefore they are Incomprehensible and Unconceivable by us for 't is by Comparison and likeness we chiefly know and conceive things and 't is hard to distinguish between Knowledge Conception and Imagination so that what some persons cannot imagine or cannot have a picture or likeness of in their Fancy and Imagination they say they cannot conceive and therefore some pretend they can have no Conceptions of a Spiritual Substance and others no Idaea of the Trinity nor even of God by which they mean they cannot have a Picture or Idea or likeness of these things in their Imagination but we know and believe and are well assur'd of a great many things without that as of all Mathematical and Metaphysical Verities about abstracted things of all Axioms and Common Notions of all Demonstrations about Lines and Numbers of all things not Corporeal as Time Motion the Acts and Operations of our own Minds such as Understanding Choosing Suspending Doubting and the like all which we know by Reason and can reason about though we can have no Pictures or imaginary Idaea's of them or any other likenesses of them I shall show for the Defence of Mysteries and of the Mystery of the Trinity and the Christian Faith that there are a great many other things which are Incomprehensible and unconceivable to us concerning which we are well assur'd and have no doubt of them and this in several Particulars 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 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
Infinite Division of Numbers in Decimal Fractions the Case of asymptotes How two Lines may be so drawn as always to approach and come nearer one another and yet never touch one another tho' drawn in infinitum The like Instances might be given of other Mysteries in Arts and Sciences which are as Incredible and Unreasonable to those who do not know them as any Mysteries in Religion and yet are certainly true and unquestionably believed by those who do and yet to them a great many of them may be Incomprehensible 'T is only Ignorance and want of Knowledge makes them seem unreasonable and incredible the more we improve in those Arts the more we shall see the Truth of them and have no doubt about them And so it is in the Mysteries of Religion 't is the shallowness and weakness of our Faculties makes them difficult and incomprehensible to us When we come to know God better especially in another World these reveal'd Truths concerning his Nature will be better understood and comprehended by us though now to deny and disbelieve them after they so are fully revealed because they are Incomprehensible is as if an Ignorant Person should call in question all Truths of those Arts and Sciences which he does not understand and which are Incomprehensible to him 4. There are Incomprehensible Truths in Natural Religion as well as in Revelation and in the Mystery of the Christian Faith God who is known by Nature and whose Being and Perfections are the great objects of natural Religion is as Incomprehensible and as much too big for our finite Reason and Faculties fully to Comprehend as any of the Articles of Revealed Religion or Christian Faith His 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Self-Existence is such a thing as our Thoughts are wholly lost about when we consider of it and yet something must be self-existent even by the Atheistic hypothesis So something must be Eternal and yet let any man try his thoughts about Eternity Infinite Duration or Infinite Succession and see how they are swallowed up in those deeps of Speculation Let him conceive if he can Eternity without Succession and Immensity without Extension and clear himself from that Contradiction if applyed to any thing but God that what is past or future is yet present that he now exists to morrow and that a thousand years ago his Duration was the same as now and nothing is added to it he may improve these into as puzling and incomprehensible difficulties if he pleases as any thing about the Trinity What shall we think of that inextricable Difficulty of Gods prescience of all Humane Actions by which they are certain and yet of our Liberty by which they are contingent when it is as hard to make those two Consistent as to make Father and Son to be one and yet we must do so or else rob God of one of his greatest Perfections or else rob Man of his Will and Freedom and so destroy all Moral Good and Evil. Since there are then so many Mysteries and Incomprehensible Truths even in Natural Religion which our Deists I hope do sincerely believe and which is owned to be the foundation of all other why should we wonder at those which are not much greater in Revelation and in the Mystery of Christian Faith The Creation of the World out of nothing is as Inconceivable and as Mysterious as the Generation of the Son from the Father and one Infinite Being is as much too big for our Finite Understandings to Comprehend as Three and his Attributes and Perfections are as hard to be distinguished and as irreconcileable with the simplicity of the Divine Nature as multiplicity of Persons His Justice and his Mercy his Power Wisdom and Goodness are no more the same as conceived by us but excite as truly different Ideas in us as his being a Father and begetting a Son and having a holy Ghost proceeding from him but yet the three Persons are more than three Attributes and the same person cannot be Father and Son to himself as he is Just and Merciful to us nor is it only three Considerations Capacities or Titles of one Being but three proper and distinct Persons that constitute the Sacred Trinity But we may as well conceive a monad emaning or producing two from it self as Creating all things out of nothing and being as Infinite as himself and the World both and as having three several Attributes distinct in themselves and not Confounded or Identified with one another 5. There are other Truths in Revelation as Incomprehensible and Unconceivable as this of the Trinity or the Mystery of Christian Faith To mention nothing else those many Miracles which are the proof and demonstration of the Divine Revelation and which must be acknowledged by all those who admit it and are not at all question'd by our Socinian Adversaries these are as Incomprehensible and Unintelligible to us as any Articles of our Faith they are matters as much above our Reason and do as much exceed all other things we know and all the likenesses and compositions of any thing we are acquainted with in Nature as the Trinity or any thing else in Revelation The Divine Power is no more limited to do those things only which we can conceive than the Divine Veracity to Reveal those things only which we can Comprehend and yet we are to believe both If we could conceive fully how the one was done we might do it our selves and if we could comprehend perfectly how the others are true and how those several Ideas are connected and agree together we might compound them our selves and so God would not be more Powerful or more Wise than Man is Our Finite Understanding is no more able to comprehend all that God does than our Finite Power to effect every thing that he can Miracles are as much above us as to Facts and as much Mysteries as to the Laws of Matter and Motion and the known properties of Bodies as Revealed Articles are above us as to Truths and known principles of Reason and as to any other comparative Ideas and representations of things which are Familiar to us and which we are well acquainted with Our Adversaries may therefore as well deny all Miracles as being Unconceivable and Incomprehensible to their Reason and as Mysterious Facts which are very much above Nature and above all our Conceptions as the Mysteries of Faith and the Principles of Revealed Religion such as the Blessed Trinity upon this very score and account and may for the same Reason discard all revelation and all natural Religion which I fear is the design of some of them but I hope not of the greatest part Lastly I proposed to show that there are as many Difficulties and more Mysteries in their sense that is Inconsistencies and Absurdities in the Socinian Scheme and System of Opinions than in the Orthodox Faith they oppose Thus to make a mere Man a God to exalt a Creature to such a Degree as
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
and Denomination to a New Sect of Followers this has made a great many in former and latter Ages set up for new Opinions in opposition to the Antient Faith and endeavour to pull that down that they might erect Trophies of vain-glory to themselves upon the ruins of it It is not so easie always nor so well indeed for others to judge this of them but if they would judge themselves and search impartially into their own Hearts they would find the Truth and meaning of what the Apostle says Tit. 3.11 That such an Heretick is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 condemned of himself and best knows and is Conscious to himself of the undue and faulty Reasons and the sinister and by-ends and designs which were the secret Springs and corrupt Causes of his Heresie of his Espousing such a singular and Novel Opinion out of a spirit of Contradiction or a proud Conceitedness of his own Parts Wisdom or Learning above others or perhaps for some more Worldly and Carnal Reasons to serve a Party or carry on an Interest according to the Character the Apostle gives of such an Heretick of old 1 Tim. 6.4 5. He is proud knowing nothing but doting about questions and strifes of words whereof cometh envy strife railings evil surmisings perverse Disputing of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth supposing that gain is Godliness And who for filthy Lucres sake taught things which they ought not as he charges them in another place Tit. 1.11 And in our days I doubt some mens opposing the Faith and others contending about it is more contending for this World and some Interests in it then for any thing else Envy and Emulation and a Competition about those being more at the bottom of some Disputes among us than a Zeal for the Faith falsly so called and only hypocritically pretended But this if it prove not a Corrupting the Faith is to be sure not Holding it in a pure Conscience For 3. We must hold this Mystery of Faith with a Christian good Temper and not lose that whilst we are contending for the other nor let our Contentions grow so warm and intemperate so fierce and cruel as to forget and violate the plain Morals of Christianity whilst we are over-earnestly disputing for the Faith of it or perhaps only for some false and mistaken or at best some useless Opinions and over-nice and subtle Controversies about it This has been the fault of those who have contended more for Victory than Truth and more for their own Credit and Vain-glory than the Christian Faith who though they may be in the right as 't is ten to one that they are not for Truth seldom dwells with such a Spirit of Rage and Pride and Passion but rather with a quite other Temper yet they greatly deserve the Cause they so unduly manage And as they never are like to convince their Adversaries so they give others just ground to suspect that they apply want of better Reason and stronger Arguments with weak and impotent Calumny and with undecent and unbecoming Reflections This is as Criminal and as Unchristian as the Error or the Heresie they are so zealous against and 't is to be doubted 't is rather a false Fire and an Hypocritical Zeal not for the Cause of God so much as their own and that this is kindled not from the Altar but some other place and blown up by some private pique and sinister designs that thus blazes out to such an outragious degree as to consume and destroy not only its Adversaries if it were in its power but even the most vital and substantial parts of Christianity Peace Love and Charity and contends for the Christian Faith with such a most Diabolical and Unchristian Temper This is very far from the Spirit of Christ and Christianity and however precious the Faith be yet the Apostle tells us 1 Cor. 13.2 if we had all Faith and understood all Mysteries and all Knowledge yet without Charity we are nothing however great we may be in our own Thoughts and such a zeal of sowreness and bitterness as it is generally without Knowledge so it is alwayes without Religion and though it hold the Mystery of the Faith and do not rather pervert and corrupt it yet to be sure this also is not according to the Apostles advice in a pure Conscience Lastly This implies holding it with a good Life in general and with a Conscience so pure as to be free from all Sin and all wilful Wickedness For what does the most Pure and Orthodox Faith signifie if our Lives are Heretical and Unchristian For there is no Heresie so damnable and destructive and so contrary to Christianity as a bad Life and living by Principles of Immorality and no Orthodoxy is comparable to a good Life and a Christian Conversation God will sooner forgive a great many Errors which may proceed from weakness of Judgment and want of Information and be joined with probity and sincerity of Mind rather than one Act of wilful Wickedness and Immorality which is committed always against the Light of a Man 's own Conscience as well as against the Light of the Gospel and where there can be no pretence or plea of Ignorance to excuse it Christian Faith in the whole compass of it is designed to be a powerful and operative Principle upon our Hearts and Lives to be a Seed that is not to be sowed in barren ground but to grow up in all the priviledges of Holiness and Righteousness and to produce not only the Leaves of a formal Profession and the Blossoms of Christian Faith but the sound and substantial Fruit of all Christian and Divine Vertues This Faith is not only to float in our Heads and overflow our Tongues but to sink down into our Hearts and become the Vital Principle of a truly Pious and Holy and Vertuous Life Christianity is not only to teach us a new scheme and set of Opinions and to make new Articles of Faith for us but to make us walk in newness and holiness of Life to set the best Precepts of Morality and lay the best Models of Vertue before us and engage us to follow them by the greatest Arguments and the strongest Obligations and if our Faith do not engage and prevail upon us to do this it will be so far from saving us that it will only more highly condemn us and increase and double our Eternal Damnation Which God of his Infinite Mercy prevent through Jesus Christ our Merciful Redeemer THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST PROVED SERMON III. JOHN x. 36. 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 THIS is the Defence of our Blessed Saviour against the Charge of the Jews who were enraged at his saying that he was the Son of God for that it seems he had said of himself by the words of my Text and that he and his Father were one
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