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
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
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
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
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
must be very arrogant in our Adversaries to oppose themselves to the Belief of the whole Primitive Church and to disagree with all those Holy Men and Learned Writers whom we call the Fathers who have transmitted Christianity and this Doctrine down to us and this Socinus even frankly and openly owns Patres omnes ab ipsis dissentire in his Answer to Wiekus Tom. 2. Resp ad 2 Cap. Wieki Clas 7. c. 9. p. 618. and sayes Haec authoritatum testimoniorum ex Patribus Concilii congeries nullas vires habet praesertim adversus nos qui ab istis Patribus Conciliis quae extant nos dissentire non diffitemur This was said with great freedom but greater insolence his followers have had more cunning and less Honesty than to own this It is not proper at this time and place to prove what their Master owns and to prove the Divinity of Christ from the Antient Church and from the universal suffrage of its Writers in all Ages that has been done beyond all possibility of an Answer from the boldest Pretender But our very Enemies have all along bore witness to this Truth that the Christians believed and worshipped Christ as a God so sayes Pliny in his Letter to Trajan that the Christians met and sang a Hymn to Christ as to God and Celsus charges the Christians with worshiping Christ as a new God and Julian writ to this purpose to Photinus agreeing with him that Christ was but a Man against the Churches Doctrine of a Galilean God as he blasphemously speaks so Lucian in his Philopatris exposes the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the God of Christians and Mahomet all along through his Alcoron finds fault with the Christians for believing and worshipping Christ as God whom he owns to be a Prophet and a great Man sent of God as well as Socinus The Christians would have disowned this charge had it not been true especially when in the hands of their Enemies and under Persecution for it when they might have escaped Death and the greatest Tortures and Sufferings had they been Socinians and denyed Christs Divinity They had none of their subtle distinctions of a God by Nature and a God by Office to help them out but they believed Christ to be as true a God by Nature as he was a Man and they took God in the true and plain sense for a Divine Almighty Being who was to be worship'd by them and that Christ was such an one as well as a Man This was the Doctrine they were taught by the Church and by the Scriptures and that all Christians believed till the Subtleties of Arrius Eunomius Artius and others and the greater Subtleties of the School-men afterwards in making One to be Three and Three One and the as great Subtleties of the Socinians in opposing them darkened and obscured the plain Christian Doctrine which we are Baptized into of Father Son and Holy Ghost and that the Son who was born of the Virgin and dyed for us and rose again and was Christ the Saviour of Mankind that he was also the Son of God and the only begotten of God the Father who had the same Divine Nature with him and so was God and to be worship'd and pray'd to The Usefulness and Necessity of which Doctrine I should come now to show had I time In a word I take all Christian Faith and Hope and Worship to depend upon it and even Christianity it self as it is a distinct Religion from Natural and as it obliges us to such peculiar Articles of Faith as well as to such common Rules of Morality If Christ be not God and have not the Divine Nature belonging to him but be only a Man as he is not to be worship'd as I have shown so how we trust and hope and believe in him for Salvation and put such a full confidence in a Creature that it would not be greater if he were a God A poor finite Creature like our selves is not a fit object of our hope and trust for so great a matter as an Infinite Divine Being who has all Power and all Goodness The great God may exalt if he pleases any of us or any other Man to as much Power and Dignity as the Socinians say he has done Christ and they may have been made their own Saviours or Saviours to all the World in the Socinian Notion as well as he but surely none but a God no Man or Creature could be the Redeemer and the Saviour of Mankind Our Redemption is a greater Work than our Creation and the Lord that bought us deserves as great Thanks and Gratitude Praise Honour and Acknowledgment from us as he that Made us and therefore we should necessarily run into Idolatry if he were not God also Could this great and Mysterious Work have been accomplished any other way than by the Son of God a God Incarnate and made Flesh the Divine Wisdom which does nothing in vain would in all likelyhood have found out an easier and a cheaper Method and not have been at the expence of such a Miraculous such an Extraordinary such a Mysterious way as Men and Angels are astonisht at when they look into the mighty depth and profound greatness of it God the Father shewed his utmost Love to Mankind and exhausted the Riches of his Mercy to Sinners in sending his Son his only begotten Son into the World to save us and his Son showed the greatest Condescension and utmost Humiliation and emptying of himself thus to come into the World and become a Man but had he been only a Man where had the Mystery of this been This great Love of the Father and this Condescension of the Son on both which the Scripture layes such a particular weight and Emphasis had been lost and sunk and dwindled into very little and had all its mighty Figures and Characters in which it is represented in Scripture abated lessened and diminisht if Christ had been only a Creature and a meer-Man and had not been truly and properly the Son of God begotten of him from all Eternity as well as of the Virgin afterwards and One with the Father in respect of his Divine Nature and Original To him God blessed for ever be all Honour and Worship Praise Glory and Thanksgiving now and for evermore Amen FINIS