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
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
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
cap. Helmon in Alcoran Nec Christum Deum adorare confessus est sc Mahomet ne forte duos Deos adorare deprehenderetur Cantacuzen in Mahomet Orat. 3. offers several reasons against it among which this is one That God and his Son would make two Gods and that they must worship only one God These Reasons I think may be fairly answered but Reason it self could nor have known or collected this either from the Divine fecundity or from any Natural Perfection or Property of God knowable by the Light of Nature 't is only Revelation acquaints us with it and lets us at the same time see the admirable ends and uses and purposes of this if not for the designs of Creation and Providence yet for the Redemption of the World by this Son of God which is a work as great and as Divine if not more so than the other two 'T is the peculiar Character Frame and Scheme of Christianity to reveal this Mystery fully to us this adorable Mystery of Divine Love and Wisdom God's Saving Lost and undone Mankind by his Son Jesus Christ Reason could not have discovered this nor can it now penetrate into all the deep Counsels of the Divine Govenment and hidden Reasons of the Divine Wisdom which made this either absolutely necessary or to be sure the most fit and convenient Method to Save and Redeem Mankind This is such a Mystery of State such a Secret of the Heavenly and Divine Policy and Management that whether God could have Effected and Accomplished this any other way is unknown to us and our Reason must cry out upon the Thoughts of it O the Depth of the Riches both of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God Rom. 11.33 how unsearchable are his Judgments and his ways past finding out Further The Christian Revelation discovers to us another Divine Person besides the Son to wit the Holy Ghost who proceedeth from the Father and the Son and who was sent by them in a Visible and extraordinary manner and was to be the Comforter and Paraclete as Christ the Redeemer and Saviour and was to Sanctifie and Fit and Qualifie all Christians for that Salvation which Christ had Purchased and Obtained for them without whom Christianity could not have been spred and established in the World nor in the Hearts of Men and who was therefore to bear a Peculiar and Distinct part and Office in the Accomplishing the great work of our Redemption which was to be Performed by the Fathers sending his Son and both sending the Holy Ghost to Perfect and Effect this Great Thing and This is the Constitution the Frame the Faith of Christianity as a Religion distinct from Natural and which is such a Mystery as could not have been found out by Natural Light and Reason without an immediate Divine Revelation for it was not any Natural Property of the Divine Nature so far as we know to have a Son and a Holy Spirit nor did the Purposes of Creation and Providence require this and therefore the Deists and others think more than one Divine Person and one Infinite Being Unnecessary and as far as Reason alone goes neither the Truth nor the Necessity of more would appear but Revelation and especially the Christian acquaints us with God's having a Son and a Holy Spirit distinct Persons from himself the one Begotten of him and so his only Son the other proceeding from him and the Son both and these two still in the Father naturally and inseparably united to him as to the Fountain of their Being One with him in the same Divine Nature and Essence and All Three together Accomplishing Effecting and Perfecting the Redemption of Mankind and bearing distinct parts in that Great and Blessed Work 2. As Reason could not have known or found out any thing of this so the Revelation of it was at first very Obscure and Imperfect there being only some smaller Glimpses and lesser manifestations of it and those covered with Types and shadows and Prophetic Symbols through which the Fathers saw as through a Glass darkly and beheld the Promises of the Messiah yet afar off so that the Jewish Law and Dispensation though it wholly pointed at this thing and Christ was the end of it yet was but a Shadow of these good things to come and Moses had a vail over his face by which the Children of Israel could not see to the end of their own Typical Institution till the vail was taken away in Christ And the Mystery which was kept secret since the World began a 2 Cor. 3.14 which had been hid from Ages and Generations b Rom. 16.25 and which in other Ages was not made known unto the Sins of Men c Col. 1.26 was by the Gospel revealed and manifest and made known to all men to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews d Eph. 3.5 Adam immediately after his Fall had this Mystery of Gods sending the Messiah into the World for the Salvation of Mankind promised and revealed to him in those words The Seed of the Woman shall break the Serpents head Gen. 3.15 And no doubt he transmitted this great and comfortable Tradition to all his Posterity and there seem to be the broken remains and Characters of it in some parts of the Religion of all Mankind especially in the general if not Universal Custom of Sacrifices and the secret Cabala and mysterious design seems to run through the Gentile Theology which was a corruption of the Patriarchal Religion from whence some Marks and Footsteps of this Original Mysterious Tradition were preserved and continued among the Gentiles as appears in the Prophesies of Balaam of Old and the Sybils afterwards and in the Notion of a Trinity among the Platonists and others which outdoes any thing to be found about that matter in any Jewish Writer and must come from some Antient Cabala and Traditionary Account of it How far the Jews had a knowledge and belief of it we want their Writings to acquaint us though in some of those we have there are remarkable intimations of it as in the Caldee Paraphrase the Messiah is often called the Mamra Jehovae the Word of God the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. John calls him and there and in the Hierusalem Targum he is represented as a substantial Word and as a Divine Person and several of their Rabbies interpret that of 110 Psalm The Lord said unto my Lord of the Messiah and so that of Jeremy 23. where he is called the Lord or Jehovah our Righteousness and they often speak of their Emanations from the Kedem or Essence of the Antient of days and in their Prayers and Liturgies particularly in a Collect used at the Feast of Tabernacles God is invoked as Sanctified with three Sanctifications and in a Famous Book among them called The Gate of Righteousness this Sanctification is called a Mystery whereby they say is meant the Procession of the Emanations from the Corona which is the Mystery
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
THE MYSTERY OF THE Christian Faith AND OF THE Blessed TRINITY VINDICATED AND THE Divinity of Christ PROVED In Three SERMONS Preach'd at Westminster-Abbey upon Trinity-Sunday June the 7th and September 21. 1696. By the Late Reverend WILLIAM PAYNE D. D. In the Press before his Death and by himself ordered to be Published LONDON Printed for Richard Cumberland at the Angel in St. Pauls Church-Yard 1697. MVNIFICENTIA REGIA 1715. GEORGIVS D.G. MAG â—â—â—â—ET â—â—â— REX â—D J. Pine sculp THE MYSTERY OF THE Christian Faith AND OF THE Blessed TRINITY VINDICATED SERMON I. 1 TIM iii. 9. Holding the Mystery of the Faith in a pure Conscience THIS Advice which is here given to Deacons does almost equally concern all Christians for tho' here are some Duties peculiar to the Ministers of Religion relating to their Office yet the common Duties of Christianity are bound upon Them and the People with equal tyes and obligations So that every Christian is under the same engagements to be a Good Man to live as Vertuously and Religiously and to perform all the Duties of our common Christian Religion as either a Presbyter or a Deacon both which some think are meant here Faith and a Good Conscience are to be kept or held by All and he is not a Christian who le ts go or makes Shipwrack of either The Christian Faith though it be a Mystery yet is not as the Heathen Mysteries to be a Secret kept up and concealed from the Vulgar and known only to the Priests to the Mystae and Adepti by a sort of Disciplinâ Arcani but is by the Gospel Revelation discovered and communicated to All All Catechumens are to be Taught and Instructed in it All who are Baptized are to profess it and all the Fideles are to understand and to keep it as the Faith once delivered to them by Christ and his Apostles and by the Church and Holy Scriptures The believing Christ to be the Messiah and Sent of God is not the only Fundamental Article of Christianity as some would have it for if it were all the Hereticks in the Apostolick and after Ages had come up to it against whom notwithstanding St. John in his Epistles and other Canonic Writers speak so much as well as St. Clement Polycarp Ignatius and the earliest Writers who renounced both the Faith and the Communion of those Heretics notwithstanding they owned Christ to be the Messiah so that this was not a sufficient Faith for a Christian as such But it may be asked Are ordinary Christians then to believe the Mysterious and Abstruse Doctrines of Christianity Such as the Trinity the Divinity and Incarnation of Christ and the like which are so difficult and unintelligible that the most Learned cannot understand them or agree about them are these to be accounted Fundamental and Essential Articles of Faith necessary to be believed by the meanest and most ordinary Capacities which are so puzzling and so intricate to the highest I Answer Whatever is Essential and Fundamental to Christianity and as such is plainly Reveal'd by God upon which the Peculiar Faith Hope and Worship of it is built however incomprehensible and Mysterious it is which shall be considered immediately is to be believed by every Christian as that God sent his only Son into the World and that we are Redeemed by him and that we are to place our Hopes Trust and Confidence in him for Salvation and that we are to Worship him and Pray to him and to Honour him even as we Honour the Father This which is the Peculiar Scheme and Character of Christianity and necessarily supposes Christs Divinity and that he is not a Creature and also the Divinity of the Holy Ghost the Comforter and the Sanctifier and so consequently a Divine Trinity this is as necessary to be believed by every one as Christianity for it is the very make and peculiar oeconomy of Christianity as 't is distinct from Natural Religion This Faith with a Good Life or a Life answerable to the Rules and Precepts of the Gospel is necessary to make and constitute a good Christian To ask whether a good Life will not save a Man without this Faith is to be answered with the same question or one much like it Whether such a good Life will save a Man without believing Christianity They are both necessary to a Christian who is thus to hold the Mystery of the Faith in a pure Conscience I shall from the words Consider these two General Things I. Why the Christian Faith is call'd a Mystery II. How we are to hold it in a pure Conscience I. Why the Christian Faith is call'd a Mystery Which it is upon Three Accounts 1. As it was not knowable by Natural Reason without an Express and Immediate Divine Revelation 2. As it was very obscurely and imperfectly 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 1. As it is not knowable by Natural Reason without an Express and Immediate Divine Revelation For thus that God should have a Son an Eternal only begotten Son of the same Nature and Likeness with himself and that he should send this his Son into the World to become a Man to take on him our Nature and be made Flesh that so he might dye for us and be a Sacrifice for our Sins and Save and Redeem Mankind according to this Mysterious Method Oeconomy and Dispensation of the Gospel this is what Reason could never have found out nor any thing but the Infinite Wisdom and no less Infinite Goodness of God have contrived That there is a God an Invisible Maker of the World a First Cause of All Things this Reason and the Light oâ— Nature teaches us and the invisible things of him from the Creation are plainly seen by the things he hath made even his Eternal Power and Godhead His Power and Wisdom and Goodness are sufficiently manifest to our Thoughts and Reason by the admirable Structure and the commodious and beautiful and orderly contrivance of the World and all the things that are in it and we can know most of his Attributes and Essential Perfections from Reason and the plain deductions and consequences of it but that this Infinite and Almighty and All-sufficient God who had all possible perfections in himself and all Perfections sufficient to his own Happiness and Self-enjoyment and to the Needs and Necessities of his Creatures and to all the Purposes of Creation and Providence that he should beget a Son another Divine Person and Being like himself and communicate the same Divine Nature and Godhead to him that belong'd to himself this which the Scripture Revelation acquaints us with is so far from being known by Reason that That staggers at it and asks two bold questions about it How this can be And to what purpose it is And Mahomet in his Alcoran * Azoarâ 12.
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