Selected quad for the lemma: father_n
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A30350
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Four discourses delivered to the clergy of the Diocess of Sarum ... by the Right Reverend Father in God, Gilbert, Lord Bishop of Sarum.
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Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.
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1694
(1694)
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Wing B5793; ESTC R202023
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160,531
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125
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whether its Acts are as is commonly believed one with the Essence or distinct from it This Essence having necessary Existence in its first Conception those free Acts that might not have been are not easily apprehended to be one with his Essence and if those Acts are said not to be free then all things exist by the same necessity by which God exists for if the Immanent Acts of God are one with his Essence then since all the Transient Acts do certainly follow his Immanent ones there is an Universal Necessity equally spread over the whole frame of Nature and God can do nothing otherwise than he does But if those Acts of God are different from his Essence and distinct from it such as our Thoughts are then here are Accidents in God and a succession of Thoughts which seem inconsistent with infinite Perfection that is all one Eternal and Unchangeable Act. Here is a difficulty that perhaps few reflect on but it is every whit as great and as unaccountable as any of the Mysteries of Revealed Religion can be pretended to be tho this arises out of Natural Religion If to this we add all that we be believe concerning the Attributes of God his being every where his knowing every thing his Providence in governing all things together with those unsearchable Methods in which it exerts it self we must acknowledge that he dwells in a Light to which we cannot approach But that as the present frame of our Bodies and structure of our Eyes cannot bear the looking stedfastly on the Sun or the being brought much nearer him of which yet we may be capable in another texture of our Eyes and Bodies so in this state in which we have narrow Notions and gross Imaginations we are not able to frame distinct Ideas even of those Attributes of God of which we make no doubt but yet we find such difficulties in apprehending them that they do blind and confound us and put us to a stand in all our thinkings about them But for all that we still go on believing firmly those his Attributes In fine We are to make a great difference between those plain perceptions we have either of the objects of sense or of simple Theories and the difficulties and deductions that belong to them The one is the voice of our Faculties and we cannot oppose it or believe against it because it is in some sort the voice of God within us since it is the natural result of those powers that he has put in us but it is quite another thing when we go to Inferences and to frame difficulties In this appears our Ignorance of the nature of things of the several ways and manners in which they may operate and of the Consequences that seem to belong to them because we are apt to judge of every Being by our selves and have not extent enough of thought and observation to reason always true or to judge exactly So that this must be setled as a clear difference between plain perceptions and a train of Consequences we are always to be determined by the one but not by the other To instance it then in that which is now before us we have a plain perception that no Being can be both One and Three in the same respect because we are sure that is a plain Contradiction which cannot possibly be true but if a thing is represented as both One and Three this in different respects may be true Thus I have dispatched this first part in which it seemed the more necessary to state this matter aright that so it may appear that no part of the plea for Mysteries belongs to Transubstantiation since here is the fullest evidence of sense in an object of sense which plainly represents to us Bread and Wine to be still the same after Consecration that they were before and therefore we can never be certain of any thing if in this case we are bound to believe in contradiction to such a plain and simple perception but this is not at all applicable to any speculations concerning the Divine Nature I go on from this Previous Discourse to the Subject it self that I am now upon in which there have been three different Opinions the one is That Christ was a Divine Person miraculously conceived and wonderfully qualified for revealing the Will of God to the World which he did in so excellent a manner and set so perfect a pattern both in his Life and Death that in Reward of that God has given him the Government of the World putting the Divine Authority in him and commanding him to be Worshipped and Acknowledged as God and has subjected both Angels and Men to him tho he had no Existence before he was formed in the Virgin 's Womb and no other nature but that which he derived from his Miraculous Conception Others have thought that there was an Essence created by God before all Worlds by which he made and governs all things and that this Essence which was like God dwelt in Christ Iesus and was by the Gospel revealed to the World So that all were bound to honour and obey him Some of these called him a Being of a Nature quite different from and unlike the Divine Nature which was found to be of an unacceptable Sound so others softned it by saying that he was of an Essence like the Father But this was only a milder way of speaking since if this Being was created so that once it was not its nature must be essentially unlike the Father for sure nothing can be more unlike than created and uncreated And by Likeness such Men could only understand a Moral Likeness of imitation and resemblance so that he might be like God as we are called to be like him tho' in vastly higher degrees The 3 d. Opinion is That the Godhead by the Eternal Word the Second in the Blessed Three dwelt in and was so inwardly united to the Human Nature of Iesus Christ that by vertue of it God and Man were truly one Person as our Soul and Body make one Man And that this Eternal Word was truly God and as such is worshipped and adored as the proper Object of Divine Adoration By those of this Perswasion the Name Person came to be applied to the Three which the Scripture only calls by the Names of Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost on design to discover those who thought that these Three were only different names of the same thing But by Person is not meant such a Being as we commonly understand by that word a compleat intelligent Being distinct from every other Being but only that every one of that blessed Three has a peculiar distinction in himself by which he is truly different from the other two This is the Doctrine that I intend now to explain to you When I say Explain I do not mean that I will pretend to tell you how this is to be understood and in what respect these Persons are believed to
do propose him as the proper Object of Adoration at the same time that they commanded the World to renounce all Idolatry and to serve the living God St. Paul gives this Definition of Heathenish Idolatry that it was a worship given to those who by nature were not Gods yet he prays to Christ he prays for Grace Mercy and Peace from him to all the Churches he writes to he gives him Glory for ever and ever a Phrase expressing the highest Act of Adoration he believes in him he serves him he gives Blessing in his Name he says That all in Heaven and Earth must confess him and bow before him a Phrase importing Adoration he says the Angels of God worship him In other Epistles this is also often mention'd and in St. Iohn's Visions all the Hosts above are represented as falling down before him to worship him Now the bare Incurvation does not import Divine Worship but may be made â—o a Creature yet Incurvation join'd with Prayers Acts of Faith and Trust and Praises is certainly Divine Worship Since then our Saviour in his Temptation said to the Devil that according to the Law we must worship the Lord our God and serve him only since also the Angel when he reproved St. Iohn for falling down before him bids him worship God then when these things are laid together and it appears that all the Acts of Adoration by which we worship God are also ascribed to Christ and offered up to him either it must be confess'd that he is truly God or that the Christian Religion sets up Idolatry at the same time that it seems to design the pulling it down every where as if Idolatry had only been to be changed in its object and to be transfered from all others to the Person of our Saviour This point of the worship of Christ is so plainly set forth in the New Testament that the chief Opposers of the Article of his Divinity have asserted it with so much Zeal that they deny that such as refuse to pay it to him deserve to be called Christians and yet there is not any one point that is more fully and frequently condemned through the whole Scriptures than the worshipping a Creature It is also a main part of all the Exhortations of the Apostles Angels were often sent on Divine Deputations as the Instruments of the great God but yet they were never to be worshipped Idolatry is an Evil in it self and is not only the Transgression of a positive precept but it is a transferring of the Honor and Homage due to the Author of our Being and the Fountain of all our Blessings and the ascribing these to a Creature it is a worshipping the Creature besides the Creator And if the same Acts of Prayer and Thanksgiving in the same words can be offered up both to the Creature and the Creator then how can we still think that God is a jealous God and that he will not give his Glory to another In a word this is that which seems so sensible that one does not know what to think of those men's Reasons who cannot bring themselves to believe any thing concerning the Divine Nature which differs from their own Notions and yet can swallow down so vast an Absurdity that is more open to the compass of their Understandings as that the same Acts in which we acknowledge and adore God should be at the same time offered up to a Creature But to urge this a little more closely it is well known how averse the Iews were to all the appearances of Idolatry in our Saviour's time their Zeal against the figures of the Roman Eagles set over the Temple-gates by Herod and against the Statue of Caligula besides many other Instances prove this beyond all question They were much prejudiced against the Apostles as well as they had been against our Saviour and the Apostles do in several passages of their Epistles set down these their prejudices together with their own Answers to them They excepted to the abrogating the Mosaical Ordinances and to their calling in the Gentiles and associating themselves with them but it does not appear that they did ever charge them with Idolatry nor do the Apostles in any hint ever offer to vindicate themselves from that Aspersion Now if Christ had been only a Man Defi'd advanc'd to Divine Honor or if he had been ever so Noble a part and even the first part of the Creation and had been now made the Object of the worship of the Christians let any Man see if it is conceivable that the Iews who were such implacable Enemies to Christianity should not have held to this as their main Strength chief Objection Since as this was a very popular thing in which it was easy to draw in all their Country men so it was the easiest as well as the most important part of their Plea they might have yielded that all the Miracles of Christ and his Apostles were true and yet upon this pretence of Idolatry they had the express words of their Law on their side If there ariseth among you a Prophet or a Dreamer of Dreams and giveth thee a Sign or a Wonder and the Sign or the Wonder come to pass whereof he spake unto thee saying Let us go after other Gods which thou hast not known and let us serve them Thou shalt not hearken to the words of that Prophet or that Dreamer of Dreams for the Lord your God proveth you to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your Heart and with all your Soul This was such an express and full Decision of the Case that he may imagine any thing that can imagine that they could have past it by and that they should not have objected it or that the Apostles if their Doctrine had been either that of the Arians or of the Socinians should not have either answer'd or prevented the Objection since they dwell long upon things that were much less important Several that join'd themselves to Christianity were scandaliz'd and fell back to the Iews but it does not appear that any of them ever charged them with Idolatry or that the Iews ever reproach'd them with it which yet we cannot think they would not have done if the Christians had offer'd Divine Adoration to a Creature to one that was a meer Man newly dignifi'd or that had been made by God before all his other Works Here a Creature was made a God and the Christians were guilty of serving other gods whom their Fathers had not known This cannot be retorted on us who believe that Christ was God by vertue of the Indwelling of the Eternal Word in him The Iews could make no Objection to this who knew that their Fathers had worshipped the Cloud of Glory because of God's resting upon it So the adoring the Messias upon the supposition of the Godhead's dwelling Bodily in him could bear no debate among the Iews