THIS Advice which is here given to Deacons, does almost equally concern all Christians; for tho' here are some Duties peculiar to the [Page 2] 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 lets 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 [Page 3]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 [Page 4]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 [Page 5]is as necessary to be believed by every one as Christianity, for it is the very make and peculiar oeconomy of Chri­stianity, as 'tis 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?

[Page 6]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 [Page 7]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 o [...] 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 [Page 8]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. 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 [Page 9]from any Natural Perfection or Pro­perty of God knowable by the Light of Nature, 'tis 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.

'Tis 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.

[Page 10]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 [Page 11]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, [Page 12]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 [Page 13]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 2 Cor. 3.14., which had been hid from Ages and Generations Rom. 16.25., and which in other Ages was not made known unto the Sins of Men 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 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, [Page 14]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 [Page 15]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 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 [Page 16]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 [Page 17]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 Ʋnconceivable, and Ʋnaccountable to our Reason and Ʋnderstanding, 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 [Page 18]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 [Page 19]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 (Ʋnum & solum Deum) [...] quia totius est Deitatis fons, which is the great Reason given by the Fathers of the Divine Unity, and in this thePeculiaritèr & [...] tribuitur Patri nomen Dei. Ravanell. Bibl. v. Deus & Per­sona. Papists agree with them. Had we considered this plain Scriptural account, and observation that one [Page 20]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 [Page 21]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 [Page 20] [...] [Page 21] [...] [Page 22]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, [Page 23]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 manyIgnat. Irenae. Athanas. Greg. Naz. Euseb. No­vat. Hilar. Am­brose, Austin, Calv. Zanchy, Comen. Petav. Bull. &c., and particularly BishopArt. 1. Pearson upon the Creed, ob­serves, ‘That the Name of God taken absolutely is [Page 24]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 FatherObservandum est quod plerum­que Paulus suis Epistolis no nen Dei Patri tri­buit in Novo Te­stamento ple­rum (que) 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 [Page 25]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,Ʋbi 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 [Page 26]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. [Page 27]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 [Page 28]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 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 [Page 29]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 Ʋbi; 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 [Page 30]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 'tis 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 [Page 31]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 [Page 32]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 [Page 33]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 'tis by Comparison, and likeness we chiefly know, and conceive things, and 'tis [Page 34]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 [Page 35]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.

I Proposed to Discourse from these words on these two things.

• I. Why the Christian Faith is called a Mystery?
• [Page 38]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 [Page 39]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 [Page 40]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 [Page 41]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 [Page 42]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 [Page 43]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 [Page 44]like, but its inward substance, and what is the subject and Substratum of these accidents and qualities we know no­thing of. How the parts of Matter are united, what makes them so close and inseparable in a solid Stone or Dia­mond more than in a heap of Sand, whither rest and juxta position, or what hooks and fastnings tyes them together is unknown to us; whether the parts of matter are divisible or indivisible, is such a puzzling Problem, that both sides have a Demonstration though it be for a plain Contradiction. Light is the clearest object of our Senses, and yet our Knowledge of that is very dark and obscure; we know not how it darts it self in a moment from Heaven to Earth, and how it causes Vision in the Eye, and how so vast a number of Objects are received into that small Room at once, and make their several motions, and draw all their Pictures there; indeed how any of our Senses perceive these Objects, and how we have such Conceptions and Phantasms raised in us by them, which are not in the Objects themselves, (for Bitter and [Page 45]Sweet, Pain and Pleasure, Heat and Cold is not in any of them, nor any thing like them, but only in our selves) and by what secret Powers they excite those Sentiments is as unaccountable as it is obvious. We must resolve all these things, and all the Phoenomina of Nature into the will and appointment of the first cause, thither we must bring and there we must leave all the Laws of Matter and Motion: We can trace them all thither, and we can go no far­ther, but must stop at these incompre­hensible bounds and limits of all our Natural Knowledge.

2. If we rise higher and look beyond Matter, and consider what we know of Spiritual Beings, and of the Intel­lectual World, we shall find that to be a dark Hades, and as unintelligible to us. We know indeed that there must be something above Matter; and that Wisdom, and Thoughts, and Contri­vance, which every where appear in the Fabrick of the World, and in the Structure of our own and every Ani­mals Body, must proceed not from rambling Atoms, and from senseless [Page 46]and heedless matter but from a Wise Mind and an Understanding Being; and we feel and perceive in our selves something that is above body, that thinks and reflects and considers, that reasons and discourses and deduces one thing from another, and determines it self, and acts freely, and moves our Bodies as it pleases and stops their mo­tion, and has an [...] and [...], and is sensible of Pain or Pleasure from things past or future which Body and Matter cannot be, and this is what we call our Soul; and we know it by these Properties, and have as much an Idaea of it as of Body, Thinking being as certain and well known to us as Exten­sion, but what is the Essence or Sub­stance or inward Constitution of what thinks or is extended, this we are e­qually ignorant of; and how this Spi­ritual Substance came into the Body, whether it was infused by God upon an immediate Creation, or Emaned and propagated from the Parents Soul, which was an old Opinion of the Easterns, the Syrians, and Arabians, and of many others, and does no way [Page 47]infer its Corporeity, by what Vital Charm or Congruity it is united to it, by what nexus it is so joyned and fast­ned to Matter, as not to be released from it when it pleases; this is uncon­ceivable and unintelligible to us. Why are we therefore so afraid and unwilling to believe the Mysteries of the Divine, the highest Spiritual Nature, when we have so many in our own which is the lowest? Why is the Divine Generation of the Son so incredible, when so many Wife and Learned Per­sonsAs St. Hie­rome tells us Tom. 2. Ep. 82. have been of Opi­nion that even Humane Souls are generated, and this without any discerption or divisi­on of parts which belongs not to Spi­ritual Beings? Why is the Incarna­tion of Christ, or the Divine Natures being united to the Humane thought more unintelligible than the Soul being United to the Body without any com­mensuration of parts or equal Extensi­on? And why is the Sacred Trinity Condemned as so absurd a Mystery, or three Divine Persons so inseparably united together, when so many Philoso­phers [Page 48]of old have thought that every Man had three Immaterial Principles or Souls in him; the Rational, the Sensitive, and the Vegetative; though of late we have held that these Three are One. Is not the Mind one pure Act or Energy? and yet it has three Faculties in it of Understanding, Will and Memory, which are not the same, and yet belong to one Soul.

3. There are a great many things in Arts and Sciences which are Uncon­ceivable and Unintelligible to those who are the best skilled in them, and espe­cially to others who are not. Thus in Physicks, in Mathematicks, in Chy­mistry, in Astronomy, in Navigation, and other Sciences, how many strange and extraordinary and wonderful things are there which those who are igno­rant would hardly believe, and to those who know them they are Incompre­hensible. I might produce a great ma­ny Instances from all of them, but shall only touch upon a few. Who would not have thought the Loadstone a very Mysterious thing, and the Pixis Nautica when first found out, and who [Page 49]does not think them so still, and who can give a full account of them by striate Particles and the Magnetism of the Earth, which is going very little further then to an occult quality. And a great many such occult qualities and unaccountable Appearances there are in Nature, and Phylosophy, which are much like Mysteries in Religion and in Revelation, which when our know­ledge is improved we shall know bet­ter. The Flux and Reflux of the Sea continues to be so still for any Hypo­thesis that can perfectly solve it. The Circulation of the Blood through the whole Body was not long ago thought to be so, and the Periods of Agues and Feavers is still acknowledged to be one. The believing there were Antipodes was not many Ages ago thought to be Heresy,Aventin. An­nal. Anno 745. and Virgilius a Bi­shop in Germany was con­demned for it by Pope Za­chary in the 8th. Century. The Phylosophers Stone has been great­ly talked of, and will be acknowledged a Mystery though so many have pre­tended to it, and even though it were [Page 50]found out. And to one who has lived always in the Hot Countreys, and un­der the Torrid Zone. the having Water turn'd into Ice, and a River congealed into a Solid Rock, will be as Incredi­ble a Mystery; so likewise to have a Transparent Glass made out of Sand and an opac Body, and a Plant, as they say, raised out of its Ashes by the Po­wer of Chymistry. The Power of Numbers, and the performances of Algebra, and many Problems in Mathe­matics may pass for Magical to a great many, as they have done always to the ignorant; and some of them are unac­countable and Incomprehensible to those who know and can demon­strate them; as the 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 [Page 51]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. 'Tis 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; 'tis 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 [Page 52]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 [Page 53]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 [Page 54]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 [Page 55]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 [Page 56]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.

[Page 57]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 to be capable of Divine Worship, to pray to him and trust in him as a God, and hope for Salvation from him, and yet to believe him to be only a Man is an Absurdity so gross, so contrary to all Notions of God and a Creature, and confounding all this Infinite distance and difference between them, and so de­stroying all the Reasons and arguments of giving Divine Worship to God on­ly, and such a Principle of Paganism and Idolatry so directly contrary to Christianity that nothing is comparable to it, were it never so true, but which with the greatest falseness they object to the contrary side. It does highly aggravate and increase this difficulty and absurdity, and no way lessen and abate it, to ascribe as they do all the Divine Perfections of Almighty Power [Page 58]and Infinite Goodness and Vertual Om­nipresence to this mere Man and born Creature, which is not only robbing God of his Incommunicable Attributes, and giving his Glory to Another, but taking away all the strongest Argu­ments for proving God to be Almigh­ty and All-perfect by making a man to be so, and therefore capable to make and Create the World as well as God himself; for if he is capable of such Per­fections as belong to God, he is capa­ble of doing the same things, and so of taking his Work out of his hands, and then we cannot prove a God from the Creation, since a man a Creature, if as powerful and as perfect as God, which they make Christ to be under this con­sideration, may be able also to effect; and Redemption is a Greater and a more Glorious work then Creation, and if that may be accomplished by a mere man, and we can owe our Salvation to him as such, then we owe more thanks and greater praises and acknowledg­ments, and more gratitude to him, to the Lord that bought us than we do even to the Lord that made us. I [Page 59]might Instance in a great many other Particulars, but I must proceed to

The Second General Head of Dis­course, How we are to Hold the Mystery of the Faith in a pure Conscience: By which these several Things may be implyed,

• 1. That out of Regard to the Revela­tion, and out of Conscience of believ­ing whatever God reveals to us, we firmly assent to it, and bring our Ʋn­derstandings to comply with it, not­withstanding the Difficulty and My­steriousness of the Thing.
• 2. That we do not out of Vanity or Sin­gularity, or from any faults of the Will or Sinister Ends and Designs pervert or corrupt or deny this My­stery of Faith.
• 3. That we hold and maintain it with Christian and Good Tempers.
• 4. With a Good Life in General, and with a Conscience so pure as to be void of all sin and wilful wicked­ness.

[Page 60]1. That out of regard to, &c. Other­wise we take away both the Truth and the Authority of Divine Revelation,Christianity not Mysterious. pag. 38. and make it with a late Au­thor, Not a motive of As­sent but only a means of Information. Or as he further words it, Not a Ground of our Perswasion, or a Reason we have to believe a Thing, as if we were to receive it only because revealed; which he will not allow, but only from the evidence in the thing it self, and the clear Conception we form of it. If so, then Revelation is only to lay such things before us, and we are to judge of the Truth of them our selves; and the truth of things de­pends not upon the Revelation, nor is our belief of them to be resolved into that, but into our own Conceptions, so that we are not to believe them be­cause the God of Truth reveals them, but because we have other reasons to know they are true. This is setting aside the Infallibility and Authority of Divine Revelation, and Judging the matter over again by our own Reason, [Page 61]and making that Superior to it: So that if what God reveals be never so clear and plain, and the sense and meaning of the Words be never so evident, yet if there be not an Evidence in the thing, and it do not carry its own Conviction in it, and we have not a perspicuous and distinct Conception of it, then we have not Reason to believe it as true. At this rate Revelation must never go beyond our Natural Knowledge, and let God say or reveal what he pleases to us, yet we are not bound to believe it barely upon his Word, without some further reason or some other ground of perswasion from the thing it self. This is a most Arrogant and Impudent treat­ing of God and the Holy Scriptures, and barring them from revealing any thing, and excusing us from believing it, if we have not some further ground and reason for it. But surely God is true, and his Word to be Credited for it self alone without any further Secu­rity or Evidence of the thing it self; and if we are once satisfied about the Revelation, and do own that to be true, we are not to demurre to the [Page 62]plain sense and meaning of it, though there be no other Evidence in the thing, nor any other ground of per­swasion for the Truth of it but only that; and sure we are as much bound to bring our Reason and Understand­ings to submit to the Truth of what God says, as our Wills to the Obedi­ence of what he Commands; though we have no other reason for the Truth of the one or the goodness of the o­ther, and though both may seem very difficult to us: Else we make our selves, and not God, Judges of what is true and false, and either prejudge a thing not to be true, whatever he says of it, and so prevent any Revelation a­bout it, or else Judge it over again by other Measures, and condemn and reject it if it comport not with those, and be not conformable and agreeable to our Reason and Conceptions of things, though we know nothing of it but by Revelation, and that both clear, and evident, and undoubted.

2. Our holding the Mystery of the Faith in a pure Conscience, implies [Page 63]That we do not Pervert, Corrupt, or Deny it out of any Vanity and Vain­glory, Singularity, or Affectation of Novelty, or out of any corrupt Incli­nation and fault of the Will, or any Sinister and by-end whatsoever. Most Heresies have proceeded from some such Causes as these, and therefore are by the Apostle call'd the works of the Flesh, Gal. 5.20. The Error hav­ing had its first Rise and Original, not so much from the Weakness and Infir­mity of the Understanding, as from the strength and Obstinacy, the Corrupti­on and Depravity of the Will, and it has had its chief tincture of Malignity and poyson from this root of Bitterness and from this corrupt fountain from whence it sprung and arose. A proud and conceited opinion of Mens being Wiser not only than their Teachers, but than the whole Christian Church; and a natural itch after Novelty and Curio­sity, and the pleasing vanity of being Singular and Remarkable, or of being the Heads of a Party, and giving the Name and Denomination to a New Sect of Followers, this has made a [Page 64]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 [Page 65]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, [Page 66]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 over­nice 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 'tis 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 'tis to be doubted 'tis ra­ther [Page 67]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 [Page 68]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 Mans 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.

[Page 69]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 [Page 70]highly condemn us, and increase and double our Eternal Damnation. Which God of his Infinite Mercy prevent, through Jesus Christ our Merciful Re­deemer.

THIS is the Defence of our Blessed Saviour against the Charge of the Jews, who were enraged at his saying, that he [Page 72]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 [Page 73]thing, and the true meaning of the words. Now 'tis 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.

[Page 74]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 plerum (que) prima Perso­na vocatur Deus, & ple­rum (que) 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 [Page 75]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, 'tis 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 [Page 76]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 [Page 77]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, [Page 78]and the proper Eternal Son of God: 'Tis this at the 34, 35, 36. Ver. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I have said, ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken: Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God? These were called Gods in the stile of the Jewish Scrip­tures, and particularly Psal. 82.2. who were called by God to be his immediate Ministers and Officers, as Moses and other Magistrates; therefore whoever used that Name was not, according to them, to be charged presently with Blasphemy, much less he whom the Father hath sanctified, chosen and ap­pointed to the great Office of Messiah, and then sent him into the World to execute it. Whether there be any force in what some observeQuod 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 [Page 79]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 SonMaldonat. 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, [Page 80]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.

[Page 81]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 [Page 82]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 [Page 83]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 [Page 84]use of them: And there is one word frequently used in Scripture, which I think is a sufficient proof of this, and that is when Christ is call'd not only the Son, but the only Son, and the on­ly begotten Son of God, as John 1.14. John 3.16. 1 John 4.9. [...], is a verbal signifying as much as [...], and [...], or uni-genitus, is one who has no partner or sharer in that Sonship which is ascri­bed to him; but Christ, as an adopted Son, has many Brethren, and there­fore it must be meant of that Divine Generation and Sonship which belongs to him alone; and God by sending his only begotten Son intended to express his utmost Love to Mankind, and to that purpose St. John uses the phrase, God so loved the world, that he sent his only begotten Son: But nothing raises this Love so high as his sending his own Natural Son, a Person of the highest Dignity next to himself, and one of the same Divine Nature with himself, whereas if he were only an Adopted Son, or a Son upon the other accounts only, neither the Love of the [Page 85]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 [Page 86]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 [Page 87]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 [Page 88]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 [Page 89]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 [Page 90]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, [Page 91]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 Nature, from whence they Result, and to which they peculiarly belong. Now that Christ is Omnipotent, appears from his making the World; for nothing but Almighty Power could do that, and produce all Things out of nothing, which is what we mean by Creation: Now the Scripture is positive that all things were made by him; and that without him was not any thing made that was made, Joh. 1.3. For by him were all things created that are in Heaven, and that are in Earth, visible and invisibe, —all things were created by him, and for him. Colos. [Page 92]1.16. and by him God made the World, Heb. 1.2. To say all this is meant of a Spiritual Creation, or of Christs mak­ing a new Gospel World, and not a Natural, is such an unnatural and ridi­culous force and violence to the Words, as not only Confutes, but Exposes it self, and makes the plainest words in Scripture, even those that describe the Creation in Genesis, and Christs Birth in St. Matthew, and the whole Scripture History to be liable to be rarefied away by a strained and forced Allegory. If Christ then Created all Things, He is certainly God, for he that Built or Made all Things is God according to the Apostles Argument, Heb. 3.4. And if his Creating the World doth not prove him to be truly God, then we cannot prove a God from the Creation, and that undoubted Argument for the proof of a God must be given up, which the Atheists will very much thank the Arrians for.

That Christ is Omnipresent appears by his Promise to his Disciples, Mat. 18.25. that where two or three of them were gathered together in any part [Page 93]of the World, there he was in the midst of them. That he is Omniscient is testi­fied by St. Peter, Lord thou knowest all things, Joh. 21.17. and that he knoweth the hearts of all Men, and will judge all Men at the last Day. That He is Eternal and was not only before Abra­ham, but in the beginning before the World, which is a Jewish Phrase for Eternity, is plain also from Scripture, notwithstanding all the little Cavils of our Adversaries: If Christ then be the Omnipotent Maker of the World, who upholdeth all things by the Word of his Power, by whom all Things subsist, who is an Omnipresent, Omniscient and Eternal Being, He is a God by Na­ture of whom we cannot have a higher Idaea and Conception, only that He is not from himself or from none, which belongs only to the Father from whom he received his Being, and all the Per­fections of it.

5. The Divinity of Christ appears from our Praying to him and Worship­ping him, our invoking and Adoring him as we are Commanded to do in Scripture, and as has bin Observed by [Page 94]the Christian Church in all Ages. For nothing is an Object of Divine Wor­ship but God; or a Being that has the Divine Nature and Perfections, Thou shalt Worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve, is a standing Rule both of the Jewish and Christian Reli­gion, Deut. 6.13. Mat. 4.10. and of Natural too; for the Glorious and Infi­nite Excellencies of the Divine Nature, which cannot be Communicated to a Creature, and wherever they are Com­municated Constitute that Being a God; these are the Ground of that Peculiar and Incommunicable Honour which we give to God, and the Infinite distance between God and Created Beings, who however Excellent, yet are Infi­nitely below the supream and trans­cendent Excellencies of the Divine Na­ture makes Creatures uncapable of Divine Worship, and makes it always unlawful in us, and a robbing God of his Glory to give it them. The Arrians therefore were alwayes accused by the Orthodox of Idolatry for Worshipping Christ, and believing him to be a Creature, though of the highest Order [Page 95]that could be: And when Socinus had perswaded his Disciples to Dis-believe Christs Divinity, Davidis, and several of them rightly concluded that then he was not to be Worshipped; and our late Sophisters seem inclined to agree with them in this, finding it impossi­ble to avoid the same Charge in Wor­shipping Christ as a Man, though ne­ver so exalted, that lyes against the Church of Rome for Worshipping Saints and Angels, and the Virgin Mary; and that they can no way come off, but by the same distinctions of [...] and [...] Sovereign and Inferior Worship, which are equal, but very weak Pleas to Defend Popery, Paganism and Socinianism. But how bold and rash an Assertion is it on the other side, to deny that Christ is to be Worship­ped, when all the Angels are Com­manded to Worship him, Heb. 1.6. and when all Men are to Honour the Son, even as they Honour the Father, Joh. 5.20. and he that doth not thus Honour the Son, Honoureth not the Father that sent him. No pious and good Christians, who own Christ to [Page 96]be their Saviour will ever be brought off from worshipping and praying to him, and calling upon his name as the first Christians did, Acts 9.14, 21. and St. Stephen, Acts 7.59. and St. Paul, Acts 12.8. and the whole Chri­stian Church afterwards. Socinus was so sensible of this that he set himself most zealously to defend and assert both the Lawfulness and Necessity of it, though many of his Followers have been against both. But this is such a weight upon Socinianism as will help to sink it. It can never free it self from one of those streights that will ruine and destroy it, Either to throw off wholly the worship of Christ, which is to throw off Christianity, and which will never be born by any number of Pious Christians, or to own that Ido­latrous Principle, That a Creature may be worship'd, which will never be ad­mitted by Protestants. They who will not worship and pray to Christ cease to be Christians; and they who do pray to him, must own him to be Om­nipresent, Omniscient and Almighty, to be able to grant their Requests, to [Page 97]know their Hearts, and to hear their Prayers, and be present with them in all places, and so to have those Divine Attributes and Perfections that belong only to God.

6. And Lastly, I might prove the Divinity of Christ from the Universal Consent and Belief of the Christian Church, and from the Testimony of the greatest Adversaries to Christianity, who alwayes supposed and charged this as the Sentiment of Christians, that they held Christ to be God. The Consent and Belief of the Christian Church is evident from its Creeds, and its Prayers, its Doctrine and its Practice in worshipping Christ, and from its Zeal against all those early Hereticks that opposed this Doctrine and its de­terminations both in Private Synods and General Councils for the maintain­ing and asserting it. It must be very strange that the whole Christian Church should be mistaken in a mat­ter of this Importance, and should have all along a False Object of Wor­ship, and when it was so zealous a­gainst [Page 98]all Idolatry, and had so many Martyrs upon that score, that it should bring in the same another way, and worship a meer Creature. It 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 [Page 99]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 [Page 100]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 [Page 101]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 [Page 102]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 [Page 103]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.