Imatges de pàgina
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them, by prying too far into it, had the misfortune to lose it.

While I am treating of the case of common Christians, I cannot omit the mentioning an artifice much made use of by those who would depreciate the doctrine of the Trinity, as not clear enough to be an important article: they first enter into all the niceties and perplexities which subtle disputants have ever clogged the subject with, and then they ask, whether common Christians can be supposed to see through them. No, certainly: neither need they trouble their heads about them. It is one thing to understand the doctrine, and quite another to be masters of the controversy. It is not fair dealing with us, to pretend it necessary for every common Christian, if he believes in the Trinity, to form just conceptions of it in every minute particular: for, by the same argument, it might as well be pleaded, that they are not obliged to believe in God, nor indeed in any thing. God is without body, parts, or passions, according to the first article of our Church. How many minute perplexing inquiries might there not be raised upon the three particulars now mentioned! And who can assure us that common Christians may not be liable to entertain some wrong conceptions in every one of them? Must we therefore say that the general doctrine of the existence of a Deity is not clear enough to be important doctrine, or that common Christians are not bound to receive it as a necessary article of their faith? See how far such objections would carry us. But since these objections ought to have no weight at all in other parallel cases, or nearly parallel, they ought certainly to be the less regarded in respect to the doctrine of the ever blessed Trinity. Let but this doctrine have as fair usage as other Christian and important doctrines are allowed to have, and then I am persuaded there will be no pretence left for saying, that it is not a clear doctrine, clear in the general, clear in the main thing, to any Christian whatever. It is horrible misrepresentation of the case, to pretend as if we taught, that

VOL. V.

"the eternal interest of every plowman or mechanic hangs "on his adjusting the sense of the terms, nature, person,

essence, substance, subsistence, coequality, coessentiality, "and the like." No; those are technical terms, most of them, proper to divines and scholars and not only plowmen and mechanics, but very great scholars too, lived and died in the conscientious belief of the doctrine of the Trinity, long before any of those terms came in. They are of use indeed for settling the controversy with greater accuracy among Divines, who understand such terms: but the doctrine itself is clear without them, and does not want them, but stands firm and unshaken, independent of them. Any plain man may easily conceive, that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are properly divine, are not one the other, and yet are one God, by an intimate union; and that the Son in particular, being God and man, is one Christ. These prime verities, and whatsoever else is necessarily implied in them, may be conceived to be right; and whatsoever is contrary to them, or inconsistent with them, will of consequence be wrong. This is enough for any plain Christian to know or believe; and he is not ordinarily obliged to be more minute in his inquiries, or to understand scholastic terms. It is not to be expected that common Christians should be expert disputants in controversies of faith, any more than that they should be profound casuists in relation to practice: yet Christian practice is necessary to salvation, and so is Christian faith too; and the obligation to obey a general precept, or to believe a general truth, is not superseded or evacuated by a man's being unacquainted with terms of art, or by his being liable to mistake in some remote or minute circumstances belonging to the doctrine itself.

To make the thing yet plainer, let us take some general rule of Christian practice; the rule, suppose, of dealing with others as we would be dealt with: a rule of such importance, that, by our Lord's account of it, it is the sum and substance of the Law and the Prophets. Surely

Matt. vii. 12.

then, it is a rule designed for common Christians, and such as both deserves and requires their most careful notice. Next, let us view this rule under all its minutenesses or particularities; its distinctions, limitations, and explications, with which it is dressed out by knowing and able Divines f. Observe thereupon, what an operose business is made of this so plain and familiar rule, what pains are taken to clear it of all seeming repugnancies, to make it reasonable, to make it certain, to make it practicable, and to guard it most effectually against the many possible ways, whereby it may be misconstrued, eluded, perverted, frustrated. Are common Christians equal to all those niceties, or are they able to grasp them? I conceive, not. And yet I dare be confident that a plain unlettered man, of tolerable sense, and who has not a mind to deceive himself, might be safely trusted with the naked rule, and would but seldom, if ever, either misunderstand it (so far as concerns his own case) or misapply it. He would keep the plain even road, and would scarce believe the man that should tell him that it was strewed with thorns, or that hundreds had been or might be either embarrassed in it, or bewildered by it. The same thing is true with respect to the general doctrine of the Trinity. For though there are many possible ways of mistaking it, or perverting it, (as there are many crooked lines to one straight,) and it concerns Divines to guard minutely against all; yet less may suffice for common Christians; ordinarily, I mean, at least. The right faith in the Trinity is short and plain; and whatever crosses upon it is wrong: Index est rectum sui, et obliqui: truth shows itself, and is for the most part honest mind a guard sufficient against the mazes

to every of error.

I have dwelt the longer upon this article, because the objection about common Christians appears a popular and plausible one, and is often repeated in this cause, though

'See particularly Archbishop Tillotson's Sermon on Matt. vii. 12. sepa. rately published in 1709. and Collier's Essay of Honesty, part iv. p. 56, &c.

there is really no weight in it. The author of the Sober and Charitable Disquisition need not be in pain for common Christians, lest they should not "have skill enough to "unite the two natures in Christ without confounding "them, or dividing the Person, in their apprehensions 5." They will as easily conceive that God and man is one Christ, as that soul and body is one man; and they need not look farther. Without troubling themselves at all with the names either of natures or persons, they may joyfully and thankfully remember, that he "who is over all "God blessed for evers," became a man for their sakes, and died for them, in order to bring them to God. What is there in all this that should either offend or perplex, or should not rather greatly edify common Christians? They may be "more accurate in their thoughts on this head, "than the great patriarch and abbot Nestorius and Eu"tyches," (for they were not both patriarchs, as this author styles them,) because they will indulge their fancies less, and rest in the general truth, without drawing a false modus, or any modus upon it, either to corrupt or to obscure it: they will abide in the true doctrine, without defiling it (as those great men did) with over officious and presumptuous speculations. It may be allowed, that

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common Christians have but very little apprehension k” of some minute or remote considerations given in by way of answer to as minute and remote objections, in order to clear the doctrine in every punctilio: and in like manner, they have but very little apprehension of several such remote considerations thrown in by Divines, in their disputes with Atheists or Deists, in order to clear the doctrine of the divine Being and attributes, or of the authority of Scripture, and to make every thing at length conformable and consistent. But what then? Does it therefore follow, that common Christians may not believe in God, or in God's word, or that such belief is not important?

Sober and Charitable Disquisition, p. 22. i See Sober and Charitable, &c. p. 22.

h Rom. ix. 5.

* Ibid. p. 23.

Common Christians believe enough, if they believe the main things under a general view, without branching them out into all the minute particulars which depend upon them, or belong to them. Let Divines see that every article of faith is clear and consistent throughout, when traversed as far as the acutest objector can carry it: but let common Christians be content with every article in its native simplicity, as laid down in Scripture for edification of the faithful, and not as it appears in controversial books, or confessions, with all its armour about it, for the conviction or confusion of gainsayers. But I am afraid I have exceeded on this head, and have overburdened the reader. Upon the whole, the doctrine of the Trinity must be allowed to be sufficiently clear, as to the matter of it.

2. The next consideration is, that it is clear also, as to the proofs upon which it rests: it may be clearly proved, as well as clearly conceived. Indeed, the truth of the doctrine ought to be supposed in our present question, as previously known and admitted. Accordingly, our remonstrant brethren, who first disputed the importance of our doctrine, made no scruple of allowing the truth of it, as I have before hinted. They allowed the Scripture proofs to be so far clear, as to oblige us to admit the doctrine. for a certain truth'. Neither are we much beholden to them for this seeming courtesy, since the proofs are so numerous and so cogent, that every ingenuous and sensible man must plainly see, that were Scripture alone to decide the question, and no false philosophy or metaphysics brought in to confound or perplex it, there could scarce be any room left for debate about it. I do not mean that many Scripture texts may not be speciously urged on the other side but what I mean is, that upon the summing up of the evidence on both sides, and after balancing the whole account, the advantage is so plainly ours, accord

1 Hinc colligo, mirum videri non debere, si tribus hisce personis una eademque natura divina tribuatur, cum iis scriptura divina, istas perfectiones, quæ naturæ divinæ propriæ sunt, tam exerte attribuat. Episcop. Institut lib. iv. sect. 2. cap. 32. p. 333.

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