For the clearing of this difficulty, I fhall, with all the brevity I can, offer thefe following confiderations; which I hope, to an impartial and unprejudiced judgment, will be fufficient to remove it, or at least to break the main force and ftrength of it.

1. I defire it may be well confidered, that there is a wide difference between the nice fpeculations of the fchools, beyond what is revealed in fcripture, concerning the doctrine of the Trinity, and what the fcripture only teaches and afferts concerning this myftery. For it is not to be denied, but that the schoolmen, who abounded in wit and leifure, though very few among them had either exact skill in the holy fcriptures, or in ecclefiaftical antiquity, and the writings of the ancient fathers of the Chriftian church; I fay, it cannot be denied, but that these speculative and very acute men, who wrought a great part of their divinity out of their own brains, as fpiders do cobwebs out of their own bowels, have started a thousand fubtilties about this mystery, fuch as no Chriftian is bound to trouble his head withal: much lefs is it neceffary for him to understand those niceties, which we may reasonably prefume that they who talk of them did themselves never thoroughly understand; and, least of all, is it necessary to believe them. The modefty of Chriftians is contented in divine mysteries to know what God hath thought fit to reveal concerning them, and hath no curiofity to be wife above that which is written. It is enough to believe what God fays concerning these matters; and, if any man will venture to fay more, every other man furely is at his liberty, to believe as he fees reason.

2. I defire it may, in the next place, be confidered, that the doctrine of the Trinity, even as it is afferted in fcripture, is acknowledged by us to be ftill a great my. ftery, and fo imperfectly revealed, as to be in a great measure incomprehenfible by human reafon. And therefore, though fome learned and judicious men may have very commendably attempted a more particular explication of this great mystery by the strength of reafon; yet I dare not pretend to that, knowing both the difficulty and danger of fuch an attempt, and mine own infufficiency for it.

All

All that I ever defigned upon this argument was, to make out the credibility of the thing from the authority of the holy fcriptures, without defcending to a more particular explication of it than the fcripture hath given us; left, by endeavouring to lay the difficulties which are already started about it, new ones fhould be raised, and such as may perhaps be much harder to be removed than those which we have now to grapple withal. And this I hope I have in fome measure done in one of the former difcourfes, [Ser. 44.]. Nor indeed do I fee, that it is any ways neceffary to do more; it being fufficient, that God hath declared what he thought fit in this matter; and that we do firmly believe what he fays concerning it to be true, though we do not perfectly comprehend the meaning of all that he hath faid about it.

For in this, and the like cafes, I take an implicit faith to be very commendable; that is, to believe whatever we are fufficiently affured God hath revealed, though we do not fully understand his meaning in fuch a revelation. And thus every man who believes the holy fcriptures to be a truly divine revelation, does implicitly believe a great part of the prophetical books of fcripture, and several obfcure expreffions in those books, though he do not particularly understand the meaning of all the predictions and expreffions contained in them. In like manner, there are certainly a great many very good Chriftians who do not believe and comprehend the myfteries of faith nicely enough to approve themselves to a scholaftical and magisterial judge of controverfies, who yet, if they do heartily embrace the doctrines which are clearly revealed in scripture, and live up to the plain precepts of the Chriftian religion, will, I doubt not, be very well approved by the great and just, and by the infallibly infallible judge of the world.

3. Let it be further confidered, that though neither the word trinity, nor perhaps perfon, in the fense in which it is used by divines when they treat of this myftery, be any where to be met with in fcripture; yet it cannot be denied, but that three are there fpoken of by the names of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in whole name every Chriftian is baptized, and to each of whom the highest titles and properties of God are in scripture attributed;

attributed; and these three are spoken of with as much distinction from one another as we use to speak of three feveral perfons.

So that though the word trinity be not found in fcripture, yet these three are there exprefsly and frequently mentioned; and a trinity is nothing but three of any thing. And fo likewife, though the word perfon be not there exprefsly applied to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; yet it will be very hard to find a more convenient word whereby to express the distinction of these three. For which reason I could never yet fee any just cause to quarrel at this term. For fince the Holy Spirit of God in fcripture hath thought fit, in fpeaking of thefe three, to diftinguish them from one another, as we use in common fpeech to distinguish three feveral perfons, I cannot fee any reason why, in the explication of this myftery, which purely depends upon divine revelation, we should not fpeak of it in the fame manner as the fcripture doth: and though the word perfon is now become a term of art, I fee no caufe why we fhould decline it, fo long as we mean by it neither more nor lefs than what the fcripture fays in other words.

4. It deferves further to be confidered, that there hath been a very ancient tradition concerning three real differences or diftinctions in the divine nature; and these, as I faid before, very nearly resembling the Chriftian doctrine of the Trinity.

Whence this tradition had its original, is not easy, upon good and certain grounds, to fay. But certain it is, that the Jews anciently had this notion; and that they did diftinguifh the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit of God, from him who was abfolutely called God, and whom they looked upon as the firft principle of all things; as is plain from Philo Judæus, and Mofes Nachmanides, and others, cited by the learned Grotius, in his incomparable book of the truth of the Chriftian religion, book 5.

And, among the Heathen, Plato, who probably enough might have this notion from the Jews, did make three diftinctions in the Deity, by the names of Essential Goodness, and Mind, and Spirit.

So that whatever objections this matter may be liable

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to,

to, it is not fo peculiar a doctrine of the Christian religion, as many have imagined, though it is revealed by it with much more clcarnefs and certainty: and, confequently, neither the Jews nor Plato have any reafon to object it to us Chriftians; especially fince they pretend no other ground for it but either their own reafon, or an ancient tradition from their fathers: whereas we Chriftians do appeal to exprefs divine revelation for what we believe in this matter, and do believe it fingly upon that

account.

5. It is befides very confiderable, that the fcriptures do deliver this doctrine of the Trinity without any manner of doubt or question concerning the unity of the divine nature; and not only so, but do most stedfastly and conftantly affert, that there is but one God. And in thofe very texts in which thefe three differences are mentioned, the unity of the divine nature is expressly afferted; as where St. John makes mention of the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, the unity of these three

is likewife affirmed: There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit; and these three are one.

6. It is yet further confiderable, that from this myftery, as delivered in fcripture, a plurality of Gods cannot be inferred without making the fcripture grofsly to contradict itself; which I charitably fuppofe the Socinians would be as loth to admit as we ourselves are. And if either councils, or fathers, or schoolmen, have fo explained this mystery, as to give any just ground, or fo much as a plaufible colour for fuch an inference, let the blame fall where it is due, and let it not be charged on the holy fcriptures; but rather, as the Apostle fays in another cafe, let God be true, and every man a liar.

7. and lastly, I defire it may be confidered, that it is not repugnant to reafon, to believe fome things which are incomprehenfible by our reafon; provided that we have fufficient ground and reafon for the belief of them : efpecially if they be concerning God, who is in his nature incomprehenfible; and we be well affured that he hath revealed them. And therefore it ought not to offend us, that thefe differences in the Deity are incomprehenfible by our finite understandings; because the di

vine nature itself is fo, and yet the belief of that is the foundation of all religion.

There are a great many things in nature which we cannot comprehend how they either are, or can be: As the continuity of matter; that is, how the parts of it do hang fo faft together, that they are many times very hard to be parted; and yet we are fure that it is fo, becaufe we fee it every day. So likewife, how the finall feeds of things contain the whole form and nature of the things from which they proceed, and into which by degrees they grow; and yet we plainly fee this every

year.

There are many things likewife in ourselves, which no man is able in any measure to comprehend, as to the manner how they are done and performed: As the vital union of foul and body. Who can imagine by what device or means a fpirit comes to be fo closely united and fo firmly linked to a material body, that they are not to be parted without great force and violence offered to nature? The like may be faid of the operations of our several faculties of fenfe and imagination, of memory and reafon, and especially of the liberty of our wills and yet we certainly find all these faculties in ourselves, though we cannot either comprehend or explain the particular manner in which the feveral operations of them are performed.

And if we cannot comprehend the manner of those operations which we plainly perceive and feel to be in ourselves, much lefs can we expect to comprehend things without us; and leaft of all can we pretend to comprehend the infinite nature and perfections of God, and every thing belonging to him. For God himself is certainly the greatest mystery of all other, and acknowledged by mankind to be in his nature, and in the particular manner of his existence, incomprehenfible by human understanding. And the reafon of this is very evident; because God is infinite, and our knowledge and underftanding is but finite : and yet no fober man ever thought this a good reason to call the being of God in question.

The fame may be faid of God's certain knowledge of future contingencies, which depend upon the uncertain

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wills