“Is it ‘life eternal to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent?’ Hath no one the Father, who ‘denieth the Son?’ Can no one honour the Father, ‘who honoureth not the Son?’ Is it the Spirit alone who quickeneth, and who teacheth us to ‘know the things that are freely given us of God?’ Can no man ‘say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost?’ Is it through Christ that ‘we have access by one Spirit unto the Father?’ Let us bless God for the revelation of the mystery of a Trinity in unity; and especially because he hath revealed it so clearly in the history of our redemption, in relation to that work in which a peculiar operation belongs to each adorable Person, in which the love of a three-one God is so wonderfully displayed, in which we discern so blessed a harmony, not only of divine perfections, but of divine Persons! In all our worship, let us view God according to this revelation, ascribing glory to him ‘who is, and who was, and who is to come, and to the Seven Spirits which are before his throne, and to Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first-begotten from the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth.’ Let us earnestly desire communion with this three-one God; with the Father, in his love as the spring of our salvation; with the Son, in all that grace which he hath purchased by his blood; and with the Holy Ghost, in the whole extent of his efficacious operation. In order to this, let us press after union with Christ, that in him we may be united to the Father by that one Spirit who proceeds from both, and who is conferred by both as the Spirit of adoption. Let us cultivate love to the brethren, as members of the same mystical body, desiring to be ‘one heart and one soul;’ that although many, we may be one, and thus be assimilated, in our weak measure, to the blessed Trinity in respect of unity; as Jesus prays in behalf of his Church;—‘That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us.—I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.’”
JAMIESON.
90. See Le Clerc’s Supplement to Dr. Hammond on the New Testament, preface to John i.
91. See Biddle’s Confession of Faith, touching the holy Trinity, Article VI.
92. Some have thought, that εκεινος being of the masculine gender, because it refers immediately to πνευμα, which is of the neuter, implies, that the Spirit is taken personally, which is the reason of this grammatical construction; but if it be said that the reason why it is masculine is, because it agrees with παρακλητος, it, notwithstanding, proves the Personality of the Holy Ghost, since a Comforter is a personal character. The same thing is observed in the grammatical construction of that scripture, Eph. i. 13, 14. speaking concerning the Holy Spirit of promise, το πνευμα της επαγγελιας; it is said, ὁς εστιν αρῥαβων, which denotes the personal character of the Spirit, otherwise it would have been ὁ εστιν αρῥαβων, unless you suppose ὁς agrees with αρῥαβων, which seems to be a more strained sense of the grammatical construction than the other, which proves his personality.
93. “THAT the Holy Scriptures make mention of Three by way of great eminence and distinction may appear from many passages, out of which I shall only produce some. At the Prediction of the blessed Virgin’s conception, which was to be without the concurrence of a man, the divine message is delivered in these words: The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; Therefore, also that Holy Thing, that shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God. Here are plainly distinguished from each other, the Holy Ghost, or Power overshadowing; the Highest, whose Power that Spirit is; and the Holy Thing, or Person, who is called the Son of God, because born of a mother, impregnated by that Divine Power. At our Blessed Lord’s Baptism, the Spirit of God, we read, descended like a dove and rested upon him, and a voice from Heaven declared him to be the Son of God: Nothing can be plainer than three Personalities in this transaction; the Father speaking from Heaven, the Son coming out of Jordan, and the Spirit descending from above. In the Promise, which our blessed Saviour makes his disciples, to comfort their hearts against what was coming upon them, I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter, that he may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth; and when the comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me, there are manifestly Acts, and Persons, and capacities, different. The Father, from whom the Spirit proceeds, whom the Son prays, and by whom, at the Son’s Request, the Comforter was given: The Son, praying the Father; sending the Comforter from the Father, and testified of by the Spirit so sent: And the Spirit, given by the Father, sent by the Son, testifying of the Son, and, upon the Son’s Departure, abiding for ever with the Disciples.
“The great Apostle of the Gentiles, to enforce the Doctrine of the resurrection, tells the Romans, that if the Spirit of him, who raised Jesus from the dead, dwelt in them, he that raised Christ from the dead would also quicken their mortal bodies by his Spirit, that dwelled in them; where he evidently refers to Jesus, the Son of God; raised from the Dead; to the Spirit of God, by which he was raised; and to him that raised Jesus, and at the last great day shall raise all others, in whom his Spirit dwells. The same apostle, to satisfy the Corinthians of the benefits of their conversion, after having enumerated several ranks of sinners, and such were some of you, says he, but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit of our God, i. e. God the Father. It cannot be denied that Sanctification and Justification are the gifts of God alone; for none can absolve us from the Guilt and pollution of sin, but he only: But then the Apostle tells the Corinthians, that this benefit they received not only from God the Father, but from the Lord Jesus likewise, and from the Holy Spirit: Analogous to which is that other Passage in the same epistle; There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit, (there is the third Person in the Trinity) there are differences of Administration, but the same Lord, (there is the second Person) and there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God, (or first person in the Trinity) that worketh all in all. Once more, the same Apostle, in his prayer for the Thessalonians, directs his devotion to the ever blessed Trinity: Now God himself, even our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way unto you, and the Lord, (i. e. the Holy Ghost) make you to increase and abound in love one towards another: For that by the Lord we are here to understand the Holy Ghost, I think is very plain from the next verse; ‘to the end, that he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints;’ since he is the Sanctifier, and to establish our hearts in holiness is his proper work and office: And if so, then is there a plain enumeration of the three Persons of the Trinity in this passage.
“The great Apostle of the Jews begins his first Epistle general to his dispersed Brethren with a declaration of the same article, when he calls them elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through Sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience, and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus; for there we may observe, that the three Persons are not only expressly named, but their distinct employments, with reference to man’s salvation, are particularly specified, while the Father is said to elect, the Spirit to sanctify, and the holy Jesus to shed his blood. The beloved Apostle St. John, in his Salutation to the Churches, Grace, and Peace from him, which is, and which was, and which is to come, and from the seven spirits which are before his Throne, and from Jesus Christ has given us a distinct enumeration of the three Persons in the Deity, if we will but admit, (as most interpreters have done) that by the Seven Spirits, which was a sacred number among the Jews, that one Person (viz. the Holy Ghost) is to be understood, from whom all that variety of gifts and operations, which were then conspicuous in the Christian Church, did proceed. But however this be, ’tis certain, that the passage in his Epistle of the Three which bear record in Heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, are as full and plain a Testimony and declaration of this Mystery, as can be cited in words; and though some have endeavoured to invalidate the authority of this passage, as not extant in some ancient copies, and seldom appealed to by the first defenders of the catholick faith against the Arians and Macedonians, yet the contrary to this is most evident. Tertullian, St. Cyprian, and Fulgentius quote it in their writings: Athanasius made use of it in the council of Nice against Arius; and the reason why it was left out in some ancient copies Socrates acquaints us with in his Ecclesiastical history, when he tells us, ‘That the Christian Church had all along complained, that the Epistle of St. John had been corrupted by the first adversaries of the doctrine of Christ’s divinity.’ ’Twas by their artifice therefore that it was omitted; for several learned pens, both of our own and other churches, have made it very manifest, that it was[94] originally in the text, and that the most and ancientest copies always had it.
“But we need not be so tenacious of one text, when, besides these already mentioned, and many more that might be produced upon a farther enquiry, the very form of our admission into the Christian covenant is in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; the form of our prayers is thus directed, that through the Son we have an access by one Spirit to the Father; and the form of our dismission from them is, every day, with this benediction, The grace of the Lord Jesus, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all evermore; as if the Wisdom of God had intended to inculcate this notion of the Trinity, and, in every act of our religious worship, to remind us of the manner of his subsistence.
“Thus it appears that there are Three, very often occurring in scripture, under the different appellations of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: and that these three are not one and the same Being, under different respects and considerations, but three real and distinct persons, with a peculiar manner of subsisting, is plain from the very names of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, if we understand them in a proper and natural sense; because these are opposite relations, which can never meet in the same subject: for a Father cannot be Father to himself, but to his Son; nor can a Son be Son to himself, but to his Father; nor can the Holy Ghost proceed from himself, or (in this sense) be his own Spirit, but the Spirit of the Father, and Son, from whom he proceeds: and therefore the Father is not the Son, nor the Holy Spirit; nor the Son the Father, or Holy Spirit; nor the Holy Spirit either Father or Son. The only question is, whether these names, when spoken of the Trinity have a proper and natural, or only an allusive and metaphorical signification.
“The divine nature and perfections indeed, (as they are far exalted above our conception) may be brought down by metaphors, taken from some things, that are analagous in creatures; in which sense we may allow Father and Son to be metaphorical names, when applied to God: not that God the Father is not, in the highest and most perfect sense, a Father, and his Son a most proper, natural, and genuine Son; but because the divine generation is so perfect a communication of the divine nature and being from Father to Son, that human generations are but obscure and imperfect images and resemblances of it. The truth is, when any thing is spoken metaphorically of God, the metaphor and image are always in the creatures; the truth, perfection, and reality of all, in God: and if so, then if God be a Father, and have a Son, an only-begotten Son, begotten eternally of himself; though this eternal generation be infinitely above what we can imagine or conceive, yet it is evident, that God the Father is more properly and perfectly a Father, and God the Son more properly and perfectly a Son, than any earthly fathers or sons ever were. And if God the Father and his Son be truly and perfectly Father and Son, they must be truly and perfectly distinct beings; for the Father cannot be the Son whom he begets; nor the Son the Father that begat him; nor the Holy Ghost either the Father or the Son, from whom he proceeds: consequently, they must be distinct, and real, and proper persons; for he that begets, and he that is begotten, and he that proceeds from both, cannot be one and the same person.
“And as this difference of relations makes a manifest distinction between the three persons; so the different offices and employments, that are ascribed to them in scripture, is a farther note of discrimination. For who sees not, that the work of creation of all things at first, and ever since the just, and wise, and merciful disposal of them, are attributed to the Father; that the great undertaking of our redemption is the care and employment of the Son; and the business of enlightening and sanctifying those, whom the Son redeemeth, the particular province of the Holy Ghost? Without supposing them to be three distinct persons, I say, no satisfactory solution can be given, why, in the great work of man’s salvation, a distinct office and operation should be proper to each of them; why the Father only should be said to elect; the Son only to have shed and sprinkled his blood; and the Holy Ghost only to sanctify us unto obedience. So far then as a diversity of names, offices, and operations, distinguishes one being from another, there is plainly a distinction of persons subsisting in the Godhead. But this is not all. Those, who pretend to state[95] the true notion of a person as a term made use of in this argument, tell us, that it is a being, which has understanding, and is a distinct, entire substance of itself; an individual substance of a rationed nature, or a complete intelligent substance, with a peculiar manner of subsistence: so that there is a common nature, which must be joined by a peculiar manner of subsisting, to make a person, otherwise it would be a mere mode; for we never conceive a person without the essence in conjunction with it. And this notion may haply be of use, not only to state the true distinction of the Persons in the Godhead, but to account likewise for some dubious passages in the fathers, and reconcile the different parties that contend about them: only we must take care (as I said before) that, when we discourse of the sacred Trinity, the word person be not conceived in the same sense as among men. The persons of men are distinct men, as well as distinct persons; but this is no ground for us to affirm, that the persons in the divine nature are distinct Gods. The distinction of the persons of men is founded in a separate and divided subsistence; but this cannot be the foundation of the distinction of the divine persons, because separation and division cannot belong to an infinite Being. In a word, three human persons are three men, because, though they have the same specific nature, yet they have not the same numerical nature: but the three Persons in the Godhead are not three Gods, because they have the same numerical essence, which belongs in common to them all: and since it is confessed on all hands, that nature and subsistence go to the making up of a person, why may not the way of their subsistence be as different as the human and Divine natures (one finite, and the other infinite) are confessed to be? Though therefore in things created it is necessary for one single essence to subsist in one single person, and no more; yet this does not at all prove that the same must be necessary in him, whose nature is wholly different from theirs, and, consequently, may differ as much in the manner of his subsistence. For ’tis a thing agreeable even to the notions of bare reason to imagine, that the divine nature has a way of subsisting very different from the subsistence of any created being, and consequently, may have one and the same nature diffused into three distinct persons: but how, and in what manner this is effected; how one substance in the Deity is communicated to more, and becomes theirs; how of one and the same essence, there can be three persons numerically different; this is the difficulty, and what made the holy father (writing upon the argument) confess, ‘That the mystery of the Trinity is immense and incomprehensible, beyond the expression of words, or reach of sense; that it blinds our sight, and exceeds the capacity of our understanding: I understand it not, says he; nevertheless I will comfort myself in this, that angels are ignorant of it, nor do ages apprehend it; that neither the apostles enquired after it, nor the Son himself has thought fit to declare it.’
“The only valid objection (and to which all others are reducible) against these personalities, so often occurring in scripture, is taken from the simplicity of the divine nature, which, in the opinion of some, will not admit of any distinction. But though the simplicity of God excludes all mixture, i. e. all composition of things heterogeneous in the Godhead, (there being nothing in God but what is God) yet, notwithstanding this, there may be a distinction of hypostases in the Godhead, provided they are homogeneous, and of the same nature. Nay, the simplicity of the divine nature, if rightly considered, is so far from excluding, that it necessarily infers a distinction of hypostases in the Godhead: for, since the simplicity of the Godhead consists chiefly in this, that God is a pure eternal Mind, free from the mixture of all kind of matter whatever; an eternal Mind must needs have in it, from all eternity, a notion or conception of itself, which the schools call verbum mentis; nor can it, at any time, be conceived without it. Now this word cannot be in God, what it is in us, a transient vanishing accident; for then the divine nature would be compounded of substance and accident, which would be repugnant to its simplicity; and therefore must be a substantial subsisting word, and though not divided, yet distinct from the eternal Mind, from whence it proceeds. This is no novel subtlety of the schools, but a notion, that[96] runs through all the Fathers of the first ages, and is not destitute of a sufficient foundation in scripture. It proves indeed only two Persons in the Godhead, not a Trinity; but then it proves, that a distinction of persons in the Godhead is very consistent with its simplicity; nay, that from the true nature of the simplicity of the Godhead, such a distinction necessarily follows; and if there is a distinction of two, there may be of three; and that there is of three, the full evidence of scripture (as I have already shewn) abundantly assures us.”
STACKHOUSE.
94. To confirm this we may add, that, if the difference of copies happened by the negligence of transcribers, such a mistake is much more easily made by omitting a clause, than by inserting one, especially when the same words occur twice very near together, which is the present case: and that, without this clause, the next verse is maimed, and hardly good sense, the words, in earth, standing disjointed by themselves; whereas the words, in heaven, (as we now read them) make a clear, strong, and elegant antithesis: and for these reasons, those copies, in which this passage is found, are more likely to be true, than those in which it is wanting.—Trapp’s Doctrine of the Trinity.
95. A late learned author has given us this definition of a single person, “That it is an intelligent agent, having the distinctive characters of I, thou, and he, and not divided or distinguished into more intelligent agents, capable of the same characters.” [Waterland’s second Defence,] and thereupon he thus argues in another place, “Our ideas of person are plainly taken from our conceptions of human persons, and from them transferred to other subjects, though they do not strictly answer in every circumstance. Properly speaking, he and him, are no more applicable to a divine person, than she or her;” but we have no third way of denoting a person, and so, of the two, we choose the best, and custom familiarizes it.—His Sermons at Lady Moyer’s Lectures.
96. It has, with good reason, been supposed by the Catholick writers, that the design of the word Λογος was to intimate, that the relation of Father and Son hears some resemblance and analogy to that of thought, viz. that as thought is co-eval with the mind, so the Son is co-eval with the Father; and that as thought is closely united to, proceeds from, and yet remains in the mind, so also may we understand that the Son is in the bosom of the Father, proceeding from him, and yet never divided or separate, but remaining in him and with him.—Waterland’s Sermons at Lady Moyer’s Lectures.
97. Some, who take delight in darkening this matter, by pretending to explain it, call the former a το νυν, stans; the latter, fluens.
98. “In the Saviour’s exalted relation to his Father, the name Son of God comes chiefly under observation. It is known that in the sacred word, rational creatures are often dignified with the honorary title of Sons or Children of God; and that in various respects, and for obvious reasons. But certainly that name in Christ signifies something higher. John x. 35-38. He is not only a Son of God, but the Son, by way of eminence above all ο υιος: So that he is by this, as a peculiar and proper denomination, distinguished from other subjects. We know, that the Son of God is come. 1 John v. 20. John viii. 36.—He is God’s only-begotten Son. John i. 14, 18. iii. 16. God’s own Son. Rom. viii. 32. ‘To which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee?’ Heb. i. 5. When Christ spoke to his disciples concerning the Father, he never said, our Father, (as he had taught them to pray;) but always with an express distinction my Father. Luke ii. 48, 49. John ii. 16. chiefly John xx. 17.——From the prophetic doctrine, that name was known in Israel, as in its full force applicable to the Messias; which can be clearly evinced from various passages. Mat. xvi. 15, 16. xxvi. 63. Mark iii. 11. John vi. 69. xi. 27. x. 36. Amidst all the confusion of their apprehensions, they found so much emphasis in it, that the acknowledgment of it was among them a ground of adoration, Mat. xiv. 33. John ix. 35-38.; so that when Jesus, with the distinction and appropriation of the divine works, called God his Father, they thence concluded, which the Saviour did not contradict, that he held God for his own Father, and thus made himself equal to God. John v. 18. x. 33-36. Indeed, however intimate the connexion is betwixt being the Messias, the Christ, and being the Son of God, this last signifies still something different, something more original. For Paul preached Christ, that he was the Son of God[99]. In the love of the truth, let us observe the divine testimony, he did not become the Son of God by or after his coming in the flesh, by or after the execution of his ministry; but herein is God’s great mercy celebrated, that ‘he sent him who was his Son, made him under the law, and delivered him up for us all.’ This is evident, from a variety of passages. Gal. iv. 4. Rom. viii. 32. Heb. v. 8. 1 John iv. 9, 10. It is plainly supposed in the parable, the lord of the vineyard sent to the husbandmen many servants, some of whom they beat, and others they slew. Having therefore yet one son who was dear to him, he sent him last of all to them, saying, ‘they will surely reverence my son.’ Mark xii. 6.——In his supreme excellence, as the Son of God, lies the reason of punishing unbelief. As the Son of God, ‘he is the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person.’ Heb. i. 3. On the self-same account, he is, according to the language of men, his heir, that is, has a natural right to all the works of God, especially to his church; which are also made by him, in communion with the Father. See this described in a lofty strain by the apostle, Heb. i. 1-3. iii. 3-6. Col. i. 15-17. and also by Jesus himself. Mark xii. 6, 7.——Though, therefore, a further theological illustration of Christ’s divine sonship should best be preceded by the pr