PREFACE. THE following Sermons may be looked upon as a Supplement to my Vindication of Christ's Divinity, before published. I intended them as such, avoiding repetition of the same things as much as I well could: or where I could not avoid bringing up again the same arguments, I have endeavoured to give them some further light or strength; for the most part, enlarging upon what had been before but briefly hinted. I have entirely omitted the argument from worship, because I had distinctly and fully treated of it under Queries sixteenth and seventeenth. Some other arguments I have passed over, purely because I had not room for them. Those which I have taken and considered appear to me of as great weight as any; and more than sufficient to justify our belief in Christ Jesus as a Divine Person, coequal and coeternal with God the Father. In my Vindication, &c. I was chiefly upon the offensive, against the adversaries of our common faith, demanding of them some clear and good proof of their pretensions in this momentous controversy; since they had hitherto produced nothing considerable enough to move any wise and good man to forsake that faith which has so long and so universally obtained, and with such visible marks of a Divine power accompanying it. They that undertake to alter the fundamental and universally received articles of the Christian faith, which may be traced up to the very infancy of Christianity, or as high as any records reach, ought to be well provided with reasons and arguments to make good such big pretences: otherwise they do but render their cause ridiculous, and expose their own vanity. The presumption will always lie (especially in a point of this moment, in which it can hardly be supposed that God would ever have suffered his Church to be so long, so universally, and so lamentably deceived) on the side of prescription and long possession: and nothing less than clear and evident demonstration can have weight sufficient to bear up against it. This therefore is what I had reason to insist upon, and what I still demand of our new guides, if they hope to prevail any thing with considering men. I may further demand of them to propose some other scheme opposite to the Catholic, and to clear it at least of all considerable objections. For if it appears that there are but three schemes, in the main, Arian, Socinian, and Catholic, one of which must be true; and that the two former are utterly repugnant to, or can neither of them be shewn to be consistent with, the whole Scripture taken together; it will follow that the third is the true one, unless Scripture be inconsistent with itself; which is not to be supposed. This way of proving our point, though indirect, is notwithstanding just and solid; provided we can make it appear that neither the Arian nor Socinian (or what is nearly the same, Sabellian) hypothesis can tolerably account for several Scripture texts. But I have, in the following Sermons, chose, for the most part, to proceed more directly, giving the direct Scripture proofs of what has so long and so universally prevailed; that it may be seen that we have a great deal more than prescription or possession to plead for our principles. They are founded in the infallible word of God, fixed and rivetted in the very frame and constitution of the Christian religion. If our proofs of this, merely from Scripture, appear but probable, they are yet more and better than can be produced, merely from Scripture, for the contrary persuasion and if what appears but probably to be taught in Scripture itself appears certainly to have been taught by the primitive and Catholic Church; such probability, so confirmed and strengthened, carries with it the force of demonstration. Not that I think our Scripture proofs to be barely probable, though our cause would not suffer even by that supposition. I think them as clear and as strong as should be expected or desired in any case of this nature and I know not whether the Scripture proofs of the Divinity, even of God the Father, his eternal, immutable, necessary existence, his omniscience, omnipresence, and other Divine attributes, might not be eluded and frustrated by such subtilties and artifices as are used to elude the Scripture proofs of the Divinity of God the Son. It must however be allowed, that in all manner of controversy which depends upon interpretation of dead writings, he that undertakes to prove a point, or to establish a doctrine, lies under this disadvantage; that, as long as there appears any possibility of a different interpretation, an adversary may still demur, and demand further evidence. Now, considering the great latitude and ambiguity of words and phrases, in all languages, (if a man would search into all the senses they are possibly capable of,) and that even the most full and express words may be often eluded by having recourse to tropes and figures, or to some other artificial turn of wit and criticism; I say, considering this, there may be always something or other plausibly urged against any thing almost whatever: but more especially if the point to be proved be of a sublime, mysterious nature; then, besides the advantage to be taken of words, there is further ground of scruple or cavil from the thing itself. And here the objector has much the easier part, as it is always easier to puzzle, than to clear any thing; to darken and perplex, than to set things in a good light; to ask questions, than to answer them; to start difficulties, than to solve them. In a word, it is easier for the objector to shew his own ignorance, and perhaps the other's too, than it is for either of them to be perfectly knowing, and able to extricate a subject out of all perplexity and doubtfulness. Hence it is that both Arians and Socinians have, for the most part, been content to object against the Catholic scheme, having talents very proper for it, but they seldom undertake to defend and clear their own: or if they do, they soon see reason to repent it. When the Socinian is to prove that Christ is a man only, or an Arian that he is a creature, and that Scripture can bear no other possible interpretation, they come off so indifferently, and with such manifest marks of disadvantage, that they do but expose themselves to the pity or derision of their adversaries. It was was proper to observe this, in order to give the common reader a just idea of the state of the present controversy, and of the method and management of the controvertists, on either side. The way to judge rightly, either of it or them, is to compare things carefully together, and to observe how they perform their several parts; which are reducible to these three: 1. To prove and establish their own tenets; 2. To disprove those of the adversaries; 3. To object to, or weaken, the adversary's proofs. For the purpose: what have the Catholics to produce from Scripture in proof of their principles? And what has either an Arian or Socinian to produce in proof of his? Take their evidences together, set them fairly one against another, and then judge of them. What have the Catholics to urge in order to disprove the Arian or Socinian scheme? And what again has either Arian or Socinian to plead in order to confute the Catholic doctrine? Let these respectively be balanced one against another, and let the impartial examiner judge which has the advantage upon the comparison. Lastly, let it be observed what the Catholics have to say, to weaken the proofs brought either for the Arian or Socinian hypothesis; and again, what the Arian and Socinian has to plead, to invalidate the proofs brought for the Catholic persuasion. Upon the whole, I may remark, that the most difficult task of all is to establish a doctrine: the next hardest is to disprove or confute any tenet; because that, in some cases, (where one of the two must be true,) is establishing the contrary: the lowest and easiest part of all is to object against the adversary's proofs, or to puzzle a cause among weak readers. These things being premised, I may now proceed to take notice of two late pamphlets, wrote by way of Answer to my Vindication of Christ's Divinity. The first of them, indeed, is very modestly and properly called, An Answer to Dr. Waterland's Queries, otherwise, Modest Plea &c. Continued, by an anonymous hand. I was surprised at it, because the Queries had received an answer long ago; and the world expected an answer to my Defence, not a new answer to the Queries. I will not say that the author was in hopes the common reader might not distinguish between an Answer to the Queries and an Answer to the Defence, but might be indifferently content with either; nor that he thought he might the more easily triumph over the Queries, after he had exposed them again naked and stripped of their guards and fences: I am unwilling to believe an author of any name or character, (as this seems to be,) could have any such low aims and little views as those mentioned. But I must observe, that the author, in his performance, is religiously observant of his title: for he brings up frequently the very same pretences which I had fully, largely, and distinctly answered in my Defence, without taking the least notice of what I had said: for his intent was not to answer my Defence, it seems, but my Queries. Whether this be a proper method to clear a dispute, and to do justice to common readers, I leave to any man to judge. But I am promised, in an advertisement at the end, a large and particular answer to my Defence, &c. which I shall wait for with great impatience, being desirous of nothing more than to see this controversy fairly and thoroughly discussed on both sides. In the meanwhile, I shall content myself with a few remarks upon this late Answer to my Queries, not thinking myself obliged to go so far out of my way, as to draw up any more particular reply to a nameless writer, and one who does not appear to have any desire or design to have the point distinctly debated and cleared; but only to throw a mist before the readers, and to fence off all fair trial or examination. 1. I must observe, that the author does not offer any particular scheme, for fear, I suppose, of being called upon to defend it. Yet if he at all knows what he is doing, or what he is aiming at, it is the Arian scheme or none he has taken up with. There are but three possible suppositions of God the Son, considered as a real distinct Person. Either he is a man only, which to say is Socinianism; or he is more than man, but yet a precarious dependent being, depending as much on the will of the Father as any creature whatever, and consequently a creature; which to say is Arianism, and the whole of Arianism, however variously expressed or differently disguised: the third supposition is, that the Son is necessarily existing, uncreated, and properly Divine, which is the Catholic doctrine. Now this writer is evidently no Socinian nor Sabellian; and from the whole tenor of his performance it is plain he is no Catholic, in the sense before given it remains only that he is either an Arian, or else hangs between two, floating and fluctuating between Catholic and Arian; which is the most favourable opinion that can be conceived of him. 2. As this writer pretends not to maintain any particular scheme opposite to the Catholic doctrine, so it may be observed, that he constantly avoids coming to the pinch of the question between Catholics and Arians. He never so much as attempts any the least proof of God the Son's being a creature; never undertakes to justify creature worship; never endeavours to clear the Arian scheme of the difficulties which I had charged it with in several places of my Defence, vol. i. and particularly in p. 556. where I summed up the principal of them under five heads. He is so far from this, that he commonly turns opponent though he had undertaken the part of respondent; and by his deep silence, in respect of the most considerable difficulties, seems tacitly to allow that they are not capable of any just and solid answer. I had asked only a plain question, that I might come to the point in hand, "whether the same characteristics, especially such eminent ones, can reasonably be understood of two distinct beings, and of one infinite "and independent; the other dependent and finite?" Qu. 6. This gentleman desires to be excused from saying one word of dependent or independent; and calls it an invidious insinuation, to mention a syllable of finite and infinite, p. 13. This was coming to the question, and therefore the point was not to be touched. He runs off, and talks, somewhat confusedly, about some prime, greatest, incommunicable perfection, (objecting only, when it was his business to respond,) not telling me whether he means it of necessarily existing, or only of unbegotten. If he means it of the former, making necessary existence and self-existence the same thing, then I shall tell him, that he has no manner of ground for supposing that that perfection is not common both to Father and Son and if that be also Dr. Clarke's notion of self-existence, I shall then observe, that the Doctor's propositions (particularly his 5th, 12th, 14th, 19th, 23d,) are not so innocent as this writer would represent them, but are unscriptural, false, and dangerous. If he means it of unbegotten, I shall leave him to prove, at leisure, what real perfection, beyond a relation of order, or mode of existence, is contained in it. In the mean while, what becomes of the Query, which demanded a clear and determinate answer, whether the Son be finite or infinite, whether his existence be precarious, or independent on the will of any? A direct answer to this would soon have let our readers into the main debate, to be tried by Scripture, reason, and antiquity. I give this instance only for a specimen of the author's manner of evading and shifting, whenever he comes to the pinch of the question: the reader will observe many : |