1. Although the nature of God, as a Being of infinite wisdom, power, justice, glory, purity, and goodness, surpasses the comprehension of men and angels; yet, according to the revelation which he hath thought proper to give of himself in holy scripture, we think ourselves authorized to believe, and to preach in consequence, that in the divine essence there are three persons, who are incomprehensibly one in all the perfections of the Godhead; and, according to their respective offices in the economy of redemption, are called in scripture, Father, Son, and Spirit; that, though economically and personally three, they are essentially one; that all objections to this doctrine arising from the incomprehensibility of it, apply equally to the truth of the very being of a God; and that a denial of it, is one of those heresies that enter very deeply into an apostacy from the truth and power of godliness. The doctrine of the Trinity, or of three co-equal and co-essential persons in one undivided Godhead, as an object of adoration to men and angels, we look upon as one of the great mysteries of revelation, and as a fundamental article in the Christian faith. If the opponents of this leading tenet think proper, as too many of them have done, to ridicule it as inexplicable, and contrary to reason; we are sorry for their inconsistency, and would remind them, that their sneers might very easily be retorted on themselves, were they only required to account for, and reconcile with reason, a thousand phenomena in nature, the existence of which they dare not dispute, though their occult qualities, origin, and extent of operation, are wrapt up in mystery. And if nature, in some of the most common and sensible objects, abounds with mysteries, which philosophy cannot explore or account for; how incomprehensible must the God of nature be, when his own peculiar mode of existence is the object of contemplation! We believe, therefore, that the impenetrable mystery that envelopes the doctrine of the Trinity from the comprehension of reason, ought to be no bar to the reception of it; and that it ought to be believed upon the simple authority of revelation, like other doctrines equally mysterious, which it would be folly and blasphemy to contradict for a moment.
2. We believe that God made man at first upright, but that he hath sought out many inventions; and that the moral image of the Deity stamped on his heart was obliterated by his disobedience: in consequence of which, he instantly fell into a deplorable state of darkness, bondage, and death.—That all mankind were radically and federally in Adam, and were to stand or fall in him.—That his apostacy affected all his descendants, who inherit his fallen nature, with all the guilt and depravity inherent in it. And, though the disobedience of Adam was not, and could not be the sin of his posterity in point of personal concurrence; yet, as an act of high treason in a nobleman is considered, by an attainder in the law, as affecting his children, and they suffer in their titles and inheritance for what was properly and personally the crime of their ancestors; so an entail of the penalty annexed to the act of original transgression, which is death, proves more forcibly, than a thousand arguments, that there must be also an entail of guilt; and that “in Adam all died,” 1 Cor. xv. 22, because by “his disobedience they were made sinners,” κατεσταθησαν ἁμαρτωλοι, Rom. v. 19, constituted transgressors. And, therefore, according to the 9th article of the Church of England, that “man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil;” and that although he still possesses all the original faculties, which in their state of primeval rectitude constituted man the image of his Maker, yet they are now so depraved and alienated by the fall, as to require a divine agency to regulate and renew them. Indeed, the dreadful disorder which death hath introduced into the natural world, loudly speaks the prior existence of some fatal evil in the moral world; and evinces, that the cause must be as malignant as the effect is universal. We assert, upon the authority of scripture, that the consequences of the first transgression to Adam and all his descendants, which “were in his loins,” as the sons of Levi are said to have “paid tithes in Abraham,” Heb. vii. 9, 10, appear to have been, a loss of the divine image, a forfeiture of happiness, a death in sin, a subjection to the death of the body, and an obnoxiousness to death eternal of both soul and body; and that all, without exception, that are naturally engendered of the offspring of Adam, “are by nature children of wrath.” Ephes. ii. 1, 3. Rom. v. 14–21. Rom. vi. 23.
3. It is of the highest importance to the system of Christianity, to maintain the doctrine of human guilt and depravity, because it is such an advantageous foil to set forth the unbounded love and glorious redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ; which, without an acknowledgment of the apostacy of man, must of course be reputed a solemn redundancy, if not an absolute nonentity. And it always happens, that they who deny the fall reject some of the capital doctrines of revelation, that are concomitant with it, and are generally convicted of entertaining low and blasphemous thoughts concerning the person and salvation of the Son of God. But as we take for granted, that that original sin, which some have dared, in derision, to call original nonsense, is a most melancholy and humiliating matter of fact, we assert, that the only person qualified for rescuing man from the consequences of that depraved and helpless condition into which he was plunged by sin, was the eternal Son of God. Of him we believe, that his qualifications for the high office of Mediator between God and man depend entirely upon the truth of his divinity; that when the scriptures call Jesus God, they give him that divine title in the proper sense of the word; that he is, as Mediator, subordinate and delegated, and sent; but not, as God. We believe the inspired writers continually mean to represent him, under that name of divinity, as one with the Father in the essence of the Godhead, because he claims all the other incommunicable attributes peculiar to it; such as omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, eternity of existence a parte ante, &c. We cannot conceive that Jehovah would be the infringer of his own law, in commanding “all the angels of God to worship” the Son, Heb. i. 6, if the Son were not by nature God; since a subordinate Deity, as an object of inferior adoration, is an idea expressly repugnant to the very letter of that law, which enjoins the worship of one God, and condemns the translation of it to any other being: and to worship any creature, whether a seraph or a quadruped, whether angelic or superangelic, is idolatry; that since the great Lawgiver could never intend to violate his own law, which is as unchangeable as his own nature, in commanding homage to be paid to the Messiah, he meant to proclaim to all the earth, that “in him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, παν το πληρωμα της θεοτητος σωματικως” Col. ii. 9.
We preach Jesus, therefore, as very God; as the agent, and end of all things; for by him and for him were all things in heaven and earth created. Col. i. 16. We preach his blood as deriving all its efficacy to atone for sin, and purge the conscience, from the infinite dignity of his divine nature. We believe his righteousness to be “the righteousness of God” in all respects consummate, and divinely glorious; 2 Cor. v. 21; and that, abstracted from the fulness of the Godhead, it could have no more availed towards the justification of a sinner before God, than the righteousness of Gabriel. We believe that it was the incomprehensible yet real union of the divine nature to the human, in the person of the Lord Christ, that enabled him to make “a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for sin,” to bruise the serpent’s head, to conquer death, and to tread the wine-press of the wrath of God. We believe Jesus to be God-man, and point lost sinners to him as the object of their trust and adoration; and we are fully persuaded, that, take away the truth of our Lord’s proper Deity, and you discard the rock on which the church is built, and subvert the foundation of his people’s hopes. If unbelievers start the old trite objection of proud reason, that this doctrine too is unworthy of acceptation, because incomprehensible, our answer is in the words of the apostle, “Great is the mystery of godliness, God was manifest in the flesh.” 1 Tim. iii. 16.
4. As to the decrees and dispensations of Almighty God, which originate in “the good pleasure of his will,” Ephes. i. 5, and are made subservient to his glory, I would wish to think of them with caution and humility, and to speak of them with the most profound reverence: And though I cannot but acknowledge that my thoughts recoil with horror at the idea of God’s dooming sinners to hell by a positive decree of reprobation, or of his taking a delight and complacency in the misery of any of his creatures; yet I cannot withhold my hearty assent to that authority, which declares, that believers were “chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world;” Ephes. i. 4; that they are “elect according to the fore-knowledge of God;” Pet. i. 2; that they are “chosen to salvation,” 1 Thes. ii. 13, as the certain end of that choice; and, as the 17th article says, “that the godly consideration of our election in Christ is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to such as feel in themselves the working of the spirit of Christ.”
The adversaries of this doctrine, who, in the warmth of their zeal, apprehend, that a discriminating election of sinners to salvation, irrespective of any moving or meritorious cause in the creature, is an impeachment of the divine justice, seem to forget, that to form a judgment of God’s dispensations from our ideas of equity, is fallacious and dangerous; since, “as the heavens are above the earth, so are his thoughts above our thoughts, and his ways above our ways.” Isa. lv. 9. For “who hath known the mind of the Lord? or, being his counsellor, hath directed him?” Rom. xi. 34. Since the wisdom of God hath appeared foolishness to the world, why may not the very equity of his proceedings to the same incompetent and partial judges be construed into injustice? Yet who would argue, that the conclusion in either case is according to truth? Rather, who would not conclude, that the same false reasoning that has deluded mankind into an error, respecting the wisdom of God’s dispensations, should also incline them to arraign the justice of them too? A race of beings suffering for their apostacy under the hand of God, must, of course, view the dispensation that inflicts their punishment, in a very malignant light, and cannot be looked upon as competent judges in a case, wherein torment excites rebellion, and prompts them to blaspheme the hand of the Most High, merely because it holds the vengeful rod of chastisement. The angels that left their first estate, no doubt, think it hard, that they should be “reserved in chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day;” and, while they are suffering justly, are, probably, ready enough to curse God as an arbitrary tyrant, because their remediless condition leaves them in that power of his wrath for ever? Yet what is the opinion of such unhappy beings, but the impotent rage of rebels against the just dispensations of the Holy One of Israel?
The charge of injustice comes with a very ill grace too from the mouth of rebels incarnate. They have no claim upon Jehovah for a single favor. Having forfeited all by sin, their real desert is death eternal. So that, had Jehovah thought proper to have passed by the whole human race, they would have had no more real cause to blame, as unjust, this judicial pretention, than the angels have, who are unexceptionably and eternally lost. Instead of quarrelling, therefore, with his dispensations and his truths, which, like his own nature, are inscrutable; it becomes us, as sinners, to fall down at his footstool with self-abhorrence, and to adore that great mystery of redemption that hath opened a way of salvation for any; and, instead of indulging a proud and disputatious temper, “to give all diligence to make our calling and election sure.” If a contrary spirit were carried to its full extent, there would be no end of impeaching the divine justice in the affairs of the universe. The same pride that actuated the Jews to kill the Son of God, because he pleaded the divine sovereignty in choosing Naaman and the woman of Sarepta as objects of his favors, above all the lepers or widows in Israel, Luke, iv. 27, would lead men to inquire with arrogance, why this man is born to riches and honors, while another inherits poverty and wretchedness;—why some are idiots, and others adorned with bright and cultivated understandings;—why some inherit disease from their birth, and drag on a miserable life for years in torture and pining sickness, while others enjoy an unintermitted portion of health through every period of their lives, and go down to their graves without any pain, save that of dying, which, with such, is often a short and easy transition;—why it is the fate of some to be the unhappy subjects of insanity, that torturing disease of the mind, which secludes them from society, and makes them dreaded as the most furious animals; while others, by the free and vigorous exertion of their mental powers, are ornaments to society, and preside in the management of states and empires;—why multitudes are condemned to the galleys, or, for no other crime but that of defenceless and impoverished condition, are sold for slaves, and, by an inhuman traffic, become the property of Christian tyrants, who often treat them more barbarously than the beasts that perish, while others enjoy the protection of law, and all the blessings of civil and religious liberty;—why one country is burnt up with heat, another is a region of inhospitable deserts, or inaccessible mountains; a scene of barrenness and desolation; and a third is visited with the pestilence, or shaken with continual earthquakes; while other parts of the globe are crowned with perpetual verdure, are blessed with plenty and fertility, and enjoy that constitutional peace, and unanimity, to which those nations are strangers, that are torn with faction and depopulated by the sword;—why some countries are visited with that first of all national blessings, the light of the gospel, while others are suffered to lie for ages buried in paganism and superstition;—why, in particular, the Jews should have been God’s favorite people for more than half the period of the world’s present existence, and the Gentiles excluded from their privileges, till the set time for their incorporation arrived;—and why the gospel meets with a more favorable reception in some places than in others, where there is no reason to suppose that the difference arises from any superior disposition in the hearts of the inhabitants, all being alike dead in sin. These are phenomena in the dispensations of providence, which, according to the principles of some, ought to be made a subject of curious and querulous investigation, as well as the mysterious dealings of divine grace. But, if God hath a right to do what he will with his own, in dispensing temporal favors, why should he not be equally a sovereign in bestowing spiritual ones? since, among all the children of men, there does not exist a single claimant deserving for his own sake either the one or the other, in the smallest degree of vouchsafement? “Who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?” Rom. xi. 35. And, if any, viewing the goodness and severity of God with a curious eye, should still persist in reiterating objections, and ask, “Why doth he yet find fault? for, who hath resisted his will?” Our answer is in the words of St. Paul, “Nay, but, O man! who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?” Rom. ix. 20.
While we assert the eternal sovereignty of God in choosing sinners to salvation, we would not insinuate that any compulsion is exercised over the will. The freedom of that is eminently preserved by the grace that restores it to the original object of its choice. The will is not compelled, but drawn, suavi omnipotentiâ et omnipotenti suavitate, by a sweet and all-powerful at traction; and then the sinner is “made willing in the day of God’s power.” Psal. cx. Neither has this great truth the least tendency to relax the obligation of personal holiness, or to affect the interests of morality in the world; since the people of God are said to be “chosen in Christ, that they should be holy and without blame before him in love.” Ephes. i. 4. The invidious charge, that, “if persons are chosen to salvation they may live as they list,” has no foundation in truth and facts; and there is no position more abominable in our view, than that by which some accommodate to us, “Let us do evil, that good may come.” And to sin, because grace abounds, we esteem a species of the most detestable and first-rate wickedness. If some have abused these doctrines to purposes of licentiousness; it should be remembered, that the world in general use the opposite ones as an opiate to lull them asleep in fatal supineness. So that, if any argument be founded on the number of those who are influenced by these tenets respectively, an immense majority will be on the side of opposition both to truth and godliness; and the argument must, of course, preponderate in favor of those, who, by partial judges, are supposed to be most affected by it. But as we admit of no election, but such as hath holiness for one of its salutary streams, and look for no perseverance, but such as implies the habitual practice of good works, and a continuance in them even to the end; so we insist, that, without the election of grace, the power to perform them would be wanting, and the hopes of salvation rest on a very precarious foundation. It is the everlasting spring, from whence floweth that river of God, which is full of water, that gladdens the church with its perennial source and inexhaustible supplies. Built upon this rock, the people of God are secure; and their salvation as great a certainty, as the purposes, dispensations, covenant, promises, and blood of Jesus, can make it.
5. On the doctrine of justification, the scriptures teach us, that the only meritorious cause or primary ground of it before God, is the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, which includes his obedience to the moral law, and the satisfaction he made to divine justice by his expiatory sufferings:—that this righteousness is transferred to the believer by a gratuitous imputation, and being apprehended by faith, constitutes the ground of his peace, as well as the matter of his justification before God:—that it is given “unto all,” as a free and unmerited donation, and is “upon all them that believe,” Rom. iii. 22, as a rich and immaculate garment of salvation:—that the moment a sinner believes in Jesus with ever so weak a faith, his justification before God is complete, because he lays hold on the perfect righteousness of Christ. And by him all that believe are justified from all things. Acts, xiii. 39. “There is no condemnation to them.” Rom. viii. 1.—And that the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ being, in all respects, consummate and glorious, cannot want, and will not admit of, any works of the sinner as auxiliary to his justification. For, “by the obedience of One many are made righteous.” Rom. v. 19. And “to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted to him for righteousness.” Rom. iv. 5.
The faith that apprehends the righteousness of Christ, is the gift of God; and, before it exists, no works deserve the name of good, because, until a man’s person is accepted, his works cannot be well-pleasing in the sight of God; and till the tree is made good, the fruit cannot be good. No good works can precede justification by faith; and therefore the 13th article properly observes, that “works done before the grace of Christ, and the inspiration of his Spirit, are not pleasant to God, for as much as they spring not of faith in Jesus Christ.” Which truth St. Paul confirms, by declaring, that “without faith it is impossible to please God.” Heb. xi. 6. Good works, therefore, are subsequent to justification, and are not the matter, but the evidences of it. They justify a believer before men, but his faith justifies him before God; because, the fruits of righteousness, though deserving commendation from man, are open with all their imperfection before the eye of omniscience; and “in his sight can no man living be justified.” Psal. cxliii. 2. And in order that this part of the subject may be summed up in as perspicuous and concise a manner as possible, I close it with laying before you the following distinction; viz. A believer is justified meritoriously by the righteousness of Christ, instrumentally by faith, and declaratively by works. In the first sense, he is justified before God; in the second, in his own conscience; and in the third, before the world. These several truths are equally inimical, by this distinction, to the pride of self righteousness, and the licentious pleas of Antinomianism. And, by this arrangement, the truth is so guarded on all sides, that Christ, and faith, and works, have their respective place, without any injury or dishonor to one or the other. For, though Christ hath, and will have in all things the pre-eminence, and both faith and works act in subordination, and lay all their honors at the Redeemer’s feet; yet both are indispensably necessary, since without faith there is no pleasing God, and that faith which hath not works can save no man. This distinction, and the truths which arise from it, you will find vindicated in the 11th, 12th, and 13th articles of the Church of England.