The common concurrence which the three persons have in other works besides our salvation
from this comparative of that of men, as the lowest, to rise to this as the highest, 'how much more,' or infinitely much more, then, must the testimony of two such persons as I and my Father, yea, of two persons that are God, one God, be of validity with you. And therefore he boldly further goes on in verse 18, 'I am one who testify of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me;' and look, as he is
God, so also am I myself, and therefore if you receive, according to your law, the testimony of two men that are but men (that are or may be liars), how much more of two persons that are God. Thus Christ argues here in the Gospel. Now go to the Epistle; doth not the apostle speak the very same intendment and inference, and almost the same words? For having first said, 'There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, Word, and Spirit; and these three are one,' ver. 7, he closeth upon it, and infers and presseth upon our faith: ver. 9, 'If we receive the witness of men' (of two or three men, that are but men), 'the witness of God' (viz., in these three several persons, who are one God, as ver. 7) 'must be greater.' And is not this effectually the same you heard Christ himself even now to say? And so these two scriptures fall in every way parallel, and give light to each the other, and both for the confirmation of my first assertion propounded, the trinity of the persons; than which, thus enforced, there is not found a greater.
CHAPTER III
The common concurrence which the three persons have in other works besides our salvation; that, being one in essence, they join in the operation of all external works.
I come now to shew how these three persons have, for the discovery of themselves, undertaken several works for the effecting our salvation, which is the thing inferred out of the text, and may be the subject of the rest that follows.
For the foundation of it out of this text, I shewed before how man's salvation was one main thing set out by the apostle in this chapter, as that unto which these three were witnesses, as well as that Christ was the Son of God; and they are termed witnesses to it by a real setting their several hands unto it; that is, to the effecting of it. The main object of our faith (which John here would confirm) lies in this persuasion, that God hath perfectly prepared, and really and cordially given eternal life to the sons of men. To verify the infinitely serious and real intent of God therein, he allegeth these three witnesses, who are not verbal witnesses only, in averring of it in words to our hearts and in the Scriptures, but real witnesses, that witness by what they have done; that are and have been at infinite cost and pains to accomplish it; and not in common only, but all three singly and apart: Christ in shedding his blood, the Holy Ghost in applying it, and working in our heart all that is requisite to estate us in it, and to assure us of it. And such real testimonies, in working our salvation in us and for us, are the strongest and weightiest kind of testimony; Christ says, John 10:37, 'If ye believe not me, believe the works;' and ver. 38, a testimony by works is the most valid testimony of all other; and it shews that God is most full and intense and hearty in it, when we shall hear how all that is in God, persons as well as attributes, have engaged and set themselves a-work about it.
My method in handling this great point shall be, 1. To clear the eminently distinct hand each person hath in this sole work of our salvation, by setting by it, and concurring with it, that common concurrence, and concealed (as to us) which they have in all other works, besides in other things.
2. To give proofs to their distinctly eminent hand in this work.
1. For the first I shall speak to two things.
(1.) In general how in all other works, besides this of our salvation, they have a joint concurrency, yet not any visible appearance in
anyone; not of one person more than another held forth to us, although therein they have really and invisibly a distinct hand, as in the works of creation and providence, &c.
(2.) How, besides this distinct co-operation in such works in common alike to them, that yet in the works of our salvation they have declaredly some one work attributed to one more than to another, and so have by parts the whole distributively and by parts shared among them; both which propositions put together do wonderfully set forth that peculiar glory which is designedly made to appear in the work of our salvation.
(1.) As for all other works, besides this of our salvation in common to them, every one hath a joint hand, and yet distinct in each, which that place confirms: John 5, 'My Father works hitherto, and I work,' and yet concealed as to us.
The explanation of this I despatch briefly in these four assertions.
[1.] As things are in being, so in working; which axiom holds in God himself as well as in his creatures. Hence, that as all three persons have in common but one essence, so one equal hand in works. For all operations flowing from essence, therefore when the essence is but one, the operation must needs be one and the same, which here must be understood quoad substantiam operis, for the substance of the work; and hence as their essence is equal, so their concurrence is equal in this respect, even in the work of redemption, which yet is appropriated in a more especial manner unto Christ.
[2.] Yet though they be but one essence, yet they are three distinct subsistencies or personalities, and still that axiom follows us, that the operation of each follows the distinction of their existences, and bears the resemblance of them; and look what order or distinction they have in subsisting, they have in operation to accompany it; but the distinction of their personality (if abstractedly considered from the essence) being but modus essendi, therefore in like manner the
distinction of their operation and concurrence is but modus operandi, a distinct manner of concurring.
[3.] Hence, look what order and dependence they have and hold in their subsistency, the same they have and hold in their working.
Hence, as the Father is the fountain of the other two subsistencies, begetting the Son, and breathing the Holy Spirit, so he is in like manner the fountain of all action and operation: John 5:19, 'The Son can do nothing of himself, but what' the Father shews him, and 'he sees the Father do.' The Father begins, the Son carries on the motion, the Holy Ghost from both perfects, consummates, and executes the work: 1 Cor. 8:6, 'The Father, of whom are all things;' 'the Son, by whom are all things;' the Holy Ghost, 'through whom.' Thus in creation the ultima manus, the last hand is attributed to him. By his
Spirit he hath garnished the heavens, Job 26:13; garnishing is the ultimate work, the consummating of all; and is therefore made his: so the forming the creatures into their perfect forms out of that rude mass is attributed to the Spirit of God.
But [4.] although there be this order and distinction in their concurrent operation between themselves, yet in all those ordinary works ad extra, common to them all, this is not made to appear to us by any discernible character. Christ says indeed, in John 5, 'My
Father hitherto works' (speaking of those of creation and providence), but there is nothing in the works themselves that manifest any appropriation of what the hand of the one is more peculiarly than of the other. When God goes to make man, he may say, as he did, 'Let us make man' which imports an us, a plurality of persons to have concurred in it, yet the distinction of that us appears not in any distinct works that went to the perfecting of that workmanship. The making of the soul is not attributed especially unto one, and of the body unto another; no, nor yet in the whole frame of heaven and earth. In the creation God indeed manifested his attributes, as his eternal power and Godhead, Rom. 1:20, and yet but in scattered beams, and not all, as you heard, but there are not so
much as vestigia trinitatis, footsteps of the Trinity, or of that distinction in the persons shines in them.
And though in Adam some schoolmen have endeavoured to demonstrate a shadowing forth the Trinity in the faculties of the soul, yet it is at the best and utmost of it (if so much) but such a shadowing this forth, as when we use to fetch similitude from things created, to express things divine by; and thus things earthly serve (as Christ says, John 3:3 and the 12th verse compared), by way of parable or similitude to shew forth heavenly, as the first birth shadows forth the new birth, which he had been discoursing of then, yet they are remote enough from holding forth as proper effects, or being characteristical demonstrations of them. Thus when some would argue this same from the distinction of those three powers of the soul, the understanding, memory, and will, fancying the memory in man should peculiarly resemble one person, suppose the Holy Ghost, and the understanding the Son, and the will the Father; others, that in man's soul, the understanding, the will, and the power to act, and put forth the acts of these, are lively characters of the persons; but these all are so obscure and uncertain in their evidence or character of these three persons and their distinction, as they all vanish as shadows, when wistly* pried into, and most narrowly searched into when applied.
I dare not be too definitive concerning his works of grace towards the elect angels, who besides that unto them the three persons may be supposed to be made known by revelation, yet not in them at or from their creation, but what may have further been from God's election of them, which is a super-creation grace, and which was the Father's work on them, even as the election of us men is the Father's also; or what from their union with Christ, as their head, may have had, and doth appear of these persons to them thereby; and what other work in them should answer to the Holy Ghost, and his order, and distinction, is not so fully revealed to us.