Chapter III
That these three persons in the Godhead are persons distinct one from the other.
Who would not judge them to be so, by what hath been already said ? But yet for further evidence it is apparent from this, First, That they are found speaking, not only us, as persons, but also ordinarily one to another, in the language of I and thou, as Heb. x. 5, A body hast thou fitted me, which Christ spoke to his Father as a person existing with him then when he took a human nature. And, Lo, / come to do thy will, Heb. x. 7. Again, the Father speaks to the Son, Ps. ex. 1, * The Lord said unto my Lord. And again, from heaven, This is my Son, Mat. iii. 17 ; and 4 he Holy Ghost, as distinct from both, descending as a dove.
360 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK I.
And, secondly, one speaks of another, as another person distinct from himself; thus, the Son of the Father, John v. 30, I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me. Yer. 31, If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true. Ver. 32, There is another that beareth witness of me ; and I know that the witness which \ he witnesseth of me is true. Likewise the Son of the Father and of the Holy Ghost, John xiv. 16 and 26, And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever. But the Com forter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. And John xvi. 13, * Howbeit, when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth ; for he shall not speak of himself ; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he will shew you things to come. He, the masculine, is put with a neuter gender, in the word cmD/a-a, Spirit, which would never have been, but to design a personality in him.
Thirdly, You have each speaking of himself as a person. Thus the * Separate me Barnabas and. Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.
Holy Ghost, Acts xiii. 1, 2,
Fourthly, There are works proper to each assigned. To instance but in one scripture, 1 Cor. xii. 4, 5, 6, Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. All three are mentioned, and as having, to distinguish them, several works : and the Spirit there is said to have his own things proper to him, as the Son and the Father s ; and, ver. 11, he is said to distribute them as he will, which to say, is proper only to a person.
Fifthly, These persons are spoken of as distinct, when also they are * Thy throne, God, is for ever and ever. . . . Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest iniquity called God, Ps. xlv. 6, 7, : therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. And there also we meet with all three persons too, for the Spirit is the oil he is anointed with.
Lastly, There is this most evident demonstration, that the man Jesus being assumed and taken up into one person with the Son of God, that he, the Son of God, existing in the man as one person with him, should speak of himself as a distinct person from the Father and the Spirit: in John x. 31, I and the Father are one. Here he speaks of himself and the Father as persons distinct, and yet both but one true God ; as ver. 33, the Jews understood him, That thou, being a man, makest thyself God, one God and two persons of the three ; and yet it was not the man, as man only, that was that person, but it was the Son who was truly God with the Father, and the man being made one person with the Son, speaks this of himself, so thereby evidently declaring, that in the Godhead there was the person of the Son distinct from the Father ; and so, in his defence of * Say ye of him whom the Father hath sancti himself, he declares, ver. 36, fied and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest ; because I said, I am the Son of God ? And again, ver. 88, Know and believe that I am in the Father, -and the Father in me ; as two still (as I and the Father imports), enjoying one Godhead. And elsewhere, he professeth his manhood not to be alone the person. And it was not God the Father that was incarnate, and in that respect is styled the Son, as some have wickedly affirmed ; for
CHAP, in.] AND HIS SON JESUS CHEIST. 361 if the Father had been one person with this man, this man could not have said, I and the Father ; or elsewhere often, / and thou, speaking to his Father.
And, indeed, I have judged one great end and issue of God s ordaining this personal union of the man Jesus and the Son of God, to have been to demonstrate and ascertain us, that there is this distinction of persons in the Godhead, in that the man now assumed talks at that rate of himself as of a person with God, and yet distinct from his Father ; and, that he was so, he refers unto all his works to believe and know it by ; for that, whilst lie so spake of himself, he should do such works, this invincibly argues the truth of what he so spake, as in that John x., in defence of himself, and those speeches of himself, ver. 87, 38, he argues, If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe me not, believe the works ; that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him. Had the Scripture declared this distinction of persons over and over, in a doctrinal assertion, it had not been so great an evidence as this ; to hear the man who, when become one person with the Son of God, should himself still use to say, I and my Father ; and when he speaks to his Father, to say, I and Thou ; himself came by this singular way and means to declare it so invincibly, as nothing could have been more satisfyingly done. That I may say, as the apostle to the Hebrews doth of other reve lations of divine truth, so I of this, that after God had, at sundry times and divers manners, spoke this mystery of the distinction of persons, he hath now spoke it to us by the Son himself personally, as now incarnate and made man ; who, though he appeared to the fathers, yet never per sonally united to those appearances as now he did. So that put but these things together ; 1. That he that was the Son of God existed before the assumption of man s nature, as a person ; and that, 2. The man he took up was not a person of himself, but it was the Son that was the person taking up that man into one J, or personality with himself; which that speech of his own, when he came into the world (Heb. x. 5, A body hast thou prepared me ), evidently shews. The body, or his human nature, was not the me, or person, but he that assumes it was the me, A body hast thou prepared me. And then, 3. That hence he should then speak unto the Father, as a person dis tinct from the Father s person, as those their words me and thou do evince. And that he, even after the man so assumed, that he should speak as the person when once so united, in the language of thine and mine, I and thou, and the like, this invincibly argues what I have driven at, viz., that the Father and he are distinct. And then, that he should speak of another, or third, distinct from both, another Comforter, the Holy Spirit; And he shall take of mine, &c., John xvi. 15 ; whilst himself says, * I the Son, and therefore alius, or another, from both Father and Spirit, and not alius, or another, by having become man, but as Filius Dei, in whose person the man speaks it of himself.
Use 1. Is to exhort you to retain and hold fast this plain and funda mental truth, and by faith to receive it (if you have been diverted from it) as from the Son, and not consult with reason in it, which yet is not con tradictory to it. This I am sure of, that if the Scriptures speak any thing, they speak this great tnh ; and of all other it hath been the most and longest tried of any other. It began to be questioned in the first age of
862 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, [BOOK I.
Christianity, and, at times, hath been so ever since. Reason contributes little to it, but remains unsatisfied ; and yet God hath still cast the spirits of his people, and won them over to it. Receive it, I say, by faith. Christ puts them upon bare believing it, John xiv. 10, 11, Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me ? The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me : or else believe me for the very works sake. And when they only required a demonstrative argument, or rational evidence of it, Christ only affirms it, and having affirmed, refers them to his works, after he had said it, as was observed before, out of John x. 38 ; for if he had not said true, such glorious divine works would not have followed such a doctrine and profes sion. And thereupon he calls for faith from that evidence, John x. 37, 38, If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works ; that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him. David is said to be in Spirit when he brings in the Lord speaking to the Lord. By which speech was disco vered both these persons to be in the Godhead, and distinct as persons, speaking thus one to another, The Lord said unto my Lord, Ps. ex.
1 David in Spirit, says Christ,
said this, Matt. xxii. 43, 44 ; and I remem ber not that phrase spoken of David upon any other occasion, but this ; although it be said, The Spirit of the Lord spake by me ; and this was necessary, for reason would, of all else, never have revealed it, nor enter tained it as it is revealed. Heaven opened when there was the first open distinct discovery of the three. The Father spake, This is my Son, and the Holy Ghost descended ; for but by opening heaven, and upon occasion of discovering the Son, was this distinctly revealed.