Note 78 — Quest. IX., X., XI.

“There are some doctrines in the gospel the understanding could not discover; but when they are revealed, it hath a clear apprehension of them upon a rational account, and sees the characters of truth visibly stampt on their forehead: as the doctrine of satisfaction to divine justice, that pardon might be dispensed to repenting sinners. For our natural conception of God includes his infinite purity and justice; and when the design of the gospel is made known, whereby he hath provided abundantly for the honour of those attributes, so that He doth the greatest good without encouraging the least evil, reason acquiesces, and acknowledges. This I sought, but could not find. Now, although the primary obligation to believe such doctrines ariseth from revelation, yet being ratified by reason, they are embraced with more clearness by the mind.

“2. There are some doctrines, which as reason by its light could not discover; so when they are made known, it cannot comprehend; but they are by a clear and necessary connexion joined with the other that reason approves: as the mystery of the Trinity, and the Incarnation of the Son of God, which are the foundations of the whole work of our redemption. The nature of God is repugnant to plurality, there can be but one essence; and the nature of satisfaction requires a distinction of persons: For he that suffers as guilty, must be distinguished from the person of the judge that exacts satisfaction; and no mere creature is able by his obedient sufferings to repair the honour of God: So that a divine person, assuming the nature of man, was alone capable to make that satisfaction, which the gospel propounds, and reason consents to. Now, according to the distinction of capacities in the Trinity, the Father required an honourable reparation for the breach of the divine law, and the Son bore the punishment in the sufferings of the human nature; that is peculiarly his own. Besides, ’tis clear that the doctrine of the Trinity, that is, of three glorious relations in the Godhead, and of the Incarnation, are most firmly connected with all the parts of the christian religion, left in the writings of the apostles, which as they were confirmed by miracles, the divine signatures of their certainty, so they contain such authentic marks of their divinity, that right reason cannot reject them.

“3. Whereas there are three principles by which we apprehend things, Sense, Reason and Faith; these lights have their different objects that must not be confounded. Sense is confined to things material; Reason considers things abstracted from matter; Faith regards the mysteries revealed from heaven: and these must not transgress their order. Sense is an incompetent judge of things about which reason is only conversant. It can only make a report of those objects, which by their natural characters are exposed to it. And reason can only discourse of things, within its sphere: supernatural things which derive from revelation, and are purely the objects of faith, are not within its territories and jurisdiction. Those superlative mysteries exceed all our intellectual abilities. ’Tis true, the understanding is a rational faculty, and every act of it is really or in appearance grounded on reason. But there is a wide difference between the proving a doctrine by reason, and the giving a reason why we believe the truth of it. For instance, we cannot prove the Trinity by natural reason; and the subtilty of the schoolmen, who affect to give some reason of all things, is here more prejudicial than advantageous to the truth: For he that pretends to maintain a point by reason, and is unsuccessful, doth weaken the credit which the authority of revelation gives. And ’tis considerable, that the scripture, in delivering supernatural truths, produces God’s authority as their only proof, without using any other way of arguing: But although we cannot demonstrate these mysteries by reason, yet we may give a rational account why we believe them.

“Is it not the highest reason to believe the discovery that God hath made of himself, and his decrees? For he perfectly knows his own nature and will; and ’tis impossible he should deceive us: this natural principle is the foundation of faith. When God speaks, it becomes man to hear with silence and submission. His naked word is as certain as a demonstration.

“And is it not most reasonable to believe that the Deity cannot be fully understood by us? The sun may more easily be included in a spark of fire, than the infinite perfections of God be comprehended by a finite mind. The angels, who dwell so near the fountain of light, cover their faces in a holy confusion, not being able to comprehend Him. How much less can man in this earthly state, distant from God, and opprest with a burthen of flesh? Now from hence it follows;

“1. That ignorance of the manner how divine mysteries exist is no sufficient plea for infidelity, when the scripture reveals that they are. For reason that is limited and restrained cannot frame a conception that is commensurate to the essence and power of God. This will appear more clearly by considering the mysterious excellencies of the divine nature, the certainty of which we believe, but the manner we cannot understand: As that his essence and attributes are the same, without the least shadow of composition; yet his wisdom and power are to our apprehensions distinct, and his mercy and justice in some manner opposite.^[79] That his essence is intire in all places, yet not terminated in any. That he is above the heavens, and beneath the earth, yet hath no relation of high or low, distant or near. That he penetrates all substances, but is mixed with none. That he understands, yet receives no ideas within himself: That he wills, yet hath no motion that carries him out of himself. That in him time hath no succession; that which is past is not gone, and that which is future is not to come. That he loves without passion, is angry without disturbance, repents without change. These perfections are above the capacity of reason fully to understand; Yet essential to the deity. Here we must exalt faith, and abase reason. Thus in the mystery of the incarnation, (1 Tim. iii. 16.) that two such distant natures should compose one person, without the confusion of properties, reason cannot reach unto; but it is clearly revealed in the word: (John i. 14.) Here therefore we must obey, not enquire.

“The obedience of faith is, to embrace an obscure truth with a firm assent, upon the account of a divine testimony. If reason will not assent to revelation, till it understands the manner how divine things are, it doth not obey it at all. The understanding then sincerely submits, when it is inclined by those motives, which demonstrate that such a belief is due to the authority of the revealer, and to the quality of the object. To believe only in proportion to our narrow conceptions is to disparage the divine truth, and debase the divine power. We can’t know what God can do; he is omnipotent, though we are not omniscient: ’Tis just we should humble our ignorance to his wisdom, and that every lofty imagination, and high thing, that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, should be cast down, and every thought captivated into the obedience of Christ; 2 Cor. x. 5. ’Tis our wisdom to receive the great mysteries of the gospel in their simplicity: for in attempting to give an exact and curious explication of them, the understanding, as in an hedge of thorns, the more it strives, the more ’tis wounded and entangled. God’s ways are far above ours, and his thoughts above ours as heaven is above the earth. To reject what we can’t comprehend, is not only to sin against faith, but against reason, which acknowledges itself finite, and unable to search out the Almighty to perfection; Job xi. 7.

“2. We are obliged to believe those mysteries that are plainly delivered in scripture, notwithstanding those seeming contradictions wherewith they may be charged. In the objects of sense, the contrariety of appearances doth not lessen the certainty of things. The stars to our sight seem but glittering sparks, yet they are immense bodies. And it is one thing to be assured of a truth, another to answer to all the difficulties that encounter it: a mean understanding is capable of the first; the second is so difficult, that in clear things the profoundest philosophers may not be able to untie all the intricate and knotty objections which may be urged against them. ’Tis sufficient the belief of supernatural mysteries is built on the veracity and power of God; this makes them prudently credible: this resolves all doubts, and produces such a stability of spirit, as nothing can shake. A sincere believer is assured, that all opposition against revealed truths is fallacious, though he cannot discover the fallacy. Now the transcendent mysteries of the Christian religion, the Trinity of persons in the divine nature, the incarnation of the Son of God, are clearly set down in the scripture. And although subtile and obstinate opponents have used many guilty arts to dispirit and enervate those texts by an inferior sense, and have rackt them with violence to make them speak according to their prejudices, yet all is vain, the evidence of truth is victorious. A heathen, who considers not the gospel as a divine revelation, but merely as a doctrine delivered in writings, and judges of its sense by natural light, will acknowledge that those things are delivered in it: And notwithstanding those who usurp a sovereign authority to themselves, to judge of divine mysteries according to their own apprehensions, deny them as mere contradictions, yet they can never conclude them impossible: for no certain argument can be alledged against the being of a thing without a clear knowledge of its nature: Now, although we may understand the nature of man, we do not the nature of God, the œconomy of the persons, and his power to unite himself to a nature below him.

“It is true, no article of faith is really repugnant to reason; for God is the author of natural, as well as of supernatural, light, and he cannot contradict himself: They are emanations from him, and though different, yet not destructive of each other. But we must distinguish between those things that are above reason and incomprehensible, and things that are against reason and utterly inconceivable: Some things are above reason in regard of their transcendent excellency, or distance from us; the divine essence, the eternal decrees, the hypostatical union, are such high and glorious objects, that it is an impossible enterprise to comprehend them: the intellectual eye is dazzled with their overpowering light. We can have but an imperfect knowledge of them; and there is no just cause of wonder that supernatural revelation should speak incomprehensible things of God. For he is a singular and admirable Being, infinitely above the ordinary course of nature. The maxims of philosophy are not to be extended to him. We must adore what we cannot fully understand. But those things are against reason, and utterly inconceivable, that involve a contradiction, and have a natural repugnancy to our understandings, which cannot conceive any thing that is formally impossible: and there is no such doctrine in the Christian religion.

“3. We must distinguish between reason corrupted, and right reason. Since the fall, the clearness of the human understanding is lost, and the light that remains is eclipsed by the interposition of sensual lust. The carnal mind cannot, out of ignorance, and will not from pride and other malignant habits, receive things spiritual. And from hence arises many suspicions and doubts, (concerning supernatural verities) the shadows of darkened reason, and of dying faith. If any divine mystery seems incredible, it is from the corruption of our reason, not from reason itself; from its darkness, not its light. And as reason is obliged to correct the errors of sense, when it is deceived either by some vicious quality in the organ, or by the distance of the object, or by the falseness of the medium, that corrupts the image in conveying of it. So it is the office of faith to reform the judgment of reason, when either from its own weakness, or the height of things spiritual, it is mistaken about them. For this end supernatural revelation was given, not to extinguish reason, but to redress it, and enrich it with the discovery of heavenly things. Faith is called wisdom and knowledge: it doth not quench the vigour of the faculty wherein it is seated, but elevates it, and gives it a spiritual perception of those things that are most distant from its commerce. It doth not lead us through a mist to the inheritance of the saints in light.”

Bates.