SERMON VI.

ALL DIVINE TRUTH PROFITABLE.*

ACTS 20: 20.-And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you.

THESE words are a part of the farewell discourse of Paul, to the elders of the church at Ephesus. In his journey to Jerusalem, he sent for them to Miletus. When they met him there, he appealed to them as to the manner in which he had executed the ministry among them; that he had been with them at all times, serving the Lord with all humility, and with many temptations; that in his preaching he had kept back nothing which was profitable to them, but had declared to them all the counsel of God. Thus by comparing one part of the context with another, we learn that all the counsel of God is profitable and may be preached profitably to the hearers. The counsel of God is the revealed will or truth of God. Therefore our text taken with the context, affords this doctrine:

That all divine truth may be profitably preached to mankind in general.

Doubtless the church at Ephesus was made up chiefly of common men, men of common abilities, and of no more than common literary improvement; and if Paul preached all the counsel of God profitably to them, without doubt the same may be done with like profit to mankind in general, provided they be in like manner disposed to make a profitable use of it. I shall consider this doctrine with regard to several particular divine truths, especially those, which some imagine cannot be profitably preached to people in general.

1. The divine existence and character and the mode of the divine subsistence, so far as it is revealed in scripture. That it is profitable to preach the existence of the one only living and true God, and to preach his attributes of infinite power, knowledge, wisdom, holiness, justice, goodness and truth, it is presu

* Preached at Hamden, Jan. 11, 1792, at the ordination of the Rev. Dan Bradley, to the pastoral charge of the first church in Whitestown, N. Y. Published at New Haven.

med none will deny. The more clearly his character and attributes are exhibited, the more clearly will be seen the object and foundation of all piety; and the stronger will be the motive to the inward emotions and to the external practice of piety. Therefore such preaching must be profitable. Nor is the preaching of the mode of the divine subsistence revealed in scripture, incapable of affording profit; otherwise why was it revealed? The scripture tells us "There are three that bear record in heaven; the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one;" that the Son or "the Word was in the beginning, was with God and was God;" that "he is the true God and eternal life;" that "he is in the form of God and counts it no robbery to be equal with God;" and therefore all divine names, attributes and works are ascribed, and divine worship is rendered to him, equally as to the Father. These things argue that he is equally God, as the Father.

When our Lord claimed to be the Son of God, and said that he and his Father were one, the Jews certainly understood him to claim real divinity, or to "make himself God." Therefore they took up stones to stone him as a blasphemer; and this supposed blasphemy was the ground of the charge on which they condemned him and besought Pilate that he might be crucified; see Matt. 26: 63. John 19: 7. Undoubtedly he was a blasphemer, if being a mere man, he claimed to be God and equal with him. In exalting himself to an equality with God, he degraded God to a level with himself. Now that every blasphemer should suffer death was expressly ordained by the law of God delivered by Moses, and by that law the Jews were bound. Therefore if Jesus were not truly God and equal with the Father, he was justly crucified, either as a blasphemer, if he claimed and meant to claim, real divinity; or because he foolishly and obstinately neglected to explain himself, if he did not mean to claim real divinity, when it was manifest that his adversaries understood him to claim it.

That the Holy Ghost also is truly God, appears, as he is expressly called God; as we are baptized, and the evangelical benediction is pronounced, equally in his name, as in the name of the Father and of the Son; as he is one of the three that bear record in heaven, which three are declared to be one; and as divine works are ascribed to him.

These three are not only all divine and equal; but in opposition to the ancient and exploded doctrine of Sabellianism, they are three distinct persons, and not merely three characters of the same person. Any man may sustain and act in three characters;

and according to this account of the divine subsistence, there is no more a Trinity in God, than there is or may be in every man. It is said that "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son," etc.; that "God sent his Son into the world, that the world through him might be saved;" and Christ says, "I must work the works of him that sent me." And of him it is said, "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee." And that Christ is often called God's Son, his servant, his messenger, his angel, his shepherd, his fellow, etc. I need not inform you. In like manner the Father is said to give and to send the Holy Ghost. But it is absurd to say a person sends himself, is a Son to himself, begat himself, is a servant, a messenger, an angel, a shepherd, a fellow to himself. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, the same was in the beginning with God." But how trifling would it be to say, that a man is with himself!

Suppose a man sustains the three characters of a merchant, a justice of the quorum and a colonel of the militia; would it be proper to say, that the merchant sent the justice to court to try a cause? or that the merchant and the justice sent the colonel to review his regiment? or that the justice and the colonel sent the merchant to purchase goods?

As to the plea, that a man cannot act in three characters at the same time, but that God can; it affords no relief to the difficulty. The difficulty is, that this scheme admits of no other Trinity in God, than is or may be in any man, and that on this hypothesis, the Deity as to a Trinity, or triplicity of subsistence, is not distinguished from man. The answer now given is that God is distinguished from man, in that he acts in three characters at the same time, which man cannot do. But this gives no satisfaction; for no mere man can do three things at once in the same character, and he is as capable of doing three things at once in three different characters, as he is of doing three things at once in the same character; and the Deity is no more distinguished from man in his ability to do three things at once in three characters, than in his ability to do three things at once in one and the same character. Besides; the plea now under consideration supposes the Trinity to consist, not as the Sabellian scheme supposes, in the three characters which God sustains; for if the sustaining of three characters constituted the Trinity, any man is or may be a trinity; but it supposes it to consist in the divine ability to do at once three things belonging to three different characters or offices; which is to place the Trinity in the ability to do three things at once. For he who can do any

three things at once, can doubtless as easily at once do three things in three different characters, as at once do three things in one and the same character. But this makes the Trinity and the divine omnipotence to be one and the same thing.

Now that the doctrine of the Trinity is profitable will appear, if we consider how necessary the knowledge of it is to the understanding of the gospel, or the scheme of redemption by Jesus Christ. We cannot understand this scheme unless we know who the Savior is. Nor can we rationally and with comfort and satisfaction believe and trust in him, unless we know his sufficiency as a Savior; his sufficiency in power to subdue our corruptions, to sanctify our souls, to conquer satan and all our spiritual foes and to uphold us to the end; his sufficiency in wisdom to disappoint the devices of our grand adversary and of all men who are employed in his service, and to make us wise unto salvation; his sufficiency in goodness and grace to forgive our sins, to watch over us continually for our preservation, to intercede for us with the Father, and to dispense to us grace to help in time of need; and the sufficiency of his merit and the price of his redemption, or his propitiatory sacrifice, to atone for all our sins, and to procure our acceptance with the Father. Now, if he be a divine person his sufficiency in these and all other respects appears at once. But if he were not a divine person, might we not doubt, yea positively deny his sufficiency? How should a finite price redeem us from an endless or infinite punishment? How should a finite atonement satisfy for crimes deserving a punishment without end? If Christ were a mere creature, we might well disbelieve either the scriptural doctrine of endless punishment, or the sufficiency of the Redeemer. No wonder therefore, that those who disbelieve the divinity of Christ, do generally, if not universally, disbelieve the endless misery of those who die impenitent.

2. The doctrine of the divine decrees which teaches that God hath foreordained whatsoever cometh to pass, is a profitable doctrine. It would seem unaccountable that God should build such a vast structure, as that of the created universe, and not fix the scheme of it in his own mind, before he began; but should enter upon it without design, without plan, without system. How could this be reconciled with even human wisdom; much more with divine, which is infinite? If a human architect, about to build should collect materials of various kinds and dimensions; but should collect them without design and without determining their proper uses and applications; we should all agree to condemn him either for his ignorance or his negligence.

Thus we conceive concerning all human works; and thus we conceive concerning all the divine works throughout the material and irrational creation. And the only reason why we do not agree to conceive in like manner concerning the works of God in the rational creation, is the idea, that if God were to determine beforehand all events in this part of his kingdom, it would be inconsistent with the liberty of rational creatures. If by liberty be meant freedom from all certainty or certain and fixed futurity of the state and actions of rational creatures; I grant that the divine decrees are utterly inconsistent with liberty. But such a freedom from certainty is perfect uncertainty, contingence or chance; and that an action may in this sense be free, it must be uncaused and happen by pure contingence. To say, that it is not uncaused, but caused by the rational creature himself, whose action it is, affords no satisfaction; because, in the first place, if it be so, it must be caused by an antecedent action, and for the same reason that antecedent action must be caused by another action antecedent to that, and so on in an infinite series; which is absurd. In the second place, to cause our own actions will contribute nothing toward liberty, unless we cause them freely, that is, in the sense now under consideration, contingently and by pure chance. To cause them any otherwise, is to cause them under an established certainty or moral necessity. But what advantage it affords toward liberty, to cause our own actions by pure contingence, more than to become the subjects of them by pure contingence without our own causality, seems hard to be conceived. Indeed as to liberty and accountableness, they appear to be one and the same thing. And no wonder this scheme of liberty is inconsistent with the divine decrees; for it is equally inconsistent with any Providence in the moral world, with any wise divine government of rational creatures, with any final cause of their creation, and implies that they are equally delivered up to chance, as Epicurus' atoms were in their eternal floating in the infinite inane.

But if giving up this idea of liberty, we mean by that word, not a freedom from all certainty and causality from without, but a freedom from all involuntary necessity and restraint ;* divine decrees are not at all inconsistent with liberty. Thus Judas chose to betray his Lord, and by the very term he chose it voluntarily; it was an act of his will, and in it he was free from all involuntary necessity; of course he was free in that act; for this is the definition of freedom now given. And surely a divine decree, that he should act voluntarily and without an involuntary

* By involuntary necessity and restraint I mean a necessity and restraint to which the will is or may be opposed.