“Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.” John iv. 48.
1 We are now celebrating the last great Festival in the course of Holy services which began in Advent; the Feast of the Ever-blessed Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, whose mercy has planned, accomplished, and wrought in us “life and immortality.” And the present Festival has this peculiarity in it,—that it is the commemoration of a mystery. Other Festivals celebrate mysteries also, but not because they are mysteries. The Annunciation, the birth of Christ, His death on the Cross, His Resurrection, the descent of the Holy Ghost, are all mysteries; but we celebrate them, not on this account, but for the blessings which we gain from them. But today we celebrate, not an act of God’s mercy towards us, but, forgetting ourselves, and looking only upon Him, we reverently and awfully, yet joyfully, extol the wonders, not of His works, but of His own Nature. We lift up heart and eyes towards Him, and speak of what He is in Himself. We dare to speak of His everlasting and infinite Essence; we directly contemplate a mystery, the deep unfathomable mystery of the Trinity in Unity.
Doubtless, from that deep mystery proceeds all that is to benefit and bless us. Without an Almighty Son we are not redeemed,—without an Ever-present Spirit we are not justified and sanctified. Yet, on this day, we celebrate the mystery for its own sake, not for our sake.
On this day, then, we should forget ourselves, and fix our thoughts upon God. Yet men are not willing to forget themselves; they do not like to become, as it were, nothing, and to have no work but faith. They like argument and proof better; they like to be convinced of a truth to their own satisfaction before they receive it, when, perhaps, such satisfaction is impossible. This happens in the sacred subject before us. The solemn mystery of the Trinity in Unity is contained in Scripture. We all know this; there is no doubt about it. Yet, though it be in Scripture, it does not follow that every one of us should be a fit judge whether and where it is in Scripture. It may be contained there fully, and yet we may be unable to see it fully, for various reasons. Now this is the great mistake which some persons fall into; they think, because the doctrine is maintained as being in Scripture by those who maintain it as true, that therefore they have a right to say that they will not believe it till it is proved to them from Scripture. It is nothing to them that the great multitude of good and holy men in all ages have held it. They act like Thomas, who would not believe his brother Apostles that our Lord was risen, till he had as much proof as they, and who said, “Except I see and touch for myself, I will not believe.” And they are like the Jews whom our Lord reproves in the text, saying, “Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.” They call it an enlightened, rational belief to demand for themselves proof from Scripture before they believe; and they think that any other admission of the doctrine is blind and superstitious, and unacceptable to Almighty God.
And when, perhaps, we have gone so far as to indulge them, and to profess that we are willing to prove the doctrine from Scripture to their satisfaction, and that, as a previous step to their believing and worshipping, then they meet us with such shallow and high-minded questions as the following:—“Where in Scripture do you find the word Trinity?” “Why do you insist upon it, if it is not in Scripture?” Again, “Where is the Holy Ghost expressly and plainly called God, in Scripture?” Again, “Where does Scripture speak of One Substance, Three Persons, as the Athanasian Creed speaks? Where does Scripture say that the Son and the Holy Ghost are uncreate? where, that ‘the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one, the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal?’” And so they go through the whole of our Divine faith, carping, objecting, and traducing, even though they do not mean it; and all for this—because they will be judges themselves what is in Scripture and what is not; what necessary to salvation, and what not; what words are important, and what not; what sources of instruction God has given besides Scripture, and what not.
Now, on such conduct, I observe as follows:—that they who think it unreasonable to believe without proof, are surely unreasonable themselves in so thinking. What warrant in reason, what right have they, to say that they will not believe the Creed unless it is proved to them to be in Scripture? They profess to act by reason. Well, then, I ask them, Is it according to reason to say, that they will not believe the Creed without reasons drawn out to their satisfaction from Scripture? I think not; I think I can prove that it is not. I think a very few words will make it evident, that they are unreasonable and inconsistent in refusing to believe before they see the Scripture proof.