WHEN false worship had prevailed in the church of old unto its ruin, God shewed and represented it unto his prophets under the name and appearance of a champer of imagery, Ezek. viii. 12. For therein were portrayed all the abominations wherewith the worship of God was defiled, and religion corrupted. Most of my work at present is, to take a view of some chambers or imagery yet more secret and hidden, namely, retired mental ones; in which we may see many abominations wherewith both the spiritual doctrine of faith, and the divine worship of the gospel is corrupted, and the christian religion I danger of being ruined. From this secret chamber of mental or internal imagery hath come forth all the external gross imagery that ever was in the world, and especially in the christian church; by which means the church of Rome became antichristian*[* See Morning Exercises, vol. 5. Sermon 10. entitled, The chambers of imagery in the church of Rome laid open.]. These Imaginary idea, which are but vain imaginations, and about corporeal objects, brought in now by Mr. Robe, as belonging to the act or object of faith, are, in my opinion, like a new opening of the bottomless pit, out of the smoke whereof came locusts upon the earth, Rev. ix. 2, 3; because, in so far as these ideas are brought out of their own natural place, and supposed to be helpful in the supernatural subjects of divinity, they are no better than a smoke out of the pit, darkening the sun and the air, corrupting the doctrine, obscuring the light of the truth of God, and (whatever Mr. Robe’s design) tending, in themselves, to cover the face of the earth with the darkness of gross error and delusion, and to lay a new foundation for the spreading of idolatry and superstition, by filling the minds of people with natural, carnal notions of Christ as man, and of his doing and dying, as human actions and sufferings; as if these notions were helpful to apprehend Christ, the God-man in his mediatorial works exhibited in the gospel; while yet the glory of the gospel is spiritual and invisible, not obvious to the senses and imaginations of men. There is nothing in the gospel visible but unto faith; as the light of the sun is nothing to them who have no eyes. A dog and a staff are of more use to a blind man than the sun in the firmament. Such are spiritually blind, and want the eyes of faith, or have lost the use and exercise thereof, can see nothing in the gospel, however great and glorious things are spoken of it. The light shines in darkness, and their darkness comprehends it not. The image of Christ as God in our nature, represented to us in the light of the gospel, which is the only glass wherein we can behold his glory, 2 Cor. iii. 18. is of such a nature, that no image of his human body formed in the brain, can stand before it, any more than Dagon could stand before the ark of God. As Christ is present in the gospel, and present, like himself, in his personal, mediatorial, and matchless glory, so he is present there only to our faith and spiritual understanding; while the word is night unto us, even the word of faith, Rom. x. 6, 7, 8. insomuch that none need say he is absent, and who shall ascend into heaven to bring him down from thence, or descend into the deep to bring him up from the dead? Christ, by his human body, was once here present to natural sense; by his divine Spirit he is sometimes present to spiritual sense and experience. But he is no way present to our faith but in the gospel, which, however it be a view through a glass darkly, yet in such a way and manner, that it is the best view of him that can be had, till we see him face to face, 1 Cor. xiii. 12. But Mr. Robe has told us of another way of Christ’s being present, namely, to fancy and imagination, as to his human nature now in heaven; and that in the same way and manner we think of any other absent man; and that this is absolutely necessary and greatly helpful to faith. This is the strange, and fantastical doctrine published in Mr. Robe’s fourth letter to Mr. Fisher; and we have what I may call the sum and substance of it in the following paragraph of that letter, page 30, and 31. “Third position, I asserted, and do assert, That we cannot think upon Jesus Christ really as he is, God and man, in two distinct natures, and one person for ever, without an imaginary idea of him as man, or in his human nature, consisting of a true body and a reasonable soul. The grounds and reasons of this are, that, as we would not have a just conception of the glorious Mediator, if we have not a conception and idea of him as the very true and eternal God, as well as true and real man; so we cannot have a just conception of him if we have not a conception and idea of him as true and real man, as well as the true and eternal God; forasmuch as the Mediator is as really man as he is God. And, as we ought to form no imaginary idea of him as he is God, but a pure conception, without any form or representation of him as God in our minds, so we can no more conceive, and have an idea of him in our understandings as man, but what is called an imaginary idea, or an idea of him in our minds, by the exercise of our imaginations, than we can of Enoch or Elias, or any other man, who is now in heaven: for this reason, that our Lord’s human nature, and particularly his glorified and superexalted body, hath all the essential properties of any other body, and no other. And therefore, if we can never think of any other human nature, or human body, through our natural constitution, and the nature of bodies, but by an imaginary idea, when absent from us, as indeed we cannot, we can never think upon the Mediator as man, and his body now in heaven, by any other idea. So the, when we think upon the Lord Jesus Christ, as he is God and man in two distinct natures, and one person for ever, I must conceive of him to be true and real man: And this is what is called an imaginary idea of him. I must further, by a mere act of my understanding, conceive of him, as not only man, but the very true and eternal God. And, thirdly, I must conceive the manhood personally united with the Godhead in the second person. If any of these three be wanting, I have not such an idea of the Mediator God man as should be. Sir, (meaning Mr. Fisher,) you’ll please tell the honest well meaning people, in your next warning, that the plain Scots of what I asserted here was, that we cannot think upon Jesus Christ, as he really is, God-man, without thinking of him as man as really as God; and that by the exercise of the same faculties and powers I think and conceive of other men.”
SECT. I.
Ideas are said to be either simple or complex, as logicians speak. Simple ideas are those that come into mind by sensation; as, colours by the eye, sounds by the ear, &c. Complex or compound ideas are founded by the power which the mind hath of comparing, separating, or extracting its simple ideas, which come into it by sensation and reflection. It is observed by philosophers, how easily the mind can vary, by imagination, these ideas received by outward sense; that they may represent objects which we never perceived by any sense, yea, that perhaps never existed. And this is done divers ways. As, (1.) By composition; when the mind joins two ideas of things which it perceives, and separates; as when out of the idea of a mountain, and the idea of gold, we form the idea of a golden mountain. (2.) By ampliation; whereby a thing, whose idea is drawn from the senses, is, by the imagination, represented to be greater than it is; as, when out of the idea of a man of common statue, we form the idea of a giant. (3.) By diminution; as when out of the idea of a man of common statue, we form the idea of a pigmy or dwarf. (4.) By accommodation; whereby we bring in the idea of things which we see, for forming the idea of an object we never saw; as the idea of some new artifice, which none have ever seen, formed in the mind of the skillful artificer.
Again, ideas are ranked by philosophers into two sorts: one is corporeal or sensitive ideas; the other is spiritual or intellectual. The former respects bodily things, by which a man forms or acquires ideas or sensations of what relates to bodies: The latter are these by which the soul forms or acquires ideas of itself, of its own actions, or ideas of other minds or spirits, and spiritual things, by reflection. Sensitive ideas are also designed imaginative, though, when the object is present to the sense, it is properly sensitive; when a man imagines his mind does not conceive the object itself as present, but only sees the present image of it picture in his brain. Imaginations are active or passive: The imagination is passive in perceiving or receiving, but mostly active in forming ideas. And, I forming imaginative ideas, in all the four different modes above mentioned, it is manifest that the mind is active. But, when this activity of it is applied to any object that is supposed to be the object of faith, asi if it contributed any help to the saving knowledge of that object, then indeed it may be justly designed, in Mr. Robe’s words, an imaginary idea; and does not amount even to what the learned De Vries calls but idealis sapientia, ideal wisdom; and which is reckoned by philosophers themselves notional and nominal, instead of what is real and solid. Their definition of the word imaginary is, “a thing not real, but fantastic, that appears only in fashion or form, and hath no real being but in one’s fancy.”
I have, in the following discourse, made use of the foresaid common distinction of ideas into sensitive and intellectual; though I know that some who treat of the procedure, extent, and limits of human understanding, are for exploding that distinction, allowing none but these of sensation properly. But my opponent giving occasion for this distinction, and I having no occasion to dispute this point, have not chosen to supersede the use of it.
That much plain and obvious knowledge is lost in a confused jumble and rout of ideas, and by the means of our tedious modern systems upon that subject. We are told by others also, that Tertullian also observed of old, how, in the Platonic ideas, rashly and unduly mixed with Christian faith, the seeds of heresy and error clearly appeared. Hence it was a saying of his, which hath been quoted by Jerome and others of the fathers, hereticorum patriarchæ philosophi, that philosophy paved the way to heresy; which it hath done in several respects. And the apostle Paul seems apprehensive it would do so, Col. ii. 8. Those that were bred in the schools of the philosophers, did oft adapt their notions in divinity to these which they had learned there. Thus Hermogenes, in the second century, maintained what Aristotle, and some other heathen philosophers that followed him, taught about the eternity of the world. So, in our days, many orthodox divines have seen ground to notice, how much the ideal doctrine of Cartesius and his followers hath tended to corrupt the doctrine of the gospel, and propagate abundance of erroneous principles. But, if the mixture of the purest ideas that philosophy speaks of, have had a ruining influence upon religion, much more, may we suppose, will the gross and new doctrine of imaginary ideas; which is not part of religious, nor so much as of rational knowledge, whatever thereof may be supposed to lay therein. The apostle, 1 Thess. iv. 23. Distinguishes between spirit and soul and body. Upon which one observes, “That spirit is that part of our frame which is immaterial, and, consequently, hath immortality in its natural frame and essence; wherein consists the dignity of our nature, and whereby we bear the image of him from whom it was originally breathed into men: That the inferior soul is that part of us which is mortal; that the heathen philosophers called it the beast in us, because the animal and sensitive soul is supposed common to us with the brutes.” Hence, says another, “Man is an amphibious creature, of a middle order and nature between angels and brutes: With the brutes he partakes of a corporeal soul, and a mass of animal spirits; with the angels he partakes of an intelligent, immortal, immaterial spirit*[* Man is but for a little while lower than the angels, while his great soul is cooped up in the house of clay. But his body, he is allied to the earth, and to the beasts that perish; and yet, by his soul, which is spiritual and immortal, he is so near akin to the holy angels, that he may be truly said to be but a little lower than they. Henry on Psalm viii. Rich. Baxter on 1 Thess. v. 23. Says, “The Apostle does not make spirit, soul and body, three substantial compound parts of man—But in these things even Christian philosophers differ. 1. Some think, man hath three distinct souls, intellectual, sensitive; and vegetative 2. Some, that he hath two, intellectual and sensitive; and that the vegetative is a part of the body. 3. Some, that he hath but one, with these three faculties. 4. Some, that hath but one, with these two faculties, intellectual and sensitive. 5. Some, that he hath but one, with the faculty of intellection and will; and that the sensitive is corporeal. (So little do we know ourselves)—What I think most probable I have opened in methodo theologiæ; That man hath but one substantial soul, with both intellectual and sensitive faculties; and that it is uncertain whether the vegetative be its faculty, or only the faculty of the igneous or ethereal substance which is the immediate vehicle of the soul. It is enough for us to know as much of our souls as our duty in using them, and our felicity, doth require; as he may know his clock, watch, house, horse, who knows not how to make them, nor can anatomize them.” Mastricht prodromi theol. p. 51. Quas in tsibus biennium speiebus dispersas vides tres animas, vegetativum, sensitivum & rationalem, eas unitas habes in homine; non tanquam totidem animas, sed tanquam [?] ejusdem animæ partes sen gradus. (Et supra) De partibus essentialibus; & sen mavis facoltatibus, five enim partes dicas, five facultates; & si partes, five actuales, five potentiales, parum refert; modo animum nobis relinquish immaterialem. Macovii distinct. & regulæ, p. 67. Hominis tantum duæ sunt partes essentiales, corpus, scilicet, et anima—Obj. ex. 1 Thess. v. 23. Ubi tres nominantur, corpus, anima, & spiritus. Resp. Dum anima & spiritus corpoti contradistingunutur, non intelligunter duo diversa, sed una eademque res, per diversas facultates expressa: [?] per animam, intelligent anima sensitiva, per spiritum facultas rationalis, ut hoc prolix probatur a Theod. Beza in annotat. Maj N.T.].” “Man,” says the aforesaid anonymous author, “with respect to the simple perceptio of mere sense, is still upon the same level with brutes; he is altogether passive; he retains all the impressions of outward objects, but in the order in which they were stamped, without altering, dividing, compounding, or comparing them with one another. And they would always continue so in the imagination, if there were not a principle above matter, first to contemplate and view them, and then to work up these rude and gross materials into a great number of curious arts and sciences. The simple perception of brutes, says he, is, properly speaking, the perception of the object by the idea, and not the perception of the idea itself, or any view or contemplation of it, in distinction from the object; which simple perception or sense they have from their wise Creator, ofttimes to a greater perfection than men; because the ideas of sense in the imagination of brutes are the whole sum and substance of their knowledge, to speak by way of analogy, which in men are but materials for it, &c.; and because they are wholly and passively conducted in all their pursuits, by the force and impulse of these ideas of sensation alone, (which is natural instinct), and not by any separate view or contemplation of them. All ideas, says the same author, beyond those that are simple (which come into the imagination without the concurrence of the intellect, are the creatures of the intellect or understanding in men; which hath an arbitrary power over these ideas, to alter, enlarge, diminish, and to turn and wind them at pleasure; and thus raises up to itself a new set of compound ideas, with which the imagination is furnished, &c. Thus the ideas of many men may be put together into the idea of an army, many sheep to make up the idea of a flock, many houses the idea of a city. Thus also the idea of one man is by the intellect made to stand for all mankind, which is called an universal idea, &c. The same author thinks it blameable in philosophers to confound the ideas of sensation with the operations of the mind upon them, making the same thing to be an idea and the operation of the mind upon an idea at the same time. And this new set of ideas is expressed by what he calls the absurd term of an idea of reflection; whereas if they had distinguished them in plain language, into ideas of sense, and ideas of reason, it would be better understood; because every body could then see, that reason is the operating of our mind upon our ideas, &c. There is an essential difference between a simple perception of the sense, and a simple apprehension of the mind. The consequence of the former is an idea of the imagination. This perception of sense is common to us with brutes, that are moved by the internal impulse of these ideas which they have got from the impression of the outward object; whereas the latter, says he, that is, the simple apprehension of the intellect, is an act and operation of the mind, not of the sense; and is the perfection and excellency of the human soul; whereby the pure intellect only takes, among its first operations, a simple view or survey of these ideas of sensation, in the very order and condition whereby they lay in the imagination. This is what logicians call simple apprehension, but generally confound with pure sensation.
The imagination is stored with an immense number of ideas of all objects which occur to the senses. What an amazing variety of them is daily conveyed in by that one sense of seeing? To which if ye add these of the other senses, we shall render the number inexhaustible. And yet nothing of all these is properly knowledge, considered in themselves, and abstractly from that intuition or view taken of them by the pure intellect: They are only the rude and unwrought materials heaped together for that superstructure which every man is to raise, according to the peculiar disposition of his natural genius, &c.”
This account I have here given of ideas may be of use in the following discourse: Wherein I have occasion to notice how much my opponent confounds sense and imagination with knowledge and understanding, and how much the objects of these are, by his doctrine, blended with the objects of faith.
Sense, imagination, and understanding, have been distinguished in philosophy by the following example. When we behold the sun with open eyes, then external sense is manifest; when we shut our eyes, and think upon the sun, then internal sense, or imagination is manifest; but, when we consider the apparent distance, and compare the apparent magnitude of the sun, with what must be the real distance, and real bulk of it, then understanding is manifested, by deducing consequences from manifest principles. The first two of these belong to the sensitive part of man, the last to the rational. Imaginary ideas relate to the former, and these have no other object, as Mr. Robe frequently and solemnly asserts, but things corporeal. Intellectual ideas relate to the rational part. Sense, reason and faith are powers and faculties that act in their own proper spheres, as different in themselves as the first, second, and third heaven. Sense, whether external or internal, as above mentioned, hath for its objects things corporeal; reason, properly, things intellectual; and faith, things spiritual and supernatural, revealed in God’s word. Sense cannot aspire to the sphere of reason, nor reason to the sphere of faith; and far less can sense and imaginary ideas do so.
Thus far I have given my reader some hints of philosophy anent ideas. But, as to imaginary ones, though I am obliged so frequently, in the progress, to speak these words over and over, I scarce know if I have yet touched the proper meaning of the term imaginary idea. It is such an odd and unusual phrase, especially when applied to any subject of divinity, that even the grammatical explication of it seems to have a strange appearance: for, if according to the schools, an idea is the image of a thing in the mind, then an imaginary idea must signify an imaginary image in the mind; which is much the same as if one should speak of a fantastical fancy, or a notional notion. And yet this is what the author I have to do with seems to be contending for, as absolutely necessary and greatly helpful to faith, while he makes the imaginary idea of Christ, as man, such a leading and essential ingredient therein. But I shall take this term in the most favorable sense I can; that is, for the property of an idea, by which an imaginative is contradistinguished from an intellectual one. If such a distinction can be allowed, notwithstanding what is said above by some, that there are no ideas, properly so called, but these of sensation only; because we have no images of spiritual objects, or direct and immediate representations thereof, as we have of objects that are material or corporeal. But, as the distinction between imaginative and intellectual ideas is very common in philosophy; so, when I make use of it in the following work I tended mainly to distinguish the man from the beast, or acts that are rational, from these that are merely sensitive.
SECT. II
I premise, that to think of the corporeal object by an imaginary idea in a natural way, is a natural action of the mind or soul as animal and sensitive. And this can be no otherwise sinful in itself than other natural actions: Thus, tho’ it was lawful and innocent for the natural bodily eyes of the multitude to look upon Christ’s human body, when he was on earth, and to touch it, when pressed upon him in the throng; or yet, when out of his sight, to fancy or imagine what a man he was whom they saw; yet, to incorporate or mix these natural actions with spiritual and religious ones, or with the actings of faith, would have been highly absurd: For, to make that which is the object of sense present, or the object of fancy absent, to be the object of faith and worship is not only contradictory to the nature of divine faith and worship, but equally idolatrous with making any other man, or any other corporeal object of sense or fancy, to be so. For there is no difference between Christ considered only as a human creature, or a corporeal object (as Mr. Robe speaks) and any other human creature, or corporeal object, as such, which may be seen or viewed by the eye or fancy in a natural way without sin. But to be viewed or thought of in a religious way, so as to make that any part of the object of faith or religious worship, is as monstrous idolatry as ever was among the heathens; and contrary to the very dictates of natural reason and natural religion among wise heathens; who have said (with a si, id est, quum, seeing) Si Deus est animus, sit pura mente colendus. The object of faith and worship is some other thing, than what can fall within the compass of any man’s natural sense or fancy, Heb. xi. 1. 27. John iv. 24. It is not flesh, or our human nature in God that we believe in, nor worship; but God himself made manifest in the flesh, or God in our nature; otherwise we worship an idol and image of our own brain. Hence, when sound divines speak of Christ as man, or as a man, they never understand it in Mr. Robe’s sense, namely, of his human body, as it is the object of an imaginary idea, and so distinct from the divine nature and person of Christ. But by Christ as man, or as a man, they understand the person of Christ, denominate from his manhood. Which is a most usual figure, called a synecdoche, or the part for the whole; and a part sometimes, in point of expression and denomination only, and not in point of conception or imagination; for many times this figure of a part denominating the whole, includes nothing but the conception of the thing or person denominate by that part. For example, we find sometimes a person denominate from a quality, which cannot be conceived without the subject, or person in which that quality subsists; suppose it to be a black Indian, or a white European, we call the one a black, and the other a white: In which denomination, though it be only from the different colours, yet it is not colours but persons that are meant or conceived of; because these qualities white and black cannot be conceived in the abstract, without some thing or person thus denominated by that quality. Sometimes, by this figure, the denomination is given to the person from some part; and yet the idea of that part is not included in the conception of what is thus demonstrate, but only the person denominate by it. For example, in that question, Isa. i. 12. Who hath required this at your hand? here persons are meant, though denominate from the hand; because that is the instrument of operation or working; but the imaginary idea of a hand would here be very absurd. Sometimes person are denominate from the foot, as in that expression, Keep thy foot when thou goest into the house of God; Eccles. v. 1. Here persons walking are denominated from that member of the body by which they walk: And so here, to be sure, the imaginary idea of a foot would be quite out of purpose. Thus, men are sometimes denominate from the knee, as Isa. xlv. 23. To me every knee shall bow; that is, every person shall worship; the knee being the outward instrument of homage: This denomination includes no necessity at all of an imaginary idea of every bodily knee, but merely the conception of persons that, either by consent or constraint, shall be obliged to pay homage to Christ. There would be no end of instances of this sort. But, in those that I have given, surely an imaginary idea of hands, and feet, and knees, would import no part of rational knowledge or reflection, but an idea without understanding; for so Mr. Robe afterwards acknowledges, ‘where it ends, understanding proceeds.’ Such an imaginary idea of Christ as man, being in itself without understanding, is what I contend against, as not belonging to judgment or reason, far less to faith or religion.
But all sound divines, as I said, when they speak of Christ as man, they always understand the person of Christ denominate from his manhood*[* Maccovii distinctiones et regulæ theol. & philos. p. 108. Persona (Christi) denominatur ab alterutra natura in concreto, ut homo Christus non significat humanitatem tantum, sed totam personam, humanam, scilicet, & divinam naturam. Christus Deus non significat deitatem tantum, sed Christum Deum & hominem.]. Or, if they speak of his human nature as contradistinct from his divine, they speak of it in such a way as is agreeable with its being the object of rational knowledge and true faith. But so it cannot be, when it is spoke of as the object of an imaginary idea.
Hence, it is easy to prove, that the sense in which Mr. Robe speaks of Christ as man, cannot be the sense in which any orthodox divine ever spoke of it. Though he expresses himself on this head, in such a way as, in my opinion, is irreconcilable with good sense and reason; yet, that I may not be supposed to have written this treatise so idly, as to fill it with trifling criticisms upon ungrammatical expressions or to spend time in a mere logomachy, or strife and contention about the meaning of words, I shall here make it evident, that Mr. Robe hath explained himself to my hand, and laid down his stated principle relating to what he calls an imaginary idea and what he makes the object of it, insomuch that, by Christ as man, he cannot be supposed to mean the person of our Mediator denominate by his manhood, in which sense he is the object of faith, and that because,
(1.) He speaks of an imaginary idea of him as man; and consequently, he speaks of his manhood in the sense wherein it is the object of that imaginary idea; which, he owns, respects only corporeal objects. This he hath frequently asserted in the strongest terms. He lays it down as a position of his, page 29, “That we can have no imaginary idea of spiritual things; seeing only corporeal things are the object of that faculty and power in man called imagination.” To the same purpose he had said, p. 9. “This faculty was never designed of God for this purpose, viz of giving imaginary ideas of God, and spiritual things.” p. 24. “That there can be no imaginary ideas of spiritual things; these are not the objects about which the imagination can be conversant, neither can it receive any species of them. This was my judgment, says he, anent imaginary ideas of spiritual things, and this it continues to be, and you shall never be able to prove the contrary.” How these and the like expressions are reconcilable with some other expressions in his book, will appear afterwards. Only, as to the matter in hand, when Mr. Robe speaks of an imaginary idea of Christ as man, it must be a wronging of him to suppose that he means any other thing by the object of that idea, than the figure or image of Christ’s human body pictured in the brain. He cannot mean what philosophers call esse personæ, but esse substantiæ. He cannot be supposed to mean the person of Christ; for that is not an object of an imaginary idea, he being thus God as well as man. Yea, he cannot mean the humanity of Christ properly, for that includes soul as well as body, and so must be the object of some other than a mere imaginary idea. But he must mean, according to his own explication of that idea, nothing else but the corporeal substance of Christ’s human body; not the soul, but the body; not the man, nor the human nature, but the human substance, or corporeal part of that nature: For, as Mr. Robe says himself again, p. 55, the imaginary idea cannot extend to the soul. Yea, by his imaginary idea he cannot mean imagination accompanied with knowledge and understanding, the object whereof are things spiritual and intelligible, as such, for he says, understanding proceeds where the imaginary idea ends, p. 54. Which seems to say, that he owns that it is an idea without knowledge; as indeed it is in itself an idea without rational knowledge, as I shall afterwards shew.
(2.) That Mr. Robe’s imaginary idea of Christ as man, in stead of importing the person of Christ denominate from his human nature, does plainly exclude the consideration of his person and Godhead, is what he further proves to my hand, by making these the object of some other ideas, though at the same time. Hence, in p. 31. he makes distinct ideas necessary for thinking upon the Lord Jesus Christ, as he is God and man, in two distinct natures and one person. “First, says he, I must conceive of him to be true and real man; and this is what is called an imaginary idea of him. 2dly, I must, by a mere act of my understanding, conceive of him as not only man, but the very true and eternal God. 3dly, I must conceive the manhood personally united with God.” Here I might quarrel, 1st, That there is not word of faith, but only ideas, and acts and conceptions of the natural understanding. 2dly, That the glorious object of faith is thus divided, that one part of it may be the object of this idea, and another part the object of another idea; one part of it laid before the sensitive, another part before the intellectual faculty of the soul; as if Christ in his person were divided, and part of the division were conceivable by fancy and imagination, and part of it by a mere act of the understanding; and as if a whole Christ were no the object of faith, but a part of him the object of any man’s imaginary idea. This doctrine Mr. Robe repeats and confirms, p. 54, where he says, “I must, by one idea, think of him as man, by another as God, and by a third as God and man personally united.” By the bye, I may here remark, that, if according to the philosophical account of ideas above, we can have no proper or immediate idea of any spirit, far less of the infinite God, who is infinitely above our most elevated intellectual conception, then the absurdities of Mr. Robe’s rash and bold speeches anent his having an idea of God might be many ways exposed. Though he sometimes says in his letter, that he cannot believe what he hath no conception of; yet here at least he may find himself obliged to believe the being of that God of whom he can have no idea. The light of nature itself, by which we have the natural knowledge of God, teaches us also, that, in knowing we do not know him; and that to have an idea or conception of him, who is inconceivable, is a contradiction. The learned De Vries and Mastricht, and other eminent doctors and divines abroad, contend so strenuously against the Cartesian doctrine, concerning ideas of God, as leading to imagery and idolatry, that, to me, it appears very dangerous to admit of such ideas.
But my present scope leads me especially here to consider the first member of Mr. Robe’s distinction, as above, or the first thing he makes requisite to our thinking of Christ as we ought; namely, to have an imaginary idea of him as man. This, I say, he proves to be no idea of his person or Godhead, by shewing, that these must be conceived by ideas of another kind; intimating thus again, that his imaginary idea excludes all other objects but corporeal; and, consequently, any part of the object of that idea: And hence that idea, so far as it goes, excludes all thoughts of Christ as God, or as God man, out of the soul, until it have the assistance of these ideas of another kind, to bear company with that imaginary one. Before I go on to the third evidence he gives of this matter, I must notice here how Mr. Robe hath mistaken himself in his way of speaking which he uses through is book. For here he says, “I must conceive of him to be true and real man; and this is what is called an imaginary idea of him.” If here he means, that to conceive of this truth, That Christ is true and real man, is an imaginary idea of him as man, he hath quite forgot himself, or else spoke what he knew what; for his imaginary idea can have no other but a corporeal object. And therefore this truth, That Christ is a true and real man, cannot be the object of an imaginary idea. A truth may relate, as to the subject matter of it, unto some corporeal thing; but a truth, as it is a truth, relate to what it will, is a thing intelligible, that may be the object of knowledge, faith, or credit; but cannot be the object of an imaginary idea: For it hath no corporeal form; none can frame any image of it in their brain. But of this more afterwards.
There is a vast odds between the truth of that proposition, That Christ is true man, and the imaginary idea of a true man. We believe upon the testimony of God, that Christ is true man; and thus his being a true man, is the object of our faith. But, as to the imaginary idea of his being a true man, which Mr. Robe makes the first thing requisite to the right thinking of him as God and man in two distinct natures, here is a miserable mixture of faith with fancy. He mixes this conceiving of Christ as man, by an imaginary idea, with the conceiving of him as God, and as God man, by the mere act of the understanding; and so the faith of his person with the fancy of his manhood, as if this fancy were essential to faith; which tends to make the faith of Christ’s manhood nothing but a fancy. Whereas, the true faith of Christ’s being man, is a thing most remote from that imaginary idea or fancy about Christ’s manhood: For it receives the truth of that proposition, That Christ is true man, upon the same divine testimony that it receives the truth of this, That he is true God, and God-man in one person. And both these truths are received by one and the same faculty, namely, spiritual understanding, or a mind enlightened in the knowledge of Christ by the word and Spirit of God. To seek after any part of the knowledge of Christ in our own imaginary idea of him as man, is equally foolish as to seek the morning star in a dungeon, or the sun in a dunghill. How vastly differs the faith of Christ’s manhood in the heart, from the fancy of it in the head? By the imaginary idea of it we see, but do not believe and we see nothing but the image of a human body, as it stands in the brain; but by faith we know and believe his true humanity, as it is recorded in the Bible, saying, as 1 John v. 20. We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding to know him that is true, &c. Here faith and fancy differ as much, as what is real differs from what is imaginary, and as a heart persuasion differs from a head notion. But of these things more afterwards.
I proceed to a third proof and evidence Mr. Robe here gives, that, when he speaks of Christ as man, he cannot understand it of the person denominate from his manhood, in which sense it would be the object of faith; but that he means only Christ’s human body, as it is the object of an imaginary idea, in which respect it can only be the object of sense, not of faith. This he proves, I say, by the following words, in the forecited pages, 30 and 31. “We can no more conceive, and have and an idea of Christ in our understandings as man, but what is called an imaginary idea, or an idea of him in our minds, by the exercise of our imagination, than we can of Enoch or Elias, or of another other man who is now in heaven; for this reason, that our Lord’s human nature, and particularly, his glorified and super exalted body, hath all the essential properties of any other body, and no other: And therefore, if we can never think of any other human nature, or human body, through our natural constitution, and the nature of bodies, but by an imaginary idea, when absent from us, which indeed we cannot, we can never think of our Mediator as man, and his body now in heaven, by any other idea, &c”. Then he adds, “The plain Scots of what I assert is, that we cannot think upon Jesus Christ, as he really is, God-man, without thinking of him as man, as really as God; and that by the exercise of the same faculties and powers I think and conceive of other men.” Here, I must say, appears to me such a heap of gross, absurd, and notional stuff, instead of solid divinity, that, for my part, I would not be the author of it for the whole world. The grossness and absurdity thereof may appear in the following remarks,
First, Here faith and fancy are miserably confounded; the faith of Christ’s divine person, as God-man, (which necessarily includes the faith of his humanity) with the fancy of his human body, in the exercise of the same faculties and powers whereby we conceive of other men: And so he makes the human nature of Christ not the object of faith at all, but of fancy and imagination. Here it is to be noticed, that the faculties he speaks of are corporeal, as he brings in Charnock asserting, p. 8. The objects these are conversant about, are only corporeal, as he himself hath declared; and, consequently, they are such as cannot conceive of Christ as man, having, together with a true body, a rational soul; which is no corporeal object, though the chief part of his human nature: And so his corporeal idea, according to himself, cannot conceive of Christ as man, while it conceives only of a human body, which is not the man, but the least part of the human nature. It is hard to think Mr. Robe understood what he wrote, unless he can here be supposed to speak by a figure called Hendiadys, that is, when one thing is expressed by two terms; and so, by the human nature of Christ, to mean his human body, and no more; because this only, being corporeal, can be the object of an imaginary idea. But how can this be his meaning, when so frequently he speaks of the human nature of Christ, as not only a true body, but also a reasonable soul? Yet Mr. Robe here speaks of the human nature, or the human body, as if these two were alternatives, and could equally be the object of an imaginary idea; and speaks of the idea of Christ’s human body, as if it were the same with the idea of his human nature: whereas the human nature includes the human soul, as well as the human body. And he elsewhere declares and maintains, that neither the human soul, or any spirit, can be the object of an imaginary idea; and yet here he says, Christ’s human nature can be conceived by no other than an imaginary idea. It cannot be said with any good sense, either that the human nature is a soul, or that the human nature is a body; for human nature consists of soul and body unite. It cannot be said, man is a soul, or man is a body; because these are the integral parts of a man, and the union of these together constitutes the man or the human nature: And therefore, to conceive of him thus united, requires some other than an imaginary idea; which can have no other than the corporeal part to be the object of it. The soul, being spiritual, cannot be the object of that imaginative faculty. I know not how many times I have this absurdity to notice in Mr. Robe’s pamphlet; as will appear afterwards.
Second remark. He here debases the human nature of Christ, as an object no otherwise discernible, than the same way that we discern any other man in heaven or in the earth. Thus, it is only Mr. Robe, not Mr. Erskine, that makes the human nature of Christ not the object of faith. For, unless he makes Enoch and Elias in heaven, or any other man on earth, the object of his faith, equally with Christ as man, he must have some other way of thinking on Christ as man, he must have some other way of thinking on Christ as man, than he hath of thinking on them; though I own an imaginary idea can think no otherwise of Christ as man, that it does of other men. It forms a picture of their bodies in the brain, even as it does the picture of Christ’s body. He can think no otherwise of other men, than to think they are persons: For to think of a man, and not of a human person, is impossible; for none can think of a nature without a subject, or a human nature without a human person, wherein that nature exists, (of which more afterwards): Even so, the imaginary idea of Christ as man, or in his human nature, as Mr. Robe speaks, necessarily makes him at best think of a human person. And here is the very root and spring of old Nestorianism, making Christ to have two persons, a human and a divine, as well as two natures. Mr. Robe may profess this is not his principle, that Christ is a human person: If so, then he must deny his present doctrine, namely, that he can have an imaginary idea of Christ as man, in the manner and way he thinks of other men. Why, he thinks truly and rightly of other men; because, as men, they are persons: But he thinks falsely of Christ as man; because, as man, he is no person. Therefore his fancy of Christ as man, is indeed but a fancy. One may feed himself with the vain and vile notion of Christ as man, but I can venture to say, as a minister of Christ, that he never saw Christ’s human nature by faith, nor ever had a right thought of it, who never could think of it but as he thinks of other men.
Third remark. He here declares, that, when he thinks of Christ as man, it is by the exercise of the same faculties and powers by which he thinks or conceives of other men. Here is a gross and carnal doctrine, when not cautioned nor guarded, as ever I read of; though it is agreeable enough to the doctrine of imaginary ideas in divinity. The powers and faculties of the soul, by which true believers see Christ to be man, are the same with these by which they see him to be God, and to be God-man in one person: And these are not merely natural, but the powers and faculties of a new nature, renewed by the power of divine grace, giving spiritual illumination and saving faith: For the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned. It is true, as Charnock says, vol. ii. p. 72, 73. “Regeneration is not a removal of the old substance or faculties of the soul;—but the soul is so much changed,—that it is, as it were, a new soul, a new understanding, a new will—The change is so great, that the soul seems to be of another species and kind; because it is acted by that grace which is another principle from that principle which acted it before. New creation is called a resurrection. Our Saviour, in his resurrection, had the same body, but endued with a new quality.—So, though the essence of the soul and faculties remain the same, yet another kind of light is darted in, and other qualities implanted—’Tis not a change of the essential acts of the soul, as acts;—but the principle, end, and objects of these acts, arising from these restoring qualities, are altered—As when a man walks from east to west, ’tis the same motion in body and joints;—yet they are contrary motions, because the terms to which they tend, are contrary one to the other.”—Such indeed are the different, yea, and contrary motions and objects of the soul’s acts, when it has the natural notion and imaginary idea of Christ as man, and when it has the spiritual view of him as Immanuel God-man. They differ just as much as the natural sight of a man in our nature, by the eye of sense or fancy differs from the supernatural sight of God in our nature, by the eye of faith, and spiritual understanding. They that never saw the man Christ in any other light, than by the same powers and faculties whereby they see or think of other men, whether present or absent, are yet grossly ignorant of Christ. They that by faith see Christ to be man, they by the same faith see him to be God, and they see God in him: For he that hath seen me, hath seen the Father, says Christ. It is true, Mr. Robe speaks also of Christ’s being God, and God-man in one person, and makes these the objects of a more pure intellectual idea, though he makes Christ as man the object of an imaginary idea. But this will by no means bring him out of the miry clay and horrible pit of ignorance and absurdity, into which he hath fallen by this new doctrine of notional and ideal religion. For, as the intellectual powers of nature can no more bring any man to the saving knowledge of God, than imaginary ideas can bring him out of the miry clay and horrible pit of ignorance and absurdity, into which he hath fallen by this new doctrine of notional and ideal religion. For, as the intellectual powers of nature can no more bring any man to the saving knowledge of God, than imaginary ideas can bring him to the right knowledge of Christ’s human nature; so this human nature of Christ was never seen or known to any saving advantage, but by the same supernatural powers and spiritual faculties whereby we see him to be God, and to be God-man in one person: For it is not in one light we see Christ as man; and in another as God; and in a third as God-man in one person; but in one and the same light we see the glorious person of our Immanuel God-man, when God, who commanded light to shine out of darkness, shines into our hearts, to give us the light of the knowledge of his glory in the face, or person of Christ. 2 Cor. iv. 6. Gal. i. 16. John i. 14. We know not Christ savingly to be the Son of man, namely, by the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ, Eph. i. 17. And, till God give us an understanding to know him that is true, we know not that the Son of man is come in our nature, or that he is true man, any more than we know that he is the true God and eternal life, 1 John v. 20. Both these are seen in one and the same light of the Word and Spirit of God, and by one and the same eye of faith and saving knowledge, which looks to the person God-man; not to his manhood, as Mr. Robe supposes, with one eye, namely, an imaginary idea, and to his Godhead and personality with another eye, namely, an intellectual idea. Which, from what I have said, appears to be most unscriptural doctrine, or rather anti-scriptural, especially when the human nature of Christ, that Mr. Robe makes the object of faith, is such a humanity as we can as easily conceive of, as we can of any other man out of sight. I am confident, they that never saw the human nature of Christ in any other light, never believed it, nor had any view of it, as the object of faith. Yea, it were as unlawful to make that imaginary Christ the object of their faith, as it is unlawful and idolatrous to make any other man the object of faith. God will not be mocked with our dreams and head notions; nor will he give his glory to another.
It is true, Mr. Robe, in his tripartite division of ideas above mentioned, says, “That, if any of them be wanting, it is not such an idea of the Mediator God-man as should be.” But, as each of these ideas are mere philosophical notions, and one may have them all, and yet want the saving knowledge of Christ; so it is plain, that the first of these, namely, the imaginary idea of Christ as man, can at best, even according to Mr. Robe, go no farther than the notion of a mere man; such as Enoch or Elias, whom he instances. And, seeing to make a mere man the object of faith, is gross idolatry, therefore to make that imaginative faculty, which was never designed for conceiving any other but objects of sense, to be one of these faculties whereby we are to conceive the object of faith, is gross divinity, leading directly to the foresaid gross idolatry; because that imaginary idea (whatever other idea it is supposed to be followed with) can see no farther about Christ than a mere man; nay, not so far; for it can conceive of no more but a human body, a mere corporeal object; under which consideration it is an object of sense, but not of faith; an object of carnal imagination, but not of divine worship, any more than the body of Enoch or Elias in heaven, objected to our imagination on earth. Yea, to worship Christ’s human body, as represented by such an imaginary idea, is the same thing with worshipping a dead idol, or a molten image, instead of an incarnate God; who alone is the object of saving faith and divine worship.
Mr. Robe’s threefold idea that he makes necessary for a right thought of Christ, and consequently to right believing, and whereof his first is the imaginary idea of Christ as man, seems, from what is said, to want a necessary addition, which would make it fourfold, namely, an intellectual idea of Christ’s human soul; for the imaginary idea, according to his own acknowledgement, respects only corporeal or bodily things. But yet after all, none of all these four, either separately or jointly, make up a right thought of Christ, I mean a spiritual thought of him; nor do they all amount to a believing on the Son of God: For they all belong, partly to fancy, notion, speculation, and, at best, a human ratiocination; or partly to some branch of natural philosophy, illuminated with objective scripture revelation; and are all of them obvious to any man that read the Bible, and hath the right exercise of reason and of his natural faculties. But faith acts in another sphere; the subject of it being a man or woman whose mind is enlightened in the knowledge of Christ, by the word and Spirit of God, and whose natural powers are renewed and spiritualized. Hence, none ever received Christ by believing on his name, unless they were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of men, but of God. Then, and not till then, can they say, The word was made flesh; and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, John i. 12, 13, 14. Hence we are taught also, that none can come to Christ by faith or believing, except the Father draw them; which the Father does by his effectual teaching: It is written in the prophets, and they shall all be taught of God. Every man therefore, that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto the Son. And again, Christ says, No man can come unto me, except it be given him of my Father, John vi. 44, 45, 46.
I might produce a fourth evidence of this, that, when Mr. Robe speaks of Christ as man, he cannot understand it of the person of Christ, the object of faith, denominate from his manhood; because, as he makes Christ as man, only the object of an imaginary idea, so he makes that idea of Christ as man, to be a naked and simple idea, distinct from the idea of him as Mediator God-man, which he makes not a simple, but a complex idea. For, p. 54 having said, “Where the imaginary idea ends, the understanding proceeds,” &c. he adds, “The idea we have of the Mediator God man in two natures and one person, when it is adequate, as the subject is capable to have of the object, is not a simple, but complex idea, consisting of ideas distinct and different in their natures, as the two natures of the glorious Mediator.” Hence it is evident, his imaginary idea of Christ as man, being both distinct and different in its nature from, and prior or previous to that complex idea, which includes the whole person of Christ, is, according to him, a naked simple idea of sensation, respecting what is merely sensible and corporeal; and so can itself include no consideration of the person of Christ, or of the proper object of faith. Such a naked simple idea can surely judge no way of any truth or falsehood. Hence the foreign divines and philosophers, as De Vries and Mastricht*[* Gangrana Cart. cap. 29.], in their disputes against the skeptic notions of the Cartesian writers (who, in favours of their innate ideas of all things, made the senses of little other use in men than in brutes, destitute as of reason, so of these ideas; and judging the senses so fallacious, as no way to be trusted, no judgment to be formed of any truth by them;) when, in answer hereunto, they assert the senses to be judges, and their testimony to be necessary to the knowledge and faith of truths relating to sensible things, they at the same time assert that the senses cannot properly judge or reason, affirm or deny any thing; and that therefore by senses they do not mean naked senses, but the prudent use of the senses, resulting from the rational soul; whereof brutes are destitute, though they have both sense and perception: which also is there proven against the Cartesians, cap. 30. Now, while Mr. Robe makes only the perception of Christ as God-man, to be a complex intellectual idea, but the perception of Christ as man to be a simple idea of sensation or imagination, distinct from, and going before that which is complex and intellectual, it is plain, that that naked sense or simple imagination, thus destitute of understanding, reason, and reflection, in itself can by no means include the rational knowledge of any truth whatsoever, far less of the object of faith. The sense and perception of brutes may be brought in to compare with any naked or simple sensitive apprehension, not under the rule and conduct of a rational soul, and the intellectual faculty thereof.
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