N00830:90
The blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the Great God our Saviour, Jesus…
The blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the Great God our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Opened & applied, in several sermons. / By Increase Mather, president of Harvard College in Cambridge, and preacher of the Gospel, at Boston, in N.E. ; [Nine lines of Scripture texts]The blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the Great God our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Opened & applied, in several sermons. / By Increase Mather, praesident of Harvard Colledge in Cambridge, and preacher of the Gospel, at Boston, in N.E. ; [Nine lines of Scripture texts]
Boston: printed by Timothy Green for Nicholas Boone, 1701
Title page typeset from the transcription.
The Blessed HOPE, And Glorious Appearing of JESUS CHRIST. › Sermon 3
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
3. The incommunicable properties of the Great God are to be affirmed of Jesus Christ. There are Properties and Attributes of God which are Communicable, such are Wisdom, Holiness, Goodness and the like. But they are not in Creatures in that proportion as they are in God. All the wisdom and goodness that is in all the Angels in Heaven, is like but as a drop of water to that which is in the Ocean, compared with that which is in God. But then, there are also Incommunicable Properties of the Divine Nature, which cannot be affirmed of any but the Great God.
3. The incommunicable properties of the Great God are to be affirmed of Iesus Christ. There are Properties and Attributes of God which are Communicable, such are Wisdom, Holiness, Goodness and the like. But they are not in Creatures in that proportion as they are in God. All the wisdom and goodness that is in all the Angels in Heaven, is like but as a drop of water to that which is in the Ocean, compared with that which is in God. But then, there are also Incommunicable Properties of the Divine Nature, which cannot be affirmed of any but the Great God.
As now, Eternity is an Incommunicable Property of the great God. Deut. 33.27 The Eternal God shall be thy Refuge. He alone is the Eternal God. That is Eternal, which has ⟨p. 54⟩neither beginning nor ending. There are some Creatures which shall never Die; Angels and the Souls of men are Immortal. But there is no Creature which has not had a beginning. But God is from Everlasting: Psal. 90.2 From Everlasting to Everlasting, thou art God. This must be said, and it is necessary unto Salvation that we should believe this, concerning Christ. We may not think that He was not, until he was born of the Virgin Mary. He was God in Heaven before he was Man on Earth. Therefore, Joh. 6.62