That our Lord is called Immanuel by the Prophet as cited by S. Matthew or God with us that we might not think he was Man only but that we might know he was God too If then Christ was God as well as Man his Divine Nature being mentioned in contradistinction to his humane Nature Irenaeus cannot mean that He who was really a Man was only metaphorically God but that he was as really and essentially God as He was Man which is what we believe With Irenaeus agrees Clemens of Alexandria who thus teaches the Gentiles in his Admonition to them We are the rational Creatures of God the Word so he calls our Saviour after the Evangelist S. John Admon ad Gent. p. 5. l. D. by whom we pretend to Antiquity because God the Word was in the beginning but because the Word was from above He was and is the divine original of all things but since He has now taken upon him the name of Christ a name suitable to his power and which was sanctified of old I call him a new song This refers to his former Allegorical discourse wherein he endeavours to describe every thing under terms proper to Harmony or Musick This Word then this Christ who was at first in God was both the cause of our original existence and of our well-being But now this Word himself has made himself manifest to men who alone is both God and Man the cause of all our good by whom we being taught to live well are sent from hence to eternal life for according to that inspired Apostle of our Lord the Grace of God hath appear'd to all men teaching them that denying all ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live godly righteously and soberly in this present world looking for the glorious coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ This is the new song that manifestation of God the Word who was in the beginning and before all things and now shines brightly out to us He appear'd but lately who was our Saviour before He who is appear'd in him who is because the Word was with God and that Word by which all things were made makes his appearance as a Master that Word which as a Creator gave us life in our first formation appearing now as a Master or Teacher has taught us to live well that hereafter as God he may bestow upon us eternal life Thus far that very learned Father and his whole discourse does so plainly teach us the Pre-existence of our Saviour before his Conception in the Womb of the blessed Virgin and consequently his Divine Nature in his eternal being with the Father that the most ignorant person in the World may plainly understand what the Faith of this Writer was Thus afterwards speaking of John Baptist the forerunner of our Saviour he tells them John taught men to be prepared for the presence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of God the Christ Afterwards speaking of that care our Saviour took to have the Gospel preached he adds The Lord did not effect so great work in so short a time without a sacred care He was despised in appearance but adored indeed being a Purifyer a Saviour and extremely kind The Divine Word being really most manifest God and put into an equal rank with the Lord of all things for as much as he was his Son and the Word was in God Ibid. p. 68. l. D. he was neither disbelieved when he was first preached nor was he unknown or unacknowledged when assuming the presence of a Man and being made flesh he managed the saving design of his assumed Humanity Again speaking to those who are blind with sin and folly under the person of Tiresias that blind Thebane Wizzard and inviting such to believe in Christ he speaks thus If thou wilt thou too shalt be initiated into these Mysteries and join in the Choir of blessed Angels about the unbegotten the never to be destroyed the only true God God the Word assisting in the same Hymn with us He is eternal the only Jesus or Saviour the great High-priest of God who is the Father p. 70. L D. he intercedes for Men and he perswades them to goodness I shall instance but in one passage more in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where having cited that of the Psalmist Who shall ascend into the Hill of the Lord or who shall stand in his holy place c. at large He thus descants upon it The Prophet says He in my opinion here briefly describes the true Gnostick or the man of true knowledge to us and by the bye David shews us that our Saviour is God for he calls him the face of the God of Jacob who brought us glad tidings and taught us of or concerning the Spirit therefore the Apostle calls the Son the Character of the glory of God Him who taught the truth concerning God and who represented to us that God and the Father was one only and Almighty whom none could know but the Son Stromat l. 7. p. 733. C. and He to whom the Son shall reveal him That God is but one appears by those who seek the face of the God of Jacob whom our God and our Saviour characterises as the only God and father of Good Here then we have the Father true and real God the Son true and real God and yet but one God and this is that Faith which we preach To Clemens I shall only add his Scholar Origen for the Greek Church a man of extraordinary eminence in his time who in his third Book against Celsus that great adversary of the Christian Religion reflecting upon the vanity of Heathen Gods and their incapacity to help those that depend on them he tells Celsus that upon this very reason because there is no help in false gods it 's a sure Rule among Christians that no man should trust in any being as God except only in Jesus Christ and a little after whereas Celsus objects against us so often that we believe Jesus consisting of a mortal body to be God and imagine our selves very pious in so thinking he answers Let those who accuse us know that He whom we know and believe to be God of old and to be the Son of God he is of himself the Word the Wisdom and the Truth and that even that mortal body and reasonable Soul which he assumed by its Communication and Unity and Mixture with the Word or with his divine nature arose to so great a height as to be God i.e. his humane and his divine nature make by a substantial or essential union one God and that I give no false interpretation to his words here will appear by what I shall allege afterwards It 's all along the humour of Celsus then when he speaks in the Person of a Jew and when he speaks in his own Name and Person to reproach the Christians with the irrationality of their Religion on that particular account that they owned Christ as
him for we shall see him as he is And when reason once comes to use sense so far as to see God as he is infinitely happy infinitely good infinitely glorious it has gone far enough And thus far have I given an account of Humane reason or the light of Nature for I think I may well enough use them as Synonymous and how far it may be useful in matters of a Divine nature I shall draw onely a Corollary or two from thence and then proceed We conclude from what has been discours'd concerning Humane reason That our obligation to Almighty God is infinite in that He who might have taken from us wholly that natural light because we had so extremely slighted it was yet pleas'd to continue it so far as that rightly apply'd it might still be useful to us even in matters of salvation It 's true we cannot examine things with that clearness and satisfaction which Adam's first enquiries were accompany'd with our understandings are somewhat parallel to that Earth which fell under a Curse for the sin of Man It was naturally fertile before in good things but then it was to bring forth onely bryars and thorns yet Man might eat bread from it still onely it must be in the sweat of his brows He must take pains for that now which he might have had without any trouble before So our Natural reason was clear and free at first common occurrences needed no deep meditations nor extraordinary passages any tedious study to apprehend them in every circumstance The case is now otherwise our reason busies it self naturally about trifles and onely puzles and perplexes it self in matters of no weight or moment yet still it may move to good purpose but it requires abundance of care and pains to cultivate it so as it may produce any thing that 's good and even with a great deal of pains too sometimes it makes conclusions onely vain troublesome and miserably false this unhappiness is the consequence of our own follies at first and it's God's unmerited goodness that we can yet by making use of due means distinguish in some measure between truth and falshood at least in the more obvious parts of religion and his goodness yet appears farther in that where our decrepit reason fails he 's pleas'd to interpose with the influences of his blessed Spirit and to preserve the Modest and Humble from falling into damnable Error that our Reason may have a subject profitable to employ it self upon God has given us his Word blessed are they who meditate on that word day and night he calls upon us to apply our selves to the Law and to the testimony to search the Scriptures to search them with the same care and diligence as those who work in Mines seek for the golden Ore Whereas he lays in his Word several Commands upon us He would have us examine them so as we may be convinced that they are not grievous but Holy just and good These Commandments therefore must be examin'd by the rule of right Reason which whosoever follows will be infinitely satisfied in them In his dealings with mankind he calls upon them to examine their own ways by the same rule he enters into arguments highly rational with mankind himself he bids them to judge in their own causes between himself and them and see if discussing things rationally they must not necessarily fall upon that confession That God's ways are equal but the ways of men unequal When he recommends his mercies when he would terrifie with his judgments He appeals to Humane Reason still or that share of light which we are now partakers of Now he that will employ that light he has upon such noble subjects if he be not prejudiced with wicked principles before or puff'd up with self-conceit must necessarily be a very religious man for the clearer any mans rational faculty is the more pious he must be only men of very low abilities can be either Atheists or Hereticks It 's confest indeed some Hereticks as the Socinians in particular with whom we are at present concern'd pretend highly to Reason but they only sham us with fond pretences and their reason is all empty and sophistical and Atheists are the Men of sence if we may believe fools and madmen but there is a vast difference between a flashy Wit and a ridiculing Humour and sound judgment and solid and weighty argument But God who knew before what artifices Hell and wicked men would make use of to pervert truth calls upon us to exercise our reason farther in discovering and baffling those cheats the enemies of our Souls would fain put upon us wherein as Hereticks and Schismaticks generally make their appeals to God's Word and we have warning in that very Word That in those doctrines where there 's any shew of difficulty those who are unlearned and unstable wrest the Scriptures to their own destructions We are warn'd to try the Spirits whether they be of God and Scripture being the rule of tryal we are oblig'd to study the true sence and meaning of that To which end our rational faculty carries us along in studying the original Languages in which Scripture was written and finding out the true meaning and import of words and phrases in other authors and the modes and customs of countries to which any Texts refer Reason goes with us in comparing text with text and matters of faith or practice laid down in one place with those laid down in another in observing the force of those arguments drawn from such and such Texts their real dependance upon or direct consequence from the places alledg'd and the general consistency of opinions offer'd with the end and design of those positive truths laid down in Scripture Reason has here a large field to exercise it self in And whereas we are urg'd by some to abjure that utterly with respect to those points of faith or practice that are under debate pretending they 'd insist only on the letter of Scripture Maximus tells us well in the formerly cited discourse of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they drive you from examining Scripture too strictly insinuating that it 's dangerous to pry too narrowly into secrets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Maximi disceptatio inter opera Athan. T. 2. p. 296. but disswading it indeed that they might avoid the reproof of their Errors from thence where he takes farther notice how such persons if they meet but with a word that at first hearing sounds favourably to their fancies they run away with it without ever considering the design of the inspired Writer or examining the agreement of their own shallow glosses with the general tenour of Holy Writ an humour that prevails with too many still who prefer the sound of words before the truth and pertinency of texts of Scripture and therefore imagine themselves to argue very piously and agreeably to God's word when all their talk is nothing to the purpose But mysteries the great
Father had made the World it self and all other things by him and that by him He had made known to Men whatsoever he desired should be known by them Thus we have Socinus his own confirmation of what we had before produced as the sense of the Ante-Nicene Fathers After this he touches slightly upon some pieces written by those first Fathers which are of suspected credit but we have nothing to do with them having quoted nothing from any of them but what among Learned Men at present is of undoubted reputation As for the Fathers who writ after the Council of Nice he fairly owns that the Socinian's business is to oppose those Errors which they gave credit to by their Authority in the Church of God The Fathers then are on our side whether those of the eldest or those of an inferior date nor can we desire a greater advantage to our cause since we can neither find out any means by which these Hereticks should know God's Will and Meaning in his Word better than these Antient and Heroick Assertors of the Christian Religion We have no account of any new Visions or Revelations any of them have had Nor have we heard of any Miracles perform'd by them in confirmation of their Heterodoxies therefore when we believe that Jesus Christ the Son of God our Saviour is God equal with his Father we follow that truth which to our apprehension is very plain in Scripture which holy Saints and Martyrs have from the very beginning of Christianity embrac'd and which really is That Faith which was once delivered to the Saints as God willing will yet more plainly appear hereafter I observe here by the way what Socinus touches upon and what others of his Disciples allege farther that tho' the Fathers do thus make Jesus Christ to be God yet they always put a great difference between Him and his Father and insist particularly on his own Words in the case where He tells the Jews That his Father is greater than He that his Father orders commands directs and enables Him to do every thing c. It 's true they do sometimes speak suspitiously in this matter but what solves the Objection from such Texts of Scripture solves those Objections which may be drawn from such expressions in those antient Writers viz. That where they urge such things their meaning is only to assert that difference there is between Christ's Divine and his Humane Nature as He is Man we doubt not but he is inferior to his Father that he received power from Him and acted here upon earth in subordinacy to hi◠as He was God he was equal with his Father always united with him having the same Will Power Knowledge and Wisdom which his Father had by which means whereas meer flesh and blood would have had a strange reluctance against such sufferings as were necessarily prepar'd for him his Divinity in concurrence with that of his Father supported and enabled meer Humanity to effect and make good the work he had undertaken Thus we find the same Scriptures asserting of Christ Acts 2.32 that his Father raised him from the dead and that he rose from the dead of himself he asserting to himself only that power of laying down his life Joh. 10.18 and of taking it up again and both true as He was God as well as Man none could have taken his life from him without his own consent as He was Man as well as God none could have brought that flesh and blood to life again which was now a carcase by the reparation of the rational Soul without the concurrence of Almighty God but as such He and his Father were one They both Will'd and both Acted as they both were able to effect the same thing But besides this which answers those before-named seeming difficulties it 's enough to say that whereas the first Fathers of the Christian Church were irreconcileable enemies to Idolatry or to worshipping a Multiplicity of Gods which is the same thing whereas in all their Writings they took care to vindicate the Honour of the one true God in opposition to all false Gods when they assert Jesus Christ to be God they mean not that He is a false God for they prove themselves to be the only true Worshippers and they make it their boast that they worship Jesus Christ therefore they look'd upon him as true and real God and worship'd him only as such If then these Fathers did think Christ to be a God of an inferior or subordinate Nature or to be a Created God as the Socinians would have him be they directly contradicted their own Principles and brought in again that multiplicity or at least plurality of Gods they had before exploded As for the notion of a made or created God or a God à parte post as Socinus calls him it 's a dream so senceless and full of contradiction that it 's only to be wondered at that Men pretending to any sharpness of Reason should ever stumble upon so absurd a conceit For Scripture no where makes a distinction between God self-originated and God made by another and both true but it lays us down a plain difference between the true God the Creator and the Creature or any thing that is created by that true God and therefore tho' there be in Nature such things as Spiritual and Corporeal Beings yet the allowance of that difference makes or introduces no intermediate Beings between the Creator and the Creature every thing that is not God is made by God every thing that 's made by God is not God and so it must follow that if the Son be made by God he is not God but a Creature if the Son be in all particulars equal with God he is not made by God but is God himself Again The notion of a true and real God is infinity in every respect Heathens Jews Mahumetans Christians all agree in that if this be a true notion of a real God it must be such a notion as must sufficiently distinguish him from all other Beings infinite Attributes being wholly and only proper to and inseparable from Him If then these infinite attributes do agree to our Lord and Saviour He is and must therefore be the true God in contradistinction to all created Beings if they do not agree to him then He cannot be the true God therefore he must be a false God therefore he must be an Idol therefore he must be no God at all and this is the true and inevitable consequence of the Socinian notion of a made or a Created God For that the Supreme God should make another supreme as himself and yet at the same time continue supreme himself is nonsense and a contradiction that the Supreme God should make another God who yet is no God because the attributes belonging to a real God are not applicable to Him is a contradiction too therefore the Socinians and their Adherents must either declare in plain