14 and the Verb hath been made flesh and dwelt amongst us Phil. 2.6 7. Jesus Christ being in form of God he hath not reputed it rapine to be equal with God so he became nothing himself having taken the forme of a servant made in the likeness of man found in figure as a man he did I say abase himself 2 Cor. 8 9. You know the grace of Jesus Christ our Lord viz. that he made himself poor for you though he were rich that by his Poverty you might be rich John 8.58 Jesus said to them verily verily I say unto you before Abraham was made I am 3. That the Son sent for us is God St. John in the beginning of his Gospel speaking of the word which hath been made flesh vers 14. saith in the beginning was the Verb and the Verb was with God and the Verb was God Rom. 9.5 Christ who is God above all things blessed eternally Titus 2.13 We expect the happy hope and coming of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ 1. 1 John 5.20 He that is to say the Son is the true God and life eternal This is proved clearly thus he who hath created heaven and earth and who now preserveth them is the true God as Esay teacheth who makes the Lord speak thus I am the Lord who makes all things alone expanding the heavene rendring the earth from Esa 44.24 From whence it comes that the Scripture very often gives the quality of a creature to God as an elogy which doth not agree with him but only to distinguish him from all other things as in Esay these things saith the Lord God who hath created the heavens and stretched them out who hath conformed the earth and the things which spring from it Esa 42.5 and likewise Esa 45.12 and 48.13 and 51.13 Now the Son of God sent for us hath created the heavens and the earth and all the things which are in them and governs and sustains them by his power and wisdome St. John speaking of the Verb made flesh for us all things have been made by him saith he and without him nothing hath been done that hath been done John 1.3 and to vers 9 and 10. he is the true light which enlightens every man coming into the world he was in the world the world hath been made by him Col. 1.15 16. The Apostle speaking of the Son of Gods love who is the image of the invisible God first born that is to say Lord of every creature adds in him have been created all things in heaven and in earth visible and invisible be they thrones governments principallities or powers all things I say are created by him and in him and he was before all things and all consist by him Heb. 1.2 3. God hath spoken to us in these latter dayes by his Son whom he hath constituted heir that is to say Lord of all things by whom also he hath made the ages which Son being the splendour of the glory and figure of the substance of him and maintaining all things by his powerful word having made the purgation of sins is set at the right hand of Majesty in high places and vers 10 11. The Apostle appropriates to him these words of the Psalmist Lord thou hast founded the earth from the beginning and the Heavens are the works of thy hands They shall perish but thou art permanent and all shall grow old as a garment and thou shalt change them as a vesture and they shall be changed but thou art the same and thy years fail not it follows then that the Son sent for us is the true God 2. He who by his intelligence knows the thought of humane hearts truly is God as Solomon teaches 3 Kings Heb. 1 Kings 8.39 2 Chr. 6.20 Where speaking to God thou alone saith he knoweth the hearts of all the Sons of men now the Son of God knoweth the secrets of the hearts of men Reve 2.23 where he sayeth I am he who examine the reins and hearts and will give to every one of you according to his works One must then confess that he is the true God 3. He whomay and ought to be served and worshipped with a soverain worship properly so called is God for the Scripture teacheth us that this worship appertaines but to God alone Mat. 4.10 thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him onely shalt thou serve Now the Son of God ought to be worshipped by men and angels with a Soveraign worship John 5.22 23. The Father hath given all judgment to the Son to the end that all should honour the Son as they honour the Father he who honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father who hath sent him Heb. 1 6â— when he bringeth his first begotten Son into the world he saith and let all the Angels of God worship him Phil. 2.9 10. God hath Soverainly lifted up Jesus and hath given him a name which is above all names to the end that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of those who are in heaven in the earth and under the earth 4. That the Son of God is the same God who was worshipped heretofore in Israel and who is called the Lord or the Eternal in the books of the Old Testament 1. This appears first from what we have already shown that the Son is God For all the Scripture teacheth us that there is no other God but the eternal Lord known and worshipped in Israel Deut. 4.35 The Lord is God and there is no other besides him Deut. 6.4 Hear Israel the Lord our God is God alone Deut. 32.39 See now that I am onely and there is no other God but me Now Christ is God as we have shewn by the Scriptures It follows then that he is the same Lord or eternal who was worshipped heretofore by the Israelites 2. He whose glory Isaiah saw in the sixth chapter of his revelations is truely the Lord eternal worshipped by the Jews I see saith he the Lord sitting upon an High Seat and lifted up and this appears in the 3 5 7 and 11. verses now Jesus is he whose Glory Isaiah saw as S. John in the 12. Chapter of his Gospel witnesseth vers the 41. where having alledged some words of this passage of Isaiah he adds these things said Isaiah when he saw the glory of him viz. of the Lord Jesus and spake of him It follows than that Jesus Christ is this same eternal worshipped by the ancient people 3. The Lord of the Temple of Jerusalem is the eternal since the Templâ— hath not been consecrated to any but him as it appears through all the Old Testament Now Christ is the Lord of the Temple of Jerusalem as it appears by the Prophet Malachy who foretelling the coming of the Messias the Governor whom you demand saith he and the Angel of the Covenant whom you desire shall come to or into his Temple Malachy 3.1 Christ is then the very eternal
That God is Infinite Jerem. 23 24. 2. Kings 8.27 and 2. Paralipom 2.6 and 6 18. Psal 138 Heb. 139 7. Esa 66.1 do not I fill heaven and earth saith the Lord. Acts. 7.47 48. The most high dwelleth not in Temples made with hands as the Prophet saith Heaven is my throne and the earth is my foot stoole what house will you build me saith the Lord or where is the place of my rest Job 11.7 8 9. Shalt thou by chance find out the ways of God and shalt thou at length find out the Almighty he is higher then heaven and what wilt thou do he is deeper then Hell and how wilt thou know him his measure is longer then the earth and larger then the Sea 4 That the nature and judgements of God are incomprehensible Rom. 11.33 Exod. 33.20 1 Tim. 1.17 O profound riches of the wisdome and knowledge of God! how incomprehensible are his judgments and his waies past finding out for who is he that hath known a thought of the Lord or who hath been his Counselour 1. Tim. 6.15 16. The blessed and onely powerful King of Kings and Lord of Lords c. Hath only immortality and inhabits an inaccessible light the which no man hath or can see 5. That God is Soveraginly good Exod. 34.6 7. Lord God ruler Merciful Pitiful Patient and of great compassion and true who keeps mercys for thousands who takes a way iniquity and sin Psal 135. Heb. 136. 1. The Lord is good and his mercy indureth Eternally Matth. 19.17 There is one good viz. God or as our bibles are translated there is none good but one viz. God 6. That God is most just Jerem. 12.1 In truth Lord if I dispute with thee thou art just Psal 10. Heb. 11. 8. The Lord is just and hath loved justice his face hath seen equity Psal 118. Heb. 119. 137. Lord thou art just and thy judgment is right 7. That God is Infinitely wise Psalm 146. Heb. 147. 5. Our Lord is great and his Vertue great and there is no numbring of his wisdome Rom. 11.33 O profound riches of the Wisdome and knowledge of God Rom. 16.27 To God onely wise be honor and glory for ever through Jesus Christ 8. That God is all powerful Gen. 17.1 Gen. 1â— 14 35.11 and 48.3 God appeared to Abraham and said to him I am the Lord all powerful Matth. 19.26 To God all things are possible Luk. 1.37 Nothing shall be impossible to God Ephe. 3.20 To him who by his power which Acts in us can do in all abundance above all that which we can ask or think to him I say be glory in the Church in Jesus Christ in all ages world without end Amen 9. That God hath created all things Gen. 1.1 Acts 14.14 God created in the beginning the heaven and the earth Acts. 4.24 Lord who hath made the heavens and the earth the Sea and all things which are there Acts. 17.24 God hath made the World and all things which are in it Rom. 11.36 Of him and by him and for him are all things to him then be glory eternally Amen Gen. 18.25 Job 38.41 Psal 103. Heb 104. 21. 135. Heb. 136. 25. 144. Heb 145. 15 16. 146. Heb 147. 8 9. Prov. 16.1.4.33 20.24 21.1 Isa 45.6 Jer. 10 11 12 13 23. Amos 3.6 Matt. 6.26.28 29 30. Ephe. 3.9 God hath created all 10. That God governes all things according to his good pleasure Matt 10.29 Are not two Sparrows sold for a farthing nevertheless one of them shall not fall to the ground without your father And even the hairs of your head are all numbred Acts. 17.25 26 28. God gives to all life breath and all things and hath made all humane kind of one to inhabit the whole space of the earth determining ordained seasons and the bounds of their habitation c. in him we live have motion and are Rom. 11.36 From him and by him and for him are all things Esa 45.6 7 I am the Lord and there is none other forming light and creating darkness making peace and creating evil I am the Lord doing all these things CHAP. III. Of the Creation nature and corruption of man 1. That God created man at the beginning after his own Image GEn. 1.26 27. Furthermore God said let us make man according to our Image and similitude and let him have dominion over the fishes of the Sea and over the Birds of the heavens Gen. 2.7 8 15 17. and over the beasts and over all the earth and over every creeping thing creeping upon the earth God then created man according to his own Image and likeness he created him according to the Image of God 2. That man is fallen from his happiness by his disobedience You have the History of it in the third Chapter of Gen. and 7 Eccles 30. God hath made man right and he hath intangled himself with infinite questions 3. That by the disobedience of the first man all his posterity have been subjected to sin and death Rom. 5.12 By one man sin entered into the world and by sin death And so death is come upon all men in that all have sinned 1 Cor. 15.22 All die in Adam 4. That all men are from their nature defiled by sin and subject to death Rom. 3.23 All have sinned and have need of the glory of God Eph. 2.23 We have all conversed sometimes in the concupiscences of our flesh executing the desires of the flesh and of our thoughts and were from nature children of wrath as others and in verse the fifth we were dead in sin 5. That this corruption is in men from their birth Psal 50. Heb. 51. Behold truly I have been conceived in iniquity and my mother hath conceived me in sin John 3.6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh Job 14.4 Who can make man clean who is conceived of filthyness is it not thou only CHAP. IV. Of the Mediator of his person and natures 1. That God by his mercy hath sent his Son Jesus Christ into the world to save humane kinde JOhn 3.16 God hath so loved the world that he hath given his onely Son to the end that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life Rom. 8.3 That which was impossible to the Law in as much as it was weak through the flesh God having sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh c. 1 Cor. 1.30 Jesus Christ hath been made to us by God wisdome justice sanctification and redemption 2. That the Son sent for us John 3 13. comp with John 662. 1 Cor. 10.9 subsisted before he took humane flesh in the womb of the Virgin John 1.1 2. In the beginning was the Verb or the word as our Bibles have it translated and the Verb was with God and the Verb was God he was in the beginning with God and vers the
Religion which he hath given us to obtain this consists in Faith and Charity that the Father appeased by his Obedience receives to mercy all those who knowing their misery and repenting of their Sins do confide in his bounty and believe in his promises that he pardons them gratis all their faults and treats them as if they had never offended and these being animated and enlivened by Faith live afterwards holily and Christianly in Piety towards God and Charity towards their Neighbours according to the Gospel of Christ For he wills that all his Faithful love and serve God with one love and soveraign adoration and that they have a true Charity towards all men carefully keeping themselves from violating their dignity Life Chastity Estates or Honour neither in Deed Word nor Thought every one subjecting themselves to their Order and Laws of their Civil Societies and to the state of the Country where they live but that they entertain a particular amity with the rest of the Faithful cherishing them as their own Brethren uniting themselves to them that so there may be but one Body in Religion and that for this end there be amongst them Pastors and Supervisers who have the overlooking of their Communion administring to them as well the divine Doctrine as the holy Sacraments which the Lord hath left as tokens of his grace and marks and seals of his Covenant having commanded that his faithful Servants should be baptized in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost for the remission of their sins and that they should eat the Bread and drink the sanctified Wine in commemoration of his Death and communication of his Flesh and Blood We believe that although the truth of these things is most clear yet men are so blinded by the Passion of their malice that they would never understand them if the HOLYSPIRIT true God eternally blessed with the FATHER and the SON did not inlighten their understanding opening their hearts that the light of this heavenly Doctrine may enter in and that God affords them this grace of his own good pleasure giving it when to whom and in what measure it seemeth good to him We believe that to those who shall have believed and lived according to this holy doctrine God will give his Salvation preserving them and taking care of them and when they depart this Life gather their Souls into his repose expecting the last day in which having raised their Bodies will lift them up with Jesus Christ their Head into an incorruptable Heaven there to live eternally in his Glory but the Wicked and incredulous shall perish being punished with the Devil and his Angels in the torments of Hell Reader if thou art conversant in reading the Holy Bible say in thy Conscience whether it be not too great a boldness to deny that these things are clearly contained there onely hearing them named do you not as soon perceive that these Divine Books and especially those of the New Testament are full of them How hard is it to find one verse which layes not down some of these instructions Nevertheless because they will have it so we verifie them Article by Article and to the end that they should not as t is their custome wrangle with us about words we will produce passages of Scripture in those very words into which the Interpreter of our Adversaries hath translated them and then say a little upon every point contenting our selves to mark the rest in the Margint For if we should gather together all the places of Scripture where these Doctrines are positively laid down or hinted we must transcribe almost all of them and as to the Scripture it self we suppose the truth of it without disputing it in this Treatise where the business is only to prove that the Articles whose belief we esteem necessary to Salvation are all found in the Book which we hold for the Rule and principle of our Faith For that is sufficient to bring to nothing the calumny of these new Disputants who to convince the Scripture of imperfection and constrain us by the same means to have recourse to the Authority of their Church crying incessantly that we our selves who make so much account of Scripture cannot prove by it all the things which we believe necessary to Salvation CHAP. II. Of the Essence and Nature of God Of his Qualities and Works 1. FIrst then as to the Article of the Essence and Divine Nature the Scripture layes down at the first word that there is one God in saying that he created the Heaven and the Earth in the beginning and speaks of him every where as of a thing whose being and subsistance every one knows and understands holding them not only for impious and irreligious but for meer fools and sense-less creatures who think there is none Psal 13. Heb. 14. 1. The Scripture makes him Act and speak in infinite wayes and manners from the beginning to the very end teaching not onely that he is but that there is none besides him who truly is all the rest not being but in him and by him So long then as there are passages in Scripture which attribute to God some quality action or word and of this kind there are an infinite number they are so much the stronger and evident proofes of this truth See Duet 4.39 6.4 â—sa 45.5.6.21 John 17.3 and many other places Heb. 11.6 It behoveth him that comes to God to believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him Act. 17.27 28. God is not far from any one of us for in him we live move and are 1 Cor. 8.6 We have one God who is the Father from whom are all things and we in him Exod. 3.14 The Lord said to Moses I am that I am then he said thou shalt tell the Children of Israel he that is hath sent me to you Esaiah 37.16 Lord of Armies the God of Israel who art set upon the Cherubims thou art alone God of all the Kingdoms of the earth thou hast made the Heaven and the earth Esaiab 43.10 11. There was no God formed before me nor shall be after me I am I am the Lord and there is none other Saviour but me Psal 89. Heb. 90. 2. Before the Mountaines were made and the earth and world were formed from age to age thou art God 2. That Godis Eternal Gen. 21.33 See Ex. 15.19 Job 36.26 Psal 9. Heb. 10 8.37 38. Heb. 90.2 Abraham c. called upon the name of God Eternal Psalm 101. Heb. 102. 27 28. The heavens shall perish but thou shalt be permanent and all of them shall wax old as a garment and thou shalt change them as a vesture and they shall be changed but thou art the same thou art and thy years fail not Rom. 16.26 Esai 41.4.43.10.44.6 and 48.12 1 Tim. 1.17 Re. 1.8 By the commandment of the Eternal God 1 Tim. 6.16 God onely hath immortality 3.
Heb. 13.18 the Ephesians the Colossians the Thessalonians and the Hebrews and therefore why should not we demand the same office of the Saints departed But first who seeth not that although this reason should be pertinent it always concludes much less than that they would have it for it hints only that it behoveth to pray to the departed Saints as S. Paul prayed the Romans the other faithful whilst they lived Now he prayed them only to pray to God for him He did not kneel down before them although absent to make this request to them he erected no Statues to them he constituted no Images to them he did not prostrate himself before their Representations nor did he offer them lighted Tapers or make Vows to them nor did he pray them to command our Redeemer to defend him against the Enemy to receive him at the hour of his death and to heal the inaladies of his nature nor is there any wise Christian that will do or demand such things of a living man upon this account it will follow that all the Prayers where our Adversaries demand these things of the Saints departed are unlawful their own Reasons as much esteemed as they are permits them only to require the Saints to pray to God for them But in the second place who seeth not the extreme impertinence of this discourse We pray the living Saints to pray to God for us we may then use the same towards them that are dead I pray you what is it that gives them ground to argue so What! is there not a difference between these two we see the one we speak to them and hear the answers they make to our requests whereas the other are separated from us by a great and almost infinite distance without being able to know for certain whether they hear any of our words without having any mutual and reciprocal commerce with them We do not doubt that as we thank God for their happiness they pray for ours wishing the triumph of the Church which they know fights yet upon the earth under the Ensigne of their Christ But 't is to mock the world to conclude from hence that we may and ought to speak to them as we do to persons here below which are of our acquaintance That which Elisha knew by the revelation of God concerning what his Servant Gehazi had done being absent 2 King 5.16 and Daniel that which Nebuchadnezzar had dreamt Dan. 2.19 Acts 12.34 And St. Peter what Ananias and Saphira had contrived sheweth that the Lord can if he pleaseth discover the thoughts of our hearts and the words of our mouths to the Saints who live in heaven that which we have called in Question but not that he will and doth it in effect which is the point of this Question whereof we ought to be assured to be able to address our prayers to them It cannot be proved by the knowledge which the Angels have of the repentance of sinners Luke 15.10 Heb. 1.14 For the Angels being ministring Spirits which God sends to serve because of those who shall receive the inheritance of Salvation 't is not strange that they should know that which happens to us whereas we read not any thing like this of the Souls of the faithful that are deceased Apoc. 14. but only that they rest from their labours And after all although we should be assured that the Saints should understand us there would always be indiscretion in these prayers since there is neither Command nor Example in the Scriptures for them Joyn to this the evident peril we should be put into by this practice of giving to the Creature that which appertains to the Creator For Nature hath her self imprinted this Opinion in our hearts that 't is a divine thing to penetrate into the secrets of men and to know what the absent do and say it is not possible for us to converse with the Saints whom we do not see without allowing them a kinde of Divinity as it appears but too much in the practice of the Adversaries the most part of whom and above all those of the minute people praying to the Saints have towards them incitements to devotion and a respect altogether like that which they have to God when they pray to him But 't is sufficiently seen that this praying to deceased Saints cannot be proved by the Scriptures CHAP. X. That Veneration of Images is not Commanded in Scripture nor any way taught there 1. AS for their Images and those of Jesus Christ and the holy Virgin it is still much less possible to establish the Veneration of them by Scripture Exod. 25.18 19 20. since instead of Commanding it they disprove and forbid the service of all Images and Representations in general Nevertheless let us see what Rome alledgeth for this designe She then alledgeth the Cherubims which Moses made to cover the forepart of the propitiatory Numb 21.8 1 King 6.32 35. 7.25 29 36. and the brazen Serpent which he lifted up in the Desart and the Cherubims the Palm-trees and the Buds of Flowers spread which Solomon caused to be carved upon the Doors of the Temple and the Molten Oxen upon which he set the Laver of Brass and the Figures of Lions and other Creatures with wch he inriched its Basis Tertull. striking at Idolatry Tertul. de Idolol c. 5. in a Book which he hath expresly made objects the same thing in favour of them who defended it resolves the Question learnedly according to his ordinary custome But to keep my self to my business what doth all this make for the veneration of Images First they were not the Representators of God nor of any person whom he had imployed in any eminent Service of his Church Secondly These Images were made some for Types and sacred Symbols as the Cherubims of the Ark and the brazen Serpent the others for the ornament and inriching of the Temple only as the Palms the Oxen and the Lions of Solomon none to be honoured and worshipped which was so contrary to the intention of these Divine men that the people offering Incense to the brazen Serpent Hezekiah to stop the abuse 2 Kings 18 4. made no scruple to break it in pieces So all that one can lawfully conclude from the last part of this allegation is not that it is permitted or allowed to kiss the Images by devotion to be uncovered and prostrate before them and to render them worship in honor to Christ and his Saints which our Adversaries think and practice but that one may carve Pictures of Creatures and Flowers upon the Doors and other parts of the Temples to adorn and inrich them Council of Trent Dâ—utri 2 for which we never contested with any one But for the Cherubims and the brazen Serpent the instance they bring of it is quite out of our purpose First because that these Types have no place any longer in the Church Jesus Christ