Jacob Moses Joshua Samuel David and all the rest of the Prophets Of them came Jesus Christ according to the flesh that particularising of his deduction from them according to the flesh intimates plainly enough that according to somewhat else he had another Original he was not wholly of the Jews This the Socinians are forced to own because of that entire story of our Saviour's Conception by the Holy Ghost in the womb of the blessed Virgin To shew how great this privilege was the Apostle adds that this Jesus Christ who came of the Jews according to the flesh was God over all blessed for ever but that they might avoid the force of this Text they would fain â—ly to one of their ordinary shelters a variâ—us reading but there 's no such thing in any of the original Copies and Versions if there be any which intimate such a thing are little to be regarded Then they would fain alter the Pointing which if allow'd would do them little service but there is no ground for allowing that In locum Enjedine pleads that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 blessed used by the Apostle here is never applyed any where in Scripture to any but only God the Father for this he alledges that of the same Apostle concerning the Gentiles that they worshipped the Creature more than the Creator Rom. 1.25 who is over all blessed for ever But if it be true that Jesus Christ as the eternal Son of God was the Creator of all things as it seems to be his instance turns against himself and methinks it follows as well that if the title of God above all blessed for ever belongs only to the supreme God for that he means when he speaks of its belonging only to God the Father then the Son of God to whom it 's given here should be the supreme God for it is no less than Sacrilege and Blasphemy to attribute a title so peculiar to the Sovereign to any one who really and in his own Nature is not the Sovereign God Others of the Socinian Tribe cannot see or take no notice of this peculiar usage of the expression as if it belong'd only to God the Father they acknowledge that Christ as Made God is above all Men and Angels above all Principalities and Powers nay above all things whatsoever only 1 Cor. 15.27 He 's not above him who put all things under him This the Apostle asserts This we own but withal we assert that our Saviour as Man in that body in which he humbled himself to the Death of the Cross for Man is thus exalted above all things and thus as Man he is the head of his Church as God we say not that he 's superiour to his Father but that he is equal to him he is of the same Nature with his Father and therefore is God over all blessed for ever as his Father is Now that He who is thus God over all blessed for ever should condescend to take our Nature upon him was an effect of infinite Love and pity to all mankind that he should condescend to take this humane Nature of any one of the Jewish Nation was the greatest Honour that could possibly be done to that Nation We see how Towns and Countreys strive for the Honour of being the birth-places of great Men and they have been frequently not a little jealous of one another on that account nay Scripture it self makes such a thing a considerable advantage in that of the Prophet concerning the Messias as alledged by the Chief Priests and Scribes to Herod And thou Bethlehem in the land of Judah art not the least among the Princes of Judah Matt. 2.6 for out of thee shall come a Governour who shall rule my people Israel the present Hebrew reads it tho' thou be little among the thousands of Judah The birth of such a one was enough to make the most inconsiderable place glorious miserable people then were they who had so great an honour confer'd on them and yet at last deny'd him who conferr'd it on them S. Paul gives this advice to the Philippians Phil 2 5-1â— Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus who being in the form of God thought it no robbery to be equal with God but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of Man and being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient to Death even to the Death of the Cross wherefore God also hath mightily exalted him and given him a name which is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in Heaven and things in earth and things under the earth and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father We might refer the matter to any who had no acquaintance with Christianity or with Scripture before and such a Man on reading these words would certainly conclude that he who carries here the name of Christ Jesus was described as every way equal with God the Father whosoever that might be and that we may understand such a conclusion would be just and rational we may look into the occasion of the words The Apostle is perswading the Philippians here to Unity Love and Peace and particularly to a mutual care and sollicitude for the good and happiness of one another urging them not altogether to employ themselves upon their own private or publick inward or outward Interests but to allow some charitable thoughts towards the Salvation of others Gal. 6.2 to snatch them as firebrands out of the fire agreeably to what he elsewhere advises them to i. e. that they should bear one anothers burdens this kind care he urges them to from the example of him in whom they believed and whose servants they profest themselves to be Who tho' eternally and immutably blest in himself yet out of that infinite love he had to perishing mankind was pleased to take humane nature upon him that in that humane nature he might suffer to atone his Father's displeasure against Sin and Sinners and procure everlasting Salvation for as many as should believe on him that to be of this charitable temper would be much to our advantage he proves by this consideration That God the Father was so highly pleas'd with this action of his Son that he raised even that humane nature in which he suffered to the highest glories and sanctified that very name which his Son assumed as Man and as the Messias to be above every name to be admired reverenced adored by all created beings whatsoever which adorations could only be rendered just and reasonable by that intimate and indissâ—luble union between that humane natuâ—◠〈…〉 eternal God-head If God then so exalâ—â—â—â—â—sus Christ on account of his compassion and tenderness for us he likewise will exalt us if we be kind and tender hearted
our God and to serve Him only We know it 's the common practice of all Professors of Christianity and allowed by our Adversaries to worship our Saviour to adore and pray to him as God We think our selves and the Socinians acknowledge that we may do thus without being guilty of Idolatry therefore our Saviour must be the Supreme God the maker of all things c. therefore He and his Father must be One God and so neither the first nor second Commandment at all trespassed upon in those Adorations We find the worship of Images or any false Gods condemn'd as Idolatry frequently in God's Word We find Holy Men refusing to 〈◊〉 worshipped there and Angels themâ— forbidding any signs of Adoration to be offered to them because they would not trespass upon a Law so notorious both in Scripture and in Nature and this we have spoken off before A Socinian will own that our Saviour knew his Father's Will as well as either Holy Men or Angels that He was as careful to Honour his Father in performing his Will as either of them that He who came to die for the sins of Men in what sense soever would never tempt them to commit Sin Yet we find him allowing that Worship offered to himself express'd by outward humility and prostration which yet was that very reverence which good Men and good Angels had refused as unlawful before Either this Worship was Idolatrous or it was not if it was our Saviour was no better than the Jews thought of him viz. A Cheat and an Impostor one who sought their ruine not their happiness therefore to be sure far enough from being that Messias whose title he pretended to If it was not Idolatry then the worshipping of our Saviour was not worshipping more Gods than one tho' he were worshipped under the notion of God therefore he must be the Supreme God all Divine Worship paid to any other Being being largely proved to be Idolatry before But we have no reason to believe that Men of extraordinary Goodness and Wisdom would ever have given us examples of Idolatry or that God would any way have allowed much less have commanded it That It 's fitting to be done the Racovian Catechism proves from that Joh. 5.22 23. The Father hath given all judgment or government to the Son that all should Honour the Son as they Honour the Father and again from that of the Apostle Phil. 2.9 10 11. Therefore God hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow both of things in Heaven and thirds on earth and things that are under the earth and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord to the glory of God the Father And tho' they are at a doubt whether there be any direct command to worship Him in Scripture yet when we read that of the Apostle Heb 1.6 Ps 97.7 When He brings his first-born into the World He says let all the Angels of God worship him or as our more immediate translation from the present Hebrew Text reads it Worship him all ye Gods and when according to the acknowledgment of Socinus himself in his dispute with Franciscus Davidis that passage Joel 2.32 Rom. 10.13 â—p 721. Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved is applied justly to our Saviour by the Apostle these two passages together appear to be a command strong and forcible enough to oblige every one believing in Christ to call upon his name or to pray to him These are Commands enjoyning us to worship our Saviour even in his Humane Nature but if our Lord and his Father are one God then all those commands which enjoyn the worshipping of one God are so many commands equally obliging us to worship Jesus Christ but supposing a Positive Precept wanting in the case before us tho' we are not to look upon every private Action of a good Man as an obliging Precedent to us yet where we have a Cloud of Witnesses concurring in the case we may reasonably conclude that they would not have worshipped our Saviour so continually meerly to lead us into Error nor would Angels have agreed with them in the practice nor would our Saviour himself have passed them by without a reproof Yet frequently as we find Adorations paid to our Saviour when upon Earth We never find any dissatisfaction in his words and actions Joh. 11.33 He groan'd for the stubbornness and obduracy of Jewish Hearts for their prodigious resolutions not to own him tho' drawing them all with the sacred cords of love and miraculous goodness he wept v. 35. to observe their inflexible and to themselves fatal temper He wept over Jerusalem Luk 19.41 on the dismal prospect of those calamities that wrath to the uttermost which was then hastning upon them Luk. 12.14 He reproved the Man who would needs have made him a temporary Judge or a Divider of Inheritances among them Luk. 22 2â— He reproved his Disciples for their contentions about their future grandeur and seems to check the Man who only called him good Master Mar. 10.17 as if the ascribing Goodness to one whom he took to be a meer Man was too near an encroachment upon the sacred character of the Supreme God And can we imagine he would be so tender in every such little particular and yet so very careless in those important affairs wherein the eternal interests of his followers would be concerned as long as the World endured This is very hard to believe yet that the Concern is so great the late Scribling Arrian owns when to the charge of Blasphemy imputed to his Party for denying the eternal Godhead of the Son and of the Holy Ghost he retorts that question upon us Vindication of Vnitarians p. 3. If you err do not you both blaspheme and commit Idolatry in worshipping the Son and the Holy Ghost as co-equal with the Father We must be guilty of both if they are not but for the Son we hope enough has been or shall be said to prove we are free from danger on that side To clear our own practice yet farther We 'l trace those footsteps our Adversaries themselves have trodden before us and make use of those instances they have laid together on this occaon So the Apostles pray to their Master Lord increase our Faith Luk. 17.5 a Petition of a strange nature to one that was no more than their fellow Creature and so far from any encouraging exaltation in the world that whereas the foxes had holes and the birds of the air had nests He the Son of Man had not so much as where to lay his head How could he give them Faith who could not as it seemed give himself security from worldly persecution but our Lord gives them no check for mislaying their Petition nor does he bid them seek to his Father
whom we believe is the Son and Messenger of God who being the Word before had sometime appear'd in the resemblance of fire sometimes in the form of Angels now at last by the Will of God was made Man for the sake of mankind and for their sakes suffered whatsoever Jewish cruelty and malice could inflict upon him who while they own'd it was God the Creator and maker of all things who spake to Moses in the bush and yet He that there spoke was the Son the Angel the Messenger of God indeed they laid themselves open to that just reproof of our Lord that they neither knew the Father nor the Son We argue too from hence that if it were our Christ who appear'd to Moses in the Bush as Justine affirms and Scripture sufficiently evidences if it were our Christ what name soever he might be call'd by he then was pre-existent or had a real being before he was conceived in the womb of the blessed Virgin therefore he could be no meer Man unless the Socinians can find out the way to satisfie the question of Nicodemus by asserting positively that a Man a meer Man may be born when he is old that he may literally enter again into his mothers womb and be born a-new and can prove it when they have asserted it He could be no Angel that 's denyed in Scripture the Apostle assures us Heb. 2.16 He took not upon him the nature of Angels a speech very idle if he had been an Angel originally if therefore he neither was a meer Man nor a created Angel he was and must be the supreme God Again the same Justine in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew Dial. cum Tryph. Jud. p. 267. l. B. C. when Trypho urges him with his absurd assertion That Christ was God before all ages and yet had condescended to become Man Justine answers him The truth would not therefore be lost if he should fail in his proofs that Christ was the Son of the world's Creator and that he was God because however it had been foretold by the Prophets that he should be so but if I do not prove that He had a being before and then condescended to become Man and took flesh according to his Father's design and determination p. 275. dcinceps it 's only proper to conclude that I am a weak disputant not that he who bore that Character is not the Christ When Trypho afterwards bids him prove that there was or could be another God besides the maker of the Universe the Martyr stumbles not at the proposition but proceeds to prove the thing by that instance of the Lord before whom Abraham stood when the two Angels went forwards towards Sodom and falls again upon the forementioned instance of Christ speaking to Moses in the Bush by both which he proves that the Son is God as well as the Father is God and yet he asserts not two Gods but one God because if two or three Beings are partakers of one divine Nature they must of consequence be one God the divine Nature being indivisible and incapable of degrees or diminution After a large discourse with the Jew he tells him that in the several arguments he had brought he had sufficiently proved that Christ was Lord and God and the Son of God who had appear'd both as a Man p. 357. D. and as an Angel in the burning Bush and at the destruction of Sodom And Trypho all along looks upon him as engag'd in that design of proving Christ to be God not by a figure but in reality He concludes the Scriptures were very express in their evidence that that Christ who had suffered so much at the Jews hands was to be worshipped and was God had he not prov'd the last well that He was God to have asserted the first that he ought to be worshipped would have sounded very harshly in the ears of a Jew But even Trypho himself who thought it prodigious and incredible that God should be born and should condescend to become Man tho' none of the most tractable persons in the world was brought to Agrippa's condition by the zealous Martyr and almost perswaded to be a Christian About the same time lived S. Irenaeus Bishop of Lyons in France one who had been a Hearer of blessed Polycarp who had been himself an Hearer of the Apostles He had certainly the advantage of knowing what was sound and true Doctrine with relation to our Saviour and that from very authentick hands his writings were originally Greek as himself was by Birth tho' employed to preach the Gospel in the parts of France but those Originals are almost all lost and we must necessarily content our selves with their Translation This excellent Father then tells us first what the general Faith of the Church is That the Church believes in one God Iren. adv Haer. l. 1. c. 2. the Father Almighty maker of Heaven and Earth c. and in one Jesus Christ the Son of God incarnate for our Salvation and in the Holy Ghost who among other things has taught us that according to the good pleasure of the invisible Father every knee of things in Heaven and of things on Earth and of things under the Earth should bow to Jesus Christ our Lord our God our Saviour and our King and that every tongue should confess to him and this passage we have in the genuine original and it seems satisfactory enough as to the Faith of the French Church in those days and doubtless was look'd upon by him as the Faith generally embraced by all the true professors of Christianity C. 3. and indeed so he assures us in the following chapter of the same book That the Church spread through the whole world diligently maintains this Faith and observes it as exactly as if they all inhabited in one house they believe it as if they had all one heart and one soul and with a wonderful consent preach it as it were with one mouth We then are safe enough while we believe Jesus Christ to be God since holy Martyrs nay the whole Church of God believed the same truth so long since and making it a part of their publick Creed declared their judgment that so to believe was necessary to eternal Salvation Having afterwards told us what the Apostles have preached and how they have prov'd Him true and that there was no falshood in him he proceeds in the next chapter thus Therefore neither our Lord himself nor the Holy Ghost nor the Apostles would have called any one God absolutely and definitively unless he had really been true God nor would they have called any one Lord in his own person l. 3. c. 6. but only Him who is Lord of all things God the Father and his Son and so he proceeds to enumerate several Texts wherein the name of God and Lord is indifferently given to both the Father and the Son and elsewhere he teaches us c. 18.
tho' it were an inward grace a strengthning of the Soul which they requir'd of him Again when the Disciples were with him on ship-board and during his quiet sleep just sinking by the violence of an angry tempest they in a fright wake their Master and cry out to him Lord save us we perish Mat. 8.25 If our Saviour was a meer Man the Disciples acted with much less sence than Jonah's Mariners who every one in the storm called upon their Gods for help and summoned sleeping Jonas not to save them by His Power but to joyn with them in calling upon his God For was it ever heard before that when a Ship was just sinking or running upon a rock the ship's Crew ran to some poor ignorant Passenger to beg their security from him The Mariners tho' convinced that he was an extraordinary Person made no such application to Saint Paul in a parallel danger it 's God alone who can command the Seas and Winds his permissive Word makes them ruffle the Universe and put Nature into a Consternation the same Word lays them still as in their first Originals ere uncorrupted Nature knew any thing terrible or dangerous In the case before us our Saviour answered them not as that King of Israel did the Woman If the Lord help thee not what can I do But He arose and rebuked the Winds and the Sea and there was a great calm Nature in its greatest hurry own'd his Divine Authority only his Disciples stumbled upon the Question ver 27. What manner of Man is this that even the Winds and the Sea obey him They talked like Men beside themselves with Fear they called upon him for Help as if they had believed him to be God they reflected upon that Deliverance he had given them as if he had been no more than Man but he takes no notice of any error they were in in their first Devotions but by his Mercy encouraged them to do the same again upon a like occasion What the Disciples did here in a storm at Sea that Saint Stephen the first Martyr for Christianity did in a more violent storm of Persecution on Land for when he came to his last Agonies when it was the proper season for a good Man to exert the utmost vigor of his Faith and Charity then for himself and with respect to his own Soul he prays Acts 7.59 Lord Jesus receive my Spirit The frequent expiring Ejaculation of Holy Saints and Martyrs after him Compare now this with that assertion of the wise Man concerning Death Eccles. 12 7. Then shall the Dust return to Earth as it was and the Spirit shall return to God who gave it and the consequence will be either that our Lord Jesus Christ was the great Author or Creator and Giver of the Rational Soul or else that this Holy Martyr then when filled in an extraordinary manner with the Holy Ghost in his extreme hours when commonly Mens apprehensions of futurity are most Clear and Rational talk'd in a very Impertinent and sinful manner to devote his Soul to him who could have no right to it if he were a meer Creature and to forget his God Franciscus Davidis would have us believe here that Stephen did not call upon Jesus Christ but upon God the Father and that we should translate the expression O thou Lord of Jesus receive my Spirit but this Socinus has strongly confuted tho' upon their common Principle of our Saviour's being a meer Creature Franciscus undertakes the much more rational part However here his subterfuge is nothing worth It was Jesus the Son of God He who bore that proper name of Jesus from his Circumcision for whose sake Stephen was now persecuted to Death by the malicious Jews it was the same Jesus whom he saw at the right hand of God when the Heavens opened to give him such a view of future Glory prepared for Martyrs as might support and encourage him under his sufferings it was to him therefore that Stephen applyed himself and sitted himself for a glorious and happy Exit by that admirable Resignation But neither did Saint Stephen stop there but as the utmost effort of a dying Martyr's Charity He adds this to his former ejaculation ver 60. Lord lay not this sin to their charge He certainly designed exemplary Charity in this and to imitate his dying Saviour who prayed his Father to forgive his Murderers for they knew not what they did But the Martyr's enemies would have had little reason to have admir'd his Charity had he presented his Prayers for them to one who had no power to forgive them and the Jews would be as ready now to make the Objection as heretofore Who can forgive sins but God only And if God to whom vengeance belongeth in whose sight the Death of his Saints is precious would certainly avenge the blood of his Saints and Martyrs upon their Persecutors to what purpose was it to pray to him to forgive them who not being the most high God himself could have no Power to forgive those who had sin'd against the most high God so as to give them any security but above all He could never have hoped for any acceptance at the hand of God in any Petition whatsoever had he now in his last extremity been guilty of Idolatry Saint Paul had been made partaker of extraordinary Revelations had been snatch'd up into the third heavens where he had seen and heard things not lawful for a Man to utter 2 Cor. 1â— 7 8 9. indeed things unspeakable lest He should have been exalted above measure thro' the abundance of those Revelations there was given to him a thorn in the flesh the messenger of Satan to buffet him This was a very severe humiliation and Saint Paul was sensible of it and at first as appears by the Text very uneasie under it Saint Paul knew well enough that the best remedy for all calamities was Prayer that Prayers presented to the true God with a sincere heart could not return unfruitful but Saint Paul presently applyes himself to Christ For this cause I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me says he and He said unto me my Grace is sufficient for thee for my strength is made perfect in weakness By the Lord here the Socinians themselves understand our Lord Jesus and therefore alledge this Text as a proof of Pious Mens praying to Christ Now had Saint Paul prayed to Christ for Assistance and Relief in such a case where only the Supreme God could really help him if that Christ were a meer Creature then such a Prayer must be Idolatrous and such Service be called Idolatry wherein the Creature was rather worshipped than the Creator and Christ a Creature must as Lucifer of old have endeavoured to set himself up for a rival God and prosecute a separate Interest of his own and manage and assist his servants in a way of opposition to the most high God and
shall not depart from Judah Page 241 Exod. 4.16 Moses a God to Pharaoh and Aaron his Prophet Page 343 7.1 Moses a God to Pharaoh and Aaron his Prophet Page 343 14.21 They believed in the Lord and in his Servant Moses Page 329 25.22 The Propitiatory or Mercy-seat Page 721 34.7 Forgiving Iniquity Transgression and Sin Page 699 Levit. 16.12 13. Censer of Burning Coals in the Holiest Place Page 726 v. 16. To make an Atonement for the most Holy Place Page 725 2 Kings 3.26 27. King of Moab offering his Son Page 105 2 Chron. 30.18 19 20. Hezekiah's Prayer for the Vnprepared Page 603 Psalm 40.6 7 8. Sacrifice and Burnt-Offerings not desired Page 225 45.2 Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever Page 314 82.6 7. I have said Ye are Gods Page 342 Isaiah 9.6 Vnto us a Child is born a Son is given Page 320 Jeremiah 23.5 6. I will raise unto David a Righteous Branch Page 321 Micah 5.2 Thou Bethlehem Ephrata c. Page 323 Haggai 2.8 The Glory of the Second House greater c. Page 753 Matth. 1.23 Thou shalt call his Name Emanuel Page 325 18.23 The Parable of the Debtors to their Lord. Page 651 28.18 All Power is given to me in Heaven and Earth Page 407 v. 19. In the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost Page 328 Luke 4.29 30. They led him to the Brow of the Hill Page 382 24.45 He open'd their Vnderstandings Page 395 John 1.1 In the beginning was the Word Page 332 3.13 No man hath ascended up into Heaven c. Page 337 5.23 The Father hath committed all Judgment c. Page 202 10.30 I and my Father are One. Page 354 10.34 35 36. Is it not written in your Law Page 558 17 21. That they all may be One as Thou c. Page 358 20.28 My Lord and my God Page 360 Acts 7.59 Lord Jesus receive my Spirit Page 524 Rom. 2.6 God will render to every Man c. Page 124 3.24 25 26. Justified freely by his Grace c. Page 649 703 8.19 20 21 22. The earnest Expectation of the Creature Page 490 9.5 Of whom as concerning the Flesh Christ came Page 370 10.13 Whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord c. Page 203 1 Cor. 1.14 15. Lest any should say I had baptized in my own c. Page 402 10.2 All were baptized into Moses c. Page 329 15.3 Christ died for our Sins Page 693 2 Cor. 5.19 20. Reconciling the World c. Page 648 719 12.7 8 9. For this cause I besought the Lord thrice Page 527 Gal. 3.19 In the hand of a Mediator Page 711 Philip. 2.5 11. Being in the Form of God c. Page 374 Col. 1.24 What was behind of the Afflictions of Christ Page 694 1 Thess 5.17 Pray without ceasing Page 505 Heb. 1.8 9 10. c. When he bringeth his First-Begotten c. Page 314 5.5 Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee Page 549 6.1 2. Leaving the Principles c. Page 184 8.4 If on Earth he should not be a Priest c. Page 733 c. 9. c. 10. Page 689 727 728. 11.1 Faith is the substance of things hoped for c. Page 87 1 Pet. 2.24 Bore our Sins in his own Body on the Cross Page 698. 3.18 He suffered for our Sins the just for the unjust Page 697 1 John 2.1 2. He is the Propitiation for our Sins Page 719 5.7 There are Three that bear Record in Heaven Page 458 v. 20. This is the True God and Eternal Life Page 205 ERRATA PAge 3. l. 5. after Salvation dele p. 5. l. 20. put a Period after Text. l. 30. after Attentatam d. ◠p. 6. l. 3. r. Wissowatius p. 130. in the Margent r. Serrarii p. 142. l. 19. r. seem'd p. 148. l. 31. r. Posterity p. 200. l. 14 r. One p. 209. l. 26. r. really and indeed p. 221. l. 7. r. Paradisiacum p. 239. r. this p. 139. l. 21. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 149. l. 21. d. And. p. 289. l. 29. r. those p. 312. l. 3. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the Margent r. Sandii Hist Eccles Enucl p. 318. l. 6. r. for p. 332. l. 16. r. those p. 336. l. 25. r. Stranger p. 364. l. 29. r. at p. 413. l. 21. r. far p. 448. l. 20. r. Libraries p. 467. l. 22. r. Separation p. 492. l. 26. d. One p. 511. l. 10. r. deliver p. 539. l. 3. r. Lazarus p. 552. l. 31. in Marg. r. Epistolarum p. 602. l. 12. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 609. l. 13. r. Sacrifices p. 666. l. 1. he be p. 690. l. 29. r. Levitical p. 700. in Marg. r. Brixian l. 3. r. curing p. 704. l. 31. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 720. l. 11. r. Catiline p. 752. l. 10. r. Administrator Several smaller Mistakes especially in the Pointing the Reader will easily observe and pass by or correct as fitting Books Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's-Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard TEN Sermons with Two Discourses of Conscience By the Lord Archbishop of York 4 to 's Sermon before the House of Lords Nov. 5. 1691. 's Sermon before the King and Queen on Christmass-Day 1691. 's Sermon before the Queen on Easter-Day 1692. Henrici Mori D. D. Opera omnia Bishop Overal's Convocation-Book 1606. concerning the Government of God's Catholick Church and the Kingdoms of the whole World 4 to Dr Falkner's Libertas Ecclesiastica 8 vo 's Vindication of Liturgies Ibid. 's Christian Loyalty Ibid. Mr. Lamb's Fresh Suit against Independency Ibid. Mr. W. Allen's Tracts Ibid. Bishop Fowler 's Libertas Evangelica Ib. Jovian or an Answer to Julian the Apostate Ibid. Animadversions on Mr. Johnson's Answer to Jovian In Three Letters to a Country Friend Ibid. Turner de Angelorum Hominum Lapsu 4 to Mr. Raymond's Pattern of Pure and Undefiled Religion 8 vo 's Exposition on the Church-Catechism Ibid. Mr. Lamb's Dialogues between a Minister and his Parishioner about the Lord's Supper Ibid. 's Sermon before the King at Windsor 's Sermon before the Lord Mayor 's Liberty of Humane Nature stated discussed and limited 's Sermon before the King and Queen Jan. 19. 1689. 's Sermon before the Queen Jan. 24. 1690. Dr Hickman's Thanksgiving-Sermon before the Honourable House of Commons Oct. 19. 1690. 's Sermon before the Queen at Whitehall Oct. 26. 1690. Dr Burnet's Theory of the Earth 2 Vol. Folio 's Answer to Mr. Warren's Exceptions against the Theory of the Earth 's Consideration of Mr. Warren's Defence 's Telluris Theoria Sacra 2 Vol. 4 to Bishop of Bath and Wells Reflections on a French Testament Printed at Bourdeaux 's Christian Sufferer supported 8 vo Dr Grove now Lord Bishop of Chichester his Sermon before the King and Queen June 1. 1690. Dr Hooper's Sermon before the Queen Jan. 24. 1690 1. Dr Pelling's Sermon before the King and Queen Dec. 8. 1689. 's Vindication of those that have taken the Oaths 4 to Dr Worthington of Resignation 8 vo 's Christian Love Ibid. Religion the Perfection of Man By Mr. Jeffery Ibid. Faith and Practice of a Church of England Man 12º The Fourth Edition Kelsey Concio de Aeterno Christi Sacerdot 's Sermon of Christ Crucified Aug. 23. 1691. Mr. Milbourn's Sermon Jan. 30. 1682. 's Sermon Sept. 9. 1683. An Answer to an Heretical Book called the Naked Gospel which was condemned and order'd to be publickly Burnt by the Convocation of the University of Oxford Aug. 19. 1690. With some Reflections on Dr Bury's new Edition of that Book to which is added a Short History of Socinianism by W. Nichols M. A. c. Two Letters of Advice I. For the Susception of Holy Orders II. For Studies Theological especially such as are Rational At the end of the former is inserted a Catalogue of the Christian Writers and Genuine Works that are Extant of the First Three Centuries By Henry Dodwell M. A. c.
have no proper organs to demonstrate their innate reason by these unhappinesses are all the fatal consequences of sin and we could hardly believe that sin had had any ill consequences at all had not reason suffer'd by it for if we can as really we do observe that reason teaches every one who now adverts seriously to it to aim at quiet and happiness so had not sin clouded it strangely it had been impossible any temptation whatsoever contrived by Hell or its emissaries could have baffled it But it 's plain that by our present incapacities to answer the sophistry of the tempter we are continually betray'd to sin reason in its height and purity would have convinced us of the madness and folly of every thing that 's ill reason as it now stands perverted suffers us unless prevented with a great deal of industry to embrace ill under the notion of good and it 's no small argument of a great weakness in our rational faculties to be so impos'd on We oftentimes now entertain our capital adversary the Devil as an angel of light we misprise vice for virtue falshood for truth sophistry for solid arguments novelty for antiquity superstition for devotion noise for sense interest for zeal confidence for great parts and ingenuity and reason it self as now it stands when we have a few lucid intervals shews us the extreme ridiculousness of those mistakes and the abilities which some have to expose the follies of others and at the same time to betray their own is unanswerable evidence of the imbecillity of humane reason in general It 's doubtless possible for some of excellent constitutions to argue themselves into a strong perswasion that there is a God It 's again possible nay we see it too too common for men of delicate intellectuals to pretend to answer all the arguments brought to prove the being of a God and they do it so plausibly as to get proselytes and to make abundance of room for horrid Atheism We make no question but that we have proofs really unanswerable of the Divinity of the Son of God the Socinians with whom we are now concern'd deny it and pretend to demonstrations of the contrary and all from principles of reason or Scriptures rationally interpreted and many well meaning men think they are in the right and therefore close with them These oppositions of Reason could never have happen'd had the Soul or mind enjoy'd its original freedom and activity for nothing could possibly have been offer'd in opposition to reason wholly clear and perfect that having been incapable of stooping to mean arts and trifling sophistry But we need indeed no more but to reflect a little on our first Parents and on our selves to prove the truth of this conclusion It 's impossible to overlook the prodigious difference there was between Adam as a knowing Monarch giving names to all Creatures according to their natures and Adam sowing Fig-leaves together to hide his nakedness from Creatures whom some conclude irrational and flying to the shelter of the Trees of Eden for a security from the presence of an all-seeing God one argued excess of wisdom the other the extravagance of folly and for our selves as the Jews proved themselves dull and senseless who could not be convinced or reduced by him who spake as never man spake so we cannot without extreme difficulty find any impressions of good made on our Souls by the most forcible discourses whereas reason in its primitive glory could admit of nothing but what was holy just and good all this notwithstanding we conclude That Humane reason corrupted as it is has yet so much of light and strength as to shew and convince us of a general necessity of Religion This we assert of the light of nature which really is nothing but meer reason as it stands at present affected Now if the works of nature are such as according to the assertion of the Apostle do evidence the Almighty's power and Godhead this evidence must be clear to somewhat that 's able to comprehend it and if it be so very full and plain that they who neglect it are altogether inexcusable then that reason which we now enjoy which alone is capable of apprehending natural evidence must still have that strength that those who by its conduct cannot find out a God and their general duty to him are therefore not to be excus'd God has made the World and all things therein and gives to all life and breath Acts 17.24 25 26 27. and all things and has made of one blood all Nations to dwell upon the Earth that they might seek the Lord if haply they might feel after him and find him but it would have been very ill argued of the Apostle from such Topicks if such observations had not really been enough to guide those who search after God to make a discovery of him And here the Socinians seem to act by very strange measures they conclude as before I observ'd from Smalcius that there 's nothing to be admitted into Religion but what 's agreeable to reason but we cannot tell what 's agreeable to reason unless we can fully and clearly comprehend it for otherwise we may be mistaken and suppose that agreeable to reason which really is not so But at the same time Socinus himself looks upon the light of nature as not sufficient to impress on Man the notion of a God Socin praelect Theol. c. 2 but will have that general opinion of the existence of God to flow only from traditional knowledge or from revelation yet after this assertion of his Crellius one of the most learned of his followers and defenders goes about in his Book de Deo ejus attributis to demonstrate the being of a God from the works of the Creation But if Man has not sense enough by considering the works of nature to argue to the being of a God such a demonstration is extremely impertinent Socinus would prove his opinion among other things by that of the Apostle He that comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him which is prefaced with that That without faith it is impossible to please God Heb. 11.6 But this is no proof at all for Men may by considering circumstances come to the acknowledgment of some supreme power and yet never believe in him nor ever own or practise their duty to him and therefore St. Paul takes notice of some holding the truth in unrighteousness who when they knew God glorified him not as God tho' they were convinced of his existence they were not careful to perform the duty of Creatures or servants to a Supreme Creator they were not thankful but became vain in their Imaginations Rom. 1.21 and their foolish hearts were darkned c. Now those St. Paul there reflects on were Heathens in general who being under a necessity of believing that there was a God by rational discourse
the latter part of the verse for let us with Grotius by the mystery of godliness understand the Gospel as we commonly understand it and which we own does contain the mystery of godliness That the Gospel was preach'd by weak Men we own nay that our Saviour himself in his state of exinanition or in his humane nature appear'd weak and contemptible enough we own too but that the Gospel appear'd in the flesh or cloath'd with flesh which is the proper import of the Apostles phrase we deny as absurd That the Gospel was justified in or by the Spirit the miraculous effusions of that confirming the truth of the Gospel preach'd we may own well enough but that the Gospel was seen of Angels is scarce sence that it was never known before it had been declar'd by Men is false for the Angels could not be unacquainted with the several Prophecies of the old Testament concerning the Messias to come nor could they be so far to seek in the meaning of those Prophecies many of which they had been instrumental in delivering and the Angels themselves were indeed the first preachers of the Gospel So the Angel Gabriel tells Zacharias concerning the Son that should be born to him Many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children Luke 1.16 17. and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. The same Gabriel afterwards tells the blessed Virgin Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and shalt bring forth a Son and shalt call his name Jesus v. 31 32 33. He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the highest and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever and of his kingdom there shall be no end It was an Angel that appear'd to Joseph in a dream Matth. 1.20 21. and told him that his espoused wife was with child of the Holy Ghost And she shall bring forth a Son says he and thou shalt call his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins Again an Angel of the Lord tells the Shepherds who were watching their flocks by night Luke 2.10 11 13 14. Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. To which Gospel a whole Choir of Angels subjoyned their Eucharistical Hymn Glory be to God on high in earth peace good will towards men These instances are enough to prove that Angels knew the Gospel before men preacht it not to mention their administring to our Saviour in the wilderness when entring on his prophetical Office and their publishing his resurrection the great confirmation of the Gospel before his Apostles had any apprehensions of it The Gospel was indeed preach'd unto the Gentiles and believ'd on in the World but it was far from being receiv'd in glory for it was scorn'd and derided and cruelly persecuted both by Jews and Gentiles the Devil raising all the powers in the world as far as possible for the extirpation of what was so great an enemy to his Tyranny the Gospel then will not answer all those particular marks set down in the Text. Neither yet are they applicable to God the Father as several of the Socinians would have them for to say God the Father was manifest in the flesh because his will was preach'd by Men who were but flesh and blood besides that such an assertion quits the Suppositum or Subject which was God the Father unless God and Gods will be one and the same thing which cannot be asserted It 's so uncouth an expression as is no where to be parallel'd either in Scripture or any Ecclesiastical Writer We read not any where that God the Father ever appear'd in the flesh or assum'd Humane nature nor did ever any dream of such a thing unless we recur to the ancient Patropassians so call'd because they believ'd it was really God the Father who being Incarnate suffer'd death on the Cross for the sins of Mankind but of that we have no foot-steps in holy Writ nor was the Deity it self ever made manifest in the flesh but in the flesh of the blessed Jesus Col. 2.9 in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily not in his doctrine as the Socinians would have it but in himself Vid. Schlicktin in loc and according to their own demands on the like occasion we would have them shew us some other clear place of Scripture wherein God the Father is said to be manifest in the flesh or to be manifest in Christ and the Apostles and then we may the better consent to their interpretation Again it 's as odd and unusual to say God the Father was justified in the Spirit for what need was there of any such justification his Eternal Power and Godhead were visible in the Universal fabrick of nature and all the Miracles done by our Saviour which Socinians refer to the influence of the Spirit were done that Men might know he was the promis'd Messias and those done by the Apostles after his ascent into Heaven carry'd along with them the same respect but we never heard of any publick declaration made by the Spirit for a more peculiar conviction of the World that the most High God was God indeed or the true God we may understand things thus as the Socinians say but we may a great deal better let it alone and not run into such interpretations of God's Word as we can neither reconcile to truth nor sense If we go farther the matter is not mended at all when we say God the Father was seen of Angels for what novelty was there in that had not they stood continually before his face from the instant of their first Creation or should we flie to God's will was not that known to his peculiar Ministers till such time as they came to learn it by the preaching of mortal men who can imagine so short a Text of Scripture and design'd to make known the greatest mystery in the world should lash out into such absolute impertinencies but to proceed God the Father was preach'd to the Gentiles but where he 's mention'd often doubtless as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in those Epistles written by the Apostles to their Gentile Converts but the Gospel it self is stil'd the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Apostles pretend to preach nay to know nothing among their Converts but Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 2.2 and him crucified as St. Paul expresses himself if we must say God the Father was preach'd he was certainly preach'd most to the Antediluvian World by Noah and the elder Patriarchs or he was preach'd
to the Jews of whom we acknowledge that they had no such distinct notions of the Trinity as we by the Gospels assistance have at present but yet both among Jews and Gentiles he was declar'd by other names than that of God the Father and if according to our common Logical notions Relatives do mutually suppose or remove one another if Jesus Christ was not really and actually the Son of God pre-existent to his incarnation the name of Father could not properly have been apply'd to the supreme God nor he be preach'd to the World under that character so that in fine we conclude that the preaching of God the Father to the World was no part of the Mystery of Godliness Nor is it properly so to say that God the Father was believ'd on in the World for that too was nothing newly effected by the appearance of our Saviour the World in general from its first original believ'd there was a God if there were any who from those apprehensions they had of the existence of a God set themselves to live virtuously as considering that God under the notion of a knowing and severe Judge and one capable of rewarding men according to their works such Persons believ'd in God according to our own sense when we repeat the Creed Now that some did thus believe before our Saviour's appearance in the flesh is unquestionable all those who liv'd religiously before the promulgation of the Mosaic Law did thus believe in God and are some of them remembred as the great Heroes of Faith in the beginning of the Eleventh Chapter to the Hebrews If then this were a Mystery it was of a very ancient standing and discovered long before the coming of Christ The application of the particulars thus far failing we have some reason to believe that neither will the last agree any better to that imposed sense He was received up in glory or into glory Here our adversaries flie to God's will again so confounding God and God's will as if they were not to be considered as distinct but this we have consider'd before where we observed that contradiction the Gospel met with in the World As to God the Father where or when or how or by whom was he receiv'd up in glory the holy Scriptures give us no intimation of his having descended at any time from Heaven to Earth and He that 's receiv'd up into glory ought to be so receiv'd by some Being superior to himself which a Socinian knows God the Father cannot have now as the Apostle teaches us He that descended Eph. 4.10 is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens that he might fill all things but God the Father never that we hear of in Scripture descended therefore God the Father who ever of himself was surrounded with infinite glory never was by any receiv'd up into glory And thus have we shown the vanity of those glosses which the Socinians and others have fixt upon this Text we shall now show to whom the particulars in the Text do properly and unquestionably belong And here since Scripture makes it very plain that the whole method of serving God in an acceptable manner is laid down by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ That as himself tells us He is the Way the Truth John 14.6 and the Life and no man comes to the Father but by him The whole mystery of Godliness or of true Christian Religion can consist in nothing but what refers to him who is the author of it that is the blessed Jesus concerning whom and whose doings and sufferings for us there is nothing reveal'd in the Gospel or in the foregoing prophecies but what 's mysterious He was indeed God manifest in the flesh God blessed for ever yet for the sake of wretched Sinners descending to Earth and taking our Nature upon him being cloth'd with flesh and all those incumbrances and infirmities attending upon a mortal state sin onely excepted He is that eternal Word which was in the begining with God nay that Word that was God John 1.1.14 and that Word was made flesh and dwelt among us as we learn from St. John Now if Christ really was God the most opinionative of the Socinians would conclude the Text plain enough for that Christ was certainly and literally made flesh but if we cannot read this Text of the Apostle truly without inserting the word God And Smalcius one of the great promoters of the Socinian heresie declares Smalc de verbo incarnato c. 18. Nos Graecum textum Vulgatae longe esse anteponendum censemus is vero habet Deum in carne esse manifestatum We look upon the Greek Text as far to be preferr'd before the Vulgar Latine and the Greek reads it God was manifest in the flesh and if neither the Gospel nor the will of God nor God the Father can properly or truly be said to be made flesh and yet God was manifest in the flesh then that Jesus who was truly and literally cloth'd with our flesh must be that God the farther proof of Christ's real and eternal Divinity belongs to another place but his true and indisputable humanity is the first plain and most obvious assertion of the Apostle here This same blessed Jesus was as plainly justified in the Spirit since not onely the miracles he did justified him in the sight of all Mankind and prov'd that he could be no cheat or Impostor as the Jews were willing to have him thought but at the time of his Baptism by John in Jordan while he was praying the Heaven was open'd and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a Dove upon him and a voice came from Heaven which said Thou art my beloved Son Luke 3.21 22. in thee I am well pleas'd Now the Holy Spirit would not in so open a manner have descended on him who had pretended to that relation to Allmighty God which really never belong'd to him Therefore John the Baptist makes a right inference from that descent I saw says he Joh. 1.32 the Spirit descending from Heaven like a Dove and it abode upon him And I knew him not v. 33 34. but he that sent me to baptize with water the same said unto me Vpon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost And I saw and bare record that this is the Son of God Our Lord himself makes it one of his last instructions to his Disciples that when the Comforter that Holy Spirit whom he would send should come he should amongst other things convince the world of righteousness because He the blessed Jesus went to his Father and the world should see him no more c. 16. v. 8. 10 14. and that that Holy Spirit should glorifie him for he should receive of his and shew it to men And thus effectually that Sacred Spirit when he was so plentifully according to promise pour'd out
before it was a sure sign of some extraordinary Person intended it gives us the very name proper to our Jesus as he was the Son of God Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son Isai 7.14 and shall call his name Immanuel where the thing foretold is so much a miracle that it cannot be believed to have occurr'd more than once in the World nay the prodigiousness of the thing has made some great pretenders to reason endeavour to weaken the very authority of Scripture it self from the impossibility of the thing foretold And the Jews have endeavour'd to affix a large sense upon the Text as if no more was meant than barely That a Woman should be with Child and so the miracle is wholly taken away But all these little stratagems of unbelievers have fail'd and the very Name added would convince considerate Men of some great thing design'd since a meer Man or one coming into the World according to the ordinary course of nature could not be truly call'd Immanuel or God with us This declaration of the Evangelical Prophet as He 's justly call'd is soon follow'd by another of the same nature For unto us a Child is born Isai 9 6 7. unto us a Son is given and the Government shall be upon his shoulders and his name shall be call'd Wonderful Counseller the mighty God the everlasting Father the Prince of peace of the increase of his Government there shall be no end upon the Throne of David and upon his Kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever In all which the Prophet seems to write a perfect History of things past he speaks with that assurance and confidence as if he had seen that hope of Israel born into the World and wholly ecstatick in his contemplation of so infinite a blessing bestow'd on the World he fixes such Titles upon him as were compatible with no meer man nay he makes him God an Infinite an everlasting God the Vniversal Monarch of Earth and Heaven yet leaves him drest in flesh and blood at last a Child born a Son given to us miserable perishing Creatures But Isaiah's reflections on the promised Saviour are so many as not to be instanced in more particularly we may just name that Isai 11.1 And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him the spirit of wisdom and understanding the spirit of Counsel and might the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord with righteousness shall he judge the poor and reprove with equity for the meek of the Earth and he shall smite the Earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked and more to that purpose which St. Paul in his discourse to the Antiochians in Pisidia alludes to And that again Acts 13.22 22 24. The voice of him that crieth in the Wilderness Prepare ye the way of the Lord make streight in the desert an high-way for our God every Valley shall be exalted and every Mountain and Hill shall be made low and the crooked shall be made streight and the rough places plain â—â—i 40.3.4 5. and the glory of the Lord shall be reveal'd and all flesh shall see it together for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it which John the Baptist applies to himself and his Master Joh. 1.23 Such is the whole fifty-third Chapter a compleat though compendious Chronicle of our Saviour from his Cradle to his Tomb happily read by the Aethiopian Eunuch since from thence the Evangelist Philip took occasion to preach to him Jesus Acts 8.34 35. Such that The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted to proclaim liberty to the Captives and the opening of the Prison to them that are bound Isai 61.1 2. Luk. 4.17 18 19. to proclaim the acceptable Year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God apply'd to himself by our Saviour Agreeably to these Predictions the Prophet Jeremy foretels Behold the days come saith the Lord that I will raise to David a righteous branch and a King shall reign and prosper Jerem. 23.5 6. and shall execute judgment and righteousness in the Earth in his days Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell safely and this is the name whereby he shall be call'd The Lord our righteousness Which is again repeated by him Jer. 33.15 16. To the same purpose Ezekiel I will save my Flock and they shall be no more a prey and I will set up one Shepherd over them and he shall feed them even my servant David he shall feed them and he shall be their Shepherd and I the Lord will be their God Ezek 34.22 23 24. and my servant David a Prince among them I the Lord have spoken it Which is repeated and enlarged Ezek. 37. 21 ad fin Daniel yet more plainly I saw in the night visions and behold one like the Son of Man came with the Clouds of Heaven and came to the Ancient of days and they brought him near before him And there was given him dominion and glory and a Kingdom Dan. 7.13 14. that all People Nations and Languages should serve him his dominion is an everlasting Dominion which shall not pass away Rev. 14 14. and his Kingdom that which shall not be destroy'd Which St. John alludes to not to mention any thing of Daniel's weeks Micah gives us that Thou Bethlehem Ephratah though thou be little among the thousands of Judah Mica 5.2 yet out of thee shall he come forth to me that is to be ruler in Israel Matt. 2.6 whose goings forth have been from of old from everlasting which those Priests Herod afterwards enquired of could remember very well And lastly Malachi as plain as any Mat. 3.1 Behold I will send my messenger and he shall prepare the way before me and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddainly come to his Temple even the Messenger of the Covenant whom ye delight in behold he shall come saith the Lord of hosts These are a few of that very great number of Prophecies which rais'd the expectation of the Jews for the appearance of a Saviour whom they expected as a mighty temporal Prince not considering that the things foretold of him were beyond the atchievments of the greatest Potentate in the world For to be the great messenger of that Covenant which was between God and his people and at the same time the God whom they sought and whose their Temple was who yet were taught to worship only the true God to be the glory of a private town as of Bethlehem yet of an eternal original with respect to the time past
and the worlds everlasting head and governour with respect to the time to come to be a David a man after God's own heart who should do all his will after David's natural death to be infinitely happy just compassionate Anointed by the sacred Spirit of God to have the greatest of those born of a woman his harbinger and by him acknowledged for a God tho' shaded from vulgar eyes by a cloud of humane frailty the mighty God the everlasting Father the Prince of Peace yet a child a Son brought forth in the world and given to us To be born of a pure and spotless Virgin so Man yet the hopes of all the ends of the earth and of those that remain in the broad Sea and so God To be despis'd by the great and wise yet the great Center of Vnity for all the Nations in the World To be at once David's Son and David's Lord and seated at the right hand of God To terminate all material typical sacrifices in his own flesh and unlimited obedience yet to be own'd by God himself as his only begotten Son and heir to the government of all things To surpass their admir'd Moses as a Master his Servant in the Prophetick gift and an intimate familiarity with God To be the utter ruine of Idolatry that seed which should be the blessing and therefore the desire of all nations that seed which should break the head ruine the policy and Tyranny of that old Serpent the Devil To be a real and visible Man yet our Immanuel God with us which is the summ of all those Prophecies and Promises To be all these things is not consistent with a temporal Monarch whose breath is in his nostrils tho' all the nations in the World ador'd him The absolute conquest over prevailing wickedness the triumph over Death and Hell and all the obstacles of a blessed Immortality the redemption of a guilty world from impendent vengeance by a swift and entire obedience to the Almighty Will the making up that prodigious Chasme between an infinitely pure and holy Deity and a depraved and provoking world are thoughts and enterprises too vast and glorious to be undertaken by any child of Man therefore whosoever it was that all those mighty things should be accomplished in whosoever should be so infinitely beloved by Heaven and so prodigious a Benefactor to mankind must be according to those titles fixt upon him the Son of God his Son in a true literal sence and as such he may really be capable of doing more for us than we our selves can ask or think The blessed Jesus as I intimated before was not only the expectation of Israel but the desire of all nations and therefore promis'd to all nations in the forecited passages as well as them and tho' the Jews were not so good natur'd as to be very Communicative of their divine treasures yet the Gentiles who had their concerns in so just an hope had their predictions too and tho' not so clearly foresaw the approaching days of their Redeemer the elder Prophecies such as that to our first Parents in Paradise or that to Abraham might get abroad into the world the prophecies themselves being originally known to others as well as those whom they more immediately concern'd and that passage of Job I know that my redeemer liveth Job 19.25 26.27 and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth and tho' after my skin worms destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God whom I shall see for my self and mine eyes shall behold and not another tho' my reins be consumed within me is a sufficient evidence that those who lived without the pale of Jacob's family were sensible of what they wanted and that their hopes were reasonable that those wants should be supplied and Balaam's predictions being heard by Moabites strangers to Israel were without all question taken great notice of by the heathen nations Hence arose the fame of the Sibylline Oracles talked of so much by antient writers and by what we find spoken of 'em by Tully De Divinat l. 2. and transcribed from them by Virgil sufficient to raise mens expectations and desires for some very great and happy event hence grew those common discourses of the Gods descending in humane shapes to converse with and instruct men Which shewed mens general apprehensions of the love of the Deity to mankind of the possibility of an Incarnation and the useful consequences it might have for the reformation of corrupt nature Hence that prophetick advice of Confutius the famous Chinese Philosopher who liv'd 550. years before our Saviour's birth tâ—â— Prince to be virtuous Huetii Demonstr Evang. Prop. 7. c. 32. for says he The actions of a good Prince ought to be agreeable to the Laws of God and Nature and he should not doubt but that when that expected holy One shall come his virtue shall then be as much honour'd as it was before while he lived and reign'd And I cannot but think it reasonable to conclude that Balaam's prophecy might be known there and better preserved by their learning so antient among them than in other places and that excited by that the wise Men came from thence to worship our Saviour at his birth especially since the length of a journey from thence seems most agreeable to Herod's calculation when to be sure of reaching the new born King He killed all the children in Bethlehem and its coasts Matth. 2.1 2 9 10. from two years old and under according to the time that he had diligently enquired of the wise men About our Saviour's time and before and after for a while a rumour was spread abroad every where that One should be born in Judea who should be the Vniversal Monarch as Suetonius in the life of Augustus and in that of Vespasian and Tacitus in the fifth book of his Histories tells us which fame Josephus the Jewish Historian laid hold on to flatter with Vespasian and to get his own liberty by perswading him the prophetick rumour pointed him out for the Roman Empire Here again That ever-living Redeemer that glorious child who should reduce the frame of Nature to so happy a condition after all the disorders it had suffered who should banish sin and wickedness That look'd for Holy One who should give virtue its due reward that Jewish native who should command the humble world must of necessity be concluded somewhat more than Man by the longing Expectants He must be God to effect such wonders and yet must be a Man to be a native of Judaea he must have humane nature to be born with into the world and to converse with men and to take away the very smallest footsteps and tracks of Sin he must at least be partaker of Divinity thus all the Prophecies both among Jews and Gentiles conclude in a necessity that the worlds Redeemer from that misery and those dangers it lay under must at least be the
Host of Angels was rapturous as the Prophet had been before for when one of that heavenly Chorus had told the watchful Shepherds Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all People Luke 2 10.11 v. 14. for unto You is born this day in the City of David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord Presently the whole Quire in a joyful transport prais'd God and said Glory to God on high and on Earth peace and good will towards Men and his being really born of the House and Lineage of David gave him a claim sufficient to an Interest in that Prophecy that the Messias should be a rod out of the stem of Jesse and a branch out of his roots and whereas a voice in the Wilderness was to cry before our Saviour's preaching in publick Prepare ye the way of the Lord c. No sooner was John the Baptist born who was Christ's forerunner both in birth and in that work too but his inspir'd Father Zachary declares of him Thou Child shalt be call'd the Prophet of the Highest for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways Luke 1.76 77. to give knowledge of Salvation to his people for the remission of their sins The Messias was to be the Prince of Peace according to the Prophets and he eventually prov'd himself so when he made his first entrance into the World in the time of the most universal peace the World had known the swelling Roman Empire was then in a profound calm within it self after all those Civil broyls which had almost torn out its bowels before and it was at peace with all its Neighbours round about which had not happened of several Centuries before in such a juncture what could rationally have been expected but what was suitably great and wholly extraordinary That subtle old Serpent began to feel his influence even before his birth when all those stratagems of his whereby he was wont to embroil Mankind were broken he saw too easily that fatal off-spring of the Woman which should break his head ruine his arbitrary Tyranny and Power and easily dissolve those seemingly irrefragable chains whereby he formerly had miserably enslav'd humane nature This was that great and glorious King which God himself in spite of all the tumultuary insults and oppositions of terrene powers in conjunction with infernal malice setled upon his holy Hill of Zion It was He concerning whom so many gracious promises were made as upheld the Church of old under those many dangers difficulties and oppressions it was ordinarily engag'd in God knew and pitied his Peoples calamities and had promis'd that he would find out an adequate remedy for their extreme necessities this they believ'd they knew that God who had promis'd was truth it self and could not disagree with himself and therefore when their condition was most cloudy they saw the day of their Redeemer at a distance and were glad and resolv'd though God kill'd them they would yet trust in him This hope and confidence made them patiently endure the torture not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection resolving never to quit the hope of Israel their faith in the Messiah that they with him suffering for the faith in him might rise again to the resurrection of Salvation But as the blessed Jesus was that Star himself which Balaam had foretold should arise in Jacob so a Star attended his Birth not onely shining like the Pillar of Fire in the Night but giving a surer guidance than the cloudy Pillar in the day time leading the observing Sages from the utmost quarters of the East to give an Alarm to the Jews and make them curious too in observing the signs of the times that they might be sure not to miss at last when he should come of Him whose coming they had expected so long And indeed the Priests and Rulers and Herod nay and all Jerusalem were troubled Matt. 2.3 and disturb'd at that happy news which should have been their greatest joy and satisfaction The chief Priests and Scribes trembled to think if that were true that their imposing upon the People with a spiritual Tyranny and Hypocritical sanctity would be at an end Herod was justly startled at the name of a King as Princes are generally very jealous of Competitors in Empire and the Inhabitants of Jerusalem who had often felt Herod's fierce and bloody temper before might justly fear an Inquisition to be made among them for this young Claimer Herod yet of all the rest had the deepest impressions of fear and passion made upon himself which when the Wise men had deluded him he vented upon the miserable Bethlehemites The poor laborious Shepherds receiv'd the News with calmer minds they had no Governments no Interests to lose but liv'd in harmless Peace and humble content in ignoble Cottages and if their Flocks did well they 'd ne'er be concern'd in the cares of Kings and Potentates therefore they flew eagerly to the Presence of their Saviour and agreed with the Eastern Sages in their Prudence not esteeming the new-born Infant according to the meanness of his circumstances but according to the glorious presages and indications of his Birth-right So happy are the lowliest minds and so much more capable of Divine impressions than those distracted with the thoughts of worldly grandeur So much more suitable they are to him who tells us He was meek and lowly in spirit not puft up with the Hosanna's nor yet dejected with the Crucifiges of the impetuous and variable multitude but though Herod were angry and raged God would not permit his madness to take place chearful Angels were ever ready to wait their Master's errands and they warn'd Joseph of the impendent danger so opening the way to the accomplishment of every word of God for when Joseph fled into Aegypt for security whose low condition in the World made him both unsuspected to the Jewish frontier guards and to his Aegyptian entertainers who little suspected that a mighty King enter'd under their Roofs under the tutelage of a contemptible Mechanick or that a little harmless Infant conceal'd a God when this was done an Angel too in due time gave Joseph such intelligence as put an end to his voluntary banishment and yet things were ordered so that upon the news of Herod's Son's reign Joseph turn'd aside to Nazareth instead of returning to Bethlehem that so the Son of God might at once be call'd out of Aegypt and be stiled a Nazarene that no Prophetical circumstance or Punctilio might be wanting to his Birth which was necessary to convince the World of his being that real Messias which had been so long promised to the Fathers from all which it was no wonder that Christ himself afterwards referred the Unbelieving Jews to these very Considerations Joh. 5.39 Search the Scriptures says He for in them ye think ye have Eternal Life and they are they which testifie of me Now
that He who before his appearance in the flesh had been the Author of a strong and impregnable faith in God's people and who created such fears and made such terrible concussions in the souls of wicked and ungodly men that he who when born was to do things beyond the utmost reach of any thing but Omnipotence to do a Creator's work and restore all the decays of ruined Nature that he should make his entrance into the world in a miraculous manner was rationally to be expected since the causes in supernatural as well as other things must be proportioned to the effects And certainly to any thing but a Jew these prodigious appearances at the birth of our Saviour would have signified as much as golden Scepters and imperial Diadems and all the gaudy shews of victories and conquests and especially it should have been so since the Jews themselves stupid as they were expected wonders in and at his birth but above all things their behaviour was strange to him in that if the Messias were to be the King of the Jews themselves the Jews themselves as his Subjects should with the first have submitted to him by which means if any he might have grown formidable to their enemies and have as they expected restored the kingdom again to Israel whereas indeed John 1.11 He came to his own but his own received him not So that if he must have been so great and victorious his Conquest must have been made at first upon his native rebels before he could have spread the terror of his arms abroad They who expected only a Man tho' very great to appear should have look'd for no such effects of his appearance but what might justly have consisted with humanity armies are not wont to grow like Mushrooms in a night and those who cannot have the assistance of their Subjects for their own good can scarce expect suitable supports from others to carry on or secure the interests of ingrates or rebels If any thing of worldly greatness were indeed to have been expected at the Messiah's advent it should have been that in so depraved an age of the world he should have come attended with miraculous vengeance to destroy the adversaries of divine goodness and their own happiness That Those his enemies who would not admit that he should reign over them should have been brought out and slain before his face But on the contrary as his design was Mercy so he came in a way proportioned to it the lenity and softness of his ingress into a sinkking and undeserving world was wholly astonishing Born as it was foretold of a pure and spotless Virgin a descent agreeable to that prodigious innocence apparent in his life and converse and according to the very tendencies of nature more likely to incline to pity and compassionate tenderness of the miseries of others such a temper being the ornament as well as the expected companion of a Virgin state He was born a King that he might with the greater intention study the good of his Subjects yet born in a low and contemptible estate that he might the better instruct the too aspiring sons of Men that all the most substantial greatness is founded in humility He was not wellcom'd into the world with the dreadful shouts of conquering armies but with the softer Hallelujah of joyful Angels gentle and kind Spirits whose triumphs were rais'd not from the dismal groans of an impenitent tortured world but that glory arising to God's eternal Name from that peace brought down by him to earth and that good will which was then undeniably demonstrated toward the sinful children of men His Birth was not first notified to Kings or Emperors or other worldly Grandees that they might have cast their Crowns at the feet of him who lives for ever and ever but to innocent and toyling Shepherds who were watching their flocks by night Men whose veracity none could reasonably suspect and who could have no bye perverse design of their own to carry on no intreagues to manage by imposing cheats and shams upon the credulous who were the most proper witnesses of his Birth who himself fed his flock like a shepherd Isal 40.11 who gathered the Lambs with his arm and carried them in his bosom gently leading those that were with young as it was predicted of him Nor was the Royal Palace of a Monarch honoured with his nativity but a mean and scorn'd stable to shew That God had chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which were mighty and that the base things of this world and things which are despised were chosen by God and things which are not to bring to nought things which are 1 Cor. 1.27 28 2â— that no flesh should glory in his presence and yet that it might not be pretended that He who was rightful Monarch of the world wanted the due acknowledgments of his Sovereignty and divinity too from his wiser and more considerate vassals the Eastern wise Men whom yet we dare not with those Legendary Authors conclude to have been Kings made their Presents to him of Gold Frankincense and Myrrhe proper offerings to so extraordinary a person and sufficiently divulged both his birth and title tho' that interstice of time between his birth and preaching publickly made all those premonitions forgotten But was he meerly as he was esteemed the Son of an inconsiderable tradesman in Israel of a poor person thrust into the stable of an Inn to give place to his Superiors was it a slighted infant the companion of beasts it may be at his nativity and beneath the notices of Men of birth and fortune was it such a one that could be born by divine operation of an untouch'd Virgin of the sacred royal Line was it such a one that was receiv'd into the world with the homage of blessed Angels attended with a prodigious Star at his birth adored by humble foreigners blest and admired by Judaean Saints and holy Men Could such a one employ the dreams visions revelations and the calmer studies of so many inspir'd Prophets both among the Jews and Gentiles employ the care of active Angels for his preservation from the malignant fury of envious powers and the happy Pens of faithful Evangelists to transmit the series of his glorious actions as well as the account of his miraculous birth to inquisitive ages Could such a one be the Prince of Peace the everlasting God the infinitely wise Counseller that blessed seed in whom all the nations of the World should be blest that rock of Ages on which was fixt the faith of the Prophets and Patriarchs the Saints and Martyrs of old so firmly that neither the force nor subtilty of Men or Devils could prevail against them No these were works only fit for a divine Being to undertake nothing but God could be so waited on by humble and acknowledging nature nothing but God could so strongly affect the hearts of holy Men to raise the
his converse with the World in our Nature From the Faith of the Primitive Church From that common and on every hand approved practice of adoring and presenting our prayers to Him Then We are to consider that account the Scriptures of the Old Testament give of Him and of his Appearance in the World where I will not undertake an exact estimate of every thing that has by Ancient Writers been apply'd that way nor every thing that Modern Controversie-Writers have insisted upon but upon some particular and more remarkable passages onely Among which the First is that of three Angels appearing to Abraham just before the destruction of Sodom Gen. 18.2 where I shall not insist on that that Abraham ran to meet them at their approach and bow'd himself toward the ground because I look upon that and the consequent words as onely expressions of kindness and hospitality suitable to the custome of that Age and Country and to that respect a Person of Abraham's goodness and sagacity would express to Strangers of a promising miene and venerable aspect But after this v. 22. we find the Angels going for Sodom but Abraham standing still before the Lord Two onely went forward so Lot in Sodom met with and entertain'd but Two the Third continued still with Abraham with infinite condescension declaring to him the reason of this extraordinary appearance upon Earth this favour hindred not the design but the other Two pass'd on while Abraham had the liberty to argue the case with him who is particularly stil'd the Lord so the Writer so Abraham in that converse frequently stiles him and that not by the same word originally which Lot made use of to the two Angels appearing to him c. 19.2 which is onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Jews account a name applicable to any but by that sacred and ineffable name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A name as they say onely applicable to the most High God and here we find Abraham continually speaking as any who ownes and reveres the Eternal Majesty of God would supplicate to Him and making use of that particular argument in his request Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do right c. 18.25 He then to whom Abraham apply'd himself was the Judge of all the Earth therefore no created Angel for such were never honour'd with that Character but it 's properly attributed to the Supreme God by the Psalmist Ps 94.1 2. O God to whom vengeance belongeth shew thy self lift up thy self thou Judge of the Earth and by the Apostle Heb. 12.23 where he tells the Hebrews They were come to God the Judge of all or as your Margin reads it To a Judge the God of all If we look yet forward into this story when Lot was convey'd safe from the destruction which fell upon Sodom Gen. 19.24 we are told The Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrha brimstone and fire from the Lord out of Heaven Epiph. Haer. l. 3. p. 832. where Photinus from whom some denominate our Socinians owns it was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word which rained from the Lord Sandii Hist Enud l. 1. p. 118. but that Word was God as we learn from the Evangelist John 1.1 By this we gain the certainty that our Saviour the Son of God had a Being before he was born of the Virgin Mary that the Title Power Acknowledgment belonging to the true God were given to him therefore that He was the true God To this might be added the History of Jacob's wrestling with the Man when he was left alone The Man he wrestled with Malac. 3.1 antiquity generally understood to be the Angel of the Covenant so Christ is nam'd Heb. 12.24 and this interpretation is no way disagreeable since the wrestler from the very contest gives Jacob the name of Israel which signifies a Prince Gen. 32.28 or one that powerfully prevails with God The Person wrestling with Jacob refuses to tell his name which created Angels were not wont to do Gabriel told Zacharias his name the name of Michael is often mention'd Luke 1.19 and the Writer of the Apocryphal book of Tobit supposes it no unusual thing when he introduces Tobias's companion calling himself Raphael one of the seven Angels that stand in the presence of God i. e. are in a more glorious state than the rest of that Heavenly Host Again Jacob expresses his sense of his Antagonist in the Name he gave to that place and the reason of it for says he I have seen God face to face and my life is preserved And lastly Jacob pray'd to him for a blessing and would not part without it which argued his acknowledgment of a Divine power in him and the Prophet Hosea makes such an interpretation of the Text scarce disputable where speaking of Jacob He had power over the Angel says he and prevailed Hos 12.4 5. He wept and made supplication unto him that was to own Him the true God He found Him in Bethel and there he spake with us Even the Lord GOD of HOSTS the Lord is his Memorial 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An expression so great and so high as never any created Being pretended to We may then take notice of the 45 Psalm a Psalm by all the ancient Jews apply'd to the Messias and rightly as will appear that Messias was Jesus Christ in that both Arians of old and Socinians of late as well as the Orthodox agree his very Name carries it He is Jesus the Saviour He is the Christ the anointed of God the Father The Psalmist there represents him at first as a Man tho' Fairer than the rest of humane race Ps 45.2 but he subjoyns Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever the Scepter of thy Kingdom is a right Scepter Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness therefore God thy God hath anointed thee with the oyl of gladness above thy fellows where that God to whom the Apostrophe or exclamation refers is called by the same name with that God who is said to anoint him in the original and the whole Text is authentically apply'd to the Son of God by the Apostle Hebr. 1.8 9. even to that Son whom he there shews to be so far above all Angelick Beings that when his Father brings his first begotten into the World he says And let all the Angels of God worship him which the Apostle quotes from the Psalmist Psal 97.7 not literally according to the Hebrew but according to the then current translation of the Septuagint which though varying from our Hebrew a little in words is the same in sense That the word by us translated Gods signifies and is apply'd to Created Beings sometimes we admit of as no way prejudicial to truth but if the Angels are commanded to worship Him and that Angel whom Saint John would have adored forbad him because He though an Angel Rev. 22.9 was but a
among other things tells us Isa 44.17 He that had just made the golden Image falls down and worships it and prays unto it and says Deliver me for thou art my God Doubtless the Engraver and Carver c. would readily plead for themselves they look'd upon their Images but as Symbols of a real Deity or places of residence for more Spiritual Beings or at most but as subordinate Gods yet all this will not excuse them from the charge of Idolatry for God first declaring of himself that He is the true God that He is the living God and an everlasting king Jer. 10.10 11. at whose wrath the earth should tremble and the nations should not be able to abide his indignation adds farther The Gods that have not made the heavens and the earth even they shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens that 's then the characteristick or the test of a true God the making of the heavens and of the earth on which reason begin we our Creed with that I believe in God the Father Almighty maker of heaven and earth and whosoever it is who has not made Heaven and earth in that same sense in which the Prophet here speaks He 's an Idol and all those are guilty of Idolatry who put any confidence in him Vid Martial l. 5. Epig. 8. Suet. in Domit. c. 13. And such were Caligula and Domitian those proud Emperours who knew not how to sit down with an inferior title to that Domini Deique nostri of our Lord and our God and very Heathens themselves thought this was assuming divine Honours to themselves and such as were no way becoming mortal men But I know the Socinians allow those who are made Gods by Men to be Idols but those who are made by Almighty God himself are not so Neque enim unus ille deus falsos deos facit homines hoc faciunt says Schlicktingius for he who is the one supreme God does not make false Gods they are only Men who do so hence according to them Kings and Princes are true Gods because they are constituted by God himself to represent his own person to the world but to this we answer never King upon earth but only such as those before-named Caligula or Domitian pretended to such a name nor were there ever any but sordid Parasites and flatterers who offer'd to call them their Lords and their Gods Alexander the Great himself tho' foolish and ambitious to be called the Son of Jupiter yet could not but expose their baseness who complyed with his mad fancy when he saw the blood trickling from a wound he had received and ask'd them whether that were like the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Homer made to fall from his Gods They allege on their own behalf that passage in the Psalmist Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever Psal 45.6 which say they is there spoken of Solomon which we as positively deny and are assured they can never prove God by his Prophets is not wont to tell downright falsehoods as he must do if this were to be so applyed for which way shall we make it out that Solomon's Throne was everlasting when all the glories of it sunk in his immediate Successor which way shall the Sceptre of his kingdom be made a right Sceptre whose immediate Successor and several after him have that character in Scripture that they did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord What great and terrible things were those which were done by the sword of peaceable Solomon who was to be no man of blood no conqueror o◠what worship do we ever read was paid by Pharaoh's daughter or any other of his numerous wives and concubines to Solomon and the Holy Ghost directly applies these words to Jesus Christ the Son of God without the least mention of Solomon Beside this then they have no Text which looks like any thing of ascribing those names My Lord and my God to any created being whatsoever and when they have said all they can Christ himself must be an Idol to Thomas and to all those who own him at any time to be their Lord and their God if it be not He who has made the Heavens and the Earth according to the Letter Princes may be Metaphorical Gods but they are not set up for humane Adorations Men and Angels are to adore the Son of God therefore he 's no Metaphorical God and we need beg no pardon for saying it 's not in the power of an Almighty God to create or make a true or an eternal God or another being Almighty as himself it 's Nonsence to talk of Monarchs subordinate one to another or of Monarchs co-ordinate with one another in the same territory and it 's plain nonsence to tell us Christ is a subordinate God to his Father or that there can be two supreme Gods over all blessed for ever Therefore when the Apostle calls his master My God and my Lord his meaning must be that the Son of God is the true God one God coessential co-eternal with his Father From hence then we proceed to Rom 9.5 Of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came who is God over all blessed for ever Amen The character here is very high the Text plain and it may justly be concluded those must adventure very boldly who can elude its force If we look into the occasion of the words we there find the Apostle expressing an extraordinary affection to his Countrey-men being willing to become a curse for his brethren his kinsmen according to the flesh whose condition he commiserates the more because of those extraordinary privileges they had before enjoyed for there is no greater aggravation of misery than to have made a great many fair steps towards happiness and to have fallen short of it at last These privileges they had enjoyed were extraordinary they were Israelites so God's proper or peculiar inheritance beyond all other nations whatsoever To them pertained the adoption or they were adopted to be the Sons of God and are called so in the Old Testament to them appertain'd the glory of God's peculiar presence among them owning them for his people and delivering them gloriously with a mighty hand and stretched out arm from their cruel enemies To them belonged the Covenants the two Tables written with the Finger of God himself the giving of the Law that Law Moral Political and Ceremonial which made their Religious Ordinances their Civil Government and their Manners far superiour to those of all other Nations to them belonged the service of God the only true external form or method of worship and the Promises for all the Prophets among those severe menaces they denounced against Israel for their Sins yet always brought the Promises of a Messias a Redeemer to come to comfort them their 's were the Fathers all those Men so eminent for their favour with God such as Abraham Isaac
them nor worship them he excluded every Creature from a capacity of receiving divine Honours whatsoever was capable of being represented by any figure or image if it was worshipped was an Idol the Creature represented was so as well as the representation and invisibility as well as any other attribute is ascribed to the true God as a peculiarity whereby we might know him to be the only proper object of our Worship by both these precepts our Saviour is perfectly shut out from being the subject of Divine Honours as he is suppos'd by the Socinians to be a God in subordinacy to his Father and as he is a Creature and capable as other Creatures be of being represented by a material Image which is wholly inconsistent with a true Divinity For tho' the Socinians allow our Saviour to be the Son of God in a peculiar manner by reason of his being begotten in the Womb of the Virgin by the Holy Ghost or as they call it by the influence of Almighty God this does not at all put him out of the rank of the Creatures nor does that Glory and Honour and Immortality which they suppose his Father to have adorned him with after his resurrection make him a God who was before a Man for all these things are reserved too in a just proportion for all such as die in the true Faith of Christ by which they too in their turns must necessarily be Gods tho' because their proportion of honour is suppos'd inferiour to that of Christ they must be Gods of an inferiour rank and quality but this Collation of dignity effects nothing at all and the Socinian distinction between a God made by the supreme God and a God made by Men comes to nothing at all The Poets Divinity in that point is better and more rational than theirs Qui fingit sacros auro vel marmore vultus Non facit ille Deos Qui rogat ille facit He who represents a Divine face in gold or marble makes it not a God but he who prays to it makes it such So if God render the body of our Lord never so illustrious that makes him not a God but the presenting of Humane supplications to him makes him one so that Christ by that means comes to be a God made so by Man as well as any other Idol whatsoever is therefore according to the Socinians own principle Christ being a meer Man if he be prayed to must be an Idol There can be no true God but He who is the Creator of all things nor does it lye within the reach of omnipotence it self to make a Creature a Creator therefore either Christ must be the Creator of all things or else he cannot be true God He remains a meer Creature still and all those adorations presented to him by the Christian World are notorious and damnable Idolatry The common notion of Idolatry confirms this so S. Cyprian tells us according to the notion he had of it Idololatria committitur cum Divinus honor alteri datur Idolatry is then committed when that Honour which belongs to God is given to another Gregory Nazianzen gives us this definition of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Idolatry is a transposition of divine worship from the maker to the thing made from God the Creator of all things to the Creature Therefore so long as our Saviour is really but a Creature which he must be if he be not the eternal God so long all that Worship paid to him according to this antient notion is Idolatry Now let a Socinian if he please impeach those of the Roman Communion as Idolaters we 'l agree with him and we really believe them to be so but there 's no Argument which can properly be made use of against that Church to convince them of Idolatry by reason of their praying to Angels or departed Saints from which practice they have been sufficiently and undeniably proved to be Idolaters but the same will hold good against these The strength of all Arguments against Rome lying in that That they transfer the Honour only due to the Creator to a Creature which is as true of all those who pay divine Worship to our Saviour if he be no more than a Creature The Gods who have not Created all things who have not Created Heaven and Earth shall perish from the earth and from under the Heaven as we alledged from the Prophet before but according to the Socinians our Lord did not make the Heaven and the Earth Therefore tho' they say he is True God at the same time they say He is not The true God He must be one of those Gods which must so perish A conclusion which our Adversaries either must deny or fairly renounce all their pretences which indeed are but weak at best to Christianity Divine Honours cannot be lawfully offered or Prayers lawfully presented to any created Being but upon supposition of some defect in the Creator for a positive Command from him to that purpose could it be suppos'd would not be enough for a Divine Command open and plain cannot make that which in its own nature is Evil to be good things morally good or evil are eternally so and that from that consideration that their moral goodness or illness flows from their agreement with or contradiction to the Divine Nature Now what was once contradictory to the divine Nature God himself cannot make agreeable to it because He cannot change his own Nature which yet must be if that which being abstractedly considered was a sin against him should now under the same abstracted consideration 1 Tim. 3.16 be no longer so therefore we are sure God himself cannot command any thing that is morally evil but diverting that â—orship which belongs to the Creator of all things from him to his own Creature let that Creature be what it will is morally evil it 's Idolatry therefore God cannot command it therefore he cannot give or have given Christians any positive or open Command to Worship our Saviour if he be a meer Creature because that 's translating that Worship due only to the true God to the Creature To suppose any defect in the Creator is blasphemous if there can be yet any just reason or apparent necessity of Mens addressing themselves to any Being which is but their fellow Creature for the attainment of that for which they were wont to apply themselves only to the supreme Being or Creator before it must be asserted but where there is all Perfection concluded to reside in that Sovereign Being to whom it 's granted on all hands that Divine Worship is due there 's no kind of necessity that we should apply our selves to any Intermedial Power or go round about when we may have a direct access to the throne of grace While we own Christ to be the True God as his Father is of the same eternal Nature whatsoever obliges us in our necessities to call upon the True God obliges to call upon
for our comfort the first Christians are free from any such folly and all the several sorts of Hereticks through all ages have freed them from any such Imputation They did nothing but what was agreeable to the Will of God They took care not to provoke him whom they knew to be a consuming fire to jealousie by setting up a meer Creature in competition with him The Christians in that time shew'd their extreme hatred of Idolatry in that all the allurements and terrors in the world could not possibly draw them to it in other instances If they would but have thrown a little Incense into the Fire burning on an Idols Altar If they would but have made the smallest condescension to some admired Heathen Deity they might have been blest both with Impunity and Rewards And sure it could be imputed to nothing but a ridiculously perverse humour to refuse all kinds of submission to Creature-Gods meerly because they were Creatures and yet at the same time themselves to Worship or Pray to a Creature of their own setting up We find not but that the Jews were more tractable and so more reasonable in the point when they had once gotten the gusto of Idolatry in the Golden Calf and had the fetters of religious Elders and Governors knock'd off their heels they stood out at nothing but were ready to worship any little Idol any of their neighbours recommended to them And other Idolatrous Nations the Romans in particular thought it but reasonable that when they had set up some Gods for themselves according to their own humours they should compile all the Divinities they could and secure themselves if not by the quality at least by the multiplicity of their Gods But when the Jews were once truly purged from their Idolatrous humours by severe and terrible Judgments they would never more at their utmost peril admit of the least umbrage of it And the converted Gentiles would have dyed a thousand deaths rather than have brought such a scandal upon Christianity as to have retained or advanced any thing that might have laid them open to the reproaches of the Jews or have seduced or perverted their Brethren We no where find the Apostles or any Apostolick men ever vindicating that Worship they offered to our Lord with that pretence that they went to him only as â— Mediator of Intercession as the Roman distinction is or that they might not press too rudely upon God without addressing in the first place to some Favourite servant We never find them arguing that they only Pray to Christ that He might pray for them tho' he always does so as being the sole Mediator between God and Man nor do they ever defend their Practice by that Allegation that they do not terminate their adorations upon Christ but upon his Father the contrary would easily have been prov'd against them from their own Writings Yet after all they were not Idolaters they did not give that Honour to a meer Creature which belonged only to the Creator therefore that Christ to whom they made their addresses was not a meer Creature Yet as he was Man He could be no more than a meer Creature therefore He was more than Man therefore He was God the true and Almighty God the great Creator of all things and thus have we made good our Argument that Jesus Christ was true God equal with his Father from that otherwise indefensible practice of Worshipping him or Praying determinately to him as the Giver of all good Gifts equally with his Father If he be own'd to be the One true God we can have no scruples no fears of offending upon us in Praying to him and expressing all the Signs of external religious adorations towards him If he be not own'd to be the One true God then there 's no argument which either a Socinian or any Other can bring to prove the lawfulness of Praying to him as God but it will equally serve either Papists in their praying to Images Saints or Angels or Pagans in Praying to their confest Idols and therefore the Socinians themselves fairly confess with respect to those Texts before-cited where Christians are known by that character of calling on the name of Christ That those Words do so comprehend all that divine Worship which is exhibited to Christ by his faithful people that they describe it by that one the most considerable part of it namely beging assistance from him in our Prayers Cum necesse sit eum cujus nomen invoces pro Deo competente sensu colere Since it 's necessary to Worship him as God in some fit sence whose name you call upon in Prayer but there is no other fit sence in which we can call upon him as God but that which makes him the true the eternal God Therefore if he may be called upon as God without Idolatry He must be that true that eternal God We have at last by God's assistance gone through these several heads of Discourse from which we propounded at first to prove That Jesus Christ the Son of God was God equal with his Father or the true the eternal God We have prov'd this from those several accounts of his Appearance and his Nature laid down in the Old Testament namely that it was He who appeared to and convers'd with Abraham before the fatal destruction of Sodom and that He there bore the name Jehovah the name of God incommunicable to any other That it was He whose Throne the Psalmist declared to be for ever and ever That it was He who laid the Foundations of the Earth and that the Heavens were the work of his hands after whose decay and perishing He yet should continue beyond the reach of time That Christ our Lord should be that Child that Son given us in time on whose shoulders the Government should be laid that He should be the wonderful Counsellor the mighty God the everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace That He should be the Righteous Branch springing up to David whose name should be the Lord our Righteousness And finally that He the blessed Jesus should be that Ruler of Israel who should be born in Bethlehem Ephrata whose goings forth have been of old from everlasting We have proved the same assertion from those several Declarations our Saviour has made concerning himself and his Disciples afterwards concerning him in the New Testament as namely that of Saint Matthew of the Angel's prediction to Joseph to which the Evangelist applies the Prophecy that our Saviour Incarnate should be called Immanuel or God with us That of our Lord joyning himself in equal rank with his Father in the Institution of Baptism ordering it to be performed in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost We have proved that our Saviour was that Word which was in the beginning which was with God which was God by whom all things were made visible and invisible in Heaven and upon Earth that according to
when he girt up his Loins and ran before Ahab to the entring in of Jesreel Numb 14.10 and as a poor persecuted Man when he was forced to fly for his Life from the fury of Jezebel the Prophets generally died Martyrs for those Truths they published and the Apostles tho'mighty in those signs and wonders which they did in the World's View yet several of them died by ways as cruel and tormenting as our Saviour himself from whence it will follow that Moses and Elijah that the Prophets and Apostles were as great Examples of Humility and Condescension as our Saviour himself and therefore St. Paul when he set Christ as an example of Humility before the Philippians did it only at randome and might as well have named himself or any of his Fellow-Apostles on the same account and doubtless this Doctrine tends very much to the Advancement of Christian Piety But now if we quit Socinian Reason and consider the Truth of things if we look upon our Saviour as pre-existent to his appearing in the World as being God of God and Light of Light and that from Eternity and consider him as condescending to assume our Nature as appearing without those Terrors of Divinity and clothed with all the Sweetnesses of innocent Humanity if we respect him who had all things originally at command and did yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 become poor for our sakes where we cannot but take notice of our new Author's pitiful Criticism who tells us that Word signifies not to become poor but to be poor yet Suidas tells us that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies Suidas in Verbo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one that falls into want from having been sufficiently provided for which we think is becoming Poor from being Rich and not being originally Poor and so whereas Poverty in the Poet Aristophanes tells us Aristoph in Plut. p. 58. I.B.E. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Life of a Beggar is to be without any thing of his own but what he receives from the Charity of others which was really our Saviour's Case Gerard a better Critic than our Authour defines according to ancient Etymologists Car. Ger. in locum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Beggar as one falling or descending from Riches to Penury from Sufficiency to extream Want so far as to have nothing but what 's given by others thus our Saviour became Poor nay a Beggar others administring to his Maintenance of their Substance and he descended from that celestial Glory with which he was robed from Eternity to assume Humane Nature and in that Nature to be so poor and despised on that account as the Evangelists represent him and we know as well as he can tell us that God as God cannot be poor but we are as sure that that real Flesh and Blood assumed by our Saviour was liable to the same inconveniences with the rest that were Partakers of the same Nature among which one was Poverty very incident to those who are born to no worldly Estates But how Men come to be Rich and Glorious by having the power of doing Miracles conferr'd upon them we cannot easily discover our Saviour's Miracles brought him in no Treasures and his Apostles notwithstanding that Power of doing the like conferred on them by Heaven were in a very low Condition in the World and Paul among his numerous Converts was but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a poor Man fain to get his Living by the Labours of his own hands Now certainly the Jews were as much obliged to observe our Saviour's Humility as others and they saw him low enough but they who very well knew the Meanness of his Birth that could ask the Question Is not this the Carpenter's Son could not make any extraordinary Remark upon that but could they have believ'd him the Son of God which those converted among them afterwards did by which they understood his being equal with God they would have been very ready to admire his Humiliation as his Disciples did when owning him their Master they saw him stooping to wash their Feet so that our Saviour was no way visibly Rich or Glorious in the World unless they 'll say he was so because contented which every Wise and Good Man is and they who saw neither any Riches nor Glory that he had upon Earth could not have been easily drawn to set him as a pattern of Humility before themselves because they saw him in the form of a Servant if he were a meer Man when he was once more than a Servant when all power was given to him both in Heaven and Earth he appear'd as a Master on every occasion and quickly withdrew himself from the sight of Men and the humility or condescension of one that has nothing is neither admirable nor exemplary If we could dwell longer on this Subject I make no doubt but it would appear that above all other Doctrines Socinianism should never be embraced as tending to the advancement of true Piety and since we have had so many holy Martyrs living and dying in the belief of Christ's Satisfaction for our Sins we may conclude that Doctrine of Christ's Satisfaction is neither so pernicious nor destructive of Holiness as those Hereticks would persuade us and therefore we may the better assert this Doctrine and make good our Foundation of it i. e. the notion of infinite Justice in God which does necessarily infer that every Sinner ought to be punished But they tell us Cat. Rac §. 6. c. 8 p. 147. That we make God's Mercy such as cannot but forgive all Sin and his Justice such as cannot but punish all Sin and so we set God's Attributes at irreconcileable odds one with another but I do not remember infinite Mercy defin'd by any of Ours by that particular Character of necessarily forgiving every Sin We believe indeed that the Sins of those who are pardon'd could not be pardon'd were there not infinite Mercy in God but we generally believe that infinite Mercy exerted it self when Christ came into the World to redeem Sinners and that indefinite Expression of our Saviour that God so loved the World that he gave his onely begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting Life teaches us as much Now if Faith be so necessary a Condition that without it the Sins of none can be pardon'd then infinite Mercy cannot imply a necessity of pardoning every Sin and if that Condition of believing be requisite I know not why another Condition such as a Christ offering up himself a Sacrifice to atone his Father's displeasure for Mens sins should not be so too As for infinite Justice we believe it necessarily infers a Punishment for every Transgression and therefore we believe that had not our Saviour undergone that Punishment for our sins which was due to us every Sin of ours must have been inevitably punish'd and therefore whereas we conclude agreeably to Scripture that the greatest part of
our Saviour himself He and his Father were One that it was He whom Saint Thomas upon a sufficient Conviction declared to be his Lord and his God that according to Saint Paul He is God over all blessed for ever and that according to the same Apostle He being in the Form of God thought it no Robbery to be equal with God yet took upon himself the Form of a Servant for our sakes These proofs I explain'd enlarged upon and vindicated them from their Sophistry who would have them look'd upon as proofs insufficient of the Divinity of the Son of God We prov'd the same thing then by those Actions done by himself and in his own Name during his converse upon Earth and done by his Apostles in His Name after his Ascension into Heaven For instance from his passing insensibly through the multitude who led him to the brow of an Hill designing to cast him headlong down from thence From his making the Souldiers who came with Judas to seize him to fall down with barely answering them what they desired and in the kindest and most satisfactory manner From his commanding Lazarous in his own Name to come forth of his Grave after four days burying From his Apprehension of virtue going out of him to heal the Woman with the bloody Issue tho' only touching the Hem of his Garment From his calling those that were weary and heavy laden with their sins to come to him and promising them rest for their Souls upon so doing From his Forgiving sins in an authoritative manner his searching the Heart trying the Reins and according to Saint Peter Knowing all things From his Promising and sending the Holy Ghost and giving it first of all with his Breath opening the Understanding of the Disciples and sending them abroad with a Commission equivalent to that which himself had received from his Father and in conclusion from his Disciples Baptising Preaching and doing Miracles wholly in his Name and by Faith in him From this Head we proceeded to prove our Doctrine that Christ was God equal with his Father from the Faith of the Primitive Church where we confin'd our selves in our Disquisition principally to those Fathers who wrote before the starting of the Arrian Controversie So for the Greek Church we gave you an account of what Clemens the Roman Bishop in his Epistles to the Corinthians of what Saint Ignatius Bishop of Antioch in his several Epistles of what Justine Martyr in his two Apologies and in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew and Irenaeus in his books against Heresies and Clemens Alexandrinus in his Admonition to the Gentiles and in his Stromata and what Origen in his books against Celsus furnishes us with in evidence of our Saviour's Divine Nature Then for the Latin Church we gave you the sence of what Tertullian St. Cyprian Bishop of Carthage Arnobius and Lactantius have written from whence we descended to Creeds framed by Gregory Thaumaturgus by Felix the first of that name Bishop of Rome by the First and Second Councils at Antioch summoned on the account of Paulus Samosatenus and the Circular Epistle of the Latter from the circular Letters of Alexander Bishop of Alexandria and so from the Epistle and Creed of the Nicene and Constantinopolitane general Councils with the remarkable suffrages of Constantine the Great the first Christian Emperor and Eusebius of Caesarea one much suspected of Arrianism himself but a famous Writer of Church-History Having done with this we prov'd last of all that no true Divine Worship was due to any meer Creature or could be paid to any such without Idolatry That true Divine Worship yet was paid to our blessed Lord by his Apostles and first Followers without Idolatry therefore that our Saviour in consequence could be no meer Creature Thus far we had proceeded and concluded all our works of that nature at an end and our selves at liberty to prosecute our intended discourse farther But Ill Men taking advantage of that Liberty now indulged them a Liberty always fruitful of Errors and Innovations give us yet more Work and a necessary care to prevent that Poyson they scatter from spreading too far amongst those who profess Christianity in these Nations And here we have two mighty Pretenders to Piety and Reason One of which undertakes the Patronage of long exploded Arrianism the Other of the more refined Socinianism and both with old Arguments and it may be some new Finenesses attack the Divinity of our Saviour It 's no small happiness that such Men take up such different Opinions to maintain for by that means One is somewhat of an Antidote against the Other and by these differences between themselves in so weighty a matter Wise and Considerate Christians will learn to believe neither of them As for what our Socinian pleads considering what we asserted in the beginning of our Discourse viz. That Jesus Christ our Saviour is the Son of God which We with all sound Christians understood in a natural sence and that that very Notice inferr'd a co-essentiality of the Son with the Father as it does among Men where the Son is of the same Nature with the Father which begets him we thought we had reason but the Socinians have found us out a way of Filiation or Sonship of being the begotten nay the Only begotten Son of God without any such Essential Relation thus the Racovian Catechism speaking concerning the Original of Christ's being called or being the Son of God tells us He is so First Because He was conceived of the Holy Ghost and being born of a Virgin without the concurrence of a man he had no other Father but God and this Wissowatius in his note upon that passage tells us ought to be observed as the first reason mentioned in Scripture why Christ is the Son of God in opposition to those who found that relation upon his eternal Generation of his Father Secondly Christ says the Catechism is the Son of God because as He himself teaches us He was sanctified by the Father i. e. He was separated from the rest of mankind in a singular manner and besides the perfect holiness of his Life furnished with Divine Wisdom and Power Cat. Raco sect 4. c. 1. p. 24. He was employed by the Father to execute the Office of an Ambassadour with a supreme Authority among Men Thirdly Christ was the Son of God because He was rais'd from the Dead by God and so begotten of him again by this means becoming like God in Immortality and Fourthly Christ is the Son of God because He is invested by God with supreme Authority and Command over all things Our Country man Lushington a great Patron of Socinianism in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews On the Hebrews c. 1. p. 23. reckons up the grounds of Christ's being the Son of God to the same number He 's the Son of God says He First by his Conception Secondly by his Function Thirdly by his Institution being