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
on the Apostles and their companions enabled them to prove that Christ was the Son of God and to confirm their rational arguments and deductions from the Old Testament by a thousand signs and miracles such as made the most stubborn of mankind bow their necks to the yoke of Christ and own that He was truly what he call'd himself the Son of God and the Saviour of the World If we proceed according to the Apostles method Jesus Christ God Incarnate was seen of Angels seen with the greatest admiration since even Angelic intellectuals could never have reach'd so far as to imagine God's love to mankind which yet they knew to be extraordinary should shew it self in so prodigious a condescension Yet when he was pleas'd to stoop so low the Angels saw and knew and prais'd him tho' wrapt in swadling clothes and lying in a manger they ador'd him and administred to him tho' tempted forty days and forty nights by the Devil in the wilderness they attended him with their ministerial comforts when in that bitter agony in the garden when praying more earnestly his sweat was as it had been great drops of blood falling down to the ground Luke 22.43 44. They attended his sepulchre when he shook off the fetters of Death Matt. 28.2 3 4. Acts 1.10 and broke through the confinement of the grave striking terror on the trembling Watch but bringing comfort to the women whose early zeal brought them first to the sacred Sepulchre and they waited as diligently on his ascent into Heaven so that they saw him and admired that immense love which appeared so glorious in his humble and so powerful in his exalted state This Saviour of the world that he might really be so was preach'd unto the Gentiles the Word of God was now confin'd no longer to the Jewish nation that vail of the Temple rent in twain when he gave up the ghost upon the Cross took away that wall of separation which was between those Jews and the rest of mankind and through him both Jews and Gentiles have access by one Spirit unto Eph. 2.28 the father Now of himself in this case He taught his disciples after his resurrection That thus it behoved Christ to suffer Luke 24.46 47. and to rise from the dead the third day and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations beginning at Jerusalem Thus Philip preached Christ in Samaria Paul preached him every where in the Synagogues Paul declares to the Corinthians We preach Christ crucified 1 Cor. 1.23 24. to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness but unto them which are call'd both Jews and Greeks Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God And many Texts we meet with declaring the same thing and teaching us that it 's the great incumbent duty on all those who call themselves Pastors of the flock of Christ to preach him and him only to the world For he who was so preach'd to the Gentiles was indeed believed on in the world The three Eastern Sages who adored our Saviour in his infant age were the first fruits of the Gentile world and even Samaritans were profelyted to his Doctrine while he converst with the world to believe in him was that condition without which Salvation could not be attained So he teaches Nicodemus John 3.16 God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life v. 18. He that believeth on him is not condemned but he that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God It was a just sense of the indispensible nature of this condition that made men submit so readily to the first preaching of the Apostles and fly out so eagerly and so early into that Question What shall we do to be saved 'T was that which in Judaea brought multitudes daily into the Church of such as should be saved and enabled S. Paul to preach the Gospel fully from Jerusalem and round about unto Illyricum and that with extraordinary success and gave Tertullian in the Second Century a just ground to boast of the vast multitudes of Christians in every quarter of the Roman Empire And to this day the same blessed Jesus is the only rational hope of all that dwell on the earth and of those that remain on the broad Sea To conclude this explication of the Text this same Jesus after he had done and suffered so much for our sakes while he converst with and blest his Disciples Luke 24.51 he was parted from them and carried up into heaven He had at last that Petition answered which in the days of his flesh he put up to his Father Now O Father glorifie thou me with thine own self John 17.5 with the glory which I had with thee before the world was And if it was glorious for Elijah to be carried up to Heaven in his fiery chariot while Elisha was a spectator of his translation how much more glorious was it when our Saviour in the open view of all his followers had the clouds themselves humbly bowing to his feet to raise him thither where he sits continually at the right hand of his Father making intercession for us miserable sinners Having thus given the true interpretation of the Text take its full meaning together in this Paraphrase S. Paul still speaking to and instructing Timothy as in this Verse he does It 's not without great Reason that I have given thee who art thy self a Bishop in it such directions about those whom thou art to admit as Ministers in the Church of God That Religion our blessed Master has bequeathed to us has nothing in it but what is Holy and Pure too pure to be touch'd with unclean hands and not fit for every unlearned and presuming Novice to meddle with The whole Body of our Faith is founded upon such things as are infinitely true but of so sublime and surprising a Nature that the strongest Humane Reason can never wholly comprehend them all let me but name them as reveal'd and all mankind will soon agree that the most soaring and capacious Soul must falter in its enquiries after them The eternal Son of God God equal with his Father the great Creator of all things rather than perishing man should be eternally lost resolv'd to atone divine vengeance with his own sufferings and since without blood there could be no remission and the immense Divinity could not suffer so He took flesh and blood our weak and passible nature upon himself and in our nature offered himself a sacrifice to his Father for us This glorious Sacrifice produc'd the great effect and reconciled our angry Judge but that undertaking was too great for man tho' so deeply concern'd to believe the chasm between an holy God and polluted man too wide and hideous
deep ever to be made up It 's true when God himself was mention'd as the undertaker of so great a work even despairing man might entertain some dawning hopes but when they saw a poor Carpenter's Son one who had not so much as where to lay his head assume yet the glorious title of the world's Redeemer and Saviour their hopes slagg'd their almost grasped joys seem'd just vanishing into empty air When the Holy Ghost God too infinitely good and powerful and wise interpos'd and attended that humble Man with so much vigour and constancy that He by a thousand glorious actions and by a close and perpetual correspondence with Heaven visible even to vulgar eyes prov'd the entire Union that was between himself and his Father and that Sacred Spirit and justified himself in the thoughts of very aliens themselves who could not but acknowledge of a truth that for all his mean appearance and his scandalous Passion on the Cross He was the Son of God But could men have doubted still the happy Angels those purer and more discerning Spirits saw him too they saw him and knew him and ador'd him they saw their mighty Lord tho' veil'd in all the rags of poor mortality And tho' sin might have made a former breach between those blessed Spirits and polluted man yet now where their Lord loved they lov'd too and always look'd and always waited on him while he wrought the worlds redemption while he was so justified and so attended on divers gave up themselves absolutely to his service whom he lov'd and taught and protected and endued with miraculous knowledge eloquence and courage and sent them on that blessed errand to preach to the Gentiles the glad tydings of Salvation in his name They boldly undertook the work and tho' they had ignorance and prejudice and malice and cunning to contend with meer men contemn'd before but then inspired broke through all opposition and the forsaken Gentiles heard the gladsome sounds of peace and tho' there were too many enemies to their own good yet those laborious messengers of Heaven preached with that power and efficacy that men began every where to call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ Nay the more men of perverse minds cross'd the designs of that Gospel preach'd in the name of the Son of God the more those who believed in him were multiplied As for himself when he had finished that stupendous work and by his own Death had conquered Hell and Death He broke those fatal chains and rose again no more lyable to humane rage His Almighty Father who had viewed all the prodigious efforts of his Love to mankind with an ineffable complacency reach'd out his holy arm to receive that very humane Nature in which his beloved Son had done and suffered so much from him the chearful clouds were sent for a Chariot and he went upwards flying upon the wings of the wind while jâ—cund Angels those ministerial flames waited on his triumphs and taught his wondring followers what they were afterwards to expect from their Redeemer These are those mighty mysteries on which our most holy faith is built their truth however unintelligible to us is our security and the sincerity of our faith will necessarily show it self in an holy conversation and godliness The Verse I have explain'd then imports That without Controversie the Mystery of Godliness is great or in more words That the Basis or foundation of that Religion introduced into the World by the Doctrine of Christ's Gospel is indisputably and agreeably to the nature of Religion to Humane reason extremely profound and unintelligible To prove this we shall enquire Into the Vniversal agreement of all persons of what Religion soever That Mysteries are essential to Religion Whether our Saviour intended the entire abolition of all other Religions for the settlement of his own or rather to unite what was good in every distinct Religion into one and to sublime or perfect that so as it might tend most to God's glory and Man's happiness and whether that could be effected Men standing in their present corrupt state without the retaining of old or instituting of new Mysteries in his Religion What considerable advantages can accrue to Religion from those Mysteries it 's founded upon Then we must enquire into that Vniversal agreement of all persons whatsoever that Mysteries or some principles or circumstances of a more secret and abstruse nature are essential to all Religion But here to prevent all mistakes it must be remember'd That so much as concerns the practical part of Religion as contain'd in the Word of God is so clear and evident that the words of St. Paul are justly apply'd to them If they be hid they are hid to those that are lost whose eyes the God of this World hath blinded that the light of the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ should not shine upon them 2 Cor. 4.3 4. The words whereby all things necessary to be done toward the attainment of eternal life are exprest are such and so plain that the simplest Christian may understand them And that person who goes about to involve the practical duty of a Christian whether in respect of his communication with God or man in obscure and mysterious terms crosses the end of the Gospel which is to instruct the weakest understanding in an easie and intelligible way how to live godly righteously and soberly in this present evil world yet it must be acknowledged that even in relation to practice there are some apparent difficulties and notwithstanding all that plainness apparent in God's word a Man has a very hard task sometimes to distinguish between what 's lawful and what 's unlawful such cases are commonly known by the name of Cases of Conscience or such matters wherein so many arguments seemingly strong and plausible appear on both sides to the understanding that it knows not which way to act and all that hesitancy or doubtfulness arises onely from a fear of offending God These generally respecting Christian practice create a great deal of trouble frequently to very good Men for others are seldom troubled with such religious fears and these are sometimes by various and unusual circumstances rendred so very intricate that the wisest and most discerning Men are often at a loss to clear and resolve them to the Querent's satisfaction Here the Jews were order'd to have recourse to their Priests whose lips were suppos'd to preserve knowledge and the Priests when there was any thing of a more inextricable nature had the Vrim and Thummim to appeal to The Heathens had some emergent doubts as to matter of publick management of themselves which sometimes perplex'd them too and they had their imaginary wise Men the Priests attending their desecrated altars who would assume as if they had the art of resolving doubts those who profess Christianity have still a severer task in these matters as having no Oracle immediately to consult and having doubts more numerous and
taken away but strongly confirm'd the necessity of obedience to God's Laws whether written or natural which was as we have before observ'd the general intent of Religion and agreeable to those notions the World commonly had of it Since for the better carrying on this end Mysteries are so very advantageous to religion as to make Men have reverend apprehensions of it upon account of its incomparable Excellencies in its causes and effects and upon account of the weakness and shallowness of their own understandings since all these particulars are true it 's likewise absolutely necessary that the Christian the onely true Holy pure Religion should be built upon such a foundation as might appear to all Men upon the strictest inquiry beyond all doubt or controversie Mysterious inexplicable incomprehensible Nor could it be an impertinent labour to clear this truth because it totally ruines all the pretences of the Socinians that after the Revelation once made of the great fundamentals of our Faith there could remain nothing of so obscure a nature but that we by the pure strength of our own reason might be able to comprehend it In short that though it be true that Scripture as sufficient for that purpose is and ought to be the sole rule of Faith yet reason ought to be the rule of Scripture Reason as it now stands loaded with all the miserable consequences of sin reason so blind as without the extraordinary light of holy Scriptures to be wholly unable to lead a Man to Eternal life it obviates their assertions that the true ancient Catholick Interpretation of this and other Texts of Scripture that speak of the eternal Divine nature of the Son of God or of that glorious Trinity subsisting in the Father Son and Holy Ghost is false and unreasonable meerly because it introduces an unintelligible incarnation and unity of the Divine and Humane nature in Christ a Mysterious co-essentiality of God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost c. notwithstanding all those glorious revelations God has made of himself in Scripture For if it be certainly true that Religion in it's general notion cannot subsist unless built upon a mystick foundation and that therefore Christian Religion in particular cannot subsist without it then it will follow that the continuing Mystick nature of the great Articles of our Faith can create no prejudice in any person whatsoever against our Religion on their account since especially it will remain impossible to draw any genuine consequences from those mysteries but what will be so far from impeaching that they will strongly confirm and re-inforce all those duties relating to God or man which are laid upon us by the natural or written Law and it will follow farther that the Socinians themselves by their endeavours to level all the Articles of our Faith the great saving principles of the Gospel to impair'd reason or by endeavouring to leave Christiany naked of all Mysteries do what in them lies to disannul all the Religion of Christians to take away all the use and advantage of the Gospel leaving the world so involv'd in Atheism or in meer Deism at this time very little to be preferr'd before the other Having done now with the positive assertion our next work is with all exactness and humility to consider the illustration of this Proposition in the severals laid down by the Apostle which altogether afford us the whole sum and substance of the Gospel for all that glad tydings sent from Heaven to Earth for the comfort of mankind consists in this That for their sakes to procure their Salvation God was manifest in the flesh justified in the spirit seen of Angels preach'd unto the Gentiles believ'd on in the world receiv'd up into glory all which particulars tho' the full prosecution of the first be all our present task are incomprehensible mysteries yet as well worth our enquiring into as the Apostles writing them who without doubt would never have laid the weight of piety or godliness or true Religion upon those grounds had they not been worth our looking into or their truth worth our vindicating from all the attacks of prejudiced opinionative or haeretical men It 's true a late author tells us Naked Gospel p 34. c. 1. l. 20. That to dispute concerning a Mystery and at the same time to confess it a mystery is a contradiction as great as any in the greatest mystery the expression is worth our remark for the boldness and absurdity it contains It 's bold not to say impious to insinuate so broadly in a discourse where Christianity's concern'd that all great Mysteries are made up of or at least contain contradictions what have we then nothing at all Mysterious in Scripture what 's that love between the blessed Jesus and his Spouse the Church so admirably character'd in the book of Canticles can our Author find nothing Mysterious in all those adumbrations of ineffable love or can he easily give us a Catalogue of the Contradictions there the real Contradictions I mean for things that are of no mysterious nature at all on any other account may seem to contain somewhat contradictory but seeming contradictions are not real Can he fathom every thing relating to Daniel's weeks Men of a great deal of learning industry and sobriety have taken a great deal of pains to explain the mystery of them and have scarce yet given the world satisfaction were not the Vision mysterious it would be more easily clear'd but because it is not must it therefore be contradictious to it self or to make a yet closer instance the nature of a God can He or any Socinian make it comprehensible to humane understandings or else will the very notion of a God imply a contradiction He must be a very new fangled Son of the Church of England who will assert that but why must it imply a contradiction to dispute or discourse about or to enquire into a confest mystery That God was manifest in the flesh is true we believe that every circumstance relating to his Incarnation as laid down in Scripture is true according to the genuine and common interpretation of such words whereby these circumstances are express'd we believe too That as they are true we may dispute about them and clear them from all that Sophistry whereby some subtle men would fain baffle us out of them is no uncouth or irrational opinion yet after all we take the whole account of this Incarnation as laid down in Scripture to be a very great mystery But where lyes the Contradiction either in believing it a mystery or in defending it as such This truth that God was manifest in the flesh is as before intimated that upon the literal truth of which the whole Salvation of mankind depends How he should have been so is to all mankind mysterious and incomprehensible yet may we without any contradiction explain defend prove and draw inferences from it Hear what a Bishop of our own a genuine
nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin of her substance so that two whole and perfect natures that is to say the Godhead and manhood were joyn'd together in one person never to be divided whereof is one Christ very God and very man c. With the Church of England agrees the Helvetic Confession Vid. Harmoniam Confessionum in notatis c. 3. that of the French Churches Artic. 6. the Scotch Confession Artic. 1. the Synod of Dort Artic. 8. the Synod of Czenger in Hungary in their own Argument against the Socinians and in Artic. 2. the Confession of Augsburg c. 1. of Strasbourg c. 2. the Saxon Confession exhibited to the Synod of Trent c. 1. that of Wittemberg Art 2. the Confession of the Prince Palatine Art 2. that of Bohemia Art 3. and 6. of Basil Art 1. and finally the Orthodox consent of all the Fathers with holy Scripture Artic. 2. c. 1. and it's observable that the authors and subscribers of all these Confessions imagine that they ground this particular Doctrine of the eternal Godhead of our Lord Jesus Christ upon Scripture so that they declare they either find it there in express terms or at least thought they drew it very naturally from thence and certainly they were not mistaken for let us reflect a little on the Commandments of the Old Testament there Israel received this charge Hear O Israel Deut. 6.4 Exod. 20.2 3. the Lord our God is one Lord I am the Lord thy God thou shalt have no other God before my face Observe what the Prophet adds to these precepts Remember says he to the same Israelites the former things of old Isai 46 9. for I am God and there is none else I am God and there is none like me the same Prophet introduces Almighty God speaking thus I am the Lord Isai 42.8 that is my name and my glory will I not give to another neither my praise to graven Images and this particularly in such a place where God is comforting his people with a description of the office power excellency of the Messiah and teaching all to rejoyce upon the certainty of his coming Our Saviour himself when he contested with the most subtle and powerful adversary in the world alledges this against him Matth. 4.10 get thee hence Satan when he had endeavoured to hire him to worship himself for it is written Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve This then of the Vnity of the supreme being and the incommunicability of divine worship to any other Being whatsoever seems very Authentick Doctrine and to be very well attested yet after all this to prevent that damning sin of Idolatry whereas S. Peter refus'd the adoration of Cornelius with that reason Acts 10.26 Stand up for I my self also am a man And the Angel who had shewn S. John all those wonderful Prophetick schemes refus'd the worship of that Apostle with those words Rev. 22.9 See thou do it not for I am thy fellow servant and of thy brethren the Prophets worship thou God yet the blessed Jesus He who being the Son of God at least in some sence should have been of all others the most careful for securing his fathers honour yet He tells the Jews that his father had committed all judgment to him Joh. 5.23 that all men should honour the Son even as they honour the father i.e. with the same kind of or with equal honour now every one will own that the Father is to be worshipped as the supreme Being or as the most high God therefore Christ there assumes to himself the glory honour or worship belonging to the most high God nor could this be strange in him who being in the form of God thought it no robbery to be equal with God Phil. 2.6 The same Jesus suffer'd himself to be worshipped without any reluctancy or prohibition of the worshippers He forbad not the wise men from the East Matt. 2.11 when they fell down and worshipped him and made their offerings to him nor did the blessed Virgin who doubtless knew what it was to be an Idolater reprove them for their misapplied adorations nor did the Angel Matt. 8.2 c. 9.18 who was their guide and director in their journey inform them of this error No more did Christ forbid the Leper who worshipp'd him nor the Jewish Ruler who beg'd his goodness for the healing of his daughter Nor his Disciples when by his power delivered from the storm Nor yet all the Disciples when after his resurrection they all came and held him by the feet and worshipp'd him c. 14.33 c. 28.9 now Scripture in all these places puts no difference between that worship that is given to Christ and that which the same persons generally render'd to the supreme God therefore they knew nothing but that he really was of the same nature with God nor could he be so kind or good or wise as he is character'd to us who could see so many guilty of so damning a sin as Idolatry which they must have been guilty of if they gave to him a meer Creature that sovereign worship which belong'd to the Creator without any reproof or check for it Now tho' this danger may seem to infer a great deal of necessity of knowing Christ to be the true God yet we may press it farther For S. Paul tells us in plain terms Rom. 10.13 Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved where he is speaking of no other but our Lord Jesus Christ now this laid together with that other text Acts 4.12 that there is no salvation in any other for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved joyning these together as they assert the positive so they include the negative of equal truth that Without calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Salvation can never be attained but then it follows How shall they call on him in whom they have not believ'd v. 14. or in whom they have not had faith but Faith may not be fixt on any but on him who is the true God true Faith is only towards God Heb. 6.1 as the Apostle's phrase teaches us and the Socinians themselves in the very Text we are now upon would perswade us to believe that it was onely God the Father who was believed on in the World Heb. 11.6 because he onely was the proper object of Faith and we are told that without Faith it is impossible to please God but to imagine that any Faith can please God which is placed in any Being beside himself is foolish and absurd Yet whereas God declared by his Prophet of old Cursed be the Man that trusteth in Man and maketh flesh his arm and in his heart departeth from the Lord Jer. 17.5 Christ a little before his Passion bids his Disciples as they believed in God John 14.1
consider His declarations of Himself and his Apostles declarations concerning Him in the New Testament which we shall find of such a nature as may sufficiently prove the Divinity of the Son of God and here we 'l begin as Enjedine a subtle and industrious Unitarian does with that of S. Matthew where having given us an account of the Angels charge to Joseph concerning his espoused wife then with child by the power of the Holy Ghost he tells us that in all this that of the Prophet was fulfilled Behold a Virgin shall be with child Matth. 1.23 and shall bring forth a Son and they shall call his name Immanuel which is being interpreted God with us this the Evangelist quotes from Isai 7.14 Here Enjedine makes the Evangelist a very impertinent Writer alledging Old Testaments-texts upon every little hint tho' never so far from the purpose which argues very little reverence for an inspired Writer He tells us The name Immanuel could not signifie that Christ was God because the Prophet where he names him says he was sometime to be born that he should eat butter and honey that he should sometime be ignorant of the difference between good and bad c. therefore he could not be God but all these things were and were necessarily true of him as he was Man since he assumed a real and not a fantastick body We know he was born in the fulness of time taking flesh of the Virgin Mary that what was the dyet of other infants in those parts of the world was his too that it might be evident to all the world he had assumed a real body like other men in every thing but sin We believe his Humane Body grew and increas'd as that of other men and that rational Soul joyned with his body by which he was a true Man had its advances in understanding tho' at a greater and more early rate than others all this we believe and yet Christ might be God and God with us for all this For the reality of his Humanity was not any prejudice to the truth of his Divinity he was perfect Man and no less perfect God Our adversary questions farther whether the name Immanuel be here given to Christ or not because he finds him no where else called by that name But neither was there any reason for that this prophetical name being chiefly designed to signifie his Nature Enjed. in locum as Christ was to signifie his Office and since 't is certain the name does belong to some body for it 's not put there for nothing either it belongs to Christ or that Author ought to have named some body to whom it did belong but he is silent in that matter therefore we conclude it belongs to the Son of God He alledges farther that supposing the name Immanuel be the name of Jesus in the Text it signifies no more than that God was in and with him as he was with other of his Prophets but that 's impertinent since the name doth not import that God was in or with him but that upon his Incarnation God was with us i. e. God did then assume flesh and appear to and come among us which could not be unless he were God He tells us Moses might as well have been called Emmanuel while he converst with the Israelites and the Ark of God especially since the Israelites expected to be saved by it and upon its being brought into the field the Philistines cryed out God is come into the Camp but was Moses conceived of the Holy Ghost was the Ark of God really a living Saviour God might have given them what names himself pleas'd but we no where find that he gave them this which shews that he designed to appropriate this name wholly to his own Son when he should send him into the world that under that very state of exinanition or humiliation we should see him we should know how great a Being converst with us What else he objects is absurd even to ridiculousness viz. That many since that time have born the name of Immanuel and yet we never took them for gods as several Emperours of Constantinople and many private men among the rest Immanuel Tremellius as he instances a learned Protestant of later years He might as well have proved that because several Jews and others have been called Moses and yet none of them were Lawgivers to Israel therefore Moses the Son of Amram was no such Legislator or that because there were several Jews who bore the name of Josua or Jesus who were not the Saviours of the world that therefore our Jesus was not so what signifies what name I or another fix upon my Son Or what 's more ordinary than for Men to baptize their children by Scripture-names without ever reflecting on or knowing the meaning of those names But where God gives a name and where the Spirit of God interprets it neither the Name nor the Interpretation can be insignificant nor is it so here but being by the Prophet of old assign'd to by the Evangelist here applyed to the Son of God it sufficiently teaches us that He was God eternal even God with us In the next place we may consider that Command of our Saviour himself to his Apostles when he gave them their Commission for executing their Apostolical Functions Matth. 28.19 Go ye and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Where the Son and the Holy Ghost being set equally with the Father as the objects of our Baptismal Faith either prove to us their certain equality or seem of a very dangerous import ready to impress upon us false notions of the Deity and to make us think those really equal whom we see by Christ himself joyned together without any particular mark of distinction or inequality when indeed they are not But this were to represent the Evangelist under a very ill Character I shall not insist upon that in this place that the Father Son and Holy Ghost are here named as three distinct Beings and one as much and really a person as the other Enjed. Wolzogenius in loc which the Socinians deny of the Holy Ghost but shall only take notice of those evasions they make use of for here they tell us That we may as well infer from that of the Apostle concerning the Israelites 1 Cor. 10.2 That they were all Baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea that Moses was the most high God as that Christ was God from this command of Mens being baptized in his name We know well enough that to be baptized into Moses is to be initiated into that Church which is governed by that Law given by God to Moses and that to be baptized into Christ is to be entred into that Church which receives God's Law as delivered by Christ but where in any divine precept do we find God the Father and
Moses and the Holy Ghost linked together as if there were an equality among them We are told indeed by Wolzogenius that that passage after the Israelites having gone through the red Sea is a parallel Exod. 14.31 Having seen that great work which God had done upon the Aegyptians having drowned them while themselves were safe we are told the people feared the Lord and believed the Lord or in the Lord as your Margin reads it and in his servant Moses but that 's indeed no parallel for there 's distinction enough made between God and Moses one is the Lord the other but the servant but there is no such distinction in the Text no servant no intimation of an inferiority but only the order of nature followed and the Father put before the Son and both before the Holy Ghost which proceeds from both Then whereas Enjedine tells us That to be baptised into Moses was not to believe that Moses was the most high God and consequently That to be baptised into the name of the Son of God is not to believe any such thing of him he forgets that to be baptised into the name of the Father is to declare our belief of His being the most high God by his own confession yet that belief is the very Character by which those Hereticks distinguish themselves from us whom they call Trinitarians and if that be own'd our baptising in the name of Christ must infer our acknowledgment of his Divinity since the Father and the Son are joyned together in the same expression and we are baptised alike and as much into the name and belief of one as of the other But they would prove that Christ is not here made equal with his Father because S. Paul afterwards ranks him but with himself and others as in his reproof of the Corinthians for saying 1 Cor. 1.12 I am of Paul and I of Apollos and I of Cephas and I of Christ Here indeed they confess there is a real superiority in Christ to any of these mentioned with him That acknowledgment was inevitable But farther tho' the Apostle condemn the Corinthians for calling themselves by his name or the name of any of his fellow labourers yet he approves their calling themselves by the name of Christ for so he tells them with respect to Creatures and their circumstances 2 Cor. 3.22 23. All are theirs whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come all are yours but then he changes his stile and ye are Christs and Christ is Gods and so he was the Messiah the Anointed sent by God into the world In conclusion they tell us that these words were never designed as a formulary of Baptism which they prove because there is no account in Scripture particularly in the History of the Acts of any baptised by this form but will they assert there was no form at all no significant words made use of in the administration of that ordinance that would be to leave the meaning of the outward Ceremony uncertain and to take away the Sacramental nature of baptism if there were any words used either they must allow these or assign some other which none that I know of have attempted It 's true they say the Eunuch only declared to Philip before his Baptism Acts 8.37 that He believed Jesus Christ was the Son of God and there was no need of more Philip questioned not his belief of a God He was a Jewish Proselyte and if he owned the Son-ship of Christ he would by consequence believe whatsoever should be revealed to the world by him But we read not of any words used by Philip in the act of baptising him they say this silence proves the words in the Text we are treating of were not used I say no but Christ's particular institution being very well known and his disciples using to obey his commands S. Luke's silence infers that Philip used those very words so instituted otherwise the Evangelist would have taken notice of some other and thus after all God the Father Son and Holy Ghost being joyn'd together in the words of institution in Christian Baptism without any mark of inferiority these words prove the Son of God to be God equal with his Father The next place we shall insist upon is that remarkable beginning of S. John's Gospel In the beginning was the Word John 1.1 2 3. and the Word was with God and the Word was God the same was in the beginning with God all things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made where we have these two great men Erasmus and Grotius agreeing with us That they are an unanswerable argument of the Divinity of the Son of God who yet are apt enough to betray that article of our Faith by weakning other considerable evidences of the same truth As for the person here meant by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word the Socinians themselves as far as I can find excepting the Annotator on the Racovian Catechism acknowledge that it is the Son of God to tell all their discourses for the eluding the force of this Text would be a work too tedious only this we may observe they tell us That whereas Moses begins his History of the Creation with a like expression to this of our Evangelist its rational to believe that the Evangelist here is only going to describe a second or a better Creation or rather the renovation of all things by Jesus Christ which had been ruined by the fall of our first parents which renovation of things began at the time of our Saviour's Incarnation and therefore the Evangelist means no more by that phrase In the beginning was the word but that Jesus Christ the word of God had a being when the Almighty God first set upon this work of re-creation or renovation of all things And that indeed the design of the Evangelist is only to obviate an objection that might be made on the behalf of John the Baptist who stood fair to have been taken for the Messias because he first entred upon his office and preached repentance and baptised which were truly Evangelical works whereas Christ himself lay hid and wholly undiscovered to the world But to my best apprehension there was very little need of all this care for tho' some such thoughts might have entred into Men's heads when they were all full of expectation of a Messias that John whose holy and severe life and whose very useful doctrine was generally known might be that Messias as we see by that message which the Jews sent to him from Jerusalem Art thou the Christ or Elias or that Prophet or who art thou tho' men might entertain some such thoughts the Evangelist represents John the Baptist as very careful to prevent any such dangerous mistakes therefore he not only answers negatively to their particular enquiries viz. That he was not
futurae felicitatis aut singulari gloriae divinae pietatisque ardore complentur It is such an influence of God as by which our minds are fill'd either with a more plentiful knowledge of Divine things or with a more certain hope of eternal life and consequently with joy and a taste of future happiness or a peculiar heat of divine glory and piety this may look somewhat like cant but however it teaches us to ascribe this sacred influence to the most high God and to ascribe very great effects to this influence but these effects the breathing of the blessed Jesus had therefore there must either be two Holy Ghosts one the influence and Power of a meer man the other the influence or Power of the most high God or else the Power and influence of the most high God in its full force and vigor must be at the disposal of Christ and therefore he must be equal with the most high God since he bestows the same Divine Gift with the same power and efficacy and therefore he must be the most high God Thus have we animadverted on our Saviviour's own Actions while conversant upon Earth and have seen how far they contribute to the proof of his Divine Nature We may read the same in the Actions of his Apostles after his Ascension S. Peter makes his Speech before the feast of Pentecost to the Apostles and Brethren about filling that vacancy made in the Apostolical College by the miscarriage of Judas the Traytor A sufficient evidence this says Schlichtingius very truly that He had indeed received the Holy Ghost with effect when his Master breathed as before on Him and his Companions but there was yet a more plentiful effusion of the Holy Ghost upon them to come their Master had promis'd it and he took occasion on the most publick and solemn Occasion to fulfil it namely at the feast of Pentecost when Jerusalem was extremely full of Strangers from all parts The Apostles were no sooner endued with power from on high but presently they employ the Heavenly Gift and preach to purpose to the wondring multitude S. Peter's discourse is particularly upon record and in it after a severe and plain recollection of their great sin in crucifying the Lord of life and glory he gives them an account of their present miraculous gifts which he derives not from God the Father but assures them that Christ being exalted to the right hand of God and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost he Acts 2.33 the same Christ had himself shed forth that which they then saw and heard thus the Holy Ghost proceeded equally from the Father and the Son the first promis'd it the last gave it but this was not all when the wounded multitude came to the Apostles with that weighty question Men and Brethren what shall we do Peter said unto them v. 37 38. repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ Was Jesus Christ then God or was he a meer Man or what 's the same a meer Creature We find no example of a meer man so honoured as that any should be baptised in his name S. Paul indeed tells the Corinthians that the Fathers the predecessors of Israel were all baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea 1 Cor. 10.2 meaning the Red Sea and that Cloud which parted them from the Aegyptians at first and afterwards covered the Tabernacle This is of the same import with that of being baptised into Christ and both signifie Gal. 3.27 being by virtue of a sacred Ordinance admitted into or made members of those Churches of which Moses in the name of God founded the one and Christ in his own name founded the other But we never read of any Sacramental Institution by virtue of which any should be baptised in the name of the Father and of Moses and of the Holy Ghost nor do we find any footsteps of Mens being circumcised in the name of Moses nor were the Israelites ever call'd by the name of Moses Christians yet bear the name of Christ to this day and justly since he did and suffered so much for them and they are baptised in his name 1 Cor. 1.13 it 's the Apostles argument against the dividing Corinthians And the Apostle tho' a chosen instrument in the hand of God for the conversion of the Gentiles tho' inferiour to none of the Apostles and therefore as holy as the holiest of meer men yet makes it a matter of satisfaction to himself with respect to the Corinthians that he had personally baptis'd so very few v. 14 15. lest any should have said he had baptis'd in his own name What the Apostle there writes is worth our more serious consideration That the Corinthians who believed were baptised in the name of Christ we need not doubt we see it was one of the first conditions of eternal Salvation propounded by S. Peter by Philip by Paul in the Jaylors case therefore not neglected here Why then should S. Paul be so well pleas'd on this account that He in person had not baptised them it seems an enquiry thus only and truly to be answer'd The Corinthians being naturally of a very fickle and dividing humour were desirous to have some considerable persons to Head and so to countenance their several Parties this humour made them catch so eagerly at the great names of Apollos and Cephas as well as of S. Paul himself this was very unhappy but when only Elders or Deacons of a common reputation and inferiour rank Vid. Clement Ep. ad Corinth Coc. t. 1. p. 154. Edit Lab. Cos. appear'd in the work of Baptising Converts their names made none ambitious to be called after them nor would it ever enter into any man's head that such should have baptised Christians in their own Names as it might have done had the principal Apostles been the general ministers of that Ordinance so S. Paul is very fearful here lest among a Capricious People his name should seem to stand in competition with that of his Master the Lord Jesus Christ He appears in this case as tender of Sacrilege or robbing Christ of his as he was of robbing the most high God of his Honour when at Lystra he rent his clothes for grief at that levity and madness whereby the Lystrians were moved to offer Sacrifices to him and Barnabas as if they had been Gods but there would not have been so great reason for this extraordinary sollicitude of the Apostle if Christ himself had not been of a Divine Nature or robbing Him equal to robbing the supreme God of his Honour and if it had been so great a crime for S. Paul an holy Man to encroach upon God's Honour by ascribing any thing of it to himself it could be no less a crime in our Saviour if he were but a meer Man a created Being tho' he were never so holy to appropriate any
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.
bodies and yet be Angels or Spirits still much more must it be believed that God could do the same Thus still he prosecutes his Argument and all his care was to prove not that Christ was God for that was granted on all hands but that he was Man which some denyed upon that very ground because he was God without controversie Again in his book of Prescriptions against Hereticks De Praescrip p. 36. He lays down somewhat like the form of a Creed and agreeable to our own Where first he says They believed one God the World's Creator who produced all things out of nothing by his Word that Word his Son was called by the name of God variously seen by the Patriarchs always heard in the Prophets at last brought by the power and Spirit of God the Father into the womb of the Virgin Mary He took flesh of Her and was born of Her and so became the Man Jesus Christ c. Here we have our Saviour's Existence antecedently to his birth of the blessed Virgin not only asserted but declared as the general Doctrine and Tradition of the Catholick Church and that less than two hundred years after our Saviour's Passion and made use of as a Prescription against an Heretick Now Marcion if he had not been well assured that Tertullian asserted no more than what was the current Doctrine of the Catholick Church might easily have baffled all Tertullian's pretence to Prescription by shewing him that all the Christians of the former Age were utterly ignorant of his pretended Articles of Faith but we never hear of any such Reply made Tho' we have no reason to doubt but that the Hereticks of those ages were as earnest to maintain their Errors as those are who tread in their footsteps in this After this in the same book Tertullian reflects upon other capital Hereticks So he tells us that Cerinthus maintained fol. 41. that Christ was only of the seed of Joseph a meer Man without any Divine Nature He tells us again that Theodotus of Byzantium blasphemed Christ for He too brought in a Doctrine quâ Christum Hominem tantummodo diceret Deum autem illum negaret Wherein he taught that Christ was a meer Man and that he was not God that He was indeed born of a Virgin thro' the Holy Ghost fol. 42. otherwise He was only a Man no better than others but as his Goodness gave him a greater authority than others If Tertullian then took Theodotus to be an Heretick on account of this Doctrine it can scarce be doubted but he 'd have taken Socinus and his Partners for the same had they liv'd in those days and I find our Socinians doing so much right to this Theodotus as fairly to reckon him among the Patrons of their opinions If we go farther with Tertullian we find him assaulting the same Heretick Marcion again and arguing God's extraordinary goodness from that great Humiliation of himself to take humane nature upon him He concludes his argument at last with this Totum denique Dei mei penes vos dedecus Adversus Mar. l. 2. f. 68. sacramentum est Humanae salutis c. All that which in your opinion is so disgraceful to the God I believe in is the Seal of our Salvation God converst with Man that Man might learn to do those things that are divine God acted suitably with Man that Man might endeavour to act agreeably to God God was found in a mean state that Man might be exalted to the utmost He that despises such a God can hardly be thought to believe in God crucified In another book against the same Marcion he argues from the antient apparitions of Angels that Christ tho' God had a true and real body We will not yield to thee says he that Angels had only a fantastick body but those bodies they assumed had a true solid humane substance this elsewhere he makes good it follows If it were not hard for Christ to exert the true sence and action of a Man in imaginary flesh it was much easier to make true and substantial flesh as he was the Author and maker of it to be the subject of true common sence and action Thy God was fain to appear in an imaginary body l. 3. fol. 72. because he was not able to produce a real one But my God who without pursuing the common course of nature could make real flesh of Earth could have invested Angels with real bodies of any kind whatsoever For with a word He made the world of nothing and shaped it into so many various bodies as we see Then he tells us Angels had flesh truly humane and connate with the time they appear'd in because Christ only himself was to be flesh of flesh that by his Birth he might purifie ours that by his Death he might free us from the slavery of Death he rising again in that flesh in which he was born only that he might die Therefore He appear'd in a true body accompanied with Angels to Abraham but not a body that was born because it was not that body which was to die In consequence of this discourse which proves our Saviour's Pre-existence to his Birth fol. 73. he urges his Adversary with that name of Immanuel or God with us from whence proving the reality of his divine he regularly infers the equal reality of his humane nature If we proceed we find the same Father publishing his Faith in the beginning of his book against Praxeas He was an Heretick so far yet from believing Christ to be a Creature or a meer Man that he asserted it was God the Father who was born of the Virgin and crucified and Dead and that He was Jesus Christ In opposition to him the Father declares As we are instructed by the Holy Ghost Adv. Prax. fol. 144. which leads us into all truth We believe one God and that the Word is the Son of that one God who was begotten of him by whom all things were made and without whom nothing was made that he was sent by the Father into the Virgin and born of Her Man and God the Son of Man and the Son of God and called Jesus Christ This was then his Faith and with him Christ had a being before he was born into the World and was what we assert the Creator of all things Thus afterwards he tells us in the same book the Father is God fol. 147. the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God and dilates upon and vindicates that truth He tells us that the Father is God Almighty and most high fol. 149. and that the Son justly claims the same titles and that the Father and the Son are one God and indeed c. 21.22 fol. 219 220. the farther proof of this is the general design of that book He confirms the same Doctrine in his Apology for Christianity against the Gentiles Besides these books he wrote one particularly concerning the
Trinity where among other things quoting the words of the Prophet Hosea I will not save them by my bow nor by horses Hos 1.7 nor by horsemen but I will save them by the Lord their God He infers from thence If God promises them Salvation in their God or by him and yet saves them only by Christ why should any Man be afraid to call Christ God since he is called so by his Father in Scripture Nay if the Father saves none but by God no man can be sav'd by God the Father who does not confess Christ to be God in and by whom God promises to give salvation whosoever acknowledges him to be God shall obtain Salvation in Christ De Trinit fol. 236. who is God whosoever acknowledges him not to be God shall not be sav'd by him With a great deal more to the same purpose In conclusion he takes notice of some who in those days argued at the Socinian rate That if Christ were God and Christ suffered Death then the Deity suffered death to which he answers appositely enough That if Christ had been only God and had dyed their conclusion had been true but Christ being man as well as God his Humanity suffer'd indeed but his Divine Nature was unprejudiced untouch'd Thus have we largely and impartially examined this Father about this Doctrine of Christ's being God and his assertions are so plain and direct and the Heresies he impeach'd in his writings of such a nature that they both concur exactly in the confirmation of the same that our Saviour was truly and really God equal with his Father and the most high God We have another glorious luminary of the same Church S. Cyprian that holy Martyr of Jesus Christ and the laborious Bishop of Carthage who as he was a great admirer of the writings of Tertullian so concurred with him in the same Doctrine of the Divinity of Jesus Christ S. Cyprian then in his book of the vanity of Idols having setled that fundamental truth That there is only one God presently shews that our Saviour is God too this he would not have done had he judged the inference good that to believe Jesus Christ was God was to make two Gods He would not so soon contradict himself nor go about to set up a new Idol when he was endeavouring to exterminate the old Thus then He tells us That whereas the Jews a stubborn and rebellious people had long abus'd the Goodness of God God was resolved to call to himself from among the Gentiles a People that should shew forth better effects of his mercy than they did the Manager of this Goodness Cyprian de Idolor vanit Edit Ox. p. 15. Grace and Method was He who is the Word and Son of God who had been foretold by all the Prophets the enlightner and teacher of all Mankind This Son is the Power the Fulness the Wisdom the Glory of God He enter'd into the Virgin assumed flesh by the co-operation of the Holy Ghost God united with Man He is our God He is Christ who put on the nature of those Men whom He leads to his Father Christ would be what Man is that Man might be what Christ is In his second book of Testimonies against the Jews p. 34 35. he spends one whole chapter in heaping up such Scripture texts as before Socinian Commentaries were thought on were judg'd sufficient proofs that Christ was God In particular he insists on those passages of the 45 Psalm which are applied to our Saviour so directly by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews 1 Joh. 5.7 That famous place There are three that bear record in heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these three are one has been much controverted it seems to be a very plain text for the Trinity and consubstantiality or equality or sameness of nature in the Father Son and Holy Ghost but Criticks observe that this verse is wanting in several Copies of considerable Antiquity and Dr. Burnet in his account of the Library in Swisserland See his Lett. takes notice of its being wanting in several Manuscripts he had purposely examined yet after all our S. Cyprian much more antient than the eldest Manuscript he or any other Critical Writerâ— have yet given us an account of in his book of Church-unity quotes it as we read it iâ— our Bibles Socinus takes it for granted thâ— passage was inserted into the Bible by somâ— zealous Trinitarian who made use of anâ— fraud to advance their own Error S. Hiâ—rome who had found it wanting in somâ— Copies in his time which was about 400 years after Christ imputes the want of it more rationally to Arrian transcribers who finding themselves pinch'd with so plain a text when they could not answer it resolved to take it quite away This he signifies in a short Epistle to Eustochium printed formerly frequently in the Latin Bibles of late omitted as is observed by the learned Dr. Fell late Bishop of Oxford in his notes on S. Cyprian S. Cyprian by quoting the verse as we have it confirms S. Jerome's opinion and renders that of Socinus ridiculous for he quoted it before the Arrian Heresie was founded and that twice in his Works therefore could he have no such design as Socinus insinuates Yet S. Cyprian's opinion is that whosoever does not believe this Unity of the Father and the Son De Vnit Ec. p. 10â— as laid down in that Text does not believe the Law of God nor hold the Faith and Truth of the Father and the Son to his Salvation The â—ame S. Cyprian recommending Patience to Christians and that in a time when the â—aging Persecution made it extremely neâ—essary he advances it by the example of Christ for says He Jesus Christ Deus Dominus noster Our God and our Lord â—as taught us this virtue not only in his Words De bono Patientiae p. 213. â—ut in his Actions which he clears as Tertullian before him by his Descent from Heaven to earth assuming our nature and â—iffering in it Again in his account of â—he Council of Carthage held about those â—ho had been baptised by Hereticks among the suffrages of the Bishops there present Fortunatus Bishop of Thuchabore declares Jesus Christus Dominus Deus noster p. 233. c. 17 Dei Patris Creatoris filius Jesus Christ our Lord and God the Son of God the Father and Creator has founded his Church not upon Heresies c. 29.235 but upon a Rock The same title is given him by Euchratius Bishop of Thenâ— the same by Venantius Bishop of Tinisa a Confessor had not this been agreeable to the common sentiments of the Church in those days it would certainly have been the occasion of some contests and others would have observed and reflected on the incautiousness of their Collegues but we meet with no differences on this occasion therefore we rightly conclude they spoke agreeably to the Catholick
Doctrine S. Cyprian himself is mighty frequent in such passages so in his Epistle to Rogatianus he calls out Lord Jesus Christ our King and Judge and our God Ep. 3. p. 6. Ep. 11. p. 23. and what higher characters could be given him In his Epistle to his Presbyters and Deacons he encourages them to assiduity in Prayer by the consideration of having Jesus Christ our Lord and God our Advocate and Mediator Plebi Thibaeri p 123 125. p. 146 148. so again in his fifty first Epistle to Cornelius Bishop of Rome in his fifty eighth Epistle twice in h s sixty second to Januarius and others Christ is our Judge our Lord and our God so in his sixty third in his Epistle to Jubaianus concerning the invalidity of the Baptism of Hereticks He argues against that Baptism thus If any one says he can be truly baptis'd by Hereticks he may then by that Baptism obtain remission of sins if He obtain remission of his sins he is sanctified and is made the temple of God I ask then of what God if of the Creator he cannot be his temple because he believed not in him if you say of Christ neither can he be his temple Epist 73. p. 203. who denyes Christ to be God if you say he 's the temple of the Holy Ghost seeing the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost are all One how can the Holy Spirit be pleas'd with him who is an enemy to both the Father and the Son Here the force of the Martyrs argument lyes only in the Identity of nature in â—he Father the Son and the Holy Ghost and the poyson of Heresie consists effectually in denying the Lord Jesus Christ to be God but he would not have argued thus had not the Divinity of Christ been the general and well known Doctrine of the Church p. 212. He uses the same argument again in his 74. Epistle to Pompey to name no more Now â—n conclusion who can imagine that a holy Martyr so great an enemy to Idolatry so careful to refute the vulgar Error of a â—lurality of Gods should yet so very frequently use such suspicious expressions as must needs make the World believe he â—wned Christ for God and consequently multiplied those Gods himself which he expos'd others so much for if the whole objection were not to be removed by that assertion that the Father was God and the Son God yet they were not two but one God an Identity of their nature necessarily inferring the Vnity of the God-head The same Africa affords us yet another Writer of great antiquity and learning Arnobius in his several books against the Pagan Religion in his first book reflecting upon several of their Gods he takes notice how much they were grieved that Christ should be worshipped by Christians and received for and esteemed as a God And whereas Pagans derided Christians Arnobius adver gentes l. 1. p. 21. Edit Leidensis for accounting him a God whom they owned to have been born a Man he retorts upon them that They were guilty of that crime but says He supposing all you object in that respect were true would not Christ on account meerly of those benefits he confers upon us deserve to be call'd and to be thought a God He argues from their own principles who thought every considerable Invention of any Man was enough to procure his being Deified as Bacchus for finding out the use of Wine Ceres for Bread Minerva for Oyl c. But in the mean time Arnobius openly enough acknowledges that Christians did receive Christ as God He speaks yet more plainly soon after Christ for his benefits ought to be called God Nay He really is God without any scruple or ambiguity and would you have us deny him Worship or disown his Government But will some angry Pagan cry out is Christ a God We answer he is God and a God of infinite Power too and which will more exasperate an infidel he was sent from the supreme King to us upon the greatest errand in the World Perhaps the Pagan being more enraged at this will demand a Proof of what we say there needs certainly no greater proof of Christ's Divinity than an exact examination of his actions If it be objected that He was a Magician and performed his mighty works only by unlawful arts Let them who object this shew us any of their Magicians who ever did any thing like what was done by Christ or if they have done any thing of a prodigious nature it has still been by invoking some other Being but Christ without any Helps without any Magick Rites or Observations did all he did by the power of his own Name and what was proper and agreeable to and worthy of a True God nothing he did was hurtful or mischievous but helpful saving and the kind effects of divine Bounty And was he Mortal was he only one of us at whose ordinary commands Weaknesses Sicknesses Fevers and all bodily Pains were gone at once Was he one of us l. 1. p. 27. c. whose very Look the Devils could not endure Was he a meer Man whose slightest touch could cure the bloody Issue whose hand could make Hydropick humours vanish who could make the Lame run the Wither'd Hand recover its motion the Blind to see nay those who were born without eyes to see the light Was He a meer Man at whose word the angry Seas laid down their rage the rugged Storms and Tempests sunk while He with a dry foot walkt upon the swelling billows and trod upon the Oceans back the waves themselves standing amazed at the prodigious action and humble nature submitting to her Founder And so he proceeds in a florid and pathetick stile by an induction of particulars and a relating of circumstances to prove that Christ must be True God and that all the Idols of the Heathen were none Again a little after he tells the Pagans Christ was the high God the God from the beginning a God sent from unknown kingdoms God sent by the Prince of all things to be the universal Saviour whom neither the Sun nor Stars if they have any sence nor the Governours nor Princes of this World nor those mighty Gods who assuming that terrible name affright poor mortal creatures were able to find out or so much as to guess what He was or whence He came at whose very look then when he was clothed with flesh p. 32. the universal fabrick trembled and fell into a sudden disorder Again Arnobius brings in the Pagans objecting If Christ was God why was He seen in the form of a Man Why was He put to Death as Men are to this he answers Was there any other way whereby that invisible power which had no Corporeal Substance could suit it self to the World or be visibly present in the assemblies of mortal Men than by assuming a covering of solid matter which might be a proper object whereon Men might fix
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
was really free with respect to us howsoever God the Son satisfied his Father's Justice to procure that Remission for us The last proof the Socinians alledge is that Parable of our Saviour's Matth. 18.23 c. The great business of our Saviour in that Parable is to urge Men to mutual Charity and Forgiveness of one another in case of any Trespasses by one committed against the other this he urges from the Greatness of that Remission which is made to us and the Smalness of the greatest Trespasses which can be committed against us in comparison of those Trespasses we are guilty of against God so the Argument amounts to this If God forgive us our ten thousand Talents a debt which we are utterly uncapable of ever discharging we ought to forgive our offending Brethren those hundred pence which it's possible they may be engaged in to us or those little inconsiderable Injuries they may have done us and for which on occasion they may be capable of making us a reasonable Compensation If it be urged that Forgiveness which we partake of is free we own it for it proceeds from one God without any other Motive but what proceeds from himself but the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost are that one God therefore that Remission of our Sins which is given by the Father purchased by the Son and sealed by the Holy Ghost is with respect to us wholly gratuitous or free But to this they presently object At remissioni gratuitae nihil adversatur magis quam ejusmodi qualem Christiani vulgo volunt Satisfactio pretii aequalis solutio That nothing can be more contrary to the free Remission of Sins than such a Satisfaction as Christians generally talk of or a purchace of such a Remission at a just Price for say they when a Creditor is satisfied either by the Debtor himself or by some other in the Debtor's name it cannot be truly said That such a Creditor so satisfied hath freely forgiven his Debtor This Instance may be true but nothing to the purpose for if a Debtor pay not what he ows me Justice requires a legal Prosecution of that Debtor nor can that Justice with relation to the publick or my own private Concern be satisfied unless the Debtor be so prosecuted but if I considering the extreme necessity of the Debtor and the certain Ruine which must fall upon him if prosecuted do therefore contrive a way to satisfie the Justice of the Law that no ill Example be drawn from my remisness and withal to shew my Kindness and Compassion to the poor insolvent Person do by a second Hand but equally concerned convey so much to the Debtor as wherewith if he apply it as originally design'd he may discharge the Debt and so satisfie the eternal and immutable Law of Justice yet after all if the Debt be paid as when the Summ is truly and honestly laid down to the Creditor it is truly and legally paid then the Remission of that Debt is truly and properly call'd free Free because undeserv'd by the Debtor Free because the Debtor was in himself absolutely insolvent Free because this Method of Kindness was freely and without any adventitious or external Motive resolv'd on Free because the Person so assisted is discharg'd of the Debt as if the Payment had proceeded wholly and only from himself But in the mean time we may safely assert howsoever some may seem very shy in the matter what Socinus himself and after him Crellius so strongly oppose That God Vid. Crell in Grotium c. 4. p. 99. with a due and necessary regard to his own Justice could not pardon the Sins of Men without some satisfaction offer'd on their account nor is this to deny God's Omnipotence any more than it is to deny the possibility of Transubstantiation but it 's to vindicate and make good the true Notion we have of the Supreme God in whom Justice and Mercy are co-existent from Eternity and consequently the just distribution of Rewards and Punishments essential to him and whatsoever Men or Angels now do or ever have done whatsoever they shall or do receive in consideration of their Actions whatsoever by Guilt they are liable to and must suffer and whatsoever Effects infinite Mercy could have in respect to all or any of them all these things were present from Eternity with all Circumstances attending them in the Divine Mind so that no Methods nor Rules of God's dealing can now be changed without supposing God himself changeable concerning whom yet the Apostle assures us James 1.7 That with him there is no variableness nor shadow of turning Now all these things being necessarily true to make up the Idaea of an infinite God whatsoever Notion we have of Justice or Mercy consider'd abstractively or simply in their own Natures without any Object whatsoever on which they might be exercised the same Notions we must have of that infinite Mercy and Justice which is in God notwithstanding all the Variety in their Objects daily observable and all the most minute Circumstances attending them because all these Varieties and Circumstances were before God from Eternity and so coexistent with that Justice and Mercy essential to the Divine Nature and therefore can offer no reason why God should now or in time limit or dilate or change his eternal Judiciary or Merciful Determinations So if it be beyond the reach of Omnipotence for God to contradict himself then it 's beyond the reach of Omnipotence that the Effects of any Divine Attribute relating to Mankind should be frustrated or Sins being so direct a Contradiction to his holy Nature should go unpunished or Goodness so agreeable to his Nature and his revealed Will should go unrewarded The Socinians themselves confess as I shew'd you before that God cannot be injurious or do any wrong to any because he is perfectè justus perfectly or infinitely just but if God could without any satisfaction on the part of Man forgive all those Sins Man was guilty of and yet did not nor does forgive all but only some particular Persons for some will certainly be damn'd and it 's as certain that those who are damn'd were never pardon'd then while God extends his Mercy to some and those not the least but even the greatest of Sinners as St. Paul owns himself once was and punishes others for the same or it may be fewer or less aggravated Sins God must be very unmerciful and very injurious to those so punished unless we suppose arbitrary and irrespective Determinations of all things to be the most powerful efforts of Divine Goodness or Justice which few Persons of any tolerable sense will be persuaded to believe Besides could God forgive the Sins of Men without any Satisfaction offer'd on their behalf and yet not lay any Imputation on his own perfect Justice I know not how to prove that he is not injuâ—ious to all those from whom He requires Faith and that vigorous and persevering and
as well as Man all the difficulty vanishes at once his Person was more august his Power and Authority greater his Will uncontroulable his Holiness and Dignity incomparable Moses was but the Servant he the Lord and therefore without any Impeachment to the Fidelity and Honour of Moses he might reverse every Institution of his as he pleas'd since he as God was able of himself without any circumstantial Delay to give the World a more compleat and perfect Rule whereby humane Happiness and God's Glory the great ends of all divine Institutions might be more directly promoted the great work he undertook was proper to the Deity it self but superiour to any humbler Being this requiring so much the Satisfaction of God's Anger rais'd against a stupid sinful World cannot be suppos'd more easily brought about for the weight of God's Anger against Sin being insupportable to meer Flesh and Blood Help must of necessity be laid upon One mighty to save or else Mankind who had so long subsisted upon the lively Hope of a glorious Deliverance must have perish'd without Remedy at last and finally the Justification of our Faith Pardoning of our Sins and the bestowing upon us Everlasting Life are things compatible only with God yet really and properly ascribed to our Saviour therefore He must be God therefore He that was incarnate or made Flesh for our Salvation must be God But now if we observe the Nature of this great Work for which God was manifested in the Flesh we shall find it was wholly the effect of Immense Love and Pity to Mankind and of extraordinary Interest and Power with the great Father of all things therefore an Undertaking more peculiarly proper to God the Son than to any other Person in the Trinity Man's Redemption was an Effect of the Father's Love the Deity it self is Love the Design of saving such Sinners as should make use of Means to be offer'd in due time to that purpose was an Effect of Love the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost were all consenting in the Design from the Father as the beginning of Order must the first motions of Eternal Love and Goodness and Will take its Original not as if there were any Interstice of time between the Actions of Eternal Minds for Time can have no place or consideration in Eternity but we must speak of such things suitably to Humane Apprehensions by which kind of Expressions tho' our Idea's of God's Acts cannot be adequate or proportionable yet they may be true and safe so we speak of God the Father as propounding of God the Son as declaring his readiness to execute what 's propounded of God the Holy Ghost as consenting so to influence the Objects of Love and Mercy that neither the Proposal nor its Prosecution should be frustrated all these though the distinct Acts of Three distinct Substances are yet all one uninterrupted Act and Determination of one Infinite and Eternal God for where Infinity or Eternity or any other Attributes peculiar only to God are given to Three distinct Substances yet those Substances which are infinite howsoever really distinct must of necessity be inseparable therefore they must of necessity be One for be the Substances never so much distinct and never so perfect in themselves yet Vnity must follow upon Inseparability But according to our common way of speaking God the Father designing the greatest Goodness to Men could shew that Love and Pity to them by no other effectual Means than by giving them his onely Son the very relative Term of Father and Son implies the greatest Nearness and Love in the World and the kinder and more loving a Father is to his Son the greater of necessity must that Favour and Love be which can be content to part with a Relation so dear for the Advantage or Satisfaction of another hence God accepted it as an Effort of compleat Love and Obedience in Abraham that he had not with-held his Son his onely Son from him but was ready without any murmuring to sacrifice him at his Creator's Command and if our blessed Redeemer was the Son of God the Son of his Love the Son in whom he was well pleased the Apostle urges it home and excellently He that spared not his own Son but deliver'd him up for us all Rom. 8.32 how shall he not with him give us all things the Gift of his Son was the greatest Effort of Tenderness that was possible therefore when Men had receiv'd that Gift from the Father's hand there could be no reason of doubting whether they should receive any thing else that was fit for God to bestow or for Man to receive Indeed when the Father had determined to express the greatest Love and Pity to his Creatures there did remain nothing else to be done but to send his Son into the World upon that Occasion for he was still to move so as not to impeach his Justice Justice could not be free and universal without Satisfaction in every respect Man was so soon as fallen a continual Criminal therefore Man was the Object of that irresistable Justice the acquitting him from the stroke of Justice was the effect of the greatest Love yet Justice not being perverted must be and was satisfied on that particular account therefore it must be and was satisfied by the grant of God the Son to put himself into a passible state and to suffer a Punishment equivalent to that due to Sinners and this could be effectually performed by none other but the only Son of God for The Redemption of trespassing Mankind from the stroke of Justice according to the Father's Intention required the most absolute Obedience the greatest Interest and the most extraordinary Compassion and Tenderness towards Mankind Now these things were all most naturally to be expected from the Son for Identity or Sameness of Will in God the Father is Command and Determination in God the Son is Submission and Obedience in God the Holy Ghost is Concurrence and Assistance Now if we consider the Severity of the Condition on which Man was to be redeem'd from sinking under Wrath to the utmost and without which it was impossible Man should be redeem'd at all if we reflect upon the weight of God's Displeasure due to Sin the infinite Power of the Being displeas'd the extream Provocations whereby it 's continually exasperated these Considerations must convince us that it required the greatest Obedience possible in the Undertaker such an Obedience as could be startled by no Difficulty diverted by no Temptation nor conquered by any Extremity it could engage with Of such an Obedience Isaac was a considerable Type who though so dear to his Father so vigorous and strong as he might have been able enough to have secured himself from the violent Zeal of his Aged Father though Nature must have had some Reluctance against Death against Death by the hand of his own Father by his hand from whom he had deserv'd all Kindness and Love by his
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.
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
For those rites continued will move the world to belive that the Messias is not yet come that the Faith so long profest in him as if he were come is vain that He who once pretended to that name only impos'd upon the world and was no better than a cheat and that therefore the Jewish Religion is and ought to be still in its full force Now this will appear very absurd and unreasonable to any one who has seriously weighed all those arguments brought to prove that Jesus Christ was the Son of the living God and therefore could be no Impostor and therefore must be that Messias he declar'd himself to be which being true it will follow that our Saviours coming must of necessity put an end to so much of the Jewish Law as was not co-incident with that of Nature and consequently not perpetually obliging That many of the Jews themselves ever look'd upon their Law as of a mutable nature in it self is proved sufficiently by Raymundus Martini in his Pugio fidei against the Jews and that it could never be more properly actually chang'd than by the Messias appears in him who proves from Jewish writers themselves that the Messias the King shall be greater than Moses nay greater than the ministring Angels and therefore the fittest for such a work and as he shews their own gloss in the Midrasch Koheleth upon that of Solomon Eccles 11.8 Pugionis fidei p. 3. dist 3. c. 20 tells us That every Law of all people whatsoever every Law that a man can learn in this world is all but vanity in comparison of the Law of the Messias Things of a less perfect and lasting nature must then vanish when that appears which is more perfect and eternal Whatsoever therefore crosses that end for which God sent his Son into the world and retains mysteries now altogether insignificant as being fully accomplished that cannot be pleasing to God and consequently the present Religion of the Jews cannot be the true Religion There are indeed some mysterious truths in which all Religions agree viz. The existence of a God his spirituality invisibility incomprehensibility c. they all agree That his Providence governs all things in the world however trifling and inconsiderable they may appear in the eyes of the world that He hears sees knows understands every thing tho' they know not how according to the objection of Atheists to reconcile such things to his want of eyes ears soul or any other parts which are all inconsistent with a spiritual being All agree together in granting the present state of Man very wretched and deplorable in looking upon him yet as capable of happiness provided a sutable mean for its procurement could be found out and in expectation of some proper help for that purpose These things being agreeable to the general sence of mankind and being the original reasons of mens putting themselves into a religious course must still be approved by every one and every one of these that Religion setled in the world by our Saviour and his Apostles does advance yet more plainly and confirm more strongly to the world And whatsoever mysterious truths it farther propounds they are all so far intelligible by every one as may serve sufficiently to confirm those first principles whatsoever is farther to be seen in them is what moves mankind to lay aside all brutish malicious and unmanly humour as the meditation upon that extraordinary love of God to mankind of God the Father in sending his only Son into the world to dy for it of God the Son in leaving the bosom of his blessed Father and in our nature and for our sake suffering that bitter and scandalous death upon the Cross of God the Holy Ghost in pursuing us continually with his influences and assistances and so working in us to will and to do according to God's good pleasure this meditation naturally runs into that Apostolical conclusion Joh. 4.11 if God thus loved us then ought we also to love one another If we contemplate our own monstrous demerits our aversion to every thing that is good our inclination to every thing that is evil and so offensive to God our ingratitude for mercies receiv'd our unfruitfulness under the means of grace and Salvation presented to us our natural enmity to God and goodness And if withal we seriously consider that all those forementioned favours are conferr'd on us in a state of obstinate enmity the inference is easie as our Lord has laid it down Matth. 5.44 That we should love our enemies bless them that curse us do good to them that hate us and pray for them that despitefully use us and persecute us If again we think on that wonderful mercy of God whereby for the merits of the blessed Jesus he 's pleased to forgive us our sins those natural bars between us and heaven the consequence we must of course draw from thence is that of the Apostle That we should be kind Eph. 4.32 tender hearted forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven us Thus we see what excellent influence these very truths the nature and reasons of which are above the reach of our groveling minds may have upon us If we proceed and reflect upon the purity and holiness of that God with whom we have to do that he 's a Being who cannot endure sin who punishes it for its odious nature even in his dearest children all those mysteries reveal'd to us in the Gospel are so far by any fair consequence from perverting our minds that they give us all the motives imaginable 1 Pet. 1.15 that as he who has called us is holy so should we be holy in all manner of conversation A man may be a good heathen and yet a filthy Sodomite a through-pac'd Jew and yet be blind hard-hearted carnal but a man cannot be a true Christian but he 'l endeavour to avoid all appearance of evil Jude 2â— and to keep himself unspotted from the world he 'l live in a continual abhorrence of whatsoever may prejudice his soul or pollute his body and knowing that he is not his own James â—â— but that he 's bought with a price he 'l follow that advice he 'l endeavour to glorifie God in his body and in his spirit which are gods 1 Cor. 6. â—â— and to go no farther than what I had instanced in before a man that meditates on that account the Apostles and Evangelists have given us of the appearance of the Son of God in the flesh and on the ends and designs of such his appearance he 'l never spend his time idly about types and shadows when he is invited to embrace the substance he 'l study to conform himself to the Doctrine of the Gospel to be so far as belongs to a meer man a perfect imitator of all those excellent virtues so apparent in our Saviour during his converse with the world he 'l carefully avoid all
sin which was incapable of pardon from an offended God but upon the terms of the passion of his dearly beloved Son and will be throughly satisfied of the danger of such transgression by a rational assurance That if men sin wilfully after they have receiv'd the knowledge of the truth Hebr. 10.26 27. there remains now no more sacrifices for sins but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries If then true Religion consist in worshipping God according to those revelations he has made of himself to the world and we cannot propound any reason to our selves why God should have made any such revelation of himself to us but only that when we have a rule we might have an example too then whatsoever religion that is whose most obscure and incomprehensible mysteries highly promote that excellent work of following our exemplar or growing up into an assimilation to God himself by endeavouring to be holy as our heavenly father is holy and perfect as he is perfect That Religion must certainly carry us by the surest ways to eternal happiness but such a Religion is that instituted by our Saviour in the Gospel therefore that 's a Religion above all others for the sake of such mysteries so profound but withal so very profitable and instructive to be embraced by all wise and considering Men. A due reflection upon those mysteries any Religion is founded upon with a just apprehension of the deficiency of our own reason in tracing them is a very proper means to create in mens minds a due and exact reverence for it Thus that very notion that we have of God's infinity of his dwelling in impenetrable darkness or in inaccessible light of the unsearchableness of his ways the incomprehensibility of his wisdom c. All these things make awful impressions upon mens souls and make them to fear before God and to reverence him and this God him self intended when by his Prophet he assured the Jews My thoughts are not your thoughts Isai 55.8 9. neither are your ways my ways saith the Lord for as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts This prodigious distance between the nature of God and Man was enough to overawe man on whose side there was so very great a disadvantage God's prohibition so often repeated to the Jews that they should not represent him to themselves by any figure or image whatsoever with the reason as frequently inculcated that they never had seen any thing which could look like any representation of him was to prevent that contempt which too much familiarity with superiors naturally produces for representing a God by any thing of a gross or material nature is apt to create as gross an Idaea of the Divinity it self in the mind of a Man and those once entertained produce a sawciness and familiarity not at all agreeable to that immense distance there is between a divine and a mortal Being Thus it 's observable that the Gentiles generally were upon several occasions extravagantly free with those Gods they worshipp'd Hence the Tyrians when Alexander the great besieged them chain'd the Image of Apollo to that of Hercules lest the God should leave them because one of their Citizens had had a melancholick dream forsooth that he designed to serve them such a slippery trick in their necessity So the Athenians clip'd off the wings of the Image of the goddess Victory lest she should fly away from them So Dionysius the elder of Sicily took off a golden mantle from the statue of Jupiter and put him on a woolen blanket with that scoffing reason that the blanket was fitter for all weathers being lighter in Summer and warmer in Winter So he took off the golden beard of Aesculapius with that Witticisme That it became not him to have so long a beard when his father Apollo had none It 's true these affronts were proper enough for those Idols to whom they were offer'd but they were very unbecoming those who offered them since they profest to believe that they were really gods so that they were not those Images or Statues which were abus'd but it was the true Divinity it self which they imagined resident in or about those Images And of this Inconvenience from material Images even of material Saints the Romanists are sometimes sensible witness that action of a Spanish Peasant who making his offering to the Image of the blessed Virgin and imagining she look'd not so kindly on him for it as he expected He very briskly told her she need not be so proud for He remembred she was but a sorry piece of timber the other day it was yet the more effectually to prevent such inconveniences that God appointed a part of the Tabernacle first and of the Temple at Jerusalem afterwards under the Sacred name of the Holy of Holies to be wholly inaccessible to any but the High Priest who bore an extraordinary Character among the Jews nor might He enter into it above once a Year and that with a great deal of respect and ceremony This made God to strike the men of Bethshemesh with so terrible a judgment for daring to pry into what God intended to keep secret 1 Sam. â— 19 and to strike Vzzah dead upon the place for presuming to do what was above his station and touch the Ark though it seem'd an action proceeding from a good zeal or a fear that the Ark the peculiar Symbol of God's presence among his People should have fallen to the ground 2 Sam. 6.9 but we may see what a terror that signal vengeance struck upon David himself and all his Company v. 10. and it 's observ'd of Pompey the Great that after He had been so bold as to look into the Holy of Holies upon his taking Jerusalem that though He saw nothing there nor offer'd any violence to any thing about the Temple but expressed a great deal of reverence towards the place and those that attended on it yet that God's judgments pursued him from that time that He prosper'd in little or nothing that He undertook all things from thence verging hastily to his final ruine So jealous is God of his honour so terrible to those who will be strugling to know what he would have kept secret from the World That great reverence which a due distance between God and the things belonging to him and Man creates is so well known in the World that wise Men have thought it convenient that there should be somewhat of a Mysterious Majesty in those who are God's representatives on earth which has taught the great Eastern Monarchs that prudent piece of state to shew themselves as seldom as possible to the People by which means the Vulgar not being capable of any diminutive thoughts of those whose weaknesses they are unacquainted with almost reverence their Kings as Gods and conclude no submissions can be
but never yet did any inspired Writer call Holy Men Men converted from the vanities of this World from all the Lusts and Follies attending it never did they call such by the name of Worldly Men But is not this a very hard shift to chop and change so often in so very short a sentence Whereas if we believe as we ought that this Habitable World and all things therein were created at first out of nothing by the Son of God the sence will be easie enough that God the Son was in this World this World the Universal fabrick of which his own hand had made and yet the World so far as capable of sence and knowledge understood it not or were not able to distinguish between the Creator and a meer Creature That we should believe the Son of God made all things at first the Scripture seems to take a great deal of care for so S. Paul teaches us that God created all things by Jesus Christ Ephes 3.9 but much more fully Coloss 1.15 16. Where giving thanks to God the Father who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the Kingdom of his dear Son he describes that Son thus He is the image of the Invisible God the first-born of every Creature for by him were all things created that were in Heaven and that are in Earth visible and invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or Powers all things were created by him and for him and he is before all things and by him all things consist and the Author of the Epistle is acknowledged to apply that of the Psalmist to our Saviour Heb. 1.10 Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the Earth and the Heavens are the works of thy hands A man would be apt to think these Texts were very plain and positive yet here too they 'l make their impious attempts for All things in heaven and in earth must mean only Angels and Men be it so how come the Angels to be renewed by the Word They will not say the fallen Angels were reduced to a state of Salvation S. Jude will contradict them there who tells us Jude v. 6. The Angels which kept not their first state but left their own habitation God hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness to the judgment of the great day They cannot say the Good Angels were so restored or renewed for they were created absolutely happy and they had not lost that happiness and our Saviour himself asserts that He came not to call the Righteous but sinners to repentance that the Whole need not a Physician but those that are Sick The words then are as they sound to us they are general and whereas the Apostle particularises in Thrones and Dominions c. after those general words all things visible and invisible it 's only to supply us with an argument à Majori ad Minus that if even those superiour happy Beings who might seem almost to be above the rank of Creatures if they yet ow'd their first originals to the hand of the Son of God how much more may we conclude the visible or grosser parts of the Universe might owe their beginnings to his power Indeed the design of the Apostle is to set before our eyes in the beginning of his Gospel the wonderful Condescension of the Son of God on behalf of miserable sinners so to work in us a due fence of what we owe to so infinite a goodness and a forward readiness to accept Salvation from so all-sufficient a hand upon the terms propounded i. e. Faith and Obedience but what Topic could the Holy Pen-Man better begin his design with than from that of Christ's being God blessed for ever or from all eternity from his existing always in the glorious presence of his Almighty Father and being infinitely blest in himself as being One and equal with his Father for a compleat and every way perfect Vnion or Identity can only be between equals The Evangelist proves this eternal Greatness by that sufficient argument of his being the great and sole Creator of all things This God this Creator of all things appeared upon Earth where even those who were the Work of his hands were grown to that Blindness through the greatness of their Sins and the corruption of their natures that tho' the whole Creation long'd for the glorious day of his appearance Yet all the Worl'd seem'd utterly unable to discover him this glorious and eternal Word yet assumed Humane Nature that he might be Visible to the eye of the World and that he might be able to offer himself a Sacrifice for the Sins of the World that he might atone his Father's just anger and reconcile us to him by his own most precious blood To this end He underwent all the inconveniences ordinarily attending Mankind and it was a severe beginning of his debasement or humiliation for our sakes that whereas he honour'd the Nation of the Jews by being born among them and whereas out of particular commiseration for that poor lost people he made himself first known among them and Preach'd and did Miracles that they might the better understand him yet after all he came to his own but his own received him not i. e. the generality of that Nation rejected him but those who did receive him were empower'd by him to become the Sons of God they were so influenced assisted supported and dignified by his Sacred Spirit that they attained the Spirit of Adoption whereby they were able to cry Abba Father or to call upon God with that confidence and security which a dearly loved Son may have in an indulgent and well pleased Father He was such because that Holy Lamb to whom John the Baptist gave his testimony did really take away the Sins of the World and this Lamb whose nature and goodness was so little understood appear'd yet especially after his Resurrection when their minds were opened to his Disciples full of Grace and Truth they beholding his glory as the glory of the only Begotten Son of God such lustre would appear in him to the true believers eyes through the thick veil of his flesh and all the dismal clouds of his unparallel'd sufferings Now this glory which the Apostles saw in Christ must be somewhat capable of distinguishing him from others he might have appear'd as a Son of God at large in the same sense as all those who live piously are called the Sons of God but that would not at all have answer'd to what the Evangelist tells us his Glory made him appear i. e. the only begotten Son of God begotten of God in such a manner as never any meer Creature could be glorious in such a Manner as no meer Man was ever capable of but if he could be no Creature he could be nothing but God there being no Intermedial Essence between the Creator and the Creature If then it be the distinguishing Character of
not at all careful upon this matter He does them frequently too many to be registred but all in his own name He Wills this and He Commands the other thing to be done so the Winds the Waves the various Distempers afflicting Mankind the Devils themselves tremble at and obey his Word the Dead rise at the hearing of his Voice every thing he speaks is powerful and authentick yet no Praying before no making use of his Father's name no more notice taken of him in the operation than as if the Father and the Son had stood in no kind of relation to one another Nay even in the case of Lazarus which if any must carry the face of an exception We see our Saviour praising his Father indeed for his readiness to hear him yet expressing himself so only for their sakes that were by Joh. 11.43 but afterwards speaking to him in the Mandatory stile and only in his own name bidding him come forth Now from this carriage of our Saviour we must either conclude him to have been One with his Father and so whatsoever honour came to himself must also by so doing come to his Father or else we must conclude him a careless ambitious sacrilegious Person one ready to rob God of his Honour to take all opportunities of assuming that to himself which belong'd to God for that 's plain he did because he permitted those on whom he wrought Miracles to offer the same adorations to him which belong'd to the most high God which never any Man tho' never so holy had admitted of before Here then we are reduced to a necessity either of saying with the blaspheming Jews that He had a devil and only by his power wrought all his miracles and that Almighty God either for want of power to hinder him or out of design to have Mankind deluded and abus'd to their own ruine permitted him to do so many wonderful works Or else that the blessed Jesus was really that holy meek just eternal Son of the eternal God that he assumed no more to himself than what really belong'd to him therefore that he had really power in himself and originated from himself to do whatsoever he pleased therefore that he was God the true the most high God That we may be the better assured that his Power was so innate and inherent we may observe that whereas his Apostles after his ascent did many miracles and those of an extraordinary nature so that Aprons and Handkerchiefs brought from the body of S. Paul and the very shadow of S. Peter carried a healing power with them yet there was nothing in all that equal to what hapned to our Saviour upon the Woman's cure of her bloody Issue who had but touched the hem of his garment The Apostles utterly disown'd the working any cures by any power of their own therein they acted modestly and piously but on the contrary our Saviour ascribes the miraculous cure done upon the woman only to Himself he takes notice of his garment and by it of himself being touch'd and that at such a time as a croud of people thronged him and he says not that his Father's power or the hand of God or any thing of that nature was gone out to cure her But says he Luk. 8.46 somebody hath touch'd Me for I perceive that virtue is gone out of Me and it 's recorded of him before that the whole multitude sought to touch him Luk. 6.19 for there went virtue out of him and healed them all Now tho' we know well enough that nothing but his humane nature and the accidents attending that were the objects of common sense yet we know withal that meer flesh and blood tho' it be never so pure and innocent has no inherent power by a distant or a mediate touch to cure any distempers or to be sensible of such a cure wrought by any Passion in themselves The Kings and Queens of England have often cured that disease from thence sencelesly named the Kings Evil by a touch the effect is wonderful indeed but we never heard of those Kings or Queens pretending they were sensible of any virtue passing out from them for the cure of the Patient nor have any that have pretended to the sanative faculty yet dream'd of any such thing as a self-originated power in themselves to that purpose the King the Prophet the Physician touches but God only heals this inherent Power then in Christ was derived from that Union betwixt his divine and humane Nature that enabled him in every respect to bear our sins and to carry our infirmities so that from him as from an inexhaustible fountain all the health both of our bodies and souls is derived but such a fountain can nothing but God be therefore He is God We said the Health of Souls is derived from Him as from its fountain or original a meer Man may be an instrument in God's hand to help forward the salvation of a Soul his Prudence Learning Industry Charity may by God's assistance conduce in a great measure to that excellent end but Man of himself can do nothing in the case Our Saviour here makes that just Invitation to Mankind Matt â—1 28 as from himself Come to me all ye that are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest it 's not come to God or come to my Father but come to Me but it would be intolerable Presumption not to say Blasphemy to use such an invitation if coming to Christ were not an equivalent to coming to God and the Father He that sees me sees my Father says our Lord for I and my Father are one he that comes to me comes to my Father for my Father gives rest to Souls weary and heavy laden with sin and so do I My Father does so not by any adventitious or precarious but by his own inherent and essential Power and so do I. No Apostle no Prophet ever used such language only the Son of God and his blessed Father and the Holy Ghost can say as of himself Come to me I will give you rest And well may He pretend to give rest to the labouring Soul who can authoritatively from himself forgive sins a thing which our Saviour frequently does in the Gospel The mentioning of that action gives us a strange representation of the stubborn senceless obstinacy of the Jewish nation our Saviour when the Man sick of the Palsie was brought to him for cure says to him Matt. 9.2 Son be of good cheer thy sins are forgiven thee and to Mary Magdalen when at His feet Luk 7.48 thy Sins are forgiven thee We cannot doubt but this was spoken as for the good of the persons to whom they were applyed so for the good of those who stood by for these things were not spoken in a corner Now the Pharisees stumbled upon a question proper enough on the occasion v. 49. who is this that forgiveth sins also So the Scribes on
be the power of God a virtue flowing out of or from the Supreme Deity under this Notion we may rationally assert that this Holy Spirit can be commanded no way but by the Supreme God himself none else can promise it none can give it for if the Spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets much more certainly must the Spirit of God be subject to him it subsisting wholly in him and being according to our Adversaries one of those qualifications necessarily in the Supreme God Granting all this if our Saviour was a meer man as they say he could not possibly command this Sacred Spirit this Spirit so much superiour to mankind tho' considered as no more than a meer Appendage to the Almighty Yet our Saviour seems to employ this Spirit as he will that 's no wonder if the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost tho' three persons be all one God That exact concurrence in their eternal wills taking away all difficulties Thus when the Lord met with his Disciples and shew'd them the necessity of things happening with relation to himself as they did then He opened their understandings that they might understand the Scriptures Luk. 24.45 this opening their understandings did not consist barely in explaining some particular Texts to them they were yet but very dull and slow of understanding in themselves and tho' they had heard a thousand Texts authentically explain'd they might have continued very inapprehensive still Nor is it an usual manner of speech to say when a man explains any Author to others that he opens their understandings he may open the meaning of such or such Books or Passages very well yet those who hear him may not improve in their intellectuals this opening their understandings therefore argued some force upon their minds some extraordinary Energy of the Spirit within them whereby their natural and inveterate Dulness went off and they had more of spriteliness and vigour in their Souls than formerly they seem'd as Slaves with their fetters knockt off nimble and active and therefore more capable of apprehending any thing offered to them than formerly This was the first beginning to fit them for that great work they were in a few days to engage in it was to make them capable of satisfying themselves gradually in the Truth and Reason of those things which they were afterwards to preach to the world abroad and which they were compleatly fitted for by the following extraordinary effusions of that Holy Spirit upon them The first operations of it upon them then were gentle and easie but it was the operation of that Sacred Spirit only and of that Spirit as ordered by the blessed Jesus by which their understandings were thus opened We may agree to this the more easily if we consider that Promise Christ makes to his Disciples after this Behold I send the promise of my father upon you Luk 24.49 but tarry ye in the City of Jerusalem untill you be endued with power from on high The Father promises it but I send it Now this uses not to be a task for a man to make good the Promises of God it 's out of his power especially if the Promise be to be made good in some particular wherein God has a more peculiar interest Is my Spirit my breath none then can give it to another tho' my Spirit be not originally my own but breathed into me by an Almighty Creator Is the Holy Ghost the Breath the Spirit the Influence of God none then can dispose of it from him and the rather because it is originated in him and must be one with him it was then a strange presumption in our Lord to take upon him the making good Gods Promises to others since if he were no more than a Man He promised what was not in his power and pretended to make up some defects in his veracity who was the God of Truth and Truth it self But our Saviour went farther yet for making a visit once to his Disciples after his Resurrection His Blessing being bestowed he gives them a Commission of an extraordinary nature As my Father hath sent me even so send I you i. e. Job 20.21 As my Father sent me to reform the World so I send you to caâ—ry on that same work and as my Father's mission of me gave me a sufficient authority to do those things necessary to so great an end so my sending you gives you as great and unquestionable authority in proportion to those things which are laid on you this intimates that Christ had power to send men to govern and manage his Church as his Father had and in the same degree for if our Saviour was only his Father's Ambassador to them and so inferiour to him that sent him this had been an extravagant vanity it was never heard that an Ambassador from a King or Emperor pretended to send another Envoy from himself with such kind of expressions as these As my master the King has sent me so send I you nor are Princes wont to entrust their Agents with any such Power and the Credentials of such sub-ambassadors would appear very ridiculous to all those to whom they should be sent But from this Commission our Lord proceeds And when he had said this He breathed on them and said unto them ver 22. Receive ye the Holy Ghost Spiritus Sanctus est virtus seu efficacia à Deo in homines manans iisque communicata quâ eos ab aliis segregat suis usibus consecrat say the Socinians in the Racovian Catechism The Holy Spirit is a virtue or efficacy flowing from God upon men from the True the Supreme God they mean and communicated to them by which he separates such men from others and consecratâ— them to his own use If it be the efficacy or Power of the Supreme God how comes one whom they suppose to be a meer Man to confer it with his breath It was given afterwards by the laying on of the Apostles hands they gave it not by any virtue inherent in them but where they laid on their hands God sent it and that in different manners and proportions as he judged fit for the Receivers whose fitness the Apostles knew nothing of Our Saviour bestows it with his breath It must therefore be his own therefore he must be the Supreme God for in this action our Saviour did not mock his Disciples as Schlicktingius confesses CaetechismeÌ„ Rac. sect 6. c. 6. but he did certainly separate them by this action from the rest of the world and consecrated them peculiarly to his own service and this at the appointed time they engaged in according to his orders In the forementioned Catechism when they ask what the gift of the Holy Spirit is the answer is Est ejusmodi Dei afflatus quo animi nostri vel uberiore rerum divinarum notitiâ vel spe vitae eternae certiore atque adeo gaudio ac gustu quodam
thing of that glory belonging to the supreme God to himself Yet if he were a meer Man we find him strangely guilty in this point for as before his Passion he requires of his Disciples that they should believe in him as after his Passion he joyns himself with the Father and with the Holy Ghost in the institution of Baptism without any difference at all so after his Ascension into heaven he seems to take all care possible to confirm such an opinion in his Apostles and followers as according to which they must treat him as the Supreme God for when our Saviour bids his Disciples have Faith in God Mat. 11.22 doubtless he would not lay that injunction upon them if Faith so placed had not a sanctifying power for such Faith is sufficient to make men Holy and acceptable in the sight of that God with whom they have to do But when the same Jesus appears to S. Paul in his journey to Damascus he tells him He had appear'd to make him a Minister and Witness of what he had seen Acts 26.16 17 18. Delivering him from the people and from the Gentiles to whom he designed to send him that he might open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God that they might receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among them which were sanctified by Faith which was in Him Here then besides Christ's assuming to himself a sovereign and universal power of delivering his servants from all dangers of Commissioning them for the most weighty Work in the World of enabling them to open the Eyes of those that heard them and to turn them from darkness to light all which are the effects of a power truely Divine only He in plain terms asserts that that Faith which is in him sanctifies those that have it exclusively of all other Faith whatsoever for by his words it appears that forgiveness of sins and an everlasting inheritance are only attainable by that Faith and again the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews reckons Faith in God Heb. 6.1 among the fundamentals of our Religion these things laid together will oblige us to conclude either that there are two kinds of justifying Faith or such as may render men holy and acceptable in the sight of God or else which is true that Faith in the most high God and in Jesus Christ is one and the same thing fixt upon one and the same inseparable Object and so saving and sanctifying to all them that have it and S. Paul in the fore-cited Chapter of the Acts having shew'd what help Christ promised him in prosecution of his discourse declares he received his help from God whereby he was enabled to bear that witness Christ had assured him He would help him in therefore God and Christ were all One or the Son of God and his Father were one Supreme God That there was this Identity of nature between the Son of God and his Father will appear farther from that account S. Peter gives to the People of the Cure wrought upon the poor Criple at the beautiful gate of the Temple where reproving them and telling them they had killed the Prince of life a very strange title by the way to be given to a meer Man and such as can be parallel'd in no Author Sacred or Profane He adds And his Name Acts 3.15 16. through Faith in his Name has made this Man strong whom ye see and know yea the Faith which is by him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all here again the Name of Christ and Faith in his Name are both set in the highest rank and whatsoever was before profest to be done in the Name of the True God was now done in the Name of Christ Moses and the Prophets appeal'd still in all things to the name of the most high God and I doubt if Gehazi when he laid his staff upon the Shunamite's child's face had commanded it in the name of his Master to arise or if his Master afterwards had done as much in his own name they would both have lost their labours the case was otherwise here S. Peter's word to the Criple was ver 6. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk the Cure was immediately effected the people wondered They assert the glory of the Miracle only to the Name of Christ Acts 4.9 â—â— and they repeat their assertion to the High Priest and the rest of the Members of the Jewish Council Had not the name of Christ been powerful enough to effect the greatest miracles it had been a foolish presumption in them to have appeal'd to it the Priests of Baal would not have appear'd more silly in their violent addresses to their paltry Idol nor the Sons of Sceva in calling over those possest with evil Spirits the name of Jesus whom Paul preached Had their invocation fail'd it would have exposed all that Religion they pretended to advance to the common scorn and contempt of all mankind but that Sacred Name prevail'd those Miracles which had formerly been perform'd in the name of the most high God were now perform'd in the name of the Son of God God did not and could not give his glory to another for he had before declared he would not therefore that Jesus the Son of God in whose name this astonishing Cure was wrought was really the most high God It may perhaps be objected that All power was given to Christ after his Resurrection by virtue of which he could give his own name that virtue and authority by which such mighty Miracles as these might be performed We answer to this it 's true our Lord did tell his Apostles that all Power was given to him in heaven and in earth Mat. 28.18 and He told them so after his Resurrection but it does not therefore follow that he was not possest of such an universal power before his body was rais'd from the grave he adds no word intimating that this power was now invested in him and not sooner for He might very well forbear to inform his Disciples of it till he came to his state of exaltation commencing from his being raised from the dead But allowing what such Objectors would have that there was no such Power given him or that He never had such Power till his Resurrection They and All know the Philosophical Axiome is of universal truth Quicquid recipitur recipitur ad modum recipientis Whatsoever is received is received according to the capacity of the receiver and Volkelius tells us in plain terms De verâ Relig. l. 3. c. 20. p 106. that after his Resurrection the body of Christ was of mortal nature and no otherwise partaker of immortality than by the will of his Father Now if this be true tho' God Almighty be able of and from himself to give an universal Power as having it inherent
originally in himself yet it implyes an absolute contradiction that he should be able to confer such an infinite Power upon a finite or a mortal Subject for that would be to setle a double Almightiness in the world of which one should not be Almighty or whereas Omnipotence is such an attribute as where-ever it resides it must constitute a True and Supreme God and whereas its such an attribute as cannot stand alone without a concurrent-infinity in every respect yet it may rest in a Subject neither God nor yet Supreme but in such a one as is still tho' highly exalted mortal in its own nature and capable of destruction or annihilation For if it depends only on God's Will that Christ's Body now exalted to the right hand of his Father is no more lyable to Death then had it pleased God he might have invested Moses or Elias or Enoch with this same Omnipotence as well as our Saviour and our Saviour is no more secure of the continuation of that Omnipotence he is at present possest of in himself than the good Angels are of continuing in their present state of bliss i.e. so long as the supreme God upholds them they are safe if He withdraw but for one moment they are as miserable as their fallen companions But the very thought of these things are absurd and blasphemous however not to be avoided without acknowledging the eternal Divinity of the Son of God For the farther evidence of this Truth we must look into the Faith of the Antient Church and see how this Doctrine that God was manifest in the flesh or that He who was manifest in the flesh was God the True the Supreme the most High God is asserted in it This inquiry we make not because we think Antiquity infallible nor because we imagine every opinion maintained by any Father of the Church ought to be an authentick prescription to us Where any of them have in any particular deviated from the sence of God's holy Word we value not their opinions a-whit the more for their being antient But this we must own that those who lived nearest the times of our Saviour and his Apostles had the best opportunities of knowing what they meant or how those who personally converst with them understood them as it 's easier for me who have seen and known my Father to learn from him what were the thoughts of my Grandfather or great Grandfather both which it may be my Father may have seen and converst with than to find out what particular Opinions were entertained by my Predecessors before the Conquest and so upwards Again where Scripture and Reason improved from thence give us a full evidence of any truth the concurrence and harmony of Antiquity with these evidences is of great weight and gives us a fair deduction of divine and necessary Truths thro' all ages and shews us how in spite of all the oppositions and artifices made use of by the enemies of Truth yet God has been pleased to preserve it entire and to derive it by various chanels down to us that we embracing and asserting the same Holy Faith may be partakers of the same eternal happiness with our predecessors Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors who have all dyed in the True Faith and fear of God on this consideration we shall by God's assistance give you a short account of the Primitive Faith in this particular Here then in due order of time We begin with that Clement remembred with Honour by S. Paul Phil. 4.3 as one of those fellow labourers of his whose names are in the book of life This Clement was afterwards Bishop of the Church of God in Rome on which account and by reason of his great eminence in the Church of God some of the Factors of that See have endeavoured to fasten several spurious writings upon him but the abuse was too gross to impose upon a learned world However of his we have one Authentick Epistle written in the name of the Church of Rome to the Church of Corinth Conc. Gen. Lab. Cossart T. 1. p. 133. B. upon account of a violent Schism broken out in that Church to the great scandal of the Christian Religion and to the obstruction of the progress of the Gospel In this Epistle tho' nothing were purposely written on the subject we are now treating on yet there are some not obscure evidences of what opinion He and the Church of Rome in whose name he wrote had in those early days of our blessed Lord He calls him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a name very great and such as is no where given to any meer Man it 's designed here to illustrate the extraordinary dignity of our Saviour for by so setting him off the Apostolical writer enforces his argument upon the Corinthians to perswade them to Humility which would be an excellent foundation for Charity for tho' our Lord Jesus Christ were so great tho' he were the Scepter of the greatness of God yet he came not as he might in an assuming and lofty manner but with the greatest Humility and this argument S. Hierome in his commentary on the 52 of Isaiah and the three last verses according to our translation makes use of to the same purpose owning Clement for his Author but now if the Argument of these great Men was good it must necessarily follow that our Saviour had a Being and a glorious Being too before he was born of the blessed Virgin which Birth of his into a calamitous World has always been accounted one part of his Humiliation this Humiliation could not have been thought so considerable had he not been very great and happy before Christ could not have been so great and glorious antecedently to his Birth but He must have been God and therefore the True the most high God for there could be even in a Socinians account no more but One True God before the Incarnation of our Saviour You see my beloved people says the good Man what an example is set before you and if our Lord so humbled himself viz. if he descended from Heaven to earth for our sakes how humble should those be who take upon them the yoke of his Gospel Twice afterwards this same Holy Man concluding his period with Jesus Christ p. 137. C. adds To whom be glory and Majesty for ever and ever Amen The same expressions of praise he gives to God the Father several times p. 156. B. p. 144. B. p. 148. C. p. 160. C. D and what can we conclude from using such a Doxology indifferently to God the Father and to Jesus Christ his Son But that He understood them to be of one and the same nature both Infinitely Glorious both one proper object of praise and adoration And the same venerable Author speaking of the Patriarchs Abraham Isaac and Jacob adds particularly of the last that from him descended all those Priests and Levites who serve at God's altar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
Father had made the World it self and all other things by him and that by him He had made known to Men whatsoever he desired should be known by them Thus we have Socinus his own confirmation of what we had before produced as the sense of the Ante-Nicene Fathers After this he touches slightly upon some pieces written by those first Fathers which are of suspected credit but we have nothing to do with them having quoted nothing from any of them but what among Learned Men at present is of undoubted reputation As for the Fathers who writ after the Council of Nice he fairly owns that the Socinian's business is to oppose those Errors which they gave credit to by their Authority in the Church of God The Fathers then are on our side whether those of the eldest or those of an inferior date nor can we desire a greater advantage to our cause since we can neither find out any means by which these Hereticks should know God's Will and Meaning in his Word better than these Antient and Heroick Assertors of the Christian Religion We have no account of any new Visions or Revelations any of them have had Nor have we heard of any Miracles perform'd by them in confirmation of their Heterodoxies therefore when we believe that Jesus Christ the Son of God our Saviour is God equal with his Father we follow that truth which to our apprehension is very plain in Scripture which holy Saints and Martyrs have from the very beginning of Christianity embrac'd and which really is That Faith which was once delivered to the Saints as God willing will yet more plainly appear hereafter I observe here by the way what Socinus touches upon and what others of his Disciples allege farther that tho' the Fathers do thus make Jesus Christ to be God yet they always put a great difference between Him and his Father and insist particularly on his own Words in the case where He tells the Jews That his Father is greater than He that his Father orders commands directs and enables Him to do every thing c. It 's true they do sometimes speak suspitiously in this matter but what solves the Objection from such Texts of Scripture solves those Objections which may be drawn from such expressions in those antient Writers viz. That where they urge such things their meaning is only to assert that difference there is between Christ's Divine and his Humane Nature as He is Man we doubt not but he is inferior to his Father that he received power from Him and acted here upon earth in subordinacy to hi◠as He was God he was equal with his Father always united with him having the same Will Power Knowledge and Wisdom which his Father had by which means whereas meer flesh and blood would have had a strange reluctance against such sufferings as were necessarily prepar'd for him his Divinity in concurrence with that of his Father supported and enabled meer Humanity to effect and make good the work he had undertaken Thus we find the same Scriptures asserting of Christ Acts 2.32 that his Father raised him from the dead and that he rose from the dead of himself he asserting to himself only that power of laying down his life Joh. 10.18 and of taking it up again and both true as He was God as well as Man none could have taken his life from him without his own consent as He was Man as well as God none could have brought that flesh and blood to life again which was now a carcase by the reparation of the rational Soul without the concurrence of Almighty God but as such He and his Father were one They both Will'd and both Acted as they both were able to effect the same thing But besides this which answers those before-named seeming difficulties it 's enough to say that whereas the first Fathers of the Christian Church were irreconcileable enemies to Idolatry or to worshipping a Multiplicity of Gods which is the same thing whereas in all their Writings they took care to vindicate the Honour of the one true God in opposition to all false Gods when they assert Jesus Christ to be God they mean not that He is a false God for they prove themselves to be the only true Worshippers and they make it their boast that they worship Jesus Christ therefore they look'd upon him as true and real God and worship'd him only as such If then these Fathers did think Christ to be a God of an inferior or subordinate Nature or to be a Created God as the Socinians would have him be they directly contradicted their own Principles and brought in again that multiplicity or at least plurality of Gods they had before exploded As for the notion of a made or created God or a God à parte post as Socinus calls him it 's a dream so senceless and full of contradiction that it 's only to be wondered at that Men pretending to any sharpness of Reason should ever stumble upon so absurd a conceit For Scripture no where makes a distinction between God self-originated and God made by another and both true but it lays us down a plain difference between the true God the Creator and the Creature or any thing that is created by that true God and therefore tho' there be in Nature such things as Spiritual and Corporeal Beings yet the allowance of that difference makes or introduces no intermediate Beings between the Creator and the Creature every thing that is not God is made by God every thing that 's made by God is not God and so it must follow that if the Son be made by God he is not God but a Creature if the Son be in all particulars equal with God he is not made by God but is God himself Again The notion of a true and real God is infinity in every respect Heathens Jews Mahumetans Christians all agree in that if this be a true notion of a real God it must be such a notion as must sufficiently distinguish him from all other Beings infinite Attributes being wholly and only proper to and inseparable from Him If then these infinite attributes do agree to our Lord and Saviour He is and must therefore be the true God in contradistinction to all created Beings if they do not agree to him then He cannot be the true God therefore he must be a false God therefore he must be an Idol therefore he must be no God at all and this is the true and inevitable consequence of the Socinian notion of a made or a Created God For that the Supreme God should make another supreme as himself and yet at the same time continue supreme himself is nonsense and a contradiction that the Supreme God should make another God who yet is no God because the attributes belonging to a real God are not applicable to Him is a contradiction too therefore the Socinians and their Adherents must either declare in plain
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
Catechism asserts there 's no plain command in the whole Old Testament for our praying to God the Father tho' the position be notoriously false only this we 'l joyn with them in That we have no command to pray to Christ as he is a meer Creature but we are forbidden it in the first and second Commandments But we are bound to pray to him as He and his Father are One not by agreement of Will or by the Son 's entire submission to the Father but by agreement or Identity of Nature Otherwise the Will of all deceas'd Saints the Will of all holy Angels is wholly submissive to and the same with the Will of God therefore they might as lawfully be prayed to as our Saviour if a meer sameness of Will and not of Nature were enough to found Divine Worship as offered to any other Being but the Supreme God upon But when Socinus comes to speak of the necessity â—f Praying to Christ he runs off from the matter in hand to that of acknowledging hat Kingdom and Power and Government given to him by his Father which acknowâ—edgment as he concludes infers a necessiâ—y of Praying to Him But this is an Argument far fetch'd and very impertinent â—oth the foundation and superstructure is â—alse Christ in his Humane Nature is the head of the Church in his Humane Nature he has the Government of it in his hands in his Humane Nature all power in Heaven and in Earth is his own but none of these things are his meerly as he is Man or as he is a Creature but that Humane or Created Nature of Christ is made capable of those things of which in its own Nature it was absolutely incapable by its entire Union with and subsistenee in the Godhead Without owning this our Prayers to Christ as those offer'd by the Church of Rome to Saints or Angels are meer mock devotion For if Christ before his Ascension into Heaven had no Existence but in a Body in meer flesh and blood then after his Ascension he likewise had no existence but in the same Body if he existed in the same Body he could be partaker of no other qualifications but such as are incident to a Body for if his natural Body could be partaker of such qualifications as a natural body was not capable of it could be no longer the same body he was rais'd with but another and that no natural body If he still existed in Heaven in that same body he rose and ascended with and it was not changed to or for another no attributes wholly or essentially Divine could be truely or properly ascribed to him therefore Christ could not be Almighty which Infinite Power or Almightiness yet is absolutely necessary in him who has all Power given to him both in heaven and earth and who is able to do every thing that can tend to their good or to God's glory for them that ask him Christ in his Natural Body cannot know all things without which Universal Knowledge yet it 's impossible he should suit all grants to the necessities of Petitioners or be assistant to those who lie under a natural incapacity to address themselves to him otherwise than in their thoughts and inward wishes Christ in his Natural Body cannot be Omnipresent he cannot be in more places than one for natural bodies are and must be circumscribed by Time and Place otherwise they lose their natures and become God for only God can exist without those circumscriptions of Time and Place which Omnipresence yet is indispensably necessary to every one who can receive Petitions offered to him in several quarters of the World at once If now the Socinians will deny these things to be inconsistent with a Natural Body if they 'l assert that a Created body may be Almighty that it may know all things that it may be every where present they must introduce a new and yet unheard of Philosophick and Theologick Scheme and to little purpose If they 'l say these things are needless to our Saviour's natural body for that he may read all the wants of Petitioners in all parts of the World at one view in the Essential glory of his Father that 's the Roman plea and every whit as rational on behalf of their Saint and Angel-worship They can see all the wants of their humble supplicants in the glasse of the Trinity as they tell us They say too that God reveals to Saints and Angels to whom Papists make their Prayers all those things their Devotoes pray to them for If the Socinians joyn with them and say God so reveals every thing to Christ We answer them both that this is to set God upon a needless work and indeed to make the Supreme Being in effect inferior to his Servants and to his Son for those are the greatest Persons to whom the last Appeal is made those inferiour who are imployed in carrying or presenting Petitions to another if then the Supreme God make it his business to present the Supplications of Petitioners to his own Son he takes upon him that inferiour Office If he present them to his Son that his Son may grant and perform them it argues a natural Impotency in himself to answer such Petitioners and consequently a superiority in the Son whereby he 's able to grant and to do for his servants what God the Father could not If the Socinians will have us believe in respect of Omnipotence that Christ only represents our wants to his Father and that it 's his Fathers Power alone which answers and acts for us it will follow then that God has not given him all Power in Heaven and in Earth whosoever has that Power can do all things in and of himself if Christ cannot do all things in and of himself he has not that Power if He want that Power for what reason should we pray to him and not rather immediately to Almighty God especially since this Man Christ Jesus died for us that in his own blood he might open to us a new and a living way whereby we might have access with boldness to the throne of Grace If we may go directly thither what should we trouble our selves with applications to a subordinate Power as for the Mediatory Office of our Saviour so far as He 's concern'd in it according to Socinian Principles he 'l mediate continually for Us and all Believers in general terms whether we make any supplications to Him or not The result of all then is this ether Christ is not Almighty nor All-knowing nor Present every where and consequently cannot be the proper Object of our Adorations and Prayers and therefore all such Adorations offered to Him must be scandalous and Idolatrous or else our Lord must be present every where Know and be able to Do all and every thing and so their Catechism teaches us in the chapter before quoted for it says All Power is given him as before that his Power and Efficacy is great
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
Dead before that great day must be called the Sons of God in the same sence as our Saviour is and consequently our Savour cannot on account of such Resurrection be so the Son of God as to be his only begotten Son exclusively of all others tho' that title be so exclusive in it's own nature As for the three Reasons of his being called the Son of God derived from his Offices it 's true in the first place that God has sanctifyed our Saviour and sent him into the World but so he sanctified Jeremy and so he sanctified John the Baptist and the last in particular he sent into the World with an extraordinary Commission i. e. to Preach the glad tidings of Salvation and to prepare the way of the Lord against his publick appearance which Employs were both wholly extraordinary but as for that descent of the Holy Ghost upon him whereby say they he was anointed to his Office without measure there was no particularity eminently distinguishing Him in that from his own Apostles upon whom the Spirit descended in a visible manner at the feast of Pentecost and fitted them so for the same Office of Preaching and every way promoting the Salvation of Mankind Indeed we no where find the Apostles called the Sons of God on account of their being baptised with the Holy Ghost and with fire but we see our Saviour is declared the Son of God in whom he is well pleased on that occasion but he was own'd by the same title at his Transfiguration too when there was no effusion of the Holy Ghost therefore there was some peculiarly eminent reason for giving our Lord this Title which could not be applied on any account to any other Person If we reflect on the second ground of Christ's being called the Son of God which is because He is our Great High-Priest and so constituted by God himself our Author's proof of it is very strange viz. from that passage of the Psalmist Thou art my Son Heb. 5.5 this day have I begotten thee quoted by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews for tho' those Words are there repeated as well as in the first Chapter of that Epistle yet it 's not in a different Sence or to a new purpose but the Apostle there speaking of our Saviour's Priesthood and the greatness and excellency of that Office undertaken by him tells us no Man takes this Honour to himself but He that is called of God as was Aaron Now the Apostle shews that our Saviour had such a Call as well as Aaron for his Father who said to him Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee shewed his Propriety in his Son and his Love to him by those words so that it could not be strange that his Father should lay so great an Honour upon him But then his title to the Priesthood it self is founded on that Thou art a Priest for ever ver 6. after the order of Melchisedec so then the Son-ship of Christ is antecedent to his Priestly Office and He was made a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec because He was the Son of God and not called the Son of God because He was our High-Priest As for the last reason why our Saviour is called the Son of God viz. Because he is exalted to the Supreme Power over all things and so is our King Hab. 1.5 which he proves again from the same words as quoted in the same Epistle to the Hebrews There yet again the same truth occurs that Christ was the Son of God before He entred upon his Kingly Office for by Him God made the worlds and our Saviour never had a being but that at the same time he was the Son of God but if God by Him made the Worlds ver 2. as the Apostle says and he could not be our King before the Worlds were made We who are a part of these Worlds being those Creatures over whom he was to be King then he was the Son of God before he was our King and therefore could not be his Son on that account Besides if we should allow all these things the whole grant would be useless for Christ is called as before we observed the only begotten Son of God in an eminent and distinguishing manner above all others but if upon account of his Offices Prophetical Priestly or Regal Christ be called the Son of God then all those who exercise the same Functions in the world may upon the same reason lay claim to the same title for of some of them we know the Psalmist says They are Gods and they are all the children of the most high but if they can all justly lay claim to the same Title then there 's nothing peculiar to our Saviour included in that being the Son the only begotten Son of God which yet the very Title it self imports All these Reasons then not being sufficient to give our Saviour the Title of the only begotten Son of God in a manner so super-eminent to all other Creatures and their Originals particularly to Angels who are of a Spiritual Nature and are called the Sons of God There must remain some other ground for our Saviour's being so called and that is his eternal generation of the Father which puts him into such a Relation to his Father as no other creature can possibly pretend to We have prov'd that the whole of his Five Precedent Reasons do not fill up the Idea or make good the full meaning of those terms wherein Christ is called the only Begotten Son of God his Beloved Son or his own Son for if I am Born of my Mother but not Begotten in his own Image by my reputed Father tho' my reputed Father were able after Death to raise me to Life again tho' he were able to confer upon me all the Authority in the Universe yet all this will be so far from giving Me justly the Title of my Father's only-begotten Son tho' perhaps he never had any other that by all these Reasons together I should be a putative Son but really no more related to my supposed Father than our Saviour was to Joseph the Husband of the blessed Virgin when before her Espousals he was begotten in her by the Power of the Holy Ghost Nay should we admit of the very unphilosophical Hypothesis of Ruarus Quid in eo absurdi si spiritum Dei venas in virginis uterum descendentes emulsisse atque ex sanguine coagulato Embryonem formasse dicam non aliter atque id fit spiritu in masculo semine latente Ruarus ad Mersennum Epistola Centur. 1. Num. 56. p. 262. the most modest of the Socinian tribe all would be too little to make good this glorious Idea of the only begotten Son of God But his eternal Generation answers all and makes our Saviour as properly the Only Begotten Son of his Heavenly Father as I or any other Lawful Son is the only begotten of his
good their Assertion That there was no need of Satisfying God's Justice on the behalf of Sinners and therefore that all what our Saviour did or suffer'd was not of a satisfactory Nature and from hence too they endeavour to confirm their Heretical Opinion That our Saviour was not God equal with his Father for that Truth being throughly cleared all the Socinian Chain of Heterodoxies is broken and comes to nothing But They say Christians generally think that Christ suffered proportionably for our Sins Ca◠Rac. §. 6. c. 8. p. 145. or that He underwent Punishments equivalent to what we Sinners should have undergone and that by the Merit of his Obedience he made a compleat compensation for our Disobedience but this Opinion say they is fallax erronea admodum perniciosa it is fallacious and erroneous and of very dangerous Consequence and this they assert upon these grounds Because such an Opinion is not founded upon clear Scriptures and then Because it is repugnant to the Rules of right Reason and when they come to discourse of its not being founded upon Scripture the great ground they go upon is Because the Scriptures testifie that God remits the Sins of Men freely Now this we assert as well as they and are infallibly assured that it 's only by Grace by free and unmerited Grace on our part that we are saved and when we remember that it has been proved by unanswerable Arguments that our Saviour is the Son of God that He is God himself and that He when there was no help left for guilty Mankind according to the eternal purpose of his Will came down from Heaven to Earth and took our Nature upon him only that by what he did in that Nature he might procure our eternal happiness when we consider his eternal Father as acting in agreement with him and for his Son's sake forgiving miserable Sinners and the One willing and the other doing and suffering so much on our accounts when it was impossible we should have any Motives in our selves that might serve to excite so immense a Goodness when we remember all these things we cannot but say that as many of us as have our Sins forgiven have them freely forgiven God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost all concurring jointly in the Pardon and all the Motives procuring that Pardon proceeding wholly from the Deity it self And this Truth will receive yet more light by considering the Import of those very Texts which the Socinians in their Catechism bring to make good their own Opinions so they prove the free Pardon of Sin from that of the Apostle 2 Cor. 5.19 That God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself not imputing their trespasses to them we need not here take any notice of another gross Error founded by them upon this Text viz. That by the Death and Obedience of Christ God was not reconciled to the World for he never was angry with it but the World was reconciled to God the World having foolishly forsaken him and being altogether alienated from him by Sin not to reflect any further directly on that Position we find by the Text now cited that God does not impute the Trespasses of those who believe to them but why only because they are reconciled to him in Christ not because he passes by their Trespasses purely on account of his own Will or because of his immediate Love to the Trespassers but it is for the sake of Jesus Christ their Trespasses must have stood imputed to them had they not been reconciled in him but if he particularly procured the Reconciliation of Sinners to his Father then it 's plain enough they were incapable of making any such Reconciliation for themselves and so could not procure the Remission or the non-Imputation of their Sins the reason of which could be no other than their want of Merit for had they had any inherent Merits of their own to plead the same infinite Justice which was concern'd to punish their Sins was equally concern'd to reward their Merits but if the want of Merit hinder'd their procuring their own Reconciliation there must have been some Merit in Christ which was able to effect it and that Merit must have been exhibited on our account and that Merit supplying the Sinners defect must have been satisfactory to divine Justice which otherwise must have fallen upon Sinners while they had no better deserving to plead on their own accounts but if God reconcile the World to himself in Christ and Christ be One eternal God co-essential with his Father what 's done by One is done by the Other and so though the Son merited at his Father's hand the Sinner's pardon yet the Sinner is freely forgiven of God the Son freely interposing between him and Divine Justice and freely concurring in the same Pardon of his Trespasses Again the Socinians prove the Freedom of God's Grace or Favour to us by that Rom. 3.24 25. Being justified freely by his Grace through the Redemption that is in Jesus Christ whom God hath set forth to be a Propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God here we own Free Grace or Pardon or Justification which signifie all the same thing with respect to this passage is plainly and clearly set forth but still this free Pardon or Justification is the consequence of that Redemption wrought for us by Jesus Christ that Redemption is effected by the offering of his Blood that Blood which is of a propitiatory or atoning Nature our Faith in or our certain belief of the infinite value of which Blood is necessary to procure us any good by it but neither would that Faith of ours be necessary nor would that Blood be so intrinsecally valuable if it were no way meritorious nor could Redemption be wrought for us if there were no Price paid on that account for a Prince is not said to redeem a guilty Prisoner when he sets him at liberty without any ransome but he is said to redeem the Prisoner who pays down that Price or undergoes that Penalty which is set on the Criminal's head so our Saviour paid that Price which was set on our Heads without Blood there could be no Remission therefore he gave his Blood for us without Punishment for Sins there could be no acquittal of Justice therefore he suffered to the loss of his Life beside those unknown Sorrows as the Ancient Church has stiled them which his innocent Soul underwent on our account But after this Redemption effected this Propitiation offer'd the Remission of Sins follow'd Now the Punishment of Sins being the effect of Justice and the Remission of them the effect of Mercy this Redemption-Price paid down satisfied Justice and made way for Mercy and therefore that Price so paid down was meritorious and meritorious for us who had no Merits of our own therefore this Remission
equal value to those Injuries done by that Prisoner to him to whom that Redemption-Price is paid down as if I take up Goods or Silver Coin of any one for which I my self am wholly insolvent and another undertakes for me to discharge the Debt the Creditor will scarce take it ill if he paid to the full in Gold or Jewels for that Silver or those Goods he had given credit for though the Debt be not paid in kind Cat. Rac. §. 6. c. 8. p. 146. But say They it 's ordinary to say That one Dâ—â—p of Christ's Blood was enough to wash away the Sins of the whole World therefore God must be very unjust to exact so extraordinary Sufferings at the hand of his Son that he should shed so much of his Blood and die at last and so pay a Price for Man's Sin so much greater than necessary We might easily answer this Cavil by saying that an Argument drawn against an Article of Faith meerly from an Hyperbolical Expression is altogether invalid nor is the Christian Church in general bound to answer for every passionate Expression which one of her Sons may use But we may consider further that whereas the reason of the Bloody Sacrifices offer'd by Men in former Ages was to signifie to the World that an Expiation was to be made for the World's Sins and to keep up their hopes and expectations of it and whereas we are assured in God's Word that without Blood there is no Remission though the shedding one Drop of the Blood of the intended Sacrifice be as real Blood-shedding as the drawing out of all is and though one Drop of that Blood of the Sacrifice had as much Virtue and Efficacy in it as the whole Mass could be thought to have yet that was not all that was aim'd at for the Blood of the Sacrifice was so to be shed as that Death might naturally follow on that Action which was not likely to follow on the shedding one or only a few Drops and without this Death the Beast was not fit for Sacrifice so much Blood being required as was necessary to sprinkle on several things in agreeance with which the Blood of Christ too is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 12.24 the Blood of sprinkling The Blood then shed of old represented somewhat Expiatory but not as it was the Blood of an Animal but as it was the Blood of such a Creature sacrificed on the Altar to that God who was to be atoned so though the Blood of our Saviour in every Drop of it as shed for us was of an infinite Worth yet the Worth of that Blood with respect to us depended on his being Sacrificed or made an Offering for Sin which he could not have been had not his Life been taken away by the pouring out of his Blood before for as we easily apprehend that the fairest Beast design'd for Sacrifice by Men if yet it dy'd alone or accidentally was no Sacrifice but that to make it such it was necessary the Priests should make it bleed to Death So had our Saviour's Humane Nature submitted only to the common Rules of Mortality or fallen by a natural Death he had been no Offering no Sacrifice to God but he really was a Sacrifice and is own'd as such in Scripture therefore his Blood too was to be shed and that so far as to put an end to his Humane Life or the Union between his Rational Soul and his Mortal Body so that the extraordinary Sufferings of our Saviour take not away from the Worth of his Blood in it self but his Blood could have had no effect upon us for the washing away of our Sins had it not been the Blood of our Sacrifice our Propitiation as well as it was the Blood of the Son of God and therefore we own with all Humility and Thankfulness the Goodness of our Lord in offering up himself a Sacrifice for Sin on our account by permitting those Powers to kill him which he could have destroy'd with one revenging Word Nor can we less acknowledge the Goodness of his and our Father who was pleased to accept of that Propitiation for our Sins his Son's Satisfaction for our Debts which he was no way oblig'd to but by the Concurrence of the Divine Love and Goodness of the Father and the Son from all Eternity But from this Doctrine of Christ's making Satisfaction to his Father for our Sins they draw a very unhappy Consequence for they tell us Quod Hominibus fenestram ad peccandi licentiam aperiat aut certè ad socordiam in pietate colenda invitet c. That it gives Men an open Liberty to sin or at least gives them great encouragement to Slothfulness in the Duties of Religion for if Christ has satisfied for all our Sins then we are free from all obligation to any punishment for Sin and therefore there can be no Conditions reasonably propounded to us by virtue of which we should be free from those Punishments or it 's unreasonable that God should still make Practical Holiness a Condition of our Salvation when Christ by his Death has fully satisfied his Fathers Wrath with respect to all our Sins past present and to come This Charge would be very heavy if it were true but would they consider those very Texts they endeavour to confirm this Objection by they would easily see how they confound themselves and slander that Holy Doctrine The Apostle tells us of Jesus Christ Tit. 2.14 That he gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works All this we stedfastly believe 2 Cor. 5.15 And that Christ died for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him which died for them and rose again We believe that our Lord Jesus Christ gave himself for our Sins Gal. 1.4 that he might deliver us from this present evil World Eph. 5.27 That he might present his Church to himself a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish We believe Heb. 9.14 that our Lord offer'd himself without spot to God that he might purge our Consciences from dead works to serve the living God 1 Pet. 1.18 19. and that we are redeemed from our vain conversation not with corruptible things but with the precious blood of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot and from all these things we conclude That our Saviour's Sufferings for us were originally design'd to free us both from the Punishment and Guilt of Sin and therefore as we look up to our Saviour as our Priest and our Sacrifice so we acknowledge him to be our Prophet and our King our Instructer and our Governour that he has been our Instructer in all Ages by his Messengers Prophetical and Apostolical and those to this day lawfully entrusted with the
which it was impossible they should be expiated and to put them to extraordinary Troubles and Expence for those things by which in themselves they could reap no good and which further had no respect to any thing that could advantage them the Jewish Rabbins therefore always understood by such Expiations the Transferring of that Punishment due to One upon some Other to whom it was not due whence that Wish Vid. Buxtorfii Lex Talmud in voce 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 May those Chastisements which I undergo be expiatory or satisfie for Rabbi such a one and his Children and again Let thy Expiation be upon us and let us suffer in thy room whatsoever thou oughtest to suffer and Rabbi Moses ben Maimon commenting on that Phrase used by one May I be an Expiation for them tells us it 's as much as to wish that He might be a Redemption Oughtr de Sacrif l. 2 c. 6. p. 336 or the Redemption-Price or the Ransome for them and it 's a mode of Speaking whereby is express'd an extraordinary Love to this the Apostle St. Paul alludes when he wishes he might be Anathema Rom. 9.3 Gal. 3.13 for or in the room of his Countreymen and our Lord really was made a Curse for us or in our stead and so became indeed an Expiation or a Propitiation for our Sins We allow it may be true that He who is once reconciled may remit what he pleases of his Right but he must be reconciled first now that infinite Justice essential to Almighty God could not be reconciled to Man without a compleat Satisfaction and yet he may be said justly to abate of the Rigour of his Right who will accept of a Satisfaction offer'd which he 's not bound to do as among Men it 's wholly at the determination of the Supreme Power whether they will execute the Malefactor himself or accept of the Punishment of some other who voluntarily offers himself to die for the Malefactor Justice may if it please insist on the One and it 's no Injustice to accept the Other What the Socinians at last endeavour to avoid is that Agreement between the Legal expiatory Sacrifices and that of our Redeemer where they would fain impose on us a new Fancy of their own i. e. That our Saviour's Sacrifice was not compleated till he ascended into Heaven to present himself there before his Father and this they conclude from the custom of the High-priest's entring into the Holy of Holies with the Blood of the yearly Sacrifice offer'd for the Sins of the People We must certainly own that the High-priest did enter that Sacred place with Blood but we are to consider that there were other expiatory Sacrifices beside that which was offer'd once a Year and which prefigured the Suffering of our Lord in which no such Ceremony was used as all those Sacrifices offered by particular Offenders for those Sins they were personally guilty of they endeavouring by such means to make an Atonement for their Sins and these particular Sacrifices were compleat in themselves and procured Remission of Sins for the Offerer and were certain Types of that great Sacrifice afterwards to be offered and the Paschal Lamb it self of all others the most lively representation of that Lamb of God who in fulness of time was to die for the Sins of the World was killed and eaten without any such Circumstances as carrying the Blood of it into the most Holy place and the Annual Sacrifice was really offered when it was kill'd and afterwards burnt without the Camp Levit. 16.16 the End and Design of sprinkling the Blood of the Goat and of the Bullock upon and before the Mercy-seat was to make an atonement for the Holy place it self because of the Vncleanness of the Children of Israel and because of their Transgressions in all their sins as the Text teaches us i. e. though the Holy of Holies were the place of the more special Presence of God which render'd it venerable and glorious yet it being among Men who were very disobedient and rebellious it contracted somewhat of Uncleanness and Pollution from them a Pollution so infectious Psal 78.60 that it made God forsake his Tabernacle in Shilo even the Tent which he had pitched among Men it was on account of such Pollutions that God threatned Israel afterwards to destroy that House which was called by his Name and commands them Go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh Jer. 7.12 14. where I set my Name at the first and see what I did to it for the Wickedness of my People Israel therefore will I do unto this place which is called by my Name wherein ye trust as I did to Shiloh i. e. I will make it a desolation for such was Shiloh made on the same reason This was then the case of the Holy of Holies and it stood in need of a formal Sanctification in the ceremonial way for the Wickedness of those who were concern'd about it now this Expiation of the Holy place had no relation to the Remission of Mens Sins as the devoting and killing and burning the Sacrifice had but the great Sacrifice there offered by the High-priest was that of Prayer and Supplication shadowed out in that Levit. 16.12 13. That he was to take with him into the most Holy place a Censer full of burning Coals of fire from off the Altar of the Lord and his hands full of sweet Incense beaten small and to put the Incense upon the fire before the Lord that the cloud of Incense might cover the Mercy-seat that was upon the Testimony that he might not die by all this signifying that Sinners appearing even before the Seat of Mercy without offering an Atonement to Heaven in the most humble and solemn Devotions can expect nothing but Ruines and Destruction and as we rationally conclude that the Priests were not wont to offer Sacrifices without Prayers in general so we conclude that even this Symbolical Ceremony was not perform'd without some Prayers and Ejaculations at least God's Priests being appointed under the Mosaic Law too not only to offer Sacrifices of several kinds but to offer up Prayers and Praises to God in the name of that People over whom they presided in Religious matters But now though we commonly look upon the Holy of Holies whether in the Tabernacle or in the Temple as an Emblem of Heaven being guided by the Apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews yet we know that Heaven can be the Receptacle of nothing defil'd or impure therefore it can contract no Impurity from any thing in it or about it therefore our Saviour's Sacrifice was compleat in dying on the Cross for our Sins Heb. 9.12 but by his own Blood he entered into the most Holy that is into Heaven in his humane Nature or that Body in which he had suffered on Earth his free offering himself and freely sacrificing himself he being our Priest and Sacrifice
by those particular Sufferings upon the Cross for his Father accepting that Price so paid down Christ as Man Heb. 7.25 acquired that Power as to be able to save to the utmost all those that come to God by him and therefore his humane Nature is immortal that he may always be capable of exerting such a Power But the Socinians would prove their position by that Heb. 8.4 That if Christ were on Earth he should not be a Priest seeing that there are Priests which offer Gifts according to the Law but here they are vastly wide from the Apostle's meaning for the Apostle writing there to Jews and arguing the matter with them concerning the Messiahship of Christ shows them that though he asserted Christ's High-priesthood yet he pretended not that he was any Successor of Aaron or the Legal High-priests for says he 7. 13. 14. it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah of which Moses spake nothing concerning the Priesthood therefore our Saviour was a Priest according to Prophecy after the order of Melchisedech and not only after that Order but for ever so a High-priest never to die never to be succeeded in that sacred Office by any other now being after that Order and under a necessity of having somewhat to offer as a Priest for so we are taught and 8.3 as a Priest having no right to offer any Jewish Sacrifices or Gifts the Order of Melchisedech not having any relation to them Christ offered himself the greatest the noblest Offering in the World having made that glorious Offering he soon left Earth having there no further immediate concern for could he have made his Title to Priesthood never so plain and offered himself never so freely among the Jews to execute the Priestly Office it had been to no purpose they having Priests of their own of the Aaronical Line of whom by Divine prescription they were to make use in things pertaining to God those Priests properly officiating so long as Sacrifices were legally necessary and when they were render'd unnecessary by the perfection of our Saviour's Sacrifice there being no need of any Priests at all to offer such external Sacrifices or Gifts the Apostles of Christ and their Followers succeeding their Master onely in the Instructing Governing and Interceding Parts of his Sacerdotal Function As for some part of their Argument to prove that Christ was not a compleat High-priest till his Entrance into Heaven it 's more dark and unintelligible to me than all those Mysteries in Religion which they pretend to explode for say they since the Apostle asserts that he ought in all things to be like his Brethren that he might be a compassionate and faithful High-priest in things pertaining to God and for expiating the Sins of the People it 's plain that so long as he was not like to his Brethren in all things i. e. in Afflictions and in Death so long he was not a compleat High-priest well is the Consequence from all this therefore he was not a compleat High-priest till he appeared in Heaven before his Father nothing less It will only follow on their own Principles that upon his Death without that Consequence the expiatory Sacrifice was compleated for there was no need of sanctifying the highest Heavens with his own Blood nor does this at all abate the necessity of Christ's Resurrection or Ascension into Heaven since without these that Faith fixt in one who had been false to his own Promises concerning himself who could neither have rais'd himself nor others who could neither have possest those eternal Mansions in his own Person nor have prepared them for his Followers who could neither have protected nor assisted them to the end of the World could have been no way justifiable but Christ's assimilation to his Brethren could proceed no further than to the end of his Sufferings which ended with his Death upon the Cross since none of his Brethren had been so glorified or had so risen as he did or so ascended into the presence of God to make Intercession for Sinners but indeed Death it self was not so essential to that Resemblance as they imagine for whosoever is liable to common Infirmities and obnoxious to Sufferings must of necessity be obnoxious to Death on the same reason though he should actually be translated with Enoch or carried up into Heaven with Elijah for though those holy Men after such a Translation were no more in a mortal state yet all that was no greater Privilege than all are Partakers of who after their final Resurrection die no more or than those who shall be found alive at the day of judgment for though such shall only be subjected to a change and not really die as others yet that hinders not but that in their own Natures they shall be mortal and as liable to Distempers so to Death as well as others To say truth our Saviour during the whose course of his Life and in all its particulars liv'd as Men do and being a Partaker of real and not fantastical Flesh and Blood it was not probable he should live otherwise only in his exemption from Sin he was beyond that general Rule the Deity not being capable of an Union with any thing imperfect or impure But having liv'd as real Man and suffer'd as such and having by himself throughly purged our Sins Heb. 1.3 he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high the Socinians indeed seem to point at somewhat of an Interstice between his Ascension and his Session at the right hand of God that 's not at all grounded upon Scripture for though we know he convers'd some time with his Disciples before he left them that was not the time of presenting himself before his Father and for any thing of a formal presenting himself before his Father as a Suppliant with his own Blood it 's an irrational Dream neither becoming Men pretending to Scriptural nor to Philosophical Reason for since we must to please their Fancies make an exact Parallelism between the Annual Sacrifice and that of Christ we must consider that the High-priest entring into the Holy of Holies had really with him the Blood of the Victim already dead and in that state of Death to continue till consumed by fire without the Camp and so never capable of a Resurrection but our Saviour rose again from the dead and though those of Rome would persuade us some of his Blood was gathered from under the Cross and preserv'd as a venerable Relick by some very Pious and Devout Persons and may be seen at this day by those who have Faith enough yet we doubt not but that Blood so shed was re-united to his Body being easily gathered by Almighty Power from that Diffusion it had suffer'd at his Crucifixion so that though our Lord had died yet his Blood after his Resurrection existed only as in a living Body therefore it could be presented before God only as in such a
Saints or pious Men may have a Surplusage of Merits such as may not only serve themselves and their own Necessities but accommodate others who were defective in themselves but it 's yet a greater Madness to believe that the Son of God had no Merits and was able to purchase no Pardon for our sins by his Sufferings or that by dying for our Sins he was unable to satisfie his Father's Displeasure against Sinners the Mischief and Falshood of such Opinions I have proved at large in the former parts of this Discourse yet God in his Wisdom and for the Tryal of those who can adhere stedfastly to the Truth as it is in Christ Jesus is pleased to permit these Errors to be divulged and defended and propagated with a mischievous Diligence by Men of mighty Names and Interests who presuming upon the present Indulgence assume boldly to vent and spread those Poisons they were forc'd to conceal within their own Breasts before Time was when by the just Judgment of God upon the Laodicean Temper of the generality of Christians Arianism got strength and clouded all the native Glories of the Church of God it was then when as St. Hierome says the World stood in amaze to see it self grown Arian at once God grant the Plague of Socinianism be not permitted to infect the Church of England with as fatal a Success that those Damnable Heresies wherein the Lord who bought us is denied gain not among us too many Proselytes and Patrons too they have indeed their oyly Words their plausible Arguments their extraordinary pretences to Morality and extremity of Confidence yet could they never hope to prevail did they not observe the extream Debauchery and Loosness of the Age they consider the Principles of solid Religion as generally slighted the lazy Humours of Men as little careful to enquire into the Nature of Doctrines propounded but ready either to sink into down-right Atheism or to take up with the first Scheme of Religion that may come to hand Men aim more at eminence in what they abusively call Wit than at serious Piety and therefore subtil watchful Hereticks pretend only to reduce Religion to the Rules of Reason i. e. of their own Reason who have started so many Impieties though the Reason of all Mankind beside themselves appear in contradiction to them as if a company of Opinators who neither value their own nor others Souls were to fix their particular Sentiments as the only Standards of Sense and Truth when indeed they have only the Fucus of Sophistry to make a shew of easily observ'd by those who stand upon their watch and are willing to be certainly convinced of the Truth of things before they entertain them There are others besides Papists who are only Wolves in Sheeps clothing and by how much the more venerable Name they assume to themselves by so much the more dangerous they are Every Man is ready to stand upon his guard if he fears being attacqu'd by a Roman Priest or by a pragmatick Jesuit but who would suspect that any of those who pretend to Tenderness of Conscience and a superfineness in Religious matters should blaspheme God the Son or God the Holy Ghost who would imagine that those who dare call themselves Sons of the Church of England nay Attendants at her Altars Hers who particularly declares against these very Heresies in those Articles they are oblig'd to subscribe and to defend should so affront their Sacred Mother and go about to seduce her Children from her sound and wholesome Doctrines But if Apostolick times could be pester'd with such False Teachers we may expect worse Measure upon whom the Ends of the World are come but above all what can be more astonishing than that those who pretend so great Good Will to our Sion should charge the Practice of our Church in praying equally to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and proposing the Creeds of Constantinople and that call'd by the Name of St. Athanasius as guilty of Popery and those things as Reliques of that Idolatrous Religion Popery is a hated name and those who would have any thing hated need to fix nothing more odious upon it but if it be Popery to believe that our Saviour is the Son of God that he is God that by his Sufferings he has satisfied for our Sins and now sits at the right-hand of his Father making Intercession for our Sins God grant we may live and die in that Faith since our Case is such take heed how you hear or what you read let none deceive you with vain Words you have heard and read the Truth and if now or hereafter We or an Angel from Heaven preach any other Gospel unto you than what we have preached in this particular Let him be accursed and again Let him be accursed Amen FINIS A TABLE OF THE Principal Heads IN THIS DISCOURSE THE Design of the present Discourse Page 1 Socinian Endeavours to change the Text answered Page 4 A Mystery what Page 12 Doctrines may be Mysterious tho' revealed Page 13 Humane Reason enquired into as used in Religious Matters 1. It s original Excellence Page 19 2. It 's very much impair'd by Man's Fall Page 21 3. It 's yet sufficient to convince us of a general Necessity of Religion Page 25 4. Well employ'd it meets with Divine Assistance Page 32 5. By Exercise it grows more knowing and comprehensive Page 38 6. Yet it 's not compleat till the Future Life 's attain'd Page 44 Deductions from thence 1. God's Goodness to be admired because it continues us a discursive Faculty useful towards Salvation Page 47 2. We should use our Reason in Matters of Religion with all Humility and Sobriety Page 55 The Necessity of Enquiring into our Lord's Divinity no breach upon that Humility or Sobriety Page 63 The Text further explained and The Mystery of Godliness prov'd not applicable to the Gospel or God's revealed Will. Page 66 Not applicable to God the Father Page 68 The true Meaning of the Text with the subsequent Instances laid down and applied to our Saviour Page 73 And Paraphrased Page 79 I. The First Position then laid down That the Foundation of Christianity is indisputably Great and Mysterious and that prov'd necessary 1. By the World's universal Agreement that Mysteries both fundamental as to Faith and externally essential as to Rites are necessary in Religion Page 83 Rites among the Jews mystical by God's Appointment Page 94 Those of the Gentiles the same naturally Page 96 The first Design and Mystery of Sacrifices Page 98 The Devil imitating God and why Page 107 Sacrifices yet not believed sufficient to appease Heaven by any Intrinsic but only by a Relative Virtue Page 108 Our Saviour intended not the Abolition of every thing Mysterious in Religion Page 113 Mens Sentiments about the true Ends of Religion before our Lord's Incarnation enquir'd into Page 114 Those of the Jews Ibid. Those of the Gentiles Page 119 The Ends of Religion