this the Goings forth of the Lord Christ have been Decreed by God from the Days of Eternity But Grotius instead of From Everlasting or from the Days of Eternity hath Translated here from ancient Days and so All know the words may be rendred therefore he maketh the Sense to be this Whose Goings forth i. e. whose Descent Original or Pedigree is of Old from Ancient Times For Christ is come of that most Ancient Stock of David of the Town of Bethlehem Our Author may please in his next to try his Skill on these Solutions in the mean time I pass to what He hath objected from the New Testament CHAP. IV. On his Texts out of the Gospels THEY are not many Texts Sir on which our Author has insisted to prove his Proposition that our Lord Christ is true God but He assures us at P. 309. they are Choice Ones We have considered those He alledges from the Old Testament let us now examine what He hath urged out of the New On the Texts of St. Matthew He begins with Matth. 1.22 23. This was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord by the Prophet saying A Virgin shall Conceive and shall bring forth a Son and they shall call his Name Immanuel which being interpreted is God with us He notes that these words are spoken of the Lord Christ and that the Name Immanuel or God with us has been appropriated to him by God for we no where find that He hath given this Name to any other But where God giveth a Name and the Spirit of God interprets it it cannot be insignificant from whence it follows that the Lord Christ is indeed God Eternal and God with us To this I say thô the Consonants of the Hebrew Name Immanuel may be so Pointed that the Name may be Interpreted God with Him which would turn the Objection from this Text upon our Opposers yet that is not here to be insisted on because we shall see presently that in giving that Name it was really intended the Child should be called or named God with Vs The Text here objected out of St. Matthew is taken from Isa 7. where that Prophet tells Ahaz King of Judah who was at that time invaded by the Confederate Kings of Syria and Israel that the Confederacy of these two Kings against Judah should in the end come to nothing and that Israel should be destroyed from being any longer a Nation within the term of 65 Years And for a Sign to you says the Prophet that God will bring this to pass a Virgin one who at present is a Virgin shall forthwith Conceive by her Husband and bring forth a Son whom God will have to be called Immanuel or God with Vs because before this Child is of Years of Discretion to know Good and Evil God will indeed appear to be on our Side He will withdraw by Death the two Kings who are Confederate against us There is no Learned Critic that doubts that the Child here promised by the Prophet to be a Sign of the Truth of what He had said about the Confederacy of the Two Kings and the final Destruction of the Kingdom of Israel is Maher-Shalal-Hashbaz Son of this Prophet by the Wise whom it should seem He had lately taken And They observe that this is the Reason why he saith in the next Chapter I and the Children whom the Lord hath given me are for Signs in Israel from the Lord Isa 8.18 But whether the Child Immanuel was the Son of the Prophet or of some other this is certain that He was to be a Sign to King Ahaz and to the People of Israel and Judah This Child being to be such a Sign the Sign of so favourable a Providence to Judah and Ahaz had an Answerable Name given to him by order from God even Immanuel or God with Vs Therefore our Author's First Observation is certainly false that the Name Immanuel was Appropriated to the Lord Christ and no where given by God to any other Person And so too is his other Note that because God gave to him the Name Immanuel He must needs be true God for God gave the same Name to the Child that was to be a Sign to Ahaz and Judah that God would be with them or for them by destroying their Enemies the Syrians and Israelites We see that the words of the Prophet were originally intended of a Child that was to be a Sign to Ahaz and Judah and that there was a good reason why that Name should be given to him But St. Matthew accommodates and applies both the Prophecy and the Name to our Lord Christ because in him they had another and a second Completion we may say a more perfect Completion For the Lord Christ was our Immanuel or God with us not only as he was a Sign that God would be on our side which was the only reason of the Name of the first Immanuel but because he did really conciliate God to us and us to God and because God was with him and in him by an extraordinary Effusion of his Spirit upon him No one can be so blind or obstinate as not to acknowledg that this Interpretation which indeed is not ours but advanced by divers of the principal Trinitarian Interpreters is easy and rational perfectly agreeable to the scope of the Prophet and also to the manner of writing observed by this and the other Evangelists who very usually apply divers Texts of the Old Testament intended originally of other Persons to the Lord Christ because in him they had a second and very often a more perfect fulfilling Therefore let our Opposers show cause why we should depart from an Interpretation every way reasonable to imbrace and adhere to theirs which implies a Doctrine contrary to the first Commandment and to the whole Current of Scripture even this that there is more than one Divine Person or more than one who is true God His second Argument is from Mat. 28.19 Teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost He observes here that the Son and Spirit are set equally with the Father as Objects of our Baptismal Faith which either proves their real Equality or is of dangerous Import for 't is apt to impress upon us false Notions of the Deity and to make us think those to be really equal who are not so He saith moreover that in other Texts where God is joined with his Creatures a distinction is made whereby to discern that one is God and the other but Creatures but not so in this Text we are bid here to be baptized equally and alike to the Father Son and Spirit without any Note of Dignity or Superiority in one more than in another of them therefore they must be understood to be equal It may be our Author knows not that some Learned Criticks have given very strong Reasons why they believe that these words of
designedly misreport it and besides his Epistles are supposed to be forged by most learned Men because they make mention of Rites and Persons that were not in Being in Innocent's time Lastly Whereas the Unitarians at Alba said that this Text has been added to St. Matthew since the first Nicene Council tho Cardinal Bellarmine has only denied this he might most easily have proved the contrary For Tertullian who flourish'd above 120 Years before the Nicene Council often quotes this Text. In his Book concerning Baptism Chap. 13. he saith The Law of baptizing is imposed and the Form prescribed Go saith he teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit And again in his Book against Praxeas Chap. 26. After his Resurrection he commanded that they should baptize to the Father Son and Holy Ghost not to one of them only It is true none of the Ante-Nicene Fathers do ever alledg this Form of Baptism to prove the Divinity of the Son or Holy Spirit but the reason of that was because tho they allowed that the Son might be called God on account of his perfect Conjunction by Love Unity of Will and Subjection with the Father who only is true God yet they thought otherwise of the Holy Ghost some of them understanding him to be only the Energy or Power of God others that he was a Creature of the Son and only the chief of the ministring Spirits or Angels But to return to our Opposer He saith We are baptized alike and equally to the Father Son and Spirit therefore the two latter are equal in all respects to the former or are God no less than he they are mentioned together in this Text without any Note of Dignity or Superiority in one more than in another which were of dangerous Consequence and apt to lead Men into Error if only one of these is true God But 1. 'T is not true that here is no Note of Distinction or Superiority for the words at length are these All Power is given to me in Heaven and Earth go ye therefore and teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit I would know of our Opposer what greater Distinction could be made than our Saviour here makes between God and himself doth he not here expresly profess and own that his Power is given to him that he hath received it from the Liberality of another and not from himself Can any one be said to give Power to himself And the Apostle hath told us how we are to understand it that all Power is given to the Lord Christ in these words to the Ephesians God gave to him to be Head over all things to the Church Ephes 1.22 As who should say He is over all things and hath all Power with respect to the Church 't is He and He only that must prescribe her standing Laws and Rites and appoint by what Persons and what Means the Church shall be first gathered and then preserved 2. But supposing now there had been no Note of Superiority here made or Distinction of Dignity and Power I see not what could be truly inferred from thence to the advantage of our Author's Cause For when God is joined in the same form of Speech with any others sure that needs not to be expressed which all Men know and acknowledg even God's Superiority above all others 1 Chron. 29.20 The Congregation bowed their Heads and worshipped the Lord and the King 1 Tim. 5.21 I charge thee before God the Lord Jesus Christ and the Elect Angels Rev. 22.17 The Spirit and the Bride say Come Will our Author say upon these Texts and upon that other parallel Text 1 Sam. 12.18 All the People greatly feared the Lord and Samuel Will he say that Samuel and David the Angels and the Bride i. e. the Church are equal with God or with the Spirit because they are mentioned together without any Note of Distinction or of Dignity and Superiority in one more than in the other The Acts of Religion mentioned in those Texts are no less solemn or important than Baptism is fearing the Lord worshipping the Lord adjuring by the Lord are the very highest Acts of Devotion and Religion yet even in them God is joined with Creatures without any Mark of Distinction or Superiority because as I said when God is joined with any others there is no need of such Note or Mark. Therefore the more learned of our Opposers especially the Ancients of the first 400 Years do not insist on this Text of St. Matthew to prove the Divinity or Personality of the Son or Spirit by these words In the Name of the Father Son and Spirit they understand only to the Profession and to the Obedience of the Father Son and Spirit According to these Criticks the Sense of the objected Text is only this Baptize the Nations into the Profession and Obedience of the Father or God and of Jesus Christ whom the Father hath commanded us to hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto us and of the other Teacher even the Spirit or Inspiration of God by which he advises and comforts the Faithful in all extraordinary Exigences Our Author may please to consult Mr. Pool's Collections on this Text where he will see divers such Interpretations as this all of them by the Criticks of his own Party and all of them consistent with the Vnity of God as 't is held by the Socinians Therefore all those Interpreters and Criticks must be understood as giving up to us this Text. CHAP. V. On the first Verses of St. John's Gospel OUR Author's next Effort is from that well-known Context even the first Verses of St. John's Gospel The Clauses by him urged are these In the Beginning was the WORD and the WORD was with God and the WORD was God All things were made by Him namely by the WORD and without Him was not any thing made that was made He was in the World and the World was made by him and the World knew him not Others have added to these And the WORD was made Flesh and dwelt among us Also that Testimony of the Baptist He that cometh after me is preferred before me for He was before me Our Author endeavours to Ridicule the common Socinian Interpretation of these Verses by Misrepresenting it and by concealing the remarkable and probable Proofs which the Socinians add to every Clause of their Interpretation He recites also the Explication of this Context by Dr. Hammond which he saith is a full Explication and the Sense of the Catholic Church Indeed Dr. Hammond has given us the Belief of the Catholic Church so called and has set it down as the Sense of this Context of St. John but that 's the very thing in question whether that Belief be the Sense of these Verses Our present Opposer has performed so Meanly in the long Discourse he has made on this Proem of St. John's Gospel
wrote only that part of the Actions and Sayings of our Saviour which he did and spoke after the Imprisonment of John the Baptist To supply this Defect St. John was desired to commit to writing what he remembred of our Saviour before the Baptist was imprison'd In a word he wrote his Gospel to supply the Omissions of the other Three Evangelists Euseb Lib. 3. c. 24. Eusebius had read Hegesippus and whatever Church-History St. Jerom could have read and he has made it his Business to make Extracts out of all ancient Books concerning the Writers and Writings of the New Testament the diligence and exactness of this Historian is much admired and praised by all Learned Men nor will any such believe that St. Jerom had seen an Eccesiastical History which Eusebius had not seen St. Jerom says St. John wrote to oppose the Unitarian Heresy and that the first words of his Gospel were pronounced to him from Heaven Eusebius says John had written his Gospel because the other Evangelists had omitted the Gests and Sayings of our Saviour that were before the Imprisonment of the Baptist St. Jerom refers for what he says to an Ecclesiastical History unknown to all the Ancients but Himself Eusebius proves the Account he gives by solid and convincing Arguments His words in the Chapter before quoted are these It is evident that the other three Evangelists have committed to writing only the Gests of our Saviour during one Year's space namely after John the Baptist's being shut in Prison Matthew sets forth the time of his writing in these words When Jesus had heard that John was put in Prison He came into Galilee In like manner Mark saith Now after that John was put in Prison Jesus came into Galilee Luke also maketh this Remark Herod adding this to all the Evils he had done shut up John in Prison Therefore they say that the Apostle John being for this Cause thereto requested has declared in a Gospel according to him the time that was passed over in silence by the other Evangelists and what was done by our Saviour therein This is a probable Account that of St. Jerom is Miraculous and therefore pleases them who are taken with Marvellous things What shall we say then that St. Jerom devised or that he dreamt of an Ecclesiastical History which was never seen before nor since neither of them for I doubt not that his Tale is nothing else but an Improvement and a stretch of some words of Clemens Alexander which he found recorded in the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius Lib. 6. c. 14. The words were taken by Eusebius out of the Institutions of Clemens Alexander which Institutions are now lost but Photius Cod. 105 and 111. has left us this Character of them that they contained very many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fabulous and Impious Tales Of these Tales this is one John the last of the Evangelists seeing that what appertain'd to Christ's Humanity was manifested in the other Gospels being thereto moved by his Acquaintance and inspired by the Spirit wrote a Gospel concerning Christ's Divinity But to return to our Opposers They commonly say St. John wrote his Gospel against Cerinthus and Ebion and the Heresy of the Unitarians We have seen they have no solid ground for this Pretence in the History of the Church Irenaeus and Origon the most Learned of the Ancients knew nothing of it and Eusebius gives a contrary Account But the Gospel it self written by St. John will best decide this Question if he has more confirmed this pretended Heresy than any other Writer of Holy Scripture He did not without doubt write his Gospel against it Therefore let us briefly see what the Unitarian Doctrine is and how St. John hath delivered his Mind concerning it We say that only the Father is true God that the Lord Christ is his Prophet and Messenger to Man that therefore what the Lord Christ said was not from himself or by his own Authority but by particular Command and Charge from God that all the Miracles he did were not properly done by him but by the Spirit or Power of the Father given to him as to former Prophets Let us hear how St. John in his Gospel written designedly against us confutes this impious Heresy John 17.1 2 3. Father this is Life Eternal to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent Or Jesus Christ thy Messenger John 7.16 My Doctrine is not mine but his that sent me John 12.49 The Father which sent me He gave me a Commandment what I should say John 14.31 As the Father gave me Commandment so do I. John 5.30 I can do nothing of my self John 14.10 The Father that dwelleth in me by his Spirit Energy or Power He doth the Works I know not what could be said more effectually to evince that the Lord Christ is not God but the Ambassador only and Messenger of God speaking according to the Instructions and Charge given to him and Acting by a Power not of his own but bestowed on him as on former Prophets and Messengers of God If the Texts before cited were not the very words of Scripture were they found in any other Book they should be Anathematiz'd as most Gross Socinianism as the very Heresy of Cerinthus and Ebion against whom as saith St. Jerom's Ecclesiastical History they were written And what wretched Subterfuges do our Opposers make use of to decline these plain Testimonies that were suggested by the Holy Ghost against them for we dare not like them feign Ecclesiastical Histories which say they were spoken against them from Heaven First They tell us St. John doth not say that only the Father is God but the Father is the only true God They say the Socinians have not had the Wit to perceive the vast difference between those two Expressions It may be true they say and is true that the Father is the only true God as St. John in the alledged Text says and yet the Son too is true God nay the only true God and the like of the Holy Ghost And when John says neither the Doctrine nor the Actions of our Saviour were his own but the Commandments of the Father given to him and the Works of the Father dwelling in him By the Father in those Texts they say we are to understand Three Persons the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost Nay when our Saviour saith Of that Day and Hour the Excision of Jerusalem and the Dissolution of the Jewish Polity none knoweth not the Angels neither the Son but the Father only 'T is not true for all that that the Father only or only the Father knoweth that Day and Hour for then only the Father were true God but the Father only in those words is not the Father only but also the Son who is there expresly denied to know that Day and Hour and besides him the Holy Ghost Well but however these things are St. John has paid us off they
the objected Text In the Name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit were not spoke by our Saviour but have been added to the Gospel of St. Matthew from the common Form and Practice of the Church in administring Baptism as 't is certain that these words For thine is the Kingdom the Power and the Glory for ever have been added to the Lord's-Prayer in the same Gospel of St. Matthew from the Greek Liturgies or Forms of Common-Prayer These Criticks observe that Cardinal Bellarmine is very angry with the Unitarians who maintained the Dispute at Alba because they said those words were added to the Bible but only since the Nicene Council had corrupted the Faith all Antiquity saith the Cardinal is witness against them that those words were always read in the Gospel of St. Matthew But the Learned Cardinal does not produce one Testimony in Confirmation of what he says tho he uses to be very free in his Quotations of Fathers and ancient Ecclesiastical Historians In short we have nothing but Cardinal Bellarmine's word for it that the Ancients did read the words In the Name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Whereas some pretend to find these words cited by St. Ignatius as spoken by our Saviour in the Epistle of the said Ignatius to the Philippians that Epistle is all of it a meer Forgery by Confession of all the Criticks who have publish'd the Works of Ignatius or have written Notes upon them They observe that Epistle is never quoted by any of the Ancients nor was heard of in the World before Ado Viennensis who flourish'd about the Year 859. Eusebius the famous Ecclesiastical Historian quotes the objected Text nine times in several parts of his Works but never with the words In the Name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost he reads thus Teach all Nations in my Name instructing them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you The constant Practice of the ancient Unitarians was to baptize only in the Name of the Lord Christ and therefore it was ordered by the Councils of Nice and Laodicea that the Paulinists i. e. the Unitarians who came over to the Church should be re-baptized Whether they or the Catholick Church so called are in the right concerning the Form of Baptism is best determined from the Practice of the Apostles for we cannot well suppose that if the Form prescribed by our Saviour himself was In the Name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Spirit that the Apostles would depart from that Form or that 't was lawful for them so to do But where-ever there is mention in Scripture-History of the Administration of Baptism either by the Apostles or by their Order the Form of such Baptism was only In the Name of the Lord Christ or Vnto the Lord Christ Acts 2.38 Peter said unto them Repent and be baptized every one of you in the Name of the Lord Jesus The same thing is said at Acts 8.16 Acts 10.48 Acts 19.5 Rom. 6.3 Gal. 3.27 1 Cor. 1.13 Add to this that besides the School-men and other Moderns St. Basil St. Hilary and St. Ambrose do expresly own that the Apostles administred Baptism only in the Name of the Lord Jesus Finally the other Evangelists mention the Institution of Baptism by our Saviour after his Resurrection but they say not that he appointed it to be administred In the Name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost which 't is not likely they would have omitted if our Saviour had injoined that Form of performing the Rite of Baptism Nay it should seem by what St. Luke says that the Form of Baptism appointed by our Saviour was only in his Christ's Name not in the Name of more Persons Luke 24.46 47. Jesus said unto them that Repentance and Remission of Sins should be preached in his Name unto all Nations Here Remission of Sins seems to be no other thing but Baptism administred in Christ's Name as a sign of the Remission of Sins and therefore it is that elsewhere instead of Repentance and Remission of Sins the holy Writers say Repentance and Baptism so St. Peter speaks Acts 2.38 Repent and be baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus To this effect speak the forementioned Criticks and from hence they infer that we cannot make use of this Text to warrant the Church's Form of Baptism In the Name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit much less to prove that the two latter are God or Gods equal with the Father I desire and resolve Sir to argue this great Question concerning the Divinity of our Saviour or whether there is more than one Divine Person with all possible sincerity Therefore I will ingenuously own to you that tho the before-mentioned Exceptions to this Text are not without their weight yet I have observed divers things which make me to think that this Text is a genuine part of Scripture was spoken by our Saviour and written by St. Matthew First 'T is found in all the Copies of the Bible both Printed and Manuscript and in all the ancient Translations which cannot be said of any other Text which is rejected by us or by our Opposers all the doubtful and suspected Texts are wanting in divers Copies of the Original Greek and of the Ancient Translations I conceive we ought not to argue against the Truth of any Text from only Negative Proofs or from some possible Interpretations of other Texts tho those Texts are perhaps many It ought to be shown that either Church-Historians or Fathers have said that such Text was not read or was otherways read in the Copies of their Times Secondly To the Allegations out of the Acts of the Apostles and some Epistles of St. Paul it may be answered That those Texts mention only the Name of the Lord Jesus and not the other two Names the Father and the Holy Ghost because by the Name of the Lord Jesus and unto the Lord Jesus they mean to the Profession of the Lord Jesus and of the Doctrine by him taught without at all intending to express by those words the Form of Baptism which every one knew to be In the Name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost I like this Interpretation because when St. Paul asked some Disciples at Ephesus whethey they had yet received the Holy Ghost and they had answered that they had not heard whether there was an Holy Ghost He replies Vnto what then were ye baptized Acts 19.3 This Reply of the Apostle seems to suppose that if they were baptized with Christian Baptism and not only with the Baptism of John they must needs have heard of the Holy Ghost because the Form was in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost Thirdly The ancient Unitarians baptized only in the Name of the Lord Christ I think 't is grounded only on the Report of Pope Innocent I. who might not understand their Discipline or
was not He himself but He by the Gift of God that shed forth the Spirit on them Let us hear the whole Verse Acts 2.23 Therefore He Christ being by the right Hand of God exalted and having received or obtained of the Father his Promise of the Holy Ghost He hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear Here indeed the Spirit is said to be shed forth by the Lord Christ on the Apostles but not by Him himself but He shed it forth having saith the Text received it of the Father As who should say having received this Power from the Father which afterwards the Apostles also received of the Father even the Power of conferring the Spirit He now shed it forth on them not He himself by his own Authority or Power but by the Warrant Order Grant or Commission of the Father If our Saviour had conferred the Spirit on his Disciples by his own Power or Authority it would not have been said that having received of the Father his Promise of the Holy Ghost he shed it abroad on his Followers Let our Opposers show that the Lord Christ was more than the Instrument Minister and Mediator by Whom and at whose Instance God shed forth the Spirit neither this nor any other Context ascribes more to him and as much as is elsewhere ascribed to the Apostles Acts 10.44 Acts 19.6 They are words which our Saviour speaks to his Disciples As my Father hath sent me even so send I you But it follows not from hence that the Authority and Power of Christ was equal to the Power and Authority of the Father nay the contrary rather follows for the Messenger is but the Minister and Servant of the Sender After Jesus was ascended into Heaven his Disciples did their Miracles in his Name and by Faith in him Acts 3.6 In the Name of Jesus of Nazareth rise up and walk Ver. 16. His Name through Faith in his Name hath made this Man strong We confess hereupon that Miracles were done by the Name or in the Name of the Lord Jesus and through Faith in his Name But how does this prove that he was God Such Miracles prove indeed that the Person in whose Name they are done is a most Powerful and Effectual Mediator with God but not that He himself is God they prove that he is acceptable to God and that what he desireth that also God willeth but not that he is the true proper Author of those Miracles 'T is a particular Honour that God is pleased to do to the Lord Christ that in his Name Wonders should be done and that some who believed in his Name should on that account be enabled to do Miracles But when our Opposers infer from hence therefore Christ is God this is no Necessary or Natural Consequence because nothing hinders but that God may confer the same Honour on any other Person or Thing Nor secondly is it a true Consequence because we are assured by innumerable express and clear Testimonies that the Lord Christ is not God As 1 Tim. 2.5 There is one God and one Mediator between God and Men the Man Jesus Christ Finally Our Lord promis'd that he would deliver his Apostle from the People and from the Gentiles and declares that we are sanctified by Faith in his Name or by believing in him Acts 26.17 18 c. He delivered indeed that Apostle from very many Machinations of the Jews and Conspiracies of the Gentiles but all this as Mediator not as God by his Intercession which as this Apostle saith he ever liveth to make on behalf of all the Faithful and more especially of such as are extraordinarily commissioned to the Work of propagating the Gospel in Heathen Nations as St. Paul was As to our being sanctified i. e. made Holy by Faith in Christ or by believing in him it was never questioned I think by any but the meaning of the Expression is only this that such as sincerely believe the Lord Christ and the Gospel or Doctrine by him delivered do sanctify themselves they refrain from every Evil Work and Word their Faith does dispose and incline them of its own Nature and Tendency to Sanctification and Holiness this is the only meaning of our being sanctified by Faith in Christ CHAP. IX On what is alledged from the Fathers OUR Author passes from sacred Authorities to Ecclesiastical and Profane for proving the Doctrines of the Trinity and the Divinity and Incarnation of our Saviour He quotes the Account which Pliny gives to the Emperor Trajan concerning the Christians that they were wont to meet before Day Et Carmen Christo canere ut Deo To sing Psalms to Christ as if he were a God He cites also a Dialogue supposed to be Lucian's in which that Author jeers the God who is Three and One These two Authors were very Ancient within about 100 Years after Christ and their words before quoted show How early the belief of the Trinity and of the Divinity of our Saviour was found among Christians For Ecclesiastical Writers he brings some Fragments out of Justin Ignatius Irenaeus Clemens Alexandrinus Origen Tertullian Arnobius Cyprian Lactantius Gregory Thaumaturgus Faelix also out of the Councils of Nice Antioch and Constantinople He saith the Socinians are apt to appeal in these Questions to the Ante-Nicen Fathers before-named and that several great Men such as Erasmus Grotius Petavius and others yield this Point to Us. I will make no Advantage of our Author's Ignorance in this Matter I will freely own to you Sir that the Socinians never Appeal in these Questions to the Fathers whether Ante-Nicen or others who are now extant We grant they were in Sentiments very different from ours all the Ante-Nicen Fathers I mean whose works have been suffer'd to come down to our Times were in the Opinion concerning God and the Lord Christ afterwards called Arrianism except perhaps Clemens Alexandrinus who seems to have held the same with Savellius Nor do Erasmus Petavius Grotius and other Criticks grant to us as he supposes that the Ante-Nicen Fathers were of our Opinion they have granted those Fathers not to us but to the Arrians They grant those Fathers did not hold the Doctrine of the Trinity or of the Divinity of our Saviour in such manner as 't is now held by the Church for the Church holds a Trinity of Three Coequal and Coeternal Persons all of them jointly and equally Creators none of them Creatures but those Fathers held a Trinity in which only the First Person is truly God or the most high God the Second and Third are Creatures though also they were the Creators according to these Fathets of the other Creatures They say inded sometimes that the Son is Coeternal and a Creator but by Coeternal they mean only that he was not made in Time but in that Eternity which did precede Time and the Creation of the World They call that Duration Time which began with the World and which is both
Made and Measured by the Motion of the Sun and other Heavenly Bodies and that Duration is by them called Eternity which preceded those Bodies and the Motions which make Time Therefore when they call the Son Coeternal which I think is not found in all their Writings above once or twice they do not mean that He was Really and Actually Coexistent with the Father from all Eternity But 't is their Intention to say He was made by the Father in that Duration which Philosophy calls Eternity some space before the World was made that he might be the Father's Instrument and Minister in creating all things Hereby they acknowledg that the Son was in some sense a Creator and God but it was only as He was the Father's Minister Instrument and Servant those are the Terms they use in making all things He was a Creator and God with respect to all other Creatures but with respect say they to the true and most high God He is only a Servant and a Creature In a word the Ante-Nicen Fathers i. e. those of the first 325 Years whose Works have been suffered to be extant neither held as the Unitarians do that the Lord Christ began to have a Being when He was born of the Virgin nor as the Church now does that He was true God and always actually Coexistent with God but they held with the Arrians that He was Created Begotten or Made for these are with them equivalent Terms in that Tract or Duration which is called not Time but Eternity and that He was the Father's Servant and Instrument in making first the Holy Ghost then the rest of the Creation This is that which is granted by Petavius Huetius Mornay Erasmus Grotius and other Criticks on the Fathers not as our Author supposes that those Fathers held the Doctrine concerning God and our Lord Christ that is now called Socinianism But though this be so yet we doubt not that we are able to prove that the general Body of Christians and an incompâ—â—able majority of their Learned Men believed as the Unitarians now do till about the Times of Victor and Zephiâ—in Bishops of Rome that is till toward the Year of our Lord 180. It has not availed our Opposers that they have suppress'd the works of those most Ancient Fathers who are known and confess'd to have been Unitarians such as Aquila Symmachus and Theadotion who so excellently translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek and Lucianus who restored the Greek Copiet to their first Integrity Artemas and Theodorus Men noted by their Adversaries to have been incomparably Learned and ancienter than any of the Orthodox Fathers as we now call them Paul also Patriarch of Antioch Photinus Archbishop of Sirmium Marcellus Bishop of Ancyra I say it has not advantaged our Opposers that they have destroyed the Writings of these Fathers for the Fathers that are still extant give us an account of the Opinion of those other Fathers thô concealing their Arguments Moreover they confess that those first Unitarians claimed to be the true Successors and Descendents of the Apostles and that they derived their Doctrine from them Euseb Hist Eccl. l. 5. c. 28. Besides this the only Creed of all the Churches till the Council of Nice and which is called the Aposties Creed because it contains the true Apostolick Tradition is confest on all hands to be wholly Vnitarian That Creed acknowledges but one God the Father Almighty and but one only Son of God even him saith this Creed who was conceived generated or begotten by the Holy Ghost on the Virgin Mary not as our Opposers feign an Eternal Son begotten of the Essence of God his Father But I will not Sir now dilate on these things it shall be done in a Treatise by it self if it please God to give me Leisure and Opportunity in the mean time I appeal to those Learned Criticks Petavius and others before mentioned that the ordinary pretence of such Scriblers and Sciolists as our Author is utterly false and ungrounded even this that the Ante-nicen Fathers held the Doctrine of the Trinity as the Church now does As for the Scoffs of Lucian on the God who is Three and One One and Three not having the Book by me I cannot tell whether he meant to jeer the Trinity of the Platonick Philosophers or of the Christians I conjecture he means the former Neither was he so ancient as some give out the best Criticks make him to have flourish'd about the Year of our Lord 176 when the new Doctrines were grown very rise and common The Account that Pliny gives of the Christians to the Emperor Trajan is ancient but in the particular objected to us very uncertain The Copies of Pliny in Tertullian's Time exprest the matter thus Ad canendum Christo Deo They sang Psalms of Praise to Christ and to God not ut Deo to Christ as God The very words of Tertullian are these Pliny in his Letter to Trajan objects nothing else to them but that they were obstinate in refusing to sactifice and that they held caetus ante lucanos ad canendam Christo Dio Meetings before day to sing to Christ and to God Tertul. Apol. adv Gentes c. 3. I make use of an Edition of Tertullian with the Notes of all the Criticks published by Rigaltius at Paris yet none of them dislikes the Reading by Tertullian or prefers to it the Modern Reading But admitting now that we were to read ut Deo as to a God Pliny in these words might speak only his own Opinion not the Opinion of the Christians He might conjecture that because the Christians sang certain Compositions in Praise of the Lord Christ in their Meetings therefore they held him to be a God Or ut Deo may be translated as if he were a God so as to make this sense They sing Psalms and Hymns to Christ as if he were a God whom themselves confess to have been a Man for Hymns are not usually sung but only to the Gods However it be this Citation makes not much to the purpose at most it only proves that even in Pliny's time some began to corrupt the Evangelical Doctrine concerning the Unity of God CHPA X. On divers Passages out of the Evangelists and Epistles FRom the Fathers our Author returns again to the Scriptures and advances an Argument to prove our Saviour's Divinity from those Texts which seem to intimate that the Lord Christ is to be prayed unto and also from others in which 't is said that even while he was upon Earth he was worshipped by some and did not refuse the worship paid to him He saith no Person can be the proper Object of Divine Worship such as Prayer is but He who is Omniscient Omnipotent and Omnipresent and that if the Socinians ascribe these Properties to our Saviour they make him to be true God That Jesus Christ was worshipped and that he ought to be worshipped he proves from these Texts Phil. 2.9 10
Church Acts 5.31 Ephes 1.22 There are three sorts of Worship the first is Civil Honour or Worship which is given to Others on account of Civil Dignity or Natural Endowments or the worthiness of the Rational Nature common to us all This kind of Worship is due more especially from Inferiors to Superiors but is not to be neglected by Superiors to Inferiors Next there is Religious Worship which we give to others on account of their Holiness or of their Relation to God And 't is more or less as their Sanctity or their Relation to God is greater or less this sort of Worship is due to holy Men and Women to the Ministers of God and holy Things more yet to Prophets above them to glorified Spirits and Angels We see in the Bible that Religious Worship was express'd by Terms of great deference and respect such as My Father and My Lord and for outward Acts sometimes by Kneeling sometimes by Prostration sometimes other ways as on the other hand they were sometimes accepted sometimes refused Lastly There is Divine Worship which belongs only to God It consists in a Resignation of our Understandings to what God shall say or reveal a Resignation of our Wills and Desires to what he does or decrees 't is a giving up our Affections to love him more than all things besides It consists moreover in such external Acts and Significations of Reverence and of Love towards him as we reserve only for him and never give to any other I say now the Texts cited and urged by our Opposer do not prove that the Lord Christ ought to be worshipp'd with more than a Civil and Religious Worship there are no Acts of Worship ever required to be paid to him but such as may be paid to a Civil Power to a Person in high Dignity and Office or to Prophets and holy Men or to such as are actually possest of the Heavenly Beatitudes What if it is said the Apostles worshipped that is kneeled to him Mat. 28.17 and that to him every Knee both in Heaven and Earth shall bow Phil. 2.11 Let our Opposers show that the Apostles worshipped him not as their Master but as their God or that every Knee is to bow to him not as to a Superiour Lord but as to a Person who is true and most High God till they prove this they prove nothing to the present purpose We are well assured that we can prove the contrary because we can prove the Lord Christ was a Man a Person who for his holy Life and Death was exaited by God which is inconsistent with his being God or a Person of God and whatsoever Name he hath that Name was gives to him by God and whatsoever Worship is paid to him is paid to him for the Sake by the Command and to the Glory that I may use St. Paul's words of God the Father of all Phil. 2.11 CHAP. XI Of the Satisfaction AFter having proved as he thinks the Divinity of our Saviour our Author undertakes to prove too the vulgar Doctrine of the Satisfaction He saith P. 683 684. The Infinite Justice of God necessarily requires that every Sinner nay that every Transgression be punish'd Therefore saith he farther that Mankind is pardoned is an Effect of the Justice of God to which Justice a full Satisfaction being paid by the Sufferings of the Lord Christ in our stead God could not evidence his Justice otherways than by granting Pardon and Salvation to us If God could pardon us freely without a Satisfaction to his Justice why are not the fallen Angels pardoned At P. 706. he has contrived a Tale or Romance concerning a certain King who taking Pity of his Rebels declared that they should be pardoned if any Person would be so kind to them as to suffer in their stead He tells us the King 's only Son offered to suffer for them and his Offer being accepted by his Father who dearly loved him the Son died and the Rebels were saved And this he saith is exactly our case with God He pretends also to answer to some Objections made by the Socinians against the pretended Satisfaction to God's Justice by the Lord Christ for our Sins They object that the Doctrine of a full Satisfaction to God's Justice on our behalf destroys the free Grace of God so much magnified in holy Scripture in the gratuitous Pardon of our Sins for if God received an Equivalent on our behalf he hath not pardoned us but only discharged or acquitted us because our Debt to his Justice has been paid for us by another To this he answers Yes the Grace and Pardon of God to us was most free because tho our Debt to God's Justice has been paid yet not by us but by a Person whom God himself found out for us Besides the Satisfaction made for us by the Sufferings of the Lord Christ being a refusable Payment because God might have required the Satisfaction of our selves or from us therefore he is rightly said to have pardoned us and to have shown most free Grace and Favour to us even tho an Equivalent and Satisfaction was made to his Justice on our behalf Again They object that God could not in Justice substitute a most worthy and righteous Person to undergo Punishment properly so called in the place and stead of unrighteous and worthless Persons that were to pervert the Nature and whole Design of that sort of Justice which is exercised about Rewards and Punishments He answers God might punish the Lord Christ for us First Because under the Law the innocent Beast was substituted to Death and Punishment by being made a Sacrifice for the Sin and instead of the offending Owner and Master then because the Lord Christ freely offered himself to suffer in our room and stead Farther they object that the three days Death of the Lord Christ cannot be equivalent and therefore not a Satisfaction to the Justice of God for the eternal Death and Damnation of one Sinner much less of all Mankind For supposing that the Value of Sufferings or Punishment is increased even to Infinity by the infinite Dignity of the Person that suffers and supposing again that the Lord Christ being God as well as Man was indeed a Person of Infinite Dignity yet seeing his Divinity could suffer nothing at all but only his Humanity therefore his Sufferings were but human and finite and consequently no way commensurate to the infinite Punishment due to one Sinner much less to that of all Sinners He replies First that to the account of the Sufferings or Punishment of the Lord Christ we must reckon all the Sufferings of his Life and especially his Agony in the Garden which our Author saith was so great that it was equivalent to that eternal Punishment prepared by God for all impenitent Sinners p. 749. But lest the Agony in the Garden and on the Cross should seem to any to have been too much short in time to be laid in the Ballance against
thy Father's House so shall the King greatly desire thy Beauty Instead of thy Fathers shall be thy Children whom thou mayst make Princes in all the Earth or rather in all this Land q. d. Thou mayst make them Governours of Tribes in all the Land of Canaan Our Opposers catch at the word God thy Torone O God is for ever and ever as if because of that word it were necessary to suppose that both the Psalmist and the Author to the Hebrews do speak of such a Person as is really and truly God But why have they not noted what our Saviour tells them that those also are called Gods in Scripture To whom the Word of God comes Joh. 10.35 that is to say Judges Magistrates and especially Princes are called Gods because they hold the Place of God and act by his general Commission granted to them in his Word For Proof of which Observation he alledges the words of Psal 82.6 concerning the Magistracy and Princes of Israel I have said Ye are Gods In a word Solomon is in this Psalm saluted by the Name of God according to the known Language of those Times and Countries to Magistrates and Princes and what had been said to Solomon is by St. Paul to the Hebrews applied or accommodated to the Great Spiritual King the Messias or Christ because it might even more properly be said of him than of Solomon even this saying Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever Nay we may allow that he more than applies the words we may say he interprets them of Christ because the Psalm being composed by a Prophetical Poet at the same time that he courted and praised Solomon he might prophesy of the Lord Christ This account of these words Thy Throne O God is for ever being so generally approved by the more learned Criticks of the Trinitarians I cannot but wonder that this Text should be urged by any at this time of the day as a Proof that the Lord Christ is true God equal to the Eternal and Almighty Father of all the dread Creator of Heaven and Earth If it prooves the Lord Christ to be such it proves the same of Solomon even in the Opinion of the most judicious of our Opposers A fourth Proof of our Author is Heb. 1.6 When he God bringeth his First-begotten into the World he saith or he commandeth Let all the Angels of God worship him His Argument from hence is this the Charge so often repeated in Scripture of worshipping God only obliges Angels as well as Men seeing therefore they are required to worship our Lord Christ it follows that he is true God But our Author is greatly mistaken when he saith that the words Let all the Angels of God worship him are taken from Psal 97.7 they are taken from the LXX Translation of Deut. 32.43 where the LXX whose Translation is followed generally by the Writers of the New Testament and more especially by the Author of this Epistle throughout read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let all the Angels of God worship him the very words of the Author to the Hebrews But at Psal 97.7 from whence Mr. Milbourn would fetch this Quotation 't is only said Worship him all ye Gods and the words are by Interpreters commonly understood of the Gods or Demons worshipp'd by the Heathen Nations Furthermore it has been observed by some Trinitarian Criticks that Justin Martyr Theodoret Epiphanius and St. Austin all very ancient quote these words Let all the Angels of God worship him as taken from the LXX Translation of Deut. 32.43 tho the words are wanting in the present Hebrew Copies of the Bible and therefore also in our English Bibles as are divers other Passages of the Old Testament cited by the Writers of the New The words in that Text of Deuteronomy are spoken of the Nation of Israel the Nations are there bid to rejoice with and the Angels to worship Israel that is to guard serve and watch over him But these words intended originally of Israel are by the Author to the Hebrews accommodated and applied likewise to the Lord Christ because the Angels had in charge to succour and minister to him also Yet not to him only but to all his Brethren Heb. 1.14 They are all Ministring Spirits sent forth to minister to such as shall be Heirs of Salvation We have just such another Accommodation or Application of a Text to our Saviour which was originally meant of the Nation of Israel at Matth. 2.15 there the Evangelish saith that Jesus was brought by Joseph his foster-Foster-Father out of Egypt into Judea and so saith he was fulfilled the Word of God by the Prophet Out of Egypt I have called my Son But any one that looks into the Context of the Prophet will plainly see that those words were originally meant and designed of the People of Israel whom God there vouchsafes to call his Son The words of the Prophet are these Hosea 11.1 When Israel was a Child i. e. in the first Ages of that People then I loved him and called my Son out of Egypt Therefore when such Texts are either interpreted of Christ or accommodated and applied to him we are to understand it after this manner that those Texts were again fulfilled or had a second Completion in the Person of our Lord Christ But our Author urges that the Precept of worshipping only God obliges Angels and Men therefore how could the Angels be required to worship Christ if he were not true God It seems then he has not observed what is said at 1 Chron. 29.20 The Congregation blessed the Lord God of their Fathers and bowing the Head they worshipped the Lord and the King Nor has he noted how often divers Persons worshipp'd our Saviour while he was upon Earth The meaning is not that they worshipp'd either David or our Saviour with Divine Worship but with a Civil and Religious Worship such as is due to Kings and to Prophets on the account of him that sent them The Lord Christ has an Office that of King and Head of the Church higher than any Angel nay so high that he may make use of the Ministry of Angels in the Execution of his Office therefore they are bid to worship him not with Divine Worship no more than they were to worship Israel with such Worship but with the Worship or Respect that is due to him in regard of his Office as the Congregation worshipp'd David in the Text last quoted in regard of his Kingdom or Royal Dignity But as I observed before the Worship principally meant in the words Let all the Angels of God worship him is to be understood of succouring and ministring to him while he was upon Earth as they were to worship Israel CHAP. III. Continuation of the Examination of the Texts objected from the Old Testament OUR Author's fifth Objection is from Heb. 1.10 11 12. words taken from Psal 102.25 26 27. And thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the Foundation
of the Earth and the Heavens are the Works of thy Hands They shall perish but thou remainest they shall wax old as does a Garment And as a Vesture shalt thou fold them up and they shall be changed but thou art the same and thy Years fail not Let us add the next words at ver 13. But to which of the Angels said he at any time Sit at my Right-hand until I make thine enemies the Foot-stool He saith these words here cited to v. 13. are intended of the Son our Lord Christ and that by ascribing to him the Creation of the Heavens and Earth they assure us both of the Pre-eternity and the Divinity of the said our Lord Christ We have seen before that the Writers of the New Testament do accommodate divers Passages and Expressions of the Old Testament to our Saviour tho originally and in their primary Intention they were meant of other Persons because such Passages and Expressions had another and a second Completion in the Person of the Lord Christ Thus what was said of Solomon Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever is applied to our Saviour because he also has an everlasting Throne and what was said of Israel Out of Egypt I have called my Son is too accommodated to Christ because he likewise was called out of Egypt after the Death of Herod In like sort in this Context to the Hebrews what had been said by the Psalmist of God and of the old or first Creation Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the Foundation of the Earth and the Heavens are the Works of thy Hands c. is accommodated to the Lord Christ and to the new Creation which he hath made even the new Heavens and the new Earth in which as St. Peter says of them dwelleth Righteousness The Gospel-state and Times or the Church in opposition to the Synagogue and Jewish Oeconomy is described very often in Scripture under the Names of the New Heavens and New Earth Isa 65.17 Behold I create new Heavens and a new Earth and the former shall be remembred no more Isa 66.22 As the new Heavens and the new Earth which I will make shall remain before me so shall your Seed and your Name remain St. Peter after he had described the fearful Dissolution of the Jewish Oeconomy and State in terms much like those used by our Saviour on the same occasion and Subject at Mat. 24. adds 2 Pet. 3.13 Nevertheless according to his Promise we look for new Heavens and a new Earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness That is a new Oeconomy and State in which not so much a Ceremonial as a Moral and true Righteousness shall be taught and practised Rev. 21.1 I saw a new Heaven and a new Earth for the first Heaven and the first Earth were passed away i. e. He saw the Church or Christian Oeconomy begin the Jewish or old Oeconomy or Law was abolished All the Trinitarian Interpreters do thus understand these Texts namely that by the New Heavens and New Earth is meant the Gospel-state of things in opposition to the Jewish which is antiquated and done away This is the Earth and these the Heavens of which the Lord Christ is the Maker under God partly by Himself partly by his Apostles and other true Ministers of the Gospel and these the Author to the Hebrews meaneth when he says here of our Lord Christ Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the Foundations of the Earth and the Heavens are the Works of thy Hands they shall be changed from their state of Probation and Trial to a state of Perfection and Enjoyment but thou remainest for ever the same The most Learned Grotius whose Interpretation this is rightly observes that the Hebrews to whom this Epistle was written did commonly speak of the Times of the Messias or Christ in these very terms here used namely that He should make another World New Heavens and Earth meaning thereby a Total change of the face of things in the Church and Religion And those Forms of speaking they borrowed from the Prophet Isaiah whose words I have before quoted Therefore in writing to them it was no surprize to them that this Epistle should accommodate the words of the Prophetical Psalmist used by him concerning God and the first Creation to the Messias and the New Creation because in him they had Another and Second Completion Others of our Party give other Accounts of this Text this for one that the words Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the Foundations of the Earth c. are not at all in any sense intended of our Saviour but are a devout Apostrophe Conversion or Address to God that is to the Father so as to make this sense And truly thou Lord who hast thus anointed and exalted thy Son art the God who hast laid the Foundations of the Earth and the Heavens are the Work of thy Hands But to which of his Angels hath this Glorious and Vnchangeable Creator at any time said as He doth by the Inspired and Prophetical Psalmist to the Son our Lord Christ Sit on my right Hand till I make thy Enemies thy Foot-stool Here we ought to note that the words Sit at my right Hand till I make thy Enemies thy Footstool are originally and primarily intended of David as is owned by the Trinitarian Interpreters but they are applied to Christ in this Context to the Hebrews because they are also a Prophecy of him and of what God would do for him In a word their meaning with respect to the Lord Christ is this God hath in his Decree said concerning the Messias or Christ who shall in due time be manifested Sit on my right hand till I make thy Enemies thy Footstool This is the Sense of the words as they stand in the Psalm See the Learned Dr. Patrick's Paraphrase and Notes on Psal 110.1 I do not wonder Sir that our Opposer took no notice of these two Interpretations of these words Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the Foundation of the Earth c. they were too Rational and Probable to be set in the same Light and View with the Wild Construction that He and his Party make of this Context For they make this Author to the Hebrews to say that the Lord Christ is the Creator of the Visible Earth and Heavens and yet that 't is Another Person that must subdue to him the Enemies of his Kingdom and make them his Foot-stool I had almost forgot Sir to tell you that as Grotius is the Author of the first Interpretation which I have given of this Context so 't is Thomas Aquinas sirnamed the Angelical Doctor thus has observed and suggested the other He alledgeth next thô not out of the Old Testament according to his proposed Method Heb. 1.1 2. God who at sundry times spake to the Fathers by the Prophets hath in these last times spoken to us by his Son by whom also He made the Worlds Our Author is not pleased
and is approved by Maldonat Beza Gomarus Dr. Hammond and other principal Interpreters among our Opposers The WORD was with God and the WORD was God Our Opposers themselves will not deny because every Novice in Grammar knows it that the original words should have been thus rendred The WORD was with the God and the WORD was a God We claim this Translation as absolutely necessary for clearing the meaning of the Evangelist in this place He saith not the Word was with God but with the God because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the God is always used to signify the true God or him who is God by way of Excellence and Appropriation as Grammarians speak but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a God is in Holy Scripture applied to Angels to Kings to Prophets and to all such as any way represent the Person of him who is indeed God Thus Moses is called and named a God and that by God himself Exod. 7.1 because he was to represent the Person and bring the Commands or Word of God to Pharaoh and to the People of Israel and Egypt Moses being called by Coufession of our Opposers a God on the fore-mentioned account we ought not to be surprized that this Evangelist has called the WORD or Messias a God seeing he had the very same reason to call him so that there was for Moses his being so called for the Messias was no less than Moses the Ambassador and Representative of God and that also not to one or two Nations but to all Mankind But whereas he is here said to be or have been with the God the meaning is that before he entred on his Office he was taken up into Heaven to be fully instructed and informed in the nature and quality of his Office and of that whole Charge which he was to deliver to Men. 'T is in vain here that our present Opposer Mr. Milb demands after a scoffing manner at what time this Assumption into Heaven did happen 't is enough that we are told the thing by this Evangelist and by our Saviour we are not obliged to guess at the time which the Scriptures have thought sit to conceal The thing it self is plainly enough intimated in divers Texts of this Evangelist John 3.13 No Man hath ascended into Heaven but he that is come down from Heaven even the Son of Man who WAS in Heaven So that Text is translated by Beza Erasmus Camerarius and other Criticks John 6.62 What if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where be was before John 8.38 I speak that which I have seen with my Father See also John 6.38 51. It is true the Evangelists have not recorded the particular Time or History of our Saviour's first Assumption unto God as they have of his Transfiguration his second Assumption and other remarkable Passages of his Life but the reason of that is because they were Eye-witnesses of the latter but the other happened before they were called to be Disciples or to attend on him and he himself never as it should seem told them of it but only hinted it in some Discourses and Defences which he made to his Opposers You see Sir there is no need of a Chimerical and imaginary perpetual and continual Generation of the Son nor yet of an impossible mutual In-being of the Father and Son for our understanding these words the WORD was with God the Difficulty is solved after a natural and intelligible way for the WORD was indeed with God because he was taken up into Heaven to be informed of all thigns appertaining to the Gospel-Dispensation as Moses was called up into the Mountain to be instructed in the Particulars of the Legal Dispensation and as St. Paul was caught up into the third Heaven to have Revelations and Visions necessary for the Apostle of the Gentiles Our Opposers do not find what to object to this Explication of the words the WORD was with God but to the other Interpretation that the WORD was called a God in the same sense only or chiefly that Moses was so called at Exod. 7.1 they reply this Evasion of the Socinians is set aside by the Description which St. John here adds for he describes the WORD to be God or a God not as Moses was by Representation and Mission but because All things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made and because the World was made by him This was a bold Translation they should at least have signified in the Margin that the words might have been rendred For him were all things made and without respect to him there was nothing made that was made the World was made for him They know very well I make Challenge to them to deny it that the Greek Preposition which they have rendred by might have been rendred for so as to make the sense beforesaid even this For him were all things made the World was made for him There is no Greek Lexicon but owns this Signification of that Preposition when 't is put as here before a Genitive 'T is enough to determine us which of the aforesaid Translations we ought to follow that we know 't was the Belief of the Jews and is a most certain and undeniable Truth that all things were made for the Messias that is were at first made with intention to subject them in the fulness of Time to the Messias and his Law both which God decreed before he actually made the World But we have besides for it this irrefragable Argument that 't is certain there is but one Creator and the one Creator is no other but God seeing therefore the WORD is here distinguished from the God and thereby denied to be the God we are obliged to translate here All things were made for him the World was made for him not the World was made by him or all things by him I say we are obliged thus to translate or this Translation is necessary on supposition that St. John speaks here of the old or first Creation and the visible or material World But the Socinians have hitherto supposed that he speaks here of the new Creation and the Spiritual World even that great Change of Affairs in the World which hath been so considerable that the Scriptures have divers times called it the New Heavens and the New Earth as has been shown on Heb. 1.10 11. If these are the All things and this the World intended by St. John we admit the Translation of our Opposers that All things were made by the WORD for 't was by his Ministry that great Change of Affairs called by the Jews the World of the Messias was effected If to this Interpretation it be objected that 't is not very likely that this Evangelist would lay such an occasion of Error in our way as to say all things were made by the WORD and the World was made by him if the WORD were not indeed the Maker of the World because very few
one who is God and but one Maker of the Visible and Material World and therefore this Context ought to be interpreted in consistence with those two Great Commandments spoken by God himself Sure it must be evident hereupon that they ought not to relie on a dubious Context against two such Proofs as are those two Commandments When Points of Faith are turned into Commandments or Laws it argues the great Importance of those Articles of our Faith And it must needs be very dangerous to advance a contrary Faith and very foolish to advance a contrary Faith on the Credit of a Context which at best is of doubtful and uncertain Construction of so doubtful Construction that if it may be Translated and Interpreted in favour of their Opinion yet it may be also so Rendred and Interpreted as Flatly to contradict it and Perfectly destroy and overthrow it You will perhaps say Sir but in this Dispute concerning the Truth of Translations What can an Unlearned Man do which side can he take or rather How can he take any Side at all being not able to judg between the contending Parties ought he not in prudence wholly to suspend his Judgment I answer He must consult his Reason concerning the thing in Question If he consults his own Reason he will find an absolute Impossibility in the Trinitarian Doctrine his Reason will assure him that an Almighty Father and an Almighty Son are most certainly Two Gods and that two Creators can be no other but two Gods therefore he may and he must infer that the Explication of this Context of St. John which advances such a Doctrine is certainly false and such a Mistake as subverts Christianity God forbid that our Faith should depend on the Quarrels and Debates of Learned Men or on an uncertain Criticism or on the contrary Traditions of contending Parties No no Faith has a certain Rule even Holy Scripture interpreted in consistence with evident Reason this is the Infallible Rule and of this the Unlearned are as competent Judges as he that has all the Learning in the World That cannot be true which is contrary to clear Reason for Clear Reason is nothing else but clear Truth Therefore if the Unitarians have made it appear that the Doctrines which they oppose are Manifest Contradictions to Reason and Unlearned Man is as sure as the most Learned that such Doctrines are not the meaning of Holy Scripture or of any Context therein Our Opposers tell the People they are not to believe the Transubstantiation tho grounded on those express Words of Scripture This is my Body because that Doctrine implies several Contradictions to clear Reason Why do they not keep to this Rule to which they would oblige their People Why do they not renounce the Errors of the Trinity and Incarnation which imply so many more Contradictions to Reason than can be pretended of the Transubstantiation While they argue against the Common Enemy the Papists about Transubstantiaon or against the Lutherans about Consubstantion Reason is all in all with them and you can get nothing out of them but Reason and the Judgment of Sense But when the Dispute is with the Socinians the Tables are turned then you hear nothing from them but the necessity of submitting Reason to Revelation then they give in their Catalogues of things which they say are contradictory to our Reason and yet must be believed Thus while they Argue against the Papists 't is on Socinian Principles that the Scripture must be interpreted in consistence with Evident Reason which is a yielding all the Controverted Points to the Socinians But when they think fit to fall foul on the Socinians 't is on Popish Principles that the Scripture must be interpreted by the Determinations and Decisions of Holy Mother-Church as she is represented in General Councils which are directed by the Holy Ghost Which implies the yielding Transubstantiation and many other Points to the Papists who can show for them Councils as truly General as any that can be alledged for the Trinity or Incarnation In fine such of our Opposers as are Protestants must either come over to Vs or revolt to Rome If they will not be obliged to interpret Scripture by Reason they are obliged to turn Papists for the Decisions of the Church in Councils and the meer Letter of Scripture are against them but if they admit no Interpretation of Scripture but what is consistent with Reason both They and the Papists must be Unitarians because the Trinity and the Incarnation are contrary to and inconsistent with Reason much more than the Transubstantiation is CHAP. VI. On the other Texts of St. John NEXT He takes notice of some words of our Saviour at John 10.30 36 38. I and my Father are one I am the Son of God The Father is in me and I in him He saith the Jews from those words I and my Father are one did infer after this manner Thou being a Man makest thy self God He adds if the Jews mistook in the Inference they made from those words nothing can excuse either our Saviour or his Apostles from extream Unkindness since they would take no pains to rectify a Mistake which in all appearance was Involuntary A little more Deference would have become our Author in making a Judgment concerning what our Saviour or his Apostles ought to have done towards rectifying the Mistakes of the Jews And I think too he needed not to be so concerned on behalf of the poor Innocent Lambs the Jews who only mistook true Hearts and did not designedly pervert the words of our Saviour On the contrary I take it to be certain that the Mistake of the Jews was not Involuntary but Affected and Malicious and however that be yet our Saviour hath said enough both in that Context and elsewhere to rectify the Mistakes of any whomsoever concerning his words I and the Father are one I am the Son of God the Father is in me and I in him Our Opposers ordinarily object to us that the Jews understood those Expressions of our Saviour as themselves do namely as signifying that he professed himself to be God But the Jews put a malicious Construction on our Saviour's words that they might expose him to Hatred and Persecution To be satisfied of this we need only to consider that they came to him with design to ensnare him in his words as they had done oft-times before and did many times afterwards Let us hear what they say v. 24. Then came the Jews round about him and said to him How long dost thou make us to doubt if thou be the Christ tell us plainly To comprehend the true meaning of their putting this Question we must look back to the foregoing Chapter where at V. 22. we are told The Jews had agreed already that if any Man should confess that He Jesus was the Christ He should be put out of the Synagogue i. e. He should be Excommunicated We may add to this Observation
that by the Constitutions of that Church every Person professing himself to be a Prophet and not being really so was to be put to death much more if he pretended to be the Great Prophet of all the Messiah or Christ I say now seeing they so perfectly perswaded themselves that Jesus was not the Christ that they resolved to Excommunicate any of their own Number who should acknowledg him for the Christ 't is evident enough that their Question Art thou the Christ was insidious and designed only to get something from his own Mouth on which they might Excommunicate him nay and proceed against him as a false Pretender to be a Prophet and Christ Can any one wonder or reasonably doubt that such Persons put a malicious Interpretation on the words of his Answer to them And is it for Christians to draw Arguments nay build Articles of Faith on the sense that such Persons made of our Saviour's words and yet this is the great Argument of our Opposers from this Context The Jews say they understood our Saviour as saying that He was God Why do They not take notice that the Jews assembled about him for no other Purpose but to find Occasion against him either by his own express Words or by the Construction they could make of his Words But they say farther our Saviour did not rectify the Mistake of the Jews I know not how it would help the Cause of our Opposers if indeed it were so that our Saviour had left the Jews in the hands of their own Malice without caring to answer their groundless Cavils provided He hath been careful clearly to explain his Meaning to his Disciples or others who in time to come might happily mistake him But the Truth is He doth in this very Context deny the Calumny of the Jews that He made Himself so 't is in the Original a God For He answers them at Vers 26. Say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the World Thou blasphemest because I faid I am the Son of God The Unicarians may argue as strongly from this Answer of our Saviour as their Opposers have argued weakly from the malicious Construction that his Adversaries made of his former words I and my Father are one 'T is a weak Argument to say The Lord Christ is true God for his Inveterate Adversaries who sought his Life charged him with making himself a God But we reason Unanswerably when we say the Lord Christ is the Messenger whom God has sent into the World and not God himself because He replies to the Jews that God sanctified him indeed and sent him into the World and that He had never said of himself any higher thing than this which is true of every good Man I am the Son of God I will not now enter into a particular Discussion what is the very Meaning of that whole Defence which our Saviour hore makes of himself in this Context I conceive that neither the Trinitarians nor Unitarians have hitherto comprehended all that our Saviour intended to say But 't is not necessary to inquire into a Matter that will require a very long Discourse to clear it because elsewhere our Saviour has interpreted all the Expressions to which the Jews excepted and at which others have so dangerously stumbled They are these Three I and my Father are one I am the Son of God the Father is in me and I in him I and my Father are one He saith as much of his Disciples and explains to us what we are to understand by the words Joh. 17.22 The Glory which thou gavest me i. e. the Glory or Honour of being the Ambassador of God to Men I have given to them to my Disciples that they may be One as we are One. Here our Lord declares to us these Three Points that He is One with the Father that He hath made his Disciples also to be One with the Father and with himself and in what regard it is that He and They are one with the Father not by an Oneness or Unity of Person as the Sabellians held nor by an Oneness of Nature or Godhead as the Trinitarians hold but by such an Unity or Oneness as is between the Sinder and the Sent the Ambassador and his Principal namely an Oneness of Design and Intention For the sense of our Saviour there is plainly this As thou hast made me to be one with thy self even a Partner and Sharer in the same Design the Design of reconcising Men to God so have I made my Disciples to be one with us both and with one another by substituting them in my Place and by imploying and ingaging them in the same Design Again he saith at Ver. 11. Keep those whom thou hast given me that they may be out as we are As who should say As thou Father and I are one by our Mutual Love so keep Those whom thou hast given me in a like Unity both with Us and among Themselves Thus it is then that our Saviour is one with the Father that is with God by an Oneness of Affection and Love and by an Oneness of Design and Intention and he reaches us at the same time that there is the same Unity or Oneness not only between the Father and Himself on the one part and all faithful Disciples on the other part but also among the Faithful themselves Our Saviour having given us these Rational and Natural Senses of his words I and the Father are one the Socinians acquiesce in them without erecting impossible and impious Schemes such as an Unity of more Persons in one and the same numerical Godhead they leave those things to such as are not contented with Scripture-Explications or with a Faith which is Rational Intelligible and Plain but must have Mysteries to amaze and confound their Understandings as if Faith were nothing but Ignorance or Brutality whereas the Apostle on the contrary defines or describes it to be Evidence The Father is in me and I in him It is true but he prays that all the Faithful may have the same Privilege John 17.21 22. I pray that they all may be one at thou Father art in me and I in ther that they may be one in us And the Criticks have observed this following reading in ancient Copies at John 6.56 He that eateth my Flesh and drinketh my Blood dwelleth in me and I in him as the Father is in me and I in the Father Why and in what sense our Saviour saith He was in the Father and the Father in Him and in what regard and respect He desires and prays that all such as believe in his Name may be one in Him and in the Father is explained by this Evangelist in his first Epistle 1 John 3.24 He that keepeth his God's Commandments dwelleth in Him and He in him 1 John 4.16 He that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God and God in him Our Saviour therefore and all the Faithful are said to be
in the Father or God by their Obedlinet and Love and God is in them by his mutual Love to them This is the Interpretation which the Scripture gives of it self we ought not to heed the Dreams or Fancies of Mystical Divines who think nothing is Religion but what no body understands and what contradicts Reason and good Sense Last of all our Saviour also said I am the Son of God Every one confesses that he was so because he was generated by the Divine Power on a Virgin without the Concurrence of any other Father but God yet even this as great a matter as it is is not so great a Glory to him as that he was the Son of God in such sense as all the Faithful are called God's Children Sons and Daughters of God begotten of God namely because of their Similitude and Likeness to God in Holiness or Purity to which they have been begotten by him by his Word and other Means sutable and adapted to their Rational Natures Mat. 5.45 That ye may be the Children of your Father which is in Heaven 1 John 5.18 Whosoever is born of God sinneth not he that is begotten of God keepeth himself Whereas therefore the Lord Christ is sometimes called the only begotten of the Father it is to be understood as when Isaac is called the only Son and the only begotten Son of Abraham at Gen. 22.2 12. Heb. 11.17 Abraham had other Sons begotten by himself yet Isaac is called his only begotten in regard of his Father's particular and especial Love to him even such as Parents ususually have for an only Child And in this sense the Greek word used concerning our Saviour which we render only begotten is frequently used in Greek Authors and not only of such Person or Persons as are strictly and in proper speaking only begotten In these Interpretations of the objected Clauses I and the Father are one I am the Son of God the Father is in me and I in him we have the concurring Judgment of the principal Criticks and Interpreters among the Trinitarians some of them do blame the Fathers for urging such Scripture-Expressions as these against the Arians and Photinians and they call the Interpretations of the Fathers and of some Modern Writers of Controversies Violent Glosses Our present Opposer was aware of this and therefore is forced to say at P. 354. We are not bound to regard what some Men of great Names say or boldly assert It is true but the Authority of such Men whose Names are deservedly great in Critical Learning and especially in the sacred Criticism doth at least evince thus much that the Texts which They give up to their Opposers ought to be placed in a Class by themselves they ought to be reckoned among the Proofs that are brought for show and Ostentation of Number or to fill up the spare Pages of a Book or in a popular Sermon not in such a Book wherein the Author professes to deal only with the Learned and to urge no other Text but what is indeed an Argument on his behalf The short is our Opposers litigate with us concerning the sense of these Expressions I and the Father are one God is my Father I am in the Father and the Father in me We show hereupon from express Scriptures that all these things are true of all the Faithful and are said of them no less than of our Saviour We show farther that they are interpreted in Holy Scripture to be an Oneness of Design and Love an In-Being by Obedience and Love on the part of the Lord Christ and Believers and of Protection and Love on the part of God and that the Lord Christ may be so the Son of God and his only Begotten as that still he is but a Man and not God We show that all this is confest tho not by the wrangling Pulpit and trifling Systematicks and Catechists yet by the chief Interpreters and Criticks and first Reformers even among our Opposers themselves On the contrary those that interpret the before-mentioned Expressions of our Saviour as if in them he meant to say that he is God such do advance an Interpretation that destroys the Unity of God contradicts manifest Reason and has no Vouchers but the Jews I say none but the Jews for Trinitarians can produce no Text of Scripture nor any Profane Author that can possibly be understood to mean by such Expressions what they mean namely a numerical Oneness of Nature an In-being by Mixture of Persons and a Natural Generation out of the very Essence of God Upon these Texts therefore we have as much advantage against them as possibly we can have even Reason the Current of Scripture the Authority of their own Criticks and of all Profane Writers The next Trouble he gives us out of the New Testament is from John 20.28 Thomas answered and said unto him unto Jesus My Lord and my God Socinus himself Wolzogenius and Slichtingius learned Unitarians do not only grant but they contend that it was indeed the Intention of Thomas to call our Saviour his Lord and his God but 't is in no other sense than the Author of the 45th Psalm calls Solomon God Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever To which he adds speaking to the Queen concerning her Husband Solomon Hearken O Daughter forget thy own People and thy Father's House So shall the King greatly desire thy Beauty for he is thy Lord God and worship thou him So 't is in the Version of the Psalms in the Book of Common-Prayer which Translation I judg our Author will not disclaim And so also St. Jerome translates Ipse est Dominus Deus taus adorabunt eum but the Translators imployed by King James have left out the word God from those words to the Queen He is the Lord thy God But seeing Solomon had before been called God Thy Throne O God is for ever 't is undeniable that in this Psalm he is called both Lord and God and his Queen is bid to worship him that is to honour him for such was the Language of the Eastern Nations to their Kings and Persons in Eminent Dignity The Prophets Moses and Samuel are called Elobim or God Exod. 7.1 1 Sam. 28.11 13 14. In that last Context King Saul ordered the Woman to call up Samuel and Samuel appearing she called to Saul and told him that now she saw Elohim God ascending up Saul thereupon asks her What form is he of the Woman replies He is an old Man It appears by this that besides their Kings and Magistrates the Jews gave also the Name Elohim to the Prophets But that was the very word used by the Apostle Thomas to our Saviour the Greeks translate it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the English by the word God Therefore when 't is used of a Man we are not to suppose that the Speaker intends to call such Man God or that he owns him for a Person who is true God but he uses
did not like Lucifer conceive in his Mind that Impiety and Robbery to be equal with God but on the contrary He made himself of no Reputation and took the Likeness of a Man of Servile Condition by concealing the great Miracles which he did and by bearing Injuries and Reproaches without answering again Being made in the Likeness of all other Men and found in the common Fashion of a Man He submitted to be taken by the Jews and to undergo the Death of the Cross for the Glory of God and the Salvation of Men. And because He was thus affected towards God's Honour and the Good of Men therefore has God highly exalted him making him Head of the Church both that in Heaven and that on Earth and giving to him that Name above every Name King of Kings and Lord of Lords But hitherto of the Concertation between Mr. Milbourn's Heathen and our Country man I submit to the Reader which of them has best understood St. Paul But I desire you Sir to consider what wild Work our Opposers make with these Words and this Context of St. Paul and how they make no scruple to render him guilty of the most palpable Self-Contradictions in one and the same Breath The Lord Christ saith this Apostle was in the Form of God that is say our Opposers he had the very Nature of God or was truly and really God and He thought it not Robbery so They make the Apostle to speak to be equal with God Now if He was God how could He be equal with God for nothing is ever said to be equal with it self Equality and Likeness must be between several and divers things Well He was God and was equal with God and yet made himself of no Reputation took on him the Form of a Servant was made in the likeness and fashion of Men nay humbled himself to Death even the Death of the Cross But 't is both Morally and Physically or naturally impossible that God should do any of these things undergo any of these Changes Why do they not perceive that He who is true God cannot make himself of no Reputation or take the Form of a Servant the Likeness and Fashion of Men or submit himself to Death The Apostle goes on Wherefore God hath also highly exalted him and given him a Name which is above every Name O strange God exalts God and gives to him which implies that He had it not before a Name above every Name I would know what Name could be given to him above the Name he had before I do not pretend Sir that they own this Interpretation in the very terms I have here set it down but this I say that admitting their Hypothesis that the Lord Christ is true God this and no other was I must not say the Apostle's Sense but his meaning it was You may please Sir to compare it with that easy and natural Paraphrase of the Socinians which was before mentioned and then tell me which of them would be chosen even by a sensible Heathen to whom our Opposer has thought fit to make his Appeal CHAP. VIII On what he objects from the Actions or Miracles of our Saviour AFter he has done with particular Texts our Author from P. 381. spends some Sheets in recounting certain Actions of our Saviour by which it may appear that he was true God that one true God whom the Scriptures every where propound to us as the only legitimate Object of Faith and Worship He saith for instance our Saviour did many wonderful Miracles and that too in his own Name not as the Minister or Instrument of another but in a commanding way as when he rebuked the Winds and Waves and cast out Devils He healed Diseases by a Virtue issuing from himself as appears by the Woman who was cured by only touching his Garment and by his own words thereupon Virtue is gone out of me Nor did he cure only the Distempers of the Body but those of the Mind and Soul for he invited to him the weary and heavy-laden promising that he would give them Rest which is a sort of Language never used by any Prophet or meer Man nay he forgave to divers their Sins which 't is certain only God can do As a farther Display of his Divinity 't is said of him He knew what was in Man and he saith of himself I am He which searcheth the Reins and Heart There can be no greater Omniscience than this nor can Omniscience belong to any but God After his Resurrection He openid the Vnderstandings of his Disciples He breathed on them and thereby conferred the Holy Spirit which being God's Inspiration even in the Opinion of the Socinians How can it be given by any but God Afterwards He himself shed on them the same Holy Spirit in a miraculous manner when he caused the Spirit to descend on them in the likeness of cloven Tongues but if he were not God how should he give the Spirit of God to others They are his own words to his Disciples As my Father sent me so send I you but that could not be said by him if he had not the same Authority or were not equal with the Father After his Ascension his Disciples did their Miracles in his Name or only by Faith in him but no meer Man can enable another to do Miracles nor can Faith in a meer Man avail to that purpose Lastly He sent St. Paul to be a Minister to the Gentiles to convert them to God that so saith he they may have Remission of Sins and an Inheritance among those who are sanctified by Faith in me or by believing in me And in doing all this saith he farther to that Apostle I will deliver thee from the People and the Gentiles to whom I send thee Acts 26.16 17 18. Mr. Milb seems to think there is a great Force in these Allegations towards the evincing that the Lord Christ was indeed God and with these Proofs he concludes his present Argument from Scripture Let us examine what he hath said part by part He saith first our Saviour did Miracles in his own Name not as the Minister or Instrument of another But this is not the Language of Scripture the express words of our Saviour and the whole current of Scripture are against it John 17.28 I am not come of my self John 5.43 I am come in my Father's Name John 5.30 I can do nothing of my self Mat. 12.28 I cast out Devils by the Spirit of God John 14.10 The Father that dwilleth in me to wit by his Spirit be doth the Works Acts 2.22 Jesus of Nazareth a Man approved of God among you by Miracles Wonders and Signs which God did by him in the midst of you Assuredly these Texts declare as evidently as in words can be done that the Lord Christ was no more than the Instrument and Minister of God and of his Spirit in working Miracles and that it was in the Father's Name not in his
the eternal Damnation of all Mankind Therefore he subjoins 2. As our Sins are made infinite by their being committed against the Infinite Majesty of God So the Satisfaction of the Lord Christ for us by his Death and other Punishments was also Infinite on the account of God's Greatness to which that Satisfaction was made p. 662. That is the Punishment of the Lord Christ was Infinite because he offered it to an Infinite God He adds in the same place God would never have accepted the Sufferings of the Lord Christ instead of ours if he had not certainly known that they were equivalent to the Punishments due to us for Sin 3. The Person that suffered for us was both God and Man and thereby his Sufferings were of an Infinite Value and so equivalent to the Infinite Punishment due to us for tho the true God could neither die nor suffer yet he who was true God did both suffer and die p. 663. And because he understands not the true state of the Question and Difference between the Unitarians and the Church concerning the Satisfaction by our Saviour he hath objected to us a great number of Texts which are no way contrary to our Doctrine He tells us from holy Scripture that the Lord Christ was wounded for our Transgressions was bruised for our Iniquities that we are healed by his Stripes that God hath laid on him the Iniquity of us all that he made his Soul an Offering for Sin that he was delivered for our Offences that he bore our Sins in his own Body on the Tree or Cross To these he adds Rom. 3.24 Being justified freely by his Grace through the Redemption which is in Christ Jesus whom God hath set forth to be a Propitiation for eur Sins to declare his God's Righteousness that he may be just and the Justifier of him that believeth on Jesus This Sir is the Sum and Force of what our Author hath discoursed at large concerning the Satisfaction He is so well assured of the Truth of his Doctrine that he ends his Book with twice imprecating on himself a Curse if he shall ever write or teach other ways than he has taught his Reader in this present Book I will take a short view of all that he hath said He saith first The Infinite Justice of God requires that every Sinner nay that every Transgression be punished and that when God pardons and saves Sinners this is an Act of his Justice to which Justice a full Satisfaction having been paid by the Lord Christ God cannot be just other ways than by pardoning and saving us And if God can pardon̄ without a Satisfaction to his Justice why are not the Devils forgiven This was argued like a Novice in these Questions the more Learned of his own Party know that the Cause is lost if in the Question of the Satisfaction Almighty God be not considered as a Governour who indeed can forgive the Offenders but for Prudential Reasons he will not forgive without a Satisfaction to his Honour and Justice Our Author stands in it that God cannot forgive any Offender or Offence without Satisfaction by the Offender himself or another in his stead Why what is the reason that the King and Proprietor of the whole World cannot forgive He answers 'T is contrary to his Justice But is it contrary to Justice to show Mercy or to remit of my own Rights and Dues Am I unjust if I do not exact the whole of what is due to me I may certainly do what I will with my own else 't is not truly and wholly my own He that cannot forgive neither can he give for Forgiveness is nothing else but giving my Right to Debt or Punishment to the Person who is indebted or has offended me 'T is contrary he saith to the Justice of God to forgive either the Transgression or the Transgressor but if it be contrary to Justice 't is essentially and morally evil I ask therefore How can God command us to forgive to one another our Transgressions and Offences Can God command us what is morally and essentially evil or what is contrary to the eternal Laws of Justice by which he himself is obliged O marvellous Scheme of Justice 't is contrary they say to Justice to pardon without a full Satisfaction but not contrary to Justice to lay my Guilt and the Punishment due to it on a Person wholly innocent and perfectly righteous 't is unjust to forgive the real Offender or to abate of the Punishment due to him but not unjust to substitute a well-deserving Person to the Punishment that belonged to the other In a word to show Mercy by pardoning Offences is Unjustice but to misplace Punishment is none at all but worthy of the Holiness and of the Wisdom of God But he faith if God can forgive without an Equivalent or Satisfaction to his Justice by the Offender or another for him why are not the Devils forgiven And I ask seeing an infinite Satisfaction hath been made in the Opinion of our Author and his Party for Sinners why are not the Devils comprehended in it The same Infinite Satisfaction which our Opposers teach was abundantly enough for the fallen Angels as well as for Men let them tell us how so much precious Merit comes to be lost This Question can never be answered on the Hypothesis of our Opposers but on the Unitarian Hypothesis there is no difficulty at all in the case of the fallen Angels for we answer they are not forgiven because they repent not nor amend Almighty God as King and Proprietor of all Persons and Things can forgive any Offence or all Offences even without Repentance or Amendment nor is it contrary to his Justice so to do but 't is inconsistent with his Wisdom because to forgive without Repentance or Amendment is to incourage Sin and Disorder in the World 'T is also contrary to the Holiness of God that the Incorrigible and Impenitent should escape unpunish'd Our Opposers mistake too in thinking that 't is the Justice of God by which he is prompted to punish Sinners 't is his Holiness and Wisdom Justice has no other share or interest in Punishment but only to see that Punishment be not misplaced and that it do not exceed the Offence As to his Tale about the mad old King and his foolish Son 't is perfectly ridiculous He hath imagined a King that promises to pardon his Rebels if any other will be so kind as to suffer for them 'T is a mad Proposition in the highest degree unreasonable and unjust because if it was necessary that their Offences should be punish'd Justice and Reason require that the Offenders themselves and not an innocent Person or Persons should suffer Well but as mad as the old King was his Son was as foolish for our Author assures us the Son offered to save the Rebels by dying in their stead nor did the Folly of the Father and the Son stop here for when the Father
for our Iniquities that we are healed by his Stripes that God hath laid on him the Iniquity of us all that He hath made his Soul an Offering for Sin All this is taken out of the 53d Chapter of Isaiah which Chapter is by some taken to be a Prophecy concerning the Prophet Jeremiah by others concerning the Messiah or Christ I do not think it to be any Prophecy at all except in some few Passages of it but especially not a Prophecy concerning a Person who was then to be born I conceive the words are to be understood of the Prophet Isaiah himself who speaking of himself modestly speaks in the third Person and the sense begins at ver 7. of the foregoing Chapter I wonder very much that so many Learned Men as have commented on this Prophet have not discerned that the whole Discourse perfectly sutes to the Prophet himself and that he speaks of a Person actually in being not of one who was yet to be born But because it would take up a great deal of room to make a Paraphrase on the two Chapters and to show the Reason of it I will be content to set down the Explication by Grotius and Socinus of the particular Expressions here objected by our Author Grotius is of opinion that from ver 7. of the foregoing Chapter Isaiah prophesies of the Sufferings of the Prophet Jeremiah yet so that the whole Prophecy and all the Expressions of the 53d Chapter had a second Completion in the Person Actions and Sufferings of the Lord Christ and therefore some of the Expressions tho originally intended of Jeremiah are by the Writers of the New Testament accommodated also and applied to the Lord Christ Let us see what he saith Isa 53.5 He was wounded for our Transgressions and was bruised for our Iniquities But in the Original 't is he has been wounded by our Wickedness and bruised by our Iniquity that is we have wickedly and unjustly afflicted and persecuted him The Chastisement of our Peace was upon him and by his Stripes we are healed No the Original saith The Reproofs of our Peace were with him that is the Reproofs that would have made our Peace with God if we had hearkned to them were truly with this Prophet he reproved us justly and for our saving Good if we would have hearkned and by those his Stripes we might have been healed i. e. by those sharp and home-Reproofs by those Stripes of his Mouth we might have been amended and reformed and thereby reconciled to God and healed Ver. 6. All we like Sheep have gone astray we have turned every one to his own way and the Lord hath laid on him the Iniquity of us all In the Hebrew the Lord hath by him met with the Iniquity of us all q. d. hath reproved all our Wickedness by him Ver. 10. When thou shalt make his Soul an Offering for Sin he shall see his Seed he shall prolong his days But in the Hebrew thus If he the Prophet shall submit his Soul to Punishment he shall see his Seed and prolong his days or Tho he submit his Soul to Punishment c. Punishment saith Grotius here is properly for Sin but the Hebrews saith he call all Affliction by or from others tho unjust and underserved by the Name of Punishment But our Author objects again that the Apostle saith Rom. 4.25 He Christ was delivered for our Offences And 1 Pet 2.24 Who himself bore our Sins in his own Body on the Tree or Cross Rom. 3.24 Him hath God set forth to be a Propitiation for our Sins to declare his God's Righteousness Heb. 9.26 Now once in the end of the World he hath appeared to put away Sin by the Sacrifice of himself Therefore 't is to be noted that very few of those that have undertaken to write against us have really understood what we affirm or deny concerning the Causes or the Effects of our Saviour's Death They trouble themselves with citing a great many Texts to evince that 't was for our Sins as one Cause that Christ died that he was a Sacrifice and Oblation for the Sins of the World that he was a Ransom a Price of Redemption for us We deny none of these things taken in a sober and possible sense the Question is only this Whether the Lord Christ offered himself as such a Sacrifice Oblation or Price as might be made to the Justice of God by way of Equivalent for what we should have suffered or was an Oblation and Application as all former Sacrifices under the Law were to the Mercy of God by way of humble suit and deprecation We affirm the latter of these that the Lord Christ besides other Ends of his Death tendred himself in the nature of a Sacrifice on the Altar of the Cross to the Mercy and Benignity of God by way of Supplication not to the Divine Justice as an Equivalent for so great a Debt as the Eternal Punishment of all Mankind in Hell-Fire We judg it better thus to speak than as our Opposers do because the Abolition of our Sins and our Discharge from Punishment is always in Holy Scripture attributed to the great Mercy and Goodness of God 't is called Pardon Remission Grace Freeness of Grace Riches of Grace all which were false if indeed the Lord Christ gave a just Equivalent they say more than an Equivalent to God's Justice for us In a word our Opposers and We agree that the Lord Christ being to die upon other accounts did withal tender his Person in Quality of an Expiatory Sacrifice for the Sins of Mankind himself was the Offerer and also the Victim and his Cross the Altar he was a Ransom and a Price of Redemption for us but in this we differ Whether he was an Adequate Price or a Sacrifice to the Justice of God We cannot comprehend that one Man could be an Equivalent for all Men or his short Sufferings equal to the Eternal Damnation of an Infinite Multitude or that God can be said to pardon if he hath been over-paid for our Debt to him therefore we content our selves to teach that our Blessed Saviour being to confirm his Gospel by his Death and to be made perfect by Sufferings as the Author to the Hebrews speaks did also offer himself as a Sacrifice and as a sort of Ransom and Price for us to that Mercy and Benignity of God by which he was wont to accept the Oblation of Beasts the Blood of Goats and Lambs for his repenting and returning People This Hypothesis leaves to God the intire Glory of forgiving us to our Saviour the Honour of being the Means Motive and Procurer of our Pardon and Salvation and fully answers all Scripture-Expressions concerning our Saviour's Death objected to us by our Opposers in this Question But they our Opposers after all their Subterfuges are forced by their Hypothesis to this monstrous Conclusion that God freely pardoneth to Sinners their whole Debt of Sin and Punishment and yet has been infinitely over-paid for both in the Death and other Sufferings of the Lord Christ than which there can be no greater or more apparent Contradiction As to our Author's Conclusion that he wishes himself accursed and again accursed if ever he deliver other Doctrine than what he hath defended in this Book I shall only say this that as wise as he have lived to alter their Minds Nor can he defend his Rashness by the Example of the Apostle for when St. Paul curses himself or any other for preaching or teaching otherways he speaks not of doubtful and uncertain Questions but If we preach any other GOSPEL to you let us be accursed Gal. 1.8 9. And the reason of our Apostle's Confidence was very different from our Author 's the latter grounds himself on a few ambiguous and uncertain Texts capable of contrary Translations and Senses and when taken in his Sense of them are contrary to Reason and common Sense and to the general Current of Holy Scripture but the Apostle speaks of a matter which he had received by express Revelation from Jesus Christ and even from God the Father of All. FINIS BOOKS lately printed by the Socinians THE Brief History of the Unitarians vulgarly called Socinians in four Letters The first Letter besides the History of the Socinians proves the Unity of God the other three answer the pretended Proofs of the Doctrine of the Trinity Second Edition The Acts of Athanasius with brief Notes on his Creed and Observations on Dr. Sherlock's Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity opposed by him to the Brief History and Brief Notes Observations on Dr. Wallis his Letters written in Vindication and Explication of the Athanasian Creed Some Thoughts on Dr. Sherlock's Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity A Defence of the brief History against the Vindication by Dr. Sherlock An Exhortation to a Free and Impartial Inquiry into the Doctrines of Religion A Letter of Resolution concerning the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation giving the general Reasons of the Unitarians against those Doctrines Two Letters touching the Trinity and Incarnation the first urges the Belief of the Athanasian Creed the other is an Answer thereto An accurate Examination or Judgment on the principal Texts relating to the Questions concerning the Divinity of our Saviour and his Satisfaction occasioned by a Book of Mr. L. Milbourn's called by him Mysteries in Religion vindicated
heard his Son say that he would die for the Rebels he approved his Son's Extravagance put his Son to Death and pardoned his Rebels Nor does our Author forbear to publish his own proper Folly by telling us that the old King dearly loved his Son tho he put him to Death for other Mens Faults He adds that this is our very case with respect to God Almighty and the Lord. Christ 'T is so I acknowledg in the Hypothesis of our Opposers but let them see to it whether they do not expose themselves to just Scorn while they can no ways defend their Hypothesis of the Satisfaction but by comparing Almighty God and our Lord Christ to two such Prodigies of Folly as never really were or could be in Nature but only in the Fiction and Fancy of the Poetaster of Yarmouth I demand would our Poet himself as odd-conceited as he is put his Son to death or consent that he should be put to Death to save his Maligners and Adversaries from a Punishment highly due to their Crimes He hath been a great Enemy in his time to Rebellion and at this day is writing Books against Rebels who are dead forty Years ago Would he give one of his Children to Death to save any of the surviving Rebels as suppose Friend Ludlow If he is neither so silly nor so wicked to his Child how has he dared to say this is our case with respect to Almighty God and the Lord Christ Why did not the Comparison and Instance that he himself devised open his Eyes to discern the Folly and Inconsistency of his Doctrine The Socinians object to their Opposers in these Questions That if an Equivalent which Trinitarians call a Satisfaction has been given to God's Justice on our behalf by the Sufferings of the Lord Christ then God hath not truly pardoned us which the Scriptures every where affirm but only discharged and acquitted us because our Debt being paid he could do no less Our Author answers Tho God's Justice has been satisfied yet it was who found out the Person who was able and willing to pay our Debt Besides the Sufferings of our Lord Christ tho they were equivalent to the Punishment due to Sinners were a refusable Payment for God might have required that the Sinners should suffer in their own Persons not in the Person of a Redeemer Mediator or Undertaker I will be so liberal as to grant to our Author both these Answers but I must insist upon it that they are no Answers to the Objection proposed For God doth not pardon his Debt or Offence because he finds out a third Person that will pay or suffer for the Debtor or Offender these two differ just as much as Payment and Forgiveness that is to say they are Contraries But our Author adds the Sufferings of the Lord Christ were a refusable Payment 't is well but he saith they were an equivalent Payment how then can God be said to pardon us doth He forgive who receives an Equivalent to the Debt due to him Yes he saith it is Forgiveness with respect to us for we have paid nothing whatever our Friend whom God found out hath paid for us But why doth he not consider that the Scriptures not only say that Sinners are pardoned but they say God hath pardoned them You may call their Discharge a Pardon with respect to them but you can never say God hath pardoned them if they are only discharged upon an Equivalent given for them or paid by another on their behalf To say God hath pardoned us supposes that he has received no Equivalent on our behalf for if he had however we might be said to be pardoned yet it could not be said that God pardoned us for the Pardon must in that case be imputed to the Person or Persons who made the Satisfaction or the Equivalent not to God To avoid this our Opposers say he that made the Satisfaction was God the Son of God who is also himself true God that very true God to whom the Satisfaction was made he made for us the Satisfaction But this is Jargon and we expected Reason from them The one true God they say made for us the Satisfaction to the one true God we deny that 't is Sense or intelligible There is but one true God and he is to receive the Satisfaction for our Sins against his Infinite Majesty and not to give Satisfaction How then can they say but that they are accustomed to say any thing the one true God made for us the Satisfaction And if it could be true what they say that God himself paid for us the Equivalent or Satisfaction this is indeed no other but forgiving us without a Satisfaction which is the very thing they deny For if I pay to my self the Debt of my Debtor or undergo the Punishment of my Offender this is but a mock-Satisfaction and I indeed forgive him without a Satisfaction Which is so plain that I wonder that so many Learned Persons as have written on the one and the other side of this Question have not observed it Another Objection of the Socinians against the pretended Satisfaction is God could not justly or wisely substitute an innocent and well-deserving Person to undergo Punishment properly so called in the place and stead of the Unrighteous and Worthless because 't is of the Nature of Justice not to misplace Punishment Our Author's Answers are The Innocent Beast was sacrificed for the Sin of the Owner and the Lord Christ freely offer'd himself to suffer for us though we were Worthless and Wicked His instance of Beasts offer'd in Sacrifice on occasion of the Sin of their Owners is not a whit to the purpose for the Owners having an absolute Dominion over and a compleat Right to the Service Use and very Life of their Beasts therefore it was no Unjustice when the Life of the Beast was given for the Offence of the Master or Owner The Owner might kill his Beast for Food therefore much more might he offer him to God in lieu and exchange of his own Life forfeited to God by Sin And in this case the Worthless was offer'd to the Mercy and gracious Acceptance of God for the Worthy so that there was no Offence committed either against Justice or Wisdom But all things are contrary in the Lord Christ and Us especially in the Hypothesis of our Opposers for he was a Person according to them of Infinite Dignity and Merit and we had no right in him or dominion over him as the Sacrificer had over his Beast that we should offer his Life or his Sufferings to God instead of our own As to that the Lord Christ freely offer'd himself for Vs to undergo Punishment due to us Neither could he do it nor could God accept of it or allow it An Innocent and Righteous Person may not an Holy and Just Judg must not pervert the due Course of Justice A just Governor may pardon Offenders of his Mercy