among other things tells us Isa 44.17 He that had just made the golden Image falls down and worships it and prays unto it and says Deliver me for thou art my God Doubtless the Engraver and Carver c. would readily plead for themselves they look'd upon their Images but as Symbols of a real Deity or places of residence for more Spiritual Beings or at most but as subordinate Gods yet all this will not excuse them from the charge of Idolatry for God first declaring of himself that He is the true God that He is the living God and an everlasting king Jer. 10.10 11. at whose wrath the earth should tremble and the nations should not be able to abide his indignation adds farther The Gods that have not made the heavens and the earth even they shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens that 's then the characteristick or the test of a true God the making of the heavens and of the earth on which reason begin we our Creed with that I believe in God the Father Almighty maker of heaven and earth and whosoever it is who has not made Heaven and earth in that same sense in which the Prophet here speaks He 's an Idol and all those are guilty of Idolatry who put any confidence in him Vid Martial l. 5. Epig. 8. Suet. in Domit. c. 13. And such were Caligula and Domitian those proud Emperours who knew not how to sit down with an inferior title to that Domini Deique nostri of our Lord and our God and very Heathens themselves thought this was assuming divine Honours to themselves and such as were no way becoming mortal men But I know the Socinians allow those who are made Gods by Men to be Idols but those who are made by Almighty God himself are not so Neque enim unus ille deus falsos deos facit homines hoc faciunt says Schlicktingius for he who is the one supreme God does not make false Gods they are only Men who do so hence according to them Kings and Princes are true Gods because they are constituted by God himself to represent his own person to the world but to this we answer never King upon earth but only such as those before-named Caligula or Domitian pretended to such a name nor were there ever any but sordid Parasites and flatterers who offer'd to call them their Lords and their Gods Alexander the Great himself tho' foolish and ambitious to be called the Son of Jupiter yet could not but expose their baseness who complyed with his mad fancy when he saw the blood trickling from a wound he had received and ask'd them whether that were like the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Homer made to fall from his Gods They allege on their own behalf that passage in the Psalmist Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever Psal 45.6 which say they is there spoken of Solomon which we as positively deny and are assured they can never prove God by his Prophets is not wont to tell downright falsehoods as he must do if this were to be so applyed for which way shall we make it out that Solomon's Throne was everlasting when all the glories of it sunk in his immediate Successor which way shall the Sceptre of his kingdom be made a right Sceptre whose immediate Successor and several after him have that character in Scripture that they did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord What great and terrible things were those which were done by the sword of peaceable Solomon who was to be no man of blood no conqueror o◠what worship do we ever read was paid by Pharaoh's daughter or any other of his numerous wives and concubines to Solomon and the Holy Ghost directly applies these words to Jesus Christ the Son of God without the least mention of Solomon Beside this then they have no Text which looks like any thing of ascribing those names My Lord and my God to any created being whatsoever and when they have said all they can Christ himself must be an Idol to Thomas and to all those who own him at any time to be their Lord and their God if it be not He who has made the Heavens and the Earth according to the Letter Princes may be Metaphorical Gods but they are not set up for humane Adorations Men and Angels are to adore the Son of God therefore he 's no Metaphorical God and we need beg no pardon for saying it 's not in the power of an Almighty God to create or make a true or an eternal God or another being Almighty as himself it 's Nonsence to talk of Monarchs subordinate one to another or of Monarchs co-ordinate with one another in the same territory and it 's plain nonsence to tell us Christ is a subordinate God to his Father or that there can be two supreme Gods over all blessed for ever Therefore when the Apostle calls his master My God and my Lord his meaning must be that the Son of God is the true God one God coessential co-eternal with his Father From hence then we proceed to Rom 9.5 Of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came who is God over all blessed for ever Amen The character here is very high the Text plain and it may justly be concluded those must adventure very boldly who can elude its force If we look into the occasion of the words we there find the Apostle expressing an extraordinary affection to his Countrey-men being willing to become a curse for his brethren his kinsmen according to the flesh whose condition he commiserates the more because of those extraordinary privileges they had before enjoyed for there is no greater aggravation of misery than to have made a great many fair steps towards happiness and to have fallen short of it at last These privileges they had enjoyed were extraordinary they were Israelites so God's proper or peculiar inheritance beyond all other nations whatsoever To them pertained the adoption or they were adopted to be the Sons of God and are called so in the Old Testament to them appertain'd the glory of God's peculiar presence among them owning them for his people and delivering them gloriously with a mighty hand and stretched out arm from their cruel enemies To them belonged the Covenants the two Tables written with the Finger of God himself the giving of the Law that Law Moral Political and Ceremonial which made their Religious Ordinances their Civil Government and their Manners far superiour to those of all other Nations to them belonged the service of God the only true external form or method of worship and the Promises for all the Prophets among those severe menaces they denounced against Israel for their Sins yet always brought the Promises of a Messias a Redeemer to come to comfort them their 's were the Fathers all those Men so eminent for their favour with God such as Abraham Isaac
deep ever to be made up It 's true when God himself was mention'd as the undertaker of so great a work even despairing man might entertain some dawning hopes but when they saw a poor Carpenter's Son one who had not so much as where to lay his head assume yet the glorious title of the world's Redeemer and Saviour their hopes slagg'd their almost grasped joys seem'd just vanishing into empty air When the Holy Ghost God too infinitely good and powerful and wise interpos'd and attended that humble Man with so much vigour and constancy that He by a thousand glorious actions and by a close and perpetual correspondence with Heaven visible even to vulgar eyes prov'd the entire Union that was between himself and his Father and that Sacred Spirit and justified himself in the thoughts of very aliens themselves who could not but acknowledge of a truth that for all his mean appearance and his scandalous Passion on the Cross He was the Son of God But could men have doubted still the happy Angels those purer and more discerning Spirits saw him too they saw him and knew him and ador'd him they saw their mighty Lord tho' veil'd in all the rags of poor mortality And tho' sin might have made a former breach between those blessed Spirits and polluted man yet now where their Lord loved they lov'd too and always look'd and always waited on him while he wrought the worlds redemption while he was so justified and so attended on divers gave up themselves absolutely to his service whom he lov'd and taught and protected and endued with miraculous knowledge eloquence and courage and sent them on that blessed errand to preach to the Gentiles the glad tydings of Salvation in his name They boldly undertook the work and tho' they had ignorance and prejudice and malice and cunning to contend with meer men contemn'd before but then inspired broke through all opposition and the forsaken Gentiles heard the gladsome sounds of peace and tho' there were too many enemies to their own good yet those laborious messengers of Heaven preached with that power and efficacy that men began every where to call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ Nay the more men of perverse minds cross'd the designs of that Gospel preach'd in the name of the Son of God the more those who believed in him were multiplied As for himself when he had finished that stupendous work and by his own Death had conquered Hell and Death He broke those fatal chains and rose again no more lyable to humane rage His Almighty Father who had viewed all the prodigious efforts of his Love to mankind with an ineffable complacency reach'd out his holy arm to receive that very humane Nature in which his beloved Son had done and suffered so much from him the chearful clouds were sent for a Chariot and he went upwards flying upon the wings of the wind while jâ—cund Angels those ministerial flames waited on his triumphs and taught his wondring followers what they were afterwards to expect from their Redeemer These are those mighty mysteries on which our most holy faith is built their truth however unintelligible to us is our security and the sincerity of our faith will necessarily show it self in an holy conversation and godliness The Verse I have explain'd then imports That without Controversie the Mystery of Godliness is great or in more words That the Basis or foundation of that Religion introduced into the World by the Doctrine of Christ's Gospel is indisputably and agreeably to the nature of Religion to Humane reason extremely profound and unintelligible To prove this we shall enquire Into the Vniversal agreement of all persons of what Religion soever That Mysteries are essential to Religion Whether our Saviour intended the entire abolition of all other Religions for the settlement of his own or rather to unite what was good in every distinct Religion into one and to sublime or perfect that so as it might tend most to God's glory and Man's happiness and whether that could be effected Men standing in their present corrupt state without the retaining of old or instituting of new Mysteries in his Religion What considerable advantages can accrue to Religion from those Mysteries it 's founded upon Then we must enquire into that Vniversal agreement of all persons whatsoever that Mysteries or some principles or circumstances of a more secret and abstruse nature are essential to all Religion But here to prevent all mistakes it must be remember'd That so much as concerns the practical part of Religion as contain'd in the Word of God is so clear and evident that the words of St. Paul are justly apply'd to them If they be hid they are hid to those that are lost whose eyes the God of this World hath blinded that the light of the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ should not shine upon them 2 Cor. 4.3 4. The words whereby all things necessary to be done toward the attainment of eternal life are exprest are such and so plain that the simplest Christian may understand them And that person who goes about to involve the practical duty of a Christian whether in respect of his communication with God or man in obscure and mysterious terms crosses the end of the Gospel which is to instruct the weakest understanding in an easie and intelligible way how to live godly righteously and soberly in this present evil world yet it must be acknowledged that even in relation to practice there are some apparent difficulties and notwithstanding all that plainness apparent in God's word a Man has a very hard task sometimes to distinguish between what 's lawful and what 's unlawful such cases are commonly known by the name of Cases of Conscience or such matters wherein so many arguments seemingly strong and plausible appear on both sides to the understanding that it knows not which way to act and all that hesitancy or doubtfulness arises onely from a fear of offending God These generally respecting Christian practice create a great deal of trouble frequently to very good Men for others are seldom troubled with such religious fears and these are sometimes by various and unusual circumstances rendred so very intricate that the wisest and most discerning Men are often at a loss to clear and resolve them to the Querent's satisfaction Here the Jews were order'd to have recourse to their Priests whose lips were suppos'd to preserve knowledge and the Priests when there was any thing of a more inextricable nature had the Vrim and Thummim to appeal to The Heathens had some emergent doubts as to matter of publick management of themselves which sometimes perplex'd them too and they had their imaginary wise Men the Priests attending their desecrated altars who would assume as if they had the art of resolving doubts those who profess Christianity have still a severer task in these matters as having no Oracle immediately to consult and having doubts more numerous and
were so cross to his own wishes lest Men should have been rouz'd from their dead sleep by such irrational and damnable insinuations and so have seen with horrour and amazement what Gods they worshipped Yet neither could the more sagacious part of Mankind be satisfied with these things they saw the distance between God and Man was too great to be made up by any typical or representing Sacrifices and that a compleat purity was far beyond the reach of meer humane nature therefore the Gentiles who had some sense of that weight which opprest them groan'd and long'd earnestly to be freed from the slavery of corruptions by some means sufficiently powerful to that end and so to be brought in to the glorious liberty of the Sons of God hence rose those frequent discourses of the Gods assuming Humane shapes coming down to earth and conversing with Men which though we find most frequently mention'd in Poetical Writings yet unquestionably had its foundation from those accounts in the Writings of Moses concerning the apparitions of Angels as particularly to Abraham and Lot and Jacob hence grew that prevailing rumour about the times of Augustus Caesar that an universal King should be born in Judaea to whom all other Monarchs should be forc'd to bow and who by wonderful means should make up the breach between God and man this too had a farther confirmation from the translation of the old Testament into the Greek Language and from some fragments of the true Sibylline Oracles not unknown to Tully or Virgil and from Balaam's predictions as plain as any Jewish Prophecy whatsoever which he being of another Nation would certainly acquaint his own Country-men with from whom it quickly might be spread over the whole World From some or all these Originals arose the Expectation of those Eastern Sages who no sooner saw that prodigious Star shining at Noon-day but they concluded that glorious Light which was to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of God's people Israel was then risen but though Men did generally apprehend the necessity of those things and lived in continual expectation of them yet how such things should be how such prodigious but excellent effects should ever be produced was a Mystery hid from all ages a dark obscure unfathomable abyss of Divine goodness and wisdom never offer'd to be explain'd to any because incomprehensible by all As it was the unhappiness of the Gentiles to be encombred with a great deal of Ignorance so it must follow that their Mysteries where clearest had but a very indirect aspect to their acknowledgments and expectations But the Jewish solemnities and predictions had a more exact and direct aim at the coming of the promis'd Messias their Prophets were more numerous their prophecies better attested and more commonly known and enquired into their Rites and Ceremonies all of Divine appointment and consequently not one of them insignificant or superfluous till they were vacated by the appearance of the Messias himself in and by whom they were unridled and accomplished Yet their Religion was Mysterious still to the most understanding Persons among them their prophecies tho' so much inquired into yet like a Book seal'd to them and they as unable to conceive how the Son of God should take upon him humane nature how he should put an end to all Typical Sacrifices though of never so Divine an Institution by offering himself one perfect and all-sufficient sacrifice oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole World which so should really effect that mighty reconciliation which all other did but imperfectly hint at they were as unable to conceive of these things as a People who had long sate in darkness could have been as by their prejudices against him and their absurd fancies about him appear'd when no other Messias could serve their turn but some powerful temporal Prince rais'd up by the hand of God as Moses Joshua or the Judges of old had been to free them from the slavery they then lay under and once more to restore the Kingdom to Israel The result then of all is this that the World has known no Religion or Religious worship but what has had some circumstances and fundamentals too not obvious or easie to be understood either by the unthinking vulgar or by the more curious and inquisitive understandings it 's enough for my design if the World concur in that one principle That something may be necessary to be believ'd which yet no meer humane reason can comprehend Nay I may proceed farther and say That some points of faith are so very sublime that even revelation it self cannot make them intelligible to Men as Moses when he had seen the back parts of God the shadow or reflex of his glory was as far off comprehending his full glory as before and the Apostles when in their transfigured Master they saw a glorified body yet were unable to express what they saw but by very weak resemblances and S. Paul when ecstasied in the third heavens could no more compleatly comprehend the felicities or glorious visions of that place than he could before Since then natural reason led the Gentiles to believe mystick truths and God led his own people of Israel to the like from both together we may conclude That Religion it self cannot subsist without them and that those things which are called mysteries in Religion are not therefore to be rejected because they are mysteries indeed i. e. because every little pretender to sence cannot comprehend them And so we come to the second enquiry propounded in the beginning of this discourse and that is Whether our Saviour intended the entire abolition of all other Religions for the Settlement of his own or rather to unite what was good in every distinct religion into one and to sublime or perfect that so as it might tend most to God's glory and Mans happiness and whether that could be effected Men standing in their present corrupt state without the retaining of old or declaring of new Mysteries in his Religion where for our better satisfaction we must again examine these things What Sentiments Men generally had of the ends of Religion before our Saviours appearance in the world How far they had depraved or perverted those ends The reason of these enquiries will appear afterwards We enquire then what Sentiments Men generally had of the substance and ends of Religion before our Saviours appearance in the world And here if we would give Religion as it 's true a definition we may take it thus Religion is the worship of God in such a manner as is most agreeable to those revelations he has made of himself to the World this the Jews confirm The Author of the book Kosri or a Dialogue between the King of Cosar and Rabbi Isaac Sangar concerning Religion infers from a precedent discourse Libri Cosri pars 3. p. 234. That Men can have no access to God i. e. they cannot be admitted as true worshippers but
at a full and plain satisfaction in these matters And here we are to call to mind our second Position relating to Humane Reason which teaches us that by the Fall humane reason is exceedingly impair'd and very much incapacitated for those great ends for which it was first bestow'd on Man and it 's plain that though our Saviour has appear'd though he has brought us the glad tydings of life and salvation in and by himself tho' he has taken the kindest care imaginable for the propagation of this Gospel we are still by birth the same naturally miserable and misunderstanding Creatures that we were before and therefore we are in some sence actually regenerate or born again in Baptism being in it born members of the Christian Church and so having a right to all Christian priviledges and it being a Symbol or sign of our new birth or resurrection from dead works to serve the living God yet after our Baptism our intellectuals are still the same poor weak and miserably foolish and hence it comes that Catechetical instructions in the principles of Christian Religion and frequent Sermons or exhortations to true piety and sincere goodness or dehortations from Sin and explications of hard and difficult expressions or doctrines in Scripture and vindications of divine truths from the assaults of Hereticks Schismaticks or Infidels and the refutation of those errors endeavour'd by such to be impress'd on the minds of Men all these things are absolutely necessary for advancing our knowledge in Divine Matters for keeping us from the paths of error and for teaching and shewing us how to live godly righteously and soberly in this present evil world And the more improvements we make according to these means of grace which we enjoy the more powerful assistances and encouragements we meet with from Heaven in our work as was before observ'd in our fourth Position concerning humane reason Yet after all we remain but on the positive side of those great truths laid down in Scripture we believe them firmly and stedfastly because we have an irrefragable and infallible testimony of their truth the veil that was upon the hearts of men is indeed taken away the types shadows and ancient Prophecies relating to the Messias are all made good in his appearance upon earth the way to life is made clear and according to right reason very easie and agreeable to those who endeavour to walk in it and Man so endeavouring is reconciled to God by the blood of his dear Son Jesus Christ and there is a nearer and more close Communion between God and man than heretofore all these things and the infinite love of God in them are now so plainly decipher'd that he who runs may read them But for the rational part of these things or what means an Almighty God could make use of to effect things so stupendous how that dismal distance between a pure Divinity and corrupt Mortality should be made up how God himself should stoop to man when man notwithstanding all his inordinate ambition could never rise to God how that strict communication between God and Man should be maintain'd c. All these things are such mysteries that its impossible for even Angelical Intellectuals to comprehend them fully since common reason will give us this maxim that Nothing but an infinite being can perfectly understand all the operations of an infinite being Therefore we have the Communion between God and Man still shadowed out to us in the Symbols of Bread and Wine consecrated into a clear representation of the body and blood of our Saviour to us in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper Nor can we believe whatsoever Grotius In tract An. semper sit communicand per Symbola a man of more learning than orthodoxy would perswade us to that we while we have the means and opportunities of communicating with one another and holding a close communion with God by participating of those Symbols which our Lord himself instituted to that very end and purpose can possibly communicate as well without them or that we may make at any time the Bread and Wine a Nehustan a sign of no account or value at all because perhaps it may have been abused to ill purposes by a factious or an Idolatrous Crew but not to insist upon that Tho' it be with S. Chrysostome and many other Antients 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a dreadful and tremendous Mystery and will be always so accounted by the most understanding and humble Christians there 's not an article of our Faith not one of the principal heads of the Apostles Creed which we so often repeat but it s a body of Mysteries Mysteries after all the pains of the most learned and pious men unintelligible otherwise than as to their positive truth by all mankind and more particularly those clauses concerning our blessed Saviour are so true so essential to our eternal salvation and yet so far above our reach that while we meditate on them seriously our Souls have nothing but miracles of power wisdom mercy and love in view but being known for such they all hold their miraculous nature still and can never be fully decipher'd either by Men or Angels and that we should yet be obliged stedfastly to believe these things though we cannot comprehend them will appear no way unreasonable if we consider these things belonging to the 3d. Inquiry which is What considerable advantages can accrue to Religion from those Mysteries it 's founded upon we consider in pursuit of this Query That by a due reflection upon the nature of such Mysteries as are really necessary and consequently of very great weight and importance men are brought to a due acknowledgment of the deficiency of their own reason they learn how weak and shallow all the utmost flights of wit and reason are when they come once to stand in competition with the results of infinite wisdom and unlimited understanding Men of the most presuming abilities find it very hard to unriddle ancient parables and to give a clear and evident explication of aenigmatical writings and figurative sentences and expressions the youthful Philistines Men without doubt of very brisk parts in their own esteem as we may conclude by their ready acceptance of Sampson's proposition faltred pitifully when they set their wits on work to expound his riddle and the Pharisaical Allumbradoes those men of light who like the modern Chineses concluded almost all the World blind except themselves when our Saviour put that Dilemma to them concerning John's Baptism viz. Whether it were from Heaven or of Men it confounded them so as all their mighty wisdom could never dis-intangle them if these things were difficult the fundamental Mysteries of Religion are much more so Men have attempted several ways to solve the appearances of Nature and some have made such ingenious researches after them and have laid down Hypotheses so very rational for the solution of difficulties in them that they have got themselves the applauding
taken away but strongly confirm'd the necessity of obedience to God's Laws whether written or natural which was as we have before observ'd the general intent of Religion and agreeable to those notions the World commonly had of it Since for the better carrying on this end Mysteries are so very advantageous to religion as to make Men have reverend apprehensions of it upon account of its incomparable Excellencies in its causes and effects and upon account of the weakness and shallowness of their own understandings since all these particulars are true it 's likewise absolutely necessary that the Christian the onely true Holy pure Religion should be built upon such a foundation as might appear to all Men upon the strictest inquiry beyond all doubt or controversie Mysterious inexplicable incomprehensible Nor could it be an impertinent labour to clear this truth because it totally ruines all the pretences of the Socinians that after the Revelation once made of the great fundamentals of our Faith there could remain nothing of so obscure a nature but that we by the pure strength of our own reason might be able to comprehend it In short that though it be true that Scripture as sufficient for that purpose is and ought to be the sole rule of Faith yet reason ought to be the rule of Scripture Reason as it now stands loaded with all the miserable consequences of sin reason so blind as without the extraordinary light of holy Scriptures to be wholly unable to lead a Man to Eternal life it obviates their assertions that the true ancient Catholick Interpretation of this and other Texts of Scripture that speak of the eternal Divine nature of the Son of God or of that glorious Trinity subsisting in the Father Son and Holy Ghost is false and unreasonable meerly because it introduces an unintelligible incarnation and unity of the Divine and Humane nature in Christ a Mysterious co-essentiality of God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost c. notwithstanding all those glorious revelations God has made of himself in Scripture For if it be certainly true that Religion in it's general notion cannot subsist unless built upon a mystick foundation and that therefore Christian Religion in particular cannot subsist without it then it will follow that the continuing Mystick nature of the great Articles of our Faith can create no prejudice in any person whatsoever against our Religion on their account since especially it will remain impossible to draw any genuine consequences from those mysteries but what will be so far from impeaching that they will strongly confirm and re-inforce all those duties relating to God or man which are laid upon us by the natural or written Law and it will follow farther that the Socinians themselves by their endeavours to level all the Articles of our Faith the great saving principles of the Gospel to impair'd reason or by endeavouring to leave Christiany naked of all Mysteries do what in them lies to disannul all the Religion of Christians to take away all the use and advantage of the Gospel leaving the world so involv'd in Atheism or in meer Deism at this time very little to be preferr'd before the other Having done now with the positive assertion our next work is with all exactness and humility to consider the illustration of this Proposition in the severals laid down by the Apostle which altogether afford us the whole sum and substance of the Gospel for all that glad tydings sent from Heaven to Earth for the comfort of mankind consists in this That for their sakes to procure their Salvation God was manifest in the flesh justified in the spirit seen of Angels preach'd unto the Gentiles believ'd on in the world receiv'd up into glory all which particulars tho' the full prosecution of the first be all our present task are incomprehensible mysteries yet as well worth our enquiring into as the Apostles writing them who without doubt would never have laid the weight of piety or godliness or true Religion upon those grounds had they not been worth our looking into or their truth worth our vindicating from all the attacks of prejudiced opinionative or haeretical men It 's true a late author tells us Naked Gospel p 34. c. 1. l. 20. That to dispute concerning a Mystery and at the same time to confess it a mystery is a contradiction as great as any in the greatest mystery the expression is worth our remark for the boldness and absurdity it contains It 's bold not to say impious to insinuate so broadly in a discourse where Christianity's concern'd that all great Mysteries are made up of or at least contain contradictions what have we then nothing at all Mysterious in Scripture what 's that love between the blessed Jesus and his Spouse the Church so admirably character'd in the book of Canticles can our Author find nothing Mysterious in all those adumbrations of ineffable love or can he easily give us a Catalogue of the Contradictions there the real Contradictions I mean for things that are of no mysterious nature at all on any other account may seem to contain somewhat contradictory but seeming contradictions are not real Can he fathom every thing relating to Daniel's weeks Men of a great deal of learning industry and sobriety have taken a great deal of pains to explain the mystery of them and have scarce yet given the world satisfaction were not the Vision mysterious it would be more easily clear'd but because it is not must it therefore be contradictious to it self or to make a yet closer instance the nature of a God can He or any Socinian make it comprehensible to humane understandings or else will the very notion of a God imply a contradiction He must be a very new fangled Son of the Church of England who will assert that but why must it imply a contradiction to dispute or discourse about or to enquire into a confest mystery That God was manifest in the flesh is true we believe that every circumstance relating to his Incarnation as laid down in Scripture is true according to the genuine and common interpretation of such words whereby these circumstances are express'd we believe too That as they are true we may dispute about them and clear them from all that Sophistry whereby some subtle men would fain baffle us out of them is no uncouth or irrational opinion yet after all we take the whole account of this Incarnation as laid down in Scripture to be a very great mystery But where lyes the Contradiction either in believing it a mystery or in defending it as such This truth that God was manifest in the flesh is as before intimated that upon the literal truth of which the whole Salvation of mankind depends How he should have been so is to all mankind mysterious and incomprehensible yet may we without any contradiction explain defend prove and draw inferences from it Hear what a Bishop of our own a genuine
from heaven which all wise men have hitherto believed then the writers of the New Testament had no other way to prove their own inspiration but by agreement with the former lest the holy Spirit to whose conduct both pretended should seem inconsistent with himself or variable as mens humours could apprehend him It 's not now to be doubted but that our Saviour who knew what was in Man therefore all along gave just preventives of those Cavils which the malicious Jews could afterwards raise against him and therefore in his first Sermon upon the Mount he shews himself so far from evacuating what was in its own nature moral and perpetually obliging that he on the contrary clears it from all those putid glosses the Jewish readers or Rabbins had fixt upon it and whereas they had endeavoured to find as many starting holes from the severity of good Morals as the Jesuites of later years have done he gave his hearers the full sense and meaning of the Law that so by pretending to liberty from its rigours they might not run themselves into eternal woes and in plain terms lets them know that whereas they were ready simply to imagine the severities of the Scribes and Pharisees very extraordinary and meritorious they were infinitely deceived and that except their righteousness should exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees they should in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven Matth. 5.20 It was doubtless the full end and design of Moses and the Prophets to advance the honour of that God who employed them to make his Name and his Laws respected not only among the tribes of Israel but among all those nations to whose knowledge their writings were likely at any time to come who by the rationality and tendency of the Laws would certainly judge of the wisdom goodness and integrity of the Law-giver but when those Prophets and others had done their best their endeavours were mixt with so many failures and imperfections that sometimes they fell themselves a great way under God's displeasure as Moses by his infidelity and presumption at the rock The man of God that Prophesied against the Altar in Bethel by yielding to the lying suggestions of the old Prophet Jonah by his frowardness because of God's superseding his prophetical denunciation by his long suffering and mercy extended to penitent sinners c. And besides in all those services those holy Men perform'd they could claim no higher a title than that of undeserving servants for that they had only done what was their plain duty and in case of failure they were obnoxious to very severe penalties and Moses tho' he have that honourable character that he was faithful in all God's house it was but as a servant still and for a testimony of those things that were to be spoken after Heb. 3.5 6. But Christ as a Son over his own house took a more exact and effectual care in all things to promote the glory of his Father It 's natural for the Son to be more sollicitous in such cases than a mercenary servant who does what he does prompted both by a fear of punishment and an earnest expectation of reward above both which things a pious Son always lives and therefore whereas the rest always call God their Lord and King c. the blessed Jesus continually calls him his Father his heavenly father and by that relation he so stands in to the Almighty and by what he has done for us in taking our nature upon him and the consequences of that assumption he has procured the same privilege superiour to what was apprehended by those of old with assurance of being heard to say in our Prayers Our Father which art in heaven But to effect all this in relation to his Fathers honour and our good how many scorns abuses persecutions and barbarous cruelties did he undergo from wicked Men yet as freely as if he had been altogether unconcern'd so long as Men could but any ways be reduced to an acknowledgment of their errors and a serious repentance What he underwent so made him as Man the more fit to prescribe Laws to others who were likely to suffer extremely from the same foolish world for embracing those truths he delivered them as we always esteem an Humble man most fit to teach others humility and a Charitable man charity and a Patient man patience For tho' others may declaim as well in commendation of the same virtues and in reproof of the same vices yet the discourses of exemplary persons are justly expected to make the deepest impressions upon their hearers With this advantage our blessed Lord instructed every one that would receive his Doctrine in the ways of happiness he used all the allurements of irresistible Wisdom and unanswerable Reason all the motives of Mercy and Goodness to procure their attendance and obedience He set them a compleat pattern of obedience to God and of innocence and holiness in his converse and then gives that as a standing rule that his Disciples should follow his example and let their light shine before Men for that very end that others seeing their good works might glorifie their Father which was in Heaven But when the blessed Jesus design'd the reformation of a sinful World the nature of his Doctrine and the manner of its propagation was adapted rightly to so admirable an end And therefore whereas the wretched Heathen part of Mankind did infinitely dishonour their Creator whereas they exactly answer'd that account of the Apostle When they knew God they glorified him not as God neither were thankful Rom. 1.21 22 c. but became vain in their Imaginations and their foolish hearts were darkned they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an Image made like to corruptible Man and to Birds and to four-footed Beasts and to creeping things they changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipp'd and serv'd the creature more than the Creator whence they were filled with all unrighteousness fornication wickedness covetousness malice envy c. Whereas this was their real condition infinite numbers of them by this means running head-long into everlasting damnation and yet the ill-natured Jews to whom the Oracles of God were at that time committed took no care for their recovery pleasing themselves onely with a fond conceit of their own righteousness crying to all the rest of Mankind Stand by your selves come not near us for we are holier than you Since they only talk'd of their being the people of God and boasted of his Temple studying more to proselyte Men to an outward Circumcision and a few empty Ceremonies than to real inward holiness and integrity since these very Jews did but abuse their own greater advantages and trample upon the most excellent and obliging part of the Law our Saviour rectified their Error by the dilatation of his own Doctrine and taking exact care to have it spread as far as humane guilt had extended before so
that had but Men been as careful to improve their vertues as their vices none upon Earth could have been ignorant of God's will but the knowledge of that must have cover'd the Earth as the waters cover the Sea As he took his flesh of the Jews so he took the earliest care to reduce the lost sheep of the house of Israel preaching and doing miracles among them in his own Person beside sending out his Disciples to preach in all their Cities But the veil of the Temple was quickly rent in twain and the Holy of Holies the highest Heavens laid open to all that sincerely believ'd on him whether they were Jews or Gentiles He came not as an Herald to proclaim War but with the glad tidings of peace and as an ambassadour of reconciliation he resolv'd to make Mercy triumphant over Justice to give light to them that sate in a more than Aegyptian darkness and to guide them in the ways of everlasting life and therefore as himself vouchsafed to talk with the Samaritan Woman and others of that Nation to shew that he was not so rigidly uncharitable and unconcern'd for Universal welfare as the Jews were so he gave his Apostles a very large commission to carry his Doctrine to all Nations that all People if careful of their own Eternal Interests might come to the knowledge of his truth and be sav'd That Doctrine and those Laws by which he intended to effect these great things to reduce a corrupted World to a sense of duty were so Innocent so Pure so Rational and Divine that nothing less than a common Reformation could have been expected from them for let a Man examine the Gospel through let him do it with the most violent prejudices the severest Eyes he 'l find no foot-steps of self-interest in our Saviour's management of himself he sought not the applauses and honours of the vulgar as appear'd by those frequent offences he gave them in his plain and open reproofs and those disagreeable propositions he commonly made to them otherwise the vulgar were not so dull but that He who spoke as never man spake might in a great measure have influenc'd them and drawn them to an easie rebellion against their foolish and obstinate Superiours notwithstanding all his care to the contrary the predominant humour was once to take him by force and make him a King which he was so far from indulging Joh. 6.15 that he quietly withdrew himself from their disorderly zeal He expos'd himself indeed to all manner of hazards but never sought to advance himself any farther than to a bare vindication of his Innocence What he aim'd at was the good and safety of others to snatch them who were falling into everlasting flames from that dreadful place to make them wiser and every way better what he propounded to them was the Cross self-denyal patience humility a constant expectation of afflictions things not popular among vain men but such as would stand them in more stead than all the trifling honours and pleasures of the World If then onely to aim at publick good if to lay down and command such Doctrines as himself could reap no benefit by but those to whom he spoke might if to declare openly against all high and ambitious thoughts and to be the great Example of his own Instructions argue the harmless nature of that design a Man carries on doubtless what our Saviour taught tended to the most Innocent purposes in the World Had he privately compos'd a Law and afterwards without propounding it to publick examination endeavour'd to settle it by force of arms by an eager persecution of those who should have rejected it even to extermination howsoever good the Law might have been the very method of its propagation would have been an insuperable prejudice against it and would have made all Men conclude its deficiency as to reason and justice But our Saviour pursued another Method He trod in those steps so many had traced very happily before He endeavour'd to advance onely such notions as were confessedly of Divine original He propounded them to the Judgment and censure of all He was ready to answer all Questions to resolve all doubts to silence all cavils and though He carried on his purpose with the utmost Zeal yet He made use onely of gentle perswasions and of unanswerable arguments which none who were not direct enemies to reason could refuse He pleaded a Divine authority for his undertaking yet desir'd not that his Plea should be regarded any farther than he confirm'd it by his works and by the Innocence of his life his works were truly miraculous all works of mercy not of terror obliging not only his friends by them but his very enemies witness the cure of Malchus's ear He call'd for no fire down from Heaven no Earthquakes no storms of Sulphur or Vniversal Deluges to force Men to submission but endeavour'd fairly to convince all who had not heard of his Doctrine before how much it tended to their welfare not forbiding their objections or studying little shifts and artifices to evade them Now if those who have made men better than they were by plain force are justly celebrated by all as Benefactors how much more do they deserve the name who do as much good by gentler means The Peruvians were wont to account their Yncaes the Sons of Heaven because they made it their continual business to civilize a barbarous World to do which they propounded their own Laws first to the inspection of strangers and endeavour'd to perswade them of the great benefits they were like to receive by submitting to them producing examples of the felicity of others by the same obedience but where they were rejected those Yncae's introduced civility by force of arms yet stand not condemn'd in record even for those rougher proceedings and it could not argue an inferiour Original for our Saviour that he us'd no violence at all and yet if we compare the successes of his Gospel inforced by nothing but reason a charitable Zeal and profitable Miracles with the progresses either of Moses's Law which was from Heaven or that of Mahomet which has been spread prodigiously by Wars and Conquests or that of the Peruvian Yncae's which was promoted by the calmest ways that ever any meer humane politicks were the Gospel has prevail'd infinitely beyond them all having been truly Catholick when others have been confin'd to particular Countries having out-stood all arguments rais'd against it when the rest have been baffled by almost every undertaker and having out-stood the strength of time when the very name of several others are almost lost and even Mahometism it self of a much younger standing though it has thriven beyond the rest has fallen very short of the progress of the Gospel This Universal prevalence is an irrefragable evidence of the Gospels excellence and proves the Contriver of it not to have been of an Earthly original since nothing but Heaven could recommend and practise what
Christ nor Elias nor that Prophet but he answered positively too to their General question v. 19-23 that He was the voice of one crying in the wilderness Prepare ye the way of the Lord make his paths streight as saith the Prophet Esaias Now the Baptist being so very much reverenc'd and so mightily followed as he was his answer could not but be spread about through all Judaea and the expectations of Men be the more rais'd because the person there prophesied of by Isaias was to be the forerunner of the Messias he therefore being come the other could not be far behind Besides if we interpret the Gospel of the glad tydings of Salvation brought to all mankind the Evangelists expression will be untrue For not to mention the Promise to our first Parents and those afterwards repeated to the Patriarchs and frequently declared and enlarged upon by the Prophets that of the Angel to Zacharias the Father of S. John Baptist and that of the same Angel to the blessed Virgin and they were â—â—â—â—einly tydings of great joy and the real beginnings of that which is peculiarly stiled the Gospel both these were before the very conception of our Saviour therefore He as a meer man was not or had no being in the beginning of the Gospel and doubtless the Evangelist here in the beginning of his History taking up the very expressions of Moses in the beginning of Genesis and using his very words as translated by the Septuagint supposed his Readers would take his words in the same sence as they understand those of Moses and so in the beginning in both places signifies as much as before there was any thing existent so before any thing but the eternal God himself had a being God out of nothing produced all things and so before any thing God excepted had a being the Word was therefore that Word was God because God only could exist in the beginning or before the Creation of all things and thus the Evangelist says something peculiar of Christ and what might really set him above the Baptist or blessed Angels or any other Creatures whatsoever Otherwise the Apostle according to the Socinian fancy would have taken pains to prevent an Objection never brought at such a time too as never any Man could have rais'd it for he wrote his Gospel according to all accounts about the 90th year of our Saviour toward the end of his own very long life and when the Gospel was spread in all quarters and Heresies had gotten a great footing in the Church when that Objection about John Baptist would have appeared nonsensical and ridiculous Whereas had he design'd his Master's honour or the advantage of mankind he would have made haste and have pen'd his Gospel very early when such poor objections might have appeared with some countenance But it follows In the beginning the Word was with God this seems to prove very plainly that if the Word here spoken of be indeed the Son of God he had a being before he was visible in our Nature and that above or in Heaven or in the peculiar place of the Divine presence which granted is enough to destroy all the Socinian Doctrine of Christ's being a meer Creature or a Man like one of us and no more That Christ really had such a Being antecedent to his Incarnation we have reason to believe on the authority of concurrent Texts of Scripture for so our Saviour calls himself before the cavilling Jews John 6.51 That Bread which came down from Heaven But if he came down from heaven He must first have been there and that at least some time before he told them so The Jews in general nay his own Disciples thought this a very hard saying an expression that was very hard to be understood and so it was to those who were wholly taken up with carnal thoughts our Saviour cures their amazement or incredulity with a strange intimation What and if you should see the Son of man ascend up into heaven v. 61 62. This question plainly enough asserts that he had been with God before they converst with him here on earth and this Socinus himself acknowledges for he knew not how to disengage himself from the force of this and that yet more astonishing declaration of our Saviour to Nicodemus No man hath ascended up to heaven Joh. 3.13 but He that came down from heaven even the Son of Man which is in heaven which expression according to the Socinian Rational way of exposition as they call it is meer riddle or contradiction but according to the Catholick Faith concerning the eternal generation of the Son of God is easie and intelligible to every man For if it were God that was manifest in the flesh and continued the same eternal God still He might in his divine nature always be with his Father and yet in his Humane Nature be conversant among Men at the same time But tho' Socinus and his followers sometimes own the literal truth of these expressions they cannot hold true to what they allow for one while they 'd change it's nature and make it figurative So Jesus Christ was in heaven by the divine raptures or meditations of his Soul Explic. loc S Script Op. v 1. p. 146. or he was in heaven by that perfect knowledge he had of all divine matters thus Socinus himself But he quits it at last and flyes to that wonderful discovery filium hominis verè propriè de coelo descendisse in coelo fuisse That the Son of Man was truly and properly in heaven and descended from thence before he discours'd these things with the Jews But would you know how it was as S. Paul who tho' but a meer Man was caught up into the third heavens 2 Cor. 12.2 3 4. into Paradise and heard unspeakable words which it â—s not lawful for a man to utter so the blessed Jesus was taken up bodily into heaven and there was conversant some time with God and was there as in a School taught those things he was afterwards to preach and do in the world Would you know when It was say some when he was twelve years old and his parents mist him at their return from Jerusalem and after three days found him among the Doctors Wolzog. in Jo. c. 3. v. 13. Wolzogenius supposes it during the forty days fast in the wilderness for whereas Socinus thinks it highly fit that as Moses the type was with God upon the Mount that he might there learn those Laws and Ordinances he was to deliver to the Israelites so it was very reasonable Christ the Antitype should have some such like converse with God for the same purpose in a nobler place therefore this Author to carry on the parallel the farther would pitch it on that time to which the Evangelists allot forty days because Moses was the same space of time in the Mount and this was the great Invention of Laelius Socinus
afterwards might raise them to see himself indeed and what He was before He was made flesh The passages are enow and plain enough to shew us what Origen thought true Doctrine concerning the Son of God our Saviour Upon the whole what a silly and impertinent adversary was Celsus throughout a large discourse written only to expose Christianity to contempt and hatred to make a continual noise about the impossibility of our Saviour's being God and what a shallow and ignorant advocate was Origen for Christianity to write so many books principally to prove the Faith of Christians rational in this point when in the mean time if we may believe our Socinian Adversaries the Christians in those early ages believed no such thing nor ever dream'd of Christ's being any more than a meer Man Men who intend to do any service to the cause they undertake or to procure themselves any reputation by their writings use to consider what and who it is they write for or against but it 's meer childs play for a Man to set himself up a thing of clouts that he may throw stones at it to knock it down while another takes as much pains to keep it standing Certainly Celsus knew better what he oppos'd and was sufficiently convinced that the Christians did really believe Christ was God We saw before that the Author of the Dialogue called Philopatris among Lucian's understood the Christians so and Pliny who liv'd before either of our Disputants who had by his office of Proconsul great opportunities of knowing what tenets the Christians maintain'd who had often examined them with tortures and punish'd them with Death it self for their supposed obstinacy in their errors He too understood the Christians in the same manner and therefore in that account he gives the Emperor Trajane of them among other things he takes notice of their Coetus antelucani their meetings before day-break which they were forc'd to for the better securing themselves from the Pagan furies in which meetings among the rest of their religious rites they did Carmen Christo ut Deo canere They presented their Prayers or sung Hymns to Christ as God but this Heathens themselves would have accounted a bold mocking heaven had not they believed he was God indeed whom they so worshipped as God from which Gerrhard Vossius in his Commentary on that Epistle of Pliny as also Rittershusius conclude Vià ad Calcem Epistolarum Plinianarum Edit Hackianae That tho' the Heathen world looked upon our Lord as a Sophister only and a cheat yet the Christians always acknowledged him to be God Vossius tells us the very name of Hymns intimates that they belonged to God for so he says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a hymn is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Psalm to God and never used otherwise except once or twice in poetical writings and refers us to Eusebius who from a nameless Author Historiae Eccles l. 5. c. 27. but about the Age wherein Irenaeus liv'd takes notice of many Psalms and Hymns composed from the beginning by Faithful Brethren who in those compositions declared Christ the Word of God to be God Thus the Writings of Heathens themselves and of such who have been the greatest enemies of Christianity have been by Divine Providence preserved to give unanswerable evidence to those truths which some false pretenders to Christianity have endeavoured to explode and to satisfie us of our consent with those antient Saints and Martyrs in the most weighty particulars of our Holy Religion We have now done with the Greek we come next to the Latin Fathers And here we must in the first place take notice of Tertullian a Man of vast abilities and most acute in his reasonings and whom Schlichtingius esteems almost the Parent of our Doctrine concerning the Trinity he 's the eldest Writer we have in the Latin Language and very plain in the case before us Tertullian then in his book de Patientiâ Tertul. de Pat. Edit Par. 1545. p. 3. for an example of Patience recommends to us our dear Redeemer Nasci se Deus in utero patitur matris c. God suffers himself to be born in the womb of his Mother and waits for his birth Being born He endures gradually to grow up being grown up He 's not ambitious to be taken notice of but even debases himself and is baptised by his own servant and repels the Tempters assaults only with his Word So He who had resolved to clothe himself with flesh had yet nothing of Humane impatience about him Here we see he calls our Saviour God positively and makes a great use of that notion of his being so Thus again in his book de Carne Christi written against Marcion who was so far from denying Christ to be God that he fell into a contrary error and would believe he was nothing else but God that the Flesh he assumed was a meer Phantasme a Body in appearance but nothing at all in reality and so all the actions he did all the sufferings he underwent were only seeming actions and seeming sufferings and no more and a principal reason he pitched upon for his opinion was this He thought the Birth or nativity of God was an impossibility but why should Marcion pitch upon this fancy if he had not known that all the professors of Christianity took Christ to be God Or why should any trouble themselves to reconcile God's being clothed with flesh to a possibility when the best method to have confuted Marcion as before we observ'd in the case of Origen would have been to have prov'd that our Saviour was so far from having only the outward appearance of a Man that he was really a meer Man and nothing else But says Tertullian to this Sed Deo nihil est impossibile nisi quod non vult De Carne Christi p. 8. c. But nothing is impossible to God but what 's disagreeable to his Will Let us consider then if it were his Will to be born for if he would he certainly could be so In short if God would not have been born neither would he have appeared as a Man on any account for who would not have thought him born into the World had they seen him in the form of a Man Therefore if he would not be a Man he would not seem so for it signified nothing to those that saw him whether He really was a Man or not since by seeing him they concluded he was so But whereas Marcion objected He denyed God could be converted into Man so as to be born and to be incorporated with flesh because He that is Eternal must also necessarily be Vnchangeable Tertullian makes this a peculiarity of the Divine nature which sets it higher than any thing created that whereas created Beings upon a change lose their former nature God does not so but is God still tho' he be clothed with flesh and argues that if Angels of old could assume real
and prosecute by God's assistance under these Heads Our Saviour was incarnate or the Son of God was made Flesh That He might destroy the works of the Devil or put an end to his Tyranny over us That The World might be convinc'd that the Law given by Moses to the nation of the Jews was so much God's Law that it could not be disannull'd or antiquated in any particular but by an authority not inferiour to that of God himself who framed it That God's Law as given to the Jews might be exactly and according to the Letter fulfilled in our Nature and so that He who fulfilled it might be an example of Holiness and Obedience to us God was manifest in the flesh or which amounts to the same our Saviour was Incarnate 1 Joh. 3 8. That He might destroy the Works of the Devil and put an end to his Tyranny over us This is the very doctrine of the Apostle For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that He might destroy the works of the Devil that is that He might get the Mastery of Sin and Death so that neither of them might prevail upon us to our eternal Destruction The Devil had got a strange Ascendant over Men since the Fall so that he seemed to preside in every humane action this Prevalency of his almost banished all Natural Religion out of the World or perverted it to so ill Intents and Purposes that it lost it's name in gross Superstition and ridiculous Idolatry The Devil made use of all the various Dispensations of Providence for the promoting of his own wicked Designs so that the bare Permission of him to prevail was thought a sufficient argument by which to assert his own Independent Supremacy over the World and consequently to engross to himself all that Divine Worship which Originally belonged to the Almighty Nor could it be strange that He who seemed to manage all the affairs of the Universe without controul should be generally feared and sacrificed to if it were for no other reasons but that he might do no outward mischief Having thus insinuated himself into the Throne of God tho' he might now and then for his own credit propound some honest Moral Principles to the World yet He took far greater advantages to instil all manner of Impieties into his Adorers it was his malicious and desperate aim to revenge himself on that terrible Justice which had condemned him to eternal burnings and this revenge as he commenc'd with tempting Men to sin at first so he carried it on by moving deluded Wretches to do all such things as seemed the most directly to contradict the Will of Heaven hence arose that horrid complication of sins of which the Pagan world were guilty summ'd up by the Apostle It was Man's unhappiness Rom 1.28 c. that notwithstanding the visible fatal effects of the first sin they would yet believe it possible there might some unknown sweets lye hid in the perpetration of wickedness Sin always made a gaudy shew like a common Whore in gay trappings who carries so much of Witchcraft in her lascivious looks that tho' many rot away piece-meal in her poysonous embraces yet other wicked and adventurous fools are always adding to the tale of her nasty Trophies This gay outside of sin could prevail not only upon the inferior World but upon the Sons of God themselves those separated from the rest of Adam's race by nobler principles and a diviner knowledge tho' the product of that unhappy softness was nothing but Brutes and Monsters the Plagues of Nature and the insolent Enemies of Heaven Sin prevailed afterwards when God had chosen to himself a particular Nation and made them the proper Lot of his inheritance and where God could discover but 7000. of those who had not bowed the knee to Baal who had not defiled themselves by a miserable prostitution of their Souls to Hell the Devil had a spreading and destructive Interest among the thousands of Israel every day added more to his strength and his ready apprehension of his mighty Conquerours approach edged his Industry and raised his Rage to more than a double heat because his time was short It grieved that enemy of Souls to think of the impendent abridgment of his Insolence He had been so us'd to easie Conquests that He knew not how to veil to the blessed Jesus nor could he speak less to him than as if he had still been the Governour of the Universe and could really by virtue of some inherent authority of his own have bestowed all the kingdoms of the world and the glories of them upon whomsoever he pleased If we would make more particular remarks of the Devil's influence on the World about our Saviour's Incarnation we shall find it notorious in the exertion of a double Tyranny He exercised at that time a prodigious and unaccountable Tyranny over the Bodies of Men He could not be content with enslaving Man 's nobler part but as God himself so the great enemy of God would have the whole Man entirely to himself not that it could be any way advantageous to himself and his own destructive purposes for where he had got the Conquest over the Soul before he knew well enough the body must follow but he cared not what impertinent mischiefs he ingaged himself in provided he might but the more directly cross his Maker and his Punisher Hence he came to take Possession of so many bodies and to vent his malice in so many tormenting Distempers and especially he invaded those of the Jewish nation as if knowing by force of antient Prophecies the World's Saviour was to be born among them He 'd take possession entirely of all he could as if it were by violence to keep out the Lawful Heir from that Inheritance which belong'd to him It has seem'd strange to Many that whereas a Corporeal suffering by the ingress of the Devil into a Man is so very rare now a-days and was not so very frequent among the Gentiles even in our Saviour's time yet so many should be possest among the Jews as we find upon record in the Evangelists This has made divers believe that all violent or convulsive distempers were generally taken to be the effects of the influence of some malignant Spirits not as if there had really been any Devil within them but at most as if he had been permitted then as he was in Job's case to inflict bodily diseases upon some by external causes and not otherwise We know well enough that the Devil in some sence may be called the author of all those Distempers Men's Bodies at this time labour under for it was Sin that introduced Death and all the Preliminaries to it and the Devil introduced Sin But to resolve all these Posessions by the Devil recorded by the Evangelists into nothing but some more violent or unusual diseases than ordinary can no way be allowed For we find it not said of those that were Lepers
to have carried Mens sins or to have born them in his own Body at the place of Execution and it would be absurd and ridiculous to apply any such passages to him and yet as they say the Sins of Men were the cause of the death of those Victims offered to Almighty God by the Sinners and in the same manner were the cause of our Saviour's Death so the same Sins may truly be said to have been the cause of the death of St. Stephen and every Martyr yet the former Expressions being inapplicable to them and they contributing nothing to the Remission of Mens sins Christ onely being that Lamb of God who takes away the Sins of the World those Scriptural Expressions concerning the Death of Christ must signifie a great deal more than bare Dying upon Common Reasons can amount to But to answer this they tell us that whereas God proclaims himself Exod. 34.7 a God keeping Mercy for thousands forgiving Iniquities Transgressions and Sins according to the Hebrew Original it ought to be bearing or carrying Iniquities c. which is the same attributed here unto Christ and yet we cannot say that God as there named has satisfied for any sins therefore neither can Christ have satisfied for sins notwithstanding any such passages concerning him but this the Ancients easily answered by asserting our Jesus the Son of God to have been that very Being so often and emphatically called God who all along convers'd with the Israelites during their wandrings in the Wilderness as I formerly shewed and that Testimony given to their Opinion by St. Paul when dehorting the Corinthians from several Sins by the example of those Israelites 1 Cor. 10.9 he inserts Neither let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted i. e. the same Christ and were destroyed of Serpents where Moses tells us they tempted God when they fell under that Judgment therefore that God was Christ therefore he really did converse with Israel in those days otherwise he could not have been tempted that Testimony for any thing I have yet seen may pass for unanswerable But with all respect to their Critical Skill we must assert they are mistaken the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from whence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the cited Text not signifying to carry in its primary acceptation but levare to ease or to take away Marin Brinxia in verbo and so Marinus in his Arca Noe translates this very Text by levare or tollere and so God when he pardons or forgives sins is rightly said to ease Men of that burthen they bear or to take them away and consequently our translating the word by forgiving is true and agreeable to the general sense of Interpreters hence the Authors of the Septuagint Translation as good Criticks as our Socinians render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taking away not carrying Sins and they could scarce be suspected of being Athanasians no more could the Chaldee Paraphrast who interprets it by those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 leaving or remitting Iniquity the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never signifying Carriage or any thing of that Nature but only leaving or remitting with what else may be genuinely deduced from that Interpretation Vid. Castel Lex Hept in verbo so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Syriack Version signifies leaving remitting pardoning sparing but no where signifies supporting or carrying the Samaritans use 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word signifying easing and pardoning too the Arabic 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taking or driving as a flying Enemy is driven away by a pursuing Army So that for them because in a foreign sense the Hebrew word sometimes signifies to carry to interpret it so in this place contrary to the sense of all the World beside themselves is absurd and only shews what mean Shifts they are put to to find some Parallels to their abusive Constructions of Plain Scripture As for the Evangelists application of that Text Isa 53 4. He hath born our griefs and carried our sorrows to our Saviour Matth. 8.17 upon healing all the sick that were brought to him he only applies that to a particular there which really is of a general Import therefore what he applies to the removal of bodily Diseases St. Peter applies to Sins the Diseases of the Soul our Saviour visibly and openly removing the former as a sign of his removing the latter but not doing both in the same manner he cured bodily Distempers by a Word a Touch an Application of outward though seemingly unpromising Means but removing the Distempers of the Soul only by his Death and so by his blood cleansing us from all Sin satisfying his Father for all our Sins by his shedding of it purging our Souls from all the Filthiness and Corruption of Sins by the Application of it and by Faith in it and that Blood-shedding of our Saviour as tending to his Death prov'd it's infinite Price and Value so often taken notice of in Scripture by being equivalent to those Punishments Divine Justice might and must have laid upon Transgressours the Socinians indeed say He takes away our sins i. e. He makes a shew as if he died and bore the Punishment due to our Sins eorum quasi poenam in se recepit so putting a sham upon the World pretending or seeming to do what he never did from which if the World were convinced of the Truth of what they assert it would be very hard to persuade them that he did by such seeming Means eos à vera eorum poena exsolvere discharge Mankind really from those certain Punishments attending upon Sin so for that further put off That our Saviour may justly be said to procure Salvation for us by his Death because by that Obedience show'd to his Father in dying at his Command he had all Power conferred upon him both in heaven and earth and so had power to forgive our Sins and to confer eternal Life upon us It 's against Reason to believe it for all Power in Heaven and in Earth is infinite Power infinite Power must have an infinite Subject to reside in Christ being meer Man can be no such infinite Subject therefore no such Power can be confer'd on him on account of his Obedience for he cannot receive an impossible Reward but that infinite Power being essential to him as an infinite and eternal Spirit his Humane Nature as united to that is made Partaker of that infinite Power and consequently Christ God and Man can indeed bestow on us those mighty Blessings To fix in our Minds the Notion of Christ's Satisfaction for our sins the more we are told by the Apostle as I formerly cited him That we are justified freely by his Grace Rom. 3.24 25 26. through the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his Righteousness for the Remission of sins to declare at this time his
Body therefore it could not be presented so as the Blood of the Annual Sacrifice was by the Jewish High-priest nor could the Blood of Christ be so sprinkled as that was towards Heaven or toward the Mercy seat but our Lord's Ascension into Heaven and sitting at the righ-hand of God were one continued uninterrupted Act and that Blood which had been once offer'd upon the Cross needed not to be offer'd again he was made a perfect Messias a real Saviour through Sufferings a Saviour every way sufficient for those who should believe on him and having through his own Blood made way to the Exaltation of his Humane Nature he had no more to do but to satisfie his Followers in the truth of his Resurrection and to give them proper Instructions with respect to their future Employs and so immediately to ascend to and to sit on the right hand of the Majesty on high i. e. to exercise that absolute Dominion and Soveraignty over Believers as Man which as Man he had purchas'd at the dearest rate and as such we find him appearing in Apocalyptical Visions though at the same time bearing that Title King of kings and Lord of lords and thus have we cleared those Proofs justly alledged for our Saviour's Satisfaction for Humane Sins from Socinian Glosses and irrational Interpretations I shall now add only some short positive Evidence of the same Truth from particular Circumstances attending his Death and so conclude this particular It must therefore be remember'd That one End of our Saviour's exact fulfilling the Law was that he might be an example of Holiness and Obedience to us but if our Saviour's Sufferings were of such a nature as to import a great deal more than barely such an Example then it was really to be considered further and the Reasons of that Import to be enquired into Holiness includes all sorts of Vertue amongst the rest Patience Fortitude Courage and the like supposing our Saviour to have satisfied our Heavenly Father for our Sins to have atoned that Anger justly excited against a Rebellious World these Vertues were prodigiously eminent in him the weight of God's Wrath against Sin and Sinners was enough had it been permitted to take its course to have crush'd a world of miserable Wretches therefore it had been impossible for a meer Man to have struggled with and to have averted that terrible Indignation from us but if we take away this particular Consideration of his treading the wine-press of his Father's Indignation alone nothing seems more mean among the various accounts of the Sufferers for Truth than the Carriage of our Blessed Saviour that Man whom yet Socinians themselves acknowledge to have moved in a Sphere superiour to the rest of Adam's Race If we look upon that Death our Saviour dy'd it must be own'd it was grievous and painful yet when we consider it duly the Shame and Ignominy in it was the heaviest Circumstance attending it otherwise when we come to compare his Death as to its outward Circumstances with the Sufferings of Prophets and Martyrs of old they were meerly Trifles and inconsiderable The Apostle tells us among Faith's ancient Heroes of those who were sawn asunder so we are told in particular that great Prophet Isaiah was sawn with a wooden Saw the more dull the more lingring the more tormenting so the three Children were cast into the burning fiery Furnace by Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel into the Lions Den to have been torn in pieces under the cruel Paws of ravening Beasts where we are not to look upon the Miraculous Deliverance those illustrious Sufferers met with but upon the barbarous Cruelties intended against them but if from them we come to view the cruel Subtilties of Heathen Persecutors there we find all the variety of Tortures exquisite Malice could invent executed upon poor Christians the terrible Racks stretching their disabled Limbs and leaving no sound Joint in their Bodies a Torment terrible indeed to the strongest natural Constitutions they out-living their Pains and recovering Strength only to enable them for renewing Miseries some broken upon the Wheel dying piece by piece and Nature in the mean time sustain'd by Puddle-Water and Excrement some burnt alive in scorching Flames some broiled or roasted before lingring Fires some worried to Death by enraged Wild Beasts others cloath'd with Pitchy Vestments and so set on fire to fry away in inexpressible Pains meerly to make sport or to serve for Flambeaus to midnight Wanderers What should we descend lower to the poor persecuted Protestants in Merindo and Chabrieres or the unhappy Piedmonteses of late Years to see Mens Mouths and Womens Privities stufft with Gun-powder by barbarous Villains and so their Bodies or their Heads blown in pieces by that murdering Artifice to name no more of those inhumane Cruelties managed so that Holy Men admirable Christians have been Days and Months and Years a dying and beside all this it was oft-times the Aggravation of their Sorrows to see their Friends and nearest Relations murder'd first before their Eyes to have all the unjust and scandalous Reproaches in the World fixt upon them for Women to see their sucking Infants thrust through with Swords their own Blood and their Mothers Milk flowing from their bleeding Wounds together to see them tost and carried triumphant upon their Spears torn from their dying Mothers ript up Wombs and thrown immediately into consuming Flames these Sights such as might rack the most resolute Soul and almost squeeze sympathizing Tears from brute Beasts or insensate Rocks the very reading those dismal Tragedies are enough to make Men shiver with Horror and survey the Bloody Scene with Amazement and Consternation yet after all we find those glorious Martyrs so far from Fear or Apprehensions of their approaching Fate that never Happy Pair went with more cheerful Looks to the Bridal Bed than they went with to Racks and Wheels to Flames and Gibbets or whatever else their angry and malicious Enemies could inflict upon them nay they were so far from being daunted with the cruel Executions of their Fellow Saints that ambitious Princes were not more active to grasp at Crowns and Sceptres than they at the more splendid bloody Crown of Martyrdome nay so desirous were they of that Honour that whole Multitudes made up of Men Women and Children readily without being sought for or accus'd offered their Throats voluntarily to Pagan Governours to the Amazement and Confusion of their most violent Persecutors If we observe the Behaviour of those admirable Persons under their Sufferings their Management is all of a piece though they were all the day long as Sheep appointed to be slain though they found their Portion in this World never so severe or uncomfortable yet in all these things they were more than Conquerours through Christ who loved them they fear'd not the Cruelty of their Enemies but the Kindness of their Friends lest out of Compassion to them they should find out any means to rob them of that Crown they