Personal Authority which is given him as the Son of Man as an Incarnate and Mediatory King And hath given him Authority to execute Iudgment also because he is the Son of Man And therefore now it is given him to have Life in himself as the Father hath Life in himself The Father hath Life in himself as the Original Fountain of all Life by whom the Son himself lives all Life is derived from God either by eternal Generation or Procession or Creation and thus Christ hath Life in himself also in the new Creation he is the Fountain of Life he quickeneth whom he will he is the bread of life that came down from Heaven if any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever As the living Father hath sent me and I live by the Father so he that eateth me even he shall live by me I am the Resurrection and the Life he that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never dye This is the Authority of his Mediatory Kingdom which he hath received from his Father that he hath Life in himself and hath Authority and Power to give Life to the World This is a Kingdom in a Kingdom the Mediatory Kingdom of the Son in the Natural Kingdom of the Father which restrains the Father's Justice dispenses his Grace and directs the Exercise of his Power in the Government of the World which though it be upon these accounts a Superiour Authority and therefore a high Exaltation of the Son yet it is no diminution to the Father The confessing Iesus Christ to be Lord is to the glory of God the Father 1. Because this Mediatory Kingdom is erected by the Father and by the Father given to the Son it is he who gave him this Authority because he is the Son of Man And therefore Christ every where owns that he was sent by God I am not come of my self I am come in my Fathers Name I proceeded forth and came from God neither came I of my self but he sent me I seek not my own will I seek not my own glory I came not to do my own will but the will of him that sent me Which Scriptures make up the fourth Argument in the History of the Vnitarians against Christ's being God because Almighty God doth all things in his own Name and by his own Authority but Christ comes in the Father's Name and does his will and seeks his glory Which proves indeed that he receives this Power from the Father that he fulfils his will and serves his glory in it but if he receive this Kingdom he has it and a very glorious Kingdom it is in some respects superiour to the Natural Government of God as it sets bounds to it But this only proves that he is not the Father but the Son and the King of God and this Authority being given him of the Father to reduce Mankind to their Obedience it is no lessening of the Fathers Authority from whom he receives this Mediatory Power 2. This can be no Diminution to the Father because he is his only begotten Son One God with himself the brightness of his glory and the express Image of his Person the Natural Heir of his Power and Greatness and the Natural Lord of the World As a Son he is by Nature equal to his Father but yet subordinate and therefore cannot be his Rival as a Son his advancement is the glory of the Father that all men should honour the Son as they honour the Father and therefore it is no derogation to the Father though he commit to the Son a more glorious Authority then he exercises himself the Authority of a Mediatory Kingdom or Soveraign Grace which is a more glorious Authority to Sinners then Natural Justice and Dominion for all men know a Son must receive all from his Father and if the Father for wise Reasons of which more presently give the Son the more glorious Power it is the Father who is glorified in it As he is God the Eternal Son of God and One with the Father he is the proper Object of Religious Worship and therefore all those Divine Honours and Adorations which are paid him upon account of his Mediatory Kingdom and Power are no Injury to the Divine Nature as they would have been had God conferred this Power on a Creature which had been to give his glory to another which God detests and declares his abhorrence of and which all Arians and Socinians do who worship Christ believing him to be only a Creature or a meer Man The Command in Scripture to worship him and pay Divine Honours to him is a much better Argument to prove that he is God then to justifie the worship of any Creature which God universally prohibits and is a much greater Contradiction to the Principles of Natural Religion than a Trinity in Unity is to Natural Reason 3. To this we must add That his Kingdom is the Reward of his Obedience and Sufferings that is it is founded in the Expiation of his Blood Is an Authority to dispence that Grace and Mercy which he has purchased with his Blood so that his Kingdom and Power is founded in the most perfect submission to his Father is the Reward of his Obedience whereby he glorified his Father on Earth and therefore let his Power be never so great and glorious his receiving it from God as the Reward of his Obedience secures the Prerogative and Glory of the Father 4. Especially when we add That the Exercise and Administration of this Kingdom is not by way of any direct Authority and Power over God which would necessarily Eclipse the glory of the Father and make him subject to the Son but by way of Mediation and Intercession as an Advocate and High-Priest He first makes Atonement to God and reconciles him to Sinners does not command or over-rule but propitiate the Divine Justice and then Exercises a Soveraign Authority in forgiving sins in destroying his Enemies in governing Kingdoms and Empires in subserviency to his Spiritual Kingdom and at the last Day in judging the World 5. And therefore the time shall come when Christ shall deliver up this Kingdom again to the Father for it is not a Natural Kingdom and therefore must not last always no longer then till it has attained the ends for which it was erected when Mankind are reduced into Obedience to God when the Kingdom of the Devil is destroyed and the Devil and his Angels and all bad men cast into the Lake of Fire which is the second Death and good men raised out of their Graves and rewarded with Eternal Life that is when Christ has accomplished the work of his Mediation that there is no longer any need of a Mediator then the Mediatory Kingdom ceases Then cometh the end when he shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God even the Father when he shall
Expiation of his Blood And though Christ be the Eternal Son of God and the Natural Lord and Heir of all things yet God hath in this highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name that at or in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the name of Iesus every knee should bow of things in Heaven and things in Earth and things under the Earth and that every tongue some of all Nations Languages and Tongues shall confess that Iesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father For when God exalts and magnifies himself or exalts his Son it does not and cannot signifie any addition or increase of their essential Greatness and Glory for neither the Father nor the Son can be greater than they are but yet God is exalted when his Greatness and Power is more visible and more universally acknowledged and adored and thus God has highly exalted his Son too by conferring the Mediatory Power and Kingdom on him as to shew this particularly but briefly This makes the Son more universally known acknowledged and adored The Notion and Belief of one God is Natural to Mankind that there are three Divine Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost in the Unity of the Godhead is not known by Nature but by Revelation There are some obscure hints and intimations of this even in the History of the Creation more plain in the Types and Prophesies of the Jewish Law which relate to the Messias and possibly this was more particularly explained in their Cabala which some learned men industriously prove contained this Mystery of the Trinity but all this while this Mystery was very obscure and the Glory of the Son little known in the World for though now we certainly know from the Exposition of Christ and his Apostles that the Prophets spake of Christ under the name of Lord and God and Jehovah yet all went in the Name of God But when Christ appeared in the World then God owned him for his Son this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Christ owned himself for the Son of God his only begotten Son and upon all occasions calls God his Father and that in such a distinguishing manner that the Jews understood him to mean that he was the Son of God by Nature and charge him with Blasphemy for making himself God He appealed to those mighty Works he did in his Father's Name to prove the Truth of what he taught them that he was indeed the Son of God But then God visibly owned him for his Son when he raised him from the dead and bestowed a Kingdom on him a Name which is above every Name as St. Paul tells us That he was declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of Holiness by the Resurrection from the Dead And for this reason that of the Psalmist Thou art my Son this day have I begotten Thee is applied to the Resurrection of Christ from the Dead We deliver unto you glad tydings how that the promise that was made to the Fathers God hath fulfilled the same to us their Children in that he hath raised up Iesus again as it is also written in the second Psalm Thou art my Son this day have I begotten Thee Which it is plain does not signifie that God then first begot him for he owned him for his beloved Son long before at his Baptism and Christ calls himself his only begotten Son long before and the Socinians themselves attribute his Sonship to his miraculous Conception in the Womb of the Virgin and St. Paul we see expounds God's begetting him at his Resurrection by his being declared the Son of God by the Resurrection from the Dead which supposes he was his Son before and that not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the Flesh for so he was the Seed of David but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the Spirit of Holiness or his Divine Nature for so its opposition to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 proves it must signifie He was the only begotten Son of God from eternal Ages but the World did not fully know him to be so till God declared this by his Resurrection from the Dead and by bestowing a Kingdom on him and then he visibly appeared in the Glory and Majesty of the Son of God as if he had been begotten by him that day and this seems to be the meaning of our Saviour's Prayer And now O Father glorifie thou me with thine own self with that glory which I had with Thee before the World was that is now publickly own me to be thy Son which I always was but was never yet sufficiently declared so to the World And therefore when he was raised from the Dead and advanced into his Kingdom which he was to administer not by Human Force and Power but by the Power of the Divine Spirit it was time to let the World know this great Mystery of a Trinity in Unity because each Divine Person has his distinct and proper part in this mysterious oeconomy and therefore he commands his Disciples to Baptize in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost that is into the belief and worship of One God Father Son and Holy Ghost of which more presently But this is not all the Son is not only now made known and manifest to the World and publickly owned by his Father but he has a peculiar Authority invested in him distinct both from the Father and the Holy Spirit as he is a Mediatory King There being but One Supreme and Soveraign God Father Son and Holy Ghost who are but One Energy and Power but One Monarchy but One Maker and One Lord of the World in the Natural Government of the World there is no distinction of the Divine Persons no peculiar Offices and Administrations to distinguish them not one thing done by the Father another by the Son and a third by the Holy Ghost but the whole Trinity made and governs the World by One individual Operation and therefore the Creation and Government of the World is the Work of One God and therefore peculiarly attributed to the Father who is the Fountain of the Deity who is that Original Mind and Wisdom who made and who governs the World by his Son and holy Spirit so that in the Natural Government of the World the Son has no Kingdom of his own but reigns as One Supreme God with the Father and the Holy Spirit and all attributed to the Father as the beginning of Energy and Power But in the oeconomy of man's Salvation the Son has a Kingdom of his own which is peculiarly his administred in his Name and by his Soveraign Authority The Father is atoned by him and has committed to him all Power both in Heaven and in Earth He is made the Head of all Principalities and Powers which are now immediately subjected to him and must receive their Commands and
have put down all Rule and all Authority and Power and when all things shall be subdued unto him then shall the Son also be subject unto him that put all things under him that God may be all in all That is the Son shall no longer have a distinct Kingdom of his own but shall return to his Natural Subordination to his Father and reign with Father and the Holy Spirit One God blessed for evermore there shall no longer be any distinction between God and a Mediator but God shall be all in all This is the best Account I can give of that Kingdom which the Son receives from the Father and which he delivers up to the Father again and these Socinians must think themselves very great Wits or the rest of Mankind very great Fools who hope to prove that Christ is not God because he received a Kingdom when it is such a Kingdom as none but a God can receive or administer But to proceed 3. His next Argument is That Christ it not God because He is a Mediator between God and Men a Priest that appeareth in the Presence of God and intercedeth with him for men This he needed not have proved because all Christians own it only the Socinians make him a metaphorical Priest which indeed is no Priest But this I have answered already He is a Priest after the Order of Melchizedec King of Salem and Priest of God that is he is a Sacerdotal King and this Sacerdotal or Mediatory Kingdom proves him to be God not a meer Creature Advocate or Intercessor 4. His next Argument is That he receives Authority from God is sent by God came to do the will of God And this I have also already answered 5. His next Argument consists in applying such things to the Divinity of our Saviour as belong to his Humanity That he increased in Wisdom he should have added Stature too but that had been ridiculous because it had discovered the fallacy for to be sure Stature does not belong to a God and in favour with God and Men and why did he not add that he was born and was an Infant and Child and by degrees grew up to be a Man that he knows not the Day of Iudgment which he evidently speaks of himself as Man as all the ancient Fathers confess In St. Mark it is said But of that day and that hour knoweth no man no not the Angels that are in Heaven neither the Son but the Father St. Matthew does not mention the Son Of that day and hour knoweth no man not the Angels of Heaven but my Father only Which shews that the Son in St. Matthew is included in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 none or no man and therefore concerns him only as a man for the Father includes the whole Trinity and therefore includes the Son who seeth whatever his Father doth But of this more hereafter That he knew not where Lazarus was laid because he asks Where have ye laid him And yet this very Jesus knew without asking at a distance and some days before that Lazarus was dead which would tempt one to guess that he might know where they laid him too though it was decent to ask What his next Text refers to I know not For how the Father being always present with him to confirm that testimony he gave of himself by miraculous Powers proves that he is not God I cannot tell that he was tempted by the Devil proves that he was a Man but does not prove that he was not God and that he would not be called good by those who thought him no more than a man or that he took this occasion to instruct them what an infinite distance there is between the essential Goodness of the Divine Nature and the Goodness of Creatures I think does not prove that he is not God 6. His sixth Argument is to the same purpose That God giveth what and to whom he pleaseth he needs not the aid of any other he entreateth not for himself and his people he cannot die and deriveth his Power from none but himself But 't is certain that the Lord Christ could not himself without the praevious ordination of the Father confer the prime Dignities of Heaven or of the Church or any thing else if he pleases for he does nothing but what he sees his Father do he placed his safety in his Fathers presence and help he prayed often and fervently to the Father both for himself and for his Disciples He died and was raised from the dead by the Father After his Resurrection he had received of another that great Power which he now enjoyeth Now all this we grant and have answered already which partly refers to the oeconomy of the Incarnation and partly to his Natural Subordination to his Father But to give a more full and plain Answer and to prevent all such Objections for the future it will be necessary briefly to state this Matter also Now this Author is certainly so far in the right that the One Supreme God has all Authority and Power can need no help from any other can receive no Commands no Power from another has no need to pray to any other to intercede for himself or others can dispose of all things as he pleases and to whom he pleases accordingly this One Supreme God Father Son and Holy Ghost receives no Power or Authority from any other Being intercedes with no other Being stands not in need of the help of any other neither prays for himself or others to any other Being Well! but the Son prays to the Father interceeds with the Father receives Authority from the Father disposes of all things by his Father's Will What then then the Son is not the One Supreme God Why so He interceeds with no Creature receives Authority from no Creature c. nor from any God neither separated from himself for he is One God with the Father and the Holy Ghost that he interceeds with the Father proves indeed that he is a distinct Person from the Father not that he is not One God with him If each Divine Person be God none of them can interceed with or receive Authority from any separate Being for then there must be some separate God above them and then they are not the Supreme God but if there be Three distinct Divine Persons in the Godhead and an order and subordination between these Divine Persons I see nothing to hinder why One Person may not interceed with another and receive from another To show the fallacy of this I will frame another Argument exactly like it which may do our Socinians a kindness in helping them to a new Argument and who knows but that such great Wits as they are may make it a good one and it is this The One Supreme God is not and cannot be begotten of any other nor proceed from any other and therefore the Son who is begotten
God and is not God himself as he says the Holy Spirit is if it have any Personal Acts must be a distinct Person and if these Personal Acts are such as are proper only to God it must be a distinct Divine Person He says this Holy Spirit is the Inspiration of God be it so This Inspiration then is either within God himself or without him in Creatures who have this Inspiration If it be within God himself it must be a Person or else it cannot be distinct from God and a Divine Person unless any thing be in God which is not God If this Inspiration be without God in Creatures who are inspired by him how is it the Spirit of God for the Spirit of God must be in God as the Spirit of Man is in Man How does this Inspiration in Creatures search all things yea the deep things of God and knoweth the things of God as the Spirit of a Man knoweth the things of a man For the inspiration in Creatures searcheth nothing of God and knoweth nothing of God but what God is pleased to reveal The Inspiration knows nothing of God but the inspired Mind knows as much as it is inspired with the knowledge of So that according to this Account the Spirit of God is nothing but the inspired knowledge in Creatures and therefore no Personal Acts can be attributed to it but what Creatures can do by such Inspiration and let any man consider whether this Answers those Characters we have of the Spirit of God in Scripture If this be so I desire to know How the Spirit of God differs from his Gifts and Graces For if the Spirit be nothing but God's Inspiration in Creatures the Spirit is either a Gift or a Grace and is not One in All but as many as those Creatures are that are inspired and as different as the Gifts and Graces are with which they are Inspired Whereas St. Paul tells us There are Diversities of Gifts but the same Spirit and there are differences of Administrations but the same Lord and there are diversities of Operations but it is the same God which worketh all in all So that the Spirit is distinguished from his Gifts as the Lord is from his Administrations and God from his Operations and is the same Spirit in all as it is the same Lord and the same God 3. His next Argument is The Spirit is obtained for us of God by our Prayers therefore itself is not God But this has been answered already for though the One Supreme God cannot be sent nor given which I suppose is the force of his Argument yet in the ever blessed Trinity One Divine Person may send and give another the Father may send the Son and give the Holy Spirit And yet since they like that better we will allow That the Holy Spirit does give himself and is asked of himself for the Divine Persons in the Trinity as I have often observed and proved do not act separately but as the Father and the Son give the Holy Spirit so the Holy Spirit gives himself in the same individual Act. And when we pray to God for his Holy Spirit we pray to Father Son and Holy Ghost who are this One God and One entire object of Worship It is the ever blessed Trinity we invoke when we pray Our Father which art in Heaven For as they are inseparably One God so they are the inseparable Object of our Worship since this great Mystery of a Trinity in Unity is so plainly revealed to us we cannot worship this One Supreme God but we must direct our Worship to all Three Divine Persons in the Unity of the same Godhead for we do not worship this One Supreme God unless we worship Father Son and Holy Ghost and therefore whether we invoke each Person distinctly as our Church does in the beginning of the Litany or pray only to God by the Name of the most High God or by the Name of Father or the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ it is all one for Father Son and Holy Ghost is the One Supreme God and the entire Object of our Worship and whoever worships One God but not Father Son and Holy Ghost does not worship the true God not the God of the Christians Before this was so plainly revealed it was sufficient to worship One Supreme God without any conception of the distinct Persons in the Godhead but when it is plainly revealed to us that this One Supreme God is Father Son and Holy Ghost whoever does not worship Father Son and Holy Ghost does not worship the true God for the true God is Father Son and Holy Ghost and there is no God besides him which I would desire our Vnitarians as they falsly call themselves and our Deists carefully to consider if any thing be fundamental in Religion it is the worship of the One true God and if Father Son and Holy Ghost be this One true God those who worship a God who is not Father Son and Holy Ghost do not worship the true God and that I think is the true Notion of Idolatry So that these Men are so far from being Christians that I cannot see how they are worshippers of the true God which should at least make them concerned to examine this matter with more Care and less Prejudice than they have yet done So that when we worship One God we worship Father Son and Holy Ghost and when the Glory of these Divine Persons was made known to the World there was no need of any new Command to worship these three Divine Persons for when it is revealed that they are the One Eternal God the Command of worshipping this One God must include them all Which gives a sufficient Answer to what he adds That there is neither Precept nor Example in all Holy Scripture of Prayer made to the Spirit on this or any other occasion which on the Trinitarian Supposition that the Holy Spirit is a Person and God no less than the Father is very surprizing nay utterly unaccountable But I hope this will satisfie any man that it is not unaccountable for though the Spirit be God he is but One God with Father and Son and therefore not a distinct and separate Object of Worship but is worshipped with the Father and the Son in the Unity of the same Godhead and this required no new Command nor any separate worship of the Holy Spirit There is indeed a distinct worship paid to Christ All men must honour the Son as they honour the Father When God brought his first begotten into the World that is when he raised him from the Dead and exalted him to his own right hand he said and let all the Angels of God worship him God hath highly exalted him and given him a Name which is above every Name that at the Name of Iesus every Knee should bow of things in Heaven and things in Earth and things under the Earth But this
is not meerly as he is the Son of God the second Person in the Trinity for so he is worshipped as One God with the Father and the Holy Ghost but as he is a Mediator or a Mediatory King as he has a Kingdom distinct from the Natural Kingdom of the Father as I have already shown so there is a worship proper to him as Mediator but the Holy Spirit has no distinct Kingdom and therefore no distinct Worship but is worshipped in the Unity of the Godhead and this required no new Command for he who knows that Father Son and Holy Ghost are One Supreme God must worship Father Son and Holy Ghost as One Supreme God 4. His next Argument is against a Trinity of Persons in the Godhead which he says is contrary to the whole Scripture which speaks of God but as One Person and speaks of him and to him by singular Pronouns such as I Thou Me Him His Proofs that the Scripture speaks of God as but One Person are very wonderful His first is that of Iob Will ye speak wickedly for God and talk deceitfully for him Will ye accept his Person will ye contend for God But surely to accept God's Person no more signifies the Personality of the Godhead than to accept the Person of a Man signifies his Human Person the Hebrew is his Face which is far from signifying a Person in the sense we say there are Three Persons in the Godhead To respect the Person of a Man is to do something for him which neither Law nor Justice nor Equity required not because he is a Person which every Man is but from some partial respect we have to his particular Person and therefore to accept the Person of God here signifies to speak wickedly for God which is an absurd and sensless thing as Iob represents it whether the Supreme God be One Person or Three for in this sense of Person One God can be but One Person The other Text that Christ is the express Image of God's Person is as little to the purpose for it is plain the Person of whom the Son is the express Image is the Person of God the Father and the Father indeed is but One Person As for his singular Pronouns they prove indeed that there is but One God as we all own not that there are not Three Persons in the Godhead For when the Scripture speaks of God without any particular respect to the distinction of the Persons it must speak but of One God because God is but One and singular Pronouns are most properly applied to One God As for what he objects That no Instance can be given in any Language of Three Persons whoever spoke of themselves or were spoken to by the singular Pronouns I Thou Me Him Thee it were sufficient to answer That there is no other Example in Nature neither of Three Persons who are essentially One and if the manner of speaking must be conformed to the Nature of Things there can be no other Instance of this way of speaking because there is no other Example of this Unity but all Languages speak of One in the singular Number and so the Scripture uses singular Pronouns of One God But this is not the Case for when God speaks of himself he does not speak of himself as Three Persons but as One God and therefore may say I and Me and when the Prophets speak of God or pray to him they pray to him as One God and therefore may say Thou and Him and Thee When Three Persons are One God God may speak of himself or we may speak of or to God either considered as Three Persons or as One God and though Three Persons require the Plural Number yet One God may speak of himself or be spoken to by singular Pronouns 5. He says Had the Son or Holy Ghost been God this would not have been omitted in the Apostles Creed And I say Had not the Son been God and the Holy Ghost God they would not have been put into the Apostles Creed no more than into the form of Baptism which is the original of the Apostles Creed That the Primitive Christians did believe the Divinity of the Son and of the Holy Ghost we are sufficiently assured from all the ancient Records of their Faith but there was no reason to express this in so short a Creed before the Arian and Socinian Heresies had disturbed the Church and indeed there was no need of it for the only Son of God must be by Nature God and the Spirit of God is as essentially God as the Spirit of a Man is essential to a Man He concludes That theirs the Socinians is an accountable and reasonable Faith but that of the Trinitarians is absurd and contrary both to Reason and to it self and therefore not only false but impossible The Faith of a Trinity in Unity I hope I have sufficiently vindicated already from Absurdity and Contradiction But it will be worth the while briefly to consider how accountable and reasonable the Socinian Faith is The Socinian Doctrine is That Christ who is called the Son the only begotten Son of God the Brightness of his Glory and the express Image of his Person is no more than a meer Man who had no Being till he was Conceived in the Womb of the Virgin Mary and is called the Son of God because God formed him by an immediate Power in the Virgins Womb and raised him from the Dead and exalted him to his own right hand in Heaven and that the Holy Spirit is only the Power and Inspiration of God that is is either God himself or the Operation of his Power in Creatures This is their accountable and reasonable Doctrine and to show how very accountable and reasonable it is I come now to draw up my charge against it 1. That it ridicules the Scriptures 2. That it ridicules the whole Jewish oeconomy 3. That it ridicules the Christian Religion 4. That it justifies or at least excuses both Pagan and Popish Idolatries The Charge is full enough and I am contented it should pass only for big huffing words till I have proved it and then I hope it may pass for a just Return to the ridiculous Blasphemies of the Brief Notes and Brief History 1. That it ridicules the Scripture by putting either an absurd or a very mean trifling sense on it unworthy of the Wisdom of God by whom it was inspired and this I shall give some Instances of in their Expositions of Scripture which I find in the Brief History of the Vnitarians In the second Letter he takes notice of some Texts in the Old Testament which speak of God and in the New Testament are applied to Christ which we think a very good Argument to prove That Christ is that God to whom those Texts belong in the Old Testament for though possibly without such an Application we could not certainly have known that these Texts were