Witness but St. John it were more than sufficient to condemn the Blasphemy In the days of the Emperor Domitian one Ebion a Samaritan and his Sectators denying Christ's Divinity the Apostle did write his Gospel to prove it which in so many places thereof is done as positively fully and clearly as Heart can desire Only some few I shall take notice of to begin with the first Verse of Chap. 1. * John 1.1 14. In the Beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God compared with V. 14. and the Word was made Flesh Afford us this Argument the Word was God the Word was made Flesh therefore God was made Flesh And as the name Word is proper to Christ who was made Flesh it followeth that Christ is God And in another place he is in a most specifical manner called * Chap. 3.16 God's only begotten Son whereby he is affirmed to be of the same Nature and Substance and equal with him * Chap. 14.9 He that hath seen me hath seen the Father saith he The Reason he gives elsewhere * Chap. 10.30 I and my Father are one and to Philip he saith ‖ Ch. 14.10 11. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me which for greater Confirmation he had said just in the Verse before this Demonstrates a stricter Union than meerly one of Favour and Grace this shews the Unity of Nature in the Distinction of Persons which though distinguished amongst themselves so that the Father is not the Son nor the Son the Father yet both are Gods and Divine Nature is common to both nothing can be more like the Person of the Father than the Person of the Son wherefore he is called * Colos 1.15 the Image of the invisible God God the Father is Invisible no Man hath ever seen him but he hath made himself visible in the Person of his Son who is partaker of his Nature To this purpose the Lord Jesus is said to be * Heb. 11.3 the brightness of his Glory and the express Image of his Person This is no Flattery to him nor Favour for it is his Right herein he is no Usurper nor Intruder for if he was God would not suffer it being as he is so Jealous of his Honour and Glory 't is therefore upon a just Title that * Phil. 2.5 6. Christ thought it no Robbery to be equal with God None but God can truly and really be equal with God I would know what meer Creature may lawfully be compared to and be equal with God The Lord Jesus himself declares at several times how he came from the Father that is from above * John 3.31 from Heaven how the Father had sent him which is to be understood when he became Man and was born of a Woman Now he could not be sent and come before he had a Being and as he was come from the Father so he returned to the Father as he declared it to his Disciples But I desire a special notice to be taken of what is said * John 17.5 And now O Father glorifie thou me with the Glory which I had with thee before the World was Whence we infer how the Lord Jesus was before the World that is from Eternity for time began only at the Creation how not only he was but also had Glory equal with the Father This cannot be understood of his Humanity because he was Born in Time and he was not Glorified till after his Resurrection nor he could not have a Glory except he had a Being which Being had no relation to his Humanity but to his Divinity And because thorough his Humiliation that Glory had been eclipsed he was to return and again to appear in it after the Work he came about was over There would be no end if I would enlarge and bring in so many places as the Old and New Testaments do afford to prove this Point the strength of which the bitter Enemies of this Truth being sensible of it makes them do what they can to elude it and undervalue the Authority of the Scripture which must be the Judge in the Cause reserving the Interpretation thereof to their own Fancy or Reason as they would call it Wherefore to be short I shall according to the usual way in Schools of Divinity resolve the whole into an Argument which is this He to whom in God's Word are appropriated the Names Attributes Works and Divine Honour he is true Eternal God but to the Lord Jesus all these are attributed in Scripture therefore the Lord Jesus is true Eternal God We must descend to Particulars First as to the Names we begin with the Old Testament few out of many He is called * Isa 7.14 Immanuel which being interpreted is ‖ Matt. 1.23 God with us And by the same Prophet amongst other Glorious Names he is called the * Isa 9.6 Mighty God And in another place ‖ Ch. 35.4 5 6. Behold your God will come with Vengeance even God with a Recompense c. which our Saviour * Matt. 11.5 applieth unto himself So the Name of God and of Jehovah which Jews own to be an incommunicable Name of God never to be pronounced but once a Year by the High Priest in the Holiest of all are given him as in * Ch. 16.13 18.1 this to be compared with Hos 12.6 Genesis and in ‖ Exod. 3.15 Exodus in †Mal. 3.1 Malachy he is called the Lord the Messenger of the Covenant who often appeared to the Fathers as a forerunning of his Incarnation amongst others to * Josh 5.14 15. Joshua under the name of Captain of the Host of the Lord to whom Joshua by his Command rendered the same Honour as ‖ Exod. 3.5 Moses had done before Put off thy Shoes from off thy Feet for the place where thou standest is Holy Ground in which place he is called the Angel of the Lord v. 2. v. 4. the Lord and God This is the Angel of God promised to be sent before his People * Exod. 23.20 21 22. for my Name is in him he is called by the same Name as I am and he is the same as I am even God Of the word Jehovah which is Englished the Lord being attributed to our Saviour we have besides others two considerable Instances one is ‖ Isa 40.3 The Voice of him that crieth in the Wilderness Prepare ye the way of the Lord make straight in the Desert a High-way for our God The Voice is * John 1.23 applied to John the Baptist as our Saviour whose Forerunner he was is the Lord and God The other Instance is this ‖ Hos 1.7 I will have Mercy upon the House of Judah and I will Save them by the Lord their God Now there is no other Saviour but Jesus Christ the Messiah which he plainly declared to the Woman
doubt draw in their Horns nay some of them take upon them to Travel abroad in the Capacity of Governours to young Noblemen and Gentlemen though in a high degree infected with that Plague yet these things are not taken notice of though of such a Nature as deserves strictly to be look'd and narrowly inquired into And God knows what Judgments this is like to bring upon the Nation as if before we had not Sins enough to answer for but there must be this new Addition However we have some Law against Blasphemy and Socinianism which makes great Noise and spreads too much God knows whose Fault it is with the Royal Prophet we must say Psal 119.126 It is time for thee Lord to work for they have made void thy Law We want no Presidents nor Examples out of Scripture to shew how 't is the Magistrates Duty to punish such Enormities for as they have the Sword to defend the Innocent so 't is to punish Malefactors of which there can be no greater than Blasphemers As of the two kinds of Treasons that which is against the Prince's Person is in a higher degree and greater than that against his Government so the Blasphemy against God's Works and Providence may be called less than that which is immediately against his Nature and Persons God requireth of Magistrates and so they in Conscience are bound to provide that Subjects be rightly instituted in his True Religion and consequently to have every thing removed and punished that is contrary thereunto This course was taken by the good Kings of Judah as Asa Jehoshaphat Hezechiah and Josiah so since Christ's Coming good Christian Emperors did so hence to suppress Hereticks the Councils of Nice Constantinople Ephesus Calcedon were summoned by the Emperors Constantine Theodosius Martian c. as to the Blasphemer mentioned in the Old Testament He was stoned by God's immediate command Levit. 24.14 Here Worstius's Book De Deo was in King James's Time burnt by the Hangman as some Years after the Racoviensis Catechism was by order of Parliament condemned to be Lastly I come and address to all and every particular Subject of whatsoever Rank and Quality whither Noble or Ignoble High or Low Rich or Poor Young or Old and earnestly desire them as they are tender of the Glory of God of their own Salvation and of the Welfare and Prosperity of their Religion and Country not to suffer themselves to be mislead and seduced by those Ravenous Wolves who do not come in Sheeps-cloathings for they deal above-board but like Roaring Lyons with such keep no company and as much as possibly you can avoid all Communication * 1 Cor. 5.11 no not to eat as St. Paul saith which if you do you tempt God as much as one who would lye a bed with another that hath the Plague yet think himself in no danger of it * Rom. 16.17 18. Now saith the same Apostle in another place I beseech you Brethren mark them which cause Divisions and Offences contrary to the Doctrine which ye have received and avoid them This is both Warning and Command and Beseeching against the Enemies of the True Doctrine he taught the reason he gives in the next Verse For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own Belly and by good Words and fair Speeches deceive the Hearts of the Simple Let the Simple beware of such Deceivers This Advice in such cases he gives the Simple as being most of all in danger of being seduced but to the Learned and Clergy in the Person of Titus he saith that which I wish them to mind * Tit. 3.10 11. A Man that is an Heretick after the first and second Admonition reject Knowing that he that is such is subverted and sinneth being condemned of himself What the Holy Apostle saith he backs with a Reason Here I cannot forbear with all due Respect in God's Name to declare to Kings Parliaments and to any that have a Hand in the Civil or Ecclesiastical Government that in case they every one in their Station and to the utmost of their Power do not go about to restrain and suppress that Damnable and Antichristian Poison they thereby become accessary to the Blasphemy it is their Duty and in their Power to oppose it which to neglect is to encourage it for Impunity is an Encouragement to Crimes and they must know God at one time or other will require it at their hands and these few Lines I have written shall rise up in Judgment against them Let them remember and apply Mordecai's words to Esther Esther 4.14 If thou altogether holdest thy Peace at this time then shall Deliverance arise from another place but thou and thy Father's House shall be destroyed But to return to those whom I am Addressing to I say to them Mistrust the Deceitfulness of Sin the Craftiness of the Devil and the Weakness and Corruption of your own Hearts As you are to avoid their Discourses so have nothing to do with their Books this I speak chiefly to the Ignorant and Unlearned who must never read them but in the Works of sound Divines that refute them but be very frequent in reading the Word of God which can afford both Offensive and Defensive Weapons against such Enemies therein you may find strong and full Proofs with Demonstrations of the Divinity of our Blessed Saviour of the Holy Ghost and of every other high and necessary Point of our Faith for therein God hath not left himself without a Witness against all Opposers and Blasphemers whatsoever This against such Deceivers and Antichrists as St. John calls them in his second Epistle I shall now conclude with what the same Apostle saith in the same place If there come any unto you and bring not this Doctrine 2 John 10.11 receive him not into your House neither bid him God speed You see he forbiddeth to wish them well in the following Verse he gives the reason For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil Deeds makes himself Accessary to his Error and Guilt This Holy Apostle not only gives us this Rule but also his own Example in the case of Cerinthus another Heretick in his time who denied Christ to be God or Son of God We have it related out of Polycarpus by * Lib. 3. cap 3. Ireneus and ‖ Lib 4. Hist Eccles cap. 14. Eusebius How at Ephesus St. John being gone to wash himself in a Bath as soon as he heard Cerinthus was there he went away abhorring the place and this he added He feared the place wherein such an Enemy of the Truth had Bathed would fall and he no sooner came out but the House fell wherewith Cerinthus and all others within it were killed Now to him * Rev. 19.13 16. whose Name is called the Word of God and who hath on his Vesture and on his Thigh a Name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords * 1 Tim. 6.14 15. To the Lord Jesus Christ who is the Blessed and only Potentate King of Kings and Lord of Lords To ‖ 1 Cor. 1.24 Christ who is the Power and Wisdom of God even that Wisdom that speaks thus * Prov. 8.22 23. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way before his Works of Old I was set up from Everlasting from the Beginning or ever the Earth was To him be Honour and Power Everlasting Amen FINIS
of his Father he hath declared him which no body else could it must be God's only Begotten the reason is given in the beginning of the Verse no Man hath seen God at any time Shall not God's only Begotten Son receive and be Partaker of his Father's Nature If absolutely no Man hath seen God at any time he that hath seen and declared him must needs be God Though this Matter be so copious yet to keep my self within my narrow Bounds I shall to this Point add a few words more St. John saith that * 1 John 2.18 in his time there were many Antichrists and ‖ Chap. 4.1 many False Prophets were gone out into the World These Opposers of Christ were of two sorts some who denied Christ Jesus to be come into the World or in the Flesh that is That the Messiah which took up the whole Expectation of the Jews was not come for we know the Messiah and * John 4.25 Christ to be but one and the same Now those that confessed not Jesus Christ to be the promised Messiah were Antichrists the Messiah was to come in the Flesh that is To take upon him our Humane Nature and become Man All Prophesies and Types under the Law in every Circumstance were fulfilled in the Person of the Lord Jesus born of the Virgin Mary and whosoever denied it was an Antichrist The second sort of Antichrists in St. John's time were those that as the Ebionites did then the Arrians since and now Socinians do own Christ to be a Prophet and a Saviour but would have him to be meerly a Man and only a Creature a Man they would not deny him to be but disowned him for a God Now against these the Apostle doth speak * 1 John 4.15 Whosoever shall confess saith he that Jesus is the Son of God God dwelleth in him and he in God So by the Rule of Contraries and the Stile of Scriptures we do infer that whosoever shall not confess that Jesus is in a true and a proper Sence the Son of God God dwelleth not in him nor he in God both which that is the Validity of this Inference and the Apostle's Position that Jesus is the Son of God do appear in the following Chapter * Chap. 5.9 10 11. He that believeth not that Christ is the Son of God hath made him a Liar because he believeth not the Record that God gave of his Son For this is the Witness of God which is greater than the Witness of Men which he hath testified of his Son Wherein the Apostle relateth not only to the Time of our Saviour's Baptism when the Voice came from Heaven saying * Matt. 3.17 This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased but also to the Transfiguration when the Voice came out of the Cloud with the same words with this Addition * Chap. 17.5 Hear ye him which St. Peter takes special notice of when he saith For he Jesus Christ ‖ 2 Pet. 1.17 18. received from God the Father Honour and Glory when there came such a Voice to him from the excellent Glory And this Voice which came from Heaven we heard when we were with him in the Holy Mount Where the Apostle plainly declares That as the Voice came from God the Father so it was spoken of and to God the Son or else the distinction of Father and Son had been improper and superfluous God in the Voice calls him his Beloved Son the Apostle saith the Voice came from God the Father If there was not some special Energy and Signification in the word Father the Apostle would only have said that Christ received from God Honour c. but speaking of the Father and of the Son who are Relatives that shews the distinction of two different Persons of the Godhead This Voice was the Application to the Person of whom long before Psal 2. wherein the Kingdom of Christ was Prophesied of * Psal 2.7 The Lord hath said unto me Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee Yea such as David whose Son he was according to the Flesh in Spirit calls him Lord which place our Saviour makes use of against the Pharisees for after they had answered his Question Whose Son Christ was He much to his purpose asketh them * Matt. 22.42 43 44 45. If David then call him Lord How is he his Son This could not be in the Capacity of his Son for the Son is not Lord over the Father wherefore it must be upon some other account there was between them another Relation it could be no Humane one within such a distance of Time Hence is appears That if God doth so often and in so singular a manner call the Lord Jesus his Only Begotten Son in whom he is well pleased If God I say speaks Truth the Lord Jesus must be his Son not in that way of Favour and Grace only as Socinians would have it and as all his Elect are but in a stricter and essential Relation to beget is to communicate his Nature and Substance and in this Sence he is the only Begotten Son there is but one thus properly God's Son We have a Text which speaks plainly to the purpose and gives a right Interpretation of the Phrase the meaning whereof the Jews understood very well it is said * John 5.18 The Jews sought the more to kill him not only because he had broken the Sabbath but said also that God was his Father making himself equal with God So then when Christ called God his Father he meaned that he was equal with God the Jews say so the Evangelist doth not say they were mistaken and our Blesied Saviour * Ver. 19 21. the best Interpreter of the thing confirmeth they had a right Notion of the Matter for in the 19 and 21 Verses he affirmeth his Equality in Power with the Father For what things soever he doth these also doth the Son likewise For as the Father raiseth up the Dead and quickneth them so the Son quickneth whom he will This Equality in Power argueth an Equality in Nature for though God can do great and miraculous things by some Creatures yet still 't is the working of his own Power but God cannot bestow an Infinite Power upon a Finite and bound Creature which it is not capable of because it would imply a Contradiction An Infinite Power in Christ such as the Father hath doth in him import an Infinite Nature But at this time I must not suffer my self to be drawn too far into the Matter Well as we heard St. John calls Antichrist him that denies Christ to be the Son of God * 1 John 2.22 He is Antichrist that denies the Father and the Son Surely Father and Son must have the same Nature deny one and you deny both Who is a Liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ To what he calls Antichrists and Liars St. Paul giveth the
Name of Blasphemers and begins with himself as he was before his Conversion * 1 Tim. 1.12 13. Putting me into the Ministry who was before a Blasphemer and a Persecutor Wherein was he such He speaks something of it when he saith ‖ Acts 26.9 I verily thought with my self that I ought to do many things contrary to the Name of Jesus of Nazareth What doth he mean by the Name of Jesus His Person he could not reach his Members he persecuted as much as he could nay as he saith he compelled them to do as he did What 's that To Blaspheme he compelled them to Blaspheme his Name Acts 26.11 his Religion and say many things against his Person and deny him to be the Messiah the Son of God and the Profession of his Gospel to defame and dishonour him And do not Socinians do part of this and the worst of it with as much as in them lies depriving him of his Godhead attacking him in the best and most sensible Part Methinks these Men should have observed and taken warning by God's signal Judgments upon former Blasphemers against the Person of Christ Arrius their great Founder whilst he was easing himself of the Necessities of Nature his Bowels came forth and with them his Life Artemon Samosatenus and several more in former and later Ages came to miserable Deaths The end of Julian the Apostate is well known These should make them Fear and Tremble However in them is a Hardness as was in the Jews whose Arguments they borrow * Acts 13.45 Blaspheming and Contradicting as they did to what concerning this Matter was spoken by Paul and Barnabas The Grounds of their Error I shall not at this time go about to refute that I reserve for another occasion if God permit However two things I shall mention which like two Rocks they commonly split upon and this being well understood affordeth Answers to most of their Arguments St. Peter's words by him spoken in another case I here shall make use of * 2 Pet. 3.5 For this they are willingly Ignorant of namely the difference of Christ's State of Humiliation and that of his Exaltation The Jews who receive not the New Testament may be ignorant of this yet not willingly but Socinians who say and pretend they admit it cannot be Ignorant but willingly After this Rule we may resolve those places in Scripture the Sence whereof thorough their Prejudice they mistake wherein Christ is made Inferior to the Father and the Father said to be greater than he 'T is most true that as he performed the Office of Mediator as he was Man as at that time when he was upon Earth in that low and humble Condition he then was Inferior to the Father but it was not so before for he to obtain Salvation for us voluntarily left that Glory which he had with the Father before the World began and of himself as the Apostle saith * Phil. 2.6 7 8. took upon him the form of a Servant and was made in the likeness of Man and he humbled himself and made himself of no Reputation He had a Being before he was made Man and that Being as the Apostle faith in that place was the Form and Nature of God whereby without Robbery or Usurpation he was equal with God After the time of his Humiliation was over he went up to the place whence he was come down again to appear in his Natural Glory which Glory here he had still but it was under a Cloud which made it invisible to Man His Humane Nature was that Cloud which Scripture calls * Heb. 10.20 the Vail of his Flesh which under the Law was typified by the Vail of the Temple because the Light of the Sun when 't is behind the Clouds doth not appear bright and glorious in our Eyes Must Men say he hath no Brightness nor Glory Still there is enough left to convince us that in it is a Light or else it would be quite Dark So though the Lord Jesus his Divine Glory and Majesty was eclipsed for a time yet several Beams of it appeared in his state of Exinanition as in his Baptism Transfiguration and when * John 12.28 29. the Voice came from Heaven saying I have both glorified it and I will glorifie it again which made some of the People that stood by say it thundred and others An Angel spake to him Besides those many miraculous Works he did which none but a Divine Power could effect all these leave unbelieving Enemies of his Divinity without Excuse for they refuse to receive the Testimony of God the Father of Christ himself and of the Apostles and Evangelists which is as good as to call him a Deluder and an Impostor Their other Stumbling-block and Rock of Offence is the Incarnation of the Son of God or his taking upon him our Humane Nature out of the Virgim Mary thorough the Operation of the Holy Ghost which by no means they will own though Scripture saith in that Famous Prophesie of the Coming of the Messiah * Isa 7.14 Behold a Virgin shall Conceive and bring forth a Son and they shall call his Name Immanuel ‖ Matt. 1.23 to this answers John 1.14 1 Tim. 3.16 Which being interpreted is God with us What doth this Interpretation God with us signifie else than an Union of Divine with Humane Nature one Person to be both God and Man which doth meet in the Person of our Blessed Saviour who for Confirmation of this is in Scripture so often called God Son of God and Man Son of Man Can there be any thing more positive than this * John 1.1 14. The Word was God and the Word was made Flesh by Flesh is meant Humane Nature then God was made Man as to the Manner it could not be by Transubstantiation change of Substance of Divine Nature into Humane which had imported an Annihilation of Divine Nature which to think is Blasphemy elsewhere Scripture saith positively God was manifest in the Flesh a Text parallel to that of John to prove the Incarnation which the place sheweth to be said of Christ in whom are terminated all the Prophesies and Figures under the Law about the Messiah and though the Modus and Manner of things be above the reach of Men to dive into and so we must not be rash about it yet God in his Word having revealed the thing to be and said something about the Manner it must not be neglected by us See the Angel's answer to the question of the Virgin * Luke 1.34 35 How shall this be seeing I know no Man The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the Power of the Highest shall overshadow thee This indeed is a high Mystery the Coming of the Holy Ghost the overshadowing of the Highest Yet however this is plain that that Holy Thing or Person to be born of Mary should be the Son of God and really called so for
to be called is really to be so as of John Baptist Thou Child shalt be called the Prophet of the Highest Luke 1.76 shall really be so or else if he had not really been it had been a Lie Man was to have no hand in the Birth of that Child for the Virgin knew no Man it was to be a Production only of the Holy Ghost coming upon the Virgin and of the Power of the Highest overshadowing her Here we must draw a Curtain and a Door before this high Mystery yet we may say that to bring into the World one that should be meerly a Man there had been no need of this transcendent unspeakable and incomprehensible way If it was intended he should have been no more than a Man there had been no need of altering the usual Course of Generation as it was not in * Take notice of the difference Moses as a Servant Christ as a Son over his own House Heb. 3.5 6. Moses Elijah upon whom afterwards God poured his Spirit So if the Lord Jesus had been but a Man he might have been begotten of a Man and afterwards God might have bestowed his Spirit upon him in a higher measure than ever it had been upon any Man that went before but the overshadowing of the Highest was not in vain because God doth nothing in vain The Holy Ghost alone might have preserved him from Sin in his Conception but there had been no need of the overshadowing of the Highest Take notice how Christ is also called the Highest and the Great God Luke 1.76 Tit. 2.13 Let us compare the Cases between the Birth of John the Baptist of whom our Saviour saith thus * Luke 7.28 Amongst those that were born of Women there was not a greater Prophet than John the Baptist and that of the Lord Jesus In the first two things are remarkable the first That an Angel was sent to Announce his Birth The second That he should be filled with the Holy Ghost from his Mothers Womb all the rest was Natural and Common Chap. 1. Thy Wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a Son Here according to the usual Course of Nature a Child was to be born of a Husband and his Wife though Old yet the thing happened before to others but in the Person of Christ is a Child born of a Woman without Man The Angel said to Zachariah nothing of the Holy Ghost coming upon Elizabeth nothing of the highest overshadowing her as to the Virgin Mary And we know how never one Man or one Prophet spoke of another as John Baptist did of our Lord and Saviour he knew his distance the difference between them and his nothing in comparison with him * John 1.27 30 He that comes after me and whose Shoes latchet I am not worthy to unloose the same was before me yet born six Months after him and before Abraham too though there were 42 Generations between them O that Pre-existence hath no Humane Foundation and can be attributed to nothing but to an Eternal Being he owneth he was not the Christ but he was sent before him to cry in the Wilderness Make straight the way of the Lord Jehovah Verse 34 and I saw and bare Record that this is the Son of God Wherefore upon occasion our Saviour saith of John Baptist He bare record of me unto the Truth Chap. 5.33 34. though I need no such thing for I receive not Testimony from Man however he bare Witness unto the Truth that I am the Son of God And indeed if to prove it there was but one or few such Texts and Particulars in Scripture about Christ some might happen to think there is room for Cavils and Exceptions but so many things and in so many several places being said to that purpose and all tending to confirm that Truth how he is True God and Only True Son of God there is no reasonable ground left to doubt of it ‖ 1 John 5.20 We know saith St. John that the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is True even in his Son Jesus Christ This is the True God and Eternal Life Nothing plainer than that Jesus Christ is the True God Relatives ought to be applied to the next Scripture mentioneth four kinds of Generation the first by Father and Mother that is the Common The second without Father or Mother which is properly Creation so Adam was begotten and on this account called Son of God The third of a Father without Mother thus Eve was formed out of Adam's Rib But the fourth and more Miraculous is of a Mother without a Father thus our Blessed Saviour was born of a Woman without the help of Man But all these do relate only to a Temporal Generation but that of Jesus Christ Son of God in a strict Sence by the Father is Eternal Now the Office of Mediator required a Person that should be both God and Man to perform those things that were to be done in relation to both As for instance To Suffer and Die was the part of Humane Nature which the Divine is not capable of but to overcome Death and our Spiritual Enemies could not be effected but by a Divine Power And it also became the Majesty of God that the Mediator should be God which Majesty is so great that none but he that is intimate and equal with the Father could interpose between God and Man Angels themselves could and dared not undertake it for they stand in need of Christ Mediator and * Job 15.15 they are not Pure in God's sight which makes them hide their ‖ Isa 6.2 Face in his Presence now much less any Man only such Besides who but a God could destroy Sin appease God's Wrath overcome the Power of Satan and Death Natural and Eternal Who could make Expiation for Offences committed against an Infinite God but he that is Infinite himself By whose Intercession could God's Anger be pacified but thorough his that is his Beloved Son By whose Power could Satan and the whole Power of Darkness be overcome but by him that is stronger than all the Devils and Hell And who could conquer Death but he that hath destroyed him that hath the Power of Death Heb. 2.14 And as none but a God could deliver us from all these Evils under whose Power we were so none but a God could restore us to the Goods we had lost As first Who could have restored us to a perfect Righteousness but he that is Righteousness it self Who to God's Image Chap. 1.3 but he that is the express Image of his Person and the Brightness of his Glory Who could make us Children of God but he that is his Natural and only begotten and beloved Son Who could bestow upon us the Holy Ghost but he from whom the Holy Ghost proceedeth And who could give us Eternal Life but he that is Life it self And by whom could we