used that Name was not according to them to be charged presently with Blasphemy much less he whom the Father hath sanctified chosen and appointed to the great Office of Messiah and then sent him into the World to execute it Whether there be any force in what some observe (a) Quod alii ad humanium tantum Naturam restringunt ego extendo ad totam Christi Personam nam ex tribus Persnis in Coelo hic unus fuit selectus ad hoc Officium Mediatoris Zanch. de trib Eloh p. 124. that the Father chose him the Second Person of the Trinity rather than the Third and that there is also an Emphasis in the words And sent him into the world after he was first sanctified and appointed by God the Father in Heaven where he was before his Natural Begotten Son (b) Maldonat in loc and afterwards sent into the World This I shall not insist on but only allow that this was Argumentum ad homines as we say such as Christ thought the fittest and properest to offer at that time to those gross and stupid and ignorant Jewish Accusers and that was indeed only a minori ad majus whereby he designed only to wipe off the blackest and foulest parts of this Charge but not to inform and instruct them so fully and perfectly in a Truth they could not bear and were not prepared then to receive however he would not deny but did own and acknowledge their Charge of his making himself God in their sense And if this be not proved from these words of his here yet it is no way disproved any more than when he was asked whither he were the Christ or Messiah his not answering directly proves that he was not or his not instructing his Disciples so fully about his Crucifixion or Resurrection proved he was not to Dye or to Rise again Neither the Jews nor the Disciples themselves could bear some Truths at first nor the full opening the Mystery of the Gospel all at once nor had Christ dispatched all the work of his Life nor was then willing to dye or be stoned by them for a direct Charge of Blasphemy And therefore though he did not deny the Charge which he would have done had it been false yet he avoided it and defended himself against it as far as his Infinite Wisdom thought then prudent and convenient But there are other places and other Arguments to prove Christs Divinity to us his being one with the Father in Nature and the Natural and Eternal Son of God which I shall now produce and then show the usefulness and necessity of this Doctrine I shall not produce all but only select some that are the most plain and considerable The First shall be his Title and Character here given by himself The Son of God and his making God his Father which is to be meant in a proper and most excellent and natural sense upon the account of his Divine and not his Humane Nature or any thing belonging to that as he was the Son of God antecedently to his being born of the Virgin being begotten of the Father from all Eternity and having his Divine Being from the Father of the same Nature with himself For tho' the Title of the Son of God is given to others in Scripture and to Christ himself upon other accounts as God calls the Children of Israel his Son and his First-born Exod. 4.22 as being in a state of Favour and Covenant with him And Christians are thus more especially the Adopted Sons and the Children of God in the Scripture stile And Christ himself is called the Son of God upon several other accounts as upon his Extraordinary Humane Birth and Conception by the Holy Ghost Luke 1.35 upon account of his Resurrection his being the First-born or First-begotten from the Dead St. Paul applying to him the words of David in the second Psalm Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee upon this very account Acts 13.33 and as afterwards upon his Ascension he was made Heir of all things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Col. 1.15 The first-born and heir of the whole Creation But there is a higher Ground and Reason than all these of this great Character given to Christ in Scripture the Son of God namely his Eternal Divine Generation his being begotten of the Father in his own Likeness and Image and having his Divine Nature communicated to him for this is the first and most proper Notion of a Son Another Person or Being for nulla res generat seipsam as St. Austin sayes de Trin. l. 1. c. 1. produced or begotten in the same Nature and Likeness with its Father or Producent That Christ was thus generated of the Father and of the Substance of the Father and not Created or Made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Arrians held and that he was the Son of God and God his Father in this proper and excellent sense as the Christian Church has alwayes declared and believed so the Scripture bears witness to it in all those places where it calls Christ God and ascribes the Divine Nature and Divine Perfections to him as I shall show it does and sayes he was in the beginning before the World or from all Eternity with God and that he was in the Form of God and thought it not robbery to be equal with God i. e. as having the same Nature with him which must be by that Communication of it which we call Generation for he had not this from himself or from none but from another who is therefore call'd his Father But on this Head I insist only upon the propriety of those phrases his being the Son of God and God being his Father which are to be understood in the proper literal and natural meaning as all persons would understand them when spoken of a Humane Father and Son and so they are to be taken when there is not a Connotation or a particular Reason expressed to denote an improper and Metaphorical use of them And there is one word frequently used in Scripture which I think is a sufficient proof of this and that is when Christ is call'd not only the Son but the only Son and the only begotten Son of God as John 1.14 John 3.16 1 John 4.9 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a verbal signifying as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or uni-genitus is one who has no partner or sharer in that Sonship which is ascribed to him but Christ as an adopted Son has many Brethren and therefore it must be meant of that Divine Generation and Sonship which belongs to him alone and God by sending his only begotten Son intended to express his utmost Love to Mankind and to that purpose St. John uses the phrase God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son But nothing raises this Love so high as his sending his own Natural Son a Person of the highest
must be very arrogant in our Adversaries to oppose themselves to the Belief of the whole Primitive Church and to disagree with all those Holy Men and Learned Writers whom we call the Fathers who have transmitted Christianity and this Doctrine down to us and this Socinus even frankly and openly owns Patres omnes ab ipsis dissentire in his Answer to Wiekus Tom. 2. Resp ad 2 Cap. Wieki Clas 7. c. 9. p. 618. and sayes Haec authoritatum testimoniorum ex Patribus Concilii congeries nullas vires habet praesertim adversus nos qui ab istis Patribus Conciliis quae extant nos dissentire non diffitemur This was said with great freedom but greater insolence his followers have had more cunning and less Honesty than to own this It is not proper at this time and place to prove what their Master owns and to prove the Divinity of Christ from the Antient Church and from the universal suffrage of its Writers in all Ages that has been done beyond all possibility of an Answer from the boldest Pretender But our very Enemies have all along bore witness to this Truth that the Christians believed and worshipped Christ as a God so sayes Pliny in his Letter to Trajan that the Christians met and sang a Hymn to Christ as to God and Celsus charges the Christians with worshiping Christ as a new God and Julian writ to this purpose to Photinus agreeing with him that Christ was but a Man against the Churches Doctrine of a Galilean God as he blasphemously speaks so Lucian in his Philopatris exposes the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the God of Christians and Mahomet all along through his Alcoron finds fault with the Christians for believing and worshipping Christ as God whom he owns to be a Prophet and a great Man sent of God as well as Socinus The Christians would have disowned this charge had it not been true especially when in the hands of their Enemies and under Persecution for it when they might have escaped Death and the greatest Tortures and Sufferings had they been Socinians and denyed Christs Divinity They had none of their subtle distinctions of a God by Nature and a God by Office to help them out but they believed Christ to be as true a God by Nature as he was a Man and they took God in the true and plain sense for a Divine Almighty Being who was to be worship'd by them and that Christ was such an one as well as a Man This was the Doctrine they were taught by the Church and by the Scriptures and that all Christians believed till the Subtleties of Arrius Eunomius Artius and others and the greater Subtleties of the School-men afterwards in making One to be Three and Three One and the as great Subtleties of the Socinians in opposing them darkened and obscured the plain Christian Doctrine which we are Baptized into of Father Son and Holy Ghost and that the Son who was born of the Virgin and dyed for us and rose again and was Christ the Saviour of Mankind that he was also the Son of God and the only begotten of God the Father who had the same Divine Nature with him and so was God and to be worship'd and pray'd to The Usefulness and Necessity of which Doctrine I should come now to show had I time In a word I take all Christian Faith and Hope and Worship to depend upon it and even Christianity it self as it is a distinct Religion from Natural and as it obliges us to such peculiar Articles of Faith as well as to such common Rules of Morality If Christ be not God and have not the Divine Nature belonging to him but be only a Man as he is not to be worship'd as I have shown so how we trust and hope and believe in him for Salvation and put such a full confidence in a Creature that it would not be greater if he were a God A poor finite Creature like our selves is not a fit object of our hope and trust for so great a matter as an Infinite Divine Being who has all Power and all Goodness The great God may exalt if he pleases any of us or any other Man to as much Power and Dignity as the Socinians say he has done Christ and they may have been made their own Saviours or Saviours to all the World in the Socinian Notion as well as he but surely none but a God no Man or Creature could be the Redeemer and the Saviour of Mankind Our Redemption is a greater Work than our Creation and the Lord that bought us deserves as great Thanks and Gratitude Praise Honour and Acknowledgment from us as he that Made us and therefore we should necessarily run into Idolatry if he were not God also Could this great and Mysterious Work have been accomplished any other way than by the Son of God a God Incarnate and made Flesh the Divine Wisdom which does nothing in vain would in all likelyhood have found out an easier and a cheaper Method and not have been at the expence of such a Miraculous such an Extraordinary such a Mysterious way as Men and Angels are astonisht at when they look into the mighty depth and profound greatness of it God the Father shewed his utmost Love to Mankind and exhausted the Riches of his Mercy to Sinners in sending his Son his only begotten Son into the World to save us and his Son showed the greatest Condescension and utmost Humiliation and emptying of himself thus to come into the World and become a Man but had he been only a Man where had the Mystery of this been This great Love of the Father and this Condescension of the Son on both which the Scripture layes such a particular weight and Emphasis had been lost and sunk and dwindled into very little and had all its mighty Figures and Characters in which it is represented in Scripture abated lessened and diminisht if Christ had been only a Creature and a meer-Man and had not been truly and properly the Son of God begotten of him from all Eternity as well as of the Virgin afterwards and One with the Father in respect of his Divine Nature and Original To him God blessed for ever be all Honour and Worship Praise Glory and Thanksgiving now and for evermore Amen FINIS
Unity but this has been from not understanding what the Divine Unity was and wherein it truly consisted according to the Scriptural account I have given of it which wholly takes off this Objection There are several things I own in the Blessed Trinity Incomprehensible to our Reason and Unconceivable and Unaccountable to our Finite Understandings when they are imployed about so great and Infinite an Object which is too big for them and so much above them As why and how an Infinite All-sufficient God should produce an Eternal Son and Communicate the same Nature to him with himself whether this were by a voluntary or a necessary Production and Emanation and how the Procession of the Holy Ghost differs from the Generation of the Son any otherwise than as that was an Emanation from both and not from the Father alone and how three such Infinite Persons are so distinct from one another as not to be confounded or be the same tho' Omnipresent and in the same Infinite Vbi and tho' so Inseparably united yet the one to take flesh and be Incarnate and not the other These and other things relating to this Mystery of our Christian Faith are I say Incomprehensible Unconceiveable and Unaccountable to our Reason by which I mean only that we can compare 'em to nothing else that we certainly know that we have no perfect or absolute likeness of them in any thing else that we have no adequate Idea simple or complex no similitude or Representation of any such thing in our minds from any thing else in Nature but that 't is a Truth purely known and manifested by Revelation joyning together and connecting such Idea's concerning God and so presenting them to the mind as united together under one view and so compounded and complicated with one another that tho' they do not disagree nor are contrary to one another yet we see not perfectly their agreement or connection but have only an obscure and general and confused view and conception of them as we have a sight of such Objects which are too high or too remote for our eye thoroughly to ken and yet we see them tho' not by the naked Eye yet by the help of a glass or Telescope so as to be satisfied of the Truth of them Revelation is as a Telescope and our Reason and Understanding is as the Eye which could not by its naked Power discern or find out those high Objects and supernatual Truths of our Christian Faith but now by Revelation they are discovered to us and our Reason and Understanding as the Organ without which we cannot see or believe any thing does plainly see and discern them but it is as through a glass darkly as having something of Cloud and darkness about them or as we see the Sun which is an object too dazling and illustrious to look fully upon with our weak Eyes The Sun with ' its coeval light and heat is an usual resemblance of the sacred Trinity and is the best material one that is in Nature but light and heat are but qualities and motions not substantial Things and are though not divided from the Sun yet without it and not in it so the fountain River and streams are but imperfect partial Resemblances as having the same water in all and not being cut off or separated from the Fountain but all material likenesses must fail when applyed to Spiritual things Our own Soul is the best Image of God and without it we should not know what God or Wisdom or any of his Perfections were the two faculties of Understanding and Will are the most like to the Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Wisdom and to the Divine Spirit power and Energy and in allusion to these the Schoolmen would have the Son to be begotten per Intellectum by a direct act of the Divine Mind conceiving an Idea of ' its Self and the Holy Ghost to proceed by a reflexion per amorem by an active Love of it self upon such a Conception But these men have been the most rash and bold explainers of the Trinity which is a Truth and an Object by it Self to which nothing else is perfectly like and of which we can have no Comparative knowledge nor no compleat and adequate Idea or Comprehension for the two sacred Originated Persons are not two faculties but two substantial Persons and Real Beings the Scripture ascribing as distinct Properties Relations Attributes Characters Acts and Operations to each of them as to any other distinct Persons and Beings whatsoever as the Son to be begotten of the Father to be sent into the World by the Father to pray to the Father and mediate with the Father Now the same Being and Person cannot be Father and Son to it Self beget and be begotten of it Self send and be sent by it Self pray to and mediate with it Self and the like may be said as to the Spirit These are not therefore like one and the same mind with two faculties or two acts or operations or only as variously considered two ways nor are they one thing or one Being diversified only with three Names Titles Offices Characters Capacities Respects or any three differences whatever belonging to one Person or Being but three true proper real Divine Persons The One the Father the other the Son the third the Spirit of both Now nothing in our own minds or in visible Nature is perfectly like these or to which we can compare them or from whence we can draw a Similitude Representation or Idea of them and therefore they are Incomprehensible and Unconceivable by us for 't is by Comparison and likeness we chiefly know and conceive things and 't is hard to distinguish between Knowledge Conception and Imagination so that what some persons cannot imagine or cannot have a picture or likeness of in their Fancy and Imagination they say they cannot conceive and therefore some pretend they can have no Conceptions of a Spiritual Substance and others no Idaea of the Trinity nor even of God by which they mean they cannot have a Picture or Idea or likeness of these things in their Imagination but we know and believe and are well assur'd of a great many things without that as of all Mathematical and Metaphysical Verities about abstracted things of all Axioms and Common Notions of all Demonstrations about Lines and Numbers of all things not Corporeal as Time Motion the Acts and Operations of our own Minds such as Understanding Choosing Suspending Doubting and the like all which we know by Reason and can reason about though we can have no Pictures or imaginary Idaea's of them or any other likenesses of them I shall show for the Defence of Mysteries and of the Mystery of the Trinity and the Christian Faith that there are a great many other things which are Incomprehensible and unconceivable to us concerning which we are well assur'd and have no doubt of them and this in several Particulars 1. In visible Nature and
Dignity next to himself and one of the same Divine Nature with himself whereas if he were only an Adopted Son or a Son upon the other accounts only neither the Love of the Father nor the Condescension of the Son would appear in such Great Characters as the Scripture designedly sets them out by I have insisted longer on this Title of Son and only begotten Son because they are the only words in the Apostolick and the oldest Creeds to express the belief of Christs Divinity thereby designing to answer a great Objection of our Adversaries I shall be more brief on the rest 2. As Christ is called the Son of God so he is called God also in Scripture in several places John 1.1 The Word was with God and the Word was God My Lord and my God John 20.28 God blessed for ever Rom. 9.5 And in others especially those taken from the Old Testament and applyed to Christ in the New Now what can our Adversaries say to this Sometimes they say The Word is not meant of Christ But that is so undeniable in some places that they cannot but own it And therefore they say Christ though having only the Humane and not the Divine Nature is called God in a certain sense viz. by Office as Moses and other Magistrates who were the Ministers and Deputies and Embassadors of God and upon that account have that Name sometimes attributed to them and Christ by having that extraordinary Office of Messiah and that extraordinary Power over all things committed to him as Mediator after his Ascension is upon this account they say God and may be called God and the True God and the most High God as Socinus Stichlingius Smalcius Ruarus and others of them speak but still they deny that Christ is God by Nature or that he has the True Divine Nature the same with the Father belonging to him but only as a Man he is made and exalted to be a God by being advanced to an extraordinary Power and Authority over all other Creatures but this leaves him still in the rank and order of Creatures nay makes him a God of a meer Man a Late not an Eternal God One who had no Being before he was Born of the Virgin and no Divinity till after his Resurrection and his Ascension into Heaven so that they may date his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and know exactly how many Years and Dayes he has been God in their Ridiculous Blasphemous and Heathenish Sense of the word God But God is an Eternal Infinite All-perfect Being who was and is and is to come whose Existence is Necessary and not Contingent Eternal and not of Yesterday who has the True Divine Essence and Nature and the Incommunicable Excellencies and Perfections belonging to it And in this sense Christ is God and True God and God by Nature as I shall prove evidently from Scripture He is not indeed God the Father or God from none 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in that sense we believe in One God the Father Almighty and to us there is but One God the Father as the Apostle speaks 1 Cor. 8.6 and Christ is the Son of this God the Father who had his Being and Nature from him but he is God of God very God of very God as the Nicene Creed expresses it has the Divine Nature and Divine Perfections Naturally belonging to him and in that Sense is true God This I shall prove further 3. From his being joyned with the Father in the Baptismal Office and in the Christian Form of Benediction as we have them Mat. 28 19. 1 Cor. 13.14 Now can we think that Christ and the Holy Ghost would be joyned together in both those with the Father if they were only Creatures though of the highest Dignity and Quality and were not truly God and of the same Nature Honour and Dignity with the Father We may as well and much better suppose that a Charter of Priviledges should be Granted in the name of the King and of two of his greatest Subjects or Homage Sworn to them and to the King both together and that they should be joyned in the same Royal and Sovereign Acts of Favour and have the same acknowledgements and Oaths of Fidelity made to them as that God the Father should be joyned with two mere Creatures in such Solemn Religious acts of Christianity Baptism is the Highest and most Solemn Devoting and Dedicating our Selves to God and professing the Christian Faith by the special and distinguishing Characters of it as containing the Belief of Father Son and Holy Ghost which are the Fundamental 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Christianity as distinct from natural and Jewish Religion Now to do this to Creatures or in the name of Creatures as well as God would be a strange anomally and unaccountable absurdity The Jews indeed were Baptized into Moses in the Cloud and in the Sea 1 Cor. 20.2 as our Adversaries often remind us but this was only Mystically and Figuratively and almost into the Religion delivered by Moses they were not Devoted to Moses but to the God of Israel nor were Baptized in the name of the God of Israel and of Moses joyned together as Christians are in the name of Father Son and Holy Ghost nor was there ever any Benediction given in the name of Moses or of Abraham and the like but only in the name of God the God of Israel who would not give his Glory to another nor allow any Creatures to be his Rivals or share with him in the most Religious Acts of Homage and Fealty and in the incommunicable rights tenders and acknowledgments of Divine Honour payed to Him or in the Grants and Donations of special Favour that flowed and issued from himself alone So that I take this Form of Christian Baptism and Christian Blessing to be a very strong Evidence to all but perverse Unbelievers of the Divinity both of the Son and of the Holy Ghost who are thus joyned with the Father in very short and solemn Forms as of equal Honour Power and Dignity with him to whom Christians are alike to Devote themselves and to expect like Blessings and Favours from all of them 4. The Divinity of Christ is fully proved and Demonstrated from such Divine Acts and operations such Divine Excellencies Attributes and Perfections as belong only to God and the Divine Nature and which are expresly ascribed to Christ in the Holy Scriptures as to Create and make the World to be Omnipotent Omnipresent Omniscient Eternal and the like The Notion we have of a God is a being endued with these Infinite Persections which cannot belong to a Finite and Limited Creature however excellent unless we confound the Idaea's of Finite and Infinite of God and a Creature and bring the one down so low or raise the other so high as to make no difference between them These are the proper Attributes Properties and Excellencies of the Divine Nature and he that hath these must have the Divine