that which was constantly received not only by the ancient Fathers but by the general consent of all Christians for 1500 years together For to establish this their Opinion of our Saviour's being a mere man and having no existence before his Birth they have found it necessary to expound this whole passage quite to another sense and such as by their own confession was never mentioned nor I believe thought of by any Christian Writer whatsoever before Socinus For this reason I shall very particularly consider the interpretation which Socinus gives of this Passage of St. John and besides the novelty of it which they themselves acknowledge I make no doubt very plainly to manifest the great violence and unreasonableness and likewise the inconsistency of it with other plain Texts of the New Testament It is very evident what it was that forc'd Socinus to so strain'd and violent an interpretation of this Passage of the Evangelist namely that he plainly saw how much the obvious and natural and generally received interpretation of this Passage in all Ages of the Christian Church down to his time stood in the way of his Opinion of Christ's being a mere man which he was so fond of and must of necessity have quitted unless he would either have denied the Divine Authority of St. John's Gospel or else could supplant the common interpretation of this Passage by putting a quite different sense upon it Which sense he could find no way to support without such pitiful and wretched shifts such precarious and arbitrary Suppositions as a man of so sharp a Reason and judgment as Socinus could not I thought have ever been driven to But necessity hath no Laws either of Reason or Modesty and he who is resolved to maintain an Opinion which he hath once taken up must stick at nothing but must break through all difficulties that stand in his way And so the Socinians have here done as will I hope manifestly appear in the following Discourse They grant that by the Word is here meant Christ by whom God spake and declared his mind and will to the World which they make to be the whole reason of that Name or Title of the Word which is here given him and not because by Him God made the World For the Word by which God made the World they tell us was nothing but the powerful Command of God and not a Person who was design'd to be the Messias And because as I have shewed before the ancient Jews do make frequent mention of this Title of the Word of God by whom they say God made the World and do likewise apply this Title to the Messias therefore to avoid this Schlictingius says that the Chaldee Paraphrasts Jonathan and Onkelos do sometimes put the Word of God for God by a Metonymy of the Effect for the Cause but then he confidently denies that they do any where distinguish the Word of God from the Person of God as they acknowledge that St. John here does nor do they says he understand by the Word of God the Messias but on the contrary do oppose the Word of God to the Messias All which is most evidently confuted by that passage which I cited before out of the Targum of Jonathan who renders those words concerning the Messias The Lord said unto my Lord c. thus The Lord said unto his Word sit thou on my right hand c. where you see both that the Word of God is plainly distinguished from God and that it is the Title given to the Messias Which are the two things which Schlictingius doth so confidently deny This then being agreed on all hands that by the Word St. John means the Messias I shall in the next place shew by what strained and forced arts of interpretation the Socinians endeavour to avoid the plain and necessary consequence from this Passage of St. John namely that the Word had an existence before he was made flesh and born of the B. Virgin his Mother This then in short is the interpretation which they give of this Passage than which I think nothing can be more unnatural and violent In the beginning This they will by no means have to refer to the Creation of the World but to the beginning of the Gospel that is when the Gospel first began to be publish'd then was Christ and not before And he was with God that is says Socinus Christ as he was the Word of God that is the Gospel of Christ which was afterwards by him revealed to the World was first only known to God But all this being somewhat hard first to understand by the beginning not the beginning of the World but of the Gospel and then by the Word which was with God to understand the Gospel which before it was revealed was only known to God they have upon second thoughts found out another meaning of those words And the Word was with God that is faith Schlictingius Christ was taken up by God into Heaven and there instructed in the mind and will of God and from thence sent down into the World again to declare it to Mankind And the Word was God that is say they Christ had the Honour and Title of God conferr'd upon him as Magistrates also have who in the Scripture are called Gods He was God not by Nature but by Office and by Divine constitution and appointment All things were made by him This they will needs have to be meant of the Renovation and Reformation of the World by Jesus Christ which is several times in Scripture call'd a new Creation This in short is the Sum of their interpretation of this Passage which I shall now examine and to which I shall oppose three things as so many invincible prejudices against it First That not only all the ancient Fathers of the Christian Church but so far as I can find all Interpreters whatsoever for fifteen hundred years together did understand this Passage of St. John in a quite different sense namely of the Creation of the material and not of the Renovation of the moral World And I add further that the generality of Christians did so understand this Passage as to collect from it as an undoubted Point of Christianity that the Word had a real existence before he was born of the B. Virgin And thus not only the Orthodox Christians but even the Arians and Amelius the Platonist who was a more indifferent judge then either of them did understand this Passage of St. John without any thought of this invention that he spake not of the old but of the new Creation of the World by Jesus Christ and the Reformation of Mankind by the preaching of the Gospel Which I dare say no indifferent Reader of St. John that had not been prepossess'd and byass'd by some violent prejudice would ever have thought of And surely it ought to be very considerable in this Case that the most ancient Christian Writers Ignatius Justin Martyr Athenagoras
two Heads First Those which expresly assert the Son of God to have been and to have been in Heaven with God and partaker with him in his Glory before his Incarnation and appearance in the World Secondly Those which affirm that the World and all Creatures whatsoever were made by him I. Those Texts which expresly assert the Son of God to have been and to have been in Heaven with God and partaker with him in his Glory before his Incarnation and appearance in the World No man hath ascended into Heaven but he that came down from Heaven the Son of man who is in Heaven Where the Son is said to have come down from Heaven in respect of the Union of his Divinity with human Nature and his special residence in it here below And yet he is said to have come down from Heaven as still to be in Heaven He that came down from Heaven the Son of man who is in Heaven that is in respect of his Divinity by which he is every-where present And he that came down from Heaven is here called the Son of man by the same Figure that his Blood is elsewhere called the Blood of God the Apostle ascribing that to one Nature which is proper to the other This we take to be the most natural and easie sense of this Text and most agreeable to the tenour of the New Testament Again What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before So that if he really ascended up into Heaven after his Resurrection he was really there before his Incarnation Before Abraham was says our B. Saviour I am the obvious sense of which words is that he had a real existence before Abraham was actually in Being Again it is said that Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he was come from God and went to God c. And again For the Father himself loveth you because ye loved me and have believed that I came out from God I came forth from the Father and am come into the World again I leave the World and go to the Father This was so very plain that his Disciples who were slow enough of apprehension in other things did understand this so well that upon this declaration of his they were convinced of his Omniscience which is an incommunicable Property of the Divinity For so it immediately follows His Disciples said unto him Lord now speakest thou plainly and speakest no Parable Now are we sure that thou knowest all things and needest not that any man should ask thee By this we believe that thou camest forth from God So that either this which I have all along declared must be the meaning of our Saviour's words or else his Disciples were grosly mistaken and did not understand him at all And if so then surely our Saviour before he had proceeded any further would have corrected their mistake and have set them right in this matter But so far is he from doing that that he allows them to have understood him aright For thus it follows Jesus answered them Do ye now believe as if he had said I am glad that you are at last convinc'd and do believe that I came from God and must return to him and that I know all things which none but God can do Is it now possible for any man to read this Passage and yet not to be convinced that the Disciples understood our Saviour to speak literally But if his meaning was as the Socinians would make us believe then the Disciples did perfectly mistake his words the contrary whereof is I think very plain and evident beyond all contradiction Again And now O Father glorify me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the World was This surely is not spoken of his being with God after his Incarnation and before his entrance upon his publick Ministry They have not I think the face to understand this expression before the World was of the new Creation but do endeavour to avoid it another way which I shall consider by and by And a little after I have given them the words which thou gavest me and they have received them and known assuredly that I came from thee and that thou didst send me Again That which was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the Word of life For the life was manifested and we have seen it and bear witness and shew unto you that eternal Life for so he calls the Son of God which was with the Father and was manifested unto us And that he was not only with God before he assumed human Nature but also was really God St. Paul tells us Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus who being in the form of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 did not arrogate to himself to be equal with God that is he made no ostentation of his Divinity For this I take to be the true meaning of that Phrase both because it is so used by Plutarch and because it makes the sense much more easie and current thus who being in the form of God did not assume an equality with God that is he did not appear in the Glory of his Divinity which was hid under a Veil of human flesh and infirmity But he emptied himself and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man or in the habit of a man he became obedient to the death c. So that if his being made in the likeness and fashion of a man does signify that he was really Man by his Incarnation then surely his being in the form of God when he took upon him the fashion and likeness of man and the form of a Servant or Slave must in all reason signify that he was really God before he became Man For which reason the same Apostle did not doubt to say that God was manifested in the flesh And now I hope that I have made it fully appear that the beginning of St. John's Gospel is not the single and only Text upon which we ground this great Doctrine as Socinus calls it and as we really esteem it to be For you see that I have produced a great many more to avoid the dint and force whereof the Socinians do chiefly make use of these two Answers First To those Texts which say that he was in Heaven and came down from Heaven they give this answer That our Saviour some time before his entrance upon his publick Ministry they cannot agree precisely when was taken up into Heaven and then and there had the Will of God revealed to him and was sent down from Heaven again to make it known to the World This is so very
World And if the Author of this Epistle does affirm these words of the Psalmist to be spoken of Christ then they must acknowledge Christ to be the true God who made Heaven and Earth But the Author of this Epistle does as evidently affirm these words to be spoken to or of Christ as he does the words of any other Text cited in this Chapter And for this I appeal to the common sense of every man that reads them These Interpreters indeed are contented that the latter part of this Citation should be spoken of Christ but not the former But why not the former as well as the latter when they have so expresly told us that all the words of this Psalm are manifestly spoken of God What is the mystery of this Could they not as easily have interpreted the former part which speaks of the Creation of Heaven and Earth concerning the moral World and the new Creation or Reformation of Mankind by Jesus Christ and his Gospel as well as so many other plain Texts to the same purpose No doubt they could as well have done it and have set as good a face upon it when they had done it But why then did they not do it It was for a reason which they had no mind to tell but yet is not hard to be guessed at namely that if they had admitted the former words to have been spoken of Christ they knew not what to do with the latter part of this Citation They shall perish but thou remainest they shall wax old as agarment and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up and they shall be changed What shall perish and wax old and be changed Why the Earth and the Heavens which the Son had made that is the moral World the Reformation of Mankind and the new Creation of things by the Gospel All these must have undergone the same fate with the natural World and must not only have been defaced but utterly destroy'd and brought to nothing This they would not say but they did see it tho they would not seem to see it And we may plainly see by this that they can interpret a Text right when necessity forceth them to it and they cannot without great inconvenience to their Cause avoid it But when men have once resolv'd to hold fast an Opinion they have taken up it then becomes not only convenient but necessary to understand nothing that makes against it And this is truly the present case But in the mean time where is ingenuity and love of Truth And thus I have with all the clearness and brevity I could search'd to the very foundations of this new Interpretation of this Passage of the Evangelist upon which the Divinity of the Son of God is so firmly established and likewise of the gross misinterpretations of several other Texts to the same purpose in this Evangelist and in other Books of the New Testament All which Interpretations I have endeavoured to shew to be not only contrary to the sense of all Antiquity of which as Socinus had but little knowledge so he seems to have made but little account but to be also evidently contrary to the perpetual tenour and style of the H. Scripture Before I go off from this Argument I cannot but take notice of one thing wherein our Adversaries in this Cause do perpetually glory as a mighty advantage which they think they have over us in this Point of the Divinity of the Son of God and consequently in that other Point of the B. Trinity namely that they have Reason clearly on their Side in this Controversy and that the Difficulties and Absurdities are much greater and plainer on our part than on theirs Here they are pleas'd to triumph without modesty and without measure And yet notwithstanding this I am not afraid here likewise to join issue with them and am contented to have this matter brought to a fair Trial at the Bar of Reason as well as of Scripture expounded by the general Tradition of the Christian Church I say by general Tradition which next to Scripture is the best and surest confirmation of this great Point now in question between us and that which gives us the greatest and truest light for the right understanding of the true sense and meaning of Scripture not only in this but in most other important Doctrines of the Christian Religion I am not without some good hopes I will not say confidence for I never thought that to be so great an advantage to any Cause as some men would be glad to make others believe it is hoping to help and support a weak Argument by a strong and mighty confidence But surely modesty never hurt any Cause and the confidence of man seems to me to be much like the wrath of man which St. James tells us worketh not the righteousness of God that is it never does any good it never serves any wise and real purpose of Religion I say I am not without some good hopes that I have in the foregoing Discourses clearly shewn that the tenour of Scripture and general Tradition are on our Side in this Argument and therefore I shall not need to give my self the trouble to examine this matter over again Now as to the Point of Reason the great Difficulty and Absurdity which they object to our Doctrine concerning this Mystery amounts to thus much that it is not only above Reason but plainly contrary to it As to its being above Reason which they are loth to admit any thing to be this I think will bear no great Dispute Because if they would be pleased to speak out they can mean no more by this but that our Reason is not able fully to comprehend it But what then Are there no Mysteries in Religion That I am sure they will not say because God whose infinite Nature and Perfections are the very Foundation of all Religion is certainly the greatest Mystery of all other and the most incomprehensible But we must not nay they will not for this reason deny that there is such a Being as God And therefore if there be Mysteries in Religion it is no reasonable Objection against them that we cannot fully comprehend them Because all Mysteries in what kind soever whether in Religion or in Nature so long and so far as they are Mysteries are for that very reason incomprehensible But they urge the matter much further that this particular Mystery now under debate is plainly contrary to Reason And if they can make this good I will confess that they have gained a great Point upon us But then they are to be put in mind that to make this good against us they must clearly shew some plain Contradiction in this Doctrine which I could never yet see done by any Great Difficulty I acknowledge there is in the explication of it in which the further we go beyond what God hath thought fit to reveal to us in Scripture concerning it the more we
have since made it a lawful way of lying which their Father of whom they learn'd it had not credit and authority enough to do And it deserves likewise to be very well considered by us that nothing hath given a greater force to the Exceptions of the Church of Rome against the H. Scripture's being a sufficient and certain Rule of Faith than the uncertainty into which they have brought the plainest Texts imaginable for the establishing of Doctrines of greatest moment in the Christian Religion by their remote and wrested interpretation of them Which way of dealing with them seems to be really more contumelious to those H. Oracles than the downright rejecting of their Authority Because this is a fair and open way of attacquing them whereas the other is an insiduous and therefore more dangerous way of undermining them But as for us who do in good earnest believe the Divine Authority of the H. Scriptures let us take all our Doctrines and Opinions from those clear Fountains of Truth not disturb'd and darkned by searching anxiously into all the possible Senses that the several words and expressions of Scripture can bear and by forcing that sense upon them which is most remote and unnatural and in the mean time wilfully overlooking and passing by that sense which is most obvious and easie to the common apprehension of any unbyass'd and impartial Reader This is to use the H. Scriptures as the Church of Rome have done many Holy and good men whom they are pleased to brand with the odious Name of Hereticks to torture them till they speak the mind of their Tormentors though never so contrary to their own I will now conclude this whole Discourse with a Saying which I heard from a great and judicious Man Non amo nimis argutam Theologiam I love no Doctrines in Divinity which stand so very much upon quirk and subtilty And I cannot upon this occasion forbear to say that those Doctrines of Religion and those Interpretations of Scripture have ever been to me the most suspected which need abundance of Wit and a great many Criticisms to make them out And considering the Wisdom and Goodness of Almighty God I cannot possibly believe but that all things necessary to be believ'd and practis'd by Christians in order to their eternal Salvation are plainly contain'd in the H. Scriptures God surely hath not dealt so hardly with Mankind as to make any thing necessary to be believ'd or practis'd by us which he hath not made sufficiently plain to the capacity of the unlearned as well as of the learned God forbid that it should be impossible for any man to be saved and to get to Heaven without a great deal of learning to direct and carry him thither when the far greatest part of Mankind have no learning at all It was well said by Erasmus That it was never well with the Christian World since it began to be a matter of so much Subtilty and Wit for a man to be a true Christian SERMON III. Concerning the Incarnation of CHRIST Preached in the Church of St. Lawrence Jewry December 21. 1680. JOHN I. 14. The Word was made flesh THE last Year about this Time and upon the same Occasion of the Annual Commemoration of the Incarnation and Nativity of our B. Lord and Saviour I began to discourse to you upon these Words In which I told you were contained three great Points concerning our Saviour the Author and Founder of our Religion First His Incarnation the Word was made or became flesh Secondly His Life and conversation here amongst us and dwelt among us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he pitched his Tabernacle among us he lived here below in this World and for some time made his residence and abode with us Thirdly That in this state of his Humiliation he gave great and clear evidence of his Divinity Whilst he appear'd as a Man and lived amongst us there were great and glorious Testimonies given of Him that he was the Son of God and that in so peculiar a manner as no Creature can be said to be And we beheld his Glory the Glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth I began with the first of these namely his Incarnation the Word was made flesh For the full and clear explication of which words I proposed to consider these two things I. The Person here spoken of and who it is that is here said to be incarnate or made flesh namely the Word And this I have handled at large in my two former Discourses upon this Text. I shall now proceed in the II. Second place to give some account of the nature and manner of this Incarnation so far as the Scripture hath thought fit to reveal and declare this Mystery to us The Word was made flesh that is He who is personally called the Word and whom the Evangelist hath so fully and clearly described in the beginning of his Gospel he became flesh that is assumed our Nature and became man for so the word flesh is frequently used in Scripture for Man or Human Nature So that by the Word 's becoming flesh that is Man the Evangelist did not only intend to express to us that he assumed a human Body without a Soul but that he became a perfect Man consisting of Soul and Body united It is very probable indeed that the Evangelist did purposely chuse the word flesh which signifies the frail and mortal part of Humanity to denote to us the great condescension of the Son of God in assuming our Nature with all its infirmities and becoming subject to frailty and mortality for our sake Having thus explain'd the meaning of this Proposition the Word was made flesh I shall in a further prosecution of this Argument take into consideration these three things First I shall consider more distinctly what may reasonably be suppos'd to be implied in this expression of the Word 's being made flesh Secondly I shall consider the Objections which are commonly brought against this Incarnation of the Son of God from the seeming impossibility or incongruity of the thing Thirdly And because after all that can be said in answer to those Objections it may still appear to us very strange that God who could without all this circumstance and condescension even almost beneath the Majesty of the Great God at least as we are apt to think have given Laws to Mankind and have offer'd forgiveness of Sins and eternal life upon their Repentance for sins past and sincere tho imperfect obedience for the future I say it may seem strange that notwithstanding this God should yet make choice of this way and method of our Salvation I shall therefore in the last place endeavour to give some probable account of this strange and wonderful Dispensation and shew that it was done in great condescension to the weakness and common prejudices of Mankind and that when it is throughly consider'd it will appear to be much
the Maker is always before the thing which is made so is he also better and of greater Dignity And yet I must acknowledge that there seems to be no small difficulty in the Interpretation I have given of this expression in which Christ is said by the Apostle to be the first-born of every Creature or of the whole Creation because in strictness of speech the first-born is of the same Nature with those in respect of whom he is said to be the first-born And if so then he must be a Creature as well as those in respect of whom he is said to be the first-born This is the Objection in its full strength and I do own it to have a very plausible appearance And yet I hope before I have done to satisfy any one that will consider things impartially and without prejudice and will duly attend to the scope of the Apostle's reasoning in this Text and compare it with other parallel places of the New Testament that it neither is nor can be the Apostle's meaning in affirming Christ to be the first-born of every Creature to insinuate that the Son of God is a Creature For how can this possibly agree with that which follows and is given as the reason why Christ is said to be the first-born of every Creature namely because all things were made by him The Apostle's words are these the first-born of every Creature or of the whole Creation for by him all things were created But now according to the Socinian interpretation this would be a reason just the contrary way For if all things were created by him then he himself is not a Creature So that the Apostle's meaning in this expression must either be that the Son of God our B. Saviour was before all Creatures as it is said presently after that he is before all things and then the reason which is added will be very proper and pertinent he is before all things because all things were created by him In which sense it is very probable that the Son of God elsewhere calls himself the beginning of the Creation of God meaning by it as the Philosophers most frequently use the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Principle or Efficient Cause of the Creation And so we find the same word which our Translation renders the beginning used together with the word first-born as if they were of the same importance the beginning and first-born from the dead that is the Principle and Efficient Cause of the Resurrection of the dead Or else which seems to me to be the most probable and indeed the true meaning of the Expression by this Title of the first-born of every creature the Apostle means that he was Lord and Heir of the Creation For the first-born is natural Heir and Justinian tells us that Heir did anciently signify Lord And therefore the Scripture uses these terms promiscuously and as if they were equivalent for whereas St. Peter faith of Jesus Christ that he is Lord of all St. Paul calls him Heir of all things And then the reason given by the Apostle why he calls him the first-born of every Creature will be very fit and proper because all things were created by him For well may he be said to be Lord and Heir of the Creation who made all things that were made and without whom was not any thing made that was made And this will yet appear much more evident if we consider that the Apostle to the Hebrews who by several of the Ancients was thought to be St. Paul where he gives to Christ some of the very same Titles which St. Paul in his Epistle to the Colossians had done calling him the Image of God and the Maker of the World does instead of the Title of the first-born of every Creature call him the Heir of all things and then adds as the reason of this Title that by him God made the Worlds God says he hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son whom he hath constituted Heir of all things Who being the brightness of his glory and the express Image of his person and upholding all things by the Word of his power c. Which is exactly parallel with that passage of St. Paul to the Colossians where Christ is call'd the Image of the invisible God and where it is likewise said of him that he made all things and that by him all things do subsist which the Apostle to the Hebrews in different words but to the very same sense expresseth by his upholding all things by the Word of his power that is by the same powerful Word by which all things at first were made But then instead of calling him the first-born of every Creature because all things were made by him he calls him the Heir of all things by whom God also made the worlds And indeed that expression of the first-born of every Creature cannot admit of any other sense which will agree so well with the reason that follows as the sense which I have mentioned namely that he is therefore Heir and Lord of the whole Creation because all Creatures were made by him which exactly answers those words of the Apostle to the Hebrews whom he hath constituted Heir of all things by whom also he made the Worlds And now I apppeal to any sober and considerate man whether the interpretation which I have given of that expression of the first-born of every Creature be not much more agreeable both to the tenour of the Scripture and to the plain scope and design of the Apostle's Argument and reasoning in that Text. I have insisted the longer upon this because it is the great Text upon which the Arians lay the main strength and stress of their Opinion that the Son of God is a Creature because he is said by the Apostle to be the first-born of every Creature by which expression if no more be meant than that he is Heir and Lord of the whole Creation which I have shew'd to be very agreeable both to the use of the word first born among the Hebrews and likewise to the description given of Christ in that parallel Text which I cited out of the Epistle to the Hebrews then this expression of the first born of every Creature is nothing at all to the purpose either of the Arians or the Socinians to prove the Son of God to be a Creature Besides that the interpretation which I have given of it makes the Apostle's sense much more current and easy for then the Text will run thus who is the image of the invisible God Heir and Lord of the whole Creation for by him all things were made So that in these four expressions of the Evangelist which I have explain'd there are these four things distinctly affirmed of the Word First That he was in the beginning that is that he already was and did exist when things began to be created He was before any thing was
Irenaeus Tertullian and even Origen himself who is called the Father of Interpreters are most express and positive in this matter For Ignatius was the Scholar of Polycarp who was a Disciple of St. John and Justin Martyr lived in the next Age to that of the Apostles and Origen was a man of infinite learning and reading and in his Comments upon Scripture seems to have considered all the Interpretations of those that were before him So that if this which Socinus is so confident is the true sense of St. John had been any where extant he would not probably have omitted it nay rather would certainly have mentioned it if for no other reason yet for the surprising novelty and strangeness of it with which he was apt to be over-much delighted So that if this interpretation of Socinus be true here are two things very wonderful and almost incredible First that those who lived so very near St. John's Time and were most likely to know his meaning as Ignatius Justin Martyr c. should so widely mistake it And then that the whole Christian World should for so many Ages together be deceived in the ground and foundation of so important an Article of Faith if it were true or if it were not should be led into so gross and dangerous an Error as this must needs be if Christ had no real existence before he was born into the World And which would be necessarily consequent upon this that no man did understand this Passage of St. John aright before Socinus This very consideration alone if there were no other were sufficient to stagger any prudent man's belief of this Interpretation And as to the Novelty of it Socinus himself makes no difficulty to own it nay he seems rather to rejoice and to applaud himself in it Unhappy man that was so wedded to his own Opinion that no Objection no difficulty could divorce him from it And for this I refer my self to his Preface to his Explication of this first Chapter of St. John's Gospel where you shall find these words concerning the Passage now in controversy quorum verus sensus omnium prorsus qui quidem extarent explanatores latuisse videtur the true sense of which words says he seems to have been hid from all the Expositors that ever were extant And upon those words v. 10. He was in the World and the World was made by him he hath this expression quid autem hoc loco sibi velit Johannes à nemine quod sciam adhuc rectè expositum fuit but what St. John means in this place was never yet that I know of by any man rightly explain'd And Schlictingius after him with more confidence but much less decency tells us that concerning the meaning of those expressions in the beginning and of those which follow concerning the Word the ancient Interpreters did ab Apostoli mente delirare went so far from the Apostle's meaning as if they had rav'd and been out of their wits Which is so extravagantly said and with so much contempt of those great and venerable Names who were the chief Propagaters of Christianity in the World and to whom all Ages do so justly pay a reverence that nothing can be said in excuse of him but only that it is not usual with him to fall into such rash and rude expressions But the man was really pinch'd by so plain and pressing a Text and where Reason is weak and blunt Passion must be whetted the only weapon that is left when Reason fails And I always take it for graned that no man is ever Angry with his Adversary but for want of a better Argument to support his Cause And yet to do right to the Writers on that side I must own that generally they are a Pattern of the fair way of disputing and of debating matters of Religion without heat and unseemly reflections upon their Adversaries in the number of whom I did not expect that the Primitive Fathers of the Christian Church would have been reckoned by them They generally argue matters with that temper and gravity and with that freedom from passion and transport which becomes a serious and weighty Argument And for the most part they reason closely and clearly with extraordinary guard and caution with great dexterity and decency and yet with smartness and subtilty enough with a very gentle heat and few hard words Vertues to be praised whereever they are found yea even in an Enemy and very worthy our imitation In a word they are the strongest managers of a weak Cause and which is ill founded at the bottom that perhaps ever yet medled with Controversy Insomuch that some of the Protestants and the generality of the Popish Writers and even of the Jesuits themselves who pretend to all the Reason and subtilty in the World are in comparison of them but mere Scolds and Bunglers Upon the whole matter they have but this one great defect that they want a good Cause and Truth on their Side which if they had they have Reason and Wit and temper enough to defend it But to return to the business That which I urge them withall and that from their own confession is this that this interpretation of theirs is perfectly new and unknown to the whole Christian World before Socinus and for that reason in my opinion not to be bragg'd of Because it is in effect to say that the Christian Religion in a Point pretended on both Sides to be of the greatest moment was never rightly understood by any since the Apostles days for fifteen hundred years together And which makes the matter yet worse that the Religion which was particularly design'd to overthrow Polytheism and the belief of more God hath according to them been so ill taught and understood by Christians for so many Ages together and almost from the very beginning of Chistianity as does necessarily infer a Plurality of Gods An inconvenience so great as no Cause how plausible soever it may otherwise appear is able to stand under and to sustain the weight of it For this the Socinians object to us at every turn as the unavoidable consequence of our interpretation of this Passage of St. John and of all other Texts of Scripture produced by us to the same purpose notwithstanding that this interpretation hath obtain'd in the Christian Church for so many Ages Now whosoever can believe that the Christian Religion hath done the Work for which it was principally design'd so ineffectually must have very little reverence for it nay it must be a marvellous civility in him if he believe it at all All that can be said in this Case is that it pleases God many times to permit men to hold very inconsistent things and which do in truth though they themselves discern it not most effectually overthrow one another Secondly Another mighty prejudice against this Interpretation is this that according to this rate of liberty in interpreting Scripture it will signify very little or
nothing when any Person or Party is concern'd to oppose any Doctrine contained in it and the plainest Texts for any Article of Faith how fundamental and necessary soever may by the same arts and ways of interpretation be eluded and render'd utterly ineffectual for the establishing of it For example If any man had a mind to call in question that Article of the Creed concerning the Creation of the World why might he not according to Socinus his way of interpreting St. John understand the first Chapter of Genesis concerning the beginning of the Mosaical Dispensation and interpret the Creation of the Heaven and the Earth to be the Institution of the Jewish Politie and Religion as by the new Heavens and the new Earth they pretend is to be understood the new State of things under the Gospel And why may not the Chaos signify that state of darkness and ignorance in which the World was before the giving of the Law by Moses And so on as a very learned Divine of our own hath ingeniously shewn more at large There is no end of Wit and Fancy which can turn any thing any way and can make whatever they please to be the meaning of any Book though never so contrary to the plain design of it and to that sense which at the first hearing and reading of it is obvious to every man of common sense And this in my opinion Socinus hath done in the Case now before us by imposing a new and odd and violent sense upon this Passage of St. John directly contrary to what any man would imagine to be the plain and obvious meaning of it and contrary likewise to the sense of the Christian Church in all Ages down to his Time who yet had as great or greater advantage of understanding St. John aright and as much integrity as any man can now modestly pretend to And all this only to serve and support an Opinion which he had entertain'd before and therefore was resolv'd one way or other to bring the Scripture to comply with it And if he could not have done it it is greatly to be feared that he would at last have called in question the Divine Authority of St. John's Gospel rather than have quitted his Opinion And to speak freely I must needs say that it seems to me a much fairer way to reject the Divine Authority of a Book than to use it so disingenuously and to wrest the plain expressions of it with so much straining and violence from their most natural and obvious sense For no Doctrine whatsever can have any certain foundation in any Book if this liberty be once admitted without regard to the plain Scope and Occasion of it to play upon the words and phrases with all the arts of Criticism and with all the variety of Allegory which a brisk and lively Imagination can devise which I am so far from admiring in the expounding of the Holy Scriptures that I am always jealous of an over-labour'd and far-fetch'd interpretation of any Author whatsoever I do readily grant that the Socinian Writers have managed the Cause of the Reformation against the Innovations and Corruptions of the Church of Rome both in Doctrine and Practice with great acuteness and advantage in many respects But I am sorry to have cause to say that they have likewise put into their hands better and sharper weapons than ever they had before for the weakning and undermining of the Authority of the H. Scriptures which Socinus indeed hath in the general strongly asserted had he not by a dangerous liberty of imposing a foreign and fore'd sense upon particular Texts brought the whole into uncertainty Thirdly Which is as considerable a prejudice against this new interpretation of this Passage of St. John as either of the former I shall endeavour to shew that this Point of the existence of the Word before his Incarnation does not rely only upon this single Passage of St. John but is likewise confirmed by many other Texts of the New Testament conspiring in the same sense and utterly incapable of the interpretation which Socinus gives of it I find he would be glad to have it taken for granted that this is the only Text in the New Testament to this purpose And therefore he says very cunningly that this Doctrine of the existence of the Son of God before his Incarnation is too great a Doctrine to be establish'd upon one single Text And this is is something if it were true that there is no other Text in the New Testament that does plainly deliver the same sense And yet this were not sufficient to bring in question the Doctrine delivered in this Passage of St. John That God is a Spirit will I hope be acknowledged to be a very weighty and fundamental Point of Religion and yet I am very much mistaken if there be any more than one Text in the whole Bible that says so and that Text is only in St. John's Gospel I know it may be said that from the light of natural Reason it may be sufficiently prov'd that God is a Spirit But surely Socinus of all men cannot say this with a good grace because he denies that the existence of a God can be known by natural light without Divine Revelation And if it cannot be known by natural light that there is a God much less can it be known by natural light what God is whether a Spirit or a Body And yet after all it is very far from being true that there is but one Text to this purpose which yet he thought fit to insinuate by way of excuse for the novelty and boldness of his interpretation of which any one that reads him may see that he was sufficiently conscious to himself and therefore was so wise as to endeavour by this sly insinuation to provide and lay in against it I have likewise another reason which very much inclines me to believe that Socinus was the first Author of this interpretation because it seems to me next to impossible that a man of so good an understanding as he was could ever have been so fond of so ill-favour'd a Child if it had not been his own And yet I do not at all wonder that his Followers came in to it so readily since they had him in so great a veneration it being natural to all Sects to admire their Master besides that I doubt not but they were very glad to have so great an Authority as they thought him to be to vouch for an interpretation which was so seasonably devis'd for the relief of their Cause in so much danger to be overthrown by a Text that was so plain and full against them And how little ground there is for this Insinuation that this is the only Text in the New Testament to this purpose I shall now shew from a multitude of other Texts to the same sense and purpose with this Passage of St. John And I shall rank them under
are entangled and that which men are pleased to call an explaining of it does in my apprehension often make it more obscure that is less plain than it was before which does not so very well agree with a pretence of Explication Here then I fix my foot That there are three Differences in the Deity which the Scripture speaks of by the Names of Father Son and H. Ghost and every where speaks of them as we use to do of three distinct Persons And therefore I see no reason why in this Argument we should nicely abstain from using the word Person though I remember that St. Jerome does somewhere desire to be excused from it Now concerning these Three I might in the first place urge that plain and express Text There are three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the H. Ghost and these three are one But upon this I will not now insist because it is pretended that in some Copies of greatest antiquity this Verse is omitted the contrary whereof is I think capable of being made out very clearly But this matter would be too long to be debated at present However that be thus much is certain and cannot be deni'd that our Saviour commanded his Apostles to baptize all Nations in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost And that the Apostles in their Epistles do in their most usual form of Benediction join these Three together And it is yet further certain that not only the Name and Title of God but the most incommunicable Properties and Perfections of the Deity are in Scripture frequently ascribed to the Son and the H. Ghost one Property only excepted which is peculiar to the Father as he is the Principle and Fountain of the Deity that he is of himself and of no other which is not nor can be said of the Son and H. Ghost Now let any man shew any plain and downright Contradiction in all this or any other Difficulty besides this that the particular manner of the existence of these three Differences or Persons in the Divine Nature express'd in Scripture by the Names of Father Son aud H. Ghost is incomprehensible by our finite Understandings and inexplicable by us In which I do not see what Absurdity there is since our Adversaries cannot deny that many things certainly are the particular manner of whose existence we can neither comprehend nor explain Let us now see whether the Opinion of our Adversaries hath not greater Difficulties in it and more palpable Absurdities following from it They say that the Son of God is a mere Creature not God by Nature and yet truly and really God by Office and by Divine appointment and constitution to whom the very same Honour and Worship is to be given which we give to Him who is God by Nature And can they discern no Difficulty no Absurdity in this What no absurdity in bringing Idolatry by a back-door into the Christian Religion one main Design whereof was to banish Idolatry out of the World And will they in good earnest contest this matter with us that the giving Divine Worship to a mere Creature is not Idolatry And can they vindicate themselves in this Point any other way than what will in a great measure acquit both the Pagans and the Papists from the charge of Idolatry What no Absurdity in a God as it were but of yesterday in a Creature God in a God merely by positive Institution and this in opposition to a plain moral Precept of eternal obligation and to the fix'd and immutable Nature and Reason of things So that to avoid the shadow and appearance of a Plurality of Deities they run really into it and for any thing I can see into downright Idolatry by worshipping a Creature besides the Creator who is blessed for ever They can by no means allow two Gods by Nature no more can we But they can willingly admit of two Gods the one by Nature and the other by Office to whom they are content to pay the same Honour which is due to Him who is God by Nature Provided Christ will be contented to be but a Creature they will deal more liberally with him in another way than in reason is fit And do they see no absurdity in all this nothing that is contrary to Reason and good sense nothing that feels like inconsistency and Contradiction Do they consider how often God hath declar'd that he will not give his glory to another And that the Apostle describes Idolatry to be the giving service or worship to things which by Nature are no Gods Surely if Reason guided by Divine Revelation were to chuse a God it would make choice of one who is declared in Scripture to be the only begotten of the Father the first and the last the beginning and the end the same yesterday to day and for ever much rather than a mere Creature who did not begin to be till about seventeen hundred years ago I only propose these things without any artificial aggravation to their most serious and impartial consideration after which I cannot think that these great Masters of Reason can think it so easy a matter to extricate themselves out of these Difficulties The God of Truth lead us into all Truth and enlighten the minds of those who are in Error and give them Repentance to the acknowledgment of the Truth For his sake who is the Way the Truth and the Life And thus much may suffice to have said upon this Argument which I am sensible is mere Controversy A thing which I seldom meddle with and do not delight to dwell upon But my Text which is so very proper for this Season hath almost necessarily engaged me in it Besides that I think it a Point of that concernment that all Christians ought to be well instructed in it And I have chosen rather once for all to handle it fully and to go to the bottom of it than in every Sermon to be flurting at it without saying any thing to the purpose against it A way which in my opinion is neither proper to establish men in the truth nor to convince them of their Error I shall only at present make this short reflection upon the whole That we ought to treat the Holy Scriptures as the Oracles of God with all reverence and submission of mind to the Doctrine therein revealed And to interpret them with that candour and simplicity which is due to the sincere Declarations of God intended for the instruction and not for the deception and delusion of men I say we should treat them as the Oracles of God and not like the doubtful Oracles of the Heathen Deities that is in truth of the Devil which were contrived and calculated on purpose to deceive containing and for the most part intending a sense directly contrary to the appearing and most obvious meaning of the Words For the Devil was the first Author of Equivocation though the Jesuits
had the same Notion from the Jews which made Amelius the Platonist when he read the beginning of St. John's Gospel to say this Barbarian agrees with Plato ranking the Word in the order of Principles meaning that he made the Word the Principle or efficient Cause of the World as Plato also hath done And this Title of the Word was so famously known to be given to the Messias that even the Enemies of Christianity took notice of it Julian the Apostate calls Christ by this Name And Mahomet in his Alchoran gives this Name of the Word to Jesus the Son of Mary But St. John had probably no reference to Plato any otherwise than as the Gnosticks against whom he wrote made use of several of Plato's words and notions So that in all probability St. John gives our B. Saviour this Title with regard to the Jews more especially who anciently call'd the Messias by this Name Secondly We will in the next place consider What might probably be the Occasion why this Evangelist makes so frequent mention of this Title of the Word and insists so much upon it And it seems to be this Nay I think that hardly any doubt can be made of it since the most ancient of the Fathers who lived nearest the time of St. John do confirm it to us St. John who survived all the Apostles liv'd to see those Heresies which sprang up in the beginnings of Christianity during the lives of the Apostles grown up to a great height to the great prejudice and disturbance of the Christian Religion I mean the Heresies of Ebion and Cerinthus and the several Sects of the Gnosticks which began from Simon Magus and were continued and carried on by Valentinus and Basilides Carpocrates and Menander Some of which expresly denied the Divinity of our Saviour asserting him to have been a mere man and to have had no manner of existence before he was born of the B. Virgin as Eusebius and Epiphanius tells us particularly concerning Ebion Which those who hold the same Opinion now in our days may do well to consider from whence it had its Original Others of them I still mean the Gnosticks had corrupted the simplicity of the Christian Doctrine by mingling with it the fancies and conceits of the Jewish Cabbalists and of the Schools of Pythagoras and Plato and of the Chaldaean Philosophy more ancient than either as may be seen in Eusebius de Preparat Evan. and by jumbling all these together they had framed a confused Genealogy of Deities which they called by several glorious Names and all of them by the general Name of Eons or Ages Among which they reckon'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the Life and the Word and the only begotten and the Fulness and many other Divine Powers and Emanations which they fancied to be successively derived from one another And they also distinguished between the Maker of the World whom they called the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New And between Jesus and Christ Jesus according to the Doctrine of Cerinthus as Irenaeus tells us being the man that was born of the Virgin and Christ or the Messias being that Divine Power or Spirit which afterwards descended into Jesus and dwelt in him If it were possible yet it would be to no purpose to go about to reconcile these wild conceits with one another and to find out for what reason they were invented unless it were to amuse the People with these high swelling words of vanity and a pretence of knowledg falsly so called as the Apostle speaks in allusion to the Name of Gnosticks that is to say the Men of knowledge which they proudly assum'd to themselves as if the knowledge of Mysteries of a more sublime nature did peculiarly belong to them In opposition to all these vain and groundless conceits St. John in the beginning of his Gospel chuses to speak of our B. Saviour the History of whose life and death he was going to write by the Name or Title of the Word a term very famous among those Sects And shews that this Word of God which was also the Title the Jews anciently gave to the Messias did exist before he assumed a human Nature and even form all Eternity And that to this eternal Word did truly belong all those Titles which they kept such a canting stir about and which they did with so much senseless nicety and subtilty distinguish from one another as if they had been so many several Emanations from the Deity And he shews that this Word of God was really and truly the Life and the Light and the Fulness and the only begotten of the Father v. 5. In him was the Life and the Life was the Light of men and v. 6. And the Light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not and v. 7 8 9. where the Evangelist speaking of John the Baptist says of him that he came for a witness to bear witness of the Light and that he was not that Light but was sent to bear witness of that Light And that Light was the true Light which coming into the World enlightens every man And v. 14. And we beheld his glory the glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth And v. 16. And of his fulness we all receive c. You see here is a perpetual Allusion to the glorious Titles which they gave to their Aeons as if they had been so many several Deities In short the Evangelist shews that all this fanciful Genealogy of Divine Emanations with which the Gnosticks made so great a noise was mere conceit and imagination and that all these glorious Titles did really meet in the Messias who is the Word and who before his Incarnation was from all eternity with God partaker of his Divine Nature and Glory I have declared this the more fully and particularly because the knowledge of it seems to me to be the only true Key to the interpretation of this Discourse of St. John concerning our Saviour under the Name and Title of the Word And surely it is a quite wrong way for any man to go about by the mere strength and subtilty of his Reason and Wit though never so great to interpret an ancient Book without understanding and considering the Historical occasion of it which is the only thing that can give true light to it And this was the great and fatal mistake of Socinus to go to interpret Scripture merely by Criticising upon words and searching into all the senses that they are possibly capable of till he can find one though never so forc'd and foreign that will save harmless the Opinion which he was before-hand resolved to maintain even against the most natural and obvious sense of the Text which he undertakes to interpret Just as if a man should interpret ancient Statutes and Records by
mere Critical skill in words without regard to the true Occasion upon which they were made and without any manner of knowledge and insight into the History of the Age in which they were written I should now proceed to the Second thing which I proposed to consider namely II. The Description here given of the Word by this Evangelist in his entrance into his History of the Gospel In the beginning says he was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God The same was in the beginning with God All things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made In which Passage of the Evangelist four things are said of the Word which will require a more particular Explication First That he was in the beginning Secondly That he was in the beginning with God Thirdly That he was God Fourthly That all were made by him 1st That he he was in the beginning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the beginning where speaking of Christ by the name of eternal life and of the Word of life That says he which was from the beginning Nonnus the ancient Paraphrast of St. John's Gospel by way of explication of what is meant by his being in the beginning adds that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without time that is before all time and if so then he was from all eternity In the beginning was the Word that is when things began to be made he was not then began to be but then already was and did exist before any thing was made and consequently is without beginning for that which was never made could have no beginning of its Being And so the Jews used to describe Eternity before the World was and before the foundation of the World as also in several places of the New Testament And so likewise Solomon describes the Eternity of Wisdom The Lord says he 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 When he prepared the Heavens I was there then I was with him as one brought up with him rejoicing always before him And so Justin Martyr explains this very expression of St. John that he was or had a Being before all Ages So likewise Athenagoras a most ancient Christian Writer God says he who is an invisible Mind had from the beginning the Word in himself 2ly That in the beginning the Word was with God And so Solomon when he would express the Eternity of Wisdom says it was with God And so likewise the Son of Sirach speaking of Wisdom says it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with God And so the ancient Jews often called the Word of God the Word which is before the Lord that is with him or in his presence In like manner the Evangelist says here that the Word was with God that is it was always together with him partaking of his Happiness and Glory To which our Saviour refers in his Prayer Glorify me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the World was And this being with God the Evangelist opposeth to his appearing and being manifested to the World v. 10. He was in the World and the World was made by him and the World knew him not that is he who from all eternity was with God appeared in the World and when he did so though he had made the World yet the World would not own him And this opposition between his being with God and his being manifested in the World the same St. John mentions elsewhere I shew unto you that eternal Life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us 3ly That he was God And so Justin Martyr says of him That he was God before the World that is from all Eternity But then the Evangelist adds by way of Explication the same was in the beginning with God that is though the Word was truly and really God yet he was not God the Father who is the Fountain of the Deity but an Emanation from him the only begotten Son of God from all eternity with him to denote to us that which is commonly called by Divines and for any thing I could ever see properly enough the distinction of Persons in the Deity at least we know not a fitter word whereby to express that great Mystery 4thly That all things were made by him This seems to refer to the description which Moses makes of the Creation where God is represented creating things by his Word God said Let there be light and there was light And so likewise the Psalmist By the Word of the Lord were the Heavens made and all the Host of them by the breath of his mouth And so St. Peter also expresseth the Creation of the World By the Word of the Lord the Heavens were of old and the Earth made out of Water And in the ancient Books of the Chaldeans and the verses ascribed to Orpheus the Maker of the World is called the Word and the Divine Word And so Tertullian tells the Pagans that by their Philosophers the Maker of the World was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word or Reason And Philo the Jew following Plato who himself most probably had it from the Jews says that the World was created by the Word whom he calls the Name of God and the Image of God and the Son of God two of which glorious Titles are ascribed to him together with that of Maker of the World by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews In these last days says he God hath spoken to us by his Son by whom also he made the Worlds Who is the brightness of his glory and the express Image of his person And to the same purpose St. Paul speaking of Christ calls him the Image of the invisible God the first-born of every Creature that is born before any thing was created as does evidently follow from the reason given in the next words why he call'd him the first-born of every Creature for by him were all things created that are in Heaven and in Earth visible and invisible all things were created by him and for him and he is before all things and by him all things subsist From whence it is plain that by his being the first-born of every Creature thus much at least is to be understood that he was before all Creatures and therefore he himself cannot be a Creature unless he could be before himself Nay the Apostle says it expresly in this very Text in which he is called the first-born of every Creature or of the whole Creation that he is before all things that is he had a Being before there was any created Being he was before all Creatures both in Duration and in Dignity for so must he of necessity be if all things were made by him for as