to have carried Mens sins or to have born them in his own Body at the place of Execution and it would be absurd and ridiculous to apply any such passages to him and yet as they say the Sins of Men were the cause of the death of those Victims offered to Almighty God by the Sinners and in the same manner were the cause of our Saviour's Death so the same Sins may truly be said to have been the cause of the death of St. Stephen and every Martyr yet the former Expressions being inapplicable to them and they contributing nothing to the Remission of Mens sins Christ onely being that Lamb of God who takes away the Sins of the World those Scriptural Expressions concerning the Death of Christ must signifie a great deal more than bare Dying upon Common Reasons can amount to But to answer this they tell us that whereas God proclaims himself Exod. 34.7 a God keeping Mercy for thousands forgiving Iniquities Transgressions and Sins according to the Hebrew Original it ought to be bearing or carrying Iniquities c. which is the same attributed here unto Christ and yet we cannot say that God as there named has satisfied for any sins therefore neither can Christ have satisfied for sins notwithstanding any such passages concerning him but this the Ancients easily answered by asserting our Jesus the Son of God to have been that very Being so often and emphatically called God who all along convers'd with the Israelites during their wandrings in the Wilderness as I formerly shewed and that Testimony given to their Opinion by St. Paul when dehorting the Corinthians from several Sins by the example of those Israelites 1 Cor. 10.9 he inserts Neither let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted i. e. the same Christ and were destroyed of Serpents where Moses tells us they tempted God when they fell under that Judgment therefore that God was Christ therefore he really did converse with Israel in those days otherwise he could not have been tempted that Testimony for any thing I have yet seen may pass for unanswerable But with all respect to their Critical Skill we must assert they are mistaken the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from whence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the cited Text not signifying to carry in its primary acceptation but levare to ease or to take away Marin Brinxia in verbo and so Marinus in his Arca Noe translates this very Text by levare or tollere and so God when he pardons or forgives sins is rightly said to ease Men of that burthen they bear or to take them away and consequently our translating the word by forgiving is true and agreeable to the general sense of Interpreters hence the Authors of the Septuagint Translation as good Criticks as our Socinians render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taking away not carrying Sins and they could scarce be suspected of being Athanasians no more could the Chaldee Paraphrast who interprets it by those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 leaving or remitting Iniquity the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never signifying Carriage or any thing of that Nature but only leaving or remitting with what else may be genuinely deduced from that Interpretation Vid. Castel Lex Hept in verbo so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Syriack Version signifies leaving remitting pardoning sparing but no where signifies supporting or carrying the Samaritans use 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word signifying easing and pardoning too the Arabic 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taking or driving as a flying Enemy is driven away by a pursuing Army So that for them because in a foreign sense the Hebrew word sometimes signifies to carry to interpret it so in this place contrary to the sense of all the World beside themselves is absurd and only shews what mean Shifts they are put to to find some Parallels to their abusive Constructions of Plain Scripture As for the Evangelists application of that Text Isa 53 4. He hath born our griefs and carried our sorrows to our Saviour Matth. 8.17 upon healing all the sick that were brought to him he only applies that to a particular there which really is of a general Import therefore what he applies to the removal of bodily Diseases St. Peter applies to Sins the Diseases of the Soul our Saviour visibly and openly removing the former as a sign of his removing the latter but not doing both in the same manner he cured bodily Distempers by a Word a Touch an Application of outward though seemingly unpromising Means but removing the Distempers of the Soul only by his Death and so by his blood cleansing us from all Sin satisfying his Father for all our Sins by his shedding of it purging our Souls from all the Filthiness and Corruption of Sins by the Application of it and by Faith in it and that Blood-shedding of our Saviour as tending to his Death prov'd it's infinite Price and Value so often taken notice of in Scripture by being equivalent to those Punishments Divine Justice might and must have laid upon Transgressours the Socinians indeed say He takes away our sins i. e. He makes a shew as if he died and bore the Punishment due to our Sins eorum quasi poenam in se recepit so putting a sham upon the World pretending or seeming to do what he never did from which if the World were convinced of the Truth of what they assert it would be very hard to persuade them that he did by such seeming Means eos à vera eorum poena exsolvere discharge Mankind really from those certain Punishments attending upon Sin so for that further put off That our Saviour may justly be said to procure Salvation for us by his Death because by that Obedience show'd to his Father in dying at his Command he had all Power conferred upon him both in heaven and earth and so had power to forgive our Sins and to confer eternal Life upon us It 's against Reason to believe it for all Power in Heaven and in Earth is infinite Power infinite Power must have an infinite Subject to reside in Christ being meer Man can be no such infinite Subject therefore no such Power can be confer'd on him on account of his Obedience for he cannot receive an impossible Reward but that infinite Power being essential to him as an infinite and eternal Spirit his Humane Nature as united to that is made Partaker of that infinite Power and consequently Christ God and Man can indeed bestow on us those mighty Blessings To fix in our Minds the Notion of Christ's Satisfaction for our sins the more we are told by the Apostle as I formerly cited him That we are justified freely by his Grace Rom. 3.24 25 26. through the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his Righteousness for the Remission of sins to declare at this time his
his converse with the World in our Nature From the Faith of the Primitive Church From that common and on every hand approved practice of adoring and presenting our prayers to Him Then We are to consider that account the Scriptures of the Old Testament give of Him and of his Appearance in the World where I will not undertake an exact estimate of every thing that has by Ancient Writers been apply'd that way nor every thing that Modern Controversie-Writers have insisted upon but upon some particular and more remarkable passages onely Among which the First is that of three Angels appearing to Abraham just before the destruction of Sodom Gen. 18.2 where I shall not insist on that that Abraham ran to meet them at their approach and bow'd himself toward the ground because I look upon that and the consequent words as onely expressions of kindness and hospitality suitable to the custome of that Age and Country and to that respect a Person of Abraham's goodness and sagacity would express to Strangers of a promising miene and venerable aspect But after this v. 22. we find the Angels going for Sodom but Abraham standing still before the Lord Two onely went forward so Lot in Sodom met with and entertain'd but Two the Third continued still with Abraham with infinite condescension declaring to him the reason of this extraordinary appearance upon Earth this favour hindred not the design but the other Two pass'd on while Abraham had the liberty to argue the case with him who is particularly stil'd the Lord so the Writer so Abraham in that converse frequently stiles him and that not by the same word originally which Lot made use of to the two Angels appearing to him c. 19.2 which is onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Jews account a name applicable to any but by that sacred and ineffable name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A name as they say onely applicable to the most High God and here we find Abraham continually speaking as any who ownes and reveres the Eternal Majesty of God would supplicate to Him and making use of that particular argument in his request Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do right c. 18.25 He then to whom Abraham apply'd himself was the Judge of all the Earth therefore no created Angel for such were never honour'd with that Character but it 's properly attributed to the Supreme God by the Psalmist Ps 94.1 2. O God to whom vengeance belongeth shew thy self lift up thy self thou Judge of the Earth and by the Apostle Heb. 12.23 where he tells the Hebrews They were come to God the Judge of all or as your Margin reads it To a Judge the God of all If we look yet forward into this story when Lot was convey'd safe from the destruction which fell upon Sodom Gen. 19.24 we are told The Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrha brimstone and fire from the Lord out of Heaven Epiph. Haer. l. 3. p. 832. where Photinus from whom some denominate our Socinians owns it was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word which rained from the Lord Sandii Hist Enud l. 1. p. 118. but that Word was God as we learn from the Evangelist John 1.1 By this we gain the certainty that our Saviour the Son of God had a Being before he was born of the Virgin Mary that the Title Power Acknowledgment belonging to the true God were given to him therefore that He was the true God To this might be added the History of Jacob's wrestling with the Man when he was left alone The Man he wrestled with Malac. 3.1 antiquity generally understood to be the Angel of the Covenant so Christ is nam'd Heb. 12.24 and this interpretation is no way disagreeable since the wrestler from the very contest gives Jacob the name of Israel which signifies a Prince Gen. 32.28 or one that powerfully prevails with God The Person wrestling with Jacob refuses to tell his name which created Angels were not wont to do Gabriel told Zacharias his name the name of Michael is often mention'd Luke 1.19 and the Writer of the Apocryphal book of Tobit supposes it no unusual thing when he introduces Tobias's companion calling himself Raphael one of the seven Angels that stand in the presence of God i. e. are in a more glorious state than the rest of that Heavenly Host Again Jacob expresses his sense of his Antagonist in the Name he gave to that place and the reason of it for says he I have seen God face to face and my life is preserved And lastly Jacob pray'd to him for a blessing and would not part without it which argued his acknowledgment of a Divine power in him and the Prophet Hosea makes such an interpretation of the Text scarce disputable where speaking of Jacob He had power over the Angel says he and prevailed Hos 12.4 5. He wept and made supplication unto him that was to own Him the true God He found Him in Bethel and there he spake with us Even the Lord GOD of HOSTS the Lord is his Memorial 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An expression so great and so high as never any created Being pretended to We may then take notice of the 45 Psalm a Psalm by all the ancient Jews apply'd to the Messias and rightly as will appear that Messias was Jesus Christ in that both Arians of old and Socinians of late as well as the Orthodox agree his very Name carries it He is Jesus the Saviour He is the Christ the anointed of God the Father The Psalmist there represents him at first as a Man tho' Fairer than the rest of humane race Ps 45.2 but he subjoyns Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever the Scepter of thy Kingdom is a right Scepter Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness therefore God thy God hath anointed thee with the oyl of gladness above thy fellows where that God to whom the Apostrophe or exclamation refers is called by the same name with that God who is said to anoint him in the original and the whole Text is authentically apply'd to the Son of God by the Apostle Hebr. 1.8 9. even to that Son whom he there shews to be so far above all Angelick Beings that when his Father brings his first begotten into the World he says And let all the Angels of God worship him which the Apostle quotes from the Psalmist Psal 97.7 not literally according to the Hebrew but according to the then current translation of the Septuagint which though varying from our Hebrew a little in words is the same in sense That the word by us translated Gods signifies and is apply'd to Created Beings sometimes we admit of as no way prejudicial to truth but if the Angels are commanded to worship Him and that Angel whom Saint John would have adored forbad him because He though an Angel Rev. 22.9 was but a
which made them employ a pert smatterer in Ignorance as their Hawker to disperse their new fangled Theology about the Countrey as if it were fit one employed so much in the dispose of Publick Charity should to keep the Ballance even between Heaven and Hell while he supports their Bodies pervert and poyson the Souls of the impertinently curious unthinking and injudicious part of Mankind If they have offered any new Reasons in defence of Errors Apparent rarae nantes in gurgite vasto it 's almost lost labour to hunt for them and the Quarry scarce worth stooping for when found It may be some may think those things considerable which He has reflected upon if so it's what He wished for presuming his Reflections might pass for a sufficient Refutation at least He hopes He has placed some things in so fair a Light that others may the more easily baffle their Novelties and secure the Foundations of our Christian Profession from the insolent attacks of Libertinism and prevailing Heresie If what the Author has done may be any way acceptable to the Pious and Learned World it will encourage Him to proceed farther and in due time to vindicate every Article of our Faith from the Insults of Socinians and Atheists and to offer them somewhat else wherein the Church of England is immediately concerned and which He hopes will do her no disservice however drooping her present Looks may be Otherwise He begs Pardon for what He has done already and will for the Future either Write better or leave that Work to those who are better able to defend the Cause If He has offered any thing New or Solid in vindication of our Antient Faith it will tend extremely to his Satisfaction If He have err'd in any Matter of weight He begs his Holy Mother's Pardon to the Censure of whose Lawful Governours He humbly submits All He has written and can conclude his Preface with nothing more apposite than that Petition of our Sacred Mother in her Litany From all false Doctrine Heresie and Schism from Hardness of Heart and Contempt of thy Word and Commandment Good Lord deliver us IMPRIMATUR Guil. Lancaster R. P. D. Henrico Episc Lond. à Sacris Domesticis Octob. 17. 1691. 1 Tim. 3.16 And without controversie great is the mystery of godliness God was manifest in the flesh IT 'S our business and design for the securing of those who shall read this discourse from damnable Errors for the glory of the eternal Son of God whose Divinity we find boldly impeach'd and blasphemously deny'd by a pestilent crew of subtle and insinuating Hereticks for the confirmation of that Faith in Christ which we profess and in which we hope to dye to encounter several of those Arguments thro' God's assistance which those enemies of Christianity assault the World with To which end it will be absolutely necessary to clear the sense of these words from those artificial clouds which some have endeavour'd to obscure them with and here we find the Socinians not so much disputing about the meaning of the first assertion without controversie great is the mystery of godliness as about the connexion of these words with the particulars following For if they can prove that the Incarnation of the Son of God is no part or member of our Faith or no mystery of our Religion they deprive us of one of the best and plainest Texts of Scripture for the maintaining of his Divinity Again if they can so bafflle all mysteries in Religion that nothing must be regarded but what can easily be comprehended by weak and corrupted reason our holy Religion stands upon a lower ground than the wretched Systems of Pagan Divinity and God must stand reprov'd himself if he speak any thing by inspired Prophets which the meanest person cannot fully and clearly understand In our entrance therefore on our intended discourse we must first remove these difficulties before we speak to the particulars And here we cannot but take notice that the Socinians generally profess abundance of respect for the Scriptures and seem to take a great deal of pains to assert their authority and it is upon the pretendedly genuine explication of that Word of God they build those Heretical Opinions with which they disturb the Church Socinus makes it a strange thing that any man professing Christianity should make any doubt of the authority of the books of the Old and New Testament Vid. Socin de author Scrip. op v. 1. p. 265. especially the last since the Writers of it were men of reputation and exactly acquainted with those things they writ about since the Writers were very well known since the books themselves are not corrupted or depraved and because there are no full or clear testimonies to be found that those books deserve not that credit we commonly give them Catech. Sect. 1. c. 2. The Racovian Catechism asserts the sufficiency of Scripture to make men wise to Salvation Eousque sunt sufficientia ut in rebus ad salutem necessariis iis solis acquiescendum est they are so sufficient to that great end that we ought to depend upon them only in matters of Salvation And for their assertion they add this among other reasons That it was not likely in so large a book and where so few things were absolutely necessary to Salvation Ibid. those very few things should not be fully laid down or that in a book where God had ordered so many things unnecessary he should have forgotten any thing that was absolutely necessary to Salvation And farther they avouch the integrity of Scripture that those holy Books are not corrupted or alter'd and that principally because they say it 's inconsistent with God's Providence and goodness to permit those writings in which he had declared himself and manifested his Will and shewed the way to eternal Salvation and which as such were immediately received and approved by all good men to permit such Writings to be any way corrupted besides that there were so many Copies of those Books transcribed at first in places so far distant one from another and they were translated into so many several languages presently that if any corruption or alteration had been attempted Ibid. c. 1. it had been impossible they should all have conspired in the same reading and therefore we may observe where the least change has been made the Copies disagree In this observation we close with them and by their own rule the better answer their cavil with this Text. For they tell us that some Copies read this Text not as we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God was manifest in the flesh but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which was manifest in the flesh without any mention of God at all Erasmus was the first in this observation Grotius follows him and tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God is wanting in the vulgar Latin Grot. in loc the Syriac and Arabic translations and that St. Ambrose takes no notice
of it and that Hincmare Bishop of Rhemes says it was foisted into the Text by the Nestorians Curcellaeus tells us the same and of an old Greek Copy mentioned by Morinus wherein part of the word was written by a later hand This Critical observation the Socinians with one consent lay hold on by that means endeavouring to avoid so plain a Text for the Divinity of the Son of God So Volkelius tells us plainly that our Text is one of those Scriptures Volkel de â—â—â—d â—elig Edit Am l. 5. p. 462. c. â—1 quas ad errorem suum stabiliendum detorquent adversarii which those who believe Christ to be God wrest to the maintenance of their own error for the name of God is not in all the Greek Copies as may be seen by the vulgar Latin and Syriac Versions but all the following particulars are to be referr'd to the Mystery of Godliness mentioned before which mystery of Godliness was manifested in the flesh and this Grotius before cited on the place takes to be very good sence Crellius on this place observes the same thing yet owns Quod Graeci constanter pro ö legunt Θεὸς that the Greeks whose the Original is read the name of God unanimously in the Text tho' some Versions want it He tells us a story of Macedonius the Patriarch of the Pneumatomachoi or those Hereticks who deny'd the divinity or personality of the Holy Ghost or of some other of that name of which more hereafter that he attempted the depraving of this passage and that there is no question but he inserted the controverted word into the Text afterwards He refers us to an abridgment of the case of Nestorius and Eutyches Crellius iâ— loc Bibliot fr. Pol. inter opera Cr. v. 2. p. 18 19. written by Liberatus a Deacon of Carthage who tells us that Macedonius Bishop of Constantinople was deprived by the Emperour Anastasius as a falsifier of Scripture and particularly for inserting the word God in this place of S. Paul He tells us indeed that In eo consentiunt omnes malam manum huic loco fuisse adhibitam fraudemque à Macedonio attentatam All agree in this that some foul play was offered to the Text and that Macedonius was concern'd in the cheat but for this we must take his word for he gives us no other authority and all this is repeated in the Racovian Catechism Catech. Raco p. 55. Sect. 4. c. 1. and the short note of Andreas Wiscoveatius upon the question about the sence of our Apostle Schlicktingius another of the same Tribe and a great hearer of Crellius yet here contradicts his companion and tells us boldly and roundly Schlicktingius in locum oper t. 2. p. 150. Contin Ir. Ir. p. 106. par 58. that several Greek Copies read it otherwise than we do i. e. they omit the word God but proves it only by the forecited translations and to name no more Zwicker in the defence of his Irenicum Irenicor against Comenius calls this Text locus dubiae lectionis a place read several ways Now the inference these Hereticks make from this Criticism is That this Text is indeed no proof of any thing for since we know not how it was written at first by reason of the difference among the Copies now extant it 's not to be admitted as a proof so Crellius Crell ubi supra Cum nemo ambigat tentatum esse aliquid circa hunc locum varientque hodie lectiones nil ex illo solidi ad aliquod in Religione Dogma stabiliendum duci posse certum est Since none doubt there has been somewhat attempted about this Text and that the Copies at this time differ one from another no solid argument can be drawn from thence for the confirming any Tenet in Religion With him agrees the Racovian Catechism in express terms but here we may answer them according to their own position before mentioned That since the original Greek Copies in which Language the new Testament was written by the inspired authors do all agree in reading this Text as we do in our Bibles we need not trouble our selves about the disagreement of two or three Translations since having to do with men highly pretending to reason we may rationally conclude God's goodness and providence would take more care to secure the Originals than those Translations and that he really did preserve the Originals unperverted on purpose to prevent the ill effects those imperfect translations might otherwise have had for who but a proselyte of Rome or a Socinian would run to an uncertain stream when he might with the same ease drink at the fountain head where every thing is pure and clean But if we examine the matter more strictly the whole pretence of different Copies is false or impertinent Vid. Gothofr in Poli Synop. Gothofredus in a particular discourse on this Text could find no difference in the original Books and all Grotius and Schlicktingius and Curcellaeus and Crellius have said amounts but to one among 1000. and that one very questionable too The Syriac translation indeed does want the word in our Polyglot Bibles but the Arabic version has it God appear'd in the flesh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor do I find any various readings there The vulgar Latin has not the word indeed but when Grotius and from him the rest tell us that St. Ambrose read it not they shew more craft than sincerity that Father reads the text without God in it but he interprets it as we do that the mystery here spoken of was Christus in carne Christ appearing in the flesh Ambros com in Epist 1. ad Tim. Edit Par. 1549. p. 2056. Tamdiu aspectu humilis visus est per carnem quamdiu devicta morte resurgeret à mortuis videretur majestas ejus qui natus ut homo non erat totus homo He appear'd humble in his flesh so long till having conquer'd death he rose again and that his Majesty might be seen who tho' he was born as a man was not meerly a man i. e. he was God as well as man Not to take any notice that St. Ambrose really was not the author of those Commentaries on St. Paul's Epistles printed commonly among his works but Hilary the Deacon a stout adversary of Arianisme in the fourth Century As for Crellius his story of Macedonius it 's loose and impertinent Macedonius indeed who was thrust into the chair of Constantinople by the Arrians upon the death of Alexander in the year 342. was Heretick enough and consequently like enough to attempt an ill thing But that Macedonius mentioned by the Deacon Liberatus was thrust out of his See by the Emperour Anastasius for his not complying with Hereticks in the year 515. when it was too late to attempt an innovation in Scripture and who beside could have no design in so doing since he held no peculiar opinions about our Saviour to which such a corruption
him for we shall see him as he is And when reason once comes to use sense so far as to see God as he is infinitely happy infinitely good infinitely glorious it has gone far enough And thus far have I given an account of Humane reason or the light of Nature for I think I may well enough use them as Synonymous and how far it may be useful in matters of a Divine nature I shall draw onely a Corollary or two from thence and then proceed We conclude from what has been discours'd concerning Humane reason That our obligation to Almighty God is infinite in that He who might have taken from us wholly that natural light because we had so extremely slighted it was yet pleas'd to continue it so far as that rightly apply'd it might still be useful to us even in matters of salvation It 's true we cannot examine things with that clearness and satisfaction which Adam's first enquiries were accompany'd with our understandings are somewhat parallel to that Earth which fell under a Curse for the sin of Man It was naturally fertile before in good things but then it was to bring forth onely bryars and thorns yet Man might eat bread from it still onely it must be in the sweat of his brows He must take pains for that now which he might have had without any trouble before So our Natural reason was clear and free at first common occurrences needed no deep meditations nor extraordinary passages any tedious study to apprehend them in every circumstance The case is now otherwise our reason busies it self naturally about trifles and onely puzles and perplexes it self in matters of no weight or moment yet still it may move to good purpose but it requires abundance of care and pains to cultivate it so as it may produce any thing that 's good and even with a great deal of pains too sometimes it makes conclusions onely vain troublesome and miserably false this unhappiness is the consequence of our own follies at first and it's God's unmerited goodness that we can yet by making use of due means distinguish in some measure between truth and falshood at least in the more obvious parts of religion and his goodness yet appears farther in that where our decrepit reason fails he 's pleas'd to interpose with the influences of his blessed Spirit and to preserve the Modest and Humble from falling into damnable Error that our Reason may have a subject profitable to employ it self upon God has given us his Word blessed are they who meditate on that word day and night he calls upon us to apply our selves to the Law and to the testimony to search the Scriptures to search them with the same care and diligence as those who work in Mines seek for the golden Ore Whereas he lays in his Word several Commands upon us He would have us examine them so as we may be convinced that they are not grievous but Holy just and good These Commandments therefore must be examin'd by the rule of right Reason which whosoever follows will be infinitely satisfied in them In his dealings with mankind he calls upon them to examine their own ways by the same rule he enters into arguments highly rational with mankind himself he bids them to judge in their own causes between himself and them and see if discussing things rationally they must not necessarily fall upon that confession That God's ways are equal but the ways of men unequal When he recommends his mercies when he would terrifie with his judgments He appeals to Humane Reason still or that share of light which we are now partakers of Now he that will employ that light he has upon such noble subjects if he be not prejudiced with wicked principles before or puff'd up with self-conceit must necessarily be a very religious man for the clearer any mans rational faculty is the more pious he must be only men of very low abilities can be either Atheists or Hereticks It 's confest indeed some Hereticks as the Socinians in particular with whom we are at present concern'd pretend highly to Reason but they only sham us with fond pretences and their reason is all empty and sophistical and Atheists are the Men of sence if we may believe fools and madmen but there is a vast difference between a flashy Wit and a ridiculing Humour and sound judgment and solid and weighty argument But God who knew before what artifices Hell and wicked men would make use of to pervert truth calls upon us to exercise our reason farther in discovering and baffling those cheats the enemies of our Souls would fain put upon us wherein as Hereticks and Schismaticks generally make their appeals to God's Word and we have warning in that very Word That in those doctrines where there 's any shew of difficulty those who are unlearned and unstable wrest the Scriptures to their own destructions We are warn'd to try the Spirits whether they be of God and Scripture being the rule of tryal we are oblig'd to study the true sence and meaning of that To which end our rational faculty carries us along in studying the original Languages in which Scripture was written and finding out the true meaning and import of words and phrases in other authors and the modes and customs of countries to which any Texts refer Reason goes with us in comparing text with text and matters of faith or practice laid down in one place with those laid down in another in observing the force of those arguments drawn from such and such Texts their real dependance upon or direct consequence from the places alledg'd and the general consistency of opinions offer'd with the end and design of those positive truths laid down in Scripture Reason has here a large field to exercise it self in And whereas we are urg'd by some to abjure that utterly with respect to those points of faith or practice that are under debate pretending they 'd insist only on the letter of Scripture Maximus tells us well in the formerly cited discourse of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they drive you from examining Scripture too strictly insinuating that it 's dangerous to pry too narrowly into secrets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Maximi disceptatio inter opera Athan. T. 2. p. 296. but disswading it indeed that they might avoid the reproof of their Errors from thence where he takes farther notice how such persons if they meet but with a word that at first hearing sounds favourably to their fancies they run away with it without ever considering the design of the inspired Writer or examining the agreement of their own shallow glosses with the general tenour of Holy Writ an humour that prevails with too many still who prefer the sound of words before the truth and pertinency of texts of Scripture and therefore imagine themselves to argue very piously and agreeably to God's word when all their talk is nothing to the purpose But mysteries the great
as the thirsty Hart pants after the water brooks therefore they are willing to undergo every thing that a malignant World can lay upon them as being certainly assured that whatsoever the joys of Heaven are all the afflictions or sufferings they can meet with in this World are not worthy to be compared with them Impressions looking toward these things are so natural to the Soul of Man that all the artifices of wickedness are not able to efface them and yet the consequences of these impressions are so great and mysterious that all the wit of Man cannot possibly comprehend them yet faith goes through with all and is not cannot be mistaken in its confidence at last If Faith it self the continual security of the Soul be so dark and undefinable what must we judge of the objects of it they being generally so vast that Faith it self soaring as it is can go but a very little way in its Idea's of them that the objects of Faith are real and true is evident from what has been said that their Nature is incomprehensible and their Reasons inscrutable to created Beings is as true but not at all to be wonder'd at since there are a thousand common effects of Nature the truth of which we are beyond contradiction convinced of but why they should happen so or so the cunningest Philosophers are no more able to resolve than despised Ideots or Naturals Agreeably to what I am urging I instanc'd before in the being of God a truth which Men cannot balk tho' they take never so much pains to that purpose that this God this supreme Governour or Manager of all things must some way or other communicate himself to his Creatures for that otherwise they could neither pretend to a well being or a being is as clear by rational discourse but how God should communicate of himself to these creatures where there is so vast a disproportion in their Natures is a riddle which we have not yet found any Apollo subtle enough to resolve and yet that God does communicate himself to his creatures is as plain and undeniable Those who engage themselves into enquiries about these things do but lose themselves in inextricable Labyrinths and indeed according to the genuine rules of right reason do but take pains to no purpose it was that general sense which mankind all along has had of these things that has made them endeavour to frame some short Idea's of the Deity to themselves and so tho' they could conceive nothing adaequate to his Nature yet they have run high as words can carry them when they stile God a being infinitely just powerful good merciful wise c. These general notions of theirs in some measure influenc'd the lives of many but much more all the external and visible parts of their religious Devotions And when they have shewed their utmost skill in contriving Schemes of divine Worship those men have done best and most sutably to the nature of Religion who have contrived the outward parts of it so as they might a little shadow out the necessary apprehensions of the divine Nature and yet so too that the Devotoes who made the nicest observations of things might be sensible that those external religious shews referred to a great deal of a darker and more inintelligible nature and which no Symbols whatsoever could possibly illustrate or represent and those Divine Oracles which were spoken of in all parts of the World as they rendred Religion more August and Venerable to the eye of the World so the nature of those Oracles convinced the World yet more strongly of the defectiveness of humane understanding the certain knowledge of futurity where men imagine themselves free agents being Essential to the Deity but one of the most puzling things humane Reason can possibly fix upon This the Romans and their predecessors the Latines represented by a Janus with two faces the Hetrurians by a Janus with four which might as some tell us refer to the four parts of the year but more genuinely it represented the Deity looking every way so that nothing past present or to come could possibly avoid its knowledge and the Prophets of old had that character as communicated to them from the inspiring Deity that they knew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Didymus in Hom. Iliad 1. v. 70. it being as Didymus tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the part of a compleat Prophet to understand exactly the three differences of times Men are apt to be presuming enough on the depth of their own understanding but we find Heresies since the propagation of Christianity have taught men much more confidence than ever Nature did and therefore as we find Philosophers of old the more rational the more modest but that those who set up for senceless Paradoxes made it their business to hector every body into their own notions and to make up their want of argument by face and metal as we may see in Lucretius his Epicurean Poem So Schismaticks and Hereticks in the Christian Church the farther they fly from the genuine practice of ancient Christians and the Doctrine of the Gospel the more positive and daring they are in their assertions the more close Communion they pretend to hold with God and to be the very privadoes of Heaven as the profligate Gnosticks of old pretended to know every thing when indeed they knew nothing and some wretched Ignorants of late years when they have been led Captives by the Devil at his will have yet talked of being godded with God and Christed with Christ And our followers of Socinus who run violently against the stream of Reason bear themselves for the greatest rationalists in the world Whereas Nature tho' corrupted taught Men modestly to own their own ignorance to confess their inability to comprehend all those mysteries attendant on the Deity to look upon shadows and representations of things at a distance as the best way of imprinting reverence upon Mens minds and therefore to satisfie themselves with such shadows and figures lest by pretending to more they should fall into absurdities and by that means render themselves and Religion contemptible and ridiculous God took a particular care of the Jewish Nation and instituted all those Rites and Ceremonies which they made use of in their worship all which Rites and Ceremonies were either so many remembrancers of things past as the great goodness and mercy of God shewn to the people of Israel and his justice or vengeance on their enemies or otherwise they were so many types and shadows of things to come and particularly of that Messias or Saviour of the world to be born into it in fulness of time Now the manner of Gods avenging himself on his own and his peoples enemies was uncouth and prodigious but the birth of a Saviour one who by his interest with Heaven should visit and redeem his people to procure Salvation for the whole world was altogether a mystery a means of procuring the
to effect our Salvation God and particularly God the Son should assume our nature to himself We shall make some deductions from these Considerations We assert then That that Man call'd Jesus Christ and reputed the Messias or the Saviour of the World who appear'd in our nature was really indeed the Son of God It 's he whose Genealogy we have in Scripture descended according to the flesh from the Royal Line of the House of Judah the true and legal Heir of David's sacred Family whose birth into the World as it was mean and despicable so it was very publick and unquestionable We find his actions set down at large in the Gospels and Him according to their history a Man of a blameless life and conversation and of inexpressible condescenscions and goodness we observe him going about and doing good the proper character of a great Person in the Country of Judaea healing Diseases casting out Devils forgiving Sins and that not by a precarious or surreptitious power but by a really supreme inherent Authority of his own We meet with him afterwards accus'd by Jews condemn'd by Romans and according to their Law crucified between two Thieves on Mount Calvary buried by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus rais'd again in a stupendious manner conversant among several Persons who were his Companions and admirers before talking eating and drinking with them forty days together and afterwards in publick view lifted up above the Clouds beyond the utmost reach of humane Eyes this Man call'd Jesus Christ by the Writers of all these things was really the Son of God He that would recommend a new discovery to the World gives a considerable advantage to its reputation by the extraordinary worth and merit of the Author and therefore whereas the Gospel or the glad tidings of salvation were the newest and most glorious discovery the World was capable of and though the most welcome to a declining Age yet with all the most incredible it was incumbent upon the first divulgers of it to recommend it upon the wisdom and power of its founder The reputed wise Men of old to render them more venerable to the multitude were wont to derive the first Originals of their great Benefactors from the Gods But never was any benefit conferr'd on any place or Person by the kindest Patron which could stand in competition with that which the blessed Jesus conferr'd on the whole World therefore never could any such publick Benefactor be with equal reason deriv'd from Heaven with him From thence therefore the inspired Writers deduce his Pedigree too as well as from David and tell us boldly that that great Man whose praises they celebrate in their Writings was indeed the Son of God which they assert not in a Metaphorical sense as the Psalmist calls Rulers and Governours Psal 82.6 I have said ye are Gods and ye are all of you Children of the most high As the Angels are stil'd by God himself in his question to Job Whereupon are the foundations of the Earth fastened or who laid the corner stone thereof When the Morning stars sang together Job 38.6 7. and all the Sons of God shouted for joy as believers are stil'd by the Evangelist As many as received him to them gave he power to become the Sons of God even to them that believe on his name John 1.12 1 Joh. 3.2 And again Beloved we are now the Sons of God But the holy Writers make him the Son of God in a plain literal sense as Seth is call'd the Son of Adam being begotten of him as Isaac of Abraham as Solomon of David or as we generally understand the word in our common expressions of the nearest Relations declaring him so the Son of God begotten of his father before all worlds in contradistinction to creation But it would not have been enough to satisfie the world in the truth of that extraordinary original for them to assert it for tho' men value great discoveries according to the credit of their Authors yet the weight and greatness of the discoveries make them nice and curious in their disquisitions about them that they may not be impos'd on for how wretched a disappointment would it have been for a whole world to be big with the violent expectation of a Saviour to be throughly sensible of their own necessity to have a company of men boldly publish to them that the expected Saviour was really come and qualified suitably to those wonderful expectations they had of him and yet to find nothing but a sham or an imposture at last a Bar-cozbi the Son of a ly instead of a Barcochab the Star that should have risen in Jacob as the unhappy Jews were deluded at last In such a case Men are wont to look for clear and uncontroulable evidences of the authority of the discoverer and had not God himself afforded such to the world in relation to the descent and original of our Saviour it would scarce have been reconcileable to infinite justice to have condemn'd the world for not believing on him Nor would Almighty God have made use of those effectual means to satisfie humane doubts had he not himself judged it highly rational that those creatures of his for whom he intended so great a good should receive entire satisfaction in the truth and nature of that good bestow'd In the evidences of his being the Son of God lay all the strength and weight of his Doctrine and the validity and efficacy of that Repentance preach'd by the Apostles in his name had he after all those glorious pretences been one of an inferior rank there never had been so great an Impostor in the world as Christ nor such frontless cheats as his Apostles nor such abused besotted bewitched Creatures in Nature as the Christians in all ages have been Therefore to vindicate both their own Credit and that of their Master the Evangelists in their writings first appeal to the common knowledge of those who liv'd at the same time that Christ convers'd on earth at which time had what they published been false it would certainly have been quickly confuted by the interested Jews and Romans For the Jews who saw themselves expos'd under the characters of the most obstinate and ingrateful infidels in the world and the Romans who saw themselves traduced as tools in the hands of their own vassals to carry on the most barbarous and unreasonable cruelties would certainly have vindicated themselves to the utmost against their slanderers could they have found any flaws in those things they delivered yet the Jews never went about to deny the existence of Jesus the supposed Son of Joseph nor the reality of those mighty works perform'd by him but rather to shew the possibility of all those things tho' Jesus were not the Messias wherein they were easily baffled and the Gentiles endeavoured to confront his Miracles by the pretended wonders wrought by Simon Magus and Apollonius Thyanaeus and so to depretiate the Messiah's
fellow Servant a Creature and order'd him to worship God i. e. the Supreme Being then that must be a Rule to Angels too and they might not adore or worship a Creature no more than the Apostle might therefore the Son of God was no Creature since they are commanded to worship him therefore He must be God for we know of no intermedial power between a Creator and a Creature We are to worship the Lord our God Mat. 4.10 and him onely are we to serve as our Saviour himself alledges but We are to worship the Son of God Angels are to do so too therefore the Son of God is God And since we are gotten into this first Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews we may add in evidence of our assertion that other quotation Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the Earth Ps 102.25 and the Heavens are the work of thy hands Heb. 1.10 c. they shall perish but thou remainest and they all shall wax old as doth a garment and as a vesture shalt thou change them and they shall be changed but thou art the same and thy years shall not fail which Text is so home to the proof of the Divinity of the Son of God that Schlicktingius twists and winds himself every way to evade its force in his Commentary on the place and after all does but Magno conatu magnas nugas agere as the Comedian he makes a great stir to no purpose He finds fault with the Author of the Epistle If He says he design'd to perswade us Christ was the most high God why did he not say so without any farther circumstance the matter had been then past dispute But we suppose it is so plain as nothing can be more already it 's as plain as those words he 'd prescribe could have made it to All but men of perverse wits who wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction for if as He owns none but the Supreme God could be the Maker of Heaven and Earth and the Creation of Heaven and Earth be here by the Apostle ascribed to the Son then the inevitable consequence which the Heretick would have had laid down at first is that the Son is the Supreme God or God equal with the Father And whereas the main foundation of the Arrian and Socinian Heresie is as Sandius another of that tribe owns that there was a time when the Son was not if the Son of God was indeed the Creator of all things then he was before all things and consequently before time it self and so their foundation is apparently false for he that had a Being before time was must of necessity be Eternal But Schlicktingius would perswade us that of the whole Text produced by the Apostle onely the sence of the last words is to be referr'd to Christ and that it 's quoted onely to prove that the Dominion of Christ shall not expire but with the abolition of all things Schlicktingius in locum Quod Regni Christi quod nunc in terris administrat terminus cum inimicorum ejus omnium abolitione quos Coeli Terrae ruina involvet sit conjunctus are his words That the end of Christ's Kingdom which he administers in this World is joyn'd with the utter abolition of all his Enemies who shall be at once involv'd in the ruines of the Universe As for the first part of the quotation he makes it altogether impertinent but that the Apostle took the Text whole as it lay because he knew the Hebrews to whom he wrote were in no danger of interpreting the Creation of the World as referring to Christ whom they knew well enough to be no other than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a meer Man and no more and adds that had the Apostle design'd any more by that Text it had been altogether beside his purpose But here I conclude our Adversary mistook the Apostle's meaning wilfully which is this Writing to the Jews his first design is to convince them of the Messiahship of Christ whom they knew to be a Man they had seen evidences enough of that in what he did and suffer'd among them they had seen him crucified dead and buried so that they could not dream of his having onely a fantastick body being onely an apparition as some Hereticks afterwards asserted a phantasm or a Spirit had no flesh and bones as they saw him have The Hebrews were so certain of this that they would believe him to be no more than a Man a man weak and inconsiderable a perfect cheat pretending to the noble character of being their long expected Messiah but no way answering that Character having appear'd in no such glory as the Prophets had foretold and having wrought no deliverance for Israel according to their reasonable expectations Now to convince them of their Error he asserts Christ to have been the Son of God v. 2. He proves the Messiah was to be so from their own Books v. 5. He asserts Him to have been the express Image of God's Person the brightness of his glory the Vpholder of all things by his power v. 3. That the Messiah was to be so he proves from his superiority to Angels v. 6 7. Nay he asserts him to be God and proves the Messiah was to be so v. 8 9 10 c. In the Epistle afterwards he shews the accomplishment of the Legal Types in him with the excellency of his office in every respect particularly of his Priesthood the conclusion of all which to them is this That if the Types of the Law were accomplisht in him which they could judge of by comparing the Law with his Actions if He were the Son of God as himself asserted and proved he then could be no cheat how meanly soever he appear'd in the world but was capable of being the Messiah and having own'd himself to be so since he was incapable of deceit He really was that Messiah they expected and had wrought a Deliverance greater and more valuable than they dream'd of not only for them but for all the World and to make good this Truth the applying the Creation of all things to him was not impertinent God made the Worlds by his Son v. 2. of this Chapter Therefore he by whom the worlds were made had a being himself before they were made which is what St. John asserts of the Word which was God John 1.1 3. All things were made by Him and without Him was nothing made that was made all which consider'd it 's no wonder the Psalmist prescribed so to the Church Hearken O Daughter and consider and incline thine ear forget also thine own people and thy Father's house so shall the King greatly desire thy beauty Psal 45.10 11. for he is thy Lord God and worship thou him He that was God was really and lawfully to be worshipped The next place I shall urge is that of the Prophet Isaiah Isai 9.6 Vnto us a
which cost him so much study so many fastings and earnest prayers to Almighty God and Schlichtingius pursues the fancy with a great deal of heat and violence Crellius joyns with it too so that this may pass for their general solution of the difficulty a difficulty which could never be found till they created it and with their mighty pretences to Reason and clear interpretations of difficult places shut all true Reason and clear Scripture-light out of doors It 's certain that the Evangelists mention nothing of this formal ascent into heaven and is it likely that they who set down all the circumstances of his birth to his very wrapping in swadling clothes and lying in a manger they who mention his flight into Aegypt his wandring from his parents his several ascents to Jerusalem his Transfiguration on mount Tabor a matter much less glorious and important his talk with Moses and Elias a very unnecessary discourse if he had learn'd all those things from God himself before is it likely that those who set down these things so punctually nay S. Luke himself of whom when it serves their turns they say that He was so inquisitive as to omit nothing of consequence wherein our Saviour was concern'd that these should omit so prodigious an Ascent into heaven as this which would naturally have conciliated so great an authority to his person and his doctrine and would have been very necessary too if he had been no more than a meer man Had there really been such an Ascent it would have been very improper in his younger years for besides the weakness and insufficiency of that age for the most divine speculations we are told plainly after that dispute of his with the Doctors and his return with and obedience to his parents Luke 2.52 that He encreased in wisdom and in stature and in favour with God and Man which must be false and ridiculous if he had been in Heaven before and had been fully instructed in all divine matters by God himself As for that second time allotted for this Ascent viz. immediately after his Baptism the Evangelists tell us plainly the design of his being led by the Spirit into the wilderness was that he might be tempted of the Devil Luke 4.2 Nay and as S. Luke asserts He was tempted by the Devil forty days this could not have been true had he been in Heaven any or all those days and whereas the Evangelist adds that in those days he did eat nothing and when they were ended he afterwards hungred this story must be both false and disgraceful too for how could he who had corporeally attained the glorious vision of the Almighty be so soon affected with the inconveniences of flesh and blood when we never find Moses tho' fasting as long several times complaining of any such hunger Or can we believe the Devil so very diligent and violent an enemy to Man's happiness would have given our Saviour so glorious a respite which in all probability too must have been so prejudicial to himself When the Socinians can shew us any thing like a proof of their dreams in God's word we 'l consider it till then we 'l entertain it only as a ridiculous not to say a blasphemous Romance and adhere to the natural and genuine interpretation of these words the Word was with God viz. that Jesus Christ or he who in his humane nature bore that name was from eternity actually existent in the presence and in the bosom of his father that therefore that Prayer of his was rational and intelligible Now O father glorifie thou me with thy self Joh. 17.5 with that glory which I had with thee before the world was This Prayer is intelligible enough according to the common Doctrine of the Christian Church that Christ had a being before the beginning of the world quit that sence and we have nothing but figure upon figure incoherent inconsistent and very profound Heterodoxy and nonsense And may we not fairly assert that old way of explaining such passages as these when the Evangelist in the continuance of his discourse says plainly and the Word was God That the Word was with God say they is as much as if the Apostle had said tho' he was unknown to the world he was very well known to God in his privacy and that 's very likely to be true if God be Omniscient that he knew his Son But if it be said He only knew him then it 's false for God himself had by his holy Angels before made him known to the blessed Virgin to his supposed father Joseph and to the Shepherds of Bethlehem and to the Wise Men of the East nay he was known to most of them by the name of the Son of God by the office of saving his people from their sins c. and good old Simeon in his Eucharistick song gives us a compleat Compendium of the Gospel Luke 2.31 33. and we are sure He knew the infant Jesus to be the salvation of God who was to be a light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of God's people Israel Here then we find the adversaries of our Faith wholly mistaken in the consequent gradation of the Evangelists they are yet engag'd in more difficulties but what methods do they fix upon to disengage themselves According to the ordinary acceptation of the words a man would be ready to conclude that the Evangelist meant as he said and that if the Word was God he was so indeed and therefore not simply a Creature or a meer Man but what may look very suspitiously it 's observable that those who are unwilling to own any such thing as a Mystery in the Objects of our Faith make every word in this beginning of S. John's Gospel Mysterious so by God we must understand Man or one that really is no more than a Man only honoured with the name of God as being his Deputy or Vicegerent or as the Psalmist speaks to Kings Psal 82.6 7. I have said you are Gods and all of you are children of the most high but ye shall dy like Men and fall like one of the Princes Well we allow it Princes are so styl'd there in a figurative sence because of their deputation from heaven and the derivation of their authority from thence And in David we have a King a Man after God's own heart but was ever any thing like this in this text spoken of him Would not the Author be impudently ridiculous who should preface a History of David's life thus In the beginning of the Israelitish Kingdom was David for so he really had a being as soon as ever Saul had any title to that kingdom and David was with God i. e. He was known only to him for God had cut out his Prophet Samuel a way to anoint him King unknown to Saul to prevent any jealousie in him of any such intended Heir to his Crown and Israel in general were as ignorant
of his Unction to their government and David was God because he held the place of God and in his room and by his appointment managed that people You see the reason of beginning so would be the same which these Men assign to our Evangelist but would you not look on such an Historian as an impious blasphemer or could ever any without the spirit of Prophecy imagine that by such expressions any thing of this nature could be meant It 's true again that God promis'd Moses Exod. 4.16 c. 7.1 he should be instead of God to his brother Aaron that he should be a God to Pharaoh King of Egypt and what looks yet greater that Aaron should be his Prophet We would conclude that by these expressions God meant no more than that Moses should interpret the Will of God or make it known to Aaron dictating always to him what He should say and do in the name of God and that Pharaoh should shew a respect to him as to a Divine Person and should be no more able to offer him violence or to do any injury to him how angry so ever he might be than if he had really been a God and that because of his slow speech Aaron should deliver his mind and errand to Pharaoh for him this Interpretation is natural and the sequel of the story confirms it but would ever any Man that desired to be soberly understood have said of Moses even when he was upon the Mount that Moses was with God and that Moses was God No Author sacred or prophane can afford us any parallel to this bold and impious assertion that the Word was God or that any Person was God and yet no more than a meer Man Socinus tells us that certainly if God had designed that we should believe Jesus Christ was the most high God he would have told us so in plain terms Now had not Socinus himself and his Partners endeavour'd to have perswaded the world otherwise all mankind would have concluded this expression of the Evangelist such a plain passage as he required and was the want of a single particle enough so to obscure the whole discourse of the Evangelist that without a 1000. fictitious stories added to him he must become absolutely unintelligible God in that expression the Word was with God and in that again the same was in the beginning with God is by themselves understood to signifie the most high God and why should it be otherwise interpreted in the middle sentence But Schlicktingius here sets upon us with an absurd paraphrase of his own contrivance the necessary consequence of the current interpretation of the Evangelist For says he it will amount to this as if the Evangelist had said Schlicktin in locum In the beginning was that one God and that one God was with that one God and that one God was that one God and that same one God was in the beginning with that one God and that one God made all things by that one God Absurd and ridiculous enough but our own learned Dr. Hammond has furnished us with one of a more genuine and sensible complexion thus In the beginning of the World before all time before any thing was created the Son of God had a real being and that Being with his Father of whom he was begotten from all eternity and was himself eternal God and being by his Father in his eternal purpose designed to be the Messias who was among the Jews known by the title of the Word of God and is here fitly express'd by that name The Word This eternal Word of God I mean by whom all things were at first created He brought with him the Doctrine of life c. Here we have the meaning of the Catholick Church set down and a full explication of the Evangelist without any such nonsence or Tautology as Schlicktingius would amuse us with But as if the Spirit of God had resolved to prevent the Socinian Cavils the Evangelist to make us more certain who this Word was adds this to his Character ver 3. All things were made by him and without him was not made any thing that was made but to evade this they give us a new cast of their subtilty and boldness For here the word All things must lose its sence and be understood only of some particulars for they recur to their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their original false principle which is that in the beginning is only in the beginning of the Gospel and so by all things here are meant only such things as have a particular respect to the promulgation of the Gospel of all which things he was the Author but their first principle is yet very far from being made good nay had our Evangelist expresly said In the beginning of the Gospel was the Word which yet neither was nor could be his meaning All things were made by him could not admit of their restrained sence the following words forbid it without him was nothing made that was made and for fear these words should be liable to any exception the Apostle interprets their meaning by that He was in the World and the World was made by him v. 10. and the World knew him not But here rather than not elude the force of the words they will in one verse make the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the World to carry no fewer than three several sences as it 's three times repeated for first by his being in the world is meant his Conversing with all men in general for there by the World is meant All men by the World which was made by him is meant all those who were created a-new in Christ to good works they are those upon whom his Doctrine had its due effect Schlicktin in locum Renovantur autem restaurantur homines per sermonem cum ad fidem in ipsum adducuntur c. Men are renewed and restored by the word when they are brought to Faith in him and draw a new Spirit even the Spirit of Adoption thro' him whereby they mortifie the Flesh and the Works of the Flesh from sinners and slaves to vice they are made Saints and from persons condemn'd and lost they are made certain of eternal life Such persons then as these constitute the second World that World which was made by him but because it would sound very odly that these new Creatures Men thus renewed in the Spirit of their minds should not know Him who had renewed or created them again therefore they have thought of a third World that World which did not know him and that is the World of obstinate and contumacious Men who would not listen to the Word tho' speaking never so powerfully nor could the Word work at all on them tho' in it self of so efficacious a nature those indeed are sometimes called the World because they are men of earthly and degenerate minds Men who give themselves wholly to mind earthly things
one towards another if we endeavour to promote one anothers Salvation by all those means which by Providence are put into our hands In this argument the Apostle makes use of such expressions as stumble the enemies of the Divinity of the Son of God very much and give them a great deal of pains to shift off and to evade so the form of God they determine to be nothing but a resemblance or representation of God in his Works Christ was in the form of God when he did those many wonderful works during his converse upon earth those Miracles importing somewhat of a divine power but what is there in this peculiar to our Saviour Moses might as well have been said to have been in the form of God since he too did a great many prodigious things and the Skies the Air the Waters the Earth seemed all as obedient to him as to our Saviour afterwards Elijah and Elisha might have receiv'd the same Character and the Apostles much more since Christ himself had promised them that they should not only do the same but greater miracles than he himself did yet Scripture never talks of these at any such rate as their being in the form of God If it be objected that Moses the Prophets mention'd and the Disciples after our Lord's Resurrection did indeed many and great Miracles but they were not done in their own names we acknowledge it but if our adversaries may be believed our Saviour was in the same circumstances for his Miracles were only done in the name of God and so were the Mosaic and Prophetic Miracles done If they 'l own that our Saviour did his Miracles in His own name they grant what they take so much pains to disprove for none can do a Miracle in his own name but he who has an inherent power in himself commanding all the parts of the Creation having no need of leave or assistance from any superiour Being but such a power is and only can be inherent in the most high God therefore if our Saviour had that power he was and is the most high God if he had not he 's in the same rank with other holy and good Men and any of them might have been instanced in as patterns of as great condescension and love to Souls as himself They criticise upon the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the form of God as if it signified only an outward shadow and appearance and therefore not the real divine essence and therefore whereas the Apostle makes mention afterwards of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the form of a Servant they are under a necessity of denying that that signifies his assuming humane nature tho' the words following are indeed an explication of these being in the form of a servant and being found in likeness of men are but explicatory one of another and so Schlicktingius owns it but upon what reason we know not upon that last phrase of being found in likeness of men he writes thus Figurâ i. e. non reipsâ sed apparenter externâ specie tantum in the form or figure of a Man that is not a Man indeed but only to outward appearance and to common view a Commentary to me unintelligible since they own Christ to have been a real man and nothing else the reason of their niceness here is only this They fear that if they own the form of a Servant signifies the humane nature of Christ then the form of God must signifie the divine nature of the same person which they cannot endure to hear of but the Fathers with one current interpret it so that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the essence of God so Theodoret on the place Gregory Nyssen Athanasius Chrysostome Theophylact c. and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the nature of a servant in the same sence so Theodoret Athanasius Paedagog l. 3. c. 1. Theophylact and Clemens Alexandrinus who cannot well be suspected of partiality in the case and this authority is much better than theirs who only assert the contrary arbitrarily and without reason That Christ thought it no robbery to be equal with God they would have to signifie only this That he thought it not so great an advantage to be in the form of God or like him as to be obstinate in the retention of that likeness but would humbly quit it to be used and suffer like a servant and for this Enjedine runs to some phrases in Heliodorus his Aethiopic Romance where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rapina signifies as much if he interpret it rightly but that 's too modern an authority to interpret Scripture by and too slight a work to teach us how to understand the dictates of God's Holy Spirit After several Cavils they yield that to be like to God is to be equal to God but equality must be between distinct beings for none can be equal to himself We own it and say the Father and the Son are distinct persons but of one nature as Father and Son must be if their relation be real but if God the Father and God the Son be of one and the same Nature they must have one and the same Essence because two infinite Essences are a contradiction our Saviour being in the form of his Father and equal to his Father could not look on it as a crime or think it any Sacrilege or robbery to own that equality as he did by his expressions of himself and by those adorations he permitted to be paid to himself Here then was Love and Condescention indeed that He who was God equal with his father should assume to himself poor infirm servile flesh and blood and in that humble himself and be obedient to death even that scandalous and painful death on the Cross for our sakes This Passion and this Obedience was truly meritorious it intrinsically and in its own real value merited the redemption of all mankind it effectually and in its outward operation merited and procured the Salvation of all those that believe in him As a reward for this Humility and Obedience God has highly exalted the Humane Nature of his Son that 's enclosed in or substantially united to the Divine Nature and consequently partakes of all that bliss that eternal glory and happiness which the Deity it self enjoys by which means it comes to be lawful for Christians to worship Christ as Man tho' not as meer Man as well as as he is God a practice which could never be excused from being the greatest Idolatry in the World if there were no such union as will hereafter be proved in course For that exception to this Text that Jesus is the name of Man not of God and Christ the name of an Office it signifies the Anointed One the Messias and therefore cannot belong to the most high God it 's extremely impertinent they are not our Saviour's names as he is God but as he
originally in himself yet it implyes an absolute contradiction that he should be able to confer such an infinite Power upon a finite or a mortal Subject for that would be to setle a double Almightiness in the world of which one should not be Almighty or whereas Omnipotence is such an attribute as where-ever it resides it must constitute a True and Supreme God and whereas its such an attribute as cannot stand alone without a concurrent-infinity in every respect yet it may rest in a Subject neither God nor yet Supreme but in such a one as is still tho' highly exalted mortal in its own nature and capable of destruction or annihilation For if it depends only on God's Will that Christ's Body now exalted to the right hand of his Father is no more lyable to Death then had it pleased God he might have invested Moses or Elias or Enoch with this same Omnipotence as well as our Saviour and our Saviour is no more secure of the continuation of that Omnipotence he is at present possest of in himself than the good Angels are of continuing in their present state of bliss i.e. so long as the supreme God upholds them they are safe if He withdraw but for one moment they are as miserable as their fallen companions But the very thought of these things are absurd and blasphemous however not to be avoided without acknowledging the eternal Divinity of the Son of God For the farther evidence of this Truth we must look into the Faith of the Antient Church and see how this Doctrine that God was manifest in the flesh or that He who was manifest in the flesh was God the True the Supreme the most High God is asserted in it This inquiry we make not because we think Antiquity infallible nor because we imagine every opinion maintained by any Father of the Church ought to be an authentick prescription to us Where any of them have in any particular deviated from the sence of God's holy Word we value not their opinions a-whit the more for their being antient But this we must own that those who lived nearest the times of our Saviour and his Apostles had the best opportunities of knowing what they meant or how those who personally converst with them understood them as it 's easier for me who have seen and known my Father to learn from him what were the thoughts of my Grandfather or great Grandfather both which it may be my Father may have seen and converst with than to find out what particular Opinions were entertained by my Predecessors before the Conquest and so upwards Again where Scripture and Reason improved from thence give us a full evidence of any truth the concurrence and harmony of Antiquity with these evidences is of great weight and gives us a fair deduction of divine and necessary Truths thro' all ages and shews us how in spite of all the oppositions and artifices made use of by the enemies of Truth yet God has been pleased to preserve it entire and to derive it by various chanels down to us that we embracing and asserting the same Holy Faith may be partakers of the same eternal happiness with our predecessors Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors who have all dyed in the True Faith and fear of God on this consideration we shall by God's assistance give you a short account of the Primitive Faith in this particular Here then in due order of time We begin with that Clement remembred with Honour by S. Paul Phil. 4.3 as one of those fellow labourers of his whose names are in the book of life This Clement was afterwards Bishop of the Church of God in Rome on which account and by reason of his great eminence in the Church of God some of the Factors of that See have endeavoured to fasten several spurious writings upon him but the abuse was too gross to impose upon a learned world However of his we have one Authentick Epistle written in the name of the Church of Rome to the Church of Corinth Conc. Gen. Lab. Cossart T. 1. p. 133. B. upon account of a violent Schism broken out in that Church to the great scandal of the Christian Religion and to the obstruction of the progress of the Gospel In this Epistle tho' nothing were purposely written on the subject we are now treating on yet there are some not obscure evidences of what opinion He and the Church of Rome in whose name he wrote had in those early days of our blessed Lord He calls him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a name very great and such as is no where given to any meer Man it 's designed here to illustrate the extraordinary dignity of our Saviour for by so setting him off the Apostolical writer enforces his argument upon the Corinthians to perswade them to Humility which would be an excellent foundation for Charity for tho' our Lord Jesus Christ were so great tho' he were the Scepter of the greatness of God yet he came not as he might in an assuming and lofty manner but with the greatest Humility and this argument S. Hierome in his commentary on the 52 of Isaiah and the three last verses according to our translation makes use of to the same purpose owning Clement for his Author but now if the Argument of these great Men was good it must necessarily follow that our Saviour had a Being and a glorious Being too before he was born of the blessed Virgin which Birth of his into a calamitous World has always been accounted one part of his Humiliation this Humiliation could not have been thought so considerable had he not been very great and happy before Christ could not have been so great and glorious antecedently to his Birth but He must have been God and therefore the True the most high God for there could be even in a Socinians account no more but One True God before the Incarnation of our Saviour You see my beloved people says the good Man what an example is set before you and if our Lord so humbled himself viz. if he descended from Heaven to earth for our sakes how humble should those be who take upon them the yoke of his Gospel Twice afterwards this same Holy Man concluding his period with Jesus Christ p. 137. C. adds To whom be glory and Majesty for ever and ever Amen The same expressions of praise he gives to God the Father several times p. 156. B. p. 144. B. p. 148. C. p. 160. C. D and what can we conclude from using such a Doxology indifferently to God the Father and to Jesus Christ his Son But that He understood them to be of one and the same nature both Infinitely Glorious both one proper object of praise and adoration And the same venerable Author speaking of the Patriarchs Abraham Isaac and Jacob adds particularly of the last that from him descended all those Priests and Levites who serve at God's altar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 144. A. of him was Jesus Christ so far as concerned his flesh of him were the Kings Princes and Leaders of Judah where it 's observable that nameing our Saviour He says of him that He was of Jacob according to the flesh by a particular phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to or so for as concerned in the flesh but of the Princes and Levites deduction from that Patriarch he speaks only in the common way now this particular way of expressing himself in relation to Christ must have been very impertinent had it not been designed to shew the difference there was between the manner of Christ's Descent and Theirs for never was such a thing said of any meer Man by any Writer in the world that He was born of such and such Parents according to the flesh as it would look ridiculously to say David was the Son of Jesse according to the flesh the very phrase intimates some different origination according to some other nature Rom. 1.3 4 whatever it be and the Apostle uses the same expression in the same distinguishing sence So elsewhere S. Clement calls our Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same word used by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews and by us translated Heb. 1.3 the brightness of God's glory properly enough or it might be render'd a beam from the body of his glory from which expressions the Antients generally collected that Christ must be co-eternal with his Father so S. Chrysostome tells us the Son is call'd the brightness of the glory of his Father as always existing in the Father as brightness always is in Light for the light cannot be without brightness nor brightness without light so the Son cannot be without the Father nor the Father without the Son for he is begotten of his Essence before all time and is always with him to the same purpose but more largely speak Theodoret Gregory Nyssen Theophylact c. and S. Clement to shew his meaning to be the same with that of the Author to the Hebrews proceeds in a large citation out of that Chapter from whence we have before evidently prov'd the eternal Divinity of the Son of God Besides this unquestionable Epistle of Clement which we have almost entire there 's a Fragment of another written by the same excellent person to the same Corinthians not so generally own'd indeed but of very great antiquity being taken notice of by S. Hierome and before him by Eusebius Conc. T. 1. p. 181. the very first words of which give us a full proof of the doctrine we now assert Brethren says the Writer We ought to think concerning Jesus Christ as concerning God as concerning the Judge both of the quick and the dead If we must think of Christ as of God we must think and believe that he is God for so we think always of the Supreme Being But these passages are sufficient from an Author of so great antiquity From him we shall proceed to the next Greek Father Blessed Ignatius Bishop of Antioch One who had seen Christ himself in the flesh who is reported by some to have been that Child whom our Saviour took in his arms Mark 9.36 who conversed frequently with the Apostles He left several Epistles behind him to several Churches full of excellent advices and truly savouring of an Apostolical Spirit and temper In Him we meet with many evidences of his belief that Jesus Christ the Son of God was the real the True God So in the very first words of his first Epistle to the Church of Smyrna He begins Epist ad Smyrn Edit Voss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I glorifie Jesus Christ who is God he is with him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the God with an article the want of which the Socinians so frequently cavil at in Scripture that Article is certainly exclusive of all other Gods The Son he is the only True God the Father is the same True God not two Gods but two persons and one God or one Deity this is a plain passage and needs no descant upon it In the conclusion of his Letter to Polycarp then Bishop of the Church of Smyrna the same who is called the Angel of the Church of Smyrna by S. John in the Revelations who dyed afterwards a Martyr for the truth he gives Polycarp this salutation I pray that Grace may be always with thee in Jesus Christ our God Ad Polyc. he neither prefixes nor subjoyns any thing to the words that might allay the sence or make it ambiguous it is an entire sentence and as clearly owns that He thought Jesus Christ was God and that he wrote to another who had the same Faith in that respect with himself So that the real Deity of the Son of God was no strange Doctrine in those days In the Inscription of his next Epistle to the Ephesians He stiles that Church predestinated from the beginning Ad Ephes or before all worlds to everlasting glory according to the will of the Father and Jesus Christ our God where he plainly makes the Father and Jesus Christ one God to which blessed Jesus he ascribes the same character of an absolute Deity with his Father So again in the beginning of the Epistle it self he tells the Ephesians they bore an honourable reputation and justly gained by their Faith and Love in Jesus Christ our Saviour being imitators of God and re-enflamed or revived by the blood of God An expression like that of S. Paul to the Elders of the same Church when he tells them God had made them overseers of that Church Act. 20.28 which he had purchased with his own blood Now we cannot with any propriety of speech call any blood the blood of God unless it be really his and it cannot be his as he is God therefore he must have assumed some such nature as wherein his blood might be shed which might and did come to pass by his taking our nature but our Nature being substantially united to that which was before eternal and Divine and so God and Man being but one Christ when Christ as Man shed his most precious blood for our sakes that blood was properly and truely called the blood of God or God's own blood But we meet with yet plainer evidence in the same Epistle so I take those words of his to belong to Christ Nothing lies hid from the Lord that is the common title of our Saviour in all Apostolical writings but even our most secret things are near to him Let us then do all things as if He lived in us that we may be his Temples and He may be God in us which also he is and will appear before our faces for which reasons we justly love him I the more readily apply this which argues Omniscience to Christ and is no more than what Scripture openly ascribes to him as I have formerly shew'd because soon
God Contra Celsum l. 1. p. 30 so he objects that Christ was educated in the dark was hired a servant in Aegypt that he there tryed their magick powers and returning from thence in confidence of his jugling tricks set up for a God Origen vindicates him from the malicious imputation of being a Magician but never pretends to deny that he was God or that he assumed that title nay he 's so far from that that he takes a great deal of pains to prove that He was God particularly from those passages of the 45 Psalm cited by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews in his first chapter which I have clear'd before and he adds that we must here consider the Prophet speaking to that God whose throne is everlasting l. 1. p. 43. and that he asserts that God was anointed by God who was His God with the oyl of gladness above his fellows which is the real sence of the words and which he tells us he had formerly silenc'd an obstinate Jew with In his second book Celsus introduces a Jew speaking against Christ and saying they could not own him for God who did not make good his word who endeavoured poorly to avoid Death and was at last betrayed by one of his own followers c. Origen answers Christians did neither believe the body of Christ nor his soul to be God but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word the Son of the God of all things was God that Christians justly condemn the Jews who acknowledge not him to be God whom their own Prophets so often give testimony to as a powerful Being and as God which he is by the witness of the great God and Father of all things himself That when God in the beginning of the world said Let us make Man in our Image the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word perform'd all that his Father commanded for if according to that of the Psalmist He said and they were made l. 2. p. 6â— he commanded and all things were created if at God's command all the Creatures were framed who according to the meaning of the prophetical Spirit was able to put in execution such his Father's command but He who was the living Word and Truth it self The Word then in the beginning of all things was with God and the Word was God and without him nothing was made that was made It 's the Doctrine of S. John and of Origen too So far then we may know how the beginning of S. John's Gospel was understood in his days and what they thought might conveniently be proved from thence When the Jew afterwards is brought in objecting that Men who are partakers of the same Table would not lye in wait for one another much less would any one have treacherous designs upon God p. 74. Origen might easily have answered that cavil by denying that He was God and then by giving instances of Men false and treacherous to those who have eaten with them at the same Table but He owns his Godhead and only performs the latter Celsus afterwards brings in his Jew objecting against the Divinity of Christ thus Who ever heard of God coming down from heaven to earth on purpose to perswade Men as they say Christ did and failing in his design especially when he was long expected and hoped for a denyal of his Divinity had put a full stop to this objection too but Origen on the contrary retorts upon them That the Jews themselves were instance enough of the possibility of such a thing since God had appear'd so remarkably to them in bringing them up out of the land of Aegypt and in giving them a Law from Sina and yet they nor their Fathers could by that means be perswaded to obedience or prevented from running presently into Idolatry p. 106. After all this Celsus in his own person makes use of this argument to prove that Christ could not be God God says He is good and pure and happy and in himself infinitely excellent and lovely if He should descend to be among Men He must necessarily undergo a change a change from good to bad from pure to impure from happiness to misery and from the most excellent to the most sinful state this God would never undergo To this the Father answers That it 's true God is in himselâ— Immutable nor did he suffer any change oâ— this account But that which descended down to Men was in the form of God but out of his Love to mankind he debased himself so far as that he might be born among them but He suffer'd no change from baâ— to good for that He was without Sin he never committed any He was not chang'd from pure or clean to foul or filthy for Hâ— did not so much as know Sin nor did he fall from happiness to misery He humbled himself indeed but was not a whit the less happy even when he stoop'd the lowest for the good of mankind nor did he fall from the best to the most sinful state because what he did proceeded from Love and Charity to us by being among whom He that was the great Physician of Souls could be no more altered for the worse than a Physician for the body is by conversing with those that are sick and full of diseases But says he if Celsus think that because the immortal God the Word assumed a mortal body and an humane Soul that therefore He suffered an alteration or a change Let him know that the Word essentially continuing the Word still suffers by none of those things which happen either to the body or the Soul but that He condescends to become flesh and to speak in a Body l. 4. p. 169 170. for the sake of those who are not able to behold the eradiations and brightness of his Divinity so long till He who receives him being in a short time rais'd to a greater understanding by the Word may be able to contemplate his original nature And finally in his sixth book against the same Celsus he speaks â—hus excellently If then Celsus enquire how we think to know God and to be saved with him We will answer him That He who is the word of God being in them who seek him or who wait for his appearance is sufficient to make known and to reveal the Father who was not to be seen before His appearance for who else can save the Soul of Man and guide us in every thing to God but only God the Word who being in the beginning with God for the sake of those who are confin'd to flesh became flesh that he might be comprehended by those who were not able to see him as He was the Word and as He was with God and as He was God l. 6. p. 322. and appearing in flesh and speaking in the body He calls those who are in the flesh to himself that first he might make them like to the Word which was made flesh and
Jesus answered them John 10.34 35 36. Is it not written in your Law I said ye are Gods if he called them Gods unto whom the Word of God came and the Scripture cannot be broken say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the World Thou blasphemest because I said I am the Son of God This says our Adversary Thoughts on Sh. p. 2. agreeably to those he follows proves That our Saviour calls himself God or the Son of God upon the same grounds on which others are called Gods in Scripture to wit because the Father has sanctified him i. e. Christ is God or the Son of God in the same sence that Magistrates Good or Bad are called so which certainly is a very great Honour to our Saviour But if we examine these Words with that Care we ought we shall find that our Saviour by alleging that God had sanctified him and sent him into the world does two things First he distinguishes himself from those called Gods by that Sanctification and Mission which He had and They had not for he affirms no such thing of them unless our Author will infer it from that of the Word of God coming to them but all those to whom the Word of God comes are not sanctified presently by that nor are all those sanctified to whom God imparts any thing of his Power for the management of the World some sufficiently proving the contrary Nor will it be easie to prove Sanctification and Anointing to be one and the same thing upon that reason Nay if we admit of Heinsius's Criticism Heinsius in Aristarcho sac in locum the case will be yet worse for he would have those words to whom the Word of the Lord came be translated Against whom the Prophetick Burden or the threatning Word of God was denounced and indeed the Original will bear it well enough now we may fairly conclude that Divine Menaces against sinners do not sanctifie them so that the comparison between our Saviour and those Gods mentioned in the text does not lye in their being both sanctified But secondly our Saviour teaches us that He was First Sanctified and then Sent into the World now He could not be sanctified before he had a being but he was sanctified before he was sent into the World He was sent into the world as soon as he was Conceived in the Womb of his Mother so Every one is sent into the World as soon as he has a Being in the World but he has a Being in the World as soon as he 's Conceiv'd therefore our Saviour was Sanctified before his Conception and therefore he had a Being before his Conception in the Womb of the Virgin this is what the Socinians deny but the answer to this evidence is not so easie After this tho' our new Writer would have our Saviour to argue as indeed he does from the Less to the Greater that if They were Gods much more He yet he has not observ'd that our Saviour gives himself the Title only of the Son of God but to be the Son of God is less than to be God absolute or without restriction but our Saviour should have given himself yet some Superiour Name if he intended to prove himself Superiour indeed to those whom the Psalmist calls Gods in the cited place and so indeed he did as the Jews understood him they knew well enough that those Gods were only call'd so by a Figure and had our Saviour plainly told them that he meant only Figuratively when by calling God his Father he made himself the Son of God and by saying He and his Father were One He made not himself God their anger against him would have very much abated since in that sence very Ill Men might have pretended to the Title but they understood that our Saviour made himself really equal with that One Supreme God whom they worshipped and according to their thoughts his Sanctification and Mission into the World by God if He were his Father set him infinitely above those Figurative Gods to whom the Father might have communicated some Authority or Power but had neither Sanctified them nor sent them with any extraordinary pretences into the World and our Saviour was so far from going about to elude their anger by a shifting or ambiguous answer as Smalcius a Socinian says he did when he told the Jews before Abraham was I am that he exasperates them the more by alledging the works he did as an evidence that the Father was in Him and He in Him Joh. 10 3â— upon which they go about to seize him but in vain From the whole we conclude directly contrary to what our Socinian Writer asserts that since our Lord declared nothing concerning Himself and his own nature to the Jews but what was necessary for them to know and yet did declare to them such things as made it evident to them that he ascribed a Nature truely and literally divine to Himself Therefore it was necessary the Jews and with them all the rest of Mankind should know that Christ was really and truly God not Metaphorically as Magistrates nor by participation of God's Holiness as Good Men are made Partakers of the divine Nature but essentially and eternally as his Father And thus have we in some measure made good our second Proposition that the blessed Jesus appearing in our Nature was God equal with his Father or really and truely God as well as real Man We proceed to shew How it came to be necessary that to effect our Salvation God and particularly God the Son should assume our nature to himself That God the Son did really take our Nature upon him we have largely proved That God especially in such extraordinary cases does nothing but what 's necessary we may conclude for tho' God be a Free and uncontrouled Agent yet infinite Wisdom can act nothing that 's unnecessary or indifferent whether it be done or no Our business therefore will be to enquire into the Ends and Designs of our Saviour's appearing in the flesh from whence we shall be the better able to apprehend the necessity of such his appearance Sermon of the Nat. p. 247. Our Church in her Homily upon the Nativity of our Saviour teaches us That the end of our Saviour's coming in the flesh was to save and deliver his people to fulfil the Law for us to bear witness unto the truth to teach and preach the Word of his Father to give light unto the World to call sinners to repentance to refresh them that labour and be heavy laden to cast out the Prince of this World to reconcile us in the body of his flesh to dissolve the works of the Devil and last of all to become a propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole World What 's contain'd in these and what other Ends may be assigned for our Saviour's Incarnation I shall lay down