to the Jews of whom we acknowledge that they had no such distinct notions of the Trinity as we by the Gospels assistance have at present but yet both among Jews and Gentiles he was declar'd by other names than that of God the Father and if according to our common Logical notions Relatives do mutually suppose or remove one another if Jesus Christ was not really and actually the Son of God pre-existent to his incarnation the name of Father could not properly have been apply'd to the supreme God nor he be preach'd to the World under that character so that in fine we conclude that the preaching of God the Father to the World was no part of the Mystery of Godliness Nor is it properly so to say that God the Father was believ'd on in the World for that too was nothing newly effected by the appearance of our Saviour the World in general from its first original believ'd there was a God if there were any who from those apprehensions they had of the existence of a God set themselves to live virtuously as considering that God under the notion of a knowing and severe Judge and one capable of rewarding men according to their works such Persons believ'd in God according to our own sense when we repeat the Creed Now that some did thus believe before our Saviour's appearance in the flesh is unquestionable all those who liv'd religiously before the promulgation of the Mosaic Law did thus believe in God and are some of them remembred as the great Heroes of Faith in the beginning of the Eleventh Chapter to the Hebrews If then this were a Mystery it was of a very ancient standing and discovered long before the coming of Christ The application of the particulars thus far failing we have some reason to believe that neither will the last agree any better to that imposed sense He was received up in glory or into glory Here our adversaries flie to God's will again so confounding God and God's will as if they were not to be considered as distinct but this we have consider'd before where we observed that contradiction the Gospel met with in the World As to God the Father where or when or how or by whom was he receiv'd up in glory the holy Scriptures give us no intimation of his having descended at any time from Heaven to Earth and He that 's receiv'd up into glory ought to be so receiv'd by some Being superior to himself which a Socinian knows God the Father cannot have now as the Apostle teaches us He that descended Eph. 4.10 is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens that he might fill all things but God the Father never that we hear of in Scripture descended therefore God the Father who ever of himself was surrounded with infinite glory never was by any receiv'd up into glory And thus have we shown the vanity of those glosses which the Socinians and others have fixt upon this Text we shall now show to whom the particulars in the Text do properly and unquestionably belong And here since Scripture makes it very plain that the whole method of serving God in an acceptable manner is laid down by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ That as himself tells us He is the Way the Truth John 14.6 and the Life and no man comes to the Father but by him The whole mystery of Godliness or of true Christian Religion can consist in nothing but what refers to him who is the author of it that is the blessed Jesus concerning whom and whose doings and sufferings for us there is nothing reveal'd in the Gospel or in the foregoing prophecies but what 's mysterious He was indeed God manifest in the flesh God blessed for ever yet for the sake of wretched Sinners descending to Earth and taking our Nature upon him being cloth'd with flesh and all those incumbrances and infirmities attending upon a mortal state sin onely excepted He is that eternal Word which was in the begining with God nay that Word that was God John 1.1.14 and that Word was made flesh and dwelt among us as we learn from St. John Now if Christ really was God the most opinionative of the Socinians would conclude the Text plain enough for that Christ was certainly and literally made flesh but if we cannot read this Text of the Apostle truly without inserting the word God And Smalcius one of the great promoters of the Socinian heresie declares Smalc de verbo incarnato c. 18. Nos Graecum textum Vulgatae longe esse anteponendum censemus is vero habet Deum in carne esse manifestatum We look upon the Greek Text as far to be preferr'd before the Vulgar Latine and the Greek reads it God was manifest in the flesh and if neither the Gospel nor the will of God nor God the Father can properly or truly be said to be made flesh and yet God was manifest in the flesh then that Jesus who was truly and literally cloth'd with our flesh must be that God the farther proof of Christ's real and eternal Divinity belongs to another place but his true and indisputable humanity is the first plain and most obvious assertion of the Apostle here This same blessed Jesus was as plainly justified in the Spirit since not onely the miracles he did justified him in the sight of all Mankind and prov'd that he could be no cheat or Impostor as the Jews were willing to have him thought but at the time of his Baptism by John in Jordan while he was praying the Heaven was open'd and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a Dove upon him and a voice came from Heaven which said Thou art my beloved Son Luke 3.21 22. in thee I am well pleas'd Now the Holy Spirit would not in so open a manner have descended on him who had pretended to that relation to Allmighty God which really never belong'd to him Therefore John the Baptist makes a right inference from that descent I saw says he Joh. 1.32 the Spirit descending from Heaven like a Dove and it abode upon him And I knew him not v. 33 34. but he that sent me to baptize with water the same said unto me Vpon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost And I saw and bare record that this is the Son of God Our Lord himself makes it one of his last instructions to his Disciples that when the Comforter that Holy Spirit whom he would send should come he should amongst other things convince the world of righteousness because He the blessed Jesus went to his Father and the world should see him no more c. 16. v. 8. 10 14. and that that Holy Spirit should glorifie him for he should receive of his and shew it to men And thus effectually that Sacred Spirit when he was so plentifully according to promise pour'd out
deep ever to be made up It 's true when God himself was mention'd as the undertaker of so great a work even despairing man might entertain some dawning hopes but when they saw a poor Carpenter's Son one who had not so much as where to lay his head assume yet the glorious title of the world's Redeemer and Saviour their hopes slagg'd their almost grasped joys seem'd just vanishing into empty air When the Holy Ghost God too infinitely good and powerful and wise interpos'd and attended that humble Man with so much vigour and constancy that He by a thousand glorious actions and by a close and perpetual correspondence with Heaven visible even to vulgar eyes prov'd the entire Union that was between himself and his Father and that Sacred Spirit and justified himself in the thoughts of very aliens themselves who could not but acknowledge of a truth that for all his mean appearance and his scandalous Passion on the Cross He was the Son of God But could men have doubted still the happy Angels those purer and more discerning Spirits saw him too they saw him and knew him and ador'd him they saw their mighty Lord tho' veil'd in all the rags of poor mortality And tho' sin might have made a former breach between those blessed Spirits and polluted man yet now where their Lord loved they lov'd too and always look'd and always waited on him while he wrought the worlds redemption while he was so justified and so attended on divers gave up themselves absolutely to his service whom he lov'd and taught and protected and endued with miraculous knowledge eloquence and courage and sent them on that blessed errand to preach to the Gentiles the glad tydings of Salvation in his name They boldly undertook the work and tho' they had ignorance and prejudice and malice and cunning to contend with meer men contemn'd before but then inspired broke through all opposition and the forsaken Gentiles heard the gladsome sounds of peace and tho' there were too many enemies to their own good yet those laborious messengers of Heaven preached with that power and efficacy that men began every where to call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ Nay the more men of perverse minds cross'd the designs of that Gospel preach'd in the name of the Son of God the more those who believed in him were multiplied As for himself when he had finished that stupendous work and by his own Death had conquered Hell and Death He broke those fatal chains and rose again no more lyable to humane rage His Almighty Father who had viewed all the prodigious efforts of his Love to mankind with an ineffable complacency reach'd out his holy arm to receive that very humane Nature in which his beloved Son had done and suffered so much from him the chearful clouds were sent for a Chariot and he went upwards flying upon the wings of the wind while jâ—cund Angels those ministerial flames waited on his triumphs and taught his wondring followers what they were afterwards to expect from their Redeemer These are those mighty mysteries on which our most holy faith is built their truth however unintelligible to us is our security and the sincerity of our faith will necessarily show it self in an holy conversation and godliness The Verse I have explain'd then imports That without Controversie the Mystery of Godliness is great or in more words That the Basis or foundation of that Religion introduced into the World by the Doctrine of Christ's Gospel is indisputably and agreeably to the nature of Religion to Humane reason extremely profound and unintelligible To prove this we shall enquire Into the Vniversal agreement of all persons of what Religion soever That Mysteries are essential to Religion Whether our Saviour intended the entire abolition of all other Religions for the settlement of his own or rather to unite what was good in every distinct Religion into one and to sublime or perfect that so as it might tend most to God's glory and Man's happiness and whether that could be effected Men standing in their present corrupt state without the retaining of old or instituting of new Mysteries in his Religion What considerable advantages can accrue to Religion from those Mysteries it 's founded upon Then we must enquire into that Vniversal agreement of all persons whatsoever that Mysteries or some principles or circumstances of a more secret and abstruse nature are essential to all Religion But here to prevent all mistakes it must be remember'd That so much as concerns the practical part of Religion as contain'd in the Word of God is so clear and evident that the words of St. Paul are justly apply'd to them If they be hid they are hid to those that are lost whose eyes the God of this World hath blinded that the light of the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ should not shine upon them 2 Cor. 4.3 4. The words whereby all things necessary to be done toward the attainment of eternal life are exprest are such and so plain that the simplest Christian may understand them And that person who goes about to involve the practical duty of a Christian whether in respect of his communication with God or man in obscure and mysterious terms crosses the end of the Gospel which is to instruct the weakest understanding in an easie and intelligible way how to live godly righteously and soberly in this present evil world yet it must be acknowledged that even in relation to practice there are some apparent difficulties and notwithstanding all that plainness apparent in God's word a Man has a very hard task sometimes to distinguish between what 's lawful and what 's unlawful such cases are commonly known by the name of Cases of Conscience or such matters wherein so many arguments seemingly strong and plausible appear on both sides to the understanding that it knows not which way to act and all that hesitancy or doubtfulness arises onely from a fear of offending God These generally respecting Christian practice create a great deal of trouble frequently to very good Men for others are seldom troubled with such religious fears and these are sometimes by various and unusual circumstances rendred so very intricate that the wisest and most discerning Men are often at a loss to clear and resolve them to the Querent's satisfaction Here the Jews were order'd to have recourse to their Priests whose lips were suppos'd to preserve knowledge and the Priests when there was any thing of a more inextricable nature had the Vrim and Thummim to appeal to The Heathens had some emergent doubts as to matter of publick management of themselves which sometimes perplex'd them too and they had their imaginary wise Men the Priests attending their desecrated altars who would assume as if they had the art of resolving doubts those who profess Christianity have still a severer task in these matters as having no Oracle immediately to consult and having doubts more numerous and
worlds happiness which all the Witts in it could never have pitched upon There was not among the Jews the least garment belonging to those who officiated in holy services which had not something mysterious in it I own these Mysteries were not like those wherein our Faith is so deeply concern'd but they were Mysteries still tho' of a lower fourm and such Mysteries as the generality of the Jewish people were very far from diving into yet Reason would have gone a considerable way in teaching the Jews what God insinuated to them by such prescriptions All the circumstantials of Jewish worship were render'd the more considerable by those never-failing Oracles issued out from between the Cherubims and by Prophets raised up among them by God himself frequently till such time as they lost the glory of their Nation by Captivity and Slavery to prevailing strangers Those Revelations which such Prophets had extending particularly to future events of things were such as really entangled the Jews strangely and they who among Mysteries reveal'd had unhappily pitched upon a wrong interpretation of things were uncapable at last of applying events to Prophecies and so ruin'd It 's true the Priests themselves at first understood the meaning of things well enough but time corrupted them and introduced ignorance among them as well as among the vulgar but whatsoever the Priests understood at first or how much soever of the true meaning of things they understood at last they were yet not to cast pearles before swine nor holy things to dogs they were not to prostiture Mystical matters to every common enquirer tho' at the same time ready to teach Gods statutes and judgments to every one that humbly sought for information but as to the manner of God's delivering their Law to Moses in Horeb and his writing the Ten Commandments with the finger of God on the stone-Tables his guarding and directing them by a Cloud all day and by a pillar of Fire all night his Glory shining at particular times and on particular occasions in the Tabernacle of the Congregation his delivering his Will from the Mercy-Seat and being said to dwell peculiarly between the Cherubims his oracular resolution 〈◊〉 difficulties by Vrim and Thummim c. These were matters of so profound and inextricable a Nature that neither Priests nor people were ever able to give any considerable account of them If among the divine Institutions of the Jews there were so many matters of a mystical Nature it 's not to be wondred that Their Worship who had no assistance by divine Revelation should be more than ordinarily encumbred with them the Notions which the Gentile world had of a Deity tho' positive and uncontroulable enough were according to the means they had for acquiring divine Knowledge much more obscure than those of the Jews if yet they would have a shew of any Religion they were under a necessity of suiting it with some circumstantial rites which when they had try'd their utmost skill had a meaning but that meaning was very obscure We may believe that many of their Priests endeavour'd to make as deep impressions as they could of Religion upon the minds of those men they were concerned with but the greatest satisfaction they had in their own inventions was but this that the notorious obscurity of their publick Rites was very exactly representative of that God whom they acknowledged a Being infinite and incomprehensible and those things which were mysterious even in the sence of their first Inventors were much more so when they fell into the hands of their Successors who being blind Leaders of the blind all sence of true natural Divinity was quickly lost both among Priests and People thus we have reason to think the Hieroglyphical Theology of the Aegyptians was in a great measure rais'd from those hints they had taken of Man's duty to the World's Creator from their converse with the Jewish Patriarchs that the first contrivers of it were capable of making it considerably useful and instructive to the World and from thence those seeds of Moral Virtues which bore some fruit in ancient Heathens had their originals but when sloth and negligence took place among their degenerate posterity and the cruelty of Cambyses King of Persia destroy'd all the Priests of that Nation without distinction the whole body of their Divinity was lost some of its characters may be still remaining among old pillars or obelisks and other ruines of their ancient magnificence but as unintelligible to us as the Chinese writing is to a common labourer or the squaring of a Circle to one that never heard of Mathematicks All Men from the world's beginning acknowledged God's Vniversal Sovereignty by offering Sacrifices That Men offer'd Sacrifices and of living creatures too very early is apparent by the History of Cain and Abel Gen 3.1 2 3 4. where we are told that in process of time i.e. as soon as they were in a capacity of doing so Cain who was a tiller of the ground brought of the fruit of the ground an offering to the Lord and Abel who was a keeper of sheep brought of the firstlings of his flock and the fat thereof But that these were the first Sacrifices offer'd we have no reason to conclude since Adam had the same sence of things and the same motives to offer Sacrifices which They had and doubtless set them an example of so doing Eusebius of Caesarea tho' observed to be singular in the case gives much the best and most rational account of this Sacrifice I take says he the ground of this action not to have been meer chance or a device meerly humane but to have risen from a divine thought for whereas good Men who were illuminated with the divine spirit and lived in a near familiarity with God plainly saw there was a necessity of some extraordinary means for the expiation of damning sin they concluded it necessary to offer to God the giver of the Life and Soul something by way of a ransome or redemption price to procure their own Salvation and since they had nothing which they could offer to God better or more valuable than their Souls instead of them they Sacrificed beasts De Demonstr Evang l. 1. c. 10. so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 offering the Souls of others in lieu of their own and this was certainly the best Sacrifice and most significant of their apprehensions Where that reason given by Eusebius and made use of by Justin Martyr and the author of the Answer to the Orthodox printed among Justin's works and by St. Chrysostome and other ancient Christians and by Rabbi Moses ben Maimon and his followers among the Jews why Cain and Abel should pitch on offering Sacrifices and Abel particularly of living creatures viz. their wisdom and near converse with heaven suits yet more exactly with Adam himself who had converst with God in a state of perfection as well as imperfection And tho' we know the ruines of reason to
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
the latter part of the verse for let us with Grotius by the mystery of godliness understand the Gospel as we commonly understand it and which we own does contain the mystery of godliness That the Gospel was preach'd by weak Men we own nay that our Saviour himself in his state of exinanition or in his humane nature appear'd weak and contemptible enough we own too but that the Gospel appear'd in the flesh or cloath'd with flesh which is the proper import of the Apostles phrase we deny as absurd That the Gospel was justified in or by the Spirit the miraculous effusions of that confirming the truth of the Gospel preach'd we may own well enough but that the Gospel was seen of Angels is scarce sence that it was never known before it had been declar'd by Men is false for the Angels could not be unacquainted with the several Prophecies of the old Testament concerning the Messias to come nor could they be so far to seek in the meaning of those Prophecies many of which they had been instrumental in delivering and the Angels themselves were indeed the first preachers of the Gospel So the Angel Gabriel tells Zacharias concerning the Son that should be born to him Many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children Luke 1.16 17. and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. The same Gabriel afterwards tells the blessed Virgin Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and shalt bring forth a Son and shalt call his name Jesus v. 31 32 33. He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the highest and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever and of his kingdom there shall be no end It was an Angel that appear'd to Joseph in a dream Matth. 1.20 21. and told him that his espoused wife was with child of the Holy Ghost And she shall bring forth a Son says he and thou shalt call his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins Again an Angel of the Lord tells the Shepherds who were watching their flocks by night Luke 2.10 11 13 14. Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. To which Gospel a whole Choir of Angels subjoyned their Eucharistical Hymn Glory be to God on high in earth peace good will towards men These instances are enough to prove that Angels knew the Gospel before men preacht it not to mention their administring to our Saviour in the wilderness when entring on his prophetical Office and their publishing his resurrection the great confirmation of the Gospel before his Apostles had any apprehensions of it The Gospel was indeed preach'd unto the Gentiles and believ'd on in the World but it was far from being receiv'd in glory for it was scorn'd and derided and cruelly persecuted both by Jews and Gentiles the Devil raising all the powers in the world as far as possible for the extirpation of what was so great an enemy to his Tyranny the Gospel then will not answer all those particular marks set down in the Text. Neither yet are they applicable to God the Father as several of the Socinians would have them for to say God the Father was manifest in the flesh because his will was preach'd by Men who were but flesh and blood besides that such an assertion quits the Suppositum or Subject which was God the Father unless God and Gods will be one and the same thing which cannot be asserted It 's so uncouth an expression as is no where to be parallel'd either in Scripture or any Ecclesiastical Writer We read not any where that God the Father ever appear'd in the flesh or assum'd Humane nature nor did ever any dream of such a thing unless we recur to the ancient Patropassians so call'd because they believ'd it was really God the Father who being Incarnate suffer'd death on the Cross for the sins of Mankind but of that we have no foot-steps in holy Writ nor was the Deity it self ever made manifest in the flesh but in the flesh of the blessed Jesus Col. 2.9 in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily not in his doctrine as the Socinians would have it but in himself Vid. Schlicktin in loc and according to their own demands on the like occasion we would have them shew us some other clear place of Scripture wherein God the Father is said to be manifest in the flesh or to be manifest in Christ and the Apostles and then we may the better consent to their interpretation Again it 's as odd and unusual to say God the Father was justified in the Spirit for what need was there of any such justification his Eternal Power and Godhead were visible in the Universal fabrick of nature and all the Miracles done by our Saviour which Socinians refer to the influence of the Spirit were done that Men might know he was the promis'd Messias and those done by the Apostles after his ascent into Heaven carry'd along with them the same respect but we never heard of any publick declaration made by the Spirit for a more peculiar conviction of the World that the most High God was God indeed or the true God we may understand things thus as the Socinians say but we may a great deal better let it alone and not run into such interpretations of God's Word as we can neither reconcile to truth nor sense If we go farther the matter is not mended at all when we say God the Father was seen of Angels for what novelty was there in that had not they stood continually before his face from the instant of their first Creation or should we flie to God's will was not that known to his peculiar Ministers till such time as they came to learn it by the preaching of mortal men who can imagine so short a Text of Scripture and design'd to make known the greatest mystery in the world should lash out into such absolute impertinencies but to proceed God the Father was preach'd to the Gentiles but where he 's mention'd often doubtless as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in those Epistles written by the Apostles to their Gentile Converts but the Gospel it self is stil'd the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Apostles pretend to preach nay to know nothing among their Converts but Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 2.2 and him crucified as St. Paul expresses himself if we must say God the Father was preach'd he was certainly preach'd most to the Antediluvian World by Noah and the elder Patriarchs or he was preach'd
by the commands of God i.e. by Worshipping him according to his prescriptions and we cannot come to know the commands of God but by Prophecy or Revelation Or we may rest in the Apostles definition that true Religion is the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness in hopes of eternal life Tit. 1.1 2. But if we respect Religion in general as taken up by all Nations we may describe it as The method of worshipping God by all men suitably to those notions they had of him and of their own duties As for the Jewish Nation they were once the sole professors of true Religion and for the hardness of their hearts were loaded with abundance of Ceremonial institutions but yet in the law of Moses and in the Prophets we find sincere and hearty obedience to the moral Law very much urged and insisted upon as the best evidence of true and unfeigned piety and where God expostulates sharply with his people for their rebellion and disobedience He tells them plainly Ps 50.8 9 13 16 17 23. I will not reprove thee for thy Sacrifices or thy burnt offerings to have been continually before me I will take no bullock out of thy house nor he-goat out of thy fold Will I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats No these things God could pardon But unto the wicked God says what hast thou to do to declare my statutes or that thou shouldest take my covenant into thy mouth the reason of the expostulation follows thou hatest instruction and castest my words behind thee by which words the great folly of those is exprest who pretend themselves the servants of God and instruments of his glory and yet live disagreeably to their profession wherefore it 's added Who so offereth praise glorifieth me and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God Thus again God by the Prophet Samuel argues with Saul 1 Sam. 15.22 Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord Behold to obey is better than sacrifice and to hearken than the fat of rams So the Prophet Isaiah Isa 1.11 13 16 17 18. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me I delight not in the blood of bullocks or of lambs or of he-goats Bring no more vain oblations incense is an abomination to me it follows wash ye make ye clean put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes cease to do evil learn to do well seek judgment relieve the oppressed judge the fatherless plead for the widows Well what should be the effect of all this reformation as much as a wretched sinner could hope for from the most benign Being Come now and let us reason together saith the Lord tho' your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow tho' they be red like crimson they shall be as wool So the Prophet Micah Micah 6.6 7 8. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow my self before the high God Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings with calves of a year old will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or ten thousands of rivers of oyl shall I give my first-born for my transgression or the fruit of my Body for the sin of my soul No God requires not these things at our hands but He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God Nay Solomon himself who was so personally profuse in his offerings that a man would have suspected he had fixt the whole substance of Religion in such exterior services when he comes to draw up what was incumbent upon Man in a few words passes sacrificing by as inconsiderable in respect of this sincere obedience Eccl. 12.13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter Fear God and keep his Commandments for this is the whole duty of man Thus far the writings of the Old Testament receiv'd by the ancient Jews shew us the ends of Religion viz. That where it really had a place it necessarily produc'd purity and sincerity of mind without which no sacrifice tho' never so costly could be accepted with God David teaches us the lesson plainly Ps 51.6 7 10 19. Behold thou desirest truth in the inward parts and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom purge me with hysop and I shall be clean wash me and I shall be whiter than snow Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me and much more to the same purpose then he concludes all Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness with burnt offering and whole burnt-offering then shall they offer bullocks upon thine Altar But since the Jews are for the most part hardned against their own greatest interest and so may be thought to have now changed their minds being known for such bigotted ceremonialists I shall add the confessions of one or two modern Jews So Rabbi Isaac Sangar in the book Cosri before cited Cosri pars 3. p. 157. for thus he tells the King he converses with A holy and pious man is not the rigid man for every ceremonial punctilio but he who where he dwells with a prudent and impartial hand gives every one their right who loves justice oppresses none defrauds none nor bribes any to be his slaves or tools upon occasion Again Because the eyes of the Lord run to and fro through the whole earth therefore the holy man neither does nor speaks nor thinks any thing but he believes the all-seeing eye of God to be upon him ready not only to reward for what 's well but for what 's ill done too and to visit for every perverse and wicked word or action p. 168. c. To him I shall add Rabbi Moises ben Maimon who in his More Nevochim More Nevoehim pars 3. c. 28. p. 419. or explainer of difficulties teaches us that every precept of God whether it be affirmative or negative aims at these things first that it may take away all violence from among men and beget good manners necessary for the conservation of political Societies and secondly that it may instil true principles of faith such as are in their own nature necessary to be known for the expelling of wickedness and encouraging honesty and virtue Now if these sober and necessary virtues which are of no value if not sincere be the ultimate intention of all God's Laws it follows that those virtues are more accounted of with God which are inward and affect the Soul than all outward performances how pompous soever as much as the end of a thing is more excellent than the means conducing to it The Son of Sirach agrees admirably with this truth He that sacrificeth of a thing wrongfully gotten Eccl. 34.18 19.
we think of the multitude who were instructed by them and what reason may we conclude our Saviour had to admire the Centurion's faith Matth. 8.10 and to declare he had not found so much no not in Israel It 's needless now to look back upon that gross Idolatry which once like some subtle poyson had infected every vein of that unhappy Nation though other lighter punishments had fail'd the Captivity of Babylon had pretty throughly purged out that folly nay so far as made that head-strong people flie out into the other extreme of a superstitious aversion even to ornamental Statues and where there could be no danger of which humour Josephus gives us several instances But about our Saviour's time though not the same yet Errors every whit as fatal and pernicious had over-spread them they were not visible Idolaters they worship'd not the Host of Heaven nor the ridiculous Idols of the adjacent Nations but they idoliz'd the empty figments of their own brains making void the Law of God by their own traditions Matth. 15.9 and teaching for doctrines the Commandments of Men Their different Sentiments in Religion had divided the whole Nation into factions and all Men were grown the followers of the Pharisees or Saducees or Essenes and among the several Parties Religion it self was almost crusht to nothing As for the Saducees tho' they made a powerful Faction in the State yet their Opinions were so gross and absurd as virtually overthrew all the reason of Religion they deny'd the Resurrection of the Dead Acts 23.8 an opinion taken up by some professing Christianity in Tertullian's time whom therefore he calls Propinquos Saducaeos Christianorum De carne Christi Vid. Drusium de tribus Sectis l. 3. p. 138 c. the Christian Saducees and Partiarios sententiae Saducaeorum followers of the opinion of the Saducees of whom since that Father speaks somewhat dubiously if I might put in my own conjecture I should conclude they maintain'd the same Error which some now adays are propagating viz. That we shall not rise with the same bodies with which we die but something of a finer composition which is in effect to deny the Resurrection it self for such a thing as they propound is not a resurrection but a new creation or a new formation at least of somewhat which was not before so that indeed it 's onely Saducisme a little more cunningly insinuated In that the Saducees deny'd the existence of a Spirit they asserted of consequence the Corporeity of God Belli Judaici l. 2. c. 12. and deny'd the Soul's immortality 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Josephus They deny the permanence or continuation of the Soul they deny'd any rewards or punishments hereafter so the same Historian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They take away all punishments and rewards after Death and Origen more at large Fragmento in Matthaeum Saducaei censent post hanc vitam nihil homini repositum praemii sive ad virtutem profecerit sive nunquam vel studuerit à vitiorum terminis excedere The Saducees hold that after this life whether a Man live virtuously or make himself a slave to vice it 's the same thing since there 's no reward attending either Now adding to these what Scripture charges them with Elâ—ncho Trihaerefews Setrarii c. 16. ad num 120. that they say there are no Angels a passage which puzles the great Scaliger extremely because the Saducees are said to receive the five Books of Moses as Divine in which Books Angels are often mention'd for any to be Religious where there 's nothing to be hoped for from it no effects to be found either of God's anger or his love is what seems very irrational and takes away the whole design of the Messiah's coming and vacates all the promises to piety in the Gospel Such absurdities made the Saducees odious to those who had any sence of Religion among their brethren and they were generally look'd on as unfit for any to hold communion with therefore we may observe that whereas our Saviour owns the Scribes and Pharisees as sitting in Moses's Seat and commands his disciples to hear them i. e. to obey their prescriptions so far as agreeable to the Law of Moses He utterly excludes the Saducees whom he charges with Ignorance of God's Power and his Word from any such Prerogative and bestows very little pains to confute such absurd and palpable Heresies As for the Essenes they were the spawn of the Pharisees a very severe Sect if we may believe Jewish authors Scaliger in Elâ—nekâ— c. 25. we find 'em no where mentioned in Scripture by name of which some imagine the reason to have been because they liv'd privately in the Countrey not concerning themselves at all in civil or publick affairs by which means they escaped our Saviours reproofs and well they might if Scaliger's account of them be true That they were not an ambitious crew of cheats as the Pharisees nor grosly impious as the Saducees however having so scandalous ancestors as the Pharisees we may rationally conclude they were somewhat tainted with their vain superstitions Nay if Josephus the Jewish Historian were any way prudent in his choice the Essenes must have been the more superstitious of the two parties or some other way the worse since Josephus who knew the Essenes very well and observed their customes and their manners throughly chose rather to associate himself with the Pharisees than with them their publick tenets were for the most part good according to those accounts now extant of them but whereas their Ascetick life seem'd to recommend them much to the common vogue and that no where commanded we may conclude that when our Saviour denounces so many woes against the Hypocrisie of the Scribes and Pharisees they were not without their shares in the intention of his reproofs for indeed we find the blessed Jesus generally reflecting upon those who were the guides of the Jewish people in matters of Religion they being blind and leading the blind both fell unhappily into the ditch and such blind guides were those as well as others otherwise they who have the character of being in extraordinary manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Josephus ubi supra or extraordinary lovers of one another would certainly have taken greater care to instruct the vulgar in the real import of that Law of which they themselves had so venerable an opinion and a sort of men who were so very eminent for their virtues themselves would by their Doctrines and examples have prevented the vacating the Laws of Morality so grosly by the silly niceties of impertinent Traditions And Men who had their minds so wonderfully adapted for the most sublime matters would certainly have clos'd very readily with our Saviour who spoke so incomparably and taught with so unusual and therefore surprising an authority but we meet with no such extraordinary effects of their pretendedly divine Philosophy but the Jewish people
For those rites continued will move the world to belive that the Messias is not yet come that the Faith so long profest in him as if he were come is vain that He who once pretended to that name only impos'd upon the world and was no better than a cheat and that therefore the Jewish Religion is and ought to be still in its full force Now this will appear very absurd and unreasonable to any one who has seriously weighed all those arguments brought to prove that Jesus Christ was the Son of the living God and therefore could be no Impostor and therefore must be that Messias he declar'd himself to be which being true it will follow that our Saviours coming must of necessity put an end to so much of the Jewish Law as was not co-incident with that of Nature and consequently not perpetually obliging That many of the Jews themselves ever look'd upon their Law as of a mutable nature in it self is proved sufficiently by Raymundus Martini in his Pugio fidei against the Jews and that it could never be more properly actually chang'd than by the Messias appears in him who proves from Jewish writers themselves that the Messias the King shall be greater than Moses nay greater than the ministring Angels and therefore the fittest for such a work and as he shews their own gloss in the Midrasch Koheleth upon that of Solomon Eccles 11.8 Pugionis fidei p. 3. dist 3. c. 20 tells us That every Law of all people whatsoever every Law that a man can learn in this world is all but vanity in comparison of the Law of the Messias Things of a less perfect and lasting nature must then vanish when that appears which is more perfect and eternal Whatsoever therefore crosses that end for which God sent his Son into the world and retains mysteries now altogether insignificant as being fully accomplished that cannot be pleasing to God and consequently the present Religion of the Jews cannot be the true Religion There are indeed some mysterious truths in which all Religions agree viz. The existence of a God his spirituality invisibility incomprehensibility c. they all agree That his Providence governs all things in the world however trifling and inconsiderable they may appear in the eyes of the world that He hears sees knows understands every thing tho' they know not how according to the objection of Atheists to reconcile such things to his want of eyes ears soul or any other parts which are all inconsistent with a spiritual being All agree together in granting the present state of Man very wretched and deplorable in looking upon him yet as capable of happiness provided a sutable mean for its procurement could be found out and in expectation of some proper help for that purpose These things being agreeable to the general sence of mankind and being the original reasons of mens putting themselves into a religious course must still be approved by every one and every one of these that Religion setled in the world by our Saviour and his Apostles does advance yet more plainly and confirm more strongly to the world And whatsoever mysterious truths it farther propounds they are all so far intelligible by every one as may serve sufficiently to confirm those first principles whatsoever is farther to be seen in them is what moves mankind to lay aside all brutish malicious and unmanly humour as the meditation upon that extraordinary love of God to mankind of God the Father in sending his only Son into the world to dy for it of God the Son in leaving the bosom of his blessed Father and in our nature and for our sake suffering that bitter and scandalous death upon the Cross of God the Holy Ghost in pursuing us continually with his influences and assistances and so working in us to will and to do according to God's good pleasure this meditation naturally runs into that Apostolical conclusion Joh. 4.11 if God thus loved us then ought we also to love one another If we contemplate our own monstrous demerits our aversion to every thing that is good our inclination to every thing that is evil and so offensive to God our ingratitude for mercies receiv'd our unfruitfulness under the means of grace and Salvation presented to us our natural enmity to God and goodness And if withal we seriously consider that all those forementioned favours are conferr'd on us in a state of obstinate enmity the inference is easie as our Lord has laid it down Matth. 5.44 That we should love our enemies bless them that curse us do good to them that hate us and pray for them that despitefully use us and persecute us If again we think on that wonderful mercy of God whereby for the merits of the blessed Jesus he 's pleased to forgive us our sins those natural bars between us and heaven the consequence we must of course draw from thence is that of the Apostle That we should be kind Eph. 4.32 tender hearted forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven us Thus we see what excellent influence these very truths the nature and reasons of which are above the reach of our groveling minds may have upon us If we proceed and reflect upon the purity and holiness of that God with whom we have to do that he 's a Being who cannot endure sin who punishes it for its odious nature even in his dearest children all those mysteries reveal'd to us in the Gospel are so far by any fair consequence from perverting our minds that they give us all the motives imaginable 1 Pet. 1.15 that as he who has called us is holy so should we be holy in all manner of conversation A man may be a good heathen and yet a filthy Sodomite a through-pac'd Jew and yet be blind hard-hearted carnal but a man cannot be a true Christian but he 'l endeavour to avoid all appearance of evil Jude 2â— and to keep himself unspotted from the world he 'l live in a continual abhorrence of whatsoever may prejudice his soul or pollute his body and knowing that he is not his own James â—â— but that he 's bought with a price he 'l follow that advice he 'l endeavour to glorifie God in his body and in his spirit which are gods 1 Cor. 6. â—â— and to go no farther than what I had instanced in before a man that meditates on that account the Apostles and Evangelists have given us of the appearance of the Son of God in the flesh and on the ends and designs of such his appearance he 'l never spend his time idly about types and shadows when he is invited to embrace the substance he 'l study to conform himself to the Doctrine of the Gospel to be so far as belongs to a meer man a perfect imitator of all those excellent virtues so apparent in our Saviour during his converse with the world he 'l carefully avoid all
consider His declarations of Himself and his Apostles declarations concerning Him in the New Testament which we shall find of such a nature as may sufficiently prove the Divinity of the Son of God and here we 'l begin as Enjedine a subtle and industrious Unitarian does with that of S. Matthew where having given us an account of the Angels charge to Joseph concerning his espoused wife then with child by the power of the Holy Ghost he tells us that in all this that of the Prophet was fulfilled Behold a Virgin shall be with child Matth. 1.23 and shall bring forth a Son and they shall call his name Immanuel which is being interpreted God with us this the Evangelist quotes from Isai 7.14 Here Enjedine makes the Evangelist a very impertinent Writer alledging Old Testaments-texts upon every little hint tho' never so far from the purpose which argues very little reverence for an inspired Writer He tells us The name Immanuel could not signifie that Christ was God because the Prophet where he names him says he was sometime to be born that he should eat butter and honey that he should sometime be ignorant of the difference between good and bad c. therefore he could not be God but all these things were and were necessarily true of him as he was Man since he assumed a real and not a fantastick body We know he was born in the fulness of time taking flesh of the Virgin Mary that what was the dyet of other infants in those parts of the world was his too that it might be evident to all the world he had assumed a real body like other men in every thing but sin We believe his Humane Body grew and increas'd as that of other men and that rational Soul joyned with his body by which he was a true Man had its advances in understanding tho' at a greater and more early rate than others all this we believe and yet Christ might be God and God with us for all this For the reality of his Humanity was not any prejudice to the truth of his Divinity he was perfect Man and no less perfect God Our adversary questions farther whether the name Immanuel be here given to Christ or not because he finds him no where else called by that name But neither was there any reason for that this prophetical name being chiefly designed to signifie his Nature Enjed. in locum as Christ was to signifie his Office and since 't is certain the name does belong to some body for it 's not put there for nothing either it belongs to Christ or that Author ought to have named some body to whom it did belong but he is silent in that matter therefore we conclude it belongs to the Son of God He alledges farther that supposing the name Immanuel be the name of Jesus in the Text it signifies no more than that God was in and with him as he was with other of his Prophets but that 's impertinent since the name doth not import that God was in or with him but that upon his Incarnation God was with us i. e. God did then assume flesh and appear to and come among us which could not be unless he were God He tells us Moses might as well have been called Emmanuel while he converst with the Israelites and the Ark of God especially since the Israelites expected to be saved by it and upon its being brought into the field the Philistines cryed out God is come into the Camp but was Moses conceived of the Holy Ghost was the Ark of God really a living Saviour God might have given them what names himself pleas'd but we no where find that he gave them this which shews that he designed to appropriate this name wholly to his own Son when he should send him into the world that under that very state of exinanition or humiliation we should see him we should know how great a Being converst with us What else he objects is absurd even to ridiculousness viz. That many since that time have born the name of Immanuel and yet we never took them for gods as several Emperours of Constantinople and many private men among the rest Immanuel Tremellius as he instances a learned Protestant of later years He might as well have proved that because several Jews and others have been called Moses and yet none of them were Lawgivers to Israel therefore Moses the Son of Amram was no such Legislator or that because there were several Jews who bore the name of Josua or Jesus who were not the Saviours of the world that therefore our Jesus was not so what signifies what name I or another fix upon my Son Or what 's more ordinary than for Men to baptize their children by Scripture-names without ever reflecting on or knowing the meaning of those names But where God gives a name and where the Spirit of God interprets it neither the Name nor the Interpretation can be insignificant nor is it so here but being by the Prophet of old assign'd to by the Evangelist here applyed to the Son of God it sufficiently teaches us that He was God eternal even God with us In the next place we may consider that Command of our Saviour himself to his Apostles when he gave them their Commission for executing their Apostolical Functions Matth. 28.19 Go ye and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Where the Son and the Holy Ghost being set equally with the Father as the objects of our Baptismal Faith either prove to us their certain equality or seem of a very dangerous import ready to impress upon us false notions of the Deity and to make us think those really equal whom we see by Christ himself joyned together without any particular mark of distinction or inequality when indeed they are not But this were to represent the Evangelist under a very ill Character I shall not insist upon that in this place that the Father Son and Holy Ghost are here named as three distinct Beings and one as much and really a person as the other Enjed. Wolzogenius in loc which the Socinians deny of the Holy Ghost but shall only take notice of those evasions they make use of for here they tell us That we may as well infer from that of the Apostle concerning the Israelites 1 Cor. 10.2 That they were all Baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea that Moses was the most high God as that Christ was God from this command of Mens being baptized in his name We know well enough that to be baptized into Moses is to be initiated into that Church which is governed by that Law given by God to Moses and that to be baptized into Christ is to be entred into that Church which receives God's Law as delivered by Christ but where in any divine precept do we find God the Father and
be the power of God a virtue flowing out of or from the Supreme Deity under this Notion we may rationally assert that this Holy Spirit can be commanded no way but by the Supreme God himself none else can promise it none can give it for if the Spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets much more certainly must the Spirit of God be subject to him it subsisting wholly in him and being according to our Adversaries one of those qualifications necessarily in the Supreme God Granting all this if our Saviour was a meer man as they say he could not possibly command this Sacred Spirit this Spirit so much superiour to mankind tho' considered as no more than a meer Appendage to the Almighty Yet our Saviour seems to employ this Spirit as he will that 's no wonder if the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost tho' three persons be all one God That exact concurrence in their eternal wills taking away all difficulties Thus when the Lord met with his Disciples and shew'd them the necessity of things happening with relation to himself as they did then He opened their understandings that they might understand the Scriptures Luk. 24.45 this opening their understandings did not consist barely in explaining some particular Texts to them they were yet but very dull and slow of understanding in themselves and tho' they had heard a thousand Texts authentically explain'd they might have continued very inapprehensive still Nor is it an usual manner of speech to say when a man explains any Author to others that he opens their understandings he may open the meaning of such or such Books or Passages very well yet those who hear him may not improve in their intellectuals this opening their understandings therefore argued some force upon their minds some extraordinary Energy of the Spirit within them whereby their natural and inveterate Dulness went off and they had more of spriteliness and vigour in their Souls than formerly they seem'd as Slaves with their fetters knockt off nimble and active and therefore more capable of apprehending any thing offered to them than formerly This was the first beginning to fit them for that great work they were in a few days to engage in it was to make them capable of satisfying themselves gradually in the Truth and Reason of those things which they were afterwards to preach to the world abroad and which they were compleatly fitted for by the following extraordinary effusions of that Holy Spirit upon them The first operations of it upon them then were gentle and easie but it was the operation of that Sacred Spirit only and of that Spirit as ordered by the blessed Jesus by which their understandings were thus opened We may agree to this the more easily if we consider that Promise Christ makes to his Disciples after this Behold I send the promise of my father upon you Luk 24.49 but tarry ye in the City of Jerusalem untill you be endued with power from on high The Father promises it but I send it Now this uses not to be a task for a man to make good the Promises of God it 's out of his power especially if the Promise be to be made good in some particular wherein God has a more peculiar interest Is my Spirit my breath none then can give it to another tho' my Spirit be not originally my own but breathed into me by an Almighty Creator Is the Holy Ghost the Breath the Spirit the Influence of God none then can dispose of it from him and the rather because it is originated in him and must be one with him it was then a strange presumption in our Lord to take upon him the making good Gods Promises to others since if he were no more than a Man He promised what was not in his power and pretended to make up some defects in his veracity who was the God of Truth and Truth it self But our Saviour went farther yet for making a visit once to his Disciples after his Resurrection His Blessing being bestowed he gives them a Commission of an extraordinary nature As my Father hath sent me even so send I you i. e. Job 20.21 As my Father sent me to reform the World so I send you to caâ—ry on that same work and as my Father's mission of me gave me a sufficient authority to do those things necessary to so great an end so my sending you gives you as great and unquestionable authority in proportion to those things which are laid on you this intimates that Christ had power to send men to govern and manage his Church as his Father had and in the same degree for if our Saviour was only his Father's Ambassador to them and so inferiour to him that sent him this had been an extravagant vanity it was never heard that an Ambassador from a King or Emperor pretended to send another Envoy from himself with such kind of expressions as these As my master the King has sent me so send I you nor are Princes wont to entrust their Agents with any such Power and the Credentials of such sub-ambassadors would appear very ridiculous to all those to whom they should be sent But from this Commission our Lord proceeds And when he had said this He breathed on them and said unto them ver 22. Receive ye the Holy Ghost Spiritus Sanctus est virtus seu efficacia à Deo in homines manans iisque communicata quâ eos ab aliis segregat suis usibus consecrat say the Socinians in the Racovian Catechism The Holy Spirit is a virtue or efficacy flowing from God upon men from the True the Supreme God they mean and communicated to them by which he separates such men from others and consecratâ— them to his own use If it be the efficacy or Power of the Supreme God how comes one whom they suppose to be a meer Man to confer it with his breath It was given afterwards by the laying on of the Apostles hands they gave it not by any virtue inherent in them but where they laid on their hands God sent it and that in different manners and proportions as he judged fit for the Receivers whose fitness the Apostles knew nothing of Our Saviour bestows it with his breath It must therefore be his own therefore he must be the Supreme God for in this action our Saviour did not mock his Disciples as Schlicktingius confesses CaetechismeÌ„ Rac. sect 6. c. 6. but he did certainly separate them by this action from the rest of the world and consecrated them peculiarly to his own service and this at the appointed time they engaged in according to his orders In the forementioned Catechism when they ask what the gift of the Holy Spirit is the answer is Est ejusmodi Dei afflatus quo animi nostri vel uberiore rerum divinarum notitiâ vel spe vitae eternae certiore atque adeo gaudio ac gustu quodam
tho' it were an inward grace a strengthning of the Soul which they requir'd of him Again when the Disciples were with him on ship-board and during his quiet sleep just sinking by the violence of an angry tempest they in a fright wake their Master and cry out to him Lord save us we perish Mat. 8.25 If our Saviour was a meer Man the Disciples acted with much less sence than Jonah's Mariners who every one in the storm called upon their Gods for help and summoned sleeping Jonas not to save them by His Power but to joyn with them in calling upon his God For was it ever heard before that when a Ship was just sinking or running upon a rock the ship's Crew ran to some poor ignorant Passenger to beg their security from him The Mariners tho' convinced that he was an extraordinary Person made no such application to Saint Paul in a parallel danger it 's God alone who can command the Seas and Winds his permissive Word makes them ruffle the Universe and put Nature into a Consternation the same Word lays them still as in their first Originals ere uncorrupted Nature knew any thing terrible or dangerous In the case before us our Saviour answered them not as that King of Israel did the Woman If the Lord help thee not what can I do But He arose and rebuked the Winds and the Sea and there was a great calm Nature in its greatest hurry own'd his Divine Authority only his Disciples stumbled upon the Question ver 27. What manner of Man is this that even the Winds and the Sea obey him They talked like Men beside themselves with Fear they called upon him for Help as if they had believed him to be God they reflected upon that Deliverance he had given them as if he had been no more than Man but he takes no notice of any error they were in in their first Devotions but by his Mercy encouraged them to do the same again upon a like occasion What the Disciples did here in a storm at Sea that Saint Stephen the first Martyr for Christianity did in a more violent storm of Persecution on Land for when he came to his last Agonies when it was the proper season for a good Man to exert the utmost vigor of his Faith and Charity then for himself and with respect to his own Soul he prays Acts 7.59 Lord Jesus receive my Spirit The frequent expiring Ejaculation of Holy Saints and Martyrs after him Compare now this with that assertion of the wise Man concerning Death Eccles. 12 7. Then shall the Dust return to Earth as it was and the Spirit shall return to God who gave it and the consequence will be either that our Lord Jesus Christ was the great Author or Creator and Giver of the Rational Soul or else that this Holy Martyr then when filled in an extraordinary manner with the Holy Ghost in his extreme hours when commonly Mens apprehensions of futurity are most Clear and Rational talk'd in a very Impertinent and sinful manner to devote his Soul to him who could have no right to it if he were a meer Creature and to forget his God Franciscus Davidis would have us believe here that Stephen did not call upon Jesus Christ but upon God the Father and that we should translate the expression O thou Lord of Jesus receive my Spirit but this Socinus has strongly confuted tho' upon their common Principle of our Saviour's being a meer Creature Franciscus undertakes the much more rational part However here his subterfuge is nothing worth It was Jesus the Son of God He who bore that proper name of Jesus from his Circumcision for whose sake Stephen was now persecuted to Death by the malicious Jews it was the same Jesus whom he saw at the right hand of God when the Heavens opened to give him such a view of future Glory prepared for Martyrs as might support and encourage him under his sufferings it was to him therefore that Stephen applyed himself and sitted himself for a glorious and happy Exit by that admirable Resignation But neither did Saint Stephen stop there but as the utmost effort of a dying Martyr's Charity He adds this to his former ejaculation ver 60. Lord lay not this sin to their charge He certainly designed exemplary Charity in this and to imitate his dying Saviour who prayed his Father to forgive his Murderers for they knew not what they did But the Martyr's enemies would have had little reason to have admir'd his Charity had he presented his Prayers for them to one who had no power to forgive them and the Jews would be as ready now to make the Objection as heretofore Who can forgive sins but God only And if God to whom vengeance belongeth in whose sight the Death of his Saints is precious would certainly avenge the blood of his Saints and Martyrs upon their Persecutors to what purpose was it to pray to him to forgive them who not being the most high God himself could have no Power to forgive those who had sin'd against the most high God so as to give them any security but above all He could never have hoped for any acceptance at the hand of God in any Petition whatsoever had he now in his last extremity been guilty of Idolatry Saint Paul had been made partaker of extraordinary Revelations had been snatch'd up into the third heavens where he had seen and heard things not lawful for a Man to utter 2 Cor. 1â— 7 8 9. indeed things unspeakable lest He should have been exalted above measure thro' the abundance of those Revelations there was given to him a thorn in the flesh the messenger of Satan to buffet him This was a very severe humiliation and Saint Paul was sensible of it and at first as appears by the Text very uneasie under it Saint Paul knew well enough that the best remedy for all calamities was Prayer that Prayers presented to the true God with a sincere heart could not return unfruitful but Saint Paul presently applyes himself to Christ For this cause I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me says he and He said unto me my Grace is sufficient for thee for my strength is made perfect in weakness By the Lord here the Socinians themselves understand our Lord Jesus and therefore alledge this Text as a proof of Pious Mens praying to Christ Now had Saint Paul prayed to Christ for Assistance and Relief in such a case where only the Supreme God could really help him if that Christ were a meer Creature then such a Prayer must be Idolatrous and such Service be called Idolatry wherein the Creature was rather worshipped than the Creator and Christ a Creature must as Lucifer of old have endeavoured to set himself up for a rival God and prosecute a separate Interest of his own and manage and assist his servants in a way of opposition to the most high God and
so he must have Graces of his own and Strength of his own to employ for the use of his own Devotoes for so Saint Paul tells us that Christ referred him not to the Grace of God or to the strength of God for security from the violence of Satan but tells him My Grace and my Strength are sufficient for thee therefore there could be no need of applying himself to any other Now if Saint Paul were in this case guilty of Idolatry all those who follow the pattern of Saint Paul must incur the same guilt but he was not guilty therefore neither were his Imitators guilty of it The Socinians in proof of the lawfulness of Praying to Christ allege farther Saint Paul's joyning him with God the Father in his own Prayer with respect to the Thessalonians to whom he 's there writing â— Thess 3.11 Now God himself and our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way unto You where he takes for granted that the Father and the Son are both Co-partners in the same directing power and therefore he equally Petitions them both for guidance in his design of visiting the Thessalonians What the Apostle himself did in a Letter sent to Believers for their instruction in matters concerning their Salvation we need not doubt but they 'd be very apt to follow him in so that either this Praying to Christ was lawful and reasonable in it self or else the Apostle must be concluded to have it in his mind only to abuse those he wrote to and to draw them by his extraordinary influence upon them into Sin for a sin it must be to make any meer Creature the Vltimate Object of our Prayers and Devotions That the Apostle in this passage does so is indisputable if at least it's own'd that He makes God the Father such an Object for he joyns them together puts no mark of Inferiority or Subordinacy upon Jesus Christ but what he begs of the Father the same He begs of the Son in one continued expression And the Apostle frequently does the same thing in those Salutations he sends to the several Churches where He wishes them Grace Mercy and Peace equally from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ Grace Mercy and Peace are all divine and spiritual Gifts as in possession of the Father so in possession of the Son else it would be very impertinent to Petition them equally for it and of very ill consequence for it would easily bring such a notion into Mens heads as that some created Being might have a power of giving Gifts of a Spiritual nature as well as the Supreme God and that it might be lawful in our most serious Devotions to joyn him who alone is God with one who is no more than a Creature to set them in a rank as equal as words would allow and to conclude a Prayer to the great Creator of all things insufficient to procure any good from him unless it were backt and strengthned by the joyned formality of an Address to a dependent Creature But we need not so much insist on this particular since the same Socinians as a vindication of Prayers addrest to our Saviour take notice of that piece of Religious Worship as being made the very Characteristick or distinguishing note of Christians So Ananias answers the Command of Going to visit and baptize the newly converted Saul Acts 9.14.21 He hath authority from the chief Priests to bind all that call on thy Name And when Saul first began to preach Christ at Damascus all Men ask'd with amazement if it was not He who had lately destroyed all that called upon the name of Christ that is all who believed in him So that it seems from hence that to believe in Christ and to call upon him were used as reciprocal terms every one who believed in Christ would call upon him or Pray to him every one who pray'd to him must believe on him for as the Apostle elsewhere argues How shall they call on him or pray to him in whom they have not believ'd So again St. Paul inscribes his first Epistle to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 1. â— to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be Saints with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ i. e. to all Christians for whose general use and instruction he wrote that Epistle as well as for the Corinthians And the same Christians are described as such 2 Tim. 2.22 who call upon the name of the Lord with a pure Heart These are the evidences drawn by the Socinians themselves out of Scripture to prove the practice of Christians in the very infancy of the Church and they are sufficient for that purpose Now that Those who accompanied with our Lord himself during his converse upon Earth or that those Apostles who were guided by the extraordinary influences of the Holy Ghost or that those first Christians who took the â—oke of Christ upon them when the Gospel was certainly preached to them in its original simplicity that all these should be guilty of abominable Idolatries and that when the Apostles themselves were originally Jews who had an irreconcileable aâ—ersion to any thing that look'd in the least â—ike Idolatry and that our Saviour himâ—elf should have so little regard for his Disâ—iples as to let them commit a gross sin â—f a damning nature without any check or â—eproof that that Holy Spirit which was â—romised to believers on purpose that He might guide them into all truth that both these should so very early not only permit but encourage and perswade men to commit Idolatry and all this at a time when they pretended to promote the Salvation of Souls and when it was notoriously known to all Mankind that Idolatry was a Sin irrational in it self and detestable in the sight of God that the one part should commit and the other promote Idolatry under such circumstances is absolutely incredible They had the Pagan World at that time to reform The Apostles were all willing to spend and be spent to carry on that glorious and merciful work at the utmost hazard of their lives the great and crying sin of the Gentile world was their Idolatry that of which St. Paul particularly took notice with grief and anger among the Athenians but it had been a strange method of reforming an Idolatrous World by advancing the same practice without any other correction but only a variation of the Object as if Praying to a Man had not been as great an Error as Praying to a Genius or the Sun or some other bright Star or an Ox or any other Creature Such things would have rendred the Gospel foolishness with a witness among the Gentiles and none would have wondered that Christ should have culled out poor ignorant Fishermen and other illiterate persons to be the first Preachers since such a senceless Method of procedure was only fit for such dull and unthinking Creatures to prosecute But
Father when he has no more and the Union yet between the eternal Father and the eternal Son is of a closer and more levelling kind than any thing inferiour nature can afford Our New Author indeed challenges us Cum Scriptoribus de generatione animaelium haec comparentur Nos Dei virtutem in Virginis uterum aliquam substantiam creatam vel immisisse aut ibi creasse affirmamus ex quā juncto eo quod ex ipsius Virginis substantiâ accessit verus homo generatus fuit Aliàs enim homo ille Dei filius à conceptione nativitate propriè non fuisset Sic Smalcius de vero naturali Dei filio c. 3. Ruarus ab ipso uterque à veritate quantum distat if we believe this eternal Generation to prove it expresly contain'd in Scripture and then to prove this Eternal Generation the true Basis or Foundation of his glorious Title of the Only Begotten Son of God As if clear Consequences from plain Premises were not a demonstrative proof of any thing to Men who pretend to Reason and a capacity of discoursing Rationally which is indeed nothing but drawing Consequences plain or obscure from agreeable Premises Or for an instance as if when I find God call'd a Spirit and I know a Spirit is Invisible I might not conclude God tho' a Spirit to be invisible unless I found Invisibility it self distinctly and separated from the Notion of a Spirit attributed to him somewhere in Scripture Now if all these Proofs I have laid down before have proved that our Saviour had a Being before he was Conceived in the Womb of the Virgin which we think to be proved beyond contradiction and if our Adversaries will but allow that Dictate of Common sence that He who really is my Son is my Son as soon as he has a Being or if He be not my Son then He never can be my Son otherwise than by Adoption and so Christ can never be the only begotten Son of his Father because all those who Believe in and Obey God are his Sons by Adoption too if they 'l but allow this then Christ must have been the Son of his Father before such time as he was Conceived in the Virgins Womb because he had a Being before that Conception If Christ had a Being before his Conception it must have been as a Spirit but Spirits do not generate one another therefore he must have had a Being from the beginning of the World If then we fall in with the Arrians and say God created his Son the Word first out of nothing and then created all other things by Him we contradict Scripture which positively assures us that in six days the Lord made Heaven and Earth and all that in them is and therefore rested the seventh day but God could not rest the Seventh Day nor do all he had to do in Six Days if he wrought more than Six Days but He must have worked before the beginning of the Six Days if he made the Word before he made any thing else and we have the Six Days Work summ'd up authentically by Moses but no account there of the Creation of the Word before the Creation of Matter If he were not Created before Matter then he could not Create all things as the Arrians pretend If therefore He had a Being it must have been from all eternity but he was not Created from eternity for whatsoever is Created must have a Beginning but he was begotten of his Father as the Scriptures assure us if therefore he were Begotten and not Made and Begotten before the beginnings of the World He could be Begotten of nothing but of the Substance of his Father there being no other Substance for him to be originated from and therefore must be eternal because the Substance of his Father is and cannot be otherwise than eternal This being true it would be meer folly not to fix his Sonship more peculiarly in this eternal Generation for He that is Begotten by a Father must be his Son and he that is Begotten from eternity must be a Son from eternity Therefore Christ who was Begotten of his Father from eternity must be the Son of his Father from eternity which was the thing to be demonstrated If yet a Socinian will stumble at the Vnion of the Humane with the Divine Nature as if it were an impossibility or against reason let Him resolve us fairly how the Vnion is made between a rational and immortal Soul of a Spiritual and an heavy and unactive Body of an Earthly Nature We are all convinced they are so joyned together but those subtle Springs whereby an Immaterial Soul actuates a Material Body are hitherto indiscernible by the sharpest Eye of impair'd Reason why then should we conclude it impossible for the Divine and Humane Nature to be united together unless it be united in a way more intelligible than our Souls and Bodies For tho' our Souls are of a Spiritual Nature they are infinitely inferiour to the Nature of Almighty God and being that Constitutive part of Humane Nature by which Man is a Rational Creature it might seem an easie task for us to find out how that Soul we reason by should be united to that Body we reason in But since we are so far to seek in this matter may we not reasonably conclude God has hidden this from our Eyes to moderate and humble our unruly Fancies to keep us from prying into things that are too high for us and to convince us that many things wherein we are more immediately concerned not being a whit the less True tho' we understand them not we ought to believe that some things may be True with respect to God of which yet we are able to give our selves no considerable account And so we may satisfie our selves that our Saviour spoke plain truth when he said I and my Father are One meaning thereby an Essential Vnity between his Father and Him because tho' he were at the time of his speaking so a true Man invested with real flesh and blood yet He was God before he was Man the Word of God before he was made flesh and dwelt among us and was God when He was Man his Divine Nature not being prejudiced by his assuming Flesh and Blood by that Divine Nature he was One essentially with his Father and his Humane assumed Nature being in his Divine Nature as a finite is contained in an infinite there could be but One Person at last 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ God-Man our Saviour and Redeemer I take the more notice of this particular which I had insisted on before because our new Assertor of Socinianism would perswade us that if we duely examin'd these Words of our Saviour on this occasion spoken to the Jews when they charged him with Blasphemy because in his former expressions He had made himself God tho' indeed he were but a Man we should quit all arguments drawn from thence the words are these
every place and made an unthinking Generation prostrate themselves to him for good and assistance when the World contain'd no other Enemie to their good but himself it may seem strange that the World should have been seiz'd with so gross a Stupidity as to be lyable to the fatal Mistake but when ignorance prevails it 's no wonder that a Spirit of such active subtlety should extend his Conquests very far where the Soul is once made like a fair Table without any impression it 's easie for the first that attempts it to draw the Pourtraict of the Devil upon it now the Engines by which the Devil held the Soul in slavery were these False Interests Interest is what goes a great way in managing the affairs of this World where it 's conceiv'd to lie it often excites in vigorous and apprehensive Souls a strange industry and eagerness to carry on whatsoever seems subservient to it nay he 's justly looked upon as his own Enemy who does not observe his own Interests and prosecute them to extremity this the Devil knowing very well set false Interests before the Eyes of much the greater part of Mankind some few sagacious Souls were sensible of his Subtleties and stood upon their guard kept their Eyes so open that his Lethaean bough was unable to close them but the rest were lulled by the fatal musick of bewitching Syrens into such Dreams as nothing but eternal ruines could awake them from thus the Devil perswaded Men That Liberty was their interest not that sacred liberty from sin and guilt which Divine Religion offers to the Soul but a wild extravagance the product of wretched inconsideracy which carries men out into all excess of wickedness a Liberty which has no bounds but what time and mortality sets before it and yet which is so far from being a true Liberty that it 's the most miserable and to the Soul when it has leisure but to think a little the most intolerable slavery in the World But however Liberty is the word and it carries charms along with it and too too few reflect upon it so far as to distinguish between what 's Real and Fictitious It is the Interest of Mankind to seek for Pleasure i. e. to seek to live always with Him in whose presence is fulness of joy and at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore but here Hell plays again with Ambiguities and gives not Men leisure to distinguish or judge of Pleasures false or true transient or perpetual But Pleasure and Liberty are such Interests as no Wise Man can cease to prosecute therefore Men must take a world of pains to glut themselves with sensual Pleasures where Sorrows and Torments have their shares and they must have Liberty to be damn'd in spite of all the whineing Lectures of men pretending to true Religion and to teach Men saving Wisdom there are some petty Moral Virtues which Hell it self would recommend lest a general hurry into Vice should give so horrid a Prospect of things as should startle the most insensate Brute and make him desire at least to live in Peace with the World for his own security but it is Interest still for any Man to do wrong to his Neighbours when he finds himself strong enough to justifie his pretensions by Force And whether he succeeds or no the Devil gains his ends which is the destruction of Mankind which he always promotes so far as he may safely do it without rendring his Advices suspicious to his own Vassals so that according to the Divinity of Hell it is Man's Interest to be extremely Ambitious extremely Debauch'd extremely Wicked in all these things corrupt Nature loves to go on without check or restraint But if it be not safe for the same Person to take his swing in every respect any One of them is enough to damn him eternally and he may indulge himself in what he pleases But whereas the Soul sometimes reflects upon futurity there are Elysian fields provided for the Fancy to exercise it self upon where it may be Rewards are promised to some Popular Virtues but neither the Sensualist nor the irregularly Ambitious nor the Pitiful Effeminate Souls shall be excluded from them It was always the suggestion of Hell that the Messengers of Heaven had no other design but to yoke men under unreasonable severities to debar them of all the delights of life to engage them in morose and sullen courses and all with a prospect only of a Chimaerical happiness such as had no being but in the talk of those who invented it now these things must needs sound very harshly to Flesh and Blood and arm Men against that Religion which should pretend to invade such rights and priviledges This argument Hell made use of principally against the Jewish Religion of old and endeavoured on all occasions to expose it to the rest of Mankind When the worth and import of Jewish Ceremonies was almost at an end then to the Jews the suggestion was That their Holy Religion that Law given to them in so extraordinary a manner by the hand of God himself was like to be trodden under foot that God's Temple the Glory of their Nation was like to be destroy'd and it must certainly be their Interests who had just hopes of Salvation by their Law to defend it against all encroachments and alterations whatsoever Against Christianity it was easie to perswade the Gentiles That all those Gods whom they had so long adored and by whose kind influences they had so long been happy were now like to be set at nought that they would be tempted to a perswasion which the Wise and Inquisitive Heads the subtle Philosophers of those Ages who yet were the Wisest Men and the greatest Examples would never admit of that therefore if they embraced it they must certainly incur the odium of all the World and prepare themselves to suffer whatsoever the joint furies of the Universe could inflict upon them and it was certainly their Interest to write after the Copy of the Philosophick Tribe to assert the Honour of their antient Deities and to live in a good correspondence with all mankind These suggestions were fair and plausible and golden Interest every way glittering in mens faces these introduced Violent and unreasonable Prejudices against all those means which should be made use of by Heaven to assert Men into a true and substantial liberty from that Hellish slavery they had been inured to Now if the case be never so plain that Men are really in a place of torment and that they feel it severely if their Looks and Cryes and Complaints make others take notice of and pity their Condition and yet One that goes to perswade them of the uneasiness of their lives and offers to disengage them from those pains they feel and proves beyond contradiction that his Power is sufficient to effect what he pretends to cannot be heard nor his Offers attended to or accepted it must necessarily be
design'd to exempt us from all fear of Humane Authority or Justice but it 's à minore ad majus from the less to the greater If we should be afraid of humane Justice which can only inflict temporal Punishments much more should we fear that of Heaven which equally extends to body and soul to temporal and eternal Punishments so that when the fear of one comes in competition with the other we may chuse rather to undergo humane Severities than to cope with everlasting Burnings But if we look upon Justice in its own Nature it 's moral and good from Eternity and therefore the obligations laid upon us to follow Justice are indispensible Now as I formerly observ'd the excellence of Moral Virtues flows from their agreeableness to the nature of Almighty God who is the great and inexhausted source of every thing that 's good therefore whatsoever there is in Man that 's really commendable that Commendation flows from his endeavours to resemble God to be holy as He is holy and perfect as He is perfect and every such part of true Goodness is infinite in God so it 's good for a Man to be Wise and he may by endeavours acquire a considerable Talent in Wisdom but God is infinitely Wise so that without any assistance or forecast he knows and understands every thing at once with all those Circumstances attending on it It 's good for a man to cleanse and purifie himself as far as possible from all filthiness and pollution both of Flesh and Spirit to avoid the very garment spotted with the Flesh every appearance of evil endeavours of this Nature are always requir'd of all Men and those who are pure in heart have Blessedness ascertain'd to them but God is infinite in Purity nothing polluted can possibly approach him nor can the least thought of it be affixt upon him without denying him It 's good for a Man to be Tender Compassionate Loving no Duty 's more inculcated upon Men nothing more agreeable to the temper of the Gospel there will yet be some strugglings in corrupt Nature against it but God is Love it self Infinite and Essential yet as Wisdom in a Man consists in knowing some things rightly but in God consists in knowing all things as Purity in Man consists in honest Endeavours after Innocence and Blamelesness in every respect but in God exalts him infinitely above every thing that is corrupt or imperfect as Love in Man shews it self in doing Good as we have opportunity within the narrow Sphere of our Activity but in God is diffusive to all his Creatures so if it be Justice universal in Man to make good as far as he 's capable every thing that 's due to others universal Justice in God must be of the same nature only infinitely perfect in him because it 's impossible he should be deceiv'd or mistaken in any particular and therefore consequently if it be Justice in any Man according to that Power he 's entrusted with to punish those who do ill and to reward those who do well and if no Man can be counted universally Just howsoever he may manage himself in all other Instances if he be defective in this It 's then as certainly Justice in Almighty God to bestow Rewards and Punishments upon all Persons according to their Actions and therefore the Apostle sets off the consummate Justice of the great Tribunal at last by this that when we appear before it 2 Cor. 5.10 we shall all receive according to what we have done in the Flesh whether it be good or evil and therefore if it should be suppos'd that God should fail in this particular Distribution we must upon this supposition conclude God cannot be infinitely Just and if he fail of Infinity in any one proper Attribute he can really be infinite in none so not infinitely Wise or Merciful or Holy if withal he be not infinitely Just But if we allow that God is indeed infinitely Just then though we allow him to be infinitely Good and Merciful yet his Justice must as certainly be satisfied in the punishment of Criminals who are obstinate in their Crimes as his Mercy in pardoning Criminals who are truly sensible of that Guilt they lye under Now among the Sons of Men there are none who are not great Sinners therefore they are all properly the objects of God's Justice and infinite Justice can never be at rest till those who are Sinners are punish'd therefore that must be true that that Mercy is as infinite which pardons one Criminal who has deserved punishment as that Justice is which condignly punishes all Delinquents and this stands good let the Pardon be granted on what considerations soever for for Justice to punish the guilty is but natural but for Mercy to pardon them seems not so naturally necessary since Mercy shews it self infinite in giving all things their Being in providing every thing necessary for them in giving them Rules and Laws of all kinds to act by and all possible Encouragements for them to manage themselves by those Rules and all this when there was no Merit on the side of the Creature to oblige him to it and that God being infinitely happy in himself had no need either of their Existence or their Services therefore the very Being of all things is only the effect of his eternal Will as the four and twenty Elders acknowledge in their Eucharistic Hymns to God Thou art worthy say they Rev. 4.11 to receive Glory and Honour and Power for thou hast created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were Created Now after all this Mercy shown and this Mercy abus'd and despis'd Justice might very properly take place in punishing the Despisers nor indeed could Mercy however infinite have taken place to the prejudice of Justice or the Obstruction of its free passage had there not been a proper Mean found out for the Satisfaction of Justice otherwise than by immediate or extream Punishment that is by the Interposition of our Saviour in and by whom Mercy and Pardon make their free approaches to undeserving Sinners He that shall go about to make one Attribute in God inferiour to another goes about to ruine the right Notion of a God for in an infinite Being nothing can be but what 's infinite and among Infinites there can be no inequality but they go about to degrade Divine Justice exceedingly who make all the effects of God's punishing Justice only Arbitrary and not natural or necessary and therefore determine that he punishes those who are eternally damn'd only because it 's his pleasure to do so whereas he could forgive them all freely were they never so guilty and those who are at all Forgiven he really does forgive so without any regard to any Merits of their Own or to the Merits of any Other on their account and all these things the Socinians assert merely that they may take away all the Merit of our Saviour's Life or Death and make
Obedience uninterrupted and universal at least it must be said He 's very unkind for He who can forgive and as Socinus asserts does forgive all our Sins without any Satisfaction tender'd to his Justice might as well forgive us without putting us to the trouble of informing our Minds or regulating and restraining our Actions for we cannot easily give any reason why he should exact such Duties of us as Conditions of our Salvation when if it pleas'd him he could give us Salvation without any Conditions at all If it be objected that He has declared otherwise in his reveal'd Will and it's Justice in him to be true to his own Declarations that Plea again reduces all to perfect Arbitrariness and he will be irrespectively Merciful merely because he will be Merciful and he will be irrespectively Vindictive merely because he will be so which things seem somewhat to contradict our common notion of Justice That it does suum cuique tribuere give to every one what 's due and proper to him We believe more safely that God lays those Duties which yet we are unable to perform in that perfect manner we ought upon us that they might be as continual Remembrancers to us of that Satisfaction which he really requires at our hands for could we perform all God's revealed Will without any failure either in Time or Circumstance God's Justice would be otherwise satisfied and employ'd wholly in distributing Rewards among us but since when we take the utmost pains our Duties are either at one time or other essentially or circumstantially sinful therefore we our selves ought to conclude some such Satisfaction necessary as may make up for our unavoidable defects and since we are assured by God's Word that One has undertaken that Work who was every way capable of performing it we are obliged in gratitude to so great a Benefactor to endeavour after all that Holiness and Perfection how little soever it is that we are capable of and we are oblig'd to do it for our own sakes because it 's no way reasonable those should be Partakers of any benefit from Christ's Satisfaction who do not perform those Conditions upon which only that Satisfaction can be any ways beneficial to us To this we may add yet further That if God can forgive Sinners without Satisfaction made for their Sins without any derogation from his Justice how merciful soever God may seem to Mankind yet he seems wholly to have forgotten all that Mercy with respect to the fallen Angels for if no Satisfaction was needful for Sin why could not their Maker forgive their Transgressions too without it as well as Men's there might have been a thousand Means doubtless found out to confirm a Covenant of Grace with them as well as that of the Death of Christ to confirm the same Covenant with Men but it seems God would not so forgive them though he could they could offer no Satisfaction for themselves therefore they are eternally and immediately damn'd these Conclusions are necessary and inevitable from Socinian Principles but in themselves are detestable and damnable But what the Socinians fail to effect by God's Word they make no doubt of making good by dint of Reason in which they look upon themselves as wholly invincible Here then they assert That if Christ have made Satisfaction for us and that suitable to our Necessities then Christ must have suffer'd the pains of Eternal Death because Mankind by Sins were liable to such Eternal Death but here we may observe that they fasten upon that single Instance of Christ's Sufferings viz. his Death in the matter of Satisfaction for Sinners onely whereas our Lord was a continual Sufferer on that account from his first Condescension to take our Nature upon him to his Crucifixion and I make no question but what he underwent when he bore humane Infirmities when he was in that bitter Agony in the Garden when he cry'd out upon the Cross My God My God why hast thou forsaken me I make no question but his Sufferings in those Instances were much greater than what he underwent in Death it self and so the very Story of his Passion represents things in relation to those latter Scenes of his Life on Earth for what prodigious Cause must we imagine there was that he declar'd to Peter and the Sons of Zebedee Matth. 26.38 My Soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto Death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my Soul is compass'd round about or even overwhelmed with Sorrow for so the Original imports In his Agony in the Garden what through a clear Apprehension of that dreadful Task he was then to set about more immediately what with the Fervour and Earnestness of his Prayers to his Father either that if it were possible that Cup that bitter Cup he was then to drink might pass from him or that what he was then suffering might be truly effectual to that great End for which he suffer'd Luke 22.44 his Sweat was as if it had been great drops of blood falling down to the ground the Terror of his instant Sufferings to that Flesh and Blood he had assumed as well as the Strength of his Enemies and the greatness of the Conflict he was then engaged in might be the occasion of that stupendous Sweat for experience tells us that Fear opens the Pores of the Body and emits as grumous Sweats as the most earnest Intention whatsoever of the Body or the Mind and the Angel appearing to Christ in the Garden and strengthening him seems more necessary with respect to those Terrors ready to seize on Flesh and Blood engaged in mighty Sorrows and oppressing Woes than meerly to re-inforce that Earnestness in Prayer which the greater the Danger is so long as the Soul is consistent with it self will naturally be the more earnest and importunate for Assistance or Deliverance His Sufferings yet seem to work more violently upon him when he comes to that bitter Cry My God My God why hast thou forsaken me why dost thou seem to hide thy Face from me and to leave me wholly to the barbarous Cruelties of wicked and malicious Men the Complaint was more natural and carried with it a greater Emphasis when proceeding from that Son of God that onely that beloved Son in whom he was well pleased so far his holy Soul seems to be upon the rack but when he receives his last bitter Draught and owns the mighty work as well as the Types and Predictions relating to him were finished the Storms that ruffled him before seem to sink into a Calm and he breath'd out his Sacred Life with those charming eruptions of unbounded Love Father forgive them Luke 23.34 for they know not what they do and those full expressions of absolute Satisfaction in what he had undergone Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit v. 46. Our Lord's Sufferings ended there and there with his dying Breath he rais'd to himself the first Trophies of his glorious Victories for though