answered by the events of the New and that in such instances wherein they have not been applied or compapared together by our Saviour himself or by any of his Apostles but that the Scripture contains within it self a hidden Treasure of Testimony to its own undoubted authority and truth which Providence did not think it fit to reveal and lay open but to let it lye hid in darkness and concealment as a reward to the pious curiosity of such as should afterwards diligently read and search the Scriptures and that in every age there might some new Evidence appear for the further confirmation and assurance of the truth and to render the Atheists and Infidels the more inexcusable by the dayly encreasing light that continues to surround them CHAP. 3. That the MESSIAS was to be GOD as well as MAN I Have done with the first branch of the Text Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son I come now to the Second and shall call his name Immanuel which being interpreted is God with us from which words having already asserted from the former the Chastity and Virginity of the Mother of God I shall now as briefly and as clearly as I can assert the undoubted and unquestionable Divinity of the Son against those Hereticks whether of our own or former times that have with so impious and detestable confidence presumed to deny it and the first argument I shall make use of shall be taken immediately from the words themselves and shall call his Name Immanuel now the question is whether she did call his Name Emanuel or no and the answer to this question is very easie that she did not and that the Name given him at his Circumcision was not Imanuel but Jesus and this by the direction of the Angel himself because he was to save his People from their sins wherefore it is clear that these words and shall call his Name Emanuel if they have any sense at all cannot be understood of his Name but of his Nature and if so then all that I desire is granted that he was by Nature God as well as Man and this is the meaning of that Phrase and shall call his Name Emanuel that is she shall acknowledge him to be God and worship him as such and if it can be proved that ever she did so then it is plain that this Prophecy was exactly fulfilled and that here is all that can be desired for the explication of this place and what else I beseech you is or can be the meaning of the first words of her Triumphant Song My Soul doth magnifie the Lord and my Spirit hath rejoyced in God my Saviour for he hath regarded the lowliness of his Hand Maiden that is God that is about to take Human Flesh and Human Nature upon him hath also graciously and mercifully decreed to make me his poor Handmaiden and lowly Servant the happy Instrument of conveying so great a Blessing to the World or else we may interpret those words Behold a Virgin shall Conceive and bear a Son and shall call his Name Emanuel after this manner she shall Conceive and bare a Son and such a Son as shall be as really God as he is Man for in the Hebrew Idiom things are said to be called what indeed they are as in that passage concerning Elizabeth the Mother of John the Baptist This is the sixth month with her who was called Barren that is who was really so for the Text tells us likewise that she was old and well striken in years and the Angel acknowledged that her Conception was impossible by the course of Nature and so in that passage of the Prophet Isaiah concerning the Messias which hath been already made use of to another purpose in the former part of this discourse Vnto us a Child is born unto us a Son is given and the Government shall be upon his Shoulder and his Name shall be called Wonderful Councellor the Mighty God the Everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace that is he shall really be all these things and among others he shall be the Everlasting Father and the Mighty God or in the Language of the Socinians Deus ille altissimus the God of Melchisedek the most high God And this is my first argument drawn from the consideration of the words of my Text and shall call his Name Immanuel neither was that the Name he was called by at his Circumcision or the Name by which he was known either to his Disciples or the Jews or any other so that this place cannot possibly be interpreted of his Name but Nature and is as much as to say in other words that he was really God as well as Man But Secondly he that raised up himself from the Grave after his body had lain there for three days together was really God as well as Man but our Jesus raised himself by his own Power from the dead after he had lain buried in the Grave for three days together therefore he was really God as well as Man That this could not be done by any Human Power is a thing that cannot without great folly and stupidity be questioned or denied that he did it by his own Power is equally manifest from his own words Destroy this Temple said he and in three days I will raise it up which words the Evangelist tells us he spake of the Temple of his Body wherefore if he were raised from the Dead by the Power of God considered as a Power distinct from that with which he was truly and properly invested himself then it is false what he affirms that he himself in the compass of three days would raise up and renew the Temple of his Body after it had been destroyed but if he did it himself as he affirms himself to have done then he was truly and properly invested with that Power by which it was performed which Power since it could be no less then such as was truly and properly Divine it follows unavoidably that he was really God as well as Man Again in the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead that Prophecy was fulfilled Thou shalt not leave my Soul in Hell nor suffer thine Holy one to see Corruption which words are the words of Christ speaking by the Mouth and Spirit of the Psalmist to God the Father and that they were Prophetical of the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead we have the express authority of St. Peter for it in the 2d of the Acts and the 29 30 and 31. verses Men and Brethren said he let me freely speak unto you of the Patriarch David that he is both dead and buried and his Sepulchre is with us unto this day therefore being a Prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an Oath to him that of the fruit of his Loins according to the Flesh he would raise up Christ to sit on his Throne he seeing this before spake of the Resurrection of Christ that his Soul was not
should be a space into which the bodies that are moved should be received otherwise there could be no motion at all and yet several bodies succeeding one another and taking up exactly the same room as in the motion of the Air or in the course of a River or the like it is a plain case there must be a common extension or space which is not matter otherwise none of these bodies could be received into it Fourthly Des Cartes being asked this question suppose God had created nothing in the beginning of things but only one hollow Vessel what would you say then would there not in this case have been an extension which was not matter to this question he returned for answer that in this case the sides of the Vessel would have come together because there was nothing between them but this answer was absurd and foolish upon several accounts first because the space we have been speaking of has been proved to be a real thing and that there is and must be supposed to be such a thing in the World Secondly that this contradicts the great Principle of the Cartesian Philosophy which is that every thing will remain in the state wherein it is except it be disturbed by some external cause and there being in this case no external cause that appears that should push the sides of the Vessel together there is no reason why according to his own Principles it should not remain in the same condition in which it vvas created But then in the third place suppose the sides of such a Vessel should come together yet they could not come together except they had been asunder before and that is sufficient to prove as much as is requisite for my purpose that there is or may be a space vvhich is not matter Fifthly and Lastly DesCartes being hardly prest in an Epistle from a learned man which hath been published together with Des Cartes his answer since the death of that Philosoper and seeing himself driven to this hard dilemma that either he must deny the existénce of Immaterial Substances or else he must grant their extension one of which he dare not and the other he was very loath to do as a middle expedient between these two extreams he made answer Spiritus extenduntur suo modo Spirits or Immaterial Beings are extended after a manner peculiar to themselves which is all we contend for For the extension of matter is dead and passive that of Spirits active and self-moving the extension of one is an insensible extension and is only discerned by thought and speculation but that of the other may very frequently be seen and felt and is at least a possible Object of our corporeal senses and this I think is difference enough SECTION VII Of the advantages of this way of proving the DIVINE EXISTENCE AND so I come to the third thing proposed which is concerning the advantages which this way of proving the existence of a God from the consideration of the Divine extension hath above all other ways of inferring it that have hitherto been used And those advantages are these three which follow First That it affords a sensible experiment that there is such a Being as a God for I have proved by sense from every days experience from the very Being of motion in the World without which there vvould be no sense or feeling of any thing vvhatsoever vvithout us that there is infallibly a spac edistinct from matter and that this space is indued vvith all possible Wisdom Goodness and Power vvhich is all that is meant by God and the same may be proved likewise from the consistence of the more hard and solid Bodies for since the parts of them are not kept together meerly by the fullness of the World or because all things are so cram'd and stuft that nothing can yield since there is a space into which the dissipated and disunited parts may fly that there is any such thing as an hard or solid Body in the world can be attributed to nothing but a Divine Power by which the parts of the matter are kept together Secondly as this way of proceeding gives the most certain account of the Divine existence so it serves the best to give an account of his Providence for it is impossible that an unextended substance should manage all things at so strange a rate as if he were every where actually present and this is the answer which Socrates gave to Aristodemus in Xenophon when he objected the impossibility of one Being being able to manage all things by himself God said Socrates is so large a Being that he can easily manage all things at once without any trouble or disturbance to himself Thirdly and lastly there is this to be said for this Doctrine of the Divine Extension that it hath been the Catholick Doctrine of the World and hath been universally owned by all that ever pretended to believe a God till the Schoolmen under pretence of improving began to corrupt Philosophy and Religion of the truth of which I am so very sure that I do challenge any man to produce one Instance in Antiquity to the contrary NOTES Epist. Ded. p. viii So also for the Exposition of Ps 45. 16. I know this place is otherwise interpreted by St. Austin and St. Jerom of Bishops succeeding the Apostles in the Government of the Church but whether this ought to be looked upon for so much as a possible Interpretation let the Learned Judg God be thanked we do not stand in need of such forc'd Interpretations to defend the Episcopal Government Ib. p. ix x. A very fair Interpretation of that passage in the Prophet Esai I know this is interpreted by the Evangelist St. Mark 15. 28. of our Saviours being Crucifyed between two Thieves And the Scripture was fulfilled which saith and he was numbred with the Transgressors But this is not inconsistent with that Interpretation which I have put upon it and it is no new thing that the same Prophecy may have more Senses then one as in that of Mat. 8. v. 16 17. He cast out the Spirits with his word and healed all that were sick that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the Prophet saying himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses though there is no question but this place was likewise to be understood of his suffering for us and taking our sins upon him upon the Cross and so it is expresly applied by St. Peter 1 Pet. 2. 24. Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the Tree that we being dead to sin should live unto Righteousness by whose stripes ye were healed Ib. p. x. As they are related by the Evangelists themselves c. and by and by although those Types and Prophecies have not been taken notice of by the Evangelists themselves which two things may seem contradictory but my meaning is that the matters of fact have been taken notice of but their
understanding will not reach as it will not certainly extend to the utmost possibility of Ideas at one and the same time which implies infinite knowledge or knowledge in its utmost Latitude and Perfection an attribute belonging to the Divine Substance and incommmunicable with any other there this Divine Substance is again considered in this fifth particular as a Person acting distinctly by it self Sixthly and lastly in the actuation of those Divine Ideas or in the bringing them out of a state of notion into a state of reality and extra-notional Existence or in the Creation of the material and intellectual World together with the several modifications and motions of the one the several orders and degrees of the other in this also the Father is to be considered as acting by himself the Power of Creation or the producing realities out of a state of non-existence out of a state of possibility into a state of being and from a state of notion into a state of impenetrability tangibility or life being only competible to God himself and belonging only to infinite Power as the Ideas themselves which were the principles and patterns according to which the realities were made could not in their full extent and comprehension and at one and the same time be present to any wisdom or understandng but that which was infinite and by consequence Divine though I deny not but that the Son that is the human nature in conjunction with the divine for of it self it could not do it may in some sense be said to have made the World as the Scripture asserts him to have done and in what sense that is shall be now very suddenly and very clearly declared For as there are some operations of the divine nature to be met with wherein the Father or the simple divine substance acts as a distinct Person by it self without the concurrence of the human nature so there are others wherein the divine and human nature act joyntly and as it were confederately together and are considered as one common person endued with one common life understanding and will and they are these First in the business of Creation which though it hath been already appropriated as an incommunicable act to the simple divine substance yet we find notwithstanding in Scripture that the Creation of the World is attributed to the Son likewise that is to the second person of the blessed Trinity or to the human nature vitally and personally united to the divine as well as to God the Father or to the simple divine substance it self the reasons of which if I am not mistaken are principally if not only these that follow First that all things being produced out of nothing by the divine power or by a bare act of the divine will and the human nature being vitally and personally united to the divine so as to be partaker of the life of God and to be wholly determined and acted by his will the will of the human nature being as it were included absorpt and swallowed up in the divine and the one being perfectly determined and acted by the other whatsoever effect follows any determination or motion of the divine will may very properly be said to be the effect also of the human in conjunction with it and acting as one common person with one indivisible and common determination it being no more possible to separate the one will from the other than it is to dissolve the union of the two natures or to divide any emanative and immediate effect from its immediate and emanative cause and it is in a manner the same case as in the Line Where if you consider A as the first mover and B and C as quiescent yet B being first moved by the motion of A the motion of C is rightly affirmed to be owing to them both acting in common and in conjunction together notwithstanding that the original power of moving be wholly to be ascribed to and to be derived from A whose Creature B as to its motion is as C in the same respect may be said to be the common creature of them both Secondly the human nature of Christ tho' personally and vitally united to the divine yet being as it hath been said already but a finite nature and though there were in it a perfect Conjunction and Symphony of will in all things to the divine will and understanding so far as the sphere of its capacity would reach yet that capacity being finite and imperfect it wanted some external helps to give it the more full and comprehensive notion of the divine nature and by consequence the more large and plentiful enjoyment of it for which reason it was that from all Eternity there was Created a Sub-eternal and Aethereal matter which being united to and animated by the ubiquitary and original life which is called God the Father constituted the third Person of the Blessed Trinity which is called the Holy Ghost Now God being infinitely perfect and happy in himself it could not be that this Aethereal matter was produced by him for the more full and perfect enjoyment of himself for there could be nothing in any Creature especially an inanimate one as this subtle matter without the conjunction and animation of the divine life must be which was not before hand eminently and transcendently to be found in himself who is considered as its emanative and its only cause neither is it reasonable to conceive though it proceeded from all eternity from the Divine Substance by way of emanation that it was created out of no end or design or that no use was made of it from all eternity till in the fulness of time the aspectable Vniverse was Created wherefore it is but reasonable in this case to suppose that this subtle matter was employed partly in forming the Vehicles of the Caelestial Hierarchy the Angels and immortal Spirits the Morning Stars and Sons of God that sung together and shouted for joy when the first corner stone of the World was laid and consequently did exist before it And that they were really cloathed with such Aetherial Vehicles or Caelestial Bodies as we shall be our selves after the Resurrection if there be any sense in the 15th Chapter of the first to the Corinthians and our Saviour himself assures us that in the future state we shall be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Angels or equal to the Angels that are in Heaven seems to me plainly to be asserted by the Psalmist in these words Psal 104. 4. Who maketh his Angels Spirits his Ministers a flaming Fire not to repeat here what I have * Apology for the mid way Sermon of the Omnipresence elsewhere said concerning the signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Angel in the new Testament and that they had also a pre-existence before the Foundation of the World were laid seems not obscurely to be imployed by the Psalmist in that immediately