my Father if it be possible let this Cup pass from me nevertheless not as I will but ast thou wilt and the reluctancy of the fleshly nature or of the human Soul united to a Body of Flesh and Blood for in that it consisted was so much the more painful and exquisitely tormenting by reason that it was as it were a tearing in sunder the divine and the human Nature which were at once united by the strongest Bond of Vnion and for that reason must needs be the most tenderly and painfully sensible of any Divorce or Disagreement between them for in the first place it was not only a very old but an eternal Vnion there being no time when the human nature of Christ was not or when it was not united to the divine Secondly it was an Vnion of Emanation proceeding from or begotten by the Eternal Fruitfulness of that divine Substance which is called God the Father which shews it not to be a positive union but a natural an Vnion whose parts are actually inseparable and therefore upon supposition that the Natures thus united are indued with Life and that both or either of these Natures are passible and capable of being affected with pain the least endeavour or tendency towards a Separation must cause an exquisite regret anguish and pain in that part of the Composition which is passible and subject to it wherefore the Vnion of the divine and human Nature in the Person of Christ being an Vnion of Affection and Will an Vnion of Intellect and Vnderstanding so far as the human Nature is capable of Vnderstanding and imbibing the Wisdom of the Divine and an Vnion of Life Self-consciousness and mutual Enjoyment it must needs be that in the human Nature which is confessedly passible upon the least disagreement or repugnancy of it to the Will of the Divine there must arise a most quick acute and pungent Sense created in the humanity incarnate betwixt the reasonable and the fleshly Nature the first of which resigns it self up perfectly to the most perfect Wisdom to which it hath a vital congruity and with which it studies always to preserve a most perfect agreement and finds a complacency in being conformed to it withal considering the important Reasons for which it was necessary that he should suffer upon the Cross and become a Sacrifice for the Sins of the World in which the Divine Wisdom Goodness and Justice were all of them in a manner equally concerned but the latter full of human Passions Apprehensions and Fears had a Dread and Abhorrence of such a cruel Death and by consequence found within it self a strange reluctancy and an unwillingness almost as painful as the most tormenting and cruel Death it self to undergo it besides that being at the same time vitally and personally united to the divine Substance this was another and without question the most bitter part of the Agony which our Saviour underwent betwixt submission to the divine Will and reluctancy against it both of which it did at the same time by the Combat of the reasonable and the incarnate life one of which could not think of death without a most passionate and painful aversation and to the other disobedience was worse than death to an extremity not to be exprest so that though it was only the human nature of Christ which properly speaking suffered upon the Cross yet by reason of the intimate Vnion of it with the Divine he suffered infinitely more than any other Man could do Fourthly in that Action by which the Father or the divine Substance perpetually feels and enjoys it self and adaequately understands and comprehends the whole extent and latitude of its own infinite and absolute Perfection in that Action the Father is considered as a Person acting by himself and because there is no assignable moment of Eternity when he does not do this therefore he does always really preserve a distinction of his Person and Substance from the Person of the Son and of the Holy Ghost as well as by being from and to all Eternity vitally united to the human Nature of Christ and to a certain subtle and aetherial Matter he does at the same time concur to the making up of two other Persons in that manner which hath been and shall be still hereafter more fully and particularly declared for though the human Nature of Christ be not only the most perfect in it's kind but without question the most perfect of any finite immaterial Substance whatsoever though you take in all the Hierarchy of Angels and Immortal Spirits and though by being personally and vitally and that from all Eternity united to the divine Substance it must needs for this reason have the truest Enjoyment and the fullest comprehension and understanding of it of any other Creature whatsoever yet as being but a Creature though an eternal one as being but a finite Substance though incomparably and indisputably the most perfect of any other finite Substance whatsoever it cannot have a just and adequate comprehension of an infinitely perfect Nature For nothing can adequately and fully comprehend that which is really infinite or which is all one which is endued with all possible Perfection which is not so it self and this the humane nature of Christ is not neither indeed can it be unless you suppose the divine and humane nature of Christ to be the same for all that is meant by the divine nature is a nature endued with all possible perfection so that it remains firm what I have asserted in this fourth particular that in that action in which God the Father or the Divine Substance feels enjoys and understands himself in a full perfect adaequate and truly comprehensive manner he is to be considered as a Person acting by himself distinct from the Persons of the Son and Holy Ghost Fifthly in that Action or Operation of the Divine mind by which at once he surveys the whole possibility of things and hath all their Ideas and all their several properties differences relations connexions and dependencies at the same time present to him which he always hath and which it is absolutely impossible for any finite or limited understanding at any one time to comprehend together in this action likewise in its full extent the Father is considered as a Person by himself and is really so for although as to many particulars there may be and actually is a concurrence of the Divine understanding and the Human together so as to view several of these Ideas at the same time and with a common prospect and to have exactly the same notion and apprehension concerning them it being impossible for the Human understanding to differ from the Divine so far as it is capable of imbibing it and of being influenced and acted by it which it always is to the utmost of its capacity which is but finite and so far they act as a common Person informed and ammated by one common life yet where the Human
in a great measure from the jarring and disagreement of two natures so closely united and accompanied all the while with a vehement desire to submit in the midst of as vehement an aversation to it as hath been already declared and lastly the vital and inseparable Vnion of the Human and Divine life with one another these were the things that did inhance the merit and value of that Sacrifice and therefore in this case the Divine and Human Nature are considered as joyntly and equally concerned Thirdly and lastly in the business of the Intercession at the Right hand of God God that is the divine Nature cannot properly be said to intercede with himself and yet the Intercession of the human without so close and vital a Connexion with the divine would be every whit as insignificant and unavailable as without the same Vnion the Sacrifice of himself would have been besides that it would perhaps be inexcusable were it not for this Vnion For one meer man a finite and a little Creature like our selves to take upon him to supplicate and intercede for all the rest so that as his human Nature entitules him to the Priesthood for the God and the Priest are supposed to be two things so it is the Vnion of that Nature with the divine that makes him an High Priest that Vnion is his entrance into the Holy of Holies and inhances the price and value of his Intercession and therefore in this third and last particular also the divine and human Nature are considered as acting joyntly together and constituting one Person resulting from the Vnion of them both And now having laid down so clear a Notion of the blessed Trinity I cannot see what is wanting to give it all the advantage which it very well deserves for it is not only very consonant to Scripture but it hath likewise so clear and so strong a Foundation in the reason of things that when both these meet as they do here together it must be acknowledged to be more then a possible Idea and that it is neither more nor less then the very truth it self and a truth that seems to lie so plain that it is much more wonderful it should be concealed thus long then that at last it should be discovered As for the Scripture what more plain then that those Texts I am in the Father and the Father in me and I and the Father are one may by this notion be very clearly explained for the human nature of Christ is absorped and swallowed up in the Divine of God the Father and does on the other hand by vertue of its intimate Vnion imbibe and take in the Divine Nature into it self as far as its capacity will reach which it does much further then by reason of its littleness and finite Circumscription it may seem to do because the parts of the Divine Extension being all of them similar and actually inseparable by reason that the whole is commensurate to an infinite space whatsoever is united by an unity of life and selfconsciousness to any part is at the same time effectually united to that indivisible life which is but one and the same self-consciousness and self-enjoyment through the whole extension And so I and the Father are one that is one in the common species of immaterial nature one by mutual penetration and imbibition one by an unity of self-consciousness and reciprocal feeling of each others life one by an unity of affection and will and one in many cases by an unity of operation and mutual concurrence to the same effect neither is there any other possible difficulty to be started in this case unless it be how two lives can be so twisted and intimately interwoven together as to become one life and to constitute one Person to which it may be answered First that in fact it is true that an immaterial and material Nature may be so Vnited as is plain in every human composition consisting of Soul and Body and that there is a greater congruity of one immaterial Nature to another then there can be of that which is called life and activity to that which is utterly destitute and devoid of both which is the case of matter which yet by its union with an immaterial substance is made to taste and feel it self to become the subject and seat either of pleasure or pain and to concur with the other towards the constituting of a common Person resulting from them both Secondly upon supposition that one life is capable of being imprest and influenced by another as there is more reason that it should then that that which is utterly devoid of life should be capable of the same impressions this is enough to constitute one common person for by a person nothing else is meant but a self-conscious nature and therefore where there is in two personalities a mutual enjoyment or feeling of each others life there arises a compound personality from the mutual reciprocation enjoyment or imbibition of two several lives acting upon and influencing each other and being brought to a perfect Harmony and entire consent of understanding and will and it is sufficient in this case that the difficulties in the union of the two natures to make up and constitute the second person in the Blessed Trinity are not greater no nor so great neither as those in the union of our own soul and body of which notwithstanding we are intimately and perfectly conscious to our selves Thirdly there is no way to expound several places of Scripture with any plausibility or shew of truth but by admitting such an union as this which seems in those places to be so plainly asserted Fourthly and lastly in the Sympathies of friendship whether in joy or grief and in the mutual complacency and satisfaction which entire friends experience in the conversation and company of each other in their common sentiments common wishes and common designs there is something very like this union which we contend for though it be far from being so perfect and entire It being therefore so rational to believe that there may be such a personal union of two immaterial natures together to constitute the Person of the Son that other of these two natures or persons so united to a certain subtle subeternal and aethereal matter to constitute the third Person of the Blessed Trinity which is called the Holy Ghost must be admitted as a possible union because the vital union of an immaterial nature to a material is no more then we do all of us every day experience in our selves as hath been already observed The Father is the simple divine substance by himself the Son is the vital Vnion of an human soul to the substance and Person of God the Father and the Holy Ghost is nothing else but an Aethereal and Emanative matter vitally united to both the former That which makes them all to be God is the same Numerical Divine substance belonging to them all and that which
makes the distinction of the Persons is the addition of a Created immaterial nature in the second Person of the Blessed Trinity of a Created material one in the third and the substraction or precision of both of these in the first The Son is said to be begotten of the Father being a similar immaterial and as it were univocal effect of his Power and Will and the Holy Ghost to proceed from them both because though the human nature of Christ and the subtle matter which makes the body of that Person which is called the Holy Ghost be both of them emanative and by consequence eternal yet the emanation seems more natural from one immaterial nature to another then from immaterial to material and so the Son is at least prior natura then the Holy Ghost though not cognitione and the subtle matter which is one part of the third Person of the Blessed Trinity being Created though from all Eternity yet in some sense for the sake of the Son as hath been already declared and being also produced by the Father by a contemporary consent of will in the Son or in the human nature though they be supposed contemporary to one another yet this is enough to make it no improper way of expression to say that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and the Son though in this I do not justifie the heats on either side between the Greek and Latin Churches neither do I think the Schism to be the less inexcusable because the Latins in a matter of this subtlety were in the right I do not deny but that the Father or the simple divine substance is always vitally united to the human nature of Christ and also to a certain subtle and aethereal matter in that manner which hath been already declared but yet notwithstanding the real distinction of the Father from the Son or of the first Person of the Blessed Trinity from the second is always as really and as clearly preserved as if in the first case there were no second Person or no vital union with the human nature or as if in the second there were no third or no vital union of the divine and human nature with the aethereal matter for in the first place as hath been already largely represented there are some operations of the simple divine substance to which the human nature being but finite cannot adaequately extend and in this case that substance is of necessity considered as a Person acting by it self and in the second notwithstanding the vital union of one or more immaterial nature to a material yet there are some abstracted operations wherein the immaterial substances do perfectly withdraw themselves from any intercourse or communication with matter as is plain in those operations of the human soul which are purely speculative and intellectual in which the animal concupisciblâ— or plastick life have no share but they are purely the operations of separated and abstracted Spirits and such as would undoubtedly accompany the mind of Man though it were disentangled from this mortal body and yet the vital union is not interrupted all this while but the digestion and Animal secretion still goes on the bloud still circulates and the Plastic faculties perform their office in men not yet arrived to their full growth as well as in Embrios not yet attained to their just form and shape in their Mothers Womb not that I would be thought to compare these things with one another but only in general to represent that an immaterial nature tho vitally united to a material may yet have operations purely spiritual and altogether abstracted in which that union is not at all concerned and those operations which are performed on the one hand by the abstracted and on the other by the Compound and Heterogeneous nature may well enough be considered as the actions of two Jeveral and distinct persons as in St. Paul's description of the strife and contention between the Flesh and Spirit Rom. 7. 15. That which I do I allow not for what I would that do I not but what I hate that do I. Where it is manifest that the soul of man considered by it self in its most inward and abstracted speculation is considered as one person and as united and vitally interwoven with a body or vehicle of matter as another and this is enough to show that a compound and a simple person are by no means the same or to defend the personality of the Holy Ghost as distinct from the simple substance of God the Father Further that by the Holy Ghost nothing else is meant but the vital union of an aethereal or subtle matter to the simple and original divine substance of God the Father is clear not only from the words themselves by which it is expressed in Hebrew Rouach and in Greek Pneuma which signifie nothing else but a subtle matter but also from the History of the Creation where the spirit of God is said to have moved upon the face of the Waters in the Hebrew it is Merachepheth which the Rabbins interpret of the incubation of any bird or fowl upon the young or eggs by which it is manifest that they understood the Spirit of God not simply of any wind or subtle matter whatsoever but of such as was animated with a divine life and fitly disposed by brooding upon the Chaos to make it fruitful and fertile and when God spake to Moses out of the burning bush when he gave the Law upon Mount Sinai in Fire and Smoak when he went before the Camp of the Israelites like a Cloud by day and like a Flame by night when such flaming and fiery apparitions as these are so frequently called in Scripture by the name of the glory of God all these are meant of that subtle matter which being animated and enlivened by a divine life is called Rouach hachodesh pneuma hagion the Holy Spirit the spirit or breath or wind of God so also when Moses desired to see the face of God but was denied for this reason that no Man could see the face of God and live but yet was permitted to see his back parts which were nothing else but a certain vigorous and piercing flame the meaning is plainly this that no Man in this life can converse with the naked essence or immaterial nature of God but his back parts or that aethereal and subtle matter to which from all eternity he hath been vitally united these may possibly fall under human cognizance as they did under that of Moses even in this life and this in truth is the main if not only business of this subtle matter besides the forming of Ideas in it as hath been already suggested that being animated and informed by the life of God it is the instrument of the divine power in its external operations thus as God being cloathed with this subtle matter did incubate and brood upon the Mass and order and dispose its several parts as seemed best
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