the one it is also to the other and not the Branch the Prince is here describ'd 4ly It is against the true reading of the Septuagint and the old Latin Translation To the 3d that is Jer. 33.15.16 granting the reading of the Text as it is in our Bible which indeed the Hebrew favours It is so far parallel to this as to be a renewing of the promise made by God in the place already cited The sence of the Prophet is that Jerusalem shall be call'd the Lord our righteousness by containing him that is being fill'd with his glorious presence who is really the Lord our righteousness As Jacob Gen. 33.20 erected an Altar and call'd it Et-elohe-Israel God the God of Israel And Ezek. 48.35 and the name of the City from that day shall be Jehovah shammah the Lord is there But what can be more positive and home to the question than the testimony of Baruch chap. 3. the 3. last verses This is our God and there shall be no other accounted in comparison of him He has found out all the way of Knowledge and has given it to Jacob his servant and to Israel his beloved Afterwards did he shew himself upon earth and converst with Men. To offer an enlargment on this Text is to do it an injury The 1st of these verses asserts the unity of God The 2d his great wisdom and goodness to his people The 3d his visible appearing to us in our nature and this not by a sudden apparition vanishing as soon as it is offer'd and leaving the Soul in suspence about the truth of the object but by a continu'd living on the Earth If there be but one Person in God as these Gentlemen so stiffly maintain and that is the Father there must have been an Incarnation of that Person since he has appear'd upon Earth and convers'd with men which they and with a great deal of Reason will by no means admit But the whole Scripture says That God has sent his Son into the World That he has appear'd to put away Sin and we all agree that the Holy Jesus is that Son How then can we deny his Divinity since it is said of him who has thus appear'd This is our God and there shall be no other accounted in comparison of him This is so express that we must not expect to be put off with Grotius or Christ being call'd God as Moses or Solomon or the rare Notion of God coming to us in his Ambassadour Jesus Nothing of this will do and therefore the Author of the Brief Hist pag. 22. answers first That the Book is Apocryphal Secondly That those who admit the Book reject those verses as suppositious Thirdly That the Original Greek may be render'd Afterwards this Book of the Commandments of God and the Law which endures for ever was seen upon Earth and turn'd over by men First That the Book is Apocryphal is an Answer cannot be made by these Gentlemen because it is cited against them by the whole Societies of Christians who believe it to be Canonical But freely granting that the Book is such I must beg leave to say That it is nothing to the purpose Any man of ordinary reading knows that Apocryphal signifies no more than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vncanonical or out of the Canon of the Sacred Books That sort of Writings though not kept in Armario as Tertullian expresses it cap. 3. de hab muli yet were look'd upon with much reverence by them and particularly by the Hellenists They were daily in their hands and the greatest Authority in the World next to the uncontested Scriptures There is a vast difference between being uncanonical and rejected and the saying That this Passage is taken out of an uncanonical though a Sacred Book takes nothing off the force of the Objection These Gentlemen who are so pleas'd with Criticisms that it will with them bear down the plainest Authority in the World must give me leave to Criticize for once I say then That of all the Apocryphal Books none was so like to become Canonical as that of Baruch It is somewhat more than a probable Conjecture that this Book was once read with that of Jeremy whose Disciple Baruch was The ninth of Daniel has lead several Learned men into that Opinion For after he has cited Jeremy v. 2. and began that fervent Prayer for the preservation of Jerusalem He seems to transcribe Baruch Compare Baruch 1.15 16 17. with Daniel 7 8 c. Baruch 2.7 8 9. with Daniel 9.13 c. Baruch 2.11 c. with Daniel 9.15 Baruch 2.15 with Daniel 9.18 I will add to confirm this That several of the most ancient and Primitive Fathers have often cited Jeremy and yet the Texts us'd by them were taken out of Baruch which gives some ground to believe that the Works of these two Prophets were once joyn'd together To the second Objection we must be forc'd to say That no part of it is true First it is not true that ever those Verses were look'd upon as supposititious by them who either admitted or rejected the Book Secondly it is not true that ever these words were a marginal Note no ancient Copy being without them and the rest being only Conjecture instead of Reason The third Objection is the highest Unsincerity imaginable Their Translation is forc'd unnatural and what is worse notoriously false There is nothing in the Text of a Book of Commands or of a Law which endures for ever There is only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 viam disciplinae as the Vulgar translates it To say not what they have pretended to impose without either Reason or Truth but what can be strain'd from this That the way of Knowledge has shew'd Himself to men and convers'd with them is a bold and ridiculous way of Translating The fifth Chapter of Micah is an eminent Prophecy of Christ The first part of the second Verse gives an account of his Birth and of the place to which God had promis'd so great a Blessing But thou Bethlehem Ephratah though thou be little amongst the thousands of Judah yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be Ruler in Israel The second part soars higher and tells us That though he is born as a man yet he has that which no man can pretend to and though he has such a visible Being yet he has another which is invisible and eternal whose goings forth have been from old from everlasting or From the days of Eternity This Text has a double advantage First that the Chaldee Paraphrast the Thalmud and the generality of the ancient Jews have follow'd in this the sence of their Forefathers and understood this Text of the Messiah Secondly that from Mat. 2.6 and Joh. 7.42 this invincibly appears to have been the Tradition of the Jews one of the great Obstacles to their Belief that he was the Messias having no other ground than that contrary to the received Opinion That the
Consent of the learned World made venerable Essence Substance Hypostasis Generation Spiration Procession And yet these Gentlemen not only pretend to Reason but would so monopolize it to themselves as to make their Adversaries the most unreasonable people in the World Reason in all their Writings is the Word To it the most express Revelation must be made to stoop and God must not be Judge of what he commands man to believe But man assumes to himself to know whether what God commands is agreeable to the Principles of his Reason I know that they would seem to exclaim against this and that in the Letter of Resolution concerning the Doctrine of the Trinity and Incarnation pag. 1. they complain that they are charg'd with exalting Reason above Revelation They apologize for it in the Observations of Dr. Wallis's Letters pag. 16. But how can this be reconcil'd with this Assertion Considerat on the Explicat of the Doctr. of the Trin. pag. 5. If Heaven and Earth were miraculously destroy'd to confirm an Interpretation which disagrees with the natural and Grammatical sense of the words it will for all that remain a false Interpretation Which in plain English amounts to this that though Heaven contradicts an Interpretation by the most forcible sort of Argument which is a real Miracle and such as the Destruction of the whole World yet if it does not agree with that natural or Grammatical sense which our Reason makes of these words The Miracle will be true but the Interpretation false I am willing to give to Reason all the weight and admiration that it deserves it being the distinguishing Character of man and that by which he ought to be guided in his spiritual and temporal Concerns But there is a rational way of using our Reason which when strain'd beyond its bounds is no more Reason but extravagance and obstinacy When the greatest Authority in the World imposes on us the belief of that which our Reason cannot penetrate or understand It is not the work of Reason to reject it because the Notion is unintelligible and in our imperfect way of Reasoning offers seeming Contradictions But the truest and noblest Exercise of our Reason is to submit to that Authority and when we are satisfy'd that God speaks man is never so rational as when he yields without any inquiry into what he is pleas'd to reveal I say seeming Contradictions for admitting the Divine Revelation no Contradiction can be real We may imagine that indeed it is so because we are men who know very little and in the state of sin and weakness that we are in meet with a thousand obstacles to our perceptions But supposing that God has deliver'd it there can be no such thing as a Contradiction because howsoever I apprehend it it still comes from him who cannot contradict himself The Question once more is not of the Unity of the Divine Nature The Orthodox are as stiff as they in the point The Question is Whether the Trinity of Persons destroys or no the Unity of that Divine Nature The Orthodox must carry it if they can prove that the same God who has reveal'd the one has also reveal'd the other For if he has done this our duty is to adore in an humble silence what we cannot understand and those very Contradictions which we fansie in the thing reveal'd ought only to be to us sensible proofs of our ignorance and deep arguments of humiliation The Socinians then are in a great mistake and instead of writing Books after Books to shew the pretended inconsistencies and contradictions in the Revelation they ought to prove plainly that it is not reveal'd at all For if it clearly appears that it is so the pretended Contradictions must lye at their door but the Revelation will still be safe and certain It is strange that ingenious men who meet with so many things unintelligible in Nature will have nothing to be so in Religion They will submit to Philosophical proofs and Mathematical demonstrations which are at most but natural Evidences and will reject the greatest and most certain Evidence which is Faith Nothing can take them from reasoning and nothing will bring them to believe Whether the thing is is the Question How it is does not at all belong to us How the Father communicates his Essence to the Son How the Holy Ghost proceeds from both How three Persons subsist in the same Divine Nature can be no part of our inquiry If we can but be satisfy'd that God has so reveal'd himself to us that he is God that in that Deity which is one there are three equally adorable Persons we have nothing to do with the How Let us adore and believe the thing and reserve the manner to a better and a happier life where we shall know even as we are also known 1 Cor. 13.12 Those Reverend Persons who out of condescension to querulous men have undertaken to give Explications of the Trinity in Unity never pretended to go further They never thought that this could be Geometrically prov'd They built upon the Revelation and endeavour'd to find every one that way which seem'd to them the aptest to reconcile what these Gentlemen call Contradictions But left the thing it self as incomprehensible and relying on his Authority who reveal'd it The Socinians are not candid in the matter They endeavour to disprove the Athanasian Creed They pretend to answer the late Archbishop the Bishops of Worcester and Sarum They ridicule Dr. Wallis They insult the Dean of Paul's They are rude to Dr. South but still are clamorous about the How can it be and are not serious in proving that it is not These Gentlemen have pretended that by denying the Divinity of Jesus Christ and of the Holy Ghost they make the Scripture plain intelligible and obvious to the meanest capacities They think after this to have remov'd all those difficulties which the Clergy call Mysteries but are not so in themselves In the impartial account of the word Mystery pag. 3. By the means of Mystery Divines have made Religion a very difficult thing that is an Art which Christians are not able to understand and thereby they raise themselves above the common Christians and are made necessary to the People improving that Art to their own benefit Passing by the incivility of the reflexion I dare affirm that denying the Divinity of Christ and of the Holy Spirit nothing is easie nothing is plain in Religion That the Scripture is the darkest Book that ever was written and that no Christian can find the satisfaction of his mind and the peace of his conscience It may be said with a great deal of truth that the stream of the Scriptures runs that way that the belief of the Holy Trinity and the union of the two natures in Christ is the Key to all difficulties and that distinction so much laught at by these Gentlemen of one thing said of him as God and of another as Man which
where to rest He has found this in Grotius and has taken it up for want of something more solid If this way of criticising is allow'd there is nothing in Scripture capable of a litteral sence A warm Fancy and a great deal of Confidence will make the Sacred Book a continu'd Metaphor How easy would it be to do that with the first Chapter of Genesis which those Gentlemen have done with this and indeed with any thing in Scripture which is never so litteral He has cited Athanasius and Cyril but not the places where they read Modell'd Till they are quoted what can be said to it is that it cannot but be known even to them that both these Fathers with all the ancients and even the Arrians themselves acknowledge Christ the Creator of the natural World But if Grotius The Jesuit Selmero and Montanus have read Modell'd I cannot see what advantage comes to their cause from the rendrings of private Men. All the Greek Copies read Created The old Latin Created All the publick Translations that I know in the World read Created I am not sensible that there is any one place in Scripture where the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not render'd Creation and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Creator Nor do I understand why it should be Modell'd here and not every where else Must we say Rom. 1.21 That the invisible things of him from the Modelling of the World are clearly seen and not from the Creation Rom. 8.19.21 The earnest expectation of the thing Modell'd waits for the manifestation of the Children of God The Modell'd it self shall be deliver'd from the bondage of corruption For the whole Modellship groaneth and travelleth untill now must we say 1 Pet. 4.19 committ the keeping of their souls to him as unto a faithful Modeller Many more instances of this kind might be produc'd which if thus translated and why not thus in other places as well as here are down right impertinence But granting that rare word Modelling still it does not ruine but suppose the Pre-existence He is before all things and by him all things consist The things spoken of here are not reduc'd only to the preaching of the Apostles It includes that of the Prophets and reaches to all the Types of the Messias The Figures were to be Modell'd as well as the realities Not only the Generation which comes after Christ is sav'd by him but also that which preceeded him Christ then being the Saviour was to be the Modeller of both David and Solomon were Figures of Christ He must therefore have been before them to Modell them Joshua and Moses are said by all the Fathers to have been eminent Types of the Holy Jesus He must then of necessity have preceeded him to Modell him Adam was also a Figure of Christ and consequently to be Modell'd by him The natural Heaven and Earth are a shadow of the new Heavens and the new Earth wherein dwells righteousness Therefore Modellable by the Saviour Therefore he must have existed before them to Modell and to speak this Author 's own words to order dispose and prepare them to answer those great ends for which they were created I will say to the acute Author of this History once for all what the Answerer to Doctor Wallis tells that Reverend Person pag. 17. This may be call'd a fineness He means a finenesse a subtlety a querk nor an accurate reasoning or a solid and true Answer And pag 18. But so it is that they that maintain a false Opinion must answer to the present Exigent sometimes this thing sometimes the contrary Only truth is stable coherent consistent with it self always the same I will end this Letter with that wise reflexion and so remain SIR Your Most humble Servant L. THE Third LETTER SIR WHAT has been said concerning the Pre-existence of Christ is enough to overthrow the Socinian System and supposes his Pre-eternity We have this advantage that the one proves the other For if nothing is before time but what is Eternal there being no duration conceivable by us but Time and Eternity shewing that Christ existed before Time it self was implies his Eternal Being That by him all things were created the Arrians themselves could not deny forc'd to it by the great evidence of the Texts alledg'd before But whatsoever creates is infinite in the general confession both of Divines and Philosophers It supposes an unlimited power in the agent which nothing can resist and every thing must obey at whose Call matter is produc'd and presents it self to be actuated into what form he pleases But if whosoever creates is infinite and Almighty and whosoever is infinite and Almigthy is also Eternal The same Texts which so evidently prove the Creation of all things by him do also prove his Eternity But even passing by all this I presume to say that if Christ's Eternal Being is not clearly and plainly deliver'd in Scripture there is nothing plain or clear in the World I will begin by the 1st of St. John An Authority of that weight and extent that all that is dispersed in the other Books of the Sacred Writers concerning the nature of Christ seems to be collected in this There is no complaint here of mutilation of Sentences of alteration of words As it was deliver'd at first so it has been preserv'd a clear and a lasting testimony of this Sacred Doctrine I admire what makes the Author of the Answer to Mr. Milbourn pag. 20 21. so angry with St. Jerom for saying that at the request of the Asiatick Bishops St. John Writ his Gospel to assert the Divinity of Christ which this Father pretends not to assure upon his own credit but that of the Church's History This Author says That Irenaeus 200 Years older then St. Jerom is silent about it That Origen the great searcher of the Monuments of Antiquity gives no such account and Eusebius himself who has preserv'd what is said here of Origen who besides had read Hegesippus and whatever History St. Jerom could have read says that the design of St. John in writing his Gospel was to supply the omissions of the other three Evangelists Yet after all this the learned World knows that St. Jerom was a serious and a candid Person of a temper not to impose or be impos'd upon of a quick apprehension vast parts prodigious reading well acquainted with the affairs of the Eastern Church and of whom it is not imaginable that he would either cite a Book which he had not seen or give credit to a History that had not been genuine and authentick The answerer calls it in vain A Legend a Fiction a great Romance of an Ecclesiastical History cited by St Jerom and seen by no body but himself No Man of sence or learning will believe any thing of this A negative proof goes a great way but it must be better grounded then this Irenaeus does not say it it is true but he says nothing to the