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A50840 Mysteries in religion vindicated, or, The filiation, deity and satisfaction of our Saviour asserted against Socinians and others with occasional reflections on several late pamphlets / by Luke Milbourne ... Milbourne, Luke, 1649-1720. 1692 (1692) Wing M2034; ESTC R34533 413,573 836

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Father had made the World it self and all other things by him and that by him He had made known to Men whatsoever he desired should be known by them Thus we have Socinus his own confirmation of what we had before produced as the sense of the Ante-Nicene Fathers After this he touches slightly upon some pieces written by those first Fathers which are of suspected credit but we have nothing to do with them having quoted nothing from any of them but what among Learned Men at present is of undoubted reputation As for the Fathers who writ after the Council of Nice he fairly owns that the Socinian's business is to oppose those Errors which they gave credit to by their Authority in the Church of God The Fathers then are on our side whether those of the eldest or those of an inferior date nor can we desire a greater advantage to our cause since we can neither find out any means by which these Hereticks should know God's Will and Meaning in his Word better than these Antient and Heroick Assertors of the Christian Religion We have no account of any new Visions or Revelations any of them have had Nor have we heard of any Miracles perform'd by them in confirmation of their Heterodoxies therefore when we believe that Jesus Christ the Son of God our Saviour is God equal with his Father we follow that truth which to our apprehension is very plain in Scripture which holy Saints and Martyrs have from the very beginning of Christianity embrac'd and which really is That Faith which was once delivered to the Saints as God willing will yet more plainly appear hereafter I observe here by the way what Socinus touches upon and what others of his Disciples allege farther that tho' the Fathers do thus make Jesus Christ to be God yet they always put a great difference between Him and his Father and insist particularly on his own Words in the case where He tells the Jews That his Father is greater than He that his Father orders commands directs and enables Him to do every thing c. It 's true they do sometimes speak suspitiously in this matter but what solves the Objection from such Texts of Scripture solves those Objections which may be drawn from such expressions in those antient Writers viz. That where they urge such things their meaning is only to assert that difference there is between Christ's Divine and his Humane Nature as He is Man we doubt not but he is inferior to his Father that he received power from Him and acted here upon earth in subordinacy to hi● as He was God he was equal with his Father always united with him having the same Will Power Knowledge and Wisdom which his Father had by which means whereas meer flesh and blood would have had a strange reluctance against such sufferings as were necessarily prepar'd for him his Divinity in concurrence with that of his Father supported and enabled meer Humanity to effect and make good the work he had undertaken Thus we find the same Scriptures asserting of Christ Acts 2.32 that his Father raised him from the dead and that he rose from the dead of himself he asserting to himself only that power of laying down his life Joh. 10.18 and of taking it up again and both true as He was God as well as Man none could have taken his life from him without his own consent as He was Man as well as God none could have brought that flesh and blood to life again which was now a carcase by the reparation of the rational Soul without the concurrence of Almighty God but as such He and his Father were one They both Will'd and both Acted as they both were able to effect the same thing But besides this which answers those before-named seeming difficulties it 's enough to say that whereas the first Fathers of the Christian Church were irreconcileable enemies to Idolatry or to worshipping a Multiplicity of Gods which is the same thing whereas in all their Writings they took care to vindicate the Honour of the one true God in opposition to all false Gods when they assert Jesus Christ to be God they mean not that He is a false God for they prove themselves to be the only true Worshippers and they make it their boast that they worship Jesus Christ therefore they look'd upon him as true and real God and worship'd him only as such If then these Fathers did think Christ to be a God of an inferior or subordinate Nature or to be a Created God as the Socinians would have him be they directly contradicted their own Principles and brought in again that multiplicity or at least plurality of Gods they had before exploded As for the notion of a made or created God or a God à parte post as Socinus calls him it 's a dream so senceless and full of contradiction that it 's only to be wondered at that Men pretending to any sharpness of Reason should ever stumble upon so absurd a conceit For Scripture no where makes a distinction between God self-originated and God made by another and both true but it lays us down a plain difference between the true God the Creator and the Creature or any thing that is created by that true God and therefore tho' there be in Nature such things as Spiritual and Corporeal Beings yet the allowance of that difference makes or introduces no intermediate Beings between the Creator and the Creature every thing that is not God is made by God every thing that 's made by God is not God and so it must follow that if the Son be made by God he is not God but a Creature if the Son be in all particulars equal with God he is not made by God but is God himself Again The notion of a true and real God is infinity in every respect Heathens Jews Mahumetans Christians all agree in that if this be a true notion of a real God it must be such a notion as must sufficiently distinguish him from all other Beings infinite Attributes being wholly and only proper to and inseparable from Him If then these infinite attributes do agree to our Lord and Saviour He is and must therefore be the true God in contradistinction to all created Beings if they do not agree to him then He cannot be the true God therefore he must be a false God therefore he must be an Idol therefore he must be no God at all and this is the true and inevitable consequence of the Socinian notion of a made or a Created God For that the Supreme God should make another supreme as himself and yet at the same time continue supreme himself is nonsense and a contradiction that the Supreme God should make another God who yet is no God because the attributes belonging to a real God are not applicable to Him is a contradiction too therefore the Socinians and their Adherents must either declare in plain