one who is God and but one Maker of the Visible and Material World and therefore this Context ought to be interpreted in consistence with those two Great Commandments spoken by God himself Sure it must be evident hereupon that they ought not to relie on a dubious Context against two such Proofs as are those two Commandments When Points of Faith are turned into Commandments or Laws it argues the great Importance of those Articles of our Faith And it must needs be very dangerous to advance a contrary Faith and very foolish to advance a contrary Faith on the Credit of a Context which at best is of doubtful and uncertain Construction of so doubtful Construction that if it may be Translated and Interpreted in favour of their Opinion yet it may be also so Rendred and Interpreted as Flatly to contradict it and Perfectly destroy and overthrow it You will perhaps say Sir but in this Dispute concerning the Truth of Translations What can an Unlearned Man do which side can he take or rather How can he take any Side at all being not able to judg between the contending Parties ought he not in prudence wholly to suspend his Judgment I answer He must consult his Reason concerning the thing in Question If he consults his own Reason he will find an absolute Impossibility in the Trinitarian Doctrine his Reason will assure him that an Almighty Father and an Almighty Son are most certainly Two Gods and that two Creators can be no other but two Gods therefore he may and he must infer that the Explication of this Context of St. John which advances such a Doctrine is certainly false and such a Mistake as subverts Christianity God forbid that our Faith should depend on the Quarrels and Debates of Learned Men or on an uncertain Criticism or on the contrary Traditions of contending Parties No no Faith has a certain Rule even Holy Scripture interpreted in consistence with evident Reason this is the Infallible Rule and of this the Unlearned are as competent Judges as he that has all the Learning in the World That cannot be true which is contrary to clear Reason for Clear Reason is nothing else but clear Truth Therefore if the Unitarians have made it appear that the Doctrines which they oppose are Manifest Contradictions to Reason and Unlearned Man is as sure as the most Learned that such Doctrines are not the meaning of Holy Scripture or of any Context therein Our Opposers tell the People they are not to believe the Transubstantiation tho grounded on those express Words of Scripture This is my Body because that Doctrine implies several Contradictions to clear Reason Why do they not keep to this Rule to which they would oblige their People Why do they not renounce the Errors of the Trinity and Incarnation which imply so many more Contradictions to Reason than can be pretended of the Transubstantiation While they argue against the Common Enemy the Papists about Transubstantiaon or against the Lutherans about Consubstantion Reason is all in all with them and you can get nothing out of them but Reason and the Judgment of Sense But when the Dispute is with the Socinians the Tables are turned then you hear nothing from them but the necessity of submitting Reason to Revelation then they give in their Catalogues of things which they say are contradictory to our Reason and yet must be believed Thus while they Argue against the Papists 't is on Socinian Principles that the Scripture must be interpreted in consistence with Evident Reason which is a yielding all the Controverted Points to the Socinians But when they think fit to fall foul on the Socinians 't is on Popish Principles that the Scripture must be interpreted by the Determinations and Decisions of Holy Mother-Church as she is represented in General Councils which are directed by the Holy Ghost Which implies the yielding Transubstantiation and many other Points to the Papists who can show for them Councils as truly General as any that can be alledged for the Trinity or Incarnation In fine such of our Opposers as are Protestants must either come over to Vs or revolt to Rome If they will not be obliged to interpret Scripture by Reason they are obliged to turn Papists for the Decisions of the Church in Councils and the meer Letter of Scripture are against them but if they admit no Interpretation of Scripture but what is consistent with Reason both They and the Papists must be Unitarians because the Trinity and the Incarnation are contrary to and inconsistent with Reason much more than the Transubstantiation is CHAP. VI. On the other Texts of St. John NEXT He takes notice of some words of our Saviour at John 10.30 36 38. I and my Father are one I am the Son of God The Father is in me and I in him He saith the Jews from those words I and my Father are one did infer after this manner Thou being a Man makest thy self God He adds if the Jews mistook in the Inference they made from those words nothing can excuse either our Saviour or his Apostles from extream Unkindness since they would take no pains to rectify a Mistake which in all appearance was Involuntary A little more Deference would have become our Author in making a Judgment concerning what our Saviour or his Apostles ought to have done towards rectifying the Mistakes of the Jews And I think too he needed not to be so concerned on behalf of the poor Innocent Lambs the Jews who only mistook true Hearts and did not designedly pervert the words of our Saviour On the contrary I take it to be certain that the Mistake of the Jews was not Involuntary but Affected and Malicious and however that be yet our Saviour hath said enough both in that Context and elsewhere to rectify the Mistakes of any whomsoever concerning his words I and the Father are one I am the Son of God the Father is in me and I in him Our Opposers ordinarily object to us that the Jews understood those Expressions of our Saviour as themselves do namely as signifying that he professed himself to be God But the Jews put a malicious Construction on our Saviour's words that they might expose him to Hatred and Persecution To be satisfied of this we need only to consider that they came to him with design to ensnare him in his words as they had done oft-times before and did many times afterwards Let us hear what they say v. 24. Then came the Jews round about him and said to him How long dost thou make us to doubt if thou be the Christ tell us plainly To comprehend the true meaning of their putting this Question we must look back to the foregoing Chapter where at V. 22. we are told The Jews had agreed already that if any Man should confess that He Jesus was the Christ He should be put out of the Synagogue i. e. He should be Excommunicated We may add to this Observation
Made and Measured by the Motion of the Sun and other Heavenly Bodies and that Duration is by them called Eternity which preceded those Bodies and the Motions which make Time Therefore when they call the Son Coeternal which I think is not found in all their Writings above once or twice they do not mean that He was Really and Actually Coexistent with the Father from all Eternity But 't is their Intention to say He was made by the Father in that Duration which Philosophy calls Eternity some space before the World was made that he might be the Father's Instrument and Minister in creating all things Hereby they acknowledg that the Son was in some sense a Creator and God but it was only as He was the Father's Minister Instrument and Servant those are the Terms they use in making all things He was a Creator and God with respect to all other Creatures but with respect say they to the true and most high God He is only a Servant and a Creature In a word the Ante-Nicen Fathers i. e. those of the first 325 Years whose Works have been suffered to be extant neither held as the Unitarians do that the Lord Christ began to have a Being when He was born of the Virgin nor as the Church now does that He was true God and always actually Coexistent with God but they held with the Arrians that He was Created Begotten or Made for these are with them equivalent Terms in that Tract or Duration which is called not Time but Eternity and that He was the Father's Servant and Instrument in making first the Holy Ghost then the rest of the Creation This is that which is granted by Petavius Huetius Mornay Erasmus Grotius and other Criticks on the Fathers not as our Author supposes that those Fathers held the Doctrine concerning God and our Lord Christ that is now called Socinianism But though this be so yet we doubt not that we are able to prove that the general Body of Christians and an incompâ—â—able majority of their Learned Men believed as the Unitarians now do till about the Times of Victor and Zephiâ—in Bishops of Rome that is till toward the Year of our Lord 180. It has not availed our Opposers that they have suppress'd the works of those most Ancient Fathers who are known and confess'd to have been Unitarians such as Aquila Symmachus and Theadotion who so excellently translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek and Lucianus who restored the Greek Copiet to their first Integrity Artemas and Theodorus Men noted by their Adversaries to have been incomparably Learned and ancienter than any of the Orthodox Fathers as we now call them Paul also Patriarch of Antioch Photinus Archbishop of Sirmium Marcellus Bishop of Ancyra I say it has not advantaged our Opposers that they have destroyed the Writings of these Fathers for the Fathers that are still extant give us an account of the Opinion of those other Fathers thô concealing their Arguments Moreover they confess that those first Unitarians claimed to be the true Successors and Descendents of the Apostles and that they derived their Doctrine from them Euseb Hist Eccl. l. 5. c. 28. Besides this the only Creed of all the Churches till the Council of Nice and which is called the Aposties Creed because it contains the true Apostolick Tradition is confest on all hands to be wholly Vnitarian That Creed acknowledges but one God the Father Almighty and but one only Son of God even him saith this Creed who was conceived generated or begotten by the Holy Ghost on the Virgin Mary not as our Opposers feign an Eternal Son begotten of the Essence of God his Father But I will not Sir now dilate on these things it shall be done in a Treatise by it self if it please God to give me Leisure and Opportunity in the mean time I appeal to those Learned Criticks Petavius and others before mentioned that the ordinary pretence of such Scriblers and Sciolists as our Author is utterly false and ungrounded even this that the Ante-nicen Fathers held the Doctrine of the Trinity as the Church now does As for the Scoffs of Lucian on the God who is Three and One One and Three not having the Book by me I cannot tell whether he meant to jeer the Trinity of the Platonick Philosophers or of the Christians I conjecture he means the former Neither was he so ancient as some give out the best Criticks make him to have flourish'd about the Year of our Lord 176 when the new Doctrines were grown very rise and common The Account that Pliny gives of the Christians to the Emperor Trajan is ancient but in the particular objected to us very uncertain The Copies of Pliny in Tertullian's Time exprest the matter thus Ad canendum Christo Deo They sang Psalms of Praise to Christ and to God not ut Deo to Christ as God The very words of Tertullian are these Pliny in his Letter to Trajan objects nothing else to them but that they were obstinate in refusing to sactifice and that they held caetus ante lucanos ad canendam Christo Dio Meetings before day to sing to Christ and to God Tertul. Apol. adv Gentes c. 3. I make use of an Edition of Tertullian with the Notes of all the Criticks published by Rigaltius at Paris yet none of them dislikes the Reading by Tertullian or prefers to it the Modern Reading But admitting now that we were to read ut Deo as to a God Pliny in these words might speak only his own Opinion not the Opinion of the Christians He might conjecture that because the Christians sang certain Compositions in Praise of the Lord Christ in their Meetings therefore they held him to be a God Or ut Deo may be translated as if he were a God so as to make this sense They sing Psalms and Hymns to Christ as if he were a God whom themselves confess to have been a Man for Hymns are not usually sung but only to the Gods However it be this Citation makes not much to the purpose at most it only proves that even in Pliny's time some began to corrupt the Evangelical Doctrine concerning the Unity of God CHPA X. On divers Passages out of the Evangelists and Epistles FRom the Fathers our Author returns again to the Scriptures and advances an Argument to prove our Saviour's Divinity from those Texts which seem to intimate that the Lord Christ is to be prayed unto and also from others in which 't is said that even while he was upon Earth he was worshipped by some and did not refuse the worship paid to him He saith no Person can be the proper Object of Divine Worship such as Prayer is but He who is Omniscient Omnipotent and Omnipresent and that if the Socinians ascribe these Properties to our Saviour they make him to be true God That Jesus Christ was worshipped and that he ought to be worshipped he proves from these Texts Phil. 2.9 10
the objected Text In the Name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit were not spoke by our Saviour but have been added to the Gospel of St. Matthew from the common Form and Practice of the Church in administring Baptism as 't is certain that these words For thine is the Kingdom the Power and the Glory for ever have been added to the Lord's-Prayer in the same Gospel of St. Matthew from the Greek Liturgies or Forms of Common-Prayer These Criticks observe that Cardinal Bellarmine is very angry with the Unitarians who maintained the Dispute at Alba because they said those words were added to the Bible but only since the Nicene Council had corrupted the Faith all Antiquity saith the Cardinal is witness against them that those words were always read in the Gospel of St. Matthew But the Learned Cardinal does not produce one Testimony in Confirmation of what he says tho he uses to be very free in his Quotations of Fathers and ancient Ecclesiastical Historians In short we have nothing but Cardinal Bellarmine's word for it that the Ancients did read the words In the Name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Whereas some pretend to find these words cited by St. Ignatius as spoken by our Saviour in the Epistle of the said Ignatius to the Philippians that Epistle is all of it a meer Forgery by Confession of all the Criticks who have publish'd the Works of Ignatius or have written Notes upon them They observe that Epistle is never quoted by any of the Ancients nor was heard of in the World before Ado Viennensis who flourish'd about the Year 859. Eusebius the famous Ecclesiastical Historian quotes the objected Text nine times in several parts of his Works but never with the words In the Name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost he reads thus Teach all Nations in my Name instructing them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you The constant Practice of the ancient Unitarians was to baptize only in the Name of the Lord Christ and therefore it was ordered by the Councils of Nice and Laodicea that the Paulinists i. e. the Unitarians who came over to the Church should be re-baptized Whether they or the Catholick Church so called are in the right concerning the Form of Baptism is best determined from the Practice of the Apostles for we cannot well suppose that if the Form prescribed by our Saviour himself was In the Name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Spirit that the Apostles would depart from that Form or that 't was lawful for them so to do But where-ever there is mention in Scripture-History of the Administration of Baptism either by the Apostles or by their Order the Form of such Baptism was only In the Name of the Lord Christ or Vnto the Lord Christ Acts 2.38 Peter said unto them Repent and be baptized every one of you in the Name of the Lord Jesus The same thing is said at Acts 8.16 Acts 10.48 Acts 19.5 Rom. 6.3 Gal. 3.27 1 Cor. 1.13 Add to this that besides the School-men and other Moderns St. Basil St. Hilary and St. Ambrose do expresly own that the Apostles administred Baptism only in the Name of the Lord Jesus Finally the other Evangelists mention the Institution of Baptism by our Saviour after his Resurrection but they say not that he appointed it to be administred In the Name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost which 't is not likely they would have omitted if our Saviour had injoined that Form of performing the Rite of Baptism Nay it should seem by what St. Luke says that the Form of Baptism appointed by our Saviour was only in his Christ's Name not in the Name of more Persons Luke 24.46 47. Jesus said unto them that Repentance and Remission of Sins should be preached in his Name unto all Nations Here Remission of Sins seems to be no other thing but Baptism administred in Christ's Name as a sign of the Remission of Sins and therefore it is that elsewhere instead of Repentance and Remission of Sins the holy Writers say Repentance and Baptism so St. Peter speaks Acts 2.38 Repent and be baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus To this effect speak the forementioned Criticks and from hence they infer that we cannot make use of this Text to warrant the Church's Form of Baptism In the Name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit much less to prove that the two latter are God or Gods equal with the Father I desire and resolve Sir to argue this great Question concerning the Divinity of our Saviour or whether there is more than one Divine Person with all possible sincerity Therefore I will ingenuously own to you that tho the before-mentioned Exceptions to this Text are not without their weight yet I have observed divers things which make me to think that this Text is a genuine part of Scripture was spoken by our Saviour and written by St. Matthew First 'T is found in all the Copies of the Bible both Printed and Manuscript and in all the ancient Translations which cannot be said of any other Text which is rejected by us or by our Opposers all the doubtful and suspected Texts are wanting in divers Copies of the Original Greek and of the Ancient Translations I conceive we ought not to argue against the Truth of any Text from only Negative Proofs or from some possible Interpretations of other Texts tho those Texts are perhaps many It ought to be shown that either Church-Historians or Fathers have said that such Text was not read or was otherways read in the Copies of their Times Secondly To the Allegations out of the Acts of the Apostles and some Epistles of St. Paul it may be answered That those Texts mention only the Name of the Lord Jesus and not the other two Names the Father and the Holy Ghost because by the Name of the Lord Jesus and unto the Lord Jesus they mean to the Profession of the Lord Jesus and of the Doctrine by him taught without at all intending to express by those words the Form of Baptism which every one knew to be In the Name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost I like this Interpretation because when St. Paul asked some Disciples at Ephesus whethey they had yet received the Holy Ghost and they had answered that they had not heard whether there was an Holy Ghost He replies Vnto what then were ye baptized Acts 19.3 This Reply of the Apostle seems to suppose that if they were baptized with Christian Baptism and not only with the Baptism of John they must needs have heard of the Holy Ghost because the Form was in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost Thirdly The ancient Unitarians baptized only in the Name of the Lord Christ I think 't is grounded only on the Report of Pope Innocent I. who might not understand their Discipline or
wrote only that part of the Actions and Sayings of our Saviour which he did and spoke after the Imprisonment of John the Baptist To supply this Defect St. John was desired to commit to writing what he remembred of our Saviour before the Baptist was imprison'd In a word he wrote his Gospel to supply the Omissions of the other Three Evangelists Euseb Lib. 3. c. 24. Eusebius had read Hegesippus and whatever Church-History St. Jerom could have read and he has made it his Business to make Extracts out of all ancient Books concerning the Writers and Writings of the New Testament the diligence and exactness of this Historian is much admired and praised by all Learned Men nor will any such believe that St. Jerom had seen an Eccesiastical History which Eusebius had not seen St. Jerom says St. John wrote to oppose the Unitarian Heresy and that the first words of his Gospel were pronounced to him from Heaven Eusebius says John had written his Gospel because the other Evangelists had omitted the Gests and Sayings of our Saviour that were before the Imprisonment of the Baptist St. Jerom refers for what he says to an Ecclesiastical History unknown to all the Ancients but Himself Eusebius proves the Account he gives by solid and convincing Arguments His words in the Chapter before quoted are these It is evident that the other three Evangelists have committed to writing only the Gests of our Saviour during one Year's space namely after John the Baptist's being shut in Prison Matthew sets forth the time of his writing in these words When Jesus had heard that John was put in Prison He came into Galilee In like manner Mark saith Now after that John was put in Prison Jesus came into Galilee Luke also maketh this Remark Herod adding this to all the Evils he had done shut up John in Prison Therefore they say that the Apostle John being for this Cause thereto requested has declared in a Gospel according to him the time that was passed over in silence by the other Evangelists and what was done by our Saviour therein This is a probable Account that of St. Jerom is Miraculous and therefore pleases them who are taken with Marvellous things What shall we say then that St. Jerom devised or that he dreamt of an Ecclesiastical History which was never seen before nor since neither of them for I doubt not that his Tale is nothing else but an Improvement and a stretch of some words of Clemens Alexander which he found recorded in the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius Lib. 6. c. 14. The words were taken by Eusebius out of the Institutions of Clemens Alexander which Institutions are now lost but Photius Cod. 105 and 111. has left us this Character of them that they contained very many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fabulous and Impious Tales Of these Tales this is one John the last of the Evangelists seeing that what appertain'd to Christ's Humanity was manifested in the other Gospels being thereto moved by his Acquaintance and inspired by the Spirit wrote a Gospel concerning Christ's Divinity But to return to our Opposers They commonly say St. John wrote his Gospel against Cerinthus and Ebion and the Heresy of the Unitarians We have seen they have no solid ground for this Pretence in the History of the Church Irenaeus and Origon the most Learned of the Ancients knew nothing of it and Eusebius gives a contrary Account But the Gospel it self written by St. John will best decide this Question if he has more confirmed this pretended Heresy than any other Writer of Holy Scripture He did not without doubt write his Gospel against it Therefore let us briefly see what the Unitarian Doctrine is and how St. John hath delivered his Mind concerning it We say that only the Father is true God that the Lord Christ is his Prophet and Messenger to Man that therefore what the Lord Christ said was not from himself or by his own Authority but by particular Command and Charge from God that all the Miracles he did were not properly done by him but by the Spirit or Power of the Father given to him as to former Prophets Let us hear how St. John in his Gospel written designedly against us confutes this impious Heresy John 17.1 2 3. Father this is Life Eternal to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent Or Jesus Christ thy Messenger John 7.16 My Doctrine is not mine but his that sent me John 12.49 The Father which sent me He gave me a Commandment what I should say John 14.31 As the Father gave me Commandment so do I. John 5.30 I can do nothing of my self John 14.10 The Father that dwelleth in me by his Spirit Energy or Power He doth the Works I know not what could be said more effectually to evince that the Lord Christ is not God but the Ambassador only and Messenger of God speaking according to the Instructions and Charge given to him and Acting by a Power not of his own but bestowed on him as on former Prophets and Messengers of God If the Texts before cited were not the very words of Scripture were they found in any other Book they should be Anathematiz'd as most Gross Socinianism as the very Heresy of Cerinthus and Ebion against whom as saith St. Jerom's Ecclesiastical History they were written And what wretched Subterfuges do our Opposers make use of to decline these plain Testimonies that were suggested by the Holy Ghost against them for we dare not like them feign Ecclesiastical Histories which say they were spoken against them from Heaven First They tell us St. John doth not say that only the Father is God but the Father is the only true God They say the Socinians have not had the Wit to perceive the vast difference between those two Expressions It may be true they say and is true that the Father is the only true God as St. John in the alledged Text says and yet the Son too is true God nay the only true God and the like of the Holy Ghost And when John says neither the Doctrine nor the Actions of our Saviour were his own but the Commandments of the Father given to him and the Works of the Father dwelling in him By the Father in those Texts they say we are to understand Three Persons the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost Nay when our Saviour saith Of that Day and Hour the Excision of Jerusalem and the Dissolution of the Jewish Polity none knoweth not the Angels neither the Son but the Father only 'T is not true for all that that the Father only or only the Father knoweth that Day and Hour for then only the Father were true God but the Father only in those words is not the Father only but also the Son who is there expresly denied to know that Day and Hour and besides him the Holy Ghost Well but however these things are St. John has paid us off they
was not He himself but He by the Gift of God that shed forth the Spirit on them Let us hear the whole Verse Acts 2.23 Therefore He Christ being by the right Hand of God exalted and having received or obtained of the Father his Promise of the Holy Ghost He hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear Here indeed the Spirit is said to be shed forth by the Lord Christ on the Apostles but not by Him himself but He shed it forth having saith the Text received it of the Father As who should say having received this Power from the Father which afterwards the Apostles also received of the Father even the Power of conferring the Spirit He now shed it forth on them not He himself by his own Authority or Power but by the Warrant Order Grant or Commission of the Father If our Saviour had conferred the Spirit on his Disciples by his own Power or Authority it would not have been said that having received of the Father his Promise of the Holy Ghost he shed it abroad on his Followers Let our Opposers show that the Lord Christ was more than the Instrument Minister and Mediator by Whom and at whose Instance God shed forth the Spirit neither this nor any other Context ascribes more to him and as much as is elsewhere ascribed to the Apostles Acts 10.44 Acts 19.6 They are words which our Saviour speaks to his Disciples As my Father hath sent me even so send I you But it follows not from hence that the Authority and Power of Christ was equal to the Power and Authority of the Father nay the contrary rather follows for the Messenger is but the Minister and Servant of the Sender After Jesus was ascended into Heaven his Disciples did their Miracles in his Name and by Faith in him Acts 3.6 In the Name of Jesus of Nazareth rise up and walk Ver. 16. His Name through Faith in his Name hath made this Man strong We confess hereupon that Miracles were done by the Name or in the Name of the Lord Jesus and through Faith in his Name But how does this prove that he was God Such Miracles prove indeed that the Person in whose Name they are done is a most Powerful and Effectual Mediator with God but not that He himself is God they prove that he is acceptable to God and that what he desireth that also God willeth but not that he is the true proper Author of those Miracles 'T is a particular Honour that God is pleased to do to the Lord Christ that in his Name Wonders should be done and that some who believed in his Name should on that account be enabled to do Miracles But when our Opposers infer from hence therefore Christ is God this is no Necessary or Natural Consequence because nothing hinders but that God may confer the same Honour on any other Person or Thing Nor secondly is it a true Consequence because we are assured by innumerable express and clear Testimonies that the Lord Christ is not God As 1 Tim. 2.5 There is one God and one Mediator between God and Men the Man Jesus Christ Finally Our Lord promis'd that he would deliver his Apostle from the People and from the Gentiles and declares that we are sanctified by Faith in his Name or by believing in him Acts 26.17 18 c. He delivered indeed that Apostle from very many Machinations of the Jews and Conspiracies of the Gentiles but all this as Mediator not as God by his Intercession which as this Apostle saith he ever liveth to make on behalf of all the Faithful and more especially of such as are extraordinarily commissioned to the Work of propagating the Gospel in Heathen Nations as St. Paul was As to our being sanctified i. e. made Holy by Faith in Christ or by believing in him it was never questioned I think by any but the meaning of the Expression is only this that such as sincerely believe the Lord Christ and the Gospel or Doctrine by him delivered do sanctify themselves they refrain from every Evil Work and Word their Faith does dispose and incline them of its own Nature and Tendency to Sanctification and Holiness this is the only meaning of our being sanctified by Faith in Christ CHAP. IX On what is alledged from the Fathers OUR Author passes from sacred Authorities to Ecclesiastical and Profane for proving the Doctrines of the Trinity and the Divinity and Incarnation of our Saviour He quotes the Account which Pliny gives to the Emperor Trajan concerning the Christians that they were wont to meet before Day Et Carmen Christo canere ut Deo To sing Psalms to Christ as if he were a God He cites also a Dialogue supposed to be Lucian's in which that Author jeers the God who is Three and One These two Authors were very Ancient within about 100 Years after Christ and their words before quoted show How early the belief of the Trinity and of the Divinity of our Saviour was found among Christians For Ecclesiastical Writers he brings some Fragments out of Justin Ignatius Irenaeus Clemens Alexandrinus Origen Tertullian Arnobius Cyprian Lactantius Gregory Thaumaturgus Faelix also out of the Councils of Nice Antioch and Constantinople He saith the Socinians are apt to appeal in these Questions to the Ante-Nicen Fathers before-named and that several great Men such as Erasmus Grotius Petavius and others yield this Point to Us. I will make no Advantage of our Author's Ignorance in this Matter I will freely own to you Sir that the Socinians never Appeal in these Questions to the Fathers whether Ante-Nicen or others who are now extant We grant they were in Sentiments very different from ours all the Ante-Nicen Fathers I mean whose works have been suffer'd to come down to our Times were in the Opinion concerning God and the Lord Christ afterwards called Arrianism except perhaps Clemens Alexandrinus who seems to have held the same with Savellius Nor do Erasmus Petavius Grotius and other Criticks grant to us as he supposes that the Ante-Nicen Fathers were of our Opinion they have granted those Fathers not to us but to the Arrians They grant those Fathers did not hold the Doctrine of the Trinity or of the Divinity of our Saviour in such manner as 't is now held by the Church for the Church holds a Trinity of Three Coequal and Coeternal Persons all of them jointly and equally Creators none of them Creatures but those Fathers held a Trinity in which only the First Person is truly God or the most high God the Second and Third are Creatures though also they were the Creators according to these Fathets of the other Creatures They say inded sometimes that the Son is Coeternal and a Creator but by Coeternal they mean only that he was not made in Time but in that Eternity which did precede Time and the Creation of the World They call that Duration Time which began with the World and which is both
Church Acts 5.31 Ephes 1.22 There are three sorts of Worship the first is Civil Honour or Worship which is given to Others on account of Civil Dignity or Natural Endowments or the worthiness of the Rational Nature common to us all This kind of Worship is due more especially from Inferiors to Superiors but is not to be neglected by Superiors to Inferiors Next there is Religious Worship which we give to others on account of their Holiness or of their Relation to God And 't is more or less as their Sanctity or their Relation to God is greater or less this sort of Worship is due to holy Men and Women to the Ministers of God and holy Things more yet to Prophets above them to glorified Spirits and Angels We see in the Bible that Religious Worship was express'd by Terms of great deference and respect such as My Father and My Lord and for outward Acts sometimes by Kneeling sometimes by Prostration sometimes other ways as on the other hand they were sometimes accepted sometimes refused Lastly There is Divine Worship which belongs only to God It consists in a Resignation of our Understandings to what God shall say or reveal a Resignation of our Wills and Desires to what he does or decrees 't is a giving up our Affections to love him more than all things besides It consists moreover in such external Acts and Significations of Reverence and of Love towards him as we reserve only for him and never give to any other I say now the Texts cited and urged by our Opposer do not prove that the Lord Christ ought to be worshipp'd with more than a Civil and Religious Worship there are no Acts of Worship ever required to be paid to him but such as may be paid to a Civil Power to a Person in high Dignity and Office or to Prophets and holy Men or to such as are actually possest of the Heavenly Beatitudes What if it is said the Apostles worshipped that is kneeled to him Mat. 28.17 and that to him every Knee both in Heaven and Earth shall bow Phil. 2.11 Let our Opposers show that the Apostles worshipped him not as their Master but as their God or that every Knee is to bow to him not as to a Superiour Lord but as to a Person who is true and most High God till they prove this they prove nothing to the present purpose We are well assured that we can prove the contrary because we can prove the Lord Christ was a Man a Person who for his holy Life and Death was exaited by God which is inconsistent with his being God or a Person of God and whatsoever Name he hath that Name was gives to him by God and whatsoever Worship is paid to him is paid to him for the Sake by the Command and to the Glory that I may use St. Paul's words of God the Father of all Phil. 2.11 CHAP. XI Of the Satisfaction AFter having proved as he thinks the Divinity of our Saviour our Author undertakes to prove too the vulgar Doctrine of the Satisfaction He saith P. 683 684. The Infinite Justice of God necessarily requires that every Sinner nay that every Transgression be punish'd Therefore saith he farther that Mankind is pardoned is an Effect of the Justice of God to which Justice a full Satisfaction being paid by the Sufferings of the Lord Christ in our stead God could not evidence his Justice otherways than by granting Pardon and Salvation to us If God could pardon us freely without a Satisfaction to his Justice why are not the fallen Angels pardoned At P. 706. he has contrived a Tale or Romance concerning a certain King who taking Pity of his Rebels declared that they should be pardoned if any Person would be so kind to them as to suffer in their stead He tells us the King 's only Son offered to suffer for them and his Offer being accepted by his Father who dearly loved him the Son died and the Rebels were saved And this he saith is exactly our case with God He pretends also to answer to some Objections made by the Socinians against the pretended Satisfaction to God's Justice by the Lord Christ for our Sins They object that the Doctrine of a full Satisfaction to God's Justice on our behalf destroys the free Grace of God so much magnified in holy Scripture in the gratuitous Pardon of our Sins for if God received an Equivalent on our behalf he hath not pardoned us but only discharged or acquitted us because our Debt to his Justice has been paid for us by another To this he answers Yes the Grace and Pardon of God to us was most free because tho our Debt to God's Justice has been paid yet not by us but by a Person whom God himself found out for us Besides the Satisfaction made for us by the Sufferings of the Lord Christ being a refusable Payment because God might have required the Satisfaction of our selves or from us therefore he is rightly said to have pardoned us and to have shown most free Grace and Favour to us even tho an Equivalent and Satisfaction was made to his Justice on our behalf Again They object that God could not in Justice substitute a most worthy and righteous Person to undergo Punishment properly so called in the place and stead of unrighteous and worthless Persons that were to pervert the Nature and whole Design of that sort of Justice which is exercised about Rewards and Punishments He answers God might punish the Lord Christ for us First Because under the Law the innocent Beast was substituted to Death and Punishment by being made a Sacrifice for the Sin and instead of the offending Owner and Master then because the Lord Christ freely offered himself to suffer in our room and stead Farther they object that the three days Death of the Lord Christ cannot be equivalent and therefore not a Satisfaction to the Justice of God for the eternal Death and Damnation of one Sinner much less of all Mankind For supposing that the Value of Sufferings or Punishment is increased even to Infinity by the infinite Dignity of the Person that suffers and supposing again that the Lord Christ being God as well as Man was indeed a Person of Infinite Dignity yet seeing his Divinity could suffer nothing at all but only his Humanity therefore his Sufferings were but human and finite and consequently no way commensurate to the infinite Punishment due to one Sinner much less to that of all Sinners He replies First that to the account of the Sufferings or Punishment of the Lord Christ we must reckon all the Sufferings of his Life and especially his Agony in the Garden which our Author saith was so great that it was equivalent to that eternal Punishment prepared by God for all impenitent Sinners p. 749. But lest the Agony in the Garden and on the Cross should seem to any to have been too much short in time to be laid in the Ballance against
for our Iniquities that we are healed by his Stripes that God hath laid on him the Iniquity of us all that He hath made his Soul an Offering for Sin All this is taken out of the 53d Chapter of Isaiah which Chapter is by some taken to be a Prophecy concerning the Prophet Jeremiah by others concerning the Messiah or Christ I do not think it to be any Prophecy at all except in some few Passages of it but especially not a Prophecy concerning a Person who was then to be born I conceive the words are to be understood of the Prophet Isaiah himself who speaking of himself modestly speaks in the third Person and the sense begins at ver 7. of the foregoing Chapter I wonder very much that so many Learned Men as have commented on this Prophet have not discerned that the whole Discourse perfectly sutes to the Prophet himself and that he speaks of a Person actually in being not of one who was yet to be born But because it would take up a great deal of room to make a Paraphrase on the two Chapters and to show the Reason of it I will be content to set down the Explication by Grotius and Socinus of the particular Expressions here objected by our Author Grotius is of opinion that from ver 7. of the foregoing Chapter Isaiah prophesies of the Sufferings of the Prophet Jeremiah yet so that the whole Prophecy and all the Expressions of the 53d Chapter had a second Completion in the Person Actions and Sufferings of the Lord Christ and therefore some of the Expressions tho originally intended of Jeremiah are by the Writers of the New Testament accommodated also and applied to the Lord Christ Let us see what he saith Isa 53.5 He was wounded for our Transgressions and was bruised for our Iniquities But in the Original 't is he has been wounded by our Wickedness and bruised by our Iniquity that is we have wickedly and unjustly afflicted and persecuted him The Chastisement of our Peace was upon him and by his Stripes we are healed No the Original saith The Reproofs of our Peace were with him that is the Reproofs that would have made our Peace with God if we had hearkned to them were truly with this Prophet he reproved us justly and for our saving Good if we would have hearkned and by those his Stripes we might have been healed i. e. by those sharp and home-Reproofs by those Stripes of his Mouth we might have been amended and reformed and thereby reconciled to God and healed Ver. 6. All we like Sheep have gone astray we have turned every one to his own way and the Lord hath laid on him the Iniquity of us all In the Hebrew the Lord hath by him met with the Iniquity of us all q. d. hath reproved all our Wickedness by him Ver. 10. When thou shalt make his Soul an Offering for Sin he shall see his Seed he shall prolong his days But in the Hebrew thus If he the Prophet shall submit his Soul to Punishment he shall see his Seed and prolong his days or Tho he submit his Soul to Punishment c. Punishment saith Grotius here is properly for Sin but the Hebrews saith he call all Affliction by or from others tho unjust and underserved by the Name of Punishment But our Author objects again that the Apostle saith Rom. 4.25 He Christ was delivered for our Offences And 1 Pet 2.24 Who himself bore our Sins in his own Body on the Tree or Cross Rom. 3.24 Him hath God set forth to be a Propitiation for our Sins to declare his God's Righteousness Heb. 9.26 Now once in the end of the World he hath appeared to put away Sin by the Sacrifice of himself Therefore 't is to be noted that very few of those that have undertaken to write against us have really understood what we affirm or deny concerning the Causes or the Effects of our Saviour's Death They trouble themselves with citing a great many Texts to evince that 't was for our Sins as one Cause that Christ died that he was a Sacrifice and Oblation for the Sins of the World that he was a Ransom a Price of Redemption for us We deny none of these things taken in a sober and possible sense the Question is only this Whether the Lord Christ offered himself as such a Sacrifice Oblation or Price as might be made to the Justice of God by way of Equivalent for what we should have suffered or was an Oblation and Application as all former Sacrifices under the Law were to the Mercy of God by way of humble suit and deprecation We affirm the latter of these that the Lord Christ besides other Ends of his Death tendred himself in the nature of a Sacrifice on the Altar of the Cross to the Mercy and Benignity of God by way of Supplication not to the Divine Justice as an Equivalent for so great a Debt as the Eternal Punishment of all Mankind in Hell-Fire We judg it better thus to speak than as our Opposers do because the Abolition of our Sins and our Discharge from Punishment is always in Holy Scripture attributed to the great Mercy and Goodness of God 't is called Pardon Remission Grace Freeness of Grace Riches of Grace all which were false if indeed the Lord Christ gave a just Equivalent they say more than an Equivalent to God's Justice for us In a word our Opposers and We agree that the Lord Christ being to die upon other accounts did withal tender his Person in Quality of an Expiatory Sacrifice for the Sins of Mankind himself was the Offerer and also the Victim and his Cross the Altar he was a Ransom and a Price of Redemption for us but in this we differ Whether he was an Adequate Price or a Sacrifice to the Justice of God We cannot comprehend that one Man could be an Equivalent for all Men or his short Sufferings equal to the Eternal Damnation of an Infinite Multitude or that God can be said to pardon if he hath been over-paid for our Debt to him therefore we content our selves to teach that our Blessed Saviour being to confirm his Gospel by his Death and to be made perfect by Sufferings as the Author to the Hebrews speaks did also offer himself as a Sacrifice and as a sort of Ransom and Price for us to that Mercy and Benignity of God by which he was wont to accept the Oblation of Beasts the Blood of Goats and Lambs for his repenting and returning People This Hypothesis leaves to God the intire Glory of forgiving us to our Saviour the Honour of being the Means Motive and Procurer of our Pardon and Salvation and fully answers all Scripture-Expressions concerning our Saviour's Death objected to us by our Opposers in this Question But they our Opposers after all their Subterfuges are forced by their Hypothesis to this monstrous Conclusion that God freely pardoneth to Sinners their whole Debt of Sin and Punishment and yet has been infinitely over-paid for both in the Death and other Sufferings of the Lord Christ than which there can be no greater or more apparent Contradiction As to our Author's Conclusion that he wishes himself accursed and again accursed if ever he deliver other Doctrine than what he hath defended in this Book I shall only say this that as wise as he have lived to alter their Minds Nor can he defend his Rashness by the Example of the Apostle for when St. Paul curses himself or any other for preaching or teaching otherways he speaks not of doubtful and uncertain Questions but If we preach any other GOSPEL to you let us be accursed Gal. 1.8 9. And the reason of our Apostle's Confidence was very different from our Author 's the latter grounds himself on a few ambiguous and uncertain Texts capable of contrary Translations and Senses and when taken in his Sense of them are contrary to Reason and common Sense and to the general Current of Holy Scripture but the Apostle speaks of a matter which he had received by express Revelation from Jesus Christ and even from God the Father of All. FINIS BOOKS lately printed by the Socinians THE Brief History of the Unitarians vulgarly called Socinians in four Letters The first Letter besides the History of the Socinians proves the Unity of God the other three answer the pretended Proofs of the Doctrine of the Trinity Second Edition The Acts of Athanasius with brief Notes on his Creed and Observations on Dr. Sherlock's Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity opposed by him to the Brief History and Brief Notes Observations on Dr. Wallis his Letters written in Vindication and Explication of the Athanasian Creed Some Thoughts on Dr. Sherlock's Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity A Defence of the brief History against the Vindication by Dr. Sherlock An Exhortation to a Free and Impartial Inquiry into the Doctrines of Religion A Letter of Resolution concerning the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation giving the general Reasons of the Unitarians against those Doctrines Two Letters touching the Trinity and Incarnation the first urges the Belief of the Athanasian Creed the other is an Answer thereto An accurate Examination or Judgment on the principal Texts relating to the Questions concerning the Divinity of our Saviour and his Satisfaction occasioned by a Book of Mr. L. Milbourn's called by him Mysteries in Religion vindicated