the Lord that bought them and bring upon themselves swift Destruction Will you add so much Pride to your Folly as to say concerning your self as our Lord did that because I was in the Decree of God and prophesied of therefore 1600 Years before born I am Besides I Am is a peculiar Title to God signifying his Self-existence and Self-sufficiency which no created Being can take to himself without Blasphemy Well but after all the Considerator is resolved to be a good Champion for a bad Cause who will loose his Ground Inch by Inch And therefore he saith in his 57th page first colume That notwithstanding all this we must be Socinians or Arrians for Christians we may not be No by no means if the Considerator can but jump into the infallible Chair and prescribe a Religion for us Thus it is and thus it will be as the truly Rational and Learned as well as Pious Doctor Owen hath observed Truth will not please the Devil will subscribe to any Creed but that which God gives of himself in his Word But good Sir why must we be Arrians Why because Christ though he did exist before the World was made yet he was but a Creature for all that but the first that ever God made But neither will this shift enable you to overthrow the Christian Religion nor shall you thereby rob the Author of it of his Divine Nature who is the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ who gave himself for us Titus 2. 13 14. For hereby you do but tread in your old Steps by resisting and contradicting the Holy Ghost as your Predecessors did in Acts 7. 51. For in Revelation 1. the 8th and 11th Verses our Lord saith he is the First and the Last And to put the Matter out of Doubt that it is Jesus Christ there speaks the 12th Verse to the End of the Chapter makes it evident he being in the Likeness of the Son of Man And in the 17th Verse he saith again I am the first and the last And in the 18th I am he that was dead and am alive All which shews that this was Jesus Christ and that this Jesus Christ is Godman for he being the first God the Father was not before him then he could not be first and he being the last End of all things all things must end and terminate in his Glory For God's Glory is the highest and chiefest Good and therefore must be the ultimate and last End of all things and that this was no other than Jesus Christ is evident in that he saith I am he that liveth and was dead Surely God cannot dye therefore this must be that mighty Child that was given to us who also was the everlasting Father spoken of in Isa 44 6. and Isa 9. 6. Godman God with us in our Nature And therefore he may well be called wonderful because he is Godman in one Person God he must be else he could not be the first nor last neither for God only is the last End as well as the first Cause of all things Man he must be else he could not dye and God he must be else he could not have power to raise himself again as he tells you he had John 10. 18. No man taketh it from me saith he but I lay it down of my self and I have power to take it up again And this compared with the next Verse together with Acts 20. 24. proves the Father and him to be one as he saith of himself in ver 30. of this 10th Chapter I and my Father are one Besides in the first Chapter of Gonesis it is said In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth Why then will you impose Arrianism upon us and contradict the Spirit of God by telling us that God created before the Beginning or before he created the Heavens and the Earth The Considerator therefore shall never impose his School-Divinity upon me of one Senior and two Junior Gods for unto me and unto us Christians there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and we in him and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him 1 Cor. 8. 6. And indeed here lies these Gentlemens Mistake they find the Scriptures in many places speak of Jesus Christ as Man Therefore say they he cannot be God as my Accountant pag. 4. but as hath been observed we do not say that Man is God or that the Humane Nature is the Divine or that those two Natures are confounded but we believe according to the Scriptures of Truth that God took upon him our Nature Heb. 2. 16. and united that Holy Thing that by the over-shaddowing of the Holy Ghost was conceived and born of the Virgin So that it did not subsist nor was it a distinct being of it self but was united into a personal Union with God the Son and thus he continues to be two Natures in one Person for ever If you ask me how these things can be I answer such Knowledge is as much too wonderful for the Angels for ought I know as to know how God was and therefore neither you nor I must pretend to it It is enough these are the true Sayings of God and therefore it is to the Peril of those that will not believe it If you say it is impossible I answer with Men it may appear so and really be so but with God all things are possible If you say it is Nonsence and Contradiction I Answer it is the highest impiety and greatest impudence that a Man professing to believe there is a God can be guilty of to say that any thing that God reveals concerning himself or us is impossible or contradictory to it self And therefore after all the Considerators glorying of his own and the rest of his Brethrens Honour and Dignity as being Freemen of the Common-wealth of Wit and Learning Page 44. both Collums And after he hath spoken very Contumeliously of the Dignities of the Church and given himself a good Word as a Person fit for Preferment If the Honours and Profits of the Church were bestowed as they were at first designed upon Persons of Wit Learning and Merrit no doubt but he might come in for an Arch-Bishop And yet in all this glorying I do not find him mention one thing that Paul a Minister of Jesus Christ made any reckoning of his Study and glorying being to know Jesus Christ and him Crucified No the Considerator doth not speak one Word of this in all his own Letter of Recommendation though both Colums Pag. 44. be taken up about it yet there is not one word of Repentance towards God and Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ spoken of as being of any Concernment in a Minister of Jesus Christ And therefore seeing he hath such a conceit of his own Merits without those accounted unnecessary things I would advise him to step Over to Rome for if he make good Friends those things are not much
3 4. where he tells the Corinthians that though he is absent in Body yet he as present in Spirit had Judged already as though he were present concerning him that hath so done this Deed And in the next verse tells them what they should do wehen they wre gathered together and my Spirit with the Power of our Lord Jesus Christ Colo. 2 5. to the same purpose but were not Mr. Considerator one of the best or rather the worst at perverting of Scripture and one of the greatest reproachers of sound Reason under the greatest pretentions to it I should not have mentioned these Scriptures as having the least shew of Reason in them to invalidate the Truth of our Lords Promise or that he will not be with his People and that really present with them to the end of the World in all Places and in all Conditions according to that gracious Promise in Isa 43. 2. When thou passest through the fire I will be with thee and the waters shall not overflow thee If you tell me this Promise in Isaiah must be understood of God the Father I answer if it be so it doth but confirm our Lords Deity the Promise being no more then what he Promiseth his Disciples which clearly proves our Lord Jesus Christ to be the Omnipresent God that fills Heaven and Earth with his presence for what Paul said to the Corinthians and Colossians is no more then what we may all say to one another when we are desirous to have a good Work carried on by the Church or any other Civil Society at which we have a right to be present as Member tho' we are else where detained yet approving the Work we say our Heart is with them our Mind and Spirit is in the Work But will Mr. Considerator say this is all the comfort our Lord promises his Disciples Mat. 28. Truly if so they might say of him as Job said of his Friends miserable comforters have ye been but our Lord cannot deceive any more then he can be deceived and therefore he will come unto his People and will take up his abode with them according to his gracious Promise in Joh. 14. 23. Jesus answered and said if a man love me he will keep my words and my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him Here the Son is to come and be as much present with his Disciples as the Father And in ver 16. of the same Chapter our Lord saith I will pray the Father and he shall send you another comforter that he may abide with you for ever All which with many other Texts of Scripture not only prove the Son to be Omnipresent but also the Unity of the Divine being and the Trinity of that Unity and doth undeniably prove to all sincere unbyast Christians the Divine authority and Truth of that Word in Joh. 5. 7. which Mr. Considerator and the rest of his Tribe do so much Bark at but they shall never be able to Bite it out of Gods Bible as long as the Sun and Moon indure nor can they though in Conjunction with the Gates of Hell be able to Rob the People of God of the comfort and Consolation that they enjoy by Communion with the real though Spiritual and Divine presence of Jesus Christ For when the Atheist and Deist and Mr. Considerator himself have Mock'd and Scoff'd at Communion with God as much as their Elder Brother Ishmael himself did at the Son of the Promise yet know ye there are that know their Fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ Joh. 1. 3. And yet Mr. Considerator to shew what a Doctor in Capernaum and Nicodemus's Divinity he is proves himself as good an Advocate for the abomination of Transubstantion as Belarmine himself or any Cardinal of them all could do Yet is he no Papist but any thing so he can but do some thing against the Truth for in Page 21. Colum 2. and 22. He labours all be can to make the abomination of Transubstantiation to be a small sin if any which he calls a folly or a mistake it is not an impiety he saith but a Philosophical Error Colum 2. Page 21. and hath mis-represented that abomination that he might redicule the Truth For he saith it is not pretended by the Papist that the bread and Wine have received any the least change Where as this is the very thing they have burn'd many a Christian for because they would not believe that the Bread and Wine were changed or Transubstanstiated into the very Body and blood of Christ And as for his Body being present in a Spiritual manner it was the Doctrine of the Lutherans and not of the Papists And in his 20th Page Colum he saith himself the Papists say the words of our Lord import that the Bread of the Sacrament is really and verily made to be the Substance of Christ's body in which he was Crucified But in his Page 21. Colum 2. He tells us they are of another Mind and that they do not pretend that the bread and Wine have received the least change in what is an Object of Sense Why good Sir is not the very Substance of Bread an Object of Sense Perhaps this Gentleman may pretend a License to Contradict himself but the Trinitarians must have a care of saying any thing contrary to the dictates of Mr. Considerators foolish Reason for fear of being Guilty of the unpardonable sin of Contradicton But the Gentleman was labouring to Contradict Christ and to Charge him with Folly and Falshood therefore no wonder if he Contradict himself for our Lord hath promised to be with his People to be really present with them in this World This Mr. Considerator see would prove him to be God the only true God therefore he will Give our Saviour the Lye and say he neither is nor can be Omnipresent Page 11. Colum 2. But our Lord saith Mat. 18. 20. that where two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them And that the will be with his People to the end of the World Mat. 28. 20. Yet Mr. Considerator is pleased to say the Doctrine of Christ real presence is worse then the abomination of Transubstantiation But that his Fables may pass with some Colour he thinks it meet to colour his Charge with Falshood and tells us of some whom he saith ought not to call themselves the Reformed who believe the real Presence of Christ's Body in the Sacrament pag. 20. colume 2. But I know none of that Belief except the Papist nor the Considerator neither I believe but the Gentleman's Design was to deny the Real Divine Presence of Christ But that being too great a Truth to be beat out of the Scripture of Truth he contents himself in that place in denying his bodily Presence I have insisted the more on the Omnipresence of Christ because Mr. Considerator in his
People such as Masters of Reason Learning Scholarship and the like or else a Man may find more sound Reason among a few Men of the meanest Employments and meanest Capacities than in an whole Conclave of such Doctors as you are For I pray you Sir tell me without Heat and Prejudice and with solid substantial Reason what a kind of senseless lifeless something worse than nothing must you snppose God to be if you could suppose him to be without or before he acted Hath your great Learning spoiled your Memory so much as to make you forget that common Maxim that where there is Life there is Motion Sure that Cause must be very desparately defective and unreasonably bad that necessarily runs Men upon Atheism or something worse and so much the worse because they pretend to plead for Reason all that while Nay the Considerator in his Letter to H. H. is so confident but foolish enough God knows as to tell the World they were always too hard for the Trinitarians at these two Weapons Reason and Scripture But hitherto we have found them too short in their sound Reasoning we shall try what strength they have by the Scriptures in due place In the mean time it may not be an unreasonable Work to enquire what true Reason is that we may not be as Men beating the Air crying out great is Humane Reason and at the same time scarce know what true Reason is And if the Doctors of Reason would not be offended I would tell them what I take it to be It is a good Gift of God which he is pleased to bestow in some measure on most of the Children of Men whereby we are enabled to discern the Connexion or Dependancy that one thing hath upon another Hence it follows that Knowledge is not Reason neither can Reason work without knowledge any more than a Man can walk in the Air or a Carpenter can build a House without a Foundation Hence it follows that the greatest Scholars are not always the wisest Men as one of their own hath lately told us as good and as great a one perhaps as any this day living Saith he There are a great many Scholars who are carried only by their Books They know much and therefore can tell a great deal as you know every Fool can tell as he is told But for matter of sound Reason whereby they are inabled to draw just and Reasonable conclusions from known and certain Premises If it be never so little out of their Book Road and for which they have not as yet consulted an Author Truly a Man may let a great many of these Gentlemen alone hence it comes to pass for we are now discoursing about Reason it is a power of drawing just and right conclusions from known and certain Premises Hence it is that though Learning is in it self a very great and very good Gift of God and a great accomplishment to a Man and therefore to be highly prized by them that have it and to be honoured by them that have it not Yet great Scholarship cannot deliver some Men from being great Blockheads for Soveraign Pleasure will bestow his Gifts to whom and how he pleaseth to one a Word of Wisdom to another the Word of Knowledge by the same Spirit 1 Cor. 12. 8. How preposteriously then do those Gentlemen go to Work that would Measure the being and properties of the infinite God by their weak and imperfect Reason of which there are as many degrees it may be as there are Men in the World and which can no more Work of it self without some Knowledge to Work upon then an Artist can Work without Tools or Matter to Work upon And it is impossible for Man to have any saving Knowledge of God but by Revelation and there are but three Ways that ever God revealed himself by to Men they are his Works his Word and by his Holy Spirit and it is not our Reason as it is a Faculty or Power in us now corrupted that can gather any true or saving Knowledge of God as he is in himself or will be to us from his Works of Creation and Providence No nor from his Word neither without the Aid of his Holy Spirit and that in an especial manner We see this by the Heathen who were as great Masters of Reason as any of our present Pretenders and yet were far enough from a true Knowledge of God and how could they for who knows the Mind of God much less the Nature but the Spirit of God and he to whom he reveals him But let us consider the Knowledge that God gives us of himself by Creation and see what improvements Reason can make of it we see a visible World and therefore by the Apostles Argument in Romans 1. 19. 20. we may conclude that there was some being that gave being to those Visible Changeable things and that this being must be before all those things that do appear else he could not give them being Thus arguing by Reason from the Effects to the Cause we rise from the Men now in being to the first Man that was Made and so likewise of all other Created beings to the first of them And so likewise of the Heavens and the Earth and all that therein is whose very being declare they had a Maker who is God for he that Maketh all things is God Hence we may Reasonably conclude that this God is an Almighty Infinitely Wise God yea that he is a Merciful God for his Mercy is Written in visible Characters over all his visible Works and yet it must be acknowledged that all the Reason that the greatest Doctors of it ever had could never gather any Reasonable hope of the Pardon of their Sin or of Eternal Life by the Revelation that God hath made of himself by the Works of Creation and Providence If you tell me you may hope for Mercy because you are the Works of his hands his Mercy being over all his Works I Answer the Devils may as Reasonably hope for Mercy as you or I upon this Account for they are Creatures and so are we and they are Sinners and so are we So that there is a necessity for God to reveal himself to us by some more Clearer Light then that of Creation if you and I ever come to a true and saving Knowledge of him this necessarily leads us to consider what Revelation God makes of himself in his Word But Before I come to Consider that I would a little inquire what further improvements Reason can make of the Work of Creation to find out God and Counting things One by One to find out the Account as we have began we may come to know that God is an Eternal being without beginning of days or end of time and it is necessary he should be so else he could not give being to all other beings neither could such an Infinite being arise or spring out of nothing but he is a Self