men The visible and glorious appearance of God amongst Men. God then is become visible in Christ Jesus The word the Eternal God has made the human nature of Chirst the Tabernacle where he shews himself to Men. 2ly That appearance is call'd by the Greeks glory for so the septuagint so all the sacred Writers in the New Testament render it Exod. 40.34 Numb 16.42 1 Sam. 4.22 2. Chron. 5.14 Ibidem 7.1 Isay 6.1 Joh. 12.41 Matt. 25.31 Mark 8.38 Luk. 2.9 Therefore as a proof of this appearance of God in the Flesh St. John adds and we beheld his Glory the Glory as of the only begotten Son of the Father Wherein the Particle as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not a Comparison but an Explanation of that glory And we have seen him present amongst us with such declarations from Heaven such a train of stupendous miracles with such a glory as could become none but the only begotten Son of God I have been somewhat large on this place because it is home to the question those Texts being decisive and staring in one's face These Gentlemen are sensible of it and have turn'd their Answers into several shapes and still with a kind of mistrust owning and disowning taking up and laying down again sometimes opposing the litteral sence and sometimes obtruding a poor miserable Allegory The Author of an Answer to a letter of Dr. Wallis by his Friend touching the Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity consults in the letter one of these Gentlemen who gives him several explications of this place The first is that which he calls the ancient Orthodox sence at the Council of Nice and afterwards of some centuries The second of the Modern Orthodox The third that of the Arrians All pag. 9. The fourth is attributed to Paul of Antioch as he remembers it somewhere related by Melanchton which he owns to be uncouth and strange pag. 10. and the Socinian interpretation to be forc't and unnatural because says he we have inbib'd from our youth and even from our Cathechism contrary Expositions The first is that of Grotius pag. 11. who being the only Man of reputation who has lent them Allegories is upon every occasion call'd great and illustrious He concludes by saying I think I have said enough to convince any Man that is not extremely prejudic't that this is an obscure Scripture For as every one of those sences finds some specious grounds in the Text so never a one of them can clearly answer all the Objections that are levied against them and that of the Trinitarians least of all It is then a Text which in his opinion cannot be explain'd This indeed is strange to a high degree that a Writer divinely inspir'd an Evangelist who lays the foundation of a Faith once deliver'd to the Saints and which we are all oblig'd to embrace is by no means to be understood It is also very odd that this should have seem'd clear to all the Ages before and even to all the Christian Churches of this Age which all agree in this though they differ in other points and it should be dark and obscure now to this Gentleman Admirable that some particular Wits should be made now so different from all Mankind as to see what all the World before has not seen and not to see what has been seen by all the World before He tells his Friend further That Dr. Wallis has not done like a Divine but like a censorious he will not say a malicious Person when he Dr. Wallis says if God says The word was God and The word was made flesh shall we say Not so only because we cannot tell how As if these sayings were so clear that they admitted no sence but his He runs on in the difference between the word taken personally which he says is but seldom and impersonally which he says is very often He concludes That they have reason to complain of forc't interpretations depriving God of an incommunicable Attribute even his Unity and of defending their interpretations with sad distinctions between the Essence and the Divine Persons the threefold manner of Existence in God Hypostatical Union Communication of Properties c. This Gentleman is not sensible that he himself justifies Dr. Wallis And that instead of a censorious he represents him like a candid Man when he tells them that is the How can it be that they dispute against Have they not been perpetually minded that we preserve inviolably the unity of God That Three Persons subsist in one Divine Nature because that one God has reveal'd it to be so Let them deny the Revelation if they can But as long as they are angry with the Expositions of the Church concerning how it is The Doctor is in the right it is the How can it be that they quarrel with and upon which they deny the whole But after all this what should we say if this Gentleman who finds this chapter of St. John so obscure and the Catholick interpretation the most unreasonable of all with never so little help should find the one clear and the other highly rational He has himself shew'd us the way in the same Letter pag. 9. The consulting Friend reading to him the Drs. Letter he comes to this place John 1.1 and the 14. The word was God and The Word was made Flesh This says the Gentleman who was consulted were to the purpose If by this term The word could be meant nothing else but a Pre-existent Person and by the term God nothing but God Almighty the Creator of Heaven and Earth and if taking those terms in those sences did not make St. John speak nonsence and if by Flesh could be meant nothing but a Man how excellent soever and not a Mortal Man subject to infirmities but all these things are otherwise Will this Gentleman stand to this Will the Author of the Brief History and the Answer to Mr. Milbourn and the humble adorers of Grotius his strain'd and Allegorical Explications put the thing upon this issue 1st He does not deny the word to signify a Person but only a Pre-existent Person Nor can he deny him to be pre-existent since he was before all things began to be since by him all things were made 2ly He cannot deny that the term God is meant of the Almighty since the God with whom the word was is undoubtedly the Almighty and the word being said here to be God and God being but one the word must be that Almighty God 3ly He will not offer to deny that the term Flesh here is nothing but our human Nature and that the word made Flesh implies the word being made Man This Author then has plainly answer'd himself and ruin'd all that he pretended to say to his Friend But as for this strange sort of an If and if says he taking those terms in these sences did not make St. John to speak nonsence I will pray him to take to himself what the Author of an Answer to
it and therefore they forsake the allegory and come to the matter of fact that Christ was actually in Heaven before he came to preach the Gospel You see what it is to espouse a wrong notion They are resolv'd upon asserting that Christ had no being before he he was conceiv'd in the Blessed Virgin The objection made to them is so plain that they can by no means evade or deny it But yet rather than submit they run themselves into a groundless I must beg their pardon If I say a senceless supposition of our Saviour being taken up to Heaven about the 30th Year of his Age. 1st There is not one word of it in the writings of either the Evangelists or Apostles 2ly There is not so much as a Father or an Ecclesiastical Writer ever made that conjecture no not Hebion the Jew not Marcellus of Ancyra nor Theodore of Mopswest not Photinus himself 3ly There never was any Ascension of Christ into Heaven taught or believ'd in the Church but that which follow'd the Resurrection nor no other coming from thence but when he took our Flesh and when he will come to judge the World 4ly I appeal to any one who will judge equitably of things whether it is probable that the Evangelists who have descended to so many minute and particular actions of Jesus Christ would ever have omitted a circumstance of so mighty a weight as this of so great a necessity and a glorious introduction to all the rest No say these Gentlemen but they did not know it This was done before he had call'd them to be his Apostles Oh stange was not the adoration of the wise Men His sitting in the midst of the Doctors His being Baptis'd of John His prodigious Fast His Temptation in the Wilderness and so many other parts of His Life before his calling them to that Office How came they to know all this and not this imaginary Ascension found out sixteen hundred Years after the preaching of the Gospel But though Christ did say nothing to them of it yet he hinted it I deny that he did His coming from Heaven had no relation but to his being there before his assuming our nature But supposing that he did which is false For if these Gentlemen cannot prove a thing they will endeavour to hint it I ask of them whether Religion can be built upon a Hint and what account we can give of the Hope which is in us if it is resolv'd into Hints This Pre-existence of Christ is fully prov'd from Joh. 8.56 and foll v. He tells the Jews that Abraham rejoiced to see his day that he saw it and was glad They presently come to the How can it be Abraham himself being dead so many hundred Years before and himself not yet fifty Years Old Jesus answers that for all that it was as he said He assures it with a repeated asseveration Verily Verily I say to you before Abraham was I am or as the Syriack and other Translations read I was If Christ Jesus had no other existence but from the Virgin Mary How comes he to say that he was before Abraham He could not be before Abraham as he was the Son of Mary He could not exist according to the human nature before he was a Man If he existed then as he says positively that he did it must be as he was that God who in the fullness of time was pleas'd to appear to us Thus Dr. Hammond in his Paraphrase on this place You are much mistaken in the reckoning of my Age for I have a being from all Eternity and so before Abraham was born c. I cite this Reverend Person by reason of an aspersion laid on him by these Gentlemen in a letter to a loving Cosen pag. 14. They make the Doctor to look upon the mystery of the Holy Trinity as a thing altogether useless and uncapable of moving the heart of Man He could not find says the Author a place in his large practical Catechism for the great spring of the Trinity That the sence given to this Text is true and genuine appears from the behaviour of the Jews at v. 59. Then they took up stones to cast at him Had the assertion been capable of a figurative sence it would never have mov'd them to such a degree They certainly understood him of a real and actual existence Their objection thou art not yet fifty Years Old was of that natural Age which they thought Christ had not yet attain'd They took the answer to be litteral and therefore judging the thing to be blasphemous and impossible they would have ston'd him And that the answer was litteral is undenyable Notwithstanding my Years says Christ I have seen Abraham This were indeed impossible to see him who has been dead above 1800 Years if I had no other being but what you see It would be Blasphemous if I were no more then a Man born in time to take that upon me which belongs only to God and to call the things that are not as though they were But I tell you that I was before Abraham I had a being of my own and I did actually exist before he was born I take this to be evident and conclusive This Text is one of those dangerous places which are like to overthrow the Socinian Fabrick and therefore these Gentlemen do all that they can to elude its force They have been so judicious as to forsake the ruinous and impertinent answers of Chrellius and their other outlandish Friends and have reduc't themselves to this The Author of the Brief Hist pag. 29. allows the reading I was Grotius owns it and therefore it could not be handsomely deny'd To the rest he says 1st That Abraham saw Christ's day in the spirit of Prophecy He saw it not as coming but as present He foresaw as he desir'd the time when it should be 2ly That Christ is here said to be before Abraham not actually but in the councel decree and ordination of God And that St. Austin has confess'd it He cites for this 1 Pet. 1.20 The lamb slain from the foundation of the World and Rev. 13.8 The lamb slain from the foundation of the World He adds That the Jews did not apprehend in what sence Christ spoke But neither did he intend or care they should ..... They being averse from Truth and Piety he often so spake to some of them as to perplex and affront their blindness .... and not to instruct them He alledges for this Luk. 8.10 The 1st Part of the Answer is to no purpose Who doubts but that Abraham saw Christ in the spirit of Prophecy The question is not how Abraham did see his day and rejoiced but How he could exist before Abraham Before Abraham was I was I had a being before Abraham was born That 's the point to be insisted on The 2d Part that Christ was before Abraham in God's decree and ordination is also to no purpose The question is
and a personal union Can God appear in our nature without taking our nature Can God be seen as a Man without being made Flesh The application of Joh. 1.14 a dreadful Text to these Gentlemen is not all answer'd The Dean says that even the very word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He Tabernacl'd amongst us fullfill'd that Type of God's dwelling in the Tabernacle or Temple in Jerusalem by his dwelling personally in our humane nature They run here to their Crambe recocta their wild explication of that place of which we shall see the poverty hereafter The Dean having said that the lamb slain from the foundation of the world could not be understood of God's decree the ordinary evasion of these Gentlemer ...... But that it was slain in Types and Figures ever since the fall of Adam in those early sacrifices offer'd after the fall which were Typical and Figurative of the sacrifice of Christ They cannot deny the matter of fact But maintain pag. 48. that they were of humane institution and no Types or Figures of the sacrifice of Christ The reason they say is that the scripture is silent about it Such a reason from such Men is surprising who know that the Religion of the first Men being all traditional no account could be given in scripture of any positive Precept But that those sacrifices were no Figures of the sacrifice of Christ is very strange if it be granted that there is no redemption but by Christ That no sin is forgiven but by the vertue of the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross That all men have sinned and come short of the Glory of God That as it is natural to men to adore the Majesty of God it is also natural to implore of him pardon of Sin That both these were the design of Sacrificing in the first Men and consequently that as their Sacrifices were of no validity but in respect of the great Sacrifice offer'd by the Son of God so they must of themselves have been Typical and Figurative The Dean has said that which is the Doctrine of the Fathers and generally of all Christians His notion is true and genuine and those Gentlemen have not answer'd it He asks again what account can be given of the Jewish Priesthood and Sacrifices which is becoming God if God is propitiated by a Man subject to the same Sins and Infirmites The difficulty is solid For the High Priest of the old dispensation being a meer Man He was a Metaphorical Priest He must be then the figure of a Priesthood and of a Priest more perfect and if the High Priest of the new dispensation was no more than a Man for this these Gentlemen suppose notwithstanding the great addition of Grace and Glory made to him This High Priest is still Metaphorical and Typical as well as the other This contradicts the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews c. 7. v. 2. and foll The law made Men Priests which had Infirmities and offer'd daily for their own sins and then for the people's But Christ our High Priest was holy undefil'd separate from sinners and made Higher than the Heavens That is above any created being He is able to save to the uttermost them that come to God by him Nothing that is a meer Man is able to save Nothing that is a meer Man is without Infirmities the very notion of a Creature implying deficiency and want Therefore if he is no more he is still Typical and Figurative This objection is not nor can be answer'd with all the turns of Wit and Eloquence in the World The union of the two natures in that one adorable Person answers it presently and wholly They are not willing to come up to this But yet this truth is so clear and the Argument so pressing that it has extorted from them in the same place that God has made Christ as it were God by his unspeakable gifts What is all this what has he made him half a God or three parts God or nine parts in ten God If Christ is no more then a meer Man how is he made as it were God If he is God How is he made as it were God Is this jargon or gibbrish I understand how a man can be made as it were a King and yet be no King I apprehend how Moses could be a God to Pharo by working in him with his wonders an awful sence of him from whom he spoke But how a man can save his fellow creatures to the uttermost a meer man satisfy for the sins of mankind be made as it were a God and yet be no God do those things which none but God can do and are the inseparable properties of his Divine nature and yet be no God is to me wholly incomprehensible Let these Gentlemen who are so strangely afraid of an imaginary Idolatry have a care lest they lead their few followers into a real one I leave this to your serious considerarion and remain SIR Your Humble and faithful Servant L. THE Second LETTER SIR IF the Old Testament seems express in the assertion of the Divinity of Jesus Christ and if the Prophets have shew'd that the expected Messias was God It must be expected that the New is positive in it and that the Evangelists and Apostles clearly deliver that great truth I hope that you will be made sensible of it and that the answers of your Friends will appear as unsatisfactory to the Texts of the one as I humbly conceive they are to those of the other I ever thought that if this Doctrine is not fully expres't there we must not think any more to see with our Eyes or to hear with our Ears All must be resolv'd into a monstruous uncertainty and we have no ground left where to rest if this is not firm and solid That these Gentlemen should be so Zealous against it and agreeing with us in the truth of the holy Scriptures should use so much learning and industry not to see that which is so visible is to me no small cause of admiration We must in this adore the judgments of God and pray to him that he would give them Grace to employ their excellent parts to a better use and do as much for the truth as they have done against it They have been led to this by the presumptious assertion of some in the Roman communion and in particular by Dyonisius Petavius a better Chronologist than a Divine who to raise not so much Tradition as these Gentlemen mistake him as the power of the Church in deciding Controversies have thought that our mysteries could not be prov'd by the plain authority of Scripture If this is true the Primitive Christians could give no account of their Faith before the determination of Councels and were left unarm'd and without defence against the insults of Hereticks which is unreasonable to the highest degree and a thought unworthy of that Providence which makes the Church its peculiar care No Sir
Sacred and Divine Mysteries The Church of Rome and some others have presum'd to go further and to six the manner of Christ's being in the Sacrament I demand then with what equity these Gentlemen can make that Objection and repeat it with as much earnestness as if they reason'd upon an undisputed Principle The Trinity and Incarnation we believe The How can it be we acknowledge incomprehensible We do the same of Christ's presence in the Sacrament The Revelation concerning all this is plain and express We pretend to no more It is disingenuous and obstinate to deny that any thing is because we cannot shew how it is Had we deny'd the presence of Christ in the Sacrament the Objection had been of some force But denying only Transubstantiation that is the manner of that presence it is altogether wide of the question Having done with this Author I pass to that of the Brief History who did not think this Answer of Mr. Milbourn's Adversary solid enough to embrace it But after some cursory animadversions on the Churche's Exposition shelters himself under Grotius's Wings and delivers that learned Man's Opinion It is needless to transcribe it all that he says pag. 26 27 28. amounting to this Grotius understands as we do the Creation here spoken of to be that of the Natural World He explains the words in the beginning as we do when God created all things or when all things began to exist He makes as we do that word to be not only Pre-existent but Eternal He understands as we do the word to be with God and to be God He reads as we do all things were made by him and for him He renders as we do The word was made Flesh acknowledging that Flesh is the usual Scripture Phrase for Man and saying also in the Explication of the 10th Verse that in process of time the word come to be Incarnate You will say then where does he differ from the Orthodox For as yet nothing appears contrary to the sence receiv'd in the Christian World He differs only in this that he makes this word to be only a property and an Attribute of God i. e. his Wisdom and Power but not a Divine Person I wonder that this Author would embrace an Exposition which really ruines all their little Criticisms their charming Allegories and brings the question to this only difficulty whether the word is no more than an Attribute or whether he is a Person Whatever Grotius in other places has done for these Gentlemen he has certainly given up the cause here by cleaving to the litteral sence of the words which indeed he could by no means avoid I will only propose these difficulties 1st If the word here is no more than an Attribute or Property how is he constantly spoken of here by he and him The world was made by him The world knew him not It is ridiculous to say that it is in the same manner that Prov. 9.1 Wisdom is said to build her House and David calls God's Commandments his Councellers Since in those places is a visible and a design'd Metaphor But Grotius owns here a real actual natural Creation of the World which admits of nothing Figurative 2ly If the word is no more than an Attribute of God what can be the meaning of the Evangelist In the beginning was the word and the word was God What is there in this so singular and to what can this lead us The Wisdom of God was before all things and the Wisdom of God was with God That is God was wise before the World was Created Certainly St. John means somewhat more than this Why not in the beginning was the Power the Mercy the Truth the Holiness of God For all this God was before things began to be 3ly What can be the design of this and the word was God Who ever heard any one say that Wisdom is God and Power is God Nor will it serve here to say as the Author of the History That all the Attributes of God are God or that the name Jehovah is attributed to Angels and that Moses is call'd God Either of these answers destroys the other For if the Attributes of God are God then Wisdom is the supreme God and not as the Angels or Moses Or if Wisdom is call'd Jehovah as the Angels and God as Moses then all the Attributes of God are not the Supreme God 4ly If the word is no more than an Attribute what can be made of this He was in the world and the world knew him not He came unto his own and his own receiv'd him not Living in the World unknown to the World coming to and rejected by Men cannot be said of Wisdom If it could bear that sence the Evangelist says nothing since before the Gospel before Moses before the Flood the Wisdom of God was despis'd by Men. 5ly The following words can never be spoken in the sence of an Attribute So many as receiv'd him to them gave he power to become the Sons of God even to them who believe on his name Can sence be made of wisdom giving us power or believing in the name of wisdom 6ly If wisdom is no more than a qualification how comes this and the word was made Flesh I remember that these Gentlemen value themselves much upon this notion of the Author of the Impartial Account of the word Mystery that they cannot believe the Trinity because they can have no notion of a Trinity I humbly beg a notion of Justice Prudence Holiness or as here Wisdom made Flesh I humbly beg a notion of an Attribute made Flesh 7ly And we beheld his glory the Glory as of the only begotten Son of the Father I again humbly beg to know whether the Attribute Wisdom is the only begotten Son of the Father I beg a notion of the Glory of God's Wisdom to be seen by human Eyes No says the Author you mistake it is the Glory of the Man on whom the word did abide But I must beg his pardon and tell him that this is too great an imposition on the sence of Mankind Any one who knows somewhat more than his A. B. C. knows that The word is the subject of all that is said here It is of the word that it is said that he was in the beginning that he was God that he was with God that he made the World that he was made Flesh that his Glory was seen as of the only begotten Son of God He must not He cannot admit the word to be the subject of all the other Propositions and deny him to be the subject of this I beg your pardon for having been so long on this Text. But the Answers of your Friends being of so great an extent though of so different a nature it was fit to shew how weak and unsatisfactory they appear I then prosecute the Argument and offer some others to your consideration I think that nothing proves the Eternity of God so
to our belief I believe in God in which Three Persons subsist The Father who is Maker of Heaven and Earth His only Son who is our Lord and the Holy Spirit who Sanctiâ—ies the Catholick Church This expression the only Son or the only begotten is a stop to all those exceptions For he cannot be a deputed God who is a Son an only Son begotten as the Fathers and Councils express it of the substance of the Father He must be God of God very God of very God The Eternal God of the Eternal God This suppos'd there is no objection can be pretended God cannot have a Son but it must be by a communication of his substance An Eternal being cannot communicate it self as we mortals do within the measures and successions of time A mortal begets another mortal He can give no other substance then what he has An Eternal being gives what he is himself an Eternal and Divine being This leads to the true sence of Col. 1.15 2. Cor. 4.4 Heb. 1.3 where Christ is call'd the image of God the brightness of his glory the express image of his Person Texts so reverenc't by the Fathers of the Christian Church and so abus'd by Socinus and the Author of the Brief Hist pag. 38. who says That those Texts are demonstrations that Christ is not God it being simply impossible that the image should be the very being or thing whose image it is Were this reasoning true which is a meer Sophism to reason of an Eternal and Increated Being by the rules of things mortal and created it can reach to no more than this that the Son is not the Father because he is the express Image of his Person which is true but at the same time it proves that because he is his Image he must have a communication of his substance because he is his only Image as he is his only begotten Son But say these Gentlemen you run on but still you suppose the thing to be prov'd We agree that Christ is the only Son our Lord but we deny that the only begotten implies a communication of substance Christ says the Authour of the Brief Hist pag. 28. is call'd the only begotten on several accounts This especially that he only was begotten by the Divine Power on a Woman He is the only begotten says Chrellius because of all the Sons of God he is the best and most dear to him Time is too precious to spend it in answering such things as these are The Interpretation of Chrellius is trifling and that of the Brief Hist is absurd God is a Father antecedently to the Creation of the World God is not the Father of Christ but as he is the Father of the word who assum'd our nature Had there been nothing created there would have been still a Father and Father of it self supposes a Son If the Father is from ever the Son is from ever These ancient assertions of the Primitive Fathers destroy the notion of these Gentlemen of the only begotten A notion so strange so new so contrary to the language of Scripture and to that of the Church that the Old Hereticks durst never offer at it It ruines the difference between Christ and the rest of men For we are all the Sons of God Nay we can no more be the Sons of God being only Sons of God by adoption and only adopted in Christ Jesus who if he is adopted himself and only a Coheir with us as we are Coheirs with him there is no more adoption the great blessing of Christianity Now if Christ is the only begotten of the Father by reason of his being conceiv'd of a Woman by the Divine Power it is visible that he is no more than an adopted Son as we are This second Adam has no more of the Divine Nature than the first who was made of the Earth by the Divine power as the other was made of a Woman and was only an adopted Son Whereas the Scripture is so careful to distinguish between us the adopted Sons and that Son who is not adopted and is call'd the true Son the only Son his own Son his only begotten Son that Son who is sent Gal. 4.4 that we might receive the adoption of Sons It offers violence to these Texts to which the Author of the Brief Hist has done the advantage to shew that they are proofs against all the Turns of Wit Joh. 10.30 I and my Father are one Joh. 7.29 I know him for I am from him Joh. 10.38 The Father is in me and I in him I came out from the Father and to all the unanimous confessions in the Gospel Thou are the Christ the Son of the living God I commend this Author to have in this place given an answer without a reason to support it He has in this as in other places evaded and shifted the difficulty He sees what straights his Explication of the only begotten is lyable to and too much modesty to have laid down the pretended reasons of his Friends They would put a sober Philosopher to the blush I cannot without Horror read Smalcius de vero natur dei fil And all that can be said to this is what St. Austin said almost on the same account that it is Sceleratissima opinio a most execrable opinion Serm. 191. de temp I will multiply no more Arguments on this subject the places alledg'd being so full and forcible and the shifts of these Gentlemen so visible that it is enough to perswade any equitable person I pass to the second part of the assertion that the name of God is given to the Saviour after a manner applicable to no creature I will not lay down the rules which the Socinians have invented to discern when the word God must be understood of that God who is so by nature and of the deputed God who is only so by Office They are Criticisms for the most part false and always little and uncertain I humbly conceive that 1 Tim. 3.16 is spoken of the God by nature And without controversy great is the Mystery of Godliness God was manifest in the Flesh justify'd in the spirit seen of Angels preach't to the Gentiles believ'd on in the world receiv'd up into Glory I humbly conceive also that every word of this is accomplish't in Christ Jesus and that this Text is an Epitome of the Gospel God was manifest in the Flesh is the explication of Joh. 1.1 and the word was made Flesh Justify'd in the spirit is the explication of Matt. 3.16 17. and lo the Heavens were open'd and the spirit of God descending ... and lo a voice from Heaven this is my beloved Son Seen of Angels is the explication of Matt. 4.11 and behold Angels came and Minister'd to him Preach't to the Gentiles is the explication of Matt. 28.18 Teach all nations Believ'd on in the World is the explication of Joh. 6.69 and many places of this nature Receiv'd up into Glory is the Explication