its difficulty and variety of Senses may not be disbeliev'd in Mr. Edwards's Sense then I will be bold to say There 's no such Text in the whole Bible To it I say 1. He dares not trust his Reader with the clear Text but thrusts in his own Sense In the beginning was the Word Jesus Christ and then 2. Makes his Fundamental Article not from the Text but from what he has inserted into the Text thus Christ the Word is God But will Mr. Edw. stick to that Is he of Socinus's Mind that by the Word is meant the Man Jesus Christ born of the Blessed Virgin and anointed with the Holy Ghost I think he is not Or does he mean that Christ was the First-born of every Creature as he is called Col. 1. 14. The beginning of the Creation of God Rev. 3. 14. By whom God made the Worlds and is therefore a God I think Mr. Edw. might be call'd an Arian if that were his Sense What then does he mean He does not mean that either the Body or Soul or both united to constitute a Man or the Anointing of the Holy Ghost added to that Man was the Word though by reason of those he had the Name of Jesus and by reason of this he had the Name of Christ He means by the Word a second Person or Mode of God Now how fairly he calls this second Person a Mode of God Jesus Christ when it was neither Jesus nor Christ nor any part of him let his Reader judg In the beginning was the Word that is according to him before the Beginning and therefore from Eternity God in a second Mode or Person did exist and the Word was with God i. e. God in the second Mode was present with God even himself in the first Mode or Person and the Word was God i. e. God in his second Mode was himself or otherwise was the Father himself and the Holy Ghost for he tells us before that the three Persons or Modes are really the one God but if the Word is really the one God as Mr. Edw. understands the Term God in this Text then the Word is the three Persons or else he is not really the one God which the three Persons only are Now if this be a clear Text to build an Article necessary to Salvation and the Worship of another Almighty and only wise Person upon besides the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ let all that have any reverence for God or his Gospel judg Besides can he alledg one Text out of all the Old Testament or out of the three former Gospels where ever by the WORD or Logos as they love to speak is meant any such preexistent eternal Person If there be none such it seems to be no little Defect in the Holy Scriptures that the World should be 4000 Years old before any part of it heard any thing of a second personal God equal to the First and who had therefore as much Right to be known and worshipped as the First Nay and that that Person the Word should have no mention made of him in the Gospels or Sermons of Christ or the Apostles till above threescore Years after the Ascension for it for it was so long as Ecclesiastical Historians tell us before the Gospel of the Apostle John was written all the Churches and Believers we read of in Scripture having been gather'd and converted before Next Mr. Edw. tells us p. 107. there is added in verse 14. another indispensable point of Faith viz. That the Word was made Flesh i. e. That God was incarnate the same with 1 Tim. 3. 16. God manifest in the Flesh One would have expected that Mr. Edw. undertaking in short to confute a Proposition that the Author had spent three quarters of his Book which consists of 300 Pages in proving and for which he had alledg'd perhaps an hundred clear Texts of Holy Scripture should have produc'd some clear Texts against him and not such as need Explanations and when he has explain'd them leaves them far more difficult than before We have spoken already of the Word that was said to be God in the first verse of that Chapter and now in the 14th the Word must signify God but 1. Are not the same Words and Terms taken in different senses in the same Context and that too when they come nearer together than at thirteen verses distance Thus the word Light in ver 5. signifies an impersonal Thing but in the 7 8 and 9th verses it denotes a Person which John was not but Jesus was to wit the Revealer of the Word or Gospel 2. The Father was God too and if God was Incarnate how will it be avoided that the Father was Incarnate And if it cannot then Mr. Edw. will be a Patripassian Heretick 3. It must be acknowledged that Mr. Edw. has given a wonderful learned Explanation of the Phrase was made Flesh far more Learned than that of the old Justice Invasion is Invasion The Vulgar and Unlearned may understand something when it is said that one Thing is made another Thing as when Water was made Wine but I doubt they will stare and know nothing when one tells 'em that a Person was Incarnate much more when they read Mr. Edw. saying That God was Incarnate will they not gladly return from the Explanation to the Text and then it will run thus God was made Flesh But was God indeed turn'd into Flesh and ceased to be God as the Water turn'd into Wine ceased to be Water I 'm sure Mr. Edw. never intends to make that an indispensable Point of Faith as he calls this That God was Incarnate But this is a very hard case that the generality of the World which God so loved that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting Life their Salvation or Damnation should still depend on the belief of not only obscure Texts but of much more obscure Interpretations of those Texts Whether shall we go for the Sense of God was Incarnate He sends us to 1 Tim. 3. 16. God manifest in the Flesh But he might know that that reading of the Word GOD in that Text is a Corruption and that instead of God was read which in the Council of Nice as the accurate Examination against Mr. Milbourn has fully prov'd however allowing that reading has given a rational Sense of it Thus we are sent for the Sense of an obscurer Interpretation of an obscure Text to a corrupt One Whither shall we go next It 's very like that Mr. Edw. may next time send us to the Athanasian Creed when the Scriptures fail him That Creed saith It is necessary to everlasting Salvation that one believe rightly the INCARNATION of our Lord Jesus Christ That he is God and Man perfect God and perfect Man One Christ not by Conversion of the Godhead into Flesh but by taking of the Manhood into God So then the
heard let us make out your Contradictions never so clearly nay you impute it to us as a heinous Crime that we make it an Argument against the belief of your Trinity that it cannot be understood without Contradiction You impute to us most injuriously that we are to admit of nothing but what is exactly adjusted to Nature's and Reason's Light pag. 68. That therefore the Trinity is a Doctrine that can't be born because it can't be understood pag. 69. and that the English Vnitarians declare they cannot believe it because Reason does not teach it pag. 72. This is a Topick the Trinitarians do always inlarge upon and urge with a great deal of Pomp in themselves and Ignominy in the Unitarians as Persons that prefer their own Reasonings before Divine Revelation how clear soever And though this Calumny has been answer'd and wip'd away and retorted upon them a hundred Times yet Mr. Edw. will still confidently charge it He cites the Letter of Resolution for proof of it and therefore has read it but passes by the Answer to this Imputation which is to be found in the very first Page of it where thus First 'T is not true that we prefer Reason before Revelation on the contrary Revelation being what GOD himself hath said either immediately or by inspired Persons 't is to be preferr'd before the clearest Demonstration of our Reason And in the Consider on Explic. on 4 Serm. and a Sermon of the Bishop of Worcester the Author says He utterly mistakes in thinking that we deny the Articles of the new Christianity or Athanasian Religion because they are Mysteries or because we do not comprehend them we have a clear and distinct Perception that they are not Mysteries but Contradictions Impossibilities and pure Non-sense But now that the Trinitarians do most expresly prefer their Reasoning Consequences and wire-drawn Deductions before Holy Scripture besides that it has been done in the Notes upon the Athanasian Creed and other Tracts I shall shew further from Mr. Edwards's Fundamental Doctrine but now recited if at least the Trinitarians will acknowledg him for their Orthodox Champion 1. It 's manifest he means by the one God not one Divine Almighty Person but three such but nothing is more evident in Holy Scripture than that God is one Person only For proof of it I have referr'd my Reader to the Scriptures from beginning to end in more than twenty thousand Texts even as often as God is spoken of or to or speaks of himself except as I have said But Mr. Edw. says expresly that his God is three distinct Divine Persons to wit the Father of the Son the Son of the Father and the H. Ghost which proceedeth from the Father and the Son 2. He says that these three distinct Divine Persons each of which is God in the most perfect Sense is the only true God or the one God or Divine Nature The Proposition which he advances as necessary to Salvation and more easy to be understood than that Jesus is the Messiah is That the Father Son and Holy Ghost are one God or Divine Nature Whereby it 's manifest that by ONE GOD he means not one Person but one Divine Nature and by one Divine Nature he means such a Divine Nature as is communicable to three distinct Persons see pag. 79. So that his three Persons which are one God are so one God as they communicate in one Divine Nature in like manner as Peter James and John are one Man because they communicate in one Human Nature as do also all the Men in the World Now I shall cite some Texts of H. Scripture which do expresly declare that God is ONE and that cannot otherwise be understood than that he is one Person or singular intellectual Nature Essence or Substance Here let me premise first How Equivocally Mr. Edw. and the Trinitarians express themselves in this great and necessary Point on which depends our Eternal Salvation and whereby the Bulk of Mankind for I think that 's a far more decent Phrase than Mr. Edw's Rabble or Captain Tom and his Myrmadons or the venerable Mob cannot escape being deluded He and they confess also that there is but one God though three Persons in that one God but by one God they do not mean as I have shewed from Mr. Edw. one singular intellectual Nature Essence or Substance compleat for that is a Person and if they did the Contradiction would presently appear to every Capacity to wit that three Divine Persons are one Divine Person but they as Mr. Edw. say The Father Son and Holy Ghost or the three Divine Persons are one God or Divine Nature Essence or Substance Hereby they conceal from their poor honest Reader thirsting after Truth that God is one intellectual Perfect Nature Essence or Substance and make him believe by that concealment that though there are three Divine intellectual perfect Natures yet there is but one Divine Nature or God I am also willing to premise that the Grecism of a solitary Adjective Masculine or Article without a Substantive where the Discourse is of intellectual Beings doth frequently if not always connote PERSON and our English Translators have in many Texts render'd it Person as the clear Sense of the Greek Text not as a word supplied in another Character to explain the Text but in the same Character as a verbal Translation Instances of this rendring are these among many others Mat. 27. 24. Of this just Person Luke 15. 7. Ninety nine just Persons Acts 17. 17. The devout Persons Eph. 5. 5. unclean Person 2 Pet. 3. 11. What manner of Persons In these places there is nothing in the Greek to answer the word Person but what is implied in the Adjective To come now to the Texts that assert the Vnity or Oneness of God against Mr. Edw's Trinity or Threeness or that God is one intellectual Nature or one Person against Mr. Edws's one Divine Nature or three Persons see Jam. 2. 19. according to the Greek Thou believest that God is ONE thou dost well Gal. 3. 20. But God is ONE Mark 12. 29. The Lord our God the Lord is ONE saith our Saviour out of the Law to the Scribe that asked him which is the first Commandment of all And Jesus answer'd him the first of all the Commandments is Hear O Israel the Lord our God the Lord is one And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart c. And in the 32d ver The Scribe said unto him Well Master thou hast said the Truth for God is ONE and there is none other but he And ver 34. Jesus saw that he answer'd discreetly Our Bibles refer us to Deut. 6. 4 5. whence our Lord takes this his Answer and where we find the same Words which by Ainsworth are also render'd The Lord our God the Lord is one Now in these Scriptures the Numeral Adjective Masculine being without a Substantive and Singular it forces us to understand in
more than the Messiah and I am much perswaded that whoever shall read the Gospels with any attention will find the Holy Writers to be of the same Mind and our Author has fully prov'd it in his Book but more particularly from pag. 48. to 61. and pag. 95. Yea the comparing the Evangelists in the relation of one and the same Story alone may do it for what in Matthew is exprest by Thou art the Messiah the Son of the Living God chap. 16. 16. the same is in Mark Chap. 8. 29. Thou art the Messiah and in Luke 9. 18. The Messiah of God And if you compare 1 John 5. 1. with ver 4 5. you will easily see the Christ or Messiah and the Son of God are Terms of the same Import Besides the very word Messiah or Christ signifying Anointed and so interpreted in the Margin of our Bibles John 1. 41. is in the 49th verse understood by Nathanael to be the Son of God the King of Israel For the Kings of Israel in the Letter and Type were constituted Kings by Anointing hence God is said to anoint David King over Israel 2 Sam. 12. 7. and Psal 2. 2. he is called the Lord 's Anointed but in verse 7. upon that very account the Lord said Thou art MY SON this Day have I begotten thee Now as the first and second verses of this Psalm are by the Apostles and Believers applied to God's Holy Child or Son Jesus who as David is called the Lord's Christ Acts 4. 25 26 27. so upon God's raising again of Jesus to be a Prince and a Saviour the Apostle Paul does expresly apply to him that glorious Proclamation in the 7th verse saying As it is also written in the second Psalm Thou art MY SON THIS DAY have I BEGOTTEN THEE Acts 13. 33. And the Author to the Hebrews Chap. 1. 4 5. speaking of the Son 's being made better than the Angels proves it from this that God said not at any time to any of them as he did unto Jesus in his Type David Thou art my Son this Day have I begotten thee and in his Type Solomon I will be to him a Father and he shall be to me a Son 2 Sam. 7. 14. Moreover we have seen before that our Lord vindicates to himself the Name of the Son of God by a Text out of the 82d Psalm where the mighty Judges and Princes are called Gods and Sons of the most High John 10. These things consider'd will I think justify our Author in interpreting the Son of God to be no more than the Messiah or will condemn the Divine Writers if not the Messiah himself in the same Crime Another Evidence of our Author's being Socinian is according to Mr. Edw. that he expounds Joh. 14. 9 c. after the Antitrinitarian Mode whereas generally Divines understand some part of those words concerning the Divinity of our Saviour He says generally Divines c. By this mark those Divines that do not so interpret must be Socinians the Socinians owe Mr. Edw. their thanks for adding to their Number many Learned and able Divines but I doubt those Divines will not thank him for it But Mr. Edw. has Courage enough to call a most Learned and right Reverend Father Wavering Prelate and to bring in his Doctrine about Fundamentals as favouring the Causes of Atheism if he and those other Divines agree not with him in their Sentiments Another mark of Socinianism is that our Author Makes Christ and Adam to be the Sons of God by their BIRTH as the Racovians generally do That they both make Christ to be the Son of God by his Birth and that truly according to that Text of Luke 1. 35. cannot I think be denied by any that duly considers the Place but that either the one or the other make Adam who was never born to be so in like manner by his Birth is Mr. Edwards's Blunder and not their Assertion I have not taken notice of the other Fundamentals which Mr. Edw. reckons in his System divers of which are not found in Holy Scripture either Name or Thing expresly or by consequence because he insists chiefly on the Doctrine of the Trinity which however it is believed by Learned Men to be in some sense or other they cannot agree in what sense a Truth yet some of the most Learned of them do not believe it a Fundamental and necessary Truth particularly Mr. Limborch than whom this present Learned Age does not afford a more Learned and able Divine could not defend Christian Religion in his most famous and weighty Disputations against the Jews without waving that Point one of which we have in his Amica Collatio cum erudito Judaeo c. the ablest Jew I presume that ever wrote in Defence of Judaism against Christianity Another Conference I am informed we may hope shortly to see in his Reduction of an eminent Person who was upon the Point of forsaking the Christian Religion and embracing for it that of the Jews at Amsterdam when first the ablest Systemers had tried their utmost skill and could not effect it Perhaps Mr. Edw. means him for one when he says our Author 's Plausible Conceit found reception if it had not its birth among some Foreign Authors besides Socinians pag. 104. Indeed he had cause enough for Mr. Limborch tells the Jew expresly in the Book I named Chap. 9. Pag. 218. Quando exigitur fides in Jesum Christum nusquam in toto novo Testamento exigi ut credamus Jesum esse ipsum Deum sed Jesum esse Christum seu Messiam olim promissum vel quod idem est esse Filium Dei quoniam appellationes Christi filii Dei inter se permutantur When we are requir'd to believe in Jesus Christ we are no where in all the New Testament requir'd to believe that Jesus is the very God but that Jesus is the Christ or the Messiah that was of old promised or which is the same that he is the Son of God because those Appellations of Christ and of Son of God are put one for another So that in Company of Mr. Limborch and other eminent Divines as well as our English Bishops and Doctors our Author may still believe the Doctrine of the Trinity to be a Truth though not necessary absolutely necessary to make one a Christian as Mr. Edwards contends But why does he make mention of only the Right Reverend Fathers one Reverend Doctor and the foreign Divines and Socinians as Favourers of this Plausible Conceit of making nothing necessary and Fundamental but what is EVIDENTLY contain'd in Holy Scripture as such and so is accommodated to the apprehension of the Poor that hear and read the Scriptures making them also capable of being saved though they are either ignorant of or do not believe aright those Truths which though deliver'd in Scripture are yet either hard to be understood or difficultly infer'd or have no mark of Fundamental either in themselves
or in Divine Revelation and for those Reasons cannot be made evident to the despised common People which the Lord Jesus came to save as well as the Learned He might also have charg'd the sixth Article of the Church of England with this Plausible Coneeit which has so much Evil and Mischief in it tending to reduce the Catholick Faith to nothing pag. 122. For that Article saith thus Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to Salvation so that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any Man that it should be believed as an Article of Faith Observe here that every necessary Article must be read expresly or at least proved thereby and to whom is this Proof to be made even to the WEAKEST NODDLES of those that are requir'd to believe it Absolutely there is not one Man or Woman of the venerable Mob that according to Mr. Edw. can be saved because they cannot possibly have the Article of the three Persons that are one prov'd to them from Scripture for it 's evident the Learned even of the Clergy cannot prove it to one another much less to vulgar Understandings And Mr. Chillingworth the ablest Defender of the Religion of Protestants that the Church ever had says and ingeminates it The BIBLE the BIBLE I say the BIBLE only is the Religion of Protestants whatsoever else they believe besides it and the plain IRREFRAGABLE and INDVBITABLE Consequences of it well may they hold it as a Matter of Opinion but not as a Matter of Faith or Religion neither can they with consistence to their own Grounds believe it themselves nor require the Belief of it from others without most High and most Schismatical Presumption Ch. 6. N. 56. Will Mr. Edwards say His Fundamentals are such irrefragable and indubitable Truths about which there are among Protestants such hot and irreconcileable Contentions Again that most judicious Author lays this as the unmoveable Foundation of his whole Discourse against the Papists viz. That all things necessary to Salvation are evidently contain'd in Scripture as the Church of England does see Pref. N. 30. And he shows in the following Paragraphs to N. 38. That all the Jesuits Arguments against Protestants are confuted by it But that 's not all the same Author after Dr. Potter affirms That the Apostles Creed contains all those points of Belief which were by God's Command of Necessity to be preached to all and believed by all And yet he says in the same Paragraph That all Points in the Creed are not thus necessary See Chap. 4. N. 23. Now what more or less hath our Author asserted in his whole Book For I have shewed out of him and it 's evident to the Impartial that his Proposition that Jesus is the Messiah or Christ does comprehend or clearly imply all the Articles of necessary Christian Faith in the Creed For though it was sufficient to constitute a Believer during the Life of Christ to believe him to be the Christ although they had no explicite Belief of his Death and Resurrection to come yet afterwards those Articles were necessary being undoubted Evidences of his being the Messiah as our Author pag. 31. And therefore Mr. Edw. is very injurious to him in representing his Proposition as if it were only the believing the Man called Jesus to be the Messiah an Hebrew word that signifies in English Anointed without understanding what is meant by that Term see pag. 121. But why should I expect that Mr. Edw. should have any regard to Mr. Chillingworth's Judgment and all those the Vice Chancellour the Divinity-professors and others that licensed and approved his Book when he has none for the Pious and Learned Bishop Jer. Taylor and those others Nay when those numerous plain Testimonies which our Author has quoted out of the Holy Scriptures themselves do but provoke his Opposition and Contempt though the Divine Writers add these Sanctions to the Belief of our Author's Proposition or of those Words and Sentences that are of the same Import and comprehended in it viz. He that believeth shall be saved or shall never thirst or shall have eternal Life and the like On the contrary He that believeth not shall be condemned or shall die in his Sin or perish and the like However I doubt not but my impartial Reader will consider both what my Author and what my self have said in this Point Having thus made it appear that the reducing of the Fundamentals of Christian Faith to a few or even to one plain Article deliver'd in Scripture expresly and often repeated there and in divers equipollent Phrases easy to be understood by the POOR and strongly enforcing the Obedience of the Messiah as is our Author's Proposition is far from having any tendency to Atheism or Deism I shall now retort this charge upon Mr. Edw. and show that on the contrary the multiplying of speculative and mysterious Articles as necessary which are neither contain'd in Scripture expresly nor drawn thence by any clear and evident Consequence but are hard to be understood especially by the common People having no rational Tendency to promote a good Life but directly to the high Dishonour of the one God the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and the subversion of the Hope and Peace of Christians as I have manifested in one and the chief of Mr. Edw's Fundamentals and of other Systemers This I say has been and is one great Cause or chief occasion of that Atheism and Deism that is in the World 1. Mr. Edw. himself tells us That Undue Apprehensions of a Deity join'd with superstition are the high road to Atheism pag. 34. Therefore imposing of false Doctrines concerning the Attributes of God is very pernicious for they are destructive of his very Being and Nature But I have shew'd that the imposing of the Doctrine of three Almighty Persons or personal Gods is a false Doctrine and destroys one of the chief Attributes of God therefore is according to Mr. Edw. destructive of his very Being and Nature pag. 35. Again another of Mr. Edw's Fundamentals is That full Satisfaction is made by the Death of Christ to the Divine Justice which Doctrine does clearly destroy the Attribute of the Divine Mercy for every one may readily perceive that full satisfaction to Justice by Punishment cannot consist with Pardoning Mercy when a Judg punishes according to full Justice he does not at all forgive or shew Mercy But that they may not be seen to destroy altogether the Mercy of God they make him to inflict that Punishment upon himself in a Human Body and Soul Will not these false conceptions of the Deity expunge at last the Belief of the true one Mr. Edw. says false ones will 2ly Another occasion Mr. Edw. says Atheists take from our Divisions Broils and Animosities from the many Parties and Squadrons of Sects that are in the World to bid defiance to all Religion And is it not manifest
THE EXCEPTIONS Of Mr. EDWARDS in his Causes of Atheism Against the Reasonableness of Christianity as deliver'd in the Scriptures EXAMIN'D And found Unreasonable Unscriptural and Injurious ALSO It 's clearly proved by many Testimonies of Holy Scripture That the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the only God and Father of Christians London Printed in the Year MDCXCV To the Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity as delivered in the Scriptures SIR IN reading your Book of that Title I readily perceived your Design intimated in your Preface to be therein most industriously and piously pursued So that you have with full Evidence of Scripture and Reason shewed against the manifold obscure and tedious Systems that the Fundamentals of Christian Faith necessary to constitute a Man a true Member of Christ's Church are all comprehended or implied in this plain Proposition That Jesus is the Messiah Whereby you have happily provided for the Quiet and Satisfaction of the Minds of the honest Multitude or Bulk of Mankind floating in Doubts and Fears because either they cannot understand or can find no clear Evidence in Holy Scripture of those intricate Points requir'd to be explicitly believ'd upon pain of eternal Damnation You have also argued clearly the Reasonableness and Vsefulness of the Christian Revelation against Atheists and Deists These things consider'd 't was no marvel that the Systematical Men who gain both their Honour and Profit by the Obscurity and Multitude of their Fundamental Articles should raise an Outcry against you like that of the Ephesians magnifying their DIANA They have more cause for it than Demetrius had But that they should traduce your Work as tending to Atheism or Deism is as strange from Reason as many of their Articles are from Scripture And that Mr. Edwards has done it and forc'd it in among his Tendencies to Atheism is I think to be imputed to the Co-incidence of your Book 's being publish'd and striking strongly upon his inventive Faculty just when it was in hot pursuit of the Causes of Atheism rather than to any the least Colour or Inclination that way which Mr. Edwards can spy in it in his cool Thoughts For I am much perswaded on the contrary that there is no Atheist or Deist in England but if he were ask'd the Question would tell Mr. Edwards that their obscure and contradictious Fundamentals were one Cause or Inducement to his casting off and disbelief of Christianity In this Mind I have undertaken to vindicate your Doctrine from the Exceptions of Mr. Edwards against it But whether I have done it as it ought to have been done I cannot be a competent Judg. If I have mistaken your Sense or us'd weak Reasonings in your Defence I crave your Pardon But my Design in this Writing was not to please you whom I know not nor any Man whatsoever but only to honour the One God and vindicate his most useful Truths I am SIR Your very humble Servant Mr. EDWARDS 's Exceptions against the Reasonableness of Christianity examined c. IT seems to me that Mr. Edwards printing his Causes of Atheism whilst the Reasonableness of Christianity was newly publish'd was put upon it by his Bookseller to add some Exceptions against that Treatise so much noted for its Heterodoxy that so the Sale of his own Tract might be the more promoted whence it comes to pass that his Notes being writ in haste are not so well digested as might be expected from a Person of his Learning and Ingenuity In pag. 104. he takes notice of A PLAUSIBLE CONCEIT which hath been growing up a considerable Time c. but tells not his Reader what that Conceit was till he hath charged it upon a very Learned and famous Author whom he is pleased to call a wavering Prelate and another of the same Order and a Third of a lower Degree but more particularly fully and distinctly upon the late Publisher of The Reasonableness of Christianity c. Here at length in his next Page he tells us That this Author gives IT us over and over again in these formal words viz. That nothing is required to be believed by any Christian Man but this THAT JESVS IS THE MESSIAH I think if he had not been in haste he would have cited at least two or three of those Pages wherein we might find those formal Words but he has not one and I do not remember where they are to be found for I am almost in as much haste as Mr. Edwards and will not seek for them It 's true he says That all that was to be believed for Justification or to make a Man a Christian by him that did already believe in and worship one true God maker of Heaven and Earth was no more than this single Proposition That Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ or the Messiah But then he takes to be included in this Proposition 1. All synonimous Expressions such as the Son of God The King of Israel The sent of God He that should come He of whom Moses and the Prophets did write The Teacher come from God c. 2. All such Expressions as shew the manner of his being the Christ Messiah or Son of God such as his being conceived by the Holy Ghost and Power of the most High his being anointed with the Holy Ghost and Power his being sanctified and sent into the World his being raised from the Dead and exalted to be a Prince and Saviour after the time he was so c. 3. Such Expressions as import the great Benefits of his being the Messiah as having the Words of Eternal Life his having Power from the Father to remit Sins to raise the Dead to judg the World to give eternal Life to send the H. Spirit upon the Apostles whereby they might work Miracles and preach the Light of Life to Jews and Gentiles and the like For all those Quotations of Scripture which the Author as Mr. Edwards observes has amassed together out of the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles which take up about three quarters of his Book for the proof of his Proposition are indeed expository of the meaning of that Proposition and are included in it Not that it was necessary that every one who believed the Proposition should understand and have an explicite Faith of all those particulars for neither the Believers during the Life of Christ nor the Apostles themselves understood many of them no nor presently after his Death and Resurrection for they had still divers erroneous Opinions concerning the Nature of his Kingdom and the preaching to the Gentiles and other things And in the beginning of Christ's preaching though Philip believ'd that Jesus was the Messiah the Son of God the King of Israel yet he seems to be ignorant of his being born of a Virgin for he calls him the Son of Joseph John 1. 45. But as he that believes that William the 3d is the true King of England c. believes enough to make
him a good Subject though he understands not all the grounds of his Title much less all his Power and Prerogatives that belong to him as King So he that believes upon good Grounds that Jesus is the Messiah and understands so much of this Proposition as makes him or may make him a good Subject of Christ's Kingdom though he be ignorant of many things included in that Proposition he has all the Faith necessary to Salvation as our Author has abundantly proved But Mr. Edwards says This Gentleman forgot or rather wilfully omitted a plain and obvious Passage in one of the Evangelists GO TEACH ALL NATIONS c. Mat. 28. 19. From which it is plain says he that all that are adult Members of the Christian Church must be Taught as well as Baptiz'd into the Faith of the Holy Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost and then they must believe it and consequently more is required to be believed by Christian Men than that Jesus is the Messiah He infers from this You see it is part of the Evangelical Faith and such as is necessary absolutely necessary to make one a Member of the Christian Church to believe a TRINITY in Vnity in the God-head or in plainer Terms that though God is one as to his Essence and Nature yet there are three Persons in that Divine Essence and that these three are really the one God I must confess that if Mr. Edwards's reasoning be good the Author is totally confuted three quarters of his Book at least are writ in vain and the old Systems must stand good and the Bulk of Mankind will certainly be damned or it will be a wonder if any of them be faved But give me leave to tell him I do not see what he says we do see that Text will well enough consist with our Author's Proposition For I would ask him whether the Apostles follow'd this Commission or not If they obey'd it then in Baptizing in the Name of Jesus the Messiah and exhorting those to whom they preached to be baptiz'd in the Name of the Messiah after their preaching the Messiah to them they did in effect baptize in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost otherwise they did not pursue their Commission for we never find them baptizing in those express Terms but always in the Name of Jesus the Messiah or the Lord Jesus or the Lord and the like So that Mr. Edwards must either charge the Holy Apostles with Ignorance of or Disobedience to their Lord's Command or acknowledg that they did really baptize in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost when they did but expresly baptize in the Name of the Son or Messiah forasmuch as all that were so baptiz'd did believe in the Father of that Son of God as implied in the Son and in the Holy Ghost as the Anointing of the Son and which also was given to those that were so baptiz'd But as for his Inference viz. That it 's absolutely necessary to believe a Trinity in Vnity in the Godhead or that God is one as to his Essence and Nature yet there are three Persons in that Divine Essence and that these three Persons are really the one God This will condemn not only the Unitarians and the Bulk of Mankind but the greater part of Trinitarians the Learned as well as the Vulgar For all the real Trinitarians do not believe one Essence but three Numerical Essences Here Dr. Sherlock Dr. Cudworth the Bishop of Gl. the late Arch-bishop Mr. H w and all that hold as the Council of Nice did with that Council it self and the whole Church except some Hereticks for many Centuries are by Mr. Edwards expung'd out of the Catalogue of Christian Believers and consequently condemn'd to the horrible Portion of Infidels or Hereticks The Mystery-men or Ignoramus Trinitarians they are condemn'd too for they admit not any Explication and therefore not Mr. Edwards's There remains only Dr. South and Dr. Wallis and the Philosopher Hobbs who Mr. Edwards says is the great Master and Lawgiver of the profess'd Atheists pag. 129. and that Party which have the absolutely necessary Faith of three Persons in one Essence But if you ask these Men what they mean by three Persons Do they mean according to the common sense of Mankind and especially of the English Nation three singular intellectual Beings No by no means that is Tritheism they mean three Modes in the one God which may be resembled to three Postures in one Man or three external Relations as Creator Redeemer Sanctifier as one Man may be three Persons a Husband a Father and a Master This is that Opinion of Faith which the Antients made Heresy and Sabellius the Head of it Thus it is absolutely necessary to make a Man a Christian that he be a Sabellian Heretick But perhaps Mr. Edwards may be of Mr. H w's Mind for he says These three Persons are really the one God but then no one of them singly is so but every one a Third of God If so Mr. Edwards is indeed a Unitarian for he gives us one God only but then he is no Trinitarian for he has put down the Father himself from being God singly and so the Son and Holy Ghost As to what he says of being Baptized into the Faith and Worship of none but the only true God that has been answer'd a hundred times He cannot look into any of the Unitarian Books but he will find a sufficient Answer to that Inference Were the Israelites baptiz'd into the Worship of Moses but they were baptized into Moses 1 Cor. 10. 2. Or when the Apostle Paul supposes he might have baptized in his own Name Did he mean that he should have baptized into the Worship of himself as the most high God Then Mr. Edwards minds his Reader that the Author had left out also that famous Testimony in Joh. 1. 1. In the beginning was the Word Jesus Christ and the Word was with God and the Word was God Whence saith he we are obliged to yield assent to this Article That Christ the Word is God Here Mr. Edwards must mean that this is a Fundamental Article and necessary to Salvation otherwise he says nothing against his Author who has prevented his urging any other Text not containing a Fundamental in his Answer to the Objection from the Epistles and other Scriptures For saith he pag. 299. They are Objects of Faith They are Truths whereof none that is once known to be such may be disbelieved But yet a great many of them every one does and must confess a Man may be ignorant of nay disbelieve without Danger to his Salvation As is evident in those who allowing the Authority differ in the Interpretation and Meaning of several Texts Vnless Divine Revelation can mean contrary to it self The whole Paragraph ought to be read which I have abridged And if this Text of John 1. 1. be not one of those that by reason of
every place Person So that we nothing doubt but the Translators would have render'd every where God is ONE PERSON if they had not been prepossessed with the Opinion of God's being three Persons the like to which they have done in many other Places But in that Answer of the Holy Jesus to him that called him Good Master Mat. 19. 17. it 's not possible to avoid it 1. That God is a Person 2. That he is but one Person and 3. That he is GOOD in an eminent Sense above all other Persons whatsoever For thus he says Why callest thou me GOOD None or no Person is good but one Person the God How strangely perverse would it be to understand this Text in the Trinitarian sense viz. None or no Person is good but one the Father Son and Holy Ghost or thus None or no Person is good but one i. e. the Divine Nature Again 2. Consider we these Texts and see what sense we can make of them if God be not one Person only Mal. 2. 10. Hath not ONE GOD created us must we say with Mr. Edw. Hath not ONE Father Son and Holy Ghost or one Divine Nature that is not a Person created us Rom. 3. 30. There is one God who justifies c. Trin. There is one Father Son and H. Ghost that justifies Zech. 14. 9. Hebr. In that Day the Lord shall be ONE and his Name ONE How should the Lord be one and his Name one if the Lord be three distinct Persons and his Name Father Son and Holy Ghost Isa 37. 16. O Lord of Hosts God of Israel thou dwellest between the Cherubims thou art the God even thou alone of all the Kingdoms of the Earth thou hast made Heaven and Earth Psal 86. 10. Thou art great and dost wondrous Works thou art God alone 2 King 19. 19. That all the Kingdoms of the Earth may know that thou art the Lord God even thou only Isa 44. 24. c. I am the Lord that maketh all things that stretcheth forth the Heavens alone that spreadeth abroad the Earth by my self Nehem. 9. 6 c. Thou even thou art Lord alone thou hast made Heaven the Host of Heaven worshippeth thee Isa 37. 20. That all the Kingdoms of the Earth may know that thou art the Lord even thou only 2 King 19. 15. Jude 4. denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ 1 Tim. 2. 5. There is one God and one Mediator between God and Men the Man Christ Jesus Ephes 4. 6. One God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all Isa 46. 9. For I am God and there is none else I am God and there is none like me 1 King 8. 23. Lord God of Israel there is no God like thee in Heaven above or in Earth beneath Ver. 60. That all the People of the Earth may know that the Lord is God and that there is none else Isa 44. 6. I am the First and I am the Last and besides me there is no God Ver. 8. Is there a God besides me yea there is no God I know not any Isa 45. 5. I am the Lord there is none else there is no God besides me Verse 6. There is none besides me I am the Lord and there is none else Ver. 14. Saying surely God is in thee and there is none else there is no God Ver. 21. Have not I the Lord and there is no God else beside me a just God and a Saviour there is none beside me Ver. 22. Look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the Earth for I am God and there is none else Deut. 4. 35. Unto thee it was shewed that thou mightest know that the Lord he is God and there is none else beside him 1 Chron. 17. 20. O Lord there is none like thee neither is there any God besides thee Exod. 34. 14. For thou shalt worship no other God for the Lord whose Name is Jealous is a jealous God Deut. 32. 39. See now that I even I am he and there is no God with me 2 King 5. 15. Behold now I know that there is no God in all the Earth but in Israel 2 Sam. 22. 32. For who is God save the Lord See the same words in Psal 18. 31. 1 Cor. 8. 4. There is none other God but one I conclude with the first and chiefest of the Ten Commandments given from Mount Sinai Exod. 20. 3. Thou shalt have no other Gods before me I the Lord thy God am a jealous God and that of the Lord Jesus when himself was tempted Matth. 4. 10. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve The meaning plainly is I am a Jew and subject to the Law of the Jews I am commanded therein to worship the Lord my God and to serve him only These Scriptures do so clearly prove that God is a Person or a perfect intellectual Nature or Substance and that he is only one such that to deny either of these Propositions is to me to deny the Truth of Holy Scripture not only in some obscure and doubtful Text but in the Current of it and in the chief Fundamental of all Religion And Mr. Edw. in asserting there are three such Persons in one Divine Nature renders in effect the whole Bible void and useless for the proof of any Proposition whatsoever it be If this that God is an absolutely perfect Being and therefore a Person for Persons are the most perfect of Beings or Substances and but one such cannot be plainly and undeniably prov'd from Scripture it 's utterly in vain to attempt to prove any thing For it 's manifest that to assert THIS is the chief Aim and Design of all the Holy Writers and that they are most zealous and vehement in it And herein lies the Controversy between the Trinitarians and the Unitarians we assert with the greatest plainness and fulness and clearness of Holy Scripture as ever any thing was or can be exprest that God is ONE in the most perfect sense of Oneness which is by all Men that understand the Word in a personal Sense But the Trinitarians do on the contrary contend that God is not One but Three in that personal Sense and One in a less perfect Sense which is not Personal but common to many Which is a Sense that dethrones God and makes him either a Third of the one God or one of the Three that created and governs the World and is to be ador'd by Men and Angels For they cannot deny but that in worshipping the Father our God we worship one God But they rage against us because we do not worship besides him and distinct from him the Son as perfectly God as he as different from him as a real Son is from a real Father and another Person as really God as either the Father or the Son and as really different from the Father and Son as he that is sent is
from him that sent him And this is so evidently true that as I have observ'd almost one half of the Trinitarians consent with the Unitarians in condemning the other Party of Trinitarians as Confessors of three Gods But that I may give yet fuller Evidence of this Fundamental Truth of the Unity of the Person of God against the Trinity of Persons in him I shall in the third place produce some Texts that ascribe some Perfections to the Person of God singularly and with exclusion of all other Persons in that Sense and Degree Such are those where the Holy Jesus says None or no Person is good but one the God which I have urged before and that in John 17. 3. where the Blessed Son in his Prayer to God wherein it were absurd to say that he pray'd to himself calls him Father and the only true God and that in distinction from himself whom he describes by the Names of Jesus Christ him whom the Father hath sent This Particle only imports some Excellency in the Attribute of true which is here given to God his Father above and with exclusion of all others or it signifies nothing Rom. 16. 27. To God only Wise be Glory through Jesus Christ for ever Amen Here again the Attribute of only Wise is ascrib'd to the Person of God in distinction from Jesus Christ as the Medium of the Glory which is given to the only Wise God 1 Tim. 6. 15 16. God is called the blessed and ONLY Potentate the King of Kings and Lord of Lords who ONLY hath Immortality c. which are all personal Titles from which all other Persons are excluded by the exclusive Particle only for there can be but one Potentate who is King of Kings in the highest Sense and much more when only is added When Christ is called King of Kings and Lord of Lords Rev. 17. 14. and 19. 16. it 's manifest it 's to be understood in a derivative Sense because all Power in Heaven and Earth was given to him as the Lamb that had been slain and therefore he is represented as clothed with a Vesture dipt in Blood in that 19 Chap. ver 13. Who only hath Immortality that is as Dr. Hammond says God is Immortal in himself not in three Selfs and all Immortality of others is derived from him In the same Sense is the Lord God Almighty called in Rev. 15. 4. only Holy because he only is Holy of himself and as it is understood 1 Sam. 2. 2. There is none Holy as the Lord. Now in these and such-like Passages of Holy Scripture the Trinitarians and Mr. Edw. must understand by God three Persons by Father the Father Son and Holy Ghost by Thou Ye by Him Them by Himself Themselves and those Words the Scripture hath in the singular Number must be understood by them plurally It 's no marvel then that they call their Doctrine a Mystery and that there is so much dissension among themselves concerning it since it cannot be understood in any Sense which is not either contradictious in it self or so to the full Current of Holy Scripture In like manner 4thly all those Texts which are not a few in which God is named the most High the most high God the Lord the most High God most High the Highest whether these Titles be Subject or Attribute must all be understood not of one Person or a singular knowing and willing Substance but either of a Substance that is not a Person or else of three equal Persons And all this by virtue of that scholastic and unreasonable Distinction between Person and Essence or as Mr. Edw. words it The infinite Nature of God communicable to three distinct Persons Pag. 79. which Distinction being absurd in it self when understood they obtrude upon the World under the Name of MYSTERY and Incomprehensible 5thly Besides that the Holy Scriptures are so abundant in those Texts that clearly shew him to be one Person only as I have fully manifested yet I may still urge from the same Texts and others that the Father only whom the Trinitarians acknowledg to be but one Person is that God that God alone that one God that God who is One the most high God and no Person else besides him I produced before the Text in John 17. 3. to prove that the Perfection of being THE ONLY TRUE GOD is ascrib'd to him as being one Person only Now I urge from the same Text that that Person is the Father of the Son in express distinction from the Son and all others Next that Text in 1 Cor. 8. 5 6. Though there be that are called Gods whether in Heaven or in Earth as there be Gods many and Lords many but to us there is but one God the Father of whom were all things and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him Which words do plainly assert that that Person who is the one God of Christians in exclusion of all those that are called Gods and in some Sense may be so is none but the Father and in distinction from the Lord Jesus who was made Lord and Christ in a most excellent manner after his Resurrection This Text must be understood by the Trinitarians thus There is none other God but three Almighty Persons There are Gods many and Lords many but unto us Christians there is but one God or Divine Nature the Father Son and Holy Ghost each of which is the one God of Christians and not the Father only See next Ephes 4. 4 5 6. There is one Spirit one Lord one God and Father of all Where the one God and Father of all is clearly differenced from the one Spirit and the one Lord. Now see Mat. 24. 36. But of that Day and Hour knoweth none or no Person for of necessity it must be so understood no not the Angels of Heaven but my Father only St. Mark hath it neither the Son but the Father These parallel Texts prove 1. That the Person of the Father is the Person of God for none but that Person could then know the Day and Hour of Judgment And 2. that the Father only is that Person of God in exclusion of all other Persons both Angels and Men and of the Son himself What shall we say of them who in flat Contradiction to this Scripture and the Son himself assert That the Son knew the Day and Hour of Judgment as well as the Father Let us next compare that Passage in 1 Tim. 2. 5. which I cited before with 1 John 2. 1. The former saith There is one God and one Mediator between God and Men the Man Christ Jesus The latter says If any Man sin we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the Righteous By which consider'd together it appears that the one God and the Father are the same Person for only a Person is capable of being interceded to and the Mediator and Advocate the same So that the Father is the Person of
God as well as the Advocate is the Person of the Mediator But if the Reader desire to see this Point viz. that the Father only is the most high God fully and learnedly argued and defended let him read Crellius's two Books of One God the Father out of which I have transcribed much In what a many Places of Scripture is Christ called the Son of God and the Holy Spirit the Spirit of God In every of which either God must be taken for the Father only or Christ must be the Son of himself and the Holy Spirit the Spirit of himself both which are absurd Again how many places of Holy Scripture are there where some Prerogative is given to the Father above Christ as John 14. 28. My Father is greater than I How asham'd are the more ingenuous Trinitarians of that Answer to this Objection against the Deity of the Son which says The Son was less according to his Human Nature John 10. 29. My Father is greater than all It 's manifest from the Context that the Son himself is included in that word ALL. 1 Cor. 11. 3. The Head of Christ is God Christ is not the Head of himself therefore the Father only is God How often do Christ and the Divine Writers call the Father his God John 20. 17. I ascend to my Father and your Father to my God and your God In Rev. 3. 12. he calls the Father my God four times Mat. 27. 46. and Mark 15. 34. he cries out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me His God was only the Person of the Father and not God the Divine Nature which according to Mr. Edw. is common to three Persons Ephes 1. 17. The God of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of Glory Heb. 1. 8. Where Christ is called a God he is also said to have a God who anointed him Was he his own God and the God that anointed him or was the Father only John 10. 18. This Commandment have I received of my Father He only is God who gives Commandments to the Son John 12. 49. The Father that sent me he gave me a Commandment what I should say and what I should speak John 14. 31. As the Father hath given me Commandment so I do John 15. 10. As I have kept my Father's Commandment and abide in his Love See Chap. 4. 34. and 6. 38. and 8. 29 55. and 17. 4. and 18. 11. Add those places wherein it 's clearly taught that Christ obey'd God Rom. 5. 19. Phil. 2. 8. Heb. 5. 8. God calleth Christ his Servant Isa 42. 1. Mat. 12. 18. Isa 49. 5 6. with Acts 13. 47. Isa 2. 13. and 53. 11. Ezek. 34. 23 24. and 37. 24 25. He is called a Minister of the Sanctuary Heb. 8. 2. All these Texts and a hundred more say the Trinitarians are answered by the Distinction of a Divine and Human Nature in one Person or the second Person of God his having a Human Nature So you are to understand that this Person of God who is here said to be a Servant to receive Commands and obey them c. is yet as perfectly Great as he from whom he receiv'd those Commands who has no Prerogative above him The Servant is as great as his Lord and he that Obey'd as he that Commanded and he that is sent as he that sent him yea the same God is Servant and Lord the Obeyer and Commander the Sent and the Sender When all these Prerogatives of the Father above the Son and consequently above the Holy Spirit will not prove the Father only to be the most High God of what use can the Holy Scriptures be to us What shall be the Difference between Holy Scriptures and profane Writings May not all the Greek Fables of their Gods be justified by the same or such like Distinctions O Father of Mercies enlighten their Understandings and remove their Prejudices that they may no longer deny thee the Glory due to thee above all Neither is it to be passed by that to the Father only is ascrib'd in Holy Scripture the Creation of Heaven and Earth to Christ never though in a certain way of speaking common to the Sacred Writers many things or all pertaining to the new Covenant or Gospel are said to be created that is medelled or put into a new and better State by him So in that antient Confession of Faith call'd The Apostles Creed the Creation of Heaven and Earth is appropriated to the Father and both in those Apostolical Times and to this day Prayers and Praises are offer'd to the Father through-Christ and the Gift of the Holy Spirit is begg'd of him which clearly shews the Prerogative of the Father above the Son and Holy Spirit and consequently that he only is that Person whom we ought to understand by the Name of GOD. In fine The God of Abraham of Isaac and of Jacob the God of the Fathers and the Father of Christ are Descriptions of one and the same Person So Acts 3. 13. The God of our Fathers hath glorified his Son Jesus and Heb. 1. 1. God who spake in times past to the Fathers by the Prophets hath spoken to us by his Son So that they who make the Son to be the God of the Fathers make him to be his own God and Father But because I think it may give farther Light and Evidence to this great Point wherein the Glory of God even the Father is so much concern'd I will yet further show from many plain Texts set so as they may give Light one to another that the God of the Fathers and the God and Father of Christians or our God and Father and the God and Father of our Lord Christ our Heavenly Father and his Heavenly Father his God and our God is one and the same Person I present them by Couples the first speaking of Christ the second of us See Rom. 15. 6. That ye may glorify God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Phil. 4. 20. Now unto God our Father be glory for ever and ever 2 Cor. 1. 3. Blessed be God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of Mercies Rom. 1. 7. Grace be to you and Peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ Col. 1. 3. We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Eph. 1. 2. Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ 2 Cor. 11. 31. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ knoweth that I lie not 1 Thes 1. 1. Grace be to you and Peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ Heb. 1. 8. Unto the Son he saith Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever Thou hast loved Righteousness and hated Iniquity therefore God even thy God hath anointed thee with the Oil of Gladness above thy Fellows Phil. 1. 2. Grace be unto you and Peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ Ephes 1.
3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ 1 Tim. 1. 2. Grace Mercy and Peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. Eph. 1. 17. That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of Glory may give unto you the Spirit c. Col. 1. 2. Grace be unto you and Peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 1. 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ 2 Thess 2. 16. Now the Lord Jesus himself and God even our Father c. John 20. 17. Jesus saith to Mary I ascend to my Father and your Father and to my God and to your God Gal. 1. 4. Who gave himself for our Sins according to the will of God and our Father Mat. 27. 46. Jesus cried saying My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Philem. 3. Grace be to you and Peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ Rev. 3. 12. Him that overcometh will I make a Pillar in the Temple of my God and write upon him the Name of my God c. 2 Thess 1. 1. Unto the Church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ John 17. 1. Jesus lift up his Eyes to Heaven and said Father Glorify thy Son Mat. 23. 9. One is your Father which is in Heaven Psal 115. 3. Our God is in the Heavens Thus we see there is one God and Father of all Ephes 4. 6. both of Christ and Believers the Children of God the same Person is the God and Father of both It 's absurd to say that Christ the Son is his own Father or his own God so it 's plainly contrary to Scripture to say that any other Person is our God or our Father in the highest Sense but the same who is Christ's God and Father That it is so I appeal to the serious Thoughts of every Man and Woman that reads the Scriptures attentively without the prejudice of Scholastick and confus'd Distinctions Now I shall further produce you many couples of Scriptures which prove expresly that the Name of GOD when taken by way of Excellency and the Name of FATHER in Christ's Gospel do signify the same singular Person So that no one is or can be God who is not also the Father which Term is acknowledged to signify but one Person This appears from the Scripture attributing the sending of Christ or the Son sometimes to God sometimes to the Father and both frequently John 3. 34. He whom God hath sent speaketh the Words of God for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him Chap. 14. 24. The Word which ye hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me Acts 10. 36. The Word which God sent to the Children of Israel preaching Peace by Jesus Christ John 5. 30. I seek not mine own Will but the Will of the Father which hath sent me Acts 3. 26. God having raised up his Son Jesus sent him to bless you John 12. 49. The Father which sent me he gave me a Commandment what I should say and what I should speak 1 John 4. 10. Not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the Propitiation for our Sins Chap. 4. 14. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the World Gal. 4. 4. God sent forth his Son made of a Woman John 6. 39. And this is the Father's Will that hath sent me See ver 44. 1 John 4. 9. In this was manifested the Love of God toward us because God sent his only begotten Son into the World c. John 5. 24. He that heareth my Word and believeth on the Father that hath sent me Rom. 8. 3. God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful Flesh John 20. 21. Then said Jesus As my Father sent me even so send I you Joh. 3. 17. God sent not his Son to condemn the World Chap. 5. 23. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which sent him Joh. 6. 29. Jesus answered This is the Work of God that ye believe on him whom he hath sent Chap. 17. 25. O Father these have known that thou hast sent me John 17. 3. This is Life Eternal that they might know thee Father the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent Chap. 10. 36. Say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the World Thou blasphemest because I said I am the Son of God John 16. 27. The Father himself loveth you because ye have believed that I came out from God Ver. 28. I came forth from the Father and am come into the World again I leave the World and go to the Father Ver. 30. By this we believe that thou camest forth from God John 3. 16. God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son Chap. 8. 18. I am one that bear witness of my self and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me John 8. 42. For I proceeded forth and came from God neither came I of my self but he sent me Chap. 5. 36. The Works that I do bear witness that the Father hath sent me Hence it appears most evidently not only that God and the Father are the same Person and that the same is as plainly distinguisht from our Lord Christ as the Sender is distinct from him that is sent but that the Son is no more the same God that sent him than he is the same Father that sent him If Christians will still suffer themselves to be impos'd upon under the Notion of MYSTERY to believe that the Son of God is the same numerical God as his Father who sent him to do his Will not his own and to be the Propitiation or Mercy-seat Heb. 9. 5. for our Sins that the only begotten or well-beloved Son whom the Father first sanctified and then sent into the World is the same God who sanctified and sent him that the miraculous Works which the Son did did bear witness not that the Father even God had sent him but that the Son was that God c. they should no longer pretend that their Faith concerning God and his Son Christ Jesus in what is necessary to eternal Life is clearly and plainly reveal'd in Holy Scripture but that they have learnt it by Tradition from their Teachers which yet they can no more conceive the meaning of without contradiction to Scripture and Reason than the Papists can their Transubstantiation which they also believe under the Notion of Mystery Let none say there is a wide Difference between the Faith of Protestants and Papists in these Cases because Transubstantiation is contradicted by Sense the Trinity only by Reason for I appeal to any Man of Sense whether we may not be as certain that one Person is not three Persons nor three Persons one Person as that Bread is not Flesh If Protestants think themselves excusable in that let
them not for shame blame the Papists in this And if both Protestants and Papists are faultless in these Points I see not but the Heathen Polytheists will be capable of the same Charity The New Testament Scriptures are so full of those clear Distinctions and opposite Relations and Works of God from the Son of God that a Man must in a manner transcribe the whole Volume to present them all I have given my Reader a great number of Texts already I will yet point him to some more which he may read at his leisure See then 1 John 4. ver 9 to 16. 2 Pet. 1. 17. Rom. 16. 27. John 6. 69. John 5. 26 27. As the Father hath Life in himself so hath he given to the Son to have Life in himself and hath given him Authority to execute Judgment also because he is the Son of Man The Son of God had not this Life in himself till it was given him by the Living God his Father not because he was God but because he was the Son of Man But what Ears can hear that Life and Authority were given by the same God the Father to the very same God the Son Or that any Life and Authority could be given to him that was God who had always from all Eternity all Life and Authority in himself and could never be without it But I am pointing you to some Texts of Scripture Read also Rom. 1. 9. Chap. 8. 3 29 31. Chap. 5. 10. Ephes 1. 3. 1 John 1. 5 7. Chap. 3. 21 23. Chap. 1. 3. Gal. 1. 15. Col. 1. 10 13. 1 Cor. 1. 9. 1 John 4. 15. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God not that he is that God whose Son he is God dwelleth in him and he in God 1 John 5. 9 10 11. Heb. 1. 1 2. John 3. 16 17. Acts 3. 26. 1 Thess 1. 9 10. John 5. 18. 2 John ver 3. Gal. 4. 4. Acts 3. 13. These Texts do undeniably prove that God is one Person only to wit the Father of the Son and as the Son cannot be his own Father so neither that God who is his Father But I proceed see Mat. 14. 33. and 16. 16. Luke 1. 35. Mark 1. 1. John 1. 34. and 20. 31. These are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that believing ye might have Life through his Name The Apostle John did not write his Gospel as some pretend to prove that Jesus was God who was his Father but that he was the Christ or a Man anointed with the Holy Ghost and Power the Son of that God who anointed him and that so believing we might have Life through him Mark 1. 11. Mat. 3. 17. Luke 3. 22. Mark 9. 7. Luke 9. 35. Heb. 1. 5. 1 John 4. 14. Mat. 11. 27. Luke 10. 22. John 1. 14. and 3. 18 29. and 14. 28. and 15. 10. and 20. 17. Against all these Scriptures and many more that might be alledged it 's urged that the Son is somewhere called God or rather a God in Scripture To which I answer that both Angels and Men are called God and Gods and Sons of God in Scripture see Exod. 7. 1. I have made thee Moses a God to Pharaoh Exod. 4. 16. compar'd with Chap. 3. 2 5. an Angel is called Jehovah and Elohim in English the Lord and God Psal 8. 5. Thou hast made him Man a little lower than the Angels in Hebrew than the Gods And Judg. 13. 22. Manoah said We shall surely die because we have seen God so he calls the Angel that appeared to him But the word God taken by way of Eminency for the Father of all signifies also the God of Gods Deut. 10. 17. Joshua 22. 22. Psal 136. 2 c. The most high God Gen. 14. 18. Heb. 7. 1. And the Lord Jesus being stoned and charged with Blasphemy by the Jews for saying that he and his Father were one as we read John 10. 29 30 c. he vindicates himself by the Authority of that Text in Psal 82. 6. where it's Divinely written I said ye are Gods speaking of the Judges and Princes who receiv'd their Authority and Power from God and all of you Sons of the most High and argues from it thus Say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the World Thou blasphemest because I said I am THE SON of God Which is in effect to say I may with far greater right than they be called a God or the Son of God who have received from God far greater Authority and Power being sanctified to such a Degree and sent among Men to preach such a Doctrine and Work such Miraculous Works as plainly shew that the Father is in me and I in him that is there is such a close Union between us as if the Father dwelt in me and did the Works which I do dwelling as it were in him and which cannot be done by any other Power Whence I argue that if in any Text of Scripture Jesus is said to be God or a God tho he himself never said he was God Nunquam seipse Deum dixit as saith Lactantius it is to be understood of that Godlike Power Authority and Glory which God his Father has conferr'd upon him for which he is to be honoured as the Father who sent him who anointed him who raised him from the Dead and set him at his own Right Hand So in Heb. 1. 8 9. where in the Words spoken of Solomon Psal 45. he is called God he is said to have a God above him who anointed him Let them consider who say the Son is God in the same sense as the Father how they can clear themselves of Blasphemy Such Persons look upon the Unitarians with Amazement and Horrour because they will not take the term God in that Sense as themselves do What! Deny Christ to be God so expresly spoken of him in Holy Scripture In the mean time they do not reflect upon themselves who make to themselves by understanding Scripture in another Sense than Christ understood it in another God besides the Father who only is the true God The Unitarians acknowledg and celebrate one God the Father the Trinitarians do so too but they also acknowledg and celebrate two other Persons each of which is God in the same sense as the Father neither of which is the Father Which of us are safer and in less danger of being Blasphemers and worshippers of more Gods than one There 's nothing more manifest in Holy Scripture than that the only true God hath given to the Son both his Being and all whatsoever that he enjoys he has exalted him to his Right Hand given him all Power in Heaven and in Earth as Pharaoh exalted Joseph in Egypt only in the Throne saith he will I be greater than thou But the Trinitarians will not suffer the Father to enjoy that Privilege They are asham'd of that Son of God and his
words who is not as great as his Father though he said My Father is greater than I. They are asham'd of his words who said Of that Day and Hour knoweth none not the Son but the Father only and say in Contradiction to him The Son did know that Day and Hour as well as the Father and not the Father only They are asham'd of his Words who said I can do nothing of my self I came not to do my own Will but the Will of him that sent me my Doctrine is not mine but his that sent me I do nothing of my self but as the Father hath taught me I speak these things I have not spoken of my self but the Father that sent me he gave me a Commandment what I should say and what I should speak The word that I speak I speak not of my self but the Father that abideth in me he doth the Works These and many other Words and Sayings of the same kind they seem to be asham'd of and say and contend for it that he could do all things of himself that he came to do his own Will that his Doctrine was his own that he had no need of the Father's teaching c. They are ashamed of those words of Christ's Mat. 19. 17. Why dost thou call me good none is good but one the God and say none is good but Three God and God and God or Father Son and Holy Ghost Here let me observe to the Reader as I have hinted above that there is a considerable Difference between that particle one in this Text and the same particle one in that supposititious Text 1 Joh. 5. 7. These three are one for here one is of the Neuter Gender as is manifest both in the Greek and Latin and fignifies as the same word does in 1 Cor. 3. 8. He that planteth and he that watereth are one but in the Text above one is of the Masculine Gender and must be understood of one Person or intelligent Being who is good and none but he to wit the God If they were not hinder'd by strong Preiudices they might easily see that whatsoever they attribute to the Son be it eternal necessary Existence Almightiness or Omniscience c. they take away from the Father thereby not only the Glory of enjoying those Divine Excellencies alone but also the Glory of his free Goodness and the Son 's and our Thankfulness for such unspeakable Benefits both to him and us as he has been graciously pleas'd to give unto the Son either in begetting him or raising him up in Time or in rewarding him both for his and our Good Nay they make the Son uncapable of receiving those great and glorious Rewards of all Power in Heaven and Earth given to him of an everlasting Kingdom of a Name above every Name of exaltation to the Right Hand of God and the like which the Scriptures are full of For how could any of these Blessings be given to him that was God always even from Eternity Could God sit at the Right Hand of God in any sense whatever These are the absurd Doctrines which make the Trinitarians contend so fiercely one with another and with us God will judg the World and between them and us by that Man whom he has ordained to be Judg of the Dead and Living But to return to the Consideration of those Texts that are alledg'd for the Son 's being called God that in John 1. 1. I have spoken of already as also that in 1 Tim. 3. 16. That in Rom. 9. 5. is read without the word God in the Syriac and in the Writings of St. Cyprian Hilary and Chrysostom whereby it 's probable it was not originally in that Text. But Erasmus acknowledges that for a good Reading which points the Clause so as to render it a Thanksgiving to the Father thus The God over all be blessed for ever to wit for his Benefits in raising up Christ of the Fathers c. And it seems to have been so read by some of the Antients for they reckon it among the Heresies to say that Christ was God over all as Origen contr Cels and others In 1 John 3. 16. The word God is not found but in very few Greek Copies and if it be read there admits of a good Sense without making God to die who only hath Immortality As also doth that Text in Acts 20. 28. which may be render'd Feed the Church of God which he hath purchased with the Blood of his own Son but the truer Reading according to the Syriac the Armenian and most antient Greek Bibles is Christ instead of God Most of the Antient Fathers read Christ or Lord. Those words in 1 John 5. 21. This is the true God which some refer to the Son are plainly to be refer'd to the Father signified by him that is true through his Son Jesus This He that is true whose Son Christ is is the true God Lastly They urge that in John 20. 28. where Thomas being convinced by the clear Testimony of his Senses that Christ was risen from the Dead answered and said unto him My Lord and my God which words whether they are words of Admiration respecting God that raised him from the Dead or him that was raised to be a Prince and Saviour Acts 5. 30 31. a Lord and a God the term God cannot signify in this latter sense any other than a God or Christ made so by Resurrection 'T is a clear Case that the Evangelist could not intend by these words to teach us that Jesus was God when he tells in the last Verse that they and his whole Book were written That we might believe that Jesus is the Christ the SON of God and that believing we might have Life through his Name I have insisted long upon this Point of the Oneness of God partly because it is a Matter of the highest Moment in Religion partly to shew that if our Author had a Design as Mr. Edw. says he had to exclude the Belies of the Trinity or Threeness of God from being a Point necessary to Salvation it was a Pious and Christian Design and that Mr. Edw. has been so far from offering any thing to prove that Faith to be so necessary that he has not proved it a true Doctrine but on the contrary I have proved it to be false and highly dishonourable to the ever-blessed God and Father of Christ contrary to the clear and full Current of Scripture obscuring the true Glory of Christ and very injurious to the Peace and Hope of Christians But after all whether our Author is of my mind in this Matter or whether he believes that the Doctrine of three coequal Almighty Persons is a Truth but not Fundamental I cannot determine but methinks Mr. Edwards's concluding him all over Socinianiz'd in this Point is done upon such Grounds as will argue the Holy Evangelists to be also Socinians for he says This Writer interprets the Son of God to be no