3 4. where he tells the Corinthians that though he is absent in Body yet he as present in Spirit had Judged already as though he were present concerning him that hath so done this Deed And in the next verse tells them what they should do wehen they wre gathered together and my Spirit with the Power of our Lord Jesus Christ Colo. 2 5. to the same purpose but were not Mr. Considerator one of the best or rather the worst at perverting of Scripture and one of the greatest reproachers of sound Reason under the greatest pretentions to it I should not have mentioned these Scriptures as having the least shew of Reason in them to invalidate the Truth of our Lords Promise or that he will not be with his People and that really present with them to the end of the World in all Places and in all Conditions according to that gracious Promise in Isa 43. 2. When thou passest through the fire I will be with thee and the waters shall not overflow thee If you tell me this Promise in Isaiah must be understood of God the Father I answer if it be so it doth but confirm our Lords Deity the Promise being no more then what he Promiseth his Disciples which clearly proves our Lord Jesus Christ to be the Omnipresent God that fills Heaven and Earth with his presence for what Paul said to the Corinthians and Colossians is no more then what we may all say to one another when we are desirous to have a good Work carried on by the Church or any other Civil Society at which we have a right to be present as Member tho' we are else where detained yet approving the Work we say our Heart is with them our Mind and Spirit is in the Work But will Mr. Considerator say this is all the comfort our Lord promises his Disciples Mat. 28. Truly if so they might say of him as Job said of his Friends miserable comforters have ye been but our Lord cannot deceive any more then he can be deceived and therefore he will come unto his People and will take up his abode with them according to his gracious Promise in Joh. 14. 23. Jesus answered and said if a man love me he will keep my words and my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him Here the Son is to come and be as much present with his Disciples as the Father And in ver 16. of the same Chapter our Lord saith I will pray the Father and he shall send you another comforter that he may abide with you for ever All which with many other Texts of Scripture not only prove the Son to be Omnipresent but also the Unity of the Divine being and the Trinity of that Unity and doth undeniably prove to all sincere unbyast Christians the Divine authority and Truth of that Word in Joh. 5. 7. which Mr. Considerator and the rest of his Tribe do so much Bark at but they shall never be able to Bite it out of Gods Bible as long as the Sun and Moon indure nor can they though in Conjunction with the Gates of Hell be able to Rob the People of God of the comfort and Consolation that they enjoy by Communion with the real though Spiritual and Divine presence of Jesus Christ For when the Atheist and Deist and Mr. Considerator himself have Mock'd and Scoff'd at Communion with God as much as their Elder Brother Ishmael himself did at the Son of the Promise yet know ye there are that know their Fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ Joh. 1. 3. And yet Mr. Considerator to shew what a Doctor in Capernaum and Nicodemus's Divinity he is proves himself as good an Advocate for the abomination of Transubstantion as Belarmine himself or any Cardinal of them all could do Yet is he no Papist but any thing so he can but do some thing against the Truth for in Page 21. Colum 2. and 22. He labours all be can to make the abomination of Transubstantiation to be a small sin if any which he calls a folly or a mistake it is not an impiety he saith but a Philosophical Error Colum 2. Page 21. and hath mis-represented that abomination that he might redicule the Truth For he saith it is not pretended by the Papist that the bread and Wine have received any the least change Where as this is the very thing they have burn'd many a Christian for because they would not believe that the Bread and Wine were changed or Transubstanstiated into the very Body and blood of Christ And as for his Body being present in a Spiritual manner it was the Doctrine of the Lutherans and not of the Papists And in his 20th Page Colum he saith himself the Papists say the words of our Lord import that the Bread of the Sacrament is really and verily made to be the Substance of Christ's body in which he was Crucified But in his Page 21. Colum 2. He tells us they are of another Mind and that they do not pretend that the bread and Wine have received the least change in what is an Object of Sense Why good Sir is not the very Substance of Bread an Object of Sense Perhaps this Gentleman may pretend a License to Contradict himself but the Trinitarians must have a care of saying any thing contrary to the dictates of Mr. Considerators foolish Reason for fear of being Guilty of the unpardonable sin of Contradicton But the Gentleman was labouring to Contradict Christ and to Charge him with Folly and Falshood therefore no wonder if he Contradict himself for our Lord hath promised to be with his People to be really present with them in this World This Mr. Considerator see would prove him to be God the only true God therefore he will Give our Saviour the Lye and say he neither is nor can be Omnipresent Page 11. Colum 2. But our Lord saith Mat. 18. 20. that where two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them And that the will be with his People to the end of the World Mat. 28. 20. Yet Mr. Considerator is pleased to say the Doctrine of Christ real presence is worse then the abomination of Transubstantiation But that his Fables may pass with some Colour he thinks it meet to colour his Charge with Falshood and tells us of some whom he saith ought not to call themselves the Reformed who believe the real Presence of Christ's Body in the Sacrament pag. 20. colume 2. But I know none of that Belief except the Papist nor the Considerator neither I believe but the Gentleman's Design was to deny the Real Divine Presence of Christ But that being too great a Truth to be beat out of the Scripture of Truth he contents himself in that place in denying his bodily Presence I have insisted the more on the Omnipresence of Christ because Mr. Considerator in his
nor is it to be thought strange if the Ministry it self be slighted in the General when there are so many Novices that know not how to divide the Word of Truth aright and therefore they spake not as the Ministers of Christ as being called and sent of God to Preach the Everlasting Gospel but as the Scribes and low Spirited time-servers that can Tell a Tale out of Ovid and Homer but are far enough from being like Ezra who read in the Book of the Law and gave the Sense and the Meaning the Gospel and Epistles to the Primitive Christians being seldom mentioned or if they be either not Explained or miserably perverted to set up some other Christ or some other Saviour besides our Lord Jesus Christ For alass poor Creatures they know not what the terrors of the Lord nor the Consolations of the Holy Ghost are themselves And how then can they perswade Men to be Christians they are strangers to the New Birth themselves and how can they give any account of those things they have not seen nor felt These things are to be Lamented and shall be reformed when God causeth Glory to dwell in our Church and Land It is in vain for Men In vain did I say it is a sin and a shame for Men to go before God in chusing of Ministers one would think the Gospel should Teach us so much good Manners as to let God choose first And when he hath given some visible Demonstrations who he hath Chosen then to set such apart by Fasting and Prayer and laying on the Hands of the Presbytery So shall they revive the Glory that is due to the Gospel Ministry by having none but Work men among them that are able to divide the Word of Truth aright and so need not to be ashamed either of the Gospel or a shame to it being sound in the Faith and having the Spirit may Convince gain-sayers For want of a due regard hereunto the Church hath too many Novices and too many put too much Contempt on the whole Ministry for the sake of some Pretenders thereunto But that which is worse then all this is the Enemies of our Lord Jesus Christ and of the Gospel of his Grace take occasion hereby to Assault the very Foundation of the Christian Religion and finding many in the Ministry some of the lowest of the People before spoken of who are either prepared to receive their Principles or not Fortified against them by the Spirit of the Lord. They grow insolent and because a Novice or an Arminian cannot Confute them for want of a Spirit of Judgment and of a sound Mind they are ready to say neither can a Minister of the Gospel do it And indeed it is a Question which perhaps a Doctor of Reason cannot readily determine whether it be harder for an Arminian to Confute a Socinian or for a Socinian to Confute an Atheist for there is a connexion and a dependancy in those damnable Heresies for the denying the full satisfaction that Christ made to Divine Justice for our sin and our being Justified freely by his Grace through the Redemption that is in Christs Blood makes way to deny the Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ and the denying the Divine Nature of our Lord Jesus Christ makes way for denying the being of God Arminianism naturally runing into Socinianism and Socinianism as naturally into Athesim as I trust Rational Reader thou wilt see by the insuing Discourse that the most Goliah like Arguments that our Pretenders to Reason have against our Lord Jesus Christ Lye with equal force against the very being of God These Gentlemen having Formed an Idea of Religion and of God himself according to that little Measure of Reason God hath bestowed upon them and that Reason wofully Corrupted they all three set this down for a Rule and tell us in so many Words that what is contrary to their Reason cannot be True and being very Conceited as thou knowest Rational Reader most of our Weak and and Half Witted People are they tell us what ever God tell us in his Word to the contrary no matter for that That one infinite Saviour is not sufficient to grapple with an in numerable Company of sins and Guilts each of which they will have to be infinite But thy Reason will tell thee their Argument will assoon destroy the being of God as over throw the Satisfaction of Christ They also tell us the Father the Word and Holy Ghost cannot be one that sin cannot be Forgiven if the guilty be not Cleared and yet God himself saith he will not Clear the guilty and yet he will Forgive sin And to carry on their damnable Heresies with a high Hand they set themselves up for Mastersof Reason Freemen of the Common-wealth of Wit and Learning But thou wilt see Reader by the ensuing Discourse that they are quite otherwise and that they prove themselves to be no other then a shame to Learning a dishonour to the Schools a reproach to sound Reason a scandal to the Gospel Enemies to the Crown and Dignity of our Lord Jesus Christ and Factors to Atheism Now Reader I shall not detain thee any longer at the Door then to tell thee how I being no Prophet nor Prophets Son came to be ingaged in a Work of this Nature And indeed it was an unexpected Providence that led me to it I being at a Friends House some Months since I Accidently saw the two Books mentioned in the Title Page and by that transient view that I had of them while I was there I perceived they struck at the Foundation of the Christian Religion I therefore desired to Borrow them that I might inquire by the Scriptures of Truth whether those things were so or no my request was readily granted and accordingly at spare Times and redeemed Hours for I resolved not to Lose one Hours Time from my Imployment for it but I say at Redeemed Hours I did look over those Books comparing the things that were therein asserted with the Scriptures of Truth and sound Reason drawn from the same And I do Freely acknowledge that at first I was somewhat Staggered in my Faith and indeed Had I not been almost turned aside from the simplicity of the Gospel thou hadst never seen any thing of this Nature coming from me nor should I have commited my Tuoughts about those things to Paper and Ink but finding the things that were so confidently denyed and Contended against was not about Meats or Drinks or a Holy-day or a White or a Black Garment and such like Trifles as these which makes them that observe them never the better nor they that observe them not never the worse but the matters contended about being no less then denying or believing in the true God and our Saviour Jesus Christ I resolved by the Grace of God to find out the Truth as it is in Jesus and therefore I gave the more earnest heed both to these Books and the
all and others he is pleased to take their Reason from them after they have had it witness Nebuchadnezzar and our Bethlem Now then seeing God is one and his Truth is one and the same yesterday to day and for ever What an unreasonable Reason doth the short Accountant give for his Faith in his 3d. page Where he with seeming Triumph tells us that he therefore believes what God reveals because he hath reason so to do And what if this Gentleman had no Reason must God's Word cease to be Truth because he hath no reason to be believe it And what if he had some Reason but not so much as now he pretends to and what if some have a great deal more than he as I have some Reason to believe there are that have Is it reasonable to say God's Word is true or false right or wrong according to the Measure of Reason that God hath given to every Man If this be not unreasonable Nonsence I know not what is Thus is the Word of Truth fulfill'd He that leaneth to his own Vnderstanding is a Fool That there is Reason to believe what God reveals is certain and to believe what God reveals because he reveals it is to make God's Truth and Power the Reason and Foundation of our Faith but to believe what God reveals only because it is agreeable to our reason is both irrational and absurd For thereby we make our foolish Reason the Rule and Standard of God's Truth and not only so but of the very Being of God himself so that if God doth reveal that the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost is one God and that this one God is the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost this Gentleman will not believe it because his Reason doth not comprehend it So that because he cannot find out the Almighty to Perfection therefore he will not believe him to be what he saith he is Thus when the Light shineth in Darkness and the Darkness comprehendeth it not then the Light must cease to be Light because the Darkness cannot comprehend it These are our Doctors of Reason or rather our Unreasonable Doctors who professing themselves wise are become Fools Rom. 1. 22. If you tell me that you cannot believe except you have Reason so to do because then your Faith would be unreasonable and unreasonable Men and faithless Men are joyned together in Scripture 2 Thes 3. 2. I answer the Unreasonableness of Unbelief lies in this That it makes God a Liar who is Truth it self and that Men following the Dictates of their own Reason cannot comprehend nor will their Wills submit to God's Will Hence it is that Carnal Reason is Enmity against God and whereas you tell us page 6. Colume 2. of your Divine Vnity asserted That the Reason you plead for is not Carnal or Corrupt Reason it being right Reason you plead for Yet it is evident enough that you are wrong notwithstanding all your Pretensions to right Reason for you confine Carnal Reason to the inordinate Appetites of the flesh such as drunkenness and the like which the Reason of the Heathens did see plain enough was very unreasonable Now in this you are not right for the World by Wisdom knew not God 1 Cor 1. 21. Now the World never accounted these Immoralities their Wisdom at least the wise Men of the World never did And I have reason to believe Panl had as good a stock of this Reason you plead for before his Conversion as your self Sir or any of the other six Wise Masters of Reason For as touching the Law he tells you he was blameless and doth not the Law forbid Drunkenness Uncleanness and the like and yet at this time a day he was much about as great an Enemy to Christ and the way of Salvation by him as your self Sir For he verily thought he ought to do many things against the Name of Jesus God grant you may be as great a Friend to our Lord Jesus Christ before you dye as Paul was And it is very reasonable indeed Sir that you consider what was the grand Error and Mistake not only of Paul but of the whole Body of the Jews who continued in Unbelief they could not believe that that same Jesus was the Lord of Life For Paul tells you that had they known it they would not have crucified him they could see that he was Man plain enough and a Holy Man too but their Reason would not let them see that he was more than Man except such as God was pleased to reveal his Son unto as in Paul But my Author in his Divine Vnity asserted tells us in page 5. Colume 2. that these Lights which he had before mentioned namely Sense Reason and Revelation must not contradict each other and saith Our Sense is given as a ground to work upon and our Reason as a means to assist and compleat the Knowledge we receive by Sensation and Revelation can't be receiv'd but by Means of these two former 'Till now No nor yet neither do I understand that Sense is a Foundation for Faith nor that Divine Revelation is confin'd to our Reason nay the contrary is Evident and to say or think that it is so is to make God like our selves but such Fools God himself will reprove Psal 50. 21. Nor is our Reason till truly rectified by the Spirit of God a means to receive the revealed Will of God nay it is the main thing that opposeth the great Mystery of God's revealed Will in the Gospel For the Carnal Mind is Enmity against God and cannot be Subject to the Law nor reveal'd Will of God and that not only the Reason of the Drunkard as before mentioned but that which Men call true Reason though it be far enough from being so Nay our Author goes on in the greatness of his Reason or rather in the madness of his Folly and saith We cannot without the greatest Folly suppose a thing can be reveal'd to us contrary to our Sense or Reason and thinks he hath sufficiently prov'd it by saying God cannot tell us White is black or that two and one is not three or that a Debt that is freely forgiven is fully paid Now in this you are not Wise for I will show you that God is greater than Man Job 33. 12. and there is nothing more true and certain than this truth that the God of truth cannot Lye and there is nothing more true and self Evident than that God calls that White which the Wise Men of this World call Black opposing their Reason against the revealed Will of God still setting themselves against God so that what God reveals to be Good proud foolish Man will call Evil. Ay Sir and as great Doctors of Reason as your self or else how come the Wise Men and Scribes to have a hand in our Lords Death and to think they did God good Service when they kill'd his Disciples Doubtless their Reason such as it was and
still the Principal Matter and Stuff by which this Babel Tower is carried on and supported But let us next consider what Comfort here or Happiness hereafter we could expect from our Redeemers Suffering if he were but a Man or any Created Being whatsoever And here it may be remembred that it hath been already proved that no Creature can merit any thing from God by doing but may not an innocent Creature 's Suffering merit something at the Hands of God for others To this I answer there are but three Accounts or Reasons for which we can suppose God should afflict or punish his Creatures 1. His own absolute Sovereignty and unaccountable Dominion that God hath over all his Creatures and whatever he doth on this Account We all know he can do no Injustice Or 2. God punishes the Creature for its own Sin or Guilt Or 3. For the Guilt of some other But our Lord Jesus Christ did not suffer for himself for though the Messiah was cut off it was not for himself but for his People Dan. 9. 16. For He had no Sin nor was guile found in his Mouth And it hath been proved by Gods own Proclamation in Exod. 34. 6 7. that Guilt must be taken away or else the guilty Sinner cannot be cleared and so will remain under the Law and under the Curse Now Guilt cannot be taken away without suffering the Punishment that Guilt bound the Sinner over to this could not be done by a Man only or any limited Power whatsoever This Mr. Considerator not only owns in pag. 31 and 32. but also denies that the Acts of Christ though they were of an infinite Value which yet he will not own they were but if they were he argues against the Satisfaction of Justice thereby because he saith One infinlte Satisfaction is not equivalent to all those Guilts and Punishments each of which is infinite And this he calls a Reasoning or Computation which is self-evident but why doth not Mr. Considerator see that his Arguing is self-contradictory one while he will not own our Lord Jesus Christ to be God because he saith it implies more infinites than one Which he saith is impossible Now to render him an insufficient Saviour he tells us of a great many infinite Guilts which one infinite Saviour is not able to grapple with What Pains doth this Gentleman take to prove that he is not of Paul's Mind and Faith who saith Christ loved him and gave hsmself for him And that he is not concern'd to be one of that Number spoken of in Isa 53. 3 4 5. where 't is said he bare our Iniquities Griefs Sorrows Chastisements and by his Stripes we are healed And if he bare our Sins or Punishments as the Scripture doth so often declare he either bare all that was due from Divine Justice or he bare but a part If he bare but a part we are but partly cleared he is but a part Saviour Guilt is but in part removed and finally we can be but partly saved which is to be fully condemned for God will by no means clear the guilty And whereas Mr. Considerator speaks of a great many infinite Sins and Guilts yet it is certain that Sin neither is nor can in its own Nature be infinite though as it is committed against Infinite Justice and Goodness it hath a kind of infinite Evil in it but properly it is not nor can be infinite For as there is but one Good that is God so there is but one Infinite that is God And indeed Mr. Considerator should have considered that as he argues in his 33d page he makes it as possible for Sin to destroy the very being of God as to overthrow the Satisfaction of Christ For Sin is Enmity against God and if it had power it would destroy God but as great and as exceeding sinful as sin is yet the Power of God is able to subdue it and the Goodness of God is able to overcome it and the Sufrings of Christ are able to take away the Guilt of it And whereas he saith that one supposed infinite Satisfaction is not equivalent to a great many infinite guilts I have already proved that our Lords Satisfaction was not supposed but really such as Answred Divine Justice by taking away all guilt from all his Elect else they could not be cleared and consequently not saved And as for his setting many infinites of guilt and sin against one infinite satisfaction if it had pleased God to endue him but with half so much sound Reason as he hath bestowed on many of the Common People of whom Mr. Considerator hath Prophesied in his Pag. 30. Colum 1. That they shall turn Divines and raze the very Foundation of Babylon I say had Mr. Considerator been a Legal Freeman of the Common-wealth of sound Reason as he Boasts Pag. 44. Colum 1. he would have easily seen that his Argument is every Whit as strong for the destroying of God himself and Causing him to cease to be as against the satisfaction of Christ For if there be a great many infinite sins and guilts and therefore one infinite satisfaction cannot Answer them because many to one is odds By the same Reason there being a great many infinite Evils and but one infinite good many to one being odds the many infinite Evils must destroy the one infinite good Thus we see God confounds the Wisdom of the Wise and makes their Knowledge foolishness and it is a thing to be much observed that there is scarce any one Argument that our pretenders to Reason make use of against our Lord Jesus Christ But when it is lookt into a Man may see that an Atheist may with as much Reason urge the same against the very being of God The Wisdom and Justice and Soveraginty of God herein is to be humbly and thankfully adored in that he is pleased to hide those things from the wise and prudent and to reveal them to Babes even so O Father because it pleaseth thee This should teach all both learned and unlearned to believe God to be as he himself reveals himself in his Word to be least while we proudly go about to make God like our Selves we provoke him to Leave us to our Selves and then Wisdom must perish from the Wise and understanding from the prudent and in denying God to be as he is we shall proceed to deny him to be And indeed as great Charnock hath well observed of the two it is a greater evil to deny him to be as he is then to deny him to be Let every sincere Christian therefore make it his dayly Prayer to Almighty God to give him an understanding that he may know him that is true and also know that he is in him that is true even in his Son Jesus Christ This is the true God and eternal Life 1 Joh. 5. 20. and let us one and all with Heart and Voice yield Obedience to the will and Command of God Joh. 5. in honouring the Son even as we honour the Father Joyning with those Blessed Ones we Read of Rev. 5. 9 10 11 12 13. Singing Songs of Praise and Thanksgiving to the Lamb who hath redeemed us by his blood and made us Kings and Priests unto our God Saying Blessing and Honour Glory and Power be unto him that sitteth upon the Throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever And let all that Love our Lord Jesus Christ in Sincerity say A men and Amen FINIS * See Sir Francis Bacons Confession of Faith
A Reasonable Word TO THE Doctors of Reason BEING Some Remarks on a Nameless Author in his Pamphlet Entituled The Divine Vnity asserted AND Some Observations upon a Short-Account of the Proceedings of R. S. Bishop of a Dissenting Congregation in London with some of the Brethren against a Member of that Church as an Heretick Shewing the Vnreasonableness of those Pretended Reasons that are offered for Denying our Lord Jesus Christ to be over All God blessed for evermore And Proving by the Word of God and Sound Reason drawn from the same That Jesus Christ is the True God and Eternal Life 1 John V. 20. ALSO A Reasonable Reprimand to Mr. Considerator for his foolish Boasting in his Letter to H. H. as if He and Those of his Tribe were the only Freemen of the Common-Wealth of Wit and Learning By N. Goldham a Lover of Truth and Sound Reason LONDON Printed by K. Astwood for the Author 1699. To the Right Worshipful Sir William Ashhurst Knight Alderman AND One of the Honourable REPRESENTATIVES of the City of LONDON in PARLIAMENT May it please your Worship THE Ensuing Sheets being the Work of some spare Hours last Winter Mornings redeemed not from my Employment or particular Calling but from my Rest and Sleep I know not unto whom of Right it doth more properly belong than to your Worship knowing that as you are my Governour my Person is under your Protection and my Manners fall under your Inspection I thought it meet therefore that a Work of this Nature coming from me should make its Acknowledgments to your Worship and I do hereby Humbly submit both the Work and the Author of it to your Worships Impartial Judgment and Censure And in doing this I know not how to give your Worship flattering Titles not only though chiefly because in so doing my Maker would be offended but also because I have Reason to believe that your Worship is so Noble and so truly Great that 't is as much below your Worship to receive them as it is Breach of Duty in me to give them Nor shall I with a Pretended shew of Humility the worst of all Pride make any Apology with a pretended Humble Petition for a Pardon for doing thus not only because in so doing I should be guilty of a Contradiction having already as in Reason I ought submitted both the Work and my Self to your Worships Impartial Judgment and Censure And knowing also such is the Gentleness and Candor of your Government that Sins of Ignorance and Infirmity are discountenanc'd and suppress'd with Admonition and Reproof or elfe punish'd with such Gentle and Fatherly Chastifement as may serve only for an Effectual Admonition to future Reformation And I can assure your Worship our Lord Jesus Christ who knoweth all things bearing me witness I lye not that at first and all the while I employ'd my Thoughts about the VVork it self and of submitting the same to your Worships most solid and penetrating Judgment I could not entertain one Thought of abusing Good Nature and a Gentle Governour at such an Unreasonable Wicked Rate as sinning wilfully in Hope of a Pardon will amount unto I am very sensible your Worship is called by the Good Providence of God and the Voice of this City to Much and Great Business in Publick Affairs both in this City and for this City and Nation among the Chief of our English Tribes the Heads of their Fathers Houses Men of Renown who have been and are to Assemble together in Parliament to Enquire and Determine what our English Israel ought to do That our Lord Jesus Christ may direct your Counsels and bless your Resolves is and ought to be the Prayer of every true English Christian I shall not therefore presume to detain your Worship with a Long Entry to a small Cottage yet I think my Self obliged to render to your Worship a Reason for my doing thus and among others this is one There is a Generation arisen up among us who call themselves Wits Freemen as they say of the Common-wealth of Learning but they prove themselves to be no other than a Select Number of Conceited Dunces who are far enough from being Freemen of the Common-wealth of Sound Reason And there is indeed no such thing as the Common-wealth of Learning that being a good Gift of God bestow'd but upon some but Reason is given by the same Author of every Good and Perfect Gift to Men as such yet neither is this universal in common to all Men in any great measures thereof witness our Pretenders thereunto And yet so vain are these Conceited Ones and of all Fools they are the worst that they not only say they are Freemen of the Common-wealth of Wit and Learning but they will needs make themselves as Usurpers in all cases do Masters and Magistrates of that which is Superiour to both viz. The Common-wealth of Sound Reason Hence it comes to pass that so many Nameless Letters have been sent to our Noble Senators with bold and presumptuous Exhortations to make Use of their Reason as if Christianity were an Enemy to Humanity Or as if Faith destroyed Reason charging all the Laity as well the Nobility and Gentry as the Commonality and more inferiour Mechanicks to be no better than Biggots to the Clergy And the Clergy no better than Arbitrary Imposers of Idolatrous Doctrines Since therefore these Bold Invaders on the Rights of Mankind in point of Reason as if they had ingross'd it all into their own Hands are grown so Vain and Insolent as to set Bounds not only to God's Word but to God himself they not having the Fear of God before their Eyes form an Idea of God according to the Dictates of their own Foolish Brains And whatever God saith of himself yet he must be no other than what they say he is and in all Probability the next Step will be to say he is not I therefore look'd for some Answers to those Unreasonable as well as Unscriptural Pamphlets from our Reverend Divines but finding these Pretenders had this Shift to put off what the Clergy had said And to amuse their Readers viz. That the Laity and efpecially the more inferiour Sort take those things upon Trust and are led by the Nose by the Clergy To Convince therefore these Gainsayers and to Honour our Lord Jesus Christ and to let those Gentlemen know that we Lay-men do see with our own Eyes and that every true Christian tho' the meanest of Mechanicks is not taught by the Clergy only but by the express Word of God to Honour the Son even as we Honour the Father For these Reasons have I thus employed those Redeemed Hours and forasmuch as your Worship hath an Undoubted Right to judge both the Author and his Work so I Humbly take Leave to cast both at your Worships Feet and Subscribe my Self as I am Your Worships Most Humble Servant Nathanael Goldham To the Rational READER IT is to be Lamented but not to be
Wondered at because it is foretold and Prophesied of that in the last days and therefore in our days many False teachers shall arise and deceive many i. e. So many that if it were possible they should deceive the very Elect many saying Lo here is Christ and lo there some saying this is he and others saying that is he Mat. 24. 23 24. The Devil and his Imps setting up many Christs if by any means they can delude poor Souls and draw them from the true Christ but our Lord hath forwarned us not to go after them because he hath told us these things before Mat. 24. 25. Mark 13. 21 22. And being forewarned I trust by the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we shall be fore-armed all his Disciples even we Lay. Men not excepted and be enabled to withstand and to stand against all the Seducers the cunningly devising Fablemen of our day And for the incouragement of our Faith and Hope we ought to remember that the Promise of impossibility of being deceived is not confined to the Ministry but to all Gods Elect to every true Disciple of Jesus Christ And it is almost in so many words foretold at least it is plainly implyed that many of the Ministery many of the pretended Ministers of Christ should be those very deceivers themselves Why else doth our Lord call them false Prophets false Christs Mat. 24. 23. Mark 13. 21. 22. and false Teachers 2 Pet. 2. 1. It 's those Wolves coming in Sheeps Clothing that do so disturb the Church and in a great measure take Peace from the same and by there pretentions to Reason and great swelling Words of Vanity concerning their great Reason and Learning Lead away silly Women laden with divers lusts And for ought I know as many silly Men too Hence it comes to pass that although the Preaching the everlasting Gospel be the most Honourable and Glorious Imployment that ever God call'd a Mortal to in this World Yet because many of the Sons of Ely do so manifestly declare themselves to be the Sons of Belial the offerings of the Lord are abhorred for the Priests sake It is to be lamented and I cannot without grief of Heart write it nor think on it that the Ministers of the Gospel should be so much slighted contemned and despised as at this day they are because I Read the Bible and there I find our Lord saith speaking of his Ministers to be sure if not of all his Disciples He that despiseth you despiseth me and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me And I dread what the consequence of the despising of Christ and him that sent him will amount unto and yet I am no more a Biggot to their Ministry than I am a dispiser of them For however mean or Contemptible my Circumstances and Imployment may be in the World yet it hath pleased God to Bless me with such a Berean Spirit that by the Grace of God I will neither follow their Doctrine nor their Practice any further then I have good Warrant from the Word of God that they follow their and my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ And therefore if thou ask me what I think should be the Reason why in a professed Christian Nation a Christian Ministry is so much despised I must needs say I think they may thank themselves for it for when by the Grace of God a Church or Ministry is made Beautiful as Tirzah the same Grace will make them as terrible as an Army with banners Cant. 6. ver 4. And although the World hates them yet Herod like they must fear them although they kill them and they kill them because they fear them as well as hate them Christ will honour them that honour him and although Christ Disciples must suffer Persecution and be Reproached and Vilified yet at the same time the fear and the dread of them must fall upon those very beasts that worry them And therefore it is observable that in times of Persecution the Church and her Ministers are hated and troubled on every side But at the same time they are feared not slighted their Persecutors being moved with Envy rather then Contempt The Reason is because the fire of Persecution makes them more bright and Beautiful and therefore more terrible But when there is Peace to the Church from outward Persecution and as in Constantines time great Worldly Grandeur is added thereunto then is the time for the Devil to Play his Pranks another way by sending in false Brethren among them to preach the Gospel for filthy Lucre sake And at this very door it is that many of the lowest of the People are Let in to be Priests and which is worse if worse can be many of the lowest of the People make themselves Priests But which way so ever they get in whether by the negligence or ignorance of the Door-keepers or whether they Climb up some other way It is too Evident that too many of these sorry Tools are in to the dishonour of the Ministry and when they are in it is no wonder though they quickly discover themselves to be as they are and when they do so discover themselves it is no wonder if the lowest of the People do look upon them as lower than themselves and that must be very low indeed It is very sad that our Bishops the Ministers of the Gospel should have such an unjustifiable and dishonourable regard for Ely's Seed seeing the Lord hath rejected them from being Priests to minister before him and yet when any of these fulfil the Curse that was pronounced against that good Mans wicked Seed and comes and croucheth to them for a peice of Silver and a Morsel of bread saying put me I pray thee into one of the Priest Offices that I may have a piece of Silver and a piece of bread presently they are ready to lay Hands on them But I would to God they would rather reject all such Petitions and Petitioners with the greatest contempt and scorn to the Petition and the Greatest pity and Compassion and Fatherly Admonition to the Petitioners But no doubt the Aged Pauls of our day would willingly see young Timothies growing up in their stead And why then do they not observe the Rule given to the First Bishop of Ephesus to lay hands suddenly on no Man nor at any time upon a Novice but on such as desire the Office of a Bishop because it is a good Work and to prove them too for this was to be done before they took the Office of a Deacon how much more before they took the Office of a Bishop and for want of this it is I am greived to see it and so are other Christians to that the Ministers of the Gospel are in general and the Gospel it self is so much slighted and despised There is not that Majesty and Lustre upon Ministers and Christians as there was in the Primitive times and no wonder if Men slight when God departs
Reasons therein offered to maintain the things that were so boldly asserted as also to the Scriptures of Truth and sound Reason drawn from the same And I can truly say the more I lookt into both the more I were confirmed in my Faith and the more clearly did I see the unreasonableness though deep subtilty and cuning Sophistry of the Arguments that were laid down in those Books for denying our Lord Jesus Christ to be over all God blessed for ever more and for my own Memory sake I at first commited some Remarks to Paper and Ink and shewing them to a Friend he advised me to go on further in it Which accordingly I did and having almost finisht what I thought to do with respect to those two Books I Communicated it to another Friend and he shewed me and Lent me the great Boasting vain Glorious Considerator upon Four Sermons of his Grace the Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury a Discourse of the Bishop of Sarums another of the Bishop of Worster and an Eminent Dissenter and I have now forgot who besides And he stumps it about like a Haberdasher of small Wits against his Grace the Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury charges the Lord Bishop of Sarum with a Dissent from the Catholick Church and doth in Effect tell his Lordship though he be a Dignity of the Church yet he must vail the Bonnet to him as being a Freeman of the Common wealth of Wit and Learning and seems willing to perswade the the World that he is guilty of Sacriledge and that he hath Robb'd the Church of some of her best ornaments next to the Righteousness of Cnrist imputed to her and the Graces of his Holy Spirit wrought in her viz. Her Wit and Learning And as for the first of the Former and which indeed Constitutes her Truly Christian viz. the Righteousness of Christ imputed to her he will not own that she hath any Right or Title to it or that she shall ever be made partaker of it And as for the Second viz. The inwrought Graces of the Holy Spirit and which indeed makes her truly Glorious he hath brought up an evil Report upon it and will have it to be no other then Painted Paper-morality common to the Heathen And in order to perswade the World to believe him He tells us he is a Freeman of the Common-wealth of Wit and Learning What a mortification must it be to this Gentleman when he shall see that a Man of a mean capacity and Employment that never had the happiness to sit at the Feet of Gamaliel can see through his Sophistry And yet it must be acknowledged by all Men of common Sense that the Schools will give a Man great advantages in many things if he have but answerable Measures of Reason to improve the knowledge that may be attained there but Block-heads and Dunces must look like themselves as well when Posting from as when Whipt to and in the Cities of Oxford and Cambridge For indeed the Schools know better then to pretend to give Men Reason much less Vertue or Grace and yet we have a sort of soft-pated Gentlemen who because they can speak Three Languages besides their Mother Tongue will needs count themselves wise Men Ay and good Divines too but they will not pass for such among those that know what sound Reason and True Divinity is The Cosiderator by his Vanity and Boasting seems to be one of those Paper-scull'd Gentlemen I have therefore given him an Answer to some of his Arguments least he should continue to be wise in his own Conceit and to let him know that it better becomes such weak headed tho' perhaps well-meaning Gentlemen as he to learn of the Mechanicks than to contend with the Learned especially such of them as have answerable measures of Reason to improve the Knowledge they have attain'd by Learning for the same end for which God gave it them And I have taken Notice but of some of his Arguments neither because notwithstanding his great swelling Words of Vanity yet I find all his Arguments are briefly couch'd or may be reduced to our Short Accountant and to give that Gentleman his due he is as Stout a Champion for their Cause as the best of them all and so much the better because he is not so vain as the Considerator I thought therefore I ought not to let the Considerator pass without a Repremand for his sawcy insulting over the Dignities of the Church and thou wilt find Reader it is but a Reasonable one for I have quoted him Truly and Fairly as thou wilt see if thou compare Books and as for the Accountant I have Transcribed his Arguments almost word for word at least I have not knowingly omitted one Material Word in all his Book Now Reader I shall leave thee to Judge for thy Self whether it will be safest for thee to believe God to be as he himself saith he is or as pretendingly Wise but real Foolish Men say he is And if thou receive any Benefit by this Discourse let it be a Motive to thee not to lean to thy own understanding but to live by Faith on him that gives Wisdom to the simple and understanding to them that have no knowledge And if what is written may have any influence thereunto and in so doing to honour the Son even as we honour the Father he hath his end who is thine to serve thee so far as it is Reasonable for thee to Command or him to obey Nathanael Goldham A Reasonable Word TO THE DOCTORS OF REASON OUR Nameless Author in his Divine Vnity asserted spends his third and fourth Pages in laying down general Rules which must be used in discerning Truth from Error that we may not be deceived I shall therefore pass over those two Pages and consider how well he keeps to those Rules or to the Rules of Scripture or right Reason which he pretends to be so Great a Master of in clearing so Great a Controversie and which is so great a Mystery And first to begin with his Reasons which he lays down as a Foundation to build a Faith upon that shall reach to Heaven And he goes on and prospers in this building about as far as the Men of Babel did in their building in the Land of Shinar Gen. 11. 2 7. Indeed his Reason is as much confounded as their Language was for they did but contradict and so not understand one another and yet perhaps as great Doctors of Reason among them as our Author himself He tells us in page 5. that we have a Power of Reasoning or Faculty of encreasing our Knowledge by Industry whereby we come to a Certainty in many things Hence I gather from my Author 's Reasoning that there are various Degrees and Measures of Reason which the most High God is pleased to give to every Man according to the good Pleasure of his own Will to some more and to some less and to some so far as appears to By-standers none at
they might have as good a Stock of it as your self Sir for ought I know I say their Reason thought it reasonable so to do and it is not long since one of your Doctors of Reason told us if I am not mis-informed there was no God in his Leviathan and for ought I know to the contrary he might have as good Reason so to do as you have to deny our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to be God But our Author goes hobbling on according to that little blind Reason he hath and can any Man think it strange that he stumbles when he kicks at the very Fountain of Light and Life OUr Author is like one of Jeremiahs conceited Lords spoken of Jeremiah 2. 31. and therefore he will not come to him in whom are hid all the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge Colos 2. 3. No he is so far from that that he will tell God to his Face that a Debt freely Forgiven and yet fully Paid is a contradiction For what doth it signifie for God to reveal himself to be a God pardoning iniquity forgiving transgression and sin and yet a God that will by no means clear the guilty This is a contradiction in this Gentlemans Reason and therefore cannot be true by Revelation Short Accountant Page the Third Reason the Third Yet least our short Accountant should Charge me with being too short in given up his Account of his Reasons for his denying the Lord Jesus Christ to be over All God blessed for every more I must step back to his 2d Page where after he hath given some Account of the unkind and if all be as he relates it unjustisible carriage of Bishop R. S. and the Church under his Care towards him He begins to lay down his Reasons which I shall consider without taking any notice of their Relative Neglects one to another I having nothing to do with either the Bishop R. S. or the Church over which he is Overseer I not knowing this short Accountant nor B. R. S. nor any of his Congregation that I know of no not so much as by Sight or Name till since I see R. S. on this Subject and upon inquiring after that I have been told his Name To begin therefore with the Account he gives of himself he saith As to his Life and Conversation he doth not know that any hath blamed him for it nor that he hath been charged with Immorality which is so far very well and is his Mercy that God hath not left him so far to himself as to run with many others into the same excess of Riot But he was not as he saith Able to bear the hearing that Jesus Christ who was born of the Virgin was God by Nature Co-equal Coeternal with the Father And here I cannot but observe the dark ingenuity of the Gentleman who foreseeing that any Christian would be ready to grant that the humanity of Christ which was Born of the Virgin was not God for then he had not been Man but God only and so we should have been at a loss for a Mediator For there is one Mediator between God and Man theresore he saith He was not able to bear the Notion of a Compound of part God and part Man to make up one Person I do not find the word part God and part Man in Scripture but the Scriptures do plain enough declare that our Mediator is true God and true Man But now I shall consider my short Accountants Reasons why he cannot believe him to be so His first Reason is because God is represented in Thousand of Places of Scripture to be One single Person or Being and in some few mistaken and dark places that seem to infer a plurality of Persons in the Divine Being Now saith our short Accountant page 3. and our Nameless Author pag. 7. colume 2. We must not oppose a few Texts against many nor dark ones agaiust clear ones Very true and for the same Reason we must not oppose many against a few nor clear ones against dark ones and here any reasonable unbyast man may see how those Gentlemen contradict themselves Our Author saith page 4. colume 1. That if a thing does not appear clear to him he hath no good cause to affirm it And by the same rule if a thing appears dark to him it is presumptuous Folly in him to deny it for a Man to deny that to be true which he doth not know or understand to be so by an infallible Rule And I hope this Gentleman will not say his Reason is infallible in the things of a Man much less in the things of God such a Man is guilty of equal Folly with him that affirms a thing to be true though he do not know it to be so but upon Hear-say or by the Dictates of his own weak and erring Reason So my Author and I are agreed in this that Scripture cannot contradict it self But I proceed to my short Accountants Second Reason which is this That this Revelation of God as one single Being or Person is agreeing to the Notion taat I have of God in my Mind by my Reason as most High Best and the like Now tho' I do not pretend to any great stock much less to be Master of infallible Reason yet I must own that according to that measure of Reason that God hath given me this Argument seems most unreasonable and absurd and it is to believe a Man's Notions are true because they are his Notions what reasonable Proofs are these For though I never saw Hobbs's Leviathan yet I make no doubt but he had as good Reason as this to deny the Being of God for what is this more or less than for the Fool to say in his heart there is no God and then to introduce this Saying or Notion of his and produce it as an Argument or Reason to prove that there is no God I must needs say that I have reason to believe that the Scripture doth not say in vain that as the Fool walketh by the way his Wisdom faileth him and he saith to every one that he is a Fool Eccles 10. 3. And what if I had not reason enough to see this Truth of God would the Truth of God be ever the less vailed for my Ignorance I see my short Accountant falls much too short in giving a true reasonable Account of his Faith But I shall pass to his Third Reason and see if there be any more truth in that than in his two former and here he tells us What is not true in Reason cannot be true by Revelation For saith he pray mark the reason of the Gentleman's Argument What is above my Capacity to understand or contradictory to my understanding cannot be revealed to me Surely if our Accountant were not blinded with being wise in his own Eyes he would have seen his Ignorance in this Argument quick enough Why good Sir is your Capacity solarge and your Understanding so great that
the one cannot be enlarg'd nor the other enlightned are there not ten thousand things which your reason doth not understand which are certain Truths for all that and is not God able to enlarge your Capacity and your Understanding and make that appear to be truly reasonable which now by reason of your Ignorance you can see no reason for except you will say that you have attain'd to the highest pitch of Reason and Understanding that God can give you and consequently that you are infallible in all matters of Faith and in the very Nature and Being of God And if so you would do well to turn out that doating Fool at Rome and place a wiser in the Chair and lay aside the Scriptures and Simon Magus like set up for some great one in the World I still see reason to guide my Reason by the Scriptures and therefore I believe when I see a Man wise in his own Conceit I may have more hope of a Fool than of him Now though I have reason to believe that our short Accountant and our nameless Author are Brethren in this unreasonable Work of denying that Jesus Christ is the living and true God as much as Simon and Levy were in their unreasonable Zeal Yet if my Reason fail not I think they contradict each other For our nameless Author tells us pag. 5. colume 1. that Reason is a Power or Faculty of encreasing our Knowledge by Industry whereby if we rightly proceed we may come to an absolute certainty in many things So then Reason is capable of being encreas'd and growing by Industry Hence it follows that small measures of Reason can give a Man but small Certainty in many things if in any thing how contrary is this to my Accountants third Reason whose Capacity is not to be enlarg'd nor can any thing be true that is contrary to his present Understanding but when Reason is thus improv'd my Author himself tells me and I have Reason to believe him that it is but a certainty in many things so that some things are still exempted from a certain Knowledge of by Reason according to my Doctor of Reason his own Argument And if any thing be exempted surely Reason would inform a Man that the things of God should be some of those things especially those things that concern his very Being and Nature But to return to our short Accountants Third Reason for I would not hide any of his most comely Parts nor diminish any of his strongest Reasons he proceeds in his aforesaid pretended Reason and tells us Though he is bound to believe whatever God saith is True yet it is because I have Reason so to do But saith he I cannot believe the thing God saith till I know what he saith You are very right Mr. Doctor the Devil will tell the truth sometimes but he adds nor well believe pray Mark nor well believe God saith so and so till by Reason I am assured it is true Reason can never assent to that which appears unreasonable nor can I otherwise than by Reason assure my self that the Scripture is a Divine Revelation These are his very words for as I said before I will not hide his strong Reasons The first part of this Third Reason I have Answered already but he cannot well believe God saith so and so till by Reason he is perswaded it is true If Abraham had had such a Conceit of his Reason he might have Lived and Dyed in Unbelief for ought I know to the Contrary For what Reason had he to believe he should have a Son when his own Body was as good as Dead and it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of Women but the revealed Word of God and he did not say this is according to my Reason therefore I will believe what God saith no he Argued quite otherwise and said though I see no Reason for this but a great deal against it as much as ever our Accountant can pretend to be Master of Yet because it is told me by that God that cannot Lye and Almighty power being ingaged to perform it therefore I do believe it and therefore it is said Rom. 4. 18. he believed against hope and therefore against reason but he would have had hope if he had had Reason for Hope will follow Reason and it would be an unreasonable peice of Nonsence and a contradiction for a Man to say I have Reason to believe I shall have such a thing but I have no hopes of it Rom. 4. 18. Yet our Accountant will needs set up for a Master of Reason though he knows not what he speaks nor where of he doth affirm Besides in this my Accountant gives no more Honour and Glory to God by believing then he or any Man else may give to the Devil For when the Father of Lyes speaks truth and that you know he will do sometimes then you may believe him if by Reason you are assur'd it is true but God is to be Believed on the Authority of his own Word It is no wonder that Men discover themselves to be Fools when no less Folly will satisfie them then to kick against him in whom are hid all the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge Colos 2. 3. But I pass to my Accountants Fourth Reason in the aforesaid Third Page By Revelation saith he we are taught and it is no way contrary to Reason that this one God is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and that the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is this one God Joh. 17. 1. Very true and how forcible are right Words but what doth your Arguing either prove or reprove from this We are Taught by the Scriptures of truth that Jesus Christ is the True God and Eternal Life and that the true God is Jesus Christ 1 Ep. John 5. 20. and John 17. 1. Titus 2. 13. Now whether this be contrary to my Accountants Reason or no it is nevertheless true for all that but I see no Reason to deny the Father to be God for all this and if I should yet my Reason and the Inference would be as Justifiable as his in denying the Son to be God His Fifth Reason you have in his aforesaid Third Page for you must know they being small will lye in a little room Whenever God the Father and Christ his Son are spoken of in Scripture they are spoken of as two distinct Persons and Beings as Joh. 7. 16. It 's certain they are so as the Scripture declares them to be yet the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost are but one God for all that And he adds Though they are said to be One in some Sense yet never but in such a Sense as God and others may be said to be One viz. in Love Agreement and Will One would wonder that a Man pretending to Reason and Religion should not be ashamed to tell the World such an unreasonable untruth as this what is Christ and God the
gull the simple and unwary Reader There can be no Personal Vnion between God and a Creature he saith and pray why so why because the being of God doth not require the being of a Creature to his being or any thing but himself to make up his Person or Self This is a sort of Logick that the Gentleman may think may down well enough with Mechanicks and such like ordinary Fellows But it is strange the Doctors of Reason should send such stuff as this is abroad for sound Reason but I forget my Accountant and his Brother the Nameless Author are Doctors of Reason and perhaps they think they have ingrost all Reason into their own Hands and if so we must take what they will let us have and at their own price too or else one would think they could not be so vain and Foolish as to tell us there can be no Personal Union between God and a Creature Surely Almighty Power is able to take a Creature into Personal Union with himself and as for that Nonsensical pretended Reason that the being of God does not require the being of a Creature to his being What Sense or Reason is there in it If it had been necessary to his being it must have been Eternal as God himself is and then it could not be a Creature for no Creature is Eternal and then all the Condescention Grace and Love that the Scripture speaks of in Gods taking our Nature upon him must vanish away into Idle Tales or be led Captive at the Heels of our Accountants foolish Reason Pray try a little how this Argument will look in other Cases the being of God doth not require the being of any Creatures to make up his being happiness and blessedness therefore he cannot or will not descend to the Work of Creation and when they are all made they cannot all of them add one Tittle to his Essential Glory Therefore they were not made for nor are to his Glory now made Where is the wise Man where is the Scribe 1 Cor. 1 19 20. God will destroy the wisdom of the Wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent according to that old threatning against the Wise Men of this World Isa 29. 14. That wisdom should perish from the wise and the understanding of prudent Men shall be hid But I pass on to his Eighth Reason where I find our Accountant having past all bounds of â—ight Reason will needs break thorow all bounds of Truth and Modesty too and therefore tells us Whatever is said of Christ in Scripture is said of him as Man But he presently adds to cover this Story That the shift so many use of Christ speaking so and so as God and so and so as Man is unscriptural and Foolish and sounds no better then this that Peter as Peter denyed his Master but Peter as John did not deny his Master We look upon it as a prudential peice of Justice to suspect Common Lyars when they speak Truth and therefore I hope our Accountant will not think it any dishonour to him If I do by him as the Noble Bereans did by Paul search the Scriptures before I receive this assertion for Truth or sound Reason But upon a Second view of this Eighth Reason I find there is not one Scripture mentioned and therefore I may very honestly retort his assertion back upon him again and tell him this assertion is very Foolish and unscriptural But if I can give no other Answer than this I know my Accountant will out Reckon me by abundance for he is a Man of Reason and perhaps may be as ready to say to me concerning Reason as Zedekiah did to Micaiah concerning the Spirit and ask which way went Reason from him to me 2 Chron. 18. 23. But what faith the Scriptures in this Case for by them my Author thinks to dishonour our Lord Jesus Christ with no less then Robbing him of his Divine Nature Isaiah 9. 9. For unto us a Child is Born There his Humanity is spoken of but read out the verse and see if your Reason hath not robb'd you of all good Manners and Modesty You will not dare to give the Lye to the Spirit of God and there he is called the wonderful Counsellor the mighty God the everlasting Father The Prince of Peace see ikewise Rev. 1. 17 18. Now Sir will you have the impudence to give the Spirit of God the Lye in these two Scriptures or will you suffer your Reason to possess you with so much Madness and Folly as to charge the Spirit of God with Folly and say he speaks Nonsence chuse you whither But Our Accountant goes on and I am willing to follow him being willing to find out the reason of a thing and he tells us which he calls his Ninth Reason Page 4th That tho' Christ be truly said to be the Son of God yet he is never in Scripture caelled God the Son Now would I give you a Scripture to prove that he is called God the Son but you have told me already such Scriptures are dark but I cannot help that they are Scriptures notwithstanding and the darkness you speak of lyes in the weakness of your understanding and the Folly of your pretended Reason Besides the Scriptures were Written for this very purpose to give Wisdom to the simple but those that are Wise in their own conceit may be sent away as they came For you know God himself tells us that he sends the rich empty away Pray Sir Read Heb. 1. 8. but unto the Son he saith Thy Throne O God is for Ever c. I think this is not so dark a saying but you may understand him to be called God the Son in those Words and admitting it were dark or hard as those said who told our Lord his sayings were hard when he spoke of giving them his Flesh to eat And no doubt but they were as much above their understandings and as contrary to their Reason as the Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity is above or against yours yet were they the Words of Truth it self for all that And Solomon tells us Prov. 1. 5 6. A wise Man will hear and increase Learning And for this Reason among others to understand the Words of the Wise and their dark sayings But our Accountant and his Brother the Nameless Author are Wise Men whether it be in their own eyes or others no matter for that Their Reason is the Touch-stone of Gods Truth and therefore whatever God reveals must First come and make its acknowledgments to Mr. Licenser General our Authors Reason and if it pass Muster in his Foolish Noddle it may go for Truth but if not as what reasonable Man can think that the Mysteries of God should be comprehended by the Foolish corrupted unreasonable though pretended Reason of Man Especially seeing the Carnal Mind is Enmity against God and the Scripture yea Reason it self may inform us that none knows the things of God
but the Spirit of God and he to whom he reveals him Why then it must pass through the strict Inquisition of the Doctor of Reasons Queries as First How can these things be Secondly How can this Man give us his Flesh to eat Joh. 6. 52. These are hard sayings who can hear them ver 60. Or Thirdly Thou art not yet fifty Years old and hast thou seen our Father Abraham And if our Lord stand to it and assert his Divine Nature by saying before Abraham was I am they will will be ready to Stone him for a Blasphemer because they knew his Mother and his supposed Father according to the Flesh therefore he cannot speak the Truth it will not pass with Doctor Reason Therefore Gods Truth must be condemned for Folly and Nonsense But woe unto those Men that will call evil good or good evil or truth error or error truth when God riseth up to contend with those Men he will make them know he is not such a one as themselves But our Accountant after all his Pains to build a Babel's Tower undermines it all at once in the winding up of his Reasons For he saith in his Tenth Reason and his last but one That the ascribing the Divine Natures incommunicable Perfections and worship to one and another or a third Person or self necessarily infers a Plurality of Gods and is a breach of the First Commandment hath many evil tendencies and is the Ground of all the Idolatry Antichristianism and Paganism This is a high kick indeed for here our Accountant charges the Angels with Folly and not only so but all the blessed Company in Heaven Nay that is not all but rather then not do his own business effectually he will enter into Judgment with God himself Well however B. R. S. or any under his care may slight him or his Book as thinking neither worth Answering yet I must needs say he is a stout bold Fellow for he dares to charge God himself with contradiction and with being accessary to the Breach of his own first Command For according to our Accountants Reason he suffers the Worship and Worshippers in Heaven to infer a Plurality of Gods and to lay a Foundation for all Idolatry Antichristianism and Paganism For in Revelations 5. we have an Account of the Worship of Heaven and in the 11 12 13. Verses we have an Account of the Angels and the Beasts and Elders giving Blessing Honour Glory and Power to him that sitteth upon the Throne and untothe Lamb for ever and ever ver 14. and the 4 beasts say Amen to all this and the 24 Elders fall down and Worship him that liveth for ever and ever Here is Divine honour and Worship Given to him that sitteth on the Throne and the same in the same breath given unto another to use my Authors own Words Even to the Lamb for ever and ever And yet God doth not charge them with Idolatry nor making to themselves another God No this is the Worship of Heaven and must continue so for ever and ever Sure if our Accountant had any good hope of Worshipping with this blessed Company in Heaven he would endeavour to imitate them while here on Earth A Man had need have a good Stock of Patience as also of Faith and every Grace of the Holy Spirit to live in a continual dependancy on him that gives Wisdom to such simple Ones as he pleaseth and understanding to as many of them as have no knowledge as seemeth good to Soveraign pleasure as also humbly to remember that the Ostrich hideth her Eggs in the Sand and forgetteth that the Wild Beast may crush them because God hath deprived her of Wisdom Or else a Man indu'd but with an Ordinary measure of Reason and not Balast'd with the aforesaid Graces of Gods Holy Spirit could not forbear the resenting this unreasonable assertion so as to give my Accountant a Character much below that of Master of Reason But I may not give ill Language having not so Learned Christ Neither is it fit for a Man of a mean capacity to say to such a Learned Gentleman thou art a blockhead nor shall I say any thing of the Impudency that there is in bringing in an Impeachment and Charge of the highest Treason and Idolatry that Can be against the whole Court of Heaven the Blessed Him that sitteth upon the Throne and the Lamb who is worthy of all blessing Honour Power and Glory not being exempted This is such a peice of Fool hardiness as none but those that dare Run upon the thick bosses of Gods Buckler can be guilty of I hope our Accountant will not discover so much Folly as to attempt to excuse himself of an error in this by Quoting 1 Chron. 29. 20. Where it is said All the Congregation blessed the Lord God of their Fathers and bowing their heads Worshipped the Lord and the King That being but an External or Civil Worship which the People paid to the King or that is due from Inferiours to Superiours And our Accountant himself tells me he could not bear the ascribing the same Glory to Christ in Prayer which is due to the Father whereby he publickly enters his dissent and protest against the Worship and Worshippers and Worshipped also in Heaven For the Truth is what ever Worship Kings and such may receive from their Subjects in this World yet there never was nor shall be any King Lord or Potentate that shall receive Honour Glory Blessing and Praise from all the Worshippers both Angels and Men that are in Heaven for ever and ever but he who is the only Potentate the King of Kings and Lord of Lords Jesus Christ who is the true God and Eternal Life 1 Joh. 5. 20. It is strange that there should not be one Doctor of Reason among all this Blessed Company to imitate Athaliah in crying out Treason Treason Idolatry Idolatry contradiction Nonsence because the right Heir is Crowned and receives the Glory of the Kingdom But upon Second thoughts it will not appear so strange as true for God hath not chosen many wise Men of this world and those few that are chosen from among them must first become Fools that they may be truly Wise For God hath chosen the Foolish things of this World to confound the wise 1 Cor. 20 27 to the end Thus we see the Scriptures made good The wisdom of this World is Foolishness with God For it is Written he taketh the Wise in their own Craftiness 1 Cor. 3. 18. There is yet another thing which our Accountant will needs call his Eleventh Reason or Stone in this Babel Building and his last But whether it may be called his Top Stone or Bottom no matter for that such as it is take it word for word Page 5th that it is saith he Great folly and boldness to affirm any thing Concerning God which is unreasonable or absurd yea which we do not understand to be true Surely what ever mistakes
and Errors the Trinitarians may be guilty of yet it is certain they cannot be guilty of greater not indeed so great Boldness and Folly as our Accountant is as we have seen but now in his last Argument For I do not find that they enter into Judgment with God nor charge the most high foolishly nor with folly and I pray Sir upon second thoughts tell me which is the greatest Folly and boldness to believe what God declares of himself to be reasonable and true though we do not understand it or to give God the Lye and and tell him that what he declares of himself is false unreasonable and absurd because we do not understand it Such an Answer as this from a Servant to a Master would be Accounted Impudent boldness and we see there is nothing more common among Men whose Understandings and Reason differ greatly yet far enough are they from differing infinitely yet among Men it is no new thing for the Wise and Learned to understand and know that to be true and Reasonable which the more Ignorant are rather more ready to wonder at than they are able to give a Demonstration of Yet are these Gentlemen so confident in their own Reason that they will give the Lye to God himself if he tell them the Father the Word and Holy Ghost are One So careful are these Gentlemen that their Faith may not stand in the Power of God but in the Wisdom of Men. But whether it be right in the sight of God to believe or obey Men rather than God judge ye Acts. 4. 19. I have now done with my short Accountant the rest of his Book being meerly Historical of what did pass between him and B. R. S. and the Church of which he was a Member but I have nothing to do with that my Business being only to contend for that Faith which was once delivered to the Saints and to believe the Truth as it is in Jesus I shall therefore now take a view of our Nameless Author again and see if he can produce any sound Reason to perswade us to deny our Lord Jesus Christ For I take it for granted that it is as great a denial of him to deny him to be as he is God over all blessed for ever more as it is to deny him to be our redemer For indeed the Holy One of Isarel is the Redeemer thereof But on a Second view of our Author in his Divine Vnity asserted I do not find any other Reasons than what I have already considered and find in my Accountant save only he is somewhat larger and in his 10th page Colume 1. he would deny the Divinity of our Lord and prove it too if he didbut know how from this Argument that Man is made after God's own Image Now saith he If God be a Trinity and Man be his Image we may find an Image of that Trinity in our selves But he excludes the Body from any part of this Image which may look tolerable enough at first view because God is a Spirit and if he had stopt here he might have carried his Sophistry off pretty fair but the Wits of our day must over shoot themselves He tells you the Reason why the Body is excluded because saith he It is imperfect and there is no Imperfection with God Good Sir did you expect to find the Soul of Man a perfect Image of God when you first entred on this Argument really you might well have spared your Pains here and have given the Spirit of God the Lye once more and you should have as good Reason so to do as you have to give our Lord himself the Lye as you do in your 15th page colume 2. where you say The same worship which is due to the Father is not to be given to Christ but that which may be given to a Creature for God's sake Wherein you do in plain English give Truth it self the Lye for he hth told us that all Men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father as hath been already proved by Scripture John 5. 23. and by the Example of the Worshippers in Heaven But if you had been sincerely looking for a faint Resemblance of the Image of God in Man as a Trinity to say nothing of that Moral Likeness that God at first stampt on Man's Nature of himself which consisted in Righteousness and true Holiness which indeed was the greatest Resemblance in Man to God And yet we have reason to believe that the Angels were every whit as much like God as in this sense Man was Therefore it must be something else in the make of Man that did bear some Image of God for which cause it is said he made Man in his own Image and if you had not wilfully shut your Eyes you could not but see that the Scripture speaks of Body Soul and Spirit in Man as the Apostle Paul prays for the Thessalonians 1 Thes 5. 23. that They might be sanctified throughout in Body Soul and Spirit And if there be such a thing as Body Soul and Spirit in Man then here is some faint Resemblance in Man of a Trinity in God I say a faint Resemblance for I am not so void of Reason as to think that a finite weak Man can be a perfect Image of God Yet our Author to shew what a Talent of Wit he hath spends all his 10th page both columes and part of 11th to prove that which no Body denies or that which is forreign to the purpose But in his 11th page his Wit runs over and his Invention will run too fast for his Reason do what he can for he saith That cannot be called Generation or Origination which never began to be generated or originated and if he had stopp'd here he might have danc'd in the Dark and they that have no Eyes could never have seen him But the Gentleman's Invention hangs in the Light of his Reason He tells us the Reason is That which never began to be a doing was never done and therefore ETERNAL GENERATION must be ETERNAL NONSENCE Well argued most Learned Doctor a Man would be ready to think you were a Pensioner to Hobbs to make way for and gain Proselytes to his Leviathan For by this Argument that which never began to be cannot have a Being and then the Fool may ask us Where is your God and the Truth is the Attribute of God's Eternity is as much above and out of your Reason as the Doctrine of the Trinity and if you tell me there is a difference between a Being and an Act. I Answer that an Eternal Act is as much without a Beginning as an Eternal Being and it is equally as great a piece of Nonsence and as derogatory to the Glory of God to say God was before he acted as to say he acted before he was Really Gentlemen but only for the great Names and Titles by which you are pleased to dignifie and distinguish your selves from the common
Reason only their great Learning hath so stuft their Heads and Memories that they have almost forgot what sound Reason is as hath been already seen in examining the Stuff they call Reason It is to be lamented that one good Gift of God should fall upon such bad Ground as to drive out another but so it is what else is the meaning of that Word Let not the Wise Man glory in his Wisdom nor the Rich Man glory in his Riches c. But to shew that as the glorying in these things robs the Giver of his Due so it makes the Receiver become a poor weak Fool Jer. 9. 23. And indeed it is very unreasonable to think it can be otherwise for if every good and perfect Gift comes down from the Father of Lights and is dispensed to us through the Son by the Holy Spirit what can those Gentlemen do otherwise but discover themselves to be as they are who shall deny our Lord Jesus Christ to be as he is over all God blessed for evermore and thereby deny to live by Faith upon him and as much as in them lies cut themselves off from him in whom dwelleth the Fulness of the Godhead Col. 2. 9. But if Reason fail these Gentlemen say they will remove the Cause to the Scriptures of Truth most gladly therefore with them to the Scriptures I will go and guide and subject my Reason thereunto And indeed it is impossible for us to have a true Knowledge of God without the Revelation that he gives of himself by his Word and Spirit And here I cannot but take Notice of the foolish as well as slanderous Report that my nameless Author in his Divine Vnity asserted pag. 6. Col. 2. as well as the Considerator in his 19th and 20th pages of his Answer to the Bishop of Sarum gives to the Christian Divines saying That were it not for Church Awes and for fear of losing their Stipends they would deny the Doctrine of the Trinity themselves I thank God I lye under no Temptation of being byass'd by the Churches Smiles or Frowns I being no Clergy-Man nor the Son of a Clergy-Man and therefore my Judgment cannot be bribed with the hope os getting or fear of losing any Benefice But God having given me an Immortal Soul it becomes me and it is but my reasonable Duty as well as Interest to be as much concerned about the Eternal Salvation thereof as any of those whose Business it is being called of God as Aaron to serve at the Altar by preaching the unsearchable Riches of Christ and the great Mysteries of the Gospel and Godliness God manifested in the flesh Eph. 3. 8. 1 Tim. 3. 16. And here I must take leave to tell our Doctors of Reason that if the Scriptures tell me that Jesus Christ is the true God and Eternal Life as I find it doth 1 John 5. 20. Tit. 2. 13. I must therefore believe this Truth because I find it Testified in the Scriptures of Truth although thereby I should practically give those Gentlemen â—he Lye who say he is but a Man and although to prove their Sayings they tell me their great Reason and Learning hath taught them so to say and believe therefore to do them right I do freely acknowledge that they have a just right to lay claim to the Title that the Apostle gives to those simple Gentlemen spoken of in the 2 Tim. 3. 7. Who were ever learning and never able to come to the Knowledge of the Truth And yet it is evident that these were no small Fools in their own Conceit for in the next Verse the Apostle compares them to Jannes and Jambres whose Ignorance and Folly was over-laid with such a stock of Impudence that they had Confidence enough to resist Moses though he was one of the greatest Men that ever lived upon the Earth And there were such pretended Wits in the Apostles days Men of corrupt Minds resisting the Truth concerning the Faith reprobate But their Folly was made manifest as the Unreasonableness of our pretended Men of Reason at this day is But let us see how these Men reconcile Scripture to their Reason or rather pervert it for my Author in his 16th page colume 1. argues that because we are to love God with all our Hearts therefore the Son is not God for then our Love would be divided Which argues strongly that he is God because we are commanded to love and honour him as the Father as hath been proved by Scripture Command and the Example of the Worshippers in Heaven And also is an undeniable Argument that the Father and the Son are one whether my Author will receive it or can understand it or no. The next Scripture that I find Our Author mentions in particular after he had mentioned several to prove God is one which signifies no more to his Cause then if a Man pretending to prove there is no Night in our Climate should tell us when we see the Sun shine we may be sure it is day For all true Christians believe God is one and that the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost is this One God But the Text which he mentions and recites at Large is in his 18th Page 1 Colume Phil. 2. 6. where the Apostle speaking of Christ saith who being in the Form of God thought it not Robbery to be equal with God but made himself of no Reputation and took one him the Form of a Servant My Author saith the reconciling Sense is that is to there Foolish Reason that he thought of no such Robbery as being equal with God It is very strange that the Servant should so much excel the Master when the Devil himself transformed himself into an Angel of Light he did not Quote Scripture so Falsly nor pervert it so palpably as this amounts to when he Brought Scripture to Tempt our Lord to cast himself down from the Pinacle of the Temple as any Christian may see by comparing the 4th of Matthew and 6th with the 91st Psal ver 11. But Let us Consider what the Holy Ghost was pressing on Christians in the Context that we may not Charge him with Contradiction and Nonsence how bold so ever we may be with his Disciples and here we find he speaks of some Person or being that was in the Form of God and therefore the other assertion that he thought it no Robbery to be equal with God was a necessary Consequence of the Former and to take it as my Author doth is but to give the Lye to the Holy Ghost or to Charge him with Contradiction let him choose whether Besides the 7th and 8th verses make it clear that the Apostle was speaking of some Person or Being distinct and infinitely superiour to Humane Nature and therefore speaks of his Condescension in taking on him the Form of a Servant and being found in the Fashion of a Man Whereas were this this He the Apostle speaks of no other but a Man the Apostle
had contradicted himself and his Argument would have been meer Nonsence and would have run thus a Man humbled himself and took on him the form and fashion of a Man Besides it is a Contradiction in the Nature of the thing it self and is no better Sence than to say a Man made himself a Man It may seem strange that Men should be so blind but how can it be otherwise when they will needs war against him who is the Light and Life of Men. I always thought that my Author was endu'd with a considerable stock of Learning only it look'd like a Jewel set in Lead for want of sound Reason and Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ to manage it until I met with his reconciling Faculty in his aforesaid 18th page and that brought to my Mind what the Apostle Peter saith 2 Pet. 3. 15 16. where speaking of some of Paul's Epistles of which this to the Philippians and that to the Hebrews are some He saith There are some things hard to be understood which the unlearned and unstable wrest as they do also other Scriptures to their own Destruction And when I read these things I cannot for my Life forbear thinking on my Nameless Author For besides the flat Contradiction he gives the Holy Ghost it is directly contrary to the Scope of the Apostle which was to move them to Humility and Condescension one to another from Christ's Example But if he were a Man only to say nothing of the Nonsence that there is in saying a Man humbled himself to become a Man the Man Jesus considered as a Man only was highly honoured in his being conceived and brought forth of a Virgin in such a Miracnlous Manner So that consider the Text which way you will either with respect to the Words themselves or with respect to the Context we are bound to believe the Truth as it is revealed that He thought it no Robbery to be equal with God There is nothing more material in my Author which I have not taken Notice of and shewed how unreasonable it is especially where he pretends Scripture for his cunningly devised Fables And the Truth is those Gentlemen would make much surer Work in their Babel Building if they could but race out the Scriptures from among us than ever they will be able to do by wresting them one by one to speak according to their foolish Reason And indeed the Considerator in his Answer to his Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury bids fair for it for though he had tryed in vain by false and absurd Glosses to make the first Chapter of John and many other Texts mentioned by his Lordship to speak according to his own and his Master Socinus his foolish Reason or rather corrupt Mind Yet he flies at first to his best shift though for Subtilty sake somewhat indirectly to except against the Gospel of St. John the three Epistles and the Revelations and would impose upon us that they were counterfeited by one Cerinthus in John's Name And therein he hath not only secur'd his own Cause but greatly oblig'd the Papists a piece of Wickedness they never had the Impudence to attempt though they kept them lock'd up in an Unknown Tongue Yes but the Considerator tells us that the Revelations of St. John were denied and writ against by some of the Papists as being no part of Divine Writ Well be it so every Body knows for what Cause we have it recorded in Acts 6. 10. because they were not able to resist the Holy Ghost that speaks therein and at the same time others of them are striving with all the might they have to ward off the Blow that the Spirit gives to that Interest in wresting it to any sence that may secure their Popish and Foppish Cause In like manner doth the Considerator not only with the Revelations but with the Gospel of St. John and his three Epistles and scarce any Text that is urg'd against them but they say either it is not right translated or it is no Scripture or else they manifestly wrest it from the plain Sence and Meaning of the Holy Ghost There in one Instance among many we have in the Gospel of John Chap. 8. v. 58. where our Lord saith Before Abraham was I am Considerator pag. 57. colume 1. that is saith he In the Decree and Counsel of God Why good Mr. Considerator what a great Secret have you found out now are not all God's Works known to him from Eternity were not you and I and all the Men that shall be in the World to the end thereof in the Counsel and Decree of God from Eternity Surely God is not like Man to determine and purpose one thing yesterday and another to day But pray Sir be pleased to take a View of your own Learned Countenance in your 6th page colume 1st and 2d There you give several Arguments to prove a thing cannot be possess'd before it is in being and in particular you instance the Day of Judgment which is not yet come and therefore not possess'd I hope you will not say it is not or that it was not in the Decree of God when and before he made the World Therefore your Saying after Grotius that a Man descending from Abraham could not be any otherwise before Abraham than in Divine Purpose and Decree is very true and turns the Argument against you Besides Abraham was in the Decree of God as soon as any Man Therefore you must own that our Lord did exist before he was born of the Virgin or that he spoke Nonsence for they themselves knew that the Decrees of God were Eternal and our Lord had not given them an Answer to their Question which was whether he had seen Abraham he being not fifty years old Besides our Lord had told a plain direct Lye if he had said he was in the Decree of God before Abraham For Abraham was in God's Decree as soon as Adam and therefore no Man descending from Abraham could be in God's Decree before him But the Considerator goes a little further and saith our Lord did exist in the Promise of God before Abraham which is very true also for he was promised the same day of the Fall but neither will this do the Business nor discharge our Considerator from charging our Lord with Folly or Nonsence or both For it was promised presently after the Flood long before Abraham that God should perswade Japhet to dwell in the Tents of Shem and yet the Gentiles the Seed of Japhet did not receive the Gospel till since our Lord 's coming in the Flesh So likewise was it prophesied of Josiah an hundred years before he was born could he therefore say before I was born I am Nay is not Mr. Considerator himself and the rest of his Learned Brethren prophesied of by Name in 2 Pet. 2. 1. where the Holy Ghost tells us there shall be false Teachers among Christians who privily shall bring in damnable Heresies denying
the Lord that bought them and bring upon themselves swift Destruction Will you add so much Pride to your Folly as to say concerning your self as our Lord did that because I was in the Decree of God and prophesied of therefore 1600 Years before born I am Besides I Am is a peculiar Title to God signifying his Self-existence and Self-sufficiency which no created Being can take to himself without Blasphemy Well but after all the Considerator is resolved to be a good Champion for a bad Cause who will loose his Ground Inch by Inch And therefore he saith in his 57th page first colume That notwithstanding all this we must be Socinians or Arrians for Christians we may not be No by no means if the Considerator can but jump into the infallible Chair and prescribe a Religion for us Thus it is and thus it will be as the truly Rational and Learned as well as Pious Doctor Owen hath observed Truth will not please the Devil will subscribe to any Creed but that which God gives of himself in his Word But good Sir why must we be Arrians Why because Christ though he did exist before the World was made yet he was but a Creature for all that but the first that ever God made But neither will this shift enable you to overthrow the Christian Religion nor shall you thereby rob the Author of it of his Divine Nature who is the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ who gave himself for us Titus 2. 13 14. For hereby you do but tread in your old Steps by resisting and contradicting the Holy Ghost as your Predecessors did in Acts 7. 51. For in Revelation 1. the 8th and 11th Verses our Lord saith he is the First and the Last And to put the Matter out of Doubt that it is Jesus Christ there speaks the 12th Verse to the End of the Chapter makes it evident he being in the Likeness of the Son of Man And in the 17th Verse he saith again I am the first and the last And in the 18th I am he that was dead and am alive All which shews that this was Jesus Christ and that this Jesus Christ is Godman for he being the first God the Father was not before him then he could not be first and he being the last End of all things all things must end and terminate in his Glory For God's Glory is the highest and chiefest Good and therefore must be the ultimate and last End of all things and that this was no other than Jesus Christ is evident in that he saith I am he that liveth and was dead Surely God cannot dye therefore this must be that mighty Child that was given to us who also was the everlasting Father spoken of in Isa 44 6. and Isa 9. 6. Godman God with us in our Nature And therefore he may well be called wonderful because he is Godman in one Person God he must be else he could not be the first nor last neither for God only is the last End as well as the first Cause of all things Man he must be else he could not dye and God he must be else he could not have power to raise himself again as he tells you he had John 10. 18. No man taketh it from me saith he but I lay it down of my self and I have power to take it up again And this compared with the next Verse together with Acts 20. 24. proves the Father and him to be one as he saith of himself in ver 30. of this 10th Chapter I and my Father are one Besides in the first Chapter of Gonesis it is said In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth Why then will you impose Arrianism upon us and contradict the Spirit of God by telling us that God created before the Beginning or before he created the Heavens and the Earth The Considerator therefore shall never impose his School-Divinity upon me of one Senior and two Junior Gods for unto me and unto us Christians there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and we in him and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him 1 Cor. 8. 6. And indeed here lies these Gentlemens Mistake they find the Scriptures in many places speak of Jesus Christ as Man Therefore say they he cannot be God as my Accountant pag. 4. but as hath been observed we do not say that Man is God or that the Humane Nature is the Divine or that those two Natures are confounded but we believe according to the Scriptures of Truth that God took upon him our Nature Heb. 2. 16. and united that Holy Thing that by the over-shaddowing of the Holy Ghost was conceived and born of the Virgin So that it did not subsist nor was it a distinct being of it self but was united into a personal Union with God the Son and thus he continues to be two Natures in one Person for ever If you ask me how these things can be I answer such Knowledge is as much too wonderful for the Angels for ought I know as to know how God was and therefore neither you nor I must pretend to it It is enough these are the true Sayings of God and therefore it is to the Peril of those that will not believe it If you say it is impossible I answer with Men it may appear so and really be so but with God all things are possible If you say it is Nonsence and Contradiction I Answer it is the highest impiety and greatest impudence that a Man professing to believe there is a God can be guilty of to say that any thing that God reveals concerning himself or us is impossible or contradictory to it self And therefore after all the Considerators glorying of his own and the rest of his Brethrens Honour and Dignity as being Freemen of the Common-wealth of Wit and Learning Page 44. both Collums And after he hath spoken very Contumeliously of the Dignities of the Church and given himself a good Word as a Person fit for Preferment If the Honours and Profits of the Church were bestowed as they were at first designed upon Persons of Wit Learning and Merrit no doubt but he might come in for an Arch-Bishop And yet in all this glorying I do not find him mention one thing that Paul a Minister of Jesus Christ made any reckoning of his Study and glorying being to know Jesus Christ and him Crucified No the Considerator doth not speak one Word of this in all his own Letter of Recommendation though both Colums Pag. 44. be taken up about it yet there is not one word of Repentance towards God and Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ spoken of as being of any Concernment in a Minister of Jesus Christ And therefore seeing he hath such a conceit of his own Merits without those accounted unnecessary things I would advise him to step Over to Rome for if he make good Friends those things are not much
minded there If he tell me there is no hope of getting a Cardinals Cap because the Doctrine of the Trinity is maintained by the Church of Rome also I Answer the Being of God is an Article of their Creed too and yet I doubt not but Mr. Considerators great Learning hath delivered him from so much ignorance in Church History That he well knows some Atheists or Atheistical Fellows have by more Wit and Learning then by sound Reason Honesty and true God liness stept into the inâ—alible Chair for before now And this may serve for an Answer to Our Nameless Authors argument in his Pag. 18. where he would deny the Doctrine of the Trinity because t is maintained by the Church of Rome An Argument so Weak and Foolish that I did not think it worth my while to take any other Notice of it than occasionally by the way for sure we shall never be able to maintain the Protestant Doctrine If this be any Argument with us That we are right because we dissent from them or because in many or most things they are wrong but a foolish Cause must have foolish Arguments or none at all And indeed notwithstanding the Considerators vain glorious boasting of his great Learning I look upon him to be as great a dishonour to the Schools for want of Answerable measures of sound Reason as it must be an affliction to our Clergy to find such Hereticks harboured in the Bosom of our Church For although he boast so much of the Mighty Revolution that greater liberty in matters of Religion would make from Christianity to Socinianism or Deism yet if he had sonnd Reason and integrity answerable to his great Learning and the knowledge that he must needs have there by in Church History The remembrance of the Arrian Persecution must deliver him from that foolish Dream nor could he were his attainments in Divinity and sound Reason proportionable to his great Learning deny our Lord Jesus Christ to be the true God and Eternal Life according to the Scriptures 1 Joh. 5. 20. when he himself asserts That in his Pag. 11. Colum 2. and Page 26. Colum 2. which by sound Reason and by Just and necessary Consequence proves him to be so for he saith God neither hath nor can give him the incommunicable properties of the Deity such as Ominpotency Omnipresence Omniscience and the like so then it is but for me or any private Christian to prove that Christ hath those incommunicable properties of the Divine being and the Considerator himself will maintain that he is God Now Sir if you had not excepted against the Revelation of St. John as being no part of Divine Writ you know I could presently have proved that our Lord Jesus Christ is Omniscient Rev. 2. 23. I am he that searcheth the reins and hearts Pray Sir compare this with Jer. 11. 20 27. and 10. 9. But seeing the Seducers and Cunningly devising fable Men of our day under the Specious pretences of Learning and Reason would fain gather up us Lay-men as Branches cut off from the true Vine and may succeed therein among the withered Branches according to what our Lord hath foretold and threatned concerning such in the 15th of Joh. and the 6th Yet our Lord hath given his word for it that they shall not deceive the Elect though they may and shall deceive many Mat. 24. 4 5. and 22 23 25. And that those pretenders to Reason are those very deceivers among others there spoken of is evident not only from our Lords words in ver 11. calling them False Prophets and deceiving many which they could never be able to do if they did not pretend Reason for there Cnnningly devised Fables but also their own Practices should bewray them to be Wolves in Sheeps Clothing in treading in the very steps of the Grand Saddneers in our Lords-day who that they might carry on that Fundamental Herisie of denying the Resurrection the more successfully they denyed the greatest part of the old Testament and would own nothing for Divine Writ but the 5 Books of Moses and sticking there they thought to confound our Lord himself by their Rational and Learned Argument that there must be Confusion Contradiction Absurdity and Nonsence if the dead Rise And you know Sir they grounded their Argument upon Scripture and made their foolish Reason and ignorance of the Power of God Judge of the Cause Seeing therefore the Considerator is not ashamed to tread in the Sadduces Steps but will imitate them in denying part of the Word of God and yet at the same time as they did pretend Reason and Scripture for what they held And to give them their due there are as many contradictions and seeming impossibilities to Reason against the Resurrection as there are against the Doctrine of the Trinity and our Faith therein must be intirely resigned up unto the revealed will and Almighty Power of God But I say seeing the Considerator will imitate the Sadduces in denying part of the Scriptures I shall endeavour to follow the Example of my Lord Jesus Christ and prove from such part of the Scriptures as they will own that our Lord Jesus Christ is Omnicisent and and Omnipresent but at the same time protesting against their unreasonable partiality in choosing and refusing what they please for Divine Writ and saving to the Service of the Truth all those arguments that are or may be drawn from any part of the Gospel of St. John the Three Epistles and the Revelation for destruction from God is a terror to me and because of his greatness I cannot indure to add to those things nor take away from the words of the Book of this Prophesie least God should take away my part out of the Book of Life Job 31. 22. Revelation 18. 19. Now Sir I think you do not except against the Gospel of St. Mat. and there we read Chap. 28. ver 20. Christ Promised his Disciples to be with them alway to the end of the World Now Sir let me freely Discourse with you concenring this Promise our Lord Jesus Christ is gone to Heaven and his Humane nature is to continue there till the Restitution of all things neither can a Man be at two Places at one time Now what will you do will you give our Lord the Lye in this Promise or will you believe that a Man or the Humane nature of Jesus Christ is not only in the Sacrament of the Alter and so in Thousands of Places at the same time with the Papist but also every where in all places of the World where ever there is a Believer Or will you believe the Truth as it is in Jesus that he is the Omnipresent God and so is with his People in all places and in all Conditions according to his gracious Promise Joh. 14. 18. I will not leave you comfortless I will come to you Perhaps you will tell me that this is no more then Paul said of himself 1 Cor. 5.
11th page not only denies it but also acknowledges if he be so he must be the Living and True God because it is an incommunicable Attribute of God Now we have our Lor'ds Words for it over and over again that he will be with his People in all places in the World Now whether Mr. Considerator will believe our Lord's Words or give him the Lye or whether his Reason hath taught him that the Humane Nature of Jesus Christ is bodily present with his People in all places and at all times and if so he gives himself the Lye Or whether he will believe that he is the Living and True God and fills Heaven and Earth with his Presence Let him choose I am not to be accountable for his Faith But the Considerator goes on in his 11th page and tells us some of their Number think Our Lord Jesus Christ may be invocated in Prayer not because he is omnipresent or omniscient but because it pleased the Father to reveal to him our Prayers And quotes Revelation 1. 1. He might as well have quoted Mark 13. 32. For neither of those Texts speak of Prayer but of the Humane Nature of Jesus Christ and if he had been writing to those that deny his Humane Nature they had been to his purpose But Christians that believe him to be Godman are confirm'd in their Faith by these Texts as by several other in Revelations and elsewhere He being that wonderful Person who is the First and Last who was dead and is alive But if some of your Number scruple praying to him I do not know any of the Number of Christ's Disciples that make any scruple of it Stephen the first Christian Martyr dyed calling upon God and saying Lord Jesus receive my Spirit Acts 7. 5. But pray Sir sometimes you pretend to be a Man of Reason but as is your Reason so is your Divinity The Scriptures speak every where of coming to the Father by the Son not to the Son by the Father Ephes 2. 18. Through him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father Neither can any man come to the Father but by the Son John 14. 6. But if the Father reveal our Wants to him and he cannot know them by his own Omnisciency then we are necessitated to come to the Son by the Father and instead of Jesus Christ spreading our Wants and offering our Prayers to the Father with his own Incense the Father must offer up our Prayers to the Son It is not for Mechanicks to call the Learned Blockheads nor will I presume to determine whether it be a Common or a Strange Thing to find such a Monster as a Learned Dunce among the Schoolmen But I must needs say this Sir that notwithstanding your great Boasting in your 44th page of your being free of the Common-Wealth of Wit and Learning though I will not question the Copy of your Freedom of the City of Learning And yet we Mechanicks have so high an Esteem for the Noble City of Learning that we cannot think such Jolts could ever attain the Honour of being free of that City But that we are inform'd that it is the Custom of that City confirm'd by a Law made by a Common Council of the same for the Encouragement of Strangers to send their Children thither that after seven years Service every Tutor shall be obliged to make all his Dunces free But notwithstanding all this Sir I think it is a Reproach to the States of the Common-Wealth of Sound Reason to naturalize such Gentlemen as you are among them Yet I would not reflect on the Proceedings and Conduct of that Sereen Republick And therefore I do freely acknowledge that it is very probable that we Mechanicks may not understand the Meaning of some of those Learned Words that flow so naturally from such great Criticks as you are we having not the Gift of divers kinds of Tongues And therefore it is probable that by Wit and Learning you mean only the Den of Subtilty and Cunning Sophistry whereby you are enabled to devise cunning Fables to deceive us Laymen if God do not give us more Grace and Sound Reason to withstand you And so you may notwithstanding all this foolish Flourish pag. 44. be Strangers and Alliens from the Common-wealth of Sound Reason And truly you have little Reason to Glory in your being free of the Den of Subtilty and Cunning for when you have done all you can the Old Serpent will outdo you in that kind of Learning and Logick But I think it is almost time for me to take my leave of Mr. Considerator for although I promised my self great Improvements of my Reason when I first saw his Title Page and no doubt but much might have been learn'd from him had his Book been as rational as his Attempt is daring and bold And yet upon a Close View I do not find his Reasons are any other that what are contained or may be reduc'd to what I find in my short Accountant save only that his great Learning hath puft him up with so much Vanity that he is not ashamed to speak evil of Dignities But Mr. Considerator goes on in his 11th page from denying the Omnipresence of Christ to deny the Satisfaction of Christ's Death And in page 12. colum 1. he saith The end of Christ's Death was to recommend Mankind to the Mercy Forgiveness and Favour of God And again Col. 2. he saith He suffered to recommend us unto the Mercy of God And in page 32. colum 1. he saith Though he would willingly give it us in the Lord Bishop of Sarum's Words and doth indeed no less than charge his Lordship with a Dissent from the Catholick Church in his 1st colum page 31. But in page 32. colum 1. he saith The Sacrifice of Christ was not tendered to the Justice of God as an equivalent Amends or Reparation but to his mercy as a Supplication and as such accepted And this he saith the Socinians contend for but pray Sir let us reason the Case a little about this Account that you give of the End of Christ's Death But first let it be remembred that you grant that Christ died to expiate the Sins of Mankind page 31. col 2. This expiation was not offered to the Justice of God you say but to his Mercy and to his Mercy not as an Expiation of Guilt but as a Supplication for Mercy This is a double Contradiction I see the Gentleman will not prove himself a small Fool for first you set the Cause in the place of the Effect and the Effect in the place of the Cause And in the second place you destroy the very Nature of Mercy and make it no other than Justice it self in that an expiatory and propitiatory Sacrifice for the Sins of Mankind must be offered up thereunto First You make the Effect to be the Cause of that which it is but the Effect of For the Mercy and Love of God was the first
and only moving Cause of God's sending his Son into the World and therefore all that he did in the World could not be the Cause nor so much as a Means ro procure his Mercy consider'd without respect to Justice John 3. 16. For God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life Mercy and Love in God as the truly Rational and Heavenly Dr. Owen hath observed being no less than God's willing good to the Creature and whoever God wills Good to they must have that Good willed to them For God's Will in this Sence must infallibly be done both in Heaven and in Earth But God will not convey Good to any Creature in a way that shall destroy a greater Good then the Salvation of all the Men and Angels in Heaven and Earth will amount unto But such is the Manifestation of the Glory of God's Justice therefore though God's loving Kindness and Mercy was from everlasting and therefore needed not a Sacrifice in time to procure it much less a propitiatory one to appease it which is a Contradiction with a Witness but this is not to be taken Notice of in Men that have ingross'd all contradiction to themselves under the specious pretence of Reason for 't is below the pretended Wits of our Day the Great Vain glorious Freemen of the Common-Wealth of Wit and Learning to prove themselves little Fools But I say Mercy will never be extended in a way that in the least derogates from the Justice and Truth of God No Justice and Truth must be equally exalted with Mercy where-ever it is extended Therefore when God proclaims his Name in Exod. 34. 6 7. he proclaims himself to be a God that will shew Mercy and yet will by no means clear the guilty This you Men of Reason are pleased to contradict and do in so many words tell us that a Debt fully paid and yet freely for given is a contradiction Nameless Author page 6. col 1. And Mr. Considerator calls it a Mock Payment pag. 13. col 1. But we know the things of God useth to be accounted Foolishness with Men but Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ we do as well know that God hath made foolish the Wisdom of this World and that the foolishness of God is Wiser then Men 1 Cor. 1. 20 21 25 26 27. But in the aforesaid Exod. 34. The Lord proclaims himself to be the Lord God merciful and Gracious long suffering and abundant in goodness and Truth Pray observe goodness and Truth must go together and without Truth Goodness would cease to be so And in verse 7. He saith Keeping Mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity Transgression and sin and that will by no means clear theguilty Now Gentlemen are you not ashamed if you are not you may be to say a Debt fully paid and yet Freely forgiven is a Contradiction for do you not thereby Contradict God himself and Charge him with Folly and Falshood who saith he will pardon iniquity and forgive sin and yet will by no means clear the guilty Surely God is true and can no more Lye then he can dye or deny himself therefore his infinite wisdom hath contrived that which his Almighty Power hath effected a way to pardon sin and yet by no means clear the guilty This could not be done by offering up a Sacrifice to the Mercy of God nor was there any need of such a thing Mercy being the first moving Cause of setting infinite Wisdom to Work to find out a way to save the sinner and yet not clear the guilty and at the same time to save the Honour of Gods Law and to vindicate the immutability of his Truth to shew Mercy to the sinner and yet at the same time to magnifie his Law and make it Honourable Isa 44. 21. to magnifie his Mercy and yet at the same time and by the same way and means and with respect to the very same Persons to exalt his Justice This was a Work becoming God because no Created being had Wisdom and Power to do so and as it is wonderful in its own Nature so likewise should it be to us and Humbly and thankfully closed up with It is not to be quarrelled with but if you will reject the Counsel of God against your selves because it is Foolishness with you yet know you that to them that believe Christ is the Wisdom of God and the Power of God and they do receive this Truth with all manner of Acceptation And although it may seem to be foolishness to you wise Grecians yet to them that believe both Jews and Greeks Christ is the Wisdom of God and the Power of God hence it comes to pass that the Lord is well pleased for his Righteousness sake he thereby magnifying his Law and making it Honorable this answers the end of God both in Creation and Redemption The end of God was to manifie his own glory but for which he would not have descended into the Work of Creation nor Redemption For he bath made all things for himself even the wicked for the day of evil Prov. 16. 4. And we are Redeemed and Called for this very end that we may be to the Praise of the Glory of his Grace in Christ Jesus Eph. 1. 6 12. Yet so as that the Glory of his Justice might shine forth with equal Luster with his Mercy Rom. 3. 25 26. Whom God hath set forth to be a Propitiation through Faith in his blood to declare his Righteousness for the Remison of sins that are past through the forbearance of God ver 26. To declare I say at this time his Righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus God doth all things becoming himself and Gods glory being the chiefest good and the manifestation thereof the Highest end God could have no Lower end than the manifestation of his own Glory as the first and chief end in the Work of our Redemption and our Salvation next thereunto A wise Man will not do great and Noble things for a base and low End how much less will God save sinners in a way that advances the Glory of one attribute to the abasement or in the least Ecclipsiing the Glory of another This would reflect on his Wisdom and Power but God will not God cannot extend Mercy in a way that may reflect on his Justice and Truth If the King pardon a Convicted Traytor he thereby extends his Mercy and shews a great deal of Pitty and Compassion and good Will to the Person of the Traytor But he cannot with respect to that Person but stop the Execution of Justice and the Law in that particular Falls to the Ground and that because he is Man and not God but not one jot nor Title of Gods Law shall Fall to the Ground neither shall Justice be in the least stopt or Suspended by Gods extending Mercy
to the Sinner because the Lord is God and not Man Therefore we Read that Mercy and Truth are met together Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other Psal 85. 10. God is as Just in Justifiing him that Believeth in Jesus as he is in Condemning the Unbeliever Rom. 8. 26. So that it as clear as the Sun shining at Noon day that as Mercy was the first and only moving Cause of Gods sending his Son into the World to save Sinners and therefore there was no need of his coming to procure Mercy his coming being the greatest Demonstration of Mercy and Love Joh. 3. 16. So likewise is it a Demonstration that all he did and especially what he Suffered was with respect to Justice The determinate Counsels of the Three that bear Record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost the one Eternal God had first if we may to help the weakness of our understanding use such an expression as First or Second concerning the decrees of God I say the First thing God had in his Eye in saving Sinners by sending his Son into the World was the Manifestation of his own Glory This being the best good must be the First Cause and Last End of all Gods Works and in Subordination thereunto Gods Mercy and great Love wherewith he Loved us was the moving Cause of sending his Son into the World with respect to God himself the Manifestation of his own Glory was the Cause and must be the Effect and last End thereof with respect to us Love Pity and Compassion and Mercy was the First moving Cause and our Eternal Salvation the last End so then if Christ came to Expiate sin or to take away sin it must be to bear the punishment due to sin or to the Sinner for sin to take away the guilt of sin which cannot be done but by bearing the punishment due for sin the guilt must be taken away For God will by no means therefore not by Mercy it self clear the guilty Therefore the guilt must be taken away that Mercy may flow in with all its Blessed effects upon the Sinner therefore the Fathers sending his Son was the Highest Act of Mercy in the Father and the Sons coming and dying in our Nature was the highest Act of Love in the Son The thing it Self was all Mercy with respect to us and the doing of it was with respect to the Honour of Gods Law and and the Manifestation of his Justice and Truth Therefore Christ did not offer himself up as a Supplication to the Mercy of God but as an expiatory Sacrifice to his Justice and not as a partial expiating of sin for that would but in part take away guilt but all guilt must be taken away or else the sinner will remain guilty and God will by no means clear the guilty Hence we read of Gods forgiving for Christs sake Eph. 4. 32. and of Redemption through his Blood the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his Grace Here is Redemption but at no less Price than the Blood of Ghrist here is the forgiveness of sins but it is through the Blood of Christ for we are not Redeemed with Corruptible things but by the precious Blood of Christ Peter 1. 18 19. All which shews that we are freely Forgiven and yet Justice is fully satisfied God having no Motive nor was it possible he should to concern himself about our Salvation but his own Soveraign good Will and good Pleasure he will have Mercy because he will have Mercy This makes the difference between Man and Man and this makes the difference between Man and Devil he took not upon him the Nature of Angels but the Seed of Abraham And what ever Reasons may be given for this by those wise Criticks that will vainly intrude into those things that they have not seen yet they must at last all Center in this Even so O Father because it pleaseth thee It was the good pleasure of God to save his Elect therefore Christ did not come to purchase this good pleasure but to Execute it by taking away sin both in its guilt and filth and to bring in an Everlasting Righteousness Therefore we read the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand Isa 53. 10. Dan. 9. 24. And our Lord doth so often declare that he came not to do his own will but the will of him that sent him that is needless to mention particular Scriptures to prove it All which shows that Christ offering himself up by the Eternal Spirit as a Sacrifice to God was to take away sin both in the guilt and filth of it and had respect to the Justice and Holiness of God to Vindicate his Truth and the Honour of his Law in shewing Mercy to the Sinner Therefore it is said he was made sin for us that we might be made the Righteousness of God in him and in respect to Mercy and Love our Lord tells us At that day ye shall ask in my name and I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you For the Father himself loveth you Joh. 16. 26. Yet if any Man sin we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the Righteous 1 Epist of Joh. 2. 1. And he tells us again At that day ye shall ask in my name and I say unto you that I will pray the Father for you and in Joh. 16. ver 23. Verily verily I say unto you whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name he will give it you Which compared with Joh. 14. 13. 14. shews that the Father and the Son are One for saith he Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name that will I do that the Father may be glorified in the Son And again in the next Verse If ye shall ask anything in my name I will do it All which shews that Christ did not purchase nor doth he interceed for the Fathers Love and Mercy but interceeds as an Advocate pleading his own merrit in taking away sin and bringing in an Everlasting Righteousness so that is for Gods glory the Honour of his Law the strickness of his Justice to shew Mercy to the Sinner Therefore he saith I will do it that the Father may be glorified in the Son And indeed it is little less then the Blasphemy to say that the Fathers Love and Mercy is not so great or was not so early as the Sons for God is of one Mind and who can turn him Having thus proved that Christ offered himself up as a Sacrifice to the Justice of God to make an Attouement for Transgression It will be necessary to enquire what kind of Priest and Sacrifice this must be what mighty Mediator this must be that interposeth between the Justice of God and the guilty Sinner Aand as the Doctrine of Satisfaction ought to be received with all Humility and Thankfulness with all Care and Watchfulness to prove our selves to be of the number of those that are Redeemed from
a vain Conversation and to have a Witness within us even the Spirit to bear Witness with our Spirits that we are the Children of God and shew out of a good Conversation the Virtues of him that hath called us out of darkness into his marvellous light Proving that the Grace of God that hath appeared to us hath Effectually Taught us to deny all ungodliness and Worldly Lust and to live Godlily and Righteously and soberly in this present evil World And that we do not only look to the Blood of Christ to deliver us from the guilt of sin but we do also Live by Faith on him and do find his Blood Effectual to Cleanse us from the Filth of Sin 1 Joh. 1. 7. so should we in our inquiry after this Mighty Saviour be Serious and Humble Resolving to guide our Reason by the Word of God Subjecting all the Powers and Faculties of our Souls thereunto Humbly imploring the Spirits aid and special assistance without which we cannot discern the things of God because they are Spiritually discerned And surely this mighty Salvation can be wrought out by no other then an Almighty Saviour whom we Read of in Isa 63. 1. One that speaks in Righteousness that hath dyed Garments and therefore Travielleth in the greatness of his strength and is mighty to save and therefore this mighty deliverer must be no other then God's fellow which no Created being can be spoken of Zacha. 13. 7. And this is evident from the Nature of the Work which hath been already proved he was to do which was to bring in an Everlasting Righteousness and to make an Attonement for sin Dan. 9. 24. Which no Created Being could do for no Man nor Angel nor any Created Being whatsoever can be Profitable to God as he that is wise can be Profitable to himself Job 22. 2. And not only are Christ's Disciples but all Created beings are unprofitable Servants Job 4. 18. Behold he puteth no trust in his servants and he chargeth his Angels with folly None can do any more then their duty therefore none can come in as Mediators between God and sinful Creatures none have any Excellency but what they have received from God Therefore it is but their duty to return all back again to him from whom they received their Beings and all the Excellency thereof and the more any Creature receives the more is he in Debt to the Giver So that it is utterly impossible for a Creature to interpose between the offended Justice of God and a guilty Sinner the Nature of a Created being will not cannot admit of such a thing Therefore seeing our Lord Jesus Christ did interpose between God and Sinners he must be such a days Man as could lay his hand both on God and Man and therefore must be that Child given to us whose name is called Wonderful Counsellor the mighty God the Everlasting Father spoken of in Isa 9. 6. And indeed were he not so we could have no Comfort here nor happiness hereafter by all that he did or Suffered For First What comfort could we have here or Expectation of happiness hereafter from what he did if he were but a Man or any Created being only If he were but a Creature though such an imaginary One as Mr. Considerator speaks of in Page 57. 1. and Colum 1. 2. Created before God Created the Heavens and the Earth yet he being but a Creature could merit nothing for us that Command to Love the Lord with all the heart and all the might and all the strength makes it the indispensable duty of every Created Being to do all that they are Capable of doing in Obedience to God And in so doing they do but their own duty which is but their Reasonable Service The Nature of a Created Being if we could suppose such a One as might be Ten Thousand times more Glorious and Excellent then the most Glorious Angel in Heaven yet being but a Creature it ows its being and all that it is Capable of doing to its Creator It can pay no more then its own Just Debt And the more Excellent it is the more it is obliged to God to pay the same So that it is utterly impossible to find Works of Superrogation in any Created being so then if Christ were not the true God he could Merit nothing for us by all that he did for If you tell me there have been some Men such as Abraham and David and the like for whose sake God saith he will do good to their Posterity I Answer such Expressions are always to be taken Figuratively as they were Types of Christ or as Declarations of Gods Faithfulness in keeping Covenant with Abraham and his Seed for ever But all those Men had a Mediator to take away there own Guilt for it is Written there is none good no not one Therefore they being saved by the Mercy of God conveyed to them through the Merrits of Christ it is impossible that they could do any thing for the sake of which God should shew Mercy to their Posterity For if an inocent Creature can do but its duty how much less can a sinful Man though renewed by Grace do any thing to Merit for another And here both Mr. Considerator and our Nameless Author may take an Answer to their Babels-Tower that they have thought to build so High as to reach Heaven by their following Christ Example concerning which I shall only ask these Gentlemen Two or Three Queries First Whether they think the Law of God was not a perfect Rule of Righteousness though our Lord had never come into the World Secondly If it was necessary that our Lord should come into the World to give us an Example only or chiefly what should be the Reason why he was not sent as soon or before Sin entered into the World Thirdly If we are saved by following Christ's Example what is become of Abraham David and all the Old Testament Saints that lived and dyed before he gave this Example Fourthly I would ask Mr. Considerator himself and my Nameless Author whether they do not think in their Consciences if God should enter into Judgment with them and deal with them according to their following or not following Christ's Example they must not unavoidably perish without any hope of Mercy Perhaps these Gentlemens Ignorance both of God the Law and of Sin which is a transgression of the same may furnish them with a ready Answer to the last Query the same that one of their Tribe gave me above twenty years agoe to a Question of the like Nature namely that he did not know whether a vain Thought were a Sin or no But whatever their Answer may be to the aforesaid Queries I am taught by the Word of God and sound Reason drawn from the same to believe that it is these Gentlemens Ignorance of God of his Law and of themselves that first laid the Foundation of this Antichristian Fabrick in their Hearts and is