REMARKS On Several Late Writings Publish'd in English by the SOCINIANS Wherein Is show'd the insufficiency and weakness of their Answers to the Texts brought against them by the Orthodox IN FOUR LETTERS Written at the Request of a Socinian Gentleman By H. DE LVZANCY B. D. Vic. of Doverc and Harwich LONDON Printed by Tho. Warren for Thomas Bennet at the Half-Moon in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1696. THE PREFACE THE design of the following Letters was to instruct a private Gentleman who by reading Socinian Books had got a mighty prejudice against the Sacred Doctrines of the Holy Trinity and Incarnation He desir'd that he might have the liberty to communicate my Papers to some of his Friends of that perswasion But this being lyable to many inconveniences it was thought much fitter at once to expose them to publick view Whether he will be convinc'd by these Writings must be left to God who best knows the ways of working upon the minds of men Whether there is matter enough to convince him is left to the judgment of the World The general means to clear a Controversy are Reason and Authority I humbly conceive that the first has nothing to do in this dispute For how can we argue from the Principles of natural reason in a point wholly Divine and Supernatural and how can the Philosopher of this World conclude with any certainty in that which is above all the inquiries and decisions of Philosophy I ever thought the Socinians extreamly in the wrong with their pretended contradictions in the belief of our Holy Mysteries and the Letter to both the Vniversities much the worst of all their Writings It being certainly neither just nor candid to use Topicks though never so ingeniously turn'd altogether foreign to the matter in dispute and to give an air of probability to that which when truly stated and consider'd is of another nature than the thing propos'd to us I take it for granted even by these Gentlemen themselves that Faith and Reason are two different things and consequently that that which is the object of Faith cannot be the object of Reason Of what use then can those Arguments be which are call'd Demonstrations against the Doctrines of the Holy Trinity and Incarnation Those perpetual descants upon the impossibility of Three being One and One Three of the same substance unbegotten begotten and proceeding of a part of God being incarnate and another not incarnate All this and ten thousand Objections more are a fallacy and an imposition on Mankind The case here being of another nature not tryable at the Bar of our corrupt Reason but call'd to another and a more infallible Tribunal On the other side though it looks much like Charity and Condescension yet it is certainly an Inadvertency to have pretended to answer these Gentlemen in their own way and to run with them upon the same false scent of reasoning on those things which we ought only to believe and adore The Socinians may write till Doomsday to prove the Vnrâ—asonableness and their charitable and learned Answerers may do the same to prove the Reasonableness of our Christian Doctrine I mean keeping still within the compass of natural reason and yet this great truth will never be clear'd because indeed neither of them embrace the true Method to clear it The way then of Authority is both the plainest and the safest It has that advantage that the other is even resolv'd into it For there is nothing so highly rational as a submission of our Reason to an Authority which all sides own to be infallible We all agree that the Divine Scriptures are the rule of our Faith We all acknowledge them to be the word of God and this very name commands naturally and of it self a veneration which no human Writings though of never so much strength and clearness can force from us It is then from thence and only from thence that we ought to reason and conclude in this Sacred Controversy The consent of the whole Christian World must be a strong inducement to a modest Socinian to mistrust all his Arguments To oppose all that has been and is Great and Good in the Church of God in a point of Faith is too much for the most presuming Disputant But when the Authority of God speaking in those Scriptures which we all contend to be the Revelation which he has made of himself to us is superadded to the universal consent of the Church all the reasons which we can pretend to oppose to this ought to be no more to men of sence than talk and noise The Church asserts the Vnity of the Divine Nature in which three distinct and equally adorable Persons subsist The Father The Son and the Holy Ghost of which the second was Incarnate and in the fullness of time became Man To say that this is false because incomprehensible is a lamentable consequence Nor is it sufferable to reject the belief of these Mysteries because our poor narrow and corrupt Reason is pleas'd to state contradictions in a subject so far above our capacity and to say as those Gentlemen urge vehemently that we cannot believe that of which we can have no notion or Idea is much worse since besides that we have little or no knowledge at all of the ways operations and manner of Existence of an Infinite Being to suppose a notion or an Idea of the thing propos'd is to destroy Faith which Heb. 11.1 is the evidence of things not seen that is an assurance and certainty of that which is imperceptible to us because above the reach of our understanding supplying by the Authority of the Revelation that notion or Idea of which these Gentlemen argue an absolute necessity The only way then to satisfy our selves is to hear what the Scripture teaches concerning this For if the Church speaks the language of the Scripture it speaks as God has taught us and to speak after God is the most certain and excellent way of speaking in the World The Challenge of the great Athanasius to the Arrians and of St. Austin to the Hereticks of his time was the most reasonable Proposition in nature to a people who own'd Christianity and that is that laying aside human reasoning and relying upon the veracity of the Divine Oracles they should inquire not what man propos'd but what God has say'd in the matter If the Scripture is positive that God is one and yet asserts the Father to be God the Son to be God and the Holy Ghost to be God If it says that the Son has taken our nature upon him The Church speaks as the Scripture has taught and the Doctrine of the Trinity and Incarnation is the Doctrine of the Church because it is first that of the Scripture Being perswaded then that the dispute must at last be put upon that Issue and sensible that any thing else that is propos'd of both sides though it shews the great parts and abilities of the Disputants can yet give
Consent of the learned World made venerable Essence Substance Hypostasis Generation Spiration Procession And yet these Gentlemen not only pretend to Reason but would so monopolize it to themselves as to make their Adversaries the most unreasonable people in the World Reason in all their Writings is the Word To it the most express Revelation must be made to stoop and God must not be Judge of what he commands man to believe But man assumes to himself to know whether what God commands is agreeable to the Principles of his Reason I know that they would seem to exclaim against this and that in the Letter of Resolution concerning the Doctrine of the Trinity and Incarnation pag. 1. they complain that they are charg'd with exalting Reason above Revelation They apologize for it in the Observations of Dr. Wallis's Letters pag. 16. But how can this be reconcil'd with this Assertion Considerat on the Explicat of the Doctr. of the Trin. pag. 5. If Heaven and Earth were miraculously destroy'd to confirm an Interpretation which disagrees with the natural and Grammatical sense of the words it will for all that remain a false Interpretation Which in plain English amounts to this that though Heaven contradicts an Interpretation by the most forcible sort of Argument which is a real Miracle and such as the Destruction of the whole World yet if it does not agree with that natural or Grammatical sense which our Reason makes of these words The Miracle will be true but the Interpretation false I am willing to give to Reason all the weight and admiration that it deserves it being the distinguishing Character of man and that by which he ought to be guided in his spiritual and temporal Concerns But there is a rational way of using our Reason which when strain'd beyond its bounds is no more Reason but extravagance and obstinacy When the greatest Authority in the World imposes on us the belief of that which our Reason cannot penetrate or understand It is not the work of Reason to reject it because the Notion is unintelligible and in our imperfect way of Reasoning offers seeming Contradictions But the truest and noblest Exercise of our Reason is to submit to that Authority and when we are satisfy'd that God speaks man is never so rational as when he yields without any inquiry into what he is pleas'd to reveal I say seeming Contradictions for admitting the Divine Revelation no Contradiction can be real We may imagine that indeed it is so because we are men who know very little and in the state of sin and weakness that we are in meet with a thousand obstacles to our perceptions But supposing that God has deliver'd it there can be no such thing as a Contradiction because howsoever I apprehend it it still comes from him who cannot contradict himself The Question once more is not of the Unity of the Divine Nature The Orthodox are as stiff as they in the point The Question is Whether the Trinity of Persons destroys or no the Unity of that Divine Nature The Orthodox must carry it if they can prove that the same God who has reveal'd the one has also reveal'd the other For if he has done this our duty is to adore in an humble silence what we cannot understand and those very Contradictions which we fansie in the thing reveal'd ought only to be to us sensible proofs of our ignorance and deep arguments of humiliation The Socinians then are in a great mistake and instead of writing Books after Books to shew the pretended inconsistencies and contradictions in the Revelation they ought to prove plainly that it is not reveal'd at all For if it clearly appears that it is so the pretended Contradictions must lye at their door but the Revelation will still be safe and certain It is strange that ingenious men who meet with so many things unintelligible in Nature will have nothing to be so in Religion They will submit to Philosophical proofs and Mathematical demonstrations which are at most but natural Evidences and will reject the greatest and most certain Evidence which is Faith Nothing can take them from reasoning and nothing will bring them to believe Whether the thing is is the Question How it is does not at all belong to us How the Father communicates his Essence to the Son How the Holy Ghost proceeds from both How three Persons subsist in the same Divine Nature can be no part of our inquiry If we can but be satisfy'd that God has so reveal'd himself to us that he is God that in that Deity which is one there are three equally adorable Persons we have nothing to do with the How Let us adore and believe the thing and reserve the manner to a better and a happier life where we shall know even as we are also known 1 Cor. 13.12 Those Reverend Persons who out of condescension to querulous men have undertaken to give Explications of the Trinity in Unity never pretended to go further They never thought that this could be Geometrically prov'd They built upon the Revelation and endeavour'd to find every one that way which seem'd to them the aptest to reconcile what these Gentlemen call Contradictions But left the thing it self as incomprehensible and relying on his Authority who reveal'd it The Socinians are not candid in the matter They endeavour to disprove the Athanasian Creed They pretend to answer the late Archbishop the Bishops of Worcester and Sarum They ridicule Dr. Wallis They insult the Dean of Paul's They are rude to Dr. South but still are clamorous about the How can it be and are not serious in proving that it is not These Gentlemen have pretended that by denying the Divinity of Jesus Christ and of the Holy Ghost they make the Scripture plain intelligible and obvious to the meanest capacities They think after this to have remov'd all those difficulties which the Clergy call Mysteries but are not so in themselves In the impartial account of the word Mystery pag. 3. By the means of Mystery Divines have made Religion a very difficult thing that is an Art which Christians are not able to understand and thereby they raise themselves above the common Christians and are made necessary to the People improving that Art to their own benefit Passing by the incivility of the reflexion I dare affirm that denying the Divinity of Christ and of the Holy Spirit nothing is easie nothing is plain in Religion That the Scripture is the darkest Book that ever was written and that no Christian can find the satisfaction of his mind and the peace of his conscience It may be said with a great deal of truth that the stream of the Scriptures runs that way that the belief of the Holy Trinity and the union of the two natures in Christ is the Key to all difficulties and that distinction so much laught at by these Gentlemen of one thing said of him as God and of another as Man which
to our belief I believe in God in which Three Persons subsist The Father who is Maker of Heaven and Earth His only Son who is our Lord and the Holy Spirit who Sanctiâ—ies the Catholick Church This expression the only Son or the only begotten is a stop to all those exceptions For he cannot be a deputed God who is a Son an only Son begotten as the Fathers and Councils express it of the substance of the Father He must be God of God very God of very God The Eternal God of the Eternal God This suppos'd there is no objection can be pretended God cannot have a Son but it must be by a communication of his substance An Eternal being cannot communicate it self as we mortals do within the measures and successions of time A mortal begets another mortal He can give no other substance then what he has An Eternal being gives what he is himself an Eternal and Divine being This leads to the true sence of Col. 1.15 2. Cor. 4.4 Heb. 1.3 where Christ is call'd the image of God the brightness of his glory the express image of his Person Texts so reverenc't by the Fathers of the Christian Church and so abus'd by Socinus and the Author of the Brief Hist pag. 38. who says That those Texts are demonstrations that Christ is not God it being simply impossible that the image should be the very being or thing whose image it is Were this reasoning true which is a meer Sophism to reason of an Eternal and Increated Being by the rules of things mortal and created it can reach to no more than this that the Son is not the Father because he is the express Image of his Person which is true but at the same time it proves that because he is his Image he must have a communication of his substance because he is his only Image as he is his only begotten Son But say these Gentlemen you run on but still you suppose the thing to be prov'd We agree that Christ is the only Son our Lord but we deny that the only begotten implies a communication of substance Christ says the Authour of the Brief Hist pag. 28. is call'd the only begotten on several accounts This especially that he only was begotten by the Divine Power on a Woman He is the only begotten says Chrellius because of all the Sons of God he is the best and most dear to him Time is too precious to spend it in answering such things as these are The Interpretation of Chrellius is trifling and that of the Brief Hist is absurd God is a Father antecedently to the Creation of the World God is not the Father of Christ but as he is the Father of the word who assum'd our nature Had there been nothing created there would have been still a Father and Father of it self supposes a Son If the Father is from ever the Son is from ever These ancient assertions of the Primitive Fathers destroy the notion of these Gentlemen of the only begotten A notion so strange so new so contrary to the language of Scripture and to that of the Church that the Old Hereticks durst never offer at it It ruines the difference between Christ and the rest of men For we are all the Sons of God Nay we can no more be the Sons of God being only Sons of God by adoption and only adopted in Christ Jesus who if he is adopted himself and only a Coheir with us as we are Coheirs with him there is no more adoption the great blessing of Christianity Now if Christ is the only begotten of the Father by reason of his being conceiv'd of a Woman by the Divine Power it is visible that he is no more than an adopted Son as we are This second Adam has no more of the Divine Nature than the first who was made of the Earth by the Divine power as the other was made of a Woman and was only an adopted Son Whereas the Scripture is so careful to distinguish between us the adopted Sons and that Son who is not adopted and is call'd the true Son the only Son his own Son his only begotten Son that Son who is sent Gal. 4.4 that we might receive the adoption of Sons It offers violence to these Texts to which the Author of the Brief Hist has done the advantage to shew that they are proofs against all the Turns of Wit Joh. 10.30 I and my Father are one Joh. 7.29 I know him for I am from him Joh. 10.38 The Father is in me and I in him I came out from the Father and to all the unanimous confessions in the Gospel Thou are the Christ the Son of the living God I commend this Author to have in this place given an answer without a reason to support it He has in this as in other places evaded and shifted the difficulty He sees what straights his Explication of the only begotten is lyable to and too much modesty to have laid down the pretended reasons of his Friends They would put a sober Philosopher to the blush I cannot without Horror read Smalcius de vero natur dei fil And all that can be said to this is what St. Austin said almost on the same account that it is Sceleratissima opinio a most execrable opinion Serm. 191. de temp I will multiply no more Arguments on this subject the places alledg'd being so full and forcible and the shifts of these Gentlemen so visible that it is enough to perswade any equitable person I pass to the second part of the assertion that the name of God is given to the Saviour after a manner applicable to no creature I will not lay down the rules which the Socinians have invented to discern when the word God must be understood of that God who is so by nature and of the deputed God who is only so by Office They are Criticisms for the most part false and always little and uncertain I humbly conceive that 1 Tim. 3.16 is spoken of the God by nature And without controversy great is the Mystery of Godliness God was manifest in the Flesh justify'd in the spirit seen of Angels preach't to the Gentiles believ'd on in the world receiv'd up into Glory I humbly conceive also that every word of this is accomplish't in Christ Jesus and that this Text is an Epitome of the Gospel God was manifest in the Flesh is the explication of Joh. 1.1 and the word was made Flesh Justify'd in the spirit is the explication of Matt. 3.16 17. and lo the Heavens were open'd and the spirit of God descending ... and lo a voice from Heaven this is my beloved Son Seen of Angels is the explication of Matt. 4.11 and behold Angels came and Minister'd to him Preach't to the Gentiles is the explication of Matt. 28.18 Teach all nations Believ'd on in the World is the explication of Joh. 6.69 and many places of this nature Receiv'd up into Glory is the Explication
groundless and unconceivable Therefore the last must be admitted And this is so much the more rational because the Socinians are Men too learned not to know that the Primitive Writers or to speak the words of a truly great Man of this Nation all the first Writers of the Church of God have expresly attributed the Creation of Man to the Son and have brought in the Father speaking thus to him Let us make Man Not to multiply citations read Orig. cont Cels l. 2. In Gen. 3.22 is another place of the same nature and to the same design The Man is become as one of us to know good and evil I think that custom of Princes has nothing to do here Those little Pedantical evasions are too mean for the weight of the expression If there is but one Person in the Divine Nature how comes the Vs so emphatically Why say those Gentlemen in the page cited Onkelos and Oleaster render the words more truly The Man is become one knowing of himself good and evil Grotius not trusting to this would have God speak here to Angels Thus a groundless supposition is made a solid answer to a translation universally receiv'd before any of these Disputes I humbly conceive that the Irony us'd in that place has no force if the knowledge here spoken of is not that Primitive Essential Knowledge which belongs only to God which Man 's ambitious designs aim'd at and of which neither he nor Angels are capable of v. 5. You shall be as Gods knowing good and evil which is to say just nothing if this consists in the sad experience of his misfortune and not in the rashness of his undertaking The book of Job is certainly a part of the Old Testament and St. Austin in an Epistle to St. Jerom calls Job deservedly a Prophet In the 19.25 26 27. he expresses himself thus I know that my redeemer lives and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth and though after my Skin Worms destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God The old Latin Interpreter reads Deum meum my God Whom I shall see for my self and my eyes shall behold and not another I pass over that most solemn and elegant Preface more lasting than the rock on which he wishes the assertion to be written 1st The Holy man draws an argument of comfort in the deepest of his afflictions from the thoughts of another and a better life 2ly He looks upon him who is able to save to the uttermost not only them that come after but all them also who are gone before him 3ly He is satisfi'd that he lives who will redeem him from the pains that he lyes under who knows his innocence because he is the searcher of the hearts 4ly He asserts a final judgment wherein justice will be done to all men who shall rise from their graves and be clothed with flesh to receive it 5ly He avers that he who lives now though invisible will become visible and be their Judge in that great day 6ly He is now only the object of his knowledge and faith but then he shall be the object of his sense He shall see him 7ly He who is now invisible but shall be visible then he calls His God the ground of his hope and indeed of all his confidence This is so positive that it is capable of no allegory but only of a litteral sence That this is spoken of Christ is agreed by the old Rabbins That it is understood of Jesus is the opinion of most Christian Interpreters That that God who is represented here as living according to the noble and usual expression of Scripture which cannot be apply'd to Moses Solomon or any of them who are call'd Gods will stand as a judge and be seen by men in their Flesh and be beheld with their eyes is not the Father is consented to on all hands It must then be the Son who in the union of the two natures is the Redeemer Who as God is known to live and to inhabit Eternity Who in the fullness of Times has appear'd in the flesh and obtained to be at the end of the World the judge of the quick and dead It may be objected to this that Grotius for these Gentlemen look upon an objection not to be answerable if it has but the name of Grotius is positive that the Jews never understood this text of the resurrection of the dead How this learned man comes to be mistaken is strange to me But that he is so may invincibly be made to appear from the body of the Jewish Writers What is taken out of the Book of Psalms to prove the Divinity of Jesus Christ has so much the more force because most of it is appli'd to the same purpose by the writers of the New Testament This gives these proofs a double authority and fully determines their sence Nor can any other be put upon them then that in which they are taken by them whom we all acknowledge to be inspir'd This is so natural and carries so much self-evidence along with it that I cannot hear without a deep astonishment Hugo Grotius saying that those Prophecies Non in vim argumenti propriè adhiberi sed ad illustrandam atque confirmandam rem jam creditam That they are not properly arguments to make us believe but a sort of illustrations and confirmations of a truth already believ'd I thought those excesses buri'd long since with Theodore of Mopswest Anathematis'd on that very account by the Fathers of the fifth General Council and Faustus the Manichee so often confounded by St. Austin I was glad to hear Observat on Dr. Wallis's four Letters pag. 16. That those Gentlemen do not profess to follow Socinus but the Scripture that if Socinus has at any time spoken erroneously or unadvisedly or Hyperbolically t is not Socinus who is their Master but Christ yet after all they espouse the same enormity in the brief Hist pag. 16 17. and lay this as a rule Nothing is more usual with the Writers of the New Testament than to apply to the Lord Christ in a mystical or allegorical sence what has been said by the Writers of the Old Testament of God or any other in the litteral and primary sence of the words This they do as often as there is any likeness between the Persons or things or events He that shall read the Thalmud or other Rabbinical Writings will see that the Apostles took this way of Interpreting from the Writers of the Jewish Nation For as often as the Jewish Rabbins met with any event or thing or Person like to what is recorded in some place of the Old Testament they said that place was fullfill'd or was again fullfill'd and accommodated immediately the words of such Scripture to that Person event or thing If this be receiv'd it is a folly to pretend to reason or to dispute First Though there are some Prophecies of Christ which may admit of
he was the expected Saviour then a lively application of this Text to his disciples Go and shew John again those things you do hear and see The blind receive their sight The lame walk the lepers are cleans'd The deaf hear The dead are raised up the Poor have the Gospel preach't to them He is God that should come He is God that should do this Christ is come and has done all this What consequence is more natural than that he is truly God To this these Gentlemen answer Brief Hist pag. 20. 1st That it does not appear that our Saviour intended to quote the words of the Prophet 2ly That admitting he did God is only said to come to the Jews in his Ambassador Jesus Christ And because in him and by him he gave sight to the blind c. They cite for this Joh. 14.10 Act. 10.38 To the 1st Whether Christ intended it or not is not at all material What we have to do is to prove that the Prophecy is fullfill'd in him If it is which is undeniable then he is the God who was to come and work these miracles in the behalf of mankind But that he intended it will appear not only from the exact correspondency of the Text but also from the constant tradition of the Jews who understood this place of the Messias and from it concluded that he was to work Miracles It was natural therefore in the Baptist who could not be ignorant of Christ's stupendous conception by which he was design'd to his Miraculous performances to send and ask whether he was he that was to come and as natural to Christ to give John no other answer than that those things were done by him by which the World was to be convinc'd that the Messias was come The 2d that God is come to the Jews in his Ambassador and Messenger Christ Jesus is a flat denyal to an express Text. The Prophet speaks of an immediate coming of a personal appearance of a Mighty expectation through the whole world He who is to come to appear to remove that expectation by his glorious presence is call'd our God Our God shall come he shall come If this be no more than to appear by his Messenger a less Prophet would have serv'd the turn Such vehement and positive expressions can never agree with so poor a shift Nor is it at all reconcilable with the opinion of the Jews who were so far perswaded that the Messias was a divine person and that he was the God spoken of here that several of their Doctors have thought from the last verse of this Chapter that he should actually deliver them who were already in the place of Eternal Torments But what an unlucky strain is the citation of Joh. 14.10 The Father that dwells in me he does the works And Act. 10.38 God was with him Who doubts that God was present to the Holy Jesus who doubts that God was with him since we contend with all the Fathers and Doctors of the Christian Church that the Eternal word of the Father assum'd his nature The citation of St. John absolutely destroys what they would infer from it Christ tells his Disciples that if they had known him they had known the Father also Philip upon this begs that he would shew them the Father Christ Answers he that has seen me has seen the Father He gives presently the reason of the Answer I am in the Father and the Father in me That is there is in us a distinction of Persons He is the Father I am the Son There is an Unity of nature I am in him and he is in me This is not my own Assertion The Father that dwels in me he does the works The works that the Father does in me are a proof of what I say He resumes the whole Argument Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me Or else believe me for the very works sake Believe me who say that it is so with us But if thou will not believe upon my own Authority be convinc'd by those Miraculous Operations which are an invincible proof of what I say The 40th Chapter of Isaias is to the same purpose only it seems more plain and express It has besides the unanimous consent of the Jews who understand it to be a Prophecy of the Messias Christ is represented here as our God in such expressions as shew the whole Oeconomy of the Gospel and are applicable to no Mortal Man So great a truth is usher'd in with a splendid Preface Verse 3 4 5. by which the four Evangelists have prov'd the Mission of John the Baptist the foreruner of Christ in which we have the advantage that the proof of the one is a proof of the other O Jerusalem that bringest good tidings lift up thy Voice with strength ...... say to the Cities of Judah behold your God Behold the Lord God will come with strong hand ...... He shall feed his flock like a shepherd He shall gather the Lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom Christ then is the Lord God seen by the Cities of Judah To him the character of strength does agree who was to conquer the Prince of this World Joh. 12.31 To him does that of the Shepherd answer exactly who said of himself Joh. 10.11 I am the good shepherd of whom St. Paul said Heb. 13.20 that he is the great shepherd of the sheep and St. Peter 1. pet 2.25 The shepherd and Bishop of our Souls Nor can it be so much as pretended here that God came in his Ambassador and Messenger Christ Jesus That wild notion has not so much as the least place here The Lord God who was to come was to be seen by the Cities of Judah He was to be preceded and have his ways prepar'd by the Illustrious Forerunner The Baptist who was invested in that glorious office was on that very account call'd Luk. 2.67 The Prophet of the Highest Let any one compare candidly these expressions The Lord God and the Highest Esay says the Lord God will come Zacharias says And thou child shalt be called the Prophet of the Highest for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways The Baptist was the immediate Prophet of Christ Christ was the Lord whose ways he was to prepare That Lord is the Highest whose Prophet he was and the Lord God who was to be seen and whose ways were to be prepar'd This is another place which these Gentlemen have taken no notice of and so have said nothing to it The 45th of Esay is wholly taken up to prove the unity of the divine nature v. 6.18 22. I am the Lord and there is none else I am God and there is none else opposing in this the vanity and multiplicity of the Gods of the Heathen As a consequence of that Unity the Almighty challenges the praises and adorations of all his Creatures v. 23. I have sworn by my self that
But that for all this he is a Man and no more than a Man he has no other Existence no other Nature We on the contrary besides all these titles insist on that of Nature We say that he is the Son of God after a manner incommunicable to any Created Being I suppose that if the Pre-existence and Pre-eternity of the Son can be prov'd his Equality with the Father his sameness of Nature and a communication of those names by which the only true God is known to us the assertion will be justifi'd For all that we conceive of God being that he exists before all things that he has neither beginning nor ending that he is above all things that he is infinite in perfections That he is the Creator and in a most eminent way the Lord of all that is If this is made out of the Son in vain those Gentlemen struggle to reduce what is said of him to their poor wayes of explaining how he is the Son of God since none of their explications can amount to any part of this 1st Then to prove his pre-existence that is that he had a being before he was conceiv'd of the Virgin read Joh. 6.62 What and if you shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before The design of the whole Chapter is to convince the Jews that they ought to receive him The Argument he uses is that he is come down from Heaven He tells them that he is the food of their Souls That their Fathers indeed had meat sent from above but that it could not keep them from Death But that he brings them bread of so great a vertue that it would procure immortality That this bread is his Flesh which he gives for the life of the World His hearers were scandalis'd at this The discontent affected even his Disciples Till Jesus to convince them that he came from Heaven tells them positively that he was there before and that as a proof of this they should see him ascending thither again There is not nor can be a more easy way of Arguing You doubt whether I come from Heaven to feed and preserve to save and redeem you What greater proof of this can you desire then to see me ascend to Heaven where I was before and from whence I descended If Christ then was actually in Heaven before he was born these two truths cannot be deny'd 1st that he had another Nature besides the human since he had another existence 2ly That he must have existed before the time assign'd by these Gentlemen to be the first of his Existence that is his Conception in the Virgin If Christ was not before he was born how can he say that he was in Heaven If Christ was not in Heaven how does he offer them to let them see him ascending thither again The Apostle takes this for granted Eph. 4.9 He proves by Christ's ascending to Heaven that he descended from thence Whether he alludes or no to this place is uncertain But he looks upon Christ being come down from Heaven and having been actually there as a principle agreed on by all Men. How that he ascended what is it but he also descended first and v. 10. He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all Heavens c. He then who ascended from us to Heaven did first descend from Heaven to us Joh. 6.33 The bread of God is he which comes down from Heaven Joh. 3.31 He that comes from above is above all ... He that comes from Heaven is above all Joh. 16.27 I came forth from the Father and am come into the World again I leave the World and go to the Father This Doctrine is not only of the Scripture but it may be said to be one of the first notices of Christianity there being scarce any Sect or denomination of Christians but believes that Heaven is the place from whence their Redeemer is come A notion so plain so easy so consistent with the whole revelation of the will of God that Photinus Bishop of Syrmium the Socinus of his Age was not only condemn'd by several Councils but Anathematis'd also by the several perswasions of Christians and even by the Arrians and Semi-Arrians themselves What these Gentlemen oppose consists in this The Author of the Answer to Mr. Milbourn says pag. 25. That Christ was actually taken up into Heaven and took his instructions from the Father before he enter'd upon his Prophetical Office That this is intimated by the very place which we have examin'd by Joh. 8.38 but particularly by Joh. 3.13 No Man has ascended to Heaven but he that is come down from Heaven even the Son of Man who is in Heaven That the word is must be read was that Erasmus Beza Camerarius read it thus That the Evangelists have not spoke of the time of this assumption because it was before their being call'd to be his Disciples that Christ never told them of it but only hinted it in some discourses The Author of the Brief Hist pag. 27.28 Cites the same Authors for the word was He tells us That the must Orthodox Interpreters understand it metaphorically But that the Socinians understand this Text litterally and say that 't is here intimated that before our Lord enter'd upon his Office of Messias He was taken up to Heaven to be instructed in the mind and will of God as Moses was into the mount Exod. 24.1 and foll and from thence descended to execute his Office That the same thing is also hinted Joh. 6.38 Joh. 8.40 When I see such answers to a place of that importance so express and so positive and from Persons of so much Learning I ask my self whether I dream or am really awake I am tempted to lose all the respect which I have for them and begin to think that it is not reason and conscience but obstinacy which makes Socinians 1st The Authors before cited do not say that it ought to be read was but that it may be read thus Qui est in coelo says Beza 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vel qui erat in coelo Beza in Joh. 3.13 These great Criticks are not sensible that the was is as much for us as the is I hope they have read the advice of this Learned Man in the notes on this very Verse Having discourst of the Union of the two natures in Christ He concludes in these words I thought fit to make these short remarks against a sort of Men who are not asham'd in this our Age to fetch back from Hell the detestable errors of Nestorius and Eutyches oppos'd by the vast labours and studies of all the Fathers and condemn'd with the clear and unanimous consent of the whole Church 2ly I deny that the most learned Interpreters have understood it in a Metaphorical sence This is another of those Gentlemen's boundless citations A Metaphorical sence of these words is ridiculous impertinent and inconsistent with the thing it self They see
that himself has one who is not only his Lord but his God He cites for this Joh. 20.17 I ascend to my Father and your Father to my God and your God This is a bad reason and a Text misunderstood to support it The reason is bad for it is plain that if there is a Lord over him he is not the Lord of Lords God is call'd in Scripture the God of Gods and the assertion could not be true if there was a God above him Natural reason will teach any Man that none can be Lord of Lords but in an unlimited sence Any other absolutely destorys the proposition He has misunderstood the place of St. John which does not suppose any superiority in the Father above the Son but only express the sameness of his nature with him Christ shews how God is his Father and how ours His by nature in the same Deity says Epiphanius Her 69. and ours by Grace in the adoption Which Text St. Cyrill Cathech 7. and St. Chrysostom on this very place explain after this manner As he is his Father so is he his God and his God because his Father I will conclude this Argument of Christ's Eternity by Joh. 17.5 And now O Father glorify thou me with thy own self with the Glory which I had with thee before the world was Grotius observes that this expression before the world was is the common notion which the Jews had of Eternity Christ says in the preceeding v. that he has glorify'd his Father on earth This Glory which he has acquir'd to God consists in finishing the work which he gave him to do In this Verse he begs of the Father that as a reward of this he would also glorifie him He asserts to what kind of honour he desires to be promoted even that which he had with him before the World was He had then an Eternal an Essential Glory with the Father which this same Evangelist had before exprest by saying that the word was with God It is to this that he desires his blessed humanity to be rais'd He had then before an Eternal existence with God For the word was God and he claims that his mortal and passible nature my be assum'd to a participation of that honour dignity and glory which he had from all Eternity This Text is full and home But it receives a great addition from Joh. 12.41 Where it is said that Isaias saw his glory and spoke of him The Glory spoken of here is that of the Eternal God Isay 6.1 2 3. He describes not only his Throne and the numerous attendance of the blessed spirits but the two Seraphims who covering their Faces with their Wings cry'd one to another Holy Holy Holy is the Lord of Hosts a name which none but the true God assumes v. 9. The Prophet receives his commission in the words repeated by St. John which are a Prophecy of the incredulity and obstinacy of the Jews St. John declares then the Prophecy to be fulfill'd He does not leave us to conjecture of whom the Prophet speaks but tells us plainly that these things said Isaias when he saw his glory and spoke of him To this last Text the Auhor of the Brief Hist answers 1st That the most learned of the Orthodox Interpreters both Fathers and Modern have confest that the words of St. John are to be understood not of Christ but of God For God only is intended in the foregoing Verse to which the words of this relate 2ly That the best Greek Bibles read not his Glory but God's Glory For the first they must give me leave to observe again that this is one of their boundless citations and of those Characters of the most learned given at random as this very Author Brief Hist pag. 11. has honour'd Dyonisius Petavius with the title of the most learned of the Jesuits and another of these Gentlemen calls him the most learned of the most learned order contrary to the sence that his own Society has of the one though otherwise a Man of great worth and to the opinion which the learned World has of the rest The reason which they give that God is only intended in the foregoing Verse is nothing at all to the question The difficulty is not neither whether Isaias speaks of Christ but whether it is of him that St. John says that Isaias speaks and indeed he must be willfully blind who does not see that all this is said of him who departed from them v. 36. in whom they could not believe v. 37. of whom all this was Prophesi'd v. 38 40. even Christ For the 2d that the best Greek Bibles read God's and not his It is a great misfortune that so few people can see those best Bibles or read the most learned of the Interpreters and that all the ancient Copies that I know extant and all the Printed Editions read unanimously his and not God's But his answer to the Text which occassion'd this is much worse to Joh. 17.5 he says that the Glory which Christ says he had before the world was is only meant in God's Decree He adds pag. 31. but without citing where That St. Austin and several learned Interpreters not only grant but contend that it is so That the sufferings of Christ were to preceed his Glory 1 Pet. 1.11 that this Text ought to be understood as 2 Cor. 5.1 We have a building of God a house made with hands and 2 Tim. 1.9 The Grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began This is little to the purpose It has been observ'd already that St. Austin Aquinas and both the Disciples of these two great Men understand these words of a decree which I wonder these Gentlemen offer so much as to speak of It supposing what they so earnestly deny and that is the Personal Union of the two natures of Jesus Christ Read the Books de nat and Grat. de praedest de persev Sanct. Tract in Johan and almost every where and you will find it to be the System of these two Doctors to which they reduce not only this place but all others of like nature and indeed if you admitt of a decree you must go through with this as these two learned Men have done There is no other in relation to Christ can have any room in the Scripture What is more is only pretended to elude the force of an Argument Were these Gentlemen unconcern'd in the dispute and should they hear this Text cited Glorifie thou me ... with the Glory which I had with thee before the world was How would it make them merry to hear a decree pretended for that which cannot be conceiv'd but antecedent to that decree Had Christ said Glorifie me with the Glory which thou hadst appointed or decree'd for me It might have serv'd But Glorifie me with the Glory which I had with thee which was mine which I was in possession of before the Creation excludes any thing of
They presently accuse him of Blasphemy and that upon a known and undoubted principle that none can forgive sins but God He does not at all excuse the thing or make himself a deputed God or a God by deputation a sort of God of these Gentlemens making He grants that none but God can forgive sins Then he convinces them by a Miracle and leaves them the conclusion to draw Which is easier to cure or to forgive He that does the one must be God with an Article too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and he that does the other must be absolute Master of nature and that is God The Jews were so far perswaded that Christ by calling God his Father spoke of himself not as of a Son by adoption or any other title but as a Son by nature co-equal and co-eternal that they never understood him otherwise This is as clear as the Sun from Joh. 5. Christ cures a Man of an infirmity of 38. Years standing v. 9. But it being on the Sabbath day v. 16. The Jews presecuted him and sought to slay him He answers v. 17. My Father works hitherto and I work They take from these words a new occasion to accuse him At first they were only angry for his healing on the Sabbath but now v. 18. they sought the more to kill him ... because he said also that God was his Father His own Father says the Evangelist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 making himself equal with God That Equality could not arise simply from calling God his Father This was the privilege of the Jews as it is now of Christians But they made it to consist in this assertion that as the Father was above the Sabbath the Divine nature not being confin'd to those rules which it prescribes to us mortals Christ saying the same of himself He made himself the Son of God equal to his Father Which equality of the Son with the Father the Jews suppose and acknowledge But seek to kill him because he pretended to assume it to himself This the Fathers urg'd against the Arrians Now Christ replies without any variation equivocation or subterfuge He is plain and proves all along the Unity and sameness of nature with the Father He says v. 19. that he can do nothing of himself which does not imply weakness and insufficiency as the Author of the Breif Hist has abus'd that Text pag. 6. but shews only that he can act from no other principle but that by which he exists That he has his operation from him from whom he has his being and as an infallible proof that this is the true sence of that place he shews an extent of operation as great as the Father What things soever the Father does these does the Son likewise This is the Divinity of Theodoret or rather of Alexander Bishop of Alexandria inserted in the first Book of his History It is that of St. Basil or the Author of the first Book contr Eunom and of the Generality of the Greek Fathers It is that of St. Hilary lib. 7. de Trin. It is that of St. Austin who tract 20. in Joann has these admirable words Whatsover the Son has to do he has from the Father the power to do it Why does he receive from the Father the power to act because he has receiv'd of the Father to be his Son He has his power from the Father because from the Father he has his Essence Christ prosecutes the Argument and shews how God has communicated all things to him even as a reward of his profound humiliation in taking our nature upon him v. 27. because he is the Son of Man But that notwithstanding his outward appearance in infirmity and weakness he has an Original and Eternal Being with the Father v. 26. As the Father has life in himself so has he given the Son to have life in himself St. Austin lib. 3. contra Maxim c. 14. He has given him the same life that he has Such as he has it himself he has given it him He has given it as Infinite as he has it in himself He concludes that all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father the same honour being due to the same Divine Essence The sum of all is this Christ does not at all grant that he is an inferior or a representative God as these Gentlemen would have it by the concession that some Men are call'd Gods but concludes on the contrary that if Men are not guilty of Blasphemy by taking that name How much less is he who is and on every occasion asserts himself to be the true God This takes off at once the Objections from all those Texts which the Author of the Brief Hist thought unanswerable That he was faithful to him that made him that we are Christ's and Christ is God's That he humbl'd himself and became obedient That the Son shall be subject to him who put all things under him That his doctrine is not his doctrine That he intercedes with God for us and a great many more This Author lays a great weight on all those Texts which prove the Humanity of Christ His first Letter contains whatsoever the Evangelists have said of the passions and infirmities of our Nature We are so far from denying any part of this that we think it the greatest comfort Religion can give that Christ was truly Man We own it and Glory in it that Jesus Christ the Righteous our Advocate with the Father was in all things like us Sin only excepted But the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament speaking so fully to his Divinity with the Father in the communication of the same Nature and Eternal Being lead us not to say that he is not God because he is Man or that he is not Man because he is God This is not to interpret but to destory one Scripture by another They lead us to take both the parts of the Mystery as the spirit of God proposes it and to believe that he is truly God and truly Man In short these Gentlemen can never satisify any Man's conscience in this point nor can they justifie themselves to the Christian Church from whose Faith they have departed All that Wit and Eloquence which they are so much Masters of and all those Arguments which they have treated with so much accuracy being of no force against the proof◠alledg'd I will conclude this Letter of Christ's Pre-Eternity with this place of Origen contr Cels lib. 6. This Father speaks of the knowledge of God and how difficult it is to know him who has made darkness his Pavilion round about him He says that the Father is known truly and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only by the Word He proves this by Matt. 11.27 Neither knows any man the Father save the Son and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him For none says he can know him truly and as he deserves to be known who is begotten from all Eternity
and born before any created substance but the Father who has begot him Nor can any know the Father after the same manner but his living word who is both his wisdom and truth I remain SIR Your humble c. THE Fourth LETTER SIR HAving prov'd the Pre-Existence and Pre-Eternity of Christ his Antemundane and Eternal Being with God before he assum'd our Nature and shew'd how deficient or to use the very words of your Friends in the Brief Hist pag. 23. how harsh and strain'd their answers seem to be to the Texts produc't against them it remains to make good that Christ is God by a communication of the Divine Essence and that the Scriptures represent him to be God after a manner applicable to no Creature The first of these two assertions is grounded on Phil. 2.6 and foll v. The Apostle proposes Christ to the Philippians as a Divine instance of Humility and Obedience He makes both to consist in this that being really God and equal with God yet he made himself of no reputation but became Man and humbl'd himself to the Death of the Cross The words of the Text are clearer than any Commentary v. 6. Who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God The form of God is here the Nature and Essence of God For though in some other places of Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Form signifies no more than an Image or a personal appearance yet in this it is determin'd to this sence of Nature and Essence by the next Verse where the form of a Servant is certainly the Nature and Essence of a Servant The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 subsisting rather than being in the form of God as these Gentlemen will not deny that it should have been translated implies a real and an actual in-being in the Divine Nature St. Paul having asserted that Christ subsisted in the form of God says that he thought it not robbery to be equal with God an expression which crumbles to dust the poor notion of a God by deputation as Socinus has contriv'd and an inferior though an excellent God as Arrius For what inferior or deputed God dares claim an equality with the God of Heaven and Earth audet pariari Deo says Tertullian What Moses Solomon what Lord Lieutenant of a County or Mayor of a Town because the Scripture calls Magistrates Gods would pretend it to be no robbery to equal themselves with God The excessive humility of Christ appears then in this that though God and equal with God yet v. 7. He made himself of no reputation semetipsum exinanivit reads the Old Latin exhausted himself says Tertullian contr Marci more agreeable to the Original he lessen'd he empty'd himself He took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men both so Highly Disproportionate to the Infinite Being of God v. 8. He carry'd yet the humiliation to a more stupendious degree For being found in fashion as a man he humbl'd himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross There is then not only a plain assertion but a visible Union of the two Natures There is a God becoming a Servant and a Man and suffering for us in that humanity which he was pleas'd to assume The Author of the Brief History pag. 37. excepts against this He says 1st That it cannot be the design of the former part of these words to intimate that Christ is God because 't is added at last that God has exalted him and given him a name that is above every name These words plainly distinguish Christ from God as one who is not himself God but exalted by God 2ly That this has oblig'd several judicious and learned Trinitarians to interpret the whole Context of Christ as he is a Man 3ly He explains pag. 38. being in the form of God only to be like God by a communication of the Divine Power 4ly He does not translate as we do thought it not robbery to be equal with God but committed not robbery to be equal with God i. e. did not rob God of his honour by arrogating to himself to be God The Answerer to Mr. Milbourn pag. 36. and foll says almost the same things only he brings in a Tale and a Proverb The Tale is of a Countryman who without a remnant of Greek or Latin did yet puzzle his Vicar by asking whether It was in the Original whether the true reading was thought it not robbery or only thought not robbery to which last the Vicar yielding the Countryman was satisfy'd that this Text did destroy the Divinity of Christ The Proverb is that every like is not the same and therefore that since Christ was in the form of God that is like God as Adam and all other Men he cannot be God He says further that it is both Morally and Physically impossible that God should do any of these things and undergo any of these changes He observes and that Socinus had done before that if Christ is equal with God he cannot be God since nothing can be equal to it self He cites Christopher Sandius who has made a considerable Collection of Authors Fathers as well as modern who confess that this Text is to be understood of Christ as Man and not as God The Answerer to two Discourses of one Monsieur la Motté done out of French repeats all this in other words Only he is so confident that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must not be translated thought it not robbery that pag. 11. he sends us to the School Boys and pag. 8. to the Lexicon I hope they are Persons of too much judgment to take this for an Answer that Christ is not God because God has exalted him and God cannot exalt God For all that is or ever was pretended from thence is not that God has exalted God But God has exalted that humane nature that Man Christ Jesus assum'd by the word to the participation of the honour due to God That other sort of reasoning is as bad as this that if he is equal with God He cannot be God because nothing can be equal to it self I suppose they mean because equality implies comparison and comparison excludes identity This is certainly false in Geometry and false again in Divinity But admitting the Proposition as it lyes It is nothing at all to the Question The design of the Apostle is not to compare Christ with God or a God with another God But only to shew that Christ is that supreme God who humbled himself to that degree as to take upon him the form of a Servant Now what more significant sort of expression could be us'd than this that though he was God and had reason to think all the perfections and glory of the Divine Nature to be his own which is the full and only importance of being equal with God yet he humbl'd himself to death c. I hope also that they are
like to do much for an Argument Dr. South going to deliver the Opinion of the Church concerning the Holy Trinity does it Animadv Chap. 8. pag. 240. with the humblest submission to the Judgment of the Church of England Mr. Milbourn has done the same There is in those sort of expressions a great deal of modesty and Justice If an Author even in a point of humane Learning must not pretend to dictate but gives an easie Introduction to his Reasons by removing all that is imposing and positive How much more in the treating of things of so sacred and abstruse a nature And is it not just that a private man who pretends to shew what the Church believes should leave to the Church to judge whether he has not misrepresented her Doctrine This submission of these Reverend Persons is thus taken up Consider on the Explicat pag. 20. Truly I am heartily sorry that Dr. South has no fixt Religion of his own no not concerning the Trinity it self but is ready to turn with the wind is prepar'd to renounce a Doctrine and Explication which he believes to be not only true but fundamental if the Church commands him and lower We may infer however from these publick Professions of the Writers That could the Socinians get Mother Church of their side all her Champions would also come over to us for 't is not it seems the Cause that they defend 'T is not the Trinity and Incarnation which they value but our Mother our Mother the Church and in the Preface to Mr. Milbourn pag. 7. On the same conditions Mother Shipton should be as sacred and as infallible with them as Mother Church and they would believe the Kingdom of Oberon and the Territories of Fairy-land In a Book call'd the Trinitarian Scheme which I can compare to nothing better than a Pamphlet in the late King's Reign intituled The Papist misrepresented and represented pag. 16. having misrepresented a Doctrine which is true in it self and that is that the most wicked men are sometimes converted to God at the last hour of their life an Instance of which we have in the Thief on the Cross the Author is so far transported as to say The next thing that we may expect from some men is that they will write a Panegyrick in the praise of the Devil These Exceptions I make to their way of writing There is another I confess I must make to their persons I mean as to the Name which they are pleas'd to assume to themselves They are pleas'd to call themselves Vnitarians To quarrel with a Name is somewhat extraordinary But truly that a handful of men who have not yet pretended to make a Body and are only distinguisht by a singularity of Opinions which the whole Christian World even in their own Confession exclaims against is in its own nature strangely extraordinary If by Vnitarians they mean all those who live in the belief of One only true God they do all Christians an extreme injury Since there is none who believes in or adores more than one only God I will not grudge to men the pleasure to say that they are of Cephas and Apollo though contrary to his design who would have us say that we are of Christ and only of Christ If they have so great a veneration for Names as to love to be call'd Calvinists Arminians Socinians and what not let them freely enioy that imaginary happiness But to take the name of Vnitarians as if by it they pretend to denominate a Sect is a strange sort of Undertaking But if by it they contradistinguish themselves from us by pretending to defend the Unity of God it is an unwarrantable Invasion of the Rights of all Christians who make this the Foundation of their Faith They have run into another Excess and call'd the Defenders of the Catholick Doctrine Trinitarians having perswaded themselves and endeavouring to perswade the World that we teach Tritheism and by a more refin'd way of Idolatry have brought in the Adoration of three Gods Whereas they must acknowledge that this is a Notion detested by all Christians that at the same time that being taught from above to use the expression of an ancient Bishop of the Greek Church we assert three Persons we assert them in one only God and that all that they have to say against this is only a Consequence ill drawn from a Doctrine which they have misunderstood The Question is not between us Whether God is one This is granted on all sides The Question is Whether admitting three Persons in that one God does not destroy that Unity which we all contend for These Gentlemen say it does We maintain that it does not Now the misery in this case is That the Socinians will not be contented with the common Topicks of arguing which have hitherto been made use of amongst Christians For when we pretend to prove what we advance by such places of Scripture as are plain and evident then we meet with a witty Criticism a pretty Paraphrase or a Tale by the by as that in the Answerer to Mr. Milbourn pag. 36. The most Illustrious Grotius or the most Learned Erasmus come in at a dead lift The one who is the brief History of the Vnit pag. 11. is represented as Socinian all over The other of whom it is said in the same place that he would have been of the Arrian Perswasion if the Church had allow'd it When we answer their Objections instead of that equitable Temper which is willing to be overcome nothing being so glorious as to be conquer'd by the Truth they tell us in the Thoughts upon Dr. Sherlock's Vindication pag. 12. One may easily see how convenient the Machine of probable Senses is which our Divines bring into their Disputes what an easy thing it is for them to free themselves from pressing difficulties and make new Overtures with these famous Keys of Transpositions of words or Clauses errours of Copies c. When from the Authority of Scripture we pass to that of the Fathers and they find themselves pressed with a Cloud of Witnesses they reply Answ to Mr. Milbourn pag. 44. That indeed their System is unknown to the Fathers whose Writings are now extant But had not their Opposers supprest the Works of Aquila Symmachus Theodotion Lucian Artemas Theodorus Paul of Antioch Photinus of Syrmium Marcellus of Ancyra we had known their Sense better When we are even willing to do more than the nature of the thing in question will bear that is explain that incomprehensible Mystery and bring that as much as we can within the compass of our Reason which indeed is above it This they call Thoughts upon Dr. Sherlock's Vindic. pap 8 9. To have our Faith depend upon Plato's Idea's Aristotle's Subtilties Cartesius his Self and mutual Consciousness and metaphysical Abstractions more unintelligible to poor Mortals than the Tongue of Angels They exclaim against those Expressions which Antiquity has consecrated and the common
7. are a repeated assurance that God will put an end to their Captivity The 8. is a solemn Declaration that he is resolv'd to protect them The Lord of Hosts assures them that he is sent to revenge their quarrel and v. 9. that he will certainly do it and that they shall evidently see that he is sent by the Lord of Hosts For thus says the Lord of Hosts After the Glory has he sent me to the Nations which spoil'd you For behold I will shake my hand upon them and they shall be a spoil to their servants and you shall know that the Lord of Hosts has sent me That the Lord of Hosts is the Almighty That he and none but he assumes that name is granted of all sides It is also granted that God is one and that besides him There is no God And yet this Text represents The Lord of Hosts sending The Lord of Hosts An expression parallel to that of Ps 110.1 The Lord said to my Lord. It must be said then that though a plurality of Gods is inconsistent yet certainly the Divine Nature admits of more than one Divine Person It must be confest that The Lord of Hosts who sends is the Father That The Lord of Hosts who is sent is the Eternal Word the Son and that though there is but one God yet that Revelation which he has made of himself tells us that there is several Persons in that one God The Author of the Brief Hist pag 22. answers 1st That these words as they are in the Latin and English are hardly sense 2ly That neither of these words thus says the Lord of Hosts are words of the Lord of Hosts himself but of the second Angel who at v. 3 4. spoke to the first Angel and to Zechariah 3ly That the verses should have been thus render'd from the Hebrew Thus says the Lord of Hosts afterwards shall be Glory instead of after the Glory i. e. after you are departed out of Babylon v. 7. you shall have honour and peace and you shall know that the Lord of Hosts has sent me i. e. to punish them and give you peace and glory To the 1st and 3d It is hard to accuse Translations exactly agreeable to the Original of Hardly being sence when they cannot be made to bear with our opinions In this the Author is unhappy that the letter of this Text is plain and has scarce any difficulty What he says afterwards shall be glory may be a sort of a Paraphrase but is certainly no Translation But the weakness of this will be evident by the reply To the 2d He insists that Thus says the Lord Hosts are not the words of the Lord of Hosts himself but of the second Angel who speaks to the first I beg to know whether it is the Lord of Hosts who says v. 10.11 Sing and rejoice O Daughter of Sion for lo I come and I will dwell in the midst of thee says the Lord. Can any one who is not obstinately resolv'd to contradict all mankind say that it is an Angel speaking to another And many Nations shall be join'd to the Lord in that day and shall be my people and I will dwell in the inidst of thee and thou shall know that the Lord of Hosts has sent me Is it not he who is sent by the Lord of Hosts whose people they shall be who will dwell in the midst of them Once more is it an Angel to whom many Nations shall be join'd and who will take them for his people He that speaks is without any evasion the Lord of Hosts and He plainly and positively declares that the Lord of Hosts has sent him This Author did catch at a kind of a Notion which he thought to find in the Verses before but is so absolutely overthrown by these last that no rational solution can be offer'd to them This is one of the Hammering Texts urg'd by the Fathers against the Arrians and understood by the Jews of the Messiah The 12th of Zechariah not only represents Christ as God but even God suffering for us It supposes his Incarnation and consequently the union of the two natures and the Divinity being impassible it shews palpably that he has assum'd a body to suffer in It is one of those Texts which prove themselves and are plainer than any sort of Explication v. 10. The Almighty speaks thus I will pour upon the House of David and upon the Inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of Grace and supplications and they shall look upon me whom they have pierc't That none but the only true God pours the spirit of Grace and supplications is indisputably true It is the act of an infinite power and mercy which can be in none but him and yet that very God says that they have pierc't him To prevent the understanding of this Allegorically piercing him with our sins as the Jews did of old and of late in the person of Christ which is the poor shift of the Author of the Brief Hist pag. 22. of Grotius before him and of the Blasphemous Theodore of Mopswest before Grotius St. John tells us who is he that has been and shall be seen thus pierc't Rev. 1.7 Behold he comes with Clouds and every eye shall see him and they also which pierc't him A description of Christ coming to judge the World It is to give God the lye to say that he has not been pierc't since he does so positively assure it They shall look on me whom they have pierc't But the Scripture shews this to have been done in Christ Therefore Christ is that God who has been pierc't These Gentlemen will say No Because God may say that he has been pierc'd and Christ too may have been pierc'd and yet be no God But if it can be prov'd that this is a direct Prophecy of Christ that the Me where lyes the stress of the argument is spoken of Christ and of none else it must be litterally true that he has been pierc'd and that he is God The famous passage of Joh. 19.37 is express to this The Evangelist having shew'd all along the accomplishment of Prophecies in Christ fixes to him the sence of this place And again another Scripture says they shall look on him whom they have pierc'd This is so decisive of the question that the Author of the Brief Hist pag 22. reduces himself to this miserable shift that this is appli'd to but not interpreted of Christ These Gentlemen who pretend so much to reason are now and then unreasonable Can any thing be appli'd to Christ and not interpreted of him or interpreted and not appli'd to him They complain that we talk gibbrish and have a jargon of our own Pray what is this Or will they say that it is only to allude at the place of the Prophet and not to interpret who can advance this with any candor that reads the place cited St. John has prov'd all along that Christ is the Messias
and working the Heavens Do created beings perish and decay really or Metaphorically Is the World's destruction real or only Figurative No Man ever indulg'd his fancy to that degree as to call this an Allegory It is then a real and actual Creation Thou hast laid the foundation of the earth It was done in the beginning before any thing did exist or began to be The consequence then is as bright as the sun that as he who has given a beginning to any thing is before that thing which he has given a beginning to so Christ is pre-existent and before all created beings since it appears by the express Authority of the Scripture that he has given a being to the whole Creation I pass by that Elegant Description of an Eternal Being who is always the same incapable of change and not mov'd even in the general destruction of all things But hold says the Author of the Brief Hist pag. 17. You are in a mighty mistake This seems indeed appli'd to Christ Heb. 1.10 But Thomas Aquinas observes that it may be understood of God only not Christ Grotius tells you and so do Estius and Camerarius that this Text must be referr'd to v. 13. Hold again says the Author of the Answer to Mr. Milbourn pag. 10 11. This is an Allegory and must be understood as the new Heavens and the new Earth spoken of Esay 65.17 and 66.22 2 Pet. 3.13 Revel 21.1 which all the Trinitarian Interpreters have understood of the Gospel state of things in opposition to the Jewish which is antiquated and done away agreeable to the assertion of Christ Matt. 24. If this is not satisfactory there is another shift ready He tells you That others of his party take this as an Apostrophe conversion and devout address to God not intended of our Saviour The Allegory has so much the more weight that it comes from the Allegorical Hugo Grotius to whom may be appli'd what the 5th General Council said of Theodore of Mopswest that rather than be convinc't He would turn the plainest truths into Allegories But for all that these Gentlemen are in the wrong St. Peter speaks of the end of the World and of the destruction of all things in the last day The 24th of St. Matthew is of the same strain and though several learned Men have understood these places of the destruction of Jerusalem yet they have agreed that it contains also that of the whole World Christ answers his disciples first says Tertullian de Resurr car follow'd in this by very many of the Fathers of the time of the ruine of Jerusalem and then of the end of the World The notion of the Apostrophe or address to God is scarce worth any notice and time is too precious to spend it in answering trifles of that nature It is like that of Socinus and I believe flows from it that these words are not spoken of the Son because with the conjunctive particle and there was not rursum again An ordinary measure of common sence will shew the vanity of this Let ten thousand People read this Chapter and these two Verses in particular But to the Son he says Thy Throne O God ... and thou Lord in the beginning hast laid but will think them to be spoken to the same Person No not that plain Countryman who hearing his Parson read these words of St. Paul thought it not robbery did fancy that the It was not in the Original Ans to Mr. Milbourn pag. 36. I must beg these Gentlemens Pardon If I am forc't to say that they are guilty in their Disputes of an unparallel'd Injustice The Scripture speaks of a real Creation It mentions one also which is Allegorical Some Interpreters and not all the Interpreters according to their large way of talking have understood the places which they have cited out of Isaias and the Revelation of this last Therefore right or wrong they must be appli'd to the first Rather than give up the Argument they will give over the litteral sence of a Text which is capable of no other and run to the Metaphorical which by no means can agree with it It is confest on all hands that the Prophet in the words in dispute speaks of a real actual Creation and of a real actual Destruction of the Word It is also confest that the words are addrest to the real actual Creator of the World to that Eternal God who in the change and alteration of all things is himself incapable of change This they themselves do not deny The Apostle brings in the Father speaking to his Son attributing to him that real actual Creation as to the real actual Creator and because this is plain evident and unanswerable then the Apostle must be made to speak in an Allegorical and Figurative way This is such a method of arguing which I durst almost say is scandalous I honour Grotius but I would borrow an impertinence of no Man to elude a visible Truth That this Doctrine of the real and actual Creation of all things by Christ is not deliver'd obscurely or by the by but is the constant and universal Doctrine of Scripture appears from Colos 1.15 and foll v. Who is the image of the invisible God the first born of every Creature For by him were all things created that are in Heaven and that are in earth visible and invisible whether they by Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or Powers All things were created by him and for him and be is before all things and by him all things consist There is not a word in this but what invincibly proves the question and this after so clear a manner that it leaves no room for Allegories figures or any such poor shifts Passing by the first expression the image of the invisible God of which we shall have a further occasion to speak The Apostle says positively of Christ that he is the first born of every Creature that is born before all Created Beings which is the true rendring of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Primogenitus omnis Creaturae reads the old latin that is genitus ante omnem creaturam says Tertullian lib. de Trin. born before any creature The passage of that Father is home to the thing It was before any of these disputes and shews exactly the sence of the Western Church in the Primitive Times Quomodo Primogenitus esse potuit nisi quoniam secundum Divinitatem ante omnem creaturam ex Deo Patre sermo processit How could he be the first born but that in respect of his Divine nature The word proceeded from God the Father before any thing was created Origen lib. 2. contr Cels to an objection made by Celsus that he whom we assure to be God and suppose to suffer so willingly could not forbear cryes and lamentations answers That he does not discern the difference of the Scriptures Expressions That Christ speaks sometimes as Man and sometimes as God We have laid down says
contrary He speaks of the place where the Gospel was written but not a word of the occasion of St. John's writing it The testimony of Origen is resolv'd into that of Eusebius who reports it and that of Eusebius himself is nothing against St. Jerom since the Author of the answer owns that the same Eusebius relates this writing of the Gospel of St. John to assert the Divinity of Christ from the institutions of Clem. Alex. Who is in the right then The Author of the Answer who says that St. Jerom cited an Ecclesiastical History which he never saw or St. Jerom who by the Author 's own confession has taken these words out of Clemens preserv'd by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History The case is very plain The Author of the Answer to Milbourn is mistaken But then he must fall foul upon Clemens Alexand. an ancient Writer and a Learned Man He makes Photius upon whose Characters of Men no Critick ever rely'd to give him a very ill one Not observing that Eusebius accuses him of neither Impiety nor Error and that Clemens Alex. has said nothing in this but what most of the Fathers have said not indeed as to the particular matter of fact of St. John's being desir'd to write but as to the other that the design and principal part of his Gospel is to assert the Divinity of our Saviour Is it not on this that St. Cyprian Lactantius Tertullian Gregory the Nazianzene St. Chrysostom Basil the Great have insisted Was not this very Chapter admir'd both by Christians and Heathens Was it not the Hammer of Arrianism in the Council of Nice as afterwards of Nestorianism of Eutychianism and of all the unhappy Sects which disturb'd the peace of the Church But that cannot be says the Answerer pag. 22. The Gospel it self will best decide the Question If St. John has more overthrown the Divinity of Christ than confirm'd it then certainly he has not writ this Gospel to assert it Right but how will this be prov'd He thinks that it will easily be done by shewing out of this Gospel that Christ is the Messenger of God that the Father taught him and commanded him Joh. 17.1 2 3. Joh. 12.49 and 14.10 c. This I confess proves the humanity but how does it destroy the Divinity of Christ How is it against the design of St. John to delineate him truly God because he has represented him truly Man He is not God because he is Man is an ill way of arguing The Arrians themselves were too sharp to fetch their Arguments against the Divinity of the Saviour from his humanity Prove him only a Man a meer Man without any other nature or else all this reasoning is a begging of the Question But what is all this to the accusation laid on St. Jerom St. John has shew'd in his Gospel the Humanity of Christ Therefore St. Jerom is in the wrong to assure that he was intreated by the Asian Bishops to speak more expresly to his Divinity This is at best a sort of a very slender consequence Thus it is Sir that the Socinians are baffl'd by false and senceless translations supported by fictions and legends exclaims this Author He should have said thus it is Sir that the Socinians are mistaken Their zeal for their opinion transporting them too far Thus it is that two Eminent Fathers are abus'd who were the admiration of their Age and the veneration of ours The truth is this Chapter pinches so hard that these Gentlemen are always uneasy at its least approaches They have done all that Men can do to make it ineffectual having left nothing unattempted no turns of wit no strains of fancy no observations no Criticisms no Shifts no Evasions But all to no purpose For truth is great and irresistible it is plain and evident it comes from God and easily overcomes all the oppositions Men make against it Joh. 1.1 and foll In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God The same was in the beginning with God That this is spoken of Christ and that Christ is the word is agreed of all hands The first assertion then of the Evangelist is that Christ was before all things that he existed before they had a beginning There is a great Emphasis in the word was which does not express here a created a dependent being but a Superior an Eternal and Divine Nature Thus Jehovah render'd by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who is gives the true notion of God and thus it is said of the word that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Greek Fathers explain'd it did subsist in a most eminent way and incommunicable to a Creature To make this good St. John says that he was with God He could not exist in any Creature whatever let it be never so great noble or perfect because he existed before any thing was Created before the World was Joh. 17.5 He could not be in time because no time was yet when he was Therefore he was in God and with God from Everlasting Who before all Ages says the great Ignatius a Man of the Apostolick times Epist ad Magnes was with the Father and was manifested in the last times The unchangeable word says St. Austin Epis 49. quest 2. residing unchangeably with the unchangeable Father From thence the Greek Fathers understood the admirable description of wisdom to be of no other then the Eternal word the Son of God Prov. 8.22 and those expressions I was set up from Everlasting from the beginning or ever the earth was before his works of old when there were no depths I was brought forth I was by him I was by his sides says the Chaldee Interpreter all these expressions they understood to be no other then this and the word was with God This is so plain that I cannot but wonder at the Stir these Gentlemen make about the words Inexistence Eternal Generation Personality as if they were hard and unknown terms the result of Men's Fancies and a Jargon as they are pleas'd to call them The word or the Son for they own these words to be Synonymous in Scripture is said to be from ever with God Therefore he exists in God and I think this is Inexistence A Father and a Son naturally and of necessity suppose a Generation or else they can be neither Father nor Son This is Generation The Father and the Son are both Eternal therefore the Generation must be so too But the Father is not the Son nor the Son is not the Father therefore there is a foundation for Personality The Evangelist proceeds and lays this 3d Axiom declaring the Divinity as he had done before the Eternity of the word and the word was God What can be more express or positive What consequence can be more natural The word was in the beginning or ever the Earth and the World was He was with God and existed in him Therefore he must be
so because they cannot tell how Ans to Dr. Wallis by his Friend pag. 11. 1st For the Criticisms It is a known Maxim amongst the Jews says the Author that the World was made for the Messias and that the Messias should make the new World spoken of in Scripture by the new Heavens and the new Earth that is the Creation of the Spiritual World Granting all this what is it to the question in hand Therefore he is not the Creator of the old World is a strange way of reasoning If they could prove that it is inconsistent to be Creator of both it would do them some service The World was made for the Messias therefore not by the Messias is another wild consequence since the World may be made by him and also for him that is for his honour and exaltation amongst Man as all things are made by God and for God who is the Author and the end of all things These Gentlemen own that the Messias was known to the Jews under the notion of the word But they say it is not certain why they gave him that name This will appear a vast mistake to any one who is never so little acquainted with their Writings It is not my design to stuff these Papers with Jewish citations It shall be done if required But it is clear that they understood the Messias to be the Son of God and that Son to be The word The famous Philo in his Book of Quest and Solut. makes the Deity to consist first of him who is the Father of all things 2ly Of the other Person or God who is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The word of the Father He calls him in his Book de agricul The word proceeding from God his first begotten Son In his Book de flamm Glad The word is the instrument of God by whom the world has been created Expressions deriv'd from the old Paraphrasts and Commentators Thus Jonathan renders Isay 45.12 I made the Earth and created man upon it I by my word made the Earth and created man upon it Gen. 3.8 and they heard the voice of the Lord God is explain'd by the Chaldee Paraphrast and they heard the voice of the word of the Lord God Gen. 1.27 and God Created man in his own image the Interpreter reads and the word of God Created man These Paraphrases were the publick interpretations of the Jews and this Doctrine so constant among them and particularly amongst the Hellenists that in the 2d Book of Origen contr Cles The Jew in whose person Celsus disputes owns freely that the word is the Son of God This Author then has neither understood nor appli'd as it ought to be the rule which he has laid down that the Writers of the New Testament had a particular regard to the Opinions and Notions of the Jewish Church and nothing is more visible than this that St. John to prove the Creation of the natural World by Christ and his Eternal being with the Father has brought him under the notion of The word to whom by the constant Doctrine of the Jews and after them of the Fathers the Creation of the natural World was attributed This was one of the Keys to let us into the sence of these words They have another and that is that poor distinction between the God by nature and a God by deputation That the true God is the one that Christ is the other That to find out the God by nature from the God by deputation it is to be observ'd that the one is always call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The God The other only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a God That the very Text in dispute shews it where The word was God is simply 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without an Article and where the word was with God who certainly there is the supreme God is with an Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the God Truly Sir the first Key was worth little but this is worth much less should I take upon me to offer a poor Criticism I would say that if any one looks seriously into the sacred writings he will find that there is no care at all of observing Articles and that of this innumerable instances may be produc'd This distinction has been borrow'd from the Arrians confuted and laugh'd out of doors by the Fathers and is a poor mean miserable shift without the least solidity in the World It is overthrown to all intents and purposes in this very Chapter V. 12. He gave them power to become the Sons of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without an Article v. 7. There was a man sent from God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without an Article and yet both these undoubtedly spoken of Almighty God V. 18. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No man has seen God at any time is without an Article Not to multiply instances of this without end nothing shews more evidently the poverty and deficiency of this Criticism that the God by nature is always exprest with and the false God or the God by deputation without an Article than that Gal. 4.8 9. where the true God is designedly oppos'd to the false he is simply call'd God without an Article Howbeit then when you knew not God you did service to them who by nature are no Gods but now that you have known God or rather are known of God The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is without an Article Nay Rom. 1.1 4. even when God is oppos'd to Christ whom they make a God by office he is then call'd God without any Article at all The Criticism of the Particle by which should have been render'd for is as bad as this I would beg this Author to produce any one Translation extant at this day were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not render'd by him or any before Socinus who ever dreamt of a Gospel state or a spiritual Creation out of these words of St. John I would pray him to reconcile this Particle for with the latter part of this v. and without him was not any thing made that was made and with v. 10. He was in the world and the world was made by him and the world knew him not It is another miserable shift that the new Creation the spiritual World the World of the Messias were things universally known to the Jews and the Primitive Christians converted by them Since it is undeniable that the Jews understood no Creation wrought by the word but the natural nor the Primitive Fathers ever explain'd these words of any other It is strange that this should be so clear to the Jews and to the Fathers and yet that we should not find so much as the footstep of this spiritual and a constant assertion of the natural Creation by the word This Author is so sensible of this that he does not know where to fix the beloved Criticism If you speak says he of the natural World it must be render'd
Divinity of Christ are parties in the case even by the confession of our Adversaries and so not to be heard But in this it is visible even to the most zealous Socinian that he has grosly and shamelesly corrupted this Text. The word God not being in the Text is really an objection but if truely consider'd rather confirms than weakens the assertion For the only Lord can no more be restrain'd to Christ exclusively to the Father than the only true God can be restrain'd to the Father exclusively to Christ The word God adds nothing to the force of the expression The only Lord being a Phrase of as large an extent and as full an importance as the only true God This takes off at once all the other Texts depending from this on which this Author has so much insisted 1 Cor 8.6 Eph. 4.4 5 6. 1 Tim. 2.5 c. A 2d objection which indeed this Author has not made though he has scarce left a Text untouch't whether it made for his purpose or no and was a reason or only look't like one but is made by the Author of some thoughts upon Dr. Sherlock's Vindication of the Trininy is taken from Joh. 10.35 36. If he call'd them Gods unto whom the word of God came and the Scripture cannot be broken say ye of him whom the Father has sanctify'd and sent into the world thou blasphemest because I say'd I am the Son of God He does not say I whom the Father has begotten from all Eternity says the Author pag 4. of his own substance But I whom the Father has sanctify'd Which plainly shews that when he says he was the Son of God his meaning was that he was only so in a sence of consecration and of mission and consequently that his unity with the Father is not an Essential and natural unity but meerly moral and relative of works not of Essence which is really incommunicable pag. 6. I should think this passage written with the very finger of truth to be unanswerable were it not that I know the Orthodox are wont to darken the most bright light at the cost of sincerity and good sence and make no scruple of the grossest contradictions and absurdities so they may but cast dust in the Eyes of simple men Passing by the complement which is of a singular nature and a barbarous aspersion on persons whom they themselves own to have an extraordinary piety and learning I must beg leave to admire the difference of Men's perceptions This Author thinks this passage to be written with the very finger of truth and not to be answerable I think so too But he says against the Eternal being of Christ and I saw for it The cause of this difference between us lyes here He fancies that those Verses are an Explication of what Christ had said before v. 30. I and my Father are one for which v. 31. the Jews took up stones to stone him and which v. 33. they call Blasphemy and because that he being a man makes himself God and that to avoid their anger he declares to them that he is no otherwise God than those very Men who by their law are call'd Gods not because they are so indeed but because they have the Power and Authority of God communicated to them Now I think that these words are not an Explication Excuse or Apology for what he had said I and the Father are one But an open and free continuation of what was before and a new assertion of his Divinity This will appear if the whole context is taken together Christ had said v. 9. that he is the door that by him if any man enters he shall be sav'd Agreeable to this expression of Revel 7.3 He that is holy he that is true ... he that opens and no man shuts and shuts and no man opens v. 28. that he gives his sheep Eternal life and that they might not wonder at those Characters which can agree to no creature he carries yet the point higher He tells them v. 30. I and my Father are one That though they see him in the form of a Servant and in all things like Man yet he is God with his Father and partaker of the same Divine Nature This assertion to Men whose hearts were not purify'd by Faith seem'd strange and impious v. 31. They took stones to stone him He tells them with that unconcernedness which truth and innocence gives that he has done amongst them many miraculous works to prove this his Union with his Father He asks which of these works has provok'd their blind zeal to stone him They answer him v. 33. that it is not for any of those good and miraculous works But because being but a man he makes himself not A. God but God He does not at all excuse the thing or parts with his first assertion He pities but not fear their malice and uses a plain and forcible Argument to instruct them Though the name of God be Sacred and the most reverend appellation in the World yet your law says Christ will allow it to them who speak to you from him If it be so then and you cannot deny it because it is writen in your law Ps 82.6 I have say'd ye are Gods If Men are sometime allow'd to be call'd Gods How much more may I make my self God and this without the least danger of Blasphemy who am above any thing that is created to whom every Knee must bow of things in Heaven and things in the Earth and things under the Earth Whom the Father has sanctify'd not only by a peculiar designation as a King or a Prophet but by an Eternal Communication of his nature by which He and I are one and so sent me into the World to save you and the rest of Mankind If I did not do the works which none but the Son of God can do you might have some ground not to believe me But as long as I do these miraculous works it is to you a sufficient argument of perswasion You ought to believe that the Father is in me and I in him v. 38. That the Jews understood this answer litterally as they had done the allegation That they did not take it as an Apology for the pretended Blasphemy but a further proof of his being one with the Father appears by their not relenting but v. 39. Therefore they sought again to take him but be escap't out of their hands I beg leave then of this Author and of Calvin whom he has cited blaming the Fathers for misapplying this Text to say that the Fathers were in the right and that nothing can be more obvious than this It will be much confirm'd if we consider that this is not the only time that the Jews quarrell'd with Christ upon the same account and he always answer'd not by denying but justifying the assertion Mark 2.5 He tells one who was brought to him Sick of the Palsy Thy sins be forgiven thee v. 7.
not in earnest when they bring Sandius with his Catalogue of most Learned and Judicious Trinitarians since they cannot be ignorant that All the Greek Fathers concern'd in this dispute who understood I hope their own language better than any of us It being more than highly probable that the Author of the Brief History and of the Answer to Mr. Milbourn who are really accurate Writers can give a far better account of any English Phrase now in use and better understand the extent and importance of it than a Frenchman or a Dutchman who though never so Learned and Judicious will twelve or thirteen hundred Years hence Criticise Paraphrase and give another sence to that Phrase than what they gave themselves since I say all the Greek Fathers who understood the force of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thought these words an undoubted and clear testimony of Christ's Divinity The natural impossibility of the thing is an old objection made to Lactantius and confuted by that Father Negant Deo dignum ut Homo fieri vellet .... ut passionibus ut doloribus sese ipse subjiceret They deny that it is worthy of God to become man and subject himself to Grief and Sufferings This is the constant mothod of these Gentlemen always to return to the How can it be It is not so because it is impossible We say it is possible because it is so and it is so because it is reveal'd It is dinsingenuous to be ever parting from the point in Question which is the Revelation to the manner of the thing it self which is above our reach All these things consider'd which really are not worth answering may not I have the liberty to tell your Friends what they said to Monsieur la Motté pag. 10. T' is a very thin Sophistry this when an Author leaves off to speak to the vulgar and would needs undertake in this very passage Phil. 2.6 7 8. to speak to the learned he should bring something more substantial to blind such Eyes as theirs In short the stress of the difficulty lies here Whether to be in the form of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Signifies the nature or only the likeness of God such as Adam and all other Men have And whether the Translation is right thought it not robbery to be equal with God That the form of God is the Divine Essence is evinc't from the Authority of the Greek Fathers Theodoret Basil St. Chrysostom Theophilact who not only spoke their own language but were Men of an admirable Eloquence and purity of speech And indeed if we consider the force of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 subsisting it cannot be otherwise It is against all the rules of Philosophy of sence of Speech if form is no more than an accidental form to use the word subsisting which implies of it self a communication participation or in-being in the same nature To say that a Man subsists in the form of a Man is not to say that he is like other Men or has the figure of a Man but that he is really a Man that he has human nature communicated to him To pretend that the form of God is only a communication of a Divine power of miracles c. If this flows from a communication of Essence as Matt. 28.18 All power is given me in Heaven and in earth Joh. 14.10 The Father that dwells in me he does the works Act. 2.22 Jesus of Nazareth a man approv'd of God amongst you by miracles .... which God did by him in the midst of you is a notion tolerable though very improper But if it is only a communication of a power foreign to us to which we have no relation and in which we are only instrumental such as was in Moses in the Prophets and Apostles is a ridiculous notion To subsist in a miraculous power that is to be a miraculous power is an irrational and unintelligible way of speaking The Great Erasmus then and the Illustrious Grotius from whom they have borrow'd this Explication are greatly and Illustriously mistaken To deal with candor I humbly beg what sence can be made of this Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus who being in the form of God a Man made in the similitude of God as other Men are yet became Man for your sakes To say that Christ making himself of no reputation was the concealing of his Miracles as these Gentlemen interpret it is unreasonable and contrary to the Gospel His miraculous Birth of a Virgin his Star in the East his being reveal'd to the Shepherds by the Angels his being Preach't by the Baptist God owning him for his Son his doing good amongst all Men his miraculous works the raising of Lazarus The prodigious Eclipse at his Death the continual attendance of the multitudes upon him made him the most Famous Person in the World The Gospel wholly contradicts the injurious assertion Matt. 4.24 Matt. 9.31 and 14.1 Luk. 1.15 Mark 1.28 That thought it not robbery to be equal with God is truly translated I have this to Offer 1st That the Generality of the Latin Fathers render'd it thus and that no exception was made against it by the Arrians to whom they produc't this Text. 2ly That all the publick Authentick and receiv'd translations read it as we do 3ly That the It which this sharp-nos'd Countryman smelt to be wanting in the Text adds nothing to its force and that thought no robbery is as home to the question as thought it not robbery since the natural sence of the words the very first impression which they naturally give is that Christ did not think to be a Robber Guilty of Theft and Injustice in equalling himself to God The other being strain'd a sence of yesterday and invented in these latter times to serve a turn 4ly That the first part of the Verse who subsisting in the form of God makes that sence impossible for if he subsisted in the form or nature of God how could he who was God arrogate to himself to be God 5ly That the translation of these Gentlemen committed not robbery by equalling himself with God is a most notorious falsification of a Text. I will not send them to School Boys and Lexicons to know the sence of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Civility and Breeding must never be Banish't from the hottest disputes I will only say en passant that Learned men use to Correct Lexicons and Dictionaries and not to be corrected by them But I appeal to themselves and beg of them to know 1st Whether 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does not signify all the World over Robbery And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thought judg'd counted and therefore whether thought not counted not robbery to be equal with God is not an exact Translation 2ly I beg that they would produce any one Greek Author either Sacred or profane who renders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to commit robbery I pass by that other strange stroke of rendring to be
equal with God by equalling himself with God Thus you see Sir your Friends are so taken up with their new Creation that they assume to themselves a power to create a new sence to some words a sence which they never had nor can never have Coloss 2.9 The Apostle has asserted this Sacred truth in few words but comprehensive v. 3. In him Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge v. 7. The Colossians are to be rooted and built up in him v. 8. Philosophy will rather deceive than inform them The traditions of men and the Elements of the World whether the weak notices of the Gentiles or the observances of the Jewish Oeconomy are all insufficient None but Christ can supply their wants and make them truly knowing and good St. Paul gives this reason for it For in him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily Our translation comes short of the energy of the Greek Text which should have been render'd thus For in him dwells the whole fulness of the Godhead Essentially a notion of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 usual in the Scriptures This proves then all that the several sorts of Hereticks have deny'd of Christ A Communication not of power or Vertue as in Moses or the Prophets but of nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Divine Nature A Communication not Figurative Sacramental or representative but real and substantial A Communication not partial transient or begun in time but the whole nature the whole fullness of the Godhead A Communication supposing a distinction of Persons against the Sabellians him who communicates and him to whom it is communicated Col. 1.19 For it pleas'd the Father that in him the whole fullness should dwell A Communication which clearly shews against Arrians Nestorians Socinians the Hypostatical Union of the two natures in Christ For it is in him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in his adorable Person in Christ the word made Flesh that this Divine Nature dwells with all the Properties Attributes Qualifications which belong to it All human apprehensions and expressions being infinitely short of this inspir'd way of speaking of St. Paul all the fullness of the Godhead bodily To this the Author of the Brief Hist pag. 39. answers somewhat confusedly contrary to his Custom He says that the fulness of the Godhead is the fulness of the knowledge of God which he pretends to prove by Eph. 3.19 where the Apostle wishes that they may be fill'd with all the fullness of God This Christ had and he has fill'd us Christians with it He says that this knowledge dwelt in him bodily in opposition to that imperfect umbratile and unsincere knowledge of God which the Apostle affirms v. 8. to be found in the Philosophy and Philosophers of Greece who in St. Paul's time were in great Esteem amongst the Colossians He adds that this is the Interpretation of the most Learned and Orthodox Interpreters It is true that some Interpreters whom these Gentlemen always honour with the Title of most learned if they but speak what pleases them have oppos'd these words not only to the Philosophy of the Greeks but even to the law which was only a shadow of things to come Christ being the Body as the Syriack reads the 17. v. the substance and perfection of knowledge and there being as much difference between their Doctrine and his as there is between the shadow and the body But two things this Author has not taken notice of 1st That these most Learned Interpreters do only deliver this as a secondary interpretation leaving the Primary which I have laid before you in its full force 2ly That this Interpretation really supposes and resolves it self into the first The Apostle desires the Colossians to avoid the vain Philosophy of the Greeks that science falsly so call'd and the rudiments of the World those imperfect ways of men's invention to bring and reconcile them to God even all the Ceremonial Law which though prescrib'd by God himself yet was only in order to somewhat better and that they should stick to Christ be rooted and built up in him in whom and by whom they should be fill'd and compleated He gives the reason of this because in him are hid the treasures of wisdom and knowledge and he is the head of all Principality and Power and all this is true because he is not only a wise and a rational Man according to the World for such were the Philosophers Nor a Man sent from God for such were Moses and the Prophets but he was God himself come down in our Flesh for in him dwells the whole fullness of the Godhead bodily Substantially Essentially I am satisfy'd that this Author does not believe the application of Eph. 3.19 to have any solidity But there is in the disputed Text the fullness of the Godhead and in this the fullness of God These two words are alike and therefore must be made to jump When he cannot but know that all the Interpreters even the beloved Erasmus and Grotius tell us that the Apostle means no more by this than that Christ may dwell in our hearts by Faith and that we may have as much of the favour and grace of God as we can I beg to know with what candor he has translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God by the Deity or The Divine Nature which though sometimes Synonymous yet cannot be so here But what can more effectually prove the communication of the Divine Nature to Christ than that he is the only begotten Son of God Joh. 1.18 No man has seen God at any time the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father he has declar'd him A title peculiar to Christ and expressive of all that can be conceiv'd of him his Consubstantiality his Co-Eternity his Equality with the Father These Gentlemen think it a very strong Argument that Christ is not God because in the Apostolical Creed the unchangeable rule of our Faith the first Article gives the name of God only to the Father I believe in God The Father and the second does not say and in God the Son but and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord not considering that the word only Son the same with only begotten here is a fuller expression of his Divinity than if the name God had been given him in the Article For this would not have satisfy'd these Gentlemen They would have been apt to say still that the first Article is spoken of him who is only and eminently God and the second or third of a God by deputation of one not truly God but only honour'd with the title of God This would not have remov'd the objection nor prevented that of the Tritheists who seeing every Person in the Creed nam'd God would have concluded not a Trinity of Persons in one God but Three real Gods Whereas the All-wise God has effectually obviated this by proposing the Divine Nature
our Father as pertaining to the Flesh Coloss 3.22 Servants obey in all things your Masters according to the Flesh Which places do not suppose that they had a Divine Nature but only mean that Abraham is the Father of the Jews according to their Bodies as God is the Father of their Souls and Spirits Therefore the meaning can only be that according to the body Christ descended from Abraham and David This last part of the Answer is perfectly Socinian The second he has borrow'd of Erasmus and the first of Grotius The Author of the Answer to Mr. Milbourn says the same things He adds That Mr. Milbourn might have taken notice out of Grotius that the Greek Copies us'd by the Author of the Syriack had not the word God They only say the blessed over all That the same Illustrious Interpreter observes that Erasmus had noted that the Copies of St. Cyprian Chrysostom Hilary had only the Blessed over all without the word God Then the Answerer grows angry These are says he Observations which destroy our Author's Arguments from this Text. But because he knew not what to say to them he took no notice of them It is an impious thing for a Writer to endeavour to cheat his Reader in such questions as these When it appears by such great Authorities that the ancient reading was otherwise or various or uncertain how can such Texts be admitted as proofs in so great a question as this At last he gives the reason why Erasmus has made a Translation contrary to all the Translations in the World because he observes that if the words God over all had been intended of Christ the Apostle should have said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I doubt not says he that our Author was aware that those Criticks were in the right and therefore he willingly overlook't both the Translation and the reason of it Thus far this Author pag. 34.35 of his Answer This is indeed very severe and much exceeding the bounds of common civility but strangely barbarous if all this is made to appear to be trifling and inconsiderable 1st This Gentlemen who chid Mr. Milbourn for not taking notice out of the Illustrious Grotius that the word God is not in the Syriack should not have trusted Grotius who is really mistaken in this but should have gone to the Syraick it self and there would have found the word God He should have seen also that he was deceiv'd by Grotius as Grotius was by Erasmus an Illustrious Person often deceiving another about St. Cyprian St. Chrysostom and St. Hilary For several Copies of St. Cyprian read the word God And that that demonstrates beyond the possibility of denyal that if it is not in some Copies it must have been the fault of the Transcriber is this that St. Cyprian makes use of this Text lib. 2. adv Jud. and brings into the Catalogue of those Texts which call Christ â—od He had it from Tertullian disputing against Praxeas and alledging this Text twice a thing ordinary to St. Cyprian who us'd to call the learned African his Master This shews by the way how these Gentlemen can assure that the Antenicene Fathers did not believe Christ to be God Erasmus has also mistaken St. Chrysostom who is so far from reading the blessed over all without God that in his Exposition he reads neither the one nor the other but both when he cites this Text. But for St. Hilary I am amaz'd to hear his Authority disputed who has not only cited this Text with the words God blessed over all but added an Explication to it which is levell'd against the very Soul of Socinianism the beloved notion of a deputed or of a made God Non ignorat Paulus Christum Deum dicens quorum sunt Patres ex quibus Christus qui est super omnia Deus Non hic Creatura in Deum deputatur sed Creaturarum Deus est qui super omnia Deus Paul is not ignorant that Christ is God who says whose are the Fathers and of whom Christ came who is God over all Here a Creature is not a deputed God but he is the God of Creatures who is God over all Hil. de Trin. The Author of the Brief Hist was sensible of this and modestly declin'd the naming of these Fathers But how could Mr. Milbourn's Adversary so severely reflect upon him when he himself was certainly in the wrong May I speak to him in his own words either he knew all this or he did not If he did not how could he call a reading various and uncertain when their is none so clear and so free from exceptions and if he did how could he have the Conscience to do it But admitting that God is not in the Text what then The stress of the Argument does not lye in the word God which these Gentlemen understand as they please but in the word blessed over all which belongs to none but God Mark 14.61 Art thou the Christ the Son of the blessed By which word blessed the the High-Priest understands in the dialect of the Jews the Holy one the Almighty the only true God Rom. 1.25 and 11.36 2. Cor. 11.31 Gal. 1.5 1 Tim. 1.7 in all which places and great many more is a perpetual acknowledgement of that Eternal Glory which is God's and infinitely transcends any Created Being Nor can there be a more substantial proof of the Divinity of Christ than this that that Glory is given him as in this Text which by the unanimous consent of the Scriptures is given only to God Heb. 13.22 1 Pet. 4.11 and 5.11 2 Pet. 3.18 Rev. 1.6 2ly The punctuation of Erasmus and Curcellaeus and the addition of the word be is a bold and presumptuous attempt unknown to all Antiquity and which the Arrians themselves never thought of If this liberty is granted there is not a place in Scripture but what may be perverted men must leave off to talk and reason There can be no Faith no candor left in disputes The honestest discourse by the means of a different punctuation of the words may be made obscure and infamous But it is the sickness of these Gentlemen The Bible will not say what they would have it to say and therefore they must add Particles and Comma's and alter an order which ought to be Sacred and inviolable But after all this the Criticism says Beza on this place is little and silly It is known to any one who has the smallest tincture of the Greek Tongue that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a Participle is the same as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He sends Erasmus for this to School and this use of the Greek Tongue I take to be the reason that neither Asterius the Grammarian nor the other Arrians who understood the extent of their own language ever made this exception 3ly That these words concerning the Flesh do no more suppose a Divine nature in Christ than in Abraham these Gentlemen
are not pleas'd to observe that there is in the Text an actual comparison of two natures of Christ as Man and of Christ who is God blessed over all of Christ who in the first capacity is descended from the Jews and is a Jew according to the Flesh and of Christ who in the other has a communication of the Divine Nature and is God blessed over all It is easy to see says the Author of the Answer to Mr Milbourn that these expressions in the places cited by him are only as much as to say according to the Body I grant it But I affirm that it is easy to see that the Apostle speaks in those places Absolutely and without relation to any thing else and that here he speaks relatively to another being which Christ has This appears not only from the thing it self where there is an obvious comparison but from the very way of expressing of the Greek which our language cannot reach In all the places cited by these Gentlemen according to the Flesh is express'd without any Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to determine it to any sence than what really it has But when this is say'd of Christ There the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which it is compar'd to somewhat else The Apostle has it clearly Rom. 1.2 and 3. made according to the Flesh where the Flesh does not signify the body as the places which they have cited to elude the force of this Text but the humane nature of Christ in opposition to these words according to the Spirit of Holiness by which the Divine is express'd This explication is of St. Chrysostom on this place Theodoret and long before of Tertullian adv Prax. Made of the seed of David according to the Flesh says that Father Here is the man and the Son of man And declar'd to be the Son of God according to the Holy Spirit Hic est Deus sermo Dei filius This is the God and the word the Son of God This was the Divinity of Tertullian's time before the Council of Nice Having done with this Text I pass to Act. 20.28 St. Paul taking his leave of the Asian Bishops exhorts them pathetically to that diligence and care which is the source of all Pastoral Vertues He urges it on these two Motives 1st That they have receiv'd their power from the Holy Ghost 2ly That the Church which he exhorts them to feed is the Church for which God has been pleas'd to dye Feed the Church of God which he has purchas'd with his own blood This is spoken of a God by nature since according to the Socinian Rule God is nam'd here with an Article It is not only a God but the God He has purchas'd to himself a Church he has bought us with a price and because without remission of Sin there is no redemption and there is no remission without blood he has purchas'd us with blood But the blood of Goats and Calves the blood of others being of it self ineffectual and only Figurative he has shed his own blood for us This cannot be say'd of the Father who these Gentlemen deny and with a great deal of reason to have suffer'd Nor can it be asserted of the Holy Spirit since they assure him to be only a power and an energy and it is ridiculous to say that an energy shed his own blood In can be say'd of none but the Son who having taken our nature upon him became our Mediator and High-Priest and by his own blood that blood which he shed for the Church obtain'd eternal redemption for us But that High-Priest that Mediator that Christ is say'd to be the God therefore he must be partaker of the Divine Nature and since the Father is the God and he is also the God there must be more persons than one subsisting in the Deity This is deciding and conclusive Yet the Author of the Brief Hist pag. 34. makes these exceptions 1st That in the Armenian Syriack and the most ancient of the Greek Bibles the reading is not the Church of God but of Christ 2ly That admitting the reading God in the vulgar Editions of the Greek yet some great Masters of the Greek Tongue have render'd the Greek words thus Feed the Church of God which he has purchas'd with his own Son's blood 3ly That admitting the Translation in our English Bibles some learned men particularly Erasmus have noted that the blood of Christ is here call'd the blood of God because it was the blood which God gave for the redemption of the World so Joh 1.36 This is the lamb of God that is the lamb of Sacrifice which God gives for the sins of the world These Gentlemen have the misfortune to call every thing an Answer 1st It is true that in some Copies these words have been read with some alteration but nothing at all to their purpose some few have read the Churc◠of the Lord others the Church of the Lord and God but none the Church of Christ They will much oblige the Common-wealth of Learning if they will produce any of these best and most ancient Copies A very learned Man of this Age has pretended to prove that the Church of Christ is not the language of the Scripture and that when the Church is spoken of by way of eminence as it is in this Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Church it is often say'd to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Church of God but never the Church of Christ And this Criticism they will find true if they give themselves the trouble to examine it The Syriack Interpreter is rather an Expositor than a Translator The Latin who is wholly a Translator and not an Expositor reads Ecclesiam Dei The Church of God The second part of their Answer that some great Masters of the Greek Tongue have render'd his own Son's blood instead of his own blood is a crying notorious and unpardonable falsification of a Text. What will be the end of our disputes if when we are press'd with the undenyable evidence of a Scripture we presume to add words to it and usher in that Sacrilegious attempt upon the word of God with saying some great Masters of the Greek Tongue When these Gentlemen talk of Syriack Arabick Coptick Armenian they may easily impose upon the simple but for Greek which is common to all professions in this Kingdom to tell us that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with his own proper blood is with his Son's blood to make the falsification Authentick by Attributing it to the great Masters of the Greek Tongue and call this an Answer to a solid Objection is a piece of an Incomprehensible Confidence 3ly Socinus and Chrellius were more dexterous who being press'd by this Text very fairly lay'd aside the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 own wherein lyes the stress of the Argument but call'd it as Erasmus has done the blood of God the Father that is the blood which God gave for the