a time when the Church was yet in an Age of Innocence or to make use of an Expression of one of the Ancients When she was yet a Virgin in a time when the Saints confirmed their Preaching by Miracles in a time when Truth was ratified by the Seal of Martyrdom in a time when the Voice of the Apostles had but newly ceased from sounding in the Ears of the Members of it What therefore we take from a time so happily circumstanced must needs be of good alloy And may my Soul say I be with those Saints and those Martyrs who taught what they had but newly received from the Mouths of the Apostles themselves Is it possible that a sincere Christian heart should find any relish in the opposite Error which hath the concurring Testimony of the First Centuries against it and which never got into any Credit till after the Primitive Zeal being grown cold and Miracles ceased men began to be left to themselves I confess I have but an ill Opinion of a Doctrine which is supported by no other Foundation There we may find glittering Notions and ingenious Explications of the Scripture which may be apt to take with Minds that affect Novelties But when we consider that the Christian Religion is a Revelation transmitted by the Ministry of the Apostles of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ we shall make no Difficulty to take their sense from an Age that we cannot suspect and we shall have very mean thoughts of those Innovators that have confidence enough to say as one of them doth The First Chapter of the Gospel of St. John was never well explain'd till I undertook it My last Reflection is concerning the small concern these Innovators have for the Peace of the Church They would fain have us believe them to be the Disciples of Charity and to hear them talk it should seem that this Virtue is no where to be found but amongst them I will not now enter into an enquiry whether under this plausible appearance they do not design more surely to introduce their Errors and whether after having made them ride Triumphant in the world they would not become instead of the innocent Lambs they seem now to be the most furious Persecutors of the Church To know what Judgment we ought to pass in this case we need only to call to mind the Cruelty of Arius his disciples But l' stop short here and am willing to believe that our Innovators that talk so much of Charity and Concord cherish nothing of this Spirit of Persecution However they must confess that they are none of the best practisers of Charity they know very well that they cannot endeavour the Propagation of their Opinions without troubling the Peace of mens Consciences and without setting Christians together by the Ears There is no need of any deeep consideration to perswade our selves that these are the natural consequences of the endeavours that would be employed to deprive the Christians of a Doctrine they have been possessed of above these Sixteen Centuries Why therefore should the Enemies of this Doctrine set themselves to be the cause of so much disorder There is but one only thing that could Authorise this their pretended Charity viz. If the Doctrine which we Teach and Believe were inconsistent with Salvation I must own that when we see a great multitude of Christians in danger of incurring Damnation we have good reason to say That it is much better to expose them to Temporal Dangers by propounding the Truth to them than to suffer so many Souls to perish by a Criminal Silence What them is it this consideration that animates and pusheth on our Innovators Not in the least they dare not say they are in fear for our Salvation whilst at the same time they set Heaven Gates wide open to all sorts of Hereticks to Mahometans and Heathens They I say who hide themselves in the Society of other Christians and desire nothing so earnestly as to be admitted to their Communion They own us to be in a state of Salvation and declare that we have retained all the Fundamental and Saving Points of Christianity Where is therefore the Charity of these rash Persons in undertaking to shake a Doctrine which cannot be attack'd with any success without filling the Consciences of men with Trouble and without shedding whole torrents of Christian Blood such a design as this cannot be the effect of any thing but Pride In a word Men have a mind to distinguish themselves by the novelty of their Opinions and to raise their own Glory by abasing that of Jesus Christ These who destroy the Temple of God God will destroy I tell you that more than the Temple is here Entreat we our dear Lord Jesus that it may please him to enlighten his Enemies and confirm us more and more in the belief of his Divinity To him even as to the Father and the Holy Ghost be Humour and Glory for ever Amen A Declaration of the Opinion of the French Ministers who are now Refugees in England about some Points of Religion in Opposition to the Socinians WE under written the Refugees French Ministers in England having understood by a Letter which my Lord the Bishop of London who at present is in Holland hath writ to Monsieur le Coq Counsellor in the Parliament of Paris and an Illustrious Confessor of the Truth the strange Reports that have been spread as if we were not sound in the Faith and particularly with relation to the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity and Grace and the need there is to dissipate the same and being moreover perswaded that by this Explication of our Belief we shall perform a thing that will serve for the Edification and Consolation of our Brethren and will have its fruit if the Lord please especially in the Land of our Nativity after some Amicable and Brotherly Conferences we have had upon this matter in the presence of Monsieur le Coq we have all of us agreed to declare as we do in the Sincerity of our Hearts I. That we Believe the whole Scripture Divinely Inspir'd so that all Men are obliged to receive every thing therein Revealed with an entire Submission of Faith II. That we receive with Reverence and Submission whatsoever the Scripture teacheth concerning the Nature of God and his Attributes of his Spirituality Infiniteness Incomprehensibility Prescience even of Future Contingencies and of all others the said Scripture attributes to him III. That we Believe also what it delivers concerning the Trinity of Persons in one only Divine Essence and concerning the Incarnation of the Son according as the said Articles are set down in the VI. XIV and XV. of the Confession of Faith of the Reformed Churches of France IV. That we hold also as an Article of our Faith That Jesus Christ by dying on the Cross hath not only left us an Example that we should follow his Footsteps but moreover that his Principal Design therein was
possessing one and the same Nature the one is suppos'd to have done what the other did Proceed we to the seventh Chapter where we meet with an Emphatical Proof of the Eternity of Christ The Apostle there teacheth us that Melchisedec is the true Portraiture of our Lord in this Type I find a King of righteousness and of Peace and so far the Resemblance is exact for we know that Righteousness and Peace kiss and embrace each other in the Original But consider we those other Lineaments that compose the Type He was without Father without Mother without descent having neither beginning of days nor end of life This according to the Letter cannot be said of any Man if Melchisedec was a Man he had Father Mother Descent beginning of Days and end of Life but nothing of all this is found in the Scripture where not the least mention is made of the Family nor of the Birth nor of the Death of Melchisedec which is very strange forasmuch as the Holy Ghost hath given us the Genealogy of many Persons much less considerable how comes it to pass that it hath neglected to give us these particulars concerning the great Melchisedec Why the reason is plain his Design was to represent to us a Portraiture that might resemble our Lord Being made like the Son of God saith our Author The Holy Ghost on purpose suppresseth the Birth and Death of Melchisedec to the end that this Illustrious Unknown might the better represent the Eternity of the Son of God who is without beginning of days as he is without end of life In the 9th Chapter we find a new Proof of the Eternity of our Saviour Heb. 9.14 It is said that Christ through the eternal spirit offered himself to God What is this Eternal Spirit here mention'd It is not the Soul of our Lord that is now here called the Eternal Spirit Besides the Soul of our Lord was a part of the Sacrifice it self whereas the words speak of the Nature that offers and not of that which is offer'd Neither is it the Holy Ghost the Third Person in the Sacred Trinity he did not offer up our Saviour but he offer'd up himself it must therefore have been an other Nature which our Saviour here calls the Eternal Spirit The Godhead of Christ perform'd the Priest's Office here upon the Manhood predestinated to be the Victim for Mankind I refer also to this That Argument which the same Author draws from the Eternity of Jesus Christ to engage the Christians to persevere in his Doctrine Jesus Christ the same yesterday and to day and for ever The Apostle by these words renews the Notion he had given them in the beginning of this Epistle where we have seen that he asserts the Eternity of Jesus Christ from a Text of the Old Testamnnt Indeed we find the Author had this Eternity in his eye throughout to the very end of the Epistle and 't is with reference to this that we must explain this Elogy of our Saviour which comprehends all distinction of Time past present and to come He is the same yesterday to day and for ever which answers to the Explication St. John gives us of the Eternity of the Father Grace be unto you and peace from him which is and which was Rev. 1.4 and which is to come And the very same Expression is attributed to Christ by St. John or rather our Saviour attributes it to himself in St. John's Revelation Rev. 1.8 I am Alpha avd Omega the Beginning and the End saith the Lord which is which was and which is to come the Almighty Who is it that speaks thus He of whom it is said in the verse foregoing Behold he cometh with clouds and every eye shall see him is the same who in the following Verse saith I am Alpha and Omega the first and the last For St. John having turned himself to see who it was whose Voice he heard saw Jesus Christ Our Lord therefore is Eternal Immensity is the Second Attribute by which our Saviour is present in all places at the same time If it were not so how could he make good the Promise made to his Disciples For where two or three are gathered together in my name Matt. 18.20 there am I in the midst of them It is very observable that this is the Language of God under the Old Law where we see that in several passages he promises to dwell amidst his People Think we that any one but the Son drust have spoke like the Father Besides I will take the boldness to say that as Grace displays it self in the Gospel the Son by promising his presence in all places saith yet more than the Father The Father assures his People that he will dwell amongst them and sometimes does even restrain this his Habitation to the compass of the Tabernacle They shall make me a Sanctuary saith he in Exodus and I will dwell in the midst of them But our Saviour extends his Promise to a much greater compass even to a wheresoever two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them As if he had said That place wheresoever it be shall be to me a Jerusalem a Tabernacle a Sanctuary What can this import less than Immensity at a time when Grace overflows the whole Universe without any distinction of People In all parts of the World our Lord is present in the midst of the least Assemblies where his Name is called upon He is in all places at the same time he sees what is done there he hears all that is said there he blesseth those whom he will bless In a word he is in all places where he is call'd upon as God was in the Sanctuary of old It is well enough known that when our Saviour promiseth his presence he means a presence of his Virtue and Influences Immensity is not the proper subject of a Promise That which of its own Nature is present in all places is there whether he promise it or not but because our Lord doth promise a presence of Virtue in all places we have good reason to conclude that he is in all places This Conclusion is evident our Saviour could not act in all places if he were not in all places Now-a-days 't is maintain'd that we cannot conceive the Existence of God in any place but by some Divine Operations God is every where say they because he operates every where Say we the same of our Saviour he is every where because he acts every where For where two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them We need no more than common sense to convince us that if our Blessed Lord had no other Amplitude but that of his Human Nature he could never fulfil this great Promise But still to open a further Light to his Immensity we need only call to mind his Discourse with Nicodemus in the third of
mind to obey I have nothing to say against this first sort of Difficulties neither need I since no body dares put them in form why should I take up time to refute them I shall only say by way of Allusion Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God The Difficulties of the second Order are the Difficulties of Wit they attack the Divinity of our Saviour because they do not comprehend it their bounded understanding measures all Truths according to the extent of its own Conceptions and subjects to this Rule things that Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard nor ever came into the heart of Man This Earth-worm will needs measure the Third Heaven what extravagance can be greater He cannot conceive how the Father the Son and Holy Ghost are God without making three Gods of them therefore there is no such thing Would not one think hearing a Man talk at this rate that he had an infinite understanding and that he comprehended all things in the Infinity of his Conception And yet we shall find that this presuming Wit doth not understand any thing perfectly no not so much as the Nature of the most common things He does not understand himself and tho every thing be a Mystery to him yet he cannot away with the Mysteries of Religion Yet this Enemy of the Mysteries of our Religion professeth a Mystery which is at least as inconceivable as any is in our Religion For he will make us believe That a Creature hath been invested with infinite Attributes that a Creature hath been made God in Knowledge Power and Glory Pray tell me what is a Mystery if this be not and an inconceivable one too The Creature turn'd God and the Finite turn'd Infinite the most incredible and contradictory thing in the World Our Mystery indeed asserts That God humbled himself but that this was by uniting himself personally with a Creature which he took to himself amongst Men and yet this very Man that makes so many Difficulties against the Incarnation tells us of a Man that is become God by a strange kind of Metamorphosis Thus they reject the Truth and instead thereof fill their Heads with Chimaera's The triumphant Raillery of the Prophane is That one is one and one is three and then making a show of their being fully persuaded of the Unity of God they suppose the Divinity of our Saviour sufficiently overthrown Who doubts that one is one and that one is not three this is true even in our Divine Arithmetick there are Three Persons three manners of Subsisting the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost We do not say That these Three Persons are but One Person that would be contradictory but we say That these Three Persons are in One Divine Essence Three are not One neither is One Three in the same respect there is a Trinity of Persons but an Unity of Nature But you cannot conceive how Three Persons can possess at the same time the same individual Nature what then I conceive it no more than you do but is it such a strange thing that God should be otherwise than we are otherwise than all the things we see otherwise than all that we can conceive He hath assur'd me That his Nature consists in Three Persons I believe it with Submission This ought to be the Temper and Behaviour of our Understanding in the Difficulties it meets with on this Mystery The Difficulties of the Third Order are the Difficulties of Scripture Men are asham'd to propose their Heart-difficulties for in so doing they would expose their own Corruption and nothing but a Spirit of Libertinism dares openly oppose its own Light to that of Divine Revelation They rather search for a plausible pretence in the Revelation it self several places of Scripture are heap'd to-together to compose a Cloud that may hinder the Glory of the Gospel from shining forth in its full Lustre At first those Texts are hunted for that prove Christ to be Man But pray what is this to the Question These Texts prove that he is Man we say so too yea cursed be he that saith that Jesus Christ is not Man We believe that by one of his Natures he was Man as we are but this does not hinder him from being God by his other Nature Man consists of Body and Soul can we prove from the Functions of his Body that he hath no Soul He Eats he Drinks he Sleeps therefore he hath nothing else but a Body This way of arguing is ridiculous consider this Man well and you 'll soon find by the operations of his Understanding that he hath a Soul as well as a Body This we might prove by the Example of all compounds This is enough we believe that our Lord Jesus is a Person compos'd of two Natures viz. of a Divine and Humane Nature he is Flesh and Blood he hath suffered tasted Death this shews him to be Man He prayed he worshipped he was ignorant of several things this shews he was Man But he formed the World he created the Angels he makes himself equal with his Heavenly Father this proves him to be God We readily admit the Passages of Scripture that rank him amongst Men neither dare we suppress those where he is call'd God To make our Doctrine to agree with the Scripture we must hold him to be God-man Our Adversaries prove from several Texts of Scripture that there is but one God all this is time spent in vain we are all fully persuaded that there is but one God Cursed be he that admits more than one God But say they you teach that the Father is God and that the Son is God we do so and in doing so we follow the Scripture but you don't hear us say That they are Two Gods they are Two Persons in one and the same God but not Two Gods But you say That Jesus Christ is equal with God the Father and Son therefore according to you are two Beings equal in Dignity doth not this imply a plurality of Gods since two equal Gods cannot be the same God This difficulty only proceeds from hence that they pretend to be ignorant of what we say upon the Mystery of the Trinity for supposing that the Father and the Son are only Two Persons or two manners of Subsisting in one and the same Being there is no room left for this Objection The Father and the Son these Two Persons are necessarily equal by such an Equality as does not thwart their Unity because they indivisiby possess the same Nature They insist further that the Father is called the only true God This is life eternal that they know thee the only true God John 17.3 and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent What would they infer from hence What that Jesus Christ is a God but that he is a false God A Christian ear cannot with patience hear such Blasphemy and yet they must come to this before they can make those words to be