Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	apostle_n	believe_v	tradition_n	2,485	5	9.1706	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52603	An accurate examination of the principal texts usually alledged for the divinity of our Saviour and for the satisfaction by him made to the justice of God, for the sins of men : occasioned by a book of Mr. L. Milbourn, called Mysteries (in religion) vindicated.	Nye, Stephen, 1648?-1719.	1692 (1692)	Wing N1502A; ESTC R225859	84,564	68

that I am not willing to be seen maintaining a Scuffle with him Others of his Party have known how to make a vigorous Opposition from this Context the sum of what they say is Every Clause here objected is a several Argument against the Socinian Heresy The First declares the Real Divinity of our Saviour by asserting his Eternity in these words In the Beginning as who should say from the very First or from all Eternity was the WORD The second Clause saith The WORD was with God to signify the continual and perpetual Generation of the WORD or Son and also the mutual Inexistence of these two Divine Persons in one another The next yet more Directly and even Expresly contradicts the Socinians by saying the WORD was God They say He was a Man and no more than a Man 'T is true they allow He may be called God in such sense as Moses is called a God and that by God himself at Exod. 7.1 in that He was to represent the Person of God being to deliver God's Commands to Pharaob to Israel and to the Egyptians But our Evangelist has been careful to prevent these Evasions by telling us what kind of God the WORD was All things saith he were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made And lest Incredulous and Obstinate Men should interpret all things in these words to be only All things belonging to the Gospel-state or the whole Oeconomy and Doctrine of the Gospel as the Socinians would now wrest St. John's words To prevent I say this Elusion he adds yet farther He was in the World and the World was made by him But this Holy Evangelist has not yet done with them He says at V. 14. The Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us 'T were Nonsense to speak so of a Person who was only a Man Who ever said Peter or James were made Flesh and dwelt among us Would it not be Ridiculous so to speak Therefore the Lord Jesus was more than a Man He was God made Flesh that is to say Man for Flesh is a very usual Scripture-Term for Man He was made Man by being Incarnate in an Human Nature by an Hypostatical Union to a Body of Flesh and a Rational Soul This Evangelist has given us too the Testimony of the other John even John the Baptist concerning the Prae-existence or Prae-eternity of our Saviour He that cometh after me is preferred before me for be was before me We are expresly told by St. Luke that John Baptist was six Months older than our Lord Christ as Man Therefore when St. John says Christ was before him it must be thus understood that as God He was before John thô as Man He was younger than John It is true the Socinians have strained their Wits to give other Senses of these Verses or so to interpret them as to make their Saviour nothing but a Man not God not a Creatour no not so much as an Angel but a meer Man Now when Expressions may have divers Senses it sometimes happens that there are no Primitive Acts to ascertain one of the Senses above or rather than another of them but Providence has been watchful on behalf of the true Faith and the Catholic Interpretation of these Verses by preserving to us Ancient Acts and such as must needs satisfy sincere and teachable Persons the Church is in possession of most certain Records by which she indubitably proves the Catholic Interpretation of this Context The Socinians are not the First Authors of this Heresy that there is but one Divine Person even the God and Father of our Lord Christ and that the Lord Christ was nothing else but a Prophet and the Holy Spirit only the Power and Inspiration of God The Nazarens and Cerinthus and Ebion immediately after the Death of the Apostles began to propagate this Heresy to the great Offence and Scandal of the Churches And it so hapned that many hearkued to them insomuch that the Bishops and Churches of Asia importuned St. John to write somewhat more expresly concerning the Divinity of our Saviour than had been yet done by any of the Apostles St. John was at length prevailed on to do as they desired only he requested that a General Fast might be held to invoke the Aid of God on his Undertaking The Fast being ended the Holy Ghost fell upon him and He began his Gospel with these words which came to him from Heaven In the Beginning was the WORD and the Word was with God and the WORD was God All things were made by Him and without Him was not any thing made that was made This Relation is made by St. Jerom Proem Com. in Matth. And he declares in the same place that this was no uncertain Rumour nor a thing of Hear-say Sed ita narrat Ecclesiastica Historia The Church-History so tells us The Socinians therefore sweat to no purpose in devising Comments or Elusions on this Context which was designedly written against them 't is in vain for them to oppose their own Inventions to Primitive Acts which tell us plainly that this Gospel was written on purpose against their Heresy nay that the words of it with which we pretend to confute them came down from Heaven or were spoken against them from Heaven St. John being only the Penman not the Author of them Thus it is Sir that the Socinians are Baffled by false and Senseless Translations supported by Fictions and Legends There never was a Greater Flamm than this Tale of St. Jerom out of an Ecclesiastical History never seen by any body but Himself Irenaeus two Hundred Years older than St. Jerom and therefore so much nearer to matter of Fact could say nothing of St. John's Gospel but this He publish'd it at Ephesus in Asia Advers Haeres Lib. 3. c. 1. Origen who had made so diligent a search among all the Monuments of Antiquity that He might be able to give an exact Account of the Writers of Holy Scriptures says Concerning the four Evangelists we have received by Tradition as follows St. Matthew first a Publican afterwards an Apostle wrote his Gospel in Hebrew for the sake of the Jews who believed St. mark wrote his Gospel as St. Peter declared it to him The third is the Gospel of Luke approved by St. Paul and written for the sake of the Heathens Lastly St. John's Gospel Had St. Jerom seen an Ecclesiastical History that Origen never saw or would Origen have omitted such a Famous Occasion and Confirmation of St. John's Gospel when he tells us the Occasions and Approvers of the other Gospels The words of Origen before quoted were extant in his Fourth Book of Comments on St. Matthew they are preserved by Eusebius Hist Lib. 6. c. 25. Eusebius spends a whole Chapter concerning the Order of the Evangelists and declares the true Occasion and Cause of St. John's Writing which according to him was this It being saith he observed that the other Evangelists had

for our Iniquities that we are healed by his Stripes that God hath laid on him the Iniquity of us all that He hath made his Soul an Offering for Sin All this is taken out of the 53d Chapter of Isaiah which Chapter is by some taken to be a Prophecy concerning the Prophet Jeremiah by others concerning the Messiah or Christ I do not think it to be any Prophecy at all except in some few Passages of it but especially not a Prophecy concerning a Person who was then to be born I conceive the words are to be understood of the Prophet Isaiah himself who speaking of himself modestly speaks in the third Person and the sense begins at ver 7. of the foregoing Chapter I wonder very much that so many Learned Men as have commented on this Prophet have not discerned that the whole Discourse perfectly sutes to the Prophet himself and that he speaks of a Person actually in being not of one who was yet to be born But because it would take up a great deal of room to make a Paraphrase on the two Chapters and to show the Reason of it I will be content to set down the Explication by Grotius and Socinus of the particular Expressions here objected by our Author Grotius is of opinion that from ver 7. of the foregoing Chapter Isaiah prophesies of the Sufferings of the Prophet Jeremiah yet so that the whole Prophecy and all the Expressions of the 53d Chapter had a second Completion in the Person Actions and Sufferings of the Lord Christ and therefore some of the Expressions tho originally intended of Jeremiah are by the Writers of the New Testament accommodated also and applied to the Lord Christ Let us see what he saith Isa 53.5 He was wounded for our Transgressions and was bruised for our Iniquities But in the Original 't is he has been wounded by our Wickedness and bruised by our Iniquity that is we have wickedly and unjustly afflicted and persecuted him The Chastisement of our Peace was upon him and by his Stripes we are healed No the Original saith The Reproofs of our Peace were with him that is the Reproofs that would have made our Peace with God if we had hearkned to them were truly with this Prophet he reproved us justly and for our saving Good if we would have hearkned and by those his Stripes we might have been healed i. e. by those sharp and home-Reproofs by those Stripes of his Mouth we might have been amended and reformed and thereby reconciled to God and healed Ver. 6. All we like Sheep have gone astray we have turned every one to his own way and the Lord hath laid on him the Iniquity of us all In the Hebrew the Lord hath by him met with the Iniquity of us all q. d. hath reproved all our Wickedness by him Ver. 10. When thou shalt make his Soul an Offering for Sin he shall see his Seed he shall prolong his days But in the Hebrew thus If he the Prophet shall submit his Soul to Punishment he shall see his Seed and prolong his days or Tho he submit his Soul to Punishment c. Punishment saith Grotius here is properly for Sin but the Hebrews saith he call all Affliction by or from others tho unjust and underserved by the Name of Punishment But our Author objects again that the Apostle saith Rom. 4.25 He Christ was delivered for our Offences And 1 Pet 2.24 Who himself bore our Sins in his own Body on the Tree or Cross Rom. 3.24 Him hath God set forth to be a Propitiation for our Sins to declare his God's Righteousness Heb. 9.26 Now once in the end of the World he hath appeared to put away Sin by the Sacrifice of himself Therefore 't is to be noted that very few of those that have undertaken to write against us have really understood what we affirm or deny concerning the Causes or the Effects of our Saviour's Death They trouble themselves with citing a great many Texts to evince that 't was for our Sins as one Cause that Christ died that he was a Sacrifice and Oblation for the Sins of the World that he was a Ransom a Price of Redemption for us We deny none of these things taken in a sober and possible sense the Question is only this Whether the Lord Christ offered himself as such a Sacrifice Oblation or Price as might be made to the Justice of God by way of Equivalent for what we should have suffered or was an Oblation and Application as all former Sacrifices under the Law were to the Mercy of God by way of humble suit and deprecation We affirm the latter of these that the Lord Christ besides other Ends of his Death tendred himself in the nature of a Sacrifice on the Altar of the Cross to the Mercy and Benignity of God by way of Supplication not to the Divine Justice as an Equivalent for so great a Debt as the Eternal Punishment of all Mankind in Hell-Fire We judg it better thus to speak than as our Opposers do because the Abolition of our Sins and our Discharge from Punishment is always in Holy Scripture attributed to the great Mercy and Goodness of God 't is called Pardon Remission Grace Freeness of Grace Riches of Grace all which were false if indeed the Lord Christ gave a just Equivalent they say more than an Equivalent to God's Justice for us In a word our Opposers and We agree that the Lord Christ being to die upon other accounts did withal tender his Person in Quality of an Expiatory Sacrifice for the Sins of Mankind himself was the Offerer and also the Victim and his Cross the Altar he was a Ransom and a Price of Redemption for us but in this we differ Whether he was an Adequate Price or a Sacrifice to the Justice of God We cannot comprehend that one Man could be an Equivalent for all Men or his short Sufferings equal to the Eternal Damnation of an Infinite Multitude or that God can be said to pardon if he hath been over-paid for our Debt to him therefore we content our selves to teach that our Blessed Saviour being to confirm his Gospel by his Death and to be made perfect by Sufferings as the Author to the Hebrews speaks did also offer himself as a Sacrifice and as a sort of Ransom and Price for us to that Mercy and Benignity of God by which he was wont to accept the Oblation of Beasts the Blood of Goats and Lambs for his repenting and returning People This Hypothesis leaves to God the intire Glory of forgiving us to our Saviour the Honour of being the Means Motive and Procurer of our Pardon and Salvation and fully answers all Scripture-Expressions concerning our Saviour's Death objected to us by our Opposers in this Question But they our Opposers after all their Subterfuges are forced by their Hypothesis to this monstrous Conclusion that God freely pardoneth to Sinners their whole Debt of Sin and Punishment and yet has been infinitely over-paid for both in the Death and other Sufferings of the Lord Christ than which there can be no greater or more apparent Contradiction As to our Author's Conclusion that he wishes himself accursed and again accursed if ever he deliver other Doctrine than what he hath defended in this Book I shall only say this that as wise as he have lived to alter their Minds Nor can he defend his Rashness by the Example of the Apostle for when St. Paul curses himself or any other for preaching or teaching otherways he speaks not of doubtful and uncertain Questions but If we preach any other GOSPEL to you let us be accursed Gal. 1.8 9. And the reason of our Apostle's Confidence was very different from our Author 's the latter grounds himself on a few ambiguous and uncertain Texts capable of contrary Translations and Senses and when taken in his Sense of them are contrary to Reason and common Sense and to the general Current of Holy Scripture but the Apostle speaks of a matter which he had received by express Revelation from Jesus Christ and even from God the Father of All. FINIS BOOKS lately printed by the Socinians THE Brief History of the Unitarians vulgarly called Socinians in four Letters The first Letter besides the History of the Socinians proves the Unity of God the other three answer the pretended Proofs of the Doctrine of the Trinity Second Edition The Acts of Athanasius with brief Notes on his Creed and Observations on Dr. Sherlock's Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity opposed by him to the Brief History and Brief Notes Observations on Dr. Wallis his Letters written in Vindication and Explication of the Athanasian Creed Some Thoughts on Dr. Sherlock's Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity A Defence of the brief History against the Vindication by Dr. Sherlock An Exhortation to a Free and Impartial Inquiry into the Doctrines of Religion A Letter of Resolution concerning the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation giving the general Reasons of the Unitarians against those Doctrines Two Letters touching the Trinity and Incarnation the first urges the Belief of the Athanasian Creed the other is an Answer thereto An accurate Examination or Judgment on the principal Texts relating to the Questions concerning the Divinity of our Saviour and his Satisfaction occasioned by a Book of Mr. L. Milbourn's called by him Mysteries in Religion vindicated