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
the one it is also to the other and not the Branch the Prince is here describ'd 4ly It is against the true reading of the Septuagint and the old Latin Translation To the 3d that is Jer. 33.15.16 granting the reading of the Text as it is in our Bible which indeed the Hebrew favours It is so far parallel to this as to be a renewing of the promise made by God in the place already cited The sence of the Prophet is that Jerusalem shall be call'd the Lord our righteousness by containing him that is being fill'd with his glorious presence who is really the Lord our righteousness As Jacob Gen. 33.20 erected an Altar and call'd it Et-elohe-Israel God the God of Israel And Ezek. 48.35 and the name of the City from that day shall be Jehovah shammah the Lord is there But what can be more positive and home to the question than the testimony of Baruch chap. 3. the 3. last verses This is our God and there shall be no other accounted in comparison of him He has found out all the way of Knowledge and has given it to Jacob his servant and to Israel his beloved Afterwards did he shew himself upon earth and converst with Men. To offer an enlargment on this Text is to do it an injury The 1st of these verses asserts the unity of God The 2d his great wisdom and goodness to his people The 3d his visible appearing to us in our nature and this not by a sudden apparition vanishing as soon as it is offer'd and leaving the Soul in suspence about the truth of the object but by a continu'd living on the Earth If there be but one Person in God as these Gentlemen so stiffly maintain and that is the Father there must have been an Incarnation of that Person since he has appear'd upon Earth and convers'd with men which they and with a great deal of Reason will by no means admit But the whole Scripture says That God has sent his Son into the World That he has appear'd to put away Sin and we all agree that the Holy Jesus is that Son How then can we deny his Divinity since it is said of him who has thus appear'd This is our God and there shall be no other accounted in comparison of him This is so express that we must not expect to be put off with Grotius or Christ being call'd God as Moses or Solomon or the rare Notion of God coming to us in his Ambassadour Jesus Nothing of this will do and therefore the Author of the Brief Hist pag. 22. answers first That the Book is Apocryphal Secondly That those who admit the Book reject those verses as suppositious Thirdly That the Original Greek may be render'd Afterwards this Book of the Commandments of God and the Law which endures for ever was seen upon Earth and turn'd over by men First That the Book is Apocryphal is an Answer cannot be made by these Gentlemen because it is cited against them by the whole Societies of Christians who believe it to be Canonical But freely granting that the Book is such I must beg leave to say That it is nothing to the purpose Any man of ordinary reading knows that Apocryphal signifies no more than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vncanonical or out of the Canon of the Sacred Books That sort of Writings though not kept in Armario as Tertullian expresses it cap. 3. de hab muli yet were look'd upon with much reverence by them and particularly by the Hellenists They were daily in their hands and the greatest Authority in the World next to the uncontested Scriptures There is a vast difference between being uncanonical and rejected and the saying That this Passage is taken out of an uncanonical though a Sacred Book takes nothing off the force of the Objection These Gentlemen who are so pleas'd with Criticisms that it will with them bear down the plainest Authority in the World must give me leave to Criticize for once I say then That of all the Apocryphal Books none was so like to become Canonical as that of Baruch It is somewhat more than a probable Conjecture that this Book was once read with that of Jeremy whose Disciple Baruch was The ninth of Daniel has lead several Learned men into that Opinion For after he has cited Jeremy v. 2. and began that fervent Prayer for the preservation of Jerusalem He seems to transcribe Baruch Compare Baruch 1.15 16 17. with Daniel 7 8 c. Baruch 2.7 8 9. with Daniel 9.13 c. Baruch 2.11 c. with Daniel 9.15 Baruch 2.15 with Daniel 9.18 I will add to confirm this That several of the most ancient and Primitive Fathers have often cited Jeremy and yet the Texts us'd by them were taken out of Baruch which gives some ground to believe that the Works of these two Prophets were once joyn'd together To the second Objection we must be forc'd to say That no part of it is true First it is not true that ever those Verses were look'd upon as supposititious by them who either admitted or rejected the Book Secondly it is not true that ever these words were a marginal Note no ancient Copy being without them and the rest being only Conjecture instead of Reason The third Objection is the highest Unsincerity imaginable Their Translation is forc'd unnatural and what is worse notoriously false There is nothing in the Text of a Book of Commands or of a Law which endures for ever There is only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 viam disciplinae as the Vulgar translates it To say not what they have pretended to impose without either Reason or Truth but what can be strain'd from this That the way of Knowledge has shew'd Himself to men and convers'd with them is a bold and ridiculous way of Translating The fifth Chapter of Micah is an eminent Prophecy of Christ The first part of the second Verse gives an account of his Birth and of the place to which God had promis'd so great a Blessing But thou Bethlehem Ephratah though thou be little amongst the thousands of Judah yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be Ruler in Israel The second part soars higher and tells us That though he is born as a man yet he has that which no man can pretend to and though he has such a visible Being yet he has another which is invisible and eternal whose goings forth have been from old from everlasting or From the days of Eternity This Text has a double advantage First that the Chaldee Paraphrast the Thalmud and the generality of the ancient Jews have follow'd in this the sence of their Forefathers and understood this Text of the Messiah Secondly that from Mat. 2.6 and Joh. 7.42 this invincibly appears to have been the Tradition of the Jews one of the great Obstacles to their Belief that he was the Messias having no other ground than that contrary to the received Opinion That the
that nature The Place cited out of St. Peter has no relation at all to this That of St. Paul to the Corinthians is as much foregin to it being only an excellent Metaphor to express our future state That to Timothy is indeed more to the matter in hand but the Apostle has prevented the objection by speaking positively of God's decree in respect of our Election Who has call'd us with a holy calling not according to our works but according to his own purpose ... which word the Author was pleas'd to overlook What has been said will give light to some difficulties which these Gentlemen judge to be unanswerable The 1st is taken from this very Chapter Joh. 17.3 and this is life Eternal that they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent The Author of the answer to Mr. Milbourn pag. 22. is positive that the Father is call'd the true God exclusively to any other and that nothing can more effectually evince that Christ is not God but only God's Ambassador This is one of those very many Texts says the Author of the Brief Hist pag. 5. which directly affirm that only the Father is God The objection is not new It was made by the Arrians in the Council of Nice and exploded by the Fathers The truth is these Holy Men never understood the words as fixing and restraining the Deity to the Father with exclusion to the Son and the Holy spirit nor their sence to have any regard to either of them or else this would absolutely have decided the Controversy Nor is it comprehensible that the Fathers before the Council of Nice would have spoken so fully to the Divinity of Christ or that those of the Council of Nice and the Fathers after them and the whole Christian World durst have embrac't it as an essential part of our Faith if they had look't upon the sence of this Text to be no other than what is pretended by these Gentlemen The Good the wise the Learned cannot be conceiv'd to have willfully run into an errour contrary to the open and known sence of such a place of Scripture They constantly understood these words The Father the only true God to be spoken not exclusively to the two other persons but in opposition to the Gods of the Heathen those false Deities which had usurp't amongst them the place of the true Nor is it unusual in Scripture by the Father to mean not so much the first Divine Person as the Deity in general I will not spend time in setting down the many ways that this Text may be read in or what order the words might be made capable of to take off their pretended inconsistency with the Christian Hypothesis of three Persons subsisting in the same Divine Nature St. Basil and St. Chrysostom have effectually done it and shew'd how the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we have render'd only is rather comprehensive than exclusive in the dialect of Scripture I have a plain and obvious reason why the only True God must be understood in the sence of the Fathers in opposition to false Gods and not in exclusion of Christ and the Holy spirit and that is that Christ in Scripture is call'd the true God and the only Lord God which can never be if the only true God here must be restrain'd to the Father as these Gentlemen would have it 1 Joh. 5.2 and we know that the Son of God is come and has given us an understanding that we may know him that is true and we are in him that is true even in his Son Jesus Christ This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ille he is the true God and Eternal life I take this to be positive and decisive that the only true God cannot be understood in relation to the Son or the Holy spirit since the Son is also call'd true God No says the Author of the Brief Hist p. 43. This is a very negligent translation and no sence can be made of the words The latter part of the Text ought to have been render'd we are in him that is true by his Son Jesus Christ and not in his Son Jesus Christ This Text plainly denys that Chirst is the true God The outlandish Socinians had made a miserable exception to this Text which these Gentlemen thought fit to forsake as ruinous But this is to the full as bad The translation is directly against them Therefore it is negligent and nonsensical The translators cannot be made to speak as they would have them Therefore they are careless and speak nonsence The particle in Jesus Christ ruines their opinion Therefore it must be by contrary to the Faith of all translations contrary to any possible construction of the place contrary to the sence of all Interpreters You see Sir how desperate is that cause which cannot support it self without these mean shifts and has nothing to oppose to a plain and deciding Text but the bold and presumptuous altering of a Particle I use these words which perhaps may seem too sharp because the thing of it self is so extraordinary and this Text in the original so infinitely clear that I durst give up the cause if of a thousand Translators strangers to the controversy any one does translate by and not in his Son Jesus Christ I think that Jud. 4. is much to be consider'd There is a description made of unhappy Men who are crept in unawares Their Character is to be ungodly to turn the grace of God into lasciviousness and to deny the only Lord God and Lord of us Jesus Christ That the whole is spoken of Christ appears from the Greek construction of the Phrase from the singleness of the Article and the continuation of the Text without the least punctuation The whole running thus denying Jesus Christ who is the only Lord God and our Lord. This is so obvious that to prove it is to lose time It not only asserts the Divinity of Christ but also shews how vain is the pretence that in the disputed Text the only true God should exclude the Son or the holy spirit As if any rational Man durst infer from thence that because Christ is call'd the only Lord God Therefore the Father is neither Lord nor God These Gentlemen have taken no notice of this Text in any of their writings that I have seen and so have say'd nothing to it But yet because a proof must be clear and candid and remove if possible all objections what can be oppos'd to it amounts to this That the old latin Interpreter and some Greek Manuscripts of a considerable Authority do not read the word God and that Erasmus has translated not the only Lord God and Lord of us Jesus Christ But God who is the only Lord and our Lord Jesus Christ Erasmus and one or two more Modern Interpreters who with all the care imaginable have endeavour'd to obscure or prevert all those Texts which speak openly of the
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
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
true and genuine If I may be allow'd a digression I would willingly know where these Gentlemen found that Constantine dy'd an Unitarian If by an Unitarian they mean that he own'd the Unity of the Godhead I hope we shall all dye in that faith But if by it they mean a Socinian a denyer of the Divinity of Christ It is a gross and a palpable untruth I would also be satisfi'd whether Eusebius of Caesarea whom they so truly call'd the Admirable did not subscribe the Nicene faith To return In an answer to a loving Cosen pag. 3. We hear of nothing but Fathers Tradition Councils c. pag. 8. This general Observation concerning the Fathers is sufficient to make me refuse their testimony and look upon them as no good Interpreters of Scripture and unfaithfull Guardians of Tradition We are then in a very sad case Our Translations are dishonest and the Holy Fathers are no good Interpreters of Scripture and unfaithfull Guardians of Tradition Our Translations and the Fathers should have spoke as these Gentlemen and then all had been right Where will of necessity such wild notions lead Men and when will the dispute end if they are admitted For my part I am of Mr. Chillingworth's mind and think that it is both the safety and honour of the Protestant Religion to cry out The Bible The Bible a place of that eminent Man so often and so justly commended by these Gentlemen I am perswaded that the word of God ought to be the rule But then I am satisfi'd that no Scripture is of private interpretation That this Bible must be well understood and that Tradition is the greatest human Authority in the World I take this point to be so clear particularly to Men of learning that if any Society of Christians could produce for what they have to say for themselves such a Tradition as Vine â—ius Liâ—inensis has establisht and is the true notion of Tradition we must all come over to it This is so just in it self that these very Gentlemen cannot forbear expressing their joy when what they produce is not altogether their own and has some great names to introduce it They speak then with a certain sort of assurance which they have not at other times I do not know whether I am as other Men or wheit is a singularity in me but if I have never so pretty a notion and find it contradicted by the concurrent testimonies of Men who have united a profound Piety to an admirable Learning such as are the Basil's The Chrysostom's The Theodoret's The two Gregorie's The Eusebius's The Cyrill's The Jerom's The Austin's and many more If I sind primitive and General Councils exclaiming against me If I meet in my way almost all that has been valuable in the last and this present Age in the Common-wealth of learning Though I might perhaps maintain the notion and spin it into a Letter or a small Book not perhaps without some Admirers yet I presently strike and think it both most honourable and conscientious to call the pretty thing in 5ly I have a just value for Criticks though whether a Critick is Master of any one sort of Learning is a great Question to me But to make Criticks the Judges and Criticisms the Touchstone of Faith is insufferable Like Anatomists they dissect till they leave neither Form nor Figure A Criticism is much different from a good reason Allowing one to be good a hundred amount generally to no more than a probability They are a sort of Arrows shot at random which sometimes hit the mark and generally go above or below it I insist the more on this because it is the Palladium of these Gentlemen When a Text is plain and stares in the face then comes out the Criticism This is the dissecting Instrument which runs through the Text till wrangling arises about a Particle or a Punctuation and makes the substantial part of the dispute to vanish When Reason is oppos'd to Reason and Argument to Argument the stander by may in a very short time feel the impressions of truth But when a plain Authority is evaded by a Criticism and this Criticism perhaps answer'd by another For these Gentlemen are great but not the only Criticks There is jarring and clashing and not one step made towards the truth In the Letter of Resolut concern the Doctr. of the Trin. and Incar p. 10. the Author says and he is very much in the right that we pretend That the Trinity and Incarnation are Traditions deriv'd down to our times through all the intermediate Ages and by all the Churches professing Christianity The rational way to prove the vanity of the pretence is to shew that there was a time and some Church or other where these Doctrines were not believ'd Instead of this he spends three pages to prove how we have differ'd and do differ amongst our selves in the explication of these Doctrines which rather supports then weakens the Argument It does evince that we agree in the thing though not in the manner of explaining it which is that that I insist on with the rest of my Brethren the Divines of the mob as these Gentlemen call us But this is only to criticise at large All the Criticks says this same Author in the same Letter without excepting one who have made a judgment of the writings of the Fathers for the first 300 Years and particularly which of those writings are genuine and uncorrupted which wholly feign'd or otherwise corrupted I say All the Criticks constantly make this a Note of forgery or corruption if those writings speak any what expressly or evidently of these Doctrines If the Criticks mean that the writings of the Primitive Fathers which speak of those Mysteries in the Terms us'd by the Schools long since the Nicene Council are supposs'd They are in the right But this Criticism is against those Gentlemen themselves It regards only the manner of the expression not the thing express'd But if the Criticks mean that the Trinity or Incarnation were unknown to and were not the Doctrine of the Fathers before the Council of Nice which is that which these Gentlemen must make the Criticks to say or else they say nothing I beg leave of these Gentlemen and of all the Criticks not one excepted to tell them that they are invincibly mistaken I have no criticism to offer here nor will I sill this small writing with citations of these Fathers it being the thing in question Though I conceive with submission to the high and mighty Criticks that most of these citations may be prov'd genuine I have only two plain Reasons to offer 1st With what equity and assurance did the Nicene Fathers declare their decrees to be according to the Doctrine taught by the Fathers who had preceeded them if the Trinity and Incarnation was not the Doctrine of those Fathers The Council was an August Meeting of the most learned and Religious Persons in the World even by
the confession of their Adversaries Some of them had preserv'd the gift of miracles which expir'd soon after Such an assertion had it not been true would have better become a pack of Villains than Holy and Reverend Men. 2ly How durst the Nicence Fathers declare this to be the Faith and Anathematise whosoever was against that sacred wise Divine and Catholick Faith had this Faith been new and unknown to the Fathers before nay had a contrary Faith obtain'd then in the Christian World This is a monstruous supposition that within 300 Years after Christ the Nicene Fathers should presume to obtrude the belief of and declare a Doctrine to be Faith which the Primitive Fathers were not so much as acquainted with To give more strength to this and prevent an objection which perhaps may have some colour and occasion another Criticism I freely own that not only the Arrians but even some of the Orthodox complain'd that the words Consubstantial and Consubstantiality were new and unscriptural But this confirms what I have said the newness and unscripturalness of the words but not of the sence being asserted They agreed in the truth and antiquity of the Doctrine but only differ'd about these two words which by being new and unscriptural were not thought so fit to express it I beg your pardon for insisting so long upon this But I was forc't to it 1st Because this very place of that Letter you have often urg'd to me 2ly To shew that how great Criticks soever we are we must be just and equitable and value reasons above Criticisms If these Gentlemen write for the Unlearned they are much out of the way these things are above their reach And if for the Learned they must own that this has not made one Learned Man of their side It is a sort of Chicane which Men of sence abhor 6ly These Gentlemen would have us prove those Terms by Scriptures which we own to be unscriptural They challenge us to find in the New Testament the word Godman Trinity Incarnation nay whole Propositions in Terminis The Author of the Letter now cited pag. 10. pretends it as a great Argument of their side that Tertullian is the first amongst the Latins and Clemens Alexand. amongst the Greeks who first us'd the word Trinity We might as well ask and with as little reason where is the word Vnity in respect of God or Sacrament or Hierarchy and several more which all the World receives and yet are no Scriptural words If we do but find the things exprest by the words as that God is one that there is Baptism and the Lord's Supper that there is an order of Men appointed to administer holy things the words are a natural consequence and founded in the things themselves Is it not highly unjust to ask us where we find a Trinity if we can prove three Divine Persons That besides the Father whom they acknowledge to be God the Son also and the Holy Spirit is God To wonder at the word Eternal Generation since if we prove Christ's Pre-existence and Pre-eternity He cannot be the Son of God but by way of Eternal Generation To stare at the word Incarnation as such an unheard of thing since if Christ is God and yet has taken our nature He must be Incarnate These are poor mean and a sort of Mob difficulties These Grievances being consider'd I beg nothing but what is equitable 1st I beg that if we prove the thing in question that is the Divinity of Christ and of the Holy spirit we may have no quarell about the words Trinity and Incarnation 2ly That no particular Interpretation of any Protestant Author may be brought against us as Interpretation either of our Church or any other considerable body of Protestants 3ly That if a Text is capable of a various reading and of a double sence that sence and reading may be preserv'd which is prov'd to have been the ancient reading and the sence generally receiv'd in the Churches of God A sence new and unknown to all the Ages of the Church cannot be the sence and that possession which we and all Christian Societies are in of those Texts cannot be disturb'd without something more forcible and authoritative than the witty fancy of an Interpreter 4ly I beg that the Fathers may be heard as Witnesses of an unquestionable integrity and that this at least may be a real prejudice against these Gentlemen that they have not only oppos'd the Faith of their Age but also that of times past 5ly That a Criticism alone the doubting of a Book the denying of a place the wrangling about a Particle without some considerable reason to back it may not be look't upon as an Answer 6ly That not only some one particular Text which we alledge be consider'd but that all our Texts be taken together with the weight of the important reasons which inforce the belief of our Mysteries This granted I conceive that it is no difficult matter to convince a candid Opposer that the New Testament is clear for the Divinity of Christ We will begin by that which is the foundation of our Holy Religion Matt. 28.19 Go ye therefore and teach all nations baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost This is the ancient profession of our Faith and ingenuously acknowledg'd to be such by the Author of the Answer to Mr. Milb pag. 16. He cites for this Tertullian de bapt c. 13. He might have cited Theodoret lib. 1. c. 12. St. Basil de Spir. sanct and Arrius himself who is a Witness of this in the Confession of his Faith given to Constantine and reported by Socrates lib. 1. c. 26. The Orthodox from this Text conclude three Persons to be spoken of These Gentlemen only two The Father who is God and the Son The Holy Ghost they will have to be no more than the Energy of the Father They are positive in the Brief Hist pag. 25. That neither the more learned of their Opposers nor the Fathers of the first 400 Years insist on this Text to prove the Divinity of the Lord Christ and of the Holy Spirit The matter of fact is a vast mistake and the very supposition is impossible This place having been cited so often by the Ancients and modern to prove the Persons of the Trinity must of course in their Hypothesis be an Argument for their Divinity They agree with us that the Son spoken of in the Text is Christ Jesus whom they will have to be the Son of God by all other titles but that of Nature and Essence They say of him that he is the Son of God by his miraculous Conception in the womb of the Blessed Virgin By his Mission to preach to Men and reclaim them from their Sins by his Glorious Resurrection being begotten to a new Life and his Admission to a Blessed Immortality whence as God's deputy he is to come to judge the quick and the dead
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
whether Christ has seen Abraham The Jews say thou hast not for thou art not yet fifty Years Old Thou art much posterior to him But I tell you says Christ I am so far from being posterior that I am anterior to him Before he was I am Now we must judge of the answer by the question The one ought to have relation to the other or else it is all cross purposes which must not so much as be thought of here To deal candidly do the Jews ask Christ whether he is so much later then Abraham in time or only in the decree of God It is certainly in time Thou art not yet fifty Years Old Therefore Christ speaks also of a priority of time and not of decree Before he was I am Besides admitting of that decree Christ could not have said that he was in the decree before Abraham For Abraham in whose seed all nations were to be blessed was in the decree before the seed it self Abraham's coming into the World was in the decree before Christ's appearing in the Flesh This Author has cited St. Austin but neither his words nor the place where they are to be found If he means in his tracts on the Gospel of St. John He will find that he has made use of this Text to confirm an Hypothesis which runs through all his writings that God having decreed to save Mankind in the Mediator Jesus He is the first of the Elect the first of the decree and in that sence consequently before Abraham and all Men besides but this still upon the supposition of the Union of the two Natures in his Person which if these Gentlemen had observ'd they durst not so much as have nam'd him nothing in the World overthrowing their Doctrine so effectually as this The 1. Pet. 1.20 and Rev. 13.8 are altogether foreign to the question They regard his Office but not his Person His mediation in the behalf of us Sinners but not his Nature The 3d Part of the Answer that the Jews did not apprehend Christ and that he did not intend or care they should is a Proposition which if admitted ruines the whole Oeconomy of the Gospel It makes the God of Incomprehensible Mercies to be guilty of the most refin'd sort of Cruelty to proffer the Patient a Medicine which must undoubtedly Cure him and at the same time to make him incapable of taking it Certainly they cannot but see the horrour of such an Answer Before I leave this Text I must take notice of the words of the Author spoken of Abraham with so much caution and to so little purpose He saw it says he as coming not as present He foresaw as he desir'd the time that it should be The nature of Prophecy is to make present to the sight of the Prophet that which by being future is wholly out of his reach It is that which makes it miraculous But in the case of Abraham he did not only desire but had a clear Revelation of the day of Christ He saw it and the ineffable prospect of the glory of the Messias and of the Infinite Blessings Mankind was to receive by him fill'd him with an incredible Joy This is the true sence of the place But what can more substantially evince the Pre-existence of Christ before all things than that all things are created by him That he has given Being to whatsoever exists That he is not only their Creator but also their Preserver and that whatsoever exists is maintain'd and supported by him What will become of that poor assertion which fixes his Existence to the first moment of his Conception if it can be made plain that he was before any thing that is and existed before any thing did exist For the effect naturally supposes the Pre-existence of the cause Any work that is done implies the being of the Workman who did it and if the World is created by Christ If the Scripture fully and clearly teaches him to be the Creator of the World The Socinian foundation must be sandy and ruinous The Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews 1st Chap. v. 2. says positively that Christ made the World He has in these last dayes spoken to us by his Son by whom also he made the Worlds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But here we are stop't short by the Author of the Brief Hist pag. 41. who tells us That Grotius the irrefragable Grotius says that we translate ill by whom and that we should read for whom That it was a Maxim amongst the Jews that the World was made for the Messias If this fails he tells you that others insist that this is an allegory that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must be translated Ages by which are meant the Gospel Ages or times Thus sinking Men grasp at any thing that appears let it be shadow or substance With what considence can Men substitute a reading contrary to all the Translations extant which read by whom Per quem says the old latin the Syriac and all the Fathers To prove the truth of their Translation they have an empty notion that it was believ'd amongst the Jews that the World was made for the Messias which indeed is the opinion of a few late Rabbins follow'd in this by Grotius who in his interpretation of the Scripture has wholly departed from the ancient Jews Whereas if these Gentlemen desire it It will be made out that it is the constant tradition of the Jews that the World was made by the word the Son of God This destroys the Allegory to all intents and purposes and really it is so raw and so dragg'd that it easily destroys it self If there were no place but this for the Creation of the World or of the Worlds or of the Ages for these are all one they might with more colour fly from the letter to the Trope But we may say that there is scarce any thing in the Scripture more inculcated than this Through Faith says St. Paul Heb. 11.3 We understand that the Worlds were fram'd by the word of God Heb. 1.8 But unto the Son he says thy Thorne O God is for ever and ever ....... and thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth and the Heavens are the work of thy hands They shall perish but thou remainest and they shall wax old as does a garment and as a vesture shall thou fold them up and they shall be chang'd but thou art the same and thy Years shall not fail There is then 1st A general assertion of the Apostle We believe that all that is has been made by the word and this as a true Creator without any pre-existent matter So that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear 2ly He brings the Almighty speaking to the Word to his Son and thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth Is this a Trope an Allegory or a reality Is it a real or a Metaphorical founding of the earth
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
God and the word was God But the Divine Nature is one and incapable of division It cannot be multipli'd without destruction Therefore if the Father is God as it is confest of all hands and if the word is God as the Evangelist fully and plainly asserts it there must be more than one Person in that one single and indivisible Deity These persons must be Co-eval Coeternal Consubstantial This shews how mean and low how strange and far from the Question is the Answer or rather the Subterfuge of these Gentlemen which they are never weary of obtruding that Christ is call'd God as Moses and Solomon were and as Magistrates and Princes I beg the favour if we do nothing but catch at the word God as they are pleas'd to say we do to shew me in the sacred Writings some such place as this for Solomon and Moses Does any of the Evangelists or Prophets say in the beginning was Moses and Moses was with God and Moses was God In the beginning was Solomon and Solomon was with God and Solomon was God They cannot but be sensible how such reasonings might be expos'd But though what St. John has said is enough to prevent all objections against the Sacred Doctrine and leave no room for Arrianism Sabellianism and Socinianism yet he prosecutes the Argument and gives us sensible proofs of his Divinity whom he asserts so positively to be God The same was in the beginning with God A repetition of great weight which unites all that has been said before to what is to be said after The word who was in the beginning The word who was with God The word who was God is the same who made all things v. 3. All things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made The Creation of the World that is of all spiritual and material substances and in a word of all that is is a most sensible and convincing Argument of a Deity A work so transcending all finite capacities that the true God is distinguisht by this from them who pretended to be but are really no Gods Isay 45.12 18. The assertion of Heb. 3.4 is true both in Divinity and Philosophy He that built all things is God None but the supream God can do it Now in what more litteral and accurate way of expression than this can this creating power be attributed to the word 1st You have an affirmation of as great an extent as the whole World it self All things were made by him 2ly Even to prevent the least imagination that perhaps something was which might have another Author and be the emanation of some other being there is the most pregnant positive and particular Negation that can be and without him was not any thing made that was made How long shall Men give the lye to their own reason and so far espouse an Opinion as to contradict the clearest truth He that made all things is truly God Therefore since we are assur'd that Christ made all things and that nothing was made without him he is truly and really God V. 4 5. St. John says In him was life and the life was the light of men To live is the prerogative of the most High for whereas all other beings borrow their life from him he lives independently from them In this sence he is call'd eminently the Living God Christ then is the principle of life and of light whatsoever lives lives by him He is original Life in the order of nature because by him Man was made Gen. 1.26 He is truly Life in the order of Grace Joh. 14.6 I am the life He is our Life even when we are dead Joh. 11.25 I am the Resurrection and the Life He is our life in the order of Glory 2 Joh. 5.20 The true God and Eternal Life A place we shall examine further V. 6 7. The Evangelist adds that the greatest amongst the Sons of Men the other John Matt. 11.11 was sent by God to bear witness that he was come into the World and for fear Men should be apt to mistake this Messenger of God for the God himself whose Messenger he was having so many qualifications above other Men He tells us v. 8. that John was not that light But v. 9. that the word of whom he has made such an admirable description was that true light 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that original that essential light that was to come which has no beginning suffers no decay and diffuses it self so as in some measure or other to enlighten every Man V. 10. He tells us that he made himself visible to the World He was in the world He repeats again that the World was made by him and to shew the blindness and ingratitude of the World he says that though he was the Maker and Creator of the World yet the world knew him not He aggravates this v. 10. He came into his own amongst those very Men whom he had made who were his by a must undoubted title even that of Creation and yet his own receiv'd him not refusing the adoration and obedince due to him V. 12. To such as receiv'd him even to them that believe in his name gave he power to become the Sons of God He who is the Eternal Son by Nature assum'd them to the dignity of Sons by Adoption From all that the Evangelist has said the Eternity and Divinity of the word are clear That he is the supreme God the Creator of all things the Universal and only good of Man is plain and evident All the difficulty is how he was in the World came into the World is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he who was to come to appear to be seen in the World the title given him both by the Prophets and Apostles This the Evangelist resolves v. 14. And the word was made Flesh and dwelt amongst us and we beheld his glory the glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of Grace and Truth These Gentlemen who ask us with so much earnestness to shew them in the Scripture the words Godman and Incarnation may Easily satisfie themselves here The word who was in the beginning before the World was who was with God who was God who has made all things The word who is the true light the original life of all that is who was announc't by the Prophets ever since the World began who had for his Messenger the greatest amongst the Sons of Men who is full of Grace and Truth and of whose fullness we have all receiv'd That word was made Flesh assum'd our Nature and became Man I will end the Explication of this place by these two remarks 1st St. John says he dwelt the original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he Tabernacl'd amongst us A plain allusion to the Tabernacle to which God was pleas'd to be present or according to the Hebrew to inhabit In this sence the new Jerusalem is call'd Rev. 1.3 The Tabernacle of God with
Mr. la Motte has gravely and justly say'd to him pag. 3. That to speak so of the Apostles is ill manners nay 't is Unchristian and Impious But then comes the Author of the Answer to Mr. Milbourn He will not have the Creation spoken of in this Chapter to be understood of the natural but of the spiritual World By the spiritual World he means the State of the Gospel by the other the spiritual World He says pag. 26. That the Socinians commonly suppose that St. John speaks here of the New-Creation even that great change of affairs in the World which has been so considerable that the Scriptures have divers times call'd it the new Heavens and the new Earth He begins the charge pag. 23. with a rule of Criticism That the writers of the New Testament have a particular regard to the notions and Opinions of the Jewish Church as also to the Customs and Forms of Speech in use amongst the Jews This is one of these forms that the Messias the Christ call'd the word by their Chaldee Paraphrases and by Philo the Jew should make a new and a better World and that the World was made for him This the Gentleman has borrow'd from Grotius the only Friend in distress Moreover they us'd the words El and Elohim which in Greek and in English signifie God of Angels Kings Magistrates and all such as are extraordinary Messengers or Ministers of God This he calls Keys to let us into the sence of those Verses without multiplying Gods as we do or Creators as the Arrians have done He tells us That in the beginning is not from the very first from for ever or from all Eternity Moses beginning with the same words does not mean as we do Moses means only in the beginning of the World John means only in the beginning of the Gospel state In the beginning was the word He intends here to say in the beginning was the Messias or Christ whom the Jews call'd the word That it is not easy to determine why the Jews gave the Messias the name of Word But 't is evident why St. John does it for as at v. 7 8 9. He calls him the light because he was the bringer of the Gospel light for the same reason he is content also to call him the word because he was the Messenger of the Gospel word ..... which is indifferently to be call'd the Gospel or the word of God This you have pag. 24. The word was with God and the word was God Here the Author grows somewhat hot not to say rude He tells us that his Opposers will not deny what every petty Grammarian knows that we should have translated thus The word was with The God and The word was A God He claims this Translation as absolutely necessary for clearing the meaning of the Evangelist in that place He says not the word was with God but with the God Because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or The God is always us'd to signifie the true God or him who is God by way of Excellence and Appropriation as the Grammarians speak But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A God is in Holy Scripture appli'd to Angels to Kings to Prophets ..... Moses is call'd so and so must the Messias who is no less than Moses the Ambassador and Representative of God He was with the God The meaning is That before he enter'd on his Office he was taken up into Heaven to be fully instructed and inform'd in the nature and quality of his Office Pag. 25. He says Their Opposers have nothing to say to this Explication of these words but they deny Christ to be Call'd God as Moses because it is said All things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made and because the World was made by him I tell you Sir it is very dangerous to have to do with Criticks The Author says that this is a bold Translation He challenges us to deny that the Greek preposition which is render'd by might have been render'd for Thus the sence should have been All things were made for him The world was made for him That that makes this Translation certain is first that maxim that the world was made for the Messias and 2ly That Irrefragable Argument that there is no other Creator but God and that the word being distinguish't from the God and thereby deny'd to be the God this Translation must hold good You have this pag. 26. The short is says he If St. John speaks of the old Creation and of the visible World then the Translation must run All things are made for him to preserve the allusion to the known saying of all things being made for the Messias If he speaks of the new Creation the World which the Messias should make then the Translation must run all things were made by him The rest says he is easy The word was made Flesh and dwelt amongst us The Translation is ill They should have render'd it the word was Flesh They render themselves the Greek word v. 6. not was made but was only All this is put into a pretty Paraphrase At last he puts the case of the unlearned and what they are to do who are not acquainted with those precious Criticisms He resolves it by saying that they must consult their reason which will satisfy them that the Trinitarian Doctrine is impossible pag. 28. He says We do the same in the Case of Transubstantiation That Protestants must either come over to the Socinians or revolt to Rome That the decision of the Church and the mere Letter of Scripture is against us But if no interpretation of Scripture is admitted but what is consistent with reason both Protestants and Papists must be Socinians The Trinity and Incarnation being more inconsistent with reason than Transubstantiation Now one should be apt to think that when an Author undertakes to face all Mankind that they are mistaken in the sence of a Scripture which they look upon to be the foundation of their Faith and has not only the simple and credulous but the learned and understanding part of the World for ' its Defenders He should bring some reason so clear so plain so self evident that the contrary assertion must appear most unreasonable This Answer has two unpardonable faults 1st The Criticisms on which it is grounded are every one of them false 2ly It supposes that which is to be prov'd the pretended impossibility of the thing The sence of the Church says he cannot be admitted because it is impossible This is still the How can it be If a Revelation is plain and express and if all the Criticisms in the World cannot make it otherwise it is to quarrell with the Almighty It is in so many words the assertion of Dr. Wallis which they have exclaim'd against as an injustice done to them and yet remains still true that God say's The word was God and the word was made Flesh and they say Not
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
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
Text has the advantage that it is uncontested and come down to us without the least alteration All is plain and clear in it The resurection of Christ was deny'd by Thomas His incredulity says elegantly St. Austin was more useful to the Church than the Faith of the other Apostles He protested that except he saw in his hands the prints of the nails c. he would not believe The merciful Saviour condescends to let him make the Experiment which draws presently that noble confession of his Faith My Lord and My God Which is the same as if he had say'd I believe that thou art my Lord and my God This interpretation is evident 1st By the words of Christ in the next Verse where the Saviour takes no kind of notice of any Admiration or Exclamation as these Gentlemen would have it but only replies to that profession of his Faith Because thou hast seen Me thou hast believ'd and lays down this Maxim the comfort of Christians in all succeeding Ages Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believ'd 2ly The last Verse of this Chapter intimates that this History is written that by that Zealous confession of his Faith we might also be induc'd to believe v. 31. But these things are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God 3ly The resurrection of Christ was to be a proof of his Divinity Rom 1.4 declar'd to be the Son of God with power .... by the resurrection from the dead It was not by being risen from the dead that Jesus was the Son of God But his resurrection was a Declaration to all Mankind that he was so and therefore Thomas being satisfy'd of his Resurrection owns him for His Lord and his God The Fancy then of a deputed God has nothing to do here nor indeed any where else The Notion it self is contradictory and impossible I easily apprehend how a Man may be sent from God and intrusted with his commands to the rest of his Fellow Creatures But the very name of God excludes office and deputation A made God is that which cannot be made A deputed God is that which cannot be deputed The office of God is God himself When the Lord says to Moses Exod. 7.1 See I have made thee a God to Pharaoh he explains what that is in the next Verse Thou shalt speak all that I command thee This is no deputed Divinity There is not a God in Heaven and a deputed God upon Earth If the expression signifies no more than to speak or act from God not only Moses and the Prophets but every Father of a Family is a deputed God If it imports no more the notion is silly and if it does it is rash and unintelligible Socinus seeing Christ call'd God and the Son of God so very often in Scripture thought it a very easy way to rid himself of so many pregnant places gave him by this imaginary or deputed God which he thought to have found in this mistaken place of Exod. and in Ps 45. As if these two solitary Expressions could ballance or equal those repeated ones which assure us that Christ is truly God In one single place of Scripture Moses is say'd to be a God to Pharaoh In innumerable places of Scripture Christ is call'd God the Son of God has the Names the Attributes the Nature of God given him Therefore Moses is God as Christ and Christ God as Moses both deputed Gods A wild and irregular way of reasoning Nor do I wonder that Socinus should be guilty of this Though a Man of learning and parts and the unhappy restorer of an Heresy long since bury'd in a deep Oblivion and the first of a Sect to which he has left his name It happen'd to him as to many who have not time to refine their Arguments and do not so well understand their own system as they that come after But I admire that Gentlemen who have receded from so many inadvertencies of Socinus and of his outlandish followers and have really given a turn and a force to great many of their Arguments which they themselves did not nor could ever have done have not yet parted from this poor mean empty and if I am not too rude ridiculous notion of a deputed God But admitting that Moses is such and that his personal qualifications the diginity of his Office his commerce with God and his distinction from a people which it self was distinguish'd from all the Nations in the Earth give him a title to it St. Paul has clearly stated the difference and shews that if Moses in these Gentlemen's Principles is a God by Office Christ must be a God by Nature Heb. 3.2 3 4. The Author of the Epistle compares Christ with Moses He says that Christ our High-Priest was faithful to him that appointed him as also Moses was faithful in all his house then v. 3. he shews how much Christ excells Moses even as much as an Architect excell his own work in as much as he that built the house has more honour than the house In as much as the maker of Moses is more excellent than Moses himself He concludes v. 4. every house is built by some man but he that builds all these things not all things as our translation reads is God Every building has some Man for its Architect but these things which are built by Christ do far excel because the builder is God If Moses then in these Gentlemen's supposition is a God by Office what sort of God is Christ who is the Maker of the God by Office And how much of their assurance must these Gentlemen abate who when any pressing place is cited of Christ being call'd God send us dogmatically to Moses The Author of the Brief History pag. 41. has cited indeed both this Chapter and these Verses but has been very careful to avoid the objection by overlooking the 4. v. and indeed I commend him for it The difficulty is real and solid He plays at cross purposes and after his Laconick way of speaking he tells us that the House here is not mens bodies but the Church of Christ which he under God is said to build and so he dismisses us whereas the Text does not say he builds under God but that he is God who builds all these things Many other places might be alledg'd to that purpose but these are so clear and the pretended Answers to them so insufficient that the assertion of the Author of the Consider on the Sermon of the Bishop of Worcester pag. 11. will appear strangely confident That it cannot be satisfactorily prov'd that any Authentick Copies of the Bible do give Christ the title of God as he says the Author of the Brief Hist has abundantly shewn The Author of the History has not and none of these Gentlemen will ever be able to do it But it is the character of this Author in this Book in the Answer to Mr. Milbourn