worlds happiness which all the Witts in it could never have pitched upon There was not among the Jews the least garment belonging to those who officiated in holy services which had not something mysterious in it I own these Mysteries were not like those wherein our Faith is so deeply concern'd but they were Mysteries still tho' of a lower fourm and such Mysteries as the generality of the Jewish people were very far from diving into yet Reason would have gone a considerable way in teaching the Jews what God insinuated to them by such prescriptions All the circumstantials of Jewish worship were render'd the more considerable by those never-failing Oracles issued out from between the Cherubims and by Prophets raised up among them by God himself frequently till such time as they lost the glory of their Nation by Captivity and Slavery to prevailing strangers Those Revelations which such Prophets had extending particularly to future events of things were such as really entangled the Jews strangely and they who among Mysteries reveal'd had unhappily pitched upon a wrong interpretation of things were uncapable at last of applying events to Prophecies and so ruin'd It 's true the Priests themselves at first understood the meaning of things well enough but time corrupted them and introduced ignorance among them as well as among the vulgar but whatsoever the Priests understood at first or how much soever of the true meaning of things they understood at last they were yet not to cast pearles before swine nor holy things to dogs they were not to prostiture Mystical matters to every common enquirer tho' at the same time ready to teach Gods statutes and judgments to every one that humbly sought for information but as to the manner of God's delivering their Law to Moses in Horeb and his writing the Ten Commandments with the finger of God on the stone-Tables his guarding and directing them by a Cloud all day and by a pillar of Fire all night his Glory shining at particular times and on particular occasions in the Tabernacle of the Congregation his delivering his Will from the Mercy-Seat and being said to dwell peculiarly between the Cherubims his oracular resolution 〈◊〉 difficulties by Vrim and Thummim c. These were matters of so profound and inextricable a Nature that neither Priests nor people were ever able to give any considerable account of them If among the divine Institutions of the Jews there were so many matters of a mystical Nature it 's not to be wondred that Their Worship who had no assistance by divine Revelation should be more than ordinarily encumbred with them the Notions which the Gentile world had of a Deity tho' positive and uncontroulable enough were according to the means they had for acquiring divine Knowledge much more obscure than those of the Jews if yet they would have a shew of any Religion they were under a necessity of suiting it with some circumstantial rites which when they had try'd their utmost skill had a meaning but that meaning was very obscure We may believe that many of their Priests endeavour'd to make as deep impressions as they could of Religion upon the minds of those men they were concerned with but the greatest satisfaction they had in their own inventions was but this that the notorious obscurity of their publick Rites was very exactly representative of that God whom they acknowledged a Being infinite and incomprehensible and those things which were mysterious even in the sence of their first Inventors were much more so when they fell into the hands of their Successors who being blind Leaders of the blind all sence of true natural Divinity was quickly lost both among Priests and People thus we have reason to think the Hieroglyphical Theology of the Aegyptians was in a great measure rais'd from those hints they had taken of Man's duty to the World's Creator from their converse with the Jewish Patriarchs that the first contrivers of it were capable of making it considerably useful and instructive to the World and from thence those seeds of Moral Virtues which bore some fruit in ancient Heathens had their originals but when sloth and negligence took place among their degenerate posterity and the cruelty of Cambyses King of Persia destroy'd all the Priests of that Nation without distinction the whole body of their Divinity was lost some of its characters may be still remaining among old pillars or obelisks and other ruines of their ancient magnificence but as unintelligible to us as the Chinese writing is to a common labourer or the squaring of a Circle to one that never heard of Mathematicks All Men from the world's beginning acknowledged God's Vniversal Sovereignty by offering Sacrifices That Men offer'd Sacrifices and of living creatures too very early is apparent by the History of Cain and Abel Gen 3.1 2 3 4. where we are told that in process of time i.e. as soon as they were in a capacity of doing so Cain who was a tiller of the ground brought of the fruit of the ground an offering to the Lord and Abel who was a keeper of sheep brought of the firstlings of his flock and the fat thereof But that these were the first Sacrifices offer'd we have no reason to conclude since Adam had the same sence of things and the same motives to offer Sacrifices which They had and doubtless set them an example of so doing Eusebius of Caesarea tho' observed to be singular in the case gives much the best and most rational account of this Sacrifice I take says he the ground of this action not to have been meer chance or a device meerly humane but to have risen from a divine thought for whereas good Men who were illuminated with the divine spirit and lived in a near familiarity with God plainly saw there was a necessity of some extraordinary means for the expiation of damning sin they concluded it necessary to offer to God the giver of the Life and Soul something by way of a ransome or redemption price to procure their own Salvation and since they had nothing which they could offer to God better or more valuable than their Souls instead of them they Sacrificed beasts De Demonstr Evang l. 1. c. 10. so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 offering the Souls of others in lieu of their own and this was certainly the best Sacrifice and most significant of their apprehensions Where that reason given by Eusebius and made use of by Justin Martyr and the author of the Answer to the Orthodox printed among Justin's works and by St. Chrysostome and other ancient Christians and by Rabbi Moses ben Maimon and his followers among the Jews why Cain and Abel should pitch on offering Sacrifices and Abel particularly of living creatures viz. their wisdom and near converse with heaven suits yet more exactly with Adam himself who had converst with God in a state of perfection as well as imperfection And tho' we know the ruines of reason to
but never yet did any inspired Writer call Holy Men Men converted from the vanities of this World from all the Lusts and Follies attending it never did they call such by the name of Worldly Men But is not this a very hard shift to chop and change so often in so very short a sentence Whereas if we believe as we ought that this Habitable World and all things therein were created at first out of nothing by the Son of God the sence will be easie enough that God the Son was in this World this World the Universal fabrick of which his own hand had made and yet the World so far as capable of sence and knowledge understood it not or were not able to distinguish between the Creator and a meer Creature That we should believe the Son of God made all things at first the Scripture seems to take a great deal of care for so S. Paul teaches us that God created all things by Jesus Christ Ephes 3.9 but much more fully Coloss 1.15 16. Where giving thanks to God the Father who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the Kingdom of his dear Son he describes that Son thus He is the image of the Invisible God the first-born of every Creature for by him were all things created that were in Heaven and that are in Earth visible and invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or Powers all things were created by him and for him and he is before all things and by him all things consist and the Author of the Epistle is acknowledged to apply that of the Psalmist to our Saviour Heb. 1.10 Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the Earth and the Heavens are the works of thy hands A man would be apt to think these Texts were very plain and positive yet here too they 'l make their impious attempts for All things in heaven and in earth must mean only Angels and Men be it so how come the Angels to be renewed by the Word They will not say the fallen Angels were reduced to a state of Salvation S. Jude will contradict them there who tells us Jude v. 6. The Angels which kept not their first state but left their own habitation God hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness to the judgment of the great day They cannot say the Good Angels were so restored or renewed for they were created absolutely happy and they had not lost that happiness and our Saviour himself asserts that He came not to call the Righteous but sinners to repentance that the Whole need not a Physician but those that are Sick The words then are as they sound to us they are general and whereas the Apostle particularises in Thrones and Dominions c. after those general words all things visible and invisible it 's only to supply us with an argument à Majori ad Minus that if even those superiour happy Beings who might seem almost to be above the rank of Creatures if they yet ow'd their first originals to the hand of the Son of God how much more may we conclude the visible or grosser parts of the Universe might owe their beginnings to his power Indeed the design of the Apostle is to set before our eyes in the beginning of his Gospel the wonderful Condescension of the Son of God on behalf of miserable sinners so to work in us a due fence of what we owe to so infinite a goodness and a forward readiness to accept Salvation from so all-sufficient a hand upon the terms propounded i. e. Faith and Obedience but what Topic could the Holy Pen-Man better begin his design with than from that of Christ's being God blessed for ever or from all eternity from his existing always in the glorious presence of his Almighty Father and being infinitely blest in himself as being One and equal with his Father for a compleat and every way perfect Vnion or Identity can only be between equals The Evangelist proves this eternal Greatness by that sufficient argument of his being the great and sole Creator of all things This God this Creator of all things appeared upon Earth where even those who were the Work of his hands were grown to that Blindness through the greatness of their Sins and the corruption of their natures that tho' the whole Creation long'd for the glorious day of his appearance Yet all the Worl'd seem'd utterly unable to discover him this glorious and eternal Word yet assumed Humane Nature that he might be Visible to the eye of the World and that he might be able to offer himself a Sacrifice for the Sins of the World that he might atone his Father's just anger and reconcile us to him by his own most precious blood To this end He underwent all the inconveniences ordinarily attending Mankind and it was a severe beginning of his debasement or humiliation for our sakes that whereas he honour'd the Nation of the Jews by being born among them and whereas out of particular commiseration for that poor lost people he made himself first known among them and Preach'd and did Miracles that they might the better understand him yet after all he came to his own but his own received him not i. e. the generality of that Nation rejected him but those who did receive him were empower'd by him to become the Sons of God they were so influenced assisted supported and dignified by his Sacred Spirit that they attained the Spirit of Adoption whereby they were able to cry Abba Father or to call upon God with that confidence and security which a dearly loved Son may have in an indulgent and well pleased Father He was such because that Holy Lamb to whom John the Baptist gave his testimony did really take away the Sins of the World and this Lamb whose nature and goodness was so little understood appear'd yet especially after his Resurrection when their minds were opened to his Disciples full of Grace and Truth they beholding his glory as the glory of the only Begotten Son of God such lustre would appear in him to the true believers eyes through the thick veil of his flesh and all the dismal clouds of his unparallel'd sufferings Now this glory which the Apostles saw in Christ must be somewhat capable of distinguishing him from others he might have appear'd as a Son of God at large in the same sense as all those who live piously are called the Sons of God but that would not at all have answer'd to what the Evangelist tells us his Glory made him appear i. e. the only begotten Son of God begotten of God in such a manner as never any meer Creature could be glorious in such a Manner as no meer Man was ever capable of but if he could be no Creature he could be nothing but God there being no Intermedial Essence between the Creator and the Creature If then it be the distinguishing Character of
which made them employ a pert smatterer in Ignorance as their Hawker to disperse their new fangled Theology about the Countrey as if it were fit one employed so much in the dispose of Publick Charity should to keep the Ballance even between Heaven and Hell while he supports their Bodies pervert and poyson the Souls of the impertinently curious unthinking and injudicious part of Mankind If they have offered any new Reasons in defence of Errors Apparent rarae nantes in gurgite vasto it 's almost lost labour to hunt for them and the Quarry scarce worth stooping for when found It may be some may think those things considerable which He has reflected upon if so it's what He wished for presuming his Reflections might pass for a sufficient Refutation at least He hopes He has placed some things in so fair a Light that others may the more easily baffle their Novelties and secure the Foundations of our Christian Profession from the insolent attacks of Libertinism and prevailing Heresie If what the Author has done may be any way acceptable to the Pious and Learned World it will encourage Him to proceed farther and in due time to vindicate every Article of our Faith from the Insults of Socinians and Atheists and to offer them somewhat else wherein the Church of England is immediately concerned and which He hopes will do her no disservice however drooping her present Looks may be Otherwise He begs Pardon for what He has done already and will for the Future either Write better or leave that Work to those who are better able to defend the Cause If He has offered any thing New or Solid in vindication of our Antient Faith it will tend extremely to his Satisfaction If He have err'd in any Matter of weight He begs his Holy Mother's Pardon to the Censure of whose Lawful Governours He humbly submits All He has written and can conclude his Preface with nothing more apposite than that Petition of our Sacred Mother in her Litany From all false Doctrine Heresie and Schism from Hardness of Heart and Contempt of thy Word and Commandment Good Lord deliver us IMPRIMATUR Guil. Lancaster R. P. D. Henrico Episc Lond. à Sacris Domesticis Octob. 17. 1691. 1 Tim. 3.16 And without controversie great is the mystery of godliness God was manifest in the flesh IT 'S our business and design for the securing of those who shall read this discourse from damnable Errors for the glory of the eternal Son of God whose Divinity we find boldly impeach'd and blasphemously deny'd by a pestilent crew of subtle and insinuating Hereticks for the confirmation of that Faith in Christ which we profess and in which we hope to dye to encounter several of those Arguments thro' God's assistance which those enemies of Christianity assault the World with To which end it will be absolutely necessary to clear the sense of these words from those artificial clouds which some have endeavour'd to obscure them with and here we find the Socinians not so much disputing about the meaning of the first assertion without controversie great is the mystery of godliness as about the connexion of these words with the particulars following For if they can prove that the Incarnation of the Son of God is no part or member of our Faith or no mystery of our Religion they deprive us of one of the best and plainest Texts of Scripture for the maintaining of his Divinity Again if they can so bafflle all mysteries in Religion that nothing must be regarded but what can easily be comprehended by weak and corrupted reason our holy Religion stands upon a lower ground than the wretched Systems of Pagan Divinity and God must stand reprov'd himself if he speak any thing by inspired Prophets which the meanest person cannot fully and clearly understand In our entrance therefore on our intended discourse we must first remove these difficulties before we speak to the particulars And here we cannot but take notice that the Socinians generally profess abundance of respect for the Scriptures and seem to take a great deal of pains to assert their authority and it is upon the pretendedly genuine explication of that Word of God they build those Heretical Opinions with which they disturb the Church Socinus makes it a strange thing that any man professing Christianity should make any doubt of the authority of the books of the Old and New Testament Vid. Socin de author Scrip. op v. 1. p. 265. especially the last since the Writers of it were men of reputation and exactly acquainted with those things they writ about since the Writers were very well known since the books themselves are not corrupted or depraved and because there are no full or clear testimonies to be found that those books deserve not that credit we commonly give them Catech. Sect. 1. c. 2. The Racovian Catechism asserts the sufficiency of Scripture to make men wise to Salvation Eousque sunt sufficientia ut in rebus ad salutem necessariis iis solis acquiescendum est they are so sufficient to that great end that we ought to depend upon them only in matters of Salvation And for their assertion they add this among other reasons That it was not likely in so large a book and where so few things were absolutely necessary to Salvation Ibid. those very few things should not be fully laid down or that in a book where God had ordered so many things unnecessary he should have forgotten any thing that was absolutely necessary to Salvation And farther they avouch the integrity of Scripture that those holy Books are not corrupted or alter'd and that principally because they say it 's inconsistent with God's Providence and goodness to permit those writings in which he had declared himself and manifested his Will and shewed the way to eternal Salvation and which as such were immediately received and approved by all good men to permit such Writings to be any way corrupted besides that there were so many Copies of those Books transcribed at first in places so far distant one from another and they were translated into so many several languages presently that if any corruption or alteration had been attempted Ibid. c. 1. it had been impossible they should all have conspired in the same reading and therefore we may observe where the least change has been made the Copies disagree In this observation we close with them and by their own rule the better answer their cavil with this Text. For they tell us that some Copies read this Text not as we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God was manifest in the flesh but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which was manifest in the flesh without any mention of God at all Erasmus was the first in this observation Grotius follows him and tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God is wanting in the vulgar Latin Grot. in loc the Syriac and Arabic translations and that St. Ambrose takes no notice
of it and that Hincmare Bishop of Rhemes says it was foisted into the Text by the Nestorians Curcellaeus tells us the same and of an old Greek Copy mentioned by Morinus wherein part of the word was written by a later hand This Critical observation the Socinians with one consent lay hold on by that means endeavouring to avoid so plain a Text for the Divinity of the Son of God So Volkelius tells us plainly that our Text is one of those Scriptures Volkel de â—â—â—d â—elig Edit Am l. 5. p. 462. c. â—1 quas ad errorem suum stabiliendum detorquent adversarii which those who believe Christ to be God wrest to the maintenance of their own error for the name of God is not in all the Greek Copies as may be seen by the vulgar Latin and Syriac Versions but all the following particulars are to be referr'd to the Mystery of Godliness mentioned before which mystery of Godliness was manifested in the flesh and this Grotius before cited on the place takes to be very good sence Crellius on this place observes the same thing yet owns Quod Graeci constanter pro ö legunt Θεὸς that the Greeks whose the Original is read the name of God unanimously in the Text tho' some Versions want it He tells us a story of Macedonius the Patriarch of the Pneumatomachoi or those Hereticks who deny'd the divinity or personality of the Holy Ghost or of some other of that name of which more hereafter that he attempted the depraving of this passage and that there is no question but he inserted the controverted word into the Text afterwards He refers us to an abridgment of the case of Nestorius and Eutyches Crellius iâ— loc Bibliot fr. Pol. inter opera Cr. v. 2. p. 18 19. written by Liberatus a Deacon of Carthage who tells us that Macedonius Bishop of Constantinople was deprived by the Emperour Anastasius as a falsifier of Scripture and particularly for inserting the word God in this place of S. Paul He tells us indeed that In eo consentiunt omnes malam manum huic loco fuisse adhibitam fraudemque à Macedonio attentatam All agree in this that some foul play was offered to the Text and that Macedonius was concern'd in the cheat but for this we must take his word for he gives us no other authority and all this is repeated in the Racovian Catechism Catech. Raco p. 55. Sect. 4. c. 1. and the short note of Andreas Wiscoveatius upon the question about the sence of our Apostle Schlicktingius another of the same Tribe and a great hearer of Crellius yet here contradicts his companion and tells us boldly and roundly Schlicktingius in locum oper t. 2. p. 150. Contin Ir. Ir. p. 106. par 58. that several Greek Copies read it otherwise than we do i. e. they omit the word God but proves it only by the forecited translations and to name no more Zwicker in the defence of his Irenicum Irenicor against Comenius calls this Text locus dubiae lectionis a place read several ways Now the inference these Hereticks make from this Criticism is That this Text is indeed no proof of any thing for since we know not how it was written at first by reason of the difference among the Copies now extant it 's not to be admitted as a proof so Crellius Crell ubi supra Cum nemo ambigat tentatum esse aliquid circa hunc locum varientque hodie lectiones nil ex illo solidi ad aliquod in Religione Dogma stabiliendum duci posse certum est Since none doubt there has been somewhat attempted about this Text and that the Copies at this time differ one from another no solid argument can be drawn from thence for the confirming any Tenet in Religion With him agrees the Racovian Catechism in express terms but here we may answer them according to their own position before mentioned That since the original Greek Copies in which Language the new Testament was written by the inspired authors do all agree in reading this Text as we do in our Bibles we need not trouble our selves about the disagreement of two or three Translations since having to do with men highly pretending to reason we may rationally conclude God's goodness and providence would take more care to secure the Originals than those Translations and that he really did preserve the Originals unperverted on purpose to prevent the ill effects those imperfect translations might otherwise have had for who but a proselyte of Rome or a Socinian would run to an uncertain stream when he might with the same ease drink at the fountain head where every thing is pure and clean But if we examine the matter more strictly the whole pretence of different Copies is false or impertinent Vid. Gothofr in Poli Synop. Gothofredus in a particular discourse on this Text could find no difference in the original Books and all Grotius and Schlicktingius and Curcellaeus and Crellius have said amounts but to one among 1000. and that one very questionable too The Syriac translation indeed does want the word in our Polyglot Bibles but the Arabic version has it God appear'd in the flesh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor do I find any various readings there The vulgar Latin has not the word indeed but when Grotius and from him the rest tell us that St. Ambrose read it not they shew more craft than sincerity that Father reads the text without God in it but he interprets it as we do that the mystery here spoken of was Christus in carne Christ appearing in the flesh Ambros com in Epist 1. ad Tim. Edit Par. 1549. p. 2056. Tamdiu aspectu humilis visus est per carnem quamdiu devicta morte resurgeret à mortuis videretur majestas ejus qui natus ut homo non erat totus homo He appear'd humble in his flesh so long till having conquer'd death he rose again and that his Majesty might be seen who tho' he was born as a man was not meerly a man i. e. he was God as well as man Not to take any notice that St. Ambrose really was not the author of those Commentaries on St. Paul's Epistles printed commonly among his works but Hilary the Deacon a stout adversary of Arianisme in the fourth Century As for Crellius his story of Macedonius it 's loose and impertinent Macedonius indeed who was thrust into the chair of Constantinople by the Arrians upon the death of Alexander in the year 342. was Heretick enough and consequently like enough to attempt an ill thing But that Macedonius mentioned by the Deacon Liberatus was thrust out of his See by the Emperour Anastasius for his not complying with Hereticks in the year 515. when it was too late to attempt an innovation in Scripture and who beside could have no design in so doing since he held no peculiar opinions about our Saviour to which such a corruption
have no proper organs to demonstrate their innate reason by these unhappinesses are all the fatal consequences of sin and we could hardly believe that sin had had any ill consequences at all had not reason suffer'd by it for if we can as really we do observe that reason teaches every one who now adverts seriously to it to aim at quiet and happiness so had not sin clouded it strangely it had been impossible any temptation whatsoever contrived by Hell or its emissaries could have baffled it But it 's plain that by our present incapacities to answer the sophistry of the tempter we are continually betray'd to sin reason in its height and purity would have convinced us of the madness and folly of every thing that 's ill reason as it now stands perverted suffers us unless prevented with a great deal of industry to embrace ill under the notion of good and it 's no small argument of a great weakness in our rational faculties to be so impos'd on We oftentimes now entertain our capital adversary the Devil as an angel of light we misprise vice for virtue falshood for truth sophistry for solid arguments novelty for antiquity superstition for devotion noise for sense interest for zeal confidence for great parts and ingenuity and reason it self as now it stands when we have a few lucid intervals shews us the extreme ridiculousness of those mistakes and the abilities which some have to expose the follies of others and at the same time to betray their own is unanswerable evidence of the imbecillity of humane reason in general It 's doubtless possible for some of excellent constitutions to argue themselves into a strong perswasion that there is a God It 's again possible nay we see it too too common for men of delicate intellectuals to pretend to answer all the arguments brought to prove the being of a God and they do it so plausibly as to get proselytes and to make abundance of room for horrid Atheism We make no question but that we have proofs really unanswerable of the Divinity of the Son of God the Socinians with whom we are now concern'd deny it and pretend to demonstrations of the contrary and all from principles of reason or Scriptures rationally interpreted and many well meaning men think they are in the right and therefore close with them These oppositions of Reason could never have happen'd had the Soul or mind enjoy'd its original freedom and activity for nothing could possibly have been offer'd in opposition to reason wholly clear and perfect that having been incapable of stooping to mean arts and trifling sophistry But we need indeed no more but to reflect a little on our first Parents and on our selves to prove the truth of this conclusion It 's impossible to overlook the prodigious difference there was between Adam as a knowing Monarch giving names to all Creatures according to their natures and Adam sowing Fig-leaves together to hide his nakedness from Creatures whom some conclude irrational and flying to the shelter of the Trees of Eden for a security from the presence of an all-seeing God one argued excess of wisdom the other the extravagance of folly and for our selves as the Jews proved themselves dull and senseless who could not be convinced or reduced by him who spake as never man spake so we cannot without extreme difficulty find any impressions of good made on our Souls by the most forcible discourses whereas reason in its primitive glory could admit of nothing but what was holy just and good all this notwithstanding we conclude That Humane reason corrupted as it is has yet so much of light and strength as to shew and convince us of a general necessity of Religion This we assert of the light of nature which really is nothing but meer reason as it stands at present affected Now if the works of nature are such as according to the assertion of the Apostle do evidence the Almighty's power and Godhead this evidence must be clear to somewhat that 's able to comprehend it and if it be so very full and plain that they who neglect it are altogether inexcusable then that reason which we now enjoy which alone is capable of apprehending natural evidence must still have that strength that those who by its conduct cannot find out a God and their general duty to him are therefore not to be excus'd God has made the World and all things therein and gives to all life and breath Acts 17.24 25 26 27. and all things and has made of one blood all Nations to dwell upon the Earth that they might seek the Lord if haply they might feel after him and find him but it would have been very ill argued of the Apostle from such Topicks if such observations had not really been enough to guide those who search after God to make a discovery of him And here the Socinians seem to act by very strange measures they conclude as before I observ'd from Smalcius that there 's nothing to be admitted into Religion but what 's agreeable to reason but we cannot tell what 's agreeable to reason unless we can fully and clearly comprehend it for otherwise we may be mistaken and suppose that agreeable to reason which really is not so But at the same time Socinus himself looks upon the light of nature as not sufficient to impress on Man the notion of a God Socin praelect Theol. c. 2 but will have that general opinion of the existence of God to flow only from traditional knowledge or from revelation yet after this assertion of his Crellius one of the most learned of his followers and defenders goes about in his Book de Deo ejus attributis to demonstrate the being of a God from the works of the Creation But if Man has not sense enough by considering the works of nature to argue to the being of a God such a demonstration is extremely impertinent Socinus would prove his opinion among other things by that of the Apostle He that comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him which is prefaced with that That without faith it is impossible to please God Heb. 11.6 But this is no proof at all for Men may by considering circumstances come to the acknowledgment of some supreme power and yet never believe in him nor ever own or practise their duty to him and therefore St. Paul takes notice of some holding the truth in unrighteousness who when they knew God glorified him not as God tho' they were convinced of his existence they were not careful to perform the duty of Creatures or servants to a Supreme Creator they were not thankful but became vain in their Imaginations Rom. 1.21 and their foolish hearts were darkned c. Now those St. Paul there reflects on were Heathens in general who being under a necessity of believing that there was a God by rational discourse
grace unto the humble there are some things which relate to Religion wherein God has deliver'd himself so as to let us know words and names but has not reveal'd enough to give us an insight into the matters which are intimated under them Men need not trouble themselves too curiously about such things Moses taught the Israelites very well Deut. 29.29 The secret things belong unto the Lord our God and the Son of Syrach gives an excellent lesson Seek not out things that are too hard for thee neither search the things that are above thy strength Ecclus. 3.21 22. but what is commanded thee think thereupon with reverence for it is not needful for thee to see with thine eyes the things that are in secret What if among such things I should reckon Mens over-curious enquiries into the nature of God's decrees which enquiries have produced a great many foolish and uncharitable controversies even among good men there is employment enough for a good Man's whole life in things more needful to be known I will not say it 's absolutely unlawful to be prying into what God has thought fit to express himself very obscurely in but this I 'le say that whosoever will be walking in those private paths had need to tread with a very gentle foot to look frequently backward and on each side as well as forward to be very distrustful of his own ability very submissive to the judgment of Superiors in office age or gifts very earnest and indefatigable in his prayers to God for his assistance as he shall see fit to impart it on such an occasion very tender of imposing his own judgment upon others and of being too positive in those opinions he takes up since the corruption of our reason a man frequently thinks he has made a very great discovery in some weighty point and hugs himself with the plausibility of his thoughts he imagines as we are generally apt to be very fond of the products of our own brains every thing he has laid down or methodiz'd in his thoughts to be so very plain and clear that it 's impossible any man of sense should not immediately be his proselyte and some perhaps are ready to flatter such a one in his over-weening conceit by a pretended concurrence in their sentiments with him after all it happens as often that another of as great natural abilities and as searching a head discovers a great many mistakes in the others beautiful Scheme of thoughts and baffles the whole invention the other had admired himself for such things ought to make all especially in religious matters where it 's dangerous jesting or innovating to act with abundance of circumspection and indeed rather to confine themselves to lower studies than to hazard the over-setting their own Intellectuals by engaging into boundless enquiries Those things may in themselves be lawful which yet cannot be very convenient Some such curiosities are very idle and ridiculous as disputing what God did before he made the World Whether He could have pardon'd Mens sins without a Mediatour c. He was fatally answer'd to such a Question who asking an Eminent Christian what the Carpenter's Son meaning Christ was then a doing was told He was making a Coffin for such a lewd Inquirer as himself who dy'd in a very few hours after Ecclus. 3.23 The Son of Syrach advises well Be not curious in unnecessary matters for more things are shew'd unto thee than men understand i. e. God has laid open such infinite treasures of Divine wisdom before us and our understandings are so very short that we need not look out strange subjects of our meditations it 's enough if we can in some tolerable manner comprehend those sacred truths that are deliver'd to us and we are more concern'd to endeavour to do so than some are ready to imagine For though a Socinian may tell us God has declared several things in holy Scripture that are no way necessary to Salvation the assertion is absurd and false that old Axiome Deus Natura nihil faciunt frustra That God and Nature never do any thing in vain is enough to refute it for since the end of Scripture is the making Men wise to salvation it 's very bold to say God knew not how to frame such a Book without abundance of impertinencies when we see many Men setting much slighter ends before themselves will yet prosecute their discourses in so close and exact a manner that the most critical judgment may perhaps find what to add but cannot find what to take away from their writings there is therefore no positive truth asserted in holy Writ but what is really useful to Man's Salvation since there 's nothing throughout the whole but what serves to illustrate God's goodness and mercy and truth c. or Man's misery by Sin or happiness by Grace or lays down rules of life and practice or gives us examples of Virtues or Vices in others from all which something very instructive may be drawn nor can we believe that even the genealogical Tables in Scripture were as a late Writer impudently suggests design'd onely to amuse and confound us but to set us in a way to find how all the ancient Prophecies centred in Jesus Christ the promised Messias As the positive assertions so their true and genuine consequences are in some sort and to some Men necessary to salvation God having given greater capacities and larger Souls to some than he has to others expects proportionable improvements from them and a Man of wisdom and learning cannot be saved onely on the same terms on which a person of low and mean endowments may therefore those of greater parts are bound to look into every thing divinely reveal'd and to what may be regularly deduced from it but as perfection in good works is required in every one that is to be saved and yet many are sav'd tho' none are perfectly good so it is in relation to things contain'd in Scripture every one is bound to study them things of common practice are plain and obvious in them things at first to be believ'd are taken for granted but Man is for his life-time employ'd and to be so in farther search into the meaning of those things that are more obscure Could Man once in his life-time attain to a perfect understanding of every thing set down there there would quickly be an end of all sacred study but since the wisest find in the Word of God more than they can understand and yet find they every day by study understand more and more and the meanest wits upon a due care and industry find proportionable advances there is always enough to excite mans utmost diligence and care and as in practical piety so it is here he that improves his time best to get knowledge tho' he cannot reach to all he should his defects shall be pardoned for his sake who in himself contains consummate wisdom But it remains still true
that it could not reasonably be requir'd that a man should engage himself in the study of the whole Book of God if there were any thing positively asserted there the knowledge and understanding of which would be lost time as the studies of all impertinencies are But howsoever necessary these studies are if they are not prosecuted in a due manner i. e. with an humble sense of our own natural defects with a sober and submissive judgment and with all that modesty which becomes one who is desirous to learn they 'l prove but mischievous and make Hereticks Schismaticks or Atheists instead of knowing and improving orthodox Christians It 's true that nothing ought to be admitted into Religion which is contrary to reason but it must be understood which is contrary to reason in its primitive integrity for that which we call reason now we every one find extremely subject to mistakes and for me to measure those truths which are reveal'd by an infallible God by the standard of that sense or judgment which I know to be mistakeful and fallible is unreasonable with any sober discourser to extremity and it argues too great a pride in our low condition to imagine that because once we were made perfect that therefore we should in any respect continue so though we had sought out to our selves many inventions Many are deceived by their own vain opinion ver 24. says the Son of Syrach and nothing can certainly be more prejudicial to a Man in his disquisitions after truth than a great conceit of his own abilities to find it out God commonly blasts such fond pretenders to ingenuity and makes them take a great deal of pains only to procure infamy and perpetual disgrace to themselves Such mischiefs would be avoided yet Humane Reason have it's due use and esteem if the Apostles injunction were well obey'd that no man should think of himself more highly than he ought to think Rom. 12.3 but to think soberly according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith Men ought when they meet with any difficulties in divine Writings not to make their Reason the measure of Truth but to make Truth the measure of their Reason and rather to suspect their own apprehension of it than the weakness or ambiguity on the defectiveness of the authors assertions or expressions And so much for the use of Humane Reason in matters of Religion it 's a great blessing to us still tho' impair'd by sin and if soberly and modestly used will by divine assistance rise to a greater strength and vigour and be able to comprehend every day more and more of the mystery of Godliness till it comes in a glorifi'd state to comprehend every thing that can any way contribute to its consummate happiness Having gone thus far in the debate concerning the use of Humane Reason in matters of Religion and declared how careful we should be not to indulge our selves in vain and useless curiosities for the vindication of our selves as Christians we are to consider that a full proof of the Divinity of the Son of God is a task that comes under no reproof in the case That the blessed Jesus the great captain of our Salvation is God as well as Man that he is God of God light of light very God of very God as the Nicene Creed expresses it that he is perfect God not a factitious or an aequivocal God as some would have him but that He who is God the Son is infinite in all his Attributes God over all blessed for ever as God the Father is is Articulus stantis aut cadentis Ecclesiae such an Article of our Christian Faith so essential to the Mystical Body of Christ that while it 's embrac'd the Church has a real Being when it 's laid aside the very Being of the Church expires at the same time It 's so necessary an Article of Faith that except a man keep it whole and undefiled without doubt he shall perish everlastingly for he that believes in such a Messias such a Saviour who is not God is really an Idolater as fixing his belief in one that is not able to save For Man's misery is too great to be reliev'd by any inferiour power and the blood of Bulls and of Goats might as well have serv'd for the expiation of Humane guilt as the sufferings of one who was a meer man and consequently could have no proper merit to plead for us no inherent power wherewith to assist us Some of those Hereticks who deny the Divinity of the Son of God have been so sensible of this that they have maintain'd and preach'd it in those Congregations where they have been concern'd That it 's as lawful to pray to the blessed Virgin or to any other Saint or any Angel as it is to pray to the Son of God and that all those are really guilty of Idolatry who make any such Prayers or Supplications to him Now tho other Socinians call these blasphemers on this account they are really injurious to 'em for if that which they all agree in be true viz. That Jesus Christ is not the most high God then whosoever worships him as God breaks the first and second Commandments as much as those of the Church of Rome do and are as notorious Idolaters as we shall hereafter have occasion to prove In quest then of the truth of this doctrine That Jesus Christ is the true God we are to bend our Reason and to meet and baffle those great pretenders to it with their own weapons and to prove to them that tho we think the mystery of godliness to be great as the Text asserts it to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Chrysostom expresses it to be unexpressible and wonderful and incomprehensible yet we receive some considerable advantages from its being revealed for by that means we know the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the positive truth that he who appear'd in the flesh visible to humane eyes and so far humbled to atone for humane Crimes was really God hence to be ador'd by us hence able to perform the work he came about and to save to the utmost all those that come to the Father in and by him and this we firmly and stedfastly believe tho' we cannot comprehend the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the manner how so great a miracle of Mercy should be brought about and those proofs by any particulars whatsoever laid down of this truth using reason with that sobriety and modesty which we ought we may examine and try throughly and judge how far they come up to those things they are designed to make good and so our Faith it self may be rational and thence invincible tho' every particular of it be not intelligible to us in its full extent With relation to the Text then we assert That the Mystery of Godliness which the Apostle tells us is great cannot be apply'd to the several particulars laid down in
to the Jews of whom we acknowledge that they had no such distinct notions of the Trinity as we by the Gospels assistance have at present but yet both among Jews and Gentiles he was declar'd by other names than that of God the Father and if according to our common Logical notions Relatives do mutually suppose or remove one another if Jesus Christ was not really and actually the Son of God pre-existent to his incarnation the name of Father could not properly have been apply'd to the supreme God nor he be preach'd to the World under that character so that in fine we conclude that the preaching of God the Father to the World was no part of the Mystery of Godliness Nor is it properly so to say that God the Father was believ'd on in the World for that too was nothing newly effected by the appearance of our Saviour the World in general from its first original believ'd there was a God if there were any who from those apprehensions they had of the existence of a God set themselves to live virtuously as considering that God under the notion of a knowing and severe Judge and one capable of rewarding men according to their works such Persons believ'd in God according to our own sense when we repeat the Creed Now that some did thus believe before our Saviour's appearance in the flesh is unquestionable all those who liv'd religiously before the promulgation of the Mosaic Law did thus believe in God and are some of them remembred as the great Heroes of Faith in the beginning of the Eleventh Chapter to the Hebrews If then this were a Mystery it was of a very ancient standing and discovered long before the coming of Christ The application of the particulars thus far failing we have some reason to believe that neither will the last agree any better to that imposed sense He was received up in glory or into glory Here our adversaries flie to God's will again so confounding God and God's will as if they were not to be considered as distinct but this we have consider'd before where we observed that contradiction the Gospel met with in the World As to God the Father where or when or how or by whom was he receiv'd up in glory the holy Scriptures give us no intimation of his having descended at any time from Heaven to Earth and He that 's receiv'd up into glory ought to be so receiv'd by some Being superior to himself which a Socinian knows God the Father cannot have now as the Apostle teaches us He that descended Eph. 4.10 is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens that he might fill all things but God the Father never that we hear of in Scripture descended therefore God the Father who ever of himself was surrounded with infinite glory never was by any receiv'd up into glory And thus have we shown the vanity of those glosses which the Socinians and others have fixt upon this Text we shall now show to whom the particulars in the Text do properly and unquestionably belong And here since Scripture makes it very plain that the whole method of serving God in an acceptable manner is laid down by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ That as himself tells us He is the Way the Truth John 14.6 and the Life and no man comes to the Father but by him The whole mystery of Godliness or of true Christian Religion can consist in nothing but what refers to him who is the author of it that is the blessed Jesus concerning whom and whose doings and sufferings for us there is nothing reveal'd in the Gospel or in the foregoing prophecies but what 's mysterious He was indeed God manifest in the flesh God blessed for ever yet for the sake of wretched Sinners descending to Earth and taking our Nature upon him being cloth'd with flesh and all those incumbrances and infirmities attending upon a mortal state sin onely excepted He is that eternal Word which was in the begining with God nay that Word that was God John 1.1.14 and that Word was made flesh and dwelt among us as we learn from St. John Now if Christ really was God the most opinionative of the Socinians would conclude the Text plain enough for that Christ was certainly and literally made flesh but if we cannot read this Text of the Apostle truly without inserting the word God And Smalcius one of the great promoters of the Socinian heresie declares Smalc de verbo incarnato c. 18. Nos Graecum textum Vulgatae longe esse anteponendum censemus is vero habet Deum in carne esse manifestatum We look upon the Greek Text as far to be preferr'd before the Vulgar Latine and the Greek reads it God was manifest in the flesh and if neither the Gospel nor the will of God nor God the Father can properly or truly be said to be made flesh and yet God was manifest in the flesh then that Jesus who was truly and literally cloth'd with our flesh must be that God the farther proof of Christ's real and eternal Divinity belongs to another place but his true and indisputable humanity is the first plain and most obvious assertion of the Apostle here This same blessed Jesus was as plainly justified in the Spirit since not onely the miracles he did justified him in the sight of all Mankind and prov'd that he could be no cheat or Impostor as the Jews were willing to have him thought but at the time of his Baptism by John in Jordan while he was praying the Heaven was open'd and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a Dove upon him and a voice came from Heaven which said Thou art my beloved Son Luke 3.21 22. in thee I am well pleas'd Now the Holy Spirit would not in so open a manner have descended on him who had pretended to that relation to Allmighty God which really never belong'd to him Therefore John the Baptist makes a right inference from that descent I saw says he Joh. 1.32 the Spirit descending from Heaven like a Dove and it abode upon him And I knew him not v. 33 34. but he that sent me to baptize with water the same said unto me Vpon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost And I saw and bare record that this is the Son of God Our Lord himself makes it one of his last instructions to his Disciples that when the Comforter that Holy Spirit whom he would send should come he should amongst other things convince the world of righteousness because He the blessed Jesus went to his Father and the world should see him no more c. 16. v. 8. 10 14. and that that Holy Spirit should glorifie him for he should receive of his and shew it to men And thus effectually that Sacred Spirit when he was so plentifully according to promise pour'd out
find the King of Moab taking his eldest Son who was to have reigned after him 2 Kings 3.26 27. and offering him for a burnt-offering upon the wall of his besieged City The misery he was reduced to required something of extraordinary to allay it and nothing could show a more eager desire to atone his angry Gods to whose displeasure he imputed his present calamity than to offer a Sacrifice so dear and valuable to himself to atone them Where before I pass on I cannot but take notice of that passage in the contents of the now Cited Chapter in our English Bibles viz. The King of Moab by sacrificing the King of Edom's Son raiseth the Siege In which passage they follow the opinion of Junius tho' without any ground at all For how came the King of Moab so streightly besieged to get the King of Edom's Son into his possession We read of his desperate attempt to break through to that King of Edom with 700 valiant Men v. 26. But the consequence of his attempt was He could not effect what he desired the failure in which bold design made him in the extremity of his despair flie to as astonishing a remedy besides not to mention it that the King of Edom in those days was but a Deputy a Viceroy and his Government not hereditary We find the confederate Kings raising their Siege upon that strange action but had Moab so cruelly sacrificed the Heir of Edom reason will teach us it must have exasperated the more and made them press the Siege the more streightly to have been revenged on so extreme a barbarity Again some would perswade us with as little sense that that great Indignation which is said to have been against Israel was from the King of Edom enraged to see the Jews prosecute the Siege so far as to cost the life of his Son For indeed that anger against Israel was from God who having formerly given them a charge not to dispossess the Children of Ammon or Moab as being the Posterity of Lot Abraham's Nephew was displeas'd now to see them carry on a War so far as to make a considerable Prince commit in his extremity so great an abomination Their inveteracy against him forced him to it and God required mercy from them to their kindred and therefore the Israelites though late sensible of God's anger and the reason of it rais'd their Siege and gave over so inhumane a War Nor yet could it have been reasonably accounted so dear or precious a sacrifice to have offer'd the blood of an enemy as that of an onely Son as we may conclude from the aggravating circumstances of that severe command to Abraham Gen. 22.2 to take his Son his onely Son the Son whom he loved and to offer him a burnt sacrifice and from God's accepting nothing less than the death of his onely begotten Son for the Redemption of Mankind from the damnation of Hell Besides this unhappy Prince the Israelites themselves tho' so often caution'd against such things are justly charged by the Psalmist That they offered their Sons and their Daughters unto Devils Psal 106.37 38. and shed Innocent blood even the blood of their Sons and of their Daughters whom they sacrificed unto the Idols of Canaan and the Land was defiled with blood Where God 's own people fail'd it 's no wonder the Gentile world fell into such madnesses Praepar Evang. l. 4. c. 7. therefore we find the Carthaginians and Phoenicians burying Slaves alive on some extraordinary exigences as Eusebius from Porphyry informs us or offering them to Saturn The Romans running into the same follies in the second Punick War in obedience as they pretended to the Sibylline Oracles Now all these and the like Sacrifices were suppos'd to have some secret meaning and to represent imperfectly some mighty future events being things the vulgar might gaze and wonder at but could never understand yet they shewed that general sense of Mankind that Religion could not subsist without Mysteries and the Devil he made too good use of those natural notions furnishing the Heathen world with such Mystick Rites as might keep Men at the greater distance lest too plain discoveries of himself should have undeceiv'd thinking Men and have taught them to turn to the worship of the true God That the Devil might ape God the more exactly and over-aw Men the more securely as Idolatrous Priests in Scripture pretended to receive answers from their Gods so he in several places under several names had his Ammonian Delphian Pythian Dodonian Ephesian Paphian Oracles where he used to return ambiguous and puzling answers to such as came to enquire of him concerning the events of things by his ambiguous expressions he endeavour'd to conceal his want of omniscience and secured himself from the accusations of his deluded worshippers he likewise had his Prophets such as inspired with a Devilish fury raved out obscure and insignificant non-sence which yet were generally receiv'd with the greatest veneration and preserv'd as rules of practice for Men in their necessities to have recourse to out of which if in an exigence they were able to pick any thing they were ready to admire his veracity whom the Sons of Wisdom knew to be the Father of lies Such Prophets were Tiresias and his daughter Manto and Amphiaraus and Calchas the answerers from the Delphick Tripos from the Sibyls Cave and from Trophonius his Den c. These fill'd weak heads with mighty wonders that the Gods should so freely impart their secrets to Men whose sanctity they admired as much as Cyrus of Persia is said to have done that of Bell and his Priests in the Apocryphal story and were as grosly cheated But tho' by these Devices of Satan the far greater part of Mankind were miserably abused as to the object of their Devotions yet the reason and design of their Devotions was good and true nothing could blind them so far or lay them under so deep a stupidity but that they plainly observ'd their own unhappy and defective state they were able still in many moral cases to distinguish between good and evil virtue and vice and having a true sense of the existence of a God they had still so much natural Logick as to infer from their own extraordinary inclinations to wickedness or to be guilty of Immoralities that Heaven must be atoned that there must be some way of Mediation found out between God and Man otherwise they must be wholly miserable therefore they kept up their Sacrifices and solemn Devotions as some shadows or weak representations of that mediating work but even while they did so reason prevail'd and acted them so much farther that they concluded an upright a sincere and well purged mind was much more acceptable to the Vniversal Sovereign than their sacrifices for any intrinsick worth could be and this truth was so firmly fixt in the hearts of Men that the Devil himself never durst undertake to oppose it though it
son of our sacred Mother the English Church says of this manifestation of God in the flesh How it was effected Vid. Montacut Norvic in Act. Mon. Eccles c. 1. par 39. p. 27. 1 Pet. 1.12 by what means made possible heaven and earth cannot understand nor deliver 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was a mystery from the beginning the Angels understood it not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it will be a mystery to eternity the Angels as yet can go no farther than their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to receive a glimmering of it as it were by the crany of a window or by the chink of a door and how shall we dare to enquire how it was done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this question is indissoluble that inextricable Faith alone has power to resolve them both this we submissively agree to and therefore we enquire not how or in what manner God was made flesh any farther than some particulars relating to that Incarnation are plainly laid down in Scripture far be any such presuming curiosity from us only since the Apostle in the consequent parts of the Text has asserted that God was made flesh which according to the natural sound and common acceptation of such words in all languages and writers is that he who was made flesh or appear'd in the flesh was God since the Apostle has asserted the positive truth and has made it the first part of the great mystery of godliness and such a part as all the other particulars do but serve to prove and confirm We must assert too that this particular point or article of Faith that He who was made flesh for the Salvation of mankind was really God God properly so call'd the most high the eternal God blessed for ever not any made or subordinate God but the maker of all things in a word the true God exclusive of all created Beings whatsoever We assert that this is an Article of our Faith so true and so important that upon a true embracing it in the sence so laid down the Salvation of all men depends as much as upon believing in Christ the Son of God at all or on being neither impious nor blasphemers nor idolaters And therefore we assert farther that how great a mystery soever this may appear and it never ought to appear otherwise to enquire into and seek for all such Scriptures as may render it indisputable is neither impertinent to our Lord's design in being so incarnate nor is it fruitless to those who make it their business to inquire into such proofs nor is it dangerous to any who make that enquiry with due humility and care But on the contrary it 's very dangerous nay fatal as before not to enquire into it or not to be fully satisfied about it I know we have in this point more enemies than the meer Socinians some capital asserters of the Arminian tenets being desirous to give such a latitude to Religion as may take in all their friends are very willing to perswade us that it 's not very material or necessary to believe that Jesus Christ the Son of God is God of the same substance or nature with his father So Episcopius a man of great learning and ingenuity in his fourth book of Theological Institutions c. 34. Traitè sur la Divin de J.C.S. 1. c. 1. p. 10. c. the sum of whose plea amounts to this That the essence of Christian Religion consists not in meer contemplative knowledge but in practice and that it consists much more in obedience than in abstracted speculations on the Deity which tho' it be true enough has really no place here for can we call those principles meer or simple speculations which are so important that we our selves are or are not Idolaters accordingly as they are true or false If Christ be of the same substance with his Father or if which comes to the same end Christ be the supreme or sovereign God he ought to be adored in that quality and Socinians themselves cannot without impiety refuse to acknowledge him as such and to honour him under that name but if he be not so we cannot confound him with the Sovereign God without Idolatry The great concern here then is to avoid impiety or idolatry and by consequence those inquiries must be of a practical nature which are of so very great and extraordinary an importance Episcopius makes several vain attempts to shew That it is not at all essential to Salvation to know if Jesus Christ be God by an eternal generation or that being but a simple creature or which is the same a meer man like one of us he is called God upon account of his ministry for when he goes about to make us see that these are no fundamental inquiries in shewing us that those who believe Jesus Christ is a meer Creature may worship him without being guilty of Idolatry because they adore him not as he is man but as he holds the place of God as his Ambassador or Substitute this proof is imperfect and insufficient For to prove that these questions are impertinent or unnecessary it 's not enough to shew that Socinians without being Idolaters may worship him whom they believe to be no more by nature than a meer Man which supposition yet we shall in due time prove God willing to be false But he ought to shew withal that we without Idolatry may worship Jesus Christ as the supreme God as we really are taught to do by the Church of England tho' at the same time he really be not the sovereign God which seems to be a very hard if not an impossible task as I question not but hereafter it will more plainly appear At present I shall only touch upon an argument urged by Episcopius from a Topick very easily found out the reason then given by him why it is not necessary that we should believe Jesus Christ to be perfect or the true God is Quia nuspiam in Scripturâ id necessarium creditu esse asseritur nec per bonam nedum necessariam consequentiam ex eâ elicitur Because it 's a doctrine of which the Scripture no where affirms that it 's necessary to be believed nor can it be drawn from thence by any good much less by any necessary consequence And he goes on to shew that this argument ought to be of very great force among those of the reformation because they profess there 's nothing necessary to be believed but what 's either directly or in plain terms contained in Scripture or drawn from thence by very clear consequence the last indeed the sixth Article of the Church of England agrees with but what she thinks of his first assertion may very well be gathered from the second wherein she propounds this Doctrine as necessary to be believed The Son which is the word of the Father begotten from everlasting of the Father the very and eternal God of one substance with the Father took man's
before it was a sure sign of some extraordinary Person intended it gives us the very name proper to our Jesus as he was the Son of God Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son Isai 7.14 and shall call his name Immanuel where the thing foretold is so much a miracle that it cannot be believed to have occurr'd more than once in the World nay the prodigiousness of the thing has made some great pretenders to reason endeavour to weaken the very authority of Scripture it self from the impossibility of the thing foretold And the Jews have endeavour'd to affix a large sense upon the Text as if no more was meant than barely That a Woman should be with Child and so the miracle is wholly taken away But all these little stratagems of unbelievers have fail'd and the very Name added would convince considerate Men of some great thing design'd since a meer Man or one coming into the World according to the ordinary course of nature could not be truly call'd Immanuel or God with us This declaration of the Evangelical Prophet as He 's justly call'd is soon follow'd by another of the same nature For unto us a Child is born Isai 9 6 7. unto us a Son is given and the Government shall be upon his shoulders and his name shall be call'd Wonderful Counseller the mighty God the everlasting Father the Prince of peace of the increase of his Government there shall be no end upon the Throne of David and upon his Kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever In all which the Prophet seems to write a perfect History of things past he speaks with that assurance and confidence as if he had seen that hope of Israel born into the World and wholly ecstatick in his contemplation of so infinite a blessing bestow'd on the World he fixes such Titles upon him as were compatible with no meer man nay he makes him God an Infinite an everlasting God the Vniversal Monarch of Earth and Heaven yet leaves him drest in flesh and blood at last a Child born a Son given to us miserable perishing Creatures But Isaiah's reflections on the promised Saviour are so many as not to be instanced in more particularly we may just name that Isai 11.1 And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him the spirit of wisdom and understanding the spirit of Counsel and might the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord with righteousness shall he judge the poor and reprove with equity for the meek of the Earth and he shall smite the Earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked and more to that purpose which St. Paul in his discourse to the Antiochians in Pisidia alludes to And that again Acts 13.22 22 24. The voice of him that crieth in the Wilderness Prepare ye the way of the Lord make streight in the desert an high-way for our God every Valley shall be exalted and every Mountain and Hill shall be made low and the crooked shall be made streight and the rough places plain â—â—i 40.3.4 5. and the glory of the Lord shall be reveal'd and all flesh shall see it together for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it which John the Baptist applies to himself and his Master Joh. 1.23 Such is the whole fifty-third Chapter a compleat though compendious Chronicle of our Saviour from his Cradle to his Tomb happily read by the Aethiopian Eunuch since from thence the Evangelist Philip took occasion to preach to him Jesus Acts 8.34 35. Such that The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted to proclaim liberty to the Captives and the opening of the Prison to them that are bound Isai 61.1 2. Luk. 4.17 18 19. to proclaim the acceptable Year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God apply'd to himself by our Saviour Agreeably to these Predictions the Prophet Jeremy foretels Behold the days come saith the Lord that I will raise to David a righteous branch and a King shall reign and prosper Jerem. 23.5 6. and shall execute judgment and righteousness in the Earth in his days Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell safely and this is the name whereby he shall be call'd The Lord our righteousness Which is again repeated by him Jer. 33.15 16. To the same purpose Ezekiel I will save my Flock and they shall be no more a prey and I will set up one Shepherd over them and he shall feed them even my servant David he shall feed them and he shall be their Shepherd and I the Lord will be their God Ezek 34.22 23 24. and my servant David a Prince among them I the Lord have spoken it Which is repeated and enlarged Ezek. 37. 21 ad fin Daniel yet more plainly I saw in the night visions and behold one like the Son of Man came with the Clouds of Heaven and came to the Ancient of days and they brought him near before him And there was given him dominion and glory and a Kingdom Dan. 7.13 14. that all People Nations and Languages should serve him his dominion is an everlasting Dominion which shall not pass away Rev. 14 14. and his Kingdom that which shall not be destroy'd Which St. John alludes to not to mention any thing of Daniel's weeks Micah gives us that Thou Bethlehem Ephratah though thou be little among the thousands of Judah Mica 5.2 yet out of thee shall he come forth to me that is to be ruler in Israel Matt. 2.6 whose goings forth have been from of old from everlasting which those Priests Herod afterwards enquired of could remember very well And lastly Malachi as plain as any Mat. 3.1 Behold I will send my messenger and he shall prepare the way before me and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddainly come to his Temple even the Messenger of the Covenant whom ye delight in behold he shall come saith the Lord of hosts These are a few of that very great number of Prophecies which rais'd the expectation of the Jews for the appearance of a Saviour whom they expected as a mighty temporal Prince not considering that the things foretold of him were beyond the atchievments of the greatest Potentate in the world For to be the great messenger of that Covenant which was between God and his people and at the same time the God whom they sought and whose their Temple was who yet were taught to worship only the true God to be the glory of a private town as of Bethlehem yet of an eternal original with respect to the time past
was so indisputably innocent Again to aim wholly at the extirpation of vice of all sin and wickedness and the promoting and recommending of virtue and goodness carries the highest purity and sanctity along with it If miscarriages in government and trespasses upon humane Laws produce terrible convulsions of state and unexpected revolutions in political affairs of which at this day we live to see unaccountable instances it 's easie to infer from thence that encroachments upon the Laws of God and nature must have the same influence upon general affairs and create strange disorders in the World and mightily prejudice all the bonds of humane Society It naturally excites God's vindictive justice and makes him scatter vengeance every where it creates nothing but mutual distrusts and jealousie of one another among men so that they grow like Wolves or Devils in their mutual animosities and injuries As these things are the consequence of wickedness so they are certain proofs and indications of the prevalence of Sin in any place or Nation they show a general infection to have spread it self in a very corrupt people and therefore he that endeavours to purge out the malignant humours of men labouring under such pernicious distempers employs himself in the purest and most desirable work since he endeavours onely to reconcile guilty nature to an incensed God and waspish and ill humour'd Men to one another A full and rigid execution of Laws against impudent vices may keep some under by its terror and make them at least seek the darkest corners for the perpetrating of villanies but it represents not Sin a whit the more in its native ugliness nor gives any ordinary satisfaction that Sin is exceeding sinful for it 's easie enough to conclude that God and Men may prohibit and punish such or such an action out of their own arbitrariness to shew their own absolute and uncontroulable power upon which account though Force may restrain them for a while yet there remain in perverted minds some strange Gustos of delight in finding opportunities to do what they are forbidden and which they conclude may be things good enough notwithstanding such prohibitions but when vice is delineated truly by Instructors appointed for that purpose who are neither afraid nor asham'd to speak Truth when they find Sin decried by solemn and weighty arguments more than by authority where on the other hand they find virtue and goodness described fairly as it deserves recommended by earnest and gentle perswasives set out with all its circumstantial beauties discover'd in its happy effects with relation both to earthly and heavenly influences when they see blessings shour'd down from Heaven upon them and their very Enemies at peace with them when they see how all this onely propounds a pure and unmixed goodness in Devotions towards God and in Converse among Men such Observers have nothing to say for themselves in case they chuse the worst part they cann't pretend so much as to excuse themselves that they embrace evil not voluntarily but by mistake and sub specie boni since vice and virtue ly both unveil'd and naked before them Or they must acknowledge themselves onely to be resolutely wicked to be so because they will be so which puts them easily past all hopes of pity or of Pardon But since devotion and ordinary converse were so exceedingly deprav'd and since the wisest among meer Men had made so many attempts for reforming them and yet had been so miserably mistaken in their measures to that end as to convince them of the impossibility of such atchievments from their hands when one person howsoever despicable and mean in his outward appearances could reassume the forsaken design and not onely assume but apparently accomplish it laying down such Rules as if exactly follow'd must necessarily restore all things to an absolute perfection when Men observe all his instructions to agree closely among themselves and with the ancient authentick methods of doing well and all concurring still in the same center of Vniversal Sanctity it must be necessarily concluded That the Vndertaker was somewhat more than Man that nothing less than infinite holiness and wisdom could effect such things which being yet apparently effected by One who was a true Man that true Man must withall be acknowledged the Son of God And whereas the generality of inquisitive Men in their searches after truth and wisdom always observed strange deficiencies in humane reason whereby antient wise men broke into so many several divisions in their inquiries after the Chief good whereas they found that none could lay down a fair project for pursuit of That but that presently he was assaulted by whole Armies of adversaries and all projects found absurd and unprofitable for acquiring that they aim'd at When the Gospel of our Saviour came to be divulged tho' it met with adversaries enough they were all too weak to inval date its strength and reason It was neither the juggling fair-tongu'd Pharisee nor the absurd and ambitious Saducee nor the wrangling Sophister nor the Sceptical or cunning Philosopher nor the undermining Heretick that were able to ruine the reputation of the Christian Doctrine but it still grew upon them tho' they were cruelly assisted by earthly powers and indeed made use of all the roughest means for the extirpation of the Professors of the Gospel And what was very considerable tho' the great promoters of Religion after the Apostles and their immediate Successor's times neither had the gift of languages nor had much of the learned education of those Ages yet they were able having truth on their side to baffle all the learning of the great wise men among both Jews and Pagans which could never have happened had not what they preached and defended been highly rational For keen adversaries who pretended to the greatest acuteness of Wit and Sence would never have quitted arguments that had been stronger for the sake of meer cant and impertinent jangling But indeed the common scope of the inquiries of wise men being to discover what was really the greatest degree of humane happiness and the highest and chiefest good by which they confest somewhat Lost and tho' possibly to be retrieved yet not without the greatest difficulties imaginable there was no proposition made by any for the full discovery and attainment of that Good but it was eagerly listned to and the probabilities on all sides being duly weighed and the effects of the several propositions being carefully consider'd Christianity gain'd the victory whose effects were the most considerable whose Professors the most innocent whose promises were the most excellent and punctual and whose rules the most general intelligible and unquestionable Pagans and Jews if they were not wilfully ignorant could not but see all those principles of reason which themselves pretended to extremely advanc'd by this doctrine introduced by Christ for whereas they were wont to decry pride and haughtiness of spirit arrogance and contempt of others very earnestly its true the
them For tho' they were of a more obscure and impenetrable kind yet Paganism in general had very considerable notices of the immense goodness of the Divine nature and those amongst them who oppos'd Atheism and asserted Providence took no small care to set off divine love or the necessary care God had of his Creatures good with the greatest Lustre and the Ancient Christian Doctors nay the Apostles themselves witness Saint Paul at Athens and St. Peter with Cornelius and the Ancienter Prophets and Holy Writers found God's Goodness exerted to his Creatures an excellent Argument to draw Pagans as well as others to Repentance and Obedience Among other apprehensions Pagans had of God that of his Purity and Holiness was very considerable they who ascribed Perfection to him and knew what Perfection meant look'd upon him as necessarily infinitely Pure for where they tell us of God's being impassible they prove he cannot be guilty of any thing ill that being contrary to the original nature of a Spiritual Being which therefore must be suppos'd to suffer when it is suppos'd to sin But as they had these notions of God's immense purity so they had as quick a sense of the depravation of Man's Nature and were ready to lament it with almost as great an Emphasis as St. Paul himself could lament his own corruption hence that ingenious Platonist Maximus Tyrius acknowledges Dissert 26. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. For the Soul of Man is too weak to extricate it self by force of Reason from all those perplexities it meets with especially being while in this life involv'd in many dark and gloomy Clouds and always miserably wearied and distracted with the noise and tumult of occurring mischiefs for what Man is there so good who can live without offence or without fault but Men might live easily enough without fault did not the general depravation of their natures prevent it for of what is Good nothing but Good can come But though this Purity in God and Corruption in Man must necessarily put God at a great distance from Man yet as God was Lord and Master at first both by right of Creation and Preservation he is so still as he that was owner of a Kingdom does not lose his right in it because it is visited with the Plague and the Infection it may be fatal and almost Universal so Man owes Obedience and Subjection to God still as he that was my Slave when perfect and in health is not therefore set free of course because he 's sickly or has lost an Arm or a Leg Or he that was so when in his wits does not cease to be so now because he 's distracted and does not understand his Duty The Relation between God and Man stands good and is believ'd to do so by Heathens as well as Christians as a Son owes a Duty to his Father when his Father 's angry as well as when he 's pleas'd and when himself has really offended him as well as when he has not and this relation is necessarily on man's part to be maintained to the utmost since by its failure he loses all hopes of Happiness and on God's part in vindication of his own Goodness He therefore that rightly understands Humane Pravity of Nature and yet believes he owes a duty to the supreme Being must conclude it necessary that he should have some Positive Rule or method whereby to manage himself nor is it enough in this case to fly to the Law of Nature as if that were sufficient That had been so indeed had Man continued in that rectitude of faculties which he had in the first beginnings of the world but Heathens have been very sensible there 's no such thing to depend on now For tho' the Laws of Nature are as Just as Reasonable as Necessary and as Obligatory now as ever yet if men have not Reason enough to understand it what does the excellency and compleatness of Natures Laws signifie to them as tho' I am blind the Sun shines at noon-day as bright and clear as ever it did but I see never the more for all that It was the Apostle's complaint that the good that he would that he did not Rom. 7.19 and the evil that he would not that he did the reason of which was that general Corruption of Mankind which He as one of them was partaker of fo◠He saw another Law in his members waring against the Law of his mind and bringing him into captivity to the Law of Sin which was in his members the same is the complaint of Medaea in the Poet when meditating upon a dreadful revenge she design'd on her husband Jason video meliora probóque Deteriora sequor Now let the Laws of Nature be never so admirable which way can a Man thus distracted within compose himself so as to take a fair view of that Law or be enough himself to practise upon it The Law of Nature is really obscure and mystical to be traced through a thousand dark and perplexing Labyrinths which require more than a Man as now fix'd to travel through therefore it cannot be enough to satisfie Man's want and to give him full and clear direction to do the Will of God which obedience to his Will is yet His Duty He again who has a just Idaea of immense Goodness in God will never be capable of reconciling His refusal to give Man a Law to walk by to such goodness For while no Man that acknowledges a God doubts but that he 'l punish sinners none can doubt but to clear his own Justice from all cavils he 'l punish them only as Sinners against some Law for sin is defin'd to Christians a Transgression of the Law but that Law must be some such Law as the Transgressor was really capable of knowing As our Justiciaries punish the most ignorant Clowns when they break our Laws tho' perhaps the suffering persons never knew of those Laws and yet very justly because there were such Laws really extant and in such a Language as they understood and it was their Duty and Interest to be acquainted with and to enquire after those Laws the breach of which might any way be penal to them It 's as little doubted that God will reward those who keep such Laws and will encourage them by the easiness of the Laws propounded to a ready and exact obedience These things were so strongly fix'd in the minds of antient Pagans that it set their Philosophers at work to read Lectures and to prescribe Laws concerning Virtue and Vice to all people declaring previously That there was an absolute necessity of such Laws for Men who indeed were ingaged in the dark and some of them could almost have pretended to Divine influences upon them tho' their Priests and Fortune-tellers did it with more applause But all this was to bring mens minds to a greater veneration of their Principles and Empedocles in particular thought it no ill Policy to Teach his
cheats and notorious villans in that they have left us such accounts of that Faith whereby Salvation must be attain'd as can only serve to cheat and abuse their Readers and lead them into unreasonable and damnable Errors They only laid so many snares in their unhappy Writings for the ruining mens Souls and their wicked designs have had but too too fatal effects upon the World Now all this is very hard to believe of Men who converst with the inspired Apostles some of whom had that glorious power of working Miracles confer'd upon them some laid down their Lives with the greatest joys and triumphs for the sake of their blessed Master and the rest were ready to have done so whensoever Providence should have summoned them to that fiery tryal It 's hard to believe that such Men could be betrayers or corrupters of the Faith in its most Essential Articles If these Fathers were honest and faithful in their Writings and set down there only what were their real thoughts as became honest and good Men if they defended Christianity against its subtle and powerful enemies with a just Industry and Integrity then in what I have alledged from them we have a faithful and honest account of what the Antient Church believed concerning the Nature of the Son of God and we have reason to satisfie our selves and to give praise to God who has still afforded us so much light as that we can agree with the Eldest and most Apostolical Churches in that saving truth That the Son of God who in fulness of time took upon him our flesh is really God equal with his Father If any should enquire Why I only make use of those Fathers who lived before the Nicene Council The reason is because they are less to be suspected by those we have to do with as having no interest in those Controversies which were afterwards managed by particular Persons with a great deal of heat and eagerness Besides the Socinians are sometimes apt to boast that the most antient Fathers are on their side whereas they 'l freely own the Principal Writers afterwards are against them not but that several did undertake the Patronage of the Arrians and their accomplices after the Council of Nice but their Writings are gone and they ly there at the mercy of their Adversaries Not only the Socinians themselves are apt sometimes to Appeal to the Ante-Nicene Fathers but several Great Men such as Erasmus Grotius Petavius and others are apt to yield this to them therefore it was proper in the first place to give a true account of the first Writers whose Doctrines others afterwards did but repeat and illustrate Our Church principally recommends to us the Doctrine that 's nearest to the fountain head that agreeing best with the fountain it self from which it is derived that is the Word of God Now the Socinians sometimes would fain put in for an Interest with these Antient Writers Vid. Epist intermutuas Ruari Zwickeri in Ruari Epist centuriá primâ and Zwicker particularly in his Irenicum Irenicor tho' he was very far himself from agreeing with his brethren in all particulars Yet upon better consideration they are loth to depend upon that authority of the Fathers knowing too well that they must be cast by their verdict Therefore their great Patriarch Socinus himself in his answer to Vujekus the Polonian Jesuit who had written a book on purpose to prove the Divinity of Christ where Vujekus presses him with the Authority of the Fathers answers thus That the perpetual and universal consent of the whole World is of the less weight against Divine Testimonies tho' obscure when those things which are the subjects of that consent evidently oppose reason and common sence But here we may say That truth can never be so entirely lost that the whole World should always desert it but where Scripture-expressions are obscure the perpetual consent of the whole World about their sence would be incomparably the best interpretation of those obscurities and it 's very hard to believe that the whole World should perpetually agree in what 's against reason and common sence A great number have embraced the Roman Doctrine of Transubstantiation but we know that neither All nor the greatest part of the World embraced it nor was it held perpetually by any and tho' we may allow Socinus to have been a man of great Reason yet we may allow those who held the contrary Opinion to His to have been as Rational as himself and perhaps on a strict scrutiny it may appear contradictious to reason and common sence to assert that our blessed Saviour was no more than a meer Man But in short Socinus never troubles himself to deny those Authorities the Jesuite had ramassed from the Fathers nor to answer them but makes use of one Herculean Argument against them all for first he tells us It can't be said the whole doctrine or the greatest part of the doctrine of the antient Church was opposite to the Socinians or agreeable to the Doctrine of their Adversaries for there were many whose Writings are now wholly lost whose opinions therefore we cannot judge of and many there were who never wrote any thing at all and they might be of a contrary mind to those whose Writings we still have and they were infinitely more numerous That the Arrian Heresie was once spread far and wide favoured by Princes confirmed by Councils and almost generally entertained tho' afterwards by degrees it vanish'd therefore says He our Adversaries need not boast of that universal and perpetual consent of the Church whether it were real or verbal for which was the true Church and where it was was for several ages disputable Itaque haec Authoritatum testimoniorum ex Patribus Conciliis congeries nullas vires habet praesertim vero adversum nos qui ab istis Patribus Conciliis quae extant nos dissentire non dissitemur Socinus contra Vujekum ad classem argum 7 c. 9. p. 618. Therefore this heap of Authorities from Fathers and Councils is of no force especially against us who freely own our dissent from those Fathers and Councils which are yet extant Nor can it ever be prov'd by the Writings of any of our Party that they did either assert or believe that those who wrote before the Nicene Council whose works are extant were of our mind tho' they were as little of the mind of our Adversaries as of ours This now is plain dealing and more ingenuous by far than wresting a few sentences contrary to the Writers minds only to amuse the ignorant with an empty shew of Antiquity But more plainly yet Socinus soon after confesses that the extant Fathers differed from his Party in that they assert That Christ or the Son of God had a Being of the substance of his Father before the worlds creation that he had often appear'd to the Fathers under the Old Testament nay that that one God his
Jesus answered them John 10.34 35 36. Is it not written in your Law I said ye are Gods if he called them Gods unto whom the Word of God came and the Scripture cannot be broken say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the World Thou blasphemest because I said I am the Son of God This says our Adversary Thoughts on Sh. p. 2. agreeably to those he follows proves That our Saviour calls himself God or the Son of God upon the same grounds on which others are called Gods in Scripture to wit because the Father has sanctified him i. e. Christ is God or the Son of God in the same sence that Magistrates Good or Bad are called so which certainly is a very great Honour to our Saviour But if we examine these Words with that Care we ought we shall find that our Saviour by alleging that God had sanctified him and sent him into the world does two things First he distinguishes himself from those called Gods by that Sanctification and Mission which He had and They had not for he affirms no such thing of them unless our Author will infer it from that of the Word of God coming to them but all those to whom the Word of God comes are not sanctified presently by that nor are all those sanctified to whom God imparts any thing of his Power for the management of the World some sufficiently proving the contrary Nor will it be easie to prove Sanctification and Anointing to be one and the same thing upon that reason Nay if we admit of Heinsius's Criticism Heinsius in Aristarcho sac in locum the case will be yet worse for he would have those words to whom the Word of the Lord came be translated Against whom the Prophetick Burden or the threatning Word of God was denounced and indeed the Original will bear it well enough now we may fairly conclude that Divine Menaces against sinners do not sanctifie them so that the comparison between our Saviour and those Gods mentioned in the text does not lye in their being both sanctified But secondly our Saviour teaches us that He was First Sanctified and then Sent into the World now He could not be sanctified before he had a being but he was sanctified before he was sent into the World He was sent into the world as soon as he was Conceived in the Womb of his Mother so Every one is sent into the World as soon as he has a Being in the World but he has a Being in the World as soon as he 's Conceiv'd therefore our Saviour was Sanctified before his Conception and therefore he had a Being before his Conception in the Womb of the Virgin this is what the Socinians deny but the answer to this evidence is not so easie After this tho' our new Writer would have our Saviour to argue as indeed he does from the Less to the Greater that if They were Gods much more He yet he has not observ'd that our Saviour gives himself the Title only of the Son of God but to be the Son of God is less than to be God absolute or without restriction but our Saviour should have given himself yet some Superiour Name if he intended to prove himself Superiour indeed to those whom the Psalmist calls Gods in the cited place and so indeed he did as the Jews understood him they knew well enough that those Gods were only call'd so by a Figure and had our Saviour plainly told them that he meant only Figuratively when by calling God his Father he made himself the Son of God and by saying He and his Father were One He made not himself God their anger against him would have very much abated since in that sence very Ill Men might have pretended to the Title but they understood that our Saviour made himself really equal with that One Supreme God whom they worshipped and according to their thoughts his Sanctification and Mission into the World by God if He were his Father set him infinitely above those Figurative Gods to whom the Father might have communicated some Authority or Power but had neither Sanctified them nor sent them with any extraordinary pretences into the World and our Saviour was so far from going about to elude their anger by a shifting or ambiguous answer as Smalcius a Socinian says he did when he told the Jews before Abraham was I am that he exasperates them the more by alledging the works he did as an evidence that the Father was in Him and He in Him Joh. 10 3â— upon which they go about to seize him but in vain From the whole we conclude directly contrary to what our Socinian Writer asserts that since our Lord declared nothing concerning Himself and his own nature to the Jews but what was necessary for them to know and yet did declare to them such things as made it evident to them that he ascribed a Nature truely and literally divine to Himself Therefore it was necessary the Jews and with them all the rest of Mankind should know that Christ was really and truly God not Metaphorically as Magistrates nor by participation of God's Holiness as Good Men are made Partakers of the divine Nature but essentially and eternally as his Father And thus have we in some measure made good our second Proposition that the blessed Jesus appearing in our Nature was God equal with his Father or really and truely God as well as real Man We proceed to shew How it came to be necessary that to effect our Salvation God and particularly God the Son should assume our nature to himself That God the Son did really take our Nature upon him we have largely proved That God especially in such extraordinary cases does nothing but what 's necessary we may conclude for tho' God be a Free and uncontrouled Agent yet infinite Wisdom can act nothing that 's unnecessary or indifferent whether it be done or no Our business therefore will be to enquire into the Ends and Designs of our Saviour's appearing in the flesh from whence we shall be the better able to apprehend the necessity of such his appearance Sermon of the Nat. p. 247. Our Church in her Homily upon the Nativity of our Saviour teaches us That the end of our Saviour's coming in the flesh was to save and deliver his people to fulfil the Law for us to bear witness unto the truth to teach and preach the Word of his Father to give light unto the World to call sinners to repentance to refresh them that labour and be heavy laden to cast out the Prince of this World to reconcile us in the body of his flesh to dissolve the works of the Devil and last of all to become a propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole World What 's contain'd in these and what other Ends may be assigned for our Saviour's Incarnation I shall lay down
our Saviour himself gave it a yet much stronger Confirmation in that he came and demanded Baptism of John and with this particular reason For thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness Matth. 3 15. Now though I doubt not but our Saviour had a further respect in his submitting to John's Baptism yet I question not but he really meant that that Baptism ought to be regarded as a part of the righteousness of the Law though it were no where prescribed by the Law therefore we may be sure He would not have fail'd in his Obedience to any thing which really was a part of that Law but again neither would he have been exemplary in his Obedience either to the one or to the other had not the Latter had a just and reasonable Foundation in the Former and the Former an authentic and truly obligatory Foundation in the Will of God He shew'd himself too resolute an Enemy to the generality of groundless Traditions any way to teach others to set a greater value on them than they deserv'd Had he altogether slighted it as a thing of no value or of no authority it had been impossible for all the Miracles in the World to have conquer'd those very reasonable Prejudices the Jews must have taken up against him and his Doctrine for having an infallible Assurance that the Law given from Mount Sinai was really Divine and having suffer'd so deeply for their contempt of it as Divine they could only have look'd upon one who came to impeach it though attended with never so many Miracles as an Impostor permitted by Almighty God to tempt them and to make tryal of their steady Obedience to his Law and they had been waâ—n'd of this long before by Moses Deut. 13.1 2 3. If there arise among you a Prophet or a Dreamer of dreams and giveth thee a sign or a wonder and the sign or the wonder come to pass whereof he spake unto thee saying Let us go after other Gods which thou hast not known and let us serve them Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that Prophet or that Dreamer of dreams for the Lord your God proveth you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul Now our Saviour being himself God and acting in such a manner as could not but proclaim his own Divinity and being taken notice of by the Jews as so doing they had a great deal of reason to stand upon their guard and had he shewn an open or a secret Contempt of what they knew was Divine that Diâ—honour by such an action accrueing to the God of their Fathers would have made them oppose him justly and to have concluded it impossible that such an Innovator could have been from God much less that he could have been the Son of God But our Saviour's business was by glorifying his Father to draw Mankind to a sense of their own Good and therefore he came not to abolish the Law or to destroy the Law but to fulfil it that is to shew that relation the very slightest Ceremonies in it had to himself and that great design upon which he came into the World to accomplish every thing it related to and to do and to suffer such things as might make all considering Persons plainly apprehend that whatsoever was Typical and Ceremonial in the Law was really consummated in himself at whom onely all such Types and Ceremonies pointed and therefore that it would be unreasonable to expect any other Person on whom their Import was to be terminated While therefore our Lord took this mighty care the more he exalted the Obligation of the Mosaic Law the more exemplary he was in Obedience to it the more reason the Jews had to believe that he could have no ill design upon them and the more justly could he reproach them with that That he honoured his Father Joh. 8.49 but they dishonoured him there was not an Iota or tittle of the Law could or should pass away till all were fulfilled and as to his part in the work he could justly challenge any of them to convince him of Sin and they though malicious and captious enough had nothing to answer to the challenge Indeed they had some Dreams of their own empty and troublesome Traditions which they taught and for their sakes slighted the Moral and perpetually obliging Duties laid upon them these our Saviour cast a just contempt upon and frequently and sharply reprov'd them for and he did so the rather to shew the world what a difference they ought to put between the Institutions of God and the weak and unreasonable Inventions of Men. Now the Yoke of these Jewish Traditions extreamly galling the Necks of the vulgar Jews upon whom their Law-Expounders lov'd to lay heavy Burdens such as themselves would not put so much as one of their fingers to support we find upon several occasions they were ready to receive the Messias with open arms to endeavour to take him by force and to make him a King and to welcome him to Jerusalem with their loud Hosannaes nor could the Chief-Priests and domineering Pharisees without a great deal of malicious Industry manage thâ—se who long'd for Liberty to their own turn Those who were overaw'd and therefore durst not murmure aloud knew well enough they were under the hands of worse than their old Aegyptian Task-Masters and therefore it could be no wonder they should be ready to close with every one whom they thought capable of asserting them into Liberty and yet though their Imperious Task-Masters determined concerning them that that People who knew not the Law were accurs'd that People were not so ignorant but that had they observ'd our Saviour either breaking the Law himself or persuading others that it was lawful for them to do so they would have taken Publick notice of it and at least when they saw Jesus a Prisoner to his implacable Enemies and the great loss they were at for Witnesses against him they would soon have come in and laid him open to his Judges as a Criminal deserving the severest Usage Our Saviour had taken upon him the Office of an Expositor of the Law the People easily found the difference between Him and their common Instructers Matth. 7.29 for he taught them as one having authority and not as the Scribes he cast away the putid Pharisaic Glosses and he laid open their true Import and Meaning We cannot reasonably question but that among Christ's numerous crowd of Auditors there were at that time as we find frequently afterwards some Scribes and Pharisees or if there were none what he deliver'd was not in a Corner and therefore doubtless they had a full account of what he preach'd but we no where find any offer at a refutation of what he deliver'd in his Sermon on the Mount That Exposition of the Law which he there gave was a perfect Test whereby himself was afterwards to be
Dispensation of his Word and Sacraments that he is that great and glorious King in perpetual Obedience to whose Commands we are oblig'd to live and without Obedience to whose Commands perform'd according to our ability we certainly merit Eternal Punishment and this power over us as a Prophet and a King we doubt not took its Original from that Sacrifice he offer'd for our Sins in the fulness of time but on account of the certainty of which Rev. 13.8 he was effectually that Lamb slain from the beginning of the World Well then our Saviour in his Suffering paid a sufficient Price to satisfie for the Sins of all Mankind to atone God's anger against them as Sinners and to prevent their eternal Damnation but these Advantages accrueing from his Priesthood and his Sacrifice can only be participated in by those who submit to his Instruction and his Government he purchas'd that Interest in us at a dear rate and the Connexion between the one and the other is indissoluble He therefore that would reap any Benefit from the Sufferings of our Saviour must obey his Directions submit to his Laws do his Will he who acts so must certainly be very perfect in all Religious Duties therefore those who are eternally saved by Christ's Death must as far as possible be perfect in all Religious Duties therefore the true genuine Doctrine of Christ's Satisfaction must infer a necessity of Practical Holiness not destroy it thus we see when God appointed the brazen Serpent to be set up in the Wilderness for the relief of those who were bitten by fiery Serpents that brassy Representation had a power sufficient annex'd to it to heal all that were hurt but if any bitten Israelite out of an obstinate humour would not have cast his eyes upon the brazen Serpent though the Serpent had been just over his head he would have dy'd by the Wound because the Condition on which alone the Cure was to be had was annex'd to the appointment of that Serpent viz. that the wounded Person should look up to it Or let us take our view of the Doctrine of Christ's Satisfaction from another place then we shall find Faith as an originally necessary Condi ion of receiving any Benefit by it and Faith to be true must as necessarily work by Love for if I am cast into Prison as a Debtor and another out of pity to my deplorable state go and discharge all my Debts and receive an entire acquittance of all such Debts for me and in my name this is Love and Kindness and sufficient in the case in the Judgment of all Rational Men but if after all this done and the Acquittance shew'd me and attested I 'll not believe one word of all the matter and to prove I do not believe will continue a Prisoner still though always complaining of the sadness of my own Condition my Friend did enough for me but what am I the better my Incredulity makes my state and condition still as sensibly lamentable as before so whereas by Adam's Transgression all Men are brought into a state of Guilt and all stand as Prisoners under the hand of God justly incens'd against us and are such Debtors to his Justice as unless that Debt be discharg'd by or for us we must be eternally miserable Our blessed Saviour assured of our Insolvency has by himself satisfi'd his Father's Anger he has discharg'd that Debt we stand engaged in to Heaven his whole Gospel is a sufficient Evidence of what he has done for us in it we are acquitted by God the Father from those Punishments we were liable to for the sake of his Son and the truth of that Gospel has through all Ages been sufficiently attested to the World but if after all this we all turn Socinians if we will not believe that our Saviour has really extended any such Goodness towards us and to prove that we do not believe it we slight all those Rules of Holy Living which are given us and resolve with the rebellious Citizens in the Gospel that we will not have this Man to reign over us that we will not submit to his Laws nor acknowledge his Soveraignty his Satisfaction is ineffectual to us and though we groan under never so deep a sense of our natural Misery we can reap no good from that we must therefore believe in our Saviour we must believe him able willing and really to have satisfied his Father for our Debt we must believe that by virtue of that Satisfaction so made He 's able to save to the uttermost all those that come to God in and by him We must believe he 's really able to Teach us and that he certainly has a Right to Command us and when we sincerely believe all these things and that as it was one great end of our Lord's offering himself for us to free us from the Punishment so it was another to free us from the Slavery of Sin so that we should not obey it in the Lusts thereof it will be impossible that we should indulge our selves in Sin nay we cannot confirm the Truth of our profest Faith or make it credible to the World that we really Believe what we pretend to do unless we endeavour as he that has called us is holy so to be our selves holy in all manner of conversation Let those then who talk so freely of the Doctrine of our Lord's Satisfaction who would persuade us that it 's so irrational and pernicious to believe any such thing find out any Arguments from their own Scheme of Doctrine which may serve to enforce Practical Holiness more vigorously than what we have delivered if they can Will They tell us we are oblig'd to it out of pure Gratitude to Heaven bcause God is pleased to forgive us our Sins past freely and to confirm that free Pardon to us by the Death of his Son as if he meerly dy'd a kind of Martyr for that Truth which they make almost the sole end of all our Saviour's Sufferings Gratitude it 's true may operate powerfully upon a generous Soul but the most generous of all would be willing to understand the nature of that Obligation they have to be so grateful and the reasons of it We are then obliged by God's free pardoning of our Sins how do we know he has done so By the Testimony of Scripture that Word of God which is sufficient to instruct us to Eternal Life Well we own Scripture does inform us That our Sins are freely pardoned by God and we should build very confidently on that evidence did not those we have to do with teach us a great deal of Diffidence and show us that such Passages of Scripture are capable of very different Interpretations and that when we think we have a very clear proof of this or another Particular when we come to scan things accurately by our own Reason we find we have none at all for the same Scripture which tells us we are freely pardoned
Mankind are eternally damn'd we conclude their Damnation is the effect of infinite Justice and that they have no more than they deserve and whereas all those who believe in Christ have their Sins pardoned and are eternally saved we believe that the consequence of the same infinite Justice for since Christ has really satisfied for our Sins and his Father has accepted it for us and the Will of God the Father and of God the Son being eternally the same so that the Satisfaction and the Acceptance were of eternal Determination God could not evidence that Justice to us but by making good that Original Contract or Agreement and so by bestowing Pardon and eternal Happiness on all those who believe in his Son and the same Justice is as much evidenc'd in the condemnation of the Wicked because the Satisfaction offer'd by Christ being sufficient to atone for all Sins upon condition that all Sinners believe in him who has so satisfied that sleight put upon the Condition or the Unbelief of the greater part of Mankind exposes them justly to Divine Vengeance as even common Reason teaches us The Socinians tell us as if they were the Privadoes of Heaven that God's Mercy and Justice are both moderated by his Wisdom and Goodness as if they needed somewhat of Limitation or Restraint but why should Justice and Mercy be moderated or governed by Wisdom and Goodness more than Wisdom or Goodness should be managed by Justice or Mercy God's Attributes do not superintend one another but they are all infinite concentred in one infinite Being therefore all equal and no more capable of interfering one with another than God can be supposed capable of disagreeing with himself and whereas we are taught by those Men of Reason that that Justice which is exercised in punishing Sinners is called in Scripture God's Severity his Anger and his Fury if we allow it will they say that Severity in God or Anger or Fury are unjust We know those words are generally understood in an ill sense Severity among Men can admit of no more favourable Character than that of Summum Jus or extremity of Law which is thought to be Summa injuria or extremity of Injustice and Anger and Fury in Men are generally taken for vicious Excesses and such as till a Man can govern or conquer he 's not look'd upon as any extraordinary proficient in Vertue but we hope there are no such vicious Excesses in God therefore such words are made use of only according to Mens Capacities to shew us how very angry God is with Sin and Sinners and yet no more than Justice in consistence with Mercy will allow and to strike a just Aw and Terror upon Men then they who will avoid breaking such or such a Law out of Fear of the Indignation of the Law-giver whose superiour Power and Authority may render him formidable may much more be afraid of breaking the Laws of that God whose Anger is irresistable and whose Justice is inevitable and though there be neither Justice nor Mercy in punishing the Innocent or in acquitting the Guilty yet there is no trespass upon either in pardoning the Guilty when the Innocent Freely and Voluntarily takes that Guilt upon himself especially when the Quality of that Innocent so offering himself is such that the same degree of Punishment or Punishment as heavy falling upon him cannot possibly bring eternal Ruines upon Him as it would upon inferiour Offenders as we often see among meer Men some of so strong and vigorous a Constitution that the same Pains shall scarce disorder them which bring present Death to those of feebler Tempers And if it were no Injustice for the Jewish High-Priests by God's immediate Command to transfer the Crimes of themselves and the People upon the Heads of those Beasts they offer'd in Sacrifice for Sin which Translation of their Guilt they signified by laying their Hands upon the Head of the intended Sacrifice Exod. 29.10 which Beasts were really innocent yet then died for Mens Sins not as in their own nature expiatory Vid. Oughtram de Sacrificiis l. 1. c. 22. but as referring to the Sacrifice of Christ which alone was so in it self then neither was it Injustice in God to lay upon Christ the Iniquity of us all and by so doing to expiate our Sins in earnest though the same Blessed Jesus were Holy Harmless and Vndefiled as we are sure he was Nor indeed could any thing but what was truly innocent be substituted to suffer for the Guilty since otherwise its native Crimes must have needed Expiation whence among other Reasons I conclude Humane Sacrifices abominable to God because all were Sinners and one Sinner could not reasonably atone for another which was no Exception to the Sacrifice of Christ But our Adversaries have their artificial Glosses whereby to put off the plainest Evidences of Scripture that assert His Satisfaction for our Sins for when we are told that our Saviour Died for us that He laid down his Life for Sinners c. they allow no more to be signified by it than this That Christ was a Sacrifice for us in the same manner as former Sacrifices were for those who offered them so that as those Sacrifices were never look'd upon as any Compensation for the Sins of the Offerers neither could that of Christ be a Compensation for theirs for whom he offered himself only his Offering Himself so seems like the others as a certain Condition on which Remission of Sins should be granted But if common Sense may be our Guide the Difference must be very great between this of Christ and all former Sacrifices offer'd by the Jews as generally the Antitype is accounted of a superiour Nature to the Type for tho' Remission of Sins were granted to the Offerer upon his Sacrifice being offer'd yet it was not upon account of that Sacrifice offered but upon account of the Sincerity and Obedience of the Offerer and that respect his Sacrifice had to the Death of the Messias yet to come for though Beasts were innocent there was nothing meritorious in their being sacrificed their Sufferings being involuntary and themselves in a corrupt and insensible state because there was nothing in the ancient Holocausts considerable but their relation to the Messias therefore they were offer'd continually from their first Institution to the time of our Saviour's Death but when the Messias was once come and had offer'd himself knowingly and voluntarily for Sin the former Sacrifices were all effectually to cease and our Lord to offer himself no more than once therefore there must be something extraordinary in that one Sacrifice which was not in others and once offering of that must be more than equivalent to all the former that really and effectually in it self expiating Sin which the others did not and this the Apostle himself urges when he tells us Heb. 9 9â— 11 12. That the Jewish Tabernacle was a figure for the time then present in which were
offered both Gifts and Sacrifices that could not make him that did the service perfect as concerning the Conscience but Christ being come an High-Priest of good things to come not by the Blood of Goats and Calves but by his own Blood he enter'd in once into the Holy Place having obtained eternal Redemption for us that eternal Redemption is an absolute Freedom from the Punishment of Sin effected by Christ but only signified by Jewish Institutions the utmost of the virtue of those Symbolical Rites The same Author presently subjoins the Blood of Bulls and of Goats and the ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the Vnclean sanctified to the purifying of the Flesh i. e. God having for the use of the Jews ordained those Rites and Sacrifices and promised to receive them as Clean who punctually observed his Institutions they were consequently Legally clean who so observed them but otherwise than in the Sense of the Law no cleaner than the rest of Mankind who never heard of those Institutions but the Argument follows à fortiori How much more shall the Blood of Christ v. 13 14. who through the eternal Spirit offer'd himself without spot to God purge our Consciences from dead works to serve the Living God The Difference then between the Sacrifices is apparent enough those could only give a Legal Purity to Jews and that only to their Flesh without which Ceremonial Purity Men may be saved but the Sacrifice of Christ reaches the Pollutions of the Soul takes away the Defilements of the Mind and opens a free passage for us to the throne of Grace without which means Remission of Sins and eternal Salvation are never to be obtained Again the Apostle speaking of that Blood which according to the Levital Law was to be sprinkled upon several things adds It was necessary that the Patterns of things in the Heavens should be purified with these or rather the Patterns of Heavenly things for so the following Words explain the Phrase but that the Heavenly things themselves should be purified with better Sacrifices than these for Christ is not entred into the Holy places made with hands which are the Figures of the true but into Heaven it self now to appear in the presence of God for us i. e. as a Mediatour on our behalf but he enter'd not there that he might offer himself often as the High-Priest entred into the Holy place every year with the Blood of others for then must he often have suffered since the foundations of the World v. 22. ad 27. but now once 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the perfection or completion of Ages i. e. in the fulness of time hath he appear'd to put away sin by the Sacrifice of himself The same Divine Author urges the matter further in the following Chapter and directly confirms what I before asserted That the Law having a Shadow of good things to come and not the very Image of the things can never with those Sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect for then they would not have ceas'd to be offered because that the Worshippers once purged should have had no more Conscience of Sins and if the Worshippers could have been so purged at once by those Legal Sacrifices the successive continuance of them would in the same manner have purged all those concerned in them and then another and a better and greater Sacrifice would have been altogether needless but alas in those Legal Sacrifices there was every year made a Remembrance of the same Sins and of the Guilt of the same Sinners Heb. 10.1 2 3 4 10 11 12 14. for it was not possible that the Blood of Bulls and of Goats should take away Sin But now by the will of God we are sanctified through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all Every Jewish High-Priest stood daily ministring and offering the same Sacrifices which can never take away sin but this Man after he had offered one sacrifice for sin for ever sat down on the right-hand of God nor did he need to offer oftener for by one Offering he has perfected for ever them that are sanctified The Difference then between the Sacrifice of our Saviour and those of the Law is notorious but now if Remission of Sins could be granted to the Offerer of a Legal Sacrifice and yet a Legal Sacrifice could not take away the Sins of the Offerers and if the single Sacrifice of Christ did really take away Sins both which things are asserted in the Texts now cited then a great deal more must be meant by Christ's Sacrifice taking away sin than the bare Remission of Sins amounts to It must signifie taking away that Guilt of sin by which Men are render'd obnoxious to Punishment which considering that Justice inherent in Almighty God cannot be removed but by substituting somewhat so innocent in the Sinner's room that the Sufferings of that Innocent may satisfie for the Impunity of the Sinner but it being inconsistent with Justice to punish the Innocent for the Sinner if the Innocent be unwilling or depend upon his Innocence as his Security from Punishment therefore our Saviour for the acquittal of Divine Justice offer'd himself voluntarily to die for us and that when no Power on Earth could have taken away his Life from him which Offer of his being the effect of his eternal Will and his eternal Will the same with that of his Father Eternal Justice required his Sufferings and accepted those Sufferings though to be undergone in time as really and in their own intrinsic Nature equivalent to those Punishments otherwise due to a sinful World Upon the whole Christ died for or in the room of Sinners not to prevent their temporal but their eternal Death and by his Humiliation and his Death who was so Innocent and so Great gave eternal Justice as absolute Satisfaction as the eternal Punishment of all those who are now saved through Him would have done and therefore when Socinians seek for a reason for their denying Christ's Death to have been in our stead and fly to that of St. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Christ died for our Sins 1 Cor. 15.3 and plead from thence that since it cannot be said that Christ died in the room of our Sins no more can it be said that he died in the room of Sinners this is meer Stuff and Cavil for if Christ died on account of our Sins which is the direct English of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it 's then the more probable He died in the room and stead of those Sinners or suffer'd a vicarious Punishment for them for or on account of whose Sins he resign'd himself to the Death upon the Cross Or they know it 's no uncommon thing in Scripture to put Sin for Sinners and they 'll confess though not in that sense which we do that He who died for Sin died for Sinners they being inseparable from one another But
the Socinians tell us otherwise that Christ's dying for us signifies his procuring a great deal of good for us by his Death this we certainly believe he did but cannot imagine it 's any detraction from the Worth of that Good he procured for us to conclude that he suffered instead of Sinners for if he offered himself to Divine Punishment in the place of those who were unquestionably obnoxious to it and if his Father accepted of that Offer then all those Sinners who accept of those Conditions on which alone his Death is effectually beneficial to them are certain of the pardon of their Sins and of eternal Happiness the natural Consquence of that Pardon But they have yet a farther Shift and because St. John tells us We ought to lay down our Lives for the Brethren 1 John 3.16 Col. 1.24 and St. Paul tells the Colossians that by his sufferings he fill'd up what was behind of the afflictions of Christ in his flesh for his Body's sake which was the Church they conclude that as those who die for the Brethren cannot be said to die in their stead nor St. Paul to satisfie by his sufferings for the sins of the Church so neither could Christ on account of his being said to die for us be reasonably thought to satisfie for our sins but this Allegation is impertinent for though we are obliged to expose our Lives to the utmost hazards for the Conversion and Edification of others yet where was it ever said We should be wounded for the Transgressions of our Brethren or be bruised for their Iniquities or that they should be healed by our stripes that God should lay on us the Iniquities of all our Brethren that We should make our Souls an Offering for Sin that We should be delivered for the Offences of our Brethren and should bear their Sins in our own Bodies on the Cross all which things with more to the same purpose are spoken of Christ and ought to be the Explications of the other As for that of St. Paul if we translate it as we very well may all their pretences from it are lost I rejoice in all my sufferings for you all or in those Troubles and Persecutions I undergo for Preaching the Gospel to you and in my turn fulfil in my flesh the latter parts of Christ's Afflictions for his own Body that is the Church and so Afflictions or Sufferings for the Church are not apply'd to St. Paul but to Christ who really laid down his Life for his Flock and all the Afflictions of the Servants of Christ are but the Counterparts of what Christ has done for them it being their Duty to mantain what he has delivered to them and to be faithful to Death as he dy'd before for them and the Church the Body of Christ is exceedingly edified and benefitted by the couragious Sufferings of their Fellow-Members Martyrs and Confessors giving the best evidences of the Excellent Nature of the Gospel and confirming and encouraging others in the same Resolutions of dying rather than forsaking Truth but neither can any of the former passages be applied to St. Paul therefore his Words cannot bear the same sense as applied to him as the same Expressions do when they are apply'd to Christ Scripture which is its own best Interpreter no where explaining it in the same manner But further our Saviour is said to have born our sins and to have carried our sorrows this seems to be a Metaphor taken from a Man carrying that Burthen himself which another ought to carry and this is commonly lookt on as a considerable evidence of Love and Kindness 1 Tim. 3.16 c. 2. the same has carried Men out to a willingness to die for one another so Pylades was willing to die for his Friend Orestes only that he might escape a Tyrant's Fury and Nisus in the Poet would gladly have redeem'd his lov'd Euryalus from the Enemy's Sword by putting himself into their hands in lieu of him but the tendry in these Cases was certainly a vicarious Death and the Persons so offering themselves without all doubt concluded that whatsoever could be pretended to by the most severe Justiciaries would be well satisfied by an Innocent's offering his own Life for an Offender and that voluntarily by virtue of which Consent or Desire there could be no wrong done to the innocent Sufferer and hence St. Peter tells us of Christ that he suffered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 once for sins 1 Pet. 3.18 the Just for the Vnjust where by the way we may observe the phrase of dying for Sins is authentically explain'd by dying for Sinners or for the Unjust i. e. He bore that Burden of God's Displeasure in himself though he were Just and Righteous which was due to the Unrighteous and yet as among Men those generous Offers made by Friends for one another are not wont to be displeasing to the greatest Princes nor are they a whit the more angry with the vicarious Innocent though to satisfie the Rules of Justice they accept the Offer no more was God displeased with his Son for taking upon him that Burthen due to Sinners since it only was the Sin which had trespass'd so much on Justice and provided that were punished either in the real or the substituted Offender who was only putatively Criminal infinite Justice would be satisfied Sin condemned and all Mankind be afraid of committing that which they saw was in its own Nature unpardonable One would think too that other passage of the same Apostle were plain enough 1 Pet. 2.24 That Christ bore our Sins in his own body upon the Cross Sins are there put for the Punishment due to Sins and the bearing them in his own Body must signifie his Body's being punished for them and if for them then for those who had committed them now if Christ did not take our place or appear in our room in those Sufferings there can be no reason suitable to Divine Wisdom and Justice why he an Innocent should die at all for our Transgressions for to say That his Father had design'd him for it before and therefore he must die would be impertinent to say that without dying a vicarious Death for us he could procure any good with respect to our Sins would be very hard to prove for he might Die to make good the Truth of those things he had preach'd to set us an example of Patience Submission and Humility which Socinians tell us were the great Ends of his Death and yet we be as far from obtaining Remission of Sins by the means of his Death as we were at first So we believe that St. Stephen was murdered for giving Testimony to Evangelic Truths the very Circumstances of his Death prove him an eminent Example of Patience Fortitude and Resignation his Resolution appearing upon a Socinian view much beyond that of our Saviour himself yet St. Stephen is not said to have died for the sins of the World nor