must be very arrogant in our Adversaries to oppose themselves to the Belief of the whole Primitive Church and to disagree with all those Holy Men and Learned Writers whom we call the Fathers who have transmitted Christianity and this Doctrine down to us and this Socinus even frankly and openly owns Patres omnes ab ipsis dissentire in his Answer to Wiekus Tom. 2. Resp ad 2 Cap. Wieki Clas 7. c. 9. p. 618. and sayes Haec authoritatum testimoniorum ex Patribus Concilii congeries nullas vires habet praesertim adversus nos qui ab istis Patribus Conciliis quae extant nos dissentire non diffitemur This was said with great freedom but greater insolence his followers have had more cunning and less Honesty than to own this It is not proper at this time and place to prove what their Master owns and to prove the Divinity of Christ from the Antient Church and from the universal suffrage of its Writers in all Ages that has been done beyond all possibility of an Answer from the boldest Pretender But our very Enemies have all along bore witness to this Truth that the Christians believed and worshipped Christ as a God so sayes Pliny in his Letter to Trajan that the Christians met and sang a Hymn to Christ as to God and Celsus charges the Christians with worshiping Christ as a new God and Julian writ to this purpose to Photinus agreeing with him that Christ was but a Man against the Churches Doctrine of a Galilean God as he blasphemously speaks so Lucian in his Philopatris exposes the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the God of Christians and Mahomet all along through his Alcoron finds fault with the Christians for believing and worshipping Christ as God whom he owns to be a Prophet and a great Man sent of God as well as Socinus The Christians would have disowned this charge had it not been true especially when in the hands of their Enemies and under Persecution for it when they might have escaped Death and the greatest Tortures and Sufferings had they been Socinians and denyed Christs Divinity They had none of their subtle distinctions of a God by Nature and a God by Office to help them out but they believed Christ to be as true a God by Nature as he was a Man and they took God in the true and plain sense for a Divine Almighty Being who was to be worship'd by them and that Christ was such an one as well as a Man This was the Doctrine they were taught by the Church and by the Scriptures and that all Christians believed till the Subtleties of Arrius Eunomius Artius and others and the greater Subtleties of the School-men afterwards in making One to be Three and Three One and the as great Subtleties of the Socinians in opposing them darkened and obscured the plain Christian Doctrine which we are Baptized into of Father Son and Holy Ghost and that the Son who was born of the Virgin and dyed for us and rose again and was Christ the Saviour of Mankind that he was also the Son of God and the only begotten of God the Father who had the same Divine Nature with him and so was God and to be worship'd and pray'd to The Usefulness and Necessity of which Doctrine I should come now to show had I time In a word I take all Christian Faith and Hope and Worship to depend upon it and even Christianity it self as it is a distinct Religion from Natural and as it obliges us to such peculiar Articles of Faith as well as to such common Rules of Morality If Christ be not God and have not the Divine Nature belonging to him but be only a Man as he is not to be worship'd as I have shown so how we trust and hope and believe in him for Salvation and put such a full confidence in a Creature that it would not be greater if he were a God A poor finite Creature like our selves is not a fit object of our hope and trust for so great a matter as an Infinite Divine Being who has all Power and all Goodness The great God may exalt if he pleases any of us or any other Man to as much Power and Dignity as the Socinians say he has done Christ and they may have been made their own Saviours or Saviours to all the World in the Socinian Notion as well as he but surely none but a God no Man or Creature could be the Redeemer and the Saviour of Mankind Our Redemption is a greater Work than our Creation and the Lord that bought us deserves as great Thanks and Gratitude Praise Honour and Acknowledgment from us as he that Made us and therefore we should necessarily run into Idolatry if he were not God also Could this great and Mysterious Work have been accomplished any other way than by the Son of God a God Incarnate and made Flesh the Divine Wisdom which does nothing in vain would in all likelyhood have found out an easier and a cheaper Method and not have been at the expence of such a Miraculous such an Extraordinary such a Mysterious way as Men and Angels are astonisht at when they look into the mighty depth and profound greatness of it God the Father shewed his utmost Love to Mankind and exhausted the Riches of his Mercy to Sinners in sending his Son his only begotten Son into the World to save us and his Son showed the greatest Condescension and utmost Humiliation and emptying of himself thus to come into the World and become a Man but had he been only a Man where had the Mystery of this been This great Love of the Father and this Condescension of the Son on both which the Scripture layes such a particular weight and Emphasis had been lost and sunk and dwindled into very little and had all its mighty Figures and Characters in which it is represented in Scripture abated lessened and diminisht if Christ had been only a Creature and a meer-Man and had not been truly and properly the Son of God begotten of him from all Eternity as well as of the Virgin afterwards and One with the Father in respect of his Divine Nature and Original To him God blessed for ever be all Honour and Worship Praise Glory and Thanksgiving now and for evermore Amen FINIS
in Isa 6.3 Holy Holy Holy Galatinus and Voisin and other Rabbinical Writers produce many such Instances out of the Jewish Writers to this purpose notwithstanding which I doubt the Notion of the Messiah as a Divine Person and as the Son of God in our Sense was lost among all the latter Jews who looked upon him only as a Temporal Prince and an Earthly Monarch and though in many places of the Old Testament and especially in the Book of Psalms there are several Proofs and Authorities for the belief of a Trinity and the Messiah's being a Divine Person yet there is nothing in their Revelation that has any Evidence of it equal to that of the Gospel and therefore notwithstanding all imperfect and obscure Revelations of it before it is called there a Mystery which hath been hid from Ages and Generatiins but is now made manifest Colos 1.26 Which was kept secret since the World began but now is made manifest Rom. 16.26 Which in other Ages was not made known unto the Sons of men as it is now revealed unto us Eph. 3.6 Our Socinian Adversaries will allow the Christian Faith to be a Mystery upon these two Accounts I have mention'd And I must confess the word Mystery is generally used in Scripture in these Sences but it is not so much the Word as the Thing we are to Consider namely whether there be any Truths in Religion Incomprehensible to our Reason And this is the Third Reason why I would have the Christian Faith called a Mystery which they so much Expose and Ridicule and which I shall endeavour to Defend as it contains 3. Something Incomprehensible and Vnconceivable and Vnaccountable to our Reason and Vnderstanding even after it is the most fully and clearly revealed by the Gospel By which I do not mean that we have no Idaea Conception or Knowledge at all of what we do believe concerning it for then it would be just such a Mystery as it is to those who know nothing at all of it a Thing perfectly unknown a Nullity a Non-Entity which is no manner of Object of our Faith and concerning which we can neither affirm or deny any things not have any Perswasion or Disswasion about it The Trinity would then be only an empty word or sound without any meaning or signification like the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the unlearned Greek Scribes mention'd by St. Hierome Epist 136. put for the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but we know very well what is meant by those words of Father Son and Holy Ghost or Spirit though to connect and unite those Idea's and to make such Propositions out of those Terms as are agreeable to Faith may be a difficulty 2. Yet neither are we so to joyn and unite those Idea's nor to make any such Propositions out of those Terms as shall be inconsistent with themselves and destroy and contradict one another as to say that they are One and that they are Three in the same respect the same sense and consideration The doing this or endeavouring to do it has wretchedly perplext our Christian Faith and made it be called by its Enemies a Mystery of Nonsense Absurdity and Contradiction and exposed it as such to our Heretical Adversaries whereas had we gone no farther then Scripture the only Rule of our Faith in this matter and held with that that to us there is One God the Father One God 1 Cor. 8.6 Eph. 4.6 John 17.3 and Father of all who is above all and had we known him the onely true God as Christ calls him not exclusively but eminently and by way of Excellency and Prerogative by which the Name and Title of God is peculiarly praedicated of God the Father in Scripture Calvin in Protheses Valent. Gent. as Calvin ingenuously delivers it to use his own words Ingenue tradimus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dei nomen Patri proprie ascribi And another Protestant Divine his Follower Zanchius de tribus Elohim L. 5. C. 5. Patrem sic vocari Vnum solum Deum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quia totius est Deitatis fons which is the great Reason given by the Fathers of the Divine Unity and in this the * Peculiaritèr 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tribuitur Patri nomen Dei Ravanell Bibl. v. Deus Persona Papists agree with them Had we considered this plain Scriptural account and observation that one God is spoken and praedicated of the Father and meant of him when it is said both in the Old Testament and the New The Lord thy God is One God Deut. 6.4 Mark 12.32 and there is none other but he or besides him we had not given occasion for that objection of our Adversaries against our Faith of its implying a Contradiction or of its setting up more Gods than one The One God whom we Pray to in the Lord's Prayer and in other Christian Offices and Addresses whom we profess to believe in in our Creed and whom the Scripture calls so is God the Father Almighty and he hath an onely begotten Son of the same Nature and Essence with himself who is the brightness of his Glory and the express Image of his Person and there is also an Holy Spirit proceeding from both and sent by both who hath the Characters and Attributes of Divinity plainly ascribed to him and who is joyned with the Father and the Son in the Office of Christian Baptism and in the Form of Christian Blessing and against whom the most high and unpardonable Sin may be committed This is our Christian Faith which as it lies in the Scripture has no contradiction in it that I know of nor do the several terms whereof it consists destroy or oppose one another These three are one is the only thing in Scripture or in our Faith that sounds as a Contradiction and in one and the same sense it must be owned such a downright contradiction that it cannot be true some would therefore suspect and throw out that passage and are very willing to find some Copies of the Bible without it it being the only place of Scripture that sayes this but our Saviour sayes He and his Father are one John 10.30 and three may be one as well as two We must therefore consider the true sense and meaning of the words which was not to teach us a new way of numbring or to destroy the nature of numbers no more then when it is said Man and Wife are One Christ and Believers are One and the many hundred Converts to Christianity were of one Heart and of one Soul there are several sorts of Unity there is an Unity of Consent and agreement which may be amongst a great many of Power and Authority which may be possessed and executed by several Persons who may be all one General Admiral Chancellor and even one Sovereign and Royal Monarch A great many Individuals may be one in Nature and Essence as all Mankind
are hence the Distinction of a Specifical and Numerical Unity and of a Specifical and Numerical Essence though I take Essence to be a common Nature or General Idea taking in several things at one view and that there is no such thing as particular Essence distinct from particular Beings so that there is no multiplication of Essence in several Divine Persons or Beings Now as to those three being One it may be meant in any way whatever so far as those words alone import but there are other places of Scripture and there is a connexion and analogy of our Faith from all places compared together which oblige us to believe that the Son and Holy Ghost have the same Divine Nature and Essence with the Father derived and communicated to them Eternally Permanently and Perpetually and that they are in the Father as in the Fountain of their Being and are naturally and inseparably united to him and that he is the self-existent Unoriginated Principle the Root and Fountain of the other two and therefore they are One with him because though having real Beings and subsistences of their own yet they are from him and in him But still it will be objected that each of them is God the Father is God the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God and then there must be Three Gods and yet but One God which brings the contradiction still upon us I Answer The One God is spoken of God the Father in Scripture as I have shown you and as a great many * Ignat. Irenae Athanas Greg. Naz. Euseb Novat Hilar. Ambrose Austin Calv. Zanchy Comen Petav. Bull. c. and particularly Bishop * Art 1. Pearson upon the Creed observes That the Name of God taken absolutely is often in Scripture spoken of the Father and is in many places to be taken particularly of the Father and from hence says he he is stiled One God the True God the Only True God and this he sayes further is a most necessary Truth to be acknowledged for the avoiding multiplication and Plurality of Gods He laying the Unity mainly here as I have done so that though the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God which they are not often call'd in Scripture which rather reserves and gives the name of God absolutely and peculiarly to the Father * Observandum est quod plerumque Paulus suis Epistolis no nen Dei Patri tribuit in Novo Testamento plerumque tantum prima persma vocatur Deus Flac. Illyric Clavis Scripturae in verbo Deus as God loved the World God sent his Son and the like yet neither of them are meant by that one God which the Scripture speaks of when it speaks peculiarly of the Father They indeed having the Divine Nature and the Divine Attributes and Perfections belonging to them may each of them be properly called God and the Divinity does certainly and truly belong to each of them but then the Word God is not taken alwayes in one and the same Sence but it is sometimes meant of one Person and sometimes of another or of all being taken either Essentially or Personally as all Divines own and generally if not alwayes in Scripture taken absolutely and spoken so of one God it is meant of God the Father which may give us such an account of the Trinity and of the Unity Vbi enim est diversa significatio non estcontradictio Affirmantis negantis Aequivocatio enim impedit contradictionem Aquin Sum. P. 1. Qu. 13. as may take off all the charge of a contradiction since they are not one three nor is each of them God and all of them God or one God in the same respect sense and meaning of the words but in different Those Terms being not alwayes taken in the same adaequate Univocal Sense but are used often Equivocally The Father is the only self-existent unoriginated Being the Cause and Root 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the other two as the Antients often call him and so is the most absolutely Perfect Being and God in the highest Sense and the Scriptures Creeds and Christian Offices call him so absolutely and by way of Eminence and Prerogative The Son is produced of the Father and so is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or God in that Sense as the Father who is from none but is God of God and is very God as having the Divine Nature and Perfections belonging to him but Communicated and derived from the Father as the Holy Ghost from both 3. As by our Faiths being Mysterious and Incomprehensible and Unaccountable to our Reason I do not mean that ' its Idea's or Terms destroy one another or imply a contradiction which is to make it contrary to it self so neither is it contrary to any certain Principle of Reason nor to any Natural Truth whatsoever known to us If it were it could not be true for one Truth cannot be contrary to another and what is true by Nature cannot be false by Revelation for then God the Author of both and the God of Truth would lye and contradict himself There are common notions Principles of Reason and some Natural Truths known by Sense and Experience which we are as certain of as of our Beings and which are the Foundations of all Knowledge and which we have such evidence of that to give them up would be to run into boundless Scepticisme and own nothing to be True or False but that God hath made us of such faculties that we might be deceived in every thing now Revelation can by no means destroy these as that the whole is greater then a part that one is not three nor three one in the same respect and meaning that a Body cannot be in two places at once that our Senses are true and the like and therefore Transubstantiation cannot be true nor can that be the Sense of those words this is my Body but now in the Trinity there is nothing contrary to any Natural Truth or to any Principle of Reason for that God should have a Son of the same Nature and Divinity with himself and that an Eternal Spirit should proceed from both tho' it be a Truth by it self and of pure and immediate Revelation which our Reason could not have found out from any known Property of the Divine Nature nor from any Reason and Necessity in the thing it self yet there is nothing in it contrary to the Natural Notion of a God or to any other certain Principle of Truth or Reason The only thing that can be pretended is that of the Divine Unity which is thought to be such a Natural Notion as to be inconsistent with any more Divine Persons then one and therefore has been objected against the Trinity by all the Adversaries of this Doctrine by the Jews and Mahometans by the Samosatenians the Photinians the Arrians the Macedonians and the Socinians who have all charged it with Tritheism and Polytheism contrary to the Divine
used that Name was not according to them to be charged presently with Blasphemy much less he whom the Father hath sanctified chosen and appointed to the great Office of Messiah and then sent him into the World to execute it Whether there be any force in what some observe (a) Quod alii ad humanium tantum Naturam restringunt ego extendo ad totam Christi Personam nam ex tribus Persnis in Coelo hic unus fuit selectus ad hoc Officium Mediatoris Zanch. de trib Eloh p. 124. that the Father chose him the Second Person of the Trinity rather than the Third and that there is also an Emphasis in the words And sent him into the world after he was first sanctified and appointed by God the Father in Heaven where he was before his Natural Begotten Son (b) Maldonat in loc and afterwards sent into the World This I shall not insist on but only allow that this was Argumentum ad homines as we say such as Christ thought the fittest and properest to offer at that time to those gross and stupid and ignorant Jewish Accusers and that was indeed only a minori ad majus whereby he designed only to wipe off the blackest and foulest parts of this Charge but not to inform and instruct them so fully and perfectly in a Truth they could not bear and were not prepared then to receive however he would not deny but did own and acknowledge their Charge of his making himself God in their sense And if this be not proved from these words of his here yet it is no way disproved any more than when he was asked whither he were the Christ or Messiah his not answering directly proves that he was not or his not instructing his Disciples so fully about his Crucifixion or Resurrection proved he was not to Dye or to Rise again Neither the Jews nor the Disciples themselves could bear some Truths at first nor the full opening the Mystery of the Gospel all at once nor had Christ dispatched all the work of his Life nor was then willing to dye or be stoned by them for a direct Charge of Blasphemy And therefore though he did not deny the Charge which he would have done had it been false yet he avoided it and defended himself against it as far as his Infinite Wisdom thought then prudent and convenient But there are other places and other Arguments to prove Christs Divinity to us his being one with the Father in Nature and the Natural and Eternal Son of God which I shall now produce and then show the usefulness and necessity of this Doctrine I shall not produce all but only select some that are the most plain and considerable The First shall be his Title and Character here given by himself The Son of God and his making God his Father which is to be meant in a proper and most excellent and natural sense upon the account of his Divine and not his Humane Nature or any thing belonging to that as he was the Son of God antecedently to his being born of the Virgin being begotten of the Father from all Eternity and having his Divine Being from the Father of the same Nature with himself For tho' the Title of the Son of God is given to others in Scripture and to Christ himself upon other accounts as God calls the Children of Israel his Son and his First-born Exod. 4.22 as being in a state of Favour and Covenant with him And Christians are thus more especially the Adopted Sons and the Children of God in the Scripture stile And Christ himself is called the Son of God upon several other accounts as upon his Extraordinary Humane Birth and Conception by the Holy Ghost Luke 1.35 upon account of his Resurrection his being the First-born or First-begotten from the Dead St. Paul applying to him the words of David in the second Psalm Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee upon this very account Acts 13.33 and as afterwards upon his Ascension he was made Heir of all things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Col. 1.15 The first-born and heir of the whole Creation But there is a higher Ground and Reason than all these of this great Character given to Christ in Scripture the Son of God namely his Eternal Divine Generation his being begotten of the Father in his own Likeness and Image and having his Divine Nature communicated to him for this is the first and most proper Notion of a Son Another Person or Being for nulla res generat seipsam as St. Austin sayes de Trin. l. 1. c. 1. produced or begotten in the same Nature and Likeness with its Father or Producent That Christ was thus generated of the Father and of the Substance of the Father and not Created or Made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Arrians held and that he was the Son of God and God his Father in this proper and excellent sense as the Christian Church has alwayes declared and believed so the Scripture bears witness to it in all those places where it calls Christ God and ascribes the Divine Nature and Divine Perfections to him as I shall show it does and sayes he was in the beginning before the World or from all Eternity with God and that he was in the Form of God and thought it not robbery to be equal with God i. e. as having the same Nature with him which must be by that Communication of it which we call Generation for he had not this from himself or from none but from another who is therefore call'd his Father But on this Head I insist only upon the propriety of those phrases his being the Son of God and God being his Father which are to be understood in the proper literal and natural meaning as all persons would understand them when spoken of a Humane Father and Son and so they are to be taken when there is not a Connotation or a particular Reason expressed to denote an improper and Metaphorical use of them And there is one word frequently used in Scripture which I think is a sufficient proof of this and that is when Christ is call'd not only the Son but the only Son and the only begotten Son of God as John 1.14 John 3.16 1 John 4.9 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a verbal signifying as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or uni-genitus is one who has no partner or sharer in that Sonship which is ascribed to him but Christ as an adopted Son has many Brethren and therefore it must be meant of that Divine Generation and Sonship which belongs to him alone and God by sending his only begotten Son intended to express his utmost Love to Mankind and to that purpose St. John uses the phrase God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son But nothing raises this Love so high as his sending his own Natural Son a Person of the highest
Dignity next to himself and one of the same Divine Nature with himself whereas if he were only an Adopted Son or a Son upon the other accounts only neither the Love of the Father nor the Condescension of the Son would appear in such Great Characters as the Scripture designedly sets them out by I have insisted longer on this Title of Son and only begotten Son because they are the only words in the Apostolick and the oldest Creeds to express the belief of Christs Divinity thereby designing to answer a great Objection of our Adversaries I shall be more brief on the rest 2. As Christ is called the Son of God so he is called God also in Scripture in several places John 1.1 The Word was with God and the Word was God My Lord and my God John 20.28 God blessed for ever Rom. 9.5 And in others especially those taken from the Old Testament and applyed to Christ in the New Now what can our Adversaries say to this Sometimes they say The Word is not meant of Christ But that is so undeniable in some places that they cannot but own it And therefore they say Christ though having only the Humane and not the Divine Nature is called God in a certain sense viz. by Office as Moses and other Magistrates who were the Ministers and Deputies and Embassadors of God and upon that account have that Name sometimes attributed to them and Christ by having that extraordinary Office of Messiah and that extraordinary Power over all things committed to him as Mediator after his Ascension is upon this account they say God and may be called God and the True God and the most High God as Socinus Stichlingius Smalcius Ruarus and others of them speak but still they deny that Christ is God by Nature or that he has the True Divine Nature the same with the Father belonging to him but only as a Man he is made and exalted to be a God by being advanced to an extraordinary Power and Authority over all other Creatures but this leaves him still in the rank and order of Creatures nay makes him a God of a meer Man a Late not an Eternal God One who had no Being before he was Born of the Virgin and no Divinity till after his Resurrection and his Ascension into Heaven so that they may date his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and know exactly how many Years and Dayes he has been God in their Ridiculous Blasphemous and Heathenish Sense of the word God But God is an Eternal Infinite All-perfect Being who was and is and is to come whose Existence is Necessary and not Contingent Eternal and not of Yesterday who has the True Divine Essence and Nature and the Incommunicable Excellencies and Perfections belonging to it And in this sense Christ is God and True God and God by Nature as I shall prove evidently from Scripture He is not indeed God the Father or God from none 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in that sense we believe in One God the Father Almighty and to us there is but One God the Father as the Apostle speaks 1 Cor. 8.6 and Christ is the Son of this God the Father who had his Being and Nature from him but he is God of God very God of very God as the Nicene Creed expresses it has the Divine Nature and Divine Perfections Naturally belonging to him and in that Sense is true God This I shall prove further 3. From his being joyned with the Father in the Baptismal Office and in the Christian Form of Benediction as we have them Mat. 28 19. 1 Cor. 13.14 Now can we think that Christ and the Holy Ghost would be joyned together in both those with the Father if they were only Creatures though of the highest Dignity and Quality and were not truly God and of the same Nature Honour and Dignity with the Father We may as well and much better suppose that a Charter of Priviledges should be Granted in the name of the King and of two of his greatest Subjects or Homage Sworn to them and to the King both together and that they should be joyned in the same Royal and Sovereign Acts of Favour and have the same acknowledgements and Oaths of Fidelity made to them as that God the Father should be joyned with two mere Creatures in such Solemn Religious acts of Christianity Baptism is the Highest and most Solemn Devoting and Dedicating our Selves to God and professing the Christian Faith by the special and distinguishing Characters of it as containing the Belief of Father Son and Holy Ghost which are the Fundamental 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Christianity as distinct from natural and Jewish Religion Now to do this to Creatures or in the name of Creatures as well as God would be a strange anomally and unaccountable absurdity The Jews indeed were Baptized into Moses in the Cloud and in the Sea 1 Cor. 20.2 as our Adversaries often remind us but this was only Mystically and Figuratively and almost into the Religion delivered by Moses they were not Devoted to Moses but to the God of Israel nor were Baptized in the name of the God of Israel and of Moses joyned together as Christians are in the name of Father Son and Holy Ghost nor was there ever any Benediction given in the name of Moses or of Abraham and the like but only in the name of God the God of Israel who would not give his Glory to another nor allow any Creatures to be his Rivals or share with him in the most Religious Acts of Homage and Fealty and in the incommunicable rights tenders and acknowledgments of Divine Honour payed to Him or in the Grants and Donations of special Favour that flowed and issued from himself alone So that I take this Form of Christian Baptism and Christian Blessing to be a very strong Evidence to all but perverse Unbelievers of the Divinity both of the Son and of the Holy Ghost who are thus joyned with the Father in very short and solemn Forms as of equal Honour Power and Dignity with him to whom Christians are alike to Devote themselves and to expect like Blessings and Favours from all of them 4. The Divinity of Christ is fully proved and Demonstrated from such Divine Acts and operations such Divine Excellencies Attributes and Perfections as belong only to God and the Divine Nature and which are expresly ascribed to Christ in the Holy Scriptures as to Create and make the World to be Omnipotent Omnipresent Omniscient Eternal and the like The Notion we have of a God is a being endued with these Infinite Persections which cannot belong to a Finite and Limited Creature however excellent unless we confound the Idaea's of Finite and Infinite of God and a Creature and bring the one down so low or raise the other so high as to make no difference between them These are the proper Attributes Properties and Excellencies of the Divine Nature and he that hath these must have the Divine