Infinite Division of Numbers in Decimal Fractions the Case of asymptotes How two Lines may be so drawn as always to approach and come nearer one another and yet never touch one another tho' drawn in infinitum The like Instances might be given of other Mysteries in Arts and Sciences which are as Incredible and Unreasonable to those who do not know them as any Mysteries in Religion and yet are certainly true and unquestionably believed by those who do and yet to them a great many of them may be Incomprehensible 'T is only Ignorance and want of Knowledge makes them seem unreasonable and incredible the more we improve in those Arts the more we shall see the Truth of them and have no doubt about them And so it is in the Mysteries of Religion 't is the shallowness and weakness of our Faculties makes them difficult and incomprehensible to us When we come to know God better especially in another World these reveal'd Truths concerning his Nature will be better understood and comprehended by us though now to deny and disbelieve them after they so are fully revealed because they are Incomprehensible is as if an Ignorant Person should call in question all Truths of those Arts and Sciences which he does not understand and which are Incomprehensible to him 4. There are Incomprehensible Truths in Natural Religion as well as in Revelation and in the Mystery of the Christian Faith God who is known by Nature and whose Being and Perfections are the great objects of natural Religion is as Incomprehensible and as much too big for our finite Reason and Faculties fully to Comprehend as any of the Articles of Revealed Religion or Christian Faith His 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Self-Existence is such a thing as our Thoughts are wholly lost about when we consider of it and yet something must be self-existent even by the Atheistic hypothesis So something must be Eternal and yet let any man try his thoughts about Eternity Infinite Duration or Infinite Succession and see how they are swallowed up in those deeps of Speculation Let him conceive if he can Eternity without Succession and Immensity without Extension and clear himself from that Contradiction if applyed to any thing but God that what is past or future is yet present that he now exists to morrow and that a thousand years ago his Duration was the same as now and nothing is added to it he may improve these into as puzling and incomprehensible difficulties if he pleases as any thing about the Trinity What shall we think of that inextricable Difficulty of Gods prescience of all Humane Actions by which they are certain and yet of our Liberty by which they are contingent when it is as hard to make those two Consistent as to make Father and Son to be one and yet we must do so or else rob God of one of his greatest Perfections or else rob Man of his Will and Freedom and so destroy all Moral Good and Evil. Since there are then so many Mysteries and Incomprehensible Truths even in Natural Religion which our Deists I hope do sincerely believe and which is owned to be the foundation of all other why should we wonder at those which are not much greater in Revelation and in the Mystery of Christian Faith The Creation of the World out of nothing is as Inconceivable and as Mysterious as the Generation of the Son from the Father and one Infinite Being is as much too big for our Finite Understandings to Comprehend as Three and his Attributes and Perfections are as hard to be distinguished and as irreconcileable with the simplicity of the Divine Nature as multiplicity of Persons His Justice and his Mercy his Power Wisdom and Goodness are no more the same as conceived by us but excite as truly different Ideas in us as his being a Father and begetting a Son and having a holy Ghost proceeding from him but yet the three Persons are more than three Attributes and the same person cannot be Father and Son to himself as he is Just and Merciful to us nor is it only three Considerations Capacities or Titles of one Being but three proper and distinct Persons that constitute the Sacred Trinity But we may as well conceive a monad emaning or producing two from it self as Creating all things out of nothing and being as Infinite as himself and the World both and as having three several Attributes distinct in themselves and not Confounded or Identified with one another 5. There are other Truths in Revelation as Incomprehensible and Unconceivable as this of the Trinity or the Mystery of Christian Faith To mention nothing else those many Miracles which are the proof and demonstration of the Divine Revelation and which must be acknowledged by all those who admit it and are not at all question'd by our Socinian Adversaries these are as Incomprehensible and Unintelligible to us as any Articles of our Faith they are matters as much above our Reason and do as much exceed all other things we know and all the likenesses and compositions of any thing we are acquainted with in Nature as the Trinity or any thing else in Revelation The Divine Power is no more limited to do those things only which we can conceive than the Divine Veracity to Reveal those things only which we can Comprehend and yet we are to believe both If we could conceive fully how the one was done we might do it our selves and if we could comprehend perfectly how the others are true and how those several Ideas are connected and agree together we might compound them our selves and so God would not be more Powerful or more Wise than Man is Our Finite Understanding is no more able to comprehend all that God does than our Finite Power to effect every thing that he can Miracles are as much above us as to Facts and as much Mysteries as to the Laws of Matter and Motion and the known properties of Bodies as Revealed Articles are above us as to Truths and known principles of Reason and as to any other comparative Ideas and representations of things which are Familiar to us and which we are well acquainted with Our Adversaries may therefore as well deny all Miracles as being Unconceivable and Incomprehensible to their Reason and as Mysterious Facts which are very much above Nature and above all our Conceptions as the Mysteries of Faith and the Principles of Revealed Religion such as the Blessed Trinity upon this very score and account and may for the same Reason discard all revelation and all natural Religion which I fear is the design of some of them but I hope not of the greatest part Lastly I proposed to show that there are as many Difficulties and more Mysteries in their sense that is Inconsistencies and Absurdities in the Socinian Scheme and System of Opinions than in the Orthodox Faith they oppose Thus to make a mere Man a God to exalt a Creature to such a Degree as
cap. Helmon in Alcoran Nec Christum Deum adorare confessus est sc Mahomet ne forte duos Deos adorare deprehenderetur Cantacuzen in Mahomet Orat. 3. offers several reasons against it among which this is one That God and his Son would make two Gods and that they must worship only one God These Reasons I think may be fairly answered but Reason it self could nor have known or collected this either from the Divine fecundity or from any Natural Perfection or Property of God knowable by the Light of Nature 't is only Revelation acquaints us with it and lets us at the same time see the admirable ends and uses and purposes of this if not for the designs of Creation and Providence yet for the Redemption of the World by this Son of God which is a work as great and as Divine if not more so than the other two 'T is the peculiar Character Frame and Scheme of Christianity to reveal this Mystery fully to us this adorable Mystery of Divine Love and Wisdom God's Saving Lost and undone Mankind by his Son Jesus Christ Reason could not have discovered this nor can it now penetrate into all the deep Counsels of the Divine Govenment and hidden Reasons of the Divine Wisdom which made this either absolutely necessary or to be sure the most fit and convenient Method to Save and Redeem Mankind This is such a Mystery of State such a Secret of the Heavenly and Divine Policy and Management that whether God could have Effected and Accomplished this any other way is unknown to us and our Reason must cry out upon the Thoughts of it O the Depth of the Riches both of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God Rom. 11.33 how unsearchable are his Judgments and his ways past finding out Further The Christian Revelation discovers to us another Divine Person besides the Son to wit the Holy Ghost who proceedeth from the Father and the Son and who was sent by them in a Visible and extraordinary manner and was to be the Comforter and Paraclete as Christ the Redeemer and Saviour and was to Sanctifie and Fit and Qualifie all Christians for that Salvation which Christ had Purchased and Obtained for them without whom Christianity could not have been spred and established in the World nor in the Hearts of Men and who was therefore to bear a Peculiar and Distinct part and Office in the Accomplishing the great work of our Redemption which was to be Performed by the Fathers sending his Son and both sending the Holy Ghost to Perfect and Effect this Great Thing and This is the Constitution the Frame the Faith of Christianity as a Religion distinct from Natural and which is such a Mystery as could not have been found out by Natural Light and Reason without an immediate Divine Revelation for it was not any Natural Property of the Divine Nature so far as we know to have a Son and a Holy Spirit nor did the Purposes of Creation and Providence require this and therefore the Deists and others think more than one Divine Person and one Infinite Being Unnecessary and as far as Reason alone goes neither the Truth nor the Necessity of more would appear but Revelation and especially the Christian acquaints us with God's having a Son and a Holy Spirit distinct Persons from himself the one Begotten of him and so his only Son the other proceeding from him and the Son both and these two still in the Father naturally and inseparably united to him as to the Fountain of their Being One with him in the same Divine Nature and Essence and All Three together Accomplishing Effecting and Perfecting the Redemption of Mankind and bearing distinct parts in that Great and Blessed Work 2. As Reason could not have known or found out any thing of this so the Revelation of it was at first very Obscure and Imperfect there being only some smaller Glimpses and lesser manifestations of it and those covered with Types and shadows and Prophetic Symbols through which the Fathers saw as through a Glass darkly and beheld the Promises of the Messiah yet afar off so that the Jewish Law and Dispensation though it wholly pointed at this thing and Christ was the end of it yet was but a Shadow of these good things to come and Moses had a vail over his face by which the Children of Israel could not see to the end of their own Typical Institution till the vail was taken away in Christ And the Mystery which was kept secret since the World began a 2 Cor. 3.14 which had been hid from Ages and Generations b Rom. 16.25 and which in other Ages was not made known unto the Sins of Men c Col. 1.26 was by the Gospel revealed and manifest and made known to all men to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews d Eph. 3.5 Adam immediately after his Fall had this Mystery of Gods sending the Messiah into the World for the Salvation of Mankind promised and revealed to him in those words The Seed of the Woman shall break the Serpents head Gen. 3.15 And no doubt he transmitted this great and comfortable Tradition to all his Posterity and there seem to be the broken remains and Characters of it in some parts of the Religion of all Mankind especially in the general if not Universal Custom of Sacrifices and the secret Cabala and mysterious design seems to run through the Gentile Theology which was a corruption of the Patriarchal Religion from whence some Marks and Footsteps of this Original Mysterious Tradition were preserved and continued among the Gentiles as appears in the Prophesies of Balaam of Old and the Sybils afterwards and in the Notion of a Trinity among the Platonists and others which outdoes any thing to be found about that matter in any Jewish Writer and must come from some Antient Cabala and Traditionary Account of it How far the Jews had a knowledge and belief of it we want their Writings to acquaint us though in some of those we have there are remarkable intimations of it as in the Caldee Paraphrase the Messiah is often called the Mamra Jehovae the Word of God the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. John calls him and there and in the Hierusalem Targum he is represented as a substantial Word and as a Divine Person and several of their Rabbies interpret that of 110 Psalm The Lord said unto my Lord of the Messiah and so that of Jeremy 23. where he is called the Lord or Jehovah our Righteousness and they often speak of their Emanations from the Kedem or Essence of the Antient of days and in their Prayers and Liturgies particularly in a Collect used at the Feast of Tabernacles God is invoked as Sanctified with three Sanctifications and in a Famous Book among them called The Gate of Righteousness this Sanctification is called a Mystery whereby they say is meant the Procession of the Emanations from the Corona which is the Mystery
Unity but this has been from not understanding what the Divine Unity was and wherein it truly consisted according to the Scriptural account I have given of it which wholly takes off this Objection There are several things I own in the Blessed Trinity Incomprehensible to our Reason and Unconceivable and Unaccountable to our Finite Understandings when they are imployed about so great and Infinite an Object which is too big for them and so much above them As why and how an Infinite All-sufficient God should produce an Eternal Son and Communicate the same Nature to him with himself whether this were by a voluntary or a necessary Production and Emanation and how the Procession of the Holy Ghost differs from the Generation of the Son any otherwise than as that was an Emanation from both and not from the Father alone and how three such Infinite Persons are so distinct from one another as not to be confounded or be the same tho' Omnipresent and in the same Infinite Vbi and tho' so Inseparably united yet the one to take flesh and be Incarnate and not the other These and other things relating to this Mystery of our Christian Faith are I say Incomprehensible Unconceiveable and Unaccountable to our Reason by which I mean only that we can compare 'em to nothing else that we certainly know that we have no perfect or absolute likeness of them in any thing else that we have no adequate Idea simple or complex no similitude or Representation of any such thing in our minds from any thing else in Nature but that 't is a Truth purely known and manifested by Revelation joyning together and connecting such Idea's concerning God and so presenting them to the mind as united together under one view and so compounded and complicated with one another that tho' they do not disagree nor are contrary to one another yet we see not perfectly their agreement or connection but have only an obscure and general and confused view and conception of them as we have a sight of such Objects which are too high or too remote for our eye thoroughly to ken and yet we see them tho' not by the naked Eye yet by the help of a glass or Telescope so as to be satisfied of the Truth of them Revelation is as a Telescope and our Reason and Understanding is as the Eye which could not by its naked Power discern or find out those high Objects and supernatual Truths of our Christian Faith but now by Revelation they are discovered to us and our Reason and Understanding as the Organ without which we cannot see or believe any thing does plainly see and discern them but it is as through a glass darkly as having something of Cloud and darkness about them or as we see the Sun which is an object too dazling and illustrious to look fully upon with our weak Eyes The Sun with ' its coeval light and heat is an usual resemblance of the sacred Trinity and is the best material one that is in Nature but light and heat are but qualities and motions not substantial Things and are though not divided from the Sun yet without it and not in it so the fountain River and streams are but imperfect partial Resemblances as having the same water in all and not being cut off or separated from the Fountain but all material likenesses must fail when applyed to Spiritual things Our own Soul is the best Image of God and without it we should not know what God or Wisdom or any of his Perfections were the two faculties of Understanding and Will are the most like to the Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Wisdom and to the Divine Spirit power and Energy and in allusion to these the Schoolmen would have the Son to be begotten per Intellectum by a direct act of the Divine Mind conceiving an Idea of ' its Self and the Holy Ghost to proceed by a reflexion per amorem by an active Love of it self upon such a Conception But these men have been the most rash and bold explainers of the Trinity which is a Truth and an Object by it Self to which nothing else is perfectly like and of which we can have no Comparative knowledge nor no compleat and adequate Idea or Comprehension for the two sacred Originated Persons are not two faculties but two substantial Persons and Real Beings the Scripture ascribing as distinct Properties Relations Attributes Characters Acts and Operations to each of them as to any other distinct Persons and Beings whatsoever as the Son to be begotten of the Father to be sent into the World by the Father to pray to the Father and mediate with the Father Now the same Being and Person cannot be Father and Son to it Self beget and be begotten of it Self send and be sent by it Self pray to and mediate with it Self and the like may be said as to the Spirit These are not therefore like one and the same mind with two faculties or two acts or operations or only as variously considered two ways nor are they one thing or one Being diversified only with three Names Titles Offices Characters Capacities Respects or any three differences whatever belonging to one Person or Being but three true proper real Divine Persons The One the Father the other the Son the third the Spirit of both Now nothing in our own minds or in visible Nature is perfectly like these or to which we can compare them or from whence we can draw a Similitude Representation or Idea of them and therefore they are Incomprehensible and Unconceivable by us for 't is by Comparison and likeness we chiefly know and conceive things and 't is hard to distinguish between Knowledge Conception and Imagination so that what some persons cannot imagine or cannot have a picture or likeness of in their Fancy and Imagination they say they cannot conceive and therefore some pretend they can have no Conceptions of a Spiritual Substance and others no Idaea of the Trinity nor even of God by which they mean they cannot have a Picture or Idea or likeness of these things in their Imagination but we know and believe and are well assur'd of a great many things without that as of all Mathematical and Metaphysical Verities about abstracted things of all Axioms and Common Notions of all Demonstrations about Lines and Numbers of all things not Corporeal as Time Motion the Acts and Operations of our own Minds such as Understanding Choosing Suspending Doubting and the like all which we know by Reason and can reason about though we can have no Pictures or imaginary Idaea's of them or any other likenesses of them I shall show for the Defence of Mysteries and of the Mystery of the Trinity and the Christian Faith that there are a great many other things which are Incomprehensible and unconceivable to us concerning which we are well assur'd and have no doubt of them and this in several Particulars 1. In visible Nature and
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
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