divine Grace and Life Can a finite Creature be a kind of universal Soul to the whole Christian Church and to every sincere member of it Can a Creature make such close Applications to our minds know our thoughts set bounds to our Passions inspire us with new affections and desires and be more intimate to us than we are to our selves If a Creature be the only instrument and principle of Grace we shall soon be tempted either to deny the grace of God or to make it only an external thing and entertain very mean conceits of it All those miraculous gifts which were bestowed on the Apostles and primitive Christians for the edification of the Church were the gifts of the Spirit all the graces of the Christian Life are the fruits of the Spirit The divine Spirit is the principle of Immortality in us which first gives life to our Souls and will at the last day raise our dead bodies out of the dust works which sufficiently proclaim him to be God and which we cannot heartily believe in the Gospel-notion of them if he be not Thus we see how fundamental the doctrine of the ever blessed Trinity is in the Christian Religion because we cannot rightly understand the Doctrine of Salvation nor the Covenant of Grace without this belief which seems to be the true reason why the more perfect discovery of this was reserved for Gospel-times and only obscurely hinted under the Law because the peculiar use of it is under the Gospel each sacred Person having a peculiar interest and concernment in the work of our Redemption And therefore all those who expresly deny the Divinity of the Son and of the holy Spirit as many ancient Hereticks did of old and as the Socinians do at this day do err fundamentally however God may be merciful to their ignorance or prejudice which it does not concern us to meddle with But though it is necessary and essential to the Christian Faith to acknowledg Father Son and holy Ghost to be one eternal God yet there are a great many little subtilties started by over-curious and busie heads which are not fundamental Doctrines and ought not to be thought so God forbid that all the nice distinctions and definitions of the Schools about Essence Subsistence Personalty about eternal Generation and Procession the difference between Filiation and Spiration c. should be reckon'd among Fundamentals of our Faith For though we understood nothing of these matters as indeed we don't and it had been happy the Church had never heard of them yet if we believe the Divinity of each Person we believe enough to understand the Doctrine of Salvation And though that fatal Dispute between the Greek and Latine Church about the Filioque be of more importance than such Scholastick subtilties yet I cannot see that it concerns the foundation of our Faith For the Grâ—ek Church did firmly believe the holy Spirit to be true God though they would not own that he proceeded from the Father and the Son but from the Father only And though we must acknowledg this to be a mistake yet it is not a fundamental mistake for the Doctrine of Salvation is secured by believing the holy Spirit to be true God without defining the manner of his Procession 2. Upon the same account that the Doctrine of the sacred Trinity is a fundamental Article of our Faith the Doctrine of Christ's Incarnation also and what he did and suffered in order to our Salvation the meritorious Sacrifice of his death his Resurrection from the dead Assenscion into Heaven Intercession for us at God's right hand and that he shall come again to judge the World to reward his faithful Disciples with a glorious Resurrection and eternal Life and to punish the wicked with eternal Death must be reckoned also among the Fundamentals of Christianity because we cannot rightly understand nor rightly believe the Doctrine of Salvation by Christ without a belief of these Matters This is so obvious at the first proposal that I need not insist on the Proof of it And therefore those who deny Christ to be true and perfect man as well as those who deny him to be God err fundamentally for he could not die for us nor expiate our sins by his blood if he were not man As for the Modus of this Hypostatical union how the divine and humane nature are united in Christ it must be acknowledged to be very unconceivable by us and it is no great wonder it should be so when we do not perfectly understand any one sort of natural union not so much as how the parts of matter hang together much less how the Soul and Body is united to make one man But yet it is fundamental to the Christian Faith to believe that the divine and humane nature are united in Christ that the same Christ is both perfect God and perfect man or we must err fundamentally in the Doctrine of Salvation by Christ for neither God nor man distinctly and separately considered can be our Saviour according to the Gospel-notion of Salvation God cannot suffer and die and the death of a man cannot expiate sin nor his Power save us and therefore we must acknowledg that God and man is so united in Christ that the Actions and operations of each nature do as properly belong to one Christ as the distinct Operations of Body and Soul are the actions of the same man Upon this account the Catholick Church condemned the Heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches For Nestorius divided not only the Natures but the Persons in Christ only united them in Authority and Dignity And thus Christ was not an Incarnate God in one Person but the Man Christ was taken into a nearer relation to the second Person of the Trinity than any other Man or Creature is but not so as to become one with him which destroyes the Mystery of our Redemption by the Blood of God For whatever Dignity and Honour were conferr'd upon the man Christ by his relation to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or divine Word yet his Blood was not the Blood of God because notwithstanding this Relation to God the Son he remained as much a distinct Person and Subsistence as any other man is The Heresie of Eutyches is certainly equally dangerous for he ran so far from the Nestorian Heresie of two Persons that he denyed two natures in Christ He did not deny but that there was a humane and divine nature before their union but he asserted such an union of natures in Christ as made a mixture and confusion of natures That Christ did not remain perfect God and perfect man after this union but the humane and divine natures were so blended together as to become one nature as well as one Person 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Niceph. Calist l. 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. l. 15. cap. 6. And therefore he denyed the very Body of Christ to be of the same nature with our Bodies or subject
St. Paul's days I should not much have wondred that he warns men against vain Philosophy I shall avoid disputing with Mr. B. as much as I can and therefore shall not quarrel with him for saving that the Soul is Principium Motus the Beginning or first Cause and Principle of Motion to the Body though it may be some Cartesians will not like it Nor for affirming that the Union of Soul and Body is but like the Copula in a Proposition which is a speck and spang new Notion but shall only consider how he applies this to the Church Christ it seems then is the Soul and Christians the Body though in Scripture he is represented as the Head of the Body and the divine Spirit as the Soul which enlivens and animates it And if Christ be not the Head of the Body which I think the Soul was never accounted yet the Church must be without a Head or have some other Head than Christ which I suppose is the Reason why he talks so much of a constitutive Regent Head of the Church But the organized Body is the constitutive Matter of the man though other Philosophers used to call the Body a constitutive part but to let that pass Thus an organical Church is the constitutive Matter of what Of Christ or of his Church or of some third thing compounded of both That there be Heart Liver Stomach is but the Bodies Organization this is easily applied Thus Apostles Prophets Pastors and Teachers and People make an organical Church but that these parts be duly placed and united is Forma Corporis non Hominis is the Form of the Body not of the Man which what it means I cannot tell unless that a man would be a man though the several parts of his Body did not stand in their right places nor were united to one another so they were all united to the Soul And thus the Catholick Church is one Body by being united to Christ though the parts of it are not united to each other and much such a Body it is as the natural Body would be did the Legs and Arms grow out of the Head and every Member change places without any order or divide from each other and hang together only by a Magical kind of Union with the Soul Well but this Organization and due Position of the Parts makes the Body Materia disposita Matter fitly disposed I suppose he means for Union with the Soul But is this disposition of the Matter so necessary that a Soul cannot unite with a Body otherwise disposed without forfeiting the external Form of a Man his Senses or his Understanding And consequently that no reasonable Soul which is not under some force would unite with such a Body If this be his meaning it sits our present Case very well for then the Church cannot be united to Christ in one Body without union with it self and the Unity of the Catholick Church cannot consist meerly in the union of all particular Churches in and to Christ without any union among themselves But how to apply the Copula in a Proposition either to the union of Soul or Body or of Christ and his Church I cannot tell and shall never be able to learn till I meet with some new Baxterian Logick as well as Grammar and Metaphysicks But to proceed as a farther Explication of this Matter he adds 3. In this Vnion there is no Summa Potestas or universal Governour Monarchical or Aristocratical but Christ In this we agree also as will appear more hereafter And now or never to the Point 4. The Body is sufficiently organized if it consists of local Churches called single or particular being Pastors and Christian People having all the Essentials of Christianity But is our Dispute then about the Organization or about the Unity of the Body The Catholick Church has no other Organization but that of particular Churches but there is something more required to make it one No says Mr. B. that which maketh this Body that is all the Christians and Christian Churches in the World to become a Church he should have said one Church is no union of the Members among themselves So that the Catholick Church may be one Body without the union of its Members among themselves i. e. it may be one without Unity But why should not union of the Members among themselves be necessary to make a Church one Because says Mr. B. that maketh them only Materia disposita i. e. Matter disposed prepared fitted but for what To be one Church I should rather think that the union of several Churches makes them one Church and does not only prepare and dispose them to be one unless he can tell how they can be more one than by Unity But however are any other Churches which have no union among themselves this Materia disposita or Matter disposed and fitted to make one Catholick Church If they be then there is no need of any Union so much as to dispose and prepare the Matter If they be not then I still enquire what that Union of Churches is which is necessary to make them fit matter for the Catholick Church But this Mr. B. has not yet vouchsafed to tell me though possibly this may be one of those things which I must learn from some Grammarians or Metaphysicians before I can be capable of his Instructions But Mr. B. tells us how the Church is one without any Union of the Members among themselves viz. by their common Vnion with Christ and then all single Persons and Churches are one Catholick Church because united in and to him as all Lines are united in the Center So that there is no necessity of any other Union between several Churches to make them one Catholick Church but that they are all united to Christ the common Center they are one Church though as distant and opposite to each other as the two Poles because they meet in the same Center But 1. This is a pretty easie way of determining Controversies to out-face all the Authority of Scripture and Antiquity by a dogmatical Assertion without offering the least Reason or shadow of Reason to confirm it I had at large proved the necessity of one Catholick Communion to make one Catholick Church and instead of answering these Proofs he asserts the contrary upon his own naked Authority and that must pass for a Confutation And 2. He takes that for granted which I can never grant him that those Churches which are divided from each other by separate and opposite Communions may yet be all united to Christ for Christ has but one Body one Spouse one Flock one Church and if we be not Members of this one Church as no Schismaticks are we are not united to Christ and therefore it is a vain thing to talk of uniting those in Christ who are not united among themselves for Christ hath not an hundred several Bodies but one Body and we must continue in the Unity of
the Saviour of the Body and that he has redeemed his Church with his own Blood which confines the Effects and Application of his Grace and Merit and Satisfaction to his own Body which is the Church But besides this we may consider That the Jewish Church was Typical of the Christian Church nay indeed that it is the same Church still only enlarged and Chrystianized for the Christian Church is built upon the foundations not only of the Apostles but Prophets and Jews and Gentiles are united into one Church by breaking down the middle wall of partition and engrafting the Gentiles upon the same Root and Stock with them as I discoursed at large in the Defence of Dr. Stillingfleet Now we know the Mosaick Covenant was made with the Children of Israel as a Nation whom God had chosen for himself of the Seed and Posterity of Abraham Natural Jews had no Title to this Covenant till they were circumcised and incorporated into the Body of Israel considered as in Covenant with God of which Circumcision was the Sign and Seal and no strangers were admitted to these priviledges of the Covenant till they were engrafted into the Body of Israel by Circumcision and became one People with them So that the Mosaick Covenant which was but the Christian Covenant in Types and Figures was confined to a particular Nation or Body of men and to all those who were incorporated into the same Body with them now it is plain that the Christian Church is incorporated into the Body of Israel and therefore the Apostles call the Christians the true Israel of God and all the Names of Israel are given to the Christian Church A chosen Generation a royal Priesthood 1 Pet. 2.9 an holy Nation a peculiar People So that the Christian Church is a Nation and People peculiar to God and chosen by him out of the rest of the World as the Jews formerly were that is united to God and to each other in the same Covenant and therefore as the Mosaical Covenant was confined to the Body of Israel that no Strangers or Aliens had any right to it so is the Gospel Covenant confined to the Communion of the Christian Church And therefore Christ is said to give himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity and to purifie to himself a peculiar People zealous of good Works 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Tit. 14. as it is in St. Peter which is one of the Names of Israel as they were a Nation a peculiar Body and Society of men separated from the rest of the World 3. To confirm this we may consider that it is not enough that Christ has died for us and purchased the Pardon of our sins and the Gift of the holy Spirit unless this Pardon and Grace be applyed to us in such ways as he has appointed For it will not suffice that we make Christ our own by a fanciful Application of his Merits to our selves which would quickly overturn the Church and make the Institutions of our Saviour very useless things as we see this conceit has in a great measure done already but we must receive Christ and all his Blessings as he is pleased to bestow them Now that the holy Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper are by the Institution of our Saviour the ordinary Conveyances and Ministries of Grace has been the universal Belief of the Christian Church in all Ages in Baptism we receive the Remission of our sins and the Gift of the holy Spirit and therefore we are said to be baptized for the Remission of sins and to be born of Water and of the Spirit and we are said to be saved by the washing of Regeneration 3 Titus 5. and the renewal of the holy Ghost In the Lord's Supper Christ gives himself to us as the Bread of Life See Dr. Sherlock's practical Discourse of religious Assemblies part 2. which is the daily Food and Nourishment of our Souls of which the Manna in the Wilderness was but a Type The Cup of Blessing which we bless is the Communion of the Blood of Christ that Blood which was shed for the remission of Sins and the Bread which we break is the Communion of the Body of Christ 1 Cor. 10.16 That is in this holy Sacrament all the Merits of Christ's Death and Sufferings are made over to worthy Communicants Here we receive the fresh Supplies of the holy Spirit Ch. 12 13. and therefore are said to drink into one Spirit but I need not insist on the proof of that which no body denies who has any Reverence for our Saviours Institutions and does not think them meer empty Shadows and insignificant Ceremonies If then our Saviour has appointed these holy Sacraments as the Means and Conveyances of Grace and these Sacraments are ineffectual to those who do not live in the Unity and Communion of the Christian Church then we cannot ordinarily expect the Application of Christ's Merits to us or the Vertue of his Death and Passion out of Catholick Communion And yet this was as generally acknowledged by the ancient Fathers as the other as I have already shown St. Cyprian would not acknowledg that Schismaticks had any Sacraments no more than that they had any Church St. Austin acknowledged that they had Sacraments but inutiliter their Schism made the Sacraments ineffectual to attain the end for which they were instituted and indeed the very Nature of the Sacraments will easily satisfie us that it must be so Baptism is the Sacrament of Pardon and Forgiveness of our Regeneration and new Birth by the holy Spirit but it is the Sacrament also of our initiation and incorporation into the Christian Church And upon this very account our sins are forgiven in Baptism and the holy Spirit is bestowed on us because it makes us the Members of Christ's Body that is of his Church to whom the Forgiveness of sins and the Gift of the holy Spirit is promised and therefore those who are baptized in a Schism and are no sooner made the Members of Christ's Church but do immediately divide and separate themselves from its Communion if they do receive remission of their Sins and the Gift of the Spirit in the instant wherein they are baptized as St. Austin supposes they may yet do immediately forfeit it again by their Schism For the same Sacrament must have its entire effect or none at all Incorporation into the Christian Church and forgiveness of sins are inseparably united in Baptism as God's and man's part is in the same Covenant Incorporation into the Christian Church which is signified represented and compleated in Baptism is our part of the Covenant our choice and resolution and actual undertaking of Christianity which is done by a Profession of our Faith in Christ and subjection to him and by uniting our selves to the Society and Fellowship of his Church by such a sacred Right as he has appointed for
observed at all or not in their true meaning and signification by those who deny it as to give some few instances of it The love of God as our Redeemer and Saviour who gave his own Son for our Ransom to die for our sins and to make atonement and expiation by his Blood is very different from the love of God as our Creator and Benefactor nay as our Redeemer by Covenant Promise and Power it is a more transporting and sensible Passion and the peculiar Worship of the Gospel which those cannot give to God who deny the expiation of Christ's death The Worship of a God Incarnate a God in our nature and likeness a God who is our Saviour Mediator and Advocate through his own Blood vastly differs from the Worship of a pure infinite eternal Spirit or from the Worship of an exalted Creature And this is the peculiar Worship of the Lord's Supper that great and venerable Mystery of our Religion which is a thin and empty Ceremony without it To pray to God in the Name and Mediation of Christ and in vertue of his Sacrifice vastly differs from a natural hope and trust in God's mercy or in his bare promise or in the Power and Interest of a great Favourite though appointed to be our Mediator not in vertue of his Sacrifice but by Royal Favour Not but that God's Promise of Pardon and acceptance confirmed to us by such a powerful Favourite whom God himself hath appointed to be our Advocate may give us sufficient security that God will hear and answer our Prayers but this assurance is of a different nature from the vertue of a Sacrifice and affects our minds in a different manner and excites different Passions and very different acts of Devotion and makes our Worship differ as much as a Mediator by Sacrifice does from a Mediator by Interest and Power As for the other parts of Religion which concern our Conversation with men or the Government of our own Appetites and Passions there seems to be some new instances or new degrees of Vertue which have a necessary dependance on the Sacrifice of Christ's death as the example or reason of them As that high degree of brotherly love which Christ requires of us as the Badg of our Discipleship to love one another as he hath loved us to forgive one another even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven us all Acts of kindness and charity to our poor Brethren as knowing the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he were rich yet for your sakes he became poor that you through his poverty may be rich the force and prevalency of which example and of which reason I think is greatly abated by denying the expiation of Christ's death However I think it is very plain that the true principle of Gospel-obedience that which makes all our actions in a strict and proper sence Christian Graces and Vertues has a necessary respect to the expiation of Christ's death We must cheerfully obey the Will of God not only considered as our Creator but as a Redeemer we must give up our selves to Christ as the purchase of his Blood for we are not our own but bought with a price and therefore must glorifie God both with our Bodies and with our Spirits which are God's we must yield our selves willing Captives to the conquering and constraining Power of his Love the Love of Christ constrains us for we thus judg that if Christ dyed for all then were all dead and that he dyed for us that we who live might not henceforth live unto our selves but unto him who dyed for us If Christ did not redeem and purchase us by his Blood all this signifies nothing it is all but Phrase and Metaphor and Allusion which cannot form a principle of Action And yet the Apostles of Christ do not so much insist on the Authority of God as our Maker and Governor as on his purchase as Redeemer on the love of our dying Lord who is our Priest our Sacrifice and Mediator and were it possible to obey the Gospel without any regard to the redemption of Christ and that stupendious love of God in it it were not true Evangelical obedience no more than it is obedience to God to do what he commands for some private end and reason of our own without any regard to his Authority and Government So that whether the Doctrine of the atonement and satisfaction of Christ's death be true or false it is certainly fundamental either way either a fundamental Article of Faith or a fundamental Error because it alters Foundations and changes the whole frame of Christian Religion If Christ have made atonement and expiation for our sins Christianity is one thing if he have not it is quite another thing as different as it is possible which I think is a plain argument that the expiation of Christ's Blood is a fundamental or foundation Doctrine since the whole Fabrick of Christian Religion as it is taught in the Gospel is built on it 2. There is one consideration more which will confirm this that the atonement and expiation of Christ's death is a fundamental Doctrine because the Blood of Christ that is the expiation of his Blood is the peculiar object of justifying Faith now certainly that must be fundamental which is essential to justifying Faith Salvation or Justification by Christ being the sum of the Gospel whatever is essential to justifying Faith is certainly a fundamental Doctrine of Christianity if there be any such thing as Fundamentals Repentance in its full Extent and Latitude as it includes not only a sorrow for our past sins but the reformation of our lives and an actual obedience to all the Laws of the Gospel is a necessary condition of our Pardon and Justification or necessarily required in those whom God will justifie But Repentance and a new Life cannot justifie us No Religion that ever was in the World taught men certainly to expect Pardon of sin meerly upon their Repentance And it is plain that mankind never did for both Heathens and Jews thought the expiation of Sacrifices as necessary and more prevalent than meer Repentance to obtain their Pardon And the reason why God hath appointed us no Sacrifice but a broken heart or the living Sacrifice of an obedient Soul and Body to offer to him is because he has provided an expiatory Sacrifice himself hath given his own Son to be a Sacrifice for us and the Pardon of our sins is every where attributed to the death of Christ as the meritorious Cause But then as Christ hath dyed for our sins and redeemed us with his Blood and God for Christ's sake will pardon and justifie all repenting sinners so we must consider that meer repentance can no more apply or appropiate the Sacrifice and Expiation of Christ's death to us for our Pardon than it can justifie us without a Sacrifice That is the peculiar Office of Faith in Christ or Faith in his Blood as
great Prophets by Miracles and when he was persecuted for it he owned the truth to the very death and set a great example of constancy and patience and submission to God in his sufferings as other great Prophets had done before him though not in so extraordinary a manner 3. This crucified Jesus was raised by God from the dead the third day though being but a Creature or a Man he was not able to raise himself and was advanced by God to great Power and Glory 4. Which Power consists in all those Acts which are specified in the opposite Scheme with this difference that his Power is not owing to his Priesthood or Sacrifice nor has any dependance on it but he is a Saviour forgives sins c. by a Soveraign Power given him by God not by Merit or Purchase or the expiation of his Sacrifice And there is this contradiction in it that a Creature is invested with Almighty Power and this riddle in it that God should make a Creature the Saviour of mankind and this Blasphemy that God should advance a Creature to be his own Rival or Partner in divine Honour This short account makes it very evident what a fundamental difference the belief or denial of the Divinity of our Saviour makes in the whole Doctrine of Salvation by Christ The first makes it an Act of stupendious love in God in giving his own Son to be a Propitiation for our sins the second is a great act of love in saving sinners but the manner is not so full of Wonder and mysterious Goodness The first makes it an act of infinite Love and Condescention in Christ to become Man a Minister and a Servant and to submit to an accursed death for our sakes That though he were rich yet for our sakes he became poor that we through his poverty might be rich But the second infers no such thing as I can see If he were nothing greater than a man it was no condescention in him to be made a man especially if he had no being before he was born of the Virgin Mary it was no more matter of his choice to become man than it is of any other man who is born into the World and therefore could be no Act of Love or Condescension Nay suppose that Christ were the most glorious and excellent Creature yet being a Creature there is not such a vast difference between the most perfect Creature and a perfect Man as there is between a God and the most perfect Creature it is no such mighty debasement for the most glorious Angels to appear in pure and untainted Flesh and Blood especially upon such a glorious design as the redemption of mankind Though the disguise and appearance may be thought below an Angelical Nature yet the Character with which he appears as the great Prophet and Saviour of the World is as much above it The meanest state and condition of humane nature a poor despised and laborious Life the most painful and ignominious death which makes the most excellent Creature the Saviour of mankind and advances him to be Lord and Judge of the World is so far from being an Act of condescending love in the most glorious Creature that it is above his Ambition and would be like the pride of Lucifer to be equal to God To become man to suffer and die for the redemption of the World and to be made the Lord and Judge both of the quick and of the dead can be an act of condescending love and goodness only in God So that to deny the Divinity of Christ alters the very foundations of Christianity and destroys all the powerful arguments of the Love Humility and Condescention of our Lord which are the peculiar motives of the Gospel Thus the belief of the Divinity of Christ makes God to be our Saviour the object of our Faith and Hope and Relyance the denial of it makes a Creature to be our Saviour and the object of a Religious Faith and Worship which I think differ as much as the Worship of God and of a Creature The first contains a visible union of our Nature to the Deity which is a visible demonstration of God's love and tender regard to mankind the second deprives us of this sensible Consolation The first exhibits to us a Saviour by Purchase and by Redemption which is both more endearing and a greater security to our guilty fears the second makes Christ a Saviour only as a Prophet or a King may be a Saviour who saves by wise instructions by preaching the way of Salvation or by Power The first respects the guilt of sin and the just Wrath and Displeasure of God which is the Object of our guilty fears It offers a Saviour to us who is a Mediator between God and man and powerfully intercedes for our Pardon in vertue of his meritorious Sacrifice The second has no respect to the atonement and reconciliation of God which is the only security to a guilty Conscience but only contains proposals of Peace and Reconciliation without a Sacrifice A thing which mankind will not easily believe when they are thorowly convinced of the evil of sin and the inflexible purity and holiness of the divine Nature not to take notice now how irreconcileable this is with all the ancient Types of the Law of Moses In a word he who believes Christ to be perfect God as well as perfect man is easily satisfied of his Power to save as well as of the Vertue of his Sacrifice For omnipotent Power is essential to the Notion of a God and when God becomes our Saviour he can exercise all that Power which is necessary to our Salvation but he who believes Christ to be but an exalted Creature can never understand how he can exercise omnipotent Power which is peculiar to God For I think it is somewhat harder to understand how a Creature can be made a God and be possest of divine Perfections such as omnipotent Power is than to believe that God can take a Creature into a personal union with himself This I think is sufficient to satisfie any man what a fundamental Change the denial of Christ's Divinity makes in the Doctrine of Salvation by Christ It makes a new Gospel and a new Religion and therefore the Divinity of Christ must be acknowledged to be a fundamental Doctrine because the denial of it subverts Foundations Thus to proceed our Salvation by Christ does not only consist in the expiation of our sins and the proposal of terms of Reconciliation and the promise of Pardon and a Reward but in the Communications of divine Grace and Power to renew and sanctifie us and this is every where in Scripture attributed to the holy Spirit as his peculiar Office in the Oeconomy of man's Salvation and it must make a fundamental change in the Doctrine of divine Grace and assistance to deny the Divinity of the holy Spirit For can a Creature be the universal Spring and Fountain of