REFLECTIONS ON TWO DISCOURSES CONCERNING The Divinity of our Saviour Written by Monsieur LAMOTH in French and done into English Written to J. S. LONDON Printed in the Year MDCXCIII REFLECTIONS on two Discourses concerning the Divinity of our Saviour c. AMong our other Opposers we are at length attacked by the Preachers and Monsieur Lamoth an eminent Demagogue of the French Nation hath published two of his late Declamations against us I know not whether he was chosen to or put himself upon the Imployment but I will allow that a more fit Person cannot be readily found for the Work by him undertaken He hath Art and Address enough and such a Degree of Confidence as to be above both Shame and Fear If he had either of those in any Degree left to him he would never have said as he does at pag. 15 16 17 34. that the Apostle Paul had not common Sense nor any tolerable Degree of Vnderstanding nay was a Mad-man and the rest of the Apostles were Blasphemers if we do not grant that the Doctrines of the Trinity and of the Divinity of our Saviour as they are now held are true Concerning all the Writers of the New Testament he pronounces at once as here followeth I make no Difficulty saith he p. 33. to assert they have deceived us most shamefully and their Writings are no better than continual Blasphemies if Christ be not true God As to the Christian Religion he saith at p. 18. It hath nothing in it that is great and sublime if you take from it the Divinity of Jesus Christ 'T is not to be doubted that in his next he will tell us our Saviour himself was an Impostor to speak of himself as he did if he were the Great Prophet only But in the mean time I shall tell him that 't is ill manners nay 't is unchristian and impious to set the Persons of the Apostles and the Holy Scriptures themselves on the same Level with the litigated controverted and therefore doubtful and uncertain Doctrines of this or the other Party of Christians so that both must stand or fall together for 't is to equal in their Authority our private Interpretations of the Word with the Word it self The latter will have its true Value allowed to it by all wise and good Men while the other private Interpretations or Opinions shall even among such undergo various Changes be believed in some Ages and rejected in others which all learned Men know has been the Fortune of the Doctrines in Debate between us and the Church But Monsieur Lamoth is heartily troubled that if you take away the Divinity of our Saviour we shall find our Religion to contain nothing that is GREAT or SVBLIME p. 18. The Socinians on the contrary judg that the Design of Religion being confessedly this to direct our Conversation and Manners 't is no Matter how plain and obvious it is and that it being intended for the Unlearned and Vulgar as well as for others there was a Necessity it should neither be sublime nor great We are well satisfied with the Character that Moses and St. Paul give of Religion 'T is not in Heaven or beyond the Sea or in the Deep as who should say 't is neither sublime nor mysterious but 't is in thy Mouth and Heart that thou mayst do it As if he had said 'T is an easy intelligible thing congennit and connate to every Man that none may say 't was sublime and he understood it not 't was great and he could not grasp it This is the Description that Moses makes of true Religion Deut. 30. 12. And St. Paul repeating his Words applies them to the Gospel This is the Word of Faith says he that we preach Rom. 10. 8. But Mr. Lamoth and his Party are not for such a Religion they must have a Religion that is great and sublime and accordingly they have contrived to themselves such a Religion a Religion of which they not only say but profess and boast that 't is above and beyond all Reason You require of me Sir that I should examine the Defence that Monsieur Lamoth hath made of the great and sublime Religion I will do so in the following Method 1. I will make short Remarks on the General Arguments dispersed up and down in his two Discourses as his Translator has complemented him though he should have said his two Declamations 2. I will give an Account of the Texts which whether they will or no he hath impressed to serve his Cause On his general Arguments I Omit that he is pleased to call us p. 52 55 62 63. Enemies of Jesus the Profane Innovators Adversaries of the Lord Jesus near Neighbours to Irreligion for these are Complements that some Preachers readily bestow on as many as differ from them Though again when he is in the Mood as at p. 62. he confesses that we seem to be innocent Lambs and that in our Writings are found glittering Notions and ingenious Explications We won't thank him for the Acknowledgments which Truth it self has extorted from him nor will I resent much his ill Language to us but I will endeavour to treat him though somewhat sharply yet in a more Gentleman-like way He saith p. 52 53 54. By denying the Divinity of our Saviour we make the Bible the strangest Book in the World The Old Testament will scarcely have the least Agreement with the New we find nothing but Thwartings and Contradictions between them This once supposed viz. that Christ is not the most High God 't is evident that Christ came not to fulfil the Law and Prophets but utterly to confound and destroy them Let us speak only of the New Testament What a Book shall we have of it if Jesus Christ be not God The New Testament is full of antient Oracles he meaneth of Quotations out of the Old Testament to the Honour of the Living God but 't is as clear as the Noon-day that the Applications that the Apostles make of them are mere childish Triflings and Blasphemies if our Saviour by one of his Natures be not the Living God Afterwards at p. 53 54. he proceeds to tell us how the Holy Ghost ought saith he to have spoken if Jesus Christ be not God For if he is God the Holy Spirit according to this Author has been as faulty and as blasphemous as the very new Testament and the Apostles are Let us hear what he saith Why say the Socinians might not the Holy Ghost speak magnificently of that Redeemer to whom we are so vastly obliged and whom Providence has raised to such a Degree of Glory For that Reason say I I Monsieur C. G. Lamoth the Holy Ghost ought to have spoke with more Reservedness of the Glory of Christ The greater he is the more is the Danger of his being taken for God his very Greatness makes us the more stand in need of Preservatives If he had not been God the Excess of our Obligations to
also doeth the Son I say if to these you add the Son can do nothing of himself and again I can of my self do nothing our Saviour's meaning will be clearly this The Son raiseth the Dead giveth Sight to the Blind and doth whatsoever else of that miraculous Nature that the Father himself sometimes doth but 't is with this immense Difference that the Son can do nothing of himself nothing by his own proper Authority or Power but by the Power and Spirit of the Father dwelling in him as in former Prophets It is our Saviour himself and after him the Apostle Peter that make this Explication and give this Account of that miraculous Power of our Saviour by which he did whatsoever things the Father doeth John 14. 10. The Father that dwelleth in me he doeth the Works Matth. 12. 28. I cast out Devils by the Spirit of God Acts 2. 22. Jesus of Nazareth a Man approved of God among you by Miracles and Wonders and Signs which God did by him in the midst of you We have seen with what Conscience our Author quotes the Scriptures I am desirous to make trial whether his Judgment be no greater than his Sincerity Those Words of our Saviour which he is so desirous to conceal the Son can do nothing of himself and I of my self can do nothing I beseech you Sir are they the Voice of God or of a Man Will he that is true God and Almighty say I can of my self do nothing it is by the Power and Authority of another by which I do whatsoever I do Come we to his two next Places that Christ will raise Believers at the last Day and that he will change their vile Bodies to be like his glorious Body according to that Power by which he is able to subdue all things to himself I will put a Question to this Gentleman Doth Mr. Lamoth think that the Lord Christ in his present State of Exaltation now raises or will raise the Dead by any other Power but that by which he raised the Dead while he lived upon Earth His Hypothesis will not allow him to say that the Lord Christ hath now any greater or other Power than he had while he was upon Earth It remains therefore that our Lord Christ will raise the Dead at the last Day by the same Power by which he raised divers Persons in his Life-time But I will demonstrate to him that Power was not our Lord 's inherent proper or own Power but given to him by God pro renatâ for the present Occasion and that too at the Instance or Prayer or Suit of our Lord Christ to God We see this very plainly in the case of Lazarus whose vile Body nay whose corrupted Body was by him changed and restored to Life For when Jesus came to the Grave of Lazarus to call him forth to Life again before he says Lazarus come forth he first devoutly owns by whose Power he enterprised this Miracle see his Words John 11. 41. Jesus lift up his Eyes and said Father I thank thee that thou hast heard me And I knew that thou always hearest me but because of the People which stand by I say it that they may believe that thou hast sent me When he had thus spoken he cried with a loud Voice Lazarus come forth I am willing Sir that our Opposers try all their Skill use all their wonted or any new Elusions to wrest this Text out of our Hands Let them tell us whether our Saviour doth not here attribute both his Power and Authority of raising this dead Person to only the Prevalence of his Prayers with God who always saith he heareth me Let them tell us if they dare and if it destroys not their Hypothesis that now however in his State of Exaltation the Lord Christ hath a new Power and that he shall raise the Dead not as while he was upon Earth by an extraordinary Power conferred on him by God who hath sometimes given the same Power to dead and dry Bones 2 Kings 13. 21. but by a Power newly grown up in himself To the Text of St. John concerning the WORD without him was not any thing made that was made I have largely shown in the 5th Chapter of the Answer to Mr. Milbourn that the Evangelist is there speaking of the new Creation or the Gospel-Oeconomy and State of things not of the outward visible or material Creation or World If Mr. Lamoth will satisfy the Reasons alledged in that Answer the Socinians will be indebted to him for ever But he urges us in the last Place with St. Paul's Words Col. 1. 16. For by him were all things created in Heaven and in Earth visible and invisible all things were created by him and for him It must be confess'd that this Allegation hath but one Fault In the Judgment of all the Criticks and Interpreters of Note of our Author 's own Party 't is most falsly translated they read the Text after this manner for by him by the Lord Christ were all things modelled that are in Heaven and that are in Earth visible and invisible they were all modelled by him and for him The invisible Powers of Heaven even the Angelical Orders and the State of Affairs upon Earth more especially those of the Church have undergone a very great Change have been modelled and as it were new-made by the Lord Christ On Earth he hath abolished Paganism Idolatry and Superstition and introduced in their room the Knowledg of the one true God and a moral Righteousness In Heaven the Angelic Orders are put under his Directions and by him engaged in the Defence of the Church Heb. 1. 14. Mr. Lamoth may see in the fourth Letter of the Brief History of the Vnitarians how many learned Persons Fathers and Moderns of his own Party have thus understood this Text They plainly saw that St. Paul speaks here of the new Creation not of the original making but the modelling or new-making of things and I cannot think it necessary further to answer Monsieur Lamoth upon this Text till he has satisfied the Reasons of the Judicious and Learned of his own Party The last Attribute to evince that the Lord Christ is equal with God is his Mercy Our Author saith Christ's Mercy is sufficient to demonstrate him to be true God His Proof of this is that St. Paul so commonly wishes Grace and Peace to the Churches from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ. He saith at p. 43. An Apostle would be better advised than to wish them Grace from any other but only God the Scriptures he saith never tell us of the Grace of Angels or of Men. He advances another Example of his Ignorance or his Forgetfulness when he tells us that 't is said by our Saviour to the Disciples Baptize all Nations in the Name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost And St. John saith There are three that bear Record in Heaven the Father
the Word and the Holy Ghost but in the Scriptures nothing that is created is made to go hand in hand with God or is reckoned in the same Line or Period with him He adds further but the Lord Christ is in some Texts not only reckoned with God but is set before him as in those Words of St. Paul The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ the Love of God the Communion of the Holy Ghost be with you therefore without doubt he is true God Can we imagine saith this wary and judicious Author that the Scriptures would have committed such an Absurdity if the Son were no more than a Creature He is a pretty Gentleman and seeing his Superiours have not thought fit to restrain his Extravagancies 't is necessary that his Opponent who has the next Right should He is positive that Creatures are never set in the same Line or Context of Words and Sense with God much less are set before him and that Grace is never wished to the Churches from any but God Now in his Hypothesis the Lord Christ is God therefore let him take his Bible and find there this Text Rev. 1. 4 5. John to the seven Churches which are in Asia Grace be to you and Peace from him which is and which was and which is to come and from the seven Spirits which are before his Throne and from Jesus Christ Here Grace is wished from the seven Spirits of the Presence and these are reckoned in the same Context of Words and Sense with God and are seâ— before our Saviour who according to our Author is true God Nay and the Author of this manner of speaking is St. John that St. John on whom Mr. Lamoth hath bestowed some Pulpit-Rhetorick telling us at p. 38. Let us make no Scruple to believe the beloved Disciple who reposed himself on the Breast of the Son of God Trust we to the piercing Sight of this Eagle who took a View of this glorious Sun Let us rely on the Testimony of the Evangelist whose very End in writing his Gospel was to prove that Jesus Christ is the Son of God With more such Pedantry which however he taketh to be Wit To what he saith concerning the Worship of Christ and the Conclusion WE are near our Deliverance from his Impertinencies for at p. 44. he begins to speak to the last Argument of three by which he undertook at first to prove our Saviour's Divinity which is that he is worshipped He saith here that Worship is as it were the Shadow of the Godhead let us therefore saith he thereby take the Height and Elevation of our Saviour I shewed this Expression to a Friend of mine asking him what might be the meaning of it or in what regard Worship is as it were the Shadow of the Godhead He said that I understood very little for this is one of the Mysteries of the Trinitarians which must be believed with an humble and implicit Faith and not saucily pried into or enquired after For all that I was of Opinion that it hapned here to Monsieur Lamoth as to other Orators and eloquent Men who when they come to the latter End of a Discourse having well near spent their Embellishments and Flourishes they fill up the vacant Spaces with a curious Mixture of Flourish and Nonsense Worship is as it were the Shadow of the Godhead there 's the Nonsense Mr. Lamoth himself will not deny it upon second Thoughts to be pure Nonsense But then let us thereby take the Height and Elevation of our Saviour there 's the Flourish Decoration or Gild with which to cover it from Fools For the rest Mr. Lamoth not having urged any thing from Scripture or Reason for the Worship of our Saviour but only what had been before said by Mr. Milbourn to whom I have answered so far as concerneth this Part of our Contest at Chap. 10. of my Reply to him I will pass now from the argumentative Parts of his Book to the historical for he hath obliged us with the History of a new French Synod held at London by ninety six French Divines March 30 1691. He gives us the Result and Conclusions of this either Synod or Riot for it assembled by no legal Authority and the Assistants at it are punishable by our Laws in seven declaratory Propositions which seven Propositions may however be reduced to these two that the French Ministers are no Socinians and that they are no Presbyterians The first of these Declarations is wholly ridiculous the other is equally surprizing and unadvised I will dispatch with both in two Words 1. The French Ministers are no Socinians Bless me who ever said they were Such as know the French Ministers know very well that they are so far from being Socinians that they never rightly understood what Socinianism is they are so perfectly ignorant of the Merits of the Socinian Cause and Questions that 't is notoriously known they are not conversant enough in good Books to distinguish Socinianism from Remonstrantism A Socinian and a Remonstrant are convertible Terms with the Generality of the French Ministers Thence it is that their Brethren in Holland count the Clergy of the Church of England Socinians because they are generally Remonstrants and those Refugee Ministers who have joined in Communion with them to be like as they are unsound in the Faith 2. They add the French Ministers are now no Presbyterians A foolish and a rash Declaration What needed they to proclaim to all the Presbyteries here and abroad that since their coming into England they have turned their Coats Was it worth their while to disown so publickly as well as so causlesly and rashly the original Discipline of their Church Let us hear how they have worded their famous Recantation We heartily subscribe to the Confession of Faith of the Reformed Churches of France without pretending to meddle with Matter of Discipline They take here a civil Leave of Presbyterianism and in a Meiosis renounce the half of their Religion at once We meddle not with Matters of Discipline that is as we heartily profess the Points of Faith of our Churches so we relinquish the Discipline of the same They were not willing to anathematize the Presbytery that had been somewhat too rigid for new Beginners and young Episcoparians But we meddle not with it we let it go in God's Name to shift for it self for we will be no longer concerned with it or for it I hope Mr. Quick will insert the Decrees of this London-Synod into his Synodicon Galliae reformatae that the World may know that the French Ministers to their other Vertues have added also that of the Age to temporize Nor am I so much their Enemy but that I wish them some Fruit of so great a Complaisance to the Church of England as the giving up to her at once the Moiety of their Religion Mr. Lamoth hath acquainted the World what the French Ministers are not I cannot restrain my self from
Doctrine was ever so displeasing to Mr. Calvin and his Followers the French Ministers that sometimes they deny there is any such thing as good Works and otherwhile they affirm that good Works are not only no necessary Conditions of Salvation but are even pernitious dangerous and destructive thereof They are so much of this Mind that they make the contrary Doctrine to be Heresy and because they think they cannot any way render it more odious they call it Socinianism but I advise them seeing Popery is now so much abominated in England that they would rather call it Jesuitism they should have prosecuted this Dr. A. L. as a Jesuit rather than as a Socinian that had been a way to set the Rabble as well as the Spiritual Court upon him But if Socinianism and the English Socinians are indeed such Eye-sores to these Ministers as seems by their frequent Prosecutions of divers Persons on that Account before the Ecclesiastical Judges and in other Courts they should at least have shewn so much Justice as not to misplace their Accusations so grosly too as they have done This Dr. A. L. is the fourth or fifth Person to whom they have given a Publick Trouble on the Account of Socinianism they have been always baffled and sometimes severely check'd by the Judges and Court all this has not discouraged them they having no Reputation to lose from renewing their Persecutions of innocent Persons But I advise them much to lay the Saddle upon the right Horse and let them not so wholly despise the Imputations of Calumny and Malice Vices so unsutable to their Profession of Ministers Let them cease to accuse those that are not guilty when they may easily find so many who are not only guilty of Unitarianism if it be a Guilt but are also liable upon that Account my meaning is have preach'd up and written for Unitarianism They have for Instance the four Evangelists and the Apostles notoriously guilty of the Heresy now called Socinianism and their Words are so clear and express for it that the Ministers need not fear the Imputation of Slander if they shall article against them at the Places and Courts where they have lately libelled Dr. L. and Mr. Gr. If the Reader will pardon me and not abate of his due Reverence I will be content to prepare the Articles for the Ministers in their own Forms and Terms they shall have no other Trouble but what they so much affect and like even to exhibit them in the Civil and Ecclesiastical Courts 1. You Matthew stiled Apostle and you Mark called an Evangelist have mal and wic complotted together to teach and write the Heresy which denieth the Omniscience of the Son our Lord Christ while you have reported and published as from the Mouth of Christ himself that the Son knoweth not the Time of the last Judgment and that only the Father whom all Men grant not to be the Son knoweth of that Day Mat. 24. 36. Mark 13. 32. 2. You John calling your self Evangelist and Apostle have not spared to write and publish scandalous heretical and blasp Words against the Omnipotence of the same our Lord Christ affirming most injuriously and falsly that he can do nothing of himself and further that it was not be but the Father dwelling in him that did all the miraculous Works So you have said expresly John 5. 19 30. John 14. 10. With which monstrous Doctrine you Peter also symbolized when you preached to the Jews concerning the Lord Christ for thus you say of him Jesus of Nazareth a Man approved of God among you by Miracles and Wonders and Signs which God did by him Acts 2. 22. Et objicimus articulamur ut supra 3. You the said John not having the Fear of before your Eyes but led by an heretical and blasp Spirit have written and published and as from the Mouth of our Saviour that the Father is greater than he John 14. 28. To which Heresy you Paul have consented when you do write to the Corinthians that the Head of the Woman is the Man and the Head of Christ is God 1 Cor. 11. 3. But the divine Athanasius hath in his Creed expresly contradicted you 4. And further you John have written and published Words in which 't is evident that you designing to deny the supreme Authority of the Son our Lord Christ for you make him to say that he came not of himself but as sent by the Father and that his Doctrine was not his own but the Father 's that sent him and that as the Father had commanded him so in all things spake he John 8. 42. John 8. 28. John 12. 49. 5. You Luke called also an Evangelist have been yet more audacious you have published to the World that the Lord Christ was not only not God but that he needed to be strengthned in his Agonies before his Passion by an Angel and that he prayed earnestly to God as if he who was himself God and the only true God could need the Aid of an Angel or to make Prayer to any whomsoever The others your Companions in this Heresy have with some Modesty contented themselves to deny our Saviour's Omnipotence but you have represented him as in some Respects impotent and weak Luke 22. 43 44. 6. All of you jointly and severally have spoken of God by only the singular Pronouns I Thou Me Him Himself Thy self and such like which Pronouns are never used in any Language but only of one single Person not of more Persons and hereby you have fully assured us that your Belief is that there is but one Person of God not three Persons or a Trinity of Persons But you Paul have presumed to say even in Terms that God is but one Person for you write to the Hebrews that the Son is what God No but the Image of God's Person Heb. 1. 3. 7. To leave no Place for doubt you John and Paul have expresly taught and published that only the Father is true God and him you make to be even the God of the Son or the God whom the Son worshippeth and serveth You have said and written Father This is Life eternal to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent or Jesus Christ thy Messenger And again To us there is but one God the Father and one Lord or one Master that is Teacher Jesus Christ. And you Paul above all others have inculcated and repeated this Doctrine You tell the Corinthians that Christ shall deliver up the Kingdom to God even the Father And you advise the Romans that with one Mouth they should glorify God even the Father Plainly as if only the Father were God John 17. 1 3. 1 Cor. 8. 6. 1 Cor. 15. 24. Rom. 15. 6. 8. To burden you at present with no more All of you jointly and severally have in such manner distinguished between God and the Lord Christ that your way of speaking amounts to a plain Denial that the Lord Christ is God You make our Saviour himself to say to the young Man whom he loved Why callest thou me Good there is none Good save one that is God You say There is one God and one Mediator between God and Men the Man Jesus Christ You exhort Let every Tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord Gr. that the Lord Jesus is the Christ to the Glory of God the Father You cry out To God only Wise be Glory through Jesus Christ You have taught that the Son shall be subject to him that put all things under him that God may be all in all Luke 18. 19. 1 Tim. 2. 5. Phil. 2. 11. Rom. 16. 27. 1 Cor. 15. 28. If we put all these Expressions together you are found to deny the Omniscience the Omnipotence and the supreme Authority of the Lord Christ and in some Cases you make him to be even impotent and weak and having thus divested him as much as in you lies of all the Grand Characters and Attributes of the Divine Nature you add that God is but one Person and that this one Person is only the Father and that Christ is a Man whom we must always carefully distinguish from God Thus it is and these are the Men against whom the French Ministers in pursuance of their Principles should have articled in the Ecclesiastical Courts these are the true Unitarians and Fathers of Unitarianism on whom the Blame and Charge should light 'T is in vain for the Ministers to rail at and be Informers in a strange Land against modern Unitarian Books and Persons unless they can first get the Apostles and Evangelists censured and their Writings suppress'd But in presenting the Articles I would have Mr. Lamoth be Foreman because they are suted to his Doctrine I need not Sir add any more I am of Opinion that the Ministers for one while may have enough of this I am your Assured E. E. FINIS