did not like Lucifer conceive in his Mind that Impiety and Robbery to be equal with God but on the contrary He made himself of no Reputation and took the Likeness of a Man of Servile Condition by concealing the great Miracles which he did and by bearing Injuries and Reproaches without answering again Being made in the Likeness of all other Men and found in the common Fashion of a Man He submitted to be taken by the Jews and to undergo the Death of the Cross for the Glory of God and the Salvation of Men. And because He was thus affected towards God's Honour and the Good of Men therefore has God highly exalted him making him Head of the Church both that in Heaven and that on Earth and giving to him that Name above every Name King of Kings and Lord of Lords But hitherto of the Concertation between Mr. Milbourn's Heathen and our Country man I submit to the Reader which of them has best understood St. Paul But I desire you Sir to consider what wild Work our Opposers make with these Words and this Context of St. Paul and how they make no scruple to render him guilty of the most palpable Self-Contradictions in one and the same Breath The Lord Christ saith this Apostle was in the Form of God that is say our Opposers he had the very Nature of God or was truly and really God and He thought it not Robbery so They make the Apostle to speak to be equal with God Now if He was God how could He be equal with God for nothing is ever said to be equal with it self Equality and Likeness must be between several and divers things Well He was God and was equal with God and yet made himself of no Reputation took on him the Form of a Servant was made in the likeness and fashion of Men nay humbled himself to Death even the Death of the Cross But 't is both Morally and Physically or naturally impossible that God should do any of these things undergo any of these Changes Why do they not perceive that He who is true God cannot make himself of no Reputation or take the Form of a Servant the Likeness and Fashion of Men or submit himself to Death The Apostle goes on Wherefore God hath also highly exalted him and given him a Name which is above every Name O strange God exalts God and gives to him which implies that He had it not before a Name above every Name I would know what Name could be given to him above the Name he had before I do not pretend Sir that they own this Interpretation in the very terms I have here set it down but this I say that admitting their Hypothesis that the Lord Christ is true God this and no other was I must not say the Apostle's Sense but his meaning it was You may please Sir to compare it with that easy and natural Paraphrase of the Socinians which was before mentioned and then tell me which of them would be chosen even by a sensible Heathen to whom our Opposer has thought fit to make his Appeal CHAP. VIII On what he objects from the Actions or Miracles of our Saviour AFter he has done with particular Texts our Author from P. 381. spends some Sheets in recounting certain Actions of our Saviour by which it may appear that he was true God that one true God whom the Scriptures every where propound to us as the only legitimate Object of Faith and Worship He saith for instance our Saviour did many wonderful Miracles and that too in his own Name not as the Minister or Instrument of another but in a commanding way as when he rebuked the Winds and Waves and cast out Devils He healed Diseases by a Virtue issuing from himself as appears by the Woman who was cured by only touching his Garment and by his own words thereupon Virtue is gone out of me Nor did he cure only the Distempers of the Body but those of the Mind and Soul for he invited to him the weary and heavy-laden promising that he would give them Rest which is a sort of Language never used by any Prophet or meer Man nay he forgave to divers their Sins which 't is certain only God can do As a farther Display of his Divinity 't is said of him He knew what was in Man and he saith of himself I am He which searcheth the Reins and Heart There can be no greater Omniscience than this nor can Omniscience belong to any but God After his Resurrection He openid the Vnderstandings of his Disciples He breathed on them and thereby conferred the Holy Spirit which being God's Inspiration even in the Opinion of the Socinians How can it be given by any but God Afterwards He himself shed on them the same Holy Spirit in a miraculous manner when he caused the Spirit to descend on them in the likeness of cloven Tongues but if he were not God how should he give the Spirit of God to others They are his own words to his Disciples As my Father sent me so send I you but that could not be said by him if he had not the same Authority or were not equal with the Father After his Ascension his Disciples did their Miracles in his Name or only by Faith in him but no meer Man can enable another to do Miracles nor can Faith in a meer Man avail to that purpose Lastly He sent St. Paul to be a Minister to the Gentiles to convert them to God that so saith he they may have Remission of Sins and an Inheritance among those who are sanctified by Faith in me or by believing in me And in doing all this saith he farther to that Apostle I will deliver thee from the People and the Gentiles to whom I send thee Acts 26.16 17 18. Mr. Milb seems to think there is a great Force in these Allegations towards the evincing that the Lord Christ was indeed God and with these Proofs he concludes his present Argument from Scripture Let us examine what he hath said part by part He saith first our Saviour did Miracles in his own Name not as the Minister or Instrument of another But this is not the Language of Scripture the express words of our Saviour and the whole current of Scripture are against it John 17.28 I am not come of my self John 5.43 I am come in my Father's Name John 5.30 I can do nothing of my self Mat. 12.28 I cast out Devils by the Spirit of God John 14.10 The Father that dwilleth in me to wit by his Spirit be doth the Works Acts 2.22 Jesus of Nazareth a Man approved of God among you by Miracles Wonders and Signs which God did by him in the midst of you Assuredly these Texts declare as evidently as in words can be done that the Lord Christ was no more than the Instrument and Minister of God and of his Spirit in working Miracles and that it was in the Father's Name not in his
was not He himself but He by the Gift of God that shed forth the Spirit on them Let us hear the whole Verse Acts 2.23 Therefore He Christ being by the right Hand of God exalted and having received or obtained of the Father his Promise of the Holy Ghost He hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear Here indeed the Spirit is said to be shed forth by the Lord Christ on the Apostles but not by Him himself but He shed it forth having saith the Text received it of the Father As who should say having received this Power from the Father which afterwards the Apostles also received of the Father even the Power of conferring the Spirit He now shed it forth on them not He himself by his own Authority or Power but by the Warrant Order Grant or Commission of the Father If our Saviour had conferred the Spirit on his Disciples by his own Power or Authority it would not have been said that having received of the Father his Promise of the Holy Ghost he shed it abroad on his Followers Let our Opposers show that the Lord Christ was more than the Instrument Minister and Mediator by Whom and at whose Instance God shed forth the Spirit neither this nor any other Context ascribes more to him and as much as is elsewhere ascribed to the Apostles Acts 10.44 Acts 19.6 They are words which our Saviour speaks to his Disciples As my Father hath sent me even so send I you But it follows not from hence that the Authority and Power of Christ was equal to the Power and Authority of the Father nay the contrary rather follows for the Messenger is but the Minister and Servant of the Sender After Jesus was ascended into Heaven his Disciples did their Miracles in his Name and by Faith in him Acts 3.6 In the Name of Jesus of Nazareth rise up and walk Ver. 16. His Name through Faith in his Name hath made this Man strong We confess hereupon that Miracles were done by the Name or in the Name of the Lord Jesus and through Faith in his Name But how does this prove that he was God Such Miracles prove indeed that the Person in whose Name they are done is a most Powerful and Effectual Mediator with God but not that He himself is God they prove that he is acceptable to God and that what he desireth that also God willeth but not that he is the true proper Author of those Miracles 'T is a particular Honour that God is pleased to do to the Lord Christ that in his Name Wonders should be done and that some who believed in his Name should on that account be enabled to do Miracles But when our Opposers infer from hence therefore Christ is God this is no Necessary or Natural Consequence because nothing hinders but that God may confer the same Honour on any other Person or Thing Nor secondly is it a true Consequence because we are assured by innumerable express and clear Testimonies that the Lord Christ is not God As 1 Tim. 2.5 There is one God and one Mediator between God and Men the Man Jesus Christ Finally Our Lord promis'd that he would deliver his Apostle from the People and from the Gentiles and declares that we are sanctified by Faith in his Name or by believing in him Acts 26.17 18 c. He delivered indeed that Apostle from very many Machinations of the Jews and Conspiracies of the Gentiles but all this as Mediator not as God by his Intercession which as this Apostle saith he ever liveth to make on behalf of all the Faithful and more especially of such as are extraordinarily commissioned to the Work of propagating the Gospel in Heathen Nations as St. Paul was As to our being sanctified i. e. made Holy by Faith in Christ or by believing in him it was never questioned I think by any but the meaning of the Expression is only this that such as sincerely believe the Lord Christ and the Gospel or Doctrine by him delivered do sanctify themselves they refrain from every Evil Work and Word their Faith does dispose and incline them of its own Nature and Tendency to Sanctification and Holiness this is the only meaning of our being sanctified by Faith in Christ CHAP. IX On what is alledged from the Fathers OUR Author passes from sacred Authorities to Ecclesiastical and Profane for proving the Doctrines of the Trinity and the Divinity and Incarnation of our Saviour He quotes the Account which Pliny gives to the Emperor Trajan concerning the Christians that they were wont to meet before Day Et Carmen Christo canere ut Deo To sing Psalms to Christ as if he were a God He cites also a Dialogue supposed to be Lucian's in which that Author jeers the God who is Three and One These two Authors were very Ancient within about 100 Years after Christ and their words before quoted show How early the belief of the Trinity and of the Divinity of our Saviour was found among Christians For Ecclesiastical Writers he brings some Fragments out of Justin Ignatius Irenaeus Clemens Alexandrinus Origen Tertullian Arnobius Cyprian Lactantius Gregory Thaumaturgus Faelix also out of the Councils of Nice Antioch and Constantinople He saith the Socinians are apt to appeal in these Questions to the Ante-Nicen Fathers before-named and that several great Men such as Erasmus Grotius Petavius and others yield this Point to Us. I will make no Advantage of our Author's Ignorance in this Matter I will freely own to you Sir that the Socinians never Appeal in these Questions to the Fathers whether Ante-Nicen or others who are now extant We grant they were in Sentiments very different from ours all the Ante-Nicen Fathers I mean whose works have been suffer'd to come down to our Times were in the Opinion concerning God and the Lord Christ afterwards called Arrianism except perhaps Clemens Alexandrinus who seems to have held the same with Savellius Nor do Erasmus Petavius Grotius and other Criticks grant to us as he supposes that the Ante-Nicen Fathers were of our Opinion they have granted those Fathers not to us but to the Arrians They grant those Fathers did not hold the Doctrine of the Trinity or of the Divinity of our Saviour in such manner as 't is now held by the Church for the Church holds a Trinity of Three Coequal and Coeternal Persons all of them jointly and equally Creators none of them Creatures but those Fathers held a Trinity in which only the First Person is truly God or the most high God the Second and Third are Creatures though also they were the Creators according to these Fathets of the other Creatures They say inded sometimes that the Son is Coeternal and a Creator but by Coeternal they mean only that he was not made in Time but in that Eternity which did precede Time and the Creation of the World They call that Duration Time which began with the World and which is both
wrote only that part of the Actions and Sayings of our Saviour which he did and spoke after the Imprisonment of John the Baptist To supply this Defect St. John was desired to commit to writing what he remembred of our Saviour before the Baptist was imprison'd In a word he wrote his Gospel to supply the Omissions of the other Three Evangelists Euseb Lib. 3. c. 24. Eusebius had read Hegesippus and whatever Church-History St. Jerom could have read and he has made it his Business to make Extracts out of all ancient Books concerning the Writers and Writings of the New Testament the diligence and exactness of this Historian is much admired and praised by all Learned Men nor will any such believe that St. Jerom had seen an Eccesiastical History which Eusebius had not seen St. Jerom says St. John wrote to oppose the Unitarian Heresy and that the first words of his Gospel were pronounced to him from Heaven Eusebius says John had written his Gospel because the other Evangelists had omitted the Gests and Sayings of our Saviour that were before the Imprisonment of the Baptist St. Jerom refers for what he says to an Ecclesiastical History unknown to all the Ancients but Himself Eusebius proves the Account he gives by solid and convincing Arguments His words in the Chapter before quoted are these It is evident that the other three Evangelists have committed to writing only the Gests of our Saviour during one Year's space namely after John the Baptist's being shut in Prison Matthew sets forth the time of his writing in these words When Jesus had heard that John was put in Prison He came into Galilee In like manner Mark saith Now after that John was put in Prison Jesus came into Galilee Luke also maketh this Remark Herod adding this to all the Evils he had done shut up John in Prison Therefore they say that the Apostle John being for this Cause thereto requested has declared in a Gospel according to him the time that was passed over in silence by the other Evangelists and what was done by our Saviour therein This is a probable Account that of St. Jerom is Miraculous and therefore pleases them who are taken with Marvellous things What shall we say then that St. Jerom devised or that he dreamt of an Ecclesiastical History which was never seen before nor since neither of them for I doubt not that his Tale is nothing else but an Improvement and a stretch of some words of Clemens Alexander which he found recorded in the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius Lib. 6. c. 14. The words were taken by Eusebius out of the Institutions of Clemens Alexander which Institutions are now lost but Photius Cod. 105 and 111. has left us this Character of them that they contained very many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fabulous and Impious Tales Of these Tales this is one John the last of the Evangelists seeing that what appertain'd to Christ's Humanity was manifested in the other Gospels being thereto moved by his Acquaintance and inspired by the Spirit wrote a Gospel concerning Christ's Divinity But to return to our Opposers They commonly say St. John wrote his Gospel against Cerinthus and Ebion and the Heresy of the Unitarians We have seen they have no solid ground for this Pretence in the History of the Church Irenaeus and Origon the most Learned of the Ancients knew nothing of it and Eusebius gives a contrary Account But the Gospel it self written by St. John will best decide this Question if he has more confirmed this pretended Heresy than any other Writer of Holy Scripture He did not without doubt write his Gospel against it Therefore let us briefly see what the Unitarian Doctrine is and how St. John hath delivered his Mind concerning it We say that only the Father is true God that the Lord Christ is his Prophet and Messenger to Man that therefore what the Lord Christ said was not from himself or by his own Authority but by particular Command and Charge from God that all the Miracles he did were not properly done by him but by the Spirit or Power of the Father given to him as to former Prophets Let us hear how St. John in his Gospel written designedly against us confutes this impious Heresy John 17.1 2 3. Father this is Life Eternal to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent Or Jesus Christ thy Messenger John 7.16 My Doctrine is not mine but his that sent me John 12.49 The Father which sent me He gave me a Commandment what I should say John 14.31 As the Father gave me Commandment so do I. John 5.30 I can do nothing of my self John 14.10 The Father that dwelleth in me by his Spirit Energy or Power He doth the Works I know not what could be said more effectually to evince that the Lord Christ is not God but the Ambassador only and Messenger of God speaking according to the Instructions and Charge given to him and Acting by a Power not of his own but bestowed on him as on former Prophets and Messengers of God If the Texts before cited were not the very words of Scripture were they found in any other Book they should be Anathematiz'd as most Gross Socinianism as the very Heresy of Cerinthus and Ebion against whom as saith St. Jerom's Ecclesiastical History they were written And what wretched Subterfuges do our Opposers make use of to decline these plain Testimonies that were suggested by the Holy Ghost against them for we dare not like them feign Ecclesiastical Histories which say they were spoken against them from Heaven First They tell us St. John doth not say that only the Father is God but the Father is the only true God They say the Socinians have not had the Wit to perceive the vast difference between those two Expressions It may be true they say and is true that the Father is the only true God as St. John in the alledged Text says and yet the Son too is true God nay the only true God and the like of the Holy Ghost And when John says neither the Doctrine nor the Actions of our Saviour were his own but the Commandments of the Father given to him and the Works of the Father dwelling in him By the Father in those Texts they say we are to understand Three Persons the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost Nay when our Saviour saith Of that Day and Hour the Excision of Jerusalem and the Dissolution of the Jewish Polity none knoweth not the Angels neither the Son but the Father only 'T is not true for all that that the Father only or only the Father knoweth that Day and Hour for then only the Father were true God but the Father only in those words is not the Father only but also the Son who is there expresly denied to know that Day and Hour and besides him the Holy Ghost Well but however these things are St. John has paid us off they
it in such sense as the Jews and other Eastern Nations used it for a Person of Eminent Dignity or worth The Woman said of Samuel then rising out of the Earth I see Elohim God Thomas says of our Saviour newly also risen Eloi Eloi my God my God they both use the same word and one no more than the other intended to call the Person of whom he spake the true God but only a venerable or dignified Person To be short the Hebrew words El and Elohim the Syriac and Chaldaic Elohi Eloi and the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all which we render by the English God are words of just such a Latitude in Holy Scripture and among the Jews and other Oriental Nations as the word LORD is with us for we use that word indifferently sometimes of God sometimes of Persons in Dignity and leave our meaning to be judged by the true and known Quality of the Person to whom we speak We do not think or fear we shall be understood as making a Man to be God because we call him by a Name by which also we call God This is the very case before us Thomas says to our Saviour Eloi a Name used of God and of Persons in Dignity and he expected not to be mistaken because the Person to whom he spoke was known to be a Man and not God 'T is likely the before-mentioned is the true Interpretation of the objected Texts and 't is certainly so if Thomas meant those words to our Saviour But divers Learned Persons even among our Opposers have been of Opinion that My Lord and my God or O my Lord O my God! are only words of Admiration and Thanks directed not to our Saviour but to God they are an Exclamation expressing the Apostle's Wonder and Amazement to find that his Master was indeed risen Of this Opinion was Nestorius Archbishop of Constantinople and that most Learned Person Theodorus of Mopsuest 'T is true the Evangelist saith Thomas answered and said unto him unto Christ My Lord and my God! or O my Lord O my God! but this hinders not but that the Exclamation was addressed to God as its Object tho it was also an Answer to our Saviour and to what he had said at ver 27. See the Brief History of the Vnitarians on John 20.28 CHAP. VII On the Texts out of the Epistles HE thinks much weight may be laid on Rom. 9.5 Of whom as concerning the Flesh Christ came who is over all God blessed for ever Like to which Text is Rom. 1.3 Jesus Christ our Lord who was made of the Seed of David according to the Flesh He saith hereupon that these words According to the Flesh and as concerning the Flesh intimate plainly that according to something else the Lord Christ had another Original and was not wholly of the Jews This something else is the supposed Divine Nature of our Saviour according to which say they he is derived from God as according to the Flesh he is from the Jews Our present Author notes farther that the Lord Christ in the former of the before-quoted Texts is not only expresly called God but God over all blessed for evermore so all the Original Greek Copies read And as for Translations if there are any which favour the Socinians they are not however much to be regarded I answer 1. As to the words As concerning the Flesh and According to the Flesh they never signify as Trinitarians would here interpret according to the Human Nature as if Christ had also a Divine Nature We shall easily find the meaning of those Phrases by some other Texts of Scripture in which there is no Ambiguity Rom. 9.3 My Kinsmen according to the Flesh Rom. 4.1 Abraham our Father as pertaining to the Flesh Col. 3.22 Servants obey in all things your Masters according to the Flesh Will our Opposers say here that Abraham or Paul's Kinsmen or Masters must be supposed to have a Divine Nature because of these words According to the Flesh and As concerning the Flesh 'T is easy to see that these Expressions are only as much as to say According to the Body and that they signify to us that Abraham is the Father of the Jews according to their Bodies as God is the Father of their Souls and Spirits and the Jews were Paul's Kinsmen according to the Body but not of Kin to him in respect of Likeness in Faith or Manners also that Masters are Masters over our Bodies not of our Spirits and Minds Therefore in the other Texts also where Christ is said to be the Seed of Abraham of Israel and of David according to the Flesh the real and whole meaning is this That according to his Body or outward Man he descended of the House of David and of the Stock of Israel and Abraham as had been promised concerning him in the Prophets but his Spirit or Soul was from God Here again we interpret Scripture by it self let our Opposers shew a Reason why they decline an Interpretation which the Scripture it self affords to us and how it comes to be Heresy to understand the meaning of one Text by the help of such other Texts as are confest to be clear and evident 2. He saith the former of these Texts expresly calls the Lord Christ God and God over all blessed for ever and that all Greek Copies agree in this reading But he might have taken notice out of Grotius that the Greek Copies used by the Author of the Syriac had not the word God they only say of our Saviour here the Blessed over all The same illustrious Interpreter observes that Erasmus had noted that the Copies of St. Cyprian St. Hilary and St. Chrysostom had only the Blessed over all or above all without the word God These are Observations which destroy our Author's Argument from this Text but because he knew not what to say to them he took no notice of them But it is an impious thing for a Writer to endeavour to cheat his Reader in such Questions as these When it appears by so great Authorities that the Antient Reading was other ways than we read in our present Copies or that the reading was then various and uncertain how can such Texts or such Expressions be admitted as Proofs in so great a Question as this before us Is it advisable or safe to argue against the Unity of God or to build Articles of Faith on suspected Texts the Reading ought to be indubitable else the Inference drawn from it will also be uncertain An Article of Faith must have a sure Foundation else 't is not Faith but a precarious Conjecture 3. But allowing now that the Word God is rightly read in this Text two of the most eminent Critics and principal Masters in the Greek Tongue have observed that St. Paul's words should have been pointed and read after this manner Of whom as concerning the Flesh Christ is come The God over all be blessed for ever Amen So Curcellaeus
own that he appeared and acted But he healed Diseases by a Virtue issuing from himself for he said Virtue is gone out of me That there was a Balsamick and Sanative Virtue in the Body of our Saviour I will not deny but neither can it be denied that the like Virtue was also given by God to the Bodies of some of the Apostles for Handkerchiefs from their Bodies and their Shadows healed many Acts 5.15 19.12 Nor is there any more Force in that that the Lord Christ invites to him the Heavy-laden promising to give them Rest to their Souls For he gave Rest to Souls sensible of the Guilt and Burden of Sin by his Doctrine which every Gospel-Preacher may do nay ought to do A Gospel-Preacher is to declare to the Sensible and Penitent the Forgiveness and Absolution of God and thereby gives them Rest and Peace But 't is marvellous that this Author should urge it as a Proof of our Saviour's Divinity that He declared to some Persons whose Faith appeared in visible Acts of Piety and Trust in God that their Sins were forgiven for sure he knows what is said to the Apostles at John 20.23 Whose Sins ye remit they are remitted and whose Sins ye retain they are retained Let him show if he can that our Saviour ever claimed any higher Authority or Power than the Apostles are here vested with by Command from God But I think it were not hard to prove that in all these Texts the word Sins is put for the Effect of Sins even Diseases so as to make this sense that our Saviour and his Apostles had Authority and Power either to loose Men from their Infirmities and Ails or to leave them in them as they should see reason and cause either for the Spiritual Benefit of the Person or for Confirmation of the Gospel by such Signs and Wonders Our Lord Christ knew what was in Man saith the Evangelist St. John But he doth not say that he knew it of himself by a Natural Omniscience without Revelation from God The Prophet Ahijah knew what was in the Mind of the Queen of Israel 1 Kings 14.6 Elisha knew what his Servant Gehazi had done and what he purposed 2 Kings 5.22 The same Prophet knew the Counsels that the King of Syria took against the King of Israel 2 Kings 6.9 12. He told Hazael not only what was in his Heart but what should be there in time to come 2 Kings 8.12 The Holy Scriptures do not expresly say that the Knowledg which these Prophets had of what was in Man or what is the same thing the secret Thoughts of their Hearts was only derivative or by God's Revelation They supposed there was no need to instruct or warn the Reader concerning a matter that was self-evident But as if foreseeing the monstrous Doctrine that some would advance concerning the great Minister and Prophet of the New Testament the Lord Christ and designing to arm the Faithful against it they have been careful to tell us directly and explicitly that the Prophetick Knowledg that was in him was derivative or by Revelation from God not from himself or by a Natural Omniscience of his own Rev. 1.1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave to him to shew unto his Servants things that must shortly come to pass And He Christ sent and signified it by his Angel or by his Messenger to his Servant John How can a considering Man doubt that if our Saviour knew the things which must very shortly come to pass only by God's Revelation of them to him that his Knowledg too of what was in the Hearts and Minds of Men must be also by God's Revelation or the Inhabitation of the Spirit of God in him But our Author urgeth that the Lord Christ saith I am He which searcheth the Reins and Hearts Rev. 2.23 He ought to know that to search the Heart and Reins is an Hebrew and Scripture Phrase and form of speaking and signifies no more but this to know the most secret Thoughts and Purposes of the Mind and Heart This is a Property that can belong only to God to know or as the Hebrew speaks to search the Hearts and Thoughts if you mean thereby originally or of himself or by his own natural and proper Omniscience but the Prophets and more especially the Lord Christ know the Hearts and Reins by God's Revelation to them and search the Thoughts by the inhabiting Spirit of God in them When therefore our Saviour saith here I search the Hearts he meant this I know the Thoughts of the Heart by God's Revelation to me or by his Inhabiting Spirit in me In a word God only knoweth the Thoughts of the Heart and what is in Man originally of himself or by his own proper and natural Omniscience But Prophets search or know the Hearts and what is in Man secondarily derivatively by God's Revelation to them by his inhabiting Spirit in them We are assured that this last only was our Saviour's meaning in these words I search the Hearts by the first words of this Book of Revelation before quoted even these The Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave to him There could be no need that God should make a Revelation to him if he himself knew the Reins and Hearts by a natural Omniscience of his own We are not therefore to stick at the meet words I search the Heart but to consider the Import or Sense of that Phrase in the Scripture-Language which signifying only this to know the Thoughts of the Heart or Mind they do not prove the Person of whom they are spoken to be Omniscient or God unless it had been said He searcheth or He knoweth the Hearts by his own Omniscience and not as 't is said of our Saviour by Revelation from God or God's inhabiting Spirit When the Lord Christ opened the Vnderstandings of the two Disciples that they might understand the Scriptures this was not an Act of his Power but the Effect of the Discourse he made to them He opened their Understandings to understand the Prophetic Scriptures by explaining those Scriptures to them He conferred a Measure of the Holy Spirit by the External Sign of breathing on the Disciples We can no more infer from hence that he was God than that the Apostles also were so many Gods because they gave the Spirit by the External Sign of laying on their Hands Acts 19.6 The latter was as great a Miracle as the former and both of them the effect of God's Power not of Man's But 't is false what our Author here adds that our Lord Christ did Himself shed on them the Holy Spirit when he caused the Spirit to descend on them in the form of Cloven Tongues The Apostle indeed saith He Christ hath shed forth this this miraculous Participation of the Spirit which ye now see and hear But he saith not as our Author reports his words He himself hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear for it