after as if the next thing to the Creation of Angels were that of the sensible and acceptable world he subjoyns who laid the Foundations of the earth that it should not be removed for ever But this is not all it was further necessary that this subtle matter should be Created for it neither is or can be by it self any more then a Creature and that from all Eternity by an emanative way that the Son or the second Person of the Blessed Trinity or the human nature of Christ vitally and personally united to the Divine of God the Father might have from all Eternity the more large and comprehensive notion of that infinitely perfect nature to which it was thus vitally and personally united and by consequence might be the more closely united and enjoy the more perfect Friendship and Communion with it for it is but reasonable to suppose that in this subtle matter not only the Vehicles of Angelick Forms and Spirits but also the sensible Ideas and Patterns of this lower World were originally drawn and in this sense the Heavens that is the emanative subtle matter in which those Archetypal Ideas were framed may be said to have declared the Glory of God in another and an antecedent notion to that in which the Psalmist understood those words by representing the Original Patterns of the World that was designed to be Created in the fulness of time to the Human nature of Christ and to those Angels and separated Spirits which were in time produced before the Foundations of the World which taught them more fully and perfectly to understand and celebrate the Power and Wisdom of God then without such outward helps any finite or created Being was capable of doing and this was no more then Seneca hath represented concerning God himself that he made use from all Eternity of a certain subtle matter in which the first Patterns and Archetypal examples of all things whatsoever were drawn Miremur saith he in his 58th Epistle See Apol. for middle way A. p. 283 to 289 in sublimi volitantes rerum omnium formas Deumque inter illa versantem ac providentem quemadmodum quae immortalia sacere non potuit quia materia prohibibat defendat a morte ac ratione vitium corporis vincat in which passage though it be manifest that he supposed God to be one Supreme Vbiquitary and Immaterial Nature which is his genuine and true notion and so must not be supposed in this particular to adhere strictly to the Stoical Principles which did not acknowledge any thing but matter in the world and though that supreme ubiquitary and immaterial Nature to help him to form and model his Ideas may not perhaps have any need of any such subtle and subeternal matter although it be somewhat difficult to conceive how material Ideas can be represented or conveyed otherwise then by material objects or by the help of the materia Ideata yet with respect to the human nature of Christ it was perhaps a matter of absolute necessity that such a subtle matter should from all Eternity be created wherein the first Patterns and Exemplars of things should be drawn to fill it with the more large and comprehensive notion of the Power Wisdom and Goodness of God which was a natural means of the most close and intimate Communion with him and this is a second sense in which the Son may be said no have Created the World because it was Created as it were on purpose for him that part of it I mean which makes up the subtle matter of the Vniverse which is infinitely the most considerable proportion of it But thirdly the Son may be said to have Created the World in this sense also not that the Power or Wisdom of the Human Nature could extend so far as to the Creation of the World but only that God the Father that is the original and radical divine substance did as it were take the advice and Council of the human nature in it that is he created such a World as should have a beauty congruity in it to the Human Nature because that Nature which in its abstracted separate Estate is much the same with the Angelic was to be the Principal Inhabitant of the Vniverse and therefore beauty or congruity being nothing else but a certain satisfaction complacency and delight which a certain object strikes upon a certain nature such a World was to be Created as was most naturally suited to please its best Inhabitant with its outward appearance as well as to afford it matter of Contemplation so that as all the Creatures were at first brought to Adam to see what he would call them and whatsoever he called them that was the Name thereof so was the whole Creation presented to the Human Nature of Christ as it were for his approbation and to him perhaps it was especially to be applied what we find written at the end of every days work in the History of the Creation that God that is the human nature of Christ in conjunction with the divine saw that it was good that is it had a goodness of congruity to the Human part and I take upon me to affirm that no sense can be put upon this place which gives so intelligible an account of the goodness mentioned in the Text as this which I have mentioned seems to do so also St. John tells us That by him all things were made and without him was not any thing made that was made all things were made by him in the sense already explained because of the intimate union of the two Natures by which it comes to pass that the effects and operations of the one are alike attributed and ascribed to the other and without him not any thing was made that was made that is without his consent concurrence and approbation to whom the World that was to be made was to be so fitted that it was to have in it a certain congruity and harmony with his Nature and to strike a certain Sympathy and complacency upon it and in this sense it is that he is perhaps called by the Prophet Isaiah the Councellor as well as the Mighty God God having in this great work of the Creation consulted principally the happiness of his Creature Man and ordered matters after such a manner as should be most suitable most delightful most congruous and most useful to the human nature But secondly a second instance in which the divine and human nature may be considered as acting as one commen Person is the great affair of our Redemption for the divine nature of it self was impassible and the human of it self could not satisfie for the sins of the World but the innocence of the human nature of Christ which was I take it for granted owing to the intimate presence and union of it with the Divine the exquisite and inconceiveable painfulness of that death which our blessed Lord suffered upon the Cross for our sakes resulting
makes the distinction of the Persons is the addition of a Created immaterial nature in the second Person of the Blessed Trinity of a Created material one in the third and the substraction or precision of both of these in the first The Son is said to be begotten of the Father being a similar immaterial and as it were univocal effect of his Power and Will and the Holy Ghost to proceed from them both because though the human nature of Christ and the subtle matter which makes the body of that Person which is called the Holy Ghost be both of them emanative and by consequence eternal yet the emanation seems more natural from one immaterial nature to another then from immaterial to material and so the Son is at least prior natura then the Holy Ghost though not cognitione and the subtle matter which is one part of the third Person of the Blessed Trinity being Created though from all Eternity yet in some sense for the sake of the Son as hath been already declared and being also produced by the Father by a contemporary consent of will in the Son or in the human nature though they be supposed contemporary to one another yet this is enough to make it no improper way of expression to say that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and the Son though in this I do not justifie the heats on either side between the Greek and Latin Churches neither do I think the Schism to be the less inexcusable because the Latins in a matter of this subtlety were in the right I do not deny but that the Father or the simple divine substance is always vitally united to the human nature of Christ and also to a certain subtle and aethereal matter in that manner which hath been already declared but yet notwithstanding the real distinction of the Father from the Son or of the first Person of the Blessed Trinity from the second is always as really and as clearly preserved as if in the first case there were no second Person or no vital union with the human nature or as if in the second there were no third or no vital union of the divine and human nature with the aethereal matter for in the first place as hath been already largely represented there are some operations of the simple divine substance to which the human nature being but finite cannot adaequately extend and in this case that substance is of necessity considered as a Person acting by it self and in the second notwithstanding the vital union of one or more immaterial nature to a material yet there are some abstracted operations wherein the immaterial substances do perfectly withdraw themselves from any intercourse or communication with matter as is plain in those operations of the human soul which are purely speculative and intellectual in which the animal concupisciblâ— or plastick life have no share but they are purely the operations of separated and abstracted Spirits and such as would undoubtedly accompany the mind of Man though it were disentangled from this mortal body and yet the vital union is not interrupted all this while but the digestion and Animal secretion still goes on the bloud still circulates and the Plastic faculties perform their office in men not yet arrived to their full growth as well as in Embrios not yet attained to their just form and shape in their Mothers Womb not that I would be thought to compare these things with one another but only in general to represent that an immaterial nature tho vitally united to a material may yet have operations purely spiritual and altogether abstracted in which that union is not at all concerned and those operations which are performed on the one hand by the abstracted and on the other by the Compound and Heterogeneous nature may well enough be considered as the actions of two Jeveral and distinct persons as in St. Paul's description of the strife and contention between the Flesh and Spirit Rom. 7. 15. That which I do I allow not for what I would that do I not but what I hate that do I. Where it is manifest that the soul of man considered by it self in its most inward and abstracted speculation is considered as one person and as united and vitally interwoven with a body or vehicle of matter as another and this is enough to show that a compound and a simple person are by no means the same or to defend the personality of the Holy Ghost as distinct from the simple substance of God the Father Further that by the Holy Ghost nothing else is meant but the vital union of an aethereal or subtle matter to the simple and original divine substance of God the Father is clear not only from the words themselves by which it is expressed in Hebrew Rouach and in Greek Pneuma which signifie nothing else but a subtle matter but also from the History of the Creation where the spirit of God is said to have moved upon the face of the Waters in the Hebrew it is Merachepheth which the Rabbins interpret of the incubation of any bird or fowl upon the young or eggs by which it is manifest that they understood the Spirit of God not simply of any wind or subtle matter whatsoever but of such as was animated with a divine life and fitly disposed by brooding upon the Chaos to make it fruitful and fertile and when God spake to Moses out of the burning bush when he gave the Law upon Mount Sinai in Fire and Smoak when he went before the Camp of the Israelites like a Cloud by day and like a Flame by night when such flaming and fiery apparitions as these are so frequently called in Scripture by the name of the glory of God all these are meant of that subtle matter which being animated and enlivened by a divine life is called Rouach hachodesh pneuma hagion the Holy Spirit the spirit or breath or wind of God so also when Moses desired to see the face of God but was denied for this reason that no Man could see the face of God and live but yet was permitted to see his back parts which were nothing else but a certain vigorous and piercing flame the meaning is plainly this that no Man in this life can converse with the naked essence or immaterial nature of God but his back parts or that aethereal and subtle matter to which from all eternity he hath been vitally united these may possibly fall under human cognizance as they did under that of Moses even in this life and this in truth is the main if not only business of this subtle matter besides the forming of Ideas in it as hath been already suggested that being animated and informed by the life of God it is the instrument of the divine power in its external operations thus as God being cloathed with this subtle matter did incubate and brood upon the Mass and order and dispose its several parts as seemed best
understanding will not reach as it will not certainly extend to the utmost possibility of Ideas at one and the same time which implies infinite knowledge or knowledge in its utmost Latitude and Perfection an attribute belonging to the Divine Substance and incommmunicable with any other there this Divine Substance is again considered in this fifth particular as a Person acting distinctly by it self Sixthly and lastly in the actuation of those Divine Ideas or in the bringing them out of a state of notion into a state of reality and extra-notional Existence or in the Creation of the material and intellectual World together with the several modifications and motions of the one the several orders and degrees of the other in this also the Father is to be considered as acting by himself the Power of Creation or the producing realities out of a state of non-existence out of a state of possibility into a state of being and from a state of notion into a state of impenetrability tangibility or life being only competible to God himself and belonging only to infinite Power as the Ideas themselves which were the principles and patterns according to which the realities were made could not in their full extent and comprehension and at one and the same time be present to any wisdom or understandng but that which was infinite and by consequence Divine though I deny not but that the Son that is the human nature in conjunction with the divine for of it self it could not do it may in some sense be said to have made the World as the Scripture asserts him to have done and in what sense that is shall be now very suddenly and very clearly declared For as there are some operations of the divine nature to be met with wherein the Father or the simple divine substance acts as a distinct Person by it self without the concurrence of the human nature so there are others wherein the divine and human nature act joyntly and as it were confederately together and are considered as one common person endued with one common life understanding and will and they are these First in the business of Creation which though it hath been already appropriated as an incommunicable act to the simple divine substance yet we find notwithstanding in Scripture that the Creation of the World is attributed to the Son likewise that is to the second person of the blessed Trinity or to the human nature vitally and personally united to the divine as well as to God the Father or to the simple divine substance it self the reasons of which if I am not mistaken are principally if not only these that follow First that all things being produced out of nothing by the divine power or by a bare act of the divine will and the human nature being vitally and personally united to the divine so as to be partaker of the life of God and to be wholly determined and acted by his will the will of the human nature being as it were included absorpt and swallowed up in the divine and the one being perfectly determined and acted by the other whatsoever effect follows any determination or motion of the divine will may very properly be said to be the effect also of the human in conjunction with it and acting as one common person with one indivisible and common determination it being no more possible to separate the one will from the other than it is to dissolve the union of the two natures or to divide any emanative and immediate effect from its immediate and emanative cause and it is in a manner the same case as in the Line Where if you consider A as the first mover and B and C as quiescent yet B being first moved by the motion of A the motion of C is rightly affirmed to be owing to them both acting in common and in conjunction together notwithstanding that the original power of moving be wholly to be ascribed to and to be derived from A whose Creature B as to its motion is as C in the same respect may be said to be the common creature of them both Secondly the human nature of Christ tho' personally and vitally united to the divine yet being as it hath been said already but a finite nature and though there were in it a perfect Conjunction and Symphony of will in all things to the divine will and understanding so far as the sphere of its capacity would reach yet that capacity being finite and imperfect it wanted some external helps to give it the more full and comprehensive notion of the divine nature and by consequence the more large and plentiful enjoyment of it for which reason it was that from all Eternity there was Created a Sub-eternal and Aethereal matter which being united to and animated by the ubiquitary and original life which is called God the Father constituted the third Person of the Blessed Trinity which is called the Holy Ghost Now God being infinitely perfect and happy in himself it could not be that this Aethereal matter was produced by him for the more full and perfect enjoyment of himself for there could be nothing in any Creature especially an inanimate one as this subtle matter without the conjunction and animation of the divine life must be which was not before hand eminently and transcendently to be found in himself who is considered as its emanative and its only cause neither is it reasonable to conceive though it proceeded from all eternity from the Divine Substance by way of emanation that it was created out of no end or design or that no use was made of it from all eternity till in the fulness of time the aspectable Vniverse was Created wherefore it is but reasonable in this case to suppose that this subtle matter was employed partly in forming the Vehicles of the Caelestial Hierarchy the Angels and immortal Spirits the Morning Stars and Sons of God that sung together and shouted for joy when the first corner stone of the World was laid and consequently did exist before it And that they were really cloathed with such Aetherial Vehicles or Caelestial Bodies as we shall be our selves after the Resurrection if there be any sense in the 15th Chapter of the first to the Corinthians and our Saviour himself assures us that in the future state we shall be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Angels or equal to the Angels that are in Heaven seems to me plainly to be asserted by the Psalmist in these words Psal 104. 4. Who maketh his Angels Spirits his Ministers a flaming Fire not to repeat here what I have * Apology for the mid way Sermon of the Omnipresence elsewhere said concerning the signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Angel in the new Testament and that they had also a pre-existence before the Foundation of the World were laid seems not obscurely to be imployed by the Psalmist in that immediately
answered by the events of the New and that in such instances wherein they have not been applied or compapared together by our Saviour himself or by any of his Apostles but that the Scripture contains within it self a hidden Treasure of Testimony to its own undoubted authority and truth which Providence did not think it fit to reveal and lay open but to let it lye hid in darkness and concealment as a reward to the pious curiosity of such as should afterwards diligently read and search the Scriptures and that in every age there might some new Evidence appear for the further confirmation and assurance of the truth and to render the Atheists and Infidels the more inexcusable by the dayly encreasing light that continues to surround them CHAP. 3. That the MESSIAS was to be GOD as well as MAN I Have done with the first branch of the Text Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son I come now to the Second and shall call his name Immanuel which being interpreted is God with us from which words having already asserted from the former the Chastity and Virginity of the Mother of God I shall now as briefly and as clearly as I can assert the undoubted and unquestionable Divinity of the Son against those Hereticks whether of our own or former times that have with so impious and detestable confidence presumed to deny it and the first argument I shall make use of shall be taken immediately from the words themselves and shall call his Name Immanuel now the question is whether she did call his Name Emanuel or no and the answer to this question is very easie that she did not and that the Name given him at his Circumcision was not Imanuel but Jesus and this by the direction of the Angel himself because he was to save his People from their sins wherefore it is clear that these words and shall call his Name Emanuel if they have any sense at all cannot be understood of his Name but of his Nature and if so then all that I desire is granted that he was by Nature God as well as Man and this is the meaning of that Phrase and shall call his Name Emanuel that is she shall acknowledge him to be God and worship him as such and if it can be proved that ever she did so then it is plain that this Prophecy was exactly fulfilled and that here is all that can be desired for the explication of this place and what else I beseech you is or can be the meaning of the first words of her Triumphant Song My Soul doth magnifie the Lord and my Spirit hath rejoyced in God my Saviour for he hath regarded the lowliness of his Hand Maiden that is God that is about to take Human Flesh and Human Nature upon him hath also graciously and mercifully decreed to make me his poor Handmaiden and lowly Servant the happy Instrument of conveying so great a Blessing to the World or else we may interpret those words Behold a Virgin shall Conceive and bear a Son and shall call his Name Emanuel after this manner she shall Conceive and bare a Son and such a Son as shall be as really God as he is Man for in the Hebrew Idiom things are said to be called what indeed they are as in that passage concerning Elizabeth the Mother of John the Baptist This is the sixth month with her who was called Barren that is who was really so for the Text tells us likewise that she was old and well striken in years and the Angel acknowledged that her Conception was impossible by the course of Nature and so in that passage of the Prophet Isaiah concerning the Messias which hath been already made use of to another purpose in the former part of this discourse Vnto us a Child is born unto us a Son is given and the Government shall be upon his Shoulder and his Name shall be called Wonderful Councellor the Mighty God the Everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace that is he shall really be all these things and among others he shall be the Everlasting Father and the Mighty God or in the Language of the Socinians Deus ille altissimus the God of Melchisedek the most high God And this is my first argument drawn from the consideration of the words of my Text and shall call his Name Immanuel neither was that the Name he was called by at his Circumcision or the Name by which he was known either to his Disciples or the Jews or any other so that this place cannot possibly be interpreted of his Name but Nature and is as much as to say in other words that he was really God as well as Man But Secondly he that raised up himself from the Grave after his body had lain there for three days together was really God as well as Man but our Jesus raised himself by his own Power from the dead after he had lain buried in the Grave for three days together therefore he was really God as well as Man That this could not be done by any Human Power is a thing that cannot without great folly and stupidity be questioned or denied that he did it by his own Power is equally manifest from his own words Destroy this Temple said he and in three days I will raise it up which words the Evangelist tells us he spake of the Temple of his Body wherefore if he were raised from the Dead by the Power of God considered as a Power distinct from that with which he was truly and properly invested himself then it is false what he affirms that he himself in the compass of three days would raise up and renew the Temple of his Body after it had been destroyed but if he did it himself as he affirms himself to have done then he was truly and properly invested with that Power by which it was performed which Power since it could be no less then such as was truly and properly Divine it follows unavoidably that he was really God as well as Man Again in the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead that Prophecy was fulfilled Thou shalt not leave my Soul in Hell nor suffer thine Holy one to see Corruption which words are the words of Christ speaking by the Mouth and Spirit of the Psalmist to God the Father and that they were Prophetical of the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead we have the express authority of St. Peter for it in the 2d of the Acts and the 29 30 and 31. verses Men and Brethren said he let me freely speak unto you of the Patriarch David that he is both dead and buried and his Sepulchre is with us unto this day therefore being a Prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an Oath to him that of the fruit of his Loins according to the Flesh he would raise up Christ to sit on his Throne he seeing this before spake of the Resurrection of Christ that his Soul was not