reveal'd and consequently comprehensible enough by sound reason and certainly to be fathomed by discourse and sense Thus Schlicktingius in his disputation against the Doctrine of the Trinity oppos'd to Meisner a Lutheran Divine Schlicktin in Meisner de Trin. c. p. 70. Mysteria Divina non idcirco mysteria dicuntur quod etiam revelata omnem nostrum intellectum captumque transcendunt sed quod non nisi ex revelatione cognosci possint Divine Mysteries are not therefore call'd mysteries because they transcend our understanding after they are reveal'd but because they cannot be known without divine Revelation For what need is there of a Revelation if they are no more intelligible afterwards than they were before wherefore Humane reason may determine concerning divine Mysteries when they are once reveal'd nay it ought to do so for how should it give any credit to them unless it had first passed a judgment upon them And so soon as ever our reason has pass'd a true and uncorrupt judgment upon them it always finds those mysteries to be very true Thus He. Elsewhere he asserts that our ignorance of divine mysteries proceeds not from the corruption of our nature through the fall of Man but from the extraordinary sublime nature of those Mysteries Disput. pro Socino p. 101. 1 Cor. 15.51 De verâ Relig. l. 1. p. 344. and therefore after they are once reveal'd to us whether by God's word or by his Spirit Tantas habemus vires ut eas animo comprehendere valeamus we have so much strength of mind that we are able to comprehend them The same Doctrine he preaches in his Commentary on that of the Apostle Behold I shew you a mystery and Crellius speaks to the same effect But this reasoning is not such as should make us much admire our own faculties with respect to the mysteries of Religion It 's true indeed our reason may serve us so far as to convince us such or such a truth is reveal'd our eye sees it in that Book which we call the word of God our ear hears it therefore by discourse we conclude that that Truth stands so reveal'd there and our reason enables us to judge whether the revelation be authentick and fit for us to depend on or no. But according to their acknowledgment wretched man involv'd in sin could with all his wit and sense discover no remedy for his misery the more he discours'd with himself the more plainly he 'd find that He who had offended a Being wise knowing and powerful to punish could rationally expect nothing but punishment from one so offended Mercy could take little place in Man's thoughts in the case he could see reasons enough why he should be punish'd for his sin but no reason why he should be pardon'd since he had sinn'd God now had decreed a remedy for him but God's decree was secret and indiscoverable As man could not naturally feed himself with any reasonable hopes that such a remedy should be neither could he contrive how that remedy should be effected or by what means he an offender should escape the stroke of Justice since Mercy as well as justice must have some ground or reason to move upon the means then as well as the decree was hitherto mysterious Well Almighty God in his wonderful commiseration of humane weakness was pleas'd to promise somewhat comfortable to our first parents in the strength of which promise they were enabled to live tho' under the weight of those calamities sin had laid them open to God afterwards besides these extraordinary promises of the same nature made to the Patriarchs inspired several holy Men who spake as influenced by him and they foretold man's redemption by a Messias one that should be Anointed to that purpose Here then the mystery was reveal'd and what man before could not rationally have hoped for he was now assured of by God himself But did not the whole matter continue a Mystery still Nay was not the Mystery now more inscrutable than before Could Man give a reason or comprehend the matter in his Soul why an exceedingly provoked God should express such love or pity for those who had provoked him If they could have done so they might have done it as well before and consequently have concluded that tho' they had incensed God yet his wrath would certainly be atoned and therefore there was no need of a Revelation or after this Revelation could Man tell certainly what the meaning of this Messiah was They saw him sometimes described by the Prophets under all the glorious characters of a mighty King nay equall'd with God himself in his titles and in his name Sometimes they saw him character'd as very mean and contemptible as riding on an Ass instead of a triumphant Chariot as one who had no form nor comliness in him no beauty for which he should be desired nay despised and rejected of men a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief Could common reason so easily discover what manner of person he should be in whom these particulars so seemingly contradictory should meet If so what made the Jews who had enjoyed a greater portion of divine light than the rest of the World what made them stumble so extreamly at the person of the Messias when he appear'd or think it so impossible to reconcile Prophecies so seemingly contradictory to one another were the Jews the only persons utterly deserted by reason or grown brutes on the suddain What shall we say to the existence of a God one supream Being who manages all things That there is a God tho' the Socinians deny it Nature and the various works of the Creation teach us for reason will perswade us that the Apostle speaks plain enough to that purpose when he makes it a reason why the Heathens should be inexcusable because that which may be known of God is manifest in them for God has shewed it unto them for the invisible things of him from the Creation of the World are clearly seen Rom. 1.19.20 being understood by the things that are made even his eternal power and Godhead This same existence of a God is reveal'd to us in Scripture but in the mean time we must own that by Scripture we really know no more of God than Nature and the works of Nature had discover'd before for that which may be known of God was visible in them as the forecited Text informs us nay had not Nature imprest upon our Souls some Idaeas of the divinity had not we been able to read his eternal power and Godhead in them all the revelations in Scripture would have appear'd very impertinent and unsatisfactory since all the discourse in it concerning God might easily have been interpreted into a religious fiction contriv'd meerly to get reputation to that Book of which God was the pretended Author But after Nature and revelation have done so much are we able to comprehend the nature of the Almighty is not every thing
son of our sacred Mother the English Church says of this manifestation of God in the flesh How it was effected Vid. Montacut Norvic in Act. Mon. Eccles c. 1. par 39. p. 27. 1 Pet. 1.12 by what means made possible heaven and earth cannot understand nor deliver 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was a mystery from the beginning the Angels understood it not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it will be a mystery to eternity the Angels as yet can go no farther than their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to receive a glimmering of it as it were by the crany of a window or by the chink of a door and how shall we dare to enquire how it was done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this question is indissoluble that inextricable Faith alone has power to resolve them both this we submissively agree to and therefore we enquire not how or in what manner God was made flesh any farther than some particulars relating to that Incarnation are plainly laid down in Scripture far be any such presuming curiosity from us only since the Apostle in the consequent parts of the Text has asserted that God was made flesh which according to the natural sound and common acceptation of such words in all languages and writers is that he who was made flesh or appear'd in the flesh was God since the Apostle has asserted the positive truth and has made it the first part of the great mystery of godliness and such a part as all the other particulars do but serve to prove and confirm We must assert too that this particular point or article of Faith that He who was made flesh for the Salvation of mankind was really God God properly so call'd the most high the eternal God blessed for ever not any made or subordinate God but the maker of all things in a word the true God exclusive of all created Beings whatsoever We assert that this is an Article of our Faith so true and so important that upon a true embracing it in the sence so laid down the Salvation of all men depends as much as upon believing in Christ the Son of God at all or on being neither impious nor blasphemers nor idolaters And therefore we assert farther that how great a mystery soever this may appear and it never ought to appear otherwise to enquire into and seek for all such Scriptures as may render it indisputable is neither impertinent to our Lord's design in being so incarnate nor is it fruitless to those who make it their business to inquire into such proofs nor is it dangerous to any who make that enquiry with due humility and care But on the contrary it 's very dangerous nay fatal as before not to enquire into it or not to be fully satisfied about it I know we have in this point more enemies than the meer Socinians some capital asserters of the Arminian tenets being desirous to give such a latitude to Religion as may take in all their friends are very willing to perswade us that it 's not very material or necessary to believe that Jesus Christ the Son of God is God of the same substance or nature with his father So Episcopius a man of great learning and ingenuity in his fourth book of Theological Institutions c. 34. Traitè sur la Divin de J.C.S. 1. c. 1. p. 10. c. the sum of whose plea amounts to this That the essence of Christian Religion consists not in meer contemplative knowledge but in practice and that it consists much more in obedience than in abstracted speculations on the Deity which tho' it be true enough has really no place here for can we call those principles meer or simple speculations which are so important that we our selves are or are not Idolaters accordingly as they are true or false If Christ be of the same substance with his Father or if which comes to the same end Christ be the supreme or sovereign God he ought to be adored in that quality and Socinians themselves cannot without impiety refuse to acknowledge him as such and to honour him under that name but if he be not so we cannot confound him with the Sovereign God without Idolatry The great concern here then is to avoid impiety or idolatry and by consequence those inquiries must be of a practical nature which are of so very great and extraordinary an importance Episcopius makes several vain attempts to shew That it is not at all essential to Salvation to know if Jesus Christ be God by an eternal generation or that being but a simple creature or which is the same a meer man like one of us he is called God upon account of his ministry for when he goes about to make us see that these are no fundamental inquiries in shewing us that those who believe Jesus Christ is a meer Creature may worship him without being guilty of Idolatry because they adore him not as he is man but as he holds the place of God as his Ambassador or Substitute this proof is imperfect and insufficient For to prove that these questions are impertinent or unnecessary it 's not enough to shew that Socinians without being Idolaters may worship him whom they believe to be no more by nature than a meer Man which supposition yet we shall in due time prove God willing to be false But he ought to shew withal that we without Idolatry may worship Jesus Christ as the supreme God as we really are taught to do by the Church of England tho' at the same time he really be not the sovereign God which seems to be a very hard if not an impossible task as I question not but hereafter it will more plainly appear At present I shall only touch upon an argument urged by Episcopius from a Topick very easily found out the reason then given by him why it is not necessary that we should believe Jesus Christ to be perfect or the true God is Quia nuspiam in Scripturâ id necessarium creditu esse asseritur nec per bonam nedum necessariam consequentiam ex eâ elicitur Because it 's a doctrine of which the Scripture no where affirms that it 's necessary to be believed nor can it be drawn from thence by any good much less by any necessary consequence And he goes on to shew that this argument ought to be of very great force among those of the reformation because they profess there 's nothing necessary to be believed but what 's either directly or in plain terms contained in Scripture or drawn from thence by very clear consequence the last indeed the sixth Article of the Church of England agrees with but what she thinks of his first assertion may very well be gathered from the second wherein she propounds this Doctrine as necessary to be believed The Son which is the word of the Father begotten from everlasting of the Father the very and eternal God of one substance with the Father took man's
That our Lord is called Immanuel by the Prophet as cited by S. Matthew or God with us that we might not think he was Man only but that we might know he was God too If then Christ was God as well as Man his Divine Nature being mentioned in contradistinction to his humane Nature Irenaeus cannot mean that He who was really a Man was only metaphorically God but that he was as really and essentially God as He was Man which is what we believe With Irenaeus agrees Clemens of Alexandria who thus teaches the Gentiles in his Admonition to them We are the rational Creatures of God the Word so he calls our Saviour after the Evangelist S. John Admon ad Gent. p. 5. l. D. by whom we pretend to Antiquity because God the Word was in the beginning but because the Word was from above He was and is the divine original of all things but since He has now taken upon him the name of Christ a name suitable to his power and which was sanctified of old I call him a new song This refers to his former Allegorical discourse wherein he endeavours to describe every thing under terms proper to Harmony or Musick This Word then this Christ who was at first in God was both the cause of our original existence and of our well-being But now this Word himself has made himself manifest to men who alone is both God and Man the cause of all our good by whom we being taught to live well are sent from hence to eternal life for according to that inspired Apostle of our Lord the Grace of God hath appear'd to all men teaching them that denying all ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live godly righteously and soberly in this present world looking for the glorious coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ This is the new song that manifestation of God the Word who was in the beginning and before all things and now shines brightly out to us He appear'd but lately who was our Saviour before He who is appear'd in him who is because the Word was with God and that Word by which all things were made makes his appearance as a Master that Word which as a Creator gave us life in our first formation appearing now as a Master or Teacher has taught us to live well that hereafter as God he may bestow upon us eternal life Thus far that very learned Father and his whole discourse does so plainly teach us the Pre-existence of our Saviour before his Conception in the Womb of the blessed Virgin and consequently his Divine Nature in his eternal being with the Father that the most ignorant person in the World may plainly understand what the Faith of this Writer was Thus afterwards speaking of John Baptist the forerunner of our Saviour he tells them John taught men to be prepared for the presence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of God the Christ Afterwards speaking of that care our Saviour took to have the Gospel preached he adds The Lord did not effect so great work in so short a time without a sacred care He was despised in appearance but adored indeed being a Purifyer a Saviour and extremely kind The Divine Word being really most manifest God and put into an equal rank with the Lord of all things for as much as he was his Son and the Word was in God Ibid. p. 68. l. D. he was neither disbelieved when he was first preached nor was he unknown or unacknowledged when assuming the presence of a Man and being made flesh he managed the saving design of his assumed Humanity Again speaking to those who are blind with sin and folly under the person of Tiresias that blind Thebane Wizzard and inviting such to believe in Christ he speaks thus If thou wilt thou too shalt be initiated into these Mysteries and join in the Choir of blessed Angels about the unbegotten the never to be destroyed the only true God God the Word assisting in the same Hymn with us He is eternal the only Jesus or Saviour the great High-priest of God who is the Father p. 70. L D. he intercedes for Men and he perswades them to goodness I shall instance but in one passage more in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where having cited that of the Psalmist Who shall ascend into the Hill of the Lord or who shall stand in his holy place c. at large He thus descants upon it The Prophet says He in my opinion here briefly describes the true Gnostick or the man of true knowledge to us and by the bye David shews us that our Saviour is God for he calls him the face of the God of Jacob who brought us glad tidings and taught us of or concerning the Spirit therefore the Apostle calls the Son the Character of the glory of God Him who taught the truth concerning God and who represented to us that God and the Father was one only and Almighty whom none could know but the Son Stromat l. 7. p. 733. C. and He to whom the Son shall reveal him That God is but one appears by those who seek the face of the God of Jacob whom our God and our Saviour characterises as the only God and father of Good Here then we have the Father true and real God the Son true and real God and yet but one God and this is that Faith which we preach To Clemens I shall only add his Scholar Origen for the Greek Church a man of extraordinary eminence in his time who in his third Book against Celsus that great adversary of the Christian Religion reflecting upon the vanity of Heathen Gods and their incapacity to help those that depend on them he tells Celsus that upon this very reason because there is no help in false gods it 's a sure Rule among Christians that no man should trust in any being as God except only in Jesus Christ and a little after whereas Celsus objects against us so often that we believe Jesus consisting of a mortal body to be God and imagine our selves very pious in so thinking he answers Let those who accuse us know that He whom we know and believe to be God of old and to be the Son of God he is of himself the Word the Wisdom and the Truth and that even that mortal body and reasonable Soul which he assumed by its Communication and Unity and Mixture with the Word or with his divine nature arose to so great a height as to be God i.e. his humane and his divine nature make by a substantial or essential union one God and that I give no false interpretation to his words here will appear by what I shall allege afterwards It 's all along the humour of Celsus then when he speaks in the Person of a Jew and when he speaks in his own Name and Person to reproach the Christians with the irrationality of their Religion on that particular account that they owned Christ as
him for we shall see him as he is And when reason once comes to use sense so far as to see God as he is infinitely happy infinitely good infinitely glorious it has gone far enough And thus far have I given an account of Humane reason or the light of Nature for I think I may well enough use them as Synonymous and how far it may be useful in matters of a Divine nature I shall draw onely a Corollary or two from thence and then proceed We conclude from what has been discours'd concerning Humane reason That our obligation to Almighty God is infinite in that He who might have taken from us wholly that natural light because we had so extremely slighted it was yet pleas'd to continue it so far as that rightly apply'd it might still be useful to us even in matters of salvation It 's true we cannot examine things with that clearness and satisfaction which Adam's first enquiries were accompany'd with our understandings are somewhat parallel to that Earth which fell under a Curse for the sin of Man It was naturally fertile before in good things but then it was to bring forth onely bryars and thorns yet Man might eat bread from it still onely it must be in the sweat of his brows He must take pains for that now which he might have had without any trouble before So our Natural reason was clear and free at first common occurrences needed no deep meditations nor extraordinary passages any tedious study to apprehend them in every circumstance The case is now otherwise our reason busies it self naturally about trifles and onely puzles and perplexes it self in matters of no weight or moment yet still it may move to good purpose but it requires abundance of care and pains to cultivate it so as it may produce any thing that 's good and even with a great deal of pains too sometimes it makes conclusions onely vain troublesome and miserably false this unhappiness is the consequence of our own follies at first and it's God's unmerited goodness that we can yet by making use of due means distinguish in some measure between truth and falshood at least in the more obvious parts of religion and his goodness yet appears farther in that where our decrepit reason fails he 's pleas'd to interpose with the influences of his blessed Spirit and to preserve the Modest and Humble from falling into damnable Error that our Reason may have a subject profitable to employ it self upon God has given us his Word blessed are they who meditate on that word day and night he calls upon us to apply our selves to the Law and to the testimony to search the Scriptures to search them with the same care and diligence as those who work in Mines seek for the golden Ore Whereas he lays in his Word several Commands upon us He would have us examine them so as we may be convinced that they are not grievous but Holy just and good These Commandments therefore must be examin'd by the rule of right Reason which whosoever follows will be infinitely satisfied in them In his dealings with mankind he calls upon them to examine their own ways by the same rule he enters into arguments highly rational with mankind himself he bids them to judge in their own causes between himself and them and see if discussing things rationally they must not necessarily fall upon that confession That God's ways are equal but the ways of men unequal When he recommends his mercies when he would terrifie with his judgments He appeals to Humane Reason still or that share of light which we are now partakers of Now he that will employ that light he has upon such noble subjects if he be not prejudiced with wicked principles before or puff'd up with self-conceit must necessarily be a very religious man for the clearer any mans rational faculty is the more pious he must be only men of very low abilities can be either Atheists or Hereticks It 's confest indeed some Hereticks as the Socinians in particular with whom we are at present concern'd pretend highly to Reason but they only sham us with fond pretences and their reason is all empty and sophistical and Atheists are the Men of sence if we may believe fools and madmen but there is a vast difference between a flashy Wit and a ridiculing Humour and sound judgment and solid and weighty argument But God who knew before what artifices Hell and wicked men would make use of to pervert truth calls upon us to exercise our reason farther in discovering and baffling those cheats the enemies of our Souls would fain put upon us wherein as Hereticks and Schismaticks generally make their appeals to God's Word and we have warning in that very Word That in those doctrines where there 's any shew of difficulty those who are unlearned and unstable wrest the Scriptures to their own destructions We are warn'd to try the Spirits whether they be of God and Scripture being the rule of tryal we are oblig'd to study the true sence and meaning of that To which end our rational faculty carries us along in studying the original Languages in which Scripture was written and finding out the true meaning and import of words and phrases in other authors and the modes and customs of countries to which any Texts refer Reason goes with us in comparing text with text and matters of faith or practice laid down in one place with those laid down in another in observing the force of those arguments drawn from such and such Texts their real dependance upon or direct consequence from the places alledg'd and the general consistency of opinions offer'd with the end and design of those positive truths laid down in Scripture Reason has here a large field to exercise it self in And whereas we are urg'd by some to abjure that utterly with respect to those points of faith or practice that are under debate pretending they 'd insist only on the letter of Scripture Maximus tells us well in the formerly cited discourse of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they drive you from examining Scripture too strictly insinuating that it 's dangerous to pry too narrowly into secrets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Maximi disceptatio inter opera Athan. T. 2. p. 296. but disswading it indeed that they might avoid the reproof of their Errors from thence where he takes farther notice how such persons if they meet but with a word that at first hearing sounds favourably to their fancies they run away with it without ever considering the design of the inspired Writer or examining the agreement of their own shallow glosses with the general tenour of Holy Writ an humour that prevails with too many still who prefer the sound of words before the truth and pertinency of texts of Scripture and therefore imagine themselves to argue very piously and agreeably to God's word when all their talk is nothing to the purpose But mysteries the great
Jesus answered them John 10.34 35 36. Is it not written in your Law I said ye are Gods if he called them Gods unto whom the Word of God came and the Scripture cannot be broken say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the World Thou blasphemest because I said I am the Son of God This says our Adversary Thoughts on Sh. p. 2. agreeably to those he follows proves That our Saviour calls himself God or the Son of God upon the same grounds on which others are called Gods in Scripture to wit because the Father has sanctified him i. e. Christ is God or the Son of God in the same sence that Magistrates Good or Bad are called so which certainly is a very great Honour to our Saviour But if we examine these Words with that Care we ought we shall find that our Saviour by alleging that God had sanctified him and sent him into the world does two things First he distinguishes himself from those called Gods by that Sanctification and Mission which He had and They had not for he affirms no such thing of them unless our Author will infer it from that of the Word of God coming to them but all those to whom the Word of God comes are not sanctified presently by that nor are all those sanctified to whom God imparts any thing of his Power for the management of the World some sufficiently proving the contrary Nor will it be easie to prove Sanctification and Anointing to be one and the same thing upon that reason Nay if we admit of Heinsius's Criticism Heinsius in Aristarcho sac in locum the case will be yet worse for he would have those words to whom the Word of the Lord came be translated Against whom the Prophetick Burden or the threatning Word of God was denounced and indeed the Original will bear it well enough now we may fairly conclude that Divine Menaces against sinners do not sanctifie them so that the comparison between our Saviour and those Gods mentioned in the text does not lye in their being both sanctified But secondly our Saviour teaches us that He was First Sanctified and then Sent into the World now He could not be sanctified before he had a being but he was sanctified before he was sent into the World He was sent into the world as soon as he was Conceived in the Womb of his Mother so Every one is sent into the World as soon as he has a Being in the World but he has a Being in the World as soon as he 's Conceiv'd therefore our Saviour was Sanctified before his Conception and therefore he had a Being before his Conception in the Womb of the Virgin this is what the Socinians deny but the answer to this evidence is not so easie After this tho' our new Writer would have our Saviour to argue as indeed he does from the Less to the Greater that if They were Gods much more He yet he has not observ'd that our Saviour gives himself the Title only of the Son of God but to be the Son of God is less than to be God absolute or without restriction but our Saviour should have given himself yet some Superiour Name if he intended to prove himself Superiour indeed to those whom the Psalmist calls Gods in the cited place and so indeed he did as the Jews understood him they knew well enough that those Gods were only call'd so by a Figure and had our Saviour plainly told them that he meant only Figuratively when by calling God his Father he made himself the Son of God and by saying He and his Father were One He made not himself God their anger against him would have very much abated since in that sence very Ill Men might have pretended to the Title but they understood that our Saviour made himself really equal with that One Supreme God whom they worshipped and according to their thoughts his Sanctification and Mission into the World by God if He were his Father set him infinitely above those Figurative Gods to whom the Father might have communicated some Authority or Power but had neither Sanctified them nor sent them with any extraordinary pretences into the World and our Saviour was so far from going about to elude their anger by a shifting or ambiguous answer as Smalcius a Socinian says he did when he told the Jews before Abraham was I am that he exasperates them the more by alledging the works he did as an evidence that the Father was in Him and He in Him Joh. 10 3â— upon which they go about to seize him but in vain From the whole we conclude directly contrary to what our Socinian Writer asserts that since our Lord declared nothing concerning Himself and his own nature to the Jews but what was necessary for them to know and yet did declare to them such things as made it evident to them that he ascribed a Nature truely and literally divine to Himself Therefore it was necessary the Jews and with them all the rest of Mankind should know that Christ was really and truly God not Metaphorically as Magistrates nor by participation of God's Holiness as Good Men are made Partakers of the divine Nature but essentially and eternally as his Father And thus have we in some measure made good our second Proposition that the blessed Jesus appearing in our Nature was God equal with his Father or really and truely God as well as real Man We proceed to shew How it came to be necessary that to effect our Salvation God and particularly God the Son should assume our nature to himself That God the Son did really take our Nature upon him we have largely proved That God especially in such extraordinary cases does nothing but what 's necessary we may conclude for tho' God be a Free and uncontrouled Agent yet infinite Wisdom can act nothing that 's unnecessary or indifferent whether it be done or no Our business therefore will be to enquire into the Ends and Designs of our Saviour's appearing in the flesh from whence we shall be the better able to apprehend the necessity of such his appearance Sermon of the Nat. p. 247. Our Church in her Homily upon the Nativity of our Saviour teaches us That the end of our Saviour's coming in the flesh was to save and deliver his people to fulfil the Law for us to bear witness unto the truth to teach and preach the Word of his Father to give light unto the World to call sinners to repentance to refresh them that labour and be heavy laden to cast out the Prince of this World to reconcile us in the body of his flesh to dissolve the works of the Devil and last of all to become a propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole World What 's contain'd in these and what other Ends may be assigned for our Saviour's Incarnation I shall lay down
could be subservient Brev. c. 19. Concil t. 5. p 762. Liberatus indeed tells such a story in his abridgment but it 's so impertinent that even Crellius himself concludes he was mistaken in it and we may go farther and pronounce it wholly false since a Manuscript Copy of the new Testament presented to Charles the first of blessed memory by Cyrill then Patriarch of Constantinople reads as we do at this day and that Copy being about 1300 years old was written long before the latter Macedonius was born so that there was no need of running himself into danger by inserting that word into St. Paul's Text which was there before the Socinians tho' daring enough to impose upon the world could not but see the absurdity of their own pretence therefore they try to weaken the force of this Text by another artifice For so they tell us that allowing the word God in the Text it 's not to be understood of Jesus Christ but of God the Father and in this they have Grotius tho' at a distance their Leader too who gives us this general interpretation of the Verse We are not here concern'd about any ordinary truth but about that part of it which no man of himself was able to make out which has an extraordinary faculty to generate true piety in our hearts vid. Grot. in locum a part of truth in comparison of which all the Precepts and Principles of the Mosaic Law and of Philosophy are idle and of no effect and this mysterious truth amounts to this That the Gospel was published not by Angels but by poor infirm and inconsiderable men as our Lord and his Apostles seem'd to the World so the great mystery was manifest in the flesh this Gospel was justified in the spirit i. e. it was approv'd to the World by many Miracles these being wrought by the influence of the spirit it was seen of Angels and that with the greatest admiration for Angels came to the knowledge of the Gospel by the means of Men it was preacht to the Gentiles not only to the Jews who before were God's peculiar people but to the Gentiles who were meer strangers to the true God it was believ'd on in the World a great part of Mankind entertaining it and it was receiv'd up in glory i e. it was exalted very gloriously because it introduced a far greater degree of Holiness into the World than any former Opinions did So much pains did that learned man take to obscure a plain Text of Scripture and his gloss upon it was but impertinent and absurd at last He 's mighty willing to let the Verse pass without that emphatical word in it but his fancy about the Gospel's being manifest in the flesh and seen of Angels being justified in the Spirit and receiv'd up into glory are so poor and dilute as became not a man of learning and sense to obtrude upon the world therefore his Socinian followers tho' they touch upon this gloss of his yet they quit the Gospel which he insists upon and take God the Father in its room So Volkelius asserts Deum Patrem in carne manifestatum fuisse intelligendum esse that by the Text we are to understand that God the Father was manifest in the flesh and pursues that assertion with this Paraphrase of the whole That God by Christ and his Apostles who suffer'd many things on that account did more clearly then ever discover himself and his will unknown to all precedent Ages In the mean time tho' he reveal'd these things by inconsiderable men he took care by that divine power he shew'd in them to evidence his own justice and truth and to have his will approv'd that at that time and not sooner this will of his was known and understood by the very Angels and the extraordinary wisdom of God which shines in it lay open before them that this same will of God was preach'd to foreign Nations unacquainted with him before and destitute of divine revelation vid. Volkelium ubi supra cum reliquis that the World in all parts gave credit to it and that it was openly receiv'd by Men with a great deal of Honour So far Volkelius with whom agree Crellius tho' dilating more largely upon the place Zwicker and the Racovian Catechism Schlicktingius goes along with Grotius and will by no means admit of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or God and in plain terms tells us Schlicktingius in loc Deum manifestatum esse in carne dicere nugari est it 's meer fooling to say God was manifest in the flesh and that Godliness and God manifest in the world were very different things But this we shall have occasion to animadvert upon afterwards As for this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the great mystery mention'd in the Text Suidas interprets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 holy rites of a secret nature Vid. Suid. in Lex v. 1. Vid. Vossii Etym. ling. latinae Dieterici Lex nov testam or not commonly known that they were so call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because those that heard them stopt their mouths that they might not divulge or explain them to any Vossius and Dieterichus from Casaubon and Hornius chuse rather to derive it from the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to hide or to conceal from hence comes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a concealment or a place to hide one in so that whencesoever it s deriv'd they agree it signifies somewhat of a secret nature not easily to be found out In Ecclesia ea vox generatim accipitur pro re Sacrâ naturae lumine incomprehensibili says Vossius as us'd by Ecclesiastical Writers it 's generally taken for holy things incomprehensible by the light of nature tho' sometimes it has a more restrain'd signification relating to Symbolical rites and so the two Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper are frequently call'd mysteries but in the Text where we are told the mystery of Godliness is great and that assertion prov'd by the following particulars we learn that the whole affair of the Incarnation of the blessed Jesus with its consequences by which the Redemption of Mankind from the slavery of sin and death was effected is a deep and profound mystery or secret not to be comprehended by any humane understanding and yet so necessarily to be believ'd that no man can rightly assume the name of Christian or pretend to give a due credit to the doctrine of the Gospel without embracing and fully believing it But here we lie open again to the insults of our Socinian adversaries for they seem very unwilling to allow any such things at present as mysteries in Religion for tho' they do believe there were in former ages as particularly before our Saviour's time many things tending to humane salvation which yet to humane understandings were inscrutable and never to be found out yet these things are now
the latter part of the verse for let us with Grotius by the mystery of godliness understand the Gospel as we commonly understand it and which we own does contain the mystery of godliness That the Gospel was preach'd by weak Men we own nay that our Saviour himself in his state of exinanition or in his humane nature appear'd weak and contemptible enough we own too but that the Gospel appear'd in the flesh or cloath'd with flesh which is the proper import of the Apostles phrase we deny as absurd That the Gospel was justified in or by the Spirit the miraculous effusions of that confirming the truth of the Gospel preach'd we may own well enough but that the Gospel was seen of Angels is scarce sence that it was never known before it had been declar'd by Men is false for the Angels could not be unacquainted with the several Prophecies of the old Testament concerning the Messias to come nor could they be so far to seek in the meaning of those Prophecies many of which they had been instrumental in delivering and the Angels themselves were indeed the first preachers of the Gospel So the Angel Gabriel tells Zacharias concerning the Son that should be born to him Many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children Luke 1.16 17. and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. The same Gabriel afterwards tells the blessed Virgin Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and shalt bring forth a Son and shalt call his name Jesus v. 31 32 33. He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the highest and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever and of his kingdom there shall be no end It was an Angel that appear'd to Joseph in a dream Matth. 1.20 21. and told him that his espoused wife was with child of the Holy Ghost And she shall bring forth a Son says he and thou shalt call his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins Again an Angel of the Lord tells the Shepherds who were watching their flocks by night Luke 2.10 11 13 14. Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. To which Gospel a whole Choir of Angels subjoyned their Eucharistical Hymn Glory be to God on high in earth peace good will towards men These instances are enough to prove that Angels knew the Gospel before men preacht it not to mention their administring to our Saviour in the wilderness when entring on his prophetical Office and their publishing his resurrection the great confirmation of the Gospel before his Apostles had any apprehensions of it The Gospel was indeed preach'd unto the Gentiles and believ'd on in the World but it was far from being receiv'd in glory for it was scorn'd and derided and cruelly persecuted both by Jews and Gentiles the Devil raising all the powers in the world as far as possible for the extirpation of what was so great an enemy to his Tyranny the Gospel then will not answer all those particular marks set down in the Text. Neither yet are they applicable to God the Father as several of the Socinians would have them for to say God the Father was manifest in the flesh because his will was preach'd by Men who were but flesh and blood besides that such an assertion quits the Suppositum or Subject which was God the Father unless God and Gods will be one and the same thing which cannot be asserted It 's so uncouth an expression as is no where to be parallel'd either in Scripture or any Ecclesiastical Writer We read not any where that God the Father ever appear'd in the flesh or assum'd Humane nature nor did ever any dream of such a thing unless we recur to the ancient Patropassians so call'd because they believ'd it was really God the Father who being Incarnate suffer'd death on the Cross for the sins of Mankind but of that we have no foot-steps in holy Writ nor was the Deity it self ever made manifest in the flesh but in the flesh of the blessed Jesus Col. 2.9 in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily not in his doctrine as the Socinians would have it but in himself Vid. Schlicktin in loc and according to their own demands on the like occasion we would have them shew us some other clear place of Scripture wherein God the Father is said to be manifest in the flesh or to be manifest in Christ and the Apostles and then we may the better consent to their interpretation Again it 's as odd and unusual to say God the Father was justified in the Spirit for what need was there of any such justification his Eternal Power and Godhead were visible in the Universal fabrick of nature and all the Miracles done by our Saviour which Socinians refer to the influence of the Spirit were done that Men might know he was the promis'd Messias and those done by the Apostles after his ascent into Heaven carry'd along with them the same respect but we never heard of any publick declaration made by the Spirit for a more peculiar conviction of the World that the most High God was God indeed or the true God we may understand things thus as the Socinians say but we may a great deal better let it alone and not run into such interpretations of God's Word as we can neither reconcile to truth nor sense If we go farther the matter is not mended at all when we say God the Father was seen of Angels for what novelty was there in that had not they stood continually before his face from the instant of their first Creation or should we flie to God's will was not that known to his peculiar Ministers till such time as they came to learn it by the preaching of mortal men who can imagine so short a Text of Scripture and design'd to make known the greatest mystery in the world should lash out into such absolute impertinencies but to proceed God the Father was preach'd to the Gentiles but where he 's mention'd often doubtless as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in those Epistles written by the Apostles to their Gentile Converts but the Gospel it self is stil'd the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Apostles pretend to preach nay to know nothing among their Converts but Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 2.2 and him crucified as St. Paul expresses himself if we must say God the Father was preach'd he was certainly preach'd most to the Antediluvian World by Noah and the elder Patriarchs or he was preach'd
deep ever to be made up It 's true when God himself was mention'd as the undertaker of so great a work even despairing man might entertain some dawning hopes but when they saw a poor Carpenter's Son one who had not so much as where to lay his head assume yet the glorious title of the world's Redeemer and Saviour their hopes slagg'd their almost grasped joys seem'd just vanishing into empty air When the Holy Ghost God too infinitely good and powerful and wise interpos'd and attended that humble Man with so much vigour and constancy that He by a thousand glorious actions and by a close and perpetual correspondence with Heaven visible even to vulgar eyes prov'd the entire Union that was between himself and his Father and that Sacred Spirit and justified himself in the thoughts of very aliens themselves who could not but acknowledge of a truth that for all his mean appearance and his scandalous Passion on the Cross He was the Son of God But could men have doubted still the happy Angels those purer and more discerning Spirits saw him too they saw him and knew him and ador'd him they saw their mighty Lord tho' veil'd in all the rags of poor mortality And tho' sin might have made a former breach between those blessed Spirits and polluted man yet now where their Lord loved they lov'd too and always look'd and always waited on him while he wrought the worlds redemption while he was so justified and so attended on divers gave up themselves absolutely to his service whom he lov'd and taught and protected and endued with miraculous knowledge eloquence and courage and sent them on that blessed errand to preach to the Gentiles the glad tydings of Salvation in his name They boldly undertook the work and tho' they had ignorance and prejudice and malice and cunning to contend with meer men contemn'd before but then inspired broke through all opposition and the forsaken Gentiles heard the gladsome sounds of peace and tho' there were too many enemies to their own good yet those laborious messengers of Heaven preached with that power and efficacy that men began every where to call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ Nay the more men of perverse minds cross'd the designs of that Gospel preach'd in the name of the Son of God the more those who believed in him were multiplied As for himself when he had finished that stupendous work and by his own Death had conquered Hell and Death He broke those fatal chains and rose again no more lyable to humane rage His Almighty Father who had viewed all the prodigious efforts of his Love to mankind with an ineffable complacency reach'd out his holy arm to receive that very humane Nature in which his beloved Son had done and suffered so much from him the chearful clouds were sent for a Chariot and he went upwards flying upon the wings of the wind while jâ—cund Angels those ministerial flames waited on his triumphs and taught his wondring followers what they were afterwards to expect from their Redeemer These are those mighty mysteries on which our most holy faith is built their truth however unintelligible to us is our security and the sincerity of our faith will necessarily show it self in an holy conversation and godliness The Verse I have explain'd then imports That without Controversie the Mystery of Godliness is great or in more words That the Basis or foundation of that Religion introduced into the World by the Doctrine of Christ's Gospel is indisputably and agreeably to the nature of Religion to Humane reason extremely profound and unintelligible To prove this we shall enquire Into the Vniversal agreement of all persons of what Religion soever That Mysteries are essential to Religion Whether our Saviour intended the entire abolition of all other Religions for the settlement of his own or rather to unite what was good in every distinct Religion into one and to sublime or perfect that so as it might tend most to God's glory and Man's happiness and whether that could be effected Men standing in their present corrupt state without the retaining of old or instituting of new Mysteries in his Religion What considerable advantages can accrue to Religion from those Mysteries it 's founded upon Then we must enquire into that Vniversal agreement of all persons whatsoever that Mysteries or some principles or circumstances of a more secret and abstruse nature are essential to all Religion But here to prevent all mistakes it must be remember'd That so much as concerns the practical part of Religion as contain'd in the Word of God is so clear and evident that the words of St. Paul are justly apply'd to them If they be hid they are hid to those that are lost whose eyes the God of this World hath blinded that the light of the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ should not shine upon them 2 Cor. 4.3 4. The words whereby all things necessary to be done toward the attainment of eternal life are exprest are such and so plain that the simplest Christian may understand them And that person who goes about to involve the practical duty of a Christian whether in respect of his communication with God or man in obscure and mysterious terms crosses the end of the Gospel which is to instruct the weakest understanding in an easie and intelligible way how to live godly righteously and soberly in this present evil world yet it must be acknowledged that even in relation to practice there are some apparent difficulties and notwithstanding all that plainness apparent in God's word a Man has a very hard task sometimes to distinguish between what 's lawful and what 's unlawful such cases are commonly known by the name of Cases of Conscience or such matters wherein so many arguments seemingly strong and plausible appear on both sides to the understanding that it knows not which way to act and all that hesitancy or doubtfulness arises onely from a fear of offending God These generally respecting Christian practice create a great deal of trouble frequently to very good Men for others are seldom troubled with such religious fears and these are sometimes by various and unusual circumstances rendred so very intricate that the wisest and most discerning Men are often at a loss to clear and resolve them to the Querent's satisfaction Here the Jews were order'd to have recourse to their Priests whose lips were suppos'd to preserve knowledge and the Priests when there was any thing of a more inextricable nature had the Vrim and Thummim to appeal to The Heathens had some emergent doubts as to matter of publick management of themselves which sometimes perplex'd them too and they had their imaginary wise Men the Priests attending their desecrated altars who would assume as if they had the art of resolving doubts those who profess Christianity have still a severer task in these matters as having no Oracle immediately to consult and having doubts more numerous and
by the commands of God i.e. by Worshipping him according to his prescriptions and we cannot come to know the commands of God but by Prophecy or Revelation Or we may rest in the Apostles definition that true Religion is the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness in hopes of eternal life Tit. 1.1 2. But if we respect Religion in general as taken up by all Nations we may describe it as The method of worshipping God by all men suitably to those notions they had of him and of their own duties As for the Jewish Nation they were once the sole professors of true Religion and for the hardness of their hearts were loaded with abundance of Ceremonial institutions but yet in the law of Moses and in the Prophets we find sincere and hearty obedience to the moral Law very much urged and insisted upon as the best evidence of true and unfeigned piety and where God expostulates sharply with his people for their rebellion and disobedience He tells them plainly Ps 50.8 9 13 16 17 23. I will not reprove thee for thy Sacrifices or thy burnt offerings to have been continually before me I will take no bullock out of thy house nor he-goat out of thy fold Will I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats No these things God could pardon But unto the wicked God says what hast thou to do to declare my statutes or that thou shouldest take my covenant into thy mouth the reason of the expostulation follows thou hatest instruction and castest my words behind thee by which words the great folly of those is exprest who pretend themselves the servants of God and instruments of his glory and yet live disagreeably to their profession wherefore it 's added Who so offereth praise glorifieth me and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God Thus again God by the Prophet Samuel argues with Saul 1 Sam. 15.22 Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord Behold to obey is better than sacrifice and to hearken than the fat of rams So the Prophet Isaiah Isa 1.11 13 16 17 18. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me I delight not in the blood of bullocks or of lambs or of he-goats Bring no more vain oblations incense is an abomination to me it follows wash ye make ye clean put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes cease to do evil learn to do well seek judgment relieve the oppressed judge the fatherless plead for the widows Well what should be the effect of all this reformation as much as a wretched sinner could hope for from the most benign Being Come now and let us reason together saith the Lord tho' your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow tho' they be red like crimson they shall be as wool So the Prophet Micah Micah 6.6 7 8. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow my self before the high God Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings with calves of a year old will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or ten thousands of rivers of oyl shall I give my first-born for my transgression or the fruit of my Body for the sin of my soul No God requires not these things at our hands but He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God Nay Solomon himself who was so personally profuse in his offerings that a man would have suspected he had fixt the whole substance of Religion in such exterior services when he comes to draw up what was incumbent upon Man in a few words passes sacrificing by as inconsiderable in respect of this sincere obedience Eccl. 12.13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter Fear God and keep his Commandments for this is the whole duty of man Thus far the writings of the Old Testament receiv'd by the ancient Jews shew us the ends of Religion viz. That where it really had a place it necessarily produc'd purity and sincerity of mind without which no sacrifice tho' never so costly could be accepted with God David teaches us the lesson plainly Ps 51.6 7 10 19. Behold thou desirest truth in the inward parts and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom purge me with hysop and I shall be clean wash me and I shall be whiter than snow Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me and much more to the same purpose then he concludes all Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness with burnt offering and whole burnt-offering then shall they offer bullocks upon thine Altar But since the Jews are for the most part hardned against their own greatest interest and so may be thought to have now changed their minds being known for such bigotted ceremonialists I shall add the confessions of one or two modern Jews So Rabbi Isaac Sangar in the book Cosri before cited Cosri pars 3. p. 157. for thus he tells the King he converses with A holy and pious man is not the rigid man for every ceremonial punctilio but he who where he dwells with a prudent and impartial hand gives every one their right who loves justice oppresses none defrauds none nor bribes any to be his slaves or tools upon occasion Again Because the eyes of the Lord run to and fro through the whole earth therefore the holy man neither does nor speaks nor thinks any thing but he believes the all-seeing eye of God to be upon him ready not only to reward for what 's well but for what 's ill done too and to visit for every perverse and wicked word or action p. 168. c. To him I shall add Rabbi Moises ben Maimon who in his More Nevochim More Nevoehim pars 3. c. 28. p. 419. or explainer of difficulties teaches us that every precept of God whether it be affirmative or negative aims at these things first that it may take away all violence from among men and beget good manners necessary for the conservation of political Societies and secondly that it may instil true principles of faith such as are in their own nature necessary to be known for the expelling of wickedness and encouraging honesty and virtue Now if these sober and necessary virtues which are of no value if not sincere be the ultimate intention of all God's Laws it follows that those virtues are more accounted of with God which are inward and affect the Soul than all outward performances how pompous soever as much as the end of a thing is more excellent than the means conducing to it The Son of Sirach agrees admirably with this truth He that sacrificeth of a thing wrongfully gotten Eccl. 34.18 19.
l. 10. p. 360. when making gaudy offerings to them No let but the hand free from guilt be lifted up to the Altars of the Gods not the most rich or costly hecatombs shall sooner reconcile the angry Deities than those I shall add no more to shew that sense the Pagans had of the ends of religion but onely make a short reflection upon God's justice in dealing with Mankind as set down by St. Paul He tells us God will render to every man according to his deeds Rom. 2.6 c. to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality eternal life but to them that are contentious and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish to every soul of man that doth evil to the Jew first and also to the Gentile Now that the Jews and Gentiles who stood upon no equal ground yet should suffer equally in case of disobedience seems to some very harsh but if again it be considered that that God who gave the Jewish Nation such great advantages required of them proportionably great returns whilst the Gentiles who had been partakers of less light were onely required to walk in that light they had to come up as near to a perfection in faith and virtue as that would admit of This consider'd the Gentiles were every whit as guilty in neglecting their duties which were lighter and fewer as the Jews in neglecting theirs which were more numerous and difficult since the disobedience to the Divine commands is as notorious in one case as in the other and this reflection reaches farther and teaches those who are more weak and ignorant not to presume too much upon God's mercy because they know so little since it 's as reasonable they should perform that little they know as that we who know more should do our duties and their negligence and proportionable unfruitfulness in good and ours proceed from one and the same damnably offensive principle for as the Apostle urges it v. 12. as many as have sinn'd without Law shall perish without Law and as many as have sinn'd in the Law shall be judg'd by the Law This every Man must acknowledge to be the greatest equity in the World the faith and works of the Jews and so of Christians shall be canvas'd and examin'd by those rules of faith and practice extraordinarily imparted to them the Gentiles had no such Law but the light of Nature was their guide therefore their works shall be tried by that and by no other light now a defect in obedience to the innate light of nature is as much a contempt of God and so as criminal as a defect in obedience to the written Law of God and consequently as justly punish'd now how far this natural light extends as these passages I have quoted from Heathen Writers considerably evidence so the Apostle tells us That the Gentiles which have not the Law i. e. the same Law that was given to the Jews v. 14. do by nature the things contain'd in the Law they not having the Law are a Law unto themselves This proves that truth that God's written Law is not a disannulling but a confirming and enlarging upon the Law of Nature in the manner of a Commentary upon an intricate Text to illustrate and explain it well then The Gentiles shew this natural Law written in their hearts by the witness of their consciences and their thoughts in the mean time accusing or excusing one another v. 15. for having as I shew'd before clear apprehensions of the Being of a God and having made very considerable discoveries of his nature so far as legible in the works of the Creation they cannot upon a serious debate with themselves and weighing their own actions by their own notions and rules but have an infallible certainty of the rectitude or pravity of their actions and this is as much as a Jew or Christian can do by his publick Laws and an exact scanning of them Now if my Conscience can certainly inform me of things essentially and eternally so whether they be good or bad the same Conscience will give me as infallible a certainty that God is and must be just when he rewards me according to my actions whether they be good or evil he calls me to account for what I do know not for what I do not know and punishes me for transgressions within the reach of my understanding to have avoided and not for those that were unintelligible without a positive revelation and this even corrupted Reason will own is agreeable to the strictest rules of equity and justice We are to enquire since we have seen what Jews and Gentiles before our Saviour's birth into the World understood concerning the nature and ends of Religion which every one for himself supposed to be true since none can be thought mad enough to trouble himself about that religion he certainly knew to be false We are to enquire how far both Jews and Gentiles had deprav'd and perverted those ends and what care they took to manage themselves according to that knowledge they really had when our Saviour appear'd in the flesh And here again we may begin with the Jews among whom if we find an extraordinary degeneracy we can the less wonder at it among the Gentiles If then we examine the state of things among them we have it thus It was once among them Do this and live i. e. Live here on Earth in a strict obedience to those things commanded you in the Law and you shall be rewarded with an happy future life Now when the terrors and glories of Mount Sinai were fresh in memory and Parents according as they were order'd took care to inculcate God's power justice and goodness particularly exerted toward the People of Israel into their Children and gave agreeable examples in themselves obedience was the common study and peace here and a glorious expectation hereafter the common consequence But when a new generation arose who had not seen God's wonderful dealings with his people and the too prevailing examples of neighbouring Idolaters taught the Israelites a wicked ingratitude the Law of God was slighted and as it is among us at this day the Man who could defie Heaven with the greatest audacity was the most set by And though frequent judgments over-took their Impieties there was no thorough purgation made among them but they went on to add sin to sin so that among the Scribes and Pharisees the great Zealots of the Law at the time of Christ's coming in the flesh things were at that pass that the blessed Jesus had reason when he told his Auditors that Except their righteousness should exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees Matth. 5.20 they should in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven If therefore the very best among the Jews as they were generally esteem'd were utterly uncapable of eternal happiness what may
at a full and plain satisfaction in these matters And here we are to call to mind our second Position relating to Humane Reason which teaches us that by the Fall humane reason is exceedingly impair'd and very much incapacitated for those great ends for which it was first bestow'd on Man and it 's plain that though our Saviour has appear'd though he has brought us the glad tydings of life and salvation in and by himself tho' he has taken the kindest care imaginable for the propagation of this Gospel we are still by birth the same naturally miserable and misunderstanding Creatures that we were before and therefore we are in some sence actually regenerate or born again in Baptism being in it born members of the Christian Church and so having a right to all Christian priviledges and it being a Symbol or sign of our new birth or resurrection from dead works to serve the living God yet after our Baptism our intellectuals are still the same poor weak and miserably foolish and hence it comes that Catechetical instructions in the principles of Christian Religion and frequent Sermons or exhortations to true piety and sincere goodness or dehortations from Sin and explications of hard and difficult expressions or doctrines in Scripture and vindications of divine truths from the assaults of Hereticks Schismaticks or Infidels and the refutation of those errors endeavour'd by such to be impress'd on the minds of Men all these things are absolutely necessary for advancing our knowledge in Divine Matters for keeping us from the paths of error and for teaching and shewing us how to live godly righteously and soberly in this present evil world And the more improvements we make according to these means of grace which we enjoy the more powerful assistances and encouragements we meet with from Heaven in our work as was before observ'd in our fourth Position concerning humane reason Yet after all we remain but on the positive side of those great truths laid down in Scripture we believe them firmly and stedfastly because we have an irrefragable and infallible testimony of their truth the veil that was upon the hearts of men is indeed taken away the types shadows and ancient Prophecies relating to the Messias are all made good in his appearance upon earth the way to life is made clear and according to right reason very easie and agreeable to those who endeavour to walk in it and Man so endeavouring is reconciled to God by the blood of his dear Son Jesus Christ and there is a nearer and more close Communion between God and man than heretofore all these things and the infinite love of God in them are now so plainly decipher'd that he who runs may read them But for the rational part of these things or what means an Almighty God could make use of to effect things so stupendous how that dismal distance between a pure Divinity and corrupt Mortality should be made up how God himself should stoop to man when man notwithstanding all his inordinate ambition could never rise to God how that strict communication between God and Man should be maintain'd c. All these things are such mysteries that its impossible for even Angelical Intellectuals to comprehend them fully since common reason will give us this maxim that Nothing but an infinite being can perfectly understand all the operations of an infinite being Therefore we have the Communion between God and Man still shadowed out to us in the Symbols of Bread and Wine consecrated into a clear representation of the body and blood of our Saviour to us in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper Nor can we believe whatsoever Grotius In tract An. semper sit communicand per Symbola a man of more learning than orthodoxy would perswade us to that we while we have the means and opportunities of communicating with one another and holding a close communion with God by participating of those Symbols which our Lord himself instituted to that very end and purpose can possibly communicate as well without them or that we may make at any time the Bread and Wine a Nehustan a sign of no account or value at all because perhaps it may have been abused to ill purposes by a factious or an Idolatrous Crew but not to insist upon that Tho' it be with S. Chrysostome and many other Antients 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a dreadful and tremendous Mystery and will be always so accounted by the most understanding and humble Christians there 's not an article of our Faith not one of the principal heads of the Apostles Creed which we so often repeat but it s a body of Mysteries Mysteries after all the pains of the most learned and pious men unintelligible otherwise than as to their positive truth by all mankind and more particularly those clauses concerning our blessed Saviour are so true so essential to our eternal salvation and yet so far above our reach that while we meditate on them seriously our Souls have nothing but miracles of power wisdom mercy and love in view but being known for such they all hold their miraculous nature still and can never be fully decipher'd either by Men or Angels and that we should yet be obliged stedfastly to believe these things though we cannot comprehend them will appear no way unreasonable if we consider these things belonging to the 3d. Inquiry which is What considerable advantages can accrue to Religion from those Mysteries it 's founded upon we consider in pursuit of this Query That by a due reflection upon the nature of such Mysteries as are really necessary and consequently of very great weight and importance men are brought to a due acknowledgment of the deficiency of their own reason they learn how weak and shallow all the utmost flights of wit and reason are when they come once to stand in competition with the results of infinite wisdom and unlimited understanding Men of the most presuming abilities find it very hard to unriddle ancient parables and to give a clear and evident explication of aenigmatical writings and figurative sentences and expressions the youthful Philistines Men without doubt of very brisk parts in their own esteem as we may conclude by their ready acceptance of Sampson's proposition faltred pitifully when they set their wits on work to expound his riddle and the Pharisaical Allumbradoes those men of light who like the modern Chineses concluded almost all the World blind except themselves when our Saviour put that Dilemma to them concerning John's Baptism viz. Whether it were from Heaven or of Men it confounded them so as all their mighty wisdom could never dis-intangle them if these things were difficult the fundamental Mysteries of Religion are much more so Men have attempted several ways to solve the appearances of Nature and some have made such ingenious researches after them and have laid down Hypotheses so very rational for the solution of difficulties in them that they have got themselves the applauding
vogue of the World and their Dictates have been valued by learned Men as the great standards of Philosophic reason Nay the acquists of some in these matters have puft them up with that ridiculous vanity and pride that they have dared to trample upon all Religion nay upon the Deity it self imagining themselves able to demonstrate how the World and all the parts of it might be constituted regulated and continued without any concurrence of a Divine and unbounded Providence but when these same mighty pretenders to wit and sense have come to look into the shallow Mystick rites of ancient Heathens they have but fool'd and disgraced themselves but when such fall upon the foundations of Christianity they prove like that Stone our Saviour speaks of which whosoever shall fall on shall be broken Matth. 21.44 but on whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him to powder they onely show themselves egregious fools and endeavour to ridicule every thing which they find themselves unable to understand Thus Lucian or some of his Contemporaries in his Philopatris a Dialogue of that name makes it his business to scoff at several things reveal'd in Scripture and at several of the Mysteries of Christianity though neither he nor his followers not Celsus nor Porphyry nor Libanius nor Julian himself nor any other of that witty scoffing tribe were ever able to confute the Writings of the Prophets or the Apostles or to baffle their Christian Antagonists by any serious argument In the forenam'd Dialogue Critias offering to swear to Triepho or to give him an oath for his security from any danger having named several of their Heathen Gods Triepho derides them all with reason enough Critias at last breaks out thus By whom then shall I swear that I may be believ'd The other answers Thou shalt swear by that God who rules above Philopatris Oper. Luciani T. 2. p. 770. the great the immortal the Heavenly God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Son of the Father the Spirit proceeding from the Father one of three and three of one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Reckon of these as of Jupiter esteem these God after this the same Buffoon proceeds to scoff at that great Apostle of the Gentiles St. Paul calling him that bald high-nos'd Galilaean who mounted upon the air into the third Heaven and there learnt wonderful matters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He regenerated or renewed us by water and gently guided us into the foot-steps of the blessed and redeem'd us out of the regions of the wicked and again he burlesques the original of all things where he tells his Companion that there was light incorruptible invisible incomprehensible which put an end to darkness and disorder 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 onely with speaking one word as that slow-tongu'd Man meaning Moses has written and more to the same purpose and of the same scurrilous stamp and this is the wit of Atheistical heads who think it 's enough to expose a Doctrine they understand not or cannot edifie by as some would express it meerly to name it and no more where as the true Sons of Religion though they are far enough from pretending to fathom the great objects of faith cannot yet but derive ineffable consolations from the positive truth of those Mysteries contain'd in Holy Writ but this overweening of their own extraordinary wit made many persons of excellent natural abilities of well exercised reason and inimitable diligence in the first ages of the Gospel stumble so foully at the Doctrine of a crucified Saviour for as a just punishment for that foolish pride and self conceit God destroy'd the wisdom of the wise 1 Cor. 1.19 and brought to nothing the understanding of the prudent so the Stoic and Epicuraean Philosophers were mightily puzled with those new Gods as they were pleas'd to call them Acts 17.18 viz. Jesus and the resurrection as if because they could not understand what the meaning of a resurrection was therefore the Apostles who preach'd it up must needs either make a God or a Goddess of it Thus the same doctrine of the resurrection and that of Christ's being the Son of God and several other mystick truths were cast in the teeth of suffering Christians as if they could be no better than mad men who would undergo so many hardships for assertions so very unintelligible as that they could deserve nothing less than derision and it was often urged as an evidence of a bad cause that it had so many strange and incomprehensible postulates attending on it The same is the plea of the Atheistical what if I should add of the Heretical wits of our age who labour hard to expose whatsoever they meet with beyond the reach of their debauch'd understandings and would therefore have all sound Religion banish'd out of the Commonwealth because forsooth they cannot comprehend How God should become Man should be born of a pure Virgin should converse with men should dye for their sins rise again for their justification and ascend up into glory with that humane body he had assumed unto himself from whence before the Worlds dissolution he should certainly come to be the Supreme determining Judge of all both Men and actions upon which Faith the whole Christian Oeconomy is built and without the certain truth of all which Christianity would be the most absurd and unreasonable religion in the World Thus Hereticks thus Atheists discourse as if it were indeed impossible there should exist a God of greater wisdom and power than themselves or however that he must dispose of all things just agreeably to their Capacities on pain of being dethroned for a default when yet every day they see men like themselves born into the World but can give no possible account of the reason of their acquiring such and such particular shapes or features in the World they see a man born naked into the World but cannot tell us why they are not all cover'd with hair or scaly armour like Beasts or with scales and fins as Fishes or with feathers as Birds they see and know they have naturally but two feet but cannot tell why they should not be born without any as Worms or Fishes or why they should not have four as the greater number of Beasts or why not greater numbers as most insects they see Man a Creature of a noble and Majestick frame endued with a discursive faculty ready to descant upon every visible object yet cannot tell why nature should have given man but two eyes wherewith to survey so vast and unaccountable a variety when at the same time she has studded the head of a contemptible Fly with several thousands they find themselves able to call to mind a mighty number of particulars seen heard read talkt of but cannot inform themselves certainly where the numerous Idaeas of sensible things past should be lodged when at the same time the mind is crouded with a World of present objects and roving too after the
For those rites continued will move the world to belive that the Messias is not yet come that the Faith so long profest in him as if he were come is vain that He who once pretended to that name only impos'd upon the world and was no better than a cheat and that therefore the Jewish Religion is and ought to be still in its full force Now this will appear very absurd and unreasonable to any one who has seriously weighed all those arguments brought to prove that Jesus Christ was the Son of the living God and therefore could be no Impostor and therefore must be that Messias he declar'd himself to be which being true it will follow that our Saviours coming must of necessity put an end to so much of the Jewish Law as was not co-incident with that of Nature and consequently not perpetually obliging That many of the Jews themselves ever look'd upon their Law as of a mutable nature in it self is proved sufficiently by Raymundus Martini in his Pugio fidei against the Jews and that it could never be more properly actually chang'd than by the Messias appears in him who proves from Jewish writers themselves that the Messias the King shall be greater than Moses nay greater than the ministring Angels and therefore the fittest for such a work and as he shews their own gloss in the Midrasch Koheleth upon that of Solomon Eccles 11.8 Pugionis fidei p. 3. dist 3. c. 20 tells us That every Law of all people whatsoever every Law that a man can learn in this world is all but vanity in comparison of the Law of the Messias Things of a less perfect and lasting nature must then vanish when that appears which is more perfect and eternal Whatsoever therefore crosses that end for which God sent his Son into the world and retains mysteries now altogether insignificant as being fully accomplished that cannot be pleasing to God and consequently the present Religion of the Jews cannot be the true Religion There are indeed some mysterious truths in which all Religions agree viz. The existence of a God his spirituality invisibility incomprehensibility c. they all agree That his Providence governs all things in the world however trifling and inconsiderable they may appear in the eyes of the world that He hears sees knows understands every thing tho' they know not how according to the objection of Atheists to reconcile such things to his want of eyes ears soul or any other parts which are all inconsistent with a spiritual being All agree together in granting the present state of Man very wretched and deplorable in looking upon him yet as capable of happiness provided a sutable mean for its procurement could be found out and in expectation of some proper help for that purpose These things being agreeable to the general sence of mankind and being the original reasons of mens putting themselves into a religious course must still be approved by every one and every one of these that Religion setled in the world by our Saviour and his Apostles does advance yet more plainly and confirm more strongly to the world And whatsoever mysterious truths it farther propounds they are all so far intelligible by every one as may serve sufficiently to confirm those first principles whatsoever is farther to be seen in them is what moves mankind to lay aside all brutish malicious and unmanly humour as the meditation upon that extraordinary love of God to mankind of God the Father in sending his only Son into the world to dy for it of God the Son in leaving the bosom of his blessed Father and in our nature and for our sake suffering that bitter and scandalous death upon the Cross of God the Holy Ghost in pursuing us continually with his influences and assistances and so working in us to will and to do according to God's good pleasure this meditation naturally runs into that Apostolical conclusion Joh. 4.11 if God thus loved us then ought we also to love one another If we contemplate our own monstrous demerits our aversion to every thing that is good our inclination to every thing that is evil and so offensive to God our ingratitude for mercies receiv'd our unfruitfulness under the means of grace and Salvation presented to us our natural enmity to God and goodness And if withal we seriously consider that all those forementioned favours are conferr'd on us in a state of obstinate enmity the inference is easie as our Lord has laid it down Matth. 5.44 That we should love our enemies bless them that curse us do good to them that hate us and pray for them that despitefully use us and persecute us If again we think on that wonderful mercy of God whereby for the merits of the blessed Jesus he 's pleased to forgive us our sins those natural bars between us and heaven the consequence we must of course draw from thence is that of the Apostle That we should be kind Eph. 4.32 tender hearted forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven us Thus we see what excellent influence these very truths the nature and reasons of which are above the reach of our groveling minds may have upon us If we proceed and reflect upon the purity and holiness of that God with whom we have to do that he 's a Being who cannot endure sin who punishes it for its odious nature even in his dearest children all those mysteries reveal'd to us in the Gospel are so far by any fair consequence from perverting our minds that they give us all the motives imaginable 1 Pet. 1.15 that as he who has called us is holy so should we be holy in all manner of conversation A man may be a good heathen and yet a filthy Sodomite a through-pac'd Jew and yet be blind hard-hearted carnal but a man cannot be a true Christian but he 'l endeavour to avoid all appearance of evil Jude 2â— and to keep himself unspotted from the world he 'l live in a continual abhorrence of whatsoever may prejudice his soul or pollute his body and knowing that he is not his own James â—â— but that he 's bought with a price he 'l follow that advice he 'l endeavour to glorifie God in his body and in his spirit which are gods 1 Cor. 6. â—â— and to go no farther than what I had instanced in before a man that meditates on that account the Apostles and Evangelists have given us of the appearance of the Son of God in the flesh and on the ends and designs of such his appearance he 'l never spend his time idly about types and shadows when he is invited to embrace the substance he 'l study to conform himself to the Doctrine of the Gospel to be so far as belongs to a meer man a perfect imitator of all those excellent virtues so apparent in our Saviour during his converse with the world he 'l carefully avoid all
too great to them But what should I talk of Princes when even those arts every day made use of have some darker parts on which reason we see some Men infinitely curious in comparison with others and that every Art has its every days improvements and to make them the more valued their first Inventers are very careful not to prostitute what has cost them a great deal of pains and study to every one that would be prying into their methods and discoveries Hence Ocellus Lucanus an old Astrologer adjures his Readers by every thing he thought mysterious in his Art to keep what he imparted to them among their most religious secrets and not communicate them to profane or illiterate persons and that they should repay their kind Instructor with that reverence he deserved Such solemn engagements Orpheus and other ancient Heathens required of those who were initiated in their mystical Theology For the religious among the Gentiles were throughly convinc'd of this that the more unintelligible the meaning of their religious rites was the greater restraint they laid on vulgar and untutour'd Souls and made them the more resolute in their superstitions Hence one concludes That those things which are easily understood are generally despis'd by the vulgar so that to make such plain things have any due effect on inferiour Souls they must be attended by somewhat of a prodigious nature Tho' the Writers from whom I alledge these things were but Heathens yet they discours'd rationally and but with too much truth For every one has seen the proof of what they assert notoriously made good It has been charged on our English Church as an unpardonable crime as a robbing Souls of that food design'd by God himself for their entertainment that they have omitted Solomon's Song a great part of Ezekiel's prophecy and the Book of the Revelation in the Lessons of their daily service It 's true they have done so the Jews did more for notwithstanding their great diligence in reading Scripture they thought it fit not to allow the reading Solomon's Song or Ecclesiastes or a good part of Ezekiel's or Daniel's Visions till they were more than thirty years of age concluding those mysterious Writings to be far above common understandings and we do not find Mens wits now adays so infinitely out-strip those of their Predecessors that every illiterate mechanick or ordinary auditor can understand them Those who complain of not having those Books read in our Service should never complain of the obscurity of rational and coherent discourses nor pretend to be most edified by the plainest things If we must judge of Peoples edifying in attendance upon Divine ordinances by their lifted Hands and Eyes by their loud sighs and seemingly passionate groans I have known them frequent in a numerous Congregation where falshood blasphemy and unintelligible non-sence has taken up the greatest part of the Preacher's discourse and I have observed the same in the wild extempore effusions of some eminent Dissenters This plainly shews that there are too many who understand not what is meant by plain preaching they call noise and earnestness a furious action and a tone sometimes melting and whining sometimes sobbing and roaring by that name which is all so far from deserving it that nothing can possibly be more offensive to Almighty God nor more destructive to the precious and immortal Soul Plain preaching consists in truth laid down in proper and significant terms urged by pertinent and solid arguments and defended by well connected reason drawn chiefly from that great Fountain of light and truth the written Word of God it teaches men who attend it with due diligence and humility a great many of those things they were utterly unacquainted with before it lays down before them the whole counsel of God which has respect to their eternal Salvation it explains God's Word where it seems obscure shews the connexion of Divine truths with one another throughout that sacred Book and not only warns men of encroaching Errors but solidly confutes them The plain Preacher supposes Christians are not always to continue in an Infant state always to stand in need of inculcating the first Elements of Religion He supposes mens younger years should be throughly season'd with those Principles that a greater age should have proportionable improvements for he 's infallibly assured that those who are always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth are neither better nor worse than vessels of wrath fitted for destruction He believes every Ambassador of Christ has reason to expect from professors of a mature age what that Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews expected from them That leaving the Principles of the Doctrine of Christ they should go on unto perfection not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works Hebr. 6.1 2 and of faith towards God of the Doctrine of Baptism and of laying on of hands and of the resurrection of the dead and of eternal Judgment It seems then the inspired Writer thought the preaching of faith and repentance to be so far from being the sole duty of a Preacher that he thought it unreasonable and highly reprovable that the Preacher should have any occasion to inculcate them at all to truly edifying Christians It was neither credit nor advantage to the Hebrews that they were dull of hearing Hebr. 5.11 12 13. that they were unskilful in the word of righteousness that whereas they ought to have been teachers for their time they had need to be taught again themselves Nor can the same dulness ever be commendable in others Yet every age has been unhappily furnish'd with such pretenders to Religion who talk much of it but never grow the better or the wiser for it Such our Saviour met with and such his Apostles especially that great Apostle of the Gentiles St. Paul who were full of their complaints of hard sayings such as none could bear and on that reason were always ready to follow false teachers and false Apostles The vulgar thought them much more edifying than either the Son of God himself or those whom he had peculiarly sent and fitted for the promoting of mens salvation and so they would always have thought had not they in pity to prevailing Ignorance and that it might be inexcusable done so many authentick and undeniable miracles to prove their own Divine Commission which once proved a more serious regard to what they preach'd would be acknowledged necessary and even dark parables and profound speculations about the deepest points in Divinity would appear very comfortable and instructive Our Saviour speaking in parables to the Jews reflected severely upon them in his reason for so doing I do so says He because they seeing see not Matth. 13.13 14 15. and hearing they hear not neither do they understand and in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaias which saith By hearing ye shall hear and shall not understand and seeing ye shall see and shall not
taken away but strongly confirm'd the necessity of obedience to God's Laws whether written or natural which was as we have before observ'd the general intent of Religion and agreeable to those notions the World commonly had of it Since for the better carrying on this end Mysteries are so very advantageous to religion as to make Men have reverend apprehensions of it upon account of its incomparable Excellencies in its causes and effects and upon account of the weakness and shallowness of their own understandings since all these particulars are true it 's likewise absolutely necessary that the Christian the onely true Holy pure Religion should be built upon such a foundation as might appear to all Men upon the strictest inquiry beyond all doubt or controversie Mysterious inexplicable incomprehensible Nor could it be an impertinent labour to clear this truth because it totally ruines all the pretences of the Socinians that after the Revelation once made of the great fundamentals of our Faith there could remain nothing of so obscure a nature but that we by the pure strength of our own reason might be able to comprehend it In short that though it be true that Scripture as sufficient for that purpose is and ought to be the sole rule of Faith yet reason ought to be the rule of Scripture Reason as it now stands loaded with all the miserable consequences of sin reason so blind as without the extraordinary light of holy Scriptures to be wholly unable to lead a Man to Eternal life it obviates their assertions that the true ancient Catholick Interpretation of this and other Texts of Scripture that speak of the eternal Divine nature of the Son of God or of that glorious Trinity subsisting in the Father Son and Holy Ghost is false and unreasonable meerly because it introduces an unintelligible incarnation and unity of the Divine and Humane nature in Christ a Mysterious co-essentiality of God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost c. notwithstanding all those glorious revelations God has made of himself in Scripture For if it be certainly true that Religion in it's general notion cannot subsist unless built upon a mystick foundation and that therefore Christian Religion in particular cannot subsist without it then it will follow that the continuing Mystick nature of the great Articles of our Faith can create no prejudice in any person whatsoever against our Religion on their account since especially it will remain impossible to draw any genuine consequences from those mysteries but what will be so far from impeaching that they will strongly confirm and re-inforce all those duties relating to God or man which are laid upon us by the natural or written Law and it will follow farther that the Socinians themselves by their endeavours to level all the Articles of our Faith the great saving principles of the Gospel to impair'd reason or by endeavouring to leave Christiany naked of all Mysteries do what in them lies to disannul all the Religion of Christians to take away all the use and advantage of the Gospel leaving the world so involv'd in Atheism or in meer Deism at this time very little to be preferr'd before the other Having done now with the positive assertion our next work is with all exactness and humility to consider the illustration of this Proposition in the severals laid down by the Apostle which altogether afford us the whole sum and substance of the Gospel for all that glad tydings sent from Heaven to Earth for the comfort of mankind consists in this That for their sakes to procure their Salvation God was manifest in the flesh justified in the spirit seen of Angels preach'd unto the Gentiles believ'd on in the world receiv'd up into glory all which particulars tho' the full prosecution of the first be all our present task are incomprehensible mysteries yet as well worth our enquiring into as the Apostles writing them who without doubt would never have laid the weight of piety or godliness or true Religion upon those grounds had they not been worth our looking into or their truth worth our vindicating from all the attacks of prejudiced opinionative or haeretical men It 's true a late author tells us Naked Gospel p 34. c. 1. l. 20. That to dispute concerning a Mystery and at the same time to confess it a mystery is a contradiction as great as any in the greatest mystery the expression is worth our remark for the boldness and absurdity it contains It 's bold not to say impious to insinuate so broadly in a discourse where Christianity's concern'd that all great Mysteries are made up of or at least contain contradictions what have we then nothing at all Mysterious in Scripture what 's that love between the blessed Jesus and his Spouse the Church so admirably character'd in the book of Canticles can our Author find nothing Mysterious in all those adumbrations of ineffable love or can he easily give us a Catalogue of the Contradictions there the real Contradictions I mean for things that are of no mysterious nature at all on any other account may seem to contain somewhat contradictory but seeming contradictions are not real Can he fathom every thing relating to Daniel's weeks Men of a great deal of learning industry and sobriety have taken a great deal of pains to explain the mystery of them and have scarce yet given the world satisfaction were not the Vision mysterious it would be more easily clear'd but because it is not must it therefore be contradictious to it self or to make a yet closer instance the nature of a God can He or any Socinian make it comprehensible to humane understandings or else will the very notion of a God imply a contradiction He must be a very new fangled Son of the Church of England who will assert that but why must it imply a contradiction to dispute or discourse about or to enquire into a confest mystery That God was manifest in the flesh is true we believe that every circumstance relating to his Incarnation as laid down in Scripture is true according to the genuine and common interpretation of such words whereby these circumstances are express'd we believe too That as they are true we may dispute about them and clear them from all that Sophistry whereby some subtle men would fain baffle us out of them is no uncouth or irrational opinion yet after all we take the whole account of this Incarnation as laid down in Scripture to be a very great mystery But where lyes the Contradiction either in believing it a mystery or in defending it as such This truth that God was manifest in the flesh is as before intimated that upon the literal truth of which the whole Salvation of mankind depends How he should have been so is to all mankind mysterious and incomprehensible yet may we without any contradiction explain defend prove and draw inferences from it Hear what a Bishop of our own a genuine
reputation but with as little success And indeed it was almost inconceiveable that a company of mean men looked upon generally with an evil eye should resolve to publish a parcel of notorious falsehoods which every man upon his own knowledge could have confuted and thereby have exposed themselves to the just fury of a deluded multitude it was inconceivable that so many in their writings and preachings could at such different times and such distant places agree together to put a sham upon mankind and to do it so coherently in it self and so agreeably to one another as it was apparent these men did Now in writing a History of immediate transactions there can be nothing fairer in the world than for men who are eye and ear witnesses of the things in question to compile the story and to publish it in their times who knew the same things whether they were true or false as certainly as themselves and an History so written that passes through such an age without reproof may justly pass for authentick nor can any meer humane testimony attain a greater certainty And where the subject of such a History is Divine where many things are declared beyond the reach of humane capacities where they are yet laid down so exactly agreeable to those things obvious to humane understandings and where there appears nothing disagreeable to the common expectances of the world nor to those best and fairest Idea's we have of the Divine Nature there the History grows it self divine and proves it self dictated by a Being superiour to all terrene defects such a History is the History of the Gospel and such an appeal to humane sence and knowledge and carryes such demonstrations of inspiration with it where we find God himself declaring by a voice from Heaven the nature of which the Jews from their ancient records must necessarily apprehend at the Baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist Luke 3.22 This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased which voice as being design'd for the Introducing of our Saviour into the world was audible not only to John the Baptist but to others and when it was repeated at the transfiguration Matth. 17.5 it was audible to all those who accompanied him and John the Baptist himself of whose Commission the Jews seem'd very well satisfied declares John 1.33 34. He that sent me to baptize with water the same said unto me Vpon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost and I saw and bare record that this is that Son of God Now tho' the stubborn Jews seem not to have depended at all upon these declarations nor to have been by them convinced of the truth of what was asserted in them yet their acknowledging John the Baptist to have been a Prophet and their never denying the truth of these accounts as here set down are indeed very considerable proofs of their truth especially since nothing could represent them worse than relating such things as truth and describing them as incredulous and refractary still The Evangelical writers as they give us this account concerning voices from Heaven and the testimony of John the Baptist so they inform us of Christ himself that he owned and asserted his own original too so he tells Nicodemus a person of sence and curiosity as appears by his discourse with our Saviour God so loved the world John 3.16 that he sent his only begotten Son that whosoever believed on him should not perish but have everlasting life Which declaration refers to himself he mentioning that sending of the Son of God as a thing now accomplished which title none assumed nor was it given to any before himself They tell us how justly he rebuk'd the Jews for charging him with blasphemy because he called himself the Son of God John 10.36 for the nature of those works he did openly in the world's view was a sufficient proof of his being sent by God since nothing less than a divine power and assistance could possibly effect such things as the Jews if they had not been resolved upon ruine could not but know But God was not wont to send such on his errands who puff'd up with pride would usurp great and improper titles to themselves or who would impose on the world by daring falshoods the Jews were not wholly irrational in thinking he deserved death for calling himself the Son of God if really he were not John 19.7 No Politicks yet could fairly give a toleration to open blasphemy But the Jews tho' very angry with him for calling himself by so august a name railed at him indeed and accused him and persecuted him but never went about to disprove him nay when he challeng'd them if they could to convince him of sin John 8.46 to shew any crime whatsoever that he had been guilty of they answered him only with an acquitting silence they were excellent at generals but the worst in the world at particulars and yet to be without sin was so extraordinary a quality as could be compatible only with one descending from Heaven Vnclean Spirits terribly sensible of his power frequently howsoever unwillingly confest him to be the Son of God Matth. 8.29 Mar. 3.11 and they were too much his enemies to acknowledge a thing so very disadvantagious to their own designs had it not been truth Nathanael a prudent and a pious man upon discourse with him easily confest Thou art the Son of God Joh. 1.49 thou art the King of Israel The disciples when they saw how with one word Jesus laid that storm which had threatned their destruction confest Matt 14.33 of a truth thou art the Son of God Humane power could not quell the loud and violent storms but he that made them could easily allay their fury The Roman Centurion who was his guard at his Crucifixion when he saw how at his giving up the ghost the earth quaked Matth. 27.50 54. the rocks rent the veil of the Temple was split in twain from top to bottom and the graves opened and long buried bodies arose from their heavy sleep could not but submit his faith to such prodigious visions and profess that truly this was the Son of God Nature was not wont to undergo such dreadful convulsions for the death of an inferiour person but when its great Creator suffer'd it was time to own its sympathetick pangs after these things it was no wonder to hear the Apostles declare Acts 3.13 36. That the God of their fathers had glorified his Son Jesus Christ and again That unto us God having raised up his Son Jesus Christ sent him to bless us in turning away every one of us from our iniquities But after all had either Jews or Romans prov'd as well as call'd Christ a deceiver before it must have been a very unordinary confidence in the Apostles to act over the baffled farce again and
the chief family of which the Priesthood belong'd came to be in some measure incorporated into the greater tribe of Judah if withal he take notice that tho' the regal power in the tribe of Judah ended with the Captivity of Babylon yet the Priesthood continued in the family of Aaron he may easily see the fulfilling of Jacob's words for we may see Aaron the first Patriarch of the Priestly family breaking out of his own into the tribe of Judah and marrying Elisheba the daughter of Aminadab and sister of Naashon of the tribe of Judah Exod. 6.23 which Aminadab and Naashon are particularly reckoned among David's predecessors by S. Matthew Matth. 1.4 by which means the Regal and Sacerdotal line were intermingled as well as the tribes were afterwards nor were such alliances altogether extraordinary for we find afterwards Jehoiada the high-priest marrying Jehoshabeath the sister of Ahaziah King of Judah 2 Chron. 22.11 of the house and lineage of David Now the Scepter is assign'd immediately to the hands of Judah the royalty being fully and entirely in the hand of that tribe without any competition either with the Benjamites or Simeonites part of which tribes stuck fast to Judah's interests after the revolt of the ten tribes but the Lawgiver is placed between his feet not according to the sence some affix to that phrase as if Jacob spoke modestly of the original birth of such Law-givers as if being between the knees were an equivalent to being born from the womb of such a one as it 's true it sometimes means but it signifies the Lawgiver shall be in his protection or within his jurisdiction and limits as a great Officer between the feet of the Sovereign on some solemn occasions or as the Bishop of Rome is said to have set the Archbishop of Canterbury between his feet at the Council of Lyons with that expression Includimus hunc in orbe nostro tanquam alterius orbis Papam and so the Law-giver was continually within the proper bounds and limits of the tribe of Judah both before and after the Captivity of Babylon But as the Scepter departed from Judah at that Captivity so the legal expounder of sacred writings to the Jewish nation was taken away about the time of our Saviour's Incarnation the family of Aaron being then lighted and every one admitted to the high-priesthood who could give most money for that office and the Civil Government tho' under the title of Herod being a meer vassal to the Roman Empire When these things were both come to pass then Shilo the promis'd Messias came in whom those particular assurances to David were made good That out of his loyns the Messias should come In him the Royal and Priestly line were united he was legal Heir to both Houses he was a King and Priest for ever to whom the gathering of all Nations is and ought to be Luke 1.27 32.35 Now that the blessed Virgin was of the House and Lineage of David as well as Joseph we learn from Scripture and if the Tribe of Judah was exalted by the advancement of David to the Imperial Throne it was much more exalted and more adorable to the rest of the Tribes by the birth of Jesus the Saviour of the World and the King of all things both in Heaven and in Earth How Moses his word was made good of the Prophet to be rais'd up like to himself I show'd before that being made truth in the birth of Christ but it 's more compleat application belonging to our Saviour's manly age when he made himself publick and undertook to preach repentance to his obstinate Country-men But that of a Body hast thou prepar'd for me came to pass when the Angel's word was effected The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God Luke 1.25 It was an immediate Divine power that gave a beginning and increase to that Sacred Body in the Virgin 's Womb nothing could be produced between Man and Woman as under the ancient curse and miserably corrupted and polluted in their natures that was fit for those great things at that time design'd for us for who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean therefore a Virgin untouch'd by man was chosen for his habitation who was to redeem lost mankind and was overshadowed by the power of the Almighty Gen. 1.2 which did incubare in Virginem as the same Spirit is said to move upon the face of the Waters to cover it as the Bird covers her Eggs to make them prolifick as the word imports now a body so prepar'd and so inhabited as our Saviour's humanity was could not be but pure and undefiled since if a corrupt Tree cannot bring forth good fruit neither can a good Tree bring forth evil fruit the reasons of both their productions being the same Nor was it unreasonable he should be David's Lord though his Son according to the flesh whose birth was intimated by holy Angels whose Father was Almighty God himself and whose Kingdom was to endure from everlasting to everlasting all which circumstances rendred him infinitely more considerable to pure reason than ever David was nor could the humble manner of his entrance into the World be any just prejudice to his mighty title David was mean and inconsiderable too when God took him from attending on the Sheep-fold to feed his People Israel and the Prophet Zachary gives him notwithstanding his apparent meanness his due Honour Rejoyce greatly O Daughter of Zion shout O Daughter of Jerusalem Zach. 9.9 behold thy King cometh unto thee he is just and having salvation lowly and riding upon an Ass and upon a Colt the foal of an Ass He might then be a King still how despicable soever he appear'd to humane eyes and as a King according to the extent and proportion of his Empire might be Lord of David and of all the Kings upon Earth Isaiah had long since foretold he should be born of a Virgin and so in the event he was Mary his Mother was a Virgin even beyond the confutation of the malicious Jews it was to such a one the Angel was sent it was such a one who was according to his assurance to be overshadow'd by the Holy Ghost it was such a one who was to conceive and bring forth And the Evangelist openly declares of Jesus That when as his Mother Mary was espous'd to Joseph Matt. 1.18 before they came together she was found with Child of the Holy Ghost and of Joseph he asserts That he knew her not until she had brought forth her first born Son v. 25. and he call'd his name Jesus And whereas the Prophet had been ecstasi'd with joy at the knowledge of a Child a Son of so Divine a nature being given to his People when that Child was born indeed the Sacred
that had but Men been as careful to improve their vertues as their vices none upon Earth could have been ignorant of God's will but the knowledge of that must have cover'd the Earth as the waters cover the Sea As he took his flesh of the Jews so he took the earliest care to reduce the lost sheep of the house of Israel preaching and doing miracles among them in his own Person beside sending out his Disciples to preach in all their Cities But the veil of the Temple was quickly rent in twain and the Holy of Holies the highest Heavens laid open to all that sincerely believ'd on him whether they were Jews or Gentiles He came not as an Herald to proclaim War but with the glad tidings of peace and as an ambassadour of reconciliation he resolv'd to make Mercy triumphant over Justice to give light to them that sate in a more than Aegyptian darkness and to guide them in the ways of everlasting life and therefore as himself vouchsafed to talk with the Samaritan Woman and others of that Nation to shew that he was not so rigidly uncharitable and unconcern'd for Universal welfare as the Jews were so he gave his Apostles a very large commission to carry his Doctrine to all Nations that all People if careful of their own Eternal Interests might come to the knowledge of his truth and be sav'd That Doctrine and those Laws by which he intended to effect these great things to reduce a corrupted World to a sense of duty were so Innocent so Pure so Rational and Divine that nothing less than a common Reformation could have been expected from them for let a Man examine the Gospel through let him do it with the most violent prejudices the severest Eyes he 'l find no foot-steps of self-interest in our Saviour's management of himself he sought not the applauses and honours of the vulgar as appear'd by those frequent offences he gave them in his plain and open reproofs and those disagreeable propositions he commonly made to them otherwise the vulgar were not so dull but that He who spoke as never man spake might in a great measure have influenc'd them and drawn them to an easie rebellion against their foolish and obstinate Superiours notwithstanding all his care to the contrary the predominant humour was once to take him by force and make him a King which he was so far from indulging Joh. 6.15 that he quietly withdrew himself from their disorderly zeal He expos'd himself indeed to all manner of hazards but never sought to advance himself any farther than to a bare vindication of his Innocence What he aim'd at was the good and safety of others to snatch them who were falling into everlasting flames from that dreadful place to make them wiser and every way better what he propounded to them was the Cross self-denyal patience humility a constant expectation of afflictions things not popular among vain men but such as would stand them in more stead than all the trifling honours and pleasures of the World If then onely to aim at publick good if to lay down and command such Doctrines as himself could reap no benefit by but those to whom he spoke might if to declare openly against all high and ambitious thoughts and to be the great Example of his own Instructions argue the harmless nature of that design a Man carries on doubtless what our Saviour taught tended to the most Innocent purposes in the World Had he privately compos'd a Law and afterwards without propounding it to publick examination endeavour'd to settle it by force of arms by an eager persecution of those who should have rejected it even to extermination howsoever good the Law might have been the very method of its propagation would have been an insuperable prejudice against it and would have made all Men conclude its deficiency as to reason and justice But our Saviour pursued another Method He trod in those steps so many had traced very happily before He endeavour'd to advance onely such notions as were confessedly of Divine original He propounded them to the Judgment and censure of all He was ready to answer all Questions to resolve all doubts to silence all cavils and though He carried on his purpose with the utmost Zeal yet He made use onely of gentle perswasions and of unanswerable arguments which none who were not direct enemies to reason could refuse He pleaded a Divine authority for his undertaking yet desir'd not that his Plea should be regarded any farther than he confirm'd it by his works and by the Innocence of his life his works were truly miraculous all works of mercy not of terror obliging not only his friends by them but his very enemies witness the cure of Malchus's ear He call'd for no fire down from Heaven no Earthquakes no storms of Sulphur or Vniversal Deluges to force Men to submission but endeavour'd fairly to convince all who had not heard of his Doctrine before how much it tended to their welfare not forbiding their objections or studying little shifts and artifices to evade them Now if those who have made men better than they were by plain force are justly celebrated by all as Benefactors how much more do they deserve the name who do as much good by gentler means The Peruvians were wont to account their Yncaes the Sons of Heaven because they made it their continual business to civilize a barbarous World to do which they propounded their own Laws first to the inspection of strangers and endeavour'd to perswade them of the great benefits they were like to receive by submitting to them producing examples of the felicity of others by the same obedience but where they were rejected those Yncae's introduced civility by force of arms yet stand not condemn'd in record even for those rougher proceedings and it could not argue an inferiour Original for our Saviour that he us'd no violence at all and yet if we compare the successes of his Gospel inforced by nothing but reason a charitable Zeal and profitable Miracles with the progresses either of Moses's Law which was from Heaven or that of Mahomet which has been spread prodigiously by Wars and Conquests or that of the Peruvian Yncae's which was promoted by the calmest ways that ever any meer humane politicks were the Gospel has prevail'd infinitely beyond them all having been truly Catholick when others have been confin'd to particular Countries having out-stood all arguments rais'd against it when the rest have been baffled by almost every undertaker and having out-stood the strength of time when the very name of several others are almost lost and even Mahometism it self of a much younger standing though it has thriven beyond the rest has fallen very short of the progress of the Gospel This Universal prevalence is an irrefragable evidence of the Gospels excellence and proves the Contriver of it not to have been of an Earthly original since nothing but Heaven could recommend and practise what
was so indisputably innocent Again to aim wholly at the extirpation of vice of all sin and wickedness and the promoting and recommending of virtue and goodness carries the highest purity and sanctity along with it If miscarriages in government and trespasses upon humane Laws produce terrible convulsions of state and unexpected revolutions in political affairs of which at this day we live to see unaccountable instances it 's easie to infer from thence that encroachments upon the Laws of God and nature must have the same influence upon general affairs and create strange disorders in the World and mightily prejudice all the bonds of humane Society It naturally excites God's vindictive justice and makes him scatter vengeance every where it creates nothing but mutual distrusts and jealousie of one another among men so that they grow like Wolves or Devils in their mutual animosities and injuries As these things are the consequence of wickedness so they are certain proofs and indications of the prevalence of Sin in any place or Nation they show a general infection to have spread it self in a very corrupt people and therefore he that endeavours to purge out the malignant humours of men labouring under such pernicious distempers employs himself in the purest and most desirable work since he endeavours onely to reconcile guilty nature to an incensed God and waspish and ill humour'd Men to one another A full and rigid execution of Laws against impudent vices may keep some under by its terror and make them at least seek the darkest corners for the perpetrating of villanies but it represents not Sin a whit the more in its native ugliness nor gives any ordinary satisfaction that Sin is exceeding sinful for it 's easie enough to conclude that God and Men may prohibit and punish such or such an action out of their own arbitrariness to shew their own absolute and uncontroulable power upon which account though Force may restrain them for a while yet there remain in perverted minds some strange Gustos of delight in finding opportunities to do what they are forbidden and which they conclude may be things good enough notwithstanding such prohibitions but when vice is delineated truly by Instructors appointed for that purpose who are neither afraid nor asham'd to speak Truth when they find Sin decried by solemn and weighty arguments more than by authority where on the other hand they find virtue and goodness described fairly as it deserves recommended by earnest and gentle perswasives set out with all its circumstantial beauties discover'd in its happy effects with relation both to earthly and heavenly influences when they see blessings shour'd down from Heaven upon them and their very Enemies at peace with them when they see how all this onely propounds a pure and unmixed goodness in Devotions towards God and in Converse among Men such Observers have nothing to say for themselves in case they chuse the worst part they cann't pretend so much as to excuse themselves that they embrace evil not voluntarily but by mistake and sub specie boni since vice and virtue ly both unveil'd and naked before them Or they must acknowledge themselves onely to be resolutely wicked to be so because they will be so which puts them easily past all hopes of pity or of Pardon But since devotion and ordinary converse were so exceedingly deprav'd and since the wisest among meer Men had made so many attempts for reforming them and yet had been so miserably mistaken in their measures to that end as to convince them of the impossibility of such atchievments from their hands when one person howsoever despicable and mean in his outward appearances could reassume the forsaken design and not onely assume but apparently accomplish it laying down such Rules as if exactly follow'd must necessarily restore all things to an absolute perfection when Men observe all his instructions to agree closely among themselves and with the ancient authentick methods of doing well and all concurring still in the same center of Vniversal Sanctity it must be necessarily concluded That the Vndertaker was somewhat more than Man that nothing less than infinite holiness and wisdom could effect such things which being yet apparently effected by One who was a true Man that true Man must withall be acknowledged the Son of God And whereas the generality of inquisitive Men in their searches after truth and wisdom always observed strange deficiencies in humane reason whereby antient wise men broke into so many several divisions in their inquiries after the Chief good whereas they found that none could lay down a fair project for pursuit of That but that presently he was assaulted by whole Armies of adversaries and all projects found absurd and unprofitable for acquiring that they aim'd at When the Gospel of our Saviour came to be divulged tho' it met with adversaries enough they were all too weak to inval date its strength and reason It was neither the juggling fair-tongu'd Pharisee nor the absurd and ambitious Saducee nor the wrangling Sophister nor the Sceptical or cunning Philosopher nor the undermining Heretick that were able to ruine the reputation of the Christian Doctrine but it still grew upon them tho' they were cruelly assisted by earthly powers and indeed made use of all the roughest means for the extirpation of the Professors of the Gospel And what was very considerable tho' the great promoters of Religion after the Apostles and their immediate Successor's times neither had the gift of languages nor had much of the learned education of those Ages yet they were able having truth on their side to baffle all the learning of the great wise men among both Jews and Pagans which could never have happened had not what they preached and defended been highly rational For keen adversaries who pretended to the greatest acuteness of Wit and Sence would never have quitted arguments that had been stronger for the sake of meer cant and impertinent jangling But indeed the common scope of the inquiries of wise men being to discover what was really the greatest degree of humane happiness and the highest and chiefest good by which they confest somewhat Lost and tho' possibly to be retrieved yet not without the greatest difficulties imaginable there was no proposition made by any for the full discovery and attainment of that Good but it was eagerly listned to and the probabilities on all sides being duly weighed and the effects of the several propositions being carefully consider'd Christianity gain'd the victory whose effects were the most considerable whose Professors the most innocent whose promises were the most excellent and punctual and whose rules the most general intelligible and unquestionable Pagans and Jews if they were not wilfully ignorant could not but see all those principles of reason which themselves pretended to extremely advanc'd by this doctrine introduced by Christ for whereas they were wont to decry pride and haughtiness of spirit arrogance and contempt of others very earnestly its true the
fellow Servant a Creature and order'd him to worship God i. e. the Supreme Being then that must be a Rule to Angels too and they might not adore or worship a Creature no more than the Apostle might therefore the Son of God was no Creature since they are commanded to worship him therefore He must be God for we know of no intermedial power between a Creator and a Creature We are to worship the Lord our God Mat. 4.10 and him onely are we to serve as our Saviour himself alledges but We are to worship the Son of God Angels are to do so too therefore the Son of God is God And since we are gotten into this first Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews we may add in evidence of our assertion that other quotation Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the Earth Ps 102.25 and the Heavens are the work of thy hands Heb. 1.10 c. they shall perish but thou remainest and they all shall wax old as doth a garment and as a vesture shalt thou change them and they shall be changed but thou art the same and thy years shall not fail which Text is so home to the proof of the Divinity of the Son of God that Schlicktingius twists and winds himself every way to evade its force in his Commentary on the place and after all does but Magno conatu magnas nugas agere as the Comedian he makes a great stir to no purpose He finds fault with the Author of the Epistle If He says he design'd to perswade us Christ was the most high God why did he not say so without any farther circumstance the matter had been then past dispute But we suppose it is so plain as nothing can be more already it 's as plain as those words he 'd prescribe could have made it to All but men of perverse wits who wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction for if as He owns none but the Supreme God could be the Maker of Heaven and Earth and the Creation of Heaven and Earth be here by the Apostle ascribed to the Son then the inevitable consequence which the Heretick would have had laid down at first is that the Son is the Supreme God or God equal with the Father And whereas the main foundation of the Arrian and Socinian Heresie is as Sandius another of that tribe owns that there was a time when the Son was not if the Son of God was indeed the Creator of all things then he was before all things and consequently before time it self and so their foundation is apparently false for he that had a Being before time was must of necessity be Eternal But Schlicktingius would perswade us that of the whole Text produced by the Apostle onely the sence of the last words is to be referr'd to Christ and that it 's quoted onely to prove that the Dominion of Christ shall not expire but with the abolition of all things Schlicktingius in locum Quod Regni Christi quod nunc in terris administrat terminus cum inimicorum ejus omnium abolitione quos Coeli Terrae ruina involvet sit conjunctus are his words That the end of Christ's Kingdom which he administers in this World is joyn'd with the utter abolition of all his Enemies who shall be at once involv'd in the ruines of the Universe As for the first part of the quotation he makes it altogether impertinent but that the Apostle took the Text whole as it lay because he knew the Hebrews to whom he wrote were in no danger of interpreting the Creation of the World as referring to Christ whom they knew well enough to be no other than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a meer Man and no more and adds that had the Apostle design'd any more by that Text it had been altogether beside his purpose But here I conclude our Adversary mistook the Apostle's meaning wilfully which is this Writing to the Jews his first design is to convince them of the Messiahship of Christ whom they knew to be a Man they had seen evidences enough of that in what he did and suffer'd among them they had seen him crucified dead and buried so that they could not dream of his having onely a fantastick body being onely an apparition as some Hereticks afterwards asserted a phantasm or a Spirit had no flesh and bones as they saw him have The Hebrews were so certain of this that they would believe him to be no more than a Man a man weak and inconsiderable a perfect cheat pretending to the noble character of being their long expected Messiah but no way answering that Character having appear'd in no such glory as the Prophets had foretold and having wrought no deliverance for Israel according to their reasonable expectations Now to convince them of their Error he asserts Christ to have been the Son of God v. 2. He proves the Messiah was to be so from their own Books v. 5. He asserts Him to have been the express Image of God's Person the brightness of his glory the Vpholder of all things by his power v. 3. That the Messiah was to be so he proves from his superiority to Angels v. 6 7. Nay he asserts him to be God and proves the Messiah was to be so v. 8 9 10 c. In the Epistle afterwards he shews the accomplishment of the Legal Types in him with the excellency of his office in every respect particularly of his Priesthood the conclusion of all which to them is this That if the Types of the Law were accomplisht in him which they could judge of by comparing the Law with his Actions if He were the Son of God as himself asserted and proved he then could be no cheat how meanly soever he appear'd in the world but was capable of being the Messiah and having own'd himself to be so since he was incapable of deceit He really was that Messiah they expected and had wrought a Deliverance greater and more valuable than they dream'd of not only for them but for all the World and to make good this Truth the applying the Creation of all things to him was not impertinent God made the Worlds by his Son v. 2. of this Chapter Therefore he by whom the worlds were made had a being himself before they were made which is what St. John asserts of the Word which was God John 1.1 3. All things were made by Him and without Him was nothing made that was made all which consider'd it 's no wonder the Psalmist prescribed so to the Church Hearken O Daughter and consider and incline thine ear forget also thine own people and thy Father's house so shall the King greatly desire thy beauty Psal 45.10 11. for he is thy Lord God and worship thou him He that was God was really and lawfully to be worshipped The next place I shall urge is that of the Prophet Isaiah Isai 9.6 Vnto us a
Moses and the Holy Ghost linked together as if there were an equality among them We are told indeed by Wolzogenius that that passage after the Israelites having gone through the red Sea is a parallel Exod. 14.31 Having seen that great work which God had done upon the Aegyptians having drowned them while themselves were safe we are told the people feared the Lord and believed the Lord or in the Lord as your Margin reads it and in his servant Moses but that 's indeed no parallel for there 's distinction enough made between God and Moses one is the Lord the other but the servant but there is no such distinction in the Text no servant no intimation of an inferiority but only the order of nature followed and the Father put before the Son and both before the Holy Ghost which proceeds from both Then whereas Enjedine tells us That to be baptised into Moses was not to believe that Moses was the most high God and consequently That to be baptised into the name of the Son of God is not to believe any such thing of him he forgets that to be baptised into the name of the Father is to declare our belief of His being the most high God by his own confession yet that belief is the very Character by which those Hereticks distinguish themselves from us whom they call Trinitarians and if that be own'd our baptising in the name of Christ must infer our acknowledgment of his Divinity since the Father and the Son are joyned together in the same expression and we are baptised alike and as much into the name and belief of one as of the other But they would prove that Christ is not here made equal with his Father because S. Paul afterwards ranks him but with himself and others as in his reproof of the Corinthians for saying 1 Cor. 1.12 I am of Paul and I of Apollos and I of Cephas and I of Christ Here indeed they confess there is a real superiority in Christ to any of these mentioned with him That acknowledgment was inevitable But farther tho' the Apostle condemn the Corinthians for calling themselves by his name or the name of any of his fellow labourers yet he approves their calling themselves by the name of Christ for so he tells them with respect to Creatures and their circumstances 2 Cor. 3.22 23. All are theirs whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come all are yours but then he changes his stile and ye are Christs and Christ is Gods and so he was the Messiah the Anointed sent by God into the world In conclusion they tell us that these words were never designed as a formulary of Baptism which they prove because there is no account in Scripture particularly in the History of the Acts of any baptised by this form but will they assert there was no form at all no significant words made use of in the administration of that ordinance that would be to leave the meaning of the outward Ceremony uncertain and to take away the Sacramental nature of baptism if there were any words used either they must allow these or assign some other which none that I know of have attempted It 's true they say the Eunuch only declared to Philip before his Baptism Acts 8.37 that He believed Jesus Christ was the Son of God and there was no need of more Philip questioned not his belief of a God He was a Jewish Proselyte and if he owned the Son-ship of Christ he would by consequence believe whatsoever should be revealed to the world by him But we read not of any words used by Philip in the act of baptising him they say this silence proves the words in the Text we are treating of were not used I say no but Christ's particular institution being very well known and his disciples using to obey his commands S. Luke's silence infers that Philip used those very words so instituted otherwise the Evangelist would have taken notice of some other and thus after all God the Father Son and Holy Ghost being joyn'd together in the words of institution in Christian Baptism without any mark of inferiority these words prove the Son of God to be God equal with his Father The next place we shall insist upon is that remarkable beginning of S. John's Gospel In the beginning was the Word John 1.1 2 3. and the Word was with God and the Word was God the same was in the beginning with God all things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made where we have these two great men Erasmus and Grotius agreeing with us That they are an unanswerable argument of the Divinity of the Son of God who yet are apt enough to betray that article of our Faith by weakning other considerable evidences of the same truth As for the person here meant by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word the Socinians themselves as far as I can find excepting the Annotator on the Racovian Catechism acknowledge that it is the Son of God to tell all their discourses for the eluding the force of this Text would be a work too tedious only this we may observe they tell us That whereas Moses begins his History of the Creation with a like expression to this of our Evangelist its rational to believe that the Evangelist here is only going to describe a second or a better Creation or rather the renovation of all things by Jesus Christ which had been ruined by the fall of our first parents which renovation of things began at the time of our Saviour's Incarnation and therefore the Evangelist means no more by that phrase In the beginning was the word but that Jesus Christ the word of God had a being when the Almighty God first set upon this work of re-creation or renovation of all things And that indeed the design of the Evangelist is only to obviate an objection that might be made on the behalf of John the Baptist who stood fair to have been taken for the Messias because he first entred upon his office and preached repentance and baptised which were truly Evangelical works whereas Christ himself lay hid and wholly undiscovered to the world But to my best apprehension there was very little need of all this care for tho' some such thoughts might have entred into Men's heads when they were all full of expectation of a Messias that John whose holy and severe life and whose very useful doctrine was generally known might be that Messias as we see by that message which the Jews sent to him from Jerusalem Art thou the Christ or Elias or that Prophet or who art thou tho' men might entertain some such thoughts the Evangelist represents John the Baptist as very careful to prevent any such dangerous mistakes therefore he not only answers negatively to their particular enquiries viz. That he was not
memory of all these things and the testimony of his own Companions whose very looks and discourse the evidences of unwonted joy carried a great deal of innocency and sincerity in them could not prevail with him but he positively declares Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails ver 25. and put my finger into the print of the nails and thrust my hand into his side I will not believe such an unreasonable infidelity that seemed resolved neither to submit to the testimony of others nor to his own sight might justly have been left unsatisfied but our Saviour had a respect to the rest of the World to whom the Gospel should be preached and the Resurrection be propounded as necessary to be believ'd therefore he condescended to the Apostles weakness and after eight days when the Disciples were again together and Thomas with them he appears to them again and with his usual blessing applyes himself immediately to his unbelieving Disciple He shews himself the great Searcher of the heart and reins and tells him without the help of a teacher how great a folly he had been guilty of he commands him to do what he had before desired he by that means leaves him no opportunity of doubting any longer He then who had of all others been the most distrustful to make somewhat of a publick compensation for his former dulness breaks out into that earnest and emphatical confession My Lord and my God! the words seem very plain and proper to express a man's acknowledgment of his Divinity to whom they should be applyed Enjedine yet denyes it His verbis quidem Enjedine in locum non Christum compellat neque eum Dominum Deum suum vocat sed rem inusitatam admirationem suam summam significat In these words really He does not speak to Christ nor call him his Lord and his God but only signifies his admiration of so very unusual a matter yet the Text tells us plainly Thomas answered him and said unto him that is to him who bad him reach out his hand to him in the precedent verse that is to Jesus Christ My Lord and my God! He would have it signifie no more than what a frighted Papist would bless himself with i. e. the outcry of Jesus Maria or as we ordinarily say Good God how strange a thing has hapned lately c. and for this conceit he alleges some such like passages in prophane Authors a very strange method and as little approved of by those of his own party Wolzogenius utterly condemns this fancy and declares of them who first invented it Nullo modo audiendi sunt Wolzogen in locum they are no way at all to be listned to and owns this the first place wherein the Disciples after his resurrection owned him to be God Schlicktingius too declares against it and tells us Schlicktin in locum This passage proves that upon our Saviour's reprimand Thomas fully convinc'd of the truth quitted his former vitious incredulity and believed and therefore he calls Christ his God and Lord as if he should have said Agnosco te Dominum meum Deum meum esse I acknowledge thee to be my Lord and my God but he spoils all at last with this that Christ after his own resurrection was only Deus factus a made God not the great God not the eternal not the most high God not Maker of all things by which names yet and others of the same kind he 's frequently call'd in Scripture Socinus himself in an Epistle to Franciscus Davidis another Antitrinitarian vindicates our common interpretation of these words and will not admit of the others arguments whereby he pretended to prove that these words are no evidence of Christ's being call'd God for besides his alleging that all Copies read it as we have it at present and that there 's no instance in Scripture where such an expression is only a proof of an extraordinary admiration Socini Epistola ad Franc. Dav. p. 395. he shews farther that whereas our Saviour in the following verse shews his approbation of Thomas 's faith there could be no reason of any such approbation if Thomas by these words had only signified his wonderment of what had come to pass with respect to his resurrection and to say truth such an extravagant amazement would have argued some diffidence still remaining in him but indeed here 's no sign in the story of any such wondring at the thing but only here 's a plain confession made of what the Apostle's Faith now was namely that the blessed Jesus was his Lord and his God wherein too he is the mouth of all the rest of the Apostles and there was reason for this Confession S. Thomas had heard his Master's disputes with the Jews the evidences he had given of his being the Messias whom they looked for or the Christ he had heard him often call himself the Son of God declare his equality with his Father and that absolute and indissoluble unity which was between his father and himself he had heard him declare what he was to suffer and that he was to rise again the third day the suffering he had seen the Resurrection he was not so fully satisfied in but when he saw him and felt his wounds now which he had known were really given him before that extraordinary truth which appear'd in all the words and actions of the Son of God open'd his Eyes to see and his Heart to confess that this same Jesus whom he had followed so long was really his Lord and his God Thus his Faith with respect to the Messias was compleat he had seen enough to prove him to be Man in all that time of converse with him before his passion he had seen enough now to prove him to be God not a finite God or an holy Man Deisied but the true the eternal God for tho' Kings or Magistrates may be call'd Gods in Scripture was it ever heard that any called Kings or any other created Being whatsoever My Lord and my God without being charged with Idolatry The Israelites when Aaron had made them a golden Calf Exo. 32.4 cryed presently These be thy Gods O Israel which brought thee out of the land of Egypt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these are thy gods it 's expressed there by that equivocal word which the adversaries of our Faith have so often their recourse to therefore the Israelites might have pleaded for themselves that they meant not by so saying that the golden Calf was the most high God and it 's plain they did not for they presently proclaim a feast to the true God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of whom this Calf was only design'd to be a Symbol or memorial but such a plea was not accepted but for the crime the Israelites were look'd upon and punished as Iâ—olaters The Prophet Isay setting out the practice of Idolaters and the general original of Idol Images
〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 144. A. of him was Jesus Christ so far as concerned his flesh of him were the Kings Princes and Leaders of Judah where it 's observable that nameing our Saviour He says of him that He was of Jacob according to the flesh by a particular phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to or so for as concerned in the flesh but of the Princes and Levites deduction from that Patriarch he speaks only in the common way now this particular way of expressing himself in relation to Christ must have been very impertinent had it not been designed to shew the difference there was between the manner of Christ's Descent and Theirs for never was such a thing said of any meer Man by any Writer in the world that He was born of such and such Parents according to the flesh as it would look ridiculously to say David was the Son of Jesse according to the flesh the very phrase intimates some different origination according to some other nature Rom. 1.3 4 whatever it be and the Apostle uses the same expression in the same distinguishing sence So elsewhere S. Clement calls our Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same word used by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews and by us translated Heb. 1.3 the brightness of God's glory properly enough or it might be render'd a beam from the body of his glory from which expressions the Antients generally collected that Christ must be co-eternal with his Father so S. Chrysostome tells us the Son is call'd the brightness of the glory of his Father as always existing in the Father as brightness always is in Light for the light cannot be without brightness nor brightness without light so the Son cannot be without the Father nor the Father without the Son for he is begotten of his Essence before all time and is always with him to the same purpose but more largely speak Theodoret Gregory Nyssen Theophylact c. and S. Clement to shew his meaning to be the same with that of the Author to the Hebrews proceeds in a large citation out of that Chapter from whence we have before evidently prov'd the eternal Divinity of the Son of God Besides this unquestionable Epistle of Clement which we have almost entire there 's a Fragment of another written by the same excellent person to the same Corinthians not so generally own'd indeed but of very great antiquity being taken notice of by S. Hierome and before him by Eusebius Conc. T. 1. p. 181. the very first words of which give us a full proof of the doctrine we now assert Brethren says the Writer We ought to think concerning Jesus Christ as concerning God as concerning the Judge both of the quick and the dead If we must think of Christ as of God we must think and believe that he is God for so we think always of the Supreme Being But these passages are sufficient from an Author of so great antiquity From him we shall proceed to the next Greek Father Blessed Ignatius Bishop of Antioch One who had seen Christ himself in the flesh who is reported by some to have been that Child whom our Saviour took in his arms Mark 9.36 who conversed frequently with the Apostles He left several Epistles behind him to several Churches full of excellent advices and truly savouring of an Apostolical Spirit and temper In Him we meet with many evidences of his belief that Jesus Christ the Son of God was the real the True God So in the very first words of his first Epistle to the Church of Smyrna He begins Epist ad Smyrn Edit Voss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I glorifie Jesus Christ who is God he is with him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the God with an article the want of which the Socinians so frequently cavil at in Scripture that Article is certainly exclusive of all other Gods The Son he is the only True God the Father is the same True God not two Gods but two persons and one God or one Deity this is a plain passage and needs no descant upon it In the conclusion of his Letter to Polycarp then Bishop of the Church of Smyrna the same who is called the Angel of the Church of Smyrna by S. John in the Revelations who dyed afterwards a Martyr for the truth he gives Polycarp this salutation I pray that Grace may be always with thee in Jesus Christ our God Ad Polyc. he neither prefixes nor subjoyns any thing to the words that might allay the sence or make it ambiguous it is an entire sentence and as clearly owns that He thought Jesus Christ was God and that he wrote to another who had the same Faith in that respect with himself So that the real Deity of the Son of God was no strange Doctrine in those days In the Inscription of his next Epistle to the Ephesians He stiles that Church predestinated from the beginning Ad Ephes or before all worlds to everlasting glory according to the will of the Father and Jesus Christ our God where he plainly makes the Father and Jesus Christ one God to which blessed Jesus he ascribes the same character of an absolute Deity with his Father So again in the beginning of the Epistle it self he tells the Ephesians they bore an honourable reputation and justly gained by their Faith and Love in Jesus Christ our Saviour being imitators of God and re-enflamed or revived by the blood of God An expression like that of S. Paul to the Elders of the same Church when he tells them God had made them overseers of that Church Act. 20.28 which he had purchased with his own blood Now we cannot with any propriety of speech call any blood the blood of God unless it be really his and it cannot be his as he is God therefore he must have assumed some such nature as wherein his blood might be shed which might and did come to pass by his taking our nature but our Nature being substantially united to that which was before eternal and Divine and so God and Man being but one Christ when Christ as Man shed his most precious blood for our sakes that blood was properly and truely called the blood of God or God's own blood But we meet with yet plainer evidence in the same Epistle so I take those words of his to belong to Christ Nothing lies hid from the Lord that is the common title of our Saviour in all Apostolical writings but even our most secret things are near to him Let us then do all things as if He lived in us that we may be his Temples and He may be God in us which also he is and will appear before our faces for which reasons we justly love him I the more readily apply this which argues Omniscience to Christ and is no more than what Scripture openly ascribes to him as I have formerly shew'd because soon
God Contra Celsum l. 1. p. 30 so he objects that Christ was educated in the dark was hired a servant in Aegypt that he there tryed their magick powers and returning from thence in confidence of his jugling tricks set up for a God Origen vindicates him from the malicious imputation of being a Magician but never pretends to deny that he was God or that he assumed that title nay he 's so far from that that he takes a great deal of pains to prove that He was God particularly from those passages of the 45 Psalm cited by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews in his first chapter which I have clear'd before and he adds that we must here consider the Prophet speaking to that God whose throne is everlasting l. 1. p. 43. and that he asserts that God was anointed by God who was His God with the oyl of gladness above his fellows which is the real sence of the words and which he tells us he had formerly silenc'd an obstinate Jew with In his second book Celsus introduces a Jew speaking against Christ and saying they could not own him for God who did not make good his word who endeavoured poorly to avoid Death and was at last betrayed by one of his own followers c. Origen answers Christians did neither believe the body of Christ nor his soul to be God but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word the Son of the God of all things was God that Christians justly condemn the Jews who acknowledge not him to be God whom their own Prophets so often give testimony to as a powerful Being and as God which he is by the witness of the great God and Father of all things himself That when God in the beginning of the world said Let us make Man in our Image the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word perform'd all that his Father commanded for if according to that of the Psalmist He said and they were made l. 2. p. 6â— he commanded and all things were created if at God's command all the Creatures were framed who according to the meaning of the prophetical Spirit was able to put in execution such his Father's command but He who was the living Word and Truth it self The Word then in the beginning of all things was with God and the Word was God and without him nothing was made that was made It 's the Doctrine of S. John and of Origen too So far then we may know how the beginning of S. John's Gospel was understood in his days and what they thought might conveniently be proved from thence When the Jew afterwards is brought in objecting that Men who are partakers of the same Table would not lye in wait for one another much less would any one have treacherous designs upon God p. 74. Origen might easily have answered that cavil by denying that He was God and then by giving instances of Men false and treacherous to those who have eaten with them at the same Table but He owns his Godhead and only performs the latter Celsus afterwards brings in his Jew objecting against the Divinity of Christ thus Who ever heard of God coming down from heaven to earth on purpose to perswade Men as they say Christ did and failing in his design especially when he was long expected and hoped for a denyal of his Divinity had put a full stop to this objection too but Origen on the contrary retorts upon them That the Jews themselves were instance enough of the possibility of such a thing since God had appear'd so remarkably to them in bringing them up out of the land of Aegypt and in giving them a Law from Sina and yet they nor their Fathers could by that means be perswaded to obedience or prevented from running presently into Idolatry p. 106. After all this Celsus in his own person makes use of this argument to prove that Christ could not be God God says He is good and pure and happy and in himself infinitely excellent and lovely if He should descend to be among Men He must necessarily undergo a change a change from good to bad from pure to impure from happiness to misery and from the most excellent to the most sinful state this God would never undergo To this the Father answers That it 's true God is in himselâ— Immutable nor did he suffer any change oâ— this account But that which descended down to Men was in the form of God but out of his Love to mankind he debased himself so far as that he might be born among them but He suffer'd no change from baâ— to good for that He was without Sin he never committed any He was not chang'd from pure or clean to foul or filthy for Hâ— did not so much as know Sin nor did he fall from happiness to misery He humbled himself indeed but was not a whit the less happy even when he stoop'd the lowest for the good of mankind nor did he fall from the best to the most sinful state because what he did proceeded from Love and Charity to us by being among whom He that was the great Physician of Souls could be no more altered for the worse than a Physician for the body is by conversing with those that are sick and full of diseases But says he if Celsus think that because the immortal God the Word assumed a mortal body and an humane Soul that therefore He suffered an alteration or a change Let him know that the Word essentially continuing the Word still suffers by none of those things which happen either to the body or the Soul but that He condescends to become flesh and to speak in a Body l. 4. p. 169 170. for the sake of those who are not able to behold the eradiations and brightness of his Divinity so long till He who receives him being in a short time rais'd to a greater understanding by the Word may be able to contemplate his original nature And finally in his sixth book against the same Celsus he speaks â—hus excellently If then Celsus enquire how we think to know God and to be saved with him We will answer him That He who is the word of God being in them who seek him or who wait for his appearance is sufficient to make known and to reveal the Father who was not to be seen before His appearance for who else can save the Soul of Man and guide us in every thing to God but only God the Word who being in the beginning with God for the sake of those who are confin'd to flesh became flesh that he might be comprehended by those who were not able to see him as He was the Word and as He was with God and as He was God l. 6. p. 322. and appearing in flesh and speaking in the body He calls those who are in the flesh to himself that first he might make them like to the Word which was made flesh and
bodies and yet be Angels or Spirits still much more must it be believed that God could do the same Thus still he prosecutes his Argument and all his care was to prove not that Christ was God for that was granted on all hands but that he was Man which some denyed upon that very ground because he was God without controversie Again in his book of Prescriptions against Hereticks De Praescrip p. 36. He lays down somewhat like the form of a Creed and agreeable to our own Where first he says They believed one God the World's Creator who produced all things out of nothing by his Word that Word his Son was called by the name of God variously seen by the Patriarchs always heard in the Prophets at last brought by the power and Spirit of God the Father into the womb of the Virgin Mary He took flesh of Her and was born of Her and so became the Man Jesus Christ c. Here we have our Saviour's Existence antecedently to his birth of the blessed Virgin not only asserted but declared as the general Doctrine and Tradition of the Catholick Church and that less than two hundred years after our Saviour's Passion and made use of as a Prescription against an Heretick Now Marcion if he had not been well assured that Tertullian asserted no more than what was the current Doctrine of the Catholick Church might easily have baffled all Tertullian's pretence to Prescription by shewing him that all the Christians of the former Age were utterly ignorant of his pretended Articles of Faith but we never hear of any such Reply made Tho' we have no reason to doubt but that the Hereticks of those ages were as earnest to maintain their Errors as those are who tread in their footsteps in this After this in the same book Tertullian reflects upon other capital Hereticks So he tells us that Cerinthus maintained fol. 41. that Christ was only of the seed of Joseph a meer Man without any Divine Nature He tells us again that Theodotus of Byzantium blasphemed Christ for He too brought in a Doctrine quâ Christum Hominem tantummodo diceret Deum autem illum negaret Wherein he taught that Christ was a meer Man and that he was not God that He was indeed born of a Virgin thro' the Holy Ghost fol. 42. otherwise He was only a Man no better than others but as his Goodness gave him a greater authority than others If Tertullian then took Theodotus to be an Heretick on account of this Doctrine it can scarce be doubted but he 'd have taken Socinus and his Partners for the same had they liv'd in those days and I find our Socinians doing so much right to this Theodotus as fairly to reckon him among the Patrons of their opinions If we go farther with Tertullian we find him assaulting the same Heretick Marcion again and arguing God's extraordinary goodness from that great Humiliation of himself to take humane nature upon him He concludes his argument at last with this Totum denique Dei mei penes vos dedecus Adversus Mar. l. 2. f. 68. sacramentum est Humanae salutis c. All that which in your opinion is so disgraceful to the God I believe in is the Seal of our Salvation God converst with Man that Man might learn to do those things that are divine God acted suitably with Man that Man might endeavour to act agreeably to God God was found in a mean state that Man might be exalted to the utmost He that despises such a God can hardly be thought to believe in God crucified In another book against the same Marcion he argues from the antient apparitions of Angels that Christ tho' God had a true and real body We will not yield to thee says he that Angels had only a fantastick body but those bodies they assumed had a true solid humane substance this elsewhere he makes good it follows If it were not hard for Christ to exert the true sence and action of a Man in imaginary flesh it was much easier to make true and substantial flesh as he was the Author and maker of it to be the subject of true common sence and action Thy God was fain to appear in an imaginary body l. 3. fol. 72. because he was not able to produce a real one But my God who without pursuing the common course of nature could make real flesh of Earth could have invested Angels with real bodies of any kind whatsoever For with a word He made the world of nothing and shaped it into so many various bodies as we see Then he tells us Angels had flesh truly humane and connate with the time they appear'd in because Christ only himself was to be flesh of flesh that by his Birth he might purifie ours that by his Death he might free us from the slavery of Death he rising again in that flesh in which he was born only that he might die Therefore He appear'd in a true body accompanied with Angels to Abraham but not a body that was born because it was not that body which was to die In consequence of this discourse which proves our Saviour's Pre-existence to his Birth fol. 73. he urges his Adversary with that name of Immanuel or God with us from whence proving the reality of his divine he regularly infers the equal reality of his humane nature If we proceed we find the same Father publishing his Faith in the beginning of his book against Praxeas He was an Heretick so far yet from believing Christ to be a Creature or a meer Man that he asserted it was God the Father who was born of the Virgin and crucified and Dead and that He was Jesus Christ In opposition to him the Father declares As we are instructed by the Holy Ghost Adv. Prax. fol. 144. which leads us into all truth We believe one God and that the Word is the Son of that one God who was begotten of him by whom all things were made and without whom nothing was made that he was sent by the Father into the Virgin and born of Her Man and God the Son of Man and the Son of God and called Jesus Christ This was then his Faith and with him Christ had a being before he was born into the World and was what we assert the Creator of all things Thus afterwards he tells us in the same book the Father is God fol. 147. the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God and dilates upon and vindicates that truth He tells us that the Father is God Almighty and most high fol. 149. and that the Son justly claims the same titles and that the Father and the Son are one God and indeed c. 21.22 fol. 219 220. the farther proof of this is the general design of that book He confirms the same Doctrine in his Apology for Christianity against the Gentiles Besides these books he wrote one particularly concerning the
Father when he has no more and the Union yet between the eternal Father and the eternal Son is of a closer and more levelling kind than any thing inferiour nature can afford Our New Author indeed challenges us Cum Scriptoribus de generatione animaelium haec comparentur Nos Dei virtutem in Virginis uterum aliquam substantiam creatam vel immisisse aut ibi creasse affirmamus ex quā juncto eo quod ex ipsius Virginis substantiâ accessit verus homo generatus fuit Aliàs enim homo ille Dei filius à conceptione nativitate propriè non fuisset Sic Smalcius de vero naturali Dei filio c. 3. Ruarus ab ipso uterque à veritate quantum distat if we believe this eternal Generation to prove it expresly contain'd in Scripture and then to prove this Eternal Generation the true Basis or Foundation of his glorious Title of the Only Begotten Son of God As if clear Consequences from plain Premises were not a demonstrative proof of any thing to Men who pretend to Reason and a capacity of discoursing Rationally which is indeed nothing but drawing Consequences plain or obscure from agreeable Premises Or for an instance as if when I find God call'd a Spirit and I know a Spirit is Invisible I might not conclude God tho' a Spirit to be invisible unless I found Invisibility it self distinctly and separated from the Notion of a Spirit attributed to him somewhere in Scripture Now if all these Proofs I have laid down before have proved that our Saviour had a Being before he was Conceived in the Womb of the Virgin which we think to be proved beyond contradiction and if our Adversaries will but allow that Dictate of Common sence that He who really is my Son is my Son as soon as he has a Being or if He be not my Son then He never can be my Son otherwise than by Adoption and so Christ can never be the only begotten Son of his Father because all those who Believe in and Obey God are his Sons by Adoption too if they 'l but allow this then Christ must have been the Son of his Father before such time as he was Conceived in the Virgins Womb because he had a Being before that Conception If Christ had a Being before his Conception it must have been as a Spirit but Spirits do not generate one another therefore he must have had a Being from the beginning of the World If then we fall in with the Arrians and say God created his Son the Word first out of nothing and then created all other things by Him we contradict Scripture which positively assures us that in six days the Lord made Heaven and Earth and all that in them is and therefore rested the seventh day but God could not rest the Seventh Day nor do all he had to do in Six Days if he wrought more than Six Days but He must have worked before the beginning of the Six Days if he made the Word before he made any thing else and we have the Six Days Work summ'd up authentically by Moses but no account there of the Creation of the Word before the Creation of Matter If he were not Created before Matter then he could not Create all things as the Arrians pretend If therefore He had a Being it must have been from all eternity but he was not Created from eternity for whatsoever is Created must have a Beginning but he was begotten of his Father as the Scriptures assure us if therefore he were Begotten and not Made and Begotten before the beginnings of the World He could be Begotten of nothing but of the Substance of his Father there being no other Substance for him to be originated from and therefore must be eternal because the Substance of his Father is and cannot be otherwise than eternal This being true it would be meer folly not to fix his Sonship more peculiarly in this eternal Generation for He that is Begotten by a Father must be his Son and he that is Begotten from eternity must be a Son from eternity Therefore Christ who was Begotten of his Father from eternity must be the Son of his Father from eternity which was the thing to be demonstrated If yet a Socinian will stumble at the Vnion of the Humane with the Divine Nature as if it were an impossibility or against reason let Him resolve us fairly how the Vnion is made between a rational and immortal Soul of a Spiritual and an heavy and unactive Body of an Earthly Nature We are all convinced they are so joyned together but those subtle Springs whereby an Immaterial Soul actuates a Material Body are hitherto indiscernible by the sharpest Eye of impair'd Reason why then should we conclude it impossible for the Divine and Humane Nature to be united together unless it be united in a way more intelligible than our Souls and Bodies For tho' our Souls are of a Spiritual Nature they are infinitely inferiour to the Nature of Almighty God and being that Constitutive part of Humane Nature by which Man is a Rational Creature it might seem an easie task for us to find out how that Soul we reason by should be united to that Body we reason in But since we are so far to seek in this matter may we not reasonably conclude God has hidden this from our Eyes to moderate and humble our unruly Fancies to keep us from prying into things that are too high for us and to convince us that many things wherein we are more immediately concerned not being a whit the less True tho' we understand them not we ought to believe that some things may be True with respect to God of which yet we are able to give our selves no considerable account And so we may satisfie our selves that our Saviour spoke plain truth when he said I and my Father are One meaning thereby an Essential Vnity between his Father and Him because tho' he were at the time of his speaking so a true Man invested with real flesh and blood yet He was God before he was Man the Word of God before he was made flesh and dwelt among us and was God when He was Man his Divine Nature not being prejudiced by his assuming Flesh and Blood by that Divine Nature he was One essentially with his Father and his Humane assumed Nature being in his Divine Nature as a finite is contained in an infinite there could be but One Person at last 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ God-Man our Saviour and Redeemer I take the more notice of this particular which I had insisted on before because our new Assertor of Socinianism would perswade us that if we duely examin'd these Words of our Saviour on this occasion spoken to the Jews when they charged him with Blasphemy because in his former expressions He had made himself God tho' indeed he were but a Man we should quit all arguments drawn from thence the words are these
end to all the strength and vigour of the Animal so crush'd nothing can be more fatal to a real Serpent than a Wound inflicted there it may live some time afterwards and when the Head is crush'd may threaten with the Tail but those Threatnings are languid and easily to be avoided If therefore the Seed of the Woman could crush the Serpent's Head he must get the Mastery and intire Conquest over all the Wiles and Stratagems over all the Strength and Violence of the Devil so as He must for the future lose his Interests and Power and be defeated in the expected events of his Malice and in short have his Tyranny wholly broken by the Seed of the Woman this was what alone could comfort Adam after his fatal Error But this Victory was not to be so easily gotten but that the Seed of the Woman must be partaker of the Inconveniences of the War the serpent must bruise his heel or wound his inferiour Part that which was at the greatest distance from his Vitals and from the Head that governing directing advising instructing Part so that the Government and Power of the Woman's Seed was not to be ended but he was to lose some Blood in that Conflict in which the Serpent's head was to be crush'd without Blood-shed then there could be no Victory obtain'd nor must the Seed of the Woman be absolutely invulnerable for had he been so there could have been no shedding of Blood and consequently no hope for remission to miserable Man Now those Sacrifices afterwards offer'd wherein the blood of living Creatures was shed were propitiatory or design'd to atone that God who was justly displeased with Sin and Sinners not as if the blood of Bulls or Goats or Lambs had any thing propitiatory in their own Nature but they were to represent continually to the Offerers minds that effectually propitiatory Blood which was to be shed in the great Combat between the Seed of the Woman and the Serpent wherein the former was to suffer in his less noble and inferiourly originated part and if those outward a scrifices effected so much they did as much as possibly they could and as much as was necessary for them to do for while Men had daily before their Eyes a representation of that bloody Contest wherein that great and malicious Enemy of Mankind was to be entirely conquer'd Men had reason always to live in hopes and to reap inviolable Comforts from those hopes But now after all if those Commemorative or Typical Sacrifices did bring to mind that Blood afterwards to be shed then when that Blood so represented was actually shed there was no need of any farther prophetical Representation and if the several Washings and Purifications under the Law related to that inward Cleanness and Purity which was afterwards by a more proper medium to be effected then when upon the Conquest gain'd by the Woman's Seed over that infernal Serpent that Sacred Blood was shed which was able to cleanse Mankind from all Sin the inward Purity of the Soul was effectually procured and ceremonial Purifications were rendred altogether useless and therefore that Law enjoining such Ceremonies might very well be disannull'd since Types or Shadows were never invented by any with any other design but to be vacated and abolished at such times as those things appear'd of which they were design'd at first to be the Shadows or Representations The Ceremonial Law though given to the Jews at first by God himself yet might very well be abrogated because in it self it was not essentially necessary to the being or well-being of a Church had it been so it had been unchangeable because it had been a part of the Law of Nature as the Moral Law was that receiv'd no additions or diminutions by the Ceremonial Law nor by the coming or the inherent Legislative Power of the Messias The truth of this reason that the Ceremonial Law is not necessary to the being or the well-being of a Church we find by the existence of the Christian Church among our selves at this day and by a due reflection upon the Church of God existent in the World before the time of Moses's receiving a Law from Mount Sinai We cannot deny but that the Roman part of the Christian World is as much nay infinitely more clogg'd with Ceremonies than that of the Jews ever was though we take in the traditional part of Jewish Ceremonies which had no foundation in what was delivered by Moses this our Church takes notice of in that preface concerning CeremonÃes prefixt to the Liturgy where giving the reason why many Ceremonies were taken away which had been used in times of Popery She tells us Preface of Ceremonies why some abol some kept It is partly because the great excess and multitude of them had so encreas'd in these latter days that the burden of them was intolerable whereof St. Augustine in his time complained that they were grown to such a multitude that the estate of Christian People was in worse case concerning that matter than were the Jews and therefore he advised the taking away that burden as there was opportunity but if he complain'd then much more would he have done so had he seen the number of those in use at the time of the Reformation to which the Multitude he had seen was nothing to be compared which multitude of Ceremonies was so great and many of them so dark that they did more confound and darken than declare and set forth Christ's Benefits to us This Persuasion was so rationally settled in the minds of our first Reformers that whatsoever the Enemies of it may pretend the established Church of England as distinct from that of Rome was settled with the fewest and the most decent Ceremonies of any National Church in the Christian World and upon that reason among others has been accounted the Glory of the Reformation by all but a few Ingrateful and Hypocritical Schismaticks whose viperine Rage has always been endeavouring to tear out the Bowels of their Mother Indeed under the Roman Cloud of numberless Ceremonies true Christianity has been almost lost and the Strength and Purity of that Holy Religion delivered to the World by our Saviour and his Apostles perverted into gaudy Show and ridiculous Pageantry Simplicity as far as it interferes not with Brutality and Slovenliness best becomes the Oeconomy of the Gospel and to be sure the Everlasting Truth will shine brightest there where there 's no Artifice made use of to disguise it nor more of Weight in matters of Salvation laid upon outward Circumstances than upon inward and solid Sincerity and Holiness This was the Ornament of God's Church before the Mosaic particular Dispensation for though it were impossible for Adam or any of the Antediluvian Patriarchs or for Abraham and his Posterity till the Redemption out of Aegyt to perform their Sacrifices without somewhat of Ceremony yet neither the same nor the same number were required of them as were
when he girt up his Loins and ran before Ahab to the entring in of Jesreel Numb 14.10 and as a poor persecuted Man when he was forced to fly for his Life from the fury of Jezebel the Prophets generally died Martyrs for those Truths they published and the Apostles tho'mighty in those signs and wonders which they did in the World's View yet several of them died by ways as cruel and tormenting as our Saviour himself from whence it will follow that Moses and Elijah that the Prophets and Apostles were as great Examples of Humility and Condescension as our Saviour himself and therefore St. Paul when he set Christ as an example of Humility before the Philippians did it only at randome and might as well have named himself or any of his fellow-Fellow-Apostles on the same account and doubtless this Doctrine tends very much to the Advancement of Christian Piety But now if we quit Socinian Reason and consider the Truth of things if we look upon our Saviour as pre-existent to his appearing in the World as being God of God and Light of Light and that from Eternity and consider him as condescending to assume our Nature as appearing without those Terrors of Divinity and clothed with all the Sweetnesses of innocent Humanity if we respect him who had all things originally at command and did yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 become poor for our sakes where we cannot but take notice of our new Author's pitiful Criticism who tells us that Word signifies not to become poor but to be poor yet Suidas tells us that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies Suidas in Verbo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one that falls into want from having been sufficiently provided for which we think is becoming Poor from being Rich and not being originally Poor and so whereas Poverty in the Poet Aristophanes tells us Aristoph in Plut. p. 58. I.B.E. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Life of a Beggar is to be without any thing of his own but what he receives from the Charity of others which was really our Saviour's Case Gerard a better Critic than our Authour defines according to ancient Etymologists Car. Ger. in locum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Beggar as one falling or descending from Riches to Penury from Sufficiency to extream Want so far as to have nothing but what 's given by others thus our Saviour became Poor nay a Beggar others administring to his Maintenance of their Substance and he descended from that celestial Glory with which he was robed from Eternity to assume Humane Nature and in that Nature to be so poor and despised on that account as the Evangelists represent him and we know as well as he can tell us that God as God cannot be poor but we are as sure that that real Flesh and Blood assumed by our Saviour was liable to the same inconveniences with the rest that were Partakers of the same Nature among which one was Poverty very incident to those who are born to no worldly Estates But how Men come to be Rich and Glorious by having the power of doing Miracles conferr'd upon them we cannot easily discover our Saviour's Miracles brought him in no Treasures and his Apostles notwithstanding that Power of doing the like conferred on them by Heaven were in a very low Condition in the World and Paul among his numerous Converts was but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a poor Man fain to get his Living by the Labours of his own hands Now certainly the Jews were as much obliged to observe our Saviour's Humility as others and they saw him low enough but they who very well knew the Meanness of his Birth that could ask the Question Is not this the Carpenter's Son could not make any extraordinary Remark upon that but could they have believ'd him the Son of God which those converted among them afterwards did by which they understood his being equal with God they would have been very ready to admire his Humiliation as his Disciples did when owning him their Master they saw him stooping to wash their Feet so that our Saviour was no way visibly Rich or Glorious in the World unless they 'll say he was so because contented which every Wise and Good Man is and they who saw neither any Riches nor Glory that he had upon Earth could not have been easily drawn to set him as a pattern of Humility before themselves because they saw him in the form of a Servant if he were a meer Man when he was once more than a Servant when all power was given to him both in Heaven and Earth he appear'd as a Master on every occasion and quickly withdrew himself from the sight of Men and the humility or condescension of one that has nothing is neither admirable nor exemplary If we could dwell longer on this Subject I make no doubt but it would appear that above all other Doctrines Socinianism should never be embraced as tending to the advancement of true Piety and since we have had so many holy Martyrs living and dying in the belief of Christ's Satisfaction for our Sins we may conclude that Doctrine of Christ's Satisfaction is neither so pernicious nor destructive of Holiness as those Hereticks would persuade us and therefore we may the better assert this Doctrine and make good our Foundation of it i. e. the notion of infinite Justice in God which does necessarily infer that every Sinner ought to be punished But they tell us Cat. Rac §. 6. c. 8 p. 147. That we make God's Mercy such as cannot but forgive all Sin and his Justice such as cannot but punish all Sin and so we set God's Attributes at irreconcileable odds one with another but I do not remember infinite Mercy defin'd by any of Ours by that particular Character of necessarily forgiving every Sin We believe indeed that the Sins of those who are pardon'd could not be pardon'd were there not infinite Mercy in God but we generally believe that infinite Mercy exerted it self when Christ came into the World to redeem Sinners and that indefinite Expression of our Saviour that God so loved the World that he gave his onely begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting Life teaches us as much Now if Faith be so necessary a Condition that without it the Sins of none can be pardon'd then infinite Mercy cannot imply a necessity of pardoning every Sin and if that Condition of believing be requisite I know not why another Condition such as a Christ offering up himself a Sacrifice to atone his Father's displeasure for Mens sins should not be so too As for infinite Justice we believe it necessarily infers a Punishment for every Transgression and therefore we believe that had not our Saviour undergone that Punishment for our sins which was due to us every Sin of ours must have been inevitably punish'd and therefore whereas we conclude agreeably to Scripture that the greatest part of
the Socinians tell us otherwise that Christ's dying for us signifies his procuring a great deal of good for us by his Death this we certainly believe he did but cannot imagine it 's any detraction from the Worth of that Good he procured for us to conclude that he suffered instead of Sinners for if he offered himself to Divine Punishment in the place of those who were unquestionably obnoxious to it and if his Father accepted of that Offer then all those Sinners who accept of those Conditions on which alone his Death is effectually beneficial to them are certain of the pardon of their Sins and of eternal Happiness the natural Consquence of that Pardon But they have yet a farther Shift and because St. John tells us We ought to lay down our Lives for the Brethren 1 John 3.16 Col. 1.24 and St. Paul tells the Colossians that by his sufferings he fill'd up what was behind of the afflictions of Christ in his flesh for his Body's sake which was the Church they conclude that as those who die for the Brethren cannot be said to die in their stead nor St. Paul to satisfie by his sufferings for the sins of the Church so neither could Christ on account of his being said to die for us be reasonably thought to satisfie for our sins but this Allegation is impertinent for though we are obliged to expose our Lives to the utmost hazards for the Conversion and Edification of others yet where was it ever said We should be wounded for the Transgressions of our Brethren or be bruised for their Iniquities or that they should be healed by our stripes that God should lay on us the Iniquities of all our Brethren that We should make our Souls an Offering for Sin that We should be delivered for the Offences of our Brethren and should bear their Sins in our own Bodies on the Cross all which things with more to the same purpose are spoken of Christ and ought to be the Explications of the other As for that of St. Paul if we translate it as we very well may all their pretences from it are lost I rejoice in all my sufferings for you all or in those Troubles and Persecutions I undergo for Preaching the Gospel to you and in my turn fulfil in my flesh the latter parts of Christ's Afflictions for his own Body that is the Church and so Afflictions or Sufferings for the Church are not apply'd to St. Paul but to Christ who really laid down his Life for his Flock and all the Afflictions of the Servants of Christ are but the Counterparts of what Christ has done for them it being their Duty to mantain what he has delivered to them and to be faithful to Death as he dy'd before for them and the Church the Body of Christ is exceedingly edified and benefitted by the couragious Sufferings of their Fellow-Members Martyrs and Confessors giving the best evidences of the Excellent Nature of the Gospel and confirming and encouraging others in the same Resolutions of dying rather than forsaking Truth but neither can any of the former passages be applied to St. Paul therefore his Words cannot bear the same sense as applied to him as the same Expressions do when they are apply'd to Christ Scripture which is its own best Interpreter no where explaining it in the same manner But further our Saviour is said to have born our sins and to have carried our sorrows this seems to be a Metaphor taken from a Man carrying that Burthen himself which another ought to carry and this is commonly lookt on as a considerable evidence of Love and Kindness 1 Tim. 3.16 c. 2. the same has carried Men out to a willingness to die for one another so Pylades was willing to die for his Friend Orestes only that he might escape a Tyrant's Fury and Nisus in the Poet would gladly have redeem'd his lov'd Euryalus from the Enemy's Sword by putting himself into their hands in lieu of him but the tendry in these Cases was certainly a vicarious Death and the Persons so offering themselves without all doubt concluded that whatsoever could be pretended to by the most severe Justiciaries would be well satisfied by an Innocent's offering his own Life for an Offender and that voluntarily by virtue of which Consent or Desire there could be no wrong done to the innocent Sufferer and hence St. Peter tells us of Christ that he suffered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 once for sins 1 Pet. 3.18 the Just for the Vnjust where by the way we may observe the phrase of dying for Sins is authentically explain'd by dying for Sinners or for the Unjust i. e. He bore that Burden of God's Displeasure in himself though he were Just and Righteous which was due to the Unrighteous and yet as among Men those generous Offers made by Friends for one another are not wont to be displeasing to the greatest Princes nor are they a whit the more angry with the vicarious Innocent though to satisfie the Rules of Justice they accept the Offer no more was God displeased with his Son for taking upon him that Burthen due to Sinners since it only was the Sin which had trespass'd so much on Justice and provided that were punished either in the real or the substituted Offender who was only putatively Criminal infinite Justice would be satisfied Sin condemned and all Mankind be afraid of committing that which they saw was in its own Nature unpardonable One would think too that other passage of the same Apostle were plain enough 1 Pet. 2.24 That Christ bore our Sins in his own body upon the Cross Sins are there put for the Punishment due to Sins and the bearing them in his own Body must signifie his Body's being punished for them and if for them then for those who had committed them now if Christ did not take our place or appear in our room in those Sufferings there can be no reason suitable to Divine Wisdom and Justice why he an Innocent should die at all for our Transgressions for to say That his Father had design'd him for it before and therefore he must die would be impertinent to say that without dying a vicarious Death for us he could procure any good with respect to our Sins would be very hard to prove for he might Die to make good the Truth of those things he had preach'd to set us an example of Patience Submission and Humility which Socinians tell us were the great Ends of his Death and yet we be as far from obtaining Remission of Sins by the means of his Death as we were at first So we believe that St. Stephen was murdered for giving Testimony to Evangelic Truths the very Circumstances of his Death prove him an eminent Example of Patience Fortitude and Resignation his Resolution appearing upon a Socinian view much beyond that of our Saviour himself yet St. Stephen is not said to have died for the sins of the World nor