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
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
pleasing It was such an industrious reading and a real desire to understand tho' at that time he confest his ignorance that prepar'd the Aethiopian Eunuch for the instructions of Philip sent unto him on that particular errand And tho' God do not presently send an Evangelist to convert every one that seeks after what 's good yet he has a thousand ways as efficacious to draw men to a sence of true Religion and what matter is it to us what way God makes use of provided he do but work the same glorious effect in us at last God takes delight in those that honour him as those who seek him certainly do Sincerity and humility are required indeed as preparatives in the case yet no more than what 's requisite in those who study books of humane learning For he that does not seriously desire to profit by study never will profit and he that 's too opinionative of his own sence can never make any advantageous use of what he meets with in the discourses of other men and there 's no reason we should expect to improve in those things which concern the weightiest matters in the world viz. our eternal future happiness or misery upon lower terms than in those really of a frivolous and inconsiderable nature But to encourage men to a right application of their reasoning faculty we conclude That the farther a man advances in the study and practice of true Religion the more clear and comprehensive his Reason grows and comes so much the nearer to its primitive acuteness and consequently is able to dive so much the farther into divine Mysteries And this indeed is what true Religion aims at We have lost our Innocence by that loss we have impair'd our Reason that we may assure to our selves that happiness our first Creation had sitted us to God has found out for us those ways that we endeavouring to retrieve our Innocence may retrieve our Reason in a good measure too And having howsoever the infinite merits of a Saviour on our side at last may attain to the first intended happiness Reason is certainly a talent bestowed upon us not to lay it up in a napkin but to use and to make the best of it Had such a Book as Scripture been deliver'd to Adam before his fall I make no question but it would have been in every point intelligible to him as things stand now we may and ought to exercise our reason about it but not so as to limit Scripture by our reason but to limit our reason by Scripture It 's true Scripture may by meer reason be prov'd to be the Word of God but that operation is very slow and requires a very unusual application therefore God in the infancy both of the Jewish and Christian Church made use of Miracles to work more strongly and swiftly upon the Soul not that he design'd to supersede our reason but to quicken it and to set it so much the more industriously on work and withall by a reducing it to an acknowledgment of its own defects to make it submit the more entirely to him whose power was able so far to outreach its utmost capacity Miracles were the common objects of Mens senses and indeed appeals to them and when the Jews had known a Man from his Child-hood that was born blind and when they saw him about forty years of age blest with sight they had no reason to distrust the truth of that of which they every moment saw the effects where there was lodged a power sufficient â—o produce so extraordinary an effâ—ct and the kindness and usefulness of the miâ—â—â— wrought would vindicate it from 〈…〉 of any malignant spirit it 〈…〉 conclude that in the same person was centred a veracity agreeable to that power and consequently it was reasonable to believe what ever was delivered by so great and so benign a Power But after all as reason could not possibly give an account of the manner of working so sensible a miracle but by resolving all into omnipotence nor was it necessary it should so neither was it necessary reason should comprehend every thing that was spoken by God and yet it lies under a necessity of believing every thing true that 's so spoken and that again upon a rational principle viz. that He who speaks being God can neither deceive nor be deceived But as those who engage themselves in the study of any particular Science understand but little at first of its reason but by assiduity and diligence come to see throughly into it so it is in matters of religion he that 's but a Babe can bear no stronger nourishment than milk he that 's stronger can digest substantial meats i. e. the beginner in those studies must pretend to nothing farther than what 's very plain and easie but when by continual meditation be has made those plain things familiar to him there will some consequences offer themselves not so plain but every whit as true as the first principles and that reason which at first was ready to stumble at the most obvious notions will afterwards digest those at a greater distance and be as strongly convinced of them as of the former but in the chain of consequences somewhat will occur at last beyond the reach of the largest unbeatified Soul Thus that Man is naturally miserable is a truth undeniable by reason of our every days experience natures light has confirm'd the World in the truth yet Man is very apt to stumble and perplex himself at the occasion and ground of his being so doubts arise in the case from some weak reflections upon God's justice and goodness yet it s universally believ'd and the reading of Scripture farther confirms the truth that Man miserable as he is making use of such and such means may be happy is a truth reveal'd and without revelation imperceptible yet now it s once reveal'd reason can properly argue that the same things or qualifications which would have secur'd happiness to Man at first must do so now and the attainment of Innocence was that original mean Innocence the indispensible qualification But reason proves again that that primitive Innocence is really unattainable now and it will proceed thus far further that either there must be some way discover'd to make up that unhappy defect or else Man must sink in his natural misery and all the care he can take to prevent it will do him no service here divine revelation goes along with him too and what reason as now affected could never have dream't of we have a revelation relating to the making up of this defect and that by the Incarnation and Passion of the Son of God but there Faith rests upon Revelation alone and gets no assistance at all from reason but only from that distant principle that the revealer cannot deceive nor be deceived reason can come no nearer nor can it judge of the revelation by any other principle yet the Man who believes not this how little
grace unto the humble there are some things which relate to Religion wherein God has deliver'd himself so as to let us know words and names but has not reveal'd enough to give us an insight into the matters which are intimated under them Men need not trouble themselves too curiously about such things Moses taught the Israelites very well Deut. 29.29 The secret things belong unto the Lord our God and the Son of Syrach gives an excellent lesson Seek not out things that are too hard for thee neither search the things that are above thy strength Ecclus. 3.21 22. but what is commanded thee think thereupon with reverence for it is not needful for thee to see with thine eyes the things that are in secret What if among such things I should reckon Mens over-curious enquiries into the nature of God's decrees which enquiries have produced a great many foolish and uncharitable controversies even among good men there is employment enough for a good Man's whole life in things more needful to be known I will not say it 's absolutely unlawful to be prying into what God has thought fit to express himself very obscurely in but this I 'le say that whosoever will be walking in those private paths had need to tread with a very gentle foot to look frequently backward and on each side as well as forward to be very distrustful of his own ability very submissive to the judgment of Superiors in office age or gifts very earnest and indefatigable in his prayers to God for his assistance as he shall see fit to impart it on such an occasion very tender of imposing his own judgment upon others and of being too positive in those opinions he takes up since the corruption of our reason a man frequently thinks he has made a very great discovery in some weighty point and hugs himself with the plausibility of his thoughts he imagines as we are generally apt to be very fond of the products of our own brains every thing he has laid down or methodiz'd in his thoughts to be so very plain and clear that it 's impossible any man of sense should not immediately be his proselyte and some perhaps are ready to flatter such a one in his over-weening conceit by a pretended concurrence in their sentiments with him after all it happens as often that another of as great natural abilities and as searching a head discovers a great many mistakes in the others beautiful Scheme of thoughts and baffles the whole invention the other had admired himself for such things ought to make all especially in religious matters where it 's dangerous jesting or innovating to act with abundance of circumspection and indeed rather to confine themselves to lower studies than to hazard the over-setting their own Intellectuals by engaging into boundless enquiries Those things may in themselves be lawful which yet cannot be very convenient Some such curiosities are very idle and ridiculous as disputing what God did before he made the World Whether He could have pardon'd Mens sins without a Mediatour c. He was fatally answer'd to such a Question who asking an Eminent Christian what the Carpenter's Son meaning Christ was then a doing was told He was making a Coffin for such a lewd Inquirer as himself who dy'd in a very few hours after Ecclus. 3.23 The Son of Syrach advises well Be not curious in unnecessary matters for more things are shew'd unto thee than men understand i. e. God has laid open such infinite treasures of Divine wisdom before us and our understandings are so very short that we need not look out strange subjects of our meditations it 's enough if we can in some tolerable manner comprehend those sacred truths that are deliver'd to us and we are more concern'd to endeavour to do so than some are ready to imagine For though a Socinian may tell us God has declared several things in holy Scripture that are no way necessary to Salvation the assertion is absurd and false that old Axiome Deus Natura nihil faciunt frustra That God and Nature never do any thing in vain is enough to refute it for since the end of Scripture is the making Men wise to salvation it 's very bold to say God knew not how to frame such a Book without abundance of impertinencies when we see many Men setting much slighter ends before themselves will yet prosecute their discourses in so close and exact a manner that the most critical judgment may perhaps find what to add but cannot find what to take away from their writings there is therefore no positive truth asserted in holy Writ but what is really useful to Man's Salvation since there 's nothing throughout the whole but what serves to illustrate God's goodness and mercy and truth c. or Man's misery by Sin or happiness by Grace or lays down rules of life and practice or gives us examples of Virtues or Vices in others from all which something very instructive may be drawn nor can we believe that even the genealogical Tables in Scripture were as a late Writer impudently suggests design'd onely to amuse and confound us but to set us in a way to find how all the ancient Prophecies centred in Jesus Christ the promised Messias As the positive assertions so their true and genuine consequences are in some sort and to some Men necessary to salvation God having given greater capacities and larger Souls to some than he has to others expects proportionable improvements from them and a Man of wisdom and learning cannot be saved onely on the same terms on which a person of low and mean endowments may therefore those of greater parts are bound to look into every thing divinely reveal'd and to what may be regularly deduced from it but as perfection in good works is required in every one that is to be saved and yet many are sav'd tho' none are perfectly good so it is in relation to things contain'd in Scripture every one is bound to study them things of common practice are plain and obvious in them things at first to be believ'd are taken for granted but Man is for his life-time employ'd and to be so in farther search into the meaning of those things that are more obscure Could Man once in his life-time attain to a perfect understanding of every thing set down there there would quickly be an end of all sacred study but since the wisest find in the Word of God more than they can understand and yet find they every day by study understand more and more and the meanest wits upon a due care and industry find proportionable advances there is always enough to excite mans utmost diligence and care and as in practical piety so it is here he that improves his time best to get knowledge tho' he cannot reach to all he should his defects shall be pardoned for his sake who in himself contains consummate wisdom But it remains still true
that it could not reasonably be requir'd that a man should engage himself in the study of the whole Book of God if there were any thing positively asserted there the knowledge and understanding of which would be lost time as the studies of all impertinencies are But howsoever necessary these studies are if they are not prosecuted in a due manner i. e. with an humble sense of our own natural defects with a sober and submissive judgment and with all that modesty which becomes one who is desirous to learn they 'l prove but mischievous and make Hereticks Schismaticks or Atheists instead of knowing and improving orthodox Christians It 's true that nothing ought to be admitted into Religion which is contrary to reason but it must be understood which is contrary to reason in its primitive integrity for that which we call reason now we every one find extremely subject to mistakes and for me to measure those truths which are reveal'd by an infallible God by the standard of that sense or judgment which I know to be mistakeful and fallible is unreasonable with any sober discourser to extremity and it argues too great a pride in our low condition to imagine that because once we were made perfect that therefore we should in any respect continue so though we had sought out to our selves many inventions Many are deceived by their own vain opinion ver 24. says the Son of Syrach and nothing can certainly be more prejudicial to a Man in his disquisitions after truth than a great conceit of his own abilities to find it out God commonly blasts such fond pretenders to ingenuity and makes them take a great deal of pains only to procure infamy and perpetual disgrace to themselves Such mischiefs would be avoided yet Humane Reason have it's due use and esteem if the Apostles injunction were well obey'd that no man should think of himself more highly than he ought to think Rom. 12.3 but to think soberly according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith Men ought when they meet with any difficulties in divine Writings not to make their Reason the measure of Truth but to make Truth the measure of their Reason and rather to suspect their own apprehension of it than the weakness or ambiguity on the defectiveness of the authors assertions or expressions And so much for the use of Humane Reason in matters of Religion it 's a great blessing to us still tho' impair'd by sin and if soberly and modestly used will by divine assistance rise to a greater strength and vigour and be able to comprehend every day more and more of the mystery of Godliness till it comes in a glorifi'd state to comprehend every thing that can any way contribute to its consummate happiness Having gone thus far in the debate concerning the use of Humane Reason in matters of Religion and declared how careful we should be not to indulge our selves in vain and useless curiosities for the vindication of our selves as Christians we are to consider that a full proof of the Divinity of the Son of God is a task that comes under no reproof in the case That the blessed Jesus the great captain of our Salvation is God as well as Man that he is God of God light of light very God of very God as the Nicene Creed expresses it that he is perfect God not a factitious or an aequivocal God as some would have him but that He who is God the Son is infinite in all his Attributes God over all blessed for ever as God the Father is is Articulus stantis aut cadentis Ecclesiae such an Article of our Christian Faith so essential to the Mystical Body of Christ that while it 's embrac'd the Church has a real Being when it 's laid aside the very Being of the Church expires at the same time It 's so necessary an Article of Faith that except a man keep it whole and undefiled without doubt he shall perish everlastingly for he that believes in such a Messias such a Saviour who is not God is really an Idolater as fixing his belief in one that is not able to save For Man's misery is too great to be reliev'd by any inferiour power and the blood of Bulls and of Goats might as well have serv'd for the expiation of Humane guilt as the sufferings of one who was a meer man and consequently could have no proper merit to plead for us no inherent power wherewith to assist us Some of those Hereticks who deny the Divinity of the Son of God have been so sensible of this that they have maintain'd and preach'd it in those Congregations where they have been concern'd That it 's as lawful to pray to the blessed Virgin or to any other Saint or any Angel as it is to pray to the Son of God and that all those are really guilty of Idolatry who make any such Prayers or Supplications to him Now tho other Socinians call these blasphemers on this account they are really injurious to 'em for if that which they all agree in be true viz. That Jesus Christ is not the most high God then whosoever worships him as God breaks the first and second Commandments as much as those of the Church of Rome do and are as notorious Idolaters as we shall hereafter have occasion to prove In quest then of the truth of this doctrine That Jesus Christ is the true God we are to bend our Reason and to meet and baffle those great pretenders to it with their own weapons and to prove to them that tho we think the mystery of godliness to be great as the Text asserts it to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Chrysostom expresses it to be unexpressible and wonderful and incomprehensible yet we receive some considerable advantages from its being revealed for by that means we know the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the positive truth that he who appear'd in the flesh visible to humane eyes and so far humbled to atone for humane Crimes was really God hence to be ador'd by us hence able to perform the work he came about and to save to the utmost all those that come to the Father in and by him and this we firmly and stedfastly believe tho' we cannot comprehend the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the manner how so great a miracle of Mercy should be brought about and those proofs by any particulars whatsoever laid down of this truth using reason with that sobriety and modesty which we ought we may examine and try throughly and judge how far they come up to those things they are designed to make good and so our Faith it self may be rational and thence invincible tho' every particular of it be not intelligible to us in its full extent With relation to the Text then we assert That the Mystery of Godliness which the Apostle tells us is great cannot be apply'd to the several particulars laid down in
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
sin which was incapable of pardon from an offended God but upon the terms of the passion of his dearly beloved Son and will be throughly satisfied of the danger of such transgression by a rational assurance That if men sin wilfully after they have receiv'd the knowledge of the truth Hebr. 10.26 27. there remains now no more sacrifices for sins but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries If then true Religion consist in worshipping God according to those revelations he has made of himself to the world and we cannot propound any reason to our selves why God should have made any such revelation of himself to us but only that when we have a rule we might have an example too then whatsoever religion that is whose most obscure and incomprehensible mysteries highly promote that excellent work of following our exemplar or growing up into an assimilation to God himself by endeavouring to be holy as our heavenly father is holy and perfect as he is perfect That Religion must certainly carry us by the surest ways to eternal happiness but such a Religion is that instituted by our Saviour in the Gospel therefore that 's a Religion above all others for the sake of such mysteries so profound but withal so very profitable and instructive to be embraced by all wise and considering Men. A due reflection upon those mysteries any Religion is founded upon with a just apprehension of the deficiency of our own reason in tracing them is a very proper means to create in mens minds a due and exact reverence for it Thus that very notion that we have of God's infinity of his dwelling in impenetrable darkness or in inaccessible light of the unsearchableness of his ways the incomprehensibility of his wisdom c. All these things make awful impressions upon mens souls and make them to fear before God and to reverence him and this God him self intended when by his Prophet he assured the Jews My thoughts are not your thoughts Isai 55.8 9. neither are your ways my ways saith the Lord for as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts This prodigious distance between the nature of God and Man was enough to overawe man on whose side there was so very great a disadvantage God's prohibition so often repeated to the Jews that they should not represent him to themselves by any figure or image whatsoever with the reason as frequently inculcated that they never had seen any thing which could look like any representation of him was to prevent that contempt which too much familiarity with superiors naturally produces for representing a God by any thing of a gross or material nature is apt to create as gross an Idaea of the Divinity it self in the mind of a Man and those once entertained produce a sawciness and familiarity not at all agreeable to that immense distance there is between a divine and a mortal Being Thus it 's observable that the Gentiles generally were upon several occasions extravagantly free with those Gods they worshipp'd Hence the Tyrians when Alexander the great besieged them chain'd the Image of Apollo to that of Hercules lest the God should leave them because one of their Citizens had had a melancholick dream forsooth that he designed to serve them such a slippery trick in their necessity So the Athenians clip'd off the wings of the Image of the goddess Victory lest she should fly away from them So Dionysius the elder of Sicily took off a golden mantle from the statue of Jupiter and put him on a woolen blanket with that scoffing reason that the blanket was fitter for all weathers being lighter in Summer and warmer in Winter So he took off the golden beard of Aesculapius with that Witticisme That it became not him to have so long a beard when his father Apollo had none It 's true these affronts were proper enough for those Idols to whom they were offer'd but they were very unbecoming those who offered them since they profest to believe that they were really gods so that they were not those Images or Statues which were abus'd but it was the true Divinity it self which they imagined resident in or about those Images And of this Inconvenience from material Images even of material Saints the Romanists are sometimes sensible witness that action of a Spanish Peasant who making his offering to the Image of the blessed Virgin and imagining she look'd not so kindly on him for it as he expected He very briskly told her she need not be so proud for He remembred she was but a sorry piece of timber the other day it was yet the more effectually to prevent such inconveniences that God appointed a part of the Tabernacle first and of the Temple at Jerusalem afterwards under the Sacred name of the Holy of Holies to be wholly inaccessible to any but the High Priest who bore an extraordinary Character among the Jews nor might He enter into it above once a Year and that with a great deal of respect and ceremony This made God to strike the men of Bethshemesh with so terrible a judgment for daring to pry into what God intended to keep secret 1 Sam. â— 19 and to strike Vzzah dead upon the place for presuming to do what was above his station and touch the Ark though it seem'd an action proceeding from a good zeal or a fear that the Ark the peculiar Symbol of God's presence among his People should have fallen to the ground 2 Sam. 6.9 but we may see what a terror that signal vengeance struck upon David himself and all his Company v. 10. and it 's observ'd of Pompey the Great that after He had been so bold as to look into the Holy of Holies upon his taking Jerusalem that though He saw nothing there nor offer'd any violence to any thing about the Temple but expressed a great deal of reverence towards the place and those that attended on it yet that God's judgments pursued him from that time that He prosper'd in little or nothing that He undertook all things from thence verging hastily to his final ruine So jealous is God of his honour so terrible to those who will be strugling to know what he would have kept secret from the World That great reverence which a due distance between God and the things belonging to him and Man creates is so well known in the World that wise Men have thought it convenient that there should be somewhat of a Mysterious Majesty in those who are God's representatives on earth which has taught the great Eastern Monarchs that prudent piece of state to shew themselves as seldom as possible to the People by which means the Vulgar not being capable of any diminutive thoughts of those whose weaknesses they are unacquainted with almost reverence their Kings as Gods and conclude no submissions can be
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
Philosophy first and commence a God afterwards for which end he threw himself alive into the mouth of Aetna in Sicily and receiv'd his Apotheôsis in the midst of flames Yet after all Philosophy was capable of doing very little and could not nor ever was receiv'd by Men as any parcel of that Law they wanted to guide them because they were wholly unable to determine among them what that one great and chief Good was the fruition of which they were to aim at and in submission to which they were to admit of the propounded Law on account of the weak title of these Pretenders the Priests who attended on the publick services of their more celebrated gods pretended to extraordinary Inspirations and some of them especially such as the Cumaean Sybil Tiresias Amphiaraus the Priests of Jupiter Hammon the Delphian Dodonian and Trophonian Priests c. seemed to be in frequent Raptures and sacred Agonies as if they had been newly conversing with some Gods and in these fits they delivered strange obscurities uncouth and wild as we find by Homer Apollonius Virgil Statius Sophocles Seneca and others These Priests thus obtaining a great reputation for sanctity and it being thought they were but as so many Engines conveying the speeches of the Gods down to Men their Dictates bore a great sway in the Heathen World and they were much consulted in the inventing and making of Laws But these again were so disagreeing among themselves and with one another their Fancies generally so irrationally extravagant and unintelligible the self-interest in them so notoriously apparent to every body and their Lives and Manners so absolutely undivine which was a very considerable prejudice among Heathens themselves and matters of fact delivered by them to posterity in writing were commonly so wild so trifling or so full of falsities that all these things quite ruined their claims and still the Heathen World had new Laws and new Lawgivers to seek Hence their Gods themselves that is the Devil who usurped the Divine name and under that name at several times and in several places procur'd divine Honours to himself took courage to give answers to enquirers and a kind of Directions for Men to act by and that he might look the liker a God indeed he 'd now and then adventure upon some little Truths such as had a very considerable Moral import in them such as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Noli altum sapere and some few more of a like nature but these Oracular Rules proceeding from so great a Patron of real impiety and abominable Idolatries were commonly received accordingly and tho' as to Sacrifices and all the gaieties of a costly Worship they were willingly enough ruled by that usurping Impostor and if any barbarous offering was to be made in blood of Slaves or Children or the like Superstition was but too obedient Yet in those things that were really Good and worth taking notice of they were so distrustful as they came to nothing among them Maximus Tyrius therefore in those cases prefers Philosophy it self so far as concerns the Conduct of Men's lives to all these Oracles for as he argues the Gods pretend to tell us what 's sodden in a boiling Caldron in Lydia Dissert 19. p. 189. they tell us of a wooden Wall of ohe danger of cutting through the Corinthian Isthmus sometimes they talk of a future Earthquake of a threatning war and an approaching Plague but as for those things which are much more worth our knowledge such as how Wars may be avoided by what means we may live without any need of Walls and Fortifications how we may behave our selves so as to have no reason to fear a Plague not one word neither Apollo at Delphos nor Jupiter at Dodona nor any other Gods have any thing to say to these things only Philosophy teaches these things Yet afterwards he flyes even from That too as insufficient For says he I require such an Oracle which may teach me without ambiguity to live quietly answer me then whither will you send Mankind which way must they go in the case where must they end let the Rule of Life be one let it be common to and concern All Thus He neither satisfied with Philosophy nor any way to Happiness yet known to him no nor with the additional stories of God's descending down to Earth in Humane Forms to converse with and to instruct Men in the method of acquiring Happiness Now this Rule thus sought for among Heathens we say the Scripture is They know not that it is so We prove it because the Scripture is the Word of God There 's no ingenuous Pagan but will agree with us that if it is the Word of God indeed it must of necessity be the thing they look for and sufficient to effect those great things they desire from it it 's our part then to prove what we call Scripture to be God's Word and thus far they meet us in the way They acknowledge the absolute necessity of such a Word the absolute necessity of Man's obeying him who governs all things the absolute incapacity Men are in to know of themselves how to perform that duty its extraordinary consistency with Divine Goodness that there should be such a Word given to Mankind whereby they may be guided to happiness and their joy and readiness to receive such a Word sufficiently proved to be such when exhibited all which infer their supposition that God may if he please impart his Will in such a manner to the World Now what a Heathen would require in such a Word which should be the rule of his life could only be That it should be One that it should be of equal concern and respect to All that it should not be clog'd with Ambiguities that it should be Practicable that it should be sufficient for the end it 's designed for and that it should be suitable to and worthy of its Author these are the most comprehensive Qualifications a stranger to Christianity would have in that Word which is ascribed to God and these it will not be very difficult to show in that Scripture which we believe for If we look into the Moral and Perpetually obliging part of God's Word as a Rule of Life and Practice it 's but One and that a very short one too as laid down in the Decalogue by Moses the Jewish and as Epitomized in the Gospel by Jesus the Christians Lawgiver Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind and Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self and upon these two as our Saviour teaches depend all both the Law and the Prophets the whole body of the Old Testament and the New is but one large and plain comment upon these few words shewing their full import in abundance of particular instances so as there are no Emergencies of Humane life but what are reducible to them There
Christ nor Elias nor that Prophet but he answered positively too to their General question v. 19-23 that He was the voice of one crying in the wilderness Prepare ye the way of the Lord make his paths streight as saith the Prophet Esaias Now the Baptist being so very much reverenc'd and so mightily followed as he was his answer could not but be spread about through all Judaea and the expectations of Men be the more rais'd because the person there prophesied of by Isaias was to be the forerunner of the Messias he therefore being come the other could not be far behind Besides if we interpret the Gospel of the glad tydings of Salvation brought to all mankind the Evangelists expression will be untrue For not to mention the Promise to our first Parents and those afterwards repeated to the Patriarchs and frequently declared and enlarged upon by the Prophets that of the Angel to Zacharias the Father of S. John Baptist and that of the same Angel to the blessed Virgin and they were â—â—â—â—einly tydings of great joy and the real beginnings of that which is peculiarly stiled the Gospel both these were before the very conception of our Saviour therefore He as a meer man was not or had no being in the beginning of the Gospel and doubtless the Evangelist here in the beginning of his History taking up the very expressions of Moses in the beginning of Genesis and using his very words as translated by the Septuagint supposed his Readers would take his words in the same sence as they understand those of Moses and so in the beginning in both places signifies as much as before there was any thing existent so before any thing but the eternal God himself had a being God out of nothing produced all things and so before any thing God excepted had a being the Word was therefore that Word was God because God only could exist in the beginning or before the Creation of all things and thus the Evangelist says something peculiar of Christ and what might really set him above the Baptist or blessed Angels or any other Creatures whatsoever Otherwise the Apostle according to the Socinian fancy would have taken pains to prevent an Objection never brought at such a time too as never any Man could have rais'd it for he wrote his Gospel according to all accounts about the 90th year of our Saviour toward the end of his own very long life and when the Gospel was spread in all quarters and Heresies had gotten a great footing in the Church when that Objection about John Baptist would have appeared nonsensical and ridiculous Whereas had he design'd his Master's honour or the advantage of mankind he would have made haste and have pen'd his Gospel very early when such poor objections might have appeared with some countenance But it follows In the beginning the Word was with God this seems to prove very plainly that if the Word here spoken of be indeed the Son of God he had a being before he was visible in our Nature and that above or in Heaven or in the peculiar place of the Divine presence which granted is enough to destroy all the Socinian Doctrine of Christ's being a meer Creature or a Man like one of us and no more That Christ really had such a Being antecedent to his Incarnation we have reason to believe on the authority of concurrent Texts of Scripture for so our Saviour calls himself before the cavilling Jews John 6.51 That Bread which came down from Heaven But if he came down from heaven He must first have been there and that at least some time before he told them so The Jews in general nay his own Disciples thought this a very hard saying an expression that was very hard to be understood and so it was to those who were wholly taken up with carnal thoughts our Saviour cures their amazement or incredulity with a strange intimation What and if you should see the Son of man ascend up into heaven v. 61 62. This question plainly enough asserts that he had been with God before they converst with him here on earth and this Socinus himself acknowledges for he knew not how to disengage himself from the force of this and that yet more astonishing declaration of our Saviour to Nicodemus No man hath ascended up to heaven Joh. 3.13 but He that came down from heaven even the Son of Man which is in heaven which expression according to the Socinian Rational way of exposition as they call it is meer riddle or contradiction but according to the Catholick Faith concerning the eternal generation of the Son of God is easie and intelligible to every man For if it were God that was manifest in the flesh and continued the same eternal God still He might in his divine nature always be with his Father and yet in his Humane Nature be conversant among Men at the same time But tho' Socinus and his followers sometimes own the literal truth of these expressions they cannot hold true to what they allow for one while they 'd change it's nature and make it figurative So Jesus Christ was in heaven by the divine raptures or meditations of his Soul Explic. loc S Script Op. v 1. p. 146. or he was in heaven by that perfect knowledge he had of all divine matters thus Socinus himself But he quits it at last and flyes to that wonderful discovery filium hominis verè propriè de coelo descendisse in coelo fuisse That the Son of Man was truly and properly in heaven and descended from thence before he discours'd these things with the Jews But would you know how it was as S. Paul who tho' but a meer Man was caught up into the third heavens 2 Cor. 12.2 3 4. into Paradise and heard unspeakable words which it â—s not lawful for a man to utter so the blessed Jesus was taken up bodily into heaven and there was conversant some time with God and was there as in a School taught those things he was afterwards to preach and do in the world Would you know when It was say some when he was twelve years old and his parents mist him at their return from Jerusalem and after three days found him among the Doctors Wolzog. in Jo. c. 3. v. 13. Wolzogenius supposes it during the forty days fast in the wilderness for whereas Socinus thinks it highly fit that as Moses the type was with God upon the Mount that he might there learn those Laws and Ordinances he was to deliver to the Israelites so it was very reasonable Christ the Antitype should have some such like converse with God for the same purpose in a nobler place therefore this Author to carry on the parallel the farther would pitch it on that time to which the Evangelists allot forty days because Moses was the same space of time in the Mount and this was the great Invention of Laelius Socinus
originally in himself yet it implyes an absolute contradiction that he should be able to confer such an infinite Power upon a finite or a mortal Subject for that would be to setle a double Almightiness in the world of which one should not be Almighty or whereas Omnipotence is such an attribute as where-ever it resides it must constitute a True and Supreme God and whereas its such an attribute as cannot stand alone without a concurrent-infinity in every respect yet it may rest in a Subject neither God nor yet Supreme but in such a one as is still tho' highly exalted mortal in its own nature and capable of destruction or annihilation For if it depends only on God's Will that Christ's Body now exalted to the right hand of his Father is no more lyable to Death then had it pleased God he might have invested Moses or Elias or Enoch with this same Omnipotence as well as our Saviour and our Saviour is no more secure of the continuation of that Omnipotence he is at present possest of in himself than the good Angels are of continuing in their present state of bliss i.e. so long as the supreme God upholds them they are safe if He withdraw but for one moment they are as miserable as their fallen companions But the very thought of these things are absurd and blasphemous however not to be avoided without acknowledging the eternal Divinity of the Son of God For the farther evidence of this Truth we must look into the Faith of the Antient Church and see how this Doctrine that God was manifest in the flesh or that He who was manifest in the flesh was God the True the Supreme the most High God is asserted in it This inquiry we make not because we think Antiquity infallible nor because we imagine every opinion maintained by any Father of the Church ought to be an authentick prescription to us Where any of them have in any particular deviated from the sence of God's holy Word we value not their opinions a-whit the more for their being antient But this we must own that those who lived nearest the times of our Saviour and his Apostles had the best opportunities of knowing what they meant or how those who personally converst with them understood them as it 's easier for me who have seen and known my Father to learn from him what were the thoughts of my Grandfather or great Grandfather both which it may be my Father may have seen and converst with than to find out what particular Opinions were entertained by my Predecessors before the Conquest and so upwards Again where Scripture and Reason improved from thence give us a full evidence of any truth the concurrence and harmony of Antiquity with these evidences is of great weight and gives us a fair deduction of divine and necessary Truths thro' all ages and shews us how in spite of all the oppositions and artifices made use of by the enemies of Truth yet God has been pleased to preserve it entire and to derive it by various chanels down to us that we embracing and asserting the same Holy Faith may be partakers of the same eternal happiness with our predecessors Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors who have all dyed in the True Faith and fear of God on this consideration we shall by God's assistance give you a short account of the Primitive Faith in this particular Here then in due order of time We begin with that Clement remembred with Honour by S. Paul Phil. 4.3 as one of those fellow labourers of his whose names are in the book of life This Clement was afterwards Bishop of the Church of God in Rome on which account and by reason of his great eminence in the Church of God some of the Factors of that See have endeavoured to fasten several spurious writings upon him but the abuse was too gross to impose upon a learned world However of his we have one Authentick Epistle written in the name of the Church of Rome to the Church of Corinth Conc. Gen. Lab. Cossart T. 1. p. 133. B. upon account of a violent Schism broken out in that Church to the great scandal of the Christian Religion and to the obstruction of the progress of the Gospel In this Epistle tho' nothing were purposely written on the subject we are now treating on yet there are some not obscure evidences of what opinion He and the Church of Rome in whose name he wrote had in those early days of our blessed Lord He calls him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a name very great and such as is no where given to any meer Man it 's designed here to illustrate the extraordinary dignity of our Saviour for by so setting him off the Apostolical writer enforces his argument upon the Corinthians to perswade them to Humility which would be an excellent foundation for Charity for tho' our Lord Jesus Christ were so great tho' he were the Scepter of the greatness of God yet he came not as he might in an assuming and lofty manner but with the greatest Humility and this argument S. Hierome in his commentary on the 52 of Isaiah and the three last verses according to our translation makes use of to the same purpose owning Clement for his Author but now if the Argument of these great Men was good it must necessarily follow that our Saviour had a Being and a glorious Being too before he was born of the blessed Virgin which Birth of his into a calamitous World has always been accounted one part of his Humiliation this Humiliation could not have been thought so considerable had he not been very great and happy before Christ could not have been so great and glorious antecedently to his Birth but He must have been God and therefore the True the most high God for there could be even in a Socinians account no more but One True God before the Incarnation of our Saviour You see my beloved people says the good Man what an example is set before you and if our Lord so humbled himself viz. if he descended from Heaven to earth for our sakes how humble should those be who take upon them the yoke of his Gospel Twice afterwards this same Holy Man concluding his period with Jesus Christ p. 137. C. adds To whom be glory and Majesty for ever and ever Amen The same expressions of praise he gives to God the Father several times p. 156. B. p. 144. B. p. 148. C. p. 160. C. D and what can we conclude from using such a Doxology indifferently to God the Father and to Jesus Christ his Son But that He understood them to be of one and the same nature both Infinitely Glorious both one proper object of praise and adoration And the same venerable Author speaking of the Patriarchs Abraham Isaac and Jacob adds particularly of the last that from him descended all those Priests and Levites who serve at God's altar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
afterwards might raise them to see himself indeed and what He was before He was made flesh The passages are enow and plain enough to shew us what Origen thought true Doctrine concerning the Son of God our Saviour Upon the whole what a silly and impertinent adversary was Celsus throughout a large discourse written only to expose Christianity to contempt and hatred to make a continual noise about the impossibility of our Saviour's being God and what a shallow and ignorant advocate was Origen for Christianity to write so many books principally to prove the Faith of Christians rational in this point when in the mean time if we may believe our Socinian Adversaries the Christians in those early ages believed no such thing nor ever dream'd of Christ's being any more than a meer Man Men who intend to do any service to the cause they undertake or to procure themselves any reputation by their writings use to consider what and who it is they write for or against but it 's meer childs play for a Man to set himself up a thing of clouts that he may throw stones at it to knock it down while another takes as much pains to keep it standing Certainly Celsus knew better what he oppos'd and was sufficiently convinced that the Christians did really believe Christ was God We saw before that the Author of the Dialogue called Philopatris among Lucian's understood the Christians so and Pliny who liv'd before either of our Disputants who had by his office of Proconsul great opportunities of knowing what tenets the Christians maintain'd who had often examined them with tortures and punish'd them with Death it self for their supposed obstinacy in their errors He too understood the Christians in the same manner and therefore in that account he gives the Emperor Trajane of them among other things he takes notice of their Coetus antelucani their meetings before day-break which they were forc'd to for the better securing themselves from the Pagan furies in which meetings among the rest of their religious rites they did Carmen Christo ut Deo canere They presented their Prayers or sung Hymns to Christ as God but this Heathens themselves would have accounted a bold mocking heaven had not they believed he was God indeed whom they so worshipped as God from which Gerrhard Vossius in his Commentary on that Epistle of Pliny as also Rittershusius conclude Vià ad Calcem Epistolarum Plinianarum Edit Hackianae That tho' the Heathen world looked upon our Lord as a Sophister only and a cheat yet the Christians always acknowledged him to be God Vossius tells us the very name of Hymns intimates that they belonged to God for so he says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a hymn is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Psalm to God and never used otherwise except once or twice in poetical writings and refers us to Eusebius who from a nameless Author Historiae Eccles l. 5. c. 27. but about the Age wherein Irenaeus liv'd takes notice of many Psalms and Hymns composed from the beginning by Faithful Brethren who in those compositions declared Christ the Word of God to be God Thus the Writings of Heathens themselves and of such who have been the greatest enemies of Christianity have been by Divine Providence preserved to give unanswerable evidence to those truths which some false pretenders to Christianity have endeavoured to explode and to satisfie us of our consent with those antient Saints and Martyrs in the most weighty particulars of our Holy Religion We have now done with the Greek we come next to the Latin Fathers And here we must in the first place take notice of Tertullian a Man of vast abilities and most acute in his reasonings and whom Schlichtingius esteems almost the Parent of our Doctrine concerning the Trinity he 's the eldest Writer we have in the Latin Language and very plain in the case before us Tertullian then in his book de Patientiâ Tertul. de Pat. Edit Par. 1545. p. 3. for an example of Patience recommends to us our dear Redeemer Nasci se Deus in utero patitur matris c. God suffers himself to be born in the womb of his Mother and waits for his birth Being born He endures gradually to grow up being grown up He 's not ambitious to be taken notice of but even debases himself and is baptised by his own servant and repels the Tempters assaults only with his Word So He who had resolved to clothe himself with flesh had yet nothing of Humane impatience about him Here we see he calls our Saviour God positively and makes a great use of that notion of his being so Thus again in his book de Carne Christi written against Marcion who was so far from denying Christ to be God that he fell into a contrary error and would believe he was nothing else but God that the Flesh he assumed was a meer Phantasme a Body in appearance but nothing at all in reality and so all the actions he did all the sufferings he underwent were only seeming actions and seeming sufferings and no more and a principal reason he pitched upon for his opinion was this He thought the Birth or nativity of God was an impossibility but why should Marcion pitch upon this fancy if he had not known that all the professors of Christianity took Christ to be God Or why should any trouble themselves to reconcile God's being clothed with flesh to a possibility when the best method to have confuted Marcion as before we observ'd in the case of Origen would have been to have prov'd that our Saviour was so far from having only the outward appearance of a Man that he was really a meer Man and nothing else But says Tertullian to this Sed Deo nihil est impossibile nisi quod non vult De Carne Christi p. 8. c. But nothing is impossible to God but what 's disagreeable to his Will Let us consider then if it were his Will to be born for if he would he certainly could be so In short if God would not have been born neither would he have appeared as a Man on any account for who would not have thought him born into the World had they seen him in the form of a Man Therefore if he would not be a Man he would not seem so for it signified nothing to those that saw him whether He really was a Man or not since by seeing him they concluded he was so But whereas Marcion objected He denyed God could be converted into Man so as to be born and to be incorporated with flesh because He that is Eternal must also necessarily be Vnchangeable Tertullian makes this a peculiarity of the Divine nature which sets it higher than any thing created that whereas created Beings upon a change lose their former nature God does not so but is God still tho' he be clothed with flesh and argues that if Angels of old could assume real
cheats and notorious villans in that they have left us such accounts of that Faith whereby Salvation must be attain'd as can only serve to cheat and abuse their Readers and lead them into unreasonable and damnable Errors They only laid so many snares in their unhappy Writings for the ruining mens Souls and their wicked designs have had but too too fatal effects upon the World Now all this is very hard to believe of Men who converst with the inspired Apostles some of whom had that glorious power of working Miracles confer'd upon them some laid down their Lives with the greatest joys and triumphs for the sake of their blessed Master and the rest were ready to have done so whensoever Providence should have summoned them to that fiery tryal It 's hard to believe that such Men could be betrayers or corrupters of the Faith in its most Essential Articles If these Fathers were honest and faithful in their Writings and set down there only what were their real thoughts as became honest and good Men if they defended Christianity against its subtle and powerful enemies with a just Industry and Integrity then in what I have alledged from them we have a faithful and honest account of what the Antient Church believed concerning the Nature of the Son of God and we have reason to satisfie our selves and to give praise to God who has still afforded us so much light as that we can agree with the Eldest and most Apostolical Churches in that saving truth That the Son of God who in fulness of time took upon him our flesh is really God equal with his Father If any should enquire Why I only make use of those Fathers who lived before the Nicene Council The reason is because they are less to be suspected by those we have to do with as having no interest in those Controversies which were afterwards managed by particular Persons with a great deal of heat and eagerness Besides the Socinians are sometimes apt to boast that the most antient Fathers are on their side whereas they 'l freely own the Principal Writers afterwards are against them not but that several did undertake the Patronage of the Arrians and their accomplices after the Council of Nice but their Writings are gone and they ly there at the mercy of their Adversaries Not only the Socinians themselves are apt sometimes to Appeal to the Ante-Nicene Fathers but several Great Men such as Erasmus Grotius Petavius and others are apt to yield this to them therefore it was proper in the first place to give a true account of the first Writers whose Doctrines others afterwards did but repeat and illustrate Our Church principally recommends to us the Doctrine that 's nearest to the fountain head that agreeing best with the fountain it self from which it is derived that is the Word of God Now the Socinians sometimes would fain put in for an Interest with these Antient Writers Vid. Epist intermutuas Ruari Zwickeri in Ruari Epist centuriá primâ and Zwicker particularly in his Irenicum Irenicor tho' he was very far himself from agreeing with his brethren in all particulars Yet upon better consideration they are loth to depend upon that authority of the Fathers knowing too well that they must be cast by their verdict Therefore their great Patriarch Socinus himself in his answer to Vujekus the Polonian Jesuit who had written a book on purpose to prove the Divinity of Christ where Vujekus presses him with the Authority of the Fathers answers thus That the perpetual and universal consent of the whole World is of the less weight against Divine Testimonies tho' obscure when those things which are the subjects of that consent evidently oppose reason and common sence But here we may say That truth can never be so entirely lost that the whole World should always desert it but where Scripture-expressions are obscure the perpetual consent of the whole World about their sence would be incomparably the best interpretation of those obscurities and it 's very hard to believe that the whole World should perpetually agree in what 's against reason and common sence A great number have embraced the Roman Doctrine of Transubstantiation but we know that neither All nor the greatest part of the World embraced it nor was it held perpetually by any and tho' we may allow Socinus to have been a man of great Reason yet we may allow those who held the contrary Opinion to His to have been as Rational as himself and perhaps on a strict scrutiny it may appear contradictious to reason and common sence to assert that our blessed Saviour was no more than a meer Man But in short Socinus never troubles himself to deny those Authorities the Jesuite had ramassed from the Fathers nor to answer them but makes use of one Herculean Argument against them all for first he tells us It can't be said the whole doctrine or the greatest part of the doctrine of the antient Church was opposite to the Socinians or agreeable to the Doctrine of their Adversaries for there were many whose Writings are now wholly lost whose opinions therefore we cannot judge of and many there were who never wrote any thing at all and they might be of a contrary mind to those whose Writings we still have and they were infinitely more numerous That the Arrian Heresie was once spread far and wide favoured by Princes confirmed by Councils and almost generally entertained tho' afterwards by degrees it vanish'd therefore says He our Adversaries need not boast of that universal and perpetual consent of the Church whether it were real or verbal for which was the true Church and where it was was for several ages disputable Itaque haec Authoritatum testimoniorum ex Patribus Conciliis congeries nullas vires habet praesertim vero adversum nos qui ab istis Patribus Conciliis quae extant nos dissentire non dissitemur Socinus contra Vujekum ad classem argum 7 c. 9. p. 618. Therefore this heap of Authorities from Fathers and Councils is of no force especially against us who freely own our dissent from those Fathers and Councils which are yet extant Nor can it ever be prov'd by the Writings of any of our Party that they did either assert or believe that those who wrote before the Nicene Council whose works are extant were of our mind tho' they were as little of the mind of our Adversaries as of ours This now is plain dealing and more ingenuous by far than wresting a few sentences contrary to the Writers minds only to amuse the ignorant with an empty shew of Antiquity But more plainly yet Socinus soon after confesses that the extant Fathers differed from his Party in that they assert That Christ or the Son of God had a Being of the substance of his Father before the worlds creation that he had often appear'd to the Fathers under the Old Testament nay that that one God his
both at the same time opened him that entrance into Heaven but there as our great and never-dying High-priest he makes Intercession for us to his Father he presents to his Father's view those mighty Sufferings he had undergone on our Account which serving as a Memorial of that eternal Determination of the Deity for Man's Redemption has the same and greater Efficacy on our behalf than a Plea from divine Truth and Justice it self he being invested with that Almighty Power of bestowing those Blessings he has purchas'd for us and the Demonstrations of his Merits his Will and his Goodness being all one Act. It 's true the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us Heb. 9.7 that the High-priest went not into the Holy place without Blood which he offered for himself and for the Errors of the people but how that was we have explained before since that Blood was made use of for purifying even the Holiest Place render'd impure by the Sins of the High-priest himself and by the Errors of the People Perhaps it would not be amiss to take some notice of those different Expiations of Sins in the Old and in the New Testament which the Socinians in their discourses concerning Christ's Priesthood tell us of i. e. That Legal Sacrifices were only appointed for such Crimes as were committed by Imprudence or Infirmity greater Offenders not being directed to make use of any but were doom'd to die for their Crimes whereas as they say the greatest of Sins provided Men persevere not in them but are truly penitent are expiated by the Sacrifice of Christ and this they prove from that of St. Paul Be it known unto you Act. 13.38 39. that through Christ is preach'd unto you the forgiveness of Sins and by him all that believe are justify'd from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses But here we are to consider that the Political as well as the Religious Laws of the Israelites being given at one time by Almighty God they are so blended together and made Dependents on one another that where an ordinary Sacrifice could not there the Death of the Offender himself might satisfie for the Crime committed A Sacrifice offer'd though by its Institution it were expiatory yet if the Sinner however ignorant or weak persisted in his Sin or approach'd the Altar of God without true Humility and Repentance for the Sin committed his Sin could not be pardoned on account of the Sacrifice offer'd but if such a Sinner did truly repent and amend his Errors his Offering was then accepted and not only temporary but eternal Judgments diverted from him for such Sacrifices typified the Sacrifice of Christ which was powerful to save us from both Worldly Punishments and the Damnation of Hell and as we have before observed the Virtue of those Sacrifices consisted wholly in that relation the Types had to their Antitype Now where the Jewish political Laws reach'd the Life of the Delinquent and took his Blood there it would have been an Impertinence to offer the Blood of other Creatures for him but it follows not but that the same Conditions of hearty Repentance and true Resolutions of amendment might procure the Offender's pardon from God though he suffered under the Rigour of the Sanguinary Laws and the daily Sacrifices were of some import with respect to such Criminals and the Blood of Christ though to be shed afterwards was available to the Salvation of such so a Terrour was struck upon Others by the Delinquent's outward Sufferings and Encouragement was given to the greatest Sinners to repent by the reasonable Hopes of their being pardoned by Heaven who yet were to suffer upon Earth And so we find among Christians in Christian Governments the Laws take notice of and animadvert upon notorious Sins some are punished by lighter Penalties some by Death it self yet the Prayers and Intercessions of the Church offer'd to God in the name of Christ may be and frequently are effectual to the Eternal Salvation of such Persons so justly suffering for their Crimes but for the Text alledged the Import of it is this That by the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ we are really and effectually freed from all Sins whereas the Ceremonies of the Law had no such intrinsic purging Power of themselves all their Validity depending wholly and onely on their Relation to this All sufficient Sacrifice of the Son of God But we are taught by these Innovators that this Sacrifice was not compleat till our Saviour enter'd Heaven Cat. Raco §. 7. p. 173. nor he possest of his High-Priesthood till that time yet at the same time they own Christ was a Priest when hanging on the Cross if he were a Priest he must be our High-priest for we meet with no Gradations in that Office of his in Scripture nor that by executing the Office of an inferiour Priest very well he purchas'd a title to an higher Dignity If he were an High-priest he was compleatly so else he was and he was not the High-priest at the same time but the Socinian Error in this matter lies in not distinguishing rightly of the Priests Offices the Apostle teaches us Heb. 5.1 2. That an High-priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God Now things pertaining to God are not only external Gifts and Sacrifices but those that are internal and Spritual too such as are Prayers and Supplications with respect to which it 's necessary an High-priest should have compassion on the Ignorant and on them who are out of the way for that he himself also is compassed with Infirmities a Sense of his own Wants is apt in any Man to raise a sympathizing Tenderness for others so that when he begs of God Pardon for his own Sins he may at the same time implore Divine Mercy for the Sins of others now the High-priest is compleatly such in doing both or either of these so upon the Cross our Saviour was our High-priest and his external expiatory Sacrifice was compleatly offered in Heaven interceding for us with his Father he there presents that Sacrifice shadow'd to us by what we commonly understand to be the meaning of Prayers and Supplications i. e. Christ in Heaven intercedes as powerfully and effectually for us as if he really did pray and supplicate as present on our behalf but that he should literally do so is unnecessary and not to be understood by his Intercession for us for he 's an Intercessor not only who prays and supplicates immediately for another or on his behalf but He 's one who by some extraordinary Action pleasing to him with whom he intercedes purchases a Power of doing that thing or shewing that Kindness to his Friends at all times by himself which without that purchace he must make continual and repeated Intreaties for such a Power has our Lord purchased for himself by offering himself a Satisfaction for the World's Sins in his Sufferings compleated
Actions prove to the World they were in quest of a better Countrey and yet We who have seen the Performance of those Promises they depended on their Obscurities all cleared their Certainty vindicated We who are beset with such a Cloud of Witnesses cannot cast aside every Sin and the Weight that does so easily oppress us and run with Joy the Race that 's set before us Were we Bond-slaves to Hell and has the Son of God struck off our Chains and Fetters and do we love them still is Light come into the World and can we love Darkness rather than Light were we all liable to eternal Vengeance and has our Lord redeemed us with his own most precious Blood from the dismal strokes of that Vengeance and shall we not believe in him that has alone trod the Wine-press of his Father's Wrath for us We were Sinners we were Enemies we were foolish and obstinate Enemies yet the Son of God that great Shepherd of the Sheep came to seek and to save that which was lost and can we be his Enemies still who was so much our Friend I 'm sure whatever corrupt Nature may tempt us to it would be wretched Policy in us to reject what he has done for us the wicked Husbandmen kill'd their Lord's Son indeed but it was to their own Confusion the rebellious Citizens refus'd to have their rightful King reign over them but it was to their Destruction the First or Primary End of our Saviour's Coming was that Men might be saved but if Men foolishly neglect that End there is a Secondary Design in it that those who still continue in Sin may be without Excuse that they may have nothing to plead for themselves at the great Day but that the Justice of his Wrath against Sin and Sinners may appear to Men and Angels Where an Ambassadour of Peace is sent and slighted the Dignity of the Ambassadour aggravates the Contempt the Apostle therefore having in the first Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews demonstrated the Dignity of Christ and proved his pre-eminence to Men and Angels who yet after the several Methods God had formerly taken to reveal himself had in those latter days spoken himself to the World makes this rational Deduction from all Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we hear in the name of Christ Heb. 2.1 2 3. for if the word spoken by Angels was stedfast and every Transgression and Disobedience receiv'd a just Recompence of reward how shall we escape if we neglect so great Salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirm'd to us by them that heard him If we repent not at his Call if we submit not to his Admonitions nor lay hold on his Grace we must not please our selves with empty Dreams of entring into his Rest there remains now no more Sacrifice for Sins His indeed is sufficient to those who believe in and obey him but for those who obey not the Truth there remains nothing but Indignation and Wrath Tribulation and Anguish to every Soul that doth Evil let his State and Condition be what it will this Wo I hope all those who profess Christianity will endeavour to avoid and that all those who name the Name of Christ that glorious saving Name will depart from Iniquity If our Saviour be the Son of God if he be God himself infinite and eternal and yet humbled himself and took upon him the Form of a Servant for our Redemption if it were absolutely necessary that he who undertook so great a Work should be real God as well as real Man or else must have sunk in that prodigious Attempt it behoves all those who expect Salvation by his Name to adhere to this Doctrine to believe in Christ as he is set forth to us in Sacred Writ that is as God co-equal and co-essential with his Father I would to God the Caution were needless There were some Hereticks in the Ancient Church who would needs maintain our Lord was not true Man had only a phantastical Body but not real Flesh and Blood as we have others as it were to ballance them would assert our Saviour was a meer Man and no more that he was not real God nor his Love to us nor his Undertakings for us so great as we are ready to conclude God's Blessing upon the Labours of the Governours of the Church in those days crusht the growing Heresies and they bequeath'd to us a Faith undeprav'd unchanged nor had the Trent-Conventicle an Opportunity to propound their additional Articles of Faith till besides the Eastern Churches God was pleased to raise up Men in these Western parts of the World of extraordinary Piety and Learning and Industry who had rescued the genuine Christian Faith from Fraud and Obscurity to give it us so as the Ancient Christians had left it without Additions or Alterations by which Cares they prevented the malignant Designs of the Roman Church but as the Devil will always be sowing his Tares of Heresies and Falshoods among the good Wheat of Divine Truths so with the Reformation of Religion besides the bloody Severities of Romish Bigots several of the ancient Heresies were reviv'd and particularly that which denied the Eternal Divinity of the Son of God which as it walk'd about formerly under several Names so it has of late though as the Presbyterians and Independents the other day in spite of former Feuds are pleased to give themselves the painted Title of Vnited Brethren so those wretched Hereticks however at odds among themselves agreed in the gay Name of Vnitarians under which Name Turks and Jews come as well and properly as they if they could be true to their own Principles They unite indeed all in that one impious Error in denying the Divinity of our Saviour a Heresie detestable to every sober and intelligent Christian a Heresie proper only to introduce Deism and Sadducism and to thrust true Evangelical Christianity out of doors This all those who love their Religion ought to oppose and declare against with as much Zeal and Care and more than they would against the foulest Errors of the Roman See for though there are so many Falsities and Absurdities propounded to us in that Communion yet there 's nothing flies so directly in the face of Almighty God as this it 's Folly enough to believe the Bishop of Rome Christ's universal Vicar upon Earth but it 's a greater Stupidity to believe that Christ himself is no more truly and originally God than that pretended Vicar it 's Idolatry to pray to Saints or Angels and to make them the ultimate Object of our Adorations it 's greater yet to make a meer Man the Object of the same Devotions and to suppose him a made God and capable of doing every thing for us we beg at his hands though he were no more but a Creature as others at his first existence it 's Madness to believe that