Witness but St. John it were more than sufficient to condemn the Blasphemy In the days of the Emperor Domitian one Ebion a Samaritan and his Sectators denying Christ's Divinity the Apostle did write his Gospel to prove it which in so many places thereof is done as positively fully and clearly as Heart can desire Only some few I shall take notice of to begin with the first Verse of Chap. 1. * John 1.1 14. In the Beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God compared with V. 14. and the Word was made Flesh Afford us this Argument the Word was God the Word was made Flesh therefore God was made Flesh And as the name Word is proper to Christ who was made Flesh it followeth that Christ is God And in another place he is in a most specifical manner called * Chap. 3.16 God's only begotten Son whereby he is affirmed to be of the same Nature and Substance and equal with him * Chap. 14.9 He that hath seen me hath seen the Father saith he The Reason he gives elsewhere * Chap. 10.30 I and my Father are one and to Philip he saith ‖ Ch. 14.10 11. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me which for greater Confirmation he had said just in the Verse before this Demonstrates a stricter Union than meerly one of Favour and Grace this shews the Unity of Nature in the Distinction of Persons which though distinguished amongst themselves so that the Father is not the Son nor the Son the Father yet both are Gods and Divine Nature is common to both nothing can be more like the Person of the Father than the Person of the Son wherefore he is called * Colos 1.15 the Image of the invisible God God the Father is Invisible no Man hath ever seen him but he hath made himself visible in the Person of his Son who is partaker of his Nature To this purpose the Lord Jesus is said to be * Heb. 11.3 the brightness of his Glory and the express Image of his Person This is no Flattery to him nor Favour for it is his Right herein he is no Usurper nor Intruder for if he was God would not suffer it being as he is so Jealous of his Honour and Glory 't is therefore upon a just Title that * Phil. 2.5 6. Christ thought it no Robbery to be equal with God None but God can truly and really be equal with God I would know what meer Creature may lawfully be compared to and be equal with God The Lord Jesus himself declares at several times how he came from the Father that is from above * John 3.31 from Heaven how the Father had sent him which is to be understood when he became Man and was born of a Woman Now he could not be sent and come before he had a Being and as he was come from the Father so he returned to the Father as he declared it to his Disciples But I desire a special notice to be taken of what is said * John 17.5 And now O Father glorifie thou me with the Glory which I had with thee before the World was Whence we infer how the Lord Jesus was before the World that is from Eternity for time began only at the Creation how not only he was but also had Glory equal with the Father This cannot be understood of his Humanity because he was Born in Time and he was not Glorified till after his Resurrection nor he could not have a Glory except he had a Being which Being had no relation to his Humanity but to his Divinity And because thorough his Humiliation that Glory had been eclipsed he was to return and again to appear in it after the Work he came about was over There would be no end if I would enlarge and bring in so many places as the Old and New Testaments do afford to prove this Point the strength of which the bitter Enemies of this Truth being sensible of it makes them do what they can to elude it and undervalue the Authority of the Scripture which must be the Judge in the Cause reserving the Interpretation thereof to their own Fancy or Reason as they would call it Wherefore to be short I shall according to the usual way in Schools of Divinity resolve the whole into an Argument which is this He to whom in God's Word are appropriated the Names Attributes Works and Divine Honour he is true Eternal God but to the Lord Jesus all these are attributed in Scripture therefore the Lord Jesus is true Eternal God We must descend to Particulars First as to the Names we begin with the Old Testament few out of many He is called * Isa 7.14 Immanuel which being interpreted is ‖ Matt. 1.23 God with us And by the same Prophet amongst other Glorious Names he is called the * Isa 9.6 Mighty God And in another place ‖ Ch. 35.4 5 6. Behold your God will come with Vengeance even God with a Recompense c. which our Saviour * Matt. 11.5 applieth unto himself So the Name of God and of Jehovah which Jews own to be an incommunicable Name of God never to be pronounced but once a Year by the High Priest in the Holiest of all are given him as in * Ch. 16.13 18.1 this to be compared with Hos 12.6 Genesis and in ‖ Exod. 3.15 Exodus in †Mal. 3.1 Malachy he is called the Lord the Messenger of the Covenant who often appeared to the Fathers as a forerunning of his Incarnation amongst others to * Josh 5.14 15. Joshua under the name of Captain of the Host of the Lord to whom Joshua by his Command rendered the same Honour as ‖ Exod. 3.5 Moses had done before Put off thy Shoes from off thy Feet for the place where thou standest is Holy Ground in which place he is called the Angel of the Lord v. 2. v. 4. the Lord and God This is the Angel of God promised to be sent before his People * Exod. 23.20 21 22. for my Name is in him he is called by the same Name as I am and he is the same as I am even God Of the word Jehovah which is Englished the Lord being attributed to our Saviour we have besides others two considerable Instances one is ‖ Isa 40.3 The Voice of him that crieth in the Wilderness Prepare ye the way of the Lord make straight in the Desert a High-way for our God The Voice is * John 1.23 applied to John the Baptist as our Saviour whose Forerunner he was is the Lord and God The other Instance is this ‖ Hos 1.7 I will have Mercy upon the House of Judah and I will Save them by the Lord their God Now there is no other Saviour but Jesus Christ the Messiah which he plainly declared to the Woman
Serious Advice TO A PRESERVATIVE Against the Blasphemous Heresie OF SOCINIANISM Do not I hate them O Lord that hate thee And am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee I hate them with a perfect Hatred I count them mine Enemies Psal 139.21 22. By J. G. G. LONDON Printed for Geo. Grafton and are to be Sold by Ric. Baldwin at the Oxford-Arms in Warwick-lane 1695. Serious Advice to a Preservative against the Blasphemous Heresie of Socinianism NOW more than ever there is cause to say the last Days and Times foretold by the Apostles * 2 Tim. 3.1 2 3 4 5. St. Paul and ‖ 1 John 2.18 St. John are come upon us For not only Iniquity in Practise doth abound every where and the Man and Manner of Sin is daily more and more discovered But also Perverseness in Judgment in no less than Heresie and Blasphemy walks bare-faced with those who are so far delivered up to Satan as to deny the Lord of Glory For abominable Socinianism which is a Sink of the Cerinthians Ebionites Sabellians Samosatenians Photinians Arrians Semi-Arrians Anti-Trinitarians Pelagians and of several other Hereticks doth now proudly appear and in Effect defie Christian Religion and attempts to overthrow the Foundation of the Gospel not in one but several parts thereof It is for me a Matter of Wonderful Grief to see the Boldness and Impudence of that Abominable Heresie as it were Triumphantly to come in of one side and the Silence and Sluggishness of those that should oppose it on the other * Jer. 9.1 O that my Head were Waters and mine Eyes a Fountain of Tears that I might Weep day and night for the Guilt which is thereby contracted upon the Nation My Purpose is for the present by the Grace of God only to give in my Evidence in the Case and that as briefly and plainly as I can to condescend to the meanest Capacity But if by Providence I be further engaged in the Matter I shall grudge neither Time nor Pains upon so Just so Necessary and so Glorious an Account as to bear Record for the Fundamental Truth of Christian Religion Laelius Socinus the Uncle and Faustus Socinus his Nephew both of Siena in Italy soon after the Death of Detestable Servetus did the first conceive and the second bring forth their Damnable Opinions which amongst the rest are these They deny the most Holy and Adorable Trinity Christ's Divinity his being Coeternal in Time if we may use that word with the Father Coessential in Nature and Coequal in Power they will not own he hath given the Father Satisfaction for our Sins but only obtained for us by our Faith and Obedience to satisfie for our selves They say he died for our Good but not in our Place he died for himself not for his Sins but for the Mortality and Infirmity of our Nature which he had assumed he became not our High Priest till after his Ascension into Heaven How Man before his Fall was Naturally Mortal and had no Original Righteousness that in us there is no Original Sin as it imports a Deformity of Nature The Holy Ghost they admit not to be God no more than Christ whose Incarnation they affirm to be against Reason and without Proofs of Scripture With Pelagians they are against Providence and Matters of Grace All these and others abominable Errors which destroy the whole Foundation and Work of our Salvation are to be found in the Books of Socinus Crellius Ostorodius c. How far will Men go when once they are fallen into and engaged in an evil way When God hath left them in the Blindness and Darkness of their Understanding and given them up to the Imaginations and Counsels of their evil Hearts to the Temptations of Satan and to their own Natural Corruption We see it in the case of that Wicked Arrius who within a short time from the Year 323 till 336 drew a great part of the World after him and in the other of that great Impostor Mahomet who agreed with Arrius against the Deity of the Lord Jesus wherein he is followed by Socinians That Man thorough a Judgment of God * 2 Thess 2.11 sending a strong Delusion that Men should believe a Lye by the means of a Foolish Book of a Nonsensical Alcoran of pretended Trances and Raptures when he was in his Fit of the Falling-sickness and of the Cheat of a Pidgeon picking as it had been taught some Grains out of his Ear as if the Angel Gabriel under that shape had then been Suggesting his Religion and Doctrine to him with some Allowance to the Pleasures of the Flesh in this World and Promises of the like in the next by these means and the Trick of his Tomb at Mecca hath drawn a great part of the World after him In order to settle their Impious Principles Socinians go about two things First To overthrow the Ground of our Faith and Religion with their attempting to undermine Holy Scriptures which are the Foundation and Rule of it To bring it about They affirm the Old Testament to be needless for Christians as for the Books of the New they allow not the Authors thereof to have been Inspired by the Spirit of God positively against what is said 2 Tim. 3.16 and therein they would have some places to contradict others grant this and you take away the Infallibility and Truth of Scripture and if it be yielded of one Text why not of many more If so What will become of Christian Religion grounded upon the Gospel For if we must believe St. Paul who * Gal. 1.11 12. Certifies it is not after Man for he neither received it of Man neither was he taught it but by Revelation of Jesus Christ The second thing Socinians do to promote their Blasphemies is To make Natural Reason the Principle of Religion for they give all to Reason as if it was Infallible and could not be imposed upon and nothing to the Authority and Consent of the Church nor of Scripture it self according to this Rule of theirs That no Interpretation of Holy Scripture is to be admitted except it doth agree with Natural Reason and to the Evident Experience of outward Senses Instead of the Traditions which Papists bring in they would have their own Reason without the Influences of the Spirit of God to be the genuine and proper Interpreter of God's Holy Word So take away the Rule and you bring in Disorder and Confusion We know and own how Faith doth not destroy Reason rather it doth Refine and Purifie it so God forbid we should exclude Reason from Religion for 't is Subservient to it Reason indeed hath something of Religion for by the Light of Nature in things of the World and Course of Providence one may be convinced how there is a Being of Beings a first Cause of all and a God whose Power and Wisdom appeareth in the Works and Order of Nature which as * Psal
* John 4.26 I that speak unto thee am he If then Christ spoke the Truth and St. John hath written the Truth Christ is he who is also called ‖ Isa 63.9 8. the Angel of God's presence who saved them his People so he was their Saviour All this spoken of the Lord Jesus The Proofs of this out of the New Testament are as clear as can be besides the Texts already quoted observe the following * John 17.3 This is Eternal Life to know thee the only true God and whom thou hast sent Jesus Christ that is to be the only true God a thing usual amongst the Hebrews for though the Language be Greek yet the Writers were Jews whose Tongue and manner of expressing themselves is Compendious and Laconick and commonly implies more than it doth express especially in avoiding of Repetitions of many Instances let one serve for all 't is this ‖ Psal 37.25 I have been Young and now am Old yet have I not seen the Righteous forsaken nor his Seed begging Bread supply the word forsaken before expressed for sometimes the Seed of the Righteous God suffers by way of Trial to beg but though they beg yet he never forsaketh them Thus in this place after the words Jesus Christ the words to be the only true God ought to be supplied and understood The same Evangelist addeth elsewhere * John 20.31 These things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God of the Living God according to the Confession before made by Peter ‖ Chap. 6.69 We believe and are sure that thou art that Christ the Son of the Living God The Son and only Son of the Living God must needs also be the Living God 'T is said * Acts 20.28 God hath purchased the Church with his own Blood Properly speaking God hath no Blood How then can he purchase a Church with his own Blood otherwise than by the means of an Hypostatical Union of the Divine and Humane Natures in one Person by vertue whereof the Blood which belongs to Humane Nature is called God's own Blood Thomas calls him * John 20.28 my Lord and my God and St. Paul saith ‖ Rom. 9.5 he is over all God Blessed for ever and †Colos 2.9 in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily How fully doth this express it thus * 1 Tim. 3.16 God was manifest in the Flesh and his beloved Apostle saith ‖ 1 John 5.20 And we know that the Son of God is come in the Flesh and hath given us an understanding that we might know him that is true Son of God even in his Son Jesus Christ This is the True God and Eternal Life This Jesus Christ is not God only in comparison of other Men or by some special Prerogative of Favour or in some higher degree than all the rest but this Jesus Christ is the True God How can it be more plainly and fully expressed that he is the True God So every where else the Lord Jesus is absolutely called God the True God and not relatively as Moses is said * Exod. 7.1 to be made a God to Pharaoh Holy Scripture gives our Blessed Saviour Attributes that are incommunicable to the Creature so he must needs be True God As first Eternity whereof he is called the Father or * Isa 9.6 the Everlasting Father also ‖ Rev. 1.8 17 18. Alpha and Omega the Beginning and the Ending which is which was and which is to come the Almighty repeated Verses 11 12. namely when the Apostle turned to see the Voice that spake to him that had called himself Alpha and Omega which being the first and last Letters of the Greek Alphabet signifie first of all and last of all that is his Eternity he saw one like the Son of Man that is the Lord Jesus who v. 17. calls also himself the first and the last and the next Verse shews it to be understood of Christ for he saith I am he that liveth and was dead And Chap. 21.6 he saith again I am Alpha and Omega the Beginning and the End to be compared with v. 3. The Tabernacle of God is with Men and he will dwell with them and they shall be his People and God himself shall be with them To be understood of the Incarnation as expressed by the same Apostle John 1 14. and if any Doubt should remain 't is fully cleared Chap. 22.13 where again and together are rehearsed the general words spoken asunder in the other places I am Alpha and Omega the Beginning and the End the First and the Last and to know who saith so of himself read v. 16. I Jesus have sent mine Angel and v. 6. is called the Lord God And the Lord God sent his Angel c. And that all this is the Attribute and Prerogative of the only true Eternal God Isa 41.4 and 44.6 it appears out of Isaiah which our Saviour's words in the Revelations relate to Thus saith the Lord the King of Israel and his Redeemer the Lord of Hosts I am the first and I am the Last and besides me there is no God which to the same purpose are repeated in other places of the same Prophesie To condescend unto our Capacity the Spirit of God doth represent this Eternity in three parts Past Present and to come by him which is which was Rev. 1.4 and which is to come and it cannot be denied thereby the True Eternal God to be understood and hereunto doth fitly answer that place of Scripture which applies it to the Lord Jesus Heb. 13.8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday and to day and for ever Socinians would have Christ's Being to have began with his Birth of the Blessed Virgin but he peremptorily confutes them with the Jews when he saith * John 8.58 before Abraham was I am Can that Generation of Vipers deny he spoke the Truth when he said so If they do then with the Jews they declare themselves to be the Children of the Devil who as our Saviour said to them * Verse 44. Is a Liar and the Father of it If now our Saviour was amongst them they would take up Stones to Stone him as the Jews did at that time according to their Principles which are the same with those of the Jews they would call him a Blasphemer and make use of their words * Chap. 10.33 For a good Work we stone thee not but for Blasphemy and because that thou being a Man makest thy self God I ask Did the Lord Jesus upon this Charge deny himself to be God Which he would have done if he had not been Or else Was he an Impostor or Deluder Which he must needs have been if he would have passed for God when he was not O the Horrid and Insufferable Blasphemy of Wicked Men. Then Scripture attributes Omniscience unto Christ when he was upon Earth as well as