the latter part of the verse for let us with Grotius by the mystery of godliness understand the Gospel as we commonly understand it and which we own does contain the mystery of godliness That the Gospel was preach'd by weak Men we own nay that our Saviour himself in his state of exinanition or in his humane nature appear'd weak and contemptible enough we own too but that the Gospel appear'd in the flesh or cloath'd with flesh which is the proper import of the Apostles phrase we deny as absurd That the Gospel was justified in or by the Spirit the miraculous effusions of that confirming the truth of the Gospel preach'd we may own well enough but that the Gospel was seen of Angels is scarce sence that it was never known before it had been declar'd by Men is false for the Angels could not be unacquainted with the several Prophecies of the old Testament concerning the Messias to come nor could they be so far to seek in the meaning of those Prophecies many of which they had been instrumental in delivering and the Angels themselves were indeed the first preachers of the Gospel So the Angel Gabriel tells Zacharias concerning the Son that should be born to him Many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children Luke 1.16 17. and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. The same Gabriel afterwards tells the blessed Virgin Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and shalt bring forth a Son and shalt call his name Jesus v. 31 32 33. He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the highest and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever and of his kingdom there shall be no end It was an Angel that appear'd to Joseph in a dream Matth. 1.20 21. and told him that his espoused wife was with child of the Holy Ghost And she shall bring forth a Son says he and thou shalt call his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins Again an Angel of the Lord tells the Shepherds who were watching their flocks by night Luke 2.10 11 13 14. Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. To which Gospel a whole Choir of Angels subjoyned their Eucharistical Hymn Glory be to God on high in earth peace good will towards men These instances are enough to prove that Angels knew the Gospel before men preacht it not to mention their administring to our Saviour in the wilderness when entring on his prophetical Office and their publishing his resurrection the great confirmation of the Gospel before his Apostles had any apprehensions of it The Gospel was indeed preach'd unto the Gentiles and believ'd on in the World but it was far from being receiv'd in glory for it was scorn'd and derided and cruelly persecuted both by Jews and Gentiles the Devil raising all the powers in the world as far as possible for the extirpation of what was so great an enemy to his Tyranny the Gospel then will not answer all those particular marks set down in the Text. Neither yet are they applicable to God the Father as several of the Socinians would have them for to say God the Father was manifest in the flesh because his will was preach'd by Men who were but flesh and blood besides that such an assertion quits the Suppositum or Subject which was God the Father unless God and Gods will be one and the same thing which cannot be asserted It 's so uncouth an expression as is no where to be parallel'd either in Scripture or any Ecclesiastical Writer We read not any where that God the Father ever appear'd in the flesh or assum'd Humane nature nor did ever any dream of such a thing unless we recur to the ancient Patropassians so call'd because they believ'd it was really God the Father who being Incarnate suffer'd death on the Cross for the sins of Mankind but of that we have no foot-steps in holy Writ nor was the Deity it self ever made manifest in the flesh but in the flesh of the blessed Jesus Col. 2.9 in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily not in his doctrine as the Socinians would have it but in himself Vid. Schlicktin in loc and according to their own demands on the like occasion we would have them shew us some other clear place of Scripture wherein God the Father is said to be manifest in the flesh or to be manifest in Christ and the Apostles and then we may the better consent to their interpretation Again it 's as odd and unusual to say God the Father was justified in the Spirit for what need was there of any such justification his Eternal Power and Godhead were visible in the Universal fabrick of nature and all the Miracles done by our Saviour which Socinians refer to the influence of the Spirit were done that Men might know he was the promis'd Messias and those done by the Apostles after his ascent into Heaven carry'd along with them the same respect but we never heard of any publick declaration made by the Spirit for a more peculiar conviction of the World that the most High God was God indeed or the true God we may understand things thus as the Socinians say but we may a great deal better let it alone and not run into such interpretations of God's Word as we can neither reconcile to truth nor sense If we go farther the matter is not mended at all when we say God the Father was seen of Angels for what novelty was there in that had not they stood continually before his face from the instant of their first Creation or should we flie to God's will was not that known to his peculiar Ministers till such time as they came to learn it by the preaching of mortal men who can imagine so short a Text of Scripture and design'd to make known the greatest mystery in the world should lash out into such absolute impertinencies but to proceed God the Father was preach'd to the Gentiles but where he 's mention'd often doubtless as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in those Epistles written by the Apostles to their Gentile Converts but the Gospel it self is stil'd the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Apostles pretend to preach nay to know nothing among their Converts but Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 2.2 and him crucified as St. Paul expresses himself if we must say God the Father was preach'd he was certainly preach'd most to the Antediluvian World by Noah and the elder Patriarchs or he was preach'd
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
to effect our Salvation God and particularly God the Son should assume our nature to himself We shall make some deductions from these Considerations We assert then That that Man call'd Jesus Christ and reputed the Messias or the Saviour of the World who appear'd in our nature was really indeed the Son of God It 's he whose Genealogy we have in Scripture descended according to the flesh from the Royal Line of the House of Judah the true and legal Heir of David's sacred Family whose birth into the World as it was mean and despicable so it was very publick and unquestionable We find his actions set down at large in the Gospels and Him according to their history a Man of a blameless life and conversation and of inexpressible condescenscions and goodness we observe him going about and doing good the proper character of a great Person in the Country of Judaea healing Diseases casting out Devils forgiving Sins and that not by a precarious or surreptitious power but by a really supreme inherent Authority of his own We meet with him afterwards accus'd by Jews condemn'd by Romans and according to their Law crucified between two Thieves on Mount Calvary buried by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus rais'd again in a stupendious manner conversant among several Persons who were his Companions and admirers before talking eating and drinking with them forty days together and afterwards in publick view lifted up above the Clouds beyond the utmost reach of humane Eyes this Man call'd Jesus Christ by the Writers of all these things was really the Son of God He that would recommend a new discovery to the World gives a considerable advantage to its reputation by the extraordinary worth and merit of the Author and therefore whereas the Gospel or the glad tidings of salvation were the newest and most glorious discovery the World was capable of and though the most welcome to a declining Age yet with all the most incredible it was incumbent upon the first divulgers of it to recommend it upon the wisdom and power of its founder The reputed wise Men of old to render them more venerable to the multitude were wont to derive the first Originals of their great Benefactors from the Gods But never was any benefit conferr'd on any place or Person by the kindest Patron which could stand in competition with that which the blessed Jesus conferr'd on the whole World therefore never could any such publick Benefactor be with equal reason deriv'd from Heaven with him From thence therefore the inspired Writers deduce his Pedigree too as well as from David and tell us boldly that that great Man whose praises they celebrate in their Writings was indeed the Son of God which they assert not in a Metaphorical sense as the Psalmist calls Rulers and Governours Psal 82.6 I have said ye are Gods and ye are all of you Children of the most high As the Angels are stil'd by God himself in his question to Job Whereupon are the foundations of the Earth fastened or who laid the corner stone thereof When the Morning stars sang together Job 38.6 7. and all the Sons of God shouted for joy as believers are stil'd by the Evangelist As many as received him to them gave he power to become the Sons of God even to them that believe on his name John 1.12 1 Joh. 3.2 And again Beloved we are now the Sons of God But the holy Writers make him the Son of God in a plain literal sense as Seth is call'd the Son of Adam being begotten of him as Isaac of Abraham as Solomon of David or as we generally understand the word in our common expressions of the nearest Relations declaring him so the Son of God begotten of his father before all worlds in contradistinction to creation But it would not have been enough to satisfie the world in the truth of that extraordinary original for them to assert it for tho' men value great discoveries according to the credit of their Authors yet the weight and greatness of the discoveries make them nice and curious in their disquisitions about them that they may not be impos'd on for how wretched a disappointment would it have been for a whole world to be big with the violent expectation of a Saviour to be throughly sensible of their own necessity to have a company of men boldly publish to them that the expected Saviour was really come and qualified suitably to those wonderful expectations they had of him and yet to find nothing but a sham or an imposture at last a Bar-cozbi the Son of a ly instead of a Barcochab the Star that should have risen in Jacob as the unhappy Jews were deluded at last In such a case Men are wont to look for clear and uncontroulable evidences of the authority of the discoverer and had not God himself afforded such to the world in relation to the descent and original of our Saviour it would scarce have been reconcileable to infinite justice to have condemn'd the world for not believing on him Nor would Almighty God have made use of those effectual means to satisfie humane doubts had he not himself judged it highly rational that those creatures of his for whom he intended so great a good should receive entire satisfaction in the truth and nature of that good bestow'd In the evidences of his being the Son of God lay all the strength and weight of his Doctrine and the validity and efficacy of that Repentance preach'd by the Apostles in his name had he after all those glorious pretences been one of an inferior rank there never had been so great an Impostor in the world as Christ nor such frontless cheats as his Apostles nor such abused besotted bewitched Creatures in Nature as the Christians in all ages have been Therefore to vindicate both their own Credit and that of their Master the Evangelists in their writings first appeal to the common knowledge of those who liv'd at the same time that Christ convers'd on earth at which time had what they published been false it would certainly have been quickly confuted by the interested Jews and Romans For the Jews who saw themselves expos'd under the characters of the most obstinate and ingrateful infidels in the world and the Romans who saw themselves traduced as tools in the hands of their own vassals to carry on the most barbarous and unreasonable cruelties would certainly have vindicated themselves to the utmost against their slanderers could they have found any flaws in those things they delivered yet the Jews never went about to deny the existence of Jesus the supposed Son of Joseph nor the reality of those mighty works perform'd by him but rather to shew the possibility of all those things tho' Jesus were not the Messias wherein they were easily baffled and the Gentiles endeavoured to confront his Miracles by the pretended wonders wrought by Simon Magus and Apollonius Thyanaeus and so to depretiate the Messiah's
to set up their Master for the Son of God who had justly suffered before for blaspheming that Divinity he pretended so near a relation to But tho' what I have said already may go a good way toward the proof of that That Jesus was the Son of God yet for the farther clearing this matter we may enquire Into the promises and predictions concerning his birth or appearance in the world as an Intercessor for it Into the manner and circumstances of his Birth Into the intent and design of his Doctrine Into that influence Scripture history in these cases ought to have upon all those who own the being of a God whether they be Christians or not It 's our business to enquire into those promises and predictions current in the world concerning such an Incarnation of the Divinity or its extraordinary appearance in the world for the restauration of its bliss before by the encrease of wickedness perverted and ruined for Promises and Prophecies concerning a person yet unborn and these publick and obvious to an inquisitive world are wont to signifie such a person wholly extraordinary especially when the same spirit which imparts the fore-knowledge of him gives his very name to the world so we find when the Man of God cryed against the Altar in Bethel 1 Kings 13.2 he prophesied That a child should be born unto the house of David Josiah by name who upon that Altar should offer the Priests of the high places themselves and pollute it with dead mens bones that Josiah spoken of there so long before his birth made good the Prophets word to the utmost and has that admirable character bestowed upon him by the Holy Ghost 2 Kings 23.16 25. That like to him there was no King before him that turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might according to all the Law of Moses neither after him arose there any like him So the name of Cyrus was foretold long before his birth by the Prophet Isaiah He 's there stil'd God's shepherd his anointed the man whose right hand God himself had holden but he was to be a perfect Hero and such heathen as well as sacred Historians represent him and God by Isaiah predicts his glory Isai 44.28.45.1 2. even That he should perform all his pleasure saying to Jerusalem thou shalt be built and to the temple thy foundations shall be laid which Cyrus so named by the Prophet was indeed a type of our Jesus our Saviour and deliverer How numerous and how plain soever the Prophecies of him in Scripture were we shall more particularly consider hereafter but some principal passages we must on this occasion take notice of And first of that foundation of humane hopes the Proto-evangelium Paradisiicum or that promise made to our first Parents in their lapsed state tho' before their expulsion from Paradise for it was a promise to them tho' a threat to the Serpent to whom the speech was more immediately directed Gen. 3.15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed It shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel This being by all Christians and antient Jews interpreted of the Messias was the first glad tydings of hope to those who were just fallen into a ruinous condition this supported our great Parents spirits when otherwise nothing could present it self to them but fears terrors and desperation after this we find God promising as a peculiar blessing to Abraham and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed Gen. 22.18 which the Jews too of old understood of the Messias to be of the stock of Abraham according to the flesh nor could it otherwise have been made good for the Jewish nation tho' they were partakers of particular and infallible oracles yet were but an obscure nation in respect of the rest of mankind and tho' they were active in the degeneracy of their Church to make Proselytes to their Law yet the numbers were not great and if that of our Saviour be truth That they made their Proselytes two fold more the children of wrath than they were themselves Matt. 23.15 that care of theirs was no very great blessing to the world Therefore S. Peter in the close of that Sermon he preached on occasion of the lame man's cure Acts 3.25 26. applyes this promise to our Jesus and more distinctly and determinately S. Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians Gal. 3.16 Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made He saith not unto seeds as of many but as of one and to thy seed which is Christ And further we have in the early ages of the world that famous and indisputable prophecy of dying Jacob The Scepter shall not depart from Judah Gen. 49.10 nor a Lawgiver from between his feet until Shilo come and unto him shall the gathering of the people be the exact accomplishment of which as Shilo means the Messias that is the Christ we shall afterwards take notice of It were no difficulty to shew how many of those institutions and Ceremonies of the Jews prefigured this same Saviour but I shall rather confine my self to prophetick words than actions as tending more directly to my purpose Famous was that prediction of Balaam Numb 24.17 I shall see him but not now I shall behold him but not nigh there shall come a star out of Jacob and a scepter shall rise out of Israel and shall smite the corners of Moab and destroy all the children of Seth. And afterwards Out of Jacob shall come He that shall have the Dominion and shall destroy him that remaineth of the City by which general destruction is onely meant that Idolatry and those Idolaters which the Doctrine of the Gospel should confound and this as Christians have all along applied to Christ So the Jews prov'd sufficiently they understood it so by their eager following the Barcochab whom they thought pointed out by this Text as I hinted before Nor did the Jews till afterwards when they came to seek subterfuges for their obduracy question the meaning of their Law-giver when he told them The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet Deut. 18.15 from the midst of thee of thy Brethren like unto me unto him ye shall hearken this could onely be made good of Christ since Moises Ben Maimon the most learned of Jewish Writers of late has largely prov'd the disparity between Moses and all other Prophets mention'd in Scripture and Scripture it self asserts That there arose not a Prophet since in Israel like unto Moses Deut. 34.10 whom the Lord knew face to face Our Saviour onely spoke out Divine Mysteries in the day time and in the face of the whole world he needed not as others the mediation of Angels or of Dreams or of Visions to make him understand the will of God but saw and
the chief family of which the Priesthood belong'd came to be in some measure incorporated into the greater tribe of Judah if withal he take notice that tho' the regal power in the tribe of Judah ended with the Captivity of Babylon yet the Priesthood continued in the family of Aaron he may easily see the fulfilling of Jacob's words for we may see Aaron the first Patriarch of the Priestly family breaking out of his own into the tribe of Judah and marrying Elisheba the daughter of Aminadab and sister of Naashon of the tribe of Judah Exod. 6.23 which Aminadab and Naashon are particularly reckoned among David's predecessors by S. Matthew Matth. 1.4 by which means the Regal and Sacerdotal line were intermingled as well as the tribes were afterwards nor were such alliances altogether extraordinary for we find afterwards Jehoiada the high-priest marrying Jehoshabeath the sister of Ahaziah King of Judah 2 Chron. 22.11 of the house and lineage of David Now the Scepter is assign'd immediately to the hands of Judah the royalty being fully and entirely in the hand of that tribe without any competition either with the Benjamites or Simeonites part of which tribes stuck fast to Judah's interests after the revolt of the ten tribes but the Lawgiver is placed between his feet not according to the sence some affix to that phrase as if Jacob spoke modestly of the original birth of such Law-givers as if being between the knees were an equivalent to being born from the womb of such a one as it 's true it sometimes means but it signifies the Lawgiver shall be in his protection or within his jurisdiction and limits as a great Officer between the feet of the Sovereign on some solemn occasions or as the Bishop of Rome is said to have set the Archbishop of Canterbury between his feet at the Council of Lyons with that expression Includimus hunc in orbe nostro tanquam alterius orbis Papam and so the Law-giver was continually within the proper bounds and limits of the tribe of Judah both before and after the Captivity of Babylon But as the Scepter departed from Judah at that Captivity so the legal expounder of sacred writings to the Jewish nation was taken away about the time of our Saviour's Incarnation the family of Aaron being then lighted and every one admitted to the high-priesthood who could give most money for that office and the Civil Government tho' under the title of Herod being a meer vassal to the Roman Empire When these things were both come to pass then Shilo the promis'd Messias came in whom those particular assurances to David were made good That out of his loyns the Messias should come In him the Royal and Priestly line were united he was legal Heir to both Houses he was a King and Priest for ever to whom the gathering of all Nations is and ought to be Luke 1.27 32.35 Now that the blessed Virgin was of the House and Lineage of David as well as Joseph we learn from Scripture and if the Tribe of Judah was exalted by the advancement of David to the Imperial Throne it was much more exalted and more adorable to the rest of the Tribes by the birth of Jesus the Saviour of the World and the King of all things both in Heaven and in Earth How Moses his word was made good of the Prophet to be rais'd up like to himself I show'd before that being made truth in the birth of Christ but it 's more compleat application belonging to our Saviour's manly age when he made himself publick and undertook to preach repentance to his obstinate Country-men But that of a Body hast thou prepar'd for me came to pass when the Angel's word was effected The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God Luke 1.25 It was an immediate Divine power that gave a beginning and increase to that Sacred Body in the Virgin 's Womb nothing could be produced between Man and Woman as under the ancient curse and miserably corrupted and polluted in their natures that was fit for those great things at that time design'd for us for who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean therefore a Virgin untouch'd by man was chosen for his habitation who was to redeem lost mankind and was overshadowed by the power of the Almighty Gen. 1.2 which did incubare in Virginem as the same Spirit is said to move upon the face of the Waters to cover it as the Bird covers her Eggs to make them prolifick as the word imports now a body so prepar'd and so inhabited as our Saviour's humanity was could not be but pure and undefiled since if a corrupt Tree cannot bring forth good fruit neither can a good Tree bring forth evil fruit the reasons of both their productions being the same Nor was it unreasonable he should be David's Lord though his Son according to the flesh whose birth was intimated by holy Angels whose Father was Almighty God himself and whose Kingdom was to endure from everlasting to everlasting all which circumstances rendred him infinitely more considerable to pure reason than ever David was nor could the humble manner of his entrance into the World be any just prejudice to his mighty title David was mean and inconsiderable too when God took him from attending on the Sheep-fold to feed his People Israel and the Prophet Zachary gives him notwithstanding his apparent meanness his due Honour Rejoyce greatly O Daughter of Zion shout O Daughter of Jerusalem Zach. 9.9 behold thy King cometh unto thee he is just and having salvation lowly and riding upon an Ass and upon a Colt the foal of an Ass He might then be a King still how despicable soever he appear'd to humane eyes and as a King according to the extent and proportion of his Empire might be Lord of David and of all the Kings upon Earth Isaiah had long since foretold he should be born of a Virgin and so in the event he was Mary his Mother was a Virgin even beyond the confutation of the malicious Jews it was to such a one the Angel was sent it was such a one who was according to his assurance to be overshadow'd by the Holy Ghost it was such a one who was to conceive and bring forth And the Evangelist openly declares of Jesus That when as his Mother Mary was espous'd to Joseph Matt. 1.18 before they came together she was found with Child of the Holy Ghost and of Joseph he asserts That he knew her not until she had brought forth her first born Son v. 25. and he call'd his name Jesus And whereas the Prophet had been ecstasi'd with joy at the knowledge of a Child a Son of so Divine a nature being given to his People when that Child was born indeed the Sacred
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
him for we shall see him as he is And when reason once comes to use sense so far as to see God as he is infinitely happy infinitely good infinitely glorious it has gone far enough And thus far have I given an account of Humane reason or the light of Nature for I think I may well enough use them as Synonymous and how far it may be useful in matters of a Divine nature I shall draw onely a Corollary or two from thence and then proceed We conclude from what has been discours'd concerning Humane reason That our obligation to Almighty God is infinite in that He who might have taken from us wholly that natural light because we had so extremely slighted it was yet pleas'd to continue it so far as that rightly apply'd it might still be useful to us even in matters of salvation It 's true we cannot examine things with that clearness and satisfaction which Adam's first enquiries were accompany'd with our understandings are somewhat parallel to that Earth which fell under a Curse for the sin of Man It was naturally fertile before in good things but then it was to bring forth onely bryars and thorns yet Man might eat bread from it still onely it must be in the sweat of his brows He must take pains for that now which he might have had without any trouble before So our Natural reason was clear and free at first common occurrences needed no deep meditations nor extraordinary passages any tedious study to apprehend them in every circumstance The case is now otherwise our reason busies it self naturally about trifles and onely puzles and perplexes it self in matters of no weight or moment yet still it may move to good purpose but it requires abundance of care and pains to cultivate it so as it may produce any thing that 's good and even with a great deal of pains too sometimes it makes conclusions onely vain troublesome and miserably false this unhappiness is the consequence of our own follies at first and it's God's unmerited goodness that we can yet by making use of due means distinguish in some measure between truth and falshood at least in the more obvious parts of religion and his goodness yet appears farther in that where our decrepit reason fails he 's pleas'd to interpose with the influences of his blessed Spirit and to preserve the Modest and Humble from falling into damnable Error that our Reason may have a subject profitable to employ it self upon God has given us his Word blessed are they who meditate on that word day and night he calls upon us to apply our selves to the Law and to the testimony to search the Scriptures to search them with the same care and diligence as those who work in Mines seek for the golden Ore Whereas he lays in his Word several Commands upon us He would have us examine them so as we may be convinced that they are not grievous but Holy just and good These Commandments therefore must be examin'd by the rule of right Reason which whosoever follows will be infinitely satisfied in them In his dealings with mankind he calls upon them to examine their own ways by the same rule he enters into arguments highly rational with mankind himself he bids them to judge in their own causes between himself and them and see if discussing things rationally they must not necessarily fall upon that confession That God's ways are equal but the ways of men unequal When he recommends his mercies when he would terrifie with his judgments He appeals to Humane Reason still or that share of light which we are now partakers of Now he that will employ that light he has upon such noble subjects if he be not prejudiced with wicked principles before or puff'd up with self-conceit must necessarily be a very religious man for the clearer any mans rational faculty is the more pious he must be only men of very low abilities can be either Atheists or Hereticks It 's confest indeed some Hereticks as the Socinians in particular with whom we are at present concern'd pretend highly to Reason but they only sham us with fond pretences and their reason is all empty and sophistical and Atheists are the Men of sence if we may believe fools and madmen but there is a vast difference between a flashy Wit and a ridiculing Humour and sound judgment and solid and weighty argument But God who knew before what artifices Hell and wicked men would make use of to pervert truth calls upon us to exercise our reason farther in discovering and baffling those cheats the enemies of our Souls would fain put upon us wherein as Hereticks and Schismaticks generally make their appeals to God's Word and we have warning in that very Word That in those doctrines where there 's any shew of difficulty those who are unlearned and unstable wrest the Scriptures to their own destructions We are warn'd to try the Spirits whether they be of God and Scripture being the rule of tryal we are oblig'd to study the true sence and meaning of that To which end our rational faculty carries us along in studying the original Languages in which Scripture was written and finding out the true meaning and import of words and phrases in other authors and the modes and customs of countries to which any Texts refer Reason goes with us in comparing text with text and matters of faith or practice laid down in one place with those laid down in another in observing the force of those arguments drawn from such and such Texts their real dependance upon or direct consequence from the places alledg'd and the general consistency of opinions offer'd with the end and design of those positive truths laid down in Scripture Reason has here a large field to exercise it self in And whereas we are urg'd by some to abjure that utterly with respect to those points of faith or practice that are under debate pretending they 'd insist only on the letter of Scripture Maximus tells us well in the formerly cited discourse of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they drive you from examining Scripture too strictly insinuating that it 's dangerous to pry too narrowly into secrets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Maximi disceptatio inter opera Athan. T. 2. p. 296. but disswading it indeed that they might avoid the reproof of their Errors from thence where he takes farther notice how such persons if they meet but with a word that at first hearing sounds favourably to their fancies they run away with it without ever considering the design of the inspired Writer or examining the agreement of their own shallow glosses with the general tenour of Holy Writ an humour that prevails with too many still who prefer the sound of words before the truth and pertinency of texts of Scripture and therefore imagine themselves to argue very piously and agreeably to God's word when all their talk is nothing to the purpose But mysteries the great
l. 10. p. 360. when making gaudy offerings to them No let but the hand free from guilt be lifted up to the Altars of the Gods not the most rich or costly hecatombs shall sooner reconcile the angry Deities than those I shall add no more to shew that sense the Pagans had of the ends of religion but onely make a short reflection upon God's justice in dealing with Mankind as set down by St. Paul He tells us God will render to every man according to his deeds Rom. 2.6 c. to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality eternal life but to them that are contentious and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish to every soul of man that doth evil to the Jew first and also to the Gentile Now that the Jews and Gentiles who stood upon no equal ground yet should suffer equally in case of disobedience seems to some very harsh but if again it be considered that that God who gave the Jewish Nation such great advantages required of them proportionably great returns whilst the Gentiles who had been partakers of less light were onely required to walk in that light they had to come up as near to a perfection in faith and virtue as that would admit of This consider'd the Gentiles were every whit as guilty in neglecting their duties which were lighter and fewer as the Jews in neglecting theirs which were more numerous and difficult since the disobedience to the Divine commands is as notorious in one case as in the other and this reflection reaches farther and teaches those who are more weak and ignorant not to presume too much upon God's mercy because they know so little since it 's as reasonable they should perform that little they know as that we who know more should do our duties and their negligence and proportionable unfruitfulness in good and ours proceed from one and the same damnably offensive principle for as the Apostle urges it v. 12. as many as have sinn'd without Law shall perish without Law and as many as have sinn'd in the Law shall be judg'd by the Law This every Man must acknowledge to be the greatest equity in the World the faith and works of the Jews and so of Christians shall be canvas'd and examin'd by those rules of faith and practice extraordinarily imparted to them the Gentiles had no such Law but the light of Nature was their guide therefore their works shall be tried by that and by no other light now a defect in obedience to the innate light of nature is as much a contempt of God and so as criminal as a defect in obedience to the written Law of God and consequently as justly punish'd now how far this natural light extends as these passages I have quoted from Heathen Writers considerably evidence so the Apostle tells us That the Gentiles which have not the Law i. e. the same Law that was given to the Jews v. 14. do by nature the things contain'd in the Law they not having the Law are a Law unto themselves This proves that truth that God's written Law is not a disannulling but a confirming and enlarging upon the Law of Nature in the manner of a Commentary upon an intricate Text to illustrate and explain it well then The Gentiles shew this natural Law written in their hearts by the witness of their consciences and their thoughts in the mean time accusing or excusing one another v. 15. for having as I shew'd before clear apprehensions of the Being of a God and having made very considerable discoveries of his nature so far as legible in the works of the Creation they cannot upon a serious debate with themselves and weighing their own actions by their own notions and rules but have an infallible certainty of the rectitude or pravity of their actions and this is as much as a Jew or Christian can do by his publick Laws and an exact scanning of them Now if my Conscience can certainly inform me of things essentially and eternally so whether they be good or bad the same Conscience will give me as infallible a certainty that God is and must be just when he rewards me according to my actions whether they be good or evil he calls me to account for what I do know not for what I do not know and punishes me for transgressions within the reach of my understanding to have avoided and not for those that were unintelligible without a positive revelation and this even corrupted Reason will own is agreeable to the strictest rules of equity and justice We are to enquire since we have seen what Jews and Gentiles before our Saviour's birth into the World understood concerning the nature and ends of Religion which every one for himself supposed to be true since none can be thought mad enough to trouble himself about that religion he certainly knew to be false We are to enquire how far both Jews and Gentiles had deprav'd and perverted those ends and what care they took to manage themselves according to that knowledge they really had when our Saviour appear'd in the flesh And here again we may begin with the Jews among whom if we find an extraordinary degeneracy we can the less wonder at it among the Gentiles If then we examine the state of things among them we have it thus It was once among them Do this and live i. e. Live here on Earth in a strict obedience to those things commanded you in the Law and you shall be rewarded with an happy future life Now when the terrors and glories of Mount Sinai were fresh in memory and Parents according as they were order'd took care to inculcate God's power justice and goodness particularly exerted toward the People of Israel into their Children and gave agreeable examples in themselves obedience was the common study and peace here and a glorious expectation hereafter the common consequence But when a new generation arose who had not seen God's wonderful dealings with his people and the too prevailing examples of neighbouring Idolaters taught the Israelites a wicked ingratitude the Law of God was slighted and as it is among us at this day the Man who could defie Heaven with the greatest audacity was the most set by And though frequent judgments over-took their Impieties there was no thorough purgation made among them but they went on to add sin to sin so that among the Scribes and Pharisees the great Zealots of the Law at the time of Christ's coming in the flesh things were at that pass that the blessed Jesus had reason when he told his Auditors that Except their righteousness should exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees Matth. 5.20 they should in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven If therefore the very best among the Jews as they were generally esteem'd were utterly uncapable of eternal happiness what may
son of our sacred Mother the English Church says of this manifestation of God in the flesh How it was effected Vid. Montacut Norvic in Act. Mon. Eccles c. 1. par 39. p. 27. 1 Pet. 1.12 by what means made possible heaven and earth cannot understand nor deliver 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was a mystery from the beginning the Angels understood it not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it will be a mystery to eternity the Angels as yet can go no farther than their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to receive a glimmering of it as it were by the crany of a window or by the chink of a door and how shall we dare to enquire how it was done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this question is indissoluble that inextricable Faith alone has power to resolve them both this we submissively agree to and therefore we enquire not how or in what manner God was made flesh any farther than some particulars relating to that Incarnation are plainly laid down in Scripture far be any such presuming curiosity from us only since the Apostle in the consequent parts of the Text has asserted that God was made flesh which according to the natural sound and common acceptation of such words in all languages and writers is that he who was made flesh or appear'd in the flesh was God since the Apostle has asserted the positive truth and has made it the first part of the great mystery of godliness and such a part as all the other particulars do but serve to prove and confirm We must assert too that this particular point or article of Faith that He who was made flesh for the Salvation of mankind was really God God properly so call'd the most high the eternal God blessed for ever not any made or subordinate God but the maker of all things in a word the true God exclusive of all created Beings whatsoever We assert that this is an Article of our Faith so true and so important that upon a true embracing it in the sence so laid down the Salvation of all men depends as much as upon believing in Christ the Son of God at all or on being neither impious nor blasphemers nor idolaters And therefore we assert farther that how great a mystery soever this may appear and it never ought to appear otherwise to enquire into and seek for all such Scriptures as may render it indisputable is neither impertinent to our Lord's design in being so incarnate nor is it fruitless to those who make it their business to inquire into such proofs nor is it dangerous to any who make that enquiry with due humility and care But on the contrary it 's very dangerous nay fatal as before not to enquire into it or not to be fully satisfied about it I know we have in this point more enemies than the meer Socinians some capital asserters of the Arminian tenets being desirous to give such a latitude to Religion as may take in all their friends are very willing to perswade us that it 's not very material or necessary to believe that Jesus Christ the Son of God is God of the same substance or nature with his father So Episcopius a man of great learning and ingenuity in his fourth book of Theological Institutions c. 34. Traitè sur la Divin de J.C.S. 1. c. 1. p. 10. c. the sum of whose plea amounts to this That the essence of Christian Religion consists not in meer contemplative knowledge but in practice and that it consists much more in obedience than in abstracted speculations on the Deity which tho' it be true enough has really no place here for can we call those principles meer or simple speculations which are so important that we our selves are or are not Idolaters accordingly as they are true or false If Christ be of the same substance with his Father or if which comes to the same end Christ be the supreme or sovereign God he ought to be adored in that quality and Socinians themselves cannot without impiety refuse to acknowledge him as such and to honour him under that name but if he be not so we cannot confound him with the Sovereign God without Idolatry The great concern here then is to avoid impiety or idolatry and by consequence those inquiries must be of a practical nature which are of so very great and extraordinary an importance Episcopius makes several vain attempts to shew That it is not at all essential to Salvation to know if Jesus Christ be God by an eternal generation or that being but a simple creature or which is the same a meer man like one of us he is called God upon account of his ministry for when he goes about to make us see that these are no fundamental inquiries in shewing us that those who believe Jesus Christ is a meer Creature may worship him without being guilty of Idolatry because they adore him not as he is man but as he holds the place of God as his Ambassador or Substitute this proof is imperfect and insufficient For to prove that these questions are impertinent or unnecessary it 's not enough to shew that Socinians without being Idolaters may worship him whom they believe to be no more by nature than a meer Man which supposition yet we shall in due time prove God willing to be false But he ought to shew withal that we without Idolatry may worship Jesus Christ as the supreme God as we really are taught to do by the Church of England tho' at the same time he really be not the sovereign God which seems to be a very hard if not an impossible task as I question not but hereafter it will more plainly appear At present I shall only touch upon an argument urged by Episcopius from a Topick very easily found out the reason then given by him why it is not necessary that we should believe Jesus Christ to be perfect or the true God is Quia nuspiam in Scripturâ id necessarium creditu esse asseritur nec per bonam nedum necessariam consequentiam ex eâ elicitur Because it 's a doctrine of which the Scripture no where affirms that it 's necessary to be believed nor can it be drawn from thence by any good much less by any necessary consequence And he goes on to shew that this argument ought to be of very great force among those of the reformation because they profess there 's nothing necessary to be believed but what 's either directly or in plain terms contained in Scripture or drawn from thence by very clear consequence the last indeed the sixth Article of the Church of England agrees with but what she thinks of his first assertion may very well be gathered from the second wherein she propounds this Doctrine as necessary to be believed The Son which is the word of the Father begotten from everlasting of the Father the very and eternal God of one substance with the Father took man's
reputation but with as little success And indeed it was almost inconceiveable that a company of mean men looked upon generally with an evil eye should resolve to publish a parcel of notorious falsehoods which every man upon his own knowledge could have confuted and thereby have exposed themselves to the just fury of a deluded multitude it was inconceivable that so many in their writings and preachings could at such different times and such distant places agree together to put a sham upon mankind and to do it so coherently in it self and so agreeably to one another as it was apparent these men did Now in writing a History of immediate transactions there can be nothing fairer in the world than for men who are eye and ear witnesses of the things in question to compile the story and to publish it in their times who knew the same things whether they were true or false as certainly as themselves and an History so written that passes through such an age without reproof may justly pass for authentick nor can any meer humane testimony attain a greater certainty And where the subject of such a History is Divine where many things are declared beyond the reach of humane capacities where they are yet laid down so exactly agreeable to those things obvious to humane understandings and where there appears nothing disagreeable to the common expectances of the world nor to those best and fairest Idea's we have of the Divine Nature there the History grows it self divine and proves it self dictated by a Being superiour to all terrene defects such a History is the History of the Gospel and such an appeal to humane sence and knowledge and carryes such demonstrations of inspiration with it where we find God himself declaring by a voice from Heaven the nature of which the Jews from their ancient records must necessarily apprehend at the Baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist Luke 3.22 This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased which voice as being design'd for the Introducing of our Saviour into the world was audible not only to John the Baptist but to others and when it was repeated at the transfiguration Matth. 17.5 it was audible to all those who accompanied him and John the Baptist himself of whose Commission the Jews seem'd very well satisfied declares John 1.33 34. He that sent me to baptize with water the same said unto me Vpon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost and I saw and bare record that this is that Son of God Now tho' the stubborn Jews seem not to have depended at all upon these declarations nor to have been by them convinced of the truth of what was asserted in them yet their acknowledging John the Baptist to have been a Prophet and their never denying the truth of these accounts as here set down are indeed very considerable proofs of their truth especially since nothing could represent them worse than relating such things as truth and describing them as incredulous and refractary still The Evangelical writers as they give us this account concerning voices from Heaven and the testimony of John the Baptist so they inform us of Christ himself that he owned and asserted his own original too so he tells Nicodemus a person of sence and curiosity as appears by his discourse with our Saviour God so loved the world John 3.16 that he sent his only begotten Son that whosoever believed on him should not perish but have everlasting life Which declaration refers to himself he mentioning that sending of the Son of God as a thing now accomplished which title none assumed nor was it given to any before himself They tell us how justly he rebuk'd the Jews for charging him with blasphemy because he called himself the Son of God John 10.36 for the nature of those works he did openly in the world's view was a sufficient proof of his being sent by God since nothing less than a divine power and assistance could possibly effect such things as the Jews if they had not been resolved upon ruine could not but know But God was not wont to send such on his errands who puff'd up with pride would usurp great and improper titles to themselves or who would impose on the world by daring falshoods the Jews were not wholly irrational in thinking he deserved death for calling himself the Son of God if really he were not John 19.7 No Politicks yet could fairly give a toleration to open blasphemy But the Jews tho' very angry with him for calling himself by so august a name railed at him indeed and accused him and persecuted him but never went about to disprove him nay when he challeng'd them if they could to convince him of sin John 8.46 to shew any crime whatsoever that he had been guilty of they answered him only with an acquitting silence they were excellent at generals but the worst in the world at particulars and yet to be without sin was so extraordinary a quality as could be compatible only with one descending from Heaven Vnclean Spirits terribly sensible of his power frequently howsoever unwillingly confest him to be the Son of God Matth. 8.29 Mar. 3.11 and they were too much his enemies to acknowledge a thing so very disadvantagious to their own designs had it not been truth Nathanael a prudent and a pious man upon discourse with him easily confest Thou art the Son of God Joh. 1.49 thou art the King of Israel The disciples when they saw how with one word Jesus laid that storm which had threatned their destruction confest Matt 14.33 of a truth thou art the Son of God Humane power could not quell the loud and violent storms but he that made them could easily allay their fury The Roman Centurion who was his guard at his Crucifixion when he saw how at his giving up the ghost the earth quaked Matth. 27.50 54. the rocks rent the veil of the Temple was split in twain from top to bottom and the graves opened and long buried bodies arose from their heavy sleep could not but submit his faith to such prodigious visions and profess that truly this was the Son of God Nature was not wont to undergo such dreadful convulsions for the death of an inferiour person but when its great Creator suffer'd it was time to own its sympathetick pangs after these things it was no wonder to hear the Apostles declare Acts 3.13 36. That the God of their fathers had glorified his Son Jesus Christ and again That unto us God having raised up his Son Jesus Christ sent him to bless us in turning away every one of us from our iniquities But after all had either Jews or Romans prov'd as well as call'd Christ a deceiver before it must have been a very unordinary confidence in the Apostles to act over the baffled farce again and
his converse with the World in our Nature From the Faith of the Primitive Church From that common and on every hand approved practice of adoring and presenting our prayers to Him Then We are to consider that account the Scriptures of the Old Testament give of Him and of his Appearance in the World where I will not undertake an exact estimate of every thing that has by Ancient Writers been apply'd that way nor every thing that Modern Controversie-Writers have insisted upon but upon some particular and more remarkable passages onely Among which the First is that of three Angels appearing to Abraham just before the destruction of Sodom Gen. 18.2 where I shall not insist on that that Abraham ran to meet them at their approach and bow'd himself toward the ground because I look upon that and the consequent words as onely expressions of kindness and hospitality suitable to the custome of that Age and Country and to that respect a Person of Abraham's goodness and sagacity would express to Strangers of a promising miene and venerable aspect But after this v. 22. we find the Angels going for Sodom but Abraham standing still before the Lord Two onely went forward so Lot in Sodom met with and entertain'd but Two the Third continued still with Abraham with infinite condescension declaring to him the reason of this extraordinary appearance upon Earth this favour hindred not the design but the other Two pass'd on while Abraham had the liberty to argue the case with him who is particularly stil'd the Lord so the Writer so Abraham in that converse frequently stiles him and that not by the same word originally which Lot made use of to the two Angels appearing to him c. 19.2 which is onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Jews account a name applicable to any but by that sacred and ineffable name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A name as they say onely applicable to the most High God and here we find Abraham continually speaking as any who ownes and reveres the Eternal Majesty of God would supplicate to Him and making use of that particular argument in his request Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do right c. 18.25 He then to whom Abraham apply'd himself was the Judge of all the Earth therefore no created Angel for such were never honour'd with that Character but it 's properly attributed to the Supreme God by the Psalmist Ps 94.1 2. O God to whom vengeance belongeth shew thy self lift up thy self thou Judge of the Earth and by the Apostle Heb. 12.23 where he tells the Hebrews They were come to God the Judge of all or as your Margin reads it To a Judge the God of all If we look yet forward into this story when Lot was convey'd safe from the destruction which fell upon Sodom Gen. 19.24 we are told The Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrha brimstone and fire from the Lord out of Heaven Epiph. Haer. l. 3. p. 832. where Photinus from whom some denominate our Socinians owns it was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word which rained from the Lord Sandii Hist Enud l. 1. p. 118. but that Word was God as we learn from the Evangelist John 1.1 By this we gain the certainty that our Saviour the Son of God had a Being before he was born of the Virgin Mary that the Title Power Acknowledgment belonging to the true God were given to him therefore that He was the true God To this might be added the History of Jacob's wrestling with the Man when he was left alone The Man he wrestled with Malac. 3.1 antiquity generally understood to be the Angel of the Covenant so Christ is nam'd Heb. 12.24 and this interpretation is no way disagreeable since the wrestler from the very contest gives Jacob the name of Israel which signifies a Prince Gen. 32.28 or one that powerfully prevails with God The Person wrestling with Jacob refuses to tell his name which created Angels were not wont to do Gabriel told Zacharias his name the name of Michael is often mention'd Luke 1.19 and the Writer of the Apocryphal book of Tobit supposes it no unusual thing when he introduces Tobias's companion calling himself Raphael one of the seven Angels that stand in the presence of God i. e. are in a more glorious state than the rest of that Heavenly Host Again Jacob expresses his sense of his Antagonist in the Name he gave to that place and the reason of it for says he I have seen God face to face and my life is preserved And lastly Jacob pray'd to him for a blessing and would not part without it which argued his acknowledgment of a Divine power in him and the Prophet Hosea makes such an interpretation of the Text scarce disputable where speaking of Jacob He had power over the Angel says he and prevailed Hos 12.4 5. He wept and made supplication unto him that was to own Him the true God He found Him in Bethel and there he spake with us Even the Lord GOD of HOSTS the Lord is his Memorial 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An expression so great and so high as never any created Being pretended to We may then take notice of the 45 Psalm a Psalm by all the ancient Jews apply'd to the Messias and rightly as will appear that Messias was Jesus Christ in that both Arians of old and Socinians of late as well as the Orthodox agree his very Name carries it He is Jesus the Saviour He is the Christ the anointed of God the Father The Psalmist there represents him at first as a Man tho' Fairer than the rest of humane race Ps 45.2 but he subjoyns Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever the Scepter of thy Kingdom is a right Scepter Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness therefore God thy God hath anointed thee with the oyl of gladness above thy fellows where that God to whom the Apostrophe or exclamation refers is called by the same name with that God who is said to anoint him in the original and the whole Text is authentically apply'd to the Son of God by the Apostle Hebr. 1.8 9. even to that Son whom he there shews to be so far above all Angelick Beings that when his Father brings his first begotten into the World he says And let all the Angels of God worship him which the Apostle quotes from the Psalmist Psal 97.7 not literally according to the Hebrew but according to the then current translation of the Septuagint which though varying from our Hebrew a little in words is the same in sense That the word by us translated Gods signifies and is apply'd to Created Beings sometimes we admit of as no way prejudicial to truth but if the Angels are commanded to worship Him and that Angel whom Saint John would have adored forbad him because He though an Angel Rev. 22.9 was but a
memory of all these things and the testimony of his own Companions whose very looks and discourse the evidences of unwonted joy carried a great deal of innocency and sincerity in them could not prevail with him but he positively declares Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails ver 25. and put my finger into the print of the nails and thrust my hand into his side I will not believe such an unreasonable infidelity that seemed resolved neither to submit to the testimony of others nor to his own sight might justly have been left unsatisfied but our Saviour had a respect to the rest of the World to whom the Gospel should be preached and the Resurrection be propounded as necessary to be believ'd therefore he condescended to the Apostles weakness and after eight days when the Disciples were again together and Thomas with them he appears to them again and with his usual blessing applyes himself immediately to his unbelieving Disciple He shews himself the great Searcher of the heart and reins and tells him without the help of a teacher how great a folly he had been guilty of he commands him to do what he had before desired he by that means leaves him no opportunity of doubting any longer He then who had of all others been the most distrustful to make somewhat of a publick compensation for his former dulness breaks out into that earnest and emphatical confession My Lord and my God! the words seem very plain and proper to express a man's acknowledgment of his Divinity to whom they should be applyed Enjedine yet denyes it His verbis quidem Enjedine in locum non Christum compellat neque eum Dominum Deum suum vocat sed rem inusitatam admirationem suam summam significat In these words really He does not speak to Christ nor call him his Lord and his God but only signifies his admiration of so very unusual a matter yet the Text tells us plainly Thomas answered him and said unto him that is to him who bad him reach out his hand to him in the precedent verse that is to Jesus Christ My Lord and my God! He would have it signifie no more than what a frighted Papist would bless himself with i. e. the outcry of Jesus Maria or as we ordinarily say Good God how strange a thing has hapned lately c. and for this conceit he alleges some such like passages in prophane Authors a very strange method and as little approved of by those of his own party Wolzogenius utterly condemns this fancy and declares of them who first invented it Nullo modo audiendi sunt Wolzogen in locum they are no way at all to be listned to and owns this the first place wherein the Disciples after his resurrection owned him to be God Schlicktingius too declares against it and tells us Schlicktin in locum This passage proves that upon our Saviour's reprimand Thomas fully convinc'd of the truth quitted his former vitious incredulity and believed and therefore he calls Christ his God and Lord as if he should have said Agnosco te Dominum meum Deum meum esse I acknowledge thee to be my Lord and my God but he spoils all at last with this that Christ after his own resurrection was only Deus factus a made God not the great God not the eternal not the most high God not Maker of all things by which names yet and others of the same kind he 's frequently call'd in Scripture Socinus himself in an Epistle to Franciscus Davidis another Antitrinitarian vindicates our common interpretation of these words and will not admit of the others arguments whereby he pretended to prove that these words are no evidence of Christ's being call'd God for besides his alleging that all Copies read it as we have it at present and that there 's no instance in Scripture where such an expression is only a proof of an extraordinary admiration Socini Epistola ad Franc. Dav. p. 395. he shews farther that whereas our Saviour in the following verse shews his approbation of Thomas 's faith there could be no reason of any such approbation if Thomas by these words had only signified his wonderment of what had come to pass with respect to his resurrection and to say truth such an extravagant amazement would have argued some diffidence still remaining in him but indeed here 's no sign in the story of any such wondring at the thing but only here 's a plain confession made of what the Apostle's Faith now was namely that the blessed Jesus was his Lord and his God wherein too he is the mouth of all the rest of the Apostles and there was reason for this Confession S. Thomas had heard his Master's disputes with the Jews the evidences he had given of his being the Messias whom they looked for or the Christ he had heard him often call himself the Son of God declare his equality with his Father and that absolute and indissoluble unity which was between his father and himself he had heard him declare what he was to suffer and that he was to rise again the third day the suffering he had seen the Resurrection he was not so fully satisfied in but when he saw him and felt his wounds now which he had known were really given him before that extraordinary truth which appear'd in all the words and actions of the Son of God open'd his Eyes to see and his Heart to confess that this same Jesus whom he had followed so long was really his Lord and his God Thus his Faith with respect to the Messias was compleat he had seen enough to prove him to be Man in all that time of converse with him before his passion he had seen enough now to prove him to be God not a finite God or an holy Man Deisied but the true the eternal God for tho' Kings or Magistrates may be call'd Gods in Scripture was it ever heard that any called Kings or any other created Being whatsoever My Lord and my God without being charged with Idolatry The Israelites when Aaron had made them a golden Calf Exo. 32.4 cryed presently These be thy Gods O Israel which brought thee out of the land of Egypt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these are thy gods it 's expressed there by that equivocal word which the adversaries of our Faith have so often their recourse to therefore the Israelites might have pleaded for themselves that they meant not by so saying that the golden Calf was the most high God and it 's plain they did not for they presently proclaim a feast to the true God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of whom this Calf was only design'd to be a Symbol or memorial but such a plea was not accepted but for the crime the Israelites were look'd upon and punished as Iâ—olaters The Prophet Isay setting out the practice of Idolaters and the general original of Idol Images
That our Lord is called Immanuel by the Prophet as cited by S. Matthew or God with us that we might not think he was Man only but that we might know he was God too If then Christ was God as well as Man his Divine Nature being mentioned in contradistinction to his humane Nature Irenaeus cannot mean that He who was really a Man was only metaphorically God but that he was as really and essentially God as He was Man which is what we believe With Irenaeus agrees Clemens of Alexandria who thus teaches the Gentiles in his Admonition to them We are the rational Creatures of God the Word so he calls our Saviour after the Evangelist S. John Admon ad Gent. p. 5. l. D. by whom we pretend to Antiquity because God the Word was in the beginning but because the Word was from above He was and is the divine original of all things but since He has now taken upon him the name of Christ a name suitable to his power and which was sanctified of old I call him a new song This refers to his former Allegorical discourse wherein he endeavours to describe every thing under terms proper to Harmony or Musick This Word then this Christ who was at first in God was both the cause of our original existence and of our well-being But now this Word himself has made himself manifest to men who alone is both God and Man the cause of all our good by whom we being taught to live well are sent from hence to eternal life for according to that inspired Apostle of our Lord the Grace of God hath appear'd to all men teaching them that denying all ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live godly righteously and soberly in this present world looking for the glorious coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ This is the new song that manifestation of God the Word who was in the beginning and before all things and now shines brightly out to us He appear'd but lately who was our Saviour before He who is appear'd in him who is because the Word was with God and that Word by which all things were made makes his appearance as a Master that Word which as a Creator gave us life in our first formation appearing now as a Master or Teacher has taught us to live well that hereafter as God he may bestow upon us eternal life Thus far that very learned Father and his whole discourse does so plainly teach us the Pre-existence of our Saviour before his Conception in the Womb of the blessed Virgin and consequently his Divine Nature in his eternal being with the Father that the most ignorant person in the World may plainly understand what the Faith of this Writer was Thus afterwards speaking of John Baptist the forerunner of our Saviour he tells them John taught men to be prepared for the presence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of God the Christ Afterwards speaking of that care our Saviour took to have the Gospel preached he adds The Lord did not effect so great work in so short a time without a sacred care He was despised in appearance but adored indeed being a Purifyer a Saviour and extremely kind The Divine Word being really most manifest God and put into an equal rank with the Lord of all things for as much as he was his Son and the Word was in God Ibid. p. 68. l. D. he was neither disbelieved when he was first preached nor was he unknown or unacknowledged when assuming the presence of a Man and being made flesh he managed the saving design of his assumed Humanity Again speaking to those who are blind with sin and folly under the person of Tiresias that blind Thebane Wizzard and inviting such to believe in Christ he speaks thus If thou wilt thou too shalt be initiated into these Mysteries and join in the Choir of blessed Angels about the unbegotten the never to be destroyed the only true God God the Word assisting in the same Hymn with us He is eternal the only Jesus or Saviour the great High-priest of God who is the Father p. 70. L D. he intercedes for Men and he perswades them to goodness I shall instance but in one passage more in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where having cited that of the Psalmist Who shall ascend into the Hill of the Lord or who shall stand in his holy place c. at large He thus descants upon it The Prophet says He in my opinion here briefly describes the true Gnostick or the man of true knowledge to us and by the bye David shews us that our Saviour is God for he calls him the face of the God of Jacob who brought us glad tidings and taught us of or concerning the Spirit therefore the Apostle calls the Son the Character of the glory of God Him who taught the truth concerning God and who represented to us that God and the Father was one only and Almighty whom none could know but the Son Stromat l. 7. p. 733. C. and He to whom the Son shall reveal him That God is but one appears by those who seek the face of the God of Jacob whom our God and our Saviour characterises as the only God and father of Good Here then we have the Father true and real God the Son true and real God and yet but one God and this is that Faith which we preach To Clemens I shall only add his Scholar Origen for the Greek Church a man of extraordinary eminence in his time who in his third Book against Celsus that great adversary of the Christian Religion reflecting upon the vanity of Heathen Gods and their incapacity to help those that depend on them he tells Celsus that upon this very reason because there is no help in false gods it 's a sure Rule among Christians that no man should trust in any being as God except only in Jesus Christ and a little after whereas Celsus objects against us so often that we believe Jesus consisting of a mortal body to be God and imagine our selves very pious in so thinking he answers Let those who accuse us know that He whom we know and believe to be God of old and to be the Son of God he is of himself the Word the Wisdom and the Truth and that even that mortal body and reasonable Soul which he assumed by its Communication and Unity and Mixture with the Word or with his divine nature arose to so great a height as to be God i.e. his humane and his divine nature make by a substantial or essential union one God and that I give no false interpretation to his words here will appear by what I shall allege afterwards It 's all along the humour of Celsus then when he speaks in the Person of a Jew and when he speaks in his own Name and Person to reproach the Christians with the irrationality of their Religion on that particular account that they owned Christ as
God Contra Celsum l. 1. p. 30 so he objects that Christ was educated in the dark was hired a servant in Aegypt that he there tryed their magick powers and returning from thence in confidence of his jugling tricks set up for a God Origen vindicates him from the malicious imputation of being a Magician but never pretends to deny that he was God or that he assumed that title nay he 's so far from that that he takes a great deal of pains to prove that He was God particularly from those passages of the 45 Psalm cited by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews in his first chapter which I have clear'd before and he adds that we must here consider the Prophet speaking to that God whose throne is everlasting l. 1. p. 43. and that he asserts that God was anointed by God who was His God with the oyl of gladness above his fellows which is the real sence of the words and which he tells us he had formerly silenc'd an obstinate Jew with In his second book Celsus introduces a Jew speaking against Christ and saying they could not own him for God who did not make good his word who endeavoured poorly to avoid Death and was at last betrayed by one of his own followers c. Origen answers Christians did neither believe the body of Christ nor his soul to be God but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word the Son of the God of all things was God that Christians justly condemn the Jews who acknowledge not him to be God whom their own Prophets so often give testimony to as a powerful Being and as God which he is by the witness of the great God and Father of all things himself That when God in the beginning of the world said Let us make Man in our Image the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word perform'd all that his Father commanded for if according to that of the Psalmist He said and they were made l. 2. p. 6â— he commanded and all things were created if at God's command all the Creatures were framed who according to the meaning of the prophetical Spirit was able to put in execution such his Father's command but He who was the living Word and Truth it self The Word then in the beginning of all things was with God and the Word was God and without him nothing was made that was made It 's the Doctrine of S. John and of Origen too So far then we may know how the beginning of S. John's Gospel was understood in his days and what they thought might conveniently be proved from thence When the Jew afterwards is brought in objecting that Men who are partakers of the same Table would not lye in wait for one another much less would any one have treacherous designs upon God p. 74. Origen might easily have answered that cavil by denying that He was God and then by giving instances of Men false and treacherous to those who have eaten with them at the same Table but He owns his Godhead and only performs the latter Celsus afterwards brings in his Jew objecting against the Divinity of Christ thus Who ever heard of God coming down from heaven to earth on purpose to perswade Men as they say Christ did and failing in his design especially when he was long expected and hoped for a denyal of his Divinity had put a full stop to this objection too but Origen on the contrary retorts upon them That the Jews themselves were instance enough of the possibility of such a thing since God had appear'd so remarkably to them in bringing them up out of the land of Aegypt and in giving them a Law from Sina and yet they nor their Fathers could by that means be perswaded to obedience or prevented from running presently into Idolatry p. 106. After all this Celsus in his own person makes use of this argument to prove that Christ could not be God God says He is good and pure and happy and in himself infinitely excellent and lovely if He should descend to be among Men He must necessarily undergo a change a change from good to bad from pure to impure from happiness to misery and from the most excellent to the most sinful state this God would never undergo To this the Father answers That it 's true God is in himselâ— Immutable nor did he suffer any change oâ— this account But that which descended down to Men was in the form of God but out of his Love to mankind he debased himself so far as that he might be born among them but He suffer'd no change from baâ— to good for that He was without Sin he never committed any He was not chang'd from pure or clean to foul or filthy for Hâ— did not so much as know Sin nor did he fall from happiness to misery He humbled himself indeed but was not a whit the less happy even when he stoop'd the lowest for the good of mankind nor did he fall from the best to the most sinful state because what he did proceeded from Love and Charity to us by being among whom He that was the great Physician of Souls could be no more altered for the worse than a Physician for the body is by conversing with those that are sick and full of diseases But says he if Celsus think that because the immortal God the Word assumed a mortal body and an humane Soul that therefore He suffered an alteration or a change Let him know that the Word essentially continuing the Word still suffers by none of those things which happen either to the body or the Soul but that He condescends to become flesh and to speak in a Body l. 4. p. 169 170. for the sake of those who are not able to behold the eradiations and brightness of his Divinity so long till He who receives him being in a short time rais'd to a greater understanding by the Word may be able to contemplate his original nature And finally in his sixth book against the same Celsus he speaks â—hus excellently If then Celsus enquire how we think to know God and to be saved with him We will answer him That He who is the word of God being in them who seek him or who wait for his appearance is sufficient to make known and to reveal the Father who was not to be seen before His appearance for who else can save the Soul of Man and guide us in every thing to God but only God the Word who being in the beginning with God for the sake of those who are confin'd to flesh became flesh that he might be comprehended by those who were not able to see him as He was the Word and as He was with God and as He was God l. 6. p. 322. and appearing in flesh and speaking in the body He calls those who are in the flesh to himself that first he might make them like to the Word which was made flesh and
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
and express words that our Saviour is no God at all either à parte ante with respect to the time past or before his Incarnation or à parte post with respect to the time to come or after his Incarnation but only a meer glorified Man or they must agree with us that He is God eternal equal with his Father as true and as real God as ever he was true and real Man and this is what those antient Fathers did certainly agree with and in all those passages I have quoted from them they must believe so or be absolutely inconsistent with themselves and all those who were their successors soon after in the Government of the Church of Christ must have strangely mistaken them and their opinions which yet is not so likely as it is that modern Writers should misunderstand them Now how their immediate Successors nay and their Contemporaries understood them will appear the better by a short view of the dealing of publick Councils and such as were approv'd by them with respect to the Samosatenian and Arrian Heresies in which it's observable That Gregory Bishop of Neo-Caesarea commonly called Thaumaturgus among other things gives us a Confession of Faith said by Gregory Nyssen to have been dictated to him in a Vision leaving that circumstance in suspence the sum of his Confession amounts to this Concil T. 2. p. 841. There is one God the Father of the living Word of essential Wisdom and Power and of an eternal Character the perfect begetter of him that was perfect the Father of the only begotten Son There is one Lord God of God God alone of him who alone is God the Character and Image of the Deity the Word working in us comprehending the contexture of all things and the power which made the universal Creation the true Son of the true Father invisible of him who was invisible incorruptible of him who was incorruptible immortal of him who was immortal and eternal of him that was eternal This confession of his Faith was express enough to our purpose and but necessary for that time when Samosatenianisme was springing forth and making way for more Heretical Innovators in the Faith About the same time was a Council called at Antioch where Paulus of Samosata was then Bishop whose Doctrine was in that agreeable with our Socinians that He held That Christ was a meer Man Concil T. 1. p. 844. that He had no Being before his Conception in the womb of the Virgin Mary and that He acquired the name of the Son of God by his good works and extraordinary righteousness In that Council then met at Antioch these Doctrines of Paulus were condemned and Anathematized this was about the year of our Lord 264. very early and by the concurrence of a number of Bishops in the condemnation of that Doctrine and that when there were no Roman Emperors nor other great secular Men to countenance them is a sufficient proof that Socinian Doctrine as now it is Samosatenian Heresie as then it was was not then approved of in the Church In their Synodical Epistle to Paulus thus they declare No man hath known the Father but the Son and He to whom the Son has revealed him Ibid. but we confess and preach That this Son is begotten the only begotten Son the Image of the invisible God the first-born of every Creature the Wisdom and Word and Power of God existing before all ages not in his Fathers foreknowledge but real God in his own Essence the Son of God so declared both in the Old and in the New Testament whosoever then fights against this truth and declares the Son of God not to have been God before the foundations of the World and who says that to believe and confess or to preach that the Son of God is God is to introduce two Gods we look upon such a Man to be without the pale of the Church and all Catholick Churches consent with us in this opinion Then they proceed to prove what they assert by several Texts of Scripture the greatest part of which we have considered before About the same time Dionysius Bishop of Alexandria answered Ten Questions propounded to him by Paulus Ibid. p. 857 wherein he maintained the same Doctrine of the Eternity and Consubstantiality of the Son of God Certainly these would not have not only declared their own opinions freely but appeal'd to Universal Judgment if they had thought it possible that they could have been confuted but Paulus offers at no such thing that we can hear of Paulus condemn'd by the first Council of Antioch renounced his Heretical opinions but soon return'd to his vomit again and undertook their vindication this Apostasie of his made a very great number of Bishops meet at Antioch a second time they look'd on the Controversie as of so great importance that even in the reign of Aurelian a cruel persecuting Emperour they thought it necessary to meet to crush so dangerous and fundamental an Error In that Council Paulus and his Doctrine are unanimously condemned again there Malchion a Presbyter disputing with Paulus tells him That Jesus Christ of God the Word and an humane body which was of the seed of David was made one no longer subsisting in a Divided but in an Vnited state In their Synodical Epistle not entirely extant they complain of Paulus as denying Christ to have descended down from Heaven Concil T. 1. p. 899. Baluzii Nova colloctio Concil p. 19 20 21 22. and for affirming him to be wholly from earth In some other fragments of the same Epistle omitted by Eusebius the Synod speaks thus Neither God who was clothed in an humane body was in that body free from humane passions neither was his humane body empty of Divine Power that Power which was in that body and by virtue of which that Humane body wrought those wonderful works Here then we have a body of Pious and Learned Men representing a great part of the Eastern Church concurring in the condemnation of those opinions which the Scholars of Socinus have lately reviv'd To these we may add for the Western Church the suffrage of Foelix the first of that name Bishop of Rome in a small fragment of an Epistle written by him about those controversies as the matter evinces to the Clergy of Alexandria the fragment is extant in the Apologetick of S. Cyril of Alexandria against the Eastern Bishops in the first General Council at Ephesus and it 's to this effect As for the Incarnation of the Word and our Faith in that point We believe in our Lord Jesus Christ Concil T. 1. p. 912. who was born of the Virgin Mary that He is the eternal Son of God and the Word and not a Man assumed by God that there might be another beside himself for the Son of God did not take humanity upon him for that end but being perfect God he also became perfect Man being Incarnate of the Virgin
Dead before that great day must be called the Sons of God in the same sence as our Saviour is and consequently our Savour cannot on account of such Resurrection be so the Son of God as to be his only begotten Son exclusively of all others tho' that title be so exclusive in it's own nature As for the three Reasons of his being called the Son of God derived from his Offices it 's true in the first place that God has sanctifyed our Saviour and sent him into the World but so he sanctified Jeremy and so he sanctified John the Baptist and the last in particular he sent into the World with an extraordinary Commission i. e. to Preach the glad tidings of Salvation and to prepare the way of the Lord against his publick appearance which Employs were both wholly extraordinary but as for that descent of the Holy Ghost upon him whereby say they he was anointed to his Office without measure there was no particularity eminently distinguishing Him in that from his own Apostles upon whom the Spirit descended in a visible manner at the feast of Pentecost and fitted them so for the same Office of Preaching and every way promoting the Salvation of Mankind Indeed we no where find the Apostles called the Sons of God on account of their being baptised with the Holy Ghost and with fire but we see our Saviour is declared the Son of God in whom he is well pleased on that occasion but he was own'd by the same title at his Transfiguration too when there was no effusion of the Holy Ghost therefore there was some peculiarly eminent reason for giving our Lord this Title which could not be applied on any account to any other Person If we reflect on the second ground of Christ's being called the Son of God which is because He is our Great High-Priest and so constituted by God himself our Author's proof of it is very strange viz. from that passage of the Psalmist Thou art my Son Heb. 5.5 this day have I begotten thee quoted by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews for tho' those Words are there repeated as well as in the first Chapter of that Epistle yet it 's not in a different Sence or to a new purpose but the Apostle there speaking of our Saviour's Priesthood and the greatness and excellency of that Office undertaken by him tells us no Man takes this Honour to himself but He that is called of God as was Aaron Now the Apostle shews that our Saviour had such a Call as well as Aaron for his Father who said to him Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee shewed his Propriety in his Son and his Love to him by those words so that it could not be strange that his Father should lay so great an Honour upon him But then his title to the Priesthood it self is founded on that Thou art a Priest for ever ver 6. after the order of Melchisedec so then the Son-ship of Christ is antecedent to his Priestly Office and He was made a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec because He was the Son of God and not called the Son of God because He was our High-Priest As for the last reason why our Saviour is called the Son of God viz. Because he is exalted to the Supreme Power over all things and so is our King Hab. 1.5 which he proves again from the same words as quoted in the same Epistle to the Hebrews There yet again the same truth occurs that Christ was the Son of God before He entred upon his Kingly Office for by Him God made the worlds and our Saviour never had a being but that at the same time he was the Son of God but if God by Him made the Worlds ver 2. as the Apostle says and he could not be our King before the Worlds were made We who are a part of these Worlds being those Creatures over whom he was to be King then he was the Son of God before he was our King and therefore could not be his Son on that account Besides if we should allow all these things the whole grant would be useless for Christ is called as before we observed the only begotten Son of God in an eminent and distinguishing manner above all others but if upon account of his Offices Prophetical Priestly or Regal Christ be called the Son of God then all those who exercise the same Functions in the world may upon the same reason lay claim to the same title for of some of them we know the Psalmist says They are Gods and they are all the children of the most high but if they can all justly lay claim to the same Title then there 's nothing peculiar to our Saviour included in that being the Son the only begotten Son of God which yet the very Title it self imports All these Reasons then not being sufficient to give our Saviour the Title of the only begotten Son of God in a manner so super-eminent to all other Creatures and their Originals particularly to Angels who are of a Spiritual Nature and are called the Sons of God There must remain some other ground for our Saviour's being so called and that is his eternal generation of the Father which puts him into such a Relation to his Father as no other creature can possibly pretend to We have prov'd that the whole of his Five Precedent Reasons do not fill up the Idea or make good the full meaning of those terms wherein Christ is called the only Begotten Son of God his Beloved Son or his own Son for if I am Born of my Mother but not Begotten in his own Image by my reputed Father tho' my reputed Father were able after Death to raise me to Life again tho' he were able to confer upon me all the Authority in the Universe yet all this will be so far from giving Me justly the Title of my Father's only-begotten Son tho' perhaps he never had any other that by all these Reasons together I should be a putative Son but really no more related to my supposed Father than our Saviour was to Joseph the Husband of the blessed Virgin when before her Espousals he was begotten in her by the Power of the Holy Ghost Nay should we admit of the very unphilosophical Hypothesis of Ruarus Quid in eo absurdi si spiritum Dei venas in virginis uterum descendentes emulsisse atque ex sanguine coagulato Embryonem formasse dicam non aliter atque id fit spiritu in masculo semine latente Ruarus ad Mersennum Epistola Centur. 1. Num. 56. p. 262. the most modest of the Socinian tribe all would be too little to make good this glorious Idea of the only begotten Son of God But his eternal Generation answers all and makes our Saviour as properly the Only Begotten Son of his Heavenly Father as I or any other Lawful Son is the only begotten of his
most incident to the Person who stands in the Relation of a Son therefore it was necessary that the Son of God should take upon him our Nature and pity us and plead for us that how deplorable soever our Condition might be in it self we might be in a Capacity of Eternal Salvation It was proper that He who first gave a Being to all things by his Power should when the Work of his hands was decay'd if he design'd Mercy for them rectifie their Disorders and resettle them in such a state as might in some measure answer the original Design of the Creation that our Saviour the Eternal Word of God was the Maker of all things we have formerly prov'd at large from the beginning of St. John's Gospel and several other Scripture Passages and it 's a Truth which even Arians themselves acknowledge In that first Creation as the wise Man observes Man was made upright Eccles 7.29 but he has now sought out to himself many Inventions were he but left a little to himself he would need no other Vengeance to be poured upon him but what he 'd soon draw down on his own Head but God in pity to him was pleased to determine otherwise but as we observ'd before though an inferiour Creature was able to bring one in a happy state before into a ruinous Condition as any little mischievous Agent may yet those Ruines so easily procured could not be so easily repair'd again We are taught in the History of the Creation that Man was created at first in the Image of God that was his Glory and Excellence beyond the other Members of the visible Creation but that Image of his Maker was miserably defaced in him by Sin the Blessed Jesus the Eradiation of God's Glory Heb. 1.3 and the express Image of his Person therefore the most proper to renew in Obedient Man the blotted Image he had at first created him in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Athanasius whom we may justly alledge now in a matter little controverted Athan. de Incar T. 1. p. 72. It was not in the power of any other but him who was the Image of the Father to create again or resettle that Image in Men. It 's true the Socinians would persuade us the original Image of God consisted in nothing but Dominion over his Fellow-Creatures but that Dominion over the Creatures could not answer that Perfection the Wise Man adverts to in Man's first Creation no more than we can prove Kings and Princes the more Perfect because of that Dominion God entrusts them with or that among Princes those who command the largest Empires should be the best and most compleat Men but the original Image of God in Man consisted in that Purity and Holiness which Man was adorned with in his first Creation and in that vast Wisdom and capacious Understanding whereby he knew every thing that was necessary to his own Happiness this Purity and Wisdom was ruined by his Fall and this our Saviour came effectually to restore by making such as believe in him new Creatures by which they are again renewed in Knowledge and in Righteousness Col. 3.10 Eph. 4.24 and true Holiness after the Image of that God who created them now when we speak of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Renewal of any thing we refer to somewhat that was before for that cannot be renewed now that never was formerly but if the Knowledge and Righteousness and Holiness in the new Man be the Image of God at present and there was such Knowledge and Righteousness and Holiness in Man before his Fall without which it could not be renewed by him who came to repair the ruines of that Fall then that Knowledge and Righteousness and Holiness was originally the Image of God in which Man was created and we need not fly to Dominion as the sole Instance of God's Image in Man especially since his Dominion was no more an Image of God's Soveraignty than the Government of all Princes since has been an Image of that for God was Lord of all things Man was not and yet Princes as well as others have had their shares in the Mischiefs arising from Man's Fall though their Governments be as absolute as ever To this we may add that Regenerate Persons being ordain'd to that Title of the Sons of God it was most proper that he who was the Son of God by Nature should be their great Guide and Conducter to that Honour this we learn from St. Paul who laying down that mysterious Doctrine of God's Prescience and Predetermination as to the future state of Men Rom 8.29 tells us that whom God did foreknow he did also determine beforehand that they should be conform'd to the Image of his Son that he might be the First-born of many Brethren where by the way we may observe that those Persons who by this very Apostle are elsewhere said to be renewed according to the Image of God are here said to be conformed to the Image of his Son therefore the Image of God the Father and of God the Son are the same thing and those whose Image is the same must be One not metaphorically but really One our Lord became our Brother by assuming our Nature by submitting to all the Infirmities of Humanity Sin onely excepted and he was the kindest and the tenderest Brother who laid down his own sacred Life to restore a crue of wretched Prodigals to the embraces of their Father he envied not that where there were many Mansions repenting Sinners should be admitted to them but after his Death and Resurrection he ascended to his Father and our Father to his God and our God that he might prepare those very Mansions for those who believe in him Behold what manner of Love the Father hath bestowed on us that we through the Mediation of his onely begotten Son should be called the Sons of God that I insert that on good reason will appear to any one who considers with the Apostle That Gal. 4.4 5. when the fulness of time was come God sent forth his Son made of a Woman made under the Law to redeem them that were in Bondage in general and that they might receive the Adoption of Sons this then was the reason of the incarnation of God the Son and the reason of his Sufferings we have from an equally authentic hand the Blessed Jesus by the grace of God Heb. 2.9 18. tasted death for every Man He was the Captain of our Salvation being made perfect thro' Sufferings is not ashamed to call us Brethren Forasmuch then as the Children are Partakers of flesh and blood he also himself took part of the same that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death that is the Devil And deliver them who through fear of death were all their life subject to Bondage wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his Brethren that he might be a
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
Saints or pious Men may have a Surplusage of Merits such as may not only serve themselves and their own Necessities but accommodate others who were defective in themselves but it 's yet a greater Madness to believe that the Son of God had no Merits and was able to purchase no Pardon for our sins by his Sufferings or that by dying for our Sins he was unable to satisfie his Father's Displeasure against Sinners the Mischief and Falshood of such Opinions I have proved at large in the former parts of this Discourse yet God in his Wisdom and for the Tryal of those who can adhere stedfastly to the Truth as it is in Christ Jesus is pleased to permit these Errors to be divulged and defended and propagated with a mischievous Diligence by Men of mighty Names and Interests who presuming upon the present Indulgence assume boldly to vent and spread those Poisons they were forc'd to conceal within their own Breasts before Time was when by the just Judgment of God upon the Laodicean Temper of the generality of Christians Arianism got strength and clouded all the native Glories of the Church of God it was then when as St. Hierome says the World stood in amaze to see it self grown Arian at once God grant the Plague of Socinianism be not permitted to infect the Church of England with as fatal a Success that those Damnable Heresies wherein the Lord who bought us is denied gain not among us too many Proselytes and Patrons too they have indeed their oyly Words their plausible Arguments their extraordinary pretences to Morality and extremity of Confidence yet could they never hope to prevail did they not observe the extream Debauchery and Loosness of the Age they consider the Principles of solid Religion as generally slighted the lazy Humours of Men as little careful to enquire into the Nature of Doctrines propounded but ready either to sink into down-right Atheism or to take up with the first Scheme of Religion that may come to hand Men aim more at eminence in what they abusively call Wit than at serious Piety and therefore subtil watchful Hereticks pretend only to reduce Religion to the Rules of Reason i. e. of their own Reason who have started so many Impieties though the Reason of all Mankind beside themselves appear in contradiction to them as if a company of Opinators who neither value their own nor others Souls were to fix their particular Sentiments as the only Standards of Sense and Truth when indeed they have only the Fucus of Sophistry to make a shew of easily observ'd by those who stand upon their watch and are willing to be certainly convinced of the Truth of things before they entertain them There are others besides Papists who are only Wolves in Sheeps clothing and by how much the more venerable Name they assume to themselves by so much the more dangerous they are Every Man is ready to stand upon his guard if he fears being attacqu'd by a Roman Priest or by a pragmatick Jesuit but who would suspect that any of those who pretend to Tenderness of Conscience and a superfineness in Religious matters should blaspheme God the Son or God the Holy Ghost who would imagine that those who dare call themselves Sons of the Church of England nay Attendants at her Altars Hers who particularly declares against these very Heresies in those Articles they are oblig'd to subscribe and to defend should so affront their Sacred Mother and go about to seduce her Children from her sound and wholesome Doctrines But if Apostolick times could be pester'd with such False Teachers we may expect worse Measure upon whom the Ends of the World are come but above all what can be more astonishing than that those who pretend so great Good Will to our Sion should charge the Practice of our Church in praying equally to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and proposing the Creeds of Constantinople and that call'd by the Name of St. Athanasius as guilty of Popery and those things as Reliques of that Idolatrous Religion Popery is a hated name and those who would have any thing hated need to fix nothing more odious upon it but if it be Popery to believe that our Saviour is the Son of God that he is God that by his Sufferings he has satisfied for our Sins and now sits at the right-hand of his Father making Intercession for our Sins God grant we may live and die in that Faith since our Case is such take heed how you hear or what you read let none deceive you with vain Words you have heard and read the Truth and if now or hereafter We or an Angel from Heaven preach any other Gospel unto you than what we have preached in this particular Let him be accursed and again Let him be accursed Amen FINIS A TABLE OF THE Principal Heads IN THIS DISCOURSE THE Design of the present Discourse Page 1 Socinian Endeavours to change the Text answered Page 4 A Mystery what Page 12 Doctrines may be Mysterious tho' revealed Page 13 Humane Reason enquired into as used in Religious Matters 1. It s original Excellence Page 19 2. It 's very much impair'd by Man's Fall Page 21 3. It 's yet sufficient to convince us of a general Necessity of Religion Page 25 4. Well employ'd it meets with Divine Assistance Page 32 5. By Exercise it grows more knowing and comprehensive Page 38 6. Yet it 's not compleat till the Future Life 's attain'd Page 44 Deductions from thence 1. God's Goodness to be admired because it continues us a discursive Faculty useful towards Salvation Page 47 2. We should use our Reason in Matters of Religion with all Humility and Sobriety Page 55 The Necessity of Enquiring into our Lord's Divinity no breach upon that Humility or Sobriety Page 63 The Text further explained and The Mystery of Godliness prov'd not applicable to the Gospel or God's revealed Will. Page 66 Not applicable to God the Father Page 68 The true Meaning of the Text with the subsequent Instances laid down and applied to our Saviour Page 73 And Paraphrased Page 79 I. The First Position then laid down That the Foundation of Christianity is indisputably Great and Mysterious and that prov'd necessary 1. By the World's universal Agreement that Mysteries both fundamental as to Faith and externally essential as to Rites are necessary in Religion Page 83 Rites among the Jews mystical by God's Appointment Page 94 Those of the Gentiles the same naturally Page 96 The first Design and Mystery of Sacrifices Page 98 The Devil imitating God and why Page 107 Sacrifices yet not believed sufficient to appease Heaven by any Intrinsic but only by a Relative Virtue Page 108 Our Saviour intended not the Abolition of every thing Mysterious in Religion Page 113 Mens Sentiments about the true Ends of Religion before our Lord's Incarnation enquir'd into Page 114 Those of the Jews Ibid. Those of the Gentiles Page 119 The Ends of Religion