THE ARRAIGNMENT OF THE ARRIAN. His Beginning. Height. Fall. In a Sermon preached at Paul's Cross, june 4. 1624. Being the first Sunday in Trinity Term. BY Humphrey Sydenham Mr. of Arts, and Fellow of WADHAM College in OXFORD. LONDON, Printed for JOHN PARKER. 1626. TO MY APPROVED WORTHY FRIEND Mr. Francis Crossing; This. SIR; I Was never yet so preposterous in my respects, as to value the worth of him I serve, by the title, but the disposition; He is noble to me, that is so in his actions, not his descent; those high-swollen privileges of blood and fortune are (for the most part) tympanies in greatness, prick them, and they prove winds of honour, not substances. Had I been ambitious of a high Patronage, this weak piece I send you might have worn an honourable inscription, but I have that within me which chides those insolences, and tells me that the name of friend sounds better than of Lord, and he is less mine that doth only countenance me, than he that feeds me; He only deserves to be a protector of my Labours which hath been a cherisher of my fortunes; to you then this at once flies for Patronage, and acceptance, desiring you to receive it as a monument of his thankfulness, who ever devotee's himself Your most-most respective HUM: SYDENHAM. THE ARRAIGNMENT OF THE ARRIAN. JOHN 8.58. Before Abraham was, I am. Never age afforded a perfection of that eminency which was not exposed to envy, or opposition, or both. Truth is the child of virtue; and, as the inheritress of all her glories; so, her sufferings. Now, virtue grows by unjust wounds, & so doth truth too; and like steel that is bend, springeth the other way. She shows her best lustre upon encounter, and like the Sun shines brightest betwixt two clouds, malice, error; both (here) conspire to overcast and darken the glory of those beams which enlighten every man that comes into the world, the suns of righteousness. It hath ever been the stratagem and project of that Arch-enemy of man, for the advancement and strengthening of his great title— The Father of lies—, either to strangle truth in the conception, or smother it in the birth. If he miscarry in his own particular undertake, he will suborn his Factors, Scrives and Pharisees; and these not only to question, but to oppose a deity, fit agents put upon such a damned design, for it is theirs no less by debt, than parentage;— Ye are of your Father the Devil, v. 44. He hath bequeathed you a prodigious lie, and you would fain practise it on the Saviour of the world, labouring to nullify his acts, blemish his descent, imposture all his miracles. Where were they ever seconded, but by the finger of a God? or, where contradicted, but by the malice of a jew? could the powers of the grave, and the shackles and bands of death be dissolved, and broken by the mere hand of Beelzebub? or a dead and stinking carcase, enliued and quickened by a Samaritan and his devil? could the kingdom of darkness, and all those legions below, fetch a soul out of the bosom of your Abraham, and reinthrone it in a body four days entombed? no, that— Magnus hiatus interte, & nos—, returns the lie upon all hellish power, and the prince thereof.— Between: you, and us, there is a great gulf fixed, Luke 16.26. Why then exclaim you on the injustice and falsehood of his testimonies? Opera quae ego facio—, the works which I do bear witness of me. Look on them, and if they unscale not your wilful blindness, the axioms and principles of your own law will convince you. It is written in your Thalmud,— That the testimony of two men is true—. Behold then out of your own blood, and Nation, two strong evidences against you, Iewes both, and both speak him a true God,— A virgin shall conceive and bring forth a Son, and his name shall be called Emmanuell, God with us, Isa. 7.14. This is our God, and there shall be none in comparison of him, Baruch 3.36. Why then are ye so startled at his naming Abraham? or why doth your indignation swell, that he says he is before him? Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and saw it, and was glad, verse. 56. (My day of eternity, and my day of incarnation, with the eye of faith.) Why inquire you into the number of his years? a whole age to him is as an hour, two thousand years but as a minute, and all the wheels and degrees of time within his span, and as a nunc or instant; before Abraham was, before the world, before all time I am. jew, take his word, it is orthodox, or if not, his asseveration: and if that be too slight and single, lo, he doubles it, Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am. And now thou that sittest in the chair of Moses, hear what S. Augustine tells thee,— Appende verba, & cognosce mysterium—, the words (indeed) are of a narrow circuit, yet they shrine and involve a mystery, and carry with them both majesty and depth, like rich stones set in Ebony, where though the ground be dark, yet it gives their lustre and beauty clearer; learn here then both propriety, and weight of language, and how to critic between a God, and thy own frailty.— Intellige, fieret, ad humanam facturam, sum verò, ad divinam pertinere substantiam?— Was, points only to a humane constitution,— I am, to a divine substance, and therefore the original hath a— 〈◊〉— for Abraham, & an— 〈◊〉— for Christ. Divinity is not cloistered or confined to time, either past, or future, but commands all as present; and therefore not— I was, but— I am. Neither do the Latins give Abraham a— esset, but a— fieret, nor Christ a— fui, but a— sum. Hereupon the full tide of Expositors, besides * Ego latius extendo, Cal. in 8. lo. M. Caluine, and his Marlorate, (who though they a while divide the stream, yet at length they meet in the same channel, and so make the current a little fuller) wave this way, and send us to that— I am, of Exodus, in the 3. chap. 14. vers. where we find the root with an— Ehich, Asher Ehich, which though the Chaldee renders,— Ero qui ero, I will be that I will be— (which indeed is the genuine signification of the original) yet the vulgar Edition gives it in the present,— I am that I am— and the Septuagint— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉,— I am he that is— (it being both frequent and necessary with the Hebrews to place the future for the present) and by this they imply— God eternal and unchangeable being in himself. The Thalmudists also (whose authority must pass for current, where there is no power to contradict, or scan) allow this,— Ehich— as much as— Sam— Fisi— ero— the comprehension of three times, past, present, and to come—. So the Rabbins in Elleshemoth Rabbi upon this Text, read,— I that have been, and I the same now, and I the same for time to come. However the Chaldee Paraphrast labours an indifferency, and hath charity enough to afford both interpretations,— He that was, and hereafter will be.— Ad denotandam aeternitatem eius (saith jonathan) to show the eternal being of him who alone can say— Sam, ero— I am, and I will be; for he is the very source and fountain of all life and essence, In whom we live, and move, and have our being—, and by reason of this triplicity of time, and power, Vatablus would derive Ihehovah from this word— Ehich (though some of the Hebrew Doctors fetch the pedigree a little higher) from— Havah,— He was, and tells us that by the first letter is signified, he will be, and by the second— Ho,— He is; & to this Rabbi Bechai seems to assent, in his 65. page upon Exodus. But however they war a little in the derivation, they do not in the substance, proportioning both this triple privilege, & where there is such an immensity, we cannot but make a God, & where such a God, eternity. All things besides him once were not, and being, are limited in their natures, neither could possibly persist, unless God preserved them; many also have lost or shall lose their proper essence, and whilst they remain are obnoxious to daily fluctuarions; only God eternally— Is— without beginning, limitation, dependence, mutation, end, consisting only of himself, and all other creatures of him, and therefore this— Ehich— I am— is a peculiar attribute of omnipotency, not determining any other, but indeterminatlie signifying all manners of being, for so it imports— The very immensity of God's substance,— and to this with an unanimous consent all interpreters subscribe, and the whole choir of Fathers. I have now brought— Ehich— close up with jehovah, this— I am— with him that is— First— and Last, so that we may here rather challenge than borrow that of the Apostle; jesus Christ yesterday, and to day, and the same for ever. Where S. Chrysostome will put Christ upon that triple prerogative to make him a complete God, too.— A yesterday, for time past,— to day— present— for ever, to come, though I meet here (as I shall in every cranny and passage of my discourse) a violent opposer, Eniedinus Samosatenianus, who limits the Apostles— Heri— and Hodie— ad Rem nuperam, & recentem—, so in job (he says) men are called— Hesterni— by the Greeks', 〈◊〉— yesterday— and to day— for their brevity of life; but this interpretation is no less bold than desperate, and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉— which follows in the original, will cut off all comment and gloss of transitoriness— The same for ever— and therefore we find him clothed with peculiar titles of the Almighty, and by Saint john four several times fronted with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉,— from him that was, and is, and is to come;— so that if any murmuring unbeliever should recoil in the acknowledgement of Christ's divinity, he beats on again, a third & a fourth time, that if he can not pierce the stony heart by a single persuasion, he will batter it by inculcation. However the malice or perverseness of most ages have brought this truth not only upon terms of scruple, but opposition, so that now it is grown disputable, whether Christ suffered more in his body by the fury and violence of the hand, or in his divinity by the scourge and sting of venomous and depraving tongues? one would have him, no God, another no man; this again would have him a mere man, and that denies him a true body; one strips him quite of flesh, another him with it, but makes it sinful; this would have him an Angel, that little better than a devil, or at least that he used one. One, no body, another (I believe) nothing— Est illud mirabile (saith Athanasius) Cum omnes haereses invicem pugnent; in falsitate omnes consentire—. Every head is frantic with a strange opinion, and that with some wild fancy, which all meet in the same improbability and (which it ever breeds) falsehood. Error and infidelity may blow on divine truth, and shake it too, but not overthrew it; 'tis founded on such a Basis and sure groundwork as is subject neither to battery nor undermining. The Rock, Christ. The jew and the Arrian lay on fiercely here, not only to deface this goodly structure, but to demolish it, and ruin (if possible) his divinity; but lend me a while your noble attention, I'll show you with what weakness they come off, what dishonour. In the traversing of which give me leave to make use of that Apology which in the same subject Saint Ambrose did to Gratian,— Nolo argumento credas (sancte Imperator●) & nostrae disputationi; scripturas interrogemus, interrogemus Apostolos, Prophetas, Christum. Lean not so much to my strength of Argument and disputation, as to a sacred authority & proof, Let us ask the Scriptures, Patriarches, Prophets, Evangelists, Apostles, Christ; let me add (for so both my task and industry require) Fathers, Counsels, Rabbins, Schoolmen, Histories sacred and profane, let's give antiquity her due, and not in a lazy thirst drink of the stream, (which is either troubled or corrupt) when we may have our fill at a clear fountain; to traffic here at home with a few modern Systeames, is no small sin of the age only, but our profession too, if we can fleyle down the transgressions of the time in some few stolen Postellismus, and piece a sacred line with a worm-eaten Apophthegm, so it be done in a frequent and hasty zeal, we are the Sages and the Patriots of the time, and the lights no doubt of this under firmament; but our discourse grovels not so low; we are here to tread a maze, and thread a Labyrinth, sometimes on hills of ice, where, if we slip in the least punctum, we tumble into haeresio; sometimes with Peter in the deep, that if the hand of Christ did not a little succour us, we should sink into infidelity. I will ball ass my discourse with as much cautelousness as I may, and where I meet with difficulties which are stony and untrodden, if I cannot fairly master them, I will oppose them with my best strength, and if not find a way smooth to satisfaction, dig on; I may perchance awaken heresies, but I will lull them again in their own slumber, I will only pull aside the veil and show you their ugliness, and shut them up in their own deformities. I know I am to speak to an Auchtorie, as well seasoned with faith, as understanding, and yet (perchance) not without some mixture and touch of weakness. Here are shallowes then for Lambs to wade, and deeps for Elephants to swim, passages which he level with humble capacities; others which will venture to stand up with riper judgements, if they stoop sometimes and seem too low for these, and mount again and prove too high for others, it was ever my desire to keep a correspondence with the best, and so to make use of that of Augustine,— Non fraudabo eos qui possunt capere, dum timeo superfluus esse auribus corum qui non possunt capere—. Yet come I not to fill those ears which are picked and dressed for accurateness I am so fare from labouring to please such, that I intent to vex them; if any charitable care be prone to a sour discourse, pitch that attention here one hour, and I shall make good my promise out of the words of the Text. Before Abraham was, I am. And here we are first to enter lifts with that capital and Arch-enemy of Christ, the vexation of the Fathers, and the incendiary and firebrand of the Eastern Church, the Arrian, who out of an envious pride is at once bountiful and injurious, willing to invest Christ with the title 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but disrobes him of that glorious, and his own 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, granting him a like essence with the Father not the same: equal to him in power, not eternity; but give me leave to strip one heretic to another, and put on ours what Tertullian did on Martion— Quid di●…idias mendacio Christum? why dost thou thus piecemeal and mince a deity, and half god (as it were) the Son of the Almighty?— Totus veritas, he is the spirit of truth, and oracle of his Father, the brightness of his glory, in whom are hid all the treasures of Wisdom, knowledge, by whom God made the world. It were too bold a solecism to rank transitoriness with what is sacred, or that which is fleeting with everlastingness, what below eternal dare we make compatible with omnipotency? An eternal Intellect, most perfect, and such is God, requires an object equally perfect, and eternal, which from God, holding a relation to God, can be nothing but God itself; and seeing that no Intellect can conceive without the image of that object which it conceives, it will follow of necessity that God, since from all eternity he knew himself most perfect, should conceive and bring forth in himself a most perfect image of himself, his Son. There is no act of understanding without imagination, which naturally presents an image, by so much the more perfect, by how much the object, whose image it is, is more divinely excellent. And this is that the Apostle glanced at, when he styled Christ,— Characterem hypostasis patris— the express image of his Father's person, a son so begotten of and in the substance of the Father, that there can be nothing from it, diverse, or repugning. Seeing then, in God to understand and to be are not so much parallels, as equals. Intelligi autem sit ipsum filij esse— as the School speaks— Keck. Syst. Theol. l. 1. ca 2. strength of consequence will induce, that the substance of Father and Son, sound one both in power and everlastingness; in fine, for as much as the understanding of God is from eternity, active, nay, the very act eternal, and that understanding cannot be without an Image, It follows that this Image which was conceived, the Son, was equal to that which did conceive, the Father, so that the eternity of God the Son, and his equality with God the Father doth arise from that essential Identity of both, for where two persons shall agree in the same essence, if the one be infinite, the other must rival in the same eternity. Here is the Rock then on which we build our Church, and the sure Basis where we foot and fasten our belief.— The Son is begotten of the essence of the Father, and always begotten,— Non quòd quotidiè renovetur illa generatio, sed quia semper est,— saith Origen, Tom. 2. hom. 6. in jerem. not because it is daily renovated, but because it ever— Is— or rather— Was. For Saint Gregory in the 29 of his Morals, the first Chapter, plays as well the Critic, as the Divine, and is no less nice, than solid,— Dominus nester jesus Christ us in eo quòd virtus & sapientia Dei est, de patre ante tempora natus est, vel potius quia nec coepit nasci, nec desift dicam verius, semper natus, non possumus, semper nascitur, nè imperfectus esse videatur— Our Lord jesus Christ in that he is the power and wisdom of God is said to be borne of the Father before all times, or rather because there was no beginning or end of his generation, we may speak more congruously, he was always borne, not— Is—, for that presupposes some imperfection, and as the same Father prosecutes. 〈◊〉 designari 〈◊〉, & perfectus, & semper 〈◊〉 & natus, quatenus, & natus ad perf●ctionem pert●…, & semper ad aeter●…atem. That we may declare him both perfect and eternal, we allow him as well a— semper— as a— Natus— for as much as— Natus— hath reference to perfection,— semper—, to eternity. However S. Augustine in his exposition of that of the Psalmist,— Ego hodie genui te— Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee, Psal. 2. says that— Hodiè— praesentiam significat and in eternity, neither is the time past any thing, as if it should cease to be, nor time to come, as if it were not yet, but only the time present, Because whatsoever is eternal always— Is— yet at length he understands that place— de sempiterna generatione sapientiae D●i— And Lombard descants on it in his first book ninth distinction, who would have the Prophet to say— Genui— 〈…〉 putaretur,— hodiè— ne praeterita generatio videretur: I have begotten thee, lest it should be thought new, to day, past, and thence out of the authority of the Text or the interpretation concludes a perpetual generation of the Son from the essence of the Father. But here the Heretic interposes, and thus subtly beats at the gates of reason. A thing that is born, cannot be said that it was over, for in this respect it is said to be borne, that it might be. S. Hilary, Lib. 12. de Trin. by a modest answer or confutation rather, limits his proposition to things merely secular, which borne here in the course of nature, must necessarily call on time, and tell us they sometimes were not, it is one thing then to be borne of that which always is not, another of that which always was, for that is temporary, this eternal. If then it be proper to God the Father, always to be Father, it must be to God the Son, always to be Son, so the Evangelist. joh. 1. v. 1. — In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and that word was God, and the same was from the beginning; erat, erat, erat, erat, en quater erat, ubi impius invenit quod non erat? Saint Ambrose in his first to Gratian 5. c. & indeed it was not without a mystery when in that glorious transfiguration on Mount Tabor, Peter saw Christ with Moses, and Elias (when his face did shine as the Sun, and his raiment was white as Snow) what did that vision portend? Ambros. ut supra. Nisi ut appareret nobis quod lex & Prophetae cum Euangelio congruentes sempiternum dei filium quem annunciaverant, revelarent. But that it should appear unto us that the Law and the Gospel going hand in hand with Evangelicall truth (for under Christ and Moses and Elias, Saint Augustine also shrines those three) Aug. in orat. ad Catech. cap. 6. should reveal unto us the everlasting Son of God, whom they had both foretold and shown. And lo yet, as if these were not Oracles loud enough for the promulgation of such a Majesty, the voice of the Almighty fills it up with a— Hic est meus Dilectissimus— This is my beloved Son, My Son of eternity,— Ego ex utero ante Luciferum genui te—. Psal. 34. And a son of mine own substance,— Ex ore Altissimi prodivi— Wis. 7.— primogenitus— before the day was, I am he, Esay 43.13.— Vnigenitus— A just God, and a Saviour, There is none beside me, Esay 45.21. A Son begotten, not created, not of grace, but nature, before, not in time. Hereupon Christ taking his farewell of his Disciples, john 20. shows them this Interuallum and distance of generation and adoption: I go to my Father, and your Father, and to my God and your, not to our Father, but to mine and yours. This separation implies a diversity, and shows that God is his Father indeed, but our Creator; and therefore he adds. My God and your God; Mine by a privilege of nature, yours of grace; Mine out of the womb (as it were) of everlastingness; yours out of the jaws of time. Yet the Heretic would fain sell us to unbelief and error, by cheating Christ of an eternal birthright, tossing it on the tides of time, and so make him a creature, and no God. Hear to descent merely were both perfunctory and dull, such a falsehood merits rather defiance, than denial, Amb. ut supra. — Negamus? potius horremus vacem—. Errors that are so insolent are to be explosed, not disputed, and spit at rather than controlled. Confutation sways not here, but violence, and therefore the Apostle drives this blasphemy to the head, Coloss. 1.15. Where we find Christ styled primogenitus universae Creaturae. The firstborn of every creature; not the first created,— genitus pro Natura, & primus pro perpetuitate credatur—. saith Ambrose; borne presupposes divine nature— First, perpetuity, and therefore when the pen of the Holy Ghost sets him out in his full glory, he gives him this title Col. 1. — haeredem omnium—,— The heir of all things, by whom God made the world—, To make the world, and to be made in it, how contradictory? Amb. 1. de si. ad Grat. cap. 2. Quis Authorem inter opera sua deputet ut videatur esse quod fecit? saith the Father. Was there ever malice so shod with ignorance, which could not divide the Artificer from his work, the Potter from his clay, the Creator from the thing created? hear him speak in whose mouth there was no guile.— Ego & pater unum sumus, joh. 10. I and the Father are one. Vnum— to show a consent both of power and eternity.— Sumus— a perfection of nature without confusion. Again,— Vnum sumus— not— unus sum— (so Augustine descants) Orat. ad Catech. cap. 5. — Vnum— to confute the Arrian,— Sumus— the Sabellian, the one disjointing and severing the times of Son and Father, the other confounding their persons.— Vnum— then, to show their essence one,— Sumus— the persons diverse. I could wish that we were now at truce, but with these there is neither peace nor safety, but in victory; we are still in the Front and violence of our Adversary, who puts on here as Philip did to Christ, with a— Domine ostende nobis— Lord show us the Father, and it sufficeth us, but observe how the Lord replies, and in his reply controls, and in his controlment cures? Have I been so long time with thee, and hast thou not known me Philip? I came to reconcile thee to the Father, and wilt thou separate me? Why seekest thou another? he that hath seen me, hath seen my Father also— Audi Arriane quid Dominus? (saith Augustine) si errasti cum Apostolo, redi cum Apostolo▪ Hark Arrius how the Lord rebukes him, and if thou hast digressed with an Apostle, return with an Apostle, so his check shall be thy conversion. But whilst we thus shoulder with the Arrian, the Sabellian lies in ambush, who now comes on like lightning and thunder, but goes off like smoke; for looking back to those words of our Saviour, he runs on boldly to his own paradox, and by this harmony of Son and Father would persuade us to a confusion of their persons; but the Text bears it not, and one little particle shall redeem it from such a preposterous interpretation; for it runs not with a— Qui me videt, videt patrem,— He that sees me, sees my father, as if I were both father and son, but with a— Qui me videt, videt— &— patrem,— He that sees me, sees my father also. Vbi interpositio unius sillabae, &, patrem descernit, & filium, teque demonstrat, neque patrem habere, neque filium, August. in his contra 5. host. genera cap. 6. It is a rare opinion that hath not something to hearten it either in truth or probability, otherwise it were no less erroneous, than desperate. But here there can be no colour or pretence for either, where both Divinity and Arts breathe their defiance; that two natures should dissolve into one person, religion contradicts; two persons into one nature, reason; but two persons into one person, both reason & religion.— Dixit Dominus Domino meo— saith the Psalmist, The Lord said unto my Lord, sit at my right hand. Hark Sabellius, here is a Lord and a Lord two then, not one; where is now thy confusion of persons? Ego Deus solus, & non alius extra me, Deut. 32.12. I am God, and there is none beside me—. Arrius where is thy God of eternity, and thy God of power, thy God of time, and operation, and thy God from the beginning? Audi Israel, Dominus noster Deus unus—, The Lord our God is God only, no rival, no sharer in his omnipotency, for if temporary, how a God? if a God, how not eternal? if eternal, how not one? Thou allowest him the power of God, but not the eternity, the operation, not the time; what prodigy of error? what dearth of reason? what war of contradiction? what is this but to be God, and no God? temporary, and yet everlasting? Opinion once seeded in error, shoots-out into heresy, and after some growth of time, blasphemy. Who (besides an Arrian) could have thus moulded two Gods out of one? except a Tritheite, or a Maniche? Who (scarce so grossly neither) deny them not an equality of time, but condition, coeternal, but this good, and that evil. Thus men over-borne with the strength of a self-conceit, are so precipitated and drawn on with the swinge of an unruly fancy, that leaving the road and usual ways of truth, they run into by-paths of error, and so at length lose both their judgement, and their faith. Some have been so busy with stars, that they have forgotten him that gives them influence; and like curious Lapidaries, dally so long with sparkling objects, that they lose the light of that organ which gives life unto their Art. Learning (indeed) in many is a disease, not a perfection, a mere surfeit, rather vomited, than emptied, nothing passeth but what is forced, and as sometimes with a fit of weakness, so of pity. A greedy knowledge feeds not our understanding, but oppresseth it, and like a ravenous appetite chewes more to poison, than to nourishment. Were I to drink freely of what is sacred, I should desire that which flows, not that which is pumped for, waters that are troubled yield mud, and are oftentimes aswell the bane of the receiver, as the comfort. A Pioneer or bold myner which digs on too fare for his rich vein of Ore, meets with a damp which chokes him; and we may find some dispositions rather desperate than venturous, known more by a heady resolution, than a wise cautelousness, whom we may resemble to that silly and storme-tost Seaman, who dived so long for a piece of his shipwrackt treasure, that either want of air, or ponderousness of water deprived him at once of life and fortune. Arrius hath been so long conversant in the school of Philosophy, that he forgets he is a Priest, and now makes that the Mistress of Divinity, which was before the handmaid. S. Augustine therefore in his Oration ad Catechum. expostulates with the heretic, and by way of Prosopopeta doth catechise him thus,— Credis in Deum patrem omnipotentem? Dost thou believe in God the father Almighty, & in his son jesus Christ our Lord? I believe, thou sayest: here, than thou art mine against the Pagan, and the Mahometan. Dost thou believe that the God and man Christ jesus was conceived of the holy Ghost, and borne of the Virgin Mary? I believe; thou art yet with me against Photinus, and the jew. Dost thou believe the father to be one person, and the son another, yet father and son but one God? and this also; here thou art mine too against the Sabellian.— Age si mecum es in omnibus, quare litigamus? saith the Father, if we are one in all these, why contend we? Let there be no strife between thee and me, for we are brethren. But it will fall out here anon as between Lot and Abraham, by reason of our substance we cannot dwell together, we must part anon. Tell me then how is the son equal to the father, in operation or beginning, in power or eternity, or both? In operation and power, the heretic allows, but not eternity; for how can that which was begotten be equal to that which was not begotten? Yes, eternity, and greatness, and power in God sound one, for he is not great in one thing, and God in another, but in this great, that he is God, be cause his greatness is the same with his power, and his essence with his greatness. Seeing then the son is coequal in respect of power, he must be coeternal too in respect of everlastingness. Here the Arrian is on fire, and nothing can allay or quench these flames but that which gives them an untimely foment, Reason. To prove a principle in nature is both troublesome and difficult, but in religion without the assent of faith, impossible: In matters of reason, it is first discourse, then resolve, but in these of religion, first believe, and the effect will follow, whether for confession of the truth, or conviction of error, or both. The greatest miracles our Saviour did in way of cure or restauration was with a— si credas—, and that to the living, and the dead, and between those, the sick. To the Centurion for his servant with a— sicut credis—, As thou believest, so be it unto thee, Matth. 8.5. To the Ruler of the Synagogue for his daughter, with a— Crede— too,— Fear not, but believe, Mar. 5.36. To all that are dumb, or blind, or lame in mysteries of Divinity, as to those dumb, or blind, or lame in body, with a— Vtrum creditis? Do you believe these things? then your faith hath made you whole, Matth. 9.28. but if we meet with unwieldy dispositions, such as are not only untractable, but opposite to the ways of faith, we shall rather drag than invite them to belief; however the Father labours here by a powerful persuasion, and where he fails in the strength of proof, he makes it out by way of allusion, which he illustrates by a similitude of fire & light, which are distinct things, one proceeds from another, neither can the one be possibly without the other, the father he resembles to the fire, the son to the light, and endeavours to derive it (though obliquely somewhat) from sacred story in Deut. 4.24. God is called a fire,— Thy God is a consuming fire; in Psal. 8. Christ the light, Thy word is a light unto my steps: With this double stone he batters the forehead both of the Sabellian, and the Arrian; first of the Sabellian, for here are two in one, fire and light, yet two still not one, why not so with Son, and Father? The Arrian next, for here also is one borne of another, yet the one not possibly to be borne without the other, neither of them first and last; fire and light coequal, Father and Son, so too. The similitude jars only in this, those are temporary, and these eternal,— pater ergo & filius unum sunt (saith the Father)— Sunt— dico, quia pater & filius,— unum— quia Deus; dualitas in prole, unitas in deitate, cum dico filius, alter est, cum dico Deus, unus est. count. 5. host. genera cap. 7. What more obvious and trodden to the thinnest knowledge, than that there is here— alius and— alias, but not— aliud—, as in bells of equal magnitude, and dimension (pardon the lowness of the similitude) which though framed out of the same mass, and Art, where the substance and workmanship are one, yet the sound is diverse; for though of Son and Father the substance be one as God, yet the appellation and sound is diverse, as Son and Father. The Heretic either impatient of this truth, or ignorant, once more makes reason his umpire, but how sinisterly, how injuriously? that which should be the mistress of our sense, and the Stern and arbitress of all our actions, must now be a promotresse and bawd to error. It is bold expostulation that runs us on these shelves of danger, and hath been the often wrack of many a blooming and hopeful truth. There are errors besides these desperate, of will, of understanding, which sometimes are rather voluntary, than deliberative, and ballaced more by the suggestions of a weak fancy, than any strength of judgement; If our thoughts still lie at Hull in those shallowes of nature, where we coast daily about sense and reason, how can we but dash against untimely errors? but if we keep aloof in principles of Religion, where those winds of doubt and distrust swell and bluster not, faith will be at last our wafter unto truth. Let's not then any longer root our meditations in valleys under us, but look up to those hills from whence our salvation cometh. Let's converse a little with Prophets and Evangelists, and those other Registers and Secretaries of the Almighty.— In te est Deus, & non est Deus praeter te, Esay 45.5. Infidel, either deny a divinity of Father, or Son, or confess an unity of both; for one thou must do; of the Son thou canst not, for there is a God in him, the Father, Pater qui in me manet ipse loquitur, the Father that is in me he speaketh, and the works which I do be doth joh. 10. of the Father thou darest not, there is a God in him the Son,— I am in the Father, and the Father in me, joh. 14. Here then is both a propriety of nature, and unity of consent. God in God, yet not two, but one, fullness of divinity in the Father, fullness in the Son, yet the Godhead not diverse, but the same, so that now there is no less a singleness of name than operation. And therefore those words of the Apostle, though in the first encounter and survey, they offer a show of contradiction, yet searched to the quick and kernel, are not without a mysterious weight, Rom. 8.32. It is said of the Father,— Filio proprio non pepercit, sed pro nobis tradidit—. He spared not his own Son but gave him for us all to death; yet Ephes. 5. It is said of the Son,— Tradidit semetcipsum pro nobis—,— He gave himself for us—, Hear is a double— Tradidit— an a— pronobis—, and a— sepronobis—, if he was given of the Father, and yet gave himself, how can it follow, but that there must be both a sympathy of nature and operation? And indeed it were a mere sacrilege and robbery of their honour, to deprive them of this so sacred a correspondence. We allow to all believers but one soul and one heart, Acts 4 to all those that cleave to God one spirit. 1 Cor. 16. to husband and wife one flesh, to all men in respect of nature, but one substance; If in sublunary matters (where there is no alliance or reference with those more sacred) Scriptures approve many to be one, shall we riffle the Father and the Son of the like jurisdiction, and deny them to be eternally one, where there is no jar of will, or substance? Hear how the Apostle doth chalk out a way to our belief, by the rules of divine truth, 1 Cor. 8.6. There is one God which is the Father, of whom are all things, and we of him, and one Lord jesus Christ by whom are all things, and we by him. Here is— Deus— and— Dominus—, a God and a Lord, and yet no plurality of Godhead, and an— ex quo— and a— per quem,— of whom and by whom, yet a unity of power, for as in that he says one Lord jesus Christ, he denied not the Father to be Lord, so by saying one God the Father, he denied not the Son to be God.— In te igitur est Deus per unitatem naturae, & non est Deus praeter te propter proprietatem substantiae. Ambros. lib. 1. de fide ad Gratian 2. cap. With what sacred inscriptions do we find him blazoned, the engraven form of his Father, the image of his goodness, the brightness of his glory? and with these three of an Apostle, Esay 9.6. a Prophet ranks other three not subordinate in majesty, or truth; as if the same inspiration had dictated both matter and form. Counsellor, the Almighty God, the everlasting Father, the everlasting Father in a double sense, either as he is author of it, as jubal was said to be the Father of Music when he was but the Author or inventor, or in respect of his affection, because he love's with an everlasting love; yet some leaning on the word of the Greek Interpreter 〈◊〉, which the vulgar renders,— Pater futuri seculi— would restrain it only to the life to come, but Caluine extends it to a perpetuity of time and continued Series of all ages; In cap. 9 Esay. And the Chaldee translation (which with the Hebrew is most authentic) seems not only to assent to it, but applaud it too.— Nomen eius ab ante mirabilis consilio, Deus fortis, permanens in saecula saculorum—. However the Septuagint (terrified with the majesty of so great a name) give it us by— Magni confilij Angelus—; which words though they have no footing in the original, yet both Augustire and Tertullian approve the sense, taking— Angelus— for— Nancius—, so that Christ took not upon him the nature of an Angel (as some would injuriously foize upon Origens' opinion) but the office, by which as a Legate or mediator, rather he appeared to those patriarchs of old, Abraham and the rest, Gen. 18.3. I have once more brought Christ as fare as jacob and Abraham, but the Text tells me a little farther, and so doth my adversary too, till I have verified in Christ the strength of that voice, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of jacob. We may not leave him here with the bare title of an Angel, we must go higher, to that of the Son of God, where we shall meet our implacable Arrian in his violent opposition. If there be a Son, he must be borne, if borne, there was a time when there was no Son, for to be borne, presupposes a beginning, and that time. Saint Augustine divided (as it seems) between pity and indignation, answers. Qui hoc dicit non intelligit etiam natum esse, deo sempiternum esse—. To be borne with God, is to be eternal with God, and he opens himself by his old similitude, Sicut splendor qui gignitur ab igni, as light which is begotten of fire, and diffused, is coequal with the fire, and would be coeternal too if fire were eternal, so the Son with the Father, this being before all time, the other must kiss in the same everlastingness. The Father thinking his reason built too slenderly doth buttress (as it were) and back it with the authority of an Apostle, 1 Cor. ●… such an Apostle as was sometimes a persecutor, and therefore his authority most potent against a persecutor, where he styles Christ, the power and wisdom of God. If the Son of God be the power and wisdom of God, and that God was never without power and wisdom, how can we scant the Son of a coeternity with the Father? For either we must grant that there was always a Son, or that God had sometimes no wisdom, and impudence or madness were never at such a growth of blasphemy as to belch the latter. If the reverend allegation of a learned Prelate, or those more sacred of an Apostle, cannot bung up the mouth of a malicious Heretic, hear the voice of a Prophet, & a Father warbling upon that too. Before me there was no other God, and after me there shall be none, Esay. 43.10. Quis hoc dicit, pater, an filius? (saith Ambrose) who is here the speaker, the Father or the Son (he comes over him with a subtle Dilemma:) if the Son, thus he saith,— before me there was no other God, if the Father,— After me (saith he) there shall be none, for both the Father in the Son, and the Son in the Father must be known, when thou namest a Father, thou hast also designed a Son, because no man is a Father to himself; when thou namest a Son, thou confessest also a Father, for no man is son to himself, the Son therefore can neither subsist without the Father, nor the Father without the Son, the one being from everlasting, we may not depose the other from the like omnipotency. If truth thus twisted in a triple authority of Prophets, Apostles, Fathers, cannot allay the turbulence of a contagious heretic, hear the voice of him who spoke as never man spoke; never Father, Apostle, Prophet, (if at length such an authority be passable with an Arrian) the Lamb of God; O Father glorify me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was, joh. 17.5. Hearest thou Infidel? a Son, and glorified, with the Father before the world? what chink now, what by-path for evasion where thou art compassed with such a cloud of witnesses? Tell me devil (for heretic is to cheap and low an attribute, when thou art grown to such a maturity and height of profanation) was there a time when omnipotent God the Father was not, and yet was there a God? Gird now up thy loins, and answer if thou canst, for if he began to be a Father, than he was first a God, and after made a Father, how is God then immutable, how the same one, when by access of generation he shall suffer change? Grant me then a God eternal, and thou must a Father, and if a Father, a son too, they are relatives, and cannot digest a separation either in respect of time, or power. And this thou didst once subscribe to (and I know not what devilish suggestion wrought thy revolt) in an Epistle to Eusebius, if the authority of Brentius will pass for classical, where thou couldst afford him the style of 〈…〉, plenus Deus, unigenitus— and a little before that he had his beginning, 〈…〉— ante tempora, ante saecula, why shouldst thou now then rip up the womb of Deity, and inquire how he was begotten? how borne? and when? as if thou labouredst to bastard his descent, and make it temporary. Do not, do not out of the custom of humane generation tie eternity to time, or manner, and so at once vomit error and blasphemy. Hear the voice of the Lord thundering unto thee, Cui me similem existimas? who is like unto me, or to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? Me ante montes generavit Dominus, before the mountains were settled, or the hills raised, I was brought forth. Ambros. 1. de fide, cap. 5. Habeat ergo generationis inusitatae gloriam, qui habet potestatis inusitatae gratiam. He that hath an unwonted jurisdiction in respect of power, it were a derogation too capital to lessen his prerogative in way of birth; observe what pomp he carrieth of antiquity, what descent, how derived? by Heralds of no mean rank, a King, & a Prophet, and a Prophet that's a King, I was set up of old, from everlasting, Prou. 8.24. His doings forth have been from everlasting, Mich. 5.2. Thy throne is established of old, thou art from everlasting, Psal. 93.2. Hark, from everlasting, from everlasting, from everlasting, one echoing to another, as if the s●me pen had been as well the directrix of the languages, as the truth. If thou shalt then hereafter ball an eternity with a— quande, or a— quomodo natus? Amb. ut supra. I go one with the Father still, Quid te ista quaestionum tormenta delectant? Audis Dei filium, aut dele nomen, aut agnosce naturam?— Quaeres that are to nice rather torment the understanding, than inform it, and are more apt to puzzle our judgement, than to rectify it. Subtilty of questions (I know not whether) it hath more convinced, or begotten error, or improved us in our knowledge, or staggered us. And hence I suppose was the substance of the Apostles advice to the Romans, He that is weak in faith receive you; but not to doubtful disputations, Cap. 14.1. Curiosities of question have ever been the engines and stales to heresy, and therefore some of the Fathers have nickenamed Philosophers with an— Haereticorum Patriarchae— Tertull. It is no less a policy than right in sadder learning to give Divinity the chair, for if Arts with their subtle retinue once invade it, sense and reason will hisse faith out of doors. And therefore we find the same Apostle vehement in his— Cavete ne vos seducat, Beware lest any man spoil you through Philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ, Coloss. 2.4. In matters of faith he that plays either the Philosopher, or the critic displays neither his judgement, nor his Religion, for the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power, 1 Cor. 4.20. Considera (saith Augustine) quod voceris fidelis non rationalis, Faith, not reason, is our anchor in this depth, and belief, not scruple is our steersman to our port. Wisdom, I mean that which is worldly and feathered (as it were) with transtorinesse, must now stoop to simplicity, strength to weakness. How doth the Apostle jump with us? He hath chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise, and the weak things the mighty, 1 Cor. 1.27. Hence it is that the kingdom of heaven belongs unto children, Matth. 19.13. And God hath hid it from the prudent, and revealed it to babes, Matth. 11.25. And therefore S. Augustine makes a proud knowledge strike sail to a modest ignorance in his 188. Serm. de Temp.— Meum est pie ignorantiam confiteri, quam temere mihi scientiam vendicare. In sacred matters your nimble Cryticismes are as obnoxious to desperateness, as danger; to be curious (here) is to be quaintly mad, and thus to thrust into the bedchamber of the Almighty is a frantic sauciness. Who can unlock those Coffers of omnipotency, Esay 45.2. but he that breaks in pieces the gates of Brass, and cuts in sunder the bars of Iron? Who those Cabinets of abstruser knowledge? Jdem, ibid. but he that gives thee the treasure of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places? How can our low built apprehensions but flag in the expression of such a birth, when we find a Prophet so transported with contemplation of it, that he dares the world with an Interrogation,— Generationem eius quis enarrabit? Who shall declare his generation, Esay 53. Yet we have met with some supercilious and daring wits, which venture here to untwist this mystery of generation, as if they would calculate an eternal birthright, leaning upon the authority of S. Hierom in his Commentaries upon Eccl. 1. where he assevers, that in sacred Scriptures— Quis oftentimes is not put for an impossibility, but a difficulty. And he instances in this— Quis— of Esay, Generationem eius quis enarrabit? Lib 1. dist. 19 But Lombard doth both vindicate and interpret the Father, thus,— Non dicit quod generatio filij aeterna.— He says not that this eternal generation of the son of God can descend to any mortal capacity in an absolute and full knowledge; but in some measure and degree, for so the Apostle doth peece-out our perfection here, We are happy in part, and know only in part, not a hair, not a feather as we should. Dic mihi (saith Augustine) Orat. contra Arrianos. altitudinem Coeli, profundum Abyssi, etc. Show me the height of Heaven, and the depth of Hell, number (if thou canst) the sands of the Sea, the drops of rain, or the hairs of thine own head. Plane me out by some perfect demonstration the truth of those things which grovel here below, and I will believe thy knowledge may aspire to those which are above; but thou hast no power of compassing the one, nor possibility in the achievement of the other. For when all thy faculties of understanding, will, have fluttered so high as the wings of nature can elevate and mount them to, yet thou wilt at last make up the story of Icarus, and find that these are but waxed plumes, and will melt at the presence of those glorious beams, and so thy fall will be as dishonourable as thy attempt was peremptory; for if the great Doctor of the Gentiles (rapt up into the third Heaven) said that he heard words unexpressable, which no tongue dated to utter, how canst thou dissolve and untie— Paternae generationis Arcana— (as Ambrose styles them) those knots and Riddles of eternal generation, which can never bore a humane intellect, nor lie within the verge of mortal apprehension? Mihi enim impossibile est generationis scire secretum (saith the Father) mens deficit, vox silet, non meae tantum, sed & Angelorum, supra potestates, & sepra Cherubin, & supra Seraphin, & supra omnem sensum, in his 1. de fide ad Gratian. c. 4. It is not then so much ambition in our desire, as madness, to attempt the knowledge of that where there is an impossibility of revelation. Those erterprises are temerarious and over-head-strong, which put on where there is not only danger, but a despair of conquest. How can reasonable man but lie buried under the weight of such a mystery, at which those grand pillars of the Church have not only shaken but shrunk? How must we be struck dumb when the tongues of Saints and Angels stutter? How our minds entranced, when the glorious host of Heaven, and all those feathered Hierarchies shall clap their ●ings? All reasons tonguetied, all apprehension non plust, all understanding darkened; so that I may now speak of this metaphorical depth, as job did of that other natural,— Thou hast made a cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddling band. Mysteries carry with them such an awe and Majesty, as if they would be obeyed, not disputed, and assented to, not controverst. In secrets without bottom (such as carry the stamp of sacred) except faith holds us up like children we swim without bladders, and must either dabble to the shore, or sink, reason hath not an hand to lend us. Faith and reason in respect of mystery, are as a wheel and a bucket at a deep well; faith hath both the power and safety of descent, and nimbly fathoms it, whilst reason wheeles, and rounds it, and is strangely giddied in a distracted Gyre. And indeed who durst lave such an Ocean, Esay 44 7. but he that says to the deeps be dry? job 38.8. or can shut up the seas with doors, that they break not out, and say, hither shalt thou come, no farther, there shall thy proud waves stay? What eye that looks on the Sun, and dazzles not, Ecclus 10.19. but he that sees from everlasting to everlasting? & sends out lightning that they may come and go, and say, here we are? The star-gazer and bold figure flinger are at a stand here, why lookest thou up thou proud ginger? you men of Galilee, why gaze you into heaven? Thus saith the Lord of hosts, he that formed thee from the womb: Esay 44.24,25. I am the Lord that maketh all things, that stretcheth out the heavens alone, that frustrateth the tokens of liars, and maketh diviners mad, that turneth wisemen backwards, and maketh their knowledge foolishness. Thou, O Lord, shalt have them in derision, thou shalt laugh the heathen to scorn, for the sin of their mouth, and the words of their lips they shall be taken in their pride, as the dust (O Lord) shalt thou drive and scatter them, and in thy wrath thou shalt consume them, that they may know, that it is God that ruleth in jaacob, and to the end of the world. Arrius is now in his pomp and height of glory, and flourisheth like a green bay-tree, anon look after him, and he is no where to be found. He is up yet, but it is with the proud man in the Psalms, in slippery places, and (anon) with him, how suddenly destroyed, perished, and brought to a fearful end? The whole Eastern Church is now in a strange combustion, and he must kindle it, by and by those flames shall light him to his own ruin. Heresy may root and bud, and branch, and grow to a goodly height, but the hand of vengeance hovers over it, and when it strikes, it fells it at a blow, and it comes down like a pine from a steep mountain, which in the fall shatters both the branch, and body. It is here, as with mists and fogs which we see first rise as in a thin smoke from a low Fen or Valley, but gathering strength climb the mountain, and at last so thicken in one body of vapours that they seem to dare the Earth with a second night, till the Sun (recovering height and power) by the virtue and subtlety of his beams doth dissipate and open them, and they are seen no more. Will you have a precedent? we find Arrius at first a mean Priest of Alexandria in Egypt, a man keen and subtle, as well in wit as learning, Specie, & forma magis, quàm virtute religiosus, sed gloria, & novitatis improbè cupidus, (saith Ruffinus) Lib. 1. In virtue not so much refined as in the deportment of the outward man, which promised a set gravity, though no truth of Religion, in a thirst and pursuit of honour and novelty, strangely violent,— Dulcis erat incollequio, persuadens animas, & blandiens. In his discourse no less sweet, than powerful, and where he gains no conquest by persuasion, he mine's by flattery; Thus by the sorceries and enchantments of a voluble tongue, simplicity is betrayed, and under a pretext of truth, silly women (who are ever most affected with levity and change) are first led captive; and these for the enhancement & propagation of their new doctrine, commerce with their allies, and these tickled with new fancies, applaud the design, entertain the novelty, conventicles are both consulted on, and summoned, and in a short time,— Septingentas virginitatem professas in unam contraxit— So Epiphanius—. Adverse. Haeres. Their Religion is yet in the blade, and green only in a few she disciples, anon it grows by their league with others, Amb. 1. de fide cap 4. Eudoxius, Eunomius, Aetius and Demophilus, plura nomina, sed una perfidia—; Coheires though not to the same title, the same villainy; so that those dangerous tumults in the body of the Church could not but now startle the head and governor. Constantine is informed of those pernicious and desperate proceed, who calls a Council of 318 Bishops for the condemnation of the heretic. Some conversant in subtlety of question (as there was never opinion so deformed, but found a Champion to propugne it) favoured Arrius; but at length most of them decreed with one mouth Christ to be 〈◊〉, 17 a while stick fast to the opinion of the Heretic, 11 whereof by the menacing of the Emperor subscribed, Manu solum, non ment, and the other 6 are now with Arrius upon terms of exile; they betake themselves to Palestina, where partly by strength of Argument, partly by the insinuations of a smooth tongue, they gain other Bishops to their opinion; Anon, Constantius, and Valens Emperors; some they seduce by subtlety, some by gifts, some by power, some by cruelty; those that affied constantly to the profession of Christ's divinity, they invade by persecution, & all the witty tortures that malice or tyranny could device, are now put in practice, for the torment of those professors; insomuch that the hearts of their very enemies, could nor but thaw into pity to hear the cries, but constancy of little children under the barbarous hands of their merciless tormentors. Christianus sum. Christum verum Deum, credo, & adoro, as the author in his historia tripartita de persecutione. Vandalorum. This heresy now is full blown, and at the growth; one Act more makes it ripe, and ready for the sickle. Alexandria is yet infected, and foul dregs of Arrianisme reign not only here, but in the neighbour Provinces; Insomuch that Alexander (than Bishop) daily pestered with those damned innovations, on a Sunday, (for so my Antiquary tells me) Epiphanius. earnestly prayed that God would either take him away lest he should be defiled with the like contagion, or that he would show some miracle, either for the conversion or confusion of the Heretic. Not long after the desires of the holy man were accomplished, and in such a way of judgement, that the relation would suit better with a ring of Scavenger's than a noble throng, his bowels burst, as sometimes judas did, Et sic finem adeptus est, in loco immundo & graveolenti,— his death was equally odious with his life, and that with the place he died in, no sad retinue or pomp of exequy to embalm him, no hearse or winding sheet, but his own entrails, and graved up with excrements, instead of earth, an end as odious, as untimely, as if it proceeded from the hand of vengeance, and not Fate. And so Saint Ambrose dilates on it 1 de fide cap. 5. — Non est fortuita mors ubi in sacrilegio pari, poenae parile pregessit exemplum, ut idem subirent supplicium, qui eundem Dominum negaverunt & eundem Dominum prodiderunt—. It is no casual, but a destinated end, that in a like sactiledge, there should be a like example of punishment, and so both meet in one way of ruin which had denied and betrayed their Master. I have now brought this heresy to her grave, but the funeral of this is the resurrection of another, and the re-intertainment of that of a third. No part of Christ (either in respect of his divinity, or manhood) but is the mint of a new heresy, which (if I should endeavour (here) either to confute or open) would prove an undertaking fit for a volume, than a discourse, and for a Library, than a volume. It cost the hours of an entire age, and the sweat and elaboratenesse of all the Fathers. Those few sands which are now in their constant course will be run out in the very nomination of Marcionites, Valentinians, Hebionites, Apollinarians, and the residue of that cursed rabble, and so I shall be cast upon your censures, if not as I have been weak, yet as I have been tedious. I will then open the mouths of very heathens, and they shall both speak, and confirm this truth, and no less appose our adversaries, than convince them, an authority I know not how unsavoury or unseasonable to a divided Auditory, where a profane quotation sounds sometimes as heathenish as a tradition, which in the very name is cried down as apocryphal, and Romanish; but I must put that upon the hazard, not esteeming the froth either of popular censure or approbation. Heathens indeed are little above the condition of beasts, if that only actuate a man which animates a Christian, the soul of faith; yet if God please to cast his pearls before these swine, wherefore hath he made us Lords over them, but to vindicate those hallowed and precious things from the hands of unjust possessors? Praeclara Ethnicorum dicta Theologica ab ijs, tanquàm iniustis possessoribus, in usum nostrum transferenda. It is Augustine's in his second book De doctrina Christiana 4. chap. Divine truth in Heathen mouths is like the jewels in Egyptian hands, their wants no Alchemist to refine the mettle, only some discreeter Israelite to transfer the use; he that was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel preaching to the ignorant Idolaters of Athens, concludes against them from the mouth of their own Poets,— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as some of your own Poets have said, Acts 17.28. Text enough to gain, I say, not authority, but applause to his discourse, and to convince the Heathens shame, if not their faith. Dive with me a little farther into their secrets, and we shall find amongst much Hay and Stubble, some Gold and Precious stones, doctrines which want no truth to make them sound, only divine authority to make them authentic. It was not impossible that the true light which shines on every man that cometh into the world, should glimpse into those that sat in darkness, and in the shadow of death; For old Simplicianus in S. Augustine's Confessions 8. Book 2. Chapter, gives encouragement to a particular enquiry, and concludes in certain books of the Platonists— Deum insinuari, & cius verbum—. And of this God, and the Word, the very Philosophers were not ignorant, for we meet with a Hermes, and a— Zenon, styling the maker & orderer of the Universe— 〈◊〉— The Word— which they enlarge with other attributes of— Fate, necessity, God— & what savours a little of a heathenish relic— Animun jovis— taking— jupiter— in the sense that they do God, as Lactantius in his 4. book de vera Sapient. cap. 9 But why do we rob them of their maiden honour, and take their sayings upon Tradition merely? let them speak themselves in their peculiar and mother-tongue. Numenius, a famous Pythagorean (one, who 'twixt Plato and Moses, put no difference but of Language, calling Plato— Mosen, Attica Lingua Loquentem,— Moses speaking the Attic Dialect) Deus primus (saith he) in scipso quidem existens, est simplex, propterea quòd secum semper est, nunquam divisus; Secundus, & tertius est unus: The first God is always existent in himself, simple, indivisible, the second and third one; and a little after, he calls this first God— Creautis Dei patrem,— The father of the creating God. Had they all adored what he here acknowledged, a Trinity in unity (so to be worshipped) I should then propose their precept not only to be embraced, but their practice to be imitated. Search on, and lo that rich mine of Truth is not yet at her dross, or bottom, for Heraclitus next, one who was wont to call S. john, Barbarian, that Evangelist to whom belonged the Eagle, as well for sublimity of Style, as Contemplation; he— censet verbum Dei in ordine Principij, atque dignitate constitutum, apud Deum esse, & Deum esse, in quo quicquid factum sit, fuerit vivens, & vita, & ens, tum in corpora Lapsum, carnemque indutum, hominem apparuisse, ostendens etiam tunc naturae suae magnitudinem: Hark how the Frog chants like the Nightingale, (It is Maximilians, Ethnici audiendi, non tanquam Philomelae, sed Ranae) and curiously counterfeits her in every strain? How closely this obscure Heathen follows not only the Gospel's truth, but the phrase too? In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and was God, all things were made by him, every living Creature, life, and thing, than this Word was made flesh, and appeared man, & even then shown the glory of his nature. How sweetly he warbles with his Barbarian, as if by an easy labour of Translation he had bereft him both of Truth and Eloquence? I marvel not now at that Testimony of Basil the Great, upon those words, In principio erat verbum— Hoc ego novi, multos etiam extra veritatis rationem positos— I have known many (saith he) and those put without the pale and list of divine Truth, men merely secular, advancing and magnifying this piece of Scripture, and at length bold to mix it with their own decrees and writings. And S. Augustine seconds it with an instance,— Quidam Platonicus,— A certain Platonist was wont to say that the beginning of S. john's Gospel was worthy to be written in letters of gold, and preached in the most eminent Churches and Congregations, in his 10 book de Civitate Dei, c. 29. O the divine raptures and infusions, that God doth sometimes betrothe to his very enemies▪ who can but conceive that as the very worst of men have knowledge enough to make them inexcusable; so the best of Heathen had enough to make them Saints, were their faith that he should be their Saviour, as great as their knowledge, that he was the Son of God. With what rich Epithets they bedeck and crown him.— Mentis German, Verbum Lucens, Dei Filius, (it is his saying, who (I know not by what search) found out almost all Truth, Mercurius Trismegistus) the mind's blossom, the word that gave light, the son of God. What else did S. john add, but that the word was light? And S. Augustine gives this farther testimony of that heathen, that he spoke many things of Christ in a prophetic manner— eadem veritate, licet non eodem Animi affectu— with the same truth the Prophets did, but not with the same affection— pronunciabat illa Hermes. Dolendo, pronunciabat hac Propheta, Gaudendo— in his 8. book de Civitate Dei, 23. chapter. And why should we batre some of their Philosophers of a prophetic knowledge, when a Poet shall fill his cheeks with a— Chara Deum Soboles, Magnum jovis incrementum—? And if we look back to those Oracles of old, the Sibyls sacred Raptures, we shall find them more like a Christians Comment, than a Heathens Prediction. Tunc ad mortales veniet, mortalibus ipsis In terris similis, natus Patris omnipotentis Corpore vestitus— Whereof if we inquire a little into the original, Saint Augustine In oration. contra Arrian. will tell us that the Greek copies give us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉— jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour; and it is not only probable, but evident, that the Gentiles had a knowledge of Christ as he was the Word, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. as it appeareth by that of Serapis unto Thulis, King of Egypt. And it is strangely remarkable: what wonderful Titles, and inscriptions, the Platonists dedicate to his name and memory, with which as (with a wreath and Laurel) they girt & beautify his Temples,— Dei verbum, Mundi Opifex, Idaea boni, Mundi Archetypum, moderate or Distributor, Imago primi entis, rationalis Creaturae exemplar, Pastor, Sacerdos, ulna humans, Lux, Sol, coelumque candens, mentis germen Divinae, verbum Lucidum, filius primogenitus, primi dei semper viventis umbra, vita, splendour, virtus, candour lucis, character substantiae cius, and the like, which could not but flow from a heart divinely touched, and a tongue swollen with inspiration, as Rosselus tells us in his Trismegisti Pimandrum, 1 book, 107 page. For these and the like sayings, some of the ancient Fathers have conjectured that Plato either read part of divine story, or whilst he traveled in Egypt, had a taste of sacred truth, out of the sayings of the Hebrews by an Amanuensis, or interpreter; For then many of the Hebrews (the Persians reigning) wandered in Egypt. Moreover, Aristobulus the jew who flourished in the time of the Maccabees, writing to Ptolemy Philometora, King of Egypt, reports that the Pentateuch before the Empire of Alexander the Great, and the Persian Monarchy was Translated out of Hebrew, into Greek, part whereof came to the hands of Plato and Pythagoras; and he is after peremptory, that the Peripatetics out of the books of Moses, and the writings of the Prophets drew the greatest part of their Philosophy, and it may seem strange what the jewish Antiquary traditions of Clearchus (the most noble of that Sect) who in his first— De somno— brings in his Master Aristotle relating that he met with a certain jew, a reverend and a wise man, with whom he had much conference concerning matters both natural & divine, and received from him such a hint and specialty of choicer learning which did much improve him in his after knowledge, especially in that of God, as josephus lib. 1. contra Appionem, & Eusebius in his 11 de praeparat, Euangelica c. 6. Clement Alexandrin, 5. Stromaton—. And thus I have at length (though with some blood and difficulty) traversed the opinions of the ancient, and shown you the errors of primitive Times in their foulest shapes. I have opened the wiles and stratagems of the adversary, and how defeated by the chariots of Israel, and the horsemen thereof; what Bulwarks and Rampires the Fathers raised for propugning of Christ's divinity, and how besieged by cursed heresies, with what success, what ruin. Let us now return where we began, and place Christ where we found him, before Abraham, before the world, where (me thinks) he now stands like a well rooted tree in rough storm, where though winds blow on him so furiously, that he is sometimes forced to the earth (as if he were merely humane) yet he bends again, and nods towards heaven (to show that he is divine, and but a plant taken thence grafted in our Eden here) where though tossed up and down with blasts of Infidelity, yet when the envy of their breath is spent (as we see a goodly Cedar after a tempest) he stands straight, un-rent, as if he scorned the shock of his late churlish encounter, and dared his blustering Adversary to a second opposition. Gloria in excelfis Deo. FINIS.