MYSTERIES IN RELIGION VINDICATED: OR The Filiation, Deity and Satisfaction of our Saviour asserted, against Socinians and Others.  
With Occasional Reflections on several late Pamphlets.  
By LUKE MILBOURNE, a Presbyter of the Church of England.  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Barnab. Ep.  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Tatianus contra Gentes.  
LONDON, Printed for Walter Kettilby, at the Bishop's Head in S. Paul's Churchyard, 1692.   

TO THE Right Reverend Father in GOD HENRY Lord Bishop of LONDON, Dean of the Chapel Royal, and one of the Lords of their Majesty's most Honourable Privy Council.  
MY LORD,  
I Pretend not to do Honour to Your Sacred Character by the little Address of an obscure Writer, but by representing Your Lordship to the World as treading in the glorious steps of ancient Saints, Martyrs and Bishops, Your great Predecessors in the Government of the Church of God.  
When busy Ignorants are doing their Father's Work, and scattering their Tares among the good Seed of Evangelical Truth, it's time for those in Your Lordship's station not only to Countenance those who oppose encroaching Error, but to scatter these Midnight Workers with a just severity, and to frown effectually on such as the most condescending Laws have thought fit to exclude from any interest in them.  
That Your Lordship's Sentiments are agreeable to Mine, I conclude from Your declared Willingness to accept so small a Present; yet small as it is, it's offered with the greatest Affection to our Holy Mother the established Church of England, which that it may recover it's pristine Lustre in spite of all the malignant influences of Heresy or Schism, and Your Lordship live long as its Zealous Supporter, is the hearty Prayer of,  
MY LORD, Your Lordship's most Humble, Faithful, and Obedient Servant, LUKE MILBOURNE.   

THE PREFACE TO THE READER.  
Christian Reader,  
IF any wonder the subsequent Discourse should be so near the Form of Sermons, and tho' large should little answer its own Title, let him know that the Author's circumstances would allow him to reduce it to no better Method, and were enough to discourage him from any Undertaking either usefully close or laborious.  
If making Brick without Straw, labouring hard without so much as the Reward of a competent Livelihood among a People not overfond of Learning, might make his Intellectuals move like the Egyptian Chariots with their Wheels off, very slow and heavily, none but those who are lazy, ignorant or better provided for can wonder at him.  
But whatever measure He has had, He knew himself Originally dedicated to the Service of the Church of God; that however his Hearers might be careless or ignorant of their own Good, he was still their Watchman, to give notice carefully of approaching Dangers, and to make use of those Talents God had entrusted Him with to prevent Superstition, false Doctrines and Heresies from overrunning His Congregation.  
This sense of Duty made him vigorously oppose the Ingress of Popery in the last Reign, it made Him too contribute his Handful of Water to quench the growing flames, and freely to expose himself to the Anger of an unhappily  Prince, and the impotent disgusts of  Renegadoes from the Church of England.  
This made him as jealous of that impudent Pamphlet assuming the Title of the Naked Gospel, which finding very busily scattered abroad, he designed it a particular Answer: when a very Reverend Prelate of our Church—  — Cujus Nomen— semper acerbum, 
Semper Honoratum, sic Dii voluistis habebit— giving him notice of Dr. Sherlock's excellent Performance, and Dr. Jane's Promise with a peculiar respect to that Pamphlet, He stopped his Pen, as judging Himself too mean a Second for so learned and able Undertakers.  
But the News of increasing Socinianism and a clear apprehension of the Pestilent and Irrational Nature of that Heresy made Him cast his thoughts that way again: and since it would be Pushing out, He believed his Pains could not be ill spent in Exposing what the Wisdom of the Nation thought fit to except from their too much abused Indulgence.  
He thinks too many Hands cannot be employed in so necessary a Service, and since our Vnitarian Zealots by their numerous Pamphlets are opening the Way, in Conjunction with other Sects, for Atheism and Irreligion, and so many Beaux Esprits, the wouldbe Wits of the Age, try to cloak Atheism under the Pretence of asserting The Rational Religion, He should think himself very guilty, were He silent when He had any thing to say against them.  
The Refutation of these daring Errors is said to be Undertaken by several of the Reverend London Clergy, Men doubtless of sufficient abilities to baffle a thousand such little Whifflers in Reason as We are now pestered with: But while they delay the Work too long, the Author of this will think it happily published if it serve only to excite their pious Zeal, and oblige Them to make up the Defects of this by their more accurate and Learned Arguments.  
It has affixed no small scandal upon some otherwise Venerable Names that they have made their Converse too cheap to the bold Spreader of Socinian Papers, and while He takes Courage to break Laws under Covert of their Patronage, They can no way better vindicate the Church of God or their own Reputations, or repress Impudent Ignorance, than by a vigorous and speedy opposition to his Pernicious Endeavours.  
As for his own Performance in the following sheets, the Author has endeavoured to give its due force to a Text He thinks very plain for the eternal Deity of our Saviour, and to expose Socinian Criticism on that and other places of Scripture, and has laid open some of those pitiful Artifices they make use of to pervert the Word of God.  
He has essayed to set Humane Reason in its true Light, to give it its just Weight in Religious Matters, to show the influence Divine Revelation ought to have upon it, and yet after All, He believes not that any Divine Revelation does or can supersede any truly Rational Principle.  
Many are taken up as such, which yet invalidate themselves by that Opposition they meet with from Others of as Acute Parts as those who first vend Them, only such wherein all Discursive Souls agree can properly be called True Principles of Reason, and these too are only such in the particular Parts of Knowledge to which they belong, an Euclidean Demonstration can have no Place in Metaphysics, Nor can the Assertion of a Trinity prove the impossibility of squaring a Circle.  
Weak Eyes are ill Judges of the various Modifications of Light, and Deaf Ears of the delicate Harmony of Sounds: Reason in the Soul may meet with as many Obstructions from the different Organization of that Body in which the Soul acts; and however large the Minds of Socinus, Crellius, or his present Nephew may be, T. F's Capacity must be very well tentered e'er it can comprehend all their Niceties, or see clear Reason confirming every one of their ill-connected Heterodoxies.  
Tho' the incomparable Bishop of Worcester has managed that Subject, as He uses to do All, with the greatest Clearness and Learning, this Author too had endeavoured to prove Mysteries not unreasonable in Religious Matters, and it being done before the preaching of that Great Man's Sermon, He was unwilling to Expunge it: The Author thinks He too has proved in some Measure that there may be a God, tho' We cannot comprehend Him, that there may be such a thing as Religion, tho' God should be somewhat Wiser than Men, and that, though Ignorance be no Mother of true Devotion, yet Men of improved Understanding may meet with some Religious Matters above their reach, and that it is possible, the more a modest Man knows, the more truly sensible He may be of his own Ignorance.  
He has proved Jesus Christ to be the Son of God, the manner of his Filiation is debated out of its proper place, and indeed was not designed at all, had not some Anonymous Pamphleteers given occasion for it, who coming to his Hand after the former part was finished, He was obliged either to crowd it in elsewhere, or else to omit it altogether.  
The Argument inserted to prove Scripture the Word of God to those who acknowledge such a Being is indeed a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, yet He hopes not wholly useless, We have too many pretended Christians who doubt it, and He justly questions whether Socinus' Discourses De Authoritate SS. Scripturae, or such like are sufficient Proof that He thought the Books of the Old and New Testament were written by Inspiration.  
Whatever He did, his Atheistical Confederates own their suspicions, but veil their madness under a more plausible Name, and this Author can scarce distinguish between an Unitarian and a Deist; if our sparkish Wits, or Gentile Haberdashers of Paradoxies, or Fop Despisers of the Tribe of Levi will but stand to that Deism they Profess, the following Discourse may afford them somewhat of Reason to believe the Book known by that Name is really the Word of God.  
From that Disquisition the Author enters more directly on the proof of our Saviour's Divinity, and shows what He ought to have been, and therefore what He was. He's apt to think several Writers Ancient and Modern have drawn some Texts into the Service impertinent enough and quite beside their Original sense; but believes He has named some, and could have added more, which unless we renounce understanding men's Minds by their Expressions, must prove that our Redeemer was true, was perfect God.  
Those of the Roman Communion have not more tricks and wretched subterfuges from clear Texts and rational Arguments urged against Transubstantiation or Idolatry, than our Unitarians make use of to elude plain Assertions, and the common Notions of the Ancient Jewish and Christian Churches.  
If the Old Testament afford good Evidence in the case, the New does so much more; And the Evangelists and Apostles were a company of Trapans and ill designing Men to tell us stories of Christ's Words and Actions which should make us believe Wonders of Him and conclude Him a partaker Essentially of the divine Nature, when He was really no more than a mere Man, moved but in a common sphere, lived Innocent by the infused activity of Divine Grace, and without that Influence ab Extra might have sinned and incurred Damnation as well as others.  
What He himself did in his Own, and what his Apostles did in His Name, was of so transcendent a Nature, that should the same things be done now by any other Person, or in his Name, the World would in spite of all the Unitarian Arguments conclude such a Person True and Real God: We see the Lycaonians for one Miracles sake were so possessed with the Divinity of Paul and Barnabas, that a Socinus or a Crellius, with all their pretty Pleas to that purpose, might have met with Pentheus' fate among them, and have died the Martyrs of unplausible Sophistry.  
The Author has given a short account of the Primitive Faith in the Point under debate, and nothing but extreme Ignorance could make any of our Unitarians pretend to true Antiquity for his fancy. Our late Putney Convert indeed could find Transubstantiation among the Rabbins, and our great Rationalists have sometimes dreamed of proving our Saviour's mere Humanity by the suffrages of the glorious Anti-Nicene Fathers.  
It was not his Happiness to have read Mr. Bull when he wrote this, nor indeed had He, living in an obscure quarter of the World, at that time heard of that learned work; Dr. Whitbies came out since it was finished; if this weak Attempt give any farther Light to any thing, or has touched on what was praetermitted by their greater Industry, it may add somewhat to the Tale, and Socinian ill-grounded Confidence may begin to shine with the more notorious Lustre.  
He has insisted more largely on the General Practice of Praying to our Saviour and making Him the Ultimate Object of our Religious Adorations, and thinks he has demonstrated the impossibility of defending that practice on the supposition that our Saviour is no more than a mere Man, the Notion of a made God ridicules itself, and no Contest fairer or more diverting can be set on foot than between an honest zealous Papist and a Socinian Reason-Monger concerning the Obligation of the first and second Commandment.  
That particular end of our Saviour's Incarnation, viz. That He might destroy the works of the Devil, is perhaps no inconsiderable Evidence of his Superiority both to Angels and Men, The debate concerning the Abrogation of the Jewish Law evinces the same Truth, and by the common tracks of Sense and Reason, which the Socinians pretend to appeal to, leads us to understand the necessity of our Saviour's being True and Eternal God as well as True Man, an inferior Person could not have consummated the Types, nor could a mere Man, however alleging a Divine Commission, have repealed what Almighty God himself had settled and commanded under the most terrible Penalties in the World.  
In conclusion, the Author proves the Necessity of our Lord's giving satisfaction to his Father's Justice for the sins of mankind, and is Himself so fully convinced of it, that He takes it for granted Those who reject it, either take Salvation in general for a fond Chimerical Whimsy, or would obtrude upon us some new and uncouth Idea of the Divine Nature, or think Mankind capable of Perfection in this Life and meriting Salvation for themselves by their own supererogatory Sanctity. He generally turns their own Evidences against themselves, and imagines He has no where misrepresented their Sentiments in the things under debate between Christians and unitarians.  
He has, as Occasion offered, touched upon some Anonymous Pamphlets of the late Asserters of Socinian and Arian Paradoxes; it was not worth his while to pursue them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, there is little in them but the twice boiled Crambe of the Racovian Club, commonly worse dressed than in the Originals: nothing but Sophistry and Confidence runs through them; the Conscience of which made them employ a pert smatterer in Ignorance as their Hawker to disperse their new fangled Theology about the Country, as if it were fit one employed so much in the dispose of Public Charity should, to keep the Balance even between Heaven and Hell, while he supports their Bodies, pervert and poison the Souls of the impertinently curious, unthinking and injudicious part of Mankind.  
If they have offered any new Reasons in defence of Errors, Apparent rarae nantes in gurgite vasto, it's almost lost labour to hunt for them, and the Quarry scarce worth stooping for when found. It may be some may think those things considerable which He has reflected upon, if so, its what He wished for, presuming his Reflections might pass for a sufficient Refutation; at least He hopes He has placed some things in so fair a Light, that others may the more easily baffle their Novelties and secure the Foundations of our Christian Profession from the insolent attacks of Libertinism and prevailing Heresy.  
If what the Author has done may be any way acceptable to the Pious and Learned World, it will encourage Him to proceed farther, and in due time to vindicate every Article of our Faith from the Insults of Socinians and Atheists, and to offer them somewhat else wherein the Church of England is immediately concerned, and which He hopes will do her no disservice, however drooping her present Looks may be; Otherwise He begs Pardon for what He has done already, and will for the Future either Writ better, or leave that Work to those who are better able to defend the Cause.  
If He has offered any thing New or Solid in vindication of our Ancient Faith, it will tend extremely to his Satisfaction. If He have erred in any Matter of weight, He begs his Holy Mother's Pardon, to the Censure of whose Lawful Governors He humbly submits All He has written, and can conclude his Preface with nothing more apposite than that Petition of our Sacred Mother in her Litany, From all false Doctrine, Heresy and Schism, from Hardness of Heart and Contempt of thy Word and Commandment,  
Good Lord, deliver us.   

IMPRIMATUR.  
Guil. Lancaster R. P. D. Henrico Episc. Lond. à Sacris Domesticis. Octob. 17. 1691.   
1 Tim. 3.16. 
And without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh.  
IT'S our business and design for the securing of those, who shall read this discourse, from damnable Errors: for the glory of the eternal Son of God, whose Divinity we find boldly impeached and blasphemously denied by a pestilent crew of subtle and insinuating Heretics: for the confirmation of that Faith in Christ which we profess, and in which we hope to die: to encounter several of those Arguments through God's assistance, which those enemies of Christianity assault the World with. To which end, it will be absolutely necessary to clear the sense of these words from those artificial clouds which some have endeavoured to obscure them with, and here we find the Socinians not so much disputing about the meaning of the first assertion, without controversy great is the mystery of godliness; as about the connexion of these words with the particulars following. For if they can prove that the Incarnation of the Son of God is no part or member of our Faith, or no mystery of our Religion, they deprive us of one of the best and plainest Texts of Scripture for the maintaining of his Divinity. Again, if they can so bafflle all mysteries in Religion, that nothing must be regarded but what can easily be comprehended by weak and corrupted reason, our holy Religion stands upon a lower ground than the wretched Systems of Pagan Divinity; and God must stand reproved himself, if he speak any thing by inspired Prophets, which the meanest person cannot fully and clearly understand. In our entrance therefore on our intended discourse, we must first remove these difficulties before we speak to the particulars.  
And here we cannot but take notice that the Socinians generally profess abundance of respect for the Scriptures, and seem to take a great deal of pains to assert their authority; and it is upon the pretendedly genuine explication of that Word of God they build those Heretical Opinions, with which they disturb the Church. Socinus makes it a strange thing that any man professing Christianity should make any doubt of the authority of the books of the Old and New Testament, 
Vid. Socin. de author. Scrip. op. v. 1. p. 265.  especially the last, since the Writers of it were men of reputation and exactly acquainted with those things they writ about; since the Writers were very well known, since the books themselves are not corrupted or depraved, and because there are no full or clear testimonies to be found that those books deserve not that credit we commonly give them. 
Catech. Sect. 1. c. 2.  The Racovian Catechism asserts the sufficiency of Scripture to make men wise to Salvation. Eousque sunt sufficientia ut in rebus ad salutem necessariis iis solis acquiescendum est, they are so sufficient to that great end, that we ought to depend upon them only in matters of Salvation. And for their assertion they add this among other reasons, That it was not likely in so large a book, and where so few things were absolutely necessary to Salvation, 
Ibid.  those very few things should not be fully laid down; or that in a book where God had ordered so many things unnecessary, he should have forgotten any thing that was absolutely necessary to Salvation: And farther they avouch the integrity of Scripture, that those holy Books are not corrupted or altered, and that principally because they say it's inconsistent with God's Providence and goodness to permit those writings in which he had declared himself and manifested his Will, and shown the way to eternal Salvation, and which as such were immediately received and approved by all good men, to permit such Writings to be any way corrupted: besides that there were so many Copies of those Books transcribed at first, in places so far distant one from another, and they were translated into so many several languages presently, that if any corruption or alteration had been attempted, 
Ibid. c. 1.  it had been impossible they should all have conspired in the same reading: and therefore we may observe where the least change has been made, the Copies disagree. In this observation we close with them, and by their own rule the better answer their cavil with this Text.  
For they tell us that some Copies read this Text not as we do, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, God was manifest in the flesh, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which was manifest in the flesh, without any mention of God at all. Erasmus was the first in this observation, Grotius follows him and tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God is wanting in the vulgar Latin, 
Grot. in loc.  the Syriac and Arabic translations, and that St. Ambrose takes no notice of it, and that Hincmare Bishop of Rheims says it was foisted into the Text by the Nestorians. Curcellaeus tells us the same, and of an old Greek Copy mentioned by Morinus, wherein part of the word was written by a later hand. This Critical observation the Socinians with one consent lay hold on, by that means endeavouring to avoid so plain a Text for the Divinity of the Son of God. So Volkelius tells us plainly that our Text is one of those Scriptures, 
Volkel de ●●●d ●elig. Edit Am l. 5. p. 462. c. ●1.  quas ad errorem suum stabiliendum detorquent adversarii, which those who believe Christ to be God wrest to the maintenance of their own error, for the name of God is not in all the Greek Copies, as may be seen by the vulgar Latin and Syriac Versions, but all the following particulars are to be referred to the Mystery of Godliness mentioned before, which mystery of Godliness was manifested in the flesh: and this Grotius before cited on the place, takes to be very good sense. Crellius on this place observes the same thing, yet owns Quod Graeci constanter pro ö legunt Θεὸς, that the Greeks, whose the Original is, read the name of God unanimously in the Text, tho' some Versions want it. He tells us a story of Macedonius the Patriarch of the Pneumatomachoi, or those Heretics who denied the divinity or personality of the Holy Ghost, or of some other of that name of which more hereafter, that he attempted the depraving of this passage, and that there is no question but he inserted the controverted word into the Text afterwards. He refers us to an abridgement of the case of Nestorius and Eutyches, 
Crellius i● loc. Bibliot. fr. Pol. inter opera Cr. v. 2. p. 18, 19  written by Liberatus a Deacon of Carthage, who tells us that Macedonius Bishop of Constantinople was deprived by the Emperor Anastasius as a falsifier of Scripture, and particularly for inserting the word God in this place of S. Paul: He tells us indeed that, In eo consentiunt omnes malam manum huic loco fuisse adhibitam, fraudemque à Macedonio attentatam. All agree in this that some foul play was offered to the Text, and that Macedonius was concerned in the cheat; but for this we must take his word, for he gives us no other authority: and all this is repeated in the Racovian Catechism, 
Catech. Raco. p. 55. Sect. 4. c. 1.  and the short note of Andrea's Wiscoveatius upon the question about the sense of our Apostle. Schlicktingius another of the same Tribe, and a great hearer of Crellius, yet here contradicts his companion and tells us boldly and roundly, 
Schlicktingius in locum. oper. t. 2. p. 150. Contin. Ir. Ir. p. 106. par. 58.  that several Greek Copies read it otherwise than we do, i. e. they omit the word God, but proves it only by the forecited translations: and to name no more, Zwicker in the defence of his Irenicum Irenicor. against Comenius, calls this Text locus dubiae lectionis, a place read several ways. Now the inference these Heretics make from this Criticism is, That this Text is indeed no proof of any thing: for since we know not how it was written at first, by reason of the difference among the Copies now extant, it's not to be admitted as a proof; so Crellius, 
Crell. ubi supra.  Cum nemo ambigat tentatum esse aliquid circa hunc locum, varientque hodie lectiones, nil ex illo solidi, ad aliquod in Religione Dogma stabiliendum duci posse certum est, Since none doubt there has been somewhat attempted about this Text, and that the Copies at this time differ one from another, no solid argument can be drawn from thence, for the confirming any Tenet in Religion. With him agrees the Racovian Catechism in express terms: but here we may answer them, according to their own position before mentioned, That since the original Greek Copies, in which Language the new Testament was written by the inspired authors, do all agree in reading this Text as we do in our Bibles, we need not trouble ourselves about the disagreement of two or three Translations, since, having to do with men highly pretending to reason, we may rationally conclude God's goodness and providence would take more care to secure the Originals than those Translations, and that he really did preserve the Originals unperverted on purpose to prevent the ill effects those imperfect translations might otherwise have had: for who but a proselyte of Rome or a Socinian would run to an uncertain stream, when he might with the same ease drink at the fountain head where every thing is pure and clean?  
But if we examine the matter more strictly, the whole pretence of different Copies is false or impertinent. 
Vid. Gothofr. in Poli Synop.  Gothofredus in a particular discourse on this Text could find no difference in the original Books, and all Grotius and Schlicktingius, and Curcellaeus and Crellius have said, amounts but to one among 1000 and that one very questionable too: The Syriac translation indeed does want the word in our Polyglot Bibles, but the Arabic version has it God appeared in the flesh: 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  nor do I find any various readings there. The vulgar Latin has not the word indeed: but when Grotius, and from him the rest tell us that St. Ambrose read it not, they show more craft than sincerity; that Father reads the text without God in it, but he interprets it as we do, that the mystery here spoken of was Christus in carne, Christ appearing in the flesh. 
Ambros. come. in Epist. 1. ad Tim. Edit. Par. 1549. p. 2056.  Tamdiu aspectu humilis visus est per carnem, quamdiu devicta morte resurgeret à mortuis & videretur majestas ejus qui natus ut homo non erat totus homo: He appeared humble in his flesh so long till having conquered death, he risen again, and that his Majesty might be seen, who tho' he was born as a man, was not merely a man, i. e. he was God as well as man. Not to take any notice that St. Ambrose really was not the author of those Commentaries on St. Paul's Epistles printed commonly among his works, but Hilary the Deacon a stout adversary of Arianism in the fourth Century. As for Crellius his story of Macedonius, it's lose and impertinent. Macedonius indeed who was thrust into the chair of Constantinople by the Arrians upon the death of Alexander in the year 342. was Heretic enough, and consequently like enough to attempt an ill thing. But that Macedonius mentioned by the Deacon Liberatus, was thrust out of his See by the Emperor Anastasius for his not complying with Heretics in the year 515. when it was too late to attempt an innovation in Scripture, and who beside could have no design in so doing, since he held no peculiar opinions about our Saviour, to which such a corruption could be subservient. 
Brev. c. 19 Council t. 5. p 762.  Liberatus indeed tells such a story in his abridgement, 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 concerned 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 seemed to the World; so the great mystery was manifest in the flesh: this Gospel was justified in the spirit, i. e. it was approved 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 preached to the Gentiles, not only to the Jews, who before were God's peculiar people, but to the Gentiles who were mere strangers to the true God; it was believed on in the World, a great part of Mankind entertaining it, and it was received 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 received 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 suffered many things on that account, did more clearly than ever discover himself and his will unknown to all precedent Ages. In the mean time tho' he revealed these things by inconsiderable men, he took care by that divine power he showed in them, to evidence his own justice and truth, and to have his will approved: 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 preached 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 received 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 mere 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 mentioned 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 called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, because those that heard them stopped their mouths, that they might not divulge or explain them to any. Vossius and Dieterichus from Casaubon and Hornius choose rather to derive it from the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to hid or to conceal, from hence comes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a concealment or a place to hid one in: so that whencesoever it's derived, 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 used by Ecclesiastical Writers, it's generally taken for holy things incomprehensible by the light of nature, tho' sometimes it has a more restrained signification relating to Symbolical rites; and so the two Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper are frequently called mysteries: but in the Text where we are told the mystery of Godliness is great, and that assertion proved 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 believed, 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 revealed, 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, opposed to Meisner, a Lutheran Divine, 
Schlicktin. in Meisner. de Trin. etc. 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 called mysteries, because they transcend our understanding after they are revealed; 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 revealed, nay it ought to do so: for how should it give any credit to them unless it had first passed a judgement upon them? And so soon as ever our reason has passed a true and uncorrupt judgement upon them, it always finds those mysteries to be very true. Thus Herald 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 revealed 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 show 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 revealed, 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 revealed there, and our reason enables us to judge whether the revelation be authentic and fit for us to depend on or no. But according to their acknowledgement, wretched man involved in sin, could with all his wit and sense discover no remedy for his misery, the more he discoursed 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 punished for his sin, but no reason why he should be pardoned, since he had sinned: 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 pleased 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 Patriarches, inspired several holy Men, who spoke as influenced by him, and they foretold man's redemption by a Messiah, one that should be Anointed to that purpose. Here then the mystery was revealed, 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? Can 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, equalled with God himself in his titles and in his name. Sometimes they saw him charactered as very mean and contemptible, as riding on an Ass instead of a triumphant Chariot, as one who had no form nor comeliness in him, no beauty for which he should be desired, nay, despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Can 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 extremely at the person of the Messiah when he appeared, 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 sudden? What shall we say to the existence of a God, one supreme 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 persuade 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 showed 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 revealed 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 discovered before: for that which may be known of God was visible in them as the forecited Text informs us; nay, had not Nature impressed upon our Souls some Ideas of the divinity, had not we been able to read his eternal power and Godhead in them, all the revelations in Scripture would have appeared very impertinent and unsatisfactory, since all the discourse in it concerning God might easily have been interpreted into a religious fiction, contrived merely 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 that bears the character of infinity dark and mysterious still? we know God is, we know that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him, but can we tell by what methods his prudence manages the universe? can we tell how he is infinitely wise, just, good, merciful, true, etc. or tho' we know God is so, can we tell what it is to be so? No, we know the positive part, but for us to go farther would argue us Gods and not men: But does the revelation of a certain truth that was mysterious, change its nature? is not that which was a mystery before, a mystery still? The Christian Religion or the Principles on which it was built were once mysterious, a Socinian will assert, they were so before Christ's coming into the world: but, if we may give any credit to our Apostle who wrote after the Ascension of our Saviour into Heaven, the mystery of Godliness is great still, and it will continue so as long as Heaven and Earth endure? But here for our better procedure in countermining the Socinian Heresies, it will be necessary briefly to discuss that question how far humane reason is to take place in matters of Divinity: For Smalcius tells us positively, 
Small. Hom. 8. in c. 1. Joan. p. 89.  Nullam esse religionis particulam, quae cum ratione non conveniat: & quae cum ratione non convenit opinio eam etiam in Theologiâ nullum locum habere posse. That there is no little point of Religion which does not agree with reason; and whatsoever opinion does not agree with reason can have no place in Theological matters. Now for the better clearing this matter, I shall lay down these Propositions.  
That the Reason of Man is the Candle of the Lord, according to that of Solomon. 
1. Prov. 20.27.  It's the real Image of God in man, given to Man, that he might be able to discourse with himself, and argue concerning the nature of every object laid before him. It's that whereby he is able to distinguish between things, to judge of what tends to his own happiness, and what may any way be prejudicial to it. It's that whereby Man comes to see God in his Creatures, from the frame and contexture and management of which he understands the wisdom and power of him that made them, and to observe his own dependence upon that Almighty Sovereign. It enables him to argue from observations upon himself concerning the goodness and mercy of God, and how fit it is for all created Being's to adore and magnify the Creator. It shows how fit it is that those who so entirely depend upon him should devote all their services to him, how they should all seek to him in every distress, and worship him, so as may be acceptable to him. When I give humane reason so high a character, I understand it only as imparted to him in his first Creation, when he was equally clothed with native beauty and innocence, his discursive faculty was then so high and clear, that we, miserable creatures, have at present only some poor defective glimpses of it; or we see it like some glorious light indeed, but fixed at so prodigious a distance, that we cannot with all our present skill take its true magnitude. As it was then, it fitted Man for that mighty Sovereignty over the inferior parts of the Creation, which he was then invested with; it taught him to cultivate the garden of the Lord, so as became a faithful Steward and Servant; It gave him such a view of the Divine Nature, that nothing could possibly seem more absurd or shameful, than any thing he could do that might offend God. And so true an insight into that which we call Natural Philosophy, that the nature of every creature was obvious to him at first, and he capable of naming all things according to that nature. So that it was really not a want of reason which made him sink under the temptations of Hell, but it was carelessness, not standing duly upon his guard, nor adverting seriously to the tenor of what was offered. He had the weapon, but he made no due use of it: he was created indeed in a state of perfection, but his passions and affections were alterable, his body passable, nay, his reason itself capable of a countermine when the design of opposition centred in a being created to as great advantages as himself. And when parties of equal strength and courage are engaged in a contention, the first that's guilty of an inadvertency must certainly be foiled; had not love and beauty like the pipe of Mercury, lulled the hundred eyes of original reason into a fatal sleep, death could never have found entrance into the world, nor sin have been the dreadful harbinger of its ruins. But we see Sin and Death have overpowered and prevail every day more and more upon us without any considerable opposition, which had reason retained its primeval vigour, it would certainly have met with, therefore we conclude,  
That reason stands now extremely impaired by the fall of man, and in a great measure incapacitated for prosecuting those noble ends for which at first it was bestowed. It's true, reason is the very form of the Soul, the Soul itself a substance pure, immaterial, Divine, but it's immersed in a body of a grosser nature, organised indeed originally exactly for its reception, and every way fit to be actuated by it, and by virtue of that exact preparation of its subject, it moved originally with ease and freedom: but forms may admit of alteration, and sin has effected such an alteration in the Soul, it has not quite extinguished that candle of the Lord, but it has made it burn very dim and uncertainly; it has not entirely separated reason from the Soul, but it has made it slow and unactive, or else only perversely active; and whereas the body was exactly fit at first for the operations of an unpolluted Soul, that body itself is much disordered now, and even where the Soul would act better, it finds itself oppressed with that body of Death which sin has loaded it with: that Death as its preparative has thousands of diseases and distempers, many of which extremely impair that little reason we are still possessed of, not that the Soul is immediately prejudiced in itself by them, but as the curious Artist can yet do nothing without his tools, so the Soul moves, heavily because the body is wholly unfit for its exerting its activity: and so farther as we observe the Artisan's work is worse or better according to the excellency of his tools, so daily experience teaches us, the mind applies itself more nimbly to work, is more curious in its fancy, more large and various in its inventions, more calm and solid in its judgement, according to the temper and constitution of that body it resides in. Hence we conclude that those we call Idiots or Fools have Souls immortal and rational as well as ourselves, but those Souls have no proper organs to demonstrate their innate reason by: these unhappinesses are all the fatal consequences of sin, and we could hardly believe that sin had had any ill consequences at all, had not reason suffered by it: for if we can, as really we do, observe, that reason teaches every one who now adverts seriously to it, to aim at quiet and happiness; so had not sin clouded it strangely, it had been impossible any temptation whatsoever contrived by Hell or its emissaries could have baffled it. But it's plain that by our present incapacities to answer the sophistry of the tempter, we are continually betrayed to sin: reason in its height and purity would have convinced us of the madness and folly of every thing that's ill, reason as it now stands perverted suffers us, unless prevented with a great deal of industry, to embrace ill under the notion of good, and it's no small argument of a great weakness in our rational faculties to be so imposed on: We oftentimes now entertain our capital adversary the Devil as an angel of light, we misprise vice for virtue, falsehood for truth, sophistry for solid arguments, novelty for antiquity, superstition for devotion, noise for sense, interest for zeal, confidence for great parts and ingenuity: and reason itself as now it stands, when we have a few lucid intervals, shows us the extreme ridiculousness of those mistakes, and the abilities which some have to expose the follies of others, and at the same time to betray their own, is unanswerable evidence of the imbecility of humane reason in general. It's doubtless possible for some of excellent constitutions to argue themselves into a strong persuasion that there is a God. It's again possible, nay we see it too too common for men of delicate intellectuals to pretend to answer all the arguments brought to prove the being of a God, and they do it so plausibly, as to get proselytes, and to make abundance of room for horrid Atheism. We make no question but that we have proofs really unanswerable of the Divinity of the Son of God; the Socinians with whom we are now concerned, deny it, and pretend to demonstrations of the contrary, and all from principles of reason or Scriptures rationally interpreted; and many well meaning men think they are in the right, and therefore close with them: These oppositions of Reason could never have happened, had the Soul or mind enjoyed its original freedom and activity; for nothing could possibly have been offered in opposition to reason wholly clear and perfect, that having been incapable of stooping to mean arts and trifling sophistry. But we need indeed no more but to reflect a little on our first Parents, and on ourselves, to prove the truth of this conclusion. It's impossible to overlook the prodigious difference there was between Adam as a knowing Monarch, giving names to all Creatures according to their natures, and Adam sowing Fig-leaves together to hid his nakedness from Creatures whom some conclude irrational; and flying to the shelter of the Trees of Eden for a security from the presence of an allseeing God; one argued excess of wisdom, the other the extravagance of folly: and for ourselves, as the Jews proved themselves dull and senseless, who could not be convinced or reduced by him, who spoke as never man spoke; so we cannot without extreme difficulty find any impressions of good made on our Souls by the most forcible discourses: whereas reason in its primitive glory could admit of nothing, but what was holy, just and good; all this notwithstanding we conclude,  
That Humane reason corrupted as it is, has yet so much of light and strength, as to show and convince us of a general necessity of Religion: This we assert of the light of nature, which really is nothing but mere reason, as it stands at present affected. Now if the works of nature are such, as according to the assertion of the Apostle, do evidence the Almighty's power and Godhead, this evidence must be clear to somewhat that's able to comprehend it; and if it be so very full and plain, that they who neglect it are altogether inexcusable, than that reason which we now enjoy, which alone is capable of apprehending natural evidence, must still have that strength that those who by its conduct cannot find out a God, and their general duty to him, are therefore not to be excused. God has made the World, and all things therein, and gives to all life and breath, 
Acts 17.24, 25, 26, 27.  and all things, and has made of one blood all Nations to dwell upon the Earth, that they might seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him and find him: but it would have been very ill argued of the Apostle from such Topics, if such observations had not really been enough to guide those who search after God to make a discovery of him. And here the Socinians seem to act by very strange measures, they conclude as before I observed from Smalcius, that there's nothing to be admitted into Religion but what's agreeable to reason; but we cannot tell what's agreeable to reason, unless we can fully and clearly comprehend it: for otherwise we may be mistaken, and suppose that agreeable to reason, which really is not so. But at the same time, Socinus himself looks upon the light of nature as not sufficient to impress on Man the notion of a God, 
Socin. praelect. Theol. c. 2:  but will have that general opinion of the existence of God to flow only from traditional knowledge, or from revelation: yet after this assertion of his, Crellius one of the most learned of his followers and defenders, goes about in his Book de Deo & ejus attributis, to demonstrate the being of a God from the works of the Creation. But if Man has not sense enough, by considering the works of nature, to argue to the being of a God, such a demonstration is extremely impertinent. Socinus would prove his opinion among other things by that of the Apostle, He that comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him, which is prefaced with that: That without faith it is impossible to please God. 
Heb. 11.6.  But this is no proof at all, for Men may by considering circumstances come to the acknowledgement of some supreme power; and yet never believe in him, nor ever own or practise their duty to him: and therefore St. Paul takes notice of some holding the truth in unrighteousness, who when they knew God, glorified him not as God: tho' they were convinced of his existence, they were not careful to perform the duty of Creatures or servants to a Supreme Creator; they were not thankful but became vain in their Imaginations, 
Rom. 1.21.  and their foolish hearts were darkened, etc. Now those St. Paul there reflects on were Heathens in general, who being under a necessity of believing that there was a God by rational discourse, yet out of a supine laziness, troubled not themselves to improve reason so far as they might and ought to have done; and therefore, without any consideration of the divine Nature, fell to worship Idols, or to respect the Creature more than the Creator; yet even that Idolatry itself is an  evidence of the general notion of God's existence, since no man possibly could be drawn to adore several, if he really believed there were no God at all. Nor farther does it follow, that because I'm satisfied there is a God, therefore I must necessarily be acceptable to God; for tho' my sense of his Divinity may of itself be pleasing to my Maker, yet if that sense have no operation upon my life and conversation, my continuance in sin must cancel all those advantages I could hope to receive upon an inevitable conviction. Nor does Scripture any where tell us of such as believe there is no God. 
Ps. 10.4. Ps. 14.1.  It's true, we read of some in all whose thoughts God is not, of the foolish body saying in his heart there is no God: but wicked men, even assisted by Divine Revelation to the knowledge of God's existence, may forget him; nay the very best of men do so when they fall into sin: and for a wicked man to say in his heart, there is no God, i. e. to wish hearty there were none, and to believe there is none, are very different things. Caligula that Roman Emperor said in his heart there was no God, when he would needs supply the world's defects by assuming Divinity to himself; but Caligula owned that he was otherwise convinced, when upon a thunder-storm he skulked into vaults, and hid his head from the fury of an angry Superior. And we have now a-days but too many Atheistical wretches, who employ all their wits to prove to themselves and others that there is no God, who yet when death approaches, or some terrible distemper shakes their bodies, tremble at approaching judgements, submit to old innate notions of a God which they had long endeavoured to have stifled, and are ready to cry to the mountains to fall upon them, and to the rocks to cover them from his wrath whose very being they formerly pretended to defy. Nor yet are there really any Nations discovered who are wholly without such notions of a God as flow from a due contemplation of Nature. 
vid. Blavii Atlant. maj. in America Braslianan.  Nay the very Brasilians themselves to whose story Socinus refers us, tho' of all other nations the most ignorant and barbarous, are not so wholly Atheistical, but that, if we may believe Geographers, they believe the Souls immortality and existence after its separation from the body, a thought alone which must be attended with the owning of a God: and hence Crellius well enough observes, 
De Deo & attr. l. 1. c. 3.  Quod sacri libri non semel ad rerum in naturâ existentium contemplationem nos vocant ut Divinae Majestatis radios in eyes relucentes & admirandarum ejus proprietatum vestigia illis impressa lustremus. That the holy Scriptures do more than once call upon us to meditate on the various parts of Nature, that we may see the rays of Divine Majesty shineing in them, and the footsteps of God's power wonderfully impressed upon them. For not only all the works of Nature in a body, but every single thing gives us a particular argument of the being of a God. But supposing we pursue the opinion of Socinus recommended by Smalcius to the University of Heidelberg; if withal we observe what the Racovian Catechism asserts, that Man's free will is not impaired by Adam's sin, and conclude, what's very natural, that the other faculties of the Soul are no more weakened than the Will, it will plainly follow, that Man even in the state of Innocence was not capable naturally of knowing there was a God: and therefore Socinus fairly refers his knowledge in that kind to God's revealing himself at first to him. And certainly that natural light which even in primaeval purity could not reach to the bare existence of a God, must be at this time very insufficient to judge of every thing God has revealed, and to comprehend every mystery which is concerned in man's salvation. Farther, if such as the Brasilians or Indians are really wholly without the apprehension of a God, it will appear from thence, that Traditional knowledge may be worn out; but as for divine Revelation as extant in the Word of God, it can have no credit among Heathens till they are first convinced there is a God whose that Word is; therefore there must be arguments drawn by discourse from the world's structure, that must first prove that principle, and then that there are really divine Revelations; and that those writings which we call the Word of God contain those Revelations, will be demonstrable enough. 
Tertul. de resur. carnis.  For as Tertullian says, Praemisit Deus naturam magistram, submissurus & prophetiam, quo facilius credas Prophetiae, Discipulus naturae, God sends Nature as a mistress before, designing to assist it with revelation or prophecy, that being first the disciples of Nature we might the more readily give credit to revelation. Therefore S. Basil calls the school of Nature, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the school of rational Souls, and the disciplinary of the knowledge of God. And the ancient Monk Anthony answered the inquisitive Philosopher very well, when he asked him how he could live without books. 
Socrat. Hist. Eccl. l. 4. c. 23.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: My book is the nature of all existent things, a book which is always ready when I would know the words of God. Though the words of Tully a Heathen, are more directly opposed to Socinus, 
De Divination. l. 2.  Esse praestantem aliquam aeternamque naturam, & eam suspiciendam adorandámque hominum generi pulchritudo mundi ordoque rerum coelestium cogit confiteri: That there is some excellent and eternal nature, and that to be adored and admired by mankind, the very beauty of the world, and the curious order of celestial bodies, will force us to confess. If then an Heathen by nature's light could discover not only the being of a God, but the necessity of worshipping him, it's sufficient evidence of our conclusion, That humane reason or the mere light of Nature may show us the general necessity of Religion, notwithstanding those decays it has undergone by Sin. For if that notion naturally imbibed that there was a God urged men to serve him by several methods of Religion, it's plain that notion enforced Religion in general upon all mankind; we conclude  
That humane Reason as it now stands corrupted, when it applies itself industriously to Religion or the adoration of a God merely on general notions, as a reward for that industry, certainly meets with divine assistances, by which means those intentions which at first are honest and sincere are made really effectual to God's glory and the improvers happiness. Humane reason no sooner discovers the existence of God, but upon a farther pursuit of that notion in enquiry after God's nature, it finds itself lost in a vast abyss, nothing but immense infinity being the object of a faculty unquestionably finite and limited, must of consequence confound it, unless there be some guide or director found out for it. This made Simonides of old, (who was not only Poet a suavis, verum etiam caetero●●● doctus sapiensque, 
Cicero de Nat. Deor. l. 1. p. 27.  as Tully calls him, a sweet Poet, but a man otherwise learned and wise) when Hiero King of Sicily asked him what God was, require a days time to consider of the question, when the day after Hiero repeated his question, he desned two days, and when he asked still more and more time, and Hiero wondering asked him the reason, Quia quanto, inquit, diutiùs considero, tanto mihi res videtur obscurior, because, says he, the longer I consider of the matter, the more obscure I find it. Tully seems indeed to impute this to his general Scepticism: but since he owned a God, and had no other guide but Nature, it showed his wisdom to acknowledge the deficiency of that principle in carrying him farther. It was Socrates' modesty which made him confess he had only learned this, that he knew nothing. And it was Simonides' prudence which made him own his ignorance in so mysterious a particular. Reason teaches a man that has lost his eyes how great inconveniences he's liable to by that loss, when he knows his helpless condition, tho' Reason with all its arguments cannot restore his eyes, reason can teach him to seek for a guide who can see, and will satisfy him how far the kindness of the guide may repair his misfortune. The same Reason in matters of Religion, tho' it find out a God, yet shows Man his natural blindness in relation to the consequences of that principle. Now the Soul being always covetous of knowledge, hoping ●y it ●o repair in s●me measure the ruins of the f●●, i● a M●● but follow its i●●●ation, con● 〈…〉 to apprehend the 〈…〉 and to seek for one qu● 〈…〉 p●●●●●●. Here than we must own, 〈◊〉 God h●s called upon mankind so earn●●● 〈◊〉 ●ome to him, and has promised that those who do so he will by no means reject, and that he will assist such by the gifts of his Spirit, that they may improve the farther in divine knowledge; we must own that it would be inconsistent with these engagements and promises, and consequently with Go●'s veracity, if he should not be ready to rew●●d with suitable assistances all such who acco●●ing to their abilities diligently seek 〈◊〉: As a full proof of his readiness in the case, he has imparted his Will to mankind in Scripture; the reading of books is the ordinary means of attaining knowledge, or at le●st a due converse with such who have leisure and capacity to read and underst●●d them, such reading is useful even to inspired persons, 
1 Tim. 4.13, 14.  whence St. Paul advises Timothy an Evangelist to give attendance to reading, as well as to exhortation and doctrine, and not to neglect the gift that was in him. And howsoever some may contemn thirlestane learning which they cannot reach, we have no reason to believe that S. Paul was prejudiced in his Apostolical abilities by having been brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, or by having bestowed some time in reading the Poems of Aratus or Epimenides. That God himself might comply with this ordinary means of acquiring knowledge, He committed his own Will to writing, and that in such a manner that the weakest might not complain the book was wholly unintelligible, nor the wisest make their boast that they comprehended every thing contained there. The man that seeks to improve his reason by reading, in search of books must act very irrationally if he pretermit the Book of God; For he that believes there is a God, and takes him for a Being infinitely superior to himself, when he thinks it worth his while to converse with humane writings, cannot but judge it much more so to examine a book which carries the name of God himself as its Author in the frontispiece: he'd read it, tho' it were to no other end, but to find whether it were agreeable to that august title it bore, and what real characters of the Divinity were to be found in it. But when such a man comes once to read it seriously, tho' he's not able to comprehend all he reads, yet his rational faculty must run very low if he find not more improvements of it there than in all other writings whatsoever. It's observable of the Mariners that carried Jonah for Tarshish, that when the storm sent by the God of Israel lay hard upon them, the Mariners in their fear called every one upon his God; they believed in general there was such a being, but a multitude being adored by the greater part of the world, instead of one, every one had his particular idol to address to. 
Jonah 1.4, 5, 9, 10.14, 15, 16.  But when Jonah, sensible of his crime, and that vengeance which pursued it, had confessed the truth and persuaded them to throw him overboard, and they tho' unwillingly complied with him, they, before they would do an action so severe and extraordinary, applied themselves to the true God; and finding the storm to cease upon their Prayer, they offered Sacrifices to him, and made vows; thus Pagan Mariners grew a kind of converts to true Religion. So when Men in consulting Scriptures, especially at first, find their Souls disturbed under a sense of former ignorance, and meet with advices in that sacred book sufficient to extricate themselves out of that perplexity; promises of the true God's readiness to hear and to assist those who desire to know him, occur frequently too: as particularly that of the Psalmist in the old Testament, 
Ps. 69.32.  Your heart shall live that seek the Lord; and that of Wisdom, I love them that love me, and they that seek me early shall find me. 
Prov. 8.17, 20, 21.  I lead in the way of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of judgement, that I may cause those that love me to inherit substance, that I may fill their treasures, i. e. that I may furnish them with solid knowledge, and make them rich in understanding: and that more clear yet of our Saviour, when the Spirit of truth is come, 
Joh. 16.13.  he will guide you into all truth. The Reader of these promises though very dubious in himself before, will be apt to send up his petitions to that God who made these promises; who will be as ready to hear such, as he was to hear the ignorant Mariners before. Thus light may shine into the Souls of those who are soberly inquisitive, and that so great and clear, as may be very unaccountable to the receivers of it, but extremely pleasing. It was such an industrious reading and a real desire to understand, tho' at that time he confessed his ignorance, that prepared the Aethiopian Eunuch for the instructions of Philip, sent unto him on that particular errand. And tho' God do not presently send an Evangelist to convert every one that seeks after what's good, yet he has a thousand ways as efficacious to draw men to a sense of true Religion, and what matter is it to us what way God makes use of, provided he do but work the same glorious effect in us at last? God takes delight in those that honour him, as those who seek him certainly do. Sincerity and humility are required indeed as preparatives in the case, yet no more than what's requisite in those who study books of humane learning. For he that does not seriously desire to profit by study, never will profit; and he that's too opinionative of his own sense, can never make any advantageous use of what he meets with in the discourses of other men: and there's no reason we should expect to improve in those things which concern the weightiest matters in the world, viz. our eternal future happiness or misery, upon lower terms, than in those really of a frivolous and inconsiderable nature. But to encourage men to a right application of their reasoning faculty we conclude,  
That the farther a man advances in the study and practice of true Religion, the more clear and comprehensive his Reason grows, and comes so much the nearer to its primitive acuteness, and consequently, is able to dive so much the farther into divine Mysteries: And this indeed is what true Religion aims at; We have lost our Innocence, by that loss we have impaired our Reason; that we may assure to ourselves that happiness our first Creation had sitted us to, God has found out for us those ways, that we endeavouring to retrieve our Innocence, may retrieve our Reason in a good measure too: And having howsoever the infinite merits of a Saviour on our side, at last may attain to the first intended happiness. Reason is certainly a talon bestowed upon us, not to lay it up in a napkin, but to use and to make the best of it. Had such a Book as Scripture been delivered to Adam before his fall, I make no question, but it would have been in every point intelligible to him: as things stand now we may and aught to exercise our reason about it, but not so as to limit Scripture by our reason, but to limit our reason by Scripture. It's true, Scripture may by mere reason be proved to be the Word of God, but that operation is very slow, and requires a very unusual application; therefore God in the infancy both of the Jewish and Christian Church made use of Miracles to work more strongly and swiftly upon the Soul, not that he designed to supersede our reason, but to quicken it and to set it so much the more industriously on work, and withal, by a reducing it to an acknowledgement of its own defects, to make it submit the more entirely to him whose power was able so far to outreach its utmost capacity; Miracles were the common objects of men's senses, and indeed appeals to them: and when the Jews had known a Man from his Childhood that was born blind, and when they saw him about forty years of age blest with sight, they had no reason to distrust the truth of that, of which they every moment saw the effects; where there was lodged a power sufficient ●o produce so extraordinary an effect, and the kindness and usefulness of the mi●●● wrought would vindicate it from 〈…〉 of any malignant spirit, it 〈…〉 conclude, that in the same person was centred a veracity agreeable to that power, and consequently it was reasonable to believe what ever was delivered by so great and so benign a Power. But after all, as reason could not possibly give an account of the manner of working so sensible a miracle, but by resolving all into omnipotence, nor was it necessary it should: so neither was it necessary reason should comprehend every thing that was spoken by God, and yet it lies under a necessity of believing every thing true that's so spoken, and that again upon a rational principle, viz. that He who speaks, being God, can neither deceive nor be deceived. But as those who engage themselves in the study of any particular Science, understand but little at first of its reason, but by assiduity and diligence come to see throughly into it; so it is in matters of religion, he that's but a Babe can bear no stronger nourishment than milk, he that's stronger can digest substantial meats, i. e. the beginner in those studies must pretend to nothing farther than what's very plain and easy; but when by continual meditation be has made those plain things familiar to him, there will some consequences offer themselves, not so plain, but every whit as true as the first principles, and that reason which at first was ready to stumble at the most obvious notions, will afterwards digest those at a greater distance, and be as strongly convinced of them as of the former; but in the chain of consequences somewhat will occur at last beyond the reach of the largest unbeatified Soul. Thus that Man is naturally miserable. is a truth undeniable by reason of our every days experience, nature's light has confirmed the World in the truth; yet Man is very apt to stumble and perplex himself at the occasion and ground of his being so: doubts arise in the case from some weak reflections upon God's justice and goodness; yet it's universally believed, and the reading of Scripture farther confirms the truth; that Man, miserable as he is, making use of such and such means, may be happy, is a truth revealed, and without revelation imperceptible; yet now it's once revealed, reason can properly argue, that the same things or qualifications which would have secured happiness to Man at first, must do so now, and the attainment of Innocence, was that original mean, Innocence the indispensible qualification; But reason proves again that that primitive Innocence is really unattainable now, and it will proceed thus far further, that either there must be some way discovered to make up that unhappy defect, or else Man must sink in his natural misery, and all the care he can take to prevent it will do him no service: here divine revelation goes along with him too, and what reason, as now affected, could never have dreamt of, we have a revelation relating to the making up of this defect, and that by the Incarnation and Passion of the Son of God, but there Faith rests upon Revelation alone, and gets no assistance at all from reason, but only from that distant principle, that the revealer cannot deceive nor be deceived: reason can come no nearer, nor can it judge of the revelation by any other principle, yet the Man who believes not this, how little soever he can understand of it, is in a state of damnation. The wonderful wisdom and goodness of Almighty God appears in this, as acting in the most difficult case and in the kindest manner, but to suppose the wisdom and the goodness of God in so prodigious effects should not surpass our discursive faculty, is absurd, as reducing divine perfections to humane rules; but it never can be unbecoming to an ordinary Christian to express himself in these things, as the Apostle does in what relates to them, O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God 
Rom●●. 33.  how unsearchable are his judgements, and his ways past finding out! where Schlicktingius himself tells us his judgements are unsearchable: Quod eorum causam ac rationem & illa ipsa nemo perscrutari possit, because none can find out either the cause or reason of God's judgements, or the judgements themselves: and afterwards, Idem ille qui solus haec potest facere, 
Schlickt. in locum.  solus etiam potest cognoscerè, He alone can understand these things who can do them, that is, only God: yet these considerations should be no discouragement to any, from improving their reason, even in matters of faith, since tho' reason can never in this life comprehend them all, yet many of those things which appear very strange, uncouth or mysterious to a young unexperienced Christian, are very clear and intelligible to those who have their senses exercised. As the very doctrine of the Cross, absurd and foolish to a novice, appears so necessary to one experienced in Christianity, that he knows not how to reconcile it to true sound reason without it; since Philosophy aims at something of that nature, and Christianity, if truly asserted, must infinitely transcend Philosophy in the excellence and usefulness of its instructions. Maximus therefore answers well to that objection of Heretics against the use of reason in matters of a Divine nature, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. But there are some things in them which transcend our understanding: I own it, but let us learn this too from Scripture, that there are some things to be searched after by our reason, because they are attainable. For as it argues no piety to be prying into every thing, so it argues as little to look into nothing: what we adore we all know, 
vid. Vedelii rationale. Theol p 766.  according to that Text, we know what we worship but to inquire how great, what his nature 〈◊〉, how or where he exists, is direct mad●●●●● our Rule therefore with respect to chosen ●●●●hs revealed, must be this, Not only to believe what's laid down there, because we understand it, but because we believe it as laid down there, therefore to endeavour to understand it; so reason comes into its proper place, it owns its imperfections and its powers both; it puts itself into the way of divine assistance, and grows capable every moment of improvement towards perfection. But we conclude,  
That this perfection is not completely attainable till all our inquiries after happiness are completed in the enjoyment of it: as the good Christian is ever growing in grace, so he's ever growing in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, which knowledge despises not the use of reason, but considers it, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Strem. l. 6.  as Clemens of Alexandria calls it, as the lowest step of the ladder of Christian philosophy, the lowest step indeed, but yet a step which they that would climb higher must make use of; and if they would but carefully observe how in all Christian improvements reason has still its share, that it grows stronger and stronger in its aspiring after what's good, that faith itself as it finds reason treading in its footsteps, grows more vigorous and unconquerable, that yet at best there are a great many clouds hanging upon it arising from that mortal and declining state we are in in this world: These observations would reduce the extravagant hopes of some in this life, and excite in them the more earnest long after the perfections of a better; and who, when he sees the glorious image of his Maker blotted and defaced, and knows there is a time to come when it shall be restored to its pristine integrity, would not think it extremely reasonable to long for that season? Faith and Hope and Charity are Christian Graces, the wings, if I may so call them, on which the divinely originated Soul soars towards Heaven; yet great and necessary as they are, the two first expire with mortality, the last immortal Charity survives beyond the limits of time. 
Heb. 11.1.  For Faith which is by the Apostle described as the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen, can have no place when we come to enjoy all we long for in the beatisick vision; we are to live by faith while on earth, that bearing us up above all those troubles and perplexities which attend us: but those are all past, and not to be repeated by all the malice of Hell itself, when we come to the Celestial Canaan, that land of everlasting rest. And as for Hope it respects futurity, and somewhat greater than we yet enjoy, but as that Apostle argues, Hope that is seen is not hope; for what a man sees, 
Rom. 8.14.  or is in possession of (for that's the meaning of the phrase) why does he yet hope for? In Heaven we see and are in possession of unallayed bliss, we hoped for it here, we have it there, so Hope having no farther object, dies too, but Charity survives still. The life of Heaven is nothing but peace and joy and love: all other passions which distract the Soul, have had their periods before; all that promote its blessed state continue still: but let Charity bear never so glorious a Character, Reason merely Humane in that glorious state outvies it still, and comprehends it as the greater does the less. We see there, beyond possibility of contradiction the reason of all God's dispensations towards Mankind, those intricate providences, which have so puzzled our Intellectuals here below, will then be plain and intelligible, nay fully and actually understood by all the Souls of just Men made perfect; all the unfitnesses of a corrupt carcase will be then removed, and a glorified body answer readily and naturally all the motions of the glorified Soul. And since we look upon knowledge as the end and perfection of the rational Soul, we may be assured that in a state of bliss, it shall have attained that perfection, 
1 Cor. 13.12.  for as St. Paul teaches us, We now see through a glass darkly, but then face to face: now we know in part, but then shall we know even as also we are known: and as St. John agreeably with him, though it does not yet appear what we shall be: for we see but darkly now and in part, yet we know that when our Lord shall appear at last, 
1 Joh. 3.2.  we shall be like 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 only a Corollary or two from thence; and then proceed.  
We conclude from what has been discoursed 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 pleased to continue it so far, as that rightly applied, 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 inquiries were accompanied 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 than it was to bring forth only briars and thorns; yet Man might eat bread from it still, only 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 itself naturally about trifles, and only puzzles and perplexes itself 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 only vain, troublesome and miserably false: this unhappiness is the consequence of our own follies at first, and its God's unmerited goodness, that we can yet by making use of due means distinguish in some measure between truth and falsehood, at least in the more obvious parts of religion: and his goodness yet appears farther, in that where our decrepit reason fails, he's pleased 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 itself upon, God has given us his Word, blessed are they who meditate on that word day and night: he calls upon us to apply ourselves 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 examined by the rule of right Reason, which whosoever follows, will be infinitely satisfied in them. In his deal 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 terrify with his judgements, 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 puffed up with self-conceit, must necessarily be a very religious man; for, the clearer any man's rational faculty is, the more pious he must be; only men of very low abilities can be either Atheists or Heretics. It's confessed indeed some Heretics, as the Socinians in particular, with whom we are at present concerned, pretend highly to Reason, but they only shame us with fond pretences, and their reason is all empty and sophistical; and Atheists are the Men of sense, if we may believe fools and madmen: but there is a vast difference between a flashy Wit and a ridiculing Humour, and sound judgement, 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 Heretics and Schismatics generally make their appeals to God's Word, and we have warning in that very Word, That in those doctrines where there's any show of difficulty, those who are unlearned and unstable wrest the Scriptures to their own destructions: We are warned to try the Spirits whether they be of God; and Scripture being the rule of trial, we are obliged to study the true sense 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 dependence upon or direct consequence from the places alleged, and the general consistency of opinions offered with the end and design of those positive truths laid down in Scripture, Reason has here a large field to exercise itself in. And whereas we are urged 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 dissuading 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 tenor 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 mysteries of Religion are revealed in Scripture: it proves God's goodness yet farther, he has by that means given Reason a task proper for its exercise. For tho' our Reason be not able to fathom all the depths of those mighty revelations; yet as Chemists seeking after their great Arcanum, tho' they miss the main design, yet by the way they make a thousand useful experiments, never otherwise to have been found out. So those who take due measures, and industriously insist in the searching the nature of mysteries in Religion; though they can never in this life reach their utmost extent, yet they attain many things in their quest, of a very useful and a very comfortable kind. Thus we see the Weeks of Daniel, the Visions of Ezekiel, the whole book of the Revelation have given abundance of employ to the best and wisest Christians, who yet have never been able to come to any considerable agreement in the Interpretation of them; yet the learned labours of many have been so far from lost, that many excellent truths have been fully cleared, many pious Souls wonderfully supported, and many controversies happily resolved to the security and edification of the Church of God. And we have found plainly that some have seen into those mystical secrets much more clearly than others, which argues their quicker apprehensions, and their more powerful assistances in their studies, and is withal a great encouragement to others to prosecute the same studies with patience; since tho' their progress is not great, it may be sure, where something is attained to, more may be; and we believe it was not without reason that the author of the Apocalypse in particular gins his Visions with that, 
Revel. 1.3. c. 22.7.  Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein, and to conclude them to the same purpose. And in his Vision of that beast with seven heads and ten horns to whom the Dragon imparted of his power which arose out of the sea, and of that other which came up out of the earth, that had horns like a Lamb and spoke like a Dragon, he gives a kind of challenge to humane Reason, Here is wisdom, 
Rev. 13.18.  let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast, for it is the number of a Man, and his number is 666. i e. Here's a task fit for a man to engage himself in, here's enough for him to exercise all his abilities upon. But it would be no such extraordinary blessing for a man to read a book, of which he could hope to understand nothing at all; and it would be no great evidence of a man's extraordinary wisdom, to spend his time in poring after the interpretation of a mystic number, and to find out to whom it belonged, if the whole was never designed to be in the least intelligible. No, God never set man at work in any inquiry, but he intended the profit should at least be worth the pains. It must be confessed that what Schlicktingius asserts is very true, Prophetae novi Testamenti, Christo jam exorto, arcana Dei ita explicarunt ut ab omnibus intelligi possint; & quae in novo Testamento scriptae extant futurorum praedictiones, claris verbis conceptae sunt: That the Prophets of the New Testament after Christ's appearance explained the secrets of God in such a manner as that they might be understood by all. And the predictions of future things in the New Testament are expressed in plain words: plain words may express very hard matters, and there's no need of uncouth Hyperboles, or enigmatical or ambiguous expressions to make a thing mysterious. Our Saviour preached in as plain a manner as ever any did or could; yet how did the Scribes and Pharisees, 
Schlicktin. in 2 op. Petri c. 1. v. 21.  nay, how did the Disciples themselves stumble at his familiar Parables? and tho' we have them in some measure interpreted to us in the Gospel-story, yet many learned and good men disagree in explaining several particulars contained in them still; And I have not yet found that our adversaries themselves pretend to an infallible exposition of any considerable difficulties: and the forenamed Author speaking concerning the book of the Revelation, tells us it was laid down in Visions and representations, Non tam ut Christiani distinctè cognoscerent quid futurum esset, id enim nec Ecclesiae, nec divinis consiliis expediebat, quin potiùs ut ex eventu praesignificatum id esse quod evenit, intelligerent: not so much that Christians should know what was in future times to come to pass; for that was neither agreeable to the Church's necessities nor to God's designs, but only that by the event of things Christians might be able to understand, that what happened had been foretold long since. This very comparing of predictions with events would require no small intention of our rational faculties; yet here he owns these Visions and representations to be mysterious so long till the event unriddle them. And there's no truth of so profound a nature, no expression in Scripture so difficult, but that futurity will make it all plain and delightfully intelligible to the Souls of just men made perfect: yet here's constant work for the soundest head, and the more such a one discovers of the mysteries of Religion, the more he'll be sensible of the defects of his own understanding, and he'll find the more reason to bless the name of God who has yet continued to him the ruins of a complete understanding: and given him such subjects to exercise it upon as may gradually raise it towards its original strength, till heaven's glory gives it a consummate perfection. But as we are obliged to be thankful to God for giving us the use of Reason, so we must take care  
To use our Reason in all debates about matters of Religion with that sober and humble Modesty as becomes Creatures so much decayed as we are in our most glorious endowments. It has been the abuse of reason, and a strange confidence in that which in itself at present is extremely weak, that has introduced so many Errors and Heresies into the Church of Christ, a humble and a modest Christian would always secure himself with the famous resolution of St. Augustine, Errare possum, Haereticus esse nolo, I may fall into an Error, but I will never be an Heretic, i. e. I'll never be obstinate in any singular opinion of mine own; too much diffidence of ourselves makes us slaves to every one that has boldness enough to contradict us; too much confidence renders us incorrigible in our follies, even when much wiser Men would undertake to instruct us; and nothing can provoke God more to baffle us in all our inquiries, than that innate pride which makes Men value themselves above what is fitting, for as St. James tells us, God resisteth the proud, 
Jam. 6.4.  but he giveth grace unto the humble; there are some things which relate to Religion, wherein God has delivered himself so, as to let us know words and names, but has not revealed enough to give us an insight into the matters which are intimated under them, Men need not trouble themselves too curiously about such things; Moses taught the Israelites very well, 
Deut. 29.29.  The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: and the Son of Syrach gives an excellent lesson, Seek not out things that are too hard for thee, neither search the things that are above thy strength, 
Ecclus. 3.21, 22.  but what is commanded thee think thereupon with reverence, for it is not needful for thee to see with thine eyes the things that are in secret. What if among such things I should reckon men's overcurious inquiries into the nature of God's decrees, which inquiries have produced a great many foolish and uncharitable controversies even among good men; there is employment enough for a good Man's whole life in things more needful to be known: I will not say it's absolutely unlawful to be prying into what God has thought fit to express himself very obscurely in, but this I'll say, that whosoever will be walking in those private paths had need to tread with a very gentle foot, to look frequently backward, and on each side, as well as forward, to be very distrustful of his own ability, very submissive to the judgement of Superiors in office, age or gifts, very earnest and indefatigable in his prayers to God for his assistance, as he shall see fit to impart it on such an occasion; very tender of imposing his own judgement upon others, and of being too positive in those opinions he takes up: since the corruption of our reason, a man frequently thinks he has made a very great discovery in some weighty point, and hugs himself with the plausibility of his thoughts, he imagines, (as we are generally apt to be very fond of the products of our own brains,) every thing he has laid down, or methodised in his thoughts, to be so very plain and clear, that it's impossible any man of sense should not immediately be his proselyte; and some perhaps are ready to flatter such a one in his overweening conceit, by a pretended concurrence in their sentiments with him: after all, it happens as often, that another of as great natural abilities, and as searching a head, discovers a great many mistakes in the others beautiful Scheme of thoughts, and baffles the whole invention the other had admired himself for: such things ought to make all, especially in religious matters, where it's dangerous jesting or innovating, to act with abundance of circumspection; and indeed rather to confine themselves to lower studies than to hazard the over-setting their own Intellectuals, by engaging into boundless inquiries. Those things may in themselves be lawful, which yet cannot be very convenient: Some such curiosities are very idle and ridiculous, as disputing what God did before he made the World; Whether He could have pardoned men's sins without a Mediator, etc. He was fatally answered to such a Question, who ask an Eminent Christian, what the Carpenter's Son, meaning Christ, was then a doing, was told, He was making a Coffin for such a lewd Inquirer as himself, who died in a very few hours after. 
Ecclus. 3.23.  The Son of Syrach advises well, Be not curious in unnecessary matters: for more things are showed unto thee than men understand. i e. God has laid open such infinite treasures of Divine wisdom before us, and our understandings are so very short, that we need not look out strange subjects of our meditations, it's enough if we can in some tolerable manner comprehend those sacred truths that are delivered to us: and we are more concerned to endeavour to do so, than some are ready to imagine. For though a Socinian may tell us, God has declared several things in holy Scripture, that are no way necessary to Salvation, the assertion is absurd and false; that old Axiom, Deus & Natura nihil faciunt frustra, That God and Nature never do any thing in vain is enough to refute it: for since the end of Scripture is the making Men wise to salvation, it's very bold to say God knew not how to frame such a Book, without abundance of impertinencies, when we see many Men, setting much slighter ends before themselves, will yet prosecute their discourses in so close and exact a manner, that the most critical judgement may perhaps find what to add, but cannot find what to take away from their writings; there is therefore no positive truth asserted in holy Writ, but what is really useful to Man's Salvation, since there's nothing throughout the whole, but what serves to illustrate God's goodness, and mercy, and truth, etc. or Man's misery by Sin, or happiness by Grace, or lays down rules of life and practice, or gives us examples of Virtues or Vices in others, from all which something very instructive may be drawn; nor can we believe that even the genealogical Tables in Scripture were, as a late Writer impudently suggests, designed only to amuse and confound us, but to set us in a way to find how all the ancient Prophecies centred in Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah. As the positive assertions, so their true and genuine consequences are in some sort, and to some Men necessary to salvation, God, having given greater capacities, and larger Souls to some than he has to others, expects proportionable improvements from them, and a Man of wisdom and learning cannot be saved only on the same terms on which a person of low and mean endowments may; therefore those of greater parts are bound to look into every thing divinely revealed, and to what may be regularly deduced from it; but as perfection in good works is required in every one that is to be saved, and yet many are saved, tho' none are perfectly good; so it is in relation to things contained in Scripture, every one is bound to study them: things of common practice are plain and obvious in them, things at first to be believed are taken for granted, but Man is for his life-time employed, and to be so in farther search into the meaning of those things that are more obscure. Can Man once in his life-time attain to a perfect understanding of every thing set down there, there would quickly be an end of all sacred study; but since the wisest find in the Word of God more than they can understand; and yet find they every day by study understand more and more; and the meanest wits upon a due care and industry find proportionable advances, there is always enough to excite man's utmost diligence and care; and as in practical piety, so it is here, he that improves his time best to get knowledge, tho' he cannot reach to all he should, his defects shall be pardoned for his sake, who in himself contains consummate wisdom. But it remains still true, that it could not reasonably be required that a man should engage himself in the study of the whole Book of God if there were any thing positively asserted there, the knowledge and understanding of which would be lost time, as the studies of all impertinencies are. But howsoever necessary these studies are, if they are not prosecuted in a due manner, i. e. with an humble sense of our own natural defects, with a sober and submissive judgement, and with all that modesty which becomes one who is desirous to learn; they'll prove but mischievous, and make Heretics, Schismatics or Atheists, instead of knowing and improving orthodox Christians. It's true, that nothing ought to be admitted into Religion which is contrary to reason, but it must be understood, which is contrary to reason in its primitive integrity, for that which we call reason now we every one find extremely subject to mistakes: and for me to measure those truths which are revealed by an infallible God, by the standard of that sense or judgement which I know to be mistakeful and fallible, is unreasonable, with any sober discourser, to extremity: and it argues too great a pride in our low condition to imagine, that because once we were made perfect, that therefore we should in any respect continue so, though we had sought out to ourselves many inventions. Many are deceived by their own vain opinion, 
ver. 24.  says the Son of Syrach, and nothing can certainly be more prejudicial to a Man in his disquisitions after truth, than a great conceit of his own abilities to find it out. God commonly blasts such fond pretenders to ingenuity, and makes them take a great deal of pains only to procure infamy and perpetual disgrace to themselves. Such mischiefs would be avoided, yet Humane Reason have its due use and esteem if the Apostles injunction were well obeyed, that no man should think of himself more highly than he ought to think, 
Rom. 12.3.  but to think soberly according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. Men ought when they meet with any difficulties in divine Writings, not to make their Reason the measure of Truth, but to make Truth the measure of their Reason; and rather to suspect their own apprehension of it, than the weakness, or ambiguity on the defectiveness of the author's assertions or expressions. And so much for the use of Humane Reason in matters of Religion; it's a great blessing to us still tho' impaired by sin, and if soberly and modestly used will by divine assistance rise to a greater strength and vigour, and be able to comprehend every day more and more of the mystery of Godliness, till it comes in a glorified state to comprehend every thing that can any way contribute to its consummate happiness.  
Having gone thus far in the debate concerning the use of Humane Reason in matters of Religion, and declared how careful we should be not to indulge ourselves in vain and useless curiosities; for the vindication of ourselves as Christians we are to consider, that a full proof of the Divinity of the Son of God is a task that comes under no reproof in the case. That the blessed Jesus the great captain of our Salvation is God as well as Man, that he is God of God, light of light, very God of very God, as the Nicene Creed expresses it; that he is perfect God, not a factitious or an aequivocal God, as some would have him; but that He who is God the Son is infinite in all his Attributes, God over all blessed for ever, as God the Father is, is Articulus stantis aut cadentis Ecclesiae, such an Article of our Christian Faith, so essential to the Mystical Body of Christ, that while it's embraced, the Church has a real Being; when it's laid aside, the very Being of the Church expires at the same time. It's so necessary an Article of Faith, that except a man keep it whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly: for he that believes in such a Messiah, such a Saviour who is not God, is really an Idolater, as fixing his belief in one that is not able to save. For Man's misery is too great to be relieved by any inferior power; and the blood of Bulls and of Goats might as well have served for the expiation of Humane guilt, as the sufferings of one who was a mere man, and consequently could have no proper merit to plead for us, no inherent power wherewith to assist us. Some of those Heretics who deny the Divinity of the Son of God, have been so sensible of this, that they have maintained and preached it in those Congregations where they have been concerned, That it's as lawful to pray to the blessed Virgin, or to any other Saint, or any Angel, as it is to pray to the Son of God: and that all those are really guilty of Idolatry, who make any such Prayers or Supplications to him. Now though other Socinians call these blasphemers on this account: they are really injurious to 'em; for if that which they all agree in be true, viz. That Jesus Christ is not the most high God, than whosoever worships him as God, breaks the first and second Commandments as much as those of the Church of Rome do, and are as notorious Idolaters, as we shall hereafter have occasion to prove. In quest then of the truth of this doctrine, That Jesus Christ is the true God, we are to bend our Reason, and to meet and baffle those great pretenders to it with their own weapons, and to prove to them that though we think the mystery of godliness to be great, as the Text asserts it, to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as S. Chrysostom expresses it, to be unexpressible and wonderful and incomprehensible; yet we receive some considerable advantages from its being revealed: for by that means we know the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the positive truth, that he who appeared in the flesh visible to humane eyes, and so far humbled to atone for humane Crimes, was really God: hence to be adored by us, hence able to perform the work he came about, and to save to the utmost all those that come to the Father in and by him; and this we firmly and steadfastly believe, tho' we cannot comprehend the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or the manner how so great a miracle of Mercy should be brought about: and those proofs by any particulars whatsoever laid down, of this truth, using reason with that sobriety and modesty which we ought, we may examine and try throughly, and judge how far they come up to those things they are designed to make good; and so our Faith it self may be rational and thence invincible, tho' every particular of it be not intelligible to us in its full extent. With relation to the Text than we assert  
That the Mystery of Godliness which the Apostle tells us is great, cannot be applied to the several particulars laid down in 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 preached by weak Men we own, nay, that our Saviour himself in his state of exinanition, or in his humane nature appeared weak and contemptible enough we own too: but that the Gospel appeared in the flesh, or clothed 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 preached, we may own well enough; but that the Gospel was seen of Angels is scarce sense, that it was never known before it had been declared by Men is false, for the Angels could not be unacquainted with the several Prophecies of the old Testament concerning the Messiah 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 appeared 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 subjoined 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 preached it: not to mention their administering to our Saviour in the wilderness, when entering 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 preached unto the Gentiles, and believed on in the World; but it was far from being received in glory: for it was scorned 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 than 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 preached 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 paralleled either in Scripture, or any Ecclesiastical Writer. We read not any where that God the Father ever appeared in the flesh, or assumed Humane nature, nor did ever any dream of such a thing, unless we recur to the ancient Patropassians, so called, because they believed it was really God the Father, who being Incarnate suffered death on the Cross, for the sins of Mankind, but of that we have no footsteps in holy Writ: nor was the Deity itself ever made manifest in the flesh, but in the flesh of the blessed Jesus, 
Col. 2.9.  in whom dwelleth all the fullness 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 show 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 fabric 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 promised Messiah; and those done by the Apostles after his ascent into Heaven, carried along with them the same respect; but we never heard of any public 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 fly 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 designed to make known the greatest mystery in the world, should lash out into such absolute impertinencies? but to proceed, God the Father was preached to the Gentiles, but where? he's mentioned often doubtless as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in those Epistles written by the Apostles, to their Gentile Converts, but the Gospel itself is styled 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 preached, he was certainly preached most to the Antediluvian World by Noah and the elder Patriarches, or he was preached to the Jews, of whom we acknowledge that they had no such distinct notions of the Trinity, as we by the Gospel's assistance have at present; but yet both among Jews and Gentiles he was declared by other names, than that of God the Father: and if, according to our common Logical notions, Relatives do mutually suppose or remove one another, if Jesus Christ was not really and actually the Son of God, pre-existent to his incarnation, the name of Father could not properly have been applied to the supreme God, nor he be preached to the World under that character; so that in fine, we conclude that the preaching of God the Father to the World, was no part of the Mystery of Godliness: Nor is it properly so to say, that God the Father was believed on in the World, for that too was nothing newly effected by the appearance of our Saviour, the World in general from its first original believed there was a God, if there were any who from those apprehensions they had of the existence of a God, set themselves to live virtuously, as considering that God under the notion of a knowing and severe Judge, and one capable of rewarding men according to their works, such Persons believed in God according to our own sense, when we repeat the Creed: Now that some did thus believe before our Saviour's appearance in the flesh is unquestionable; all those who lived religiously before the promulgation of the Mosaic Law, did thus believe in God, and are some of them remembered as the great Heroes of Faith, in the beginning of the Eleventh Chapter to the Hebrews: If then this were a Mystery, it was of a very ancient standing, and discovered long before the coming of Christ. The application of the particulars thus far failing, we have some reason to believe, that neither will the last agree any better to that imposed sense; He was received up in glory, or into glory: Here our adversaries fly to God's will again, so confounding God and God's will, as if they were not to be considered as distinct, but this we have considered before, where we observed that contradiction the Gospel met with in the World: As to God the Father, where or when, or how, or by whom was he received up in glory, the holy Scriptures give us no intimation of his having descended at any time from Heaven to Earth, and He that's received up into glory ought to be so received by some Being superior to himself, which a Socinian knows God the Father cannot have, now as the Apostle teaches us, He that descended, 
Eph. 4.10.  is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things: but God the Father never that we hear of in Scripture descended, therefore God the Father who ever of himself was surrounded with infinite glory, never was by any received up into glory: And thus have we shown the vanity of those glosses, which the Socinians, and others have fixed upon this Text; we shall now show to whom the particulars in the Text do properly and unquestionably belong.  
And here, since Scripture makes it very plain, that the whole method of serving God in an acceptable manner, is laid down by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ: That, as himself tells us, He is the Way, the Truth, 
John 14.6.  and the Life, and no man comes to the Father but by him: The whole mystery of Godliness or of true Christian Religion can consist in nothing, but what refers to him, who is the author of it, that is the blessed Jesus; concerning whom, and whose do and sufferings for us, there is nothing revealed in the Gospel, or in the foregoing prophecies, but what's mysterious: He was indeed God manifest in the flesh, God blessed for ever, yet for the sake of wretched Sinners descending to Earth, and taking our Nature upon him, being clothed with flesh, and all those encumbrances and infirmities attending upon a mortal state, sin only excepted; He is that eternal Word which was in the beginning with God, nay that Word that was God, 
John 1.1.14.  and that Word was made flesh, and dwelled among us, as we learn from St. John: Now if Christ really was God, the most opinionative of the Socinians would conclude the Text plain enough, for that Christ was certainly and literally made flesh: but if we cannot read this Text of the Apostle truly without inserting the word God: And Smalcius one of the great promoters of the Socinian heresy declares; 
Smalc. de verbo incarnato. c. 18.  Nos Graecum textum Vulgatae longe esse anteponendum censemus, is vero habet Deum in carne esse manifestatum, We look upon the Greek Text as far to be preferred before the Vulgar Latin, and the Greek reads it, God was manifest in the flesh: and if neither the Gospel, nor the will of God, nor God the Father can properly or truly be said to be made flesh, and yet God was manifest in the flesh, then that Jesus who was truly and literally clothed with our flesh, must be that God; the farther proof of Christ's real and eternal Divinity belongs to another place: but his true and indisputable humanity is the first plain and most obvious assertion of the Apostle here: This same blessed Jesus was as plainly justified in the Spirit, since not only the miracles he did justified him in the sight of all Mankind, and proved that he could be no cheat or Impostor, as the Jews were willing to have him thought, but at the time of his Baptism by John in Jordan, while he was praying, the Heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape, like a Dove, upon him, and a voice came from Heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son, 
Luke 3.21, 22.  in thee I am well pleased: Now the Holy Spirit would not in so open a manner have descended on him, who had pretended to that relation to Almighty God, which really never belonged to him: Therefore John the Baptist makes a right inference from that descent; I saw, says he, 
Joh. 1.32,  the Spirit descending from Heaven like a Dove, and it abode upon him: And I knew him not, 
v. 33, 34.  but he that sent me to baptise with water, the same said unto me, Upon 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 the Son of God. Our Lord himself makes it one of his last instructions to his Disciples, that when the Comforter, that Holy Spirit whom he would send, should come, he should, amongst other things, convince the world of righteousness; because He, the blessed Jesus, went to his Father, and the world should see him no more: 
c. 16. v. 8. 10, 14.  and that that Holy Spirit should glorify him, for he should receive of his and show it to men. And thus effectually that Sacred Spirit when he was so plentifully according to promise poured out on the Apostles and their companions, enabled them to prove that Christ was the Son of God: and to confirm their rational arguments and deductions from the Old Testament by a thousand signs and miracles, such as made the most stubborn of mankind bow their necks to the yoke of Christ, and own that He was truly what he called himself, the Son of God, and the Saviour of the World. If we proceed according to the Apostles method, Jesus Christ God Incarnate was seen of Angels, seen with the greatest admiration, since even Angelic intellectuals could never have reached so far as to imagine God's love to mankind, which yet they knew to be extraordinary, should show itself in so prodigious a condescension: Yet when he was pleased to stoop so low, the Angels saw, and knew, and praised him tho' wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger: they adored him, and administered to him, tho' tempted forty days and forty nights by the Devil in the wilderness; they attended him with their ministerial comforts, when in that bitter agony in the garden when praying more earnestly his sweat was as it had been great drops of blood falling down to the ground; 
Luke 22.43, 44.  They attended his sepulchre, when he shook off the fetters of Death, 
Matt. 28.2, 3, 4. Acts 1.10.  and broke through the confinement of the grave, striking terror on the trembling Watch, but bringing comfort to the women whose early zeal brought them first to the sacred Sepulchre; and they waited as diligently on his ascent into Heaven, so that they saw him, and admired that immense love which appeared so glorious in his humble, and so powerful in his exalted state. This Saviour of the world, that he might really be so, was preached unto the Gentiles, the Word of God was now confined no longer to the Jewish nation, that vail of the Temple rend in twain when he gave up the ghost upon the Cross, took away that wall of separation which was between those Jews and the rest of mankind, and through him both Jews and Gentiles have access by one Spirit unto 
Eph. 2.28.  the father: Now of himself, in this case He taught his disciples after his resurrection, That thus it behoved Christ to suffer, 
Luke 24.46, 47.  and to rise from the dead the third day: and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations beginning at Jerusalem. Thus Philip preached Christ in Samaria, Paul preached him every where in the Synagogues; Paul declares to the Corinthians, We preach Christ crucified, 
1 Cor. 1.23, 24.  to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness: but unto them which are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. And many Texts we meet with declaring the same thing, and teaching us, that it's the great incumbent duty on all those who call themselves Pastors of the flock of Christ, to preach him, and him only to the world. For he who was so preached to the Gentiles was indeed believed on in the world; The three Eastern Sages, who adored our Saviour in his infant age, were the first fruits of the Gentile world, and even Samaritans were profelyted to his Doctrine while he conversed with the world; to believe in him was that condition without which Salvation could not be attained. So he teaches Nicodemus, 
John 3.16.  God so loved the world, that he sent his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life. 
v. 18.  He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already: because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. It was a just sense of the indispensible nature of this condition, that made men submit so readily to the first preaching of the Apostles, and fly out so eagerly and so early into that Question, What shall we do to be saved? 'Twas that which in Judaea brought multitudes daily into the Church, of such as should be saved: and enabled S. Paul to preach the Gospel fully from Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum, and that with extraordinary success: and gave Tertullian in the Second Century a just ground to boast of the vast multitudes of Christians in every quarter of the Roman Empire. And to this day the same blessed Jesus is the only rational hope of all that dwell on the earth, and of those that remain on the broad Sea. To conclude this explication of the Text, this same Jesus after he had done and suffered so much for our sakes, while he conversed with and blest his Disciples, 
Luke 24.51.  he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven: He had at last that Petition answered which in the days of his flesh he put up to his Father. Now O Father glorify thou me with thine own self, 
John 17.5.  with the glory which I had with thee before the world was! And if it was glorious for Elijah to be carried up to Heaven in his fiery chariot while Elisha was a spectator of his translation; how much more glorious was it when our Saviour in the open view of all his followers, had the clouds themselves humbly bowing to his feet to raise him thither, where he sits continually at the right hand of his Father making intercession for us miserable sinners. Having thus given the true interpretation of the Text, take its full meaning together in this Paraphrase, S. Paul still speaking to and instructing Timothy as in this Verse he does.  
It's not without great Reason that I have given thee, who art thyself a Bishop in it, such directions about those whom thou art to admit as Ministers in the Church of God. That Religion our blessed Master has bequeathed to us, has nothing in it but what is Holy and Pure, too pure to be touched with unclean hands, and not fit for every unlearned and presuming Novice to meddle with. The whole Body of our Faith is founded upon such things as are infinitely true, but of so sublime and surprising a Nature, that the strongest Humane Reason can never wholly comprehend them all: let me but name them as revealed, and all mankind will soon agree, that the most soaring and capacious Soul must falter in its inquiries after them. The eternal Son of God, God equal with his Father, the great Creator of all things; rather than perishing man should be eternally lost, resolved to atone divine vengeance with his own sufferings, and since without blood there could be no remission, and the immense Divinity could not suffer so, He took flesh and blood, our weak and passable nature upon himself, and in our nature offered himself a sacrifice to his Father for us. This glorious Sacrifice produced the great effect, and reconciled our angry Judge; but that undertaking was too great for man, tho' so deeply concerned, to believe; the chasm between an holy God and polluted man too wide and hideous deep ever to be made up. It's true, when God himself was mentioned as the undertaker of so great a work, even despairing man might entertain some dawning hopes; but when they saw a poor Carpenter's Son, one who had not so much as where to lay his head, assume yet the glorious title of the world's Redeemer and Saviour, their hopes slagged, their almost grasped joys seemed just vanishing into empty air: When the Holy Ghost, God too, infinitely good, and powerful, and wise, interposed, and attended that humble Man with so much vigour and constancy, that He, by a thousand glorious actions, and by a close and perpetual correspondence with Heaven, visible even to vulgar eyes, proved the entire Union that was between himself and his Father, and that Sacred Spirit: and justified himself in the thoughts of very aliens themselves, who could not but acknowledge, of a truth, that, for all his mean appearance and his scandalous Passion on the Cross, He was the Son of God. But could men have doubted still, the happy Angels those purer and more discerning Spirits saw him too, they saw him and knew him, and adored him, they saw their mighty Lord, tho' veiled in all the rags of poor mortality: And tho' sin might have made a former breach between those blessed Spirits and polluted man; yet now where their Lord loved they loved too, and always looked, and always waited on him while he wrought the world's redemption: while he was so justified and so attended on, divers gave up themselves absolutely to his service, whom he loved, and taught, and protected, and endued with miraculous knowledge, eloquence and courage, and sent them on that blessed errand to preach to the Gentiles the glad tidings of Salvation in his name: They boldly undertook the work, and tho' they had ignorance and prejudice, and malice and cunning to contend with: mere men contemned before, but then inspired, broke through all opposition, and the forsaken Gentiles heard the gladsome sounds of peace; and tho' there were too many enemies to their own good, yet those laborious messengers of Heaven preached with that power and efficacy, that men began every where to call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Nay, the more men of perverse minds crossed the designs of that Gospel preached in the name of the Son of God, the more those who believed in him were multiplied. As for himself, when he had finished that stupendous work, and by his own Death had conquered Hell and Death; He broke those fatal chains, and risen again, no more liable to humane rage. His Almighty Father who had viewed all the prodigious efforts of his Love to mankind with an ineffable complacency, reached out his holy arm to receive that very humane Nature in which his beloved Son had done and suffered so much: from him the cheerful clouds were sent for a Chariot, and he went upwards flying upon the wings of the wind, while j●cund Angels, those ministerial flames, waited on his triumphs, and taught his wondering followers what they were afterwards to expect from their Redeemer: These are those mighty mysteries, on which our most holy faith is built, their truth, however unintelligible to us, is our security, and the sincerity of our faith will necessarily show itself in an holy conversation and godliness. The Verse I have explained, then imports,  
That without Controversy the Mystery of Godliness is great; or in more words, That the Basis or foundation of that Religion introduced into the World by the Doctrine of Christ's Gospel, is indisputably and agreeably to the nature of Religion, to Humane reason extremely profound and unintelligible. To prove this, we shall inquire,  
Into the Universal agreement of all persons, of what Religion soever; That Mysteries are essential to Religion.  
Whether our Saviour intended the entire abolition of all other Religions, for the settlement of his own, or rather to unite what was good in every distinct Religion into one, and to sublime or perfect that so, as it might tend most to God's glory, and Man's happiness, and whether that could be effected, Men standing in their present corrupt state, without the retaining of old, or instituting of new Mysteries in his Religion.  
What considerable advantages can accrue to Religion, from those Mysteries it's founded upon?  
Then we must inquire into that Universal agreement of all persons whatsoever, that Mysteries, or some principles or circumstances of a more secret and abstruse nature, are essential to all Religion: But here to prevent all mistakes, it must be remembered, That so much as concerns the practical part of Religion, as contained in the Word of God, is so clear and evident, that the words of St. Paul are justly applied to them, If they be hid, they are hid to those that are lost, whose eyes the God of this World hath blinded, that the light of the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ should not shine upon them: 
2 Cor. 4.3, 4.  The words whereby all things necessary to be done toward the attainment of eternal life, are expressed, are such and so plain, that the simplest Christian may understand them: And that person who goes about to involve the practical duty of a Christian, whether in respect of his communication with God or man, in obscure and mysterious terms, crosses the end of the Gospel, which is to instruct the weakest understanding in an easy and intelligible way how to live godly, righteously, and soberly in this present evil world; yet it must be acknowledged, that, even in relation to practice, there are some apparent difficulties; and notwithstanding all that plainness apparent in God's word, a Man has a very hard task sometimes to distinguish between what's lawful and what's unlawful; such cases are commonly known by the name of Cases of Conscience, or such matters wherein so many arguments, seemingly strong and plausible, appear on both sides to the understanding, that it knows not which way to act, and all that hesitancy or doubtfulness arises only from a fear of offending God: These generally respecting Christian practice, create a great deal of trouble, frequently to very good Men, (for others are seldom troubled with such religious fears) and these are sometimes by various and unusual circumstances rendered so very intricate, that the wisest and most discerning Men are often at a loss to clear and resolve them to the Querent's satisfaction: Here the Jews were ordered to have recourse to their Priests, whose lips were supposed to preserve knowledge, and the Priests when there was any thing of a more inextricable nature, had the Vrim and Thummim to appeal to: The Heathens had some emergent doubts, as to matter of public management of themselves, which sometimes perplexed them too, and they had their imaginary wise Men the Priests, attending their desecrated altars, who would assume, as if they had the art of resolving doubts; those who profess Christianity have still a severer task in these matters, as having no Oracle immediately to consult, and having doubts more numerous and obscure to contend with. But here learning, and study, a strict familiarity with God's Word, and an exercised experience carry the Christian Priest through a great many vexatious inquiries, and a modest consultation with others, who are blest with such qualifications, tends much to the settlement of dubious minds; but after all, these are properly no mysteries, for the rules of Scripture, by which such inquiries are ultimately determined, are very plain and obvious to every understanding, their nature being like that of a Light in a dark place, which serves to guide and direct Travellers in the way they should go; but the occasion of these doubts is the misapplication of rules to matter of fact, the misapprehension or misrepresentation of circumstances, etc. wherein the distempers of the Soul are much like the diseases of the body, if the Patient can give a just and rational account of those parts about him which are grieved, and how he finds himself, the Physician easily understands the disease, and is able to apply the proper medicines: but if the Patient gives a broken and uncertain account of his condition, even a skilful Physician may grossly mistake the disease and its remedy to the Patient's ruin; so when doubting Christians understand not the state of their own Souls, nor the first motives or occasions of their fears, or where they are afraid or ashamed to lay open themselves with all sincerity to him, from whom they expect relief, it's not to be wondered at, if excellent advices fail of their proper effect, whereas a true insight into a Man's self makes the greatest seeming difficulties easily and certainly determinable.  
As for matters of Faith they are of another nature, and (tho' matters of practice, so far as practice is religious, depend upon what the Christian believes altogether and are so very plain as I showed before) yet those objects of faith, are so far beyond the reach of reason, as it is from Earth to Heaven; nay, that very faith without which, as we are sufficiently assured, it's impossible to please God, though it be inherent in the pious Soul, is absolutely mysterious and inexplicable. We feel the prodigious force of it in those acts whereby it raises the Soul to a contemplation of Divine things, but it is as the Prophets of old felt the inspiring energy of the sacred Spirit, when they spoke what it dictated, but could give no account of the methods of its operation in them; the Apostle when he tells us of it, that its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Heb. 11.1.  the substance of things hoped for, and that it's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the argumental evidence of things not seen; tho' he gives us doubtless an authentic description of that necessary grace, yet shows the unintelligible nature of it by his very expressions: for what difference is there among Learned Men, and how much pains taken to clear the meaning of this description? It imports indeed that true faith is of so efficacious a nature, that tho' it have respect only to things which are at a distance, yet it represents them to the Soul so plainly and so powerfully, that the Soul reaps equal satisfaction from that distant view as it would from an immediate possession. Meginhardus the Germane Monk writes well of it, when he says, Faith is called the substance of things hoped for by a figure, not that it's really their proper substance, but because that faith which works by love, by which the just live, and by which power is given to us that we should be called and really be the Sons of God, that faith in the troublesome pilgrimage of this life meditates on the reward of eternal happiness with so firm and certain an hope,  in corum cordibus qui charitate, quae per spiritum sanctum in eyes diffusa est, dilatantur, 
Vid. Dictericum in voce.  jam nunc per ineffabile desiderium ea faciat subsistere, that even at this time by that ineffable ardency of desire they are possessed with, it makes them subsist in their hearts who have hearts enlarged with that charity or Love which is poured into them by the holy Spirit; and Jaeobus Capellus in our Critics explains the same Apostolical expression thus, Fiducia est velut in station manens ac rem promissam expectans cum animi submissione, habénsque simul vim & statuminandi sperantem, & sistendi rem speratam; i. e. This faith is a confidence well fixed and settled, waiting for the thing promised with a due submission of mind, and having a force in itself sufficient to support him that hopes, and to bring to hand the thing hoped for. Again, it's the evidence of things not seen, therefore out-going humane reason in this life, for if humane reason were clear enough to prove to us those things undeniably which we expect in a future state, there would then be no need of any other evidence, at least we should not by the Apostle be referred to an evidence naturally more obscure, when reason, that by which we do or should most commonly act, could give us what was much more plain and obvious; but our reason being notoriously defective in the case, our firm belief that there is an Heaven of joys, and an Hell of woes to be met with hereafter, is an argument not to be answered, that there are really such things; for the Soul of Man is not easily carried out of itself into violent long after a mere fantastical good, nor is it ordinarily terrified with apprehensions of Mormoes' or bugbears, but where it runs out most into fabulous or figurative expressions of its expectations, there's somewhat real and sound in the bottom; so those that talk of infernal Judges in Hell, and various kinds of sensible pains to be there felt, and of Furies torturing Souls, etc. all agree certainly in that, that vengeance does certainly attend ill actions, and that tho' Men may escape plausibly in this world, they shall certainly suffer terribly in the next, tho' they cannot make a tolerable conjecture how a guilty Spirit should suffer to such extremity: In the same manner, those that tell us of Elysian fields adorned with variety of beautiful Flowers, blest with a serene Air and a continual Spring, where those that have done well, happy in each others society, shall live in undisturbed pleasures beyond the reach of fates malice, or times consumption, All such prove their certain belief, that there is and shall be a reward for the righteous, that is an unallayed felicity to be attained; but what a kind of felicity that is which is infinite and eternal, who can tell? nay who would value them as the Saints do, if they could possibly comprehend them? No, it is because eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man to conceive how great those things are, which God has prepared for those that love him, Therefore the holy and the wise are always panting after those enjoyments, as the thirsty Hart pants after the water brooks, therefore they are willing to undergo every thing that a malignant World can lay upon them, as being certainly assured, that whatsoever the joys of Heaven are, all the afflictions or sufferings they can meet with in this World are not worthy to be compared with them; Impressions looking toward these things are so natural to the Soul of Man, that all the artifices of wickedness are not able to efface them, and yet the consequences of these impressions are so great and mysterious, that all the wit of Man cannot possibly comprehend them, yet faith goes through with all, and is not, cannot be mistaken in its confidence at last.  
If Faith itself, the continual security of the Soul, be so dark and undefinable, what must we judge of the objects of it, they being generally so vast, that Faith itself, soaring as it is, can go but a very little way in its Ideas of them: that the objects of Faith are real and true, is evident from what has been said, that their Nature is incomprehensible, and their Reasons inscrutable to created Being's, is as true, but not at all to be wondered at; since there are a thousand common effects of Nature, the truth of which we are beyond contradiction convinced of: but why they should happen so or so, the cunningest Philosophers are no more able to resolve than despised Idiots or Naturals. Agreeably to what I am urging I instanced before in the being of God, a truth which Men cannot balk tho' they take never so much pains to that purpose; that this God, this supreme Governor or Manager of all things must some way or other communicate himself to his Creatures, for that otherwise they could neither pretend to a well being, or a being, is as clear by rational discourse: but how God should communicate of himself to these creatures, where there is so vast a disproportion in their Natures, is a riddle which we have not yet found any Apollo subtle enough to resolve; and yet that God does communicate himself to his creatures is as plain, and undeniable. Those who engage themselves into inquiries about these things do but lose themselves in inextricable Labyrinths, and indeed, according to the genuine rules of right reason, do but take pains to no purpose; it was that general sense which mankind all along has had of these things, that has made them endeavour to frame some short Ideas of the Deity to themselves, and so, tho' they could conceive nothing adequate to his Nature, yet they have run high as words can carry them, when they style God a being infinitely just, powerful, good, merciful, wise, etc. These general notions of theirs in some measure influenced the lives of many, but much more all the external and visible parts of their religious Devotions: And when they have showed their utmost skill in contriving Schemes of divine Worship, those men have done best and most suitably to the nature of Religion, who have contrived the outward parts of it so, as they might a little shadow out the necessary apprehensions of the divine Nature, and yet so too that the Devotoes, who made the nicest observations of things, might be sensible, that those external religious shows referred to a great deal of a darker and more inintelligible nature, and which no Symbols whatsoever could possibly illustrate or represent; and those Divine Oracles which were spoken of in all parts of the World, as they rendered Religion more August and Venerable to the eye of the World, so the nature of those Oracles convinced the World yet more strongly of the defectiveness of humane understanding, the certain knowledge of futurity where men imagine themselves free agents, being Essential to the Deity, but one of the most puzzling things humane Reason can possibly fix upon: This the Romans and their predecessors the Latins represented by a Janus with two faces, the Etrurians by a Janus with four, which might, as some tell us, refer to the four parts of the year, but more genuinely it represented the Deity looking every way, so that nothing past, present or to come could possibly avoid its knowledge; and the Prophets of old had that character as communicated to them from the inspiring Deity, that they knew, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Didymus in Hom. Iliad. 1. v. 70.  it being as Didymus tells us, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the part of a complete Prophet to understand exactly the three differences of times. Men are apt to be presuming enough on the depth of their own understanding, but we find Heresies, since the propagation of Christianity, have taught men much more confidence than ever Nature did; and therefore as we find Philosophers of old the more rational the more modest, but that those who set up for senseless Paradoxes made it their business to hector every body into their own notions, and to make up their want of argument by face and metal, as we may see in Lucretius his Epicurean Poem, So Schismatics and Heretics in the Christian Church, the farther they fly from the genuine practice of ancient Christians and the Doctrine of the Gospel, the more positive and daring they are in their assertions, the more close Communion they pretend to hold with God, and to be the very privadoes of Heaven; as the profligate Gnostics of old pretended to know every thing, when indeed they knew nothing; and some wretched Ignorants of late years, when they have been led Captives by the Devil at his will, have yet talked of being godded with God and Christed with Christ: And our followers of Socinus who run violently against the stream of Reason, bear themselves for the greatest rationalists in the world: Whereas Nature tho' corrupted taught Men modestly to own their own ignorance, to confess their inability to comprehend all those mysteries attendant on the Deity, to look upon shadows and representations of things at a distance, as the best way of imprinting reverence upon men's minds, and therefore to satisfy themselves with such shadows and figures, lest by pretending to more they should fall into absurdities, and by that means render themselves and Religion contemptible and ridiculous.  
God took a particular care of the Jewish Nation, and instituted all those Rites and Ceremonies which they made use of in their worship, all which Rites and Ceremonies were either so many remembrancers of things past, as the great goodness and mercy of God shown to the people of Israel, and his justice or vengeance on their enemies; or otherwise they were so many types and shadows of things to come, and particularly of that Messiah or Saviour of the world to be born into it in fullness of time: Now the manner of God's avenging himself on his own and his people's enemies was uncouth and prodigious; but the birth of a Saviour, one who by his interest with Heaven should visit and redeem his people, to procure Salvation for the whole world, was altogether a mystery, a means of procuring the world's happiness, which all the Wits in it could never have pitched upon. There was not among the Jews the least garment belonging to those who officiated in holy services which had not something mysterious in it, I own these Mysteries were not like those wherein our Faith is so deeply concerned, but they were Mysteries still, tho' of a lower form: and such Mysteries as the generality of the Jewish people were very far from diving into; yet Reason would have gone a considerable way in teaching the Jews what God insinuated to them by such prescriptions: All the circumstantials of Jewish worship were rendered the more considerable by those neverfailing Oracles issued out from between the Cherubims, and by Prophets raised up among them by God himself frequently, till such time as they lost the glory of their Nation by Captivity and Slavery to prevailing strangers: Those Revelations which such Prophets had, extending particularly to future events of things, were such as really entangled the Jews strangely, and they, who, among Mysteries revealed, had unhappily pitched upon a wrong interpretation of things, were uncapable at last of applying events to Prophecies and so ruined: It's true the Priests themselves at first understood the meaning of things well enough, but time corrupted them, and introduced ignorance among them as well as among the vulgar; but whatsoever the Priests understood at first, or how much soever of the true meaning of things they understood at last: they were yet not to cast pearls before swine, nor holy things to dogs, they were not to prostiture Mystical matters to every common enquirer, tho' at the same time ready to teach God's statutes and judgements to every one that humbly sought for information; but as to the manner of God's delivering their Law to Moses in Horeb, and his writing the Ten Commandments with the finger of God on the stone-Tables, his guarding and directing them by a Cloud all day, and by a pillar of Fire all night, his Glory shining at particular times and on particular occasions in the Tabernacle of the Congregation, his delivering his Will from the Mercy-Seat, and being said to dwell peculiarly between the Cherubims, his oracular resolution 〈◊〉 difficulties by Vrim and Thummim, etc. These were matters of so profound and inextricable a Nature, that neither Priests nor people were ever able to give any considerable account of them.  
If among the divine Institutions of the Jews there were so many matters of a mystical Nature, it's not to be wondered that Their Worship, who had no assistance by divine Revelation, should be more than ordinarily encumbered with them; the Notions which the Gentile world had of a Deity, tho' positive and  enough, were, according to the means they had for acquiring divine Knowledge, much more obscure than those of the Jews: if yet they would have a show of any Religion, they were under a necessity of suiting it with some circumstantial rites, which when they had tried their utmost skill had a meaning, but that meaning was very obscure: We may believe that many of their Priests endeavoured to make as deep impressions as they could of Religion upon the minds of those men they were concerned with, but the greatest satisfaction they had in their own inventions was but this, that the notorious obscurity of their public Rites, was very exactly representative of that God whom they acknowledged a Being infinite and incomprehensible, and those things which were mysterious even in the sense of their first Inventors, were much more so when they fell into the hands of their Successors, who being blind Leaders of the blind, all sense of true natural Divinity was quickly lost both among Priests and People: thus we have reason to think the Hieroglyphical Theology of the Egyptians was in a great measure raised from those hints they had taken of Man's duty to the World's Creator, from their converse with the Jewish Patriarches, that the first contrivers of it were capable of making it considerably useful and instructive to the World, and from thence those seeds of Moral Virtues, which bore some fruit in ancient Heathens, had their originals; but when sloth and negligence took place among their degenerate posterity, and the cruelty of Cambyses King of Persia destroyed all the Priests of that Nation without distinction, the whole body of their Divinity was lost, some of its characters may be still remaining among old pillars or obelisks and other ruins of their ancient magnificence, but as unintelligible to us as the Chinese writing is to a common labourer, or the squaring of a Circle to one that never heard of Mathematics.  
All Men from the world's beginning acknowledged God's Universal Sovereignty by offering Sacrifices. That Men offered Sacrifices and of living creatures too, very early, is apparent by the History of Cain and Abel, 
Gen 3.1, 2, 3, 4.  where we are told that in process of time, i.e. as soon as they were in a capacity of doing so, Cain who was a tiler of the ground brought of the fruit of the ground an offering to the Lord, and Abel who was a keeper of sheep brought of the firstlings of his flock and the fat thereof: But that these were the first Sacrifices offered, we have no reason to conclude, since Adam had the same sense of things, and the same motives to offer Sacrifices which They had, and doubtless set them an example of so doing. Eusebius of Caesarea, tho' observed to be singular in the case, gives much the best and most rational account of this Sacrifice. I take, says he, the ground of this action not to have been mere chance, or a device merely humane, but to have risen from a divine thought: for whereas good Men who were illuminated with the divine spirit, and lived in a near familiarity with God, plainly saw there was a necessity of some extraordinary means for the expiation of damning sin, they concluded it necessary to offer to God the giver of the Life and Soul something by way of a ransom or redemption price to procure their own Salvation, and since they had nothing which they could offer to God better or more valuable than their Souls, instead of them they Sacrificed beasts, 
De Demonstr. Evang. l. 1. c. 10.  so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, offering the Souls of others in lieu of their own, and this was certainly the best Sacrifice and most significant of their apprehensions: Where that reason given by Eusebius, and made use of by Justin Martyr, and the author of the Answer to the Orthodox, printed among Justin's works, and by St. chrysostom and other ancient Christians, and by Rabbi Moses ben Maimon and his followers among the Jews, why Cain and Abel should pitch on offering Sacrifices, and Abel particularly of living creatures, viz. their wisdom and near converse with heaven, suits yet more exactly with Adam himself, who had conversed with God in a state of perfection as well as imperfection: And tho' we know the ruins of reason to have been very great in Adam by his fall, yet they were not so great in him as in the rest of his posterity, and Adam having a right apprehension of that promise concerning the seed of the woman, without which right apprehension he could have derived very little comfort from it; to fix in his own mind and in the mind of his posterity the true meaning of that promise, he offered, as soon as without prejudice to the multiplication of Creatures he could, such Sacrifices as might shadow out the promised redemption, and make so early a faith in the promised seed, that Lamb who was slain from the beginning of the world, appear and really be rational: nor was there any need of divine institution or command in the case, where original reason yet retained so much strength and vigour; And whereas some learned Men have written whole discourses to prove that Men were allowed to eat flesh before the flood, 
Vid Maii Hist. animal. sacror. l. 1. c. 2. p. 32, etc.  I am so far from being convinced by what I have met with to that purpose (building my contrary opinion on that vast difference between God's commission given to Adam, Gen. 1.29, 30. and that given afterwards to Noah, Gen. 9.2,3,4.) that I conclude one of the violences the Gigantic race were afterwards guilty of was their transgressing their first limits in that matter, and that Adam seeing living Creatures fixed in an higher state, as being exempted from that servility to which Plants and Fruits and the Herb of the field was subjected, and yet observing a certain Dominion over those nobler Creatures invested in himself, he concluded he could no way more rationally exercise his government, nor express his expectations of a Saviour, than by killing of those Creatures, not for his own luxury, but to offer them in Sacrifice to that God whom he had before so ingratefully offended: Thus God's power and Man's necessity were acknowledged both in one and the same Sacrifice: I conclude farther, in relation to the first custom of offering beasts in Sacrifice, that what Reason taught Adam to do, God set his Seal to and approved it, by sending fire from Heaven to consume it, which was an unquestionable evidence of God's acceptance, an encouragement to Adam to proceed in that course, and to his posterity to imitate him: And this I am the more confirmed in, because I find both Jewish and Christian Writers generally concluding, that the visible difference which God put between the Sacrifice of Cain and Abel was, that he consumed Abel's with fire from heaven, but not Cain's, by which means Cain was able to judge of his brother's acceptance and his own rejection; and he might be the more certain in his judgement, because he had often seen his Father's offerings so consumed before. That Adam was a Priest in his own family as every Father is, and that Cain and Abel were so in theirs, and the rest of the ancient Patriarches, is unquestionable, but when upon the World's increase Men began to unite into larger Societies, private and family devotions or religious observances were not looked upon as sufficient to show men's deference to the supreme Lord of all things, God was to be reconciled and rendered propitious to public Societies as well as to private members of such Societies, which considerations in process of time were the occasion that particular bodies or numbers of Men were set apart to attend more peculiarly on the services of Religion, which bodies of Men took care to settle the methods of those services, wherein according to the clearness of their understandings those methods were more or less obscure or incoherent. God taking a peculiar care of the seed of Abraham taught them not to leave off sacrificing, but to order their Sacrifices in so holy a manner, as might best agree to that end for which they were appointed, i. e. to foresignify that great mystery of the world's redemption by the sacrifice of the death of Christ: But the Devil Tyrannising over the greater part of the world beside, and under the same religious pretexts of atoning an angry God and acknowledging his sovereignty, soon converted all that worship and those Sacrifices intended to the true God, to himself: So that great enemy of Souls, got to himself the name of God, he was adored as the author of all good, and revered as the executor of vengeance upon all wicked Men, He made use of divers artifices to maintain his usurpation, among the rest he made special use of ignorance as the mother of Devotion, a principle which the Church of Rome has made great use of of later years to the same purpose; his Priests, urged by interest, were excellent Agents in his cursed designs, and by his direction loaded every part of Idolatry with such a Mass of Mystic rites and Ceremonies, necessarily so, lest their lewdness and scandalous nature should have made them generally odious, that it was impossible for the greatest part of Mankind to see through the clouds and dust they had raised about themselves; with these Mysteries all the whole rabble of Deities were continually accoutred, all which false Gods were but one Devil, who assumed so many names to himself, partly that he might the better suit himself to the various humours of Men, partly that he might entrench as much as possible upon that honour due to Almighty God, by assuming all the Divine Attributes to himself, and partly that if he happened to lose that Honour he had usurped under one name, he might at least preserve it under another.  
Hence arose the strange rites of Isis & Osiris so much celebrated among the Egyptians, the Eleusinian, so famous over all Greece, among the Athenians, wherein so strange an obscurity was affected, that the very Rules and Orders for their public performance were unknown to common worshippers, and not under pain of death to be divulged to any, unless initiated for five years together in them, which course of initiation once past, there seems to have been no great fear the initiated should make them public, the world at worst not having been bad enough to have approved such abominations; But the Religion of Sacrifices went farther, and those who were sensible how just God's anger was against the World for Sin, concluded the most precious Offerings must needs be the most acceptable to God for their expiation, therefore they came to pitch upon Humane Sacrifices, thinking a rational Soul the most proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or ransom for a rational Soul: Hence grew those Enthusiastic extravagancies of the Priests of Baal, who when they found their God deaf to all their invocations, and insensible of their Sacrifices, and themselves derided for their folly by Elijah, 
1 Kings 18.26, 27, 28.  They cried aloud and cut themselves after their manner with Knives and Lancers till the blood gushed out upon them: And that was pretty fair for their own personal zeal; but this was not enough; therefore in a pressing extremity we find the King of Moab taking his eldest Son, who was to have reigned after him, 
2 Kings 3.26, 27.  and offering him for a burnt-offering upon the wall of his besieged City: The misery he was reduced to required something of extraordinary to allay it, and nothing could show a more eager desire to atone his angry Gods, to whose displeasure he imputed his present calamity, than to offer a Sacrifice so dear and valuable to himself to atone them. Where before I pass on, I cannot but take notice of that passage in the contents of the now Cited Chapter in our English Bibles, viz. The King of Moab by sacrificing the King of Edom's Son raiseth the Siege: In which passage they follow the opinion of Junius, tho' without any ground at all: For how came the King of Moab, so straight besieged, to get the King of Edom's Son into his possession? We read of his desperate attempt to break through to that King of Edom with 700 valiant Men, v. 26. But the consequence of his attempt was, He could not effect what he desired, the failure in which bold design made him, in the extremity of his despair, fly to as astonishing a remedy; besides (not to mention it, that the King of Edom in those days was but a Deputy, a Viceroy, and his Government not hereditary) We find the confederate Kings raising their Siege upon that strange action, but had Moab so cruelly sacrificed the Heir of Edom, reason will teach us it must have exasperated the more, and made them press the Siege the more straight, to have been revenged on so extreme a barbarity: Again, some would persuade us with as little sense, that that great Indignation which is said to have been against Israel, was from the King of Edom, enraged to see the Jews prosecute the Siege so far as to cost the life of his Son: For indeed that anger against Israel was from God, who having formerly given them a charge not to dispossess the Children of Ammon or Moab, as being the Posterity of Lot, Abraham's Nephew, was displeased now to see them carry on a War so far, as to make a considerable Prince commit in his extremity so great an abomination: Their inveteracy against him forced him to it, and God required mercy from them to their kindred, and therefore the Israelites, though late, sensible of God's anger and the reason of it, raised their Siege and gave over so inhuman a War; Nor yet could it have been reasonably accounted so dear or precious a sacrifice to have offered the blood of an enemy, as that of an only Son, as we may conclude from the aggravating circumstances of that severe command to Abraham, 
Gen. 22.2.  to take his Son, his only Son, the Son whom he loved, and to offer him a  sacrifice; and from God's accepting nothing less than the death of his only begotten Son, for the Redemption of Mankind from the damnation of Hell: Besides this unhappy Prince, the Israelites themselves, tho' so often cautioned against such things, are justly charged by the Psalmist, That they offered their Sons and their Daughters unto Devils, 
Psal. 106.37, 38.  and shed Innocent blood, even the blood of their Sons and of their Daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the Idols of Canaan, and the Land was defiled with blood: Where God's own people failed, it's no wonder the Gentile world fell into such madnesses, 
Praepar. Evang. l. 4. c. 7.  therefore we find the Carthaginians and Phoenicians burying Slaves alive on some extraordinary exigences, as Eusebius from Porphyry informs us, or offering them to Saturn: The Romans running into the same follies in the second Punic War, in obedience, as they pretended, to the Sibylline Oracles; Now all these and the like Sacrifices were supposed to have some secret meaning, and to represent imperfectly some mighty future events, being things the vulgar might gaze and wonder at, but could never understand; yet they shown that general sense of Mankind, that Religion could not subsist without Mysteries, and the Devil he made too good use of those natural notions, furnishing the Heathen world with such Mystic Rites, as might keep Men at the greater distance, lest too plain discoveries of himself should have undeceived thinking Men, and have taught them to turn to the worship of the true God.  
That the Devil might ape God the more exactly, and over-aw Men the more securely, as Idolatrous Priests in Scripture pretended to receive answers from their Gods; so he in several places, under several names, had his Ammonian, Delphian, Pythian, Dodonian, Ephesian, Paphian Oracles, where he used to return ambiguous and puzzling answers to such as came to inquire of him concerning the events of things, by his ambiguous expressions he endeavoured to conceal his want of omniscience, and secured himself from the accusations of his deluded worshippers, he likewise had his Prophets, such as inspired with a Devilish fury raved out obscure and insignificant nonsense, which yet were generally received with the greatest veneration, and preserved as rules of practice for Men in their necessities to have recourse to, out of which if in an exigence they were able to pick any thing, they were ready to admire his veracity whom the Sons of Wisdom knew to be the Father of lies: Such Prophets were Tiresias and his daughter Manto, and Amphiaraus and Calchas, the answerers from the Delphic Tripos, from the Sibyls Cave, and from Trophonius his Den, etc. These filled weak heads with mighty wonders, that the Gods should so freely impart their secrets to Men, whose sanctity they admired as much as Cyrus of Persia is said to have done that of Bell and his Priests, in the Apocryphal story, and were as grossly cheated.  
But tho' by these Devices of Satan the far greater part of Mankind were miserably abused, as to the object of their Devotions, yet the reason and design of their Devotions was good and true, nothing could blind them so far, or lay them under so deep a stupidity, but that they plainly observed their own unhappy and defective state, they were able still in many moral cases to distinguish between good and evil, virtue and vice, and having a true sense of the existence of a God, they had still so much natural Logic as to infer from their own extraordinary inclinations to wickedness, or to be guilty of Immoralities, that Heaven must be atoned, that there must be some way of Mediation found out between God and Man, otherwise they must be wholly miserable, therefore they kept up their Sacrifices and solemn Devotions, as some shadows or weak representations of that mediating work; but even while they did so, reason prevailed and acted them so much farther that they concluded, an upright, a sincere and well purged mind was much more acceptable to the Universal Sovereign than their sacrifices for any intrinsic worth could be, and this truth was so firmly fixed in the hearts of Men, that the Devil himself never durst undertake to oppose it, though it were so cross to his own wishes, lest Men should have been roused from their dead sleep by such irrational and damnable insinuations, and so have seen with horror and amazement what Gods they worshipped; Yet neither could the more sagacious part of Mankind be satisfied with these things, they saw the distance between God and Man was too great to be made up by any typical or representing Sacrifices, and that a complete purity was far beyond the reach of mere humane nature, therefore the Gentiles, who had some sense of that weight which oppressed them, groaned and longed earnestly to be freed from the slavery of corruptions, by some means sufficiently powerful to that end, and so to be brought in to the glorious liberty of the Sons of God; hence risen those frequent discourses of the Gods assuming Humane shapes, coming down to earth and conversing with Men, which though we find most frequently mentioned in Poetical Writings, yet unquestionably had its foundation from those accounts in the Writings of Moses concerning the apparitions of Angels, as particularly to Abraham, and Lot, and Jacob; hence grew that prevailing rumour, about the times of Augustus Caesar, that an universal King should be born in Judaea, to whom all other Monarches should be forced to bow, and who by wonderful means should make up the breach between God and man; this too had a farther confirmation from the translation of the old Testament into the Greek Language, and from some fragments of the true Sibylline Oracles not unknown to Tully or Virgil, and from Balaam's predictions, as plain as any Jewish Prophecy whatsoever, which he being of another Nation would certainly acquaint his own Countrymen with, from whom it quickly might be spread over the whole World: From some or all these Originals arose the Expectation of those Eastern Sages, who no sooner saw that prodigious Star shining at Noonday, but they concluded, that glorious Light which was to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory of God's people Israel, was then risen; but though Men did generally apprehend the necessity of those things, and lived in continual expectation of them, yet how such things should be, how such prodigious, but excellent effects, should ever be produced, was a Mystery hid from all ages, a dark, obscure, unfathomable abyss of Divine goodness and wisdom, never offered to be explained to any, because incomprehensible by all.  
As it was the unhappiness of the Gentiles to be encumbered with a great deal of Ignorance, so it must follow, that their Mysteries, where clearest, had but a very indirect aspect to their acknowledgements and expectations. But the Jewish solemnities and predictions had a more exact and direct aim at the coming of the promised Messiah, their Prophets were more numerous, their prophecies better attested, and more commonly known and enquired into, their Rites and Ceremonies all of Divine appointment, and consequently not one of them insignificant or superfluous, till they were vacated by the appearance of the Messiah himself, in and by whom they were unridled and accomplished. Yet their Religion was Mysterious still to the most understanding Persons among them; their prophecies, tho' so much inquired into, yet like a Book sealed to them, and they as unable to conceive how the Son of God should take upon him humane nature, how he should put an end to all Typical Sacrifices, though of never so Divine an Institution, by offering himself one perfect and all-sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole World, which so should really effect that mighty reconciliation which all other did but imperfectly hint at, they were as unable to conceive of these things, as a People who had long sat in darkness could have been, as by their prejudices against him, and their absurd fancies about him appeared, when no other Messiah could serve their turn, but some powerful temporal Prince raised up by the hand of God, as Moses, Joshua, or the Judges of old had been, to free them from the slavery they then lay under, and once more to restore the Kingdom to Israel: The result then of all is this, that the World has known no Religion or Religious worship but what has had some circumstances and fundamentals too, not obvious or easy to be understood either by the unthinking vulgar, or by the more curious and inquisitive understandings, it's enough for my design, if the World concur in that one principle, That something may be necessary to be believed, which yet no mere humane reason can comprehend: Nay, I may proceed farther, and say, That some points of faith are so very sublime, that even revelation itself cannot make them intelligible to Men, as Moses when he had seen the back parts of God, the shadow or reflex of his glory was as far off comprehending his full glory as before; and the Apostles when in their transfigured Master they saw a glorified body, yet were unable to express what they saw but by very weak resemblances; and S. Paul when ecstasied in the third heavens, could no more completely comprehend the felicities or glorious visions of that place than he could before: Since then natural reason led the Gentiles to believe mystic truths, and God led his own people of Israel to the like, from both together we may conclude, That Religion itself cannot subsist without them, and that those things which are called mysteries in Religion are not therefore to be rejected, because they are mysteries indeed, i. e. because every little pretender to sense cannot comprehend them. And so we come to the second enquiry propounded in the beginning of this discourse, and that is,  
Whether our Saviour intended the entire abolition of all other Religions for the Settlement of his own, or rather to unite what was good in every distinct religion into one, and to sublime or perfect that so as it might tend most to God's glory and Man's happiness, and whether that could be effected Men standing in their present corrupt state without the retaining of old or declaring of new Mysteries in his Religion? where for our better satisfaction we must again examine these things.  
What Sentiments Men generally had of the ends of Religion before our Saviour's appearance in the world?  
How far they had depraved or perverted those ends? The reason of these inquiries will appear afterwards.  
We inquire then what Sentiments Men generally had of the substance and ends of Religion before our Saviour's appearance in the world? And here, if we would give Religion as it's true, a definition, we may take it thus, Religion is the worship of God in such a manner as is most agreeable to those revelations he has made of himself to the World, this the Jews confirm, The Author of the book Kosri, or a Dialogue between the King of Cosar and Rabbi Isaac Sangar concerning Religion, infers from a precedent discourse, 
Libri Cosri pars 3. p. 234.  That Men can have no access to God, i. e. they cannot be admitted as true worshippers, but by the commands of God, i.e. by Worshipping him according to his prescriptions, and we cannot come to know the commands of God but by Prophecy or Revelation: Or we may rest in the Apostles definition, that true Religion is the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness in hopes of eternal life; 
Tit. 1.1, 2.  But if we respect Religion in general, as taken up by all Nations we may describe it, as, The method of worshipping God by all men suitably to those notions they had of him and of their own duties: As for the Jewish Nation they were once the sole professors of true Religion, and for the hardness of their hearts were loaded with abundance of Ceremonial institutions, but yet in the law of Moses, and in the Prophets, we find sincere and hearty obedience to the moral Law very much urged and insisted upon, as the best evidence of true and unfeigned piety; and where God expostulates sharply with his people for their rebellion and disobedience, He tells them plainly, 
Ps. 50.8, 9, 13, 16, 17, 23.  I will not reprove thee for thy Sacrifices, or thy  offerings to have been continually before me. I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he-goat out of thy fold. Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? No, these things God could pardon, But unto the wicked, God says, what hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant into thy mouth? the reason of the expostulation follows, thou hatest instruction and castest my words behind thee, by which words the great folly of those is expressed, who pretend themselves the servants of God and instruments of his glory, and yet live disagreeably to their profession, wherefore it's added, Who so offereth praise glorifieth me, and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I show the salvation of God. Thus again, God by the Prophet Samuel argues with Saul, 
1 Sam. 15.22.  Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord: Behold to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams: So the Prophet Isaiah, 
Isa. 1.11, 13, 16, 17, 18.  To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats, Bring no more vain oblations, incense is an abomination to me, it follows, wash ye, make ye clean, put away the evil of your do from before mine eyes, cease to do evil, learn to do well, seek judgement, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widows: Well, what should be the effect of all this reformation? as much as a wretched sinner could hope for from the most benign Being, Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord, tho' your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow, tho' they be red like crimson they shall be as wool: So the Prophet Micah, 
Micah 6.6, 7, 8.  Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old, will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, or the fruit of my Body for the sin of my soul? No, God requires not these things at our hands, but He hath showed thee, O man, what is good, and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? Nay, Solomon himself, who was so personally profuse in his offerings, that a man would have suspected he had fixed the whole substance of Religion in such exterior services, when he comes to draw up what was incumbent upon Man in a few words, passes sacrificing by as inconsiderable in respect of this sincere obedience, 
Eccl. 12.13.  Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter, Fear God, and keep his Commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. Thus far the writings of the Old Testament received by the ancient Jews show us the ends of Religion, viz. That where it really had a place it necessarily produced purity and sincerity of mind, without which no sacrifice tho' never so costly could be accepted with God; David teaches us the lesson plainly, 
Ps. 51.6, 7, 10, 19  Behold thou desirest truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom, purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me, and much more to the same purpose, than he concludes all, Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with  offering and whole burnt-offering, then shall they offer bullocks upon thine Altar. But since the Jews are for the most part hardened against their own greatest interest, and so may be thought to have now changed their minds, being known for such  ceremonialists, I shall add the confessions of one or two modern Jews: So Rabbi Isaac Sangar in the book Cosri before cited, 
Cosri. pars 3. p. 157.  for thus he tells the King he converses with: A holy and pious man is not the rigid man for every ceremonial punctilio, but he who, where he dwells, with a prudent and impartial hand gives every one their right, who loves justice, oppresses none, defrauds none, nor bribe's any to be his slaves or tools upon occasion. Again, Because the eyes of the Lord run to and fro through the whole earth, therefore the holy man neither does, nor speaks nor thinks any thing, but he believes the allseeing eye of God to be upon him, ready not only to reward for what's well, but for what's ill done too, and to visit for every perverse and wicked word or action, 
p. 168.  etc. To him I shall add Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, who in his More Nevochim, 
More Nevoehim, pars 3. c. 28. p. 419.  or explainer of difficulties, teaches us, that every precept of God, whether it be affirmative or negative, aims at these things, first, that it may take away all violence from among men and beget good manners necessary for the conservation of political Societies: and secondly, that it may instil true principles of faith, such as are in their own nature necessary to be known, for the expelling of wickedness and encouraging honesty and virtue. Now if these sober and necessary virtues, which are of no value if not sincere, be the ultimate intention of all God's Laws; it follows that those virtues are more accounted of with God which are inward and affect the Soul, than all outward performances how pompous soever, as much as the end of a thing is more excellent than the means conducing to it: The Son of Sirach agrees admirably with this truth, He that sacrificeth of a thing wrongfully gotten, 
Eccl. 34.18, 19  his offering is ridiculous, and the gifts of unjust men are not accepted, the most high is not pleased with the offerings of the wicked, neither is he pacified for sin by the multitude of sacrifices: and thus much may suffice to show us whereon the Jews laid the whole stress or weight of their Religion.  
Nor did the Heathen world among their wiser thoughts much deviate from the same paths of truth, to this we find the whole Doctrine of the Stoic Philosophers inclining, as it's summed up by the learned Gataker in his preface to Marcus Antoninus. For they believing and maintaining That there was really a God, who did take a constant care of worldly affairs, and that his Providence did concern itself with the actions of single men, as well as of entire Societies, from thence very rationally concluded, that He alone ought to be adored by man, invocated to all humane undertake, that He should possess all our thoughts, overrule our words, terminate our actions, that Men should give themselves entirely to the celebration of his name, and that by a simple voluntary and complete obedience whithersoever his Providence is pleased to lead us, without any tergiversation or murmuring, and should endeavour to adorn that vocation he is pleased to fix us in by solid virtue, and that with an inflexible courage, tho' by so doing we should incur the hazards of a thousand deaths: This is so rational that it looks almost like Christianity itself: Plato declares himself excellently, speaking concerning the uselessness of any great pomp in religious sacrifices, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. 
Plato in Alcibiade. vid. Cragii resp. Lacedaem. l. 3. p. 180.  For it would be a very hard case if the gods should respect only or principally the nature of our gifts and sacrifices, and not our souls whether they be holy and just; but I think they much more regard these, than all the pompous expense of sacrifices, in spite of which a man either in a private station, or as a public magistrate, may in one years' space be guilty of a thousand trespasses both against the gods and men: The same Plato, who was himself an Athenian, tells us this remarkable story, There being long and continual wars between the Lacedæmonians and Athenians, the Athenians were always beaten both by Sea and Land, the Athenians extremely troubled at their misfortune, and debating among themselves by what means they might prevent the like for the future, thought it was worth their while to consult the Oracle of Jupiter Ammon, and amongst other things the messengers were to inquire of the Oracle what the reason was, that they gave the Lacedæmonians continual victories rather than themselves, for the case was plain, that the Athenians always offered the most and the best sacrifices of all the Grecians, and enriched the Altars of the gods with the noblest presents, and spent more money upon their august annual religious solemnities, than all the Grecians put together; whereas the Lacedæmonians tho' every whit as rich, never troubled themselves with any such cares, and were mighty sparing in their sacrifices, to all which plea the Oracle very briefly answered, that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or the sincere and honest devotion of the Lacedæmonians was more valued by the Gods than all the costly Sacrifices of the Grecians: Thus sometimes would the Devil himself speak what was rational: 
Suidas in verbo. p. 1101.  Suidas in his interpretation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, touches upon this story, and infers from it, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, That sincere piety is a matter of no burdensome expense, no extreme curiosity, but full of modesty: Thus too Philostratus, a man otherwise of design bad enough, in the life of Apollonius Thyanaeus, one whom he would equal for sanctity and miracles to the blessed Jesus, brings in that Apollonius discoursing with the Priest of Aesculapius, and telling him, That the Gods acting with infinite justice, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, where they find any man of a sound mind and uninfected with wickedness, they reward him not with a golden Crown, but with all internal good, but where they meet with one stigmatised and corrupted with sin, they reserve him to punishment, and are but the more angry when such miscreants dare to enter their Temples and attend their Services: Then turning to Aesculapius the pretended God, He tells him, Thou O Aesculapius dost wisely and as becomes a God, not permitting wicked men to approach thee, tho' loaded with all the riches of the Indies, or of Croesus, for such do not sacrifice nor make their offerings out of reverence to thy Divinity, but because they have deserved punishment for their Impieties, they'd buy it off with money, which divine justice will by no means admit of: The same Apollonius afterwards to a Cilician Prince that seemed afraid to approach the Altar, 
Philostratus in vita Apollon. c. 8, 9  and to admire Apollonius his happiness in being so familiar with the God, speaks thus, My love to and studying of virtue has procured me this freedom, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and if thou wilt take but the same care to be honestly virtuous, come boldly to the God, and petition freely for whatsoever thou canst wish for. I shall not seek into later Philosophers, such as Seneca, or Plotinus, or Arrian, or Hierocles, whose noblest Sentiments I look upon as drawn, not from Zeno, or Plato, but from their converse with Apostolical Writings, or the Books of the Eldest Christian Fathers, whose Doctrines they endeavoured to transfer to the reputation of declining Idolatry: Only we may take notice that not only Philosophers, whose grave studies might promise as much, but the lose Scenes of a Plautus or a Terence will inform us, That they must be men of the best lives to whom the Gods would bend the gentlest ears, that others may importune Heaven to no purpose, while the innocent Soul shall compel the Gods themselves to be obsequious: How agreeably all this to that of the Son of Syrach, the offering of the righteous maketh the Altar fat, 
Eccles. 35.6, 7, 10.  and the sweet savour thereof is before the most High, the sacrifice of a just Man is acceptable, and the Memorial thereof shall never be forgotten: Do not think to corrupt with gifts, for such God will not receive, and trust not to unrighteous sacrifices, for the Lord is just, and with him is no respect of persons; and a Man would almost think that old Tragedian cited by Porphyrius and Clemens Alexandrinus had some such passages as these in his eye, when he cried out, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. i. e. What Man can be so weak a fool, so supinely credulous, as to imagine the Gods are pleased with bones quite bare of flesh, and stinking vapours, things which hungry Dogs would never care for? or who would believe that Gods would take themselves to be highly honoured, and obliged to abundance of gratitude to thiefs, or pickaroons, or tyrants, 
vid. Gatak in Antonin. 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 show that sense the Pagans had of the ends of religion, but only 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, etc.  to them who by patiented 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 only 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 considered, 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 sinned without Law shall perish without Law, and as many as have sinned in the Law shall be judged 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 canvased and examined 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 punished; 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 contained 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 show 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 showed 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 public 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 inquire, 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 inquire how far both Jews and Gentiles had depraved and perverted those ends, and what care they took to manage themselves according to that knowledge they really had, when our Saviour appeared 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 ordered, 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 deal 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 defy Heaven with the greatest audacity, was the most set by: And though frequent judgements 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 esteemed, were utterly uncapable of eternal happiness, what may we think of the multitude who were instructed by them? and what reason may we conclude our Saviour had to admire the Centurion's faith, 
Matth. 8.10.  and to declare, he had not found so much, no not in Israel? It's needless now to look back upon that gross Idolatry, which once, like some subtle poison, had infected every vein of that unhappy Nation, though other lighter punishments had failed, the Captivity of Babylon had pretty throughly purged out that folly, nay so far, as made that headstrong people fly out into the other extreme of a superstitious aversion even to ornamental Statues, and where there could be no danger, of which humour Josephus gives us several instances: But about our Saviour's time, though not the same, yet Errors every whit as fatal and pernicious had overspread them, they were not visible Idolaters, they worshipped not the Host of Heaven, nor the ridiculous Idols of the adjacent Nations, but they idolised the empty figments of their own brains, making void the Law of God by their own traditions, 
Matth. 15.9.  and teaching for doctrines the Commandments of Men: Their different Sentiments in Religion had divided the whole Nation into factions, and all Men were grown the followers of the Pharisees, or Saducees, or Essenes', and among the several Parties, Religion itself was almost crushed to nothing: As for the Saducees, tho' they made a powerful Faction in the State, yet their Opinions were so gross and absurd, as virtually overthrew all the reason of Religion; they denied the Resurrection of the Dead, 
Acts 23.8.  an opinion taken up by some professing Christianity in Tertullian's time, whom therefore he calls, Propinquos Saducaeos Christianorum, 
De carne Christi. Vid. Drusium de tribus Sectis. l. 3. p. 138, etc.  the Christian Saducees, and Partiarios sententiae Saducaeorum, followers of the opinion of the Saducees; of whom since that Father speaks somewhat dubiously, if I might put in my own conjecture, I should conclude, they maintained the same Error which some now adays are propagating, viz. That we shall not rise with the same bodies with which we die, but something of a finer composition, which is in effect to deny the Resurrection itself; for such a thing as they propound is not a resurrection, but a new creation or a new formation at least of somewhat which was not before, so that indeed it's only Saducisme, a little more cunningly insinuated; In that the Saducees denied the existence of a Spirit, they asserted of consequence the Corporeity of God, 
Belli Judaici l. 2. c. 12.  and denied the Soul's immortality: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, says Josephus, They deny the permanence or continuation of the Soul; they denied any rewards or punishments hereafter, so the same Historian, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They take away all punishments and rewards after Death, and Origen more at large; 
Fragmento in Matthaeum.  Saducaei censent post hanc vitam nihil homini repositum praemii, sive ad virtutem profecerit, sive nunquam vel studuerit à vitiorum terminis excedere, The Saducees hold, that after this life, whether a Man live virtuously, or make himself a slave to vice, it's the same thing, since there's no reward attending either: Now adding to these, what Scripture charges them with, 
El●ncho Trihaerefews Setrarii, c. 16. ad num. 120.  that they say there are no Angels, (a passage which puzzles the great Scaliger extremely, because the Saducees are said to receive the five Books of Moses as Divine, in which Books Angels are often mentioned,) for any to be Religious where there's nothing to be hoped for from it, no effects to be found either of God's anger or his love, is what seems very irrational, and takes away the whole design of the Messiahs coming, and vacates all the promises to piety in the Gospel. Such absurdities made the Saducees odious to those who had any sense of Religion among their brethren, and they were generally looked on as unfit for any to hold communion with, therefore we may observe, that whereas our Saviour owns the Scribes and Pharisees as sitting in Moses' Seat, and commands his disciples to hear them, i. e. to obey their prescriptions, so far as agreeable to the Law of Moses, He utterly excludes the Saducees, whom he charges with Ignorance of God's Power and his Word, from any such Prerogative, and bestows very little pains to confute such absurd and palpable Heresies.  
As for the Essenes' they were the spawn of the Pharisees, a very severe Sect, if we may believe Jewish authors; 
Scaliger in El●nek● c. 25.  we find 'em no where mentioned in Scripture by name, of which some imagine the reason to have been because they lived privately in the Country, not concerning themselves at all in civil or public affairs, by which means they escaped our Saviour's reproofs; and well they might, if Scaliger's account of them be true, That they were not an ambitious crew of cheats, as the Pharisees, nor grossly impious, as the Saducees, however having so scandalous ancestors as the Pharisees, we may rationally conclude they were somewhat tainted with their vain superstitions: Nay, if Josephus the Jewish Historian were any way prudent in his choice, the Essenes' must have been the more superstitious of the two parties, or some other way the worse, since Josephus, who knew the Essenes' very well, and observed their customs and their manners throughly, chose rather to associate himself with the Pharisees than with them: their public tenets were for the most part good, according to those accounts now extant of them, but whereas their Ascetic life seemed to recommend them much to the common vogue, and that no where commanded, we may conclude, that when our Saviour denounces so many woes against the Hypocrisy of the Scribes and Pharisees, they were not without their shares in the intention of his reproofs; for indeed we find the blessed Jesus generally reflecting upon those who were the guides of the Jewish people in matters of Religion, they being blind and leading the blind both fell unhappily into the ditch: and such blind guides were those as well as others; otherwise they who have the character of being in extraordinary manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Josephus ubi supra.  or extraordinary lovers of one another, would certainly have taken greater care to instruct the vulgar in the real import of that Law, of which they themselves had so venerable an opinion: and a sort of men, who were so very eminent for their virtues themselves, would by their Doctrines and examples have prevented the vacating the Laws of Morality so grossly, by the silly niceties of impertinent Traditions: And Men who had their minds so wonderfully adapted for the most sublime matters, would certainly have closed very readily with our Saviour, who spoke so incomparably, and taught with so unusual and therefore surprising an authority: but we meet with no such extraordinary effects of their pretendedly divine Philosophy, but the Jewish people generally corrupted, and none of these admirable men taking any pains to stay the deluge of public impieties.  
But, 
Non enim eadem sacra coluêre, nec iisdem sacrificiis deo litárunt.  howsoever silent the Scripture may be concerning these devout and applauded Schismatics, we meet with the Pharisees often enough, to their eternal ignominy; They were, besides their pretences to extraordinary knowledge in the Law, and a supererogatory purity in their lives, great intreaguers in affairs of state, and finding the Saducees a powerful and encroaching faction, they countermined them, and taking the advantage of Queen Alexandra's superstitious humour (who had a particular charge from her dying husband to close with them as powerful and indefatigable, 
De bello Judaico. l. 1. c. 4.  and therefore the more capable of supporting her authority) they engrossed almost all public interests into their own hands, as Josephus teaches us: so they assumed a kind of Papal prerogative, would be infallible in opinion or judgement, and supreme in dignity, and so be truly Custodes utriusque tabulae, the great guardians of the whole Law of God, as respecting both matters of faith and of practice. A long habit of fear gotten into men's minds, makes them at length forget how they came to be possessed with it, and that which arose from the force and violence of those whom they found able to compel them to any thing, grows in tract of time to an apprehension of some great intrinsic merit in the person whom they fear; thus when the Pharisees were clambering to that height of power they grasped at, the steps they mounted by were visible and odious, but their powers too great to be resisted; when they had gotten a long and quiet possession of Authority, the people, who had forgot their former ill practices, and violence, grew into a strange opinion of pharisaic sanctity; they found themselves no better than slaves to a prevailing faction, and were willing to hid the scandal under the plausible pretext of only being admirers of and therefore servants to the Saints of the most high; That these wretches might stand the higher in the world's opinion, the common people were persuaded to believe, That if but two were destined to inherit eternal happiness, the one must be a Scribe, the other a Pharisee, now the Scribes were not all necessarily Pharisees, tho' some of them were, the account given of their difference by Tostatus, 
Petavii animadv. in Epiph. ● 1. tom. 1. ad Haeresin, 15.  as quoted by Petavius in his notes on Epiphanius, is very good, and it's this, Tho' the Scribes and Pharisees are joined in the same Gospel text, yet as distinct one from another, it's to be observed, that they are not distinguished as the Pharisees and Saducees, i. e. as if they were direct opposites, for no Saducee can possibly be a Pharisee at the same time he is a Saducee: but they are distinguished one from another, as a Grammarian and a Logician may be, for though its one thing to be a Logician, and another to be a Grammarian, yet the same person may very well be both; so it's one thing to be a Scribe, another to be a Pharisee, for he that's a Scribe must be a man learned in the Law of Moses, he that's a Pharisee must enter himself into a particular Sect, and engage in a peculiar method of living, but he that is a Pharisee, that is a Sectary, may be a Scribe too, i. e. a man learned in the Law at the same time: With these we have Lawyers named by our Saviour, but their employment being to explain the Law to the people, which was the employment of the Scribes too, they seem to be one and the same sort of men, and the case is the plainer, if Maldonate's opinion be true, 
Maldona●. in Matth. c. 2.  That some Scribes were as public Notaries, others as public Teachers, so having a double office incumbent upon their party: Take these Scribes, Lawyers and Pharisees together, they were notorious Hypocrites: They had reduced Religion to nothing but air, to a mere empty show, they had a form of Godliness, but they denied the power of it: They were extremely ambitious and vainglorious even to ridiculousness. They laid heavy burdens upon the shoulders of others, but would not touch them themselves with one of their fingers, they did all their works to be seen of men, they made broad their Phylacteries, that they might seem the greater zealots for the Law, and enlarged the fringes upon the corners of their garments for the same purpose; they loved the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief places in the Synagogues, and greetings in the market places, 
Matth. 23. 4-7.  and to be called of men Rabbi, Rabbi, all this contrary to that simplicity and modesty which their Law in several places required of them. Again these, in conjunction, shut up the kingdom of heaven against those that were desirous to enter it. They abused prayer by running it out into an impertinent length, that the world might not suspect men of such fervent devotions could have any thoughts of devouring widows houses. They abused the intent of Proselytisme, that being to bring strangers to the knowledge of God, but they made theirs twofold more the children of hell than they were themselves: They allowed perjury, paid Tithes of Mint, Anise and Cummin, but omitted the weightier things of the Law, Judgement, Mercy, and Faith: They were outwardly clean, but inwardly conscious to themselves of infinite extortion and excess: They appeared outwardly righteous to the eyes of undiscerning men, but within were full of hypocrisy and all iniquity, as our Saviour informs us in the continuation of that chapter. The Pharisees particularly were so infamous for these things, that one Joshua an ancient rabbin, and if his age be rightly calculated, antecedent to our Saviour's Incarnation, reckons the foolish severities of the Pharisees as one of those things that brought a general infelicity upon the world, and yet by those hypocritical severities they pretended to merit Heaven and more, they judged their own wills so absolutely free, their own abilities towards performance of the Divine Law so very great, that They esteemed a reward of mercy or happiness attained by God's free grace a matter not worth their acceptance, but glory purchased by merit was really great and honourable: they encouraged impieties admirably, by entayling felicity, or a portion in the future world, upon every one that was born an Israelite, were his circumstances never so discouraging, a principle reasserted and maintained by their modern Rabbins: Which corrupt opinions, extreme superstitions, and shameful Hypocrisies, as they filled them with abundance of prejudices against our Saviour's Doctrine and Person, which carried nothing but love and meekness, humility and sincerity along with them, all direct contradictions to their opinions and practices, so after our Saviour's time they exposed 'em to all the contempt and derision imaginable; hence they got those ridiculous nicknames given 'em by the Talmudical writers, as cited out of the book Sotah by Buxtorf, 
Buxtorf. in voce 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lex Talmud.  Where first they are called Sichemites, because as Hamor and Sichem consented to be circumcised, so these, not out of any respect to God's honour, but to advance interest and serve their own carnal ends, this was their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the second sort of them was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I might call them Creepers from their pretended humility, whereby they seemed afraid to raise their feet from the ground, as being far from any thing of a lofty humour, by which means they stumbled often and fell down, the inconvenience of which they bore with a great deal of apparent patience, the next was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Blinking Pharisee, or one that breaks his face against the walls, a name given them on occasion of their imaginary purity and spirituality, which was so great, that for fear a maid, or a woman, or any other unclean thing should fall into their sight, they walked with their eyes so far shut, that they could not choose their own way, and so often ran their heads against walls and posts: The fourth sort was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these may be called Crook-backs, from an humour some of them had taken up, of stooping so much out of humility too, as they called it, that they seemed almost to walk double, or to be very crooked, and this was, lest by walking upright, they should disturb the Almighty, or hit his feet, which they concluded to be very near the earth, that being his footstool, and he filling all things with his presence: The fifth is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This Pharisee I would call a Supererogatorian, or one who superciliously asks, what you can show him more that he has to do and he'll do it, intimating thereby that he has already done every thing God has commanded, and has now time and ability to perform a new task: The sixth kind is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This tho' it sounds favourably, and signifies the Pharisee of Love, yet the Talmudists tell us plainly, it signifies no more than a mere Mercenary, or one that endeavours to observe the Law, not out of any principle of fear or love of God, but of a fondness of that reward that's promised to those who do so, which reward tho' we may have a due respect to, as the Apostle assures us, yet the love of God must principally constrain to that filial obedience which God requires at our hands: the last nickname the Pharisee carries is, that he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Pharisee of fear, or he that keeps the Law, or pretends to do it, merely out of a wretched slavish fear of punishment. These several names were justly bestowed upon them as so many characters of infamy, from those several observations the world made of them: Their long clothing carried somewhat venerable in it, but Rabbi David upon that of Zephaniah, where the Prophet in God's name threatens to cut off all that wear strange apparel, tells us, 
Zeph. 1.8. Vid. Drusium de 3. Sect. l. 2. c. 1.  That by that expression some understand those men who to make a show of piety and holiness to the world, put on garments that are not like the garments of other men, that by those garments they may be taken notice of for very pious and holy men, but in the mean time their ways are wicked, such were the Pharisees who, in a word, at our Saviour's appearance, had perverted the Law of God so as to be a mere stale of their ambition and false interest; they were religious in show, but the greatest enemies of Religion in reality.  
If after the Jews we come to take notice of the Gentiles, we shall find they were fallen into the same or greater corruptions, The precise Stoics, so famous for their Morals, were both themselves and their followers as infamous for their effeminacy and luxury; those great enquirers into the wisdom of God discovered in the works of Nature, lost themselves and their admirers in a thousand follies, they recommended continence and sobriety, themselves in the mean time being bawds and panders to their own unnatural Lusts; they declaimed against pride, yet thought themselves too good to converse with earth; their chief Philosophers ptetended to unite a rational Soul to the Divine Nature, and at the same instant made ignoble Magic and Diabolical contracts the very crown of all their endeavours; the generality of the Pagan world, tho' they multiplied their Deities so fast, scorned the slavery of a devout fear, and dared and hectored the greatest of their Gods with their extravagancies: they fell into the foolery of deifying one another, and by such a superfetation of Divinities, came to have no fear at all of God before their eyes; what enormous crimes they fell into, S. Paul gives us a just account of, where for their senseless Idolatries, he assures us, God gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves, and as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, so God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient; hence they were filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, 
Rom. 1.24.28— 32.  wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, they were full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, they were whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful, and these knowing the judgement of God (that they which commit such things are worthy of death) not only did the same themselves, but took pleasure in those that did them: Sin was grown among them then, as at present it is with us, one of the most fashionable things in the world, so that even their own companions, the Parasites and Sycophants, of those irreligious ages, could not but now and then Satyrize upon their vices; it was indeed no wonder that in our Saviour's time, and the immediately precedent and subsequent Ages, they should be so miserably corrupted, the degeneracy began betimes, for Maximus Tyrius tells us a story of Anacharsis the Scythian, (a man of a truly philosophical spirit and of ancient simplicity, and living about the time of the great Cyrus, who restored Israel to their country after the Captivity of Babylon, 
Maximi Tyrii Dissertat. 15. ) that he came into Greece in quest of a wise man, or one whose words and actions were of a piece, Athens that eye of Greece, and where all the various Sects of Philosophers were in their splendour, could show him no such man, nor could the rest of Greece satisfy his inquiry, till at last, in an obscure corner of the Country, he found one Myson, a man of no name nor reputation in the world, but one that really spoke and acted too as became a wise and good man: And if Greece which seems to be the world's glory for the learning and valour, and the yet greater reputation of its inhabitants, could afford no better store of men who lived virtuously, how meanly must we conclude the rest of the world was stocked with them! therefore Lucian, that impious but witty scoffer at Christianity, could not forbear lashing the Philosophers themselves, who knew so much, and exposing them to the world's contempt, so in his Icaro-Menippus, Menippus tells his friend a story of his being in heaven, where, among other considerables, a Council of the Gods was called by Jupiter their supreme, to discourse with them concerning the Philosophers, and Jupiter tells the rest, that the Philosophers were a race of Men lazy, quarrelsome, vainglorious, choleric, gluttonous, silly, proud, abusive, and in a word according to Homer 's phrase, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an unprofitable burden to the Earth, some of these call themselves Stoics, some Academics, some Epicureans, some Peripatetics, and by several other more ridiculous names these assuming to themselves the venerable character of Virtue, they walk about with a supercilious and disdainful look, a long reverend beard, a starched habit, but under all the most detestable manners in the World, yet these wretches, forsooth, despise all the World beside themselves, they talk lewdly and sillily of the Gods, and, getting a company of unexperienced youths about 'em, they make a mighty noise of virtue, and always commend sobriety and modesty among their followers, and rail against wealth and pleasure, but when they get once by themselves, they gorge themselves without measure, they indulge themselves in all manner of lust, and are base enough to rake a kennel for a leaden farthing, and what's worse in them than all the rest, when they themselves do nothing towards the good of mankind either privately or publicly, when they are neither fit for the Wars abroad, nor for consultations in private, they are always accusing others, and with bitter expressions and studied abuses, 
Luciani ●. 2. p. 208. etc.  they reproach and rail upon their neighbours, and he's the greatest man among them who is most noisy, impudent, and has the foulest tongue: Had St. Paul and Lucian lived together, though one were so holy, the other so much an Atheist, a Man would have thought they had agreed together in their accounts of the degeneracy of those, who were accounted the wisest part of the World; to these I may add Philostratus, who giving us an account of a discourse between Apollonius Thyanaeus and Phraotes an Indian Prince, he introduces the Prince, reflecting upon Apollonius and his Companions thus, I hear, says he, there are many among you, who make Philosophy their trade to get by, and putting it on, like a Garment which they can as easily throw aside, they bear themselves high upon an habit that belongs not to them, and most certainly as common thiefs, who look upon themselves as sure of hanging whensoever they are catcht, 
Philostrati vita Apollon. l. 1. c. 12.  are for a short life and a merry, so these Philosophical rogues among you indulge their lusts and their guts, and are the tenderest and most effeminate Creatures in the World, and this I take to proceed from the defect of your Laws. He that counterfeits the public Coin dies for it, and so does he that cheats an Orphan, or any thing of the like nature among you, but, as I am told, there's no Law among you that punishes Quacks in Philosophy, who only abuse and corrupt it, nor is there any Magistrate appointed to take cognizance of them: Thus far he. By which we learn that as to the Divine Law, where there is no Law there can be no transgression, so in respect of worldly matters, where there's no Law there's nothing but transgression, and by the concurrence of all these so very plain testimonies we find, that the ends of true Devotion in that part of the World which was without the pale of the Jewish Church, was not only perverted about the time of our Lord's appearance on Earth, but it was worn out of memory, and God so represented by Men, that there seemed to be no better way of approaching his nature, than by an irresistible ingenuity in all manner of brutish violence and extravagant wickedness.  
Thus have we at large considered the ancient Maxims of Religion, and seen wherein the World in general believed it to subsist, and we have seen how far both Jews and Gentiles had declined from their own principles; by the whole it will appear, that the fullness of time was come in every respect, that humane wickedness was grown to that height, and consequently that great God whose eyes are purer than to behold sin, so infinitely provoked, that, had not the blessed Jesus the Son of God interposed, as great and universal a deluge of vengeance must have overspread the World, as that of Water heretofore; but withal it will appear as plain, that notwithstanding all these abuses and depravations of Religion, the foundation of it still stood good, the Laws of God were as really believed to be holy, just and reasonable, and obedience to them as necessary among the Jews, and Virtue and solid Honesty was as much commended, tho' perfectly starved, among the Gentiles, as ever before, it was the practice of what they so commended that so miserably failed among Men, so that there was indeed no kind of necessity to extirpate the whole of all former Religions for the settling that of Christ, but only of a reformation of abuses and clearing the old foundation from all that rubbish, from all those briers and thorns that had overgrown it, and there was need of reinforcing those duties appertaining to Religious converse whether with God or Men, upon all sorts of persons with new and more forcible arguments than former Ages had offered, that Men might re-entertain their first Love, and do their first works, so bringing forth fruits agreeable to repentance: Therefore our Saviour professes of himself with respect to the whole Mosaic Law, that he came not to destroy, but to fulfil it; i.e. to show its whole design and intention, to perform every part in his own Person, 
Mat. 3.15.  upon which reason he offered himself to John's Baptism, though in its own nature but a deduction from, or an appendix to the Law, and when John made a modest refusal, Jesus said to him, Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. He came to fulfil it farther in suffering upon the Cross, by which Sacrifice of his, it being the end of the Law, all Jewish Sacrifices were vacated, the substance being once come, the shadow could have no longer place in the World, and consequently all those Ceremonies conducing to their Sacrifices had an end too: So he fulfilled whatsoever the Mosaic Law had prefigured to the Jewish people. He came to teach Men the very comprehensive nature of the Law, to show his own Disciples and Followers how much more was required at their hands, than what the strictest Zealots among the Jews thought themselves obliged to, to convince them that it not only reached the outward Man, and so might be slighted by evasive subtleties, but it was to engage all the inward affections of the Soul, and so must necessarily exclude all collusion and Hypocrisy; this method our Lord followed in that admirable Sermon upon the Mount, wherein He cancelled no part of that Law given to the Jews of old, but commented upon it; And so the Apostle St. Paul acted with relation to the Gentiles, and therefore when he was at Athens, though his Spirit was stirred up in him, moved equally with grief and anger to see that populous City so wholly given to Idolatry: yet He fell not immediately to the reproaching of their Religion, nor to the taking it away both root and branch, but he took an happy occasion from that Inscription upon one of their Altars, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, To the unknown God, to assure them that he preached no other God to them, but him whom they ignorantly worshipped, He being that God who made the World and all things therein, 
Acts 17.23, 24.  and therefore could not be confined to Temples made with hands.  
Thus from the beginning of the World, Religion, as to its Essence, has been immutable; what was fixed in Man by nature, so long as Nature is, must be the same too; God planted in man his own fear, and whatsoever tended to the promotion of that, and an earnest desire of self-preservation, with respect to this and to a future life; whatsoever byasses men now to a wretched slavish fear only of Divine displeasure, and makes them therefore rather avoid evil than do good: And whatsoever engages men in unlawful ways of securing themselves from any apparent danger, all that arises from those corruptions nature at present is embarrassed with: these things are to be mended, but God is still to be feared, and Men shall still get a good name by doing real good unto themselves; Obedience was the great first end of every Law, and a Law was given our first Parent to put him upon a trial of original prudence, which could never put him upon any thing but what was excellent; when prudence seemed drowsy, sin crept upon him, and ruin'd him and his prosperity, but because Man sinned, God did not therefore change the nature of his commands, but he explained and improved them, by adding particulars coincident with them; he supplied the defects of reason impaired, and revealed those things at which it might have stumbled beyond recovery: Noah and his Sons had not a new Law, but the same again illustrated farther, and more cleared up by additional revelation, to supply the greater decays of humane abilities: Nor did God change his mind when he chose the Seed of Abraham from the rest of Mankind, or give Israel any new Laws essential to Religion, for Circumcision and the Paschal Feast were not of the essence of it at all, since Man might have kept all the moral Law without ever participating in either: The rest of the ceremonial and political injunctions were necessary to the Jews necessitate praecepti, as they were commanded by a God infinitely powerful and wise, and who could enjoin them nothing that was unfit or unjust, but the moral Law which was the Law of nature, and obliged all Mankind, as well as the Nation of the Jews, was necessary, necessitate Medii, as an absolute and indispensible means of salvation, or as containing such duties, and forbidding such sins, as without an exact care in each of which it was impossible for any man living to be saved: and whereas the circumstantial Laws of the Jews were such as had no intimate connexion with or dependence upon one another, all the parts of the Moral and perpetually obliging Law are of so close an alliance, and in their execution so inseparable one from another, that as S. James says, 
James 2.10.  Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all: for the whole sum of the Law being comprehended in those few words, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself, If therefore any man bow to an Idol, or worship more Gods than one, or profane the name of the true God, or be guilty of perjury, or refuse to devote one day in seven to the worship and service of God, by any of these sins he proves he does not love the true God so entirely as he ought. And again, He that dishonours or rebels against his parents natural, spiritual, or civil, or that commits murder with his hand or in his heart, or that submits to the enticements of lust, or that defrauds and purloins from another, or that by falsehood endeavours to prejudice the life or estate or reputation of others, or who indulges himself in covetousness, or gives way to the first motions of the heart that incline to envy, Whosoever sins in any one of these particulars, tho' at the sametime he be a rigid observer of all the rest, cannot be said to love his neighbour as himself, since he would not be willing, either that by himself, or by any other, any injury of what kind soever should be done to him: and how much more essential to the body of Religion the Jews thought these perpetual Laws, than their own Ceremonial Institutions, is plain from their practice, since they, as much as possible, hindered all mere Heathens from co-habiting with them, and yet admitted those whom they called Proselytes of the gate, upon their renouncing a plurality of Gods, and submitting to the seven precepts of the sons of Noah, to the privilege of performing their Devotions in the exterior Court of the Temple, and kindly supposed them too capable of a portion in the world to come. As God made no alteration in the natural Law by what he gave Israel by the hand of Moses, so neither did he innovate any thing when he sent his only begotten Son into the world for its Salvation, the Law of Christ was the Law of Moses, which was the Law of Noah, which was the Law of Adam, which was the Law of pure original Nature, which was the Law of God; as Moses was the Lawgiver of the Jews, so was the blessed Jesus the Lawgiver of the Christians, but if we look on them both as mere Men, their legislative power was not original, but as Stephen tells the Jews, 
Acts 7.53. Numb. 21.18.  the Law was given them by the disposition of Angels; Moses yet is called a Lawgiver in the Song of the Israelites, but it's in the same sense as a Judge on the Bench, who has no power to make any thing a Law of his own contrivance, or by his own Authority: God himself, on whose services myriads of glorious Angels always attend, is a Lawgiver, as a King on his Throne, who has no superior, and therefore what he there decrees, has the force and sanction of a Law, the Lord is our Judge, 
Isa. 33.22.  says the Prophet, the Lord is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our King, he will save us: As our Saviour was Man, he too, tho' superior to Moses, and peculiarly faithful in all the house of God, had no authority to make alterations in that original Moral Law, and as he was one with his Father, and so conscious of every determination of his, it was impossible he should vary from himself, i. e. from his blessed Father, or should openly in the world act as if it were possible any thing imperfect should come out of the hand of God: Hence we rationally believe, that if salvation be a thing really attainable, it must be attained by the same means by all persons whether Jews or Gentiles. Of the Patriarches several have that testimony given of them in Scripture, that they pleased God; now there being no variableness nor shadow of turning with God, but he the same yesterday to day and for ever, whatsoever pleased God in those, the same and nothing else can please him now. And whereas our blessed Saviour in the days of his flesh made it his business to please his Almighty Father, and did so by performing every punctilio of the Mosaic Law, so we who are to follow his example, must perform the same; but whereas the very circumstantial appendages of a Law, tho' nothing essential to it but the mere evidences of the Sovereignty of the Lawgiver, are not yet to be cancelled, but by a power equal to that which gave them their first obliging authority; therefore it was necessary that Jesus Christ, in and by whom the ceremonial sanctions of Moses' Law were vacated, should be God and so have the same original Divine Authority in himself; and his fulfilling and re-confirming all the substantial parts of that Law, made it yet the more publicly authentic, and taught his followers to have their due respect to him, which was due to both an Almighty Lawgiver, and an infallible Interpreter. And whereas that insupportable burden of Ceremonies is taken off from the necks of Christians, it being laid upon the Jews partly for the hardness of their hearts, and partly for to shadow out to them their expectations of a Messiah, who being himself come in the flesh has now no need of types and shadows to prefigure him; so the old Natural Law is urged upon them with the greatest strength and reason in the world, and the force and intent of it is more clearly showed them; from whence the Apostle S. John, who tells those he writes to, that he gave them no new commandment but the old which they had heard from the beginning, yet in the very next verse subjoins, 
1 John 2.7, 8.  Again a new commandment I writ unto you, the substance of which is, that you love one another, this was an old commandment, in that Nature enjoined it, and it was co-incident with that, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself; it was a new Commandment, in that it was reinforced and inculcated so very often by our Saviour, in that He gave so many powerful reasons why his followers should practise it; and yet the result of all amounts only to this, that the design of Religion being to restore Nature to its first happiness, and that being rationally concluded to be the best and purest Religion which has the greatest effects in that design, if those who were his Disciples would but take care to evidence their Discipleship by that mutual love and endearing charity, they would, at the same time, convince the world that the Lord whom they followed was truly authorised by Heaven, that the Doctrine which He preached was really agreeable to the Will of God, and that Love being the first intention of pure and uncorrupted Nature, That which raised and encouraged men most powerfully to it must needs be the most suitable to that original purity of Nature. And hence it is that we observe, many are prejudiced against Christianity by those cursed feuds and animosities to be found among Christians, they having an eye generally to the restauration of Nature, but quarrels and contentions being wholly barbarous, brutish and unnatural; hence it appears farther too, that whereas the Apostle seems to distinguish between the Gospel and the Mosaic dispensation, as if the first were the Law of Faith, the last the Law of Works, and that such a Law as by which Salvation could never be obtained, The works the Apostle reflects on, are not the duties of the moral Law, but the Ceremonial punctilios of the Levitical Law, which, as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, agreeably to what I asserted before, assures us, were not able to make any man perfect; but for the Moral Law he's so far from invalidating it, that where ever he dehorts from any vices, such as he calls the works of the flesh, 
Gal. 5.19,— 24.  which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, strife, wrath, seditions, heresy, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revel, and such like; of which he tells us, that they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God: Again, wheresoever he exhorts to any virtue, such as Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against which there is no Law; Wheresoever he does thus, He enforces the Moral Law with expressions as strong, and reasons as weighty as the Holy Ghost could inspire him with; and where the same Apostle assures us that in Jesus Christ neither Circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, 
Gal. 5.6.  he shows what works are excluded from any efficacy in our Salvation, for Circumcision is put for the whole Ceremonial Law, and where he adds that Faith working by Love is available, he shows the inefficacy of all pretences to Faith without good works, agreeing with S. James, that Faith without works is dead, 
James 2.26.  and with his own severe reflection elsewhere upon those, who profess they knew God while in their works they deny him, 
Tit. 1.16.  being abominable disobedient, and to every good work reprobate.  
Since than it was the great end and design of the Gospel to confirm the Moral and eternal Law of God, and so by just degrees to reduce fallen Man again to the rules of perfect reason, to make him sensible of the noble nature and spiritual inclinations of the Heavenborn Soul, that so he might the more fully apprehend, how much below himself he falls in yielding himself a slave to Sin, and how much he retrenches his own true liberty by that unbridled exorbitancy he aims at: the Gospel being intended to set Man's natural misery in a true light, and withal to show the sole remedy for that misery in the undertake of a Saviour: It remains an inquiry still whether Man could, in the state he is in at present, arrive at a full and plain satisfaction in these matters? And here we are to call to mind our second Position relating to Humane Reason, which teaches us, that by the Fall, humane reason is exceedingly impaired, and very much incapacitated for those great ends for which it was first bestowed on Man; and it's plain that though our Saviour has appeared, though he has brought us the glad tidings of life and salvation in and by himself, tho' he has taken the kindest care imaginable for the propagation of this Gospel, we are still by birth the same naturally miserable and misunderstanding Creatures that we were before; and therefore we are in some sense actually regenerate or born again in Baptism, being in it born members of the Christian Church, and so having a right to all Christian privileges, and it being a Symbol or sign of our new birth or resurrection from dead works to serve the living God; yet after our Baptism, our intellectuals are still the same poor, weak, and miserably foolish; and hence it comes that Catechetical instructions in the principles of Christian Religion, and frequent Sermons or exhortations to true piety and sincere goodness, or dehortations from Sin, and explications of hard and difficult expressions or doctrines in Scripture, and vindications of divine truths from the assaults of Heretics, Schismatics or Infidels, and the refutation of those errors, endeavoured by such to be impressed on the minds of Men, all these things are absolutely necessary for advancing our knowledge in Divine Matters, for keeping us from the paths of error, and for teaching and showing us how to live godly, righteously and soberly in this present evil world: And the more improvements we make according to these means of grace which we enjoy, the more powerful assistances and encouragements we meet with from Heaven in our work, as was before observed in our fourth Position concerning humane reason. Yet after all, we remain but on the positive side of those great truths laid down in Scripture, we believe them firmly and steadfastly, because we have an irrefragable and infallible testimony of their truth, the veil that was upon the hearts of men is indeed taken away, the types, shadows and ancient Prophecies, relating to the Messiah, are all made good in his appearance upon earth, the way to life is made clear, and according to right reason, very easy and agreeable to those who endeavour to walk in it; and Man so endeavouring, is reconciled to God by the blood of his dear Son Jesus Christ, and there is a nearer and more close Communion between God and man than heretofore, all these things and the infinite love of God in them, are now so plainly deciphered, that he who runs may read them. But for the rational part of these things, or what means an Almighty God could make use of to effect things so stupendous, how that dismal distance between a pure Divinity and corrupt Mortality, should be made up; how God himself should stoop to man, when man notwithstanding all his inordinate ambition, could never rise to God, how that strict communication between God and Man should be maintained, etc. All these things are such mysteries, that its impossible for even Angelical Intellectuals to comprehend them fully, since common reason will give us this maxim, that Nothing but an infinite being can perfectly understand all the operations of an infinite being: Therefore we have the Communion between God and Man still shadowed out to us in the Symbols of Bread and Wine, consecrated into a clear representation of the body and blood of our Saviour to us in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper: Nor can we believe (whatsoever Grotius, 
In tract. An. semper sit communicand. per Symbola.  a man of more learning than orthodoxy, would persuade us to,) that we, while we have the means and opportunities of communicating with one another, and holding a close communion with God, by participating of those Symbols which our Lord himself instituted to that very end and purpose, can possibly communicate as well without them, or that we may make at any time the Bread and Wine a Nehustan, a sign of no account or value at all, because perhaps it may have been abused to ill purposes by a factious or an Idolatrous Crew: but not to insist upon that; Tho' it be with S. chrysostom and many other Ancients, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a dreadful and tremendous Mystery, and will be always so accounted by the most understanding and humble Christians; there's not an article of our Faith, not one of the principal heads of the Apostles Creed, which we so often repeat, but it's a body of Mysteries. Mysteries, after all the pains of the most learned and pious men, unintelligible otherwise than as to their positive truth by all mankind; and more particularly those clauses concerning our blessed Saviour are so true, so essential to our eternal salvation, and yet so far above our reach, that while we meditate on them seriously, our Souls have nothing but miracles of power, wisdom, mercy, and love in view, but being known for such, they all hold their miraculous nature still, and can never be fully deciphered either by Men or Angels; and that we should yet be obliged steadfastly to believe these things, though we cannot comprehend them, will appear no way unreasonable, if we consider these things, belonging to the 3d. Inquiry, which is,  
What considerable advantages can accrue to Religion from those Mysteries it's founded upon? we consider in pursuit of this Query,  
That by a due reflection upon the nature of such Mysteries as are really necessary, and consequently of very great weight and importance, men are brought to a due acknowledgement of the deficiency of their own reason, they learn how weak and shallow all the utmost flights of wit and reason are, when they come once to stand in competition with the results of infinite wisdom and unlimited understanding: Men of the most presuming abilities find it very hard to unriddle ancient parables, and to give a clear and evident explication of enigmatical writings and figurative sentences and expressions; the youthful Philistines, Men without doubt of very brisk parts in their own esteem, as we may conclude by their ready acceptance of Sampson's proposition, faltered pitifully when they set their wits on work to expound his riddle, and the Pharisaical Allumbradoes, those men of light, who (like the modern Chineses) concluded almost all the World blind except themselves, when our Saviour put that Dilemma to them concerning John's Baptism, viz. Whether it were from Heaven or of Men, it confounded them so as all their mighty wisdom could never disentangle them; if these things were difficult, the fundamental Mysteries of Religion are much more so; Men have attempted several ways to solve the appearances of Nature, and some have made such ingenious researches after them, and have laid down Hypotheses so very rational for the solution of difficulties in them, that they have got themselves the applauding vogue of the World, and their Dictates have been valued by learned Men as the great standards of Philosophic reason: Nay, the acquists of some in these matters, have puffed them up with that ridiculous vanity and pride, that they have dared to trample upon all Religion, nay upon the Deity itself, imagining themselves able to demonstrate, how the World and all the parts of it might be constituted, regulated, and continued, without any concurrence of a Divine and unbounded Providence: but when these same mighty pretenders to wit and sense, have come to look into the shallow Mystic rites of ancient Heathens, they have but fooled and disgraced themselves: but when such fall upon the foundations of Christianity, they prove like that Stone our Saviour speaks of, which whosoever shall fall on shall be broken, 
Matth. 21.44.  but on whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him to powder; they only show themselves egregious fools, and endeavour to ridicule every thing which they find themselves unable to understand. Thus Lucian or some of his Contemporaries in his Philopatris, a Dialogue of that name, makes it his business to scoff at several things, revealed in Scripture, and at several of the Mysteries of Christianity, though neither he nor his followers, not Celsus, nor Porphyry, nor Libanius, nor Julian himself, nor any other of that witty scoffing tribe, were ever able to confute the Writings of the Prophets or the Apostles, or to baffle their Christian Antagonists by any serious argument. In the forenamed Dialogue Critias offering to swear to Triepho, or to give him an oath for his security from any danger, having named several of their Heathen Gods, Triepho derides them all with reason enough, Critias at last breaks out thus, By whom then shall I swear that I may be believed? The other answers, Thou shalt swear by that God who rules above, 
Philopatris, Oper. Luciani. T. 2. p. 770.  the great, the immortal, the Heavenly God, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Son of the Father, the Spirit proceeding from the Father, one of three and three of one, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Reckon of these as of Jupiter, esteem these God; after this the same Buffoon proceeds to scoff at that great Apostle of the Gentiles, St. Paul, calling him that bald high-nosed Galilaean, who mounted upon the air into the third Heaven, and there learned wonderful matters, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, He regenerated or renewed us by water, and gently guided us into the footsteps of the blessed, and redeemed us out of the regions of the wicked; and again he burlesques the original of all things, where he tells his Companion, that there was light incorruptible, invisible, incomprehensible, which put an end to darkness and disorder, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, only with speaking one word, as that slow-tongued Man, meaning Moses, has written; and more to the same purpose, and of the same scurrilous stamp; and this is the wit of Atheistical heads, who think it's enough to expose a Doctrine they understand not, or cannot edify by, as some would express it, merely to name it and no more; where, as the true Sons of Religion, though they are far enough from pretending to fathom the great objects of faith, cannot yet but derive ineffable consolations from the positive truth of those Mysteries contained in Holy Writ; but this overweening of their own extraordinary wit, made many persons of excellent natural abilities, of well exercised reason, and inimitable diligence, in the first ages of the Gospel, stumble so foully at the Doctrine of a crucified Saviour; for as a just punishment for that foolish pride and self conceit, God destroyed the wisdom of the wise, 
1 Cor. 1.19.  and brought to nothing the understanding of the prudent, so the Stoic and Epicuraean Philosophers were mightily puzzled with those new Gods, as they were pleased to call them, 
Acts 17.18.  viz. Jesus and the resurrection, as if because they could not understand what the meaning of a resurrection was, therefore the Apostles who preached it up must needs either make a God, or a Goddess of it: Thus the same doctrine of the resurrection; and that of Christ's being the Son of God, and several other mystic truths were cast in the teeth of suffering Christians, as if they could be no better than mad men, who would undergo so many hardships for assertions so very unintelligible, as that they could deserve nothing less than derision; and it was often urged as an evidence of a bad cause, that it had so many strange and incomprehensible postulates attending on it.  
The same is the plea of the Atheistical, what if I should add of the Heretical wits of our age, who labour hard to expose whatsoever they meet with beyond the reach of their debauched understandings, and would therefore have all sound Religion banished out of the Commonwealth, because, forsooth, they cannot comprehend How God should become Man, should be born of a pure Virgin, should converse with men, should die for their sins, rise again for their justification, and ascend up into glory with that humane body he had assumed unto himself, from whence before the World's dissolution he should certainly come to be the Supreme determining Judge of all both Men and actions, upon which Faith the whole Christian Oeconomy is built, and without the certain truth of all which, Christianity would be the most absurd and unreasonable religion in the World: Thus Heretics, thus Atheists discourse, as if it were indeed impossible there should exist a God of greater wisdom and power than themselves, or however, that he must dispose of all things just agreeably to their Capacities, on pain of being dethroned for a default, when yet every day they see men like themselves born into the World, but can give no possible account of the reason of their acquiring such and such particular shapes or features in the World; they see a man born naked into the World, but cannot tell us why they are not all covered with hair, or scaly armour like Beasts, or with scales and fins as Fishes, or with feathers as Birds: they see and know they have naturally but two feet, but cannot tell why they should not be born without any, as Worms, or Fishes, or why they should not have four, as the greater number of Beasts, or why not greater numbers, as most infects; they see Man, a Creature of a noble and Majestic frame, endued with a discursive faculty, ready to descant upon every visible object, yet cannot tell why nature should have given man but two eyes wherewith to survey so vast and unaccountable a variety, when at the same time she has studded the head of a contemptible Fly with several thousands; they find themselves able to call to mind a mighty number of particulars, seen, heard, read, talked of, but cannot inform themselves certainly where the numerous Ideas of sensible things passed should be lodged, when at the same time the mind is crowded with a World of present objects, and roving too after the most uncertain future contingencies; and yet, after all these notorious instances of their wretched Ignorances', God must lay his whole Divine power and wisdom at their feet, or else he must be no God for them: We may say with a little alteration of David's words, Man overvaluing his own wisdom hath no understanding, but is like the beasts that perish; if he could comprehend God, he'd despise him, since he cannot, he'll deny him, an humour uncouth and unnatural even to corrupted reason; but the truly wise man, when he sees himself thus puzzled with every little effect of common nature, is so far from thinking it strange, that the great Sovereign of all things should say or do any thing above his understanding, that he rather would wonder (did he not acknowledge both omnipotence and omniscience in God) how so excellent a Being should possibly stoop so low, as to make any thing concerning himself intelligible to a corrupted transgressing Creature; the more he looks upward to God the ordainer of all things, the readier He is to break out into that expression of the Psalmist, When I consider the Heavens the work of thy fingers, 
Psal. 8.3.  the Moon and the Stars which thou hast ordained, Lord, what is man that thou shouldst consider him, or the Son of Man that thou visitest him! The more he meditates on God's infinite perfections, the more humbly sensible he grows of his own wants, and easily can see at how sad a loss wretched Man would have been for obtaining that Divine favour which he had forfeited by Sin, had not somewhat Almighty interposed: nor can he be but extremely humbled in his own thoughts, when he sees how unsearchable God's wisdom is, and his ways past finding out, since He, out of such strange confusions as Sin had brought into the World, could produce order, and by the most improbable and unsuspected means, could once more lay open to Men the way to eternal happiness, that way which Sin had shut up before; the more a contemplative Man learns to admire his God in this case, the more he learns to undervalue himself, and never to depend upon his own dreams and imaginations.  
By those Mysteries attending Religion in general, men are in the better capacity to make a judgement of Religions of all ages, and to fix themselves upon that alone which is proper to conduct us through a troublesome world to everlasting happiness: The nature of any religious profession may be distinguished by such characteristics; for since God, as he manifests himself to mankind, is unquestionably a very benign and merciful Being, that Religion which has the closest correspondence with such manifestations of himself, must certainly be the most pleasing to God, and consequently the best: Mystic Rites and Ceremonies have been various, and tho' the Devil had his design in the invention of several, yet Men too, who used them, had, as before I proved, in all of them some particular respects to futurity, and that happiness expected by means of a Mediator between God and Man; but as God was never pleased by unclean offerings, so much less could he be pleased with humane blood offered upon Altars devoted to him, (however such Sacrifices might be thought to prefigure best the shedding of Christ's blood, that blood without which there could be no remission); and therefore we find, that tho' God tried Abraham's faith and obedience by that severe command, that he should offer up his only Son a  offering to him, and tho' he permitted the good old Patriarch to go on a great way toward putting the command in execution, yet when he was ready to give the fatal stroke, he stopped his hand, and accepted the readiness to offer it better than he would have accepted the sacrifice itself when actually made; therefore whatsoever mystery savoured any thing of cruelty, was enough, if there were nothing more, to desecrate that persuasion which admitted of such things. Again, whereas those who pretend to any considerable notions of a God will acknowledge him to be infinitely holy and pure, and consequently to love the same holiness and purity in his Creatures. Wheresoever any mystic rites have at any time trespassed upon such purity, we may be assured God has nothing to do with such worship; a brand in this case the Pagan zeal endeavoured to fix upon the Christians, as well knowing how odious such a charge would render them: Thus Caecilius in Minutius Foelix, having before charged the Christians with murdering and devouring infants, he adds, 
Minutii Foelicis Oct. p. 90. Edit. Hackian.  On a certain day the Christians, men, women and children of every age and sex, meet together at a feast, after much junketing, when their incestuous lust grows hot, a dog tied on purpose to the candlestick, pulls it down, extinguishes the light, and then in the dark they promiscuously pollute one another with fornications, adulteries, incests, and what not: But Pliny, as much a heathen as himself, vindicates the abused Christians from that horrid calumny in his Epistle to Trajan, where he informs that Emperor, That he had found by certain intelligence, that the Christians on a set day were wont to meet before it was light, and alternately to sing an Hymn to Christ, as if he were God: Séque sacramento, non in scelus aliquod obstringere, sed nè furta, nè latrocinia, nè adulteria committerent, nè fidem fallerent, etc. i. e. And they did by solemn oath engage themselves, not to any wickedness, but that they should not steal, nor murder, nor commit adultery, nor perjure themselves, etc. Now how those who entered into such solemn mutual engagements not to commit such sins, should yet be so notoriously guilty of the worst of crimes, and how such very guilty persons, and such horrid abominations, 
Plinii Epistol. l. 10, Ep. 97.  should have escaped Pliny's cognizance, who had made it his particular business to inquire into the behaviour of Christians, it's very hard to imagine. But howsoever falsely these things were charged upon Christians, they were true enough among the Heathens, where the Eleusinian rites among the Grecians, those of the Bona Dea among the Romans, with their Bacchanalia, etc. were nothing but so many subtle contrivances to render all manner of lewdness and villainy authentic and valuable, on which account the Apostle exhorts his Ephesians, 
Ephes. 5.11, 12.  to have no fellowship with such unfruitful works of darkness, but rather to reprove them, for that its a shame to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. Farther yet, whereas God has now really by his Son accomplished that great work of the world's redemption, those mystic Rites and Ceremonies which fore-signified that to be done, are now vacated, and those who would have mysteries of that nature still continued, do as much as in them lies, to drive the world into an aversion from him, who alone is able to save to the uttermost all those who come to God by him: For those rites continued, will move the world to belive that the Messiah is not yet come, that the Faith so long professed in him, as if he were come, is vain, that He who once pretended to that name, only imposed upon the world, and was no better than a cheat, and that therefore the Jewish Religion is and aught to be still in its full force: Now this will appear very absurd and unreasonable to any one who has seriously weighed all those arguments brought to prove that Jesus Christ was the Son of the living God, and therefore could be no Impostor, and therefore must be that Messiah he declared himself to be; which being true, it will follow, that our Saviour's coming must of necessity put an end to so much of the Jewish Law as was not co-incident with that of Nature, and consequently not perpetually obliging. That many of the Jews themselves ever looked upon their Law as of a mutable nature in itself, is proved sufficiently by Raymundus Martini in his Pugio fidei against the Jews, and that it could never be more properly actually changed, than by the Messiah, appears in him who proves, from Jewish writers themselves, that the Messiah, the King, shall be greater than Moses, nay greater than the ministering Angels, and therefore the fittest for such a work; and, as he shows, their own gloss in the Midrasch Koheleth upon that of Solomon, Eccles. 11.8. 
Pugionis fidei p. 3. dist. 3. c. 20  tells us, That every Law of all people whatsoever, every Law that a man can learn in this world, is all but vanity in comparison of the Law of the Messiah: Things of a less perfect and lasting nature must then vanish when that appears which is more perfect and eternal: Whatsoever therefore crosses that end for which God sent his Son into the world, and retains mysteries now altogether insignificant, as being fully accomplished, that cannot be pleasing to God, and consequently, the present Religion of the Jews cannot be the true Religion. There are indeed some mysterious truths in which all Religions agree, viz. The existence of a God, his spirituality, invisibility, incomprehensibility, etc. they all agree, That his Providence governs all things in the world, however trifling and inconsiderable they may appear in the eyes of the world: that He hears, sees, knows, understands every thing, tho' they know not how, according to the objection of Atheists, to reconcile such things to his want of eyes, ears, soul, or any other parts, which are all inconsistent with a spiritual being: All agree together in granting the present state of Man very wretched and deplorable, in looking upon him yet as capable of happiness, provided a suitable mean for its procurement could be found out, and in expectation of some proper help for that purpose: These things being agreeable to the general sense of mankind, and being the original reasons of men's putting themselves into a religious course, must still be approved by every one; and every one of these, that Religion settled in the world by our Saviour and his Apostles, does advance yet more plainly, and confirm more strongly to the world: And whatsoever mysterious truths it farther propounds, they are all so far intelligible by every one, as may serve sufficiently to confirm those first principles; whatsoever is farther to be seen in them, is what moves mankind to lay aside, all brutish, malicious, and unmanly humour, as the meditation upon that extraordinary love of God to mankind, of God the Father in sending his only Son into the world to die for it, of God the Son in leaving the bosom of his blessed Father, and in our nature and for our sake suffering that bitter and scandalous death upon the Cross; of God the Holy Ghost in pursuing us continually with his influences and assistances, and so working in us to will and to do according to God's good pleasure; this meditation naturally runs into that Apostolical conclusion, 
Joh. 4.11.  if God thus loved us, than ought we also to love one another. If we contemplate our own monstrous demerits, our aversion to every thing that is good, our inclination to every thing that is evil, and so offensive to God, our ingratitude for mercies received, our unfruitfulness under the means of grace and Salvation presented to us, our natural enmity to God and goodness: And if withal we seriously consider, that all those forementioned favours are conferred on us in a state of obstinate enmity, the inference is easy as our Lord has laid it down, 
Matth. 5.44.  That we should love our enemies, bless them that curse us, do good to them that hate us, and pray for them that despitefully use us and persecute us. If again, we think on that wonderful mercy of God whereby, for the merits of the blessed Jesus, he's pleased to forgive us our sins, those natural bars between us and heaven, the consequence we must of course draw from thence is, that of the Apostle, That we should be kind, 
Eph. 4.32.  tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven us: Thus we see what excellent influence these very truths, the nature and reasons of which are above the reach of our grovelling minds, may have upon us. If we proceed, and reflect upon the purity and holiness of that God with whom we have to do, that he's a Being who cannot endure sin, who punishes it for its odious nature even in his dearest children, all those mysteries revealed to us in the Gospel are so far, by any fair consequence, from perverting our minds, that they give us all the motives imaginable, 
1 Pet. 1.15.  that as he who has called us is holy, so should we be holy in all manner of conversation. A man may be a good heathen and yet a filthy Sodomite, a through-paced Jew and yet be blind, hardhearted, carnal; but a man cannot be a true Christian but he'll endeavour to avoid all appearance of evil, 
Judas 2●.  and to keep himself unspotted from the world: he'll live in a continual abhorrence of whatsoever may prejudice his soul, or pollute his body, and knowing that he is not his own, 
James ●●.  but that he's bought with a price, he'll follow that advice, he'll endeavour to glorify God in his body and in his spirit, which are gods: 
1 Cor. 6. ●●  and, to go no farther than what I had instanced in before, a man that meditates on that account the Apostles and Evangelists have given us of the appearance of the Son of God in the flesh, and on the ends and designs of such his appearance, he'll never spend his time idly about types and shadows, when he is invited to embrace the substance, he'll study to conform himself to the Doctrine of the Gospel, to be, so far as belongs to a mere man, a perfect imitator of all those excellent virtues so apparent in our Saviour during his converse with the world: he'll carefully avoid all sin, which was incapable of pardon from an offended God but upon the terms of the passion of his dearly beloved Son; and will be throughly satisfied of the danger of such transgression by a rational assurance, That if men sin wilfully after they have received the knowledge of the truth, 
Hebr. 10.26, 27.  there remains now no more sacrifices for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgement and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries: If then true Religion consist in worshipping God according to those revelations he has made of himself to the world, and we cannot propound any reason to ourselves why God should have made any such revelation of himself to us, but only that when we have a rule, we might have an example too, than whatsoever religion that is, whose most obscure and incomprehensible mysteries highly promote that excellent work of following our exemplar or growing up into an assimilation to God himself, by endeavouring to be holy as our heavenly father is holy, and perfect as he is perfect, That Religion must certainly carry us by the surest ways to eternal happiness; but such a Religion is that instituted by our Saviour in the Gospel, therefore that's a Religion above all others, for the sake of such mysteries, so profound, but withal so very profitable and instructive, to be embraced by all wise and considering Men.  
A due reflection upon those mysteries any Religion is founded upon, with a just apprehension of the deficiency of our own reason in tracing them, is a very proper means to create in men's minds a due and exact reverence for it. Thus that very notion that we have of God's infinity, of his dwelling in impenetrable darkness, or in inaccessible light, of the unsearchableness of his ways, the incomprehensibility of his wisdom, etc. All these things make awful impressions upon men's souls, and make them to fear before God, and to reverence him; and this God himself intended when by his Prophet he assured the Jews, My thoughts are not your thoughts, 
Isai. 55.8, 9  neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts: This prodigious distance between the nature of God and Man was enough to overawe man, on whose side there was so very great a disadvantage: God's prohibition so often repeated to the Jews, that they should not represent him to themselves by any figure or image whatsoever, with the reason as frequently inculcated, that they never had seen any thing which could look like any representation of him, was to prevent that contempt which too much familiarity with superiors naturally produces: for representing a God by any thing of a gross or material nature, is apt to create as gross an Idea of the Divinity itself in the mind of a Man, and those once entertained, produce a sauciness and familiarity, not at all agreeable to that immense distance there is between a divine and a mortal Being. Thus it's observable, that the Gentiles generally were upon several occasions extravagantly free with those Gods they worshipped: Hence the Tyrians when Alexander the great besieged them, chained the Image of Apollo to that of Hercules, lest the God should leave them, because one of their Citizens had had a melancholic dream, forsooth, that he designed to serve them such a slippery trick in their necessity: So the Athenians clipped off the wings of the Image of the goddess Victory, lest she should fly away from them: So Dionysius the elder of Sicily, took off a golden mantle from the statue of Jupiter and put him on a woollen blanket, with that scoffing reason, that the blanket was fit for all weathers, being lighter in Summer, and warmer in Winter; So he took off the golden beard of Aesculapius with that Witticisme, That it became not him to have so long a beard, when his father Apollo had none: It's true these affronts were proper enough for those Idols to whom they were offered, but they were very unbecoming those who offered them, since they professed to believe that they were really gods, so that they were not those Images or Statues which were abused, but it was the true Divinity itself, which they imagined resident in or about those Images; And of this Inconvenience from material Images even of material Saints, the Romanists are sometimes sensible, witness that action of a Spanish Peasant, who making his offering to the Image of the blessed Virgin, and imagining she looked not so kindly on him for it as he expected, He very briskly told her, she need not be so proud, for He remembered she was but a sorry piece of timber the other day; it was yet the more effectually to prevent such inconveniences, that God appointed a part of the Tabernacle first, and of the Temple at Jerusalem afterwards, under the Sacred name of the Holy of Holies, to be wholly inaccessible to any but the High Priest, who bore an extraordinary Character among the Jews, nor might He enter into it above once a Year, and that with a great deal of respect and ceremony; This made God to strike the men of Bethshemesh with so terrible a judgement for daring to pry into what God intended to keep secret; 
1 Sam. ●. 19.  and to strike Vzzah dead upon the place; for presuming to do what was above his station, and touch the Ark, though it seemed an action proceeding from a good zeal, or a fear that the Ark, the peculiar Symbol of God's presence among his People, should have fallen to the ground; 
2 Sam. 6.9.  but we may see what a terror that signal vengeance struck upon David himself and all his Company; 
v. 10.  and it's observed of Pompey the Great, that after He had been so bold as to look into the Holy of Holies, upon his taking Jerusalem, that though He saw nothing there, nor offered any violence to any thing about the Temple, but expressed a great deal of reverence towards the place and those that attended on it; yet that God's judgements pursued him from that time, that He prospered in little or nothing that He undertook, all things from thence verging hastily to his final ruin: So jealous is God of his honour, so terrible to those who will be struggling to know what he would have kept secret from the World. That great reverence, which a due distance between God (and the things belonging to him) and Man creates, is so well known in the World, that wise Men have thought it convenient, that there should be somewhat of a Mysterious Majesty in those who are God's representatives on earth, which has taught the great Eastern Monarches that prudent piece of state, to show themselves as seldom as possible to the People, by which means the Vulgar not being capable of any diminutive thoughts of those, whose weaknesses they are unacquainted with, almost reverence their Kings as Gods, and conclude no submissions can be too great to them; But what should I talk of Princes, when even those arts every day made use of, have some darker parts, on which reason we see some Men infinitely curious in comparison with others, and that every Art has its every days improvements, and to make them the more valued, their first Inventors 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 ginger, 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 convinced of this, that the more unintelligible the meaning of their religious rites was, the greater restraint they laid on vulgar and untutored Souls, and made them the more resolute in their superstitions: Hence one concludes, That those things which are easily understood, are generally despised by the vulgar, so that to make such plain things have any due effect on inferior Souls, they must be attended by somewhat of a prodigious nature.  
Tho' the Writers, from whom I allege these things, were but Heathens, yet they discoursed 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 designed 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 men's wits now adays so infinitely outstrip those of their Predecessors, that every illiterate mechanic, 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 People's 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 falsehood, blasphemy, and unintelligible nonsense, 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 shows, 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 chief 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, shows 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 men's younger years should be throughly seasoned 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 Judgement: 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 furnished 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 say, 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 men's 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 authentic and undeniable miracles, to prove their own Divine Commission, which once proved, a more serious regard to what they preached 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 perceive: Well, did this proceed from the difficulty and obscurity of what was preached? No, though he taught them in parables, things not obvious to every one, their unhappiness proceeded from another reason, This People's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their hearts, and should be converted, and I should heal them: Therefore he tried to open their eyes with miracles, it being then but the dawn of the Gospel, and men were not so easily wrought upon by clear reason, and by earnest persuasion: They were not the repeated tenders of mercy, nor threats of eternal damnation, that could convince them of the necessity of obedience to and belief of that Word which was Divine and Saving, had not Miracles been exhibited, such whose events they could give no account of to themselves or others, in them, therefore they could be content with that want of plainness which they knew not how to satisfy themselves with before.  
The force and convincing power of Miracles lay indeed wholly in the inexplicability of their reason: So long as Jannes and Jambres could work wonders, in appearance, parallel with those of Moses, they believed him no Messenger sent from God, but a cunning Juggler like themselves, and how they wrought such surprising wonders, they knew well enough; but when Moses had once outreached the utmost of their skill, they who thought themselves before unconquerable in juggling sleights and Magic skill, presently acknowledged that the finger of God was there, and began to tremble at what they had derided before; so, when he that spoke as never man spoke, could by no other arguments convince the stubborn Jews that he was their long expected Messiah, He bids them believe him for his very works sake; nay and indulges them so far as to allow, 
John 15.24.  that if he had not done among them the works which never man did, they had had no sin: And the Pharisees were very sensible what advantages accrued to the Apostle's doctrine by the miracles they did, as appears by that question among them upon St. Peter's healing the impotent Man, What shall we do to these men? for that indeed a notable miracle hath been done by them is manifest to all them that dwell at Jerusalem, 
Acts 4.16.  and we cannot deny it. But we find not our Saviour upon every miracle he did, presently giving the Jews an account how or by what power he did them, but he left them to make their conclusions from what they saw: And the Apostles, upon their Examination before the Jewish Council, only answer, If we this day be examined of the good deed done to the Impotent man, by what means he is made whole, be it known unto you all, and to the whole people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, 
Acts 4.9, 10.  whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand before you whole; by which account they left them but in a maze of mystery and wonder more inextricable than before; But if the unwonted cures of distempers, the ejection of Devils, the restauration of dead bodies to life, could over-aw the most obstinate stubbornness, how much more must the mysterious subjects of our faith, the appearance of the Son of God in our nature, his suffering death for our redemption, his resurrection and ascension up into glory, truths of a more sublime and incomprehensible nature, and confirmed too by those very astonishing miracles, work men to a profound veneration of that Religion grounded upon them! I'll add, that had it been possible for God so far to have laid aside his own immense glory, that men might have seen it fully and with open face, that they might have plainly read how all those wonders of love and mercy had been wrought, it would have been altogether unfit, since the pride of man would have been apt to trample upon, and despise the known cause of the most unexpected productions.  
It's necessary then that the fundamentals of Christ's Religion should carry with them somewhat of that awful Majesty inherent in its founder, nor is this wisdom of God in a Mystery to be laid open to scoffing Atheists, or Men only impertinently curious after novelties; Pearls are not to be cast before Swine, nor Holy things to Dogs: The Christians in the primitive Church were very strict in this respect, insomuch that the Gentiles objected it against them, that they kept the very God they worshipped unknown to the rest of the World; So Caecilius in Minutius Foelix very passionately, What silly and absurd opinions, says he, do these Christians take up, when they would persuade us that God whom they worship, a something, whom they can neither see themselves, nor show to any body else, does strictly examine the actions, manners, words, nay the very inmost thoughts of Men? And Maximus Madaurensis, in a more submissive style, speaks thus to the great St. Augustine; Show me now at length, O thou wisest of Men, what God it is ye Christians claim as yours, and whom ye own as present with you in your most private recesses, as for us we expose our Gods to public view, and adore them, and with offerings of Incense endeavour to reconcile them to us in the hearing of all the world; The ancient Christians would neither discourse of the Mysteries of their Faith, nor of their Sacramental Symbols before Ethnics, who would then, as the conceited Socinians do now, deride every thing they could not understand: So Lactantius, speaking of the Resurrection, a Doctrine which Christians ever owned as a fundamental, and which Heathens thought the most absurd and irrational principle in the World, subjoins at last, This is that Doctrine of the Prophets which we Christians maintain, this is our wisdom which Idolatrous pretenders to Philosophy contemn as vain and silly, because we make it no subject of our public disputations, but God has commanded us, that we should peaceably and silently lay up his secret in our hearts and consciences, not pertinaciously wrangling with profane persons, who violently oppose God and his religion, not with a design to sift out the truth, but to expose it to a public scorn; Nor ought the Mystery to be discovered by us especially, who denominate ourselves from that faith: Nay, even those who were Converts to Christianity were but gradually entered into these things; the Catechumeni and Energumeni being shut out of the Church so soon as the Sermon was done, and not permitted to be so much as Spectators of the Sacramental Mysteries.  
From what has been hitherto discoursed, we may justly conclude, That since Religion can have no part or interest, ordinarily, in the hearts of Men, unless it be ushered in by causes Mysterious, supernatural, or in their full extent incomprehensible: Since our blessed Saviour by introducing his Gospel into the World, has not taken away, but strongly confirmed the necessity of obedience to God's Laws, whether written or natural, which was, as we have before observed, the general intent of Religion, and agreeable to those notions the World commonly had of it: Since, for the better carrying on this end, Mysteries are so very advantageous to religion, as to make Men have reverend apprehensions of it, upon account of its incomparable Excellencies in its causes and effects, and upon account of the weakness and shallowness of their own understandings, since all these particulars are true; it's likewise absolutely necessary, that the Christian, the only true, Holy, pure Religion, should be built upon such a foundation, as might appear to all Men, upon the strictest inquiry, beyond all doubt or controversy, Mysterious, inexplicable, incomprehensible. Nor could it be an impertinent labour to clear this truth, because it totally ruins all the pretences of the Socinians, that, after the Revelation once made of the great fundamentals of our Faith, there could remain nothing of so obscure a nature, but that we by the pure strength of our own reason might be able to comprehend it, In short, that though it be true, that Scripture, as sufficient for that purpose, is and aught to be the sole rule of Faith, yet reason ought to be the rule of Scripture, Reason, as it now stands, loaded with all the miserable consequences of sin, reason so blind, as without the extraordinary light of holy Scriptures, to be wholly unable to lead a Man to Eternal life; it obviates their assertions, that the true ancient Catholic Interpretation of this and other Texts of Scripture, that speak of the eternal Divine nature of the Son of God, or of that glorious Trinity subsisting in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is false and unreasonable, merely because it introduces an unintelligible incarnation and unity of the Divine and Humane nature in Christ: a Mysterious co-essentiality of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, etc. notwithstanding all those glorious revelations God has made of himself in Scripture; For if it be certainly true, that Religion in its general notion, cannot subsist unless built upon a mystic foundation, and that therefore Christian Religion in particular cannot subsist without it, than it will follow, that the continuing Mystic nature of the great Articles of our Faith, can create no prejudice in any person whatsoever against our Religion on their account; since especially it will remain impossible to draw any genuine consequences from those mysteries, but what will be so far from impeaching, that they will strongly confirm and reinforce all those duties relating to God or man, which are laid upon us by the natural or written Law; and it will follow farther, that the Socinians themselves, by their endeavours to levelly all the Articles of our Faith, the great saving principles of the Gospel, to impaired reason, or by endeavouring to leave Christiany naked of all Mysteries, do what in them lies, to disannul all the Religion of Christians, to take away all the use and advantage of the Gospel, leaving the world so involved in Atheism, or in mere Deism, at this time very little to be preferred before the other.  
Having done now with the positive assertion, our next work is, with all exactness and humility, to consider the illustration of this Proposition in the severals laid down by the Apostle, which altogether afford us the whole sum and substance of the Gospel; for all that glad tidings sent from Heaven to Earth for the comfort of mankind, consists in this, That for their sakes, to procure their Salvation, God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of Angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory: all which particulars, (tho' the full prosecution of the first, be all our present task) are incomprehensible mysteries, yet as well worth our enquiring into, as the Apostles writing them, who without doubt would never have laid the weight of piety, or godliness, or true Religion, upon those grounds, had they not been worth our looking into, or their truth worth our vindicating from all the attacks of prejudiced, opinionative, or haeretical men: It's true a late author tells us, 
Naked Gospel, p 34. c. 1. l. 20.  That to dispute concerning a Mystery, and at the same time to confess it a mystery, is a contradiction as great as any in the greatest mystery; the expression is worth our remark, for the boldness and absurdity it contains: It's bold not to say impious, to insinuate so broadly, in a discourse where Christianity's concerned, that all great Mysteries are made up of, or at least contain contradictions; what have we then nothing at all Mysterious in Scripture? what's that love between the blessed Jesus and his Spouse the Church, so admirably charactered in the book of Canticles? can our Author find nothing Mysterious in all those adumbrations of ineffable love? or can he easily give us a Catalogue of the Contradictions there? the real Contradictions I mean, for things that are of no mysterious nature at all on any other account, may seem to contain somewhat contradictory, but seeming contradictions are not real: Can he fathom every thing relating to Daniel's weeks? Men of a great deal of learning, industry and sobriety have taken a great deal of pains to explain the mystery of them, and have scarce yet given the world satisfaction, were not the Vision mysterious, it would be more easily cleared, but because it is not, must it therefore be contradictious to itself? or to make a yet closer instance: the nature of a God, can He or any Socinian make it comprehensible to humane understandings? or else will the very notion of a God imply a contradiction? He must be a very new fangled Son of the Church of England who will assert that: but why must it imply a contradiction to dispute or discourse about, or to inquire into a confessed mystery? That God was manifest in the flesh is true we believe, that every circumstance relating to his Incarnation as laid down in Scripture is true, according to the genuine and common interpretation of such words whereby these circumstances are expressed, we believe too: That as they are true we may dispute about them, and clear them from all that Sophistry, whereby some subtle men would fain baffle us out of them, is no uncouth or irrational opinion; yet, after all, we take the whole account of this Incarnation, as laid down in Scripture, to be a very great mystery: But where lies the Contradiction, either in believing it a mystery, or in defending it as such? This truth that God was manifest in the flesh, is as before intimated, that upon the literal truth of which the whole Salvation of mankind depends, How he should have been so, is to all mankind mysterious and incomprehensible, yet may we without any contradiction explain, defend, prove, and draw inferences from it: Hear what a Bishop of our own, a genuine 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 cranny of a window, or by the chink of a door, and how shall we dare to inquire, 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 inquire 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 appeared 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 called, 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 Being's whatsoever. We assert that this is an Article of our Faith, so true and so important, that upon a true embracing it in the sense 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 inquire 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 inquire into it, or not to be fully satisfied about it.  
I know we have in this point more enemies than the mere 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 persuade 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.  etc. the sum of whose plea amounts to this, That the essence of Christian Religion consists not in mere 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 mere or simple speculations, which are so important, that we ourselves 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 show, 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 mere 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 showing us that those, who believe Jesus Christ is a mere 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 show that Socinians, without being Idolaters, may worship him, whom they believe to be no more by nature than a mere Man, which supposition yet we shall in due time prove, God willing, to be false. But he ought to show 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 show, 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 nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin, of her substance, so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and manhood, were joined together in one person, never to be divided, whereof is one Christ, very God and very man, etc. With the Church of England agrees, the Helvetic Confession, 
Vid. Harmoniam Confessionum in notatis.  c. 3. that of the French Churches, Artic. 6. the Scotch Confession, Artic. 1. the Synod of Dort, Artic. 8. the Synod of Czenger. in Hungary in their own Argument against the Socinians, and in Artic. 2. the Confession of Augsburg, c. 1. of Strasbourg, c. 2. the Saxon Confession exhibited to the Synod of Trent, c. 1. that of Wittenberg, Art. 2. the Confession of the Prince Palatine, Art. 2. that of Bohemia, Art. 3. and 6. of Basil, Art. 1. and finally the Orthodox consent of all the Fathers with holy Scripture, Artic. 2. c. 1. and its observable, that the authors and subscribers of all these Confessions, imagine, that they ground this particular Doctrine of the eternal Godhead of our Lord Jesus Christ, upon Scripture; so that they declare they either find it there in express terms, or at least thought they drew it very naturally from thence, and certainly they were not mistaken; for, let us reflect a little on the Commandments of the Old Testament, there Israel received this charge, Hear, O Israel, 
Deut. 6.4. Exod. 20.2, 3.  the Lord our God is one Lord; I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no other God before my face: Observe what the Prophet adds to these precepts, Remember, says he, to the same Israelites, the former things of old, 
Isai. 46 9  for I am God, and there is none else, I am God, and there is none like me; the same Prophet introduces Almighty God speaking thus, I am the Lord, 
Isai. 42.8.  that is my name, and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven Images, and this particularly in such a place, where God is comforting his people with a description of the office, power, excellency of the Messiah, and teaching all to rejoice upon the certainty of his coming: Our Saviour himself when he contested with the most subtle and powerful adversary in the world, alleges this against him, 
Matth. 4.10.  get thee hence Satan, when he had endeavoured to hire him to worship himself, for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve: This then of the Unity of the supreme being, and the incommunicability of divine worship to any other Being whatsoever seems very Authentic Doctrine, and to be very well attested; yet after all this (to prevent that damning sin of Idolatry) whereas S. Peter refused the adoration of Cornelius with that reason, 
Acts 10.26  Stand up for I myself also am a man; And the Angel, who had shown S. John all those wonderful Prophetic schemes, refused the worship of that Apostle with those words, 
Rev. 22.9.  See thou do it not, for I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren the Prophets, worship thou God; yet the blessed Jesus, He who being the Son of God, at least in some sense, should have been of all others the most careful, for securing his father's honour, yet He tells the Jews, that his father had committed all judgement to him, 
Joh. 5.23.  that all men should honour the Son even as they honour the father, i.e. with the same kind of, or with equal honour; now every one will own, that the Father is to be worshipped as the supreme Being, or as the most high God, therefore Christ there assumes to himself the glory, honour or worship belonging to the most high God: nor could this be strange in him who being in the form of God thought it no robbery to be equal with God: 
Phil. 2.6.  The same Jesus suffered himself to be worshipped, without any reluctancy or prohibition of the worshippers: He forbade not the wise men from the East, 
Matt. 2.11  when they fell down and worshipped him, and made their offerings to him; nor did the blessed Virgin (who doubtless knew what it was to be an Idolater) reprove them for their misapplied adorations: nor did the Angel, 
Matt. 8.2. c. 9.18.  who was their guide and director in their journey, inform them of this error: No more did Christ forbid the Leper, who worshipped him, nor the Jewish Ruler, who begged his goodness for the healing of his daughter; Nor his Disciples when by his power delivered from the storm; Nor yet all the Disciples when after his resurrection they all came and held him by the feet and worshipped him: 
c. 14.33. c. 28.9.  now Scripture in all these places puts no difference between that worship that is given to Christ, and that which the same persons generally rendered to the supreme God, therefore they knew nothing, but that he really was of the same nature with God: nor could he be so kind, or good, or wise, as he is charactered to us, who could see so many guilty of so damning a sin as Idolatry, (which they must have been guilty of, if they gave to him, a mere Creature, that sovereign worship which belonged to the Creator,) without any reproof or check for it. Now tho' this danger may seem to infer a great deal of necessity of knowing Christ to be the true God, yet we may press it farther: For S. Paul tells us in plain terms, 
Rom. 10.13.  Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, where he is speaking of no other but our Lord Jesus Christ, now this laid together with that other text, 
Acts 4.12.  that there is no salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven, given among men whereby we must be saved, joining these together, as they assert the positive, so they include the negative of equal truth, that Without calling on the name of the Lord Jesus, Salvation can never be attained: but than it follows, How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? 
v. 14.  or in whom they have not had faith? but Faith may not be fixed on any, but on him who is the true God: true Faith is only towards God; 
Heb. 6.1.  as the Apostle's phrase teaches us, and the Socinians themselves in the very Text we are now upon, would persuade us to believe, that it was only God the Father who was believed on in the World, 
Heb. 11.6.  because he only was the proper object of Faith, and we are told that without Faith it is impossible to please God; but to imagine, that any Faith can please God which is placed in any Being beside himself, is foolish and absurd; Yet whereas God declared by his Prophet of old, Cursed be the Man that trusteth in Man, and maketh flesh his arm, and in his heart departeth from the Lord: 
Jer. 17.5.  Christ a little before his Passion, bids his Disciples, as they believed in God, 
John 14.1.  so to believe also in Him: But now if without believing in Christ eternal life and happiness cannot be obtained, and that be saving Faith which is fixed on Him, and if we be reasonably commanded to believe in him, and yet true saving Faith cannot be fixed in any but in God alone, than it will follow, that Christ must be God, the true, the Supreme God, and it will follow too, that it's indispensibly necessary that all Men should know he is God, that they may know in whom it is that they believe, that he is the proper object of Divine Faith, and able to answer all the expectations of Faith: For otherwise, as, a proposition may in itself be true, and yet I may be a liar, when I swear it is true, because I know nothing of its being so: So, though Christ may be in himself the true God, yet I am an Idolater, for worshipping him as the true, while I know not that he is indeed the true God: And St. Paul acquits not the Athenians of Idolatry, in consecrating an Altar to the unknown God, tho' that God, unknown to them, was the same God whom he preached unto them: Nor will that of the Apostle St. John, be easily avoided, where having before told us, We know that the Son of God is come, 
1 John 5.20.  and hath given us an understanding to know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in Jesus Christ; he subjoins, This is the true God and Eternal Life: These words, if we interpret them as they lie, and they seem to have no figure or Hyperbole, or foreign relation in them, may pass for a very plain Text to prove, that it concerns no less than our Eternal Salvation, to know that Jesus Christ is the true God, and this Interpretation gives the clearer reason, and stronger Emphasis to his following rule, 
v. 21.  Little Children keep yourselves from Idols: If then our Lord's design was to procure Man's everlasting Salvation, a right and certain knowledge of that on which Eternal Life depends, cannot be impertinent to our Lord's design: And if to worship God according to his declared Will, be the purpose of every one that embraces Christianity, exclusively of all other Religions, he that thinks it necessary, in his worship, to distinguish between these respects due to a mere Creature, and those Honours belonging to the Creator cannot miss his purpose, or lose his labour: and He who, by solid proofs, drawn from clear and pertinent places of Scripture, makes his Faith in this particular, rational, cannot easily incur any extraordinary danger: though, without so doing, he may incur a fatal hazard, and thus we come to a direct discourse on that Particular, where these things will be more fully considered.  
Having concluded the first words of this Verse, Without Controversy great is the Mystery of Godliness, to signify to us the concurrence of the Christian Faith with the World's general vogue in relation to Religion, and that Mysteries great and obscure are very necessary to the perpetuation of that Faith, and rendering it venerable among conceited and presuming disputants, it cannot be unuseful to discourse on the first instance the Apostle makes use of to illustrate the Mystery of Godliness, or of the Christian Faith, viz. God's manifesting himself in the flesh; or appearing and showing himself to humane eyes clothed in humane nature; for though God manifests himself a thousand several ways in his works of Creation and Providence, where his Truth, Justice, Mercy, Power, Wisdom, etc. are notoriously evident to diligent observers, yet all these manifestations of himself are at a distance, and such as though they give us a very fair Idea of divine Goodness as in himself, yet conduce little to Humane happiness while Men reflect upon themselves as miserably degenerate from that original excellency they were created in: and as such who have extremely abused all those evidences of God's power and influence upon the World, which have been given for restraining them within due bounds, and making them submissive to a superior Law: such reflections teach Men to look upon themselves as in a ruinous state, fit subjects for eternal displeasure, and of themselves wholly incapable of satisfying divine justice, or retrieving forfeited happiness, and upon God only as a severe Judge and powerful revenger, of whom they could only conclude, that he would vindicate his own honour upon those that injured it, and punish those to extremity who had not duly improved those overtures of himself which he had made in his visible works. What Man in such a case might wish for is easy enough to conjecture, He that's falling down a precipice would bless the Hand that would save him from death, and he that's going immediately to execution, would be overjoyed to hear of a pardon; so would almost despairing, wretched, sinful Man do, wish for some proportionable power to interpose between himself and vengeance. But such a power only could be in God, and yet so great a benefit could be procured for Man only by such an adequate satisfaction to God's anger as could be given by a Man; Here Humane conceptions were entirely at a loss, the universal imperfection of their nature they plainly understood, and so the impossibility of mere humane satisfaction; they easily found it was not created being, it was no mere man though strengthened by Divine assistance, nay it was none of those pure and happy Spirits who attend on celestial Ministrations, that could stem that prodigious tide of immense wrath, therefore God himself must interpose; but how Infinity should be confined, how He who grasped the Universe in his hand should stoop from Heaven for the sake of those who had affronted his goodness before, how He should condescend to assume Humanity, the necessary Medium of peace, were Mysteries too great for Man to fathom, and Hopes too large for guilty souls to please themselves with; but what was so very obscure to Man was plain and easy to the Almighty; and when the time of his redeemed was come, when he looked and there was none to help, 
Isay. 63.4, 5.  and wondered that there was none to uphold, than his own arm brought salvation to the World; It was then in that absolute fullness of time, when sins and miseries, and anger were at the height, and all things seemed inevitably running to eternal destruction, that God sent forth his Son made of a Woman, made under the Law, to redeem them that were under the Law from those burdens, and that death to which they were enslaved: to stop the fatal final sentence then ready to be past, God himself was so made manifest in the flesh; In relation to which great action we shall assert,  
That Jesus Christ the Messiah appearing in our Humane nature, or clothed with flesh and blood, was really the Son of God.  
That the same blessed Jesus was God, equal with his Father, or really and truly God, as well as real Man.  
That it was necessary, that 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 called Jesus Christ, and reputed the Messiah, or the Saviour of the World, who appeared 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 public 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 condescenstions 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 accused by Jews, condemned by Romans, and according to their Law, crucified between two Thiefs, on Mount Calvary, buried by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, raised 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 public view lifted up above the Clouds, beyond the utmost reach of humane Eyes, this Man called 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 conferred on any place or Person by the kindest Patron which could stand in competition with that which the blessed Jesus conferred on the whole World, therefore never could any such public Benefactor be with equal reason derived 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 Governors, 
Psal. 82.6.  I have said ye are Gods, and ye are all of you Children of the most high: As the Angels are styled 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 styled 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 called 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 satisfy 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 imposed 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 shame or an imposture at last, a Bar-cozbi the Son of a , 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  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 condemned the world for not believing on him; Nor would Almighty God have made use of those effectual means to satisfy 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 bestowed. 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 preached 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 lived at the same time that Christ conversed 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 exposed 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 performed by him, but rather to show the possibility of all those things tho' Jesus were not the Messiah, 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 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 preach could at such different times and such distant places agree together, to put a shame upon mankind, and to do it so coherently in itself, 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 authentic, nor can any mere 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 Ideas we have of the Divine Nature, there the History grows itself divine, and proves itself dictated by a Being superior to all terrene defects: such a History is the History of the Gospel, and such an appeal to humane sense and knowledge, and carries 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 designed 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 seemed very well satisfied, declares, 
John 1.33, 34.  He that sent me to baptise with water, the same said unto me, Upon 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 refractory 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 sense 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 rebuked 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 ruin, could not but know: But God was not wont to send such on his errands, who puffed up with pride would usurp great and improper titles to themselves, or who would impose on the world by daring falsehoods; 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 Politics 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 challenged them if they could to convince him of sin, 
John 8.46.  to show 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:  Spirits terribly sensible of his power, frequently howsoever unwillingly confessed 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 disadvantageous to their own designs, had it not been truth. Nathanael a prudent and a pious man, upon discourse with him, easily confessed 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 threatened their destruction, confessed, 
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 rend, 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 inferior person, but when its great Creator suffered, 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 proved as well as called Christ a deceiver before, it must have been a very unordinary confidence in the Apostles to act over the baffled farce again, and 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 inquire  
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 inquire 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 increase of wickedness perverted and ruined: for Promises and Prophecies concerning a person yet unborn, and these public and obvious to an inquisitive world, are wont to signify such a person wholly extraordinary, especially when the same spirit which imparts the foreknowledge of him gives his very name to the world; so we find, when the Man of God cried 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 men's bones; that Josiah spoken of there so long before his birth, made good the Prophet's 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 styled 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 Protoevangelium 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 ancient Jews interpreted of the Messiah, was the first glad tidings of hope to those who were just fallen into a ruinous condition, this supported our great Parents spirits, when otherwise nothing could present itself 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 Messiah, 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.  applies 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 Sceptre shall not departed 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 Messiah, that is, the Christ, we shall afterwards take notice of. It were no difficulty to show how many of those institutions and Ceremonies of the Jews prefigured this same Saviour, but I shall rather confine myself to prophetic 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 sceptre 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 only 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 proved 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 Lawgiver, 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 only be made good of Christ, since Moses Ben Maimon, the most learned of Jewish Writers of late, has largely proved the disparity between Moses and all other Prophets mentioned in Scripture, and Scripture itself 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 only 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 knew every thing past, present, and to come, clearly and fully in himself: His humane nature lived not only in a strict friendship, but in a close and complete union with the Godhead, and therefore felt no Convulsions or ecstasies, no violent emotions of his rational faculties, nor was he confined to time, or place, or common rules, and methods, but as the fullness of the Godhead dwelled in him, so he delivered Oracles to Mankind at all times, as he himself pleased, for God did not give the Spirit to him by measure. 
Job 3.34.  Thus inspired David, publishes that Eternal Decree, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee: ask of me and I shall give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance, 
Ps. ●. 7, 8.  and the utmost part of the earth for thy possession, which could never be true in respect of David, who never acquired so vast an Empire as is there promised, but it was really acquired by our Saviour, who by his holy Gospel subdued the Universe, and made all Mankind partakers of that redemption wrought for them by himself: And so Saint Paul preaching Christ to the Jews at Antioch in Pisidia, tells them, That the promise made to their Fathers, God had fulfilled to them their Children, having raised up Jesus again, as it is written in the second Psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee; 
Acts 13.32, 33.  and the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, proves his Superiority to Angels by that Argument: For to which of the Angels said God at any time, 
Hebr. 1.5.  Thou art my Son, etc. And again, to prove the mission and authority of Christ having said before, That no man takes the Priestly honour to himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron, he pleads, So Christ glorified not himself, to be made an Highpriest, 
Heb. 5.4, 5.  but he that said unto him, Thou art my Son, to day have I begotten thee; and so we are certain of the due application of the Prophecy, which we shall dilate on farther in another place.  
Such again was that of David in the Person of Jesus, afterwards to appear in the World, 
Psal. 40.6, 7, 8.  Sacrifice and burnt-offering thou didst not desire, mine ears hast thou opened; intimating by that the inefficacy of all those legal and typical Sacrifices which the Jews and, in imitation of them, others had been used to; for if these Sacrifices could have availed for the taking away of Sin, they had no longer been types and shadows, but things of a real and substantial excellency; which since they were not, Burnt-offering and Sin-offering hast thou not required, Then said I, Lo I come, in the Volume of the Book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, 
Hebr. 10. 5-10.  O my God, yea thy Law is within my heart: And thus this Prophecy is applied by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, only with that difference, that whereas the Psalm has it, Mine ear hast thou opened, according to the Hebrew, the Apostle follows the translation of the Septuagint, and renders it, a Body hast thou prepared for me, the sense amounting still to the same, for as the Hebrews, according to the Law, made a Servant their own for ever, by opening their ears or boring them, 
Exod 21 6.  so God made his Son Jesus obedient as a Servant, by preparing him a body, which was opened too and fastened to the cross, as the Servants ear, in boring, to the posts of the door; Nor was that less plain or considerable, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sat thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent; 
Psal. 110. 14.  Thou art a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedeck: The first part of this our Saviour, who undoubtedly knew its true meaning, assumes to himself, and confounds the Pharisees, by ask them that Question, That whereas it was expected the Messiah should be the Son of David, yet David calls him Lord, 
Matth. 22. 41-45.  How could he be his Lord and his Son too? which was a mystery inexplicable to those who had mere carnal and mean notions of the Messiah; but a difficulty which when they got over, it would not be so very hard to believe him, humble and despicable as he appeared, to be the very Messiah they looked for; For if he who was David's Lord, and indeed God blessed for ever, could condescend so low as to be David's Son, it could not be strange that he who was David's Son should stoop lower yet, and appear in the form of a servant: The latter part of this prediction relating to a Priest, is by the Writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews applied to Jesus, 
Hebr. 7. 17-21.  as a proof of the legitimacy and eternity of his Priesthood; Of the same authority is that, 
〈◊〉 18, 〈◊〉 ●●.  The Stone which the bvilders refused is become the head of the corner, this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes; which (not to mention the Jewish fable of such a stone, being real, met withal in the building of the second Temple, which had by several been thrown aside as useless, yet afterwards by miracle was found fit for the joining of the corners of the building) our Saviour makes use of to convince the Jews of their folly and obstinacy in refusing to own him in his great Mediatorian office, and to let them see that their contempt of Him could be no prejudice to his sacred dignity and Honour, but that he, who was now thought too inconsiderable to be of any use to the Jews, one of the smallest of the Nations, 
Matth. 21.42, 43, 44.  should afterwards appear great enough to join Men of all Countries and Nations together in one Sacred bond, and to crush all his Enemies in dreadful ruins; for so he adds, on repetition of those before quoted words, Therefore I say unto you, the Kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a Nation bringing forth the fruits thereof, and whosoever shall fall on this Stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him to powder: And this advancement and dilatation of Christ's power St. Peter justly takes notice of, from the same Psalm, in the case of the Cripple newly cured, 
Acts 4 9, 10, 11, 12.  If we be this day examined of the good deed done to the impotent man, by what means he is made whole, Be it known to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by Him does this Man stand before you whole; This is the stone which was set at nought of you bvilders, which is become the head of the Corner. Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under Heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.  
That of Isaiah is wholly extraordinary, and, as I hinted before, it was a sure sign of some extraordinary Person intended, it gives us the very name proper to our Jesus, as he was the Son of God, Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, 
Isai. 7.14.  and shall call his name Immanuel; where the thing foretold is so much a miracle, that it cannot be believed to have occurred more than once in the World, nay, the prodigiousness of the thing has made some, great pretenders to reason endeavour to weaken the very authority of Scripture itself, from the impossibility of the thing foretold: And the Jews have endeavoured to affix a large sense upon the Text, as if no more was meant than barely, That a Woman should be with Child, and so the miracle is wholly taken away: But all these little stratagems of unbelievers have failed, and the very Name added would convince considerate Men of some great thing designed, since a mere Man, or one coming into the World, according to the ordinary course of nature, could not be truly called Immanuel, or God with us: This declaration of the Evangelical Prophet, as He's justly called, is soon followed by another of the same nature; For unto us a Child is born, 
Isai. 9 6, 7.  unto us a Son is given, and the Government shall be upon his shoulders, and his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace, of the increase of his Government, there shall be no end, upon the Throne of David, and upon his Kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgement and with justice, from henceforth even for ever: In all which the Prophet seems to write a perfect History of things past; he speaks with that assurance and confidence, as if he had seen that hope of Israel born into the World, and wholly ecstatick in his contemplation of so infinite a blessing bestowed on the World, he fixes such Titles upon him, as were compatible with no mere man, nay he makes him God, an Infinite, an everlasting God, the Universal Monarch of Earth and Heaven, yet leaves him dressed in flesh and blood at last, a Child born, a Son given to us, miserable perishing Creatures: But Isaiah's reflections on the promised Saviour are so many, as not to be instanced in, more particularly we may just name that, 
Isai. 11.1.  And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots; And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of Counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, with righteousness shall he judge the poor and reprove with equity, for the meek of the Earth, and he shall smite the Earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked; and more to that purpose, which St. Paul in his discourse to the Antiochians in Pisidia alludes to; And that again, 
Acts 13.22, 22, 24.  The voice of him that crieth in the Wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert an highway for our God, every Valley shall be exalted, and every Mountain and Hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain, 
●●i. 40.3.4, 5.  and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it, which John the Baptist applies to himself and his Master: 
Joh. 1.23.  Such is the whole fifty-third Chapter, a complete, though compendious Chronicle of our Saviour from his Cradle to his Tomb, happily read by the Aethiopian Eunuch; since from thence the Evangelist Philip took occasion to preach to him Jesus: 
Acts 8.34, 35.  Such that, The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me, to preach good tidings to the meek, he hath sent me to bind up the , to proclaim liberty to the Captives, and the opening of the Prison to them that are bound, 
Isai. 61.1, 2. Luk. 4.17, 18, 19  to proclaim the acceptable Year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God, applied to himself by our Saviour.  
Agreeably to these Predictions the Prophet Jeremy foretells, Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise to David a righteous branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, 
Jerem. 23.5, 6.  and shall execute judgement and righteousness in the Earth, in his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely, and this is the name whereby he shall be called, The Lord our righteousness; Which is again repeated by him, Jer. 33.15, 16. To the same purpose Ezekiel, I will save my Flock and they shall be no more a prey, and I will set up one Shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David, he shall feed them, and he shall be their Shepherd, and I the Lord will be their God, 
Ezek 34.22, 23, 24.  and my servant David a Prince among them, I the Lord have spoken it; Which is repeated and enlarged, Ezek. 37. 21— ad fin. Daniel yet more plainly, I saw in the night visions, and behold one like the Son of Man came with the Clouds of Heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him; And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a Kingdom, 
Dan. 7.13, 14.  that all People, Nations, and Languages should serve him, his dominion is an everlasting Dominion, which shall not pass away, 
Rev. 14 14.  and his Kingdom that which shall not be destroyed; Which St. John alludes to; not to mention any thing of Daniel's weeks, Micah gives us that, Thou Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, 
Mica. 5.2.  yet out of thee shall he come forth to me, that is to be ruler in Israel, 
Matt. 2.6.  whose go forth have been from of old, from everlasting, which those Priests Herod afterwards enquired of, could remember very well: And lastly, Malachi as plain as any, 
Mat. 3.1.  Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his Temple, even the Messenger of the Covenant whom ye delight in, behold he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.  
These are a few of that very great number of Prophecies which raised the expectation of the Jews for the appearance of a Saviour, whom they expected as a mighty temporal Prince, not considering that the things foretold of him were beyond the achievements of the greatest Potentate in the world: For to be the great messenger of that Covenant which was between God and his people, and at the same time the God whom they sought, and whose their Temple was, who yet were taught to worship only the true God; to be the glory of a private town as of Bethlehem, yet of an eternal original with respect to the time past, and the world's everlasting head and governor with respect to the time to come; to be a David, a man after God's own heart, who should do all his will, after David's natural death; to be infinitely happy, just, compassionate, Anointed by the sacred Spirit of God, to have the greatest of those born of a woman his harbinger, and by him acknowledged for a God, tho' shaded from vulgar eyes by a cloud of humane frailty, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, yet a child, a Son, brought forth in the world and given to us; To be born of a pure and spotless Virgin, so Man, yet the hopes of all the ends of the earth, and of those that remain in the broad Sea, and so God: To be despised by the great and wise, yet the great Centre of Unity for all the Nations in the World; To be at once David's Son and David's Lord, and seated at the right hand of God: To terminate all material typical sacrifices in his own flesh, and unlimited obedience, yet to be owned by God himself, as his only begotten Son, and heir to the government of all things: To surpass their admired Moses, as a Master his Servant in the Prophetic gift, and an intimate familiarity with God; To be the utter ruin of Idolatry, that seed which should be the blessing and therefore the desire of all nations, that seed which should break the head, ruin the policy and Tyranny of that old Serpent the Devil; To be a real and visible Man, yet our Immanuel, God with us, which is the sum of all those Prophecies and Promises; To be all these things is not consistent with a temporal Monarch whose breath is in his nostrils, tho' all the nations in the World adored him: The absolute conquest over prevailing wickedness, the triumph over Death and Hell and all the obstacles of a blessed Immortality, the redemption of a guilty world from impendent vengeance, by a swift and entire obedience to the Almighty Will, the making up that prodigious Chasm between an infinitely pure and holy Deity, and a depraved and provoking world, are thoughts and enterprises too vast and glorious to be undertaken by any child of Man; therefore whosoever it was, that all those mighty things should be accomplished in, whosoever should be so infinitely beloved by Heaven, and so prodigious a Benefactor to mankind, must be according to those titles fixed upon him, the Son of God, his Son in a true literal sense, and as such he may really be capable of doing more for us, than we ourselves can ask or think.  
The blessed Jesus, as I intimated before, was not only the expectation of Israel, but the desire of all nations, and therefore promised to all nations in the forecited passages as well as them; and tho' the Jews were not so good natured as to be very Communicative of their divine treasures, yet the Gentiles who had their concerns in so just an hope, had their predictions too, and tho' not so clearly, foresaw the approaching days of their Redeemer; the elder Prophecies, such as that to our first Parents in Paradise, or that to Abraham might get abroad into the world, the prophecies themselves being originally known to others, as well as those whom they more immediately concerned; and that passage of Job, I know that my redeemer liveth, 
Job 19.25, 26.27.  and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth, and tho' after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God, whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold and not another, tho' my reins be consumed within me, is a sufficient evidence, that those who lived without the pale of Jacob's family were sensible of what they wanted, and that their hopes were reasonable that those wants should be supplied; and Balaam's predictions being heard by Moabites, strangers to Israel, were without all question taken great notice of by the heathen nations: Hence arose the fame of the Sibylline Oracles, talked of so much by ancient writers, and by what we find spoken of 'em by Tully, 
De Divinat. l. 2.  and transcribed from them by Virgil, sufficient to raise men's expectations and desires for some very great and happy event; hence grew those common discourses of the Gods descending in humane shapes to converse with and instruct men, Which shown men's general apprehensions of the love of the Deity to mankind, of the possibility of an Incarnation, and the useful consequences it might have for the reformation of corrupt nature. Hence that prophetic advice of Confutius the famous Chinese Philosopher who lived 550. years before our Saviour's birth, t●● Prince to be virtuous, 
Huetii Demonstr. Evang. Prop. 7. c. 32.  for says he, The actions of a good Prince ought to be agreeable to the Laws of God and Nature, and he should not doubt, but that when that expected holy One shall come, his virtue shall then be as much honoured, as it was before while he lived and reigned. And I cannot but think it reasonable to conclude, that Balaam's prophecy might be known there and better preserved by their learning, so ancient among them, than in other places, and that excited by that, the wise Men came from thence to worship our Saviour at his birth, especially since the length of a journey from thence seems most agreeable to Herod's calculation, when to be sure of reaching the new born King, He killed all the children in Bethlehem and its coasts, 
Matth. 2.1, 2, 9, 10.  from two years old and under, according to the time that he had diligently enquired of the wise men. About our Saviour's time, and before and after, for a while, a rumour was spread abroad every where that One should be born in Judea, who should be the Universal Monarch, as Suetonius in the life of Augustus, and in that of Vespasian, and Tacitus in the fifth book of his Histories, tells us, which fame Josephus the Jewish Historian laid hold on to flatter with Vespasian, and to get his own liberty by persuading him the prophetic rumour pointed him out for the Roman Empire. Here again, That everliving Redeemer, that glorious child, who should reduce the frame of Nature to so happy a condition after all the disorders it had suffered, who should banish sin and wickedness, That looked for Holy One, who should give virtue its due reward, that Jewish native who should command the humble world, must of necessity be concluded somewhat more than Man by the longing Expectants: He must be God to effect such wonders, and yet must be a Man to be a native of Judaea, he must have humane nature to be born with into the world and to converse with men, and to take away the very smallest footsteps and tracks of Sin he must at least be partaker of Divinity; thus all the Prophecies both among Jews and Gentiles conclude in a necessity that the world's Redeemer from that misery and those dangers it lay under, must at least be the Son of God. The Chara Deûm soboles magnum Jovis incrementum, as Virgil expresses it: And thus much may serve for those Prophecies forerunning the Birth of our Saviour, I proceed now to inquire  
Into the manner and circumstances of his Birth, which notwithstanding its outward or appearing meanness, was exactly agreeable to the grandeur predicted of him; for his being born in a public Inn, and in a place of contempt, his being laid in a Manger, and having as some tell us Oxen and Asses for his Companions, were no prejudice to his dignity, it's not the place of birth but the parents of whom Men are born that makes them vile in the world's eyes: A Beggar may be born in a Palace, nay, wrapped in purple too, and concluded great by incurious fools, and great Princes have been born in forests and deserts, lost to all humane helps and respects suitable to their descents; yet he that's born of Parent beggars is a beggar still, and he that is deduced from the just Possessors of a Throne, a Prince: and such was our blessed Saviour being God of God, light of light, very God of very God, tho' manifest in the flesh; and to show that he was such, He that had been so often promised before, when the time of his manifestation in the flesh came, had no less than an Angel from Heaven to notify his very Conception, and his too, who was to prepare his way before him. 
Luke 1. 11-21.  An Angel told Zacharias of John the Baptist, when age made him past the hopes of such a blessing, an Angel too foretold the blessed Virgin, That she should conceive in her womb and bring forth a Son and call his name Jesus, 
v. 30, 31, 32, 33, etc.  who should be great, and be called the Son of the Highest, to whom the Lord should give the throne of his father David, and who should reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of whose kingdom there should be no end: So proving that Isaiah's prophecy, c. 7. v. 14. was presently to be accomplished; it being a Virgin to whom the Angel foretold those great things, who without a miracle could not conceive, and the design of his Birth being that he might be Jesus the Saviour of the world, which none could be, but who was Immanuel, or God with us. After such preparatives, it was no wonder if other prophetic passages came to be made good too; the fullness of time required such an accomplishment, as well as the completing of Sins, which were the occasion of those gracious promises to the sinners, as they moved the merciful God to pity and compassion, which he chose then to show when danger and misery was in its extremity. Prophecies concerning persons and places have generally their fixed times to be performed in, which tho' they are very difficult to be found out by others before hand, who are not possessed by the same spirit which inspired the Prophets, are yet very plain and easily intelligible to considering Men, when they come to read and seriously to weigh the Histories of things past; and we who stand at that advantage of time, who have the History of the blessed Jesus faithfully delivered down to us, and the predictions foregoing his Birth into the world, may so compare them together, as to make them strongly confirm the truth of one another. And thus, whereas we find the repeated promises to Abraham and Isaac, that in their seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed, which could not be effected by any temporal Interests or extent of Empire: For tho' wise Governors are a blessing to any nation, yet all nations together are too great a Body to he managed by a single hand, and a Solomon himself can be no great blessing to those that never heard of him: But when he appeared who was to save the people from their sins, 
Matt. 1.21.  as the Angel in a dream informed Joseph, 
Luke 1.78, 79.  When the dayspring from on high visited the world, to give light to them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death, to guide their feet into the way of peace; When that common Salvation was presented to humane eyes which was prepared before the face of all people, 
Luke 2.30, 31, 32.  to be a light to lighten the Gentiles, as well as the glory of the tribes of Israel, as old holy Simeon expresses himself, than that Universal Blessing was really bestowed, and Jesus taking flesh of the blessed Virgin, was really that sacred branch who scattered his goodness as the Sun his beams, through all the quarters of the Universe. Remission of sins, Redemption from the powers of Death and Hell, Reconciliation of sinners to a terribly incensed God, were all favours of an Universal influence, none could be exempted from their glorious effects but those who coveted their own ruins, and were resolved not to accept of an offered blessing. That celebrated prediction of Jacob, That the Sceptre should not departed from Judah, nor the Lawgiver from between his feet till Shilo came, was as punctually made good at the time of our Saviour's appearance in the world, who was the Shilo promised, or the person to be sent to take the Government upon him; which Prophecy though the Jews have endeavoured to render as obscure as possible, and tho' others by their needless curiosity have made us no fewer than six several interpretations of it, yet it seems to have no such extraordinary difficulty in it, if that particle which is in our Bible's translated, and, be but, as usually it is, translated, or, for so the import of it will be that either, a regal Government should be continued in the tribe of Judah, or at least a Lawgiver, when that Government ceased, should be found among them, i. e. a legal expositor or determiner of the meaning of the Law of Moses, till the Messiah should be ready to come. Now he that considers that as Judah had the superiority among his brethren, that he was the Leader of the Israelites to the war against the Canaanites, 
Judges 1, 1, 2.  that his tribe was abundantly the most numerous of all the rest, as may be seen by the several accounts of their increase, that the tribe of Judah had much the noblest and the largest share in the promised Land, and that the Royalty was at last regularly settled in the house of David in that tribe, to which family in particular the Messiah was confined; He that shall consider these things carefully, and shall observe withal; That upon the defection of Jeroboam, the tribe of Levi in their zeal to the honour and service of the true God, left the rebelling tribes, for so we are told, 
2 Chron. 11.13, 14.  That the Priests and the Levites that were in all Israel, resorted to Rehoboam the son of Solomon out of all their coasts, for the Levites left their suburbs and possessions and came to Judah and Jerusalem, by which means the tribe of Levi, to the chief family of which the Priesthood belonged, 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 highpriest marrying Jehoshabeath the sister of Ahaziah King of Judah, 
2 Chron. 22.11.  of the house and lineage of David: Now the Sceptre is assigned 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 sense some affix to that phrase, as if Jacob spoke modestly of the original birth of such Lawgivers, 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 Lions with that expression, Includimus hunc in orbe nostro tanquam alterius orbis Papam; and so the Lawgiver was continually within the proper bounds and limits of the tribe of Judah both before and after the Captivity of Babylon: But as the Sceptre 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 mere vassal to the Roman Empire: When these things were both come to pass, than Shilo the promised Messiah came, in whom those particular assurances to David were made good, That out of his loins the Messiah 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 aught 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 raised up like to himself, I showed before, that being made truth in the birth of Christ: but it's more complete application belonging to our Saviour's manly age when he made himself public, and undertook to preach repentance to his obstinate Countrymen; But that of a Body hast thou prepared 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 designed for us, for who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? therefore a Virgin untouched 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 prolific, as the word imports; now a body so prepared, 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 rendered 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, Rejoice 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 appeared 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, Marry 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 overshadowed 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 espoused 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 called his name Jesus: And whereas, the Prophet had been ecstasied 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 Host of Angels was rapturous, as the Prophet had been before, for when one of that heavenly Chorus had told the watchful Shepherds, Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all People, 
Luke 2 10.11. v. 14.  for unto You is born this day in the City of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord: Presently the whole Choir in a joyful transport praised God, and said, Glory to God on high, and on Earth peace, and good will towards Men; and his being really born of the House and Lineage of David, gave him a claim sufficient to an Interest in that Prophecy, that the Messiah should be a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots; and whereas a voice in the Wilderness, was to cry before our Saviour's preaching in public, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, etc. No sooner was John the Baptist born, who was Christ's forerunner both in birth and in that work too, but his inspired Father Zachary declares of him, Thou Child shalt be called the Prophet of the Highest, for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways, 
Luke 1.76, 77.  to give knowledge of Salvation to his people for the remission of their sins. The Messiah was to be the Prince of Peace, according to the Prophets, and he eventually proved himself so, when he made his first entrance into the World in the time of the most universal peace the World had known, the swelling Roman Empire was then in a profound calm within itself, after all those Civil broils which had almost torn out its bowels before, and it was at peace with all its Neighbours round about, which had not happened of several Centuries before, in such a juncture what could rationally have been expected but what was suitably great and wholly extraordinary? That subtle old Serpent began to feel his influence even before his birth, when all those stratagems of his, whereby he was wont to embroil Mankind, were broken: he saw too easily that fatal offspring of the Woman, which should break his head, ruin his arbitrary Tyranny and Power, and easily dissolve those seemingly irrefragable chains whereby he formerly had miserably enslaved humane nature: This was that great and glorious King which God himself in spite of all the tumultuary insults and oppositions of terrene powers in conjunction with infernal malice, settled upon his holy Hill of Zion: It was He concerning whom so many gracious promises were made, as upheld the Church of old under those many dangers, difficulties and oppressions it was ordinarily engaged in: God knew and pitied his People's calamities, and had promised, that he would find out an adequate remedy for their extreme necessities, this they believed, they knew that God who had promised was truth itself, and could not disagree with himself, and therefore when their condition was most cloudy, they saw the day of their Redeemer at a distance and were glad, and resolved though God killed them, they would yet trust in him; This hope and confidence made them patiently endure the torture, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection, resolving never to quit the hope of Israel, their faith in the Messiah, that they with him, suffering for the faith in him might rise again to the resurrection of Salvation.  
But as the blessed Jesus was that Star himself, which Balaam had foretold should arise in Jacob, so a Star attended his Birth, not only shining like the Pillar of Fire in the Night; but giving a surer guidance than the cloudy Pillar in the day time, leading the observing Sages from the utmost quarters of the East, to give an Alarm to the Jews, and make them curious too in observing the signs of the times, that they might be sure not to miss at last, when he should come, of Him, whose coming they had expected so long: And indeed the Priests and Rulers, and Herod, nay, and all Jerusalem were troubled, 
Matt. 2.3.  and disturbed at that happy news, which should have been their greatest joy and satisfaction; The chief Priests and Scribes trembled, to think if that were true, that their imposing upon the People with a spiritual Tyranny and Hypocritical sanctity would be at an end: Herod was justly startled at the name of a King, as Princes are generally very jealous of Competitors in Empire, and the Inhabitants of Jerusalem, who had often felt Herod's fierce and bloody temper before, might justly fear an Inquisition to be made among them for this young Claimer; Herod yet of all the rest had the deepest impressions of fear and passion made upon himself, which, when the Wise men had deluded him, he vented upon the miserable Bethlehemites. The poor laborious Shepherds received the News with calmer minds, they had no Governments, no Interests to lose, but lived in harmless Peace, and humble content in ignoble Cottages, and if their Flocks did well, they'd ne'er be concerned in the cares of Kings and Potentates, therefore they flew eagerly to the Presence of their Saviour, and agreed with the Eastern Sages in their Prudence, not esteeming the newborn Infant, according to the meanness of his circumstances, but according to the glorious presages and indications of his Birthright: So happy are the lowliest minds, and so much more capable of Divine impressions, than those distracted with the thoughts of worldly grandeur: So much more suitable they are to him, who tells us, He was meek and lowly in spirit, not puffed up with the Hosannas, nor yet dejected with the Crucifiges of the impetuous and variable multitude; but though Herod were angry and raged, God would not permit his madness to take place, cheerful Angels were ever ready to wait their Master's errands, and they warned Joseph of the impendent danger, so opening the way to the accomplishment of every word of God; for when Joseph fled into Egypt for security, whose low condition in the World made him both unsuspected to the Jewish frontier guards, and to his Egyptian entertainers, who little suspected that a mighty King entered under their Roofs, under the tutelage of a contemptible Mechanic, or that a little harmless Infant concealed a God; when this was done, an Angel too in due time gave Joseph such intelligence, as put an end to his voluntary banishment; and yet things were ordered so, that upon the news of Herod's Son's reign, Joseph turned aside to Nazareth, instead of returning to Bethlehem, that so the Son of God might at once be called out of Egypt, and be styled a Nazarene, that no Prophetical circumstance or Punctilio might be wanting to his Birth, which was necessary to convince the World of his being that real Messiah, which had been so long promised to the Fathers; from all which it was no wonder that Christ himself afterwards referred the Unbelieving Jews to these very Considerations, 
Joh. 5.39.  Search the Scriptures, says He, for in them ye think ye have Eternal Life, and they are they which testify of me.  
Now that He who before his appearance in the flesh had been the Author of a strong and impregnable faith in God's people, and who created such fears and made such terrible concussions in the souls of wicked and ungodly men, that he who when born, was to do things beyond the utmost reach of any thing but Omnipotence, to do a Creator's work, and restore all the decays of ruined Nature, that he should make his entrance into the world in a miraculous manner, was rationally to be expected, since the causes in supernatural as well as other things must be proportioned to the effects: And certainly to any thing but a Jew, these prodigious appearances at the birth of our Saviour would have signified as much as golden Sceptres and imperial Diadems, and all the gaudy shows of victories and conquests; and especially it should have been so since the Jews themselves, stupid as they were, expected wonders in and at his birth; but above all things their behaviour was strange to him in that, if the Messiah were to be the King of the Jews themselves, the Jews themselves as his Subjects should with the first have submitted to him, by which means, if any, he might have grown formidable to their enemies, and have, as they expected, restored the kingdom again to Israel, whereas indeed, 
John 1.11.  He came to his own, but his own received him not: So that if he must have been so great and victorious, his Conquest must have been made at first upon his native rebels, before he could have spread the terror of his arms abroad; They who expected only a Man, tho' very great, to appear, should have looked for no such effects of his appearance but what might justly have consisted with humanity, armies are not wont to grow like Mushrooms in a night, and those who cannot have the assistance of their Subjects for their own good, can scarce expect suitable supports from others to carry on or secure the interests of ingrates or rebels. If any thing of worldly greatness were indeed to have been expected at the Messiah's advent, it should have been, that in so depraved an age of the world, he should have come attended with miraculous vengeance to destroy the adversaries of divine goodness and their own happiness: That Those his enemies who would not admit that he should reign over them, should have been brought out and slain before his face: But on the contrary, as his design was Mercy, so he came in a way proportioned to it, the lenity and softness of his ingress into a sinkking and undeserving world was wholly astonishing; Born, as it was foretold, of a pure and spotless Virgin, a descent agreeable to that prodigious innocence apparent in his life and converse, and according to the very tendencies of nature, more likely to incline to pity and compassionate tenderness of the miseries of others, such a temper being the ornament as well as the expected companion of a Virgin state: He was born a King, that he might with the greater intention study the good of his Subjects, yet born in a low and contemptible estate, that he might the better instruct the too aspiring sons of Men, that all the most substantial greatness is founded in humility; He was not welcomed into the world with the dreadful shouts of conquering armies, but with the softer Hallelujah of joyful Angels, gentle and kind Spirits, whose triumphs were raised, not from the dismal groans of an impenitent tortured world, but that glory arising to God's eternal Name, from that peace brought down by him to earth, and that good will which was then undeniably demonstrated toward the sinful children of men: His Birth was not first notified to Kings or Emperors or other worldly Grandees, that they might have cast their Crowns at the feet of him who lives for ever and ever, but to innocent and toiling Shepherds, who were watching their flocks by night, Men whose veracity none could reasonably suspect, and who could have no buy perverse design of their own to carry on, no intrigues to manage by imposing cheats and shams upon the credulous, who were the most proper witnesses of his Birth, who himself fed his flock like a shepherd, 
Isal. 40.11.  who gathered the Lambs with his arm and carried them in his bosom, gently leading those that were with young; as it was predicted of him. Nor was the Royal Palace of a Monarch honoured with his nativity, but a mean and scorned stable, to show That God had chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which were mighty, and that the base things of this world, and things which are despised were chosen by God, and things which are not, to bring to nought things which are, 
1 Cor. 1.27, 28, 2●.  that no flesh should glory in his presence; and yet that it might not be pretended that He who was rightful Monarch of the world wanted the due acknowledgements of his Sovereignty and divinity too, from his wiser and more considerate vassals, the Eastern wise Men, whom yet we dare not with those Legendary Authors, conclude to have been Kings, made their Presents to him of Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh, proper offerings to so extraordinary a person, and sufficiently divulged both his birth and title, tho' that interstice of time between his birth and preaching publicly made all those premonitions forgotten.  
But was he merely, as he was esteemed, the Son of an inconsiderable tradesman in Israel, of a poor person thrust into the stable of an Inn to give place to his Superiors? was it a slighted infant the companion of beasts it may be at his nativity, and beneath the notices of Men of birth and fortune? was it such a one that could be born by divine operation of an untouched Virgin of the sacred royal Line? was it such a one that was received into the world with the homage of blessed Angels, attended with a prodigious Star at his birth, adored by humble foreigners, blest and admired by Judaean Saints, and holy Men? Can such a one employ the dreams, visions, revelations, and the calmer studies of so many inspired Prophets both among the Jews and Gentiles, employ the care of active Angels for his preservation from the malignant fury of envious powers, and the happy Pens of faithful Evangelists to transmit the series of his glorious actions, as well as the account of his miraculous birth to inquisitive ages? Can such a one be the Prince of Peace, the everlasting God, the infinitely wise Counsellor, that blessed seed in whom all the nations of the World should be blest, that rock of Ages on which was fixed the faith of the Prophets and Patriarches, the Saints and Martyrs of old, so firmly, that neither the force nor subtlety of Men or Devils could prevail against them? No, these were works only fit for a divine Being to undertake, nothing but God could be so waited on by humble and acknowledging nature, nothing but God could so strongly affect the hearts of holy Men; to raise the drooping soul above all the gay prospects of a flattering world, above all the dangers generally attending despised piety, to make Men sit lose to all those exterior blessings they meet with in this world, and to account all things but as loss and dung in comparison of that Salvation wrought for them by Jesus, to make them scorn the rack and wheel, and smile at flames and lingering tortures, and all this only upon the credit of a future happy state, for the purchase of Crowns and kingdoms invisible to all eyes but those of faith, and this too when all such sufferings and inconveniences might be avoided by a few short words and some little inconsiderable actions, these achievements are far beyond the most ambitious thoughts of mere mortal Creatures, beyond their most aspiring hopes, tho' influenced by those united powers, which acted so vigorously in all the several Prophets of foregoing Ages. It's extremely derogatory to God's justice and wisdom to imagine, that Man, who was not able to support himself in his innocent state when once attacked by a slight temptation, (tho' there were then no defects of any kind in his intellectuals,) should be able now when every faculty in him is weakened and perverted by the spreading infection of sin, to work his own redemption: or should God have ordered a greater price to have been paid for satisfaction for sin, when a lower would have effected it, or have sent a partaker of the eternal Godhead, to take upon him and suffer in humane nature for the world's crimes, when an inferior person might have compassed the great design as well. Nor had the benefit conferred upon us been so valuable, had God only wrought that for us, which, had he not done, we could as easily have wrought for ourselves: But the case was otherwise; fallen Man was now in a state of damnation, perfect innocence and complete satisfaction, for inveterate guilt must retrieve him from Hell, but fallen Man was incapable of any such innocence or satisfaction; Angels who had sinned, were incapable of pity, who had not sinned were incapable of merit, their Creation from nothing, and their support in original sinlesness, were benefits so great, that all their cheerful attendances on celestial services were too little to requite; he must therefore be somewhat greater and more perfect than either Men or Angels, who undertook the mighty work, who was in a capacity of meriting and not under a necessity of mercy, which only the eternal Son of God could be; he alone who was of himself impeccable, could fully satisfy the utmost pretensions of infinite justice: who was a voluntary in his exinanition or humiliation and sufferings, and who needed no sacrifices for his own sins could perfectly atone the wrath of God: and therefore he took Man's cause into his own hand, and came in our nature, bringing Salvation along with him: than Nature's Laws justly yielded to him who was the God of Nature, the Heavens than declared the glory of God, and the firmament shown his handy work, the faith of pious Men was vigorously reinforced, by the full and miraculous accomplishment of ancient Prophecies and Promises, and Angels themselves owned it an honour to be the first Evangelists.  
To prove that Jesus Christ was and could be no other than the Son of God, we come to consider the intent and design of that Doctrine introduced by him, and by his Apostles and Ministers preached to the world in his name, where we are to observe, That as the writings of the Old and New Testament are to be the great standard of whatsoever is at this day published to the world as the will of God, so before the writing of the Gospel, the Law of Moses and of the Prophets was the true and certain Test by which all Doctrines were to be tried, and as the Apostle writes to the Galatians, 
Gal. 1.8.  Tho' we or an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel unto you, than that ye have received, let him be accursed, So had Jesus whom we conclude the Messiah, gone about to propagate any other kind of Doctrines than what the Prophets had before, or than what was in every point agreeable to their precepts and rules, instead of being the world's Saviour, he had proved himself an accursed impostor; and therefore when the Jews thought to take the advantage of him on this very score, he prevents them with that open declaration, Think not that I am come to destroy the Law or the Prophets, I am not come to destroy but to fulfil, 
Matth. 5.17, 18, 19  for verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the Law, till all be fulfilled, whosoever therefore shall break one of these least Commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven, i. e. That he shall be of no esteem or value at all in the true Church of God: But whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven; 
Luk. 10.25, 26, 27, 28.  Agreeably to this when the Lawyer stood up and tempted him and said, Master what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? Christ goes not about to give him any new rules of life, but referred him to the old, what is written in the Law, says he, how readest thou? And when the Lawyer had answered, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself; which was the real summary of the Mosaic Moral Law, as our Saviour himself elsewhere informs us, Christ replies upon him, Thou hast answered well, This do and thou shalt live: Now if life, i. e. life eternal were to be obtained by the practising according to Legal instructions, there was no need of prescribing any new way of obtaining that everlasting happiness; and therefore when Christ gives us that parable of the rich Man and Lazarus, and introduces the tormented rich Man supplicating that Lazarus might be sent to forewarn his five brethren, lest they also should come into the same terrible place, 
Luke 16.17. ad fin.  Abraham tells him, they have Moses and the Prophets let them hear them; and to show the fullness of their writings for reforming of sinners, Abraham upon his farther importunity subjoins, If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, neither will they believe tho' one risen from the dead: By which passage our Saviour plainly informs us, that even himself and his own Gospel after his resurrection would never take any place where Moses and the Prophets were despised before, the Law being the Gospel's foundation, and preparing the devout soul for its entertainment; for Christ still took notice of what we ought to consider, That truth is always agreeable to itself, and consequently the God of truth must be so too, and therefore if the writers of the Old Testament were inspired from heaven, which all wise men have hitherto believed, than the writers of the New Testament had no other way to prove their own inspiration but by agreement with the former, lest the holy Spirit, to whose conduct both pretended should seem inconsistent with himself, or variable as men's humours could apprehend him. It's not now to be doubted but that our Saviour who knew what was in Man, therefore all along gave just preventives of those Cavils which the malicious Jews could afterwards raise against him, and therefore in his first Sermon upon the Mount he shows himself so far from evacuating what was in its own nature moral and perpetually obliging, that he on the contrary clears it from all those putrid glosses the Jewish readers or Rabbins had fixed upon it, and whereas they had endeavoured to find as many starting holes from the severity of good Morals, as the Jesuits of later years have done, he gave his hearers the full sense and meaning of the Law, that so, by pretending to liberty from its rigours, they might not run themselves into eternal woes; and in plain terms lets them know, that whereas they were ready simply to imagine the severities of the Scribes and Pharisees very extraordinary and meritorious, they were infinitely deceived, and that except their righteousness should exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees they should in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. 
Matth. 5.20.   
It was doubtless the full end and design of Moses and the Prophets to advance the honour of that God who employed them, to make his Name and his Laws respected, not only among the tribes of Israel, but among all those nations to whose knowledge their writings were likely at any time to come: who by the rationality and tendency of the Laws would certainly judge of the wisdom, goodness, and integrity of the Lawgiver; but when those Prophets and others, had done their best, their endeavours were mixed with so many failures and imperfections, that sometimes they fell themselves a great way under God's displeasure, as Moses by his infidelity and presumption at the rock. The man of God that Prophesied against the Altar in Bethel, by yielding to the lying suggestions of the old Prophet: Jonah by his frowardness because of God's superseding his prophetical denunciation by his long suffering and mercy extended to penitent sinners, etc. And besides, in all those services those holy Men performed they could claim no higher a title than that of undeserving servants, for that they had only done what was their plain duty, and in case of failure they were obnoxious to very severe penalties; and Moses tho' he have that honourable character, that he was faithful in all God's house, it was but as a servant still, and for a testimony of those things that were to be spoken after, 
Heb. 3.5, 6.  But Christ as a Son over his own house took a more exact and effectual care in all things to promote the glory of his Father. It's natural for the Son to be more solicitous in such cases than a mercenary servant, who does what he does, prompted both by a fear of punishment and an earnest expectation of reward, above both which things a pious Son always lives; and therefore, whereas the rest always call God their Lord and King, etc. the blessed Jesus continually calls him his Father, his heavenly father, and by that relation he so stands in to the Almighty, and by what he has done for us in taking our nature upon him, and the consequences of that assumption, he has procured the same privilege, (superior to what was apprehended by those of old) with assurance of being heard to say in our Prayers, Our Father which art in heaven. But to effect all this in relation to his Father's honour and our good, how many scorns, abuses, persecutions and barbarous cruelties did he undergo from wicked Men! yet as freely as if he had been altogether unconcerned, so long as Men could but any ways be reduced to an acknowledgement of their errors, and a serious repentance. What he underwent so, made him as Man the more fit to prescribe Laws to others who were likely to suffer extremely from the same foolish world for embracing those truths he delivered them, as we always esteem an Humble man most fit to teach others humility, and a Charitable man charity, and a Patiented man patience. For tho' others may declaim as well in commendation of the same virtues and in reproof of the same vices, yet the discourses of exemplary persons are justly expected to make the deepest impressions upon their hearers. With this advantage our blessed Lord instructed every one, that would receive his Doctrine, in the ways of happiness; he used all the allurements of irresistible Wisdom and unanswerable Reason, all the motives of Mercy and Goodness, to procure their attendance and obedience, He set them a complete pattern of obedience to God, and of innocence and holiness in his converse, and then gives that as a standing rule, that his Disciples should follow his example, and let their light shine before Men for that very end, that others seeing their good works might glorify their Father which was in Heaven.  
But when the blessed Jesus designed the reformation of a sinful World, the nature of his Doctrine, and the manner of its propagation was adapted rightly to so admirable an end: And therefore, whereas the wretched Heathen part of Mankind did infinitely dishonour their Creator, whereas they exactly answered that account of the Apostle, When they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, 
Rom. 1.21, 22, etc.  but became vain in their Imaginations, and their foolish hearts were darkened, they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an Image made like to corruptible Man, and to Birds, and to fourfooted Beasts, and to creeping things, they changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, whence they were filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, malice, envy, etc. Whereas this was their real condition, infinite numbers of them by this means running headlong into everlasting damnation, and yet the illnatured Jews, to whom the Oracles of God were at that time committed, took no care for their recovery, pleasing themselves only with a fond conceit of their own righteousness, crying to all the rest of Mankind, Stand by yourselves, come not near us, for we are holier than you: Since they only talked of their being the people of God, and boasted of his Temple, studying more to proselyte Men to an outward Circumcision, and a few empty Ceremonies, than to real inward holiness and integrity; since these very Jews did but abuse their own greater advantages, and trample upon the most excellent and obliging part of the Law, our Saviour rectified their Error by the dilatation of his own Doctrine, and taking exact care to have it spread as far as humane guilt had extended before; so that had but Men been as careful to improve their virtues as their vices, none upon Earth could have been ignorant of God's will, but the knowledge of that must have covered the Earth, as the waters cover the Sea: As he took his flesh of the Jews, so he took the earliest care to reduce the lost sheep of the house of Israel, preaching and doing miracles among them in his own Person, beside sending out his Disciples to preach in all their Cities: But the veil of the Temple was quickly rend in twain, and the Holy of Holies, the highest Heavens laid open to all that sincerely believed on him, whether they were Jews or Gentiles. He came not as an Herald to proclaim War, but with the glad tidings of peace, and as an ambassador of reconciliation; he resolved to make Mercy triumphant over Justice, to give light to them that sat in a more than Egyptian darkness, and to guide them in the ways of everlasting life; and therefore as himself vouchsafed to talk with the Samaritan Woman, and others of that Nation, to show that he was not so rigidly uncharitable and unconcerned for Universal welfare, as the Jews were, so he gave his Apostles a very large commission, to carry his Doctrine to all Nations, that all People, if careful of their own Eternal Interests, might come to the knowledge of his truth, and be saved.  
That Doctrine, and those Laws, by which he intended to effect these great things, to reduce a corrupted World to a sense of duty, were so Innocent, so Pure, so Rational and Divine, that nothing less than a common Reformation could have been expected from them; for let a Man examine the Gospel through, let him do it with the most violent prejudices, the severest Eyes, he'll find no footsteps of self-interest in our Saviour's management of himself; he sought not the applauses and honours of the vulgar, as appeared by those frequent offences he gave them in his plain and open reproofs, and those disagreeable propositions he commonly made to them; otherwise the vulgar were not so dull, but that He who spoke as never man spoke, might in a great measure have influenced them, and drawn them to an easy rebellion against their foolish and obstinate Superiors; notwithstanding all his care to the contrary, the predominant humour was once to take him by force and make him a King, which he was so far from indulging, 
Joh. 6.15.  that he quietly withdrew himself from their disorderly zeal. He exposed himself indeed to all manner of hazards, but never sought to advance himself any farther, than to a bare vindication of his Innocence: What he aimed at was the good and safety of others, to snatch them who were falling into everlasting flames, from that dreadful place, to make them wiser, and every way better; what he propounded to them was the Cross, self-denial, patience, humility, a constant expectation of afflictions, things not popular among vain men, but such as would stand them in more stead than all the trifling honours and pleasures of the World; If then only to aim at public good, if to lay down and command such Doctrines, as himself could reap no benefit by, but those to whom he spoke might; if to declare openly against all high and ambitious thoughts, and to be the great Example of his own Instructions, argue the harmless nature of that design a Man carries on, doubtless what our Saviour taught tended to the most Innocent purposes in the World: Had he privately composed a Law, and afterwards without propounding it to public examination, endeavoured to settle it by force of arms, by an eager persecution of those who should have rejected it even to extermination, howsoever good the Law might have been, the very method of its propagation would have been an insuperable prejudice against it, and would have made all Men conclude its deficiency as to reason and justice; But our Saviour pursued another Method, He trod in those steps so many had traced very happily before, He endeavoured to advance only such notions as were confessedly of Divine original, He propounded them to the Judgement and censure of all, He was ready to answer all Questions, to resolve all doubts, to silence all cavils, and though He carried on his purpose with the utmost Zeal, yet He made use only of gentle persuasions, and of unanswerable arguments, which none who were not direct enemies to reason, could refuse: He pleaded a Divine authority for his undertaking, yet desired not that his Plea should be regarded any farther than he confirmed it by his works, and by the Innocence of his life; his works were truly miraculous, all works of mercy not of terror, obliging not only his friends by them, but his very enemies, witness the cure of Malchus' ear; He called for no fire down from Heaven, no Earthquakes, no storms of Sulphur, or Universal Deluges to force Men to submission, but endeavoured fairly to convince all who had not heard of his Doctrine before, how much it tended to their welfare, not forbidding their objections, or studying little shifts and artifices to evade them. Now if those who have made men better than they were by plain force are justly celebrated by all as Benefactors, how much more do they deserve the name, who do as much good by gentler means? The Peruvians were wont to account their Yncaes the Sons of Heaven, because they made it their continual business to civilize a barbarous World, to do which they propounded their own Laws first to the inspection of strangers, and endeavoured to persuade them of the great benefits they were like to receive by submitting to them, producing examples of the felicity of others by the same obedience; but where they were rejected, those Yncae's introduced civility by force of arms, yet stand not condemned in record even for those rougher proceed: and it could not argue an inferior Original for our Saviour, that he used no violence at all; and yet if we compare the successes of his Gospel, enforced by nothing but reason, a charitable Zeal and profitable Miracles, with the progresses either of Moses' Law, which was from Heaven, or that of Mahomet, which has been spread prodigiously by Wars and Conquests, or that of the Peruvian Yncae's, which was promoted by the calmest ways that ever any mere humane politics were; the Gospel has prevailed infinitely beyond them all, having been truly Catholic, when others have been confined to particular Countries, having outstood all arguments raised against it, when the rest have been baffled by almost every undertaker: and having outstood the strength of time, when the very name of several others are almost lost; and even Mahometism itself (of a much younger standing) though it has thriven beyond the rest, has fallen very short of the progress of the Gospel: This Universal prevalence is an irrefragable evidence of the Gospel's excellence, and proves the Contriver of it not to have been of an Earthly original, since nothing but Heaven could recommend and practise what was so indisputably innocent.  
Again, to aim wholly at the extirpation of vice, of all sin and wickedness, and the promoting and recommending of virtue and goodness, carries the highest purity and sanctity along with it. If miscarriages in government, and trespasses upon humane Laws produce terrible convulsions of state, and unexpected revolutions in political affairs, (of which at this day we live to see unaccountable instances) it's easy to infer from thence, that encroachments upon the Laws of God and nature, must have the same influence upon general affairs, and create strange disorders in the World, and mightily prejudice all the bonds of humane Society. It naturally excites God's vindictive justice, and makes him scatter vengeance every where; it creates nothing but mutual distrusts and jealousy of one another among men, so that they grow like Wolves or Devils in their mutual animosities and injuries. As these things are the consequence of wickedness, so they are certain proofs and indications of the prevalence of Sin in any place or Nation; they show a general infection to have spread itself in a very corrupt people; and therefore he that endeavours to purge out the malignant humours of men labouring under such pernicious distempers, employs himself in the purest and most desirable work, since he endeavours only to reconcile guilty nature to an incensed God, and waspish and ill humoured Men to one another. A full and rigid execution of Laws against impudent vices may keep some under by its terror, and make them at least seek the darkest corners for the perpetrating of villainies, but it represents not Sin a whit the more in its native ugliness, nor gives any ordinary satisfaction, that Sin is exceeding sinful; for it's easy enough to conclude that God and Men may prohibit and punish such or such an action out of their own arbitrariness, to show their own absolute and  power, upon which account, though Force may restrain them for a while, yet there remain in perverted minds some strange Gustos of delight in finding opportunities to do what they are forbidden, and which they conclude may be things good enough notwithstanding such prohibitions; but when vice is delineated truly by Instructors appointed for that purpose, who are neither afraid nor ashamed to speak Truth, when they find Sin decried by solemn and weighty arguments, more than by authority, where on the other hand, they find virtue and goodness described fairly as it deserves, recommended by earnest and gentle persuasives, set out with all its circumstantial beauties, discovered in its happy effects, with relation both to earthly and heavenly influences; when they see blessings shoured down from Heaven upon them, and their very Enemies at peace with them, when they see how all this only propounds a pure and unmixed goodness in Devotions towards God, and in Converse among Men; such Observers have nothing to say for themselves, in case they choose the worst part; they can't pretend so much as to excuse themselves, that they embrace evil not voluntarily but by mistake, and sub specie boni, since vice and virtue lie both unveiled and naked before them; Or they must acknowledge themselves only to be resolutely wicked, to be so because they will be so, which puts them easily past all hopes of pity or of Pardon. But since devotion and ordinary converse were so exceedingly depraved, and since the wisest among mere Men had made so many attempts for reforming them, and yet had been so miserably mistaken in their measures to that end, as to convince them of the impossibility of such achievements from their hands, when one person, howsoever despicable and mean in his outward appearances, could reassume the forsaken design, and not only assume, but apparently accomplish it, laying down such Rules, as if exactly followed, must necessarily restore all things to an absolute perfection; when Men observe all his instructions to agree closely among themselves, and with the ancient authentic methods of doing well, and all concurring still in the same centre of Universal Sanctity, it must be necessarily concluded, That the Undertaker was somewhat more than Man, that nothing less than infinite holiness and wisdom could effect such things, which being yet apparently effected by One who was a true Man, that true Man must withal be acknowledged the Son of God.  
And whereas the generality of inquisitive Men in their searches after truth and wisdom always observed strange deficiencies in humane reason, whereby ancient wise men broke into so many several divisions in their inquiries after the Chief good; whereas they found, that none could lay down a fair project for pursuit of That, but that presently he was assaulted by whole Armies of adversaries, and all projects found absurd and unprofitable for acquiring that they aimed at: When the Gospel of our Saviour came to be divulged, tho' it met with adversaries enough, they were all too weak to inval date its strength and reason. It was neither the juggling fair-tongued Pharisee, nor the absurd and ambitious Saducee, nor the wrangling Sophister, nor the Sceptical or cunning Philosopher, nor the undermining Heretic, that were able to ruin the reputation of the Christian Doctrine, but it still grew upon them tho' they were cruelly assisted by earthly powers, and indeed made use of all the roughest means for the extirpation of the Professors of the Gospel. And what was very considerable, tho' the great promoters of Religion after the Apostles and their immediate Successor's times, neither had the gift of languages, nor had much of the learned education of those Ages, yet they were able, having truth on their side to baffle all the learning of the great wise men among both Jews and Pagans, which could never have happened, had not what they preached and defended been highly rational. For keen adversaries, who pretended to the greatest acuteness of Wit and Sense, would never have quitted arguments that had been stronger for the sake of mere cant and impertinent jangling. But indeed the common scope of the inquiries of wise men, being to discover what was really the greatest degree of humane happiness, and the highest and chiefest good, (by which they confessed somewhat Lost, and tho' possibly to be retrieved, yet not without the greatest difficulties imaginable) there was no proposition made by any for the full discovery and attainment of that Good, but it was eagerly listened to, and the probabilities on all sides being duly weighed, and the effects of the several propositions being carefully considered, Christianity gained the victory, whose effects were the most considerable, whose Professors the most innocent, whose promises were the most excellent and punctual, and whose rules the most general, intelligible and unquestionable. Pagans and Jews if they were not wilfully ignorant, could not but see all those principles of reason which themselves pretended to, extremely advanced by this doctrine introduced by Christ; for whereas they were wont to decry pride and haughtiness of spirit, arrogance and contempt of others, very earnestly, its true the vice was so notorious that they could not want arguments to disgrace it: yet while ambition and an enterprising humour were commended, while their applauded Philosophers were the persons who above all others contemned and vilified the vulgar, and since their very gods were represented to them as tainted with the same fault, their ingenious Lectures and fine discourses against it were generally lost. But when Christianity teaches the miserable natural condition of Men, how they are all the heirs of wrath, and just inheritors of eternal damnation, because they broke an easy Law, and forfeited their original Innocence; when it shows how Angels those purer Spirits fell from that glory they were at first enstated in, by a pride and haughtiness superior to that of Man, when it shows us, how short and transient our life here is, how uncertain and flitting all our comforts and enjoyments, how little power we have to help ourselves under any extraordinary calamity or temptation, and yet that we are born to trouble as the sparks fly upward, when it represents us to ourselves as too weak by any strength of our own, to get the mastery of Innate lusts and sensual desires, and God's anger as just hanging over our heads and extremely hard to be atoned, nay plainly impossible to be satisfied, had not a very powerful Mediator interposed on our accounts, all these things are so many mortifying considerations to the proud, that whosoever allows himself but a few serious thoughts on these heads must certainly be very mean and humble in his own eyes, looking upon himself as too inferior for divine mercy to take notice of, too unworthy to be partaker of any great hopes or extraordinary future felicities; and such Humility is propounded to us as an excellent foundation for extraordinary grace, and as the best way to be exalted by God in his due time. Again, 
Jam. 4.10.  whereas Pagans recommend friendship and fidelity to all persons, and give us a great many extraordinary examples of the noble effects of those virtues, yet they commend revenge, and applaud that internecine hatred which concludes in nothing but blood, and therefore represent their greatest Heroes, such as Achilles and Aeneas and Alexander, as desiring only to live till they might throughly revenge the fair deaths of their friends, and can scarce tell how to condemn their barbarous Tydaeus whom they make when dying of his wounds himself, yet gnawing the bleeding head of his enemy Melampus, (who had hurt him in a fair war,) with an expiring rage: Whereas we see Joab murdering Abner in cold blood, on pretence of revenging the death of his brother Asahel, whom Abner had killed purely in his own defence; and find our Saviour reckoning it as a Jewish maxim, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, 
Matth. 5.43.  and hate thine enemy. Yet a good Christian looks upon revenge as so unmanly a humour and so disagreeable to those principles he owns, that he scorns to be thought guilty of it; for what advantage is it to me if one have killed my Brother or my Father, to kill him for it? will it restore any life to my dear departed relation? will it contribute to the peace and satisfaction of the departed soul? Or, will it not rather show a devilish temper only delighting in murder, and committing that very crime myself which I think I can never punish with severity enough in another man? are there not a thousand inconveniences attend such practices, deadly and immortal feuds not terminating between particular men, but legacyed down to entire families, and concluding at last in mutual utter excisions, or by both of them falling under the impartial strokes of a superiors Law? Revenge is brutish, Dogs and Bears and Wolves and Tigers outdo Man at it; but it's noble and Godlike to forgive, and therefore our blessed Saviour teaches all men who expect pardon from heaven for themselves, to be ready to forgive their brethren here, i. e. those who are partakers of the same humane nature with themselves; He commands us, To love our enemies, 
Matth 5.44, 46.  to bless them that curse us, to do good to them that hate us, and to pray for them that despitefully use us and persecute us, for if we love them that love us, what do we more than others? The meanest souls, the greatest aliens to virtue are capable of such things: Publicans, esteemed the mere scandal and refuse of mankind among the Jews, could do them, but those who followed Christ were to act in softer methods. They may design to make the world their slaves, but it must not be effected by rage and a studious revenge on every little supposed affront, that sets men upon their guard, and he that by such courses strives to subject me, must expect the same measure from me if I can get him at advantage: but He that studies to do good to all, is consequently beloved and admired by all; a forgiving and reconcileable temper obliges all mankind, and every one is a willing servant or slave to him whom he loves. How easily does this compassionate temper slide into a true and universal Charity? and our Saviour plainly shows by the course of his doctrine, that as it was Man's great ambition in his first sin to become like to God, tho' he miserably mistook the way, so he now accounts it the greatest honour to God, that Man should indeed be what he then aimed at, that that Image of God which was imprinted upon the Souls of Men in their first Creation should be restored to its primitive perfection and lustre: but there was no way to bring this about more effectually than by implanting this real and extensive Charity in the hearts of Men, which makes them the true representatives of that God who is love and goodness itself. It changes that state of war corrupt nature's engaged in, and diffuses a Catholic and agreeable serenity through the world; it abolishes that Wolvish humour predominant among Men, and makes every one a God to his fellow. God makes his Sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends his rain upon the just and upon the unjust, he allows means for the conversion of sinners to repentance, as well as for conducting the righteous to that glory prepared for them; and Charity teaches us to resemble him in this, where he pardons and blesses, that we should do so too, and not neglect, or despise, or implacably persecute those of whom God himself is pleased to take care.  
Intemperance in meats and drinks was one of those vices which Paganism very rationally condemned and exposed so far as to make wise Men ashamed of it: They saw plainly how it impaired men's reason, how it engaged them in frequent and senseless quarrels, destroyed health and confounded estates; yet they had but very small apprehensions of the influence it might have upon men's future conditions, how displeasing it was to Almighty God, how certain an evidence of men's brutish and carnal inclinations; Our Saviour therefore heightens their reasons against it, by showing the certainty of judgement after death, the severity of that judgement, the uncertainty of the time of our leaving this world, the immediate consequence of judgement upon death, and that there is no intermedial state of reconciliation to heaven, and therefore he advises his disciples, 
Luke 21.34.  Let not your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and so that day come upon you unawares, he refers them to the instance of the old world where they lived in mirth and jollity till the flood came suddenly upon them and destroyed them all, and to the instance of the Sodomites who practised the same dissolute Libertinism, 
Luke 17.27, 29.  till it reigned fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all: Now if there be reason to avoid these vices, to escape some temporal inconveniences, Men should do so much more to shun shame and scandal and eternal torments. Thus did the blessed Jesus in all the instances of sin or goodness use so much stronger arguments for the first and against the last, than the most studious mere humane zeal could reach to, that consequently Men were infinitely more obedient to him than they were to other Dictator's in virtue: For if Scipio Africanus could truly make it his boast, That among all his soldiers there was not one but at his bidding would throw himself off the highest rock into the sea tho' certain to be drowned, how much was our Saviour honoured, when so many thousand zealous Christians voluntarily exposed themselves to the most exquisite torments in assertion of that truth He had transmitted to them? When not the angry insurrections of the headstrong multitude, nor the threatening frowns of raging Tyrants, nor the lingering tortures of racks and wheels could affright them from their obedience; when all the pitiful subterfuges of mean and common souls were generously scorned, and the Crown of Martyrdom esteemed much more than the Imperial Diadem? But it was the clear and unanswerable reason of our Saviour's commands, of his Laws, that convinced so many: and those who were unwilling to renounce their own reason, were as unwilling to relinquish the precepts of the Gospel; tho' they could not be fond of extreme misery, yet they would endure any thing rather than to believe they were no Men; and it was no sign of predominant madness or Hypochondriacal vapours for men to discourse more intelligently than before, to be more earnest in pursuit of wisdom, to be more humble, more sober, more charitable, more devout, more blameless in their lives and conversations than others. But could a mere Man dive so far into the depths of reason beyond the rest of the World, who wanted all visible and external means for the improvement of his knowledge and natural abilities? Christ had not what we call liberal education, the Jews who knew it, objected that against him, How knoweth this Man Letters, having never learned? But he answers them appositely enough, My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me; and adds, He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory, 
John 7.15, 16, 18.  but he that seeketh his glory that sent him, the same is true, and there is no unrighteousness in him: Now to advance Reason beyond humane reach, to promote God's glory not as a Servant, but with greater strength of argument and zeal than a mere man could do, proves beyond contradiction, that the Man Christ Jesus could be none other than the Son of God.  
I come now to inquire into that influence, Scripture-history in those cases ought to have upon all those who own the Being of a God, whether they be converted to Christianity or not, which will necessarily take in that authority which the Word of God, as such, aught to have with an Infidel; which enquiry, though it be of a nice and speculative nature, yet it will necessarily convince All of that value they ought to set upon Scripture, when they call themselves Believers and Christians, how careful they should be to punish and discourage all slights and contempts thrown upon it, and how ready to lose their lives, or any thing that's dear to 'em, rather than part with those truths contained in it.  
It were easy to prove Scripture equally valuable to the greatest strangers to Christianity with any other Humane writings whatsoever; For Heathens never pretended any such veneration for those Writings they had opportunity to converse with (how great names soever they bore in their titles) as to be afraid to oppose or confute them, and to distinguish among them between truths and falsehoods, and proper subjects of Credibility and Incredibility; for tho' the Opinions of some Persons were looked upon as more rational than those of others, and the Writings of some Historians as more Authentic, yet they were all acknowledged full of mistakes, and naturally liable to such; nay their very Divine Writings, those which they thought written, and which tradition told them were written by divine instinct, were frequently called in question; and so their Poets the first Authors of their Divinity were generally reputed great Fablers, and they deserved it well; and their Sibyls whose Oracles were so much celebrated among them, were by Tully in his 2d. Book de Divinatione, before the name of Christians, or of Christ himself was heard in the World, cried down as a cheat for the most part; and where Acrostics (as some of those so called) were incapable of that divine Original they pretended to; Which instance, whether Tully were in the right or no, proves yet certainly the dubiousness of men's minds among the Heathens, as to the authority of their most sacred and esteemed Writings, and how small a Crime they held it to impeach any of them. Yet they valued many Authors so much, as to take a great deal of care to preserve their Writings, and to transmit them very carefully to Posterity. Now to raise Scripture to this proportion of esteem among them, no more needs to be alleged, than that the Subjects they treat on, are generally very good, as the Writings of any old Philosophers could pretend to be; that though the Nation principally concerned in it, was not so famous as many of the ruffling or Politic founders of other large Empires were, yet there were such a People really in the World as the Jews, and afterwards as the Christians were; that they had Laws given them, and lived under particular forms of Government, and that the Historical account given of Jewish Politics and Monarches, and of the first Founders of Christianity, and their industry, and success, were as Rational, and as likely to be true, as the Histories of other Political transactions; and a great deal more likely to be true in the eldest parts of its History, as that of the World's Beginning, of the Long Lives of those before the Flood, of the Flood itself, and the escape of a very small number from it, of the Reparation of the World by a new increase of Mankind, and other Creatures, of the Original of that called the Dead Sea, from the Conflagration of Sodom and Gomorrha, Admah, and Zeboim, by fire from Heaven, of the Ascent of the Jews out of Egypt, and the Calamities suffered by the Egyptians upon their account, of the Original of the Jewish Government, Sacred and Civil, etc. These accounts of Antiquity, and many more of the same nature, looked infinitely more probably, than the dreams and forgeries of their eldest Authors, for whose sake they looked upon all their own stories, relating to the first Ages of the World, as only obscure and fabulous. These Pleas, as I said before, might serve to bring any into as good an opinion of that Book which we call Scripture, as of any other mere humane writing: But that's not enough; Scripture may, to Infidels themselves, be proved to be far superior in the original, nature and use of it, than any thing else the World pretends to; the certainty of which lays open a fair way for the conversion of Infidels to Christianity, and indeed is such a medium, as without it, or unquestionable miracles, which Miracles too must tend wholly to the confirmation of the authority of Scripture, it's wholly vain to pretend to their conversion.  
What I mentioned at first, that the excellency of Scripture might be proved, or its authority have a due influence upon such as acknowledge only the being of a God, was spoken with relation to Atheists, who deny any such Being at all; for tho' we have not met yet with any Nation so barbarous, but it has had some notion of a God, (as wherever there is any pretence to divination or predictions of future contingencies, there must be such) yet since some will pretend to Courage enough, utterly to deny the existence of a God, and make it their business to make proselytes to the same nonsense: I confess no Arguments, of that nature I aim at, can have any effects on them; those who deny a God, will scarce acknowledge any particular Writing to be the Word of God; but to those who do acknowledge a God, these things will be obvious enough, and past dispute.  
That if there be a God, i. e. One great supreme Being, who presides with an absolute and illimited power over the World, and all transactions in it: This God must necessarily have all those Attributes, due to himself, which are requisite for the exercising such a power, for he that believes not this, has no true notion of a God, without which yet no Man can pretend to any true or solid religion; for as the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us, He that comes to God must believe that he is, 
Heb. 11.6.  and that he is a rewarder of those that seek him; so the Stoic Philosopher joins with the Apostle, when he makes the greatest part of true Religion to consist in having 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, true opinions of the Gods, so as to know that they are, and that they manage all things well and justly, that all aught to obey them and acquiesce in those things which are done by them, 
Epict. Ench. c. 38.  and to act in agreement with them, as being governed by an Alwise Mind; now, according to these Models, none can have a true or exact apprehension of a God, but he who represents God to himself as capable of performing all those things for which he thinks it necessary to believe He is: And from hence it was that Epicharmus tells us, 
Cudw. Intel. Syst. p. 263. 4.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Nothing escapes the eye of the Divinity, this you ought to take notice of, He's the Overseer of us all, and there's nothing that he cannot do; which shows he understood the God of all things to be omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, three of those great attributes Christians give to God, and that it was necessarily to be understood by all others who pretended to the same knowledge of a God. Hence God, or he whom Pagans owned to be the supreme God, known to them by the name of Jupiter, is called by them, the great Architect or Maker of the World, the Prince and chief Ruler of the Universe, the first or chief God, the first Mind, the great God, the greatest of the Gods, the highest, the superior to all Gods: the most transcendent God, the God of gods, the Principle of Principles, the first Cause, He that generated the Universe, He that rules over the whole World, the Supreme Governor and Lord of all things, the God without beginning, self-originated, and self-subsisting, He that is far beyond the reach of Humane Minds and understandings, that Eternal Being which can never change and never perish. The beginning, the end, and the middle of all things. He who is one God only and all Gods in one: now the result of all these titles is, That the Supreme Being which governs the World is infinitely perfect, which if drawn down into Christian words and principles, amounts to this, That God is infinitely powerful, just, true, merciful, glorious, loving and good to all his Creatures, and all these things are so essentially constitutive of the Deity, that without the concurrence of them all, there could be none; for what is perfect, must be so in all instances, for any one exception ruins the whole assertion, and makes that Being, what ever he may pretend to really, imperfect.  
Amongst these several Attributes which render God adorable to the World, that Love or Goodness of his whereby he regulates and provides for all his Creatures is one, and as he originally desires, so he promotes their real happiness, and of this Goodness the Heathens had notions as well as ourselves, though not perhaps so clear or convictive as those God has blest us with in Scripture; thus Platonists persuade us, that God himself was turned into Love when he made the World, that order in which he had set, and that providence by which he governed all things, showing the most prodigious effects of Love or goodness. So the Greek Comedian gives us an odd Idea of the World's Original, 
Aristoph. in Nubibus.  That in the beginning Confusion and Night, and Hell and Darkness had an existence, there was then no Earth, nor Air, nor Sky. In the first place black-winged Night laid a prolific Egg in the inscrutable bosom of profound Darkness, from which in succeeding Hours was produced desirable Love, glittering in the Air with golden Wings, and like the breeding Winds, coupling with prepared Chaos, or dark confusion in the infernal regions, 
p. 121.  exposed our kind, first of all, to light; nor had the Gods themselves any being, till Love itself had mingled all things. Which Poetical expressions being duly explained, or reduced to plain sense, and the Gods in the last passages meaning only Angels, Moses his history of the Creation, Gen. 1. and St. John's discourse, John 1. concerning the Creation of all things by Christ, with his assertion oft repeated, That God is Love, are not very different from them; For, tho' they were of a more obscure and impenetrable kind, yet Paganism in general had very considerable notices of the immense goodness of the Divine nature, and those amongst them who opposed Atheism, and asserted Providence, took no small care to set off divine love, or the necessary care God had of his Creatures good, with the greatest Lustre; and the Ancient Christian Doctors, nay, the Apostles themselves, witness Saint Paul at Athens, and St. Peter with Cornelius, and the Ancienter Prophets and Holy Writers found God's Goodness exerted to his Creatures, an excellent Argument to draw Pagans, as well as others to Repentance and Obedience.  
Among other apprehensions Pagans had of God, that of his Purity and Holiness was very considerable; they who ascribed Perfection to him, and knew what Perfection meant, looked upon him as necessarily infinitely Pure; for where they tell us of God's being impassable, they prove he cannot be guilty of any thing ill, that being contrary to the original nature of a Spiritual Being, which therefore must be supposed to suffer, when it is supposed to sin. But as they had these notions of God's immense purity, so they had as quick a sense of the depravation of Man's Nature, and were ready to lament it with almost as great an Emphasis, as St. Paul himself could lament his own corruption; hence that ingenious Platonist Maximus Tyrius acknowledges, 
Dissert. 26.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. For the Soul of Man is too weak to extricate itself by force of Reason from all those perplexities it meets with, especially being while in this life involved in many dark and gloomy Clouds, and always miserably wearied and distracted with the noise and tumult of occurring mischiefs, for what Man is there so good, who can live without offence or without fault? but Men might live easily enough without fault, did not the general depravation of their natures prevent it, for of what is Good nothing but Good can come. But though this Purity in God and Corruption in Man, must necessarily put God at a great distance from Man, yet as God was Lord and Master at first, both by right of Creation and Preservation, he is so still, (as he that was owner of a Kingdom, does not lose his right in it, because it is visited with the Plague, and the Infection it may be fatal and almost Universal) so Man owes Obedience and Subjection to God still, as he that was my Slave when perfect and in health, is not therefore set free of course because he's sickly, or has lost an Arm, or a Leg; Or he that was so when in his wits, does not cease to be so now because he's distracted, and does not understand his Duty: The Relation between God and Man stands good, and is believed to do so by Heathens as well as Christians, as a Son owes a Duty to his Father, when his Father's angry, as well as when he's pleased; and when himself has really offended him, as well as when he has not; and this relation is necessarily on man's part to be maintained to the utmost, since by its failure he loses all hopes of Happiness, and on God's part in vindication of his own Goodness.  
He therefore that rightly understands Humane Pravity of Nature, and yet believes he owes a duty to the supreme Being, must conclude it necessary, that he should have some Positive Rule or method whereby to manage himself: nor is it enough in this case to fly to the Law of Nature as if that were sufficient: That had been so indeed, had Man continued in that rectitude of faculties which he had in the first beginnings of the world; but Heathens have been very sensible there's no such thing to depend on now: For tho' the Laws of Nature are as Just, as Reasonable, as Necessary, and as Obligatory now as ever, yet if men have not Reason enough to understand it, what does the excellency and compleatness of Nature's Laws signify to them? as, tho' I am blind, the Sun shines at noonday as bright and clear as ever it did, but I see never the more for all that. It was the Apostle's complaint, that the good that he would that he did not, 
Rom. 7.19,  and the evil that he would not that he did, the reason of which was that general Corruption of Mankind, which He, as one of them, was partaker of; fo● He saw another Law in his members, waring against the Law of his mind, and bringing him into captivity to the Law of Sin which was in his members; the same is the complaint of Medea in the Poet when meditating upon a dreadful revenge she designed on her husband Jason— video meliora probóque, Deteriora sequor; Now let the Laws of Nature be never so admirable, which way can a Man thus distracted within, compose himself so, as to take a fair view of that Law, or be enough himself to practise upon it? The Law of Nature is really obscure and mystical, to be traced through a thousand dark and perplexing Labyrinths, which require more than a Man, as now fixed, to travel through; therefore it cannot be enough to satisfy Man's want, and to give him full and clear direction to do the Will of God, which obedience to his Will is yet His Duty.  
He again who has a just Idea of immense Goodness in God, will never be capable of reconciling His refusal to give Man a Law to walk by, to such goodness; For while no Man that acknowledges a God doubts but that he'll punish sinners, none can doubt but to clear his own Justice from all cavils, he'll punish them only as Sinners against some Law, for sin is defined to Christians a Transgression of the Law; but that Law must be some such Law as the Transgressor was really capable of knowing: As our Justiciaries punish the most ignorant Clowns when they break our Laws (tho' perhaps the suffering persons never knew of those Laws) and yet very justly, because there were such Laws really extant, and in such a Language as they understood, and it was their Duty and Interest to be acquainted with, and to inquire after those Laws, the breach of which might any way be penal to them. It's as little doubted, that God will reward those who keep such Laws, and will encourage them, by the easiness of the Laws propounded, to a ready and exact obedience; These things were so strongly fixed in the minds of ancient Pagans, that it set their Philosophers at work to read Lectures, and to prescribe Laws concerning Virtue and Vice, to all people, declaring previously, That there was an absolute necessity of such Laws for Men who indeed were engaged in the dark, and some of them could almost have pretended to Divine influences upon them, tho' their Priests and Fortune-tellers did it with more applause: But all this was to bring men's minds to a greater veneration of their Principles; and Empedocles in particular, thought it no ill Policy to Teach his Philosophy first, and commence a God afterwards, for which end he threw himself alive into the mouth of Aetna in Sicily, and received his Apotheôsis in the midst of flames. Yet, after all, Philosophy was capable of doing very little, and could not, nor ever was received by Men as any parcel of that Law they wanted to guide them, because they were wholly unable to determine among them what that one great and chief Good was, the fruition of which they were to aim at: and in submission to which they were to admit of the propounded Law; on account of the weak title of these Pretenders, the Priests, who attended on the public services of their more celebrated gods, pretended to extraordinary Inspirations; and some of them, especially, such as the Cumaean Sibyl, Tiresias, Amphiaraus, the Priests of Jupiter Hammon, the Delphian, Dodonian and Trophonian Priests, etc. seemed to be in frequent Raptures and sacred Agonies, as if they had been newly conversing with some Gods, and in these fits they delivered strange obscurities uncouth and wild, as we find by Homer, Apollonius, Virgil, Statius, Sophocles, Seneca, and others: These Priests thus obtaining a great reputation for sanctity, and it being thought they were but as so many Engines conveying the speeches of the Gods down to Men, their Dictates bore a great sway in the Heathen World, and they were much consulted in the inventing and making of Laws; But these again were so disagreeing among themselves and with one another, their Fancies generally so irrationally extravagant and unintelligible, the self-interest in them, so notoriously apparent to every body, and their Lives and Manners so absolutely undivine, (which was a very considerable prejudice among Heathens themselves) and matters of fact delivered by them to posterity in writing, were commonly so wild, so trifling, or so full of falsities, that all these things quite ruined their claims, and still the Heathen World had new Laws, and new Lawgivers to seek. Hence their Gods themselves, that is, the Devil who usurped the Divine name, and under that name, at several times and in several places procured divine Honours to himself, took courage to give answers to enquirers and a kind of Directions for Men to act by; and that he might look the liker a God indeed, he'd now and then adventure upon some little Truths, such as had a very considerable Moral import in them, such as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Noli altum sapere, and some few more of a like nature, but these Oracular Rules, proceeding from so great a Patron of real impiety and abominable Idolatries, were commonly received accordingly; and tho', as to Sacrifices and all the gaieties of a costly Worship, they were willingly enough ruled by that usurping Impostor, and if any barbarous offering was to be made in blood of Slaves or Children, or the like, Superstition was but too obedient; Yet, in those things that were really Good and worth taking notice of, they were so distrustful as they came to nothing among them. Maximus Tyrius therefore, in those cases, prefers Philosophy itself, so far as concerns the Conduct of Men's lives, to all these Oracles, for, as he argues, the Gods pretend to tell us what's sodden in a boiling Cauldron in Lydia, 
Dissert. 19 p. 189.  they tell us of a wooden Wall, of oh danger of cutting through the Corinthian Isthmus, sometimes they talk of a future Earthquake, of a threatening war, and an approaching Plague, but as for those things which are much more worth our knowledge, such as how Wars may be avoided, by what means we may live without any need of Walls and Fortifications, how we may behave ourselves so as to have no reason to fear a Plague, not one word, neither Apollo at Delphos, nor Jupiter at Dodona, nor any other Gods, have any thing to say to these things, only Philosophy teaches these things. Yet afterwards, he flies even from That too as insufficient; For, says he, I require such an Oracle which may teach me without ambiguity to live quietly, answer me then, whither will you send Mankind? which way must they go in the case? where must they end? let the Rule of Life be one, let it be common to and concern All? Thus He, neither satisfied with Philosophy, nor any way to Happiness, yet known to him, no nor with the additional stories of God's descending down to Earth, in Humane Forms to converse with and to instruct Men in the method of acquiring Happiness.  
Now this Rule, thus sought for among Heathens, we say the Scripture is: They know not that it is so; We prove it, because the Scripture is the Word of God: There's no ingenuous Pagan but will agree with us, that if it is the Word of God indeed, it must of necessity be the thing they look for, and sufficient to effect those great things they desire from it; it's our part then to prove what we call Scripture to be God's Word, and thus far they meet us in the way, They acknowledge the absolute necessity of such a Word, the absolute necessity of Man's obeying him who governs all things, the absolute incapacity Men are in to know of themselves how to perform that duty, its extraordinary consistency with Divine Goodness that there should be such a Word given to Mankind, whereby they may be guided to happiness, and their joy and readiness to receive such a Word, sufficiently proved to be such, when exhibited; all which infer their supposition, that God may, if he please, impart his Will in such a manner to the World: Now what a Heathen would require in such a Word which should be the rule of his life, could only be,  
That it should be One, that it should be of equal concern and respect to All, that it should not be clogged with Ambiguities, that it should be Practicable, that it should be sufficient for the end it's designed for, and that it should be suitable to, and worthy of its Author, these are the most comprehensive Qualifications a stranger to Christianity would have in that Word which is ascribed to God, and these it will not be very difficult to show in that Scripture which we believe, for  
If we look into the Moral and Perpetually obliging part of God's Word as a Rule of Life and Practice, it's but One, and that a very short one too, as laid down in the Decalogue by Moses the Jewish, and as Epitomised in the Gospel by Jesus the Christians Lawgiver, Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thyself, and upon these two, as our Saviour teaches, depend all both the Law and the Prophets; the whole body of the Old Testament and the New is but one large and plain comment upon these few words, showing their full import in abundance of particular instances; so as there are no Emergencies of Humane life, but what are reducible to them; There is set down the just Commendation of that one short Rule, the miserable failures of Men in putting this in execution, the true grounds and reasons of their failures, their falling under divine displeasure on that account, the means found out to atone that divine displeasure, and the extreme difficulty of atoning it, the continuing Defects of Humane Obedience, the Mercy of God yet equally continued for the sake of that complete atonement made, and God's acceptance of an upright heart and sincere endeavours, (according to the doctrine of Pagan wise men themselves) instead of absolute and unattainable perfection in Virtue and Goodness, and Crowning such sincerity and integrity with that happiness due to a total perfection: And all these things are illustrated with such an Historical deduction of things, as serves exceedingly to confirm all the particulars, and to convince the World how angry the True God is with those who transgress, and how infinitely pleased He is with those who endeavour to walk by this Rule; and All compared together show abundantly, that the whole body of Scripture is indeed but one and the same Rule, agreeing with itself in all particulars: and the Matters of fact laid down with that simplicity, impartiality and probability, and so agreeably to those broken fragments of Antiquity themselves esteemed most highly, and so very pertinent to the drift of the Book itself, i. e. to make Men devout towards Heaven, and sociable among one another (all which things were never pretended to meet in any one Writing whatsoever before) that, till any firm instance can be produced to the contrary, Scripture in this particular must be owned the Word of God.  
If its general and equal respect to all Mankind be enquired after, the very manner of expression used in Scripture shows it to be really Universal, for when the Rule says, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and Thou shalt love thy Neighbour, and yet nominates no particular person to whom the sense should be restrained, Scripture in that speaks to every individual person who hears or reads it, as Nathan to David, Thou whether Jew or Gentile, bond or free, young or old, learned or unlearned, Christian or Pagan, Thou art the Man. When, in relation to any branch of this short Rule, any doubt is proposed and the solution given to a particular Person either in plain terms or in a Parable, that particular solution concerns every man living; so when the Lawyer asked Christ, Who is my neighbour? and Christ had answered him by that Parable of the Man robbed and wounded between Jerusalem and Jericho, and relieved by the good Samaritan, and upon the Lawyers declaring for the Samaritan's charity, Christ replied upon him, Go and do thou likewise, tho' the discourse be to one Man, the import reaches You and Me and every Man who at any time may meet the same Objects of Charity, and be in the same Circumstances; and when in pursuance of the great Rule any thing is forbidden, and it's said, Thou shalt not do This or That, it means, No Man on any pretence whatsoever shall do it, and every Judgement against a particular Criminal tells us, that Except we repent we shall all likewise perish; and every Blessing following Goodness, speaks, Thus shall it be done to any Man, whom the King of all things delights to honour; and as happiness eternal is propounded to All, which is unquestionably Man's chiefest good, so the means propounded for attaining it, are the same to All, All purchase it at the same rate, and acquire it with the same spirit; and in this particular all Humane Writings whatsoever own their defects.  
Happiness in Scripture being the end proposed, and we being taught wherein it consists so, as to have all sorts of Pagans concurring in the persuasion, that it consists in the fruition of the Love and presence of the Supreme God, the way to gain it is set down so plain, that none who have common reason can doubt of its meaning; for though a 1000 Queries, and impertinent enough, have been made by Casuists, in what instances we ought to love God, yet never any but Jesuits, who had heard the Rule of Scripture, Thou shalt love, etc. could doubt whether Scripture taught us to have any love for God or no; Men must resolve to read it backwards, as they say Witches do, who can doubt its meaning; neither can they doubt, but that we ought to love God, so great and pure a Being, in all instances whatsoever. The very Pagan's themselves were sensible of the little Artifices of that subtle Spirit, which was wont to speak in their Oracles, when they sought to secure themselves from a charge of falsehood, by speaking what was dubiously to be interpreted: and though sometimes for things Past or Present they'd speak tolerably, yet in all future matters they'd falter miserably, as Croesus' King of Lydia found to his cost, who chose a God to himself among the multitude by his Veracity, having contrived it so that several of his Messengers should at one and the same hour inquire of a several Oracle what Croesus was then doing, of all which One only answering right, that One He devoted himself to, and yet that One, when he came to inquire the event of his intended War against Cyrus, cheated him with a paltry ambiguity to his ruin; their subtleties in that kind quickly grew proverbial, to the dishonour of the Impostor; but that divine spirit which influenced Holy Writers, needed no such subterfuges for apparent weakness, nor have any yet been able to discover any such thing in Scripture; and though some Prophecies are very dark and obscure at present, yet the event of things has so exactly explained many of the most difficult, that none can doubt but just periods of time will unriddle them all, and make the Apocalypse itself as plain as any other part of it.  
Scripture runs upon no vain and trifling speculations, such as might disturb and heat the fancy, but its whole scope and import affects the practices of Men; it advances real knowledge only, and such Knowledge will show itself in our actions. To Love God and our Neighbours, are things infinitely useful and rational, and on that account were admired by Pagans in the primitive persecuted Christians; the duties are so often, and by such variety of Arguments urged in Scripture, that as it's almost impossible Men should be ignorant of what's required at their hands, so it's as impossible they should not know how to perform it, that Book lays no task upon us, but what's pleasant, safe, and certain; commands nothing, but what it gives us numerous instances of, as performed by others, and therefore possible to us; it shows us God's Perfection, and requires Ours, as knowing the fairest Copy excites the greatest ingenuity and study to equal it; and whereas we cannot but be sensible of our own Errors, it shows how God accepts the sincerity of our endeavours, and gives us the instance of One great real Man, who reached that consummate perfection in our nature, and that for His sake we are received; in all these things Heathen wisdom failed, either prescribing gay impossibilities for practice, or propounding happiness as the mark to aim at, but teaching Men to shoot the contrary way, by engaging them in mean pleasures and downright sensualities; and where the speculations were best, they had none to appeal to, who had ever lived up to their own principles, their most famed Sages being mere prostitutes to notorious immoralities, notwithstanding all the fair show some late Writers have endeavoured to make with them; only Pagans had some few scattered extracts out of Scripture, which were in themselves excellent, but being only fragments injudiciously culled, and incoherent, and wretchedly misunderstood, were wholly useless.  
Whereas all Rules and Methods of living before discovered were lame and imperfect, not sufficient to carry Men through those extraordinary difficulties and objections they might meet with in a course of virtue, (as appeared by the Famous Brutus, who because he saw it unfortunate, concluded Virtue was nothing but an empty name;) Scripture is complete and every way sufficient for the design it carries on, and therefore stands at advantage against all other Rules, because Whoever follows others most exactly, cannot be happy at last, but He that sticks close to our Rule cannot be unhappy; it informs the Mind, it resolves Doubts, it answers Objections, it encourages Weakness, it dissipates Fears, it reproves Errors, and makes Sufferings easy, of which there are so many thousands of instances, owned by Infidels themselves, that from hence too it's past dispute that our Rule has this quality of the Word of God.  
In fine, there's nothing through the whole tenor of it, either in its Doctrine or History, that's beneath the Majesty of an infinite God; if God would speak to Man, he could speak no better, therefore he must speak thus and only thus. He that finds Princes composing Sacred Hymns infinitely beyond their Orpheus or Callimachus; Moralising as far beyond their admired Antoninus, as he beyond Porters or Scavengers; He that reads Prophets more soaring and divine than their Plato's, or Zeno's, or Pythagoras', and in a strain more soft and charming, as well as more Majestic; and Herdsmen more profound and more truly fatidical, than their Sibyls, or Apollo, and Fishermen more accurate, argumentative, and rational, than their Philosophers of the noblest Sects, able to baffle 'em in Disputes, to outreach them in discovering the causes and natures of ordinary appearances in the World: He that observes Men of various lives and conditions, of different tempers, different times, distant places, different natural abilities, writing a series of Historical passages, with more clearness, better digested ●n point of Chronology, more probable in ●atters of fact, more full, exact, and im●artial in the Characters of Actions and Per●ons, more agreeing with one another, and ●he best Pagan Writers, than all other Hi●●orians whatsoever, nay, than Old and public Records themselves, though preserved and managed with the greatest apparent care and exactness; He that can find nothing low, flagging, and uneven among such variety of Penmen, nothing trifling, useless, or superfluous, let his persuasion be what it will, let him be Turk, African, or Indian, if he have but his Reason free, he must conclude, if God ever did impart his will to Man, it must be in this Book which we call Scripture; and if He then return to his own principle, of the necessity, in point of justice, that God should give a Rule to Man that might procure his Happiness, it will as necessarily follow, that our Scripture, our Rule must be the Word of God. Which proves its own Immortal Original farther, in that notwithstanding the continued malice and subtlety of Enemies, it could never be destroyed, it could never be disproven, it could never be interpolated, or any thing be added to it, nor be made shorter, or any thing taken from it; but while other Humane Writings have been easily abused, and additions and alterations made in them, not discovered or well distinguished to this day by the most exact Critics, nothing could so be fastened upon Holy Writ, nor any inferior Writer or uninspired impose his own upon the World for the Word of God.  
Assured of these things, We, as Christians, among other parts of Scripture, embrace the History of our Saviour's Incarnation, and these things, being unanswerable by an Infidel upon his own principles, as a Deist and a Rationalist, he must own the whole History of Scripture to be true; and amongst the rest, this of the Birth of Christ: for as I have no reason to suspect his Veracity, who gives me an account of somewhat to his own advantage, who yet has always told me truth, in things that made against himself; So a Pagan, who thinks he has reason to receive all the other parts of Divine History, because he finds them exactly true, has no reason to suspect the Faith of the same Writers in one particular: And besides, the thing has been so oft attempted, but with so little success, that He may justly conclude, That matters of fact impossible to be confuted by any argument, cannot possibly be false: This obliges an Infidel to acknowledge the truth of our History of the Incarnation in particular; and Scripture in general, owned to be Divine, is a certain foundation to build the Conversion of Infidels upon. And thus much for the first head, That Jesus Christ the Messiah, who appeared on Earth, in our Nature, was really the Son of God.  
We come now to the Second Particular, which is this, That the same Blessed Jesus, who was the Son of God, was God equal with his Father, or really and truly God as well as real Man: He was God, though manifest in the Flesh; To prove the Truth of which might seem needless, had there not been of old, and were there not of late Years revived a Generation of men, who, under pretence of sacrificing to Reason, have set themselves wholly to explode the Belief of a Trinity; as a means to make good which adventure of theirs, they positively deny the Divinity of the Son of God; they cannot well admit of any Mysteries in Religion which themselves cannot comprehend, the very pretence to which comprehension is enough to make a Mystery no Mystery, for if They who employ themselves in this work can comprehend it, every one may do so too, or at least the generality of the Intelligent World, but what's generally understood cannot be a Mystery, and yet our Apostle in the words preceding the Text, tells us, that That Mystery of Godliness, of which this Text is a part, is without all controversy a great Mystery. But that Jesus Christ the Son of God was God equal with the Father, we shall prove by these Considerations.  
By those accounts of his Appearance, and of his Nature, laid down in the Old Testament.  
By the Declarations of Himself, and of his Apostles in the New Testament.  
By his Actions during 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 applied that way, nor every thing that Modern Controversy-writers have insisted upon, but upon some particular and more remarkable passages only. 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 bowed himself toward the ground, because I look upon that, and the consequent words, as only expressions of kindness and hospitality, suitable to the custom of that Age and Country, and to that respect, a Person of Abraham's goodness and sagacity would express to Strangers of a promising mien and venerable aspect: But after this, 
v. 22.  we find the Angels going for Sodom, but Abraham standing still before the Lord; Two only went forward, so Let in Sodom met with, and entertained but Two; the Third continued still with Abraham, with infinite condescension, declaring to him the reason of this extraordinary appearance upon Earth; this favour hindered not the design, but the other Two passed on while Abraham had the liberty to argue the case with him, who is particularly styled the Lord, so the Writer, so Abraham in that converse frequently styles 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 only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Jews account a name applicable to any, but by that sacred and ineffable name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A name, as they say, only applicable to the most High God; and here we find Abraham continually speaking, as any who owns 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 applied himself was the Judge of all the Earth, therefore not created Angel, for such were never honoured 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, show thyself, lift up thyself, 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 conveyed safe from the destruction which fell upon Sodom, 
Gen. 19.24  we are told, The Lord reigned 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 reigned 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, Acknowledgement, 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 named, 
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 mentioned, 
Luke 1.19.  and the Writer of the Apocryphal book of Tobit, supposes it no unusual thing, when he introduces Tobias' 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 prayed to him for a blessing, and would not part without it, which argued his acknowledgement 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 spoke 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 Psalms, a Psalm by all the ancient Jews applied to the Messiah, and rightly, as will appear; that Messiah 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 subjoins, Thy Throne, O God, is for ever and ever, the Sceptre of thy Kingdom is a right Sceptre, Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness, therefore God thy God hath anointed thee with the oil 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 applied to the Son of God by the Apostle, 
Hebr. 1.8, 9  even to that Son whom he there shows to be so far above all Angelic Being's, 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 applied to Created Being's, 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, forbade him, because He, though an Angel, 
Rev. 22.9.  was but a fellow Servant, a Creature, and ordered him to worship God, i. e. the Supreme Being, then that must be a Rule to Angels too, and they might not adore or worship a Creature, no more than the Apostle might; therefore the Son of God was no Creature, since they are commanded to worship him; therefore He must be God, for we know of no intermedial power between a Creator and a Creature; We are to worship the Lord our God, 
Mat. 4.10.  and him only are we to serve, as our Saviour himself alleges, but We are to worship the Son of God, Angels are to do so too, therefore the Son of God is God. And since we are gotten into this first Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, we may add, in evidence of our assertion, that other quotation, Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the Earth, 
Ps. 102.25.  and the Heavens are the work of thy hands, 
Heb. 1.10, etc.  they shall perish, but thou remainest, and they all shall wax old, as doth a garment, and as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed, but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail; which Text is so home to the proof of the Divinity of the Son of God; that Schlicktingius twists and winds himself every way to evade its force in his Commentary on the place, and after all does but Magno conatu magnas nugas agere, as the Comedian, he makes a great stir to no purpose, He finds fault with the Author of the Epistle, If He, says he, designed to persuade us Christ was the most high God, why did he not say so without any farther circumstance? the matter had been then past dispute: But we suppose it is so plain as nothing can be more already, it's as plain as those words he'd prescribe could have made it, to All, but men of perverse wits, who wrist the Scriptures to their own destruction; for if, as He owns, none but the Supreme God could be the Maker of Heaven and Earth, and the Creation of Heaven and Earth be here by the Apostle ascribed to the Son, than the inevitable consequence which the Heretic would have had laid down at first, is, that the Son is the Supreme God, or God equal with the Father: And whereas the main foundation of the Arrian and Socinian Heresy is, (as Sandius, another of that tribe, owns) that there was a time when the Son was not, if the Son of God was indeed the Creator of all things, than he was before all things, and consequently before time itself, and so their foundation is apparently false; for he that had a Being before time was, must of necessity be Eternal. But Schlicktingius would persuade us that, of the whole Text produced by the Apostle, only the sense of the last words is to be referred to Christ, and that it's quoted only to prove, that the Dominion of Christ shall not expire, but with the abolition of all things, 
Schlicktingius in locum.  Quod Regni Christi, quod nunc in terris administrat, terminus, cum inimicorum ejus omnium abolitione, quos Coeli & Terrae ruina involvet, sit conjunctus, are his words, That the end of Christ's Kingdom, which he administers in this World, is joined with the utter abolition of all his Enemies, who shall be at once involved in the ruins of the Universe; As for the first part of the quotation, he makes it altogether impertinent, but that the Apostle took the Text whole as it lay, because he knew the Hebrews, to whom he wrote, were in no danger of interpreting the Creation of the World, as referring to Christ, whom they knew well enough to be no other than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a mere Man, and no more, and adds, that had the Apostle designed any more by that Text, it had been altogether beside his purpose: But here I conclude, our Adversary mistook the Apostle's meaning wilfully, which is this.  
Writing to the Jews, his first design is to convince them of the Messiahship of Christ, whom they knew to be a Man, they had seen evidences enough of that in what he did and suffered among them, they had seen him crucified, dead, and buried, so that they could not dream of his having only a fantastic body, being only an apparition, as some Heretics afterwards asserted, a phantasm, or a Spirit had no flesh and bones as they saw him have; The Hebrews were so certain of this, that they would believe him to be no more than a Man, a man weak and inconsiderable, a perfect cheat, pretending to the noble character of being their long expected Messiah, but no way answering that Character, having appeared in no such glory as the Prophets had foretold, and having wrought no deliverance for Israel, according to their reasonable expectations. Now, to convince them of their Error, he asserts Christ to have been the Son of God, v. 2. He proves the Messiah was to be so from their own Books, v. 5. He asserts Him to have been the express Image of God's Person, the brightness of his glory, the Upholder of all things by his power, v. 3. That the Messiah was to be so, he proves from his superiority to Angels, v. 6, 7. Nay, he asserts him to be God, and proves the Messiah was to be so, v. 8, 9, 10, etc. In the Epistle afterwards he shows the accomplishment of the Legal Types in him, with the excellency of his office in every respect, particularly of his Priesthood, the conclusion of all which to them is this, That if the Types of the Law were accomplished in him, (which they could judge of by comparing the Law with his Actions) if He were the Son of God as himself asserted and proved, he then could be no cheat, how meanly soever he appeared in the world, but was capable of being the Messiah, and having owned himself to be so (since he was incapable of deceit) He really was that Messiah they expected, and had wrought a Deliverance greater, and more valuable than they dreamed of, not only for them, but for all the World: and to make good this Truth, the applying the Creation of all things to him was not impertinent; God made the Worlds by his Son, v. 2. of this Chapter: Therefore he by whom the worlds were made, had a being himself before they were made, which is what St. John asserts of the Word which was God, 
John 1.1, 3.  All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made that was made, all which considered, it's no wonder the Psalmist prescribed so to the Church, Harken O Daughter and consider, and incline thine ear, forget also thine own people, and thy Father's house, so shall the King greatly desire thy beauty, 
Psal. 45.10, 11.  for he is thy Lord God, and worship thou him; He that was God was really and lawfully to be worshipped.  
The next place I shall urge is that of the Prophet Isaiah, 
Isai. 9.6.  Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and he shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace: That this was a Prophecy of the Messiah to come, has never that I know of, been doubted, and it has been as universally applied to the blessed Jesus; but that he should be called the mighty God, and yet not be God, would appear very strange! The title of God is, we know very well, applied in Scripture to Angels, to Princes, to those to whom the Word of God was sent, but none of these ever wore the name of the mighty God; The mighty God here is emphatical and equivalent to the Almighty, and the only God: and that we should be the less doubtful of his meaning; the same Son, who is called the mighty God, is called the everlasting Father, or the Father of eternity, the Father is as much as the Author or Commander of eternity, which could not without absurdity be applied to him, who once was not, or had no being himself. The Chaldee paraphrast calls him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Messiah living to eternity, the name indeed is very proper to God the Father, nor could it with any probability be applied to the Son, did not our Saviour himself solve the difficulty effectually when he tells us, 
Job. 10.30.  I and my Father are one; if they be One, the same Epithets belong to both; and yet that we may the less doubt to whom the whole text belongs, 
Ephes. 2.14 2 Thess. 3.16. Heb. 7.2.  this mighty God and everlasting Father is styled the Prince of Peace, so the blessed Jesus is said to be our Peace, to be the Lord of Peace, and the just successor of that Priest of the most high God Melchizedech, who was king of Righteousness and king of Peace.  
Again the Prophet Jeremiah, in that plainest Prophecy of his concerning the certain Advent of the Messiah, teaches us thus, 
Jer. 23.5, 6.  Behold the days shall come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch, and this is the name whereby he shall be called the Lord our righteousness, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That name there too is applied to him which belongs to none but to the supreme God; It's the name, as Ben Maimon assures us, which signifies the Divine essence purely by its self, without any respect to the Creatures: now that the Divine Essence itself should be attributed to a mere Man is downright blasphemy; but here it's attributed to that Branch promised to David, which all the ancient Rabbins, and the eldest Fathers of the Church interpret of the Messiah, that Christ was the Messiah every one who receives the Gospel must acknowledge, therefore Jesus the Messiah was God, and so the Lord our righteousness. If we farther compare this with that of the Prophet Isaiah, Surely shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness and strength, In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified and shall glory, 
Isai. 45.24, 25. 1 Cor. 1.30.  and that again with that of the Apostle, Christ Jesus is made of God unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, We shall find somewhat more attributed to Christ than lies within the power of the holiest mere Man that ever was or could be in the world; Israel is to be saved, Man to be justified by him: now let a Man be never so pure, never so innocent, if he be but a mere Man his Righteousness and Innocence is nor can be no more than may serve his own necessity, it is what God requires at every one of our hands; it's true for ten righteous Men God would have spared Sodom, but that was only temporally, God's judgements might have been deferred for a while, and yet the Sodomites have been damned at last: But the Righteousness of Christ is meritorious and available on our account, he is our righteousness, and consequently by him and upon his account we are justified from the guilt and punishment of sin, our sins being pardoned through his merits and for his sake, and we instead of damnation, being made Inheritors with the Saints in glory: hence it comes to pass, that we, who are forbidden to glory in Man or in any child of man, 
v. 31.  because there is no help in them, are allowed and encouraged to glory in the Lord, and well we may since he may be and is our Righteousness, therefore he whom we are allowed to glory in must be more than Man, but he is no Angel, therefore he must be God.  
The last place I shall insist on is that of the Prophet Micah, 
Micah 5.2  But thou Bethlehem Ephrata tho' thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth to me, that is to be ruler in Israel, whose go forth have been from of old, from everlasting; That this Text referred to the Messiah we are put beyond doubt by that of the Evangelist, where he tells us that when Herod had demanded of the Jewish chief Priests and Scribes where Christ should he born, they presently answered him it should be in Bethlehem of Judaea, 
Math. 2.4, 5, 6.  and bring this Text to prove their assertion, the application then being certain, we may observe how directly this Text contradicts the Arrian and Socinian Position: They say, there was a time when the Son was not, the Prophet says, his go forth have been from of old, from everlasting, or as the Septuagint, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. His go out are from the beginning from the days of eternity, if his go forth were from eternity, he himself was from eternity too, if from eternity, there was then no time wherein he was not, therefore he was God, for there's nothing to which eternity can be truly attributed but God; or if we should with some learned Men translate the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the East, our Interpretation would not suffer at all, it would then be, his go forth have been from the east from the days of old, therefore he was or had a Being before the date of this Prophecy; therefore, he had a Being before he was born of the blessed Virgin, therefore he was eternal, therefore he was God: I might have urged more passages out of the Old Testament, but these may suffice to evidence that That Messiah of whom the Prophets spoke, was believed by them to be God as well as Man; their Prophecies indeed were by that means the more obscure and unintelligible to the Jews, who saw Christ frequently, but they saw only his Humane Nature, they understood no more of Him, nor did they then expect their Messiah should be God, but only some great Man, which they saw the blessed Jesus as to his outward appearance was not, and therefore they picked a quarrel with him as guilty of Blasphemy, 
Joh. 10.33.  because he being a Man made himself God.  
We come to consider His declarations of Himself, and his Apostles declarations concerning Him, in the New Testament, which we shall find of such a nature as may sufficiently prove the Divinity of the Son of God, and here we'll begin, as Enjedine a subtle and industrious Unitarian does, with that of S. Matthew, where having given us an account of the Angels charge to Joseph concerning his espoused wife, then with child by the power of the Holy Ghost, he tells us, that in all this, that of the Prophet was fulfilled, Behold a Virgin shall be with child, 
Matth. 1.23.  and shall bring forth a Son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which is being interpreted, God with us, this the Evangelist quotes from Isai. 7.14. Here Enjedine makes the Evangelist a very impertinent Writer, alleging Old Testaments-texts upon every little hint, tho' never so far from the purpose; which argues very little reverence for an inspired Writer: He tells us The name Immanuel could not signify that Christ was God, because the Prophet where he names him, says he was sometime to be born, that he should eat butter and honey, that he should sometime be ignorant of the difference between good and bad, etc. therefore he could not be God; but all these things were and were necessarily true of him as he was Man, since he assumed a real and not a fantastic body. We know he was born in the fullness of time, taking flesh of the Virgin Mary, that what was the diet of other infants in those parts of the world, was his too, that it might be evident to all the world he had assumed a real body like other men, in every thing but sin; We believe his Humane Body grew and increased as that of other men, and that rational Soul joined with his body, by which he was a true Man, had its advances in understanding, tho' at a greater and more early rate than others, all this we believe, and yet Christ might be God and God with us for all this: For the reality of his Humanity was not any prejudice to the truth of his Divinity, he was perfect Man and no less perfect God. Our adversary questions farther whether the name Immanuel be here given to Christ or not, because he finds him not where else called by that name: But neither was there any reason for that, this prophetical name being chief designed to signify his Nature, 
Enjed. in locum.  as Christ was to signify his Office, and since 'tis certain the name does belong to some body (for it's not put there for nothing) either it belongs to Christ, or that Author ought to have named some body to whom it did belong, but he is silent in that matter, therefore we conclude it belongs to the Son of God. He alleges farther, that supposing the name Immanuel be the name of Jesus in the Text, it signifies no more, than that God was in and with him as he was with other of his Prophets: but that's impertinent, since the name doth not import that God was in or with him, but that, upon his Incarnation, God was with us, i e. God did then assume flesh and appear to and come among us, which could not be unless he were God. He tells us, Moses might as well have been called Emmanuel while he conversed with the Israelites, and the Ark of God (especially since the Israelites expected to be saved by it, and upon its being brought into the field the Philistines cried out, God is come into the Camp) but was Moses conceived of the Holy Ghost? was the Ark of God really a living Saviour? God might have given them what names himself pleased, but we no where find that he gave them this, which shows that he designed to appropriate this name wholly to his own Son, when he should send him into the world, that under that very state of exinanition or humiliation we should see him, we should know how great a Being conversed with us. What else he objects is absurd even to ridiculousness, viz. That many since that time, have born the name of Immanuel, and yet we never took them for gods, as several Emperors of Constantinople, and many private men, among the rest Immanuel Tremellius, as he instances, a learned Protestant of later years: He might as well have proved, that because several Jews and others have been called Moses, and yet none of them were Lawgivers to Israel, therefore Moses the Son of Amram was no such Legislator; or that, because there were several Jews who bore the name of Josua or Jesus, who were not the Saviour's of the world, that therefore our Jesus was not so; what signifies what name I or another fix upon my Son? Or what's more ordinary than for Men to baptise their children by Scripture-names, without ever reflecting on or knowing the meaning of those names? But where God gives a name, and where the Spirit of God interprets it, neither the Name nor the Interpretation can be insignificant, nor is it so here, but being by the Prophet of old assigned to, by the Evangelist here applied to the Son of God, it sufficiently teaches us that He was God eternal, even God with us.  
In the next place we may consider that Command of our Saviour himself to his Apostles when he gave them their Commission for executing their Apostolical Functions, 
Matth. 28.19.  Go ye and teach all nations baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; Where the Son and the Holy Ghost being set equally with the Father, as the objects of our Baptismal Faith, either prove to us their certain equality, or seem of a very dangerous import, ready to impress upon us false notions of the Deity, and to make us think those really equal, whom we see by Christ himself joined together, without any particular mark of distinction or inequality, when indeed they are not: But this were to represent the Evangelist under a very ill Character; I shall not insist upon that in this place, that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are here named as three distinct Being's, and one as much and really a person as the other, 
Enjed. & Wolzogenius in loc.  (which the Socinians deny of the Holy Ghost) but shall only take notice of those evasions they make use of, for here they tell us, That we may as well infer from that of the Apostle concerning the Israelites, 
1 Cor. 10.2.  That they were all Baptised unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, that Moses was the most high God, as that Christ was God from this command of men's being baptised in his name; We know well enough, that to be baptised into Moses is, to be initiated into that Church which is governed by that Law given by God to Moses: and that to be baptised into Christ is, to be entered into that Church which receives God's Law as delivered by Christ; but where, in any divine precept, do we find God the Father and Moses, and the Holy Ghost linked together, as if there were an equality among them? We are told indeed by Wolzogenius, that that passage after the Israelites having gone through the red Sea, is a parallel, 
Exod. 14.31.  Having seen that great work which God had done upon the Egyptians, having drowned them, while themselves were safe, we are told, the people feared the Lord, and believed the Lord, or in the Lord, as your Margin reads it, and in his servant Moses; but that's indeed no parallel, for there's distinction enough made between God and Moses, one is the Lord, the other but the servant: but there is no such distinction in the Text, no servant, no intimation of an inferiority, but only the order of nature followed, and the Father put before the Son, and both before the Holy Ghost which proceeds from both: Then, whereas Enjedine tells us, That to be baptised into Moses was not to believe that Moses was the most high God, and consequently, That to be baptised into the name of the Son of God, is not to believe any such thing of him, he forgets, that to be baptised into the name of the Father, is to declare our belief of His being the most high God, by his own confession: (yet that belief is the very Character by which those Heretics distinguish themselves from us, whom they call Trinitarians) and if that be owned, our baptising in the name of Christ, must infer our acknowledgement of his Divinity, since the Father and the Son are joined together in the same expression, and we are baptised alike, and as much into the name and belief of one, as of the other. But they would prove that Christ is not here made equal with his Father, because S. Paul afterwards ranks him but with himself and others, as in his reproof of the Corinthians for saying, 
1 Cor. 1.12  I am of Paul and I of Apollo's, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ. Here indeed they confess there is a real superiority in Christ to any of these mentioned with him: That acknowledgement was inevitable: But farther, tho' the Apostle condemn the Corinthians for calling themselves by his name, or the name of any of his fellow labourers, yet he approves their calling themselves by the name of Christ: for so he tells them with respect to Creatures and their circumstances, 
2 Cor. 3.22 23.  All are theirs, whether Paul, or Apollo's, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, all are yours; but then he changes his stile, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is Gods, and so he was, the Messiah, the Anointed sent by God into the world. In conclusion they tell us, that these words were never designed as a formulary of Baptism, which they prove, because there is no account in Scripture, particularly in the History of the Acts, of any baptised by this form, but will they assert there was no form at all, no significant words made use of in the administration of that ordinance? that would be to leave the meaning of the outward Ceremony uncertain, and to take away the Sacramental nature of baptism; if there were any words used, either they must allow these, or assign some other, which none that I know of have attempted. It's true, they say, the Eunuch only declared to Philip, before his Baptism, 
Acts 8.37.  that He believed Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and there was no need of more, Philip questioned not his belief of a God, He was a Jewish Proselyte, and if he owned the Sonship of Christ, he would by consequence believe whatsoever should be revealed to the world by him: But we read not of any words used by Philip in the act of baptising him; they say this silence proves the words in the Text we are treating of, were not used: I say no, but Christ's particular institution being very well known, and his disciples using to obey his commands, S. Luke's silence infers that Philip used those very words so instituted, otherwise the Evangelist would have taken notice of some other; and thus after all, God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, being joined together in the words of institution in Christian Baptism without any mark of inferiority, these words prove the Son of God to be God equal with his Father.  
The next place we shall insist upon is that remarkable beginning of S. John's Gospel, In the beginning was the Word, 
John 1.1, 2, 3.  and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, the same was in the beginning with God, all things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made; where we have these two great men Erasmus and Grotius agreeing with us, That they are an unanswerable argument of the Divinity of the Son of God, who yet are apt enough to betray that article of our Faith, by weakening other considerable evidences of the same truth. As for the person here meant by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Word, the Socinians themselves as far as I can find, excepting the Annotator on the Racovian Catechism, acknowledge, that it is the Son of God: to tell all their discourses, for the eluding the force of this Text, would be a work too tedious, only this we may observe, they tell us, That whereas Moses gins his History of the Creation with a like expression to this of our Evangelist, its rational to believe, that the Evangelist here is only going to describe a second or a better Creation, or rather the renovation of all things by Jesus Christ, which had been ruined by the fall of our first parents; which renovation of things began at the time of our Saviour's Incarnation, and therefore the Evangelist means no more by that phrase, In the beginning was the word, but that Jesus Christ the word of God had a being when the Almighty God first set upon this work of re-creation or renovation of all things. And that indeed the design of the Evangelist is only to obviate an objection, that might be made on the behalf of John the Baptist, who stood fair to have been taken for the Messiah, because he first entered upon his office, and preached repentance, and baptised, which were truly Evangelical works; whereas Christ himself lay hid, and wholly undiscovered to the world: But to my best apprehension, there was very little need of all this care, for tho' some such thoughts might have entered into Men's heads when they were all full of expectation of a Messiah, that John, whose holy and severe life, and whose very useful doctrine was generally known, might be that Messiah, as we see by that message which the Jews sent to him from Jerusalem, Art thou the Christ or Elias, or that Prophet, or who art thou? tho' men might entertain some such thoughts, the Evangelist represents John the Baptist as very careful to prevent any such dangerous mistakes; therefore he not only answers negatively to their particular inquiries, viz. That he was not Christ, nor Elias, nor that Prophet, but he answered positively too to their General question, 
v. 19-23.  that He was the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight, as saith the Prophet Esaias. Now the Baptist being so very much reverenced, and so mightily followed as he was, his answer could not but be spread about through all Judaea, and the expectations of Men be the more raised, because the person there prophesied of by Isaias, was to be the forerunner of the Messiah: he therefore being come, the other could not be far behind. Besides, if we interpret the Gospel of the glad tidings of Salvation brought to all mankind, the Evangelists expression will be untrue. For, not to mention the Promise to our first Parents, and those afterwards repeated to the Patriarches, and frequently declared and enlarged upon by the Prophets, that of the Angel to Zacharias, the Father of S. John Baptist, and that of the same Angel to the blessed Virgin (and they were ●●●●einly tidings of great joy, and the real beginnings of that which is peculiarly styled the Gospel) both these were before the very conception of our Saviour, therefore He as a mere man, was not, or had no being in the beginning of the Gospel; and doubtless the Evangelist here, in the beginning of his History, taking up the very expressions of Moses in the beginning of Genesis, and using his very words as translated by the Septuagint, supposed his Readers would take his words in the same sense as they understand those of Moses, and so, in the beginning in both places, signifies as much as before there was any thing existent: so before any thing, but the eternal God himself, had a being, God out of nothing, produced all things: and so before any thing, God excepted, had a being, the Word was: therefore that Word was God, because God only could exist in the beginning or before the Creation of all things: and thus the Evangelist says something peculiar of Christ, and what might really set him above the Baptist, or blessed Angels, or any other Creatures whatsoever: Otherwise the Apostle, according to the Socinian fancy, would have taken pains to prevent an Objection never brought, at such a time too as never any Man could have raised it, for he wrote his Gospel, according to all accounts, about the 90th. year of our Saviour, toward the end of his own very long life, and when the Gospel was spread in all quarters, and Heresies had gotten a great footing in the Church, when that Objection about John Baptist would have appeared nonsensical and ridiculous: Whereas, had he designed his Master's honour or the advantage of mankind, he would have made haste, and have penned his Gospel very early, when such poor objections might have appeared with some countenance. But it follows, In the beginning the Word was with God, this seems to prove very plainly, that, if the Word here spoken of be indeed the Son of God, he had a being before he was visible in our Nature, and that above, or in Heaven, or in the peculiar place of the Divine presence; which granted, is enough to destroy all the Socinian Doctrine of Christ's being a mere Creature, or a Man like one of us, and no more. That Christ really had such a Being antecedent to his Incarnation, we have reason to believe on the authority of concurrent Texts of Scripture, for so our Saviour calls himself before the cavilling Jews, 
John 6.51.  That Bread which came down from Heaven: But if he came down from heaven, He must first have been there, and that at least some time before he told them so. The Jews in general, nay his own Disciples, thought this a very hard saying, an expression that was very hard to be understood; and so it was to those who were wholly taken up with carnal thoughts; our Saviour cures their amazement or incredulity with a strange intimation, What and if you should see the Son of man ascend up into heaven? 
v. 61, 62.  This question plainly enough asserts, that he had been with God before they conversed with him here on earth, and this Socinus himself acknowledges, for he knew not how to disengage himself from the force of this, and that yet more astonishing declaration of our Saviour to Nicodemus, No man hath ascended up to heaven, 
Joh. 3.13.  but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven; which expression, according to the Socinian Rational way of exposition, as they call it, is mere riddle or contradiction: but according to the Catholic Faith concerning the eternal generation of the Son of God, is easy and intelligible to every man. For if it were God that was manifest in the flesh, and continued the same eternal God still, He might in his divine nature always be with his Father, and yet in his Humane Nature be conversant among Men, at the same time. But tho' Socinus and his followers sometimes own the literal truth of these expressions, they cannot hold true to what they allow, for one while they'd change its nature, and make it figurative, So Jesus Christ was in heaven by the divine raptures or meditations of his Soul, 
Explic. loc. S Script. Op. v 1. p. 146.  or he was in heaven by that perfect knowledge he had of all divine matters; thus Socinus himself: But he quits it at last, and flies to that wonderful discovery, filium hominis verè & propriè de coelo descendisse & in coelo fuisse, That the Son of Man was truly and properly in heaven, and descended from thence, before he discoursed these things with the Jews. But would you know how? it was as S. Paul, who tho' but a mere Man, was caught up into the third heavens, 
2 Cor. 12.2, 3, 4.  into Paradise, and heard unspeakable words which it ●s not lawful for a man to utter; so the blessed Jesus was taken up bodily into heaven, and there was conversant some time with God, and was there as in a School, taught those things he was afterwards to preach, and do in the world: Would you know when? It was, say some, when he was twelve years old, and his parents missed him at their return from Jerusalem, and after three days found him among the Doctors. 
Wolzog. in Jo. c. 3. v. 13.  Wolzogenius supposes it during the forty days fast in the wilderness, for whereas Socinus thinks it highly fit that as Moses the type was with God upon the Mount, that he might there learn those Laws and Ordinances he was to deliver to the Israelites, so it was very reasonable, Christ the Antitype, should have some such like converse with God, for the same purpose, in a nobler place, therefore this Author, to carry on the parallel the farther, would pitch it on that time to which the Evangelists allot forty days, because Moses was the same space of time in the Mount, and this was the great Invention of Laelius Socinus, which cost him so much study, so many fastings, and earnest prayers to Almighty God: and Schlichtingius pursues the fancy with a great deal of heat and violence; Crellius joins with it too, so that this may pass for their general solution of the difficulty, a difficulty which could never be found till they created it, and with their mighty pretences to Reason and clear interpretations of difficult places, shut all true Reason and clear Scripture-light out of doors. It's certain, that the Evangelists mention nothing of this formal ascent into heaven, and is it likely that they who set down all the circumstances of his birth, to his very wrapping in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger, they who mention his flight into Egypt, his wand'ring from his parents, his several ascents to Jerusalem, his Transfiguration on mount Tabor (a matter much less glorious and important) his talk with Moses and Elias, (a very unnecessary discourse, if he had learned all those things from God himself before) is it likely, that those who set down these things so punctually; nay, S. Luke himself (of whom, when it serves their turns, they say, that He was so inquisitive, as to omit nothing of consequence wherein our Saviour was concerned) that these should omit so prodigious an Ascent into heaven as this, which would naturally have conciliated so great an authority to his person and his doctrine, and would have been very necessary too if he had been no more than a mere man? Had there really been such an Ascent, it would have been very improper in his younger years, for besides the weakness and insufficiency of that age for the most divine speculations, we are told plainly, after that dispute of his with the Doctors, and his return with, and obedience to his parents, 
Luke 2.52.  that He increased in wisdom, and in stature, and in favour with God and Man, which must be false and ridiculous, if he had been in Heaven before, and had been fully instructed in all divine matters by God himself. As for that second time allotted for this Ascent, viz. immediately after his Baptism, the Evangelists tell us plainly, the design of his being led by the Spirit into the wilderness was, that he might be tempted of the Devil: 
Luke 4.2.  Nay, and as S. Luke asserts, He was tempted by the Devil forty days, this could not have been true, had he been in Heaven any or all those days; and whereas the Evangelist adds, that in those days he did eat nothing, and when they were ended he afterwards hungered; this story must be both false and disgraceful too: for how could he, who had corporeally attained the glorious vision of the Almighty, be so soon affected with the inconveniences of flesh and blood, when we never find Moses, tho' fasting as long several times, complaining of any such hunger? Or can we believe the Devil, so very diligent and violent an enemy to Man's happiness, would have given our Saviour so glorious a respite, which, in all probability too, must have been so prejudicial to himself? When the Socinians can show us any thing like a proof of their dreams in God's word, we'll consider it, till then we'll entertain it only as a ridiculous, not to say a blasphemous Romance, and adhere to the natural and genuine interpretation of these words, the Word was with God, viz. that Jesus Christ, or, he who in his humane nature bore that name, was from eternity actually existent in the presence, and in the bosom of his father, that therefore that Prayer of his was rational and intelligible, Now O father glorify thou me with thyself, 
Joh. 17.5.  with that glory which I had with thee before the world was: This Prayer is intelligible enough, according to the common Doctrine of the Christian Church, that Christ had a being before the beginning of the world: quit that sense and we have nothing but figure upon figure, incoherent, inconsistent, and very profound Heterodoxy and nonsense. And may we not fairly assert that old way of explaining such passages as these, when the Evangelist in the continuance of his discourse, says plainly, and the Word was God? That the Word was with God, say they, is as much as if the Apostle had said, tho' he was unknown to the world, he was very well known to God in his privacy, and that's very likely to be true, if God be Omniscient, that he knew his Son: But if it be said, He only knew him, then it's false; for God himself had, by his holy Angels before, made him known to the blessed Virgin, to his supposed father Joseph, and to the Shepherds of Bethlehem, and to the Wise Men of the East; nay, he was known to most of them, by the name of the Son of God, by the office of saving his people from their sins, etc. and good old Simeon, in his Eucharistick song, gives us a complete Compendium of the Gospel, 
Luke 2.31, 33.  and we are sure, He knew the infant Jesus to be the salvation of God, who was to be a light to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory of God's people Israel. Here than we find, the adversaries of our Faith wholly mistaken: in the consequent gradation of the Evangelists, they are yet engaged in more difficulties, but what methods do they fix upon to disengage themselves? According to the ordinary acceptation of the words, a man would be ready to conclude that the Evangelist meant as he said, and that if the Word was God, he was so indeed, and therefore not simply a Creature or a mere Man; but (what may look very suspiciously) it's observable, that those who are unwilling to own any such thing as a Mystery in the Objects of our Faith, make every word in this beginning of S. John's Gospel Mysterious; so, by God we must understand Man, or one that really is no more than a Man, only honoured with the name of God, as being his Deputy or Vicegerent, or as the Psalmist speaks to Kings, 
Psal. 82.6, 7.  I have said you are Gods, and all of you are children of the most high, but ye shall die like Men, and fall like one of the Princes: Well, we allow it; Princes are so styled there in a figurative sense, because of their deputation from heaven, and the derivation of their authority from thence: And in David we have a King, a Man after God's own heart, but was ever any thing like this in this text spoken of him? Would not the Author be impudently ridiculous, who should preface a History of David's life thus, In the beginning of the Israelitish Kingdom was David, for so he really had a being, as soon as ever Saul had any title to that kingdom; and David was with God, i. e. He was known only to him, for God had cut out his Prophet Samuel a way to anoint him King unknown to Saul, to prevent any jealousy in him of any such intended Heir to his Crown, and Israel in general were as ignorant of his Unction to their government; and David was God, because he held the place of God, and in his room and by his appointment managed that people? You see the reason of beginning so would be the same which these Men assign to our Evangelist: but would you not look on such an Historian as an impious blasphemer, or could ever any, without the spirit of Prophecy, imagine, that by such expressions any thing of this nature could be meant? It's true again, that God promised Moses, 
Exod. 4.16 c. 7.1.  he should be instead of God to his brother Aaron, that he should be a God to Pharaoh King of Egypt, and what looks yet greater, that Aaron should be his Prophet; We would conclude that by these expressions God meant no more, than that Moses should interpret the Will of God, or make it known to Aaron, dictating always to him what He should say and do in the name of God: and that Pharaoh should show a respect to him as to a Divine Person, and should be no more able to offer him violence or to do any injury to him, how angry so ever he might be, than if he had really been a God: and that, because of his slow speech, Aaron should deliver his mind and errand to Pharaoh for him: this Interpretation is natural, and the sequel of the story confirms it; but would ever any Man, that desired to be soberly understood, have said of Moses, even when he was upon the Mount, that Moses was with God, and that Moses was God? No Author sacred or profane can afford us any parallel to this bold and impious assertion, that the Word was God, or that any Person was God, and yet no more than a mere Man. Socinus tells us, that certainly if God had designed that we should believe Jesus Christ was the most high God, he would have told us so in plain terms; Now had not Socinus himself and his Partners endeavoured to have persuaded the world otherwise, all mankind would have concluded this expression of the Evangelist such a plain passage as he required; and was the want of a single particle enough so to obscure the whole discourse of the Evangelist, that, without a 1000 fictitious stories added to him, he must become absolutely unintelligible? God in that expression, the Word was with God, and in that again, the same was in the beginning with God, is, by themselves understood to signify the most high God, and why should it be otherwise interpreted in the middle sentence? But Schlicktingius here sets upon us with an absurd paraphrase of his own contrivance, the necessary consequence, of the current interpretation of the Evangelist, For, says he, it will amount to this as if the Evangelist had said, 
Schlicktin. in locum.  In the beginning was that one God, and that one God was with that one God, and that one God was that one God, and that same one God was in the beginning with that one God, and that one God made all things by that one God: Absurd and ridiculous enough! but our own learned Dr. Hammond has furnished us with one of a more genuine and sensible complexion, thus, In the beginning of the World, before all time, before any thing was created, the Son of God had a real being, and that Being with his Father, of whom he was begotten from all eternity, and was himself eternal God, and being by his Father, in his eternal purpose, designed to be the Messiah, who was among the Jews known by the title of the Word of God, and is here fitly expressed by that name, The Word, This eternal Word of God, I mean, by whom all things were at first created, He brought with him the Doctrine of life, etc. Here we have the meaning of the Catholic Church set down, and a full explication of the Evangelist, without any such nonsense or Tautology as Schlicktingius would amuse us with: But as if the Spirit of God had resolved to prevent the Socinian Cavils, the Evangelist, to make us more certain who this Word was, adds this to his Character, 
ver. 3.  All things were made by him, and without him was not made any thing that was made; but to evade this they give us a new cast of their subtlety and boldness: For here the word, All things, must lose its sense, and be understood only of some particulars; for they recur to their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, their original false principle, which is, that in the beginning is only in the beginning of the Gospel, and so by all things here are meant only such things as have a particular respect to the promulgation of the Gospel, of all which things he was the Author; but their first principle is yet very far from being made good, nay had our Evangelist expressly said, In the beginning of the Gospel was the Word, which yet neither was, nor could be his meaning, All things were made by him, could not admit of their restrained sense, the following words forbidden it, without him was nothing made that was made: and for fear these words should be liable to any exception, the Apostle interprets their meaning by that, He was in the World, and the World was made by him, 
v. 10.  and the World knew him not: But here (rather than not elude the force of the words) they will in one verse make the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the World, to carry no fewer than three several senses, as it's three times repeated; for first by his being in the world is meant, his Conversing with all men in general, for there by the World is meant All men, by the World which was made by him is meant, all those who were created anew in Christ to good works, they are those upon whom his Doctrine had its due effect; 
Schlicktin. in locum.  Renovantur autem & restaurantur homines per sermonem cum ad fidem in ipsum adducuntur, etc. Men are renewed and restored by the word, when they are brought to Faith in him, and draw a new Spirit, even the Spirit of Adoption, through him, whereby they mortify the Flesh and the Works of the Flesh, from sinners and slaves to vice they are made Saints, and from persons condemned and lost, they are made certain of eternal life: Such persons then as these constitute the second World, that World which was made by him: but because it would sound very oddly, that these new Creatures, Men thus renewed in the Spirit of their minds, should not know Him who had renewed or created them again, therefore they have thought of a third World, that World which did not know him, and that is the World of obstinate and contumacious Men, who would not listen to the Word, tho' speaking never so powerfully: nor could the Word work at all on them, tho' in itself of so efficacious a nature: those indeed are sometimes called the World, because they are men of earthly and degenerate minds, Men, who give themselves wholly to mind earthly things; but never yet did any inspired Writer call Holy Men, Men converted from the vanities of this World, from all the Lusts and Follies attending it, never did they call such by the name of Worldly Men: But is not this a very hard shift, to chop and change so often in so very short a sentence? Whereas if we believe, as we ought, that this Habitable World, and all things therein were created at first out of nothing by the Son of God, the sense will be easy enough, that God the Son was in this World, this World the Universal fabric of which his own hand had made, and yet the World, so far as capable of sense and knowledge, understood it not, or were not able to distinguish between the Creator and a mere Creature. That we should believe the Son of God made all things at first, the Scripture seems to take a great deal of care, for so S. Paul teaches us, that God created all things by Jesus Christ, Ephes. 3.9. but much more fully, Coloss. 1.15, 16. Where giving thanks to God the Father, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and translated us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, he describes that Son thus, He is the image of the Invisible God, the firstborn of every Creature, for by him were all things created, that were in Heaven, and that are in Earth, visible and invisible, whether they be Thrones or Dominions, or Principalities or Powers, all things were created by him and for him, and he is before all things, and by him all things consist, and the Author of the Epistle is acknowledged to apply that of the Psalmist to our Saviour, 
Heb. 1.10.  Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the Earth, and the Heavens are the works of thy hands: A man would be apt to think these Texts were very plain and positive; yet here too they'll make their impious attempts, for All things in heaven and in earth, must mean only Angels and Men; be it so, how come the Angels to be renewed by the Word? They will not say the fallen Angels were reduced to a state of Salvation, S. Judas will contradict them there, who tells us, 
Judas v. 6.  The Angels which kept not their first state, but left their own habitation, God hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness to the judgement of the great day: They cannot say the Good Angels were so restored or renewed, for they were created absolutely happy, and they had not lost that happiness; and our Saviour himself asserts, that He came not to call the Righteous, but sinners to repentance, that the Whole need not a Physician, but those that are Sick: The words than are as they sound to us, they are general, and whereas the Apostle particularises in Thrones and Dominions, etc. after those general words, all things visible and invisible, it's only to supply us with an argument à Majori ad Minus, that if even those superior happy Being's, who might seem almost to be above the rank of Creatures, if they yet owed their first originals to the hand of the Son of God, how much more may we conclude the visible or grosser parts of the Universe might owe their beginnings to his power?  
Indeed the design of the Apostle is to set before our eyes in the beginning of his Gospel, the wonderful Condescension of the Son of God on behalf of miserable sinners, so to work in us a due fence of what we own to so infinite a goodness, and a forward readiness to accept Salvation from so all-sufficient a hand, upon the terms propounded, i. e. Faith and Obedience; but what Topic could the Holy Penman better begin his design with, than from that of Christ's being God blessed for ever, or from all eternity, from his existing always in the glorious presence of his Almighty Father, and being infinitely blest in himself, as being One and equal with his Father, (for a complete and every way perfect Union or Identity can only be between equals.) The Evangelist proves this eternal Greatness by that sufficient argument of his being the great and sole Creator of all things. This God, this Creator of all things, appeared upon Earth, where, even those who were the Work of his hands, were grown to that Blindness through the greatness of their Sins, and the corruption of their natures, that tho' the whole Creation longed for the glorious day of his appearance, Yet all the Worled seemed utterly unable to discover him: this glorious and eternal Word yet assumed Humane Nature, that he might be Visible to the eye of the World, and that he might be able to offer himself a Sacrifice for the Sins of the World, that he might atone his Father's just anger, and reconcile us to him by his own most precious blood: To this end He underwent all the inconveniences ordinarily attending Mankind, and it was a severe beginning of his debasement or humiliation for our sakes, that whereas he honoured the Nation of the Jews by being born among them, and whereas, out of particular commiseration for that poor lost people, he made himself first known among them, and Preached, and did Miracles, that they might the better understand him; yet, after all, he came to his own, but his own received him not, i. e. the generality of that Nation rejected him, but those who did receive him were empowered by him to become the Sons of God, they were so influenced, assisted, supported, and dignified by his Sacred Spirit, that they attained the Spirit of Adoption, whereby they were able to cry Abba Father, or to call upon God with that confidence and security, which a dearly loved Son may have in an indulgent and well pleased Father; He was such, because that Holy Lamb, to whom John the Baptist gave his testimony, did really take away the Sins of the World, and this Lamb whose nature and goodness was so little understood, appeared yet (especially after his Resurrection, when their minds were opened) to his Disciples, full of Grace and Truth, they beholding his glory as the glory of the only Begotten Son of God; such lustre would appear in him to the true believers eyes through the thick veil of his flesh, and all the dismal clouds of his unparallelled sufferings. Now this glory which the Apostles saw in Christ, must be somewhat capable of distinguishing him from others, he might have appeared as a Son of God at large, in the same sense as all those who live piously are called the Sons of God: but that would not at all have answered to what the Evangelist tells us his Glory made him appear, i. e. the only begotten Son of God, begotten of God in such a manner as never any mere Creature could be, glorious in such a Manner as no mere Man was ever capable of; but if he could be no Creature, he could be nothing but God, there being no Intermedial Essence between the Creator and the Creature; If then it be the distinguishing Character of the Almighty, that he has had a being from eternity, that he is God, that He has made all things, and that there is nothing made but what is made by him: that He has made the World, that He has created all things visible and invisible, whether in heaven or in the earth, that He has founded the Earth, and the Heavens are the work of his hands: if all these things are the Characters of the most high God, Our Saviour justly wears them all. He was in the beginning before all things, He was then with God, He was God, all things were made by him, and nothing without him, He made the World, and all things in it whether visible or invisible, etc. therefore he was the most high God: notwithstanding which exalted nature, he was pleased to manifest himself in the flesh, or to become flesh, which could be no diminution of his eternal glory, infinity being absolutely incapable of any such lessening; The Godhead was not converted into flesh, as the Athanasian Creed expresses it, i. e. by taking our Nature, the Son of God did not cease to be God, but he took the manhood into God, that which was limited and finite into that which was infinite. Thus have I very largely insisted on this beginning of S. John's Gospel, it being such a discourse as asserts the Divine Nature of the Son with the greatest clearness and the most of circumstance of all others, and therefore the whole body of the Socinians levelly all their skill and strength against it, knowing very well, that a conquest here gained would go a great way to make them victorious in every quarter.  
In the next place, Our Saviour discoursing with the Jews, who were always seeking occasion to quarrel both his words and actions, when we may assure ourselves, that if he had but the discretion of an ordinarily prudent Man, he would have spoken with the greatest caution in the World, 
Joh. 10.30  He than tells them, without any limitation or allay, I and my father are one. 
Schlicktin. in locum.  Hoc Christi dictum ad essentiam trahere nugari est, says Schlicktingius roundly, It's perfect fooling to infer an essential unity between the Father and the Son from these words of Christ: Mirum est hunc locum urgeri à quibusdam, 
Enjed. in locum.  & ex eo velle eandem Patris & Filii essentiam colligere, says Enjedine, It's strange that some should urge this place, and conclude from it that the Essence of God the Father, and of God the Son is the same, and he alleges Beza and Calvin, and Bucer, as all declaring that it's no proof in the case; but it's not what Men of great names say, or boldly assert; but the reasons why they say so or so, that we much respect; and therefore we cannot overpass this particular Text. The Jews, as we find in the verses before, came about our Saviour, and require he'd tell them plainly whether He were the Christ or not? The Question in itself was reasonable, and might merit a direct answer, and doubtless would have had it, had it been propounded with that ingenuity and sincerity which became those who were prepared to receive the Gospel: But our Saviour, who knew the malice of the Question, refers them to what he had said before, and the wonderful Works which he had done among them: They knew what the Prophets had foretold should be done by the Messiah, They saw what He did, and They heard in whose name he pretended to do what he did, it was easy for them to compare his present actions with the ancient Prophecies, and to find out whether there was any thing prejudicial to God's glory or Man's happiness, in all those miracles he had done among them: But they not being his Sheep, nor submitting themselves to his conduct, who was the Good Shepherd, they had not Honesty or Prudence enough to examine and weigh things impartially, and therefore stumbled at noon day: They could not see how the Innocence of his life, where they could convince him of no Sin; how the purity of his Doctrine, which he uttered so as never Man did before him: how the greatness of his Miracles, which were unquestionable and extremely kind: did prove beyond contradiction of any, but those who were wilfully mad, that He could be no Impostor, no Cheat as they imagined: Had they been his Sheep, they'd have listened to him, and have been safe, for all those were so who followed him, He would give them eternal life, and no man could take them out of his hand, for his Father who gave them him was greater than all, Therefore no man could pluck them out of his hand; but He and his Father were One, therefore none could pluck them out of his hand, therefore He too was greater than all. This would seem to the natural consequence of the Words; and it's certain the Jews thought it was so, for they presently took up stones to stone him, i. e. to give him that death which was the peculiar punishment of the Blasphemer; and such they took him for; for when Christ reproached their baseness, 
v. 33.  and asked for which of his good works they stoned him, they readily answer, They stoned him, not for a good work, but for blasphemy, because that He being a Man made himself God: This they thought they concluded very reasonably, because he had said, I and my Father am One. Well, did our Saviour in his reply, tell them they were mistaken, that he meant no such thing by those words, that his meaning only was, that He and his Father were both of one mind, exactly agreeing in that kind intention of preserving his Sheep from perishing? did he make any such plea? Not at all; but he sharply reproves their folly in challenging him as a Blasphemer for those words, and takes up an argument against them from that passage of the Psalmist, I have said ye are gods. 
v. 34, 35, 36.  If he call them gods to whom the word of God came, says our Lord, and the Scripture cannot be broken, say ye of hi● whom the father hath sanctified and sent into the World, Thou blasphemest, because I sai● I am the Son of God, i. e. If earthly Princes deserve the name of Gods, because they are God's Vicegerents, or if Angels carry that name because they are the Ministers of God● glory, would not that title much more justly belong to the Son of God made flesh, sanctified from the womb of his mother, and sent from heaven to be the Saviour of the world? he must then by the very force of this argument be greater than either the greatest of Men, or the holiest of Angels; but what middle Being is or can there be between Angelic substances and the Deity, that should be above Angels, and yet not God? We'll allow then, that for Two to be One is often used for that unity or agreement of mind, which our adversaries speak of, but we may retort their question, and ask, Is it possible two should be exactly of one mind, and yet not both of one nature? I fear they'll find no instances of that: Friends may be said to be One, Husband and Wife to be One, Two People to be One, but are they not all of a mortal nature, and consequently capable of equal thoughts and apprehensions of things? if therefore God the Father and Jesus Christ be One in their sense, it must be by Identity of Understanding, and Will, and Intention, which cannot be but between Persons of equal nature, therefore Christ must be partaker of the Divine Nature, and therefore he must be God, and so, what he farther adds in his discourse with the Jews is easily intelligible, and a strong confirmation of what we have laid down, If I do the works of my Father, believe not Me, but believe the Works, that ye may know and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him: this passage if interpreted of unity of Will, can be no where paralleled; and indeed it intimates a yet closer conjunction than that agreement: This Union takes as much of the Subject on one part as on the other, therefore if the father be every where, and more peculiarly in the Son, the Son is every where too, and as peculiarly in the Father, and therefore when Enjedine would make a show of some parallel expressions of Christ's being in good Men and they in him, he unluckily, among other places, hits on that of S. Paul, where he speaks of Christ's dwelling in the heart by Faith, 
Eph. 3.17.  which indeed explains all the rest; for Christ being a Mere Man, as the Socinians say, cannot any otherwise be united so to men, as to be said to be in them, but by Faith, nor can good Men, pious and holy Persons be in Christ otherwise than by Faith; but sure it was never thought of, that the Son of God, was in his Father or his Father in him by Faith: yet that must be said, be it never so absurd or blasphemous, if their appeal to that of our Saviour stand good, That they all may be one as thou Father art in me, 
Joh 17, 21, 22, 23.  and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that they may be one, even as we are one, I in them and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; here the unity between Christians, or those who should believe in Christ, must be that unity of mind, consisting in mutual Love and Charity, that Unity must be maintained by the vigour of their Faith; but cannot that Unity between the Father and the Son be maintained, without the same Faith? If the expressions must be explained all one way, it will then follow, That God loves those who believe in his Son, as well as he loves his Son, for so it follows in the forecited place, That they may be made perfect in one, 
ver. 23.  and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me: but this would quite ruin all their pretences to an extraordinary reverence of the Person of Christ, whom they pretend to prefer, in all privileges, infinitely before the Holiest of other men. Indeed the Prayer of Christ imports only this, He begs of his Father that Christians might be as closely united with respect to their mortal state, and in proportion to it, as he and his Father were in their immortal Nature; and that believers should enjoy his presence as effectually to their advantage, by their Faith in him, as he enjoyed the infinite glory and happiness of his Father, by his Identity or Coessentiality with him; and this is the greatest happiness they could wish for themselves, or Christ for them. The Jews than were not mistaken in the meaning of our Saviour, when in saying, He and his Father were one, they thought he made himself God: nor did they mistake him, when they sought to kill him before, because he said, God was his Father, 
Joh. 3.18.  making himself equal with God. For Christ's permission of any to worship him was a better interpretation of his words, than all the glosses of the Socinians put together; and as reason commonly teaches us to understand, that the begetting Father, and the begotten Son, are both of one and the same Nature here, so the same reason taught the Jews to apprehend, that if Christ were the Son of God, he then must be of the same nature with his Father, which they who saw him in the form of a servant only, thought as absurd and impossible, as the Socinians do now: if the Jews committed a mistake in their apprehensions of Christ's words, nothing can possibly excuse either Christ himself, or his Apostles from extreme unkindness, since they would take no pains to rectify a Mistake in all appearance involuntary, a Care, which might in probability have cured them of their unbelieving humour.  
Let us then proceed farther to that Confession of the Apostle S. Thomas, when he called our Saviour his Lord and his God: 
Joh. 20.28  Where we may take some notice of the occasion of those words, which was this, Our Saviour to satisfy the world of his Resurrection; and more particularly to satisfy his own Disciples in that point, had appeared to them in that body in which he suffered for them, and all the World; when the Disciples were assembled together, their doors shut with a great deal of privacy for fear of the Jews: there he blessed them, his presence gave them an extraordinary occasion of joy, the transports of which being over, he blessed them again, breathed upon them so effectually, as by that breath they received the Holy Ghost, and with that that Commission and power, which afterwards they were more particularly authorised to exert, for the management of the Church. During this gracious visit of his Master, Thomas one of the twelve was absent, afterwards returning to his company, they joyfully assure him they had seen the Lord; their words carry somewhat extraordinary in them, they tell him not, We have seen our Lord, or thy Lord, they use no limiting particle, but speak positively and generally, We have seen the Lord, so giving him that title by which the Septuagint translate the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so that it seems here given to Christ, as elsewhere it is to him who by all is acknowledged to be the most high God, emphatically and exclusively of all other Lords whatsoever. But not to insist on this, The report of his brethren to Thomas seemed extremely incredible; the Doctrine of the Resurrection, tho' it was a thing which Jews had no reason to stumble at in general, nor had the Disciples in particular, (for they had seen their Master raise Lazarus, and the Son of the Widow of Naim, and they had doubtless seen those holy bodies, which arose from their graves upon the dreadful convulsion of nature, when Jesus gave up the Ghost upon the Cross) yet the 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 believed, 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, applies himself immediately to his unbelieving Disciple, He shows 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 public 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 acknowledgement of his Divinity to whom they should be applied. Enjedine yet denies 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 bade 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 signify 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 happened lately, etc. and for this conceit he alleges some such like passages in profane 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 listened 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 convinced of the truth, quitted his former vicious 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 called 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 called 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. Dau. p. 395.  he shows farther, that whereas our Saviour in the following verse shows 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 wondering 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 Messiah 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 appeared in all the words and actions of the Son of God, opened 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 Messiah, was complete, 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 called 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.  cried 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 designed to be a Symbol or memorial, but such a plea was not accepted, but for the crime the Israelites were looked upon and punished as Idolaters. The Prophet Isay, setting out the practice of Idolaters, and the general original of Idol Images, among other things, tells us, 
Isa 44.17.  He that had just made the golden Image, falls down and worships it, and prays unto it, and says, Deliver me, for thou art my God: Doubtless the Engraver and Carver, etc. would readily plead for themselves, they looked upon their Images but as Symbols of a real Deity, or places of residence for more Spiritual Being's, or at most but as subordinate Gods: yet all this will not excuse them from the charge of Idolatry; for God first, declaring of himself, that He is the true God, that He is the living God, and an everlasting king, 
Jer. 10.10, 11.  at whose wrath the earth should tremble, and the nations should not be able to abide his indignation, adds farther, The Gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens: that's then the characteristic or the test of a true God, the making of the heavens and of the earth, on which reason begin we our Creed with that, I believe in God the Father Almighty maker of heaven and earth, and whosoever it is who has not made Heaven and earth, in that same sense in which the Prophet here speaks, He's an Idol, and all those are guilty of Idolatry who put any confidence in him. 
Vid Marshal. l. 5. Epig. 8. Suet. in Domit. c. 13.  And such were Caligula and Domitian, those proud Emperors, who knew not how to sit down with an inferior title to that, Domini Deique nostri, of our Lord and our God: and very Heathens themselves thought this was assuming divine Honours to themselves, and such as were no way becoming mortal men: But I know the Socinians allow those who are made Gods by Men to be Idols, but those who are made by Almighty God himself are not so. Neque enim unus ille deus falsos deos facit, homines hoc faciunt, says Schlicktingius, for he who is the one supreme God, does not make false Gods, they are only Men who do so: hence, according to them, Kings and Princes are true Gods, because they are constituted by God himself to represent his own person to the world; but to this we answer, never King upon earth, but only such as those beforenamed, Caligula or Domitian, pretended to such a name, nor were there ever any but sordid Parasites and flatterers, who offered to call them their Lords and their Gods: Alexander the Great himself, tho' foolish and ambitious to be called the Son of Jupiter, yet could not but expose their baseness who complied with his mad fancy, when he saw the blood trickling from a wound he had received, and asked them whether that were like the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Homer made to fall from his Gods? They allege, on their own behalf, that passage in the Psalmist, Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever, 
Psal. 45.6.  which say they is there spoken of Solomon, which we as positively deny, and are assured they can never prove: God by his Prophets is not wont to tell downright falsehoods, as he must do, if this were to be so applied; for which way shall we make it out that Solomon's Throne was everlasting, when all the glories of it sunk in his immediate Successor? which way shall the Sceptre of his kingdom be made a right Sceptre, whose immediate Successor, and several after him, have that character in Scripture, that they did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord: What great and terrible things were those which were done by the sword of peaceable Solomon, who was to be no man of blood, no conqueror o● what worship do we ever read was paid by Pharaoh's daughter, or any other of his numerous wives and concubines to Solomon? and the Holy Ghost directly applies these words to Jesus Christ the Son of God, 
 without the least mention of Solomon. Beside this then, they have no Text which looks like any thing of ascribing those names, My Lord and my God, to any created being whatsoever; and when they have said all they can, Christ himself must be an Idol to Thomas, and to all those who own him at any time to be their Lord and their God, if it be not He who has made the Heavens and the Earth according to the Letter: Princes may be Metaphorical Gods, but they are not set up for humane Adorations; Men and Angels are to adore the Son of God, therefore he's not Metaphorical God: and we need beg no pardon for saying, it's not in the power of an Almighty God to create or make a true or an eternal God, or another being Almighty as himself, it's Nonsense to talk of Monarches subordinate one to another, or of Monarches  with one another in the same territory, and it's plain nonsense to tell us, Christ is a subordinate God to his Father, or that there can be two supreme Gods over all blessed for ever: Therefore when the Apostle calls his master, My God and my Lord, his meaning must be, that the Son of God is the true God, one God, coessential, coeternal with his Father. From hence then we proceed to  

Rom 9.5.  Of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is God over all, blessed for ever, Amen. The character here is very high, the Text plain, and it may justly be concluded those must adventure very boldly who can elude its force. If we look into the occasion of the words, we there find the Apostle expressing an extraordinary affection to his Countrymen, being willing to become a curse for his brethren, his kinsmen according to the flesh; whose condition he commiserates the more, because of those extraordinary privileges they had before enjoyed; for there is no greater aggravation of misery than to have made a great many fair steps towards happiness, and to have fallen short of it at last. These privileges they had enjoyed were extraordinary, they were Israelites, so God's proper or peculiar inheritance, beyond all other nations whatsoever: To them pertained the adoption, or they were adopted to be the Sons of God, and are called so in the Old Testament: to them appertained the glory of God's peculiar presence among them, owning them for his people, and delivering them gloriously, with a mighty hand and stretched out arm, from their cruel enemies: To them belonged the Covenants, the two Tables written with the Finger of God himself, the giving of the Law, that Law Moral, Political and Ceremonial, which made their Religious Ordinances, their Civil Government, and their Manners far superior to those of all other Nations; to them belonged the service of God, the only true external form or method of worship; and the Promises, for all the Prophets, among those severe menaces they denounced against Israel for their Sins, yet always brought the Promises of a Messiah, a Redeemer to come, to comfort them; their's were the Fathers, all those Men so eminent for their favour with God, such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, and all the rest of the Prophets: Of them came Jesus Christ according to the flesh; that particularising of his deduction from them according to the flesh, intimates plainly enough, that according to somewhat else he had another Original, he was not wholly of the Jews: This the Socinians are forced to own, because of that entire story of our Saviour's Conception by the Holy Ghost in the womb of the blessed Virgin. To show how great this privilege was, the Apostle adds, that this Jesus Christ, who came of the Jews according to the flesh, was God over all blessed for ever, but that they might avoid the force of this Text, they would fain ●ly to one of their ordinary shelters, a various reading; but there's no such thing in any of the original Copies; and Versions (if there be any which intimate such a thing) are little to be regarded. Then they would fain alter the Pointing, which if allowed, would do them little service; but there is no ground for allowing that. 
In locum.  Enjedine pleads that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 blessed, used by the Apostle here, is never applied any where in Scripture to any but only God the Father, for this he alleges, that of the same Apostle concerning the Gentiles, that they worshipped the Creature more than the Creator, 
Rom. 1.25.  who is over all, blessed for ever: But if it be true, that Jesus Christ, as the eternal Son of God, was the Creator of all things, as it seems to be, his instance turns against himself; and methinks it follows as well, that if the title of God above all blessed for ever belongs only to the supreme God, (for that he means when he speaks of its belonging only to God the Father) than the Son of God, to whom it's given here, should be the supreme God; for it is no less than Sacrilege and Blasphemy to attribute a title so peculiar to the Sovereign, to any one who really and in his own Nature is not the Sovereign God. Others of the Socinian Tribe cannot see, or take no notice of this peculiar usage of the expression, as if it belonged only to God the Father, they acknowledge that Christ, as Made God, is above all Men and Angels, above all Principalities and Powers, nay above all things whatsoever, only, 
1 Cor. 15.27.  He's not above him who put all things under him; This the Apostle asserts, This we own, but withal we assert, that our Saviour, as Man in that body in which he humbled himself to the Death of the Cross for Man, is thus exalted above all things, and thus as Man he is the head of his Church; as God, we say not that he's superior to his Father, but that he is equal to him; he is of the same Nature with his Father, and therefore is God over all blessed for ever, as his Father is. Now, that He who is thus God over all blessed for ever, should condescend to take our Nature upon him, was an effect of infinite Love and pity to all mankind, that he should condescend to take this humane Nature of any one of the Jewish Nation, was the greatest Honour that could possibly be done to that Nation: We see how Towns and Countries strive for the Honour of being the birth-places of great Men, and they have been frequently not a little jealous of one another on that account; nay Scripture itself makes such a thing a considerable advantage; in that of the Prophet concerning the Messiah, as alleged by the Chief Priests and Scribes to Herod, And thou Bethlehem in the land of Judah art not the least among the Princes of Judah, 
Matt. 2.6.  for out of thee shall come a Governor who shall rule my people Israel, the present Hebrew reads it, tho' thou be little among the thousands of Judah: The birth of such a one was enough to make the most inconsiderable place glorious; miserable people than were they, who had so great an honour conferred on them, and yet at last denied him who conferred it on them.  
S. Paul gives this advice to the Philippians, 
Phillip 2. 5-1●.  Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it no robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of Man, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to Death, even to the Death of the Cross, wherefore God also hath mightily exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in Heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. We might refer the matter to any who had no acquaintance with Christianity, or with Scripture before, and such a Man, on reading these words, would certainly conclude, that he who carries here the name of Christ Jesus, was described as every way equal with God the Father, whosoever that might be; and that we may understand such a conclusion would be just and rational, we may look into the occasion of the words. The Apostle is persuading the Philippians here to Unity, Love and Peace, and particularly to a mutual care and solicitude for the good and happiness of one another, urging them not altogether to employ themselves upon their own private or public, inward or outward Interests, but to allow some charitable thoughts towards the Salvation of others, 
Gal. 6.2.  to snatch them as firebrands out of the fire, agreeably to what he elsewhere advises them to, i. e. that they should bear one another's burdens; this kind care he urges them to, from the example of him in whom they believed, and whose servants they professed themselves to be; Who tho' eternally and immutably blest in himself, yet, out of that infinite love he had to perishing mankind, was pleased to take humane nature upon him, that in that humane nature he might suffer, to atone his Father's displeasure against Sin and Sinners, and procure everlasting Salvation for as many as should believe on him; that to be of this charitable temper would be much to our advantage he proves by this consideration: That God the Father was so highly pleased with this action of his Son, that he raised even that humane nature, in which he suffered, to the highest glories, and sanctified that very name, which his Son assumed as Man, and as the Messiah, to be above every name, to be admired, reverenced, adored by all created beings whatsoever: which adorations could only be rendered just and reasonable by that intimate and indissoluble union between that humane nature 〈…〉 eternal Godhead: If God then so exal●●●●●sus Christ on account of his compassion and tenderness for us, he likewise will exalt us, if we be kind and tender hearted one towards another, if we endeavour to promote one another's Salvation by all those means which by Providence are put into our hands. In this argument the Apostle makes use of such expressions, as stumble the enemies of the Divinity of the Son of God very much, and give them a great deal of pains to shift off and to evade; so the form of God, they determine to be nothing but a resemblance or representation of God in his Works; Christ was in the form of God when he did those many wonderful works during his converse upon earth, those Miracles importing somewhat of a divine power; but what is there in this peculiar to our Saviour? Moses might as well have been said to have been in the form of God, since he too did a great many prodigious things, and the Skies, the Air, the Waters, the Earth, seemed all as obedient to him as to our Saviour afterwards: Elijah and Elisha might have received the same Character, and the Apostles much more, since Christ himself had promised them, that they should not only do the same, but greater miracles than he himself did: yet Scripture never talks of these at any such rate as their being in the form of God. If it be objected, that Moses, the Prophets mentioned, and the Disciples, after our Lord's Resurrection, did indeed many and great Miracles, but they were not done in their own names, we acknowledge it: but if our adversaries may be believed, our Saviour was in the same circumstances, for his Miracles were only done in the name of God, and so were the Mosaic and Prophetic Miracles done. If they'll own that our Saviour did his Miracles in His own name, they grant what they take so much pains to disprove, for none can do a Miracle in his own name, but he who has an inherent power in himself, commanding all the parts of the Creation, having no need of leave or assistance from any superior Being; but such a power is and only can be inherent in the most high God, therefore if our Saviour had that power, he was and is the most high God, if he had not, he's in the same rank with other holy and good Men, and any of them might have been instanced in as patterns of as great condescension and love to Souls as himself. They criticise upon the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the form of God, as if it signified only an outward shadow and appearance, and therefore not the real divine essence; and therefore, whereas the Apostle makes mention afterwards of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the form of a Servant, they are under a necessity of denying that that signifies his assuming humane nature, tho' the words following are indeed an explication of these, being in the form of a servant, and being found in likeness of men, are but explicatory one of another and so Schlicktingius owns it; but (upon what reason we know not) upon that last phrase of being found in likeness of men, he writes thus, Figurâ, i. e. non reipsâ sed apparenter & externâ specie tantum, in the form or figure of a Man, that is, not a Man indeed, but only to outward appearance, and to common view; a Commentary to me unintelligible, since they own Christ to have been a real man, and nothing else; the reason of their niceness here is only this, They fear that if they own, the form of a Servant signifies the humane nature of Christ, than the form of God must signify the divine nature of the same person, which they cannot endure to hear of: but the Fathers with one current interpret it so, that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the essence of God, so Theodoret on the place, Gregory Nyssen, Athanasius, chrysostom, Theophylact, etc. and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the nature of a servant, in the same sense, so Theodoret, Athanasius, 
Paedagog. l. 3. c. 1.  Theophylact, and Clemens Alexandrinus, who cannot well be suspected of partiality in the case; and this authority is much better than theirs, who only assert the contrary arbitrarily and without reason. That Christ thought it no robbery to be equal with God, they would have to signify only this, That he thought it not so great an advantage to be in the form of God, or like him, as to be obstinate in the retention of that likeness, but would humbly quit it to be used and suffer like a servant; and for this Enjedine runs to some phrases in Heliodorus his Aethiopic Romance (where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rapina, signifies as much, if he interpret it rightly) but that's too modern an authority to interpret Scripture by, and too slight a work to teach us how to understand the dictates of God's Holy Spirit. After several Cavils, they yield, that to be like to God, is to be equal to God, but equality must be between distinct beings, for none can be equal to himself; We own it, and say, the Father and the Son are distinct persons, but of one nature, as Father and Son must be, if their relation be real; but if God the Father and God the Son be of one and the same Nature, they must have one and the same Essence, because two infinite Essences are a contradiction; our Saviour being in the form of his Father, and equal to his Father, could not look on it as a crime, or think it any Sacrilege or robbery, to own that equality, as he did by his expressions of himself, and by those adorations he permitted to be paid to himself. Here then was Love and Condescension indeed, that He, who was God equal with his father, should assume to himself poor infirm servile flesh and blood, and in that humble himself and be obedient to death, even that scandalous and painful death on the Cross, for our sakes: This Passion and this Obedience was truly meritorious, it intrinsically and in its own real value, merited the redemption of all mankind: it effectually and in its outward operation merited and procured the Salvation of all those that believe in him. As a reward for this Humility and Obedience, God has highly exalted the Humane Nature of his Son, that's enclosed in, or substantially united to the Divine Nature, and consequently partakes of all that bliss, that eternal glory and happiness which the Deity itself enjoys; by which means it comes to be lawful for Christians to worship Christ as Man, tho' not as mere Man, as well as, as he is God, a practice which could never be excused from being the greatest Idolatry in the World, if there were no such union, as will hereafter be proved in course. For that exception to this Text, that Jesus is the name of Man, not of God, and Christ the name of an Office, it signifies the Anointed One, the Messiah, and therefore cannot belong to the most high God, it's extremely impertinent; they are not our Saviour's names as he is God, but as he is Man; but as none question his bearing the name of the Son of God, so every one knew that he bore the name of Jesus, and that it had been beyond contradiction proved that he was the Christ; his Relative name then, of the Son of God, his Humane name of Jesus, his Name of office as Christ, being all equally known, it was certainly free to the Apostle to speak of him by any of those names, and we see that those together with that of our Saviour, our Highpriest, our King, our Mediator, etc. are all indifferently used by the Apostles in their writings, without any kind of diminution of our Saviour's dignity, or detraction from his eternal divinity. Abundance more Texts might be added, but these are sufficient on this head.  
We come now to the third Head propounded, from whence to prove That the blessed Jesus was really God manifest in the flesh, 
1 Tim. 3.16 comm. 2.  God equal and coessential with his father, and that is, from those Actions done by him during his own converse on Earth, or in his name after his Ascension into Heaven; where again we shall not be so curious as to examine every particular, but only some of the more remarkable. The Socinians themselves would have him be in the form of God, only on this account, because all the parts of nature seemed to obey him as their Lord and Master: the Prophets too had commanded them before; but some things were done by our Saviour of so singular a nature, as the greatest of the Prophets could pretend to nothing of that kind. Thus when Jacob was afraid of Esau, he wrestled with God in Prayer, and God turned the heart of Esau towards his brother, and took off those barbarous and revengeful thoughts he had entertained before; so Jacob escaped his fury. Moses when terrified with the anger of the king of Egypt, fled for it, and saved himself: and so Elijah himself was forced to flight that he might escape the feminine rage of Jezebel; and the rest of the Prophets, how great and considerable soever, had only flight or sufferings to prepare for. It was otherwise with our Saviour: for when he had enraged the people of Nazareth by speaking what was true and necessary to them, and they resolved to put an effectual end to His preaching, who could flatter them no better, they thrust him out of the City, they lead him, to be sure, with Guard strong and numerous enough, to the brow of the Hill on which their City was built: their design was to cast him down headlong (not to persuade him to cast himself down, 
Luke 4.29, 30.  as the Devil would have had him done, from the Pinnacle of the Temple) they resolved to ease him of that trouble, and to do it violently and cruelly themselves: We read of no relenting among them, none who went about to persuade them to give over so barbarous and unjust a design, but our Saviour in the open crowd, passed through the midst of them and went his way: there was no flight before, no calling fire down from heaven now, no other sudden consternation among them, but what appeared in their countenances when they missed him, whom they thought they had held fast enough. We meet not with any interposition of Angels, no blindness laid upon them as a penalty, but He went from amongst them, they no more able to oppose his Motions, than a Man in a dream would be able to fight a Duel with a waking and terrible adversary; here then Almighty power showed itself even in the Man Christ Jesus, he showed his enemies how invisible, how every way indiscernible Humane Nature assumed into the Divine, must necessarily be. The Turks, perhaps taking their hint from this passage, tell us, that when our Saviour was led to be crucified, he vanished, in the same surprising manner, out of their hands, and left them only to exercise their rage upon one of his Judges, of whom they say, that he resembled Christ in an extraordinary manner. An humane body acted merely by a rational soul, must of necessity be perceptible by those who compassed it round, and could they once have been sensible of his motions, it had been easy to have stayed him, but, where a divine Power interposed, it was impossible for any to observe, or at least to observe with a capacity to hinder his moving. Virgil tells us, how Venus wrapped her son Aeneas with his companion Achates in a misty robe, but he brings him on the stage of Carthage in the same invisible circumstances, and therefore there were no offers to hinder him going where he would, but when he was once seen, his Mother herself was not able to muffle him up so from humane eyes, as that he should fall into no danger: Therefore Homer makes both Mars and Venus, the last not visible at the time, to be wounded by Diomedes, when he was so very eager in pursuit of the Trojans: This then in our Saviour proved his rank yet higher than that of Man, his Power greater and more effectual, as working of itself, so upon humane Spirits, that either they could not discern him at all, or had no power to show their displeasure, tho' never so violent and revengeful before; there needed no Angel here to stop the Lion's mouths, his Will without any outward expression of it was suffient. And thus he showed a Power equally Divine, when merely by ask the Officers who came with that Traitor Judas to take him, whom they sought? and telling them that He himself was the Person, 
John 18.5, 6.  they went backwards and fell to the ground: it must certainly be a strange and terrible power that from the mildest words could produce such amazing effects: Men bred up to blood and slaughter are not wont to be affrighted with one another's looks or words, but God even in the still small voice is to be feared. We must necessarily conclude that he who was the Son of God, who was his only Son, that Son to whom he gave so extraordinary a testimony that in him he was well pleased, we must conclude, that this Son would take all occasions to advance the honour of his Father; that He'd not only forbid others doing any thing that might detract from it, but he'd be above all things careful not to do any thing of so impious a complexion himself. As this was a duty incumbent upon every servant of God, so we find the Prophets always careful in the case, and therefore prefacing all those Miracles they wrought with solemn Prayers, and with the name of that God from whom all their miracle-working power was derived. Moses seems to have failed a little only in the point, when he was to bring water out of the rock for the Israelites, but Moses sinned; nor could the reasonableness of his zeal excuse him from a severe punishment on that account. But, if we run over the general Histories of our Saviour's miracles, we find Him, for aught is upon record, not at all careful upon this matter; He does them frequently, too many to be registered, but all in his own name: He Wills this, and He Commands the other thing to be done, so the Winds, the Waves, the various Distempers afflicting Mankind, the Devils themselves tremble at and obey his Word; the Dead rise at the hearing of his Voice, every thing he speaks is powerful and authentic, yet not Praying before, no making use of his Father's name, no more notice taken of him in the operation, than as if the Father and the Son had stood in no kind of relation to one another. Nay, even in the case of Lazarus, which, if any, must carry the face of an exception; We see our Saviour praising his Father indeed for his readiness to hear him, yet expressing himself so only for their sakes that were by: 
Joh. 11.43.  but afterwards speaking to him in the Mandatory stile, and only in his own name bidding him come forth. Now from this carriage of our Saviour, we must either conclude him to have been One with his Father, and so whatsoever honour came to himself, must also by so doing come to his Father; or else we must conclude him a careless, ambitious, sacrilegious Person, one ready to rob God of his Honour, to take all opportunities of assuming that to himself which belonged to God; for that's plain he did, because he permitted those on whom he wrought Miracles to offer the same adorations to him which belonged to the most high God, which never any Man, tho' never so holy, had admitted of before. Here than we are reduced to a necessity, either of saying with the blaspheming Jews, that He had a devil, and only by his power wrought all his miracles; and that Almighty God, either for want of power to hinder him, or out of design to have Mankind deluded and abused to their own ruin, permitted him to do so many wonderful works: Or else, that the blessed Jesus was really that holy, meek, just, eternal Son of the eternal God, that he assumed no more to himself, than what really belonged to him, therefore that he had really power in himself, and originated from himself, to do whatsoever he pleased, therefore that he was God, the true, the most high God. That we may be the better assured that his Power was so innate and inherent, we may observe, that whereas his Apostles, after his ascent, did many miracles, and those of an extraordinary nature; so that Aprons and Handkerchiefs brought from the body of S. Paul, and the very shadow of S. Peter, carried a healing power with them, yet there was nothing in all that equal to what happened to our Saviour upon the Woman's cure of her bloody Issue, who had but touched the hem of his garment: The Apostles utterly disowned the working any cures by any power of their own, therein they acted modestly and piously; but on the contrary, our Saviour ascribes the miraculous cure done upon the woman, only to Himself; he takes notice of his garment, and, by it, of himself being touched, and that at such a time as a crowd of people thronged him, and he says, not that his Father's power, or the hand of God, or any thing of that nature, was gone out to cure her. But, says he, 
Luk. 8.46.  somebody hath touched Me, for I perceive that virtue is gone out of Me: and it's recorded of him before, that the whole multitude sought to touch him, 
Luk. 6.19.  for there went virtue out of him and healed them all. Now tho' we know well enough that nothing but his humane nature, and the accidents attending that, were the objects of common sense, yet we know withal that mere flesh and blood, tho' it be never so pure and innocent has no inherent power, by a distant or a mediate touch to cure any distempers, or to be sensible of such a cure wrought by any Passion in themselves: The Kings and Queens of England have often cured that disease, from thence, sencelesly named the King's Evil, by a touch, the effect is wonderful indeed, but we never heard of those Kings or Queens pretending they were sensible of any virtue passing out from them for the cure of the Patient, nor have any, that have pretended to the sanative faculty, yet dreamed of any such thing as a self-originated power in themselves to that purpose: the King, the Prophet, the Physician touches, but God only heals, this inherent Power then in Christ was derived from that Union betwixt his divine and humane Nature, that enabled him in every respect to bear our sins, and to carry our infirmities, so that from him, as from an inexhaustible fountain, all the health both of our bodies and souls is derived; but such a fountain can nothing but God be, therefore He is God.  
We said, the Health of Souls is derived from Him as from its fountain or original: a mere Man may be an instrument in God's hand to help forward the salvation of a Soul, his Prudence, Learning, Industry, Charity may, by God's assistance, conduce in a great measure to that excellent end, but Man of himself can do nothing in the case: Our Saviour here makes that just Invitation to Mankind, 
Matt ●1. 28.  as from himself, Come to me all ye that are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest: it's not come to God, or come to my Father, but come to Me: but it would be intolerable Presumption, not to say Blasphemy, to use such an invitation, if coming to Christ were not an equivalent to coming to God and the Father; He that sees me, sees my Father, says our Lord, for I and my Father are one, he that comes to me comes to my Father, for my Father gives rest to Souls weary and heavy laden with sin, and so do I: My Father does so, not by any adventitious or precarious but by his own inherent and essential Power, and so do I. No Apostle, no Prophet ever used such language, only the Son of God and his blessed Father, and the Holy Ghost can say, as of himself, Come to me, I will give you rest: And well may He pretend to give rest to the labouring Soul, who can authoritatively from himself forgive sins, a thing which our Saviour frequently does in the Gospel. The mentioning of that action gives us a strange representation of the stubborn senseless obstinacy of the Jewish nation; our Saviour, when the Man sick of the Palsy was brought to him for cure, says to him, 
Matt. 9.2.  Son be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee, and to Mary Magdalen, when at His feet, 
Luk 7.48.  thy Sins are forgiven thee: We cannot doubt but this was spoken as for the good of the persons to whom they were applied, so for the good of those who stood by; for these things were not spoken in a corner. Now the Pharisees stumbled upon a question proper enough on the occasion, 
v. 49.  who is this that forgiveth sins also? So the Scribes on another occasion, push the question home, 
Mar. 2.7.  Why doth this Man thus speak blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God only? The question was rational enough, and employed a weighty Truth, that none has any inherent authority to forgive sins but God only; others may declare or pronounce it by a derivative authority, only God can do it by his own: but the reason of these Questionists left them presently; They saw Christ holding a strict Communion with their Church as settled by the Mosaic Law, They could not convince him of any sin against that Communion, they heard him, of himself and in his own name, forgive sins, this was a plain public claim to a Divine Authority, and they understood it so: They saw him with the very same breath work a prodigious cure, a cure not likely to be wrought by the influence of a Malignant Spirit, it was of too benign and advantageous a nature to the Patient, it must then be wrought by a Divine Power, but the Divine Power would not concur with a gross sinner, a notorious blasphemer, therefore Christ of necessity must be no sinner, if no sinner, than an extraordinary Person, for his miraculous actions would admit of no middle state, than he could be no Impostor, no Deceiver; therefore, Forgiving sins and asserting his Power by an undeniable miracle, upon their own Principle, he must be God, the True God emphatically; for who can forgive sins but God, but the True God only? For they respected only the True God when they asked the Question.  
It's a peculiar Attribute of the Supreme God to know the hearts of Men, he assumes that Power as his own due, in which none can be partakers with him, the heart is deceitful above all things, says he, and desperately wicked, who can know it? 
Jer. 17.9.10.  I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his do: The same title our Lord takes to himself, 
Rev. 2.23.  All the Churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts, and I will give unto every one according to his works: it's true this was in his glorified state: but if Christ were a mere man before his Resurrection, he was no more afterwards, the giving him Honour, and Power, and Glory, could not alter his Nature, or make him any more than a Metaphorical God, but a bare Metaphor, applied to a Man, will not make him immediately commence a God, or appropriate the most eminent of the divine Attributes to him. But not to insist on that, this particular faculty of knowing men's hearts he really had, and sufficiently evidenced, before his Ascension into Heaven; so in one of the  instances, when Christ had said to the Man sick of the Palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee, 
Mat. 8.24.  the Scribes murmured or said in their hearts, this Man blasphemes: the Evangelist adds, Jesus knowing their thoughts, said, Wherefore think you evil in your hearts? 
Mat. 12.25  Again, when Christ cast out the Devil out of one that was possessed, and the Pharisees, hearing of it, said he cast out devils by Beelzebub Prince of the devils: We are told, He knew their thoughts, and presently gave them a reproof suitable to their folly. The Disciples, as they were following their Master, fell into a dispute among themselves who should be greatest? Their Master when in the house, asked 'em of their dispute, their inward guilt shut their mouths, but he presently lets them know he was, 
Mar. 9.33, 34, 35, 36.  without their information, Master of their mighty secret, and took an immediate occasion to teach them how to employ their time better, than in such dangerous and impertinent disputes. Our Lord was preaching in the Temple to a very captious Auditory, they admire his boldness, but never pitch upon his Office, which he had then undertaken; nay, they argue among themselves the unlikelihood that he should be the Christ, We know, say they, this Man, whence he is, but when Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence he is: Our Saviour, as if he had been privy to all their discourse, in the midst of his doctrine tells them aloud, Ye both know me, 
John 7.27, 28.  and ye know whence I am, etc. When the same blessed Jesus was in Jerusalem at the Passeover, on the Feast Day many believed in his Name when they saw the miracles which he did: 
John 2.23, 24, 25.  but the Evangelist tells us plainly, Jesus did not commit himself to them, because He knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of Man, for he knew what was in man; If he knew what was in Man, it must be either perfectly or exactly, or it must be imperfectly, if imperfectly, he might easily have been imposed upon, the Prophets of the ancient Jewish Church were often so; so Joshua and all Israel in the case of the Gibeonites: So Samuel in his opinion of the fitness of David's brethren for the kingdom of Israel: So the man of God by the old Prophet who dwelled at Bethel: The Apostles afterwards, tho' influenced frequently by the Spirit of God, were liable to Error, Philip an Apostolical person, in admitting Simon of Samaria to Christian Baptism; S. Peter in making a difficulty of preaching the Gospel to one that was Uncircumcised, in dissembling afterwards for fear of the Jews, etc. S. Paul in admitting false hearted Demas to the Pastoral Charge; but this we find no instance of in our Saviour, none were able to deceive him, nay, not so much as to fasten a temptation on him; He chose indeed twelve Disciples, and one of them a Devil, 
Joh. 6.70.  but he knew him to be such, and declared him such, tho' not by name, long before he betrayed him. So neither the treachery of his pretended friends, nor of his professed enemies, could take any place upon him. If Christ's knowledge of those things was perfect, it was as much as God's knowledge is: No Being can do more than know the heart of man perfectly, that heart which Man himself is so generally unacquainted with. This is a Knowledge no way compatible with humane nature, That since the fall being defective in a thousand particulars, besides the necessity of ubiquity attending a perfect universal knowledge of the thoughts of all, which a Body can never be capable of; If then the knowledge of Christ in reference to the Hearts of men, was equal with God's, if it were impossible for him to be deceived, if it was no Sacrilege in him to ascribe to himself this peculiar Attribute of the most high God, He then must be equal with God, therefore he must be the True God.  
If we reflect upon our Lord's behaviour after his Resurrection before his Ascent into Heaven, if he be no more than a mere man, it's wholly unaccountable. The Holy Ghost is by the Socinians denied to be a Person, or to be God; yet it's allowed by them to be the power of God, a virtue flowing out of or from the Supreme Deity, under this Notion we may rationally assert, that this Holy Spirit can be commanded no way but by the Supreme God himself, none else can promise it, none can give it; for if the Spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets, much more certainly must the Spirit of God be subject to him, it subsisting wholly in him, and being according to our Adversaries, one of those qualifications necessarily in the Supreme God: Granting all this, if our Saviour was a mere man, as they say, he could not possibly command this Sacred Spirit, this Spirit so much superior to mankind, tho' considered as no more than a mere Appendage to the Almighty. Yet our Saviour seems to employ this Spirit as he will; that's not wonder, if the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost tho' three persons be all one God: That exact concurrence in their eternal wills taking away all difficulties: Thus when the Lord met with his Disciples, and showed them the necessity of things happening with relation to himself, as they did, than He opened their understandings that they might understand the Scriptures, 
Luk. 24.45  this opening their understandings, did not consist barely in explaining some particular Texts to them; they were yet but very dull and slow of understanding in themselves, and tho' they had heard a thousand Texts authentically explained, they might have continued very inapprehensive still: Nor is it an usual manner of speech to say, when a man explains any Author to others, that he opens their understandings; he may open the meaning of such or such Books, or Passages very well, yet those who hear him may not improve in their intellectuals; this opening their understandings therefore argued some force upon their minds, some extraordinary Energy of the Spirit within them, whereby their natural and inveterate Dulness went off, and they had more of spriteliness and vigour in their Souls than formerly: they seemed as Slaves with their fetters knocked off, nimble and active, and therefore more capable of apprehending any thing offered to them than formerly. This was the first beginning to fit them for that great work they were in a few days to engage in, it was to make them capable of satisfying themselves gradually in the Truth and Reason of those things which they were afterwards to preach to the world abroad, and which they were completely fitted for by the following extraordinary effusions of that Holy Spirit upon them; The first operations of it upon them then were gentle and easy, but it was the operation of that Sacred Spirit only, and of that Spirit as ordered by the blessed Jesus, by which their understandings were thus opened. We may agree to this the more easily, if we consider that Promise Christ makes to his Disciples after this, Behold I send the promise of my father upon you, 
Luk 24.49  but tarry ye in the City of Jerusalem until you be endued with power from on high: The Father promises it, but I send it. Now this uses not to be a task for a man, to make good the Promises of God, it's out of his power, especially if the Promise be to be made good in some particular wherein God has a more peculiar interest: Is my Spirit my breath? none than can give it to another, tho' my Spirit be not originally my own, but breathed into me by an Almighty Creator: Is the Holy Ghost, the Breath, the Spirit, the Influence of God? none than can dispose of it from him, and the rather because it is originated in him, and must be one with him; it was then a strange presumption in our Lord, to take upon him the making good Gods Promises to others, since, if he were no more than a Man, He promised what was not in his power, and pretended to make up some defects in his veracity, who was the God of Truth, and Truth itself. But our Saviour went farther yet, for making a visit once to his Disciples after his Resurrection, His Blessing being bestowed, he gives them a Commission of an extraordinary nature, As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you, i. e. 
Job. 20.21.  As my Father sent me to reform the World, so I send you to carry on that same work, and as my Father's mission of me gave me a sufficient authority to do those things necessary to so great an end, so my sending you gives you as great and unquestionable authority in proportion to those things which are laid on you; this intimates, that Christ had power to send men to govern and manage his Church, as his Father had, and in the same degree; for if our Saviour was only his Father's Ambassador to them, and so inferior to him that sent him, this had been an extravagant vanity; it was never heard that an Ambassador from a King or Emperor pretended to send another Envoy from himself, with such kind of expressions as these, As my master the King has sent me, so send I you, nor are Princes wont to entrust their Agents with any such Power, and the Credentials of such sub-ambassadors would appear very ridiculous to all those to whom they should be sent: But from this Commission our Lord proceeds, And when he had said this, He breathed on them, and said unto them, 
ver. 22.  Receive ye the Holy Ghost, Spiritus Sanctus est virtus seu efficacia à Deo in homines manans, iisque communicata quâ eos ab aliis segregat & suis usibus consecrat, say the Socinians in the Racovian Catechism, The Holy Spirit is a virtue or efficacy flowing from God upon men (from the True the Supreme God they mean) and communicated to them, by which he separates such men from others, and consecrated them to his own use. If it be the efficacy or Power of the Supreme God, how comes one, whom they suppose to be a mere Man, to confer it with his breath? It was given afterwards by the laying on of the Apostles hands; they gave it not by any virtue inherent in them, but where they laid on their hands God sent it, and that in different manners and proportions, as he judged fit for the Receivers, whose fitness the Apostles knew nothing of: Our Saviour bestows it with his breath, It must therefore be his own, therefore he must be the Supreme God; for in this action our Saviour did not mock his Disciples, as Schlicktingius confesses, 
Caetechismen Rac. sect. 6. c. 6.  but he did certainly separate them, by this action, from the rest of the world, and consecrated them peculiarly to his own service, and this, at the appointed time, they engaged in, according to his orders. In the forementioned Catechism, when they ask what the gift of the Holy Spirit is? the answer is, Est ejusmodi Dei afflatus, quo animi nostri vel uberiore rerum divinarum notitiâ vel spe vitae eternae certiore, atque adeo gaudio ac gustu quodam futurae felicitatis aut singulari gloriae divinae, pietatisque ardore, complentur. It is such an influence of God, as by which our minds are filled either with a more plentiful knowledge of Divine things, or with a more certain hope of eternal life, and consequently with joy and a taste of future happiness, or a peculiar heat of divine glory and piety; this may look somewhat like cant, but however it teaches us to ascribe this sacred influence to the most high God, and to ascribe very great effects to this influence, but these effects the breathing of the blessed Jesus had, therefore there must either be two Holy Ghosts, one the influence and Power of a mere man, the other the influence or Power of the most high God, or else the Power and influence of the most high God, in its full force and vigour, must be at the disposal of Christ, and therefore he must be equal with the most high God, since he bestows the same Divine Gift with the same power and efficacy, and therefore he must be the most high God.  
Thus have we animadverted on our Saviviour's own Actions while conversant upon Earth, and have seen how far they contribute to the proof of his Divine Nature. We may read the same in the Actions of his Apostles after his Ascension. S. Peter makes his Speech before the feast of Pentecost to the Apostles and Brethren about filling that vacancy made in the Apostolical College by the miscarriage of Judas the Traitor. A sufficient evidence this, says Schlichtingius very truly, that He had indeed received the Holy Ghost with effect when his Master breathed, as before, on Him and his Companions: but there was yet a more plentiful effusion of the Holy Ghost upon them, to come; their Master had promised it, and he took occasion, on the most public and solemn Occasion to fulfil it, namely, at the feast of Pentecost, when Jerusalem was extremely full of Strangers from all parts. The Apostles were no sooner endued with power from on high, but presently they employ the Heavenly Gift, and preach to purpose to the wondering multitude. S. Peter's discourse is particularly upon record, and in it, after a severe and plain recollection of their great sin in crucifying the Lord of life and glory, he gives them an account of their present miraculous gifts, which he derives, not from God the Father, but assures them, that Christ being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he, 
Acts 2.33.  the same Christ, had himself shed forth that which they then saw and heard, thus the Holy Ghost proceeded equally from the Father and the Son, the first promised it, the last gave it: but this was not all, when the wounded multitude came to the Apostles with that weighty question, Men and Brethren what shall we do? Peter said unto them, 
v. 37, 38.  repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ: Was Jesus Christ then God, or was he a mere Man, or, what's the same, a mere Creature? We find no example of a mere man so honoured as that any should be baptised in his name: S. Paul indeed tells the Corinthians that the Fathers, the predecessors of Israel, were all baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 
1 Cor. 10.2.  meaning the Red Sea and that Cloud which parted them from the Egyptians at first, and afterwards covered the Tabernacle: This is of the same import with that of being baptised into Christ, and both signify, 
Gal. 3.27.  being by virtue of a sacred Ordinance admitted into or made members of those Churches, of which Moses in the name of God founded the one, and Christ in his own name founded the other: But we never read of any Sacramental Institution, by virtue of which any should be baptised in the name of the Father, and of Moses, and of the Holy Ghost; nor do we find any footsteps of men's being, circumcised in the name of Moses, nor were the Israelites ever called by the name of Moses; Christians yet bear the name of Christ to this day, and justly, since he did and suffered so much for them, and they are baptised in his name: 
1 Cor. 1.13,  it's the Apostles argument against the dividing Corinthians. And the Apostle, tho' a chosen instrument in the hand of God, for the conversion of the Gentiles, tho' inferior to none of the Apostles, and therefore as holy as the holiest of mere men, yet makes it a matter of satisfaction to himself with respect to the Corinthians, that he had personally baptised so very few, 
v. 14, 15.  lest any should have said he had baptised in his own name. What the Apostle there writes is worth our more serious consideration: That the Corinthians who believed, were baptised in the name of Christ, we need not doubt, we see it was one of the first conditions of eternal Salvation propounded by S. Peter, by Philip, by Paul in the Jailor's case, therefore not neglected here: Why then should S. Paul be so well pleased on this account, that He, in person, had not baptised them? it seems an enquiry thus only and truly to be answered: The Corinthians being naturally of a very fickle and dividing humour, were desirous to have some considerable persons to Head, and so to countenance their several Parties, this humour made them catch so eagerly at the great names of Apollo's and Cephas, as well as of S. Paul himself: this was very unhappy: but when only Elders, or Deacons of a common reputation and inferior rank, 
Vid. Clement. Ep. ad Corinth. Coc. t. 1. p. 154. Edit▪ Lab. & Cos.  appeared in the work of Baptising Converts, their names made none ambitious to be called after them, nor would it ever enter into any man's head, that such should have baptised Christians in their own Names, as it might have done, had the principal Apostles been the general ministers of that Ordinance: so S. Paul is very fearful here, lest among a Capricious People, his name should seem to stand in competition with that of his Master the Lord Jesus Christ: He appears in this case, as tender of Sacrilege or robbing Christ of his, as he was of robbing the most high God of his Honour, when at Lystra he rend his clothes for grief at that levity and madness, whereby the Lystrians were moved to offer Sacrifices to him and Barnabas, as if they had been Gods; but there would not have been so great reason for this extraordinary solicitude of the Apostle, if Christ himself had not been of a Divine Nature, or robbing Him equal to robbing the supreme God of his Honour; and if it had been so great a crime for S. Paul an holy Man, to encroach upon God's Honour, by ascribing any thing of it to himself, it could be no less a crime in our Saviour, if he were but a mere Man, a created Being (tho' he were never so holy) to appropriate any thing of that glory belonging to the supreme God, to himself. Yet, if he were a mere Man, we find him strangely guilty in this point; for as before his Passion, he requires of his Disciples that they should believe in him, as after his Passion he joins himself with the Father, and with the Holy Ghost, in the institution of Baptism without any difference at all, so after his Ascension into heaven, he seems to take all care possible, to confirm such an opinion in his Apostles and followers, as according to which they must treat him as the Supreme God; for when our Saviour bids his Disciples have Faith in God, 
Mat. 11.22.  doubtless he would not lay that injunction upon them, if Faith, so placed, had not a sanctifying power for such Faith is sufficient to make men Holy and acceptable in the sight of that God with whom they have to do. But when the same Jesus appears to S. Paul in his journey to Damascus, he tells him, He had appeared to make him a Minister and Witness of what he had seen, 
Acts 26.16, 17, 18.  Delivering him from the people and from the Gentiles to whom he designed to send him, that he might open their eyes, and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they might receive forgiveness of sins, and an inheritance among them which were sanctified by Faith which was in Him. Here then, besides Christ's assuming to himself a sovereign and universal power of delivering his servants from all dangers, of Commissioning them for the most weighty Work in the World, of enabling them to open the Eyes of those that heard them, and to turn them from darkness to light, (all which are the effects of a power truly Divine only) He in plain terms asserts, that that Faith which is in him, sanctifies those that have it exclusively of all other Faith whatsoever; for by his words it appears, that forgiveness of sins, and an everlasting inheritance, are only attainable by that Faith: and again the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews reckons Faith in God, 
Heb. 6.1▪  among the fundamentals of our Religion; these things laid together, will oblige us to conclude, either that there are two kinds of justifying Faith, or such as may render men holy, and acceptable in the sight of God, or else, which is true, that Faith in the most high God and in Jesus Christ is one and the same thing, fixed upon one and the same inseparable Object, and so saving and sanctifying to all them that have it, and S. Paul, in the forecited Chapter of the Acts, having showed what help Christ promised him, in prosecution of his discourse, declares, he received his help from God, whereby he was enabled to bear that witness Christ had assured him He would help him in, therefore God and Christ were all One, or the Son of God and his Father were one Supreme God.  
That there was this Identity of nature between the Son of God and his Father, will appear farther, from that account S. Peter gives to the People of the Cure wrought upon the poor Cripple at the beautiful gate of the Temple; where reproving them, and telling them they had killed the Prince of life, a very strange title, by the way, to be given to a mere Man, and such as can be paralleled in no Author Sacred or Profane, He adds, And his Name, 
Acts 3.15, 16.  through Faith in his Name, has made this Man strong whom ye see and know, yea the Faith which is by him, has given him this perfect soundness, in the presence of you all: here again, the Name of Christ and Faith in his Name, are both set in the highest rank, and whatsoever was before professed to be done in the Name of the True God, was now done in the Name of Christ. Moses and the Prophets appealed still in all things to the name of the most high God (and I doubt if Gehazi, when he laid his staff upon the Shunamite's child's face, had commanded it in the name of his Master, to arise, or if his Master afterwards had done as much in his own name, they would both have lost their labours) the case was otherwise here, S. Peter's word to the Cripple was, 
ver. 6.  In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk: the Cure was immediately effected: the people wondered: They assert the glory of the Miracle only to the Name of Christ, 
Acts 4.9, ●●.  and they repeat their assertion to the High Priest, and the rest of the Members of the Jewish Council. Had not the name of Christ been powerful enough to effect the greatest miracles, it had been a foolish presumption in them to have appealed to it: the Priests of Baal would not have appeared more silly in their violent addresses to their paltry Idol, nor the Sons of Sceva in calling over those possessed with evil Spirits, the name of Jesus whom Paul preached; Had their invocation failed, it would have exposed all that Religion they pretended to advance, to the common scorn and contempt of all mankind; but that Sacred Name prevailed, those Miracles which had formerly been performed in the name of the most high God, were now performed in the name of the Son of God; God did not and could not give his glory to another, for he had before declared he would not, therefore that Jesus, the Son of God, in whose name this astonishing Cure was wrought, was really the most high God: It may perhaps be objected, that All power was given to Christ after his Resurrection, by virtue of which, he could give his own name that virtue and authority by which such mighty Miracles as these might be performed: We answer to this, it's true, our Lord did tell his Apostles that all Power was given to him, in heaven and in earth, 
Mat. 28.18  and He told them so after his Resurrection, but it does not therefore follow that he was not possessed of such an universal power before his body was raised from the grave; he adds no word intimating that this power was now invested in him and not sooner, for He might very well forbear to inform his Disciples of it, till he came to his state of exaltation, commencing from his being raised from the dead. But allowing what such Objectors would have, that there was no such Power given him, or that He never had such Power till his Resurrection, They and All know the Philosophical Axiom is of universal truth, Quicquid recipitur recipitur ad modum recipientis, Whatsoever is received is received according to the capacity of the receiver: and Volkelius tells us in plain terms, 
De verâ Relig. l. 3. c. 20. p 106.  that after his Resurrection the body of Christ was of mortal nature, and no otherwise partaker of immortality, than by the will of his Father: Now if this be true, tho' God Almighty be able of and from himself to give an universal Power, as having it inherent originally in himself, yet it implies an absolute contradiction, that he should be able to confer such an infinite Power upon a finite or a mortal Subject; for that would be to settle a double Almightiness in the world, of which one should not be Almighty: or, whereas Omnipotence is such an attribute, as wherever it resides it must constitute a True and Supreme God, and whereas its such an attribute as cannot stand alone, without a concurrent-infinity in every respect, yet it may rest in a Subject neither God, nor yet Supreme, but in such a one as is still, tho' highly exalted, mortal in its own nature, and capable of destruction or annihilation: For if it depends only on God's Will, that Christ's Body, now exalted to the right hand of his Father, is no more liable to Death, then, had it pleased God, he might have invested Moses, or Elias, or Enoch with this same Omnipotence as well as our Saviour, and our Saviour is no more secure of the continuation of that Omnipotence he is at present possessed of, in himself, than the good Angels are of continuing in their present state of bliss, i.e. so long as the supreme God upholds them they are safe; if He withdraw, but for one moment, they are as miserable as their fallen companions. But the very thought of these things are absurd and blasphemous, however not to be avoided without acknowledging the eternal Divinity of the Son of God.  
For the farther evidence of this Truth we must look into the Faith of the Ancient Church, and see how this Doctrine, that God was manifest in the flesh, or that, He who was manifest in the flesh was God, the True, the Supreme, the most High God, is asserted in it. This inquiry we make, not because we think Antiquity infallible, nor because we imagine every opinion, maintained by any Father of the Church, aught to be an authentic prescription to us. Where any of them have in any particular deviated from the sense of God's holy Word, we value not their opinions a-whit the more for their being ancient. But this we must own, that those who lived nearest the times of our Saviour and his Apostles, had the best opportunities of knowing what they meant, or how those, who personally conversed with them understood them; as it's easier for me, who have seen and known my Father, to learn from him what were the thoughts of my Grandfather, or great Grandfather, both which it may be my Father may have seen and conversed with, than to find out what particular Opinions were entertained by my Predecessors before the Conquest, and so upwards. Again, where Scripture, and Reason improved from thence, give us a full evidence of any truth, the concurrence and harmony of Antiquity with these evidences, is of great weight, and gives us a fair deduction of divine and necessary Truths through all ages, and shows us how, in spite of all the oppositions and artifices made use of by the enemies of Truth, yet God has been pleased to preserve it entire, and to derive it by various channels down to us, that we, embracing and asserting the same Holy Faith, may be partakers of the same eternal happiness with our predecessors, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, who have all died in the True Faith and fear of God; on this consideration we shall, by God's assistance, give you a short account of the Primitive Faith in this particular: Here then in due order of time  
We begin with that Clement, remembered with Honour by S. Paul, 
Phil. 4.3.  as one of those fellow labourers of his, whose names are in the book of life: This Clement was afterwards Bishop of the Church of God in Rome, on which account, and by reason of his great eminence in the Church of God, some of the Factors of that See, have endeavoured to fasten several spurious writings upon him: but the abuse was too gross to impose upon a learned world; However, of his we have one Authentic Epistle, written in the name of the Church of Rome to the Church of Corinth, 
Conc. Gen. Lab. & Cossart. T. 1. p. 133. B.  upon account of a violent Schism broken out in that Church, to the great scandal of the Christian Religion, and to the obstruction of the progress of the Gospel: In this Epistle, (tho' nothing were purposely written on the subject we are now treating on) yet there are some not obscure evidences of what opinion He, and the Church of Rome in whose name he wrote, had in those early days of our blessed Lord: He calls him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a name very great, and such as is no where given to any mere Man: it's designed here to illustrate the extraordinary dignity of our Saviour, for, by so setting him off, the Apostolical writer enforces his argument upon the Corinthians, to persuade them to Humility, which would be an excellent foundation for Charity, for, tho' our Lord Jesus Christ were so great, tho' he were the Sceptre of the greatness of God, yet he came not, as he might, in an assuming and lofty manner, but with the greatest Humility, and this argument, S. Hierome in his commentary on the 52 of Isaiah, and the three last verses, according to our translation, makes use of to the same purpose, owning Clement for his Author; but now, if the Argument of these great Men was good, it must necessarily follow, that our Saviour had a Being, and a glorious Being too, before he was born of the blessed Virgin, which Birth of his into a calamitous World, has always been accounted one part of his Humiliation; this Humiliation could not have been thought so considerable had he not been very great and happy before, Christ could not have been so great and glorious, antecedently to his Birth, but He must have been God, and therefore the True the most high God: for there could be, even in a Socinians account, no more but One True God before the Incarnation of our Saviour; You see, my beloved people, says the good Man, what an example is set before you, and if our Lord so humbled himself, viz. if he descended from Heaven to earth for our sakes, how humble should those be who take upon them the yoke of his Gospel? Twice afterwards, this same Holy Man concluding his period with Jesus Christ, 
p. 137. C.  adds, To whom be glory and Majesty for ever and ever, Amen. The same expressions of praise he gives to God the Father several times, 
p. 156. B. p. 144. B. p. 148. C. p. 160. C. D  and what can we conclude, from using such a Doxology indifferently to God the Father, and to Jesus Christ his Son, But that He understood them to be of one and the same nature, both Infinitely Glorious, both one proper object of praise and adoration? And the same venerable Author, speaking of the Patriarches, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, adds particularly of the last; that from him descended all those Priests and Levites who serve at God's altar, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
p. 144. A.  of him was Jesus Christ, so far as concerned his flesh, of him were the Kings, Princes and Leaders of Judah; where it's observable, that nameing our Saviour, He says of him, that, He was of Jacob according to the flesh, by a particular phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, according to, or so for as concerned in the flesh; but of the Princes and Levites deduction from that Patriarch, he speaks only in the common way; now this particular way of expressing himself in relation to Christ, must have been very impertinent, had it not been designed to show the difference there was between the manner of Christ's Descent and Theirs; for never was such a thing said of any mere Man, by any Writer in the world, that He was born of such and such Parents according to the flesh; as it would look ridiculously to say, David was the Son of Jesse according to the flesh, the very phrase intimates some different origination, according to some other nature, 
Rom. 1.3, 4  whatever it be; and the Apostle uses the same expression, in the same distinguishing sense. So elsewhere S. Clement calls our Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; the same word used by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and by us translated, 
Heb. 1.3.  the brightness of God's glory, properly enough, or it might be rendered, a beam from the body of his glory, from which expressions the Ancients generally collected, that Christ must be coeternal with his Father; so S. chrysostom tells us, the Son is called, the brightness of the glory of his Father, as always existing in the Father, as brightness always is in Light, for the light cannot be without brightness, nor brightness without light, so the Son cannot be without the Father, nor the Father without the Son, for he is begotten of his Essence before all time, and is always with him: to the same purpose, but more largely, speak Theodoret, Gregory Nyssen, Theophylact, etc. and S. Clement to show his meaning to be the same with that of the Author to the Hebrews, proceeds in a large citation out of that Chapter, from whence we have before evidently proved the eternal Divinity of the Son of God: Besides, this unquestionable Epistle of Clement, which we have almost entire, there's a Fragment of another, written by the same excellent person, to the same Corinthians, not so generally owned indeed, but of very great antiquity, being taken notice of by S. Hierome, and before him by Eusebius; 
Conc. T. 1. p. 181.  the very first words of which give us a full proof of the doctrine we now assert. Brethren, says the Writer, We ought to think concerning Jesus Christ as concerning God, as concerning the Judge both of the quick and the dead: If we must think of Christ as of God, we must think and believe that he is God, for so we think always of the Supreme Being: But these passages are sufficient from an Author of so great antiquity. From him we shall proceed to the next Greek Father,  
Blessed Ignatius Bishop of Antioch, One who had seen Christ himself in the flesh, who is reported by some to have been that Child whom our Saviour took in his arms: 
Mark 9.36  who conversed frequently with the Apostles, He left several Epistles behind him, to several Churches, full of excellent advices, and truly savouring of an Apostolical Spirit and temper. In Him we meet with many evidences of his belief, that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was the real, the True God. So in the very first words of his first Epistle to the Church of Smyrna, He gins, 
Epist. ad Smyrn. Edit. Voss.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, I glorify Jesus Christ who is God, he is with him, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the God, with an article, the want of which the Socinians so frequently cavil at in Scripture, that Article is certainly exclusive of all other Gods. The Son he is the only True God, the Father is the same True God, not two Gods, but two persons and one God, or one Deity: this is a plain passage and needs no descant upon it. In the conclusion of his Letter to Polycarp, than Bishop of the Church of Smyrna, (the same who is called the Angel of the Church of Smyrna by S. John in the Revelations, who died afterwards a Martyr for the truth) he gives Polycarp this salutation, I pray that Grace may be always with thee in Jesus Christ our God; 
Ad Polyc.  he neither prefixes nor subjoins any thing to the words, that might allay the sense, or make it ambiguous, it is an entire sentence, and as clearly owns, that He thought Jesus Christ was God, and that he wrote to another, who had the same Faith, in that respect, with himself; So that the real Deity of the Son of God, was no strange Doctrine in those days. In the Inscription of his next Epistle to the Ephesians, He styles that Church predestinated from the beginning, 
Ad Ephes.  or before all worlds, to everlasting glory, according to the will of the Father, and Jesus Christ our God; where he plainly makes the Father and Jesus Christ one God, to which blessed Jesus he ascribes the same character, of an absolute Deity, with his Father. So again in the beginning of the Epistle itself, he tells the Ephesians, they bore an honourable reputation, and justly gained by their Faith and Love, in Jesus Christ our Saviour, being imitators of God, and re-enflamed, or revived by the blood of God: An expression, like that of S. Paul to the Elders of the same Church, when he tells them, God had made them overseers of that Church, 
Act. 20.28  which he had purchased with his own blood; Now we cannot, with any propriety of speech, call any blood the blood of God, unless it be really his, and it cannot be his as he is God, therefore he must have assumed some such nature, as wherein his blood might be shed, which might, and did come to pass, by his taking our nature; but our Nature being substantially united to that which was before eternal and Divine, and so God and Man being but one Christ, when Christ, as Man, shed his most precious blood for our sakes, that blood was, properly and truly, called the blood of God, or God's own blood. But we meet with yet plainer evidence in the same Epistle: so I take those words of his to belong to Christ, Nothing lies hid from the Lord, (that is the common title of our Saviour, in all Apostolical writings,) but even our most secret things are near to him: Let us then do all things, as if He lived in us, that we may be his Temples, and He may be God in us, which also he is and will appear before our faces, for which reasons we justly love him: I the more readily apply this, which argues Omniscience, to Christ (and is no more than what Scripture openly ascribes to him, as I have formerly showed) because soon after he earnestly asks that Question, Wherefore then are not we all wise embracing the knowledge of God, which God is Jesus Christ? and presently after ask the Apostle's question, Where is the wise Man? where is the disputer? where is the glorying of those who were reputed men of Understanding? He subjoins, For our God, Jesus the Christ, was conceived of Mary according to divine order of the seed or line of David by the Holy Ghost: I durst now appeal to all Mankind, whether they would not conclude, that whosoever should speak of any Being whatsoever at this rate, would not be thought to account the Person he spoke of in such broad terms, Real God? and whether a good rational Deist would not conclude, that if He, so spoken of, were no more than a mere Creature, He who should so speak of him ought not to pass at least for a Borderer upon Idolatry? For it's rationally expected that, in such weighty matters, men's Words should be the proper interpretation of their Thoughts, and not pestered with dubious or uncertain, or unintelligible phrases. In the same Epistle he calls our Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, God appearing humanely, or, in the same manner as men do, clothed with flesh and blood, and endued with a rational soul; which is but another way of expressing the Text, God was manifest in the flesh. Would you then have his pre-existence as God, before he was conceived in the womb of the blessed Virgin? our Ignatius asserts that too, in his Epistle to the Magnesians, 
Ad Magnes. p. 33, 34.  viz. That He was with his Father before all time, and in the end, or in the fullness of time, at last he appeared, and afterwards, There is one God, who manifested himself by his Son Jesus Christ, who is his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, his eternal word, agreeably to S. John in the beginning of his Gospel. Again in his Epistle to the Trallians; and twice in the Inscription of his Epistle to the Romans, He giveth the title of God to our Saviour, nay of our God; and toward the end of that Epistle He begs of the Romans, that they would not go about to hinder his Martyrdom then at hand, no: Permit me, says he earnestly; to be an imitator of the sufferings of Christ my God, and again, 
Ad Romanos, p. 60.  he calls him My God twice over in the subsequent two or three lines. The Prophets frequently reflect upon it as Idolatry to say to an Image thou art my God: and I am not yet convinced by any Socinian argument, that it is not Idolatry to say the same to any created Being whatsoever: At best, the Apostles themselves and those eminent Apostolical men, if our Lord be no more by nature than a mere man, must needs be condemned of extreme imprudence and uncharitableness; who when they might as well have expressed their minds otherwise, would yet make choice of such words as were ●nly apt to deceive and impose upon Men, ●o give them false notions of God and Jesus Christ, and either make them Idolaters at ●●st; or at least very near borderers upon it; Words that are figurative, may be easily misunderstood by very good Men, in ordinary cases, as we see his Companions concluded, S. John should never die, only from our Saviour's words to S. Peter, If I will that He tarry till I come, what is that to thee? How much more dangerous than must such Words be, especially when continually used in matters of the greatest weight. It were easy to give more of the same nature from Ignatius his Epistles, if we'd meddle with those spurious or interpolated, but we need no such precarious assistances.  
The next of the Fathers of the Greek Church, in order of time, is Justine, commonly styled the Martyr, because he died such, for his obedience to the Faith of Christ: He lived about one hundred and forty years after the birth of our Saviour: I shall not go about to prove the Divinity of our Saviour, out of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or the Exposition of Faith, printed, as his, among his Works, tho' it would afford us a great deal, because the credit of it is doubtful, and learned men think they have reason to believe our Justine was not the Author of it. I shall therefore only examine what's of unquestionable authority in him. In his Apology for the Christians, presented to the Roman Senate, 
Apolog. 1. p. 44. l. D.  among other things, he tells them, The names of Father, and God, and Creator, and Lord, and Master, are not the proper names of God, but names derived from his Works, and those favours he has extended towards Men: but his Son, who alone is properly called his Son, the Word, who was with him and begotten of him, before all creatures, because in the beginning God created and adorned all things by him, was called Christ, he being anointed, and God beautifying every thing by him: here than we have, what the Evangelist had taught us before, literally understood and confirmed, That the Word was in the beginning with God, and that by him all things were made: the holy Martyr thought of no figure or ambiguity in the discourse. The same Martyr in his second Apology for the Christians presented to Antoninus Pius the Roman Emperor, in asserting the Justice and Reason of that Faith in Christ which He and his Christian brethren professed, lays down a clear proof of Christ's being God, and consequently of the reasonableness of their service to him, in giving an account of that burning Bush which Moses saw, and out of which he heard a voice; for at that time when Moses, as he was feeding his Father-in-law's sheep, was ordered to go into Egypt, and to bring out from thence the people of Israel, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Our Christ spoke to him out of the bush under the resemblance of fire, and bids him lose his shoes off his feet, and attend him; and receiving abundance of strength, and courage from that Christ, with whom he discoursed, He went down and (glorious and terrible with a thousand miracles) led that people from their bondage. 
Apolog. 2. p. ●5. l. B.  The Jews themselves confess, says he, that it was that God whose name was unknown or unutterable, who then discoursed with Moses, but the Martyr himself says, it was our Christ, therefore if the Martyr's opinion were true, Our Christ is the Lord Jehovah, the most high God. The Martyr urges his argument yet farther, with reflections upon the Jewish incredulity: That Angel which spoke to Moses out of the burning bush, said to him, I am that God, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of thy Fathers, Go down therefore into Egypt and lead forth my people: A Socinian himself will own, that that Name was never due to any but to the most high God, (tho' they fly to figures there too) We urge this, says the Father, only that we may prove, that that Jesus Christ, in whom we believe, is the Son and Messenger of God, who being the Word before, had sometime appeared in the resemblance of fire, sometimes in the form of Angels, now at last, by the Will of God, was made Man, for the sake of mankind, and for their sakes suffered whatsoever Jewish cruelty and malice could inflict upon him; who while they owned it was God the Creator and maker of all things, who spoke to Moses in the bush, and yet He, that there spoke, was the Son, the Angel, the Messenger of God indeed, they laid themselves open to that just reproof of our Lord, that they neither knew the Father, nor the Son. We argue too from hence, that if it were our Christ, who appeared to Moses in the Bush, as Justine affirms, and Scripture sufficiently evidences, if it were our Christ, what name soever he might be called by, he then was pre-existent, or had a real being before he was conceived in the womb of the blessed Virgin; therefore he could be no mere Man, unless the Socinians can find out the way to satisfy the question of Nicodemus by asserting positively, that a Man, a mere Man, may be born when he is old, that he may, literally, enter again into his mother's womb and be born anew, and can prove it when they have asserted it. He could be no Angel, that's denied in Scripture, the Apostle assures us, 
Heb. 2.16.  He took not upon him the nature of Angels, a speech very idle, if he had been an Angel originally: if therefore he neither was a mere Man, nor a created Angel, he was and must be the supreme God. Again, the same Justine in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 
Dial. cum Tryph. Jud. p. 267. l. B. C.  when Trypho urges him with his absurd assertion, That Christ was God before all ages, and yet had condescended to become Man; Justine answers him, The truth would not therefore be lost if he should fail in his proofs, that Christ was the Son of the world's Creator, and that he was God: because, however, it had been foretold by the Prophets, that he should be so: but if I do not prove that He had a being before, and then condescended to become Man, and took flesh, according to his Father's design and determination, 
p. 275. & dcinceps,  it's only proper to conclude that I am a weak disputant, not that he, who bore that Character, is not the Christ. When Trypho afterwards bids him prove, that there was or could be another God, besides the maker of the Universe, the Martyr stumbles not at the proposition, but proceeds to prove the thing by that instance of the Lord, before whom Abraham stood, when the two Angels went forwards towards Sodom; and falls again upon the forementioned instance of Christ speaking to Moses in the Bush, by both which he proves that the Son is God, as well as the Father is God, and yet he asserts not two Gods, but one God, because if two or three Being's are partakers of one divine Nature, they must of consequence be one God, the divine Nature being indivisible and incapable of degrees or diminution. After a large discourse with the Jew, he tells him, that in the several arguments he had brought, he had sufficiently proved, that Christ was Lord and God, and the Son of God, who had appeared both as a Man, 
p. 357. D.  and as an Angel, in the burning Bush, and at the destruction of Sodom: And Trypho all along looks upon him as engaged in that design of proving Christ to be God, not by a figure, but in reality. He concludes the Scriptures were very express in their evidence, that that Christ, who had suffered so much at the Jews hands, was to be worshipped and was God; had he not proved the last well, that He was God, to have asserted the first, that he ought to be worshipped, would have sounded very harshly in the ears of a Jew: But even Trypho himself, who thought it prodigious and incredible that God should be born and should condescend to become Man, tho' none of the most tractable persons in the world, was brought to Agrippa's condition by the zealous Martyr, and almost persuaded to be a Christian.  
About the same time lived S. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lions in France, one who had been a Hearer of blessed Polycarp, who had been himself an Hearer of the Apostles; He had certainly the advantage of knowing what was sound and true Doctrine, with relation to our Saviour, and that from very authentic hands; his writings were originally Greek, as himself was by Birth, tho' employed to preach the Gospel in the parts of France, but those Originals are almost all lost, and we must necessarily content ourselves with their Translation: This excellent Father than tells us first, what the general Faith of the Church is, That the Church believes in one God, 
Iren. adv. Haer. l. 1. c. 2.  the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth, etc. and in one Jesus Christ the Son of God, incarnate for our Salvation, and in the Holy Ghost, who among other things, has taught us that, according to the good pleasure of the invisible Father, every knee of things in Heaven, and of things on Earth, and of things under the Earth, should bow to Jesus Christ our Lord, our God, our Saviour and our King, and that every tongue should confess to him; and this passage we have in the genuine original, and it seems satisfactory enough as to the Faith of the French Church in those days; and doubtless was looked upon by him as the Faith generally embraced by all the true professors of Christianity; 
C. 3.  and indeed so he assures us, in the following chapter of the same book; That the Church spread through the whole world, diligently maintains this Faith, and observes it as exactly, as if they all inhabited in one house, they believe it, as if they had all one heart and one soul, and with a wonderful consent, preach it as it were with one mouth. We then are safe enough, while we believe Jesus Christ to be God, since holy Martyrs, nay the whole Church of God believed the same truth so long since; and making it a part of their public Creed, declared their judgement, that so to believe was necessary to eternal Salvation. Having afterwards told us what the Apostles have preached, and how they have proved Him true, and that there was no falsehood in him; he proceeds in the next chapter thus, Therefore neither our Lord himself, nor the Holy Ghost, nor the Apostles, would have called any one God, absolutely and definitively, unless he had really been true God, nor would they have called any one Lord, in his own person, 
l. 3. c. 6.  but only Him who is Lord of all things, God the Father and his Son; and so he proceeds to enumerate several Texts, wherein the name of God and Lord, is indifferently given to both the Father and the Son: and elsewhere he teaches us, 
c. 18.  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 Music) 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 appeared 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 appeared but lately, who was our Saviour before. He who is, appeared 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 Theban Vizard, 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 Highpriest of God, who is the Father, 
p. 70. L D.  he intercedes for Men, and he persuades 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, etc. 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 buy, David shows 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 than 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 ourselves 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 Egypt, that he there tried their magic powers, and returning from thence, in confidence of his juggling 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 Psalms cited by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews in his first chapter, which I have cleared 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 oil of gladness above his fellows, which is the real sense of the words, and which, he tells us, he had formerly silenced 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, etc. 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, performed all that his Father commanded, for if according to that of the Psalmist, He said and they were made, 
l. 2. p. 6●.  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 itself? 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 lie 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 persuade Men, as they say Christ did, and failing in his design, especially when he was long expected and hoped for? a denial 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 appeared so remarkably to them, in bringing them up out of the land of Egypt, and in giving them a Law from Sina, and yet they nor their Fathers could by that means be persuaded 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 himself Immutable, nor did he suffer any change o● 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 suffered no change from ba● to good, for that He was without Sin, he never committed any; He was not changed from pure or clean, to foul or filthy, for H● 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 stooped 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 raised 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 ●hus excellently, If then Celsus inquire 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 confined 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 enough and plain enough to show 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 dreamed of Christ's being any more than a mere Man? Men who intent 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 mere child's 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 opposed, 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 lived before either of our Disputants, who had by his office of Proconsul great opportunities of knowing what tenets the Christians maintained, who had often examined them with tortures, and punished them with Death itself, 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 daybreak (which they were forced 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 lived, 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 satisfy us of our consent with those ancient 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, etc. 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 Tempter's assaults only with his Word: So He, who had resolved to cloth 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 Martion, 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 mere Phantasm, 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 Martion 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 Martion, (as before we observed in the case of Origen) would have been to have proved, that our Saviour was so far from having only the outward appearance of a Man, that he was really a mere Man, and nothing else? But says Tertullian to this, Sed Deo nihil est impossibile, nisi quod non vult, 
De Carne Christi, p. 8.  etc. 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 Martion objected, He denied 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 Unchangeable, Tertullian makes this a peculiarity of the Divine nature, which sets it higher than any thing created, that whereas created Being's, 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 bodies, and yet be Angels or Spirits still, much more must it be believed that God could do the same: Thus still he prosecutes his Argument, and all his care was to prove, not that Christ was God, for that was granted on all hands, but that he was Man, which some denied upon that very ground, because he was God without controversy. Again in his book of Prescriptions against Heretics, 
De Praescrip. p. 36.  He lays down somewhat like the form of a Creed, and agreeable to our own: Where first he says, They believed one God, the World's Creator, who produced all things out of nothing by his Word; that Word, his Son was called by the name of God, variously seen by the Patriarches, always heard in the Prophets, at last brought, by the power and Spirit of God the Father, into the womb of the Virgin Mary; He took flesh of Her, and was born of Her, and so became the Man Jesus Christ, etc. Here we have our Saviour's Existence, antecedently to his birth of the blessed Virgin, not only asserted, but declared as the general Doctrine and Tradition of the Catholic Church; and that less than two hundred years after our Saviour's Passion; and made use of as a Prescription against an Heretic: Now Martion, if he had not been well assured, that Tertullian asserted no more than what was the current Doctrine of the Catholic Church, might easily have baffled all Tertullian's pretence to Prescription, by showing him that all the Christians of the former Age were utterly ignorant of his pretended Articles of Faith; but we never hear of any such Reply made: Tho' we have no reason to doubt, but that the Heretics of those ages were as earnest to maintain their Errors, as those are who tread in their footsteps in this. After this, in the same book Tertullian reflects upon other capital Heretics: So he tells us that Cerinthus maintained, 
fol. 41.  that Christ was only of the seed of Joseph, a mere Man, without any Divine Nature: He tells us again, that Theodotus of Byzantium blasphemed Christ, for He too brought in a Doctrine, quâ Christum Hominem tantummodo diceret, Deum autem illum negaret. Wherein he taught that Christ was a mere Man, and that he was not God; that He was indeed born of a Virgin, through the Holy Ghost, 
fol. 42.  otherwise He was only a Man, no better than others, but as his Goodness gave him a greater authority than others. If Tertullian then took Theodotus to be an Heretic, on account of this Doctrine, it can scarce be doubted, but he'd have taken Socinus and his Partners for the same, had they lived in those days; and I find our Socinians doing so much right to this Theodotus, as fairly to reckon him among the Patrons of their opinions. If we go farther with Tertullian, we find him assaulting the same Heretic Martion again, and arguing God's extraordinary goodness, from that great Humiliation of himself to take humane nature upon him: He concludes his argument at last with this, Totum denique Dei mei penes vos dedecus, 
Adversus Mar. l. 2. f. 68  sacramentum est Humanae salutis, etc. All that, which, in your opinion, is so disgraceful to the God I believe in, is the Seal of our Salvation; God conversed with Man, that Man might learn to do those things that are divine: God acted suitably with Man, that Man might endeavour to act agreeably to God: God was found in a mean state, that Man might be exalted to the utmost; He that despises such a God, can hardly be thought to believe in God crucified. In another book against the same Martion, he argues, from the ancient apparitions of Angels, that Christ tho' God, had a true and real body, We will not yield to thee, says he, that Angels had only a fantastic body, but those bodies they assumed had a true, solid, humane substance; this elsewhere he makes good; it follows, If it were not hard for Christ, to exert the true sense and action of a Man in imaginary flesh, it was much easier to make true and substantial flesh, (as he was the Author and maker of it,) to be the subject of true common sense and action: Thy God was fain to appear in an imaginary body, 
l. 3. fol. 72.  because he was not able to produce a real one; But my God, who without pursuing the common course of nature, could make real flesh of Earth, could have invested Angels with real bodies of any kind whatsoever: For with a word He made the world of nothing, and shaped it into so many various bodies as we see: Then he tells us, Angels had flesh truly humane, and connate with the time they appeared in, because Christ only himself was to be flesh of flesh, that by his Birth, he might purify ours; that by his Death, he might free us from the slavery of Death; he rising again in that flesh, in which he was born, only that he might die: Therefore He appeared in a true body, accompanied with Angels, to Abraham; but not a body that was born, because it was not that body which was to die. In consequence of this discourse, which proves our Saviour's Pre-existence to his Birth, 
fol. 73.  he urges his Adversary with that name of Immanuel, or God with us; from whence, proving the reality of his divine, he regularly infers the equal reality of his humane nature. If we proceed, we find the same Father publishing his Faith, in the beginning of his book against Praxeas: He was an Heretic, so far yet from believing Christ to be a Creature, or a mere Man, that he asserted it was God the Father who was born of the Virgin, and crucified and Dead, and that He was Jesus Christ: In opposition to him the Father declares, As we are instructed by the Holy Ghost, 
Adu. Prax. fol. 144.  which leads us into all truth, We believe one God; and that the Word is the Son of that one God; who was begotten of him; by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made; that he was sent, by the Father, into the Virgin, and born of Her, Man and God, the Son of Man and the Son of God; and called Jesus Christ: This was then his Faith, and with him Christ had a being before he was born into the World, and was, what we assert, the Creator of all things: Thus afterwards he tells us, in the same book, the Father is God, 
fol. 147.  the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God, and dilates upon, and vindicates that truth: He tells us that the Father is God Almighty and most high, 
fol. 149.  and that the Son justly claims the same titles, and that the Father and the Son are one God; and indeed, 
c. 21.22. fol. 219, 220.  the farther proof of this, is the general design of that book. He confirms the same Doctrine in his Apology for Christianity against the Gentiles. Besides these books, he wrote one particularly concerning the Trinity, where, among other things, quoting the words of the Prophet Hosea, I will not save them by my bow, nor by horses, 
Hos. 1.7.  nor by horsemen, but I will save them by the Lord their God: He infers from thence, If God promises them Salvation in their God, or by him, and yet saves them only by Christ, why should any Man be afraid to call Christ God, since he is called so by his Father in Scripture? Nay, if the Father saves none but by God, no man can be saved by God the Father, who does not confess Christ to be God; in and by whom God promises to give salvation; whosoever acknowledges him to be God, shall obtain Salvation in Christ, 
De Trinit. fol. 236.  who is God; whosoever acknowledges him not to be God, shall not be saved by him: With a great deal more to the same purpose. In conclusion, he takes notice of some, who, in those days, argued at the Socinian rate, That if Christ were God, and Christ suffered Death, than the Deity suffered death, to which he answers appositely enough, That if Christ had been only God, and had died, their conclusion had been true, but Christ, being man as well as God, his Humanity suffered indeed, but his Divine Nature was unprejudiced, untouched. Thus have we largely and impartially examined this Father about this Doctrine of Christ's being God, and his assertions are so plain, and direct, and the Heresies he impeached in his writings, of such a nature, that they both concur exactly in the confirmation of the same; that our Saviour was truly and really God, equal with his Father, and the most high God.  
We have another glorious luminary of the same Church S. Cyprian, that holy Martyr of Jesus Christ, and the laborious Bishop of Carthage; who as he was a great admirer of the writings of Tertullian, so concurred with him in the same Doctrine, of the Divinity of Jesus Christ: S. Cyprian then, in his book of the vanity of Idols, having settled that fundamental truth, That there is only one God, presently shows, that our Saviour is God too: this he would not have done, had he judged the inference good, that to believe Jesus Christ was God, was, to make two Gods: He would not so soon contradict himself, nor go about to set up a new Idol, when he was endeavouring to exterminate the old. Thus than He tells us, That whereas the Jews, a stubborn and rebellious people had long abused the Goodness of God, God was resolved to call to himself, from among the Gentiles, a People that should show forth better effects of his mercy, than they did; the Manager of this Goodness, 
Cyprian. de Idolor. vanit. Edit. Ox. p. 15.  Grace and Method was He, who is the Word, and Son of God; who had been foretold by all the Prophets, the enlightner and teacher of all Mankind: This Son, is the Power, the Fullness, the Wisdom, the Glory of God: He entered into the Virgin, assumed flesh, by the co-operation of the Holy Ghost: God united with Man: He is our God, He is Christ, who put on the nature of those Men, whom He leads to his Father; Christ would be what Man is, that Man might be what Christ is. In his second book of Testimonies against the Jews, 
p. 34, 35.  he spends one whole chapter, in heaping up such Scripture texts, as, before Socinian Commentaries were thought on, were judged sufficient proofs, that Christ was God: In particular, he insists on those passages of the 45 Psalms, which are applied to our Saviour so directly by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
1 Joh. 5.7.  That famous place, There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one, has been much controverted, it seems to be a very plain text for the Trinity, and consubstantiality, or equality or sameness of nature, in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: but Critics observe that this verse is wanting in several Copies of considerable Antiquity: and Dr. Burnet, in his account of the Library in Switzerland, 
See his Lett.  takes notice of its being wanting in several Manuscripts, he had purposely examined: yet, after all, our S. Cyprian, much more ancient than the eldest Manuscript he or any other Critical Writers have yet given us an account of, in his book of Church-unity, quotes it, as we read it i● our Bibles. Socinus takes it for granted, th● passage was inserted into the Bible by som● zealous Trinitarian, who made use of an● fraud to advance their own Error. S. Hi●rome, who had found it wanting in som● Copies in his time, which was about 400 years after Christ, imputes the want of it more rationally to Arrian transcribers, who finding themselves pinched with so plain a text, when they could not answer it, resolved to take it quite away: This he signifies in a short Epistle to Eustochium, printed formerly frequently in the Latin Bibles, of late omitted, as is observed by the learned Dr. Fell, late Bishop of Oxford, in his notes on S. Cyprian. S. Cyprian by quoting the verse as we have it, confirms S. Jerome's opinion, and renders that of Socinus ridiculous, for he quoted it before the Arrian Heresy was founded, and that twice in his Works: therefore could he have no such design as Socinus insinuates: Yet S. Cyprian's opinion is, that whosoever does not believe this Unity of the Father, and the Son, 
De Vnit. Ec. p. 100L.  as laid down in that Text, does not believe the Law of God, nor hold the Faith and Truth of the Father and the Son to his Salvation. The ●ame S. Cyprian, recommending Patience to Christians, and that in a time when the ●aging Persecution made it extremely necessary, he advances it by the example of Christ, for says He, Jesus Christ, Deus & Dominus noster, Our God and our Lord, ●as taught us this virtue, not only in his Words, 
De bono Patientiae, p. 213.  ●ut in his Actions; which he clears, as Tertullian before him, by his Descent from Heaven to earth, assuming our nature, and differing in it. Again, in his account of ●he Council of Carthage, held about those ●ho had been baptised by Heretics, among the suffrages of the Bishops there present. Fortunatus, Bishop of Thuchabore, declares, Jesus Christus Dominus & Deus noster, 
p. 233. c. 17  Dei Patris & Creatoris filius, Jesus Christ our Lord and God, the Son of God the Father and Creator, has founded his Church, not upon Heresies, 
c. 29.235.  but upon a Rock. The same title is given him by Euchratius' Bishop of Then●; the same by Venantius Bishop of Tinisa, a Confessor: had not this been agreeable to the common sentiments of the Church in those days; it would certainly have been the occasion of some contests, and others would have observed and reflected on the incautiousness of their Colleagues; but we meet with no differences on this occasion, therefore, we rightly conclude, they spoke agreeably to the Catholic Doctrine. S. Cyprian himself is mighty frequent in such passages, so in his Epistle to Rogatianus, he calls out Lord Jesus Christ, our King, and Judge, and our God: 
Ep. 3. p. 6. Ep. 11. p. 23.  and what higher characters could be given him? In his Epistle to his Presbyters and Deacons, he encourages them to assiduity in Prayer, by the consideration of having Jesus Christ our Lord and God, our Advocate and Mediator, 
Plebi Thibaeri p 123, 125. p. 146, 148.  so again, in his fifty first Epistle to Cornelius Bishop of Rome, in his fifty eighth Epistle twice, in his sixty second to Januarius and others; Christ is our Judge, our Lord and our God; so in his sixty third, in his Epistle to Jubaianus, concerning the invalidity of the Baptism of Heretics: He argues against that Baptism thus, If any one, says he, can be truly baptised by Heretics, he may then by that Baptism obtain remission of sins; if He obtain remission of his sins, he is sanctified, and is made the temple of God: I ask then of what God? if of the Creator, he cannot be his temple, because he believed not in him; if you say of Christ, neither can he be his temple, 
Epist. 73. p. 203.  who denies Christ to be God; if you say he's the temple of the Holy Ghost, seeing the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are all One, how can the Holy Spirit be pleased with him who is an enemy to both the Father and the Son? Here the force of the Martyr's argument lies only in the Identity of nature, in ●he Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and the poison of Heresy consists effectually in denying the Lord Jesus Christ to be God, but he would not have argued thus, had not the Divinity of Christ been the general and well known Doctrine of the Church. 
p. 212.  He uses the same argument again in his 74. Epistle to Pompey, to name no more Now, ●n conclusion, who can imagine that a holy Martyr, so great an enemy to Idolatry, so careful to refute the vulgar Error, of a plurality of Gods, should yet so very frequently use such suspicious expressions, as must needs make the World believe, he ●wned Christ for God, and consequently, multiplied those Gods himself, which he exposed others so much for, if the whole objection were not to be removed by that assertion, that the Father was God, and the Son God, yet they were not two, but one God? an Identity of their nature, necessarily inferring the Unity of the Godhead.  
The same Africa affords us yet another Writer of great antiquity and learning. Arnobius, in his several books against the Pagan Religion, in his first book, reflecting upon several of their Gods, he takes notice how much they were grieved, that Christ should be worshipped by Christians, and received for, and esteemed as a God. And whereas Pagans derided Christians, 
Arnobius adver. gentes. l. 1. p. 21. Edit. Leidensis.  for accounting him a God, whom they owned to have been born a Man, he retorts upon them, that They were guilty of that crime; but, says He, supposing all you object in that respect were true, would not Christ, on account merely of those benefits he confers upon us, deserve to be called and to be thought a God? He argues from their own principles, who thought every considerable Invention of any Man was enough to procure his being Deified, as Bacchus for finding out the use of Wine, Ceres for Bread, Minerva for Oil, etc. But in the mean time Arnobius openly enough acknowledges, that Christians did receive Christ as God: He speaks yet more plainly soon after, Christ for his benefits ought to be called God: Nay, He really is God, without any scruple or ambiguity; and would you have us deny him Worship, or disown his Government? But will some angry Pagan cry out, is Christ a God? We answer, he is God, and a God of infinite Power too, and (which will more exasperate an infidel) he was sent from the supreme King to us, upon the greatest errand in the World: Perhaps the Pagan, being more enraged at this, will demand a Proof of what we say; there needs certainly no greater proof of Christ's Divinity, than an exact examination of his actions. If it be objected, that He was a Magician, and performed his mighty works only by unlawful arts, Let them who object this show us any of their Magicians, who ever did any thing like what was done by Christ: or if they have done any thing of a prodigious nature, it has still been by invoking some other Being: but Christ, without any Helps, without any Magic Rites or Observations, did all he did by the power of his own Name; and what was proper and agreeable to, and worthy of a True God, nothing he did was hurtful or mischievous, but helpful, saving, and the kind effects of divine Bounty: And was he Mortal? was he only one of us, at whose ordinary commands Weaknesses, Sicknesses, Fevers and all bodily Pains were gone at once? Was he one of us, 
l. 1. p. 27. etc.  whose very Look the Devils could not endure? Was he a mere Man, whose slightest touch could cure the bloody Issue, whose hand could make Hydropic humours vanish, who could make the Lame run, the Withered Hand recover its motion, the Blind to see, nay those, who were born without eyes, to see the light? Was He a mere Man at whose word the angry Seas laid down their rage, the rugged Storms and Tempests sunk, while He, with a dry foot walked upon the swelling billows, and trod upon the Ocean's back, the waves themselves standing amazed at the prodigious action, and humble nature submitting to her Founder? And so he proceeds in a florid and pathetic stile by an induction of particulars, and a relating of circumstances, to prove that Christ must be True God, and that all the Idols of the Heathen were none. Again, a little after, he tells the Pagans; Christ was the high God, the God from the beginning, a God sent from unknown kingdoms, God sent by the Prince of all things, to be the universal Saviour; whom neither the Sun nor Stars, if they have any sense, nor the Governors, nor Princes of this World, nor those mighty Gods, who (assuming that terrible name) affright poor mortal creatures, were able to find out, or so much as to guests what He was, or whence He came; at whose very look, then when he was clothed with flesh, 
p. 32.  the universal fabric trembled, and fell into a sudden disorder. Again, Arnobius brings in the Pagans objecting, If Christ was God, why was He seen in the form of a Man? Why was He put to Death as Men are? to this he answers, Was there any other way whereby that invisible power, which had no Corporeal Substance, could suit itself to the World, or be visibly present in the assemblies of mortal Men, than by assuming a covering of solid matter, which might be a proper object whereon Men might fix their eyes? What mortal Creature could have seen or discovered him, if he had come down to earth in his own original Nature, or such as he is in his Divinity? Therefore he took upon him the form of a Man, that he might be seen, and looked upon, that he might speak, and teach, and perform all those things for which he was sent into the World: And, whereas He died as a Man, 
p. 37.  it's true, his Humane Body was fastened upon the Cross, but his Divine Nature was incapable of suffering; his Body only suffered, and that for the Salvation of those very Wretches, by whose cruelty he suffered. The same Author, reflecting upon the curiosity of the Heathens (because they would not believe what they did not understand) asks them a great many questions about the Originals, or natural causes of several things in the World, which puzzled them in those, and confound us their posterity in these days; He wonders then that they should deride Christians, because they cannot explain all the Mysteries of their Religion, and own their inabilities in the case, when They were so much to seek in those ordinary cases? Our concerns are mysteries indeed, Et ideo Christus licet nobis invitis Deus, Deus inquam Christus, hoc enim saepe dicendum est: ut infidelium dissiliat, & dirumpatur auditus, etc. Therefore Christ who is God, in spite of all your opposition, that Christ I say, who is God (for that must be repeated often to scourge the ears of Infidels) speaking, by God's command, in the form of a Man, 
Adu. gent. l. 2. p. 85.  knowing the blindness of humane understandings, and the weakness of our apprehensions, forbade us to be curious or inquisitive into matters so far removed, only ordering us to direct our thoughts and souls to him, who is the original of all these things: What advice Arnobius gives his Pagans, in pursuance of this discourse, would be very proper for our Socinians, among whom a modest opinion of their own Natural strength, and an humble supposition of God's superior Wisdom, would cure that Incredulity they are at present guilty of: Arnobius soon after lays down this Truth, That none can save Souls but an Almighty God, nor is there any who can give them long life or perpetuity but only He, who is himself immortal, and perpetual and uncircumscribed by any boundaries of time: Yet this work of saving souls he ascribes to the Son of God, 
Adu. Gen. l. 2. p. 87.  therefore according to his sentiments, the Son of God is that immortal, all powerful and unbounded God: To all these evidences, I shall only add one of  
Lactantius, the Scholar of the forecited Arnobius, who endeavouring to reconcile the worship which the Christians paid to the Father and the Son, to those adorations which they acknowledged only to belong to one God, writes thus, 
Instit. l. 4. c. 29. p. 445. Ed. Hack.  Where we say the Father is God, and the Son is God, we do not say they are different Gods, nor do we separate them one from another, for neither can the Father be divided from the Son, nor the Son from the Father; for the Father in a relative sense, cannot be named without the Son, nor the Son be begotten without the Father: Since then the Father makes the Son relatively, and the Son the Father, they have both one Mind, one Spirit, one substance, only the Father is as an exuberant Spring, the Son as a stream flowing from it: the Father is as the Sun in the firmament, the Son as the rays beaming from that Sun; who, because he is dear and faithful to his Father, can no more be separated from him, than the stream from the Spring, or beams from the body of the Sun; for the water of the fountain is in the stream, and the light of the Sun in those rays which issue from it: And this is plain and pertinent enough.  
And thus have I gone through the Writings of those first Fathers, who are of the greatest Name and Reputation, for their learning and piety in the Churches of God: I have examined on this account, only such Men as lived before the Arrian controversy was on foot, so that they cannot be suspected of partiality in the case, and either we must believe these Men knew very well what was the General Belief of Christians in those earliest ages, or they did not; if they did not understand what the Catholic Faith really was, we are all strangely in the dark, and the Socinians are no more capable of giving an account of the Faith of the primo-primitive Church in contradiction to what we now assert, than we are in agreeance to it; nay, there lie all the presumptions in the World against them in the point; for all the Writers, extant afterwards, with an almost Universal consent, are directly against them: So that unless the true Christian Faith were entirely lost about the time of the great Nicene Council, the Socinians must of necessity acknowledge, that the Christian Church generally believed, that Christ was true and real God. Nor can they secure themselves, even among the several Heretical Clans of those ages; for though they own Artemon and Paulus Samosatenus and Photinus, and Arrius, and Aëtius, etc. for great and very Orthodox Men, and the sole Pillars of truth in those times, yet neither did Artemon agree with Paulus, nor Paulus with Photinus, nor Photinus with Arrius, or he with Aëtius: and the same Writers call our Socinians sometimes by the name of Samosatenians, sometimes of Photinians, sometimes of Arrians and Semi-Arrians, yet really they agree exactly with none of them, as might easily be proved by comparing their opinions together. Now if Artemon, and Paulus, and Photinus, and the rest, were such very great Men in all respects, and such careful preservers of the true Apostolical Faith, in those things wherein they agree with the Socinian sentiments, why should not we believe they used as exact a care, and were as certainly in the right, in those particulars wherein they differed from them? for doubtless such Good Men would not admit of any Errors in any points of weighty and important concern. Those Men certainly must presume very much upon their own infallibility, who, tho' they are at odds among themselves, will admit of none to be in the right but such who, and where they agree with them in the most singular and paradoxical opinions. But if, on the other side, we admit that these Fathers, I have quoted on this occasion, had real opportunities of knowing the General Sentiments of the Christian Church in their days, and that they really did know them, the result of that acknowledgement will be this, either they were honest and faithful deliverers of the same Catholic Faith down to us, or they were not; if they were not honest and faithful in delivering down the true Faith in their Writings, then holy and zealous Martyrs, and devout Confessors, must have proved themselves a pack of impudent cheats and notorious villains, in that they have left us such accounts of that Faith, whereby Salvation must be attained, as can only serve to cheat and abuse their Readers, and lead them into unreasonable and damnable Errors: They only laid so many snares in their unhappy Writings, for the ruining men's Souls, and their wicked designs have had but too too fatal effects upon the World. Now all this is very hard to believe of Men, who conversed with the inspired Apostles, some of whom had that glorious power of working Miracles conferred upon them, some laid down their Lives, with the greatest joys, and triumphs for the sake of their blessed Master, and the rest were ready to have done so, whensoever Providence should have summoned them to that fiery trial. It's hard to believe that such Men could be betrayers or corrupters of the Faith in its most Essential Articles. If these Fathers were honest and faithful in their Writings, and set down there only what were their real thoughts, as became honest and good Men, if they defended Christianity against its subtle and powerful enemies with a just Industry and Integrity, then, in what I have alleged from them, we have a faithful and honest account of what the Ancient Church believed concerning the Nature of the Son of God, and we have reason to satisfy ourselves, and to give praise to God, who has still afforded us so much light, as that we can agree with the Eldest and most Apostolical Churches in that saving truth, That the Son of God, who in fullness of time took upon him our flesh, is really God equal with his Father.  
If any should inquire Why I only make use of those Fathers who lived before the Nicene Council? The reason is, because they are less to be suspected by those we have to do with, as having no interest in those Controversies, which were afterwards managed by particular Persons, with a great deal of heat and eagerness. Besides, the Socinians are sometimes apt to boast, that the most ancient Fathers are on their side, whereas they'll freely own the Principal Writers afterwards are against them; not but that several did undertake the Patronage of the Arrians and their accomplices, after the Council of Nice, but their Writings are gone, and they lie there at the mercy of their Adversaries. Not only the Socinians themselves are apt sometimes to Appeal to the Ante-Nicene Fathers, but several Great Men, such as Erasmus, Grotius, Petavius, and others, are apt to yield this to them: therefore it was proper in the first place, to give a true account of the first Writers, whose Doctrines others afterwards did but repeat and illustrate. Our Church principally recommends to us the Doctrine that's nearest to the fountain head, that agreeing best with the fountain itself, from which it is derived, that is the Word of God. Now the Socinians sometimes would fain put in for an Interest with these Ancient Writers, 
Vid. Epist. intermutuas Ruari & Zwickeri in Ruari Epist centuriá primâ.  and Zwicker particularly in his Irenicum Irenicor. (tho' he was very far himself from agreeing with his brethren in all particulars) Yet upon better consideration, they are loath to depend upon that authority of the Fathers, knowing too well, that they must be cast by their verdict: Therefore their great Patriarch Socinus himself in his answer to Vujekus the Polonian Jesuit, who had written a book on purpose to prove the Divinity of Christ, where Vujekus presses him with the Authority of the Fathers, answers thus, That the perpetual and universal consent of the whole World, is of the less weight against Divine Testimonies, tho' obscure, when those things which are the subjects of that consent, evidently oppose reason and common sense. But here we may say, That truth can never be so entirely lost, that the whole World should always desert it; but where Scripture-expressions are obscure, the perpetual consent of the whole World about their sense would be incomparably the best interpretation of those obscurities; and it's very hard to believe, that the whole World should perpetually agree, in what's against reason and common sense. A great number have embraced the Roman Doctrine of Transubstantiation, but we know, that neither All, nor the greatest part of the World embraced it, nor was it held perpetually by any; and tho' we may allow Socinus to have been a man of great Reason, yet we may allow those who held the contrary Opinion to His, to have been as Rational as himself, and perhaps, on a strict scrutiny, it may appear, contradictious to reason and common sense, to assert that our blessed Saviour was no more than a mere Man. But in short, Socinus never troubles himself to deny those Authorities the Jesuit had ramassed from the Fathers, nor to answer them, but makes use of one Herculean Argument against them all, for first he tells us, It can't be said, the whole doctrine or the greatest part of the doctrine of the ancient Church was opposite to the Socinians, or agreeable to the Doctrine of their Adversaries; for there were many, whose Writings are now wholly lost, whose opinions therefore we cannot judge of; and many there were, who never wrote any thing at all; and they might be of a contrary mind to those whose Writings we still have, and they were infinitely more numerous: That the Arrian Heresy was once spread far and wide, favoured by Princes, confirmed by Councils, and almost generally entertained, tho' afterwards by degrees it vanished, therefore, says He, our Adversaries need not boast of that universal and perpetual consent of the Church; whether it were real or verbal; for which was the true Church, and where it was, was for several ages disputable. Itaque haec, Authoritatum & testimoniorum ex Patribus & Conciliis, congeries, nullas vires habet, praesertim vero adversum nos, qui ab istis Patribus & Conciliis, quae extant, nos dissentire non dissitemur: 
Socinus contra Vujekum ad classem argum. 7 c. 9 p. 618.  Therefore this heap of Authorities from Fathers and Councils is of no force, especially against us, who freely own our dissent from those Fathers and Councils which are yet extant: Nor can it ever be proved by the Writings of any of our Party, that they did either assert or believe, that those who wrote before the Nicene Council, whose works are extant, were of our mind, tho' they were as little of the mind of our Adversaries as of ours. This now is plain dealing, and more ingenuous by far than wresting a few sentences, contrary to the Writers minds, only to amuse the ignorant with an empty show of Antiquity. But more plainly yet, Socinus soon after confesses, that the extant Fathers differed from his Party, in that they assert, That Christ, or the Son of God, had a Being of the substance of his Father before the world's creation: that he had often appeared to the Fathers under the Old Testament; nay, that that one God his Father, had made the World itself and all other things by him, and that by him He had made known to Men, whatsoever he desired should be known by them: Thus we have Socinus his own confirmation of what we had before produced as the sense of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. After this, he touches slightly upon some pieces written by those first Fathers which are of suspected credit, but we have nothing to do with them, having quoted nothing from any of them, but what among Learned Men at present is of undoubted reputation. As for the Fathers who writ after the Council of Nice he fairly owns, that the Socinian's business is to oppose those Errors, which they gave credit to by their Authority in the Church of God. The Fathers than are on our side, whether those of the eldest, or those of an inferior date; nor can we desire a greater advantage to our cause, since we can neither find out any means by which these Heretics should know God's Will and Meaning in his Word, better than these Ancient and Heroic Assertors of the Christian Religion: We have no account of any new Visions or Revelations, any of them have had: Nor have we heard of any Miracles performed by them in confirmation of their Heterodoxies; therefore when we believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our Saviour, is God equal with his Father; we follow that truth, which, to our apprehension, is very plain in Scripture, which holy Saints and Martyrs have from the very beginning of Christianity embraced, and which really is That Faith which was once delivered to the Saints, as God willing will yet more plainly appear hereafter.  
I observe here by the way what Socinus touches upon, and what others of his Disciples allege farther, that tho' the Fathers do thus make Jesus Christ to be God, yet they always put a great difference between Him and his Father, and insist particularly on his own Words in the case, where He tells the Jews, That his Father is greater than He, that, his Father orders, commands, directs and enables Him to do every thing, etc. It's true they do sometimes speak suspiciously in this matter; but what solves the Objection from such Texts of Scripture, solves those Objections which may be drawn from such expressions in those ancient Writers, viz. That, where they urge such things, their meaning is only to assert that difference there is between Christ's Divine and his Humane Nature; as He is Man we doubt not but he is inferior to his Father, that he received power from Him, and acted here upon earth in subordinacy to hi● as He was God, he was equal with his Father, always united with him, having the same Will, Power, Knowledge and Wisdom which his Father had; by which means, whereas mere flesh and blood would have had a strange reluctance against such sufferings as were necessarily prepared for him, his Divinity, in concurrence with that of his Father, supported and enabled mere Humanity to effect and make good the work he had undertaken. Thus we find the same Scriptures asserting of Christ, 
Acts 2.32.  that his Father raised him from the dead, and that he risen from the dead of himself, he asserting to himself only that power of laying down his life, 
Joh. 10.18.  and of taking it up again, and both true: as He was God as well as Man, none could have taken his life from him without his own consent, as He was Man as well as God, none could have brought that flesh and blood to life again, which was now a carcase by the reparation of the rational Soul, without the concurrence of Almighty God; but as such He and his Father were one: They both Willed and both Acted (as they both were able) to effect the same thing. But besides this (which answers those beforenamed seeming difficulties) it's enough to say, that whereas the first Fathers of the Christian Church were irreconcilable enemies to Idolatry, or to worshipping a Multiplicity of Gods, which is the same thing; whereas in all their Writings they took care to vindicate the Honour of the one true God, in opposition to all false Gods; when they assert Jesus Christ to be God, they mean not that He is a false God; for they prove themselves to be the only true Worshippers, and they make it their boast that they worship Jesus Christ; therefore they looked upon him as true and real God, and worshipped him only as such. If then these Fathers did think Christ to be a God of an inferior or subordinate Nature, or to be a Created God, as the Socinians would have him be, they directly contradicted their own Principles, and brought in again that multiplicity, or at least plurality of Gods, they had before exploded. As for the notion of a made or created God, or a God, à parte post, as Socinus calls him, it's a dream so senseless and full of contradiction, that it's only to be wondered at, that Men pretending to any sharpness of Reason should ever stumble upon so absurd a conceit: For Scripture no where makes a distinction between God self-originated, and God made by another, and both true: but it lays us down a plain difference between the true God the Creator and the Creature, or any thing that is created by that true God, and therefore tho' there be in Nature such things as Spiritual and Corporeal Being's, yet the allowance of that difference makes or introduces no intermediate Being's between the Creator and the Creature, every thing that is not God, is made by God; every thing that's made by God is not God; and so it must follow, that, if the Son be made by God, he is not God, but a Creature; if the Son be in all particulars equal with God, he is not made by God, but is God himself. Again, The notion of a true and real God is infinity in every respect, Heathens, Jews, Mahometans, Christians, all agree in that: if this be a true notion of a real God, it must be such a notion, as must sufficiently distinguish him from all other Being's, infinite Attributes being wholly and only proper to and inseparable from Him: If then these infinite attributes do agree to our Lord and Saviour, He is and must therefore be the true God, in contradistinction to all created Being's; if they do not agree to him, than He cannot be the true God, therefore he must be a false God, therefore he must be an Idol, therefore he must be no God at all, and this is the true and inevitable consequence of the Socinian notion of a made or a Created God: For that the Supreme God should make another supreme as himself, and yet at the same time continue supreme himself, is nonsense and a contradiction; that the Supreme God should make another God, who yet is no God, because the attributes belonging to a real God are not applicable to Him, is a contradiction too; therefore the Socinians and their Adherents, must either declare in plain 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 mere 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 ancient 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 public Councils, and such as were approved by them, with respect to the Samosatenian and Arrian Heresies; in which its 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 suspense, 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 mere 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 Anathematised; 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 Heresy 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 firstborn of every Creature, the Wisdom, and Word, and Power of God, existing before all ages, not in his Father's 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 Catholic 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 appealed to Universal Judgement, 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 condemned by the first Council of Antioch, renounced his Heretical opinions, but soon returned to his vomit again, and undertook their vindication, this Apostasy of his made a very great number of Bishops meet at Antioch a second time, they looked on the Controversy as of so great importance, that even in the reign of Aurelian a cruel persecuting Emperor, 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 United 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 than 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 revived; 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 Apologetic 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. When the Arrian Controversy was on foot, Alexander Bishop of Alexandria condemned it in a Synod of almost an hundred Bishops, who all concluded the Doctrine of Arius a perfect Innovation, not at all consistent with the Faith of the Universal Church; what Arius asserted we have in Alexander's circular Epistle, viz. That God was not always a Father, but that there was a time wherein he was not the Father; that the Word of God was not always, but had its original as other Creatures out of nothing: for He that is God framed or made him who had no Being, out of what had no Being: Therefore there was a time when he was not, etc. Of these Heterodox assertions of Arius, Alexander in that Epistle gives us a confutation, and that strong and pithy, and such, as being drawn from plain texts of Scripture, could never have been opposed, had not there lived in elder ages, some, who were able to study out as perverse glosses for positive texts, as the Socinians do now a-days. But that's not all; what Alexander insists upon is the disagreement of these positions with the Churches ancient Faith; so he first styles the Arian Heresy, a forerunner of Antichrist; and properly enough: After this He says, they were Apostates, such as had fallen off from the Faith of the Church, and delivered such Doctrines as were no way consonant to Scriptures. Whoever heard such things before, says He, or who is there, who hearing them now, 
Socratis Hist. Eccl. l. 1. c. 6. Edit. Val.  would not be amazed, and stop his ears, that they might not be defiled with hearing such abominable stuff? That there had been many Heresies before, but this the worst of all the rest, and making the nearest approaches to Anti-Christianism: Thus Alexander in his circular Epistle: But Alexander must have been equally silly and impudent, to have written in this manner to all the Bishops of the Church, when his business was to satisfy them of the reasons of his proceed against Arius and his Accomplices, and when he was to countermine the stratagems and interests of Eusebius of Nicomedia, a subtle and powerful adversary, If the Doctrine of the Son's co-eternity and co-essentiality with his Father, had not been the received and well known Doctrine of the Church; for the whole design of his elaborate Epistle had been blasted, had but his Brethren the Bishops or any part of them, retorted upon him, that Arius taught no new Doctrine, but what had been held even from our Saviour's time, and generally taught in all Christian Congregations: but we find nothing of this kind offered at, and Alexander himself going off the stage of the world at last, with the reputation of a very wise and a very good Man. Eusebius of Nicomedia then makes a considerable party for his Client Arius, and supports and encourages him to resolution in his Opinions; this made the Controversy grow hot, and obliged Constantine the Great, who desired by all means to preserve the Peace of the Church, to call that famous General Council at the City of Nice in Bythinia, to determine at once the Arian and the Paschal Controversy; the Emperor himself in his Letter to Alexander and Arius, by Hosius of Corduba, seems to be very indifferent in the Controversy: his indifference was enough to give life and vigour to the Eusebian or Arian party, yet all would not do, for, notwithstanding the Emperor's indifferency, and Eusebius his industry and activity, upon fairly debating the matter, of 318. Fathers which made up that Assembly, there were only Five who refused to subscribe the condemnation of Arius; Eusebius of Caesarea, the Church Historian, seemed to hesitate a little at first, but, after mature deliberation, subscribed, and gave an account of his Subscription, and the reasons of it, to his own Diocese of Caesarea, wherein he gives them a Copy of that Creed himself had drawn up, wherein he declared, He believed in God the Father Almighty, Creator of all things visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ the Word of God, God of God, light of light, life of life, the only begotten Son, the firstborn of every Creature, begotten of God the Father before all ages, by whom all things were made, who for our Salvation was made flesh, and conversed among Men: Thus Eusebius, 
Socratis l. 1. c. 8.  this he declares to have been always his Faith, and therefore he could safely subscribe to that Form proposed in the Council itself, and so he did, and he declares, that He willingly subscribed those Anathema's propounded against Arius, because they particularly forbade the use of such words with which Scripture was unacquainted, of which several, which he there instances in, were in the Arian Formulary, or Confession. The Nicene Council itself, in their Synodical Epistle, declares the opinions and expressions of Arius so uncouth and blasphemous, 
c. 9  that the Council could scarce have patience to hear them, that He had yet unhappily seduced two Bishops with his impious Heresy, whom they therefore had excommunicated, with Arius himself. The Emperor Constantine in his Epistle to the Church of Alexandria, on the conclusion of the Council, tells them, 
Ibidem.  that Arius and his Companions had blasphemously contradicted Scriptures, and our Holy Faith, that when three hundred and eighteen Bishops, had settled the Faith according to God's Word, only Arius, seduced by the Devil, refused to submit to it; he advises them to embrace that Faith which God himself had delivered; that all should return to their dear Brethren, from whom that instrument of the Devil, had separated, them: And thus the whole Controversy came at last to rest in the determinations of entire Councils. These particular persons Alexander, Eusebius and Constantine, had called the Arrian opinion Apostasy, a seduction from the true Faith, a subserviency to the Devil, disagreeable to God's Word, etc. the Councils gave their positive Determinations, and Confessions of Faith, suitably opposed to those encroachments men in those days made upon the true Catholic Faith. Thus the second Council at Antioch, before mentioned, gives us this Confession of Faith, with respect to our Saviour, We confess our Lord Jesus Christ, begotten of his Father, according to the Spirit, before the Worlds; born in the last days of the Virgin, according to the flesh, one Person of the Heavenly Divinity and of humane flesh united; whole God, even with his body, but not God according to his body, whole Man, even with his Divinity, but not according to his Divinity, wholly adorable, even with his body, but not adorable according to his body, entirely adoring God himself, even with his Divinity, but not adoring him according to his Divinity; wholly uncreated, even with his body, but not uncreated according to the body, wholly created even with his Divinity, but not created according to his Divinity; wholly consubstantial with God even with his body, but not consubstantial with God in his body, and wholly consubstantial with Man, even with his Divinity, but not consubstantial with Men in his Divinity, etc. Where it's observable, those Father's use the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Consubstantial, 50. years and more before the Nicene Council; and Eusebius of Caesarea, in his before-cited Epistle to his Diocese, owns, it was an expression used by some, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Forhesii Inst. Theol; Hist. l. 1. c. 4.  by some ancient Bishops and Writers, a thing either not observed or strangely forgotten by some modern Authors. This Confession of the Antiochian Council, was confirmed in the Synodical Epistle of the Council of Constantinople afterwards, and so made theirs. The Council of Nice, gives us this Creed, We believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, begotten of his Father, and the only begotten, i. e. of the substance of his Father, God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made, both that are in heaven, and those that are on the earth; who for us Men and for our Salvation came down from Heaven, and was made flesh, and became Man. After the Council of Constantinople, the second General Council reduced that of Nice to that Form which we now make use of in the Communion Service. A Confession of Faith so full and so plain, that so long as that's retained and faithfully believed, the Socinian Heresy can never get any considerable advantage against us: (the consideration of which has occasioned some late struggle of an heretical party, to get that Creed, as well that called the Athanasian expunged out of our Liturgy) To this agrees Their Council-book, sent to the Bishop of Rome and other Italian Bishops, assembled together at Rome: and to the same agreed, before them, Athanasius, that great standard of the true Faith against the Arians, in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or exposition of the Faith, extant among his other works; and to the same we may join that excellent Confession of Faith appointed to be used on particular days, in our Liturgy, under the name of the Athanasian Creed, sound and orthodox, but not of so great Antiquity. And thus have we shown at large what the Doctrine of the Primitive Church was, with respect to our Saviour's divinity, long before the Bishops of Rome pretended to the mighty name of the Universal Bishop, or could carry on any ambitious design by altering the Faith every where received in the Church: this Primitive Faith is what the Church of England, and with her all the Body of the reformed Churches hold, as I showed before, and which even the Church of Rome itself dares not attack, nor shall the gates of Hell ever prevail against it, Amen. And thus have we done with our fourth evidence of the real Divinity of the Son of God, viz. the Faith of the Primitive Church. We proceed to the  
Fifth, and last, which we propounded to that purpose, and we shall now prove, that Jesus Christ is true and perfect God, from that common, and every way approved practice of adoring and presenting our Prayers to him: This adoring and praying to Christ, is a duty so properly incumbent on all persons who hope for Salvation through his name, that the Socinians themselves in the Racovian Catechism, in answer to that question, Quid sentis de iis Hominibus qui Christum nec invocandum nec adorandum censent? 
Catech. Racou. l. 6. c. 1. p 92.  What think you of those men who conclude that Christ is neither to be called upon nor worshipped? they thus reply, Since those are certainly Christians who acknowledge Jesus to be the Christ, or that heavenly King of an Holy people, and therefore worship him in a Divine manner, and scruple not to call upon his name, (on which account we formerly described Christians as such who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ) it's easy to understand, that those who will not do so, are not yet Christians, tho' they may otherwise profess the name of Christ, and pretend to adhere to his Doctrine. In this we have the Great Prophets of that Party, declaring how essential praying to Christ is to Christianity, and this their witness is true; but, in the mean time, we cannot but sverely reflect upon their Impudence, who will first make us believe that our blessed Saviour is no more than a mere Man, and then would persuade us either that we ought or may call upon him in our Prayers, or Worship him: but that we may have the fairer view of their folly and madness in this particular, we shall lay down this Argument, 
All that Divine Worship is Idolatry which is paid to any Being but him who is the true God.  
None of that Divine Worship is Idolatry which is paid to Jesus Christ.  
Therefore Jesus Christ is the true God.   
Where by Divine Worship we mean, that Worship, either inward or outward, which by the Laws of God or nature, is ascribed and appropriated to the supreme Being: The true God then is, that supreme or sovereign Being: and by Idolatry I mean, such an application of that true Divine Worship belonging to the supreme Being, to any Creatute, or created Being, as is forbidden by the first or second Commandment in the Decalogue, from whence alone, the true notion of Idolatry, or regular and properly applied Divine Worship, can be taken. I assert then,  
That all that Divine worship which is paid to any Being besides the true God, is plain Idolatry: the excellency of nature in any of those things which may be the Objects of our adorations, make no difference or abatement of guilt in the case: He's as much an Idolater who worships a wise Man, or a great public Benefactor, or a Man Deified, as he who worships a stock or a stone; and he breaks the holy Commandment as notoriously who pays those adorations to a good Angel which belong to Almighty God, as he that pays them to the Devil; for the noblest Created Being in the Universe is no more able to answer the true ends of all Divine Worship, than the most contemptible Creature we can cast our eyes on: and God expresses as great a jealousy of his own honour, when it's taken from him to be given to the purest of his Creatures, as when it's misapplyed in a grosser manner. When God commands Israel, what the Law of Nature must necessarily have prescribed before, Not to have any other Gods before his face, he made no Reservation of any right of appointing another God to himself, but excluded all other Deities, were they made, or subordinate, or , or under what character soever they might be made the objects of our Worship. And when He required they should not make to themselves any graven Image, nor the likeness of any thing either in heaven above, or in earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth, that they should not bow down to them, nor worship them, he excluded every Creature from a capacity of receiving divine Honours; whatsoever was capable of being represented by any figure or image, if it was worshipped, was an Idol, the Creature represented was so, as well as the representation; and invisibility, as well as any other attribute, is ascribed to the true God, as a peculiarity whereby we might know him to be the only proper object of our Worship; by both these precepts, our Saviour is perfectly shut out from being the subject of Divine Honours, as he is supposed by the Socinians to be a God in subordinacy to his Father; and as he is a Creature, and capable, as other Creatures be, of being represented by a material Image, which is wholly inconsistent with a true Divinity. For tho' the Socinians allow our Saviour to be the Son of God in a peculiar manner, by reason of his being begotten in the Womb of the Virgin by the Holy Ghost, or as they call it, by the influence of Almighty God, this does not at all put him out of the rank of the Creatures; nor does that Glory, and Honour, and Immortality, which they suppose his Father to have adorned him with, after his resurrection, make him a God who was before a Man; for all these things are reserved too, in a just proportion, for all such as die in the true Faith of Christ, by which they too, in their turns, must necessarily be Gods; tho' because their proportion of honour is supposed inferior to that of Christ, they must be Gods of an inferior rank and quality: but this Collation of dignity effects nothing at all, and the Socinian distinction between a God made by the supreme God, and a God made by Men, comes to nothing at all: The Poet's Divinity in that point is better, and more rational than theirs, Qui fingit sacros auro vel marmore vultus, Non facit ille Deos, Qui rogat ille facit, He who represents a Divine face in gold or marble makes it not a God, but he who prays to it makes it such: So, if God render the body of our Lord never so illustrious, that makes him not a God, but the presenting of Humane supplications to him makes him one, so that Christ, by that means, comes to be a God made so by Man, as well as any other Idol whatsoever is; therefore, according to the Socinians own principle, Christ being a mere Man, if he be prayed to must be an Idol. There can be no true God, but He who is the Creator of all things, nor does it lie within the reach of omnipotence itself, to make a Creature a Creator, therefore either Christ must be the Creator of all things, or else he cannot be true God, He remains a mere Creature still, and all those adorations presented to him by the Christian World, are notorious and damnable Idolatry. The common notion of Idolatry confirms this, so S. Cyprian tells us, according to the notion he had of it; Idololatria committitur cum Divinus honor alteri datur, Idolatry is then committed, when that Honour which belongs to God is given to another. Gregory Nazianzen gives us this definition of it, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Idolatry is a transposition of divine worship from the maker to the thing made, from God the Creator of all things to the Creature? Therefore so long as our Saviour is really but a Creature, which he must be if he be not the eternal God, so long, all that Worship paid to him, according to this ancient notion, is Idolatry. Now let a Socinian, if he please, impeach those of the Roman Communion as Idolaters, we'll agree with him, and we really believe them to be so: but there's no Argument which can properly be made use of against that Church, to convince them of Idolatry, by reason of their praying to Angels or departed Saints, (from which practice they have been sufficiently and undeniably proved to be Idolaters) but the same will hold good against these: The strength of all Arguments against Rome lying in that, That they transfer the Honour, only due to the Creator, to a Creature; which is as true of all those who pay divine Worship to our Saviour, if he be no more than a Creature. The Gods who have not Created all things, who have not Created Heaven and Earth, shall perish from the earth, and from under the Heaven, as we alleged from the Prophet before, but, according to the Socinians, our Lord did not make the Heaven and the Earth; Therefore, tho' they say he is True God, (at the same time they say, He is not The true God) He must be one of those Gods which must so perish: A conclusion which our Adversaries either must deny, or fairly renounce all their pretences, which indeed are but weak at best, to Christianity. Divine Honours cannot be lawfully offered, or Prayers lawfully presented to any created Being, but upon supposition of some defect in the Creator; for a positive Command from him to that purpose, could it be supposed, would not be enough: for a Divine Command open and plain, cannot make, that which in its own nature is Evil, to be good: things morally good or evil are eternally so, and that from that consideration, that their moral goodness or illness flows from their agreement with, or contradiction to the Divine Nature: Now what was once contradictory to the divine Nature, God himself cannot make agreeable to it, because He cannot change his own Nature, which yet must be, if that which being abstractedly considered, was a sin against him, should now, under the same abstracted consideration, 
1 Tim. 3.16  be no longer so: therefore we are sure God himself cannot command any thing that is morally evil; but diverting that ●orship, which belongs to the Creator of all things, from him, to his own Creature, let that Creature be what it will, is morally evil, it's Idolatry; therefore God cannot command it; therefore he cannot give or have given Christians any positive or open Command to Worship our Saviour, if he be a mere Creature, because that's translating that Worship due only to the true God to the Creature. To suppose any defect in the Creator is blasphemous; if there can be yet any just reason or apparent necessity, of men's addressing themselves to any Being, which is but their fellow Creature, for the attainment of that, for which they were wont to apply themselves only to the supreme Being or Creator before, it must be asserted: but where there is all Perfection concluded to reside in that Sovereign Being, to whom it's granted on all hands, that Divine Worship is due, there's no kind of necessity that we should apply ourselves to any Intermedial Power, or go round about when we may have a direct access to the throne of grace. While we own Christ to be the True God, as his Father is, of the same eternal Nature, whatsoever obliges us in our necessities to call upon the True God, obliges to call upon him: If He be a mere Man, whatsoever obliges us to Worship the Lord our God, and to serve him only, excludes Christ from being any such Object of our adorations; and we cannot reasonably believe, but that, after our Saviour had baffled the Tempter by that assertion, when He came to see our Saviour permit himself, nay, and encourage and command himself to be Worshipped, He would have reflected upon our Saviour as false to his own Principles, and therefore none of God's Son, or the world's Saviour; and the reflection must have been good, unless the Devil had been satisfied, beyond dispute, that He whom he had tempted under the veil of a body assumed, was really and truly God; As such, the Devil found him, in his humble state, able to confound, able to command him, and that in his own name upon all occasions: Devils trembled at the sight of him, as of their original and all-powerful Creator, at whose hands they had received a glorious and blissful Being, but had foolishly and ingratefully fallen from it: So the guilty Soul trembles now at the distant apprehensions of its terrible Judge, and according to Evangelical assertions, at his dreadful approach will cry eagerly to the hills to fall upon it, and to the rocks to cover it, if possible, from the dismal effects of infinite and insupportable Fury. The Apostle tells us, That the earnest expectation of the Creature waiteth for the manifestation of the Sons of God, 
Rom. 8.19, 20, 21, 22.  That the Creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the Creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of Corruption, into the glorious liberty of the children of God. And that we know that the whole Creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now: By the Creature here we understand all creatures whatsoever, or all created Being's, of a purer or of a grosser Nature; and the Creature is agreeably interpreted in the last cited verse, by the whole Creation; and this interpretation is so general, that it seems incontestable: Hence we infer, that, if our Saviour was a mere Creature, he was under the same necessities and inconveniences as all other parts of the Creation were: He must have earnestly expected the manifestation of the Sons of God, as they themselves, being a part of the Creation, do, i. e. to see the time wherein the Servants of God in spite of all sinister Opinions and Prejudices against them, shall be gloriously proved to all the World, to be what they are, the real Sons of God, and infinitely dear to Him: Farther, Christ as a Creature, must have been subject to vanity as well as the rest, liable to corruption, assertable into liberty, something that could groan and be in pain till the time of manifestation; all these things Christ if he were a mere Creature must have been, and must be liable to at this present, and be always in an obnoxious state, till the great day of Judgement and the revelation of the righteous Judge, that is, of Himself: Therefore he cannot now excuse any Man from the Sin of Idolatry, who shall worship him as God, any more than others can, nor indeed can he be yet capable of that divine Glory and Honour, which the Socinians would have us believe were conferred upon him after his Resurrection. This consequence from these words, the Socinians are so very sensible of, that they endeavour by all means to prevent it, and to do so, they fly to one of their conceited interpretations, and the Creature here must be the new Creature; tho' the new Creature be not where in Scripture besides, called either the Creature absolutely, or the whole Creation: Schlichtingius in particular is very elaborate and prolix in proving, that the Creature, can mean nothing else, but what is elsewhere known by that Epithet of New; but here their admired friend Grotius forsakes them, and in effect declares that Interpretation of theirs mere Nonsense. The Sons of God mentioned in the cited Text are unquestionably new Creatures, they must be one before they can be the other: Why then the Creature should signify the same is unaccountable, 
Vid. Deut. 32.1.  especially seeing the Apostle in those Verses puts a plain distinction between them, so that Grotius determines rightly, 
Jer. 47.6.  The words are a Prosopopoeia, wherein by a Figure, no way unusual in Scripture, the Universe and all the parts in it are brought in, as some single Rational Being, expecting, waiting, groaning, subject to vanity, etc. Nor is the subjection to vanity, nor the expectation of liberty, so uncouth an application to the Universe, for besides that, Solomon tells us, that all things under the Sun are only vanity; we cannot wonder at the thing itself: Man's first sin was prejudicial to the whole frame of Nature, all things suffered by it, the Earth fell under a curse, the living Creatures embroiled in a state of War one with one another: Sin and Death having gotten footing in the World, all things in their proportion felt the dismal effects of it; the Creatures according to Prophetical Predictions, were to be partakers of very considerable advantages by the dominion of the Messiah, an Universal Peace was to overspread the World, The Wolf to lie down with the Lamb, and the Ox with the Lion, Children to play securely with the most noxious Creatures, and Men to beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks, etc. And we make no doubt but that when the final determining Judgement shall be passed, and a notorious distinction made between God's Servants and his Enemies: The New Heavens and the new Earth, (whatever Creatures we may imagine to be sharers in it) will be the unchangeable habitations of Peace and Righteousness; and even the most insensible parts of the Creation will receive advantages by those blessings the eternal Government of the Son of God must introduce; At least we may be sure there will be an end put to all those Calamities, and that extreme Servility, the whole Creation lies under at present by reason of Sin: Now to this servile or vain state, the Creature is subject, not willingly, nor indeed by its own fault, but as Subjects suffer, whether they will or not, by the miscarriages of their Princes, so the several parts of the visible Creation, by the folly of Man their Prince and Head. It was from that time the Devil acquired his title of being the Prince of the power of the Air; a Title and Power troublesome to every thing there: but if that Crime committed by Man, subjected the whole Creation to vanity, that merciful Promise of a Saviour given to fallen Man, could not but be of excellent advantage to his visible fellow Creatures, since the performance of that Promise would be so great an abatement to the Devil's Tyranny, and the absolute Government of the Messiah would put a full end to it at last: So that the Criticism of Schlichtingius is childish, when to a reasonable and usual Prosopopoeia he objects, the insensibility of several parts of the Creation, and to the general Interpretation of the Words, a wild assertion, that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies, not the Creature absolutely, but this Creature, i. e. the New Creature, of which he had spoken before, tho' indeed others can find no such thing; whereas really the Article signifies, that the word is put absolutely, and not otherwise; and if, according to Schlicktingius his own suggestion, our Saviour's command to his Disciples that they should go preach the Gospel to every Creature, 
Mar. 16.15  be to be understood of every Creature that was rational, and so capable of receiving benefit by it, then by the same Rule here, by the Creature named absolutely, we are to understand every Creature which is liable to Vanity and Servitude, i. e. every part of the visible Creation. To what we have said that of Tertullian agrees very well as cited by Grotius, Death shall then have an end, when the Devil its manager shall be gone into that fire which God has prepared for him and his Angels, 
Grotius is loc.  he being first cast into the bottom of the Abyss, when the manifestation of the Sons of God shall redeem the Creature every where subjected to vanity by Sin, than the Creature, being restored to its Innocency and Integrity, the tame beasts shall play with the wild, and children with Serpents, God laying his Enemies, the works of Sin, under the feet of his Son. As for the hardness of the Prosopopoeia: Origen follows it exactly with relation to the Sun and Moon, generally accounted irrational Creatures, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Of them we confess that they look for the revelation or manifestation of the Sons of God. Nor can we look upon it as an improper argument for the Apostle to comfort suffering Christians by, That all their fellow Creatures are at present in a state of servitude or vanity, therefore they have no reason to expect an exemption; That all their fellow Creatures yet wait in hope of the discriminating season, when those who fear God shall be fully distinguished from those who fear him not; This they hope for, in spite of all that servitude they groan under; therefore those who fear God, who are his Sons, his Children, have no reason to despond, tho' they suffer all the extremities imaginable from Hell, and the world's malice here, since they are sure of a complete and dearly purchased Liberty hereafter to be bestowed upon them. I have gone the farther in clearing this Text from Socinian sophistry, because from hence a clear and undeniable argument may be drawn against applying Divine Worship to any Creature: for, if all Created Being's are really subject to vanity, and wait themselves for liberty with a mighty expectation; whatsoever addresses are made to them, as they must necessarily be vain and fruitless, so they must fall under the charge of gross Idolatry; and if our Saviour be no more than a mere Creature, then, as before I alleged, He being subject to the same vanity, all Worship or adorations offered up to him, must fall under the same denomination and censure. In a word, nothing can be the proper object of Divine Worship, but what is Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent, these attributes are only applicable to the Supreme God, therefore Divine Worship ought only to be presented to Him: if these things concur in our Saviour, He's the True, the Supreme God, and so all Honour and Glory belongs to him; if they concur not in him, He's but a Creature, no more, therefore all divine Worship offered to him, under what plausible pretences soever, is vain, fruitless and Idolatrous.  
But this Question about Worshipping our Saviour or Presenting our Prayers to him, has created no small Fraction among the Anti-Trinitarians themselves. You heard before the declaration of their Catechism, which ought to contain the Fundamentals of their Persuasion, That they are not Christians who give not divine Worship to Christ, nor call upon him: This may seem to imply a necessity of Praying to him, if we would receive any benefit by him; That we may be the more confirmed in this Opinion, that they think this Worship offered to Christ necessary, may appear the better if we observe their answers to two Questions. To that, 
Cat. Raco. S. 6. c. 1▪ p. 88  In what manner ought we to trust in Christ? They answer, In the same manner as we ought to trust in God, namely, that We should believe him able to do all things, and that if we seek his favour, he will do us good, and perform all his Promises to us: To that, In what does that divine Honour due to Christ consist? They answer, In worshipping and calling upon him, for it's our duty always to worship Christ, and we may direct our Prayers to him in all necessities as oft as we will, and we have several reasons exciting us to do so. Now, according to these things, if Adoration or Divine Worship be due to Christ, then there lies a necessity upon us to pay that Adoration so due. But they seem to fall off from that resolution in the last words, where they say, We may pray to him, as if praying to Christ were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, some very indifferent thing: this last expression is in compliance with their great Leader Socinus, who in managing this very Controversy (one indeed of their own starting) with Franciscus Davidis, rests principally in that assertion, That it's really lawful to pray to Christ, (which his adversary, upon their common principles, more rationally denies) but is very loath to assert the necessity of any such invocation; therefore when George Blandrata, Physician to the then Prince of Transylvania, and the great Patron of the Anti-Trinitarians, and of Socinus himself, out of a politic fear, that a denial of the necessity of praying to Christ (a practice continual among all Christians to that time) might justly render the Party odious to all the believing World; when, out of such a fear, 
Soci● respon. ad Blandrat. operune T● p. 716.  he urged Socinus to assert and prove such Praying necessary, yet Socinus was very cold in the matter, said constanter asserimus, says he, posse nos, & quidem jure, quocunque loco & tempore, ad ipsum Christum verba precationum nostrarum dirigere, etc. We constantly affirm, that we may, by good right, direct the words of our Prayers to Christ himself, and beg his help and assistance in all those things which may any ways belong to his Church, or to any particular person, as a Member of his Church; We may do it. So far he'll freely adventure, and so to leave the matter indifferent, Blandrata thought sufficient to quiet Franciscus Davidis, but not enough to secure the Public Reputation of the Party: However Socinus in the same place declares, That there's no command given in Scripture for our praying to Christ, and their Catechism asserts, there's no plain command in the whole Old Testament for our praying to God the Father, tho' the position be notoriously false: only this we'll join with them in, That we have no command to pray to Christ as he is a mere Creature, but we are forbidden it in the first and second Commandments; But we are bound to pray to him, as He and his Father are One, not by agreement of Will, or by the Son's entire submission to the Father, but by agreement or Identity of Nature: Otherwise the Will of all deceased Saints, the Will of all holy Angels, is wholly submissive to, and the same with the Will of God, therefore they might as lawfully be prayed to as our Saviour, if a mere sameness of Will, and not of Nature, were enough to found Divine Worship, as offered to any other Being but the Supreme God, upon. But when Socinus comes to speak of the necessity ●f Praying to Christ, he runs off from the matter in hand, to that of acknowledging hat Kingdom, and Power, and Government given to him by his Father, which acknowledgement, as he concludes, infers a necessity of Praying to Him: But this is an Argument far fetched, and very impertinent; ●oth the foundation and superstructure is ●alse. Christ in his Humane Nature is the head of the Church; in his Humane Nature he has the Government of it in his hands, in his Humane Nature all power in Heaven and in Earth is his own, but none of these things are his merely as he is Man, or as he is a Creature, but that Humane or Created Nature of Christ, is made capable of those things of which in its own Nature it was absolutely incapable, by its entire Union with, and subsistenee in the Godhead. Without owning this, our Prayers to Christ, as those offered by the Church of Rome to Saints or Angels, are mere mock devotion. For if Christ, before his Ascension into Heaven, had no Existence but in a Body, in mere flesh and blood, then after his Ascension he likewise had no existence but in the same Body; if he existed in the same Body, he could be partaker of no other qualifications but such as are incident to a Body; for if his natural Body could be partaker of such qualifications as a natural body was not capable of, it could be no longer the same body he was raised with, but another, and that no natural body: If he still existed in Heaven in that same body he risen and ascended with, and it was not changed to or for another, no attributes wholly or essentially Divine, could be truly or properly ascribed to him: therefore Christ could not be Almighty, which Infinite Power or Almightiness yet is absolutely necessary in him who has all Power given to him, both in heaven and earth, and who is able to do every thing, that can tend to their good, or to God's glory for them that ask him. Christ in his Natural Body cannot know all things, without which Universal Knowledge yet it's impossible he should suit all grants to the necessities of Petitioners, or be assistant to those who lie under a natural incapacity to address themselves to him otherwise, than in their thoughts and inward wishes. Christ in his Natural Body cannot be Omnipresent, he cannot be in more places than one, for natural bodies are and must be circumscribed by Time and Place, otherwise they lose their natures, and become God, for only God can exist without those circumscriptions of Time and Place: which Omnipresence yet is indispensably necessary to every one, who can receive Petitions offered to him in several quarters of the World at once. If now the Socinians will deny these things to be inconsistent with a Natural Body, if they'll assert that a Created body may be Almighty, that it may know all things, that it may be every where present, they must introduce a new and yet unheard of Philosophic and Theologick Scheme, and to little purpose. If they'll say, these things are needless to our Saviour's natural body, for that he may read all the wants of Petitioners, in all parts of the World, at one view in the Essential glory of his Father, that's the Roman plea, and every whit as rational, on behalf of their Saint and Angel-worship: They can see all the wants of their humble supplicants, in the glass of the Trinity, as they tell us: They say too, that God reveals to Saints and Angels, to whom Papists make their Prayers, all those things their Devotoes pray to them for; If the Socinians join with them, and say, God so reveals every thing to Christ: We answer them both, that this is to set God upon a needless work, and indeed to make the Supreme Being, in effect, inferior to his Servants and to his Son: for those are the greatest Persons to whom the last Appeal is made, those inferior, who are employed in carrying or presenting Petitions to another; if then the Supreme God make it his business to present the Supplications of Petitioners to his own Son, he takes upon him that inferior Office. If he present them to his Son, that his Son may grant and perform them, it argues a natural Impotency in himself to answer such Petitioners, and consequently a superiority in the Son, whereby he's able to grant and to do for his servants what God the Father could not. If the Socinians will have us believe, in respect of Omnipotence, that Christ only represents our wants to his Father, and that it's his Father's Power alone which answers and acts for us, it will follow then, that God has not given him all Power in Heaven, and in Earth, whosoever has that Power, can do all things in and of himself; if Christ cannot do all things in and of himself, he has not that Power; if He want that Power, for what reason should we pray to him, and not rather immediately to Almighty God? especially since this Man Christ Jesus died for us, that, in his own blood, he might open to us a new and a living way whereby we might have access with boldness to the throne of Grace. If we may go directly thither, what should we trouble ourselves with applications to a subordinate Power? as for the Mediatory Office of our Saviour, so far as He's concerned in it, according to Socinian Principles, he'll mediate continually for Us, and all Believers in general terms, whether we make any supplications to Him or not. The result of all than is this, either Christ is not Almighty, nor All-knowing, nor Present every where, and consequently cannot be the proper Object of our Adorations and Prayers, and therefore all such Adorations offered to Him must be scandalous and Idolatrous, or else, our Lord must be present every where, Know and be able to Do all and every thing, and so their Catechism teaches us in the chapter before quoted, for it says, All Power is given him, as before, that his Power and Efficacy is great enough to subject all things to himself by it, 
Mat. 28.18 Phil. 3.21. Joh. 6.40, 54.  that by it he's able to free us from death, and to give us life and immortality, 
1 Cor▪ 4.14.  than which Power there can be none greater. Again, Christ is by his Father constituted our Saviour, our Priest, our King, and our Head, on purpose that he might manage the affair of our Salvation, and help us at our need; and lastly, it's plain, say they, he can understand our Prayers, because He knows all things; He searches the Hearts and reins; He sees through the hidden things of darkness, 
Joh. 16.30. Rev. 11.23. 1 Cor 4.5. Joh. 14.13. In resutatione thesium, Fra. Davidis, p. 715.  and he has told us that whatsoever we shall ask in his name, he will do it for us: whence it necessarily follows, that he must know what it is we pray for; thus far the Catechism, to which Socinus agrees: As for Omnipresence he denies the necessity of that, since he may be present every where, tho' not in his Person, yet in his Power; this they say, but if they say true that He can do all things without exception, that, He knows all things without exception, we are sure he must, as God, be Present in all places without exception, for Power and Knowledge are different Attributes, they cannot be one without another, yet Power knows not every thing, nor does Knowledge act every thing especially in a Man; tho' in God all Attributes act all things, because they are all one God: If then all these Attributes belong to Christ, he must be God, not Made, nor Created, but Eternal; for whosoever had not infinite Power, Wisdom, Presence from eternity, cannot have them conferred upon him in time, such a One being a subject incapable, and infinity not to be determined by time or place, which both must be of a finite nature: these things granted, free all worship offered to Christ from being Idolatrous, a charge which, on the other hand, if these things be denied, is absolutely inevitable.  
He that shall seriously consider the many Encumbrances of Life, and the greatness of that Duty towards God, which is incumbent upon every Christian, will easily find, that it's a full emyloyment for the life of any Man, to give Almighty God those inward and outward Adorations which belong to him: It's with relation to these extreme and continual exigencies Humane Nature's liable to, that the Apostle requires of us, that we should pray continually, or without any ceasing or intermission; 
1 Th●ss. 5▪ 17.  not that we are obliged continually to be in the very action of Prayer; there are some particulars in the Calling of most Men, which require for some time the whole Intention of the mind, yet that earnest Intention of theirs, is no more a Sin than all lawful industry can be accounted so; but the meaning of that expression is, that We should always keep our souls in such a frame and temper, as to be able on every emergency to apply ourselves to our Maker with that Calmness, Humility and Sincerity which he requires in those who come to him as Petitioners. Now this temper of Soul being required in us, and the real business of our proper Callings requiring so much of diligence and attention, our time would certainly be very ill employed, if we should propose to ourselves various Objects of Divine worship, when through the frailty of our Natures, we are necessarily defective in our Adorations paid to One: If we suppose our Saviour to be God of one and the same substance with his Father, we meet with no difficulties in this point; but if he be no more than a mere Creature, whensoever we present our supplications to him, we deservedly incur the Prophet's reproach, 
Jer. 2.13.  forsaking the fountain of living Water, and hewing out to ourselves broken Cisterns that can hold none: for let us put a mere Creature into the greatest circumstances imaginable, either he is Omnipotent or he is not; if he is Omnipotent, I know no advantage the Supreme God can have over him, the Creature must be able to do all things, the Creator can be no more: If he be not Omnipotent, than I may often Pray to him in vain, and if I may do so at any time, what security can I have that I shall not do so always? especially since there's no Rule given me in Scripture, whereby I may certainly know what I may Pray for to a Creature, or what I may not pray for to him: Nay Scripture is so far from giving any such Rule as might seem to leave the matter in suspense, that it directly forbids all adorations to any Creature as a Creature: but a Creature being no more, cannot be considered under any higher notion than of a Creature, therefore he cannot be adored at all. And besides, If there were no such Prohibition to be heard of in Scripture, yet the Worship of a Creature, how excellent soever, would be very silly and irrational, since we are sure that God can hear us, and effectually answer us in any thing we pray to Him for, but we are not sure, that any Creature can do any such thing for us. Again, God having given several Prohibitions in his Word against all Creature-Worship, and for aught we can find, having left no intimation there, that ever He himself would find out such a Creature for whose sake he'd give us a full and free dispensation against all such Prohibitions: We have a great deal of reason to suspect, that whatsoever Worship we may exhibit toward any Creature, may so far provoke the Jealousy of the Creator, as to render, by that very means, all those Services we may offer to him useless and unacceptable; and so while we play the fools with the Dog in the Fable, grasping at the shadow of extraordinary assistances from more than One, We may lose the substance of Mercy from One, who is able to bestow it in deed in a case of extremity. It's not unusual in the Prophets to find Israel, as a just judgement for their former Idolatries (when they found themselves pressed by any extraordinary calamity, and therefore sought to the God of their Fathers for deliverance) to be remanded to their false Gods, and ordered to try what great kindnesses those sharers in their Devotions could do for them; so God by Moses, 
Deut. 32.37, 38.  Where are their Gods! the rock in whom they trusted? which did eat the fat of their sacrifices, and drink the Wine of their drink-offerings? let them rise up and help you and be your protectors; So the Prophet, 
Jer. 11.11, 12.  Behold I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape, and tho' they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them, then shall the Cities of Judah and the Inhabitants of Jerusalem, go and cry unto the Gods unto whom they offer Incense, but they shall not save them at all in the time of their trouble. Nor can this dealing be looked upon as unreasonable in God, since it's usual even among Men, when they are slighted by those who own them respect, for the sake of those to whom none is oweing, to send them in their necessities to those Idols of their fancies, for whom the Supplicants had deserted them before. If then we at any time pay our Adorations, or present our Prayers to any Created Being, when we have all the encouragement of Command and Example, to pay that Worship to the Creator of all things: if such Created Being's have no inherent original power to assist us, and so we are not assisted, if, (by way of correction to our former Error) we fly in our Prayers to the most High God, we can justly expect no kinder answer from Him, than such a remission to that Creature or Created Being, to whom we had foolishly engaged ourselves before. Now if we examine the thoughts of Pagan Idolaters, we find by their Writings, that they pretended all along to make their One Supreme God, their Jupiter, the object of their Worship; they terminated nothing upon their inferior Deities, but made use of them, as they say, as a kind of mediators between them and their Jupiter: The Papists plead the same with respect to those Devotions they teach people to present to Saints and Angels, in their Communion; We know well enough the fallacy of their pretences, and the insincerity of those paltry shifts they make use of, to avoid the imputation of Idolatry to them. But our Socinians teach us so openly, that it's lawful for us to pray to our Saviour, tho' a mere Creature, nay, and to terminate our Adorations upon him, as their ultimate Object, that we have not so much as the Pagan or Roman subterfuges for our practice. They tell us, 
Cat. Rac. sect. 6. c. 1. p. 89.  That we may direct our Prayers to Christ in all our necessities, first, because He both can and will help us, and He understands our Prayers: Then because we have several exhortations from our Lord himself, and from his Apostles to that purpose; and lastly, because we have several instances of holy Men who have so done. If these reasons are good, we need not then have that God in our minds at all, whom they call the Supreme God, when we Pray in our most urgent Necessities; for our Saviour can answer our Prayers as effectually to all intents and purposes, as the Supreme God can: but in the mean time, if this Saviour of ours be no more than a mere Creature and if the very reason why the Worshipping more Gods than one is forbidden, be, because all other Being's, except that One God, be no more than mere Creatures, (for so worshipping the Creature, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, beside the Creator, is reflected on by the Apostle) than we, 
Rom. 1.25.  in following Socinian opinions, are guilty of most damnable Idolatry; Idolatry more inexcusable, while we pray to Christ, than either Papists or Pagans have ever been guilty of before us: for we terminate our Adorations upon a mere Creature confessed, which They declare they do not, and which Scripture every where declaims against as Idolatry: By this means too, we incur the guilt of Horrid Sacrilege, for we rob God of all that worship we pay to any inferior Being; the reason of all Divine Worship is, that sense we have of our necessary dependence upon superior Providence; that consideration renders all those Commands which we have to Worship God Reasonable and Obligatory, and it's a consideration which reaches holy Angels as well as Men. If God then, the most High God, command us to call upon him in the time of trouble, as he does, and to encourage us, promises He will diliver us, and we shall glorify Him, 
Psal. 50.15  and we, notwithstanding all this, appeal to a mere Creature in those circumstances of Necessity: If we call one God, and pray to and worship him as God, when we ourselves own that he was Created originally; and when God justly asks the Question, Is there a God besides me? Yea there is no God, I know not any; and has declared again, that He will not give his glory to another: 
Isa. 44.8. Isa. 48.11.  If we with these circumstances call upon such a One, we rob God of that Honour, which belongs to God himself, and to none else; and dispose of what's his due according to our own fancies, and we do all this so, as our Fault becomes our Punishment, 
Deus enim est zelotes, qui nullâ ratione patitur ut populus ipsius cultum ipsi debilum ad alios deferat, si●que spirituale adulterium committat▪ Quis vero alius est cultus vere divinus qualisque nulli mortalium defertur vel deferri potest, quam aliquem tanquam coelestem, eamque sanctam mentem, ab omni mortali concretione separatam & inconspicuam eo respectu & colere & invocare, quo se à te coli & invocari & velit & intelligere possit, tibique in iis quae petis, opitulari. Nun qui aliquem tanquam talem & hoc respectu colit cum reipsâ, ut ut forte verbis id neget, Deum esse statuit. Plura hujusmodi sed plane 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 profert, Schlichtingius in notis ad Grotium de Antichristo in 2. cap. 2 Epist. ad Thess. p. 50.  we rob God of his Honour, and confer it upon a mere Creature, and we rob ourselves of God's assistance, and quit it to those who are wiser and more rational in their Adorations.  
What we spoke somewhat of before, relating to our Saviour, we may yet farther confirm from an enlargement on this consideration: That if it be necessary, that an ultimate Object of true Divine Worship should be infinite in Power, Knowledge, Presence, and every other respect, it then being impossible, that any thing which was not, on these accounts, an Object properly capable of Divine Worship from eternity, should be made a proper Object of Divine Worship in time; all such Divine Worship paid to any Creature, on pretence of now having those qualifications, which before it had not, must be Idolatry. Now, the Impossibility of any Creature whatsoever attaining to that infinity now, which before, merely by being a Creature, it could not have, must needs be very obvious to every considering Man: God cannot translate himself into a Creature, because He cannot be comprehended in a Creature, but the great general Distinctiion between Almighty God and the Creature is this, that God is infinite in every respect, but the Creature is not; allowing now that any Creature could be made the proper subject of this Universal infinity, the distinction between God and the Creature is at an end, the nature of the Creature is quite changed, and tho' it were created at first, and from thence had its name of a Creature, it now was no longer created originally, but had its being of itself, before any thing in nature was created; and if this be not a contradiction notorious and absurd enough, we cannot easily find what is. But admitting one absurdity, a thousand will naturally follow from it: so if the same Being may be infinite in Extension, Wisdom, Power, etc. and yet be finite or limited in respect of Time, as every one must be, tho' Infinite now, if it had no Being from eternity, we have then a limited infinity, or a Being that's bounded, and yet has no bounds; a contradiction too, which Omnipotence itself cannot verify: Again, from hence will follow, that the supreme or sovereign Being can create another, who shall be God, truly and properly so called, and Almighty, and yet no Almighty God; who shall be Alwise, and God, and yet not an Alwise God; who shall be every where present and God, and yet not an Omnipresent God: which things look somewhat more Ridiculous and Contradictory, than any thing objected by Atheistical scoffers to that commonly called the Athanasian Creed. Whatsoever is done by Almighty God so, as to be obvious to us, must certainly savour of that perfect Wisdom essential to the Deity, and must as certainly tend to his own Honour: but to put all his own power into the hands of a mere Creature, if it were possible, (considering the nature of every Creature, that Man, the head of all visible, fell into misery, tho' created Innocent; that Angels the immediate Ministers of God's power, and who had before them the continual vision of Immense Glory, fell from the bliss of Heaven into the gloomy prisons of eternal darkness:) to put his own infinite power into such hands, would be so far from augmenting his own Glories, that it would render Divine Wisdom itself obnoxious to rational Censures: and so far prejudice the notion of eternal Wisdom, that God would seem to have forgotten the main end and import of all his own actions: and to act with the same fondness and dotage, as careless mankind are generally guilty of. The Roman plea for Saint-Worship then, (they looking upon those Saints as Creatures of an inferior nature, and only beneficial to us, as they are beloved by God) is comparatively tolerable, when they say, they ominate their worship not upon the Saints, but upon their God, this may seem ●o tend some 〈◊〉 to God's Honour, as the respects shown to the Attendants of a great Prince, are interpreted generally as an Honour done to the Prince himself: But to Worship, with true Divine Worship, a Created Being, 
Vindication of unitarians against Sherlock, p. 12.  and under the notion of an Ubiquitary Spirit, as a late Arrian Scribbler calls him, or True God, as the Socinians adventure to call him, and at the same time to own he is but a Creature, while we yet make him the ultimate Object of our Adorations, is as far from bringing any Honour to God, as it is, to make a Prince's servant the last receiver of our Petitions, to ascribe to him the whole Sovereign Power, to serve him as such with all Humility and respect, and to expect all those favours from him, as in his own Power, which his Master once had the sole power of conferring. It looked great enough in the Roman Emperors to have their Caesars, nay their partners in Empire, under the name of Augusti: but, even then, there was an absolute Supremacy remaining in the Emperor himself, and had his reserved Honours been communicated to his Partners, that Communication must have detracted from the Supreme, the first visible fountain of the Partners Honour and Power: Yet such are all of a Nature, the Emperor himself as much and as frail a Man as his Substitutes; the danger of diminishing Honour so much the less: but where the distance is so immensely great as between the Creature and the Creator, there can be no reason to allow such a participation in Divine Honour to the Creature: Nor can any thing bring more dishonour to the name of the Sovereign Creator, than to permit a mere Creature to sit down with him on his eternal Throne, and to receive the World's Adorations equally with himself. Besides all this, to talk of an Ubiquitary Spirit, that yet is not God; of a Being existing, as such a Spirit before the Creation of the world, yet afterwards being confined to the prison of a weak and mortal Body; and as a reward for what's done in the Mortal body towards the reconcilement of a justly angry God to his Creatures, received with that mortal body into Glory and Honour, but so, that the Ubiquitary Spirit for all futurity must be confined to that body, however glorified, and so lose its Ubiquitary nature (unless the Body after glorification can pretend to be a Spirit, and so no longer a Body, because Ubiquitary too) to talk of these things, as some Arrians do, is nothing but contradiction and nonsense all over: For, that the true Supreme God is Ubiquitary, or every where present, is allowed by all those who have any thing but heavy and carnal notions of the Divinity; but if the Supreme God uncreated, be every where present, and a created Spirit be every where present too, then that created Spirit, and that God must be essentially One, as being commensurate or equally proportioned one with another; but for a Created being to be one and the same thing with its Creator, is what Socinians themselves will not allow, therefore no Creature, as failing of ubiquity, can be the proper object of true Divine Worship, therefore Christ, as being a mere Creature and so incapable of ubiquity, cannot, by us, who call ourselves Christians, be adored as God, without inexcusable Idolatry. Besides, if our Saviour be God, only as Princes and Rulers are Gods, because they are sanctified by him, to act as his Deputies in the World, than He can pretend, by such sanctification, to no more ubiquity, than those Kings and Rulers can; Now we all know well enough, that our Kings and Princes are so far from ubiquity, that they are forced to see with other men's Eyes, to hear with other men's Ears, and consequently, are not to be Worshipped, nor trusted in as Gods by us; and those who trespass in this kind, are indisputably Idolaters: therefore all those that Worship our Lord, only as such a made or sanctified God, must be Idolaters. But,  
We, who call ourselves by that Honourable name of Christians, being very careful to avoid the guilt or the very opinion of Idolatry, and yet being withal constant Worshippers of our Saviour, as being that rock of ages, on whom, whosoever fixes his Faith and Hope, cannot be deceived; We assert, That none of that Divine Worship offered to our Saviour is Idolatry: We know, that Nature and Revelation teach us clearly enough, that there is, and can be only One True Supreme God, the Maker and Creator of all things, that God in whom we live and move and have our Being's, and from whom alone every good and perfect gift descends: We know, by the same rules, that We are to Worship this Lord our God, and to serve Him only: We know, it's the common practice of all Professors of Christianity, and allowed by our Adversaries, to worship our Saviour, to adore, and pray to him as God: We think ourselves, and the Socinians acknowledge, that we may do thus, without being guilty of Idolatry; therefore our Saviour must be the Supreme God, the maker of all things, etc. therefore He and his Father must be One God; and so neither the first, nor second Commandment at all trespassed upon in those Adorations. We find the worship of Images, or any false Gods condemned as Idolatry frequently in God's Word: We find Holy Men refusing to 〈◊〉 worshipped there, and Angels them● forbidding any signs of Adoration to be offered to them, because they would not trespass upon a Law so notorious both in Scripture and in Nature, and this we have spoken off before. A Socinian will own, that our Saviour knew his Father's Will as well as either Holy Men or Angels, that He was as careful to Honour his Father in performing his Will, as either of them, that He who came to die for the sins of Men, in what sense soever, would never tempt them to commit Sin: Yet we find him allowing that Worship offered to himself, expressed by outward humility and prostration, which yet was that very reverence, which good Men and good Angels had refused as unlawful before: Either this Worship was Idolatrous, or it was not; if it was, our Saviour was no better than the Jews thought of him, viz. A Cheat and an Impostor, one who sought their ruin, not their happiness, therefore, to be sure, far enough from being that Messiah whose title he pretended to: If it was not Idolatry, than the worshipping of our Saviour was not worshipping more Gods than one, tho' he were worshipped under the notion of God; therefore he must be the Supreme God, all Divine Worship paid to any other Being, being largely proved to be Idolatry before: But we have no reason to believe, that Men of extraordinary Goodness and Wisdom would ever have given us examples of Idolatry, or that God would any way have allowed, much less have commanded it. That It's fitting to be done, the Racovian Catechism proves from that, 
Joh. 5.22, 23.  The Father hath given all judgement, or government to the Son, that all should Honour the Son, as they Honour the Father; and again, from that of the Apostle, 
Phil. 2.9, 10, 11.  Therefore God hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, both of things in Heaven, and thirds on earth, and things that are under the earth, and that every tongue should confess, that Jesus Christ is the Lord, to the glory of God the Father: And tho' they are at a doubt whether there be any direct command to worship Him in Scripture, yet when we read that of the Apostle, 
Heb 1.6. Ps. 97.7.  When He brings his firstborn into the World, He says, let all the Angels of God worship him, or as our more immediate translation from the present Hebrew Text reads it, Worship him all ye Gods: and when according to the acknowledgement of Socinus himself, in his dispute with Franciscus Davidis, that passage, 
Joel 2.32. Rom. 10.13. ●p. 721.  Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved, is applied justly to our Saviour by the Apostle; these two passages together, appear to be a command strong, and forcible enough, to oblige every one believing in Christ, to call upon his name, or to pray to him: These are Commands enjoining us to worship our Saviour, even in his Humane Nature; but if our Lord and his Father are one God; then all those commands which enjoin the worshipping of one God, are so many commands equally obliging us to worship Jesus Christ: but, supposing a Positive Precept wanting in the case before us, tho' we are not to look upon every private Action of a good Man as an obliging Precedent to us, yet, where we have a Cloud of Witnesses concurring in the case, we may reasonably conclude, that they would not have worshipped our Saviour so continually, merely to lead us into Error; nor would Angels have agreed with them in the practice; nor would our Saviour himself have passed them by without a reproof. Yet frequently as we find Adorations paid to our Saviour when upon Earth; We never find any dissatisfaction in his words and actions: 
Joh. 11.33.  He groaned for the stubbornness and obduracy of Jewish Hearts, for their prodigious resolutions not to own him, tho' drawing them all with the sacred cords of love and miraculous goodness; he wept, 
v. 35.  to observe their inflexible, and, to themselves, fatal temper: He wept over Jerusalem, 
Luk 19.41.  on the dismal prospect of those calamities, that wrath to the uttermost, which was then hastening upon them: 
Luk. 12.14.  He reproved the Man who would needs have made him a temporary Judge, or, a Divider of Inheritances among them: 
Luk. 22. 2●  He reproved his Disciples for their contentions about their future grandeur; and seems to check the Man, who only called him good Master, 
Mar. 10.17▪  as if the ascribing Goodness to one, whom he took to be a mere Man, was too near an encroachment upon the sacred character of the Supreme God: And can we imagine he would be so tender in every such little particular, and yet so very careless in those important affairs, wherein the eternal interests of his followers would be concerned, as long as the World endured? This is very hard to believe; yet that the Concern is so great, the late Scribbling Arrian owns, when, to the charge of Blasphemy imputed to his Party for denying the eternal Godhead of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, he retorts that question upon us, 
Vindication of unitarians, p. 3.  If you err, do not you both blaspheme and commit Idolatry, in worshipping the Son and the Holy Ghost, as coequal with the Father? We must be guilty of both if they are not, but for the Son, we hope enough has been, or shall be said to prove we are free from danger on that side. To clear our own practice yet farther, We'll trace those footsteps our Adversaries themselves have trodden before us, and make use of those instances they have laid together on this occaon: So the Apostles pray to their Master, Lord, increase our Faith! 
Luk. 17.5.  a Petition of a strange nature to one that was no more than their fellow Creature, and so far from any encouraging exaltation in the world, that whereas the foxes had holes, and the birds of the air had nests, He the Son of Man had not so much as where to lay his head: How could he give them Faith, who could not, as it seemed, give himself security from worldly persecution? but our Lord gives them no check for mislaying their Petition, nor does he bid them seek to his Father, tho' it were an inward grace, a strengthening of the Soul, which they required of him. Again, when the Disciples were with him on shipboard, and during his quiet sleep, just sinking by the violence of an angry tempest, they in a fright wake their Master and cry out to him, Lord save us, we perish! 
Mat. 8.25.  If our Saviour was a mere Man, the Disciples acted with much less sense than Jonah's Mariners, who every one, in the storm, called upon their Gods for help, and summoned sleeping Ionas, not to save them, by His Power, but to join with them in calling upon his God: For was it ever heard before, that when a Ship was just sinking, or running upon a rock, the ship's Crew ran to some poor ignorant Passenger to beg their security from him? The Mariners, tho' convinced that he was an extraordinary Person, made no such application to Saint Paul in a parallel danger; it's God alone who can command the Seas and Winds, his permissive Word makes them ruffle the Universe, and put Nature into a Consternation; the same Word lays them still as in their first Originals, ere uncorrupted Nature knew any thing terrible or dangerous: In the case before us, our Saviour answered them not, as that King of Israel did the Woman, If the Lord help thee not, what can I do? But, He arose and rebuked the Winds, and the Sea, and there was a great calm: Nature, in its greatest hurry, owned his Divine Authority, only his Disciples stumbled upon the Question, 
ver. 27.  What manner of Man is this, that even the Winds and the Sea obey him? They talked like Men beside themselves with Fear, they called upon him for Help, as if they had believed him to be God, they reflected upon that Deliverance he had given them, as if he had been no more than Man; but he takes no notice of any error they were in, in their first Devotions, but, by his Mercy, encouraged them to do the same again upon a like occasion. What the Disciples did here in a storm at Sea, that Saint Stephen, the first Martyr for Christianity, did in a more violent storm of Persecution on Land, for when he came to his last Agonies, when, it was the proper season for a good Man to exert the utmost vigour of his Faith and Charity, then, for himself, and with respect to his own Soul, he prays, 
Acts▪ 7.59.  Lord Jesus receive my Spirit: The frequent expiring Ejaculation of Holy Saints and Martyrs after him. Compare now this with that assertion of the wise Man concerning Death; 
Eccles. 12 7.  Then shall the Dust return to Earth as it was, and the Spirit shall return to God who gave it; and the consequence will be, either that our Lord Jesus Christ was the great Author or Creator and Giver of the Rational Soul, or else, that this Holy Martyr, then when filled in an extraordinary manner with the Holy Ghost, in his extreme hours, when commonly men's apprehensions of futurity are most Clear and Rational, talked in a very Impertinent and sinful manner, to devote his Soul to him, who could have no right to it, if he were a mere Creature, and to forget his God: Franciscus Davidis would have us believe here, that Stephen did not call upon Jesus Christ, but upon God the Father, and that we should translate the expression, O thou Lord of Jesus receive my Spirit! but this Socinus has strongly confuted; tho', upon their common Principle, of our Saviour's being a mere Creature, Franciscus undertakes the much more rational part; However, here his subterfuge is nothing worth. It was Jesus the Son of God, He who bore that proper name of Jesus from his Circumcision, for whose sake Stephen was now persecuted to Death by the malicious Jews; it was the same Jesus whom he saw at the right hand of God, when the Heavens opened to give him such a view of future Glory prepared for Martyrs, as might support and encourage him under his sufferings; it was to him therefore that Stephen applied himself, and sitted himself for a glorious and happy Exit, by that admirable Resignation. But neither did Saint Stephen stop there, but as the utmost effort of a dying Martyr's Charity, He adds this to his former ejaculation, 
ver. 60.  Lord, lay not this sin to their charge; He certainly designed exemplary Charity in this, and to imitate his dying Saviour, who prayed his Father to forgive his Murderers, for they knew not what they did: But the Martyr's enemies would have had little reason to have admired his Charity, had he presented his Prayers for them to one, who had no power to forgive them; and the Jews would be as ready now to make the Objection, as heretofore, Who can forgive sins but God only? And if God, to whom vengeance belongeth, in whose sight the Death of his Saints is precious, would certainly avenge the blood of his Saints and Martyrs upon their Persecutors, to what purpose was it to pray to him to forgive them, who not being the most high God himself, could have no Power to forgive those who had sinned against the most high God, so as to give them any security; but above all, He could never have hoped for any acceptance at the hand of God in any Petition whatsoever, had he now, in his last extremity, been guilty of Idolatry. Saint Paul had been made partaker of extraordinary Revelations, had been snatched up into the third heavens, where he had seen and heard things not lawful for a Man to utter, 
2 Cor. 1●. 7, 8, 9  indeed things unspeakable, lest He should have been exalted above measure through the abundance of those Revelations, there was given to him a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet him: This was a very severe humiliation, and Saint Paul was sensible of it, and at first, as appears by the Text, very uneasy under it. Saint Paul knew well enough, that the best remedy for all calamities was Prayer, that Prayers presented to the true God with a sincere heart, could not return unfruitful; but Saint Paul presently applies himself to Christ, For this cause I besought the Lord thrice, that it might departed from me, says he, and He said unto me, my Grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness; By the Lord here, the Socinians themselves understand our Lord Jesus, and therefore allege this Text as a proof of Pious men's praying to Christ: Now had Saint Paul prayed to Christ for Assistance and Relief in such a case, where only the Supreme God could really help him, if that Christ were a mere Creature, than such a Prayer must be Idolatrous, and such Service be called Idolatry, wherein the Creature was rather worshipped than the Creator; and Christ a Creature must, as Lucifer of old, have endeavoured to set himself up for a rival God, and prosecute a separate Interest of his own, and manage and assist his servants, in a way of opposition to the most high God, and so he must have Graces of his own, and Strength of his own, to employ for the use of his own Devotoes, for so Saint Paul tells us, that Christ referred him, not to the Grace of God, or to the strength of God, for security from the violence of Satan, but tells him, My Grace and my Strength are sufficient for thee, therefore there could be no need of applying himself to any other: Now if Saint Paul were in this case guilty of Idolatry, all those who follow the pattern of Saint Paul must incur the same guilt, but he was not guilty, therefore neither were his Imitators guilty of it.  
The Socinians in proof of the lawfulness of Praying to Christ, allege farther Saint Paul's joining him with God the Father, in his own Prayer with respect to the Thessalonians, to whom he's there writing, 
● Thess. 3.11.  Now God himself and our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way unto You: where he takes for granted, that the Father and the Son are both Copartners in the same directing power, and therefore he equally Petitions them both for guidance in his design of visiting the Thessalonians. What the Apostle himself did, in a Letter sent to Believers for their instruction in matters concerning their Salvation, we need not doubt but they'd be very apt to follow him in, so that either this Praying to Christ was lawful and reasonable in itself, or else the Apostle must be concluded to have it in his mind only to abuse those he wrote to, and to draw them, by his extraordinary influence upon them, into Sin; for a sin it must be to make any mere Creature the ultimate Object of our Prayers and Devotions: That the Apostle in this passage does so is indisputable, if at least its owned, that He makes God the Father such an Object, for he joins them together, puts no mark of Inferiority or Subordinacy upon Jesus Christ, but what he begs of the Father, the same He begs of the Son in one continued expression. And the Apostle frequently does the same thing in those Salutations he sends to the several Churches, where He wishes them Grace, Mercy, and Peace, equally from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ: Grace, Mercy, and Peace are all divine and spiritual Gifts, as in possession of the Father, so in possession of the Son; else it would be very impertinent to Petition them equally for it, and of very ill consequence, for it would easily bring such a notion into men's heads, as that some created Being might have a power of giving Gifts of a Spiritual nature, as well as the Supreme God; and that it might be lawful, in our most serious Devotions, to join him who alone is God, with one who is no more than a Creature, to set them in a rank as equal as words would allow, and to conclude a Prayer to the great Creator of all things insufficient to procure any good from him, unless it were backed and strengthened by the joined formality of an Address to a dependent Creature. But we need not so much insist on this particular; since the same Socinians as a vindication of Prayers addressed to our Saviour, take notice of that piece of Religious Worship, as being made the very Characteristic or distinguishing note of Christians: So Ananias answers the Command of Going to visit and baptise the newly converted Saul, 
Acts 9.14.21.  He hath authority from the chief Priests to bind all that call on thy Name: And when Saul first began to preach Christ at Damascus, all Men asked, with amazement; if it was not He who had lately destroyed all that called upon the name of Christ, that is, all who believed in him; So that it seems from hence, that to believe in Christ and to call upon him were used as reciprocal terms, every one who believed in Christ would call upon him, or Pray to him, every one who prayed to him must believe on him, for as the Apostle elsewhere argues, How shall they call on him, or pray to him, in whom they have not believed? So again, St. Paul inscribes his first Epistle to the Corinthians, 
1 Cor. 1. ●.  to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be Saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ, i. e. to all Christians, for whose general use and instruction he wrote that Epistle, as well as for the Corinthians: And the same Christians are described as such, 
2 Tim. 2.22.  who call upon the name of the Lord with a pure Heart: These are the evidences drawn by the Socinians themselves out of Scripture, to prove the practice of Christians in the very infancy of the Church, and they are sufficient for that purpose. Now that Those who accompanied with our Lord himself during his converse upon Earth, or that those Apostles who were guided by the extraordinary influences of the Holy Ghost; or that those first Christians who took the ●oke of Christ upon them, when the Gospel was certainly preached to them in its original simplicity, that all these should be guilty of abominable Idolatries, and that when the Apostles themselves were originally Jews, who had an irreconcilable aversion to any thing that looked in the least ●ike Idolatry; and that our Saviour himself should have so little regard for his Disciples, as to let them commit a gross sin, ●f a damning nature, without any check or reproof; that that Holy Spirit which was promised to believers on purpose that He might guide them into all truth, that both these should so very early, not only permit, but encourage and persuade men to commit Idolatry, and all this at a time when they pretended to promote the Salvation of Souls, and when it was notoriously known to all Mankind that Idolatry was a Sin, irrational in itself, and detestable in the sight of God; that the one part should commit, and the other promote Idolatry under such circumstances, is absolutely incredible. They had the Pagan World at that time to reform, The Apostles were all willing to spend and be spent, to carry on that glorious and merciful work, at the utmost hazard of their lives; the great and crying sin of the Gentile world was their Idolatry, that of which St. Paul particularly took notice with grief and anger among the Athenians; but it had been a strange method of reforming an Idolatrous World, by advancing the same practice, without any other correction, but only a variation of the Object, as if Praying to a Man had not been as great an Error, as Praying to a Genius, or the Sun, or some other bright Star, or an Ox, or any other Creature. Such things would have rendered the Gospel foolishness with a witness, among the Gentiles: and none would have wondered that Christ should have culled out poor ignorant Fishermen, and other illiterate persons to be the first Preachers, since such a senseless Method of procedure, was only fit for such dull and unthinking Creatures to prosecute. But for our comfort, the first Christians are free from any such folly; and all the several sorts of Heretics, through all ages, have freed them from any such Imputation: They did nothing but what was agreeable to the Will of God, They took care not to provoke him, whom they knew to be a consuming fire, to jealousy, by setting up a mere Creature in competition with him. The Christians in that time, showed their extreme hatred of Idolatry, in that all the allurements and terrors in the world, could not possibly draw them to it in other instances: If they would but have thrown a little Incense into the Fire burning on an Idols Altar; If they would but have made the smallest condescension to some admired Heathen Deity, they might have been blest both with Impunity and Rewards: And sure it could be imputed to nothing but a ridiculously perverse humour, to refuse all kinds of submission to Creature-Gods, merely because they were Creatures, and yet, at the same time themselves to Worship or Pray to a Creature of their own setting up. We find not but that the Jews were more tractable, and so more reasonable in the point, when they had once gotten the gusto of Idolatry in the Golden Calf, and had the fetters of religious Elders and Governors knocked off their heels, they stood out at nothing, but were ready to worship any little Idol, any of their neighbours recommended to them. And other Idolatrous Nations, the Romans, in particular, thought it but reasonable, that when they had set up some Gods for themselves according to their own humours, they should compile all the Divinities they could, and secure themselves, if not by the quality, at least by the multiplicity of their Gods. But when the Jews were once truly purged from their Idolatrous humours by severe and terrible Judgements, they would never more at their utmost peril, admit of the least umbrage of it: And the converted Gentiles would have died a thousand deaths, rather than have brought such a scandal upon Christianity, as to have retained or advanced any thing that might have laid them open to the reproaches of the Jews, or have seduced or perverted their Brethren. We no where find the Apostles or any Apostolic men, ever vindicating that Worship they offered to our Lord with that pretence, that they went to him only as ● Mediator of Intercession, as the Roman distinction is, or that they might not press too rudely upon God, without addressing in the first place to some Favourite servant. We never find them arguing, that they only Pray to Christ, that He might pray for them, tho' he always does so, as being the sole Mediator between God and Man; nor do they ever defend their Practice by that Allegation, that they do not terminate their adorations upon Christ, but upon his Father, the contrary would easily have been proved against them from their own Writings: Yet, after all, they were not Idolaters, they did not give that Honour to a mere Creature which belonged only to the Creator, therefore that Christ, to whom they made their addresses, was not a mere Creature: Yet, as he was Man, He could be no more than a mere Creature, therefore He was more than Man, therefore He was God, the true and Almighty God the great Creator of all things; and thus have we made good our Argument, that Jesus Christ was true God, equal with his Father, from that, otherwise indefensible, practice of Worshipping him, or Praying determinately to him, as the Giver of all good Gifts equally with his Father. If he be owned to be the One true God, we can have no scruples, no fears of offending, upon us in Praying to him, and expressing all the Signs of external religious adorations towards him. If he be not owned to be the One true God, then there's no argument which either a Socinian or any Other can bring, to prove the lawfulness of Praying to him as God, but it will equally serve either Papists in their praying to Images, Saints or Angels, or Pagans in Praying to their confessed Idols: and therefore the Socinians themselves fairly confess, with respect to those Texts before-cited, where Christians are known by that character of calling on the name of Christ. That those Words do so comprehend all that divine Worship which is exhibited to Christ by his faithful people, that they describe it by that one, the most considerable part of it, namely, beging assistance from him in our Prayers, Cum necesse sit eum, cujus nomen invoces, pro Deo competente sensu colere, Since it's necessary to Worship him as God in some fit sense, whose name you call upon in Prayer: but there is no other fit sense in which we can call upon him as God, but that which makes him the true, the eternal God: Therefore if he may be called upon as God without Idolatry, He must be that true, that eternal God.  
We have at last, by God's assistance, gone through these several heads of Discourse from which we propounded at first to prove, That Jesus Christ the Son of God was God equal with his Father, or the true, the eternal God: We have proved this from those several accounts of his Appearance, and his Nature laid down in the Old Testament, namely, that it was He who appeared to and conversed with Abraham before the fatal destruction of Sodom, and that He there bore the name Jehovah, the name of God incommunicable to any other: That it was He whose Throne the Psalmist declared to be for ever and ever: That it was He who laid the Foundations of the Earth, and that the Heavens were the work of his hands, after whose decay and perishing, He yet should continue beyond the reach of time: That Christ our Lord should be that Child, that Son, given us in time, on whose shoulders the Government should be laid; that He should be the wonderful Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace: That He should be the Righteous Branch springing up to David, whose name should be the Lord our Righteousness: And finally, that He, the blessed Jesus, should be that Ruler of Israel, who should be born in Bethlehem Ephrata, whose go forth have been of old, from everlasting. We have proved the same assertion from those several Declarations our Saviour has made concerning himself, and his Disciples afterwards concerning him in the New Testament, as namely, that of Saint Matthew, of the Angel's prediction to Joseph, to which the Evangelist applies the Prophecy, that our Saviour Incarnate should be called Immanuel, or God with us: That of our Lord joining himself in equal rank with his Father in the Institution of Baptism, ordering it to be performed in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: We have proved that our Saviour was that Word which was in the beginning, which was with God, which was God, by whom all things were made visible and invisible, in Heaven and upon Earth, that according to our Saviour himself, He and his Father were One; that it was He whom Saint Thomas, upon a sufficient Conviction, declared to be his Lord and his God; that, according to Saint Paul, He is God over all blessed for ever; and that, according to the same Apostle, He being in the Form of God thought it no Robbery to be equal with God, yet took upon himself the Form of a Servant for our sakes: These proofs I explained, enlarged upon, and vindicated them from their Sophistry, who would have them looked upon as proofs insufficient of the Divinity of the Son of God. We proved the same thing then by those Actions done by himself, and in his own Name, during his converse upon Earth, and done by his Apostles in His Name after his Ascension into Heaven: For instance, from his passing, insensibly, through the multitude, who led him to the brow of an Hill, designing to cast him headlong down from thence: From his making the Soldiers, who came with Judas to seize him, to fall down with barely answering them what they desired, and in the kindest and most satisfactory manner: From his commanding Lazarous in his own Name to come forth of his Grave, after four days burying: From his Apprehension of virtue going out of him to heal the Woman with the bloody Issue, tho' only touching the Him of his Garment: From his calling those that were weary and heavy laden with their sins, to come to him, and promising them rest for their Souls, upon so doing: From his Forgiving sins in an authoritative manner, his searching the Heart, trying the Reins, and, according to Saint Peter, Knowing all things: From his Promising and sending the Holy Ghost, and giving it first of all with his Breath, opening the Understanding of the Disciples, and sending them abroad with a Commission equivalent to that which himself had received from his Father; and in conclusion, from his Disciples Baptising, Preaching, and doing Miracles, wholly in his Name, and by Faith in him. From this Head we proceeded to prove our Doctrine that Christ was God equal with his Father, from the Faith of the Primitive Church, where we confined ourselves in our Disquisition principally to those Fathers who wrote before the starting of the Arrian Controversy. So, for the Greek Church, we gave you an account of what Clemens the Roman Bishop in his Epistles to the Corinthians, of what Saint Ignatius Bishop of Antioch in his several Epistles, of what Justine Martyr in his two Apologies, and in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, and Irenaeus in his books against Heresies, and Clemens Alexandrinus in his Admonition to the Gentiles, and in his Stromata, and what Origen in his books against Celsus furnishes us with, in evidence of our Saviour's Divine Nature. Then for the Latin Church, we gave you the sense of what Tertullian, St. Cyprian Bishop of Carthage, Arnobius, and Lactantius have written; from whence we descended to Creeds framed, by Gregory Thaumaturgus, by Felix the first of that name, Bishop of Rome; by the First and Second Councils at Antioch, summoned on the account of Paulus Samosatenus, and the Circular Epistle of the Latter, from the circular Letters of Alexander Bishop of Alexandria, and so from the Epistle and Creed of the Nicene and Constantinopolitan general Councils, with the remarkable suffrages of Constantine the Great, the first Christian Emperor, and Eusebius of Caesarea, one much suspected of Arrianism himself, but a famous Writer of Church-History. Having done with this, we proved last of all that no true Divine Worship was due to any mere Creature, or could be paid to any such without Idolatry: That true Divine Worship yet was paid to our blessed Lord by his Apostles, and first Followers, without Idolatry; therefore that our Saviour in consequence could be no mere Creature: Thus far we had proceeded, and concluded all our works of that nature at an end, and ourselves at liberty to prosecute our intended discourse farther.  
But Ill Men, taking advantage of that Liberty now indulged them, a Liberty always fruitful of Errors and Innovations, give us yet more Work, and a necessary care to prevent that Poison they scatter, from spreading too far amongst those who profess Christianity in these Nations. And here we have two mighty Pretenders to Piety and Reason; One of which undertakes the Patronage of long exploded Arrianism, the Other of the more refined Socinianism, and both with old Arguments, and it may be, some new Finenesses attack the Divinity of our Saviour. It's no small happiness that such Men take up such different Opinions to maintain, for by that means One is somewhat of an Antidote against the Other, and by these differences between themselves in so weighty a matter, Wise and Considerate Christians will learn to believe neither of them. As for what our Socinian pleads, considering what we asserted in the beginning of our Discourse, viz. That Jesus Christ our Saviour is the Son of God, which We, with all sound Christians understood in a natural sense; and that that very Notice inferred a co-essentiality of the Son with the Father, as it does among Men, where the Son is of the same Nature with the Father which begets him, we thought we had reason; but the Socinians have found us out a way of Filiation or Sonship, of being the begotten, nay, the Only begotten Son of God, without any such Essential Relation: thus the Racovian Catechism, speaking concerning the Original of Christ's being called, or being the Son of God, tells us He is so; First, Because He was conceived of the Holy Ghost; and being born of a Virgin without the concurrence of a man, he had no other Father but God: and this, Wissowatius in his note upon that passage tells us, aught to be observed, as the first reason mentioned in Scripture, why Christ is the Son of God, in opposition to those who found that relation upon his eternal Generation of his Father. Secondly, Christ, says the Catechism, is the Son of God, because, as He himself teaches us, He was sanctified by the Father, i. e. He was separated from the rest of mankind in a singular manner, and besides the perfect holiness of his Life, furnished with Divine Wisdom and Power, 
Cat. Raco. sect. 4. c. 1. p. 24.  He was employed by the Father to execute the Office of an Ambassador with a supreme Authority among Men: Thirdly, Christ was the Son of God because He was raised from the Dead by God, and so begotten of him again, by this means becoming like God in Immortality: and Fourthly, Christ is the Son of God, because He is invested by God with supreme Authority and Command over all things. Our Country man Lushington, a great Patron of Socinianism, in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
On the Hebrews, c. 1. p. 23.  reckons up the grounds of Christ's being the Son of God to the same number. He's the Son of God says He, First, by his Conception, Secondly, by his Function, Thirdly, by his Institution, being by God appointed the Heir of all things, Fourthly, by his Resurrection; thus He: but our New Undertaker, to render these things the more plausible, has given us a new set or Division of the reasons why Christ is called the Son of God? The title of the Son of God, says he, is in Scripture founded upon these Five things, Two that are taken from his twofold birth, the one out of the Womb of the Virgin, by the Operation of the Holy Ghost; the other out of the Womb of the Earth, by his Resurrection, which makes him undoubtedly the Natural Son of God, his only begotten Son, 
Thoughts on Sherlock's vindication of the Trinity, p. 4, 5.  his own, or his proper Son. Three other which are drawn from his Offices, the First, Because he is that Prophet, whom his Father has sanctified and sent into the World with an extraordinary Commission, Secondly, Because he is the great Highpriest immediately called to that Office by God himself; the Third, Because He is the King, whom God has exalted to a Supreme Power both in Heaven and in Earth. Now these Reasons thus multiplied, tho' we should allow them all True, yet they come not up to the matter in hand. It's true, Christ really is the Son of God, by reason of his Conception by the Power of the Holy Ghost in the Womb of the Virgin: but supposing, with the Socinians, that the Holy Ghost is not a Person, but only the influence of Almighty God, there is not enough in that Birth, so miraculous as it is, to give our Saviour the title of the Son of God distinctly and exclusively of all others. Dr. Heylin, tho' far enough from denying the eternal Deity of Christ, yet seems very willing to rest in this Reason, that He is called the only begotten Son of God, purely upon it, or because He's the beloved Son, in whom He is well pleased, or his loved Son, or the Son of his Love: and approves of Maldonat's opinion, that the beloved Son, and the only begotten Son, are terms Reciprocal; but the mistake is apparent: for tho' Isaac be called the only begotten Son of Abraham, it does not argue that He was the sole engrosser of his love, the contrary is apparent from Abraham's carriage in the case of Ishmael, when he took the necessity of turning Him and his Mother out of doors so grievously, 
Gen. 21.11.  and when, upon God's promising him a Son by Sarah, who should be heir of his blessings, the tender Father yet begged, that Ishmael might also live in his sight, 
Gen. 17.18.  i. e. be partaker of God's Favours and extraordinary Blessings too. Besides, that Isaac is called Abraham's only begotten Son, in contradistinction to Ishmael, Isaac was the only begotten Son with respect to God's Promise, and as being the only Son of the free Woman, and properly enough; yet we see, by course of Nature, Abraham had more Sons than Isaac, therefore Isaac was not Abraham's only begotten Son in a sense so eminent, as our Lord is called the Only begotten of the Father: 
Heylin on the Creed, p. 168.  the Father having no other Son begotten by himself but Christ. But tho' sometimes Men do love an Only Child at an extraordinary rate, yet it's not always, nor necessarily so; for Love, being sometimes guided by Reason, and Obedience being the only rational ground of ●aternal Affection, several Children may ●e as obedient as One, and therefore several may as rationally be loved as One in an extraordinary manner. But farther, Neither is our Saviour's Conception by the Holy Ghost in the Womb of the Virgin, so very great a Miracle, as to set our Saviour, on that account, so far above every Creature; for as Doctor Pearson well observes, 
Pearson on the Creed, p. 107.  Adam the first Man was made immediately by the hand of God, no humane faculty concurring at all, and Adam is therefore called the Son of God by the Evangelist; now there cannot be a Power so much greater required, to give a Man a being in the Womb of a Virgin, than to frame him at first out of a Piece of Earth, as to make so great a distance necessary, as is between the First and the Second Adam: for Jesus Christ, our Second Adam, must be the Son of God in so peculiar a manner, as must make him infinitely Superior to any other Creature, he being designed to exercise such a Power as no other Creature could possibly be capable of. We allow then our Lord's Birth and Conception to have been one ground of his being the Son of God, but not the first, it's no no where called so in Scripture, nor is it sufficient to fix him in that supereminent station wherein our Faith is fixed upon him. The second reason of his Filiation is yet much more Deficient, viz. his Resurrection or raising from the Womb of the Earth, for we find none called the Son of God in Scripture on that Reason; that our Saviour was raised from the dead we know, if we look upon him as raised from the Dead by his own Power, as indeed He, 
Joh. 2.19. John 10.17, 18.  and He only was, as himself asserts, that affords us a great difference between Him and all other Persons; but utterly destroys the Socinian ground of his being called the Son of God. But for such troublesome passages as these, I find a remarkable saying of Smalcius, which shows us the whole mystery of their avoiding the force of plain Scripture, and it's this, speaking of Christ's being called God, he proceeds, When we find it declared in Scripture, not only once or twice, but very often, and very plainly, that God was made Man, considering that this is a Proposition absurd, wholly contrary to right Reason, and full of Blasphemy against God, we believe it must be a great deal better to find out some mode of speaking, according to which one may say this concerning God, than to interpret things simply and according to the Letter: that is to say, the Socinians have resolved, not to regulate their Opinions by the Scripture, but to reduce the Scripture to their Opinions: this however is plain dealing, and a sufficient warning to read their Discourses with the greater Caution, and Intention of mind. But, if the Socinians make use of this Art by their own Confessions in matters of the clearest nature, and so often repeated, we cannot doubt, but they'll rather pitch on some unknown Figure to elude those Texts which imply our Saviour's raising himself from the Dead, than own his Unity with his Father in the same Essence or Nature, whereby both the assertion that Christ raised himself, and that He was raised by his Father from the dead, are so easily reconciled: But allowing them their own fancy, if our Saviour was not raised from the Dead by any Power of his Own, but only by that of his Father, and yet, was called the Son of God on account of his Resurrection, than all those who shall rise from the Dead before that great day, must be called the Sons of God in the same sense 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 its 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 sanctified 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 public 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 owned 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 Highpriest, 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 Sense, 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 shows 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, shown 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 itself, is founded on that, Thou art a Priest for ever, 
ver. 6.  after the order of Melchisedec, so then, the Sonship 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 Highpriest. 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 entered 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, than 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 itself imports.  
All these Reasons than not being sufficient to give our Saviour the Title of the only begotten Son of God in a manner so supereminent 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 proved 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 virgins 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 Father, when he has no more; and the Union yet between the eternal Father and the eternal Son, is of a closer and more levelling kind, than any thing inferior nature can afford. Our New Author indeed challenges us, 
Cum Scriptoribus de generatione animaelium haec comparentur. Nos Dei virtutem in Virgins uterum aliquam substantiam creatam vel immisisse aut ibi creasse affirmamus ex quam, juncto eo quod ex ipsius Virginis substantiâ accessit, verus homo generatus fuit. Alias enim homo ille Dei filius à conceptione & nativitate propriè non fuisset. Sic Smalcius, de vero & naturali Dei filio, c. 3. Ruarus ab ipso, uterque à veritate quantum distat.  if we believe this eternal Generation, to prove it expressly contained in Scripture, and then to prove this Eternal Generation the true Basis or Foundation of his glorious Title of the Only Begotten Son of God: As if clear Consequences from plain Premises, were not a demonstrative proof of any thing, to Men who pretend to Reason, and a capacity of discoursing Rationally, which is indeed nothing but drawing Consequences plain or obscure from agreeable Premises: Or, for an instance, as if when I find God called a Spirit, and I know a Spirit is Invisible, I might not conclude God, tho' a Spirit, to be invisible, unless I found Invisibility itself, distinctly and separated from the Notion of a Spirit, attributed to him somewhere in Scripture. Now if all these Proofs I have laid down before, have proved, that our Saviour had a Being before he was Conceived in the Womb of the Virgin, which we think to be proved beyond contradiction, and if our Adversaries will but allow that Dictate of Common sense, that, He who really is my Son, is my Son as soon as he has a Being, or if He be not my Son then, He never can be my Son otherwise than by Adoption; and so Christ can never be the only begotten Son of his Father, because all those who Believe in and Obey God are his Sons by Adoption too, if they'll but allow this, than Christ must have been the Son of his Father, before such time as he was Conceived in the Virgin's Womb, because he had a Being before that Conception: If Christ had a Being before his Conception, it must have been as a Spirit, but Spirits do not generate one another, therefore he must have had a Being from the beginning of the World. If then we fall in with the Arrians and say, God created his Son the Word first out of nothing, and then created all other things by Him, we contradict Scripture, which positively assures us, that in six days the Lord made Heaven and Earth, and all that in them is, and therefore rested the seventh day, but God could not rest the Seventh Day, nor do all he had to do in Six Days if he wrought more than Six Days; but He must have worked before the beginning of the Six Days, if he made the Word before he made any thing else, and we have the Six Days Work summed up authentically by Moses, but no account there of the Creation of the Word before the Creation of Matter: If he were not Created before Matter, than he could not Create all things as the Arrians pretend: If therefore He had a Being, it must have been from all eternity, but he was not Created from eternity, for whatsoever is Created must have a Beginning; but he was begotten of his Father as the Scriptures assure us, if therefore he were Begotten and not Made, and Begotten before the beginnings of the World, He could be Begotten of nothing but of the Substance of his Father, there being no other Substance for him to be originated from, and therefore must be eternal, because the Substance of his Father is and cannot be otherwise than eternal. This being true, it would be mere folly not to fix his Sonship more peculiarly in this eternal Generation: for He that is Begotten by a Father, must be his Son, and he that is Begotten from eternity, must be a Son from eternity, Therefore Christ who was Begotten of his Father from eternity must be the Son of his Father from eternity, which was the thing to be demonstrated.  
If yet a Socinian will stumble at the Union of the Humane with the Divine Nature, as if it were an impossibility, or against reason, let Him resolve us fairly, how the Union is made between a rational and immortal Soul, of a Spiritual, and an heavy and unactive Body of an Earthly Nature: We are all convinced they are so joined together, but those subtle Springs, whereby an Immaterial Soul actuates a Material Body, are hitherto indiscernible by the sharpest Eye of impaired Reason: why then should we conclude it impossible for the Divine and Humane Nature to be united together, unless it be united in a way more intelligible than our Souls and Bodies? For tho' our Souls are of a Spiritual Nature, they are infinitely inferior to the Nature of Almighty God, and being that Constitutive part of Humane Nature, by which Man is a Rational Creature, it might seem an easy task for us to find out, how that Soul we reason by, should be united to that Body we reason in: But since we are so far to seek in this matter, may we not reasonably conclude, God has hidden this from our Eyes, to moderate and humble our unruly Fancies, to keep us from prying into things that are too high for us, and to convince us, that many things wherein we are more immediately concerned, not being a whit the less True tho' we understand them not, we ought to believe that some things may be True with respect to God, of which yet we are able to give ourselves no considerable account? And so we may satisfy ourselves, that our Saviour spoke plain truth, when he said, I and my Father are One, meaning thereby an Essential Unity between his Father and Him; because, tho' he were, at the time of his speaking so, a true Man invested with real flesh and blood, yet He was God before he was Man, the Word of God before he was made flesh and dwelled among us; and was God when He was Man, his Divine Nature not being prejudiced by his assuming Flesh and Blood; by that Divine Nature he was One essentially with his Father, and his Humane assumed Nature being in his Divine Nature, as a finite is contained in an infinite, there could be but One Person at last 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ God-Man, our Saviour and Redeemer. I take the more notice of this particular, which I had insisted on before, because our new Assertor of Socinianism would persuade us, that if we duly examined these Words of our Saviour on this occasion spoken to the Jews, (when they charged him with Blasphemy, because in his former expressions He had made himself God, tho' indeed he were but a Man) we should quit all arguments drawn from thence; the words are these, Jesus answered them, 
John 10.34, 35, 36.  Is it not written in your Law, I said ye are Gods, if he called them Gods unto whom the Word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken, say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the World, Thou blasphemest, because I said I am the Son of God? This says our Adversary, 
Thoughts on Sh. p. 2.  agreeably to those he follows, proves, That our Saviour calls himself God, or the Son of God, upon the same grounds on which others are called Gods, in Scripture, to wit, because the Father has sanctified him, i. e. Christ is God, or the Son of God, in the same sense that Magistrates, Good or Bad, are called so, which certainly is a very great Honour to our Saviour. But, if we examine these Words with that Care we ought, we shall find, that our Saviour by alleging that God had sanctified him, and sent him into the world, does two things: First he distinguishes himself from those called Gods, by that Sanctification and Mission which He had, and They had not; for he affirms no such thing of them, unless our Author will infer it from that, of the Word of God coming to them; but all those to whom the Word of God comes, are not sanctified presently by that; nor are all those sanctified to whom God imparts any thing of his Power for the management of the World, some sufficiently proving the contrary; Nor will it be easy to prove Sanctification and Anointing to be one and the same thing, upon that reason. Nay, if we admit of Heinsius' Criticism, 
Heinsius in Aristarcho sac. in locum.  the case will be yet worse, for he would have those words, to whom the Word of the Lord came, be translated, Against whom the Prophetic Burden, or the threatening Word of God was denounced: and indeed the Original will bear it well enough; now we may fairly conclude, that Divine Menaces against sinners do not sanctify them: so that the comparison between our Saviour and those Gods mentioned in the text, does not lie in their being both sanctified. But secondly, our Saviour teaches us, that He was First Sanctified and then Sent into the World; now He could not be sanctified before he had a being, but he was sanctified before he was sent into the World, He was sent into the world as soon as he was Conceived in the Womb of his Mother, (so Every one is sent into the World as soon as he has a Being in the World, but he has a Being in the World as soon as he's Conceived) therefore our Saviour was Sanctified before his Conception, and therefore he had a Being before his Conception in the Womb of the Virgin; this is what the Socinians deny, but the answer to this evidence is not so easy. After this, tho' our new Writer would have our Saviour to argue as indeed he does, from the Less to the Greater, that, if They were Gods, much more He: yet he has not observed, that our Saviour gives himself the Title only of the Son of God, but to be the Son of God, is less than to be God absolute or without restriction, but our Saviour should have given himself yet some Superior Name, if he intended to prove himself Superior indeed to those whom the Psalmist calls Gods in the cited place; and so indeed he did, as the Jews understood him, they knew well enough that those Gods were only called so by a Figure, and had our Saviour plainly told them, that he meant only Figuratively, when, by calling God his Father, he made himself the Son of God, and by saying, He and his Father were One, He made not himself God, their anger against him would have very much abated, since, in that sense very Ill Men might have pretended to the Title: but they understood, that our Saviour made himself really equal with that One Supreme God whom they worshipped: and according to their thoughts, his Sanctification and Mission into the World by God, if He were his Father, set him infinitely above those Figurative Gods, to whom the Father might have communicated some Authority or Power, but had neither Sanctified them, nor sent them with any extraordinary pretences into the World, and our Saviour was so far from going about to elude their anger, by a shifting or ambiguous answer, as Smalcius a Socinian says he did, when he told the Jews, before Abraham was I am; that he exasperates them the more, by alleging the works he did as an evidence that the Father was in Him and He in Him; 
Joh. 10. 3●  upon which they go about to seize him but in vain. From the whole we conclude directly contrary to what our Socinian Writer asserts: that since our Lord declared nothing, concerning Himself and his own nature, to the Jews, but what was necessary for them to know, and yet did declare to them such things as made it evident to them, that he ascribed a Nature truly and literally divine to Himself; Therefore it was necessary the Jews, and with them all the rest of Mankind, should know, that Christ was really and truly God, not Metaphorically as Magistrates, nor by participation of God's Holiness, as Good Men are made Partakers of the divine Nature; but essentially and eternally as his Father. And thus have we in some measure made good our second Proposition that the blessed Jesus, appearing in our Nature, was God equal with his Father, or really and truly God as well as real Man. We proceed to show  
How it came to be necessary, that to effect our Salvation, God, and particularly God the Son, should assume our nature to himself? That God the Son did really take our Nature upon him, we have largely proved: That God, especially in such extraordinary cases, does nothing but what's necessary, we may conclude: for tho' God be a Free and uncontrolled Agent, yet infinite Wisdom can act nothing that's unnecessary, or indifferent, whether it be done or no: Our business therefore will be to inquire into the Ends and Designs of our Saviour's appearing in the flesh, from whence we shall be the better able to apprehend the necessity of such his appearance. 
Sermon of the Nat. p. 247.  Our Church in her Homily upon the Nativity of our Saviour teaches us, That the end of our Saviour's coming in the flesh was, to save and deliver his people, to fulfil the Law for us, to bear witness unto the truth, to teach and preach the Word of his Father, to give light unto the World, to call sinners to repentance, to refresh them that labour and be heavy laden, to cast out the Prince of this World, to reconcile us in the body of his flesh, to dissolve the works of the Devil, and last of all to become a propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole World▪ What's contained in these, and what other Ends may be assigned for our Saviour's Incarnation, I shall lay down, and prosecute, by God's assistance, under these Heads; Our Saviour was incarnate, or the Son of God was made Flesh, 
That He might destroy the works of the Devil, or put an end to his Tyranny over us.  
That The World might be convinced, that the Law given by Moses to the nation of the Jews was so much God's Law, that it could not be disannulled or antiquated in any particular, but by an authority not inferior to that of God himself who framed it.  
That God's Law, as given to the Jews, might be, exactly and according to the Letter, fulfilled in our Nature; and so that He who fulfilled it, might be an example of Holiness and Obedience to us.   
God was manifest in the flesh, or, which amounts to the same, our Saviour was Incarnate, 
1 Joh. 3 8.  That He might destroy the Works of the Devil, and put an end to his Tyranny over us: This is the very doctrine of the Apostle, For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the Devil, that is, that He might get the Mastery of Sin and Death, so that neither of them might prevail upon us to our eternal Destruction. The Devil had got a strange Ascendant over Men since the Fall, so that he seemed to preside in every humane action, this Prevalency of his, almost banished all Natural Religion out of the World, or perverted it to so ill Intents and Purposes that it lost its name in gross Superstition and ridiculous Idolatry. The Devil made use of all the various Dispensations of Providence for the promoting of his own wicked Designs, so that the bare Permission of him to prevail was thought a sufficient argument, by which to assert his own Independent Supremacy over the World, and consequently to engross to himself all that Divine Worship, which Originally belonged to the Almighty: Nor could it be strange, that He who seemed to manage all the affairs of the Universe without control, should be generally feared and sacrificed to, if it were for no other reasons, but that he might do no outward mischief. Having thus insinuated himself into the Throne of God, tho' he might now and then for his own credit, propound some honest Moral Principles to the World, yet He took far greater advantages to instil all manner of Impieties into his Adorers; it was his malicious and desperate aim, to revenge himself on that terrible Justice which had condemned him to eternal burn; and this revenge, as he commenced with tempting Men to sin at first, so he carried it on, by moving deluded Wretches to do all such things as seemed the most directly to contradict the Will of Heaven; hence arose that horrid complication of sins, of which the Pagan world were guilty, summed up by the Apostle. It was Man's unhappiness, 
Rom 1.28, etc.  that notwithstanding the visible fatal effects of the first sin, they would yet believe it possible there might some unknown sweets lie hid in the perpetration of wickedness; Sin always made a gaudy show, like a common Whore in gay trappings, who carries so much of Witchcraft in her lascivious looks, that, tho' many rot away piece-meal in her poisonous embraces, yet other wicked and adventurous fools are always adding to the tale of her nasty Trophies: This gay outside of sin could prevail, not only upon the inferior World, but upon the Sons of God themselves, those separated from the rest of Adam's race by nobler principles and a diviner knowledge, tho' the product of that unhappy softness, was nothing but Brutes and Monsters, the Plagues of Nature, and the insolent Enemies of Heaven. Sin prevailed afterwards, when God had chosen to himself a particular Nation, and made them the proper Lot of his inheritance, and where God could discover but 7000. of those who had not bowed the knee to Baal, who had not defiled themselves by a miserable prostitution of their Souls to Hell, the Devil had a spreading and destructive Interest among the thousands of Israel, every day added more to his strength and his ready apprehension of his mighty Conquerors approach, edged his Industry and raised his Rage to more than a double heat, because his time was short: It grieved that enemy of Souls to think of the impendent abridgement of his Insolence: He had been so used to easy Conquests, that He knew not how to veil to the blessed Jesus, nor could he speak less to him than as if he had still been the Governor of the Universe, and could really, by virtue of some inherent authority of his own, have bestowed all the kingdoms of the world and the glories of them upon whomsoever he pleased; If we would make more particular remarks of the Devil's influence on the World, about our Saviour's Incarnation, we shall find it notorious in the exertion of a double Tyranny.  
He exercised at that time a prodigious and unaccountable Tyranny over the Bodies of Men; He could not be content with enslaving Man's nobler part, but as God himself, so the great enemy of God, would have the whole Man entirely to himself: not that it could be any way advantageous to himself and his own destructive purposes, for where he had got the Conquest over the Soul before, he knew well enough the body must follow; but he cared not what impertinent mischiefs he engaged himself in, provided he might but the more directly cross his Maker and his Punisher: Hence he came to take Possession of so many bodies, and to vent his malice in so many tormenting Distempers, and especially he invaded those of the Jewish nation, as if knowing, by force of ancient Prophecies, the World's Saviour was to be born among them, He'd take possession entirely of all he could, as if it were by violence to keep out the Lawful Heir from that Inheritance which belonged to him. It has seemed strange to Many, that whereas a Corporeal suffering by the ingress of the Devil into a Man is so very rare now a-days, and was not so very frequent among the Gentiles even in our Saviour's time; yet so many should be possessed among the Jews, as we find upon record in the Evangelists: This has made divers believe, that all violent or convulsive distempers were generally taken to be the effects of the influence of some malignant Spirits; not as if there had really been any Devil within them, but, at most, as if he had been permitted then, as he was in Job's case, to inflict bodily diseases upon some by external causes, and not otherwise; We know well enough that the Devil, in some sense, may be called the author of all those Distempers Men's Bodies at this time labour under, for it was Sin that introduced Death and all the Preliminaries to it, and the Devil introduced Sin: But to resolve all these Posessions by the Devil, recorded by the Evangelists, into nothing but some more violent or unusual diseases than ordinary, can no way be allowed; For we find it not said of those that were Lepers, that were Lame, or Blind, or that had bloody Issues, or that had Fevers, etc. That they were possessed, yet those distempers were of very malignant Natures frequently, and insuperable by all the Art of the Physician, as the Gospel-History informs us: But among other instances of those possessed with Devils, we find Two coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce and dangerous, so that no Man might pass that way, and it was the voice of a Devil, not of a miserable Man, who would have been glad of a release from Slavery, that cried out, What have we to do with thee, Jesus thou Son of God? 
〈◊〉. 8.  art thou come hither to torment us before our time? The notion of Christ's being the Son of God, had then gotten very small footing among Men, but the Devil had experienced his divine original, by that extreme baffle He had received in that Temptation he assaulted him with in the Wilderness: Nor had a Poor Distempered Man, who knew Jesus Christ was the Son of God, any reason to fear his being tormented by Him, who expressed nothing but Goodness and readiness to help the miserable in all the motions of his life; but Devils knew what they had to fear, because they knew what they had deserved; and tho' they expected not their final heaviest Doom so soon, they knew not what terrible Sentence so Powerful and justly incensed a Judge might immediately pass upon them: It could not again, have been a Disease that could with an audible voice have desired leave to enter into the herd of Swine, nor was it a Disease, 
ver. 31.  predominating only in two Persons, which, upon its removal, could have had such precipitate effects upon a whole herd of Swine, as to have driven them headlong into the Sea, there to have perished in the Waters: 
ver. 32.  and it evidenced the true temper of a Devil, to be ready to do mischief in all degrees, and to leave no Creature, that might be any way useful to Man, unassaulted by his active malice.  
Again, another time there's one brought to our Saviour possessed with a dumb Devil, 
Mat. 9.32.  there seem to have been no ordinary natural causes of this distemper, for, as soon as the Devil was cast out, the dumb spoke, and the people wondered, and said, It was never so seen in Israel. And that the Person was really possessed with a Devil, the very Pharisees themselves, who were apt enough to detract from every action of our Saviour, confess plain enough, when upon this truly miraculous effect of his Divine Power, they object, that he cast out Devils by Beelzebub the Prince of the Devils: 
Mat 9.34.  the first was their Confession, that He did really cast out Devils, the second was but their malicious and senseless supposition, that he cast them out through Beelzebub the Prince of the Devils; an Objection, upon another like occasion, sufficiently exposed by our Saviour to the shame of the Objectors. Here it's worth our observation, that where those brought to our Saviour were really possessed with Devils, our Saviour cast them out with a Word only, a short and peremptory Command; where Persons were brought to him affected with the same kind of Distempers, without any such Possession, He generally used some kind of Means, tho' the reasons of them were unintelligible to the Spectators then, and to ourselves at this day: Thus for the Man that was born blind, He spate on the ground and made clay with the spittle, 
Joh. 9.6, 7.  and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with clay, and said unto him, Go wash in the Pool of Siloam, and he went his way and washed, and then he came away seeing; Another blind man, that begged his pity at Bethsaida, was cured in a manner somewhat resembling that; 
Mark 8.23, 24, 25.  He took the blind Man and spate on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, and asked him if he saw aught, and when he owned but an imperfect sight, he put his hands upon his Eyes again, and then he looked up, and saw every Man clearly: And where he was desired to lay his hands upon one that was Deaf and Dumb, where it arose, not from a possessing Devil, but from natural impediments, He put his fingers into his Ears, and he spat, 
Mar. 7.32, 33, 34, 35.  and touched his tongue, and looking up to Heaven he sighed and said unto him Ephphatha, Be opened, and the consequence was, straightway his Ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke plain; Now this account of the cure of several particular bodily distempers, puts a plain and very remarkable difference between these griefs caused immediately by the Devil, and those commonly incident to Mankind. Besides, we often, if not always, find the Person possessed by an evil Spirit, under some distraction of mind, so the Two possessed with Devils mentioned before, 
Mark 5.15.  the Man who was called Legion, because of that multitude of Devils which had entered him, (who therefore when he was dispossessed, is said to have been in his right mind:) which tho' it may arise from bodily distempers, and doubtless often does so, yet it's generally observed, that where the Devil has taken Possession of men's or women's bodies by Divine Permission either so as to speak oracularly by them for the delusion of mankind, or to act otherwise maliciously to their destruction, there are and have been frequent, if not continual alienations of mind, and desperate rave and distractions; and it's no wonder that such an inmate should create nothing but ruins and disorders. Farther, we find the precise number of seven Devils cast out of Mary Magdalene, we could scarcely say rationally that they were seven diseases, or, as some dream, that they were the seven deadly sins: Nor would the casting out of those Devils be so oft repeated, if there had been no more in the case than what was the ordinary effect of our Lord's goodness to persons in distress, so that, upon the whole, we may certainly conclude, it was, at the time of our Saviour's coming into the World, an ordinary thing, comparatively to what it was at other seasons, for the Devil to enter into and possess, and disorder the bodies of Men; If we ask the reason why, it may seem to have been permitted,  
For the utmost trial of the possessed persons Patience and Faith, and to excite in them the more earnest long for the coming of the Messiah: Thus God permitted the Devil to assault holy Job with extreme malice and violence, not that he intended to leave Job wholly in his hand, no; he knew the natural frailties incident to corrupted nature, and would not permit the enemy to press upon him beyond what he would enable him to bear, therefore, tho' the Devil improved that liberty given him to the utmost for the tormenting of his body, and for the taking from him all those worldly comforts he had enjoyed before, yet he could not but complain of that hedge which God by his Providence had set about him; he could not but be sensible of that restraint laid upon him by a superior hand; at last, after all the expressions of Diabolical malice against him, Job comes out from the furnace of his Affliction more Pure, more Illustrious and Happy, and every way infinitely more considerable than he was before: Affliction taught him more particularly to depend upon the life of his Redeemer, he saw his mighty Saviour at a distance, but with so clear and strong a Faith, as preserved him in all his bitter sufferings from sinking in Despair, while he saw the expiring rage of his cruel Adversary, ready to be swallowed up in Victory, and himself among others, like to be partaker of his Redeemer's eternal Triumphs; he risen from the Dunghill he sat on in his misery, more experienced in the uncertain and unsatisfactory nature of all sublunary things, in the weakness of his own Temper, and the malice of his Enemy, so that he was admirably fitted on all hands, to be a Teacher to the rest of the World, both by his pious Lectures, and his more instructive example: What was the Case of Job so long before, was the Case of those more numerous Wretches, whom Satan was permitted to possess about the time of our Saviour's Incarnation; tho' they were miserable enough, in being the unhappy receptacles of Infernal Spirits, yet there was a providential guard about them still, which checked the malicious designs of Hell, and made those poor creatures, tho' so terrible to others, yet not to sink by themselves into Despair: those strange effects of an unusual vigour, apparent in the Persons Possessed, shown the World plainly, how strong the cursed Inmate was, how little Natural strength was able to oppose him, and how Dreadful the Prince of Darkness must have been to all, had not strong and weighty chains been laid upon him. Yet we cannot imagine those Persons, thus possessed, were deprived so wholly of their Understandings, that they had no lucid intervals at all, the Man, and the Rational heavenborn Soul acted sometimes, and the poor Wretches were sensible of their own deplorable condition; this made them long for a Deliverer, and, when they saw him, not to punish themselves with ordinary Jewish Prejudices against him, but in spite of Hell itself and all the reluctance of indwelling Devils, to fly to his feet, and to seek a remedy for their calamities at his hands; they lived in Hope amidst all their former Torments, and now they shown it, their eyes were not so thick, but that they could see the Son of God through a veil of flesh, and of an humble and inferior State; nay, those very Devils within them were instrumental against their design, to confirm their Faith and Hope, by that unwillingness they'd certainly express to quit any Seat, where they had engrossed a Power, and to appear before an all-knowing and inexorable Judge; and, by those Confessions which they made, who, in that point, as to our Saviour's being the Son of God, when they confessed it, were more to be credited than all the Jewish Doctors and prejudiced Hypocrites put together. We may yet be sure it was none of the Devil's motion, that made the miserable Demoniac, when he saw Jesus afar off, run and fall down and worship him: 
Mark 5.6.  they were Devils who drove the unhappy Wretch to take up his habitation among the tombs, they were Devils that drove him about the mountains day and night, where he was continually crying and cutting himself with stones, whatsoever could be mischievous to him that they urged him to, but it was Reason divinely influenced, and a deep sense of that slavery he then lay under, that brought him to his Master's feet, where only help and salvation could be found. Certain misery generally opens the Eye of Reason, and brings it to an exact weighing of all things, and an impartial examination of their natures: If it befall an Impenitent guilty Soul, it gives him an irrefragable conviction of the eternity of those woes he's engaged in, this makes him desperate; If it be the lot of One, who, tho' very guilty, yet endeavours to expiate his crimes by a sincere Repentance, it makes him find unanswerable reasons why he should still hope in the Mercy of God, and that with some considerable assurance of being a partaker in it. Those very Demoniacs in the Gospel, were awakened to a sense of themselves by that heavy judgement they were laid under, their lucid Intervals taught them to humble themselves under God's afflicting hand, it made them long to see the strong Man armed cast out by one that was stronger than he, and their Liberty asserted by one mighty to save; and therefore they saw, what stubborn fools would take no notice of, and flew to that Saviour with an eager haste, whom the rest of their more unhappily possessed Country men contemned and persecuted. Now this, being one reason of God's permission that the Prince of Darkness should Tyrannize upon humane bodies; it's no wonder He should be more Active than ordinary, when his Power was drawing towards an end, and it's as little to be wondered at that he should lose his aim, and that his violence should make all long the more earnestly, that He who was their much expected Saviour should come quickly. Nor is it any wonder that tho' God permitted the Devil to afflict their bodies, yet he himself should support their spirits from sinking under that calamity, since his own Son's appearance was now at hand, and Hell's utmost fury would easily submit to his Almighty power.  
God permitted this insolence of the Devil, more particularly about the time of our Lord's Incarnation, that as the malice and power of the Devil was by that means the more apparent, so the glory of his Son, and the evidence of his yet greater power, might be the more illustrious: So that, tho' Men were under a present affliction, and that far from being unmerited, since they had sinned to deserve more than temporal punishment, should God have been extreme to mark what was done amiss, (as appears by Mary Magdalen's case, to whom our Saviour observes, much was forgiven) yet they were much advantaged by that temporary affliction, and that freedom they obtained taught them the more industriously to celebrate God's glory, and to admire that goodness showed by him to the children of Men. For, when they saw what they had suffered, and how extreme a danger they had incurred before by yielding to Sin, Men, with their Cure recovering their Reason, would be afraid to sin any more, lest a worse thing might come to them: Hence we find the Man possessed with a Legion of Devils, when they were cast out, desiring to be with his Deliverer, which tho' it were refused him, yet Christ bade him go home to his Friends, 
Mark 5.18, 19.20.  and to tell them how great things the Lord had done for him, and had had compassion upon him: which accordingly he did, and published in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and by this means, all those, who were not wilfully blind, might easily discover that the Lord whom they expected was come. Our Saviour, by these particular actions, got a mighty advantage against Pharisaic Prejudices, and evidenced his own glory and their shame at the same instant. As all ages had showed some on whom the Devil had exercised a more particular Power, so among the Jews there had been several instances of the same nature, and as they had a certain knowledge of the miserable state of those who were so troubled, so pious Men, among the Jews, had had particular recourse to Almighty God, that God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, interceding by their Prayers for Mercy and relief for those so visited; they, who were brought up in the methods of True Religion, applied not themselves to Charms or Magic Arts to get a victory over him who was the Inventor and Promoter of such Arts, as the Gentile world did; but they applied themselves to their own God, whose Mercy and Power they were well acquainted with, and of whom they knew all the Powers of darkness stood in awe; and it please God often to hear the Prayers of such pious Persons on behalf of those Demoniacs, and to cast those Fiends out of them; this dealing of that God who had planted true Religion, among them by Moses, gave a continual evidence to the Divinity of that Religion; those ejections of Devils being effected not by the lose devotions of an impious Rabble, but by the humble and incessant applications of such who lived in punctual obedience to the Law, and justified its holy nature by their lives and conversations; these our Saviour takes notice of when the Pharisees reproached him with casting out Devils by Beelzebub the Prince of Devils, when in return to their scandalous Objection, he asks them, 
Matth. ●2. 27.  If I by Beelzebub cast out Devils, by whom then do your Children cast them out? And from thence carries on an argument to convince them of the falseness of their objection. Now if it were true, that pious Men among the Jews did by devout Prayers to God cast out Devils, and by so doing confirm their Religion, (because it was certain God would not hear the Prayers of those, who should have separated from a Religion of his own Institution) if this were so, then since Christ lived himself in a complete Obedience to the same divine Law, in an Obedience so absolute, that he could challenge all his quicksighted Adversaries to convince him of sin; and while he lived in such Obedience, did the same things with those whom they supposed Holy and Good Men, than it must necessarily follow, that Christ acted as religiously as They, cast out Devils by the same means, and acted by the same divine Power as those holy men among themselves did. Had he indeed gone about to seduce them from the Service of the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, they might justly have exclaimed against him: but he referred all the glory of what he did to the same God, and appealed to him as his Father; therefore they could not, upon any just reason, condemn him as acting by any unlawful ways, while they admired their own Children for those very things, for which they pretended to condemn Him. From this he proceeds to a farther Argument in his own vindication: The Devil indeed is strong and powerful, and where he gets possession is very Hardly removed; If he pretends on foolish Exorcisms, to quit his hold, it's but to delude the Ignorant and Credulous, and to return at his own pleasure; if he be not for that illusion, He cannot be stronger than himself, therefore He cannot cast out Himself; but the Devil is really and frequently cast out, and that so, as not to be able to return to his former Mansion when he pleases, therefore he must be cast out by one really stronger than himself; but there is no Being more Powerful than the Prince of Darkness, 
1 Tim 3.16.  except only that God who created him, therefore it must be by the strength of that great God that He was cast out. Now that our Saviour frequently cast out Devils, nay that the very Disciples who followed him, and who acted only by a Power delegated from him, cast out Devils, was plain to the Eyes of all Men, therefore both the Master and the Disciples cast out Devils by a Power truly Divine: for, as our Saviour urges them, How can one enter into a strong man's house, 
Matth. 12.29.  and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man, which He that does must be stronger than He, and then He will spoil his goods: Thus were those captious Adversaries of their own happiness baffled, and thus was the Glory of our blessed Saviour increased; for by this means, being in the outward Communion of the Jewish Church, and asserting the Honour of the same God whom they worshipped, it must appear plain beyond Contradiction, that He really came from God, that he was the Anointed of God, That Messiah upon whose coming both They and their Fathers had for many ages built their hopes. The frequency then of the Devils exercising his Tyranny at that time upon men's bodies, gave our Saviour the more frequent opportunities of exerting his own Divinity, and so the Devil himself, that great Enemy of his appearance, was the great Evidence of the truth of that appearance, and that by those very means, by which he hoped principally to obstruct those benefits flowing from his Appearance; so numerous Rebels starting up in several quarters of the Kingdom, give a well-armed Prince the greater opportunities of becomeing more Absolute than before, by those very methods whereby they hoped to have shaken off his Yoke, and to have set up a Government according to their own fancies. To this Consideration might perhaps be added, that this great prevalency of the Infernal Powers about the time of our Saviour's appearance, was one certain evidence of that fullness of time in which the Messiah was to be revealed, since it was a great evidence of the general Deluge of Wickedness, which then had overflowed the World, so that it was full time for the Son of God to interpose with his Power, lest God's anger should have consigned a generally infected World to his Revenge, who waited for it, and began to domineer in it as his own: but  
We find the Devil not at all satisfied with those disorders he created in the Bodies of Men, but that he was much more Tyrannical over their Souls, their better, their immortal Part; there it was the Image of their great Creator was impressed, there he loved to Tyrannize, and as far as possible to deface that glorious original Image, and He prevailed but too effectually. The Devil had seduced a great part of the World entirely from the Service of the Creator to himself the worst of Creatures; He had set up his own Altars in every place, and made an unthinking Generation prostrate themselves to him for good and assistance, when the World contained no other Enemy to their good but himself; it may seem strange that the World should have been seized with so gross a Stupidity, as to be liable to the fatal Mistake, but when ignorance prevails, it's no wonder that a Spirit of such active subtlety should extend his Conquests very far, where the Soul is once made like a fair Table without any impression, it's easy for the first that attempts it to draw the Portrait of the Devil upon it; now the Engines by which the Devil held the Soul in slavery were these  
False Interests: Interest is what goes a great way in managing the affairs of this World; where it's conceived to lie, it often excites in vigorous and apprehensive Souls a strange industry and eagerness to carry on whatsoever seems subservient to it; nay, he's justly looked upon as his own Enemy, who does not observe his own Interests, and prosecute them to extremity; this the Devil knowing very well, set false Interests before the Eyes of much the greater part of Mankind, some few sagacious Souls were sensible of his Subtleties, and stood upon their guard, kept their Eyes so open that his Lethaean bough was unable to close them, but the rest were lulled by the fatal music of bewitching Sirens into such Dreams, as nothing but eternal ruins could awake them from; thus the Devil persuaded Men, That Liberty was their interest, not that sacred liberty from sin and guilt, which Divine Religion offers to the Soul, but a wild extravagance, the product of wretched inconsideracy, which carries men out into all excess of wickedness, a Liberty which has no bounds but what time and mortality sets before it, and yet, which is so far from being a true Liberty, that it's the most miserable, and to the Soul, when it has leisure but to think a little, the most intolerable slavery in the World. But however Liberty is the word, and it carries charms along with it, and too too few reflect upon it so far as to distinguish between what's Real and Fictitious. It is the Interest of Mankind to seek for Pleasure, i. e. to seek to live always with Him, in whose presence is fullness of joy, and at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore: but here Hell plays again with Ambiguities, and gives not Men leisure to distinguish or judge of Pleasures, false or true, transient or perpetual: But Pleasure and Liberty are such Interests, as no Wise Man can cease to prosecute, therefore Men must take a world of pains to glut themselves with sensual Pleasures, where Sorrows and Torments have their shares, and they must have Liberty to be damned in spite of all the whining Lectures of men pretending to true Religion, and to teach Men saving Wisdom; there are some petty Moral Virtues which Hell itself would recommend, lest a general hurry into Vice should give so horrid a Prospect of things as should startle the most insensate Brute, and make him desire at least to live in Peace with the World, for his own security; but it is Interest still for any Man to do wrong to his Neighbours, when he finds himself strong enough to justify his pretensions by Force: And whether he succeeds or no, the Devil gains his ends, which is the destruction of Mankind, which he always promotes so far as he may safely do it, without rendering his Advices suspicious to his own Vassals; so that, according to the Divinity of Hell, it is Man's Interest to be extremely Ambitious, extremely Debauched, extremely Wicked; in all these things corrupt Nature loves to go on without check or restraint. But if it be not safe for the same Person to take his swing in every respect, any One of them is enough to damn him eternally, and he may indulge himself in what he pleases. But whereas the Soul sometimes reflects upon futurity, there are Elysian fields provided for the Fancy to exercise itself upon, where it may be Rewards are promised to some Popular Virtues, but neither the Sensualist, nor the irregularly Ambitious, nor the Pitiful Effeminate Souls shall be excluded from them. It was always the suggestion of Hell, that the Messengers of Heaven had no other design but to yoke men under unreasonable severities, to debar them of all the delights of life, to engage them in morose and sullen courses, and all with a prospect only of a Chimaerical happiness, such as had no being but in the talk of those who invented it; now these things must needs sound very harshly to Flesh and Blood, and arm Men against that Religion which should pretend to invade such rights and privileges: This argument Hell made use of principally against the Jewish Religion of old, and endeavoured on all occasions to expose it to the rest of Mankind. When the worth and import of Jewish Ceremonies was almost at an end, then to the Jews the suggestion was, That their Holy Religion, that Law given to them in so extraordinary a manner by the hand of God himself, was like to be trodden under foot, that God's Temple, the Glory of their Nation, was like to be destroyed, and it must certainly be their Interests, who had just hopes of Salvation by their Law, to defend it against all encroachments and alterations whatsoever. Against Christianity it was easy to persuade the Gentiles, That all those Gods whom they had so long adored, and by whose kind influences they had so long been happy, were now like to be set at nought, that they would be tempted to a persuasion which the Wise and Inquisitive Heads, the subtle Philosophers of those Ages, who yet were the Wisest Men, and the greatest Examples, would never admit of, that therefore, if they embraced it, they must certainly incur the odium of all the World, and prepare themselves to suffer whatsoever the joint furies of the Universe could inflict upon them, and it was certainly their Interest to write after the Copy of the Philosophic Tribe, to assert the Honour of their ancient Deities, and to live in a good correspondence with all mankind: These suggestions were fair and plausible, and golden Interest every way glittering in men's faces; these introduced  
Violent and unreasonable Prejudices against all those means which should be made use of by Heaven, to assert Men into a true and substantial liberty from that Hellish slavery they had been enured to: Now if the case be never so plain that Men are really in a place of torment, and that they feel it severely, if their Looks and Cries and Complaints make others take notice of and pity their Condition, and yet One that goes to persuade them of the uneasiness of their lives, and offers to disengage them from those pains they feel, and proves, beyond contradiction, that his Power is sufficient to effect what he pretends to, cannot be heard, nor his Offers attended to or accepted, it must necessarily be concluded, that such Persons lie under some very unaccountable Prejudice against the Person of the Offerer, or that Authority invested in him. Such was the condition of the world in general at our Lord's appearance in our Nature, they were all Prisoners to their greatest enemy, to him who desired to be the eternal tormenter both of their Bodies and their Souls, that Liberty he pretended to indulge them with was nothing, but extreme Slavery, the most base and unworthy of a rational Creature that possibly could be contrived, like that wherein the Poet tells us Circe kept the Companions of Ulysses, where they, were turned to Wolves and Dogs and Swine, the very tortures of which beastly state made some more fiery Souls conclude it was better by their own hands to disengage themselves from those weighty fetters they mourned in, than endure so base a confinement. To these our Saviour appeared, that Sun of Righteousness came to them with healing in his wings; Compassion to their wretched condition drew him from the bosom of his Father and made him manifest himself in the flesh. The end of his descent was, That whosoever believed in him should not perish but have everlasting life: That all might believe in him, He fully and clearly stated their own miserable condition before their eyes, he shown them the Strength and Malice of their Tyrant, their own inability to get free from those Chains he had laid upon them, his own readiness to be their Deliverer, if they'd but depend upon him for it, and he gave all Men every day new Proofs, that he was able to make good what he offered, the Devil, who was their Persecutor, flying before him as a Wolf would before a generous Lion, or a Child before a Giant. Yet after all this our Saviour came even to his own, as the Evangelist assures us, and his own received him not, 
Joh. 1.11.  He came among them at that precise time which their Prophets had assigned to his advent. He came when their Religion was almost vanished into Air, and the Law of Moses of no more Authority among a company of nice Scribes and Pharisees, than the whole Book of God was afterwards among the Schoolmen. They looked every day for his coming, and could not avoid being sensible of their present wants: But for all this, the Devil had filled them with such ridiculous Jealousies of their Law, and with such Prodigious Prejudices against the Person of Him, they so long waited for; that necessity itself could make but very few of them own or believe in him. It's true, he appeared but in the form of a servant, in a very mean and despicable state, and the Jews, being enslaved to a Foreign Power, expected some mighty Monarch who should have broke the Roman fetters, and have made Jerusalem sensibly superior to all the Cities upon Earth: Prejudice in the mean time shut their eyes so strongly, that they could not see, that He who was able to heal all manner of Distempers, to quell the Ragings of a stormy Sea, to drive whole Legions of Infernal Spirits before him with a Word, notwithstanding the meanness of his outward garb, might be able, if he saw it good, to effect all these mighty conquests they expected at his appearance; as if his saving Power had depended only on the Greatness of his Retinue, the Gaiety of his Habit, or the Grandeur of his Court. The Gentiles had their Prejudices too; they thought a Contemptible Man far too weak td baffle all those numerous Deities whose directions they had so long managed themselves by; they concluded that one Crucified by the prosecution of his own Country Men, one whose Disciples freely owned his ignominious Death, and seemed proud of their Master's Cross, whose Apostles pretended to no elaborate Eloquence, to no niceties of Argument, to no depth of Learning, and yet would always be Preaching in their Master's name, they concluded it impossible that such a One should be the World's Saviour, that such Messengers should really be the authentic Ambassadors of Heaven, tho' they too did numerous miracles in the name of Him they preached, and without Learning baffled all the wit and arguments of their nimble Sophisters: As if it were the outward appearance, and not the inherent power and authority of a person, that must effect the mighty work; or as if complete Liberty could not be worth a Man's acceptance, unless it were given by a royal hand; It must certainly be a strange ascendant which Hell had over mankind, which could infatuate them so far, and persuade such vast numbers to build their own eternal ruin upon such pitiful Objections.  
The Devil infected men's Souls about the time of our Lord's Incarnation; with a Prodigious and unaccountable Laziness, such as made them absolutely unready to contribute to their own happiness. They saw themselves abused by those Gods they worshipped, their Credulity imposed on, and their good Intentions perverted, this they publicly declared. They found themselves cheated with an empty show of knowledge, and caressed by others, like themselves, for their Philosophic achievements, when indeed they were not able so much as to agree about the Supreme Good, but fell into more than 300. different opinions about it, tho' they accounted the achievement of that good the great end of all Humane Actions. This they could not but laugh at themselves; They saw that notwithstanding their continual Declamations against unsociable Vices or notorious Immoralities, their very Instructors themselves scarce deserved the names of Men, by reason of their dissolute and irregular lives; They found themselves irrecoverably addicted to all those very things which themselves branded as irrational and odious; This they lamented, and they seemed earnestly to wish for a remedy of all these evils; but they were like the Clown in the ditch, they'd cry to Heaven for help, but never went about to rescue themselves by Care and Industry from those Calamities they were involved in. The Devil could well enough bear with all the Remonstrances of those who were sensible of the World's deplorable state, so long as Sloth had seized their Vitals, and would permit them to go no further than empty Lamentations. Nothing can render Men more ridiculous or contemptible, than this Temper, to their cruel Adversary: the very Heathens could represent their ancient Hero's as Men of daring Spirits, never giving themselves to ignoble Ease, but travelling continually through the World, to seek Adventures worthy of their Strength and Courage; yet they could easily forget their own Examples, and languish in a miserable slavery to Sin, neither combat with their own Vices, nor with the Temptations of the Devil; they could not so much as find the way to Him who was able to assist them, who could renew their languid Souls with a sprightly Vigour, and make them, by the influences of his sacred Spirit, triumphant over all their inborn Corruptions; the Blind were desirous to be led to him, the Lame to be carried to him, only those who were under inward and more mortal Distempers showed no forwardness to be cured by an Almighty hand. When the Wiseman describes the Sluggard's Vineyard, and shows us the Fences thereof broken down, the Surface of it covered with Thorns and nettles, and the Sluggard himself so far from regarding it that he stretches himself upon his Bed and cries, Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep, he characterizes the general disposition of Men under the Influences of Hell, overgrown with all manner of Impieties, unguarded against all manner of Temptations, and yet dull and stupefied under all their Miseries. When we reflect upon this general Captivity of rational Creatures to Vice and Folly, when we reflect upon that spiritless Weakness they groaned under, when we see them lazy in their own nearest concerns, prejudiced against all the ways of their own Deliverance, pursuing Bubbles with a ridiculous Earnestness, and imagining it their greatest Interest to undo themselves; we cannot well persuade ourselves, that any ordinary means could help the miserable, or relieve the oppressed, or let the Prisoners go free. The chains and violences of Hell are not easily broken, and the attempts of Weaklings in the Case would but increase the sorrow of the Sufferers; but when the blessed Jesus revealed himself, in the fullness of time; when he began, by mighty works, to exert his power; when he commissioned his Disciples to go through the Cities of Israel, and to preach Repentance, and to work Miracles of all sorts; when those Disciples, returning again to give an account of their Ministry, told their Master, that even Evil Spirits themselves were subject unto them through his name, our Saviour observes, 
Luke 10.18.  that he saw Satan, like lightning, fall from Heaven; he had put an end to that height of power the Devil had pleased himself in before. He had seemed to himself to be like the most High, invested in an absolute Dominion o'er the World; but he was now fallen from his Height, and should no more be able to deceive the Nations with that success he had formerly had; for the Gospel then preached, set before Men, in plain terms, the true and only good they were to aim at; it laid out the means tending directly to that good; it showed Men their frequent Failures indeed, but an infallible Atonement for them in the Death of their Saviour; and showed the Holy Spirit ready to assist all their pious Endeavours after Happiness, by which the Works of the Devil were effectually destroyed.  
Another Reason of our Saviour's coming into the World, was, That the World might be convinced that the Law given by Moses to the Jewish Nation, was really the Law of God, and that it could not therefore be repealed by any Power or Authority whatsoever, but his who was God. The last part of this Reason is a necessary consequence upon the first; for in all Countries the sanction and repealing of Laws require one and the same Authority at least; nay, where it's possible, the annulling of a Law requires much the greater Power; thus among the Romans, the Edictum Praetoris, or the Praetor's Edict, had the force of a Law, and Obedience was absolutely required to it, only it might be rescinded by a Rescript of the Emperor, whose Power was indisputable both over the Praetor and his Law; but the Praetor could not repeal an Imperial Rescript, nor his own Edict, after an Imperial Confirmation: thus God can vacate all Humane Laws, when and where he pleases, because he's superior to all Laws but those flowing from his own Nature; but it's a damning Sin for Man to go about to vacate God's Laws, because Man, in his highest state has no other Authority but what he derives from God, who cannot be supposed to give any Man an Authority contradictory to his own, or that should interfere with it; but among Men, as in the Roman Empire it required an Imperial Power to repeal an Imperial Sanction; so among ourselves, an Act of Parliament can be repealed only by an Act of Parliament, the King in Parliament being in all respects whatsoever, the supreme Power of the Nation. Thus we see the Parallelism between both the making and disannulling both Divine and Humane Laws; so that it appears altogether rational, that the Mosaic Law, if originated from God, should be repealed by God. As for the Law of Moses, that it was given by God, and only by him, he that reads the Scripture, and owns that to be the Word of God, must of necessity believe, and the Jews to this day are so strongly possessed with that Assurance, that all the World knows the vacating that by One, who appeared but a mean Man, is one great prejudice the Jews make use of at this day against Christianity; they are certain God gave their Law and every part of it, they are as certain that the same God only could change or take it away, they conclude, as our Socinians do, That Jesus was a mere Man and no God, therefore they look upon him as very wicked for pretending to put an end to that Law. Now, if we wanted the Scripture to confirm us in that Knowledge, a bare Reflection upon the behaviour of the Jewish Nation at all times is enough to satisfy us, that God was the Author of their Law. For if we look upon them as esteemed by their Neighbours, they were never looked upon as the veriest Fools and Ignorants in the Universe, that Ptolomey, who procured the Translation of the Old Testament into Greek, thought the Books of their Law worth procuring at a vast expense, so he and several adjacent Nations at all times were ready to enter into terms of Confederacy with them, etc. But were they never so wise or knowing in any thing, they never found any reason to shake off the Yoke of the Law of Moses; they owned it upon all occasions, and, as at first, when they fell under any extreme Affliction, they had immediately recourse to the Law and to the Testimony; from whence they re-confirmed their Apprehensions of the true God, the God of their fathers, and applied themselves to Him; so afterwards, they employed themselves earnestly in vindicating that Law from any Aspersions which their Enemies might lay upon it, and in endeavouring to procure Proselytes to that Law, from among the neighbouring Nations. But now we must have a very mean opinion of the Jews, if we can imagine a whole Nation should submit themselves to a body of Laws, for a course of several ages; that they should believe it their indispensible duty to obey all the particular Injunctions of a Law that was extremely nice and difficult to be observed; such a Law as, in its Ceremonial part, was very troublesome and heavy, yet necessary enough, considering the Temper of the People it was given to, and the great end and aim of it; that they should own the obliging force of this Law, notwithstanding those many Rebellions against it which they were guilty of, and which there stood upon record against them, to their perpetual Reproach and Shame; that they should be infinitely nice in preserving the Copies of their Law pure and uncorrupt, tho' it contained so many Prophecies and Threaten against them, and the accounts of so many Terrible Judgements executed against them for their Stubbornness, Disobedience and Incorrigibility, and that, after all, they should expose their lives to Tortures and to Death itself for the sake of these very Laws, rather than by any force be drawn to renounce or to trespass upon an ordinary Ceremony of them; we must have a very mean opinion of the Jews, if we can believe they would do and suffer all these things for the sake of such a Law, whose Original they really were unacquainted with, or they could be persuaded to assert its coming in an extraordinary manner from the hand of God himself, when there were so many in all parts of the World, who because they would not admit of it, were engaged by their proper Interests, and for their own credit, to ruin its reputation, if they were not able to prove beyond contradiction, that their Law had its Original from God himself. Now since so little has appeared against the Divine Original of the Jewish Law, in any age, and that little has been so very easily baffled, we can the less wonder that the scattered Posterity of the Jews to this day should be so hardly persuaded to quit that Law. Since they have unanswerable Reasons to believe that as it did proceed immediately from God, so it could be abrogated by none but the same God, therefore those who go about to persuade the World, that Jesus Christ the Messiah was not God, but a mere Man, and so confirm their old Prejudices taken up against our Saviour during his converse upon earth; such lay a desperate stumbling-Block in the way of the Conversion of those miserable People; for our great Interest is against them to prove that Jesus Christ was God, for, that being granted, they'll easily yield, that He was the Messiah, and that he lawfully might abrogate the Law of Moses, in part or in the whole, as He himself thought good.  
When we speak thus of the Abrogation of the Mosaic Law, it's to be observed, that part of what's comprised in the Books of Moses, is the Law of Nature, so not His by any peculiar Title, and therefore, though in his Books, not repealable, some part of his Laws were Political, which, since the Fall of the Jewish State and their penal Dispersion, are impracticable, and consequently antiquated of themselves; those Laws therefore which we at this time more particularly respect, are those called Ceremonial Laws, appropriated wholly to the Jewish Nation in distinction from all others, and made Authentic by the Authoritative Sanction of God himself; this was that Law, which as it had a particular respect unto the Coming of the Messiah, being full of Types and Shadows, representing what He was to do and suffer, so it could rationally be no more than Temporal, and expire of course at such time as the Messiah the Anti-type should appear in the World: and since the Messiah, when come, would be able to effect all those things for Men, which those Types and Shadows did but point at, the Jews themselves could not but be glad to have that Burden removed which neither they nor their Fathers were able to bear, when that promised Messiah was really come; therefore we see that all that Fondness the Jews at present express towards their Ceremonial Law, arises only from their mis-perswasion, that the Messiah really is not yet come. But if the Ceremonial Law were really given to the Jews by God himself, and yet was to be abrogated at last, there must certainly appear some reasons for that Abrogation, beside the mere Authority of the Repealer, sufficient to justify the Repeal itself; and such are,  
The general Import, just mentioned, they were Types and Shadows only, they could be no more in their own Natures, nor was it necessary they should be more; they were Figures for the time then present, 
Heb. 9.9, 10.  wherein were offered both Gifts and Sacrifices, and wherein was much solitude about meats and drinks and divers washings, and carnal ordinances were then imposed upon the Jews until the time of reformation, says the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews; that those Sacrifices offered under the Law were but Vanity in their own Nature, the Jews have been sensible themselves; so in their Midrasch Koheleth, or Gloss on Ecclesiastes, on that passage, 
Eccles 2.1.  I said in my heart, go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure, and behold this also is vanity, they comment thus, Enjoy pleasure or good, i. e. the good of the Law, and behold even that is Vanity; sure the Scripture ought to have said, behold that is pleasure or good; what then is the Preacher's meaning to say, behold that also is Vanity? Rabbi Hezekiah said, All that Law which thou learnest in this age is but Vanity, 
Ragmundi Martini Pugio fidei pars 3. distinct. 3. c. 11. §. 12.  in competition with the Law of the Ages to come; by the Law of the Ages to come, they mean the Law of the Messiah, for so they explain it in their Comment on chap. 11. v. 8. where they positively say, All that Law which a Man learns in this age, or at the present, is Vanity, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in comparison with, or in presence of the Law of the Messiah; and they had reason for their Opinion: for tho' the Ceremonial appendages of the Law had respect principally to the service of God, yet they were all external, such as could not possibly affect the Soul, yet the Jews themselves conclude the Soul the principal part concerned in their worship of God, in the Midrash Tehillim on that of the Psalmist, 
Ps. 51.17.  The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart O God thou wilt not despise. Now, if we reflect on the nature of their Sacrifices offered to God by Fire, they were expiatory; the blood of those Sacrifices was shed and sprinkled for the atoneing Heaven for the Sins of the Offerers; but as the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews asserts, The Law can never with those Sacrifices, 
Heb. 10.1.4. Numb. 19  offered year by year continually, make the comers to them perfect: and that it is not possible that the blood of Bulls or of Goats should take away sin. The Water of Separation prepared with the Ashes of a Red Heifer was to purify the , but it could only purify them outwardly, no inward Pollution could be removed by a sprinkling with it; therefore David in a state of extraordinary inward guilt, begs of God, Create in me a clean heart, O God, 
Psal. 51.10.  and renew a right spirit within me; and elsewhere he declares, I will wash my hands in innocency, and so will I compass thine Altar: 
Psal. 26.6.  therefore we find, that during the whole force of the Ceremonial Law, the outward Purifications might, on an extraordinary Occasion, as that of Hezekiah's Passover, be dispensed with, but the inward Purification of the Heart was a duty absolutely indispensible; whence it was, that when several of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and Issachar, and Zabulun, had not cleansed themselves, Hezekiah put up that petition for them to God, 
2 Chron. 30.18, 19, 20.  The good Lord pardon every one that prepareth his heart to seek God, the Lord God of his fathers, though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the Sanctuary, and the Lord harkened to Hezekiah, and healed the people: which additional Passage intimates, that God inflicted some punishment on the People for participating of the Passover when legally unprepared, so to teach them a Lesson of punctual Obedience; but he healed them upon account of their inward and spiritual Preparation, to satisfy them, that he esteemed inward Holiness beyond all the ceremonial Purifications of the Sanctuary. In the Law there were a great many Washings appointed, and upon several occasions; the Scribes and Pharisees, by virtue of some Traditions of their own, added more, 
Mark 7.3, 4.  they would not eat except they washed their hands, and when they came from their markets they washed; and there were many other things which they had received to hold, as the washing of Cups, and Pots, and of brazen Vessels, and of Tables. Now all these things might contribute to outward Purity, and argued a great care of Cleanliness; nor were the Jews to have been condemned for these practices, if they had not laid too great a weight upon them, and for the sake of such Purifications, banished all thoughts of true inward Purity out of their minds, and this our Saviour reproves them for, not condemning their outward Neatness, but their making void the Law of God by their Traditions; and he carries the reproof yet further, 
Matth. 23.25.  Woe unto you Scribes, Pharisees, Hypocrites, for you make clean the outside of the cup, and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess, etc. But the Purity of the Soul was what God principally regarded, and those outward Washings originally ordained in the Law, were so many Types designed to put Men in mind of that clean Hand and that pure Heart which every one was to endeavour after. If we look into Circumcision itself, that great initiating Ceremony in the Jewish Church, it was really a preventive of natural Uncleanness, yet though it were made by God the Seal of that Covenant between himself and the Seed of Abraham, the Jews had a right notion of what that Ceremony was to put them in mind of, given them by Moses himself, 
Deut. 10.16.  so he bids them to circumcise the foreskin of their hearts, and to be no more stiffnecked; Stubbornness and Disobedience were the Uncleanness of the Heart, therefore what care the Jews took to prevent that of Nature, it was reasonable they should take to remove that accrueing from Sin; Moses therefore promises it as a great Blessing from Heaven on them in case of their sincere Repentance when under God's afflicting hand, 
Deut. 30.6.  the Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul, that thou mayst live; where the stubborn Heart is once mollified, the Love of God is easily settled in it. Now that this Circumcision could effect nothing, ex opere operato, or that it could contribute nothing to the Obedience of the Soul, we see demonstrated by the case of the Jews at present, who are careful enough in performing the outward Rite of Circumcision, and yet obdurate and unmalleable by all the Tendries of the Gospel, therefore the Apostle has furnished us with an easy Distinction between a Jew by Nature, or one descended lineally from Abraham, and a Jew by Grace, or one allied to Abraham spiritually, as he was the Father of the Faithful: for, says He, He is not a Jew that is one outwardly, 
Rom. 2.28, 29.  neither is that Circumcision which is outward in the flesh but he is a Jew which is one inwardly, and Circumcision is that of the Heart in the spirit, whose praise is not of men but of God: We see then that these Ceremonies, to instance in no more, have only a Typical Nature, and can have no more, because though they may serve to represent to our Memories the solid Duties of sincere Religion, yet it's impossible they should operate on the inward Man, or, in themselves, make any one that is punctual in them acceptable in the sight of God: Nor was there any need they should be more than Memorials or Representations of more important Good; for those Ceremonial Usages were from their first beginning, whether among Adam's universal Race, or the People of Israel, intended only as comfortable supports to men's Spirits, otherwise ready to droop under the various pressing calamities of a mortal Life: God had given Adam the promise of the blessed Seed, whose heel was to be bruised by the Serpent, which bruise signified Death, unless we can imagine Adam so weak as to draw any comfort from a literal Interpretation of the words; but that sense could really afford none more than a promise, that I should break the Head of some Snake, and that should by't or wound my Heel, could be a matter of consolation to all Mankind; but Adam's case was this, He saw how his Folly and Disobedience had made way to Sin and Death to tyrannize over all his own Posterity, that the Sin committed was irrevocable, the wages of Sin consequently inevitable, these thoughts were enough to deject the most daring Spirits, and Adam, without the interposition of immense Goodness, must have sunk irrecoverably beneath the dreadful weight of his own Misery. What could prevent his despair, could only be this, an Assurance that the Powers of Sin and Death should not totally prevail, but there should, by some sufficient means, be a stop effectually put to their Tyranny. This Assurance God designed to give him in that memorable Promise, which though spoken to the Serpent, was only a terrible Threatening to him, but a precious Promise to Adam, I will put enmity between thee and the Woman, 
Gen. 3.15.  and between thy seed and her seed, it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel: The bare settling an Enmity between Him, who had tempted Adam by the Serpent, and the Seed of the Woman, could have signified little to Adam's satisfaction; he had suffered too deeply in the first engagement with Him, and therefore could not wish his Posterity engaged in a perpetual Warfare with so subtle an Adversary, therefore the following words, the seed of the Woman shall bruise the Serpent's head, contained the Comfort longed for: To bruise the Head is to wound a vital part; to crush it, is to put an end to all the strength and vigour of the Animal so crushed, nothing can be more fatal to a real Serpent, than a Wound inflicted there, it may live some time afterwards, and when the Head is crushed, may threaten with the Tail, but those Threaten are languid and easily to be avoided. If therefore the Seed of the Woman could crush the Serpent's Head, he must get the Mastery and entire Conquest over all the Wiles and Stratagems, over all the Strength and Violence of the Devil; so as He must;, for the future, lose his Interests and Power, and be defeated in the expected events of his Malice, and in short, have his Tyranny wholly broken by the Seed of the Woman; this was what alone could comfort Adam after his fatal Error: But this Victory was not to be so easily gotten, but that the Seed of the Woman must be partaker of the Inconveniences of the War; the serpent must bruise his heel, or wound his inferior Part, that which was at the greatest distance from his Vitals and from the Head, that governing, directing, advising, instructing Part; so that the Government and Power of the Woman's Seed was not to be ended, but he was to lose some Blood in that Conflict in which the Serpent's head was to be crushed; without Bloodshed then there could be no Victory obtained, nor must the Seed of the Woman be absolutely invulnerable; for had he been so, there could have been no shedding of Blood, and consequently no hope for remission to miserable Man. Now those Sacrifices afterwards offered, wherein the blood of living Creatures was shed, were propitiatory, or designed to atone that God who was justly displeased with Sin and Sinners, not as if the blood of Bulls, or Goats, or Lambs had any thing propitiatory in their own Nature; but they were to represent continually to the Offerers minds, that effectually propitiatory Blood which was to be shed in the great Combat between the Seed of the Woman and the Serpent, wherein the former was to suffer in his less noble and inferiourly originated part; and if those outward a scrifices effected so much, they did as much as possibly they could, and as much as was necessary for them to do; for while Men had daily before their Eyes a representation of that bloody Contest, wherein that great and malicious Enemy of Mankind was to be entirely conquered, Men had reason always to live in hopes, and to reap inviolable Comforts from those hopes. But now after all, if those Commemorative or Typical Sacrifices did bring to mind that Blood afterwards to be shed, then, when that Blood so represented was actually shed, there was no need of any farther prophetical Representation, and if the several Washings and Purifications, under the Law, related to that inward Cleanness and Purity, which was afterwards, by a more proper medium, to be effected, then when upon the Conquest gained by the Woman's Seed over that infernal Serpent, that Sacred Blood was shed, which was able to cleanse Mankind from all Sin, the inward Purity of the Soul was effectually procured, and ceremonial Purifications were rendered altogether useless, and therefore that Law enjoining such Ceremonies might very well be disannulled, since Types or Shadows were never invented by any with any other design but to be vacated and abolished at such times as those things appeared, of which they were designed at first to be the Shadows or Representations.  
The Ceremonial Law, though given to the Jews at first by God himself, yet might very well be abrogated, because in itself it was not essentially necessary to the being or well-being of a Church; had it been so, it had been unchangeable, because it had been a part of the Law of Nature, as the Moral Law was, that received no additions or diminutions by the Ceremonial Law, nor by the coming, or the inherent Legislative Power of the Messiah. The truth of this reason, that the Ceremonial Law is not necessary to the being or the well-being of a Church, we find by the existence of the Christian Church among ourselves at this day, and by a due reflection upon the Church of God existent in the World before the time of Moses' receiving a Law from Mount Sinai. We cannot deny but that the Roman part of the Christian World is as much, nay infinitely more, clogged with Ceremonies than that of the Jews ever was, though we take in the traditional part of Jewish Ceremonies, which had no foundation in what was delivered by Moses; this our Church takes notice of in that preface concerning Ceremoníes, prefixed to the Liturgy, where giving the reason why many Ceremonies were taken away, which had been used in times of Popery, She tells us, 
Preface of Ceremonies why some abol. some kept.  It is partly because the great excess and multitude of them had so increased in these latter days, that the burden of them was intolerable, whereof St. Augustine, in his time, complained, that they were grown to such a multitude, that the estate of Christian People was in worse case, concerning that matter, than were the Jews, and therefore he advised the taking away that burden as there was opportunity: but if he complained then, much more would he have done so had he seen the number of those in use at the time of the Reformation, to which the Multitude he had seen was nothing to be compared: which multitude of Ceremonies was so great, and many of them so dark, that they did more confound and darken, than declare and set forth Christ's Benefits to us. This Persuasion was so rationally settled in the minds of our first Reformers, that whatsoever the Enemies of it may pretend, the established Church of England, as distinct from that of Rome, was settled with the fewest and the most decent Ceremonies of any National Church in the Christian World; and upon that reason, among others, has been accounted the Glory of the Reformation, by all but a few Ingrateful, and Hypocritical Schismatics, whose viperine Rage has always been endeavouring to tear out the Bowels of their Mother. Indeed under the Roman Cloud of numberless Ceremonies, true Christianity has been almost lost, and the Strength and Purity of that Holy Religion delivered to the World by our Saviour and his Apostles, perverted into gaudy Show and ridiculous Pageantry: Simplicity, as far as it interferes not with Brutality and Slovenliness, best becomes the Oeconomy of the Gospel; and to be sure the Everlasting Truth will shine brightest there, where there's no Artifice made use of to disguise it, nor more of Weight in matters of Salvation laid upon outward Circumstances than upon inward and solid Sincerity and Holiness. This was the Ornament of God's Church before the Mosaic particular Dispensation, for though it were impossible for Adam, or any of the Antediluvian Patriarches, or for Abraham and his Posterity, till the Redemption out of Aegyt, to perform their Sacrifices without somewhat of Ceremony, yet neither the same nor the same number were required of them, as were afterwards enjoined the Israelites in the Wilderness; and yet we cannot deny but the Church of God was as inwardly glorious, and their Services as really acceptable to Almighty God, as the Jewish Service was, when adorned with all those beautiful Circumstantials which the Law of Moses had appointed. But now if the Church had a Being in the World, and a Wellbeing too, before the Mosaic Service was determined, than it follows plainly, that those Ceremonies enjoined by Moses, though directed by God himself in every particular, were not essential to, nor inseparable from the Church of God. Nay that very great Ceremony of Circumcision, though it began as high as Abraham himself, that particular Friend of God, was no way essential to the Church, and therefore not laid on Noah, not used by Melchisedech, nor known by the Saints of the Antediluvian World. Besides, supposing the Patriarches had had a whole set of Ceremonies, and those Typical as those of the Jews afterwards were, yet we may certainly conclude, that they were not the same with those the Jews had, for then that Exactness required of Moses in every punctilio, and by Moses required of the Levitical Priests, would have been needless, for that Method of serving God, which Men are brought up to is easy and strongly enough retained by them, without any such extraordinary Niceness. But then, if these Ante-Mosaic Ceremonies were not the same with those from Sinai, and yet could be abolished to make room for them, than those from Sinai might, with as little Inconvenience, be laid aside, for the Prescriptions of the Messiah, and those very few Ceremonial Circumstances, the simplicity and significancy of the Gospel itself required: Besides, if we consider the whole reason why so many particular Ceremonies were enjoined the Jews, we shall find that they had a double respect, i. e. either to the future Advent of the Messiah, or to the securing the Jews from the pest of Idolatry, with which all their Neighbours, and indeed all other Nations, at that time, were infected. God designed the Israelites a peculiar Inheritance to himself; he, by entering into a peculiar Covenant with them, married them to himself, as to one Husband, and therefore was Jealous over them, 
Vid. Hottingeri Historiae Oriental. l. 1. c. 8. p. 162. Spencerum de legibus Heb. l. 2. p. 237. Witsium de Oeconomia Foederum. l. 4. c. 14. p. 634. Vbi plurima de fictis Zabaeorum ritibus quorum nomen ex Alcorano primitus depromptum exinde à Maimonide excultum, plurimum negotii nequicquam doctis d●dit. Cum quod de Zabiis particulariter quasi de peculiari quodam Idololatrarum genere disputatur, gentibus quibuscunque Idololatricis tribui debuisset; à quibus omnibus aeque ac à quibusdam Israelitis lege Mosaicâ cautum erat. Vid. Seldenum de Jure Nat. & Gentium secundum Hebraeos l. 2. c. 7. p. 207. Edit. Argentorat.  lest they should fall into spiritual Adulteries, and so alienate his Love from themselves, as the Nations round about them had done, by prostituting their Souls to numberless Idols, and the more immediate service of the Devil in Magic Arts, etc. God knew how much prejudiced they were for the Idolatry of the Egyptians, among whom they had long conversed, and with whom doubtless they had complied very far during the time of their Vassalage to them. He considered how he had drawn Abraham himself, that great Father of the Faithful, from the Worship of the Idols of the Chaldaeans, to whom the rest of his Kindred sold themselves: He considered how tempting the fair Words and Fashions of their Neighbours might be in time to come, and how fair a prospect of Advantage, from a Correspondence with them in sacred Matters, might prevail upon gross and carnal Minds; on all these reasons, God gave the Israelites such Laws, and prescribed them such particular Rites and Ceremonies in religious Affairs, as might alienate them wholly from the ill examples of their Neighbours, and might make their Neighbours think them as strange and singular a People, and a People the less proper to be tampered with, because of that high Opinion they had of the Original of their own Laws, and their resolute and punctual Obedience to them. Yet after all, this foolish and stiffnecked People, not wise enough to conquer their own Prejudices and carnal Thoughts, fell frequently into those very Sins God had so well fortified them against; and the Captivity of Babylon contributed more to the purgation of that People from their mighty Inclinations to Idolatry, than all the Ceremonial Laws put together could. But when God, by the severity of that Chastisement, had corrected them in good earnest, and a more punctual observation of the appointed Rites had created in them an irreconcilable aversion to that Idolatry they had so severely smarted for before, than the very reason of those Rites began to vanish, as their just Prejudices against the Idolatrous Customs of Pagans grew stronger and stronger, and the coming of the promised Messiah, to whom so many of those Ceremonies pointed, concurring with this natural cessation of the reason of them, as tending to the Nation's security against Pagan Idolatry, the Jews themselves had such reasons to expect the abrogation of those ritual Laws, as nothing but a wilful and obstinate Blindness could have hindered them from discerning; for, from what they read in their own Sacred History, they could not but find them of a changeable Nature; for Instance, whereas they were ordered by God's immediate Command to eat the first Passover with their Loins girded, 
Exod. 12.11.  their shoes on their feet, their staves in their hands, and in a great deal of haste, this particular mode of eating it was dispensed with when they came to be settled in the Land of Canaan. Whereas God himself had ordered nothing in respect to the Solemn Services of that Temple which was afterwards to be built to his Name, they saw David instituting a new Method for the Priest's attendance and services, very different from what had been before prescribed, 
1 Chron. c. 23.24, 25, 26.  of which we have a large account; yet David's Ordinances in that Matter were held to be authentic ever after. They had seen, that though God himself, by Moses, had appointed that the Passover should always be killed and eaten on the fourteenth day of the first month, and had allowed a Dispensation in no cases but that of Uncleanness by touching a dead Body, or being in a journey, 
Numb. 9.5. v. 9, 10. 2 Chron. 30.2.  yet Hezekiah upon a different reason, and by common advice had kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the second Month: Nay, they had seen but lately the Law of the Sabbath broken (as they thought) by the Maccabees, by a solemn Resolution; 
1 Macc. 2.41.  therefore the Jews must have owned them changeable, and we must conclude, though appointed by God himself, they might justly be laid aside by an equally Divine Authority.  
The Ceremonial Law might justly be abrogated, because, though it were given by God himself, yet God always put a vast difference between an exactness in that and an exact obedience to the Moral and perpetually obliging Law; now the Difference between them must lie, as in their different Relation, the last to the Soul, the former to the Body; so in that, that One was of its own Nature mutable, the other was not so. It was indispensibly necessary that all those who hoped to live in God's Holy Hill, should walk uprightly, 
Psal. 15. per totum.  and work righteousness, and speak the Truth in their hearts, that they should no way injure their neighbours, that they should be faithful, merciful, kind, etc. but it was not indispensibly necessary that they should be circumcised, for Adam, Seth, Noah, Enoch were not circumcised, yet Enoch in particular is observed to have walked with God, and to have been translated by God; and Noah was the only Man found righteous by God in the whole Antediluvian World. It was not necessary that they should All eat of the Paschal Lamb, for Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and the rest of the Jewish Patriarches were wholly strangers to that Solemnity; but it was absolutely necessary all Men should live in exact Obedience to the Law of Uncorrupted Nature, and should be ready to submit themselves to whatsoever should be revealed by Almighty God as his will; and it was absolutely necessary that all Men, under a clear sense of their own Inability to do their own Duties, should have respect to some Powerful Mediator between themselves and God, and some effectual Satisfaction to be made the Laws of God, on account of that deficiency of theirs; that consquently, there should be some Sacrifice offered to Almighty God of a Real and Intrinsic Worth, which might have power to atone in earnest for Sin, and this necessity the generality of Mankind might learn, as well from those many bloody Sacrifices they were wont to offer as propitiatory to Heaven, as the Jews could from their Paschal Lamb. It was a Duty not to be intermitted, that Men should be very careful of and very charitable to the Poor, that they should make a Provision for them, proportionable to their Necessities, the Rich so proving themselves careful Stewards of that Good which God had bestowed upon them, and ready to distribute it among their Fellow-Creatures; yet all were not tied just to Jewish Rules, 
Leu. 19.9.23.22.  to leave the corners of their fields unmown, to leave a considerable gleaning on their vines, and olives, and figtrees, to leave the forgotten handfuls in the field, etc. So it was an universal Task to follow Judgement, Mercy and Faith, which by our Saviour are called the weightier things, not of the Ceremonial Law, but of the Moral Law, though all were not bound to pay their particular Tyths of Mint, Anise and Cummin, or of every little Plant which grew upon their ground; though paying the Tenths of men's general Increase for the Sustenance of their Priests, has been sufficiently proved by Learned Men to have been an acknowledged Duty in most, if not in all, Nations, long before the Mosaic Institution; but it's needless to run out into any more Instances of this kind. But mere Reason itself will teach us how light and inconsiderable Ceremonies are, when they stand in competition with the Essentials of Religion, how convenient or useful soever they may otherwise be; for besides that, as Religious Services Public and Solemn cannot be performed without some Ceremonies, let Men aim at what Simplicity they please, so there may be Variety of them invented and used, yet very proper to express one and the same thing, as the Turks express their respects to Divine Services among them, by pulling off their Shoes, where we mean the same Reverence by uncovering our Heads; but there can be but one Course and Method of true Practical Piety concerning all Men and at all times, the doing all the good and avoiding all the evil possible, being that general Course or Method. So it's farther to be considered, that if Ceremony stood on any equal ground with inward Holiness, the best bred and the richest Men must needs, if they pleased, be the greatest Saints, for good ●reeding and Gentile Education will enable a Man to make his Addresses to Heaven in the most taking and humble ways; a Man so accomplished knows best how to express an outward Reverence and Humility, how to speak in the most proper Words, and to accompany those Words with the most decent Gestures and the most melting Accents; He knows how in common Transactions with Men, to set off a little Good with a great deal of Gaiety and Lustre, and to manage those Interests with a few soft and obliging, but mere empty Words, which others, less debonair, know not how to advance with a plain unadorned Charity and Liberality; at this rate, if Goodness must not be accounted for by inward Sincerity, the gayest Show must unquestionably make the best Man. Again, if outward Ceremony and Circumstance were available, the Man of mighty Wealth would be able to purchase the Friendship of Heaven, since he could load the Altars with such multitudes of Sacrifices, as Men of meaner Fortunes must never pretend to: the Gentiles often had their Hecatombs, their Sacrifices of an hundred Oxen offered to their Gods at once, and it was observed by the more sagacious Pagans, That the worst of Tyrants and of Men were always the most profuse in their Offerings to their Gods. Hence Ammianus Marcellinus, though no Enemy to his Religion, observes of Julian the Apostate, that before his fatal Expedition against the Persians, Hostiarum sanguine plurimo Aras crebritate nimia perfundebat, tauros aliquando immolando centenos, & innumeros varii pecoris greges, auésque candidas, terrâ quaesitas & mari, He washed the Altars with the blood of too many Sacrifices, offering sometimes an hundred Bulls at once, and innumerable Flocks of several sorts of , and white Birds, brought from every quarter both by Sea and Land: insomuch that the same Author, one of his own Soldiers, adds, that his Army was merely debauched by their constant participation of such numerous Victims, and withal, Quod augebantur Caeremoniarum ritus immodicè, 
Ammian. Marc. Hist. l. 22. c. 12. p. 327. & 8. Edit. Valesian.  cum impensarum amplitudine adhuc inusitatâ ac gravi, That the Ceremonial Rites of their Religion were increased without Measure, with such an extraordinary Expense as was very burdensome, and to that time unusual. And it's observed elsewhere by that same Author, That had he returned safe from that Persian Expedition, and continued his Sacrifices at the same rate, he would scarce have left oxen enough to have supplied the necessities of the Roman Empire. But we can scarce allow that wretched Apostate to be the better Man for that immoderate Profusion. Offering Sacrifices to God was the plea which Saul make for himself to Samuel, after his transgression of God's Command in his Invasion made upon the Amalekites; The people took of the spoil sheep and oxen, 
1 Sam. 15.21.  the chief of the things which should have been destroyed, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God in Gilgal; but Samuel answers him to the purpose, 
v. 22.  Hath the Lord as great delight in  offerings and in sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams: All which does not import but that Sacrifices might be very good; nay, we know that they were commanded, and they were to be made of the best of every thing; but those external Performances were not at all to be compared with an absolute submission and resignation of ourselves to the positive Determinations of God, or that entire Obedience which he requires at our hands. To the same purpose God argues with the people of Israel by the Psalmist, I will not reprove thee for thy Sacrifices or thy  Offerings to have been continually before me. 
Psal. 50.8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.  I will take no Bullock out of thy house, nor Hee-goat out of thy fold, for every Beast of the forest is mine, and the  upon a thousand hills; I know all the Fowls upon the mountains, and the wild Beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry I would not tell thee, for the world is mine and all the fullness thereof: Will I eat the flesh of Bulls, or drink the blood of Goats? All along God speaks as if he set no value at all upon those very Rites and Ceremonies which himself had appointed, and the Assiduity of which he required upon very severe Penalties; but it's indeed only the Comparison between these things and more important Duties, which makes these appear light and of almost an indifferent Esteem; for God speaks at another rate when he commands, 
v. 14.  that we should offer unto God Thanksgivings, and pay our Vows unto the most High: and when he concludes with that, Whoso offereth Praise glorifieth me, i. e. he glorifieth me more than if he made never so expensive Offerings without that care, and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I show the salvation of God: 
v. 23.  this Rectitude of Conversation was that which God always required, and the want of which he'd make no allowance for. God, by the Prophet Isaiah, carries this Argument yet higher, To what purpose, says he, 
Isai. 1.11, 12, 13, 14, 15.  is the multitude of your Sacrifices unto me? I am full of the  Offerings of Rams, and the fat of fed Beasts, and I delight not in the blood of Bullocks, and of Lambs, and of Hee-Goats: when you come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hands to tread my courts? Bring no more vain Oblations, Incense is an abomination to me, the new Moons and Sabbaths, and the calling of Assemblies I cannot away with, it is Iniquity even your solemn Meeting. Your new Moons and your appointed Feasts my Soul hateth, they are a trouble unto me, I am weary to bear them; and when you spread forth your hands I will hid mine eyes from you, and when you make many Prayers I will not hear. It's strange that Sacrifices, New-Moons, Sabbaths, Solemn Religious Meetings, nay, their Prayers themselves should not only be undervalved, but be hated by God himself, that God who had enjoined them; but they must be understood as that of our Saviour, which requires us to hate our Fathers and Mothers, etc. i. e. not absolutely, for that's a damning Sin, but comparatively, or when the Love of them may have any ill influence upon our Love to our Saviour; so God hates these things, not of themselves or positively, but as they exclude true substantial Holiness; as a dependence upon, or a confidence in such outward Services, might make men forget that Worship required in Spirit and in Truth; for would but the Israelites have performed those Moral Duties set down in the following Verses, would they but have washed and made themselves clean, ceased to do evil and learned to do good, etc. their Prayers, Solemn Assemblies, Sabbaths, New Moons and Sacrifices would all of them have been accepted well enough; from the clear evidence of such passages as these Moses ben Maimon, himself a Jew, observes, That God, by his Prophets, 
More N●v●●. p. 3. c. 32.  ofttimes reproves Men for their too much Nicety and Exactness in their Rituals, inculcating that he did not intent them principally and for any intrinsic Worth of their own; nor because he had any need of them, but only as collateral and subservient to more solid Acts of Piety, without which they were of no value, and with which, every thing ornamental outwardly to Religion, would be acceptable in his sight. From all this it appears, that the Mosaic-Ceremonial Law was very much inferior to the Moral, the Moral obliging perpetually, which the Ceremonial Law did not: If then it did not perpetually oblige, it was of a mutable nature in itself, and being so changeable, it might be actually changed, whensoever a Power equal to that which gave it its first Obligatory Authority, should appear and undertake that Matter.  
Notwithstanding all the reasons why the Law of Moses, so far as Ceremonial, was changeable in its own nature; our Saviour, when he conversed in the World, was very careful to give it its due Weight, and to make the World have a right estimation of it; hence he complied with it in every particular, nay, even in those which were not of equal Antiquity with the body of ceremonial Laws, as delivered by Moses. Thus we find him observing the Feast of the Dedication, 
Joh. 10.22, 23. 1 Macc. 4.59.  a Feast instituted by Judas Maccabaeus and his Brethren, in remembrance of the Temple's Purification from the Profanations of the Gentiles, but without any pretence to the prophetic Spirit in that Institution. So whereas a kind of Baptism had been taken up by the Jews, in pursuance of which John, surnamed the Baptist, began his work of Preaching with baptising in the Wilderness (no new Ceremony we may be sure, for the Jews had been lashed into more Wisdom, than to run so greedily after Novelties) and the captious Pharisees, when they were sent to examine his Commission for what he did, found no fault with him for putting in practice an uncouth or new-fangled Ceremony, but they ask him what Authority He in particular had to baptise, seeing he had declared He was neither that Christ, nor Elias, 
Joh. 1.25.  nor that Prophet? from whence it may seem, that the Jews had some expectations of an Improvement of Baptism, about the time of the Messiahs coming; and did believe, that Elias himself, whom they expected as the Forerunner of the Messiah, should take up that Employment, therefore they looked upon even their Baptism, though an adventitious Ceremony, of a very excellent and obliging nature; and our Saviour himself gave it a yet much stronger Confirmation, in that he came and demanded Baptism of John, and with this particular reason, For thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. 
Matth. 3, 15.  Now, though I doubt not but our Saviour had a further respect in his submitting to John's Baptism, yet I question not but he really meant, that that Baptism ought to be regarded as a part of the righteousness of the Law, though it were not where prescribed by the Law; therefore we may be sure He would not have failed in his Obedience to any thing which really was a part of that Law; but again, neither would he have been exemplary in his Obedience either to the one or to the other, had not the Latter had a just and reasonable Foundation in the Former, and the Former an authentic and truly obligatory Foundation in the Will of God. He showed himself too resolute an Enemy to the generality of groundless Traditions, any way to teach others to set a greater value on them than they deserved. Had he altogether slighted it, as a thing of no value or of no authority, it had been impossible for all the Miracles in the World to have conquered those very reasonable Prejudices the Jews must have taken up against him and his Doctrine; for having an infallible Assurance, that the Law given from Mount Sinai was really Divine, and having suffered so deeply for their contempt of it as Divine, they could only have looked upon one who came to impeach it, though attended with never so many Miracles, as an Impostor, permitted by Almighty God to tempt them and to make trial of their steady Obedience to his Law: and they had been wa●n'd of this long before by Moses, 
Deut. 13.1, 2, 3.  If there arise among you a Prophet, or a Dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spoke unto thee; saying, Let us go after other Gods which thou hast not known, and let us serve them, Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that Prophet, or that Dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God proveth you to know, whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul; Now our Saviour being himself God, and acting in such a manner as could not but proclaim his own Divinity, and being taken notice of by the Jews as so doing, they had a great deal of reason to stand upon their guard; and had he shown an open or a secret Contempt of what they knew was Divine; that Dishonour, by such an action accrueing to the God of their Fathers, would have made them oppose him justly, and to have concluded it impossible that such an Innovator could have been from God, much less that he could have been the Son of God. But our Saviour's business was, by glorifying his Father, to draw Mankind to a sense of their own Good; and therefore he came not to abolish the Law or to destroy the Law, but to fulfil it, that is, to show that relation the very slightest Ceremonies in it had to himself, and that great design upon which he came into the World, to accomplish every thing it related to, and to do, and to suffer such things as might make all considering Persons plainly apprehend, that whatsoever was Typical and Ceremonial in the Law, was really consummated in himself, at whom only all such Types and Ceremonies pointed; and therefore that it would be unreasonable to expect any other Person on whom their Import was to be terminated. While therefore our Lord took this mighty care, the more he exalted the Obligation of the Mosaic Law, the more exemplary he was in Obedience to it, the more reason the Jews had to believe that he could have no ill design upon them, and the more justly could he reproach them with that, That he honoured his Father, 
Joh. 8.49.  but they dishonoured him; there was not an jota or tittle of the Law, could or should pass away, till all were fulfilled; and as to his part in the work, he could justly challenge any of them to convince him of Sin, and they, though malicious and captious enough, had nothing to answer to the challenge. Indeed they had some Dreams of their own, empty and troublesome Traditions, which they taught, and for their sakes slighted the Moral and perpetually obliging Duties laid upon them, these our Saviour cast a just contempt upon, and frequently and sharply reproved them for; and he did so the rather, to show the world what a difference they ought to put between the Institutions of God, and the weak and unreasonable Inventions of Men. Now the Yoke of these Jewish Traditions extremely galling the Necks of the vulgar Jews, upon whom their Law-Expounders loved to lay heavy Burdens, such as themselves would not put so much as one of their fingers to support; we find, upon several occasions, they were ready to receive the Messiah with open arms, to endeavour to take him by force and to make him a King, and to welcome him to Jerusalem with their loud Hosannaes', nor could the Chief-Priests and domineering Pharisees, without a great deal of malicious Industry, manage th●se who longed for Liberty, to their own turn. Those who were overawed, and therefore durst not murmur aloud, knew well enough they were under the hands of worse than their old Egyptian Taskmasters, and therefore it could be no wonder they should be ready to close with every one whom they thought capable of asserting them into Liberty; and yet, though their Imperious Taskmasters determined concerning them, that that People who knew not the Law were accursed, that People were not so ignorant, but that had they observed our Saviour, either breaking the Law himself, or persuading others that it was lawful for them to do so, they would have taken Public notice of it, and at least, when they saw Jesus a Prisoner to his implacable Enemies, and the great loss they were at for Witnesses against him, they would soon have come in, and laid him open to his Judges, as a Criminal deserving the severest Usage. Our Saviour had taken upon him the Office of an Expositor of the Law, the People easily found the difference between Him and their common Instructers, 
Matth. 7.29.  for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the Scribes; he cast away the putid Pharisaic Glosses, and he laid open their true Import and Meaning. We cannot reasonably question, but that, among Christ's numerous crowd of Auditors, there were at that time, as we find frequently afterwards, some Scribes and Pharisees; or if there were none, what he delivered was not in a Corner, and therefore doubtless they had a full account of what he preached; but we no where find any offer at a refutation of what he delivered in his Sermon on the Mount; That Exposition of the Law which he there gave, was a perfect Test, whereby himself was afterwards to be tried; He could not reasonably refuse to stand to that Trial, but neither do we find that his Enemies ever went about to show the Discrepancy between his Doctrines and his Practice; and therefore when they thought to cajole him into their snares, by a most malicious Compliment, they gave him indeed no more than a true and proper Character, Master we know that thou art true, 
Matth. 22.16.  and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man, for thou regardest not the persons of men; this Character was really his due, whatsoever they meant by it, and they, who were unwilling to acknowledge their own Hypocrisy, could never fairly go off from so remarkable a Testimonial. If then the Blessed Jesus were so signally innocent, He was above all other the fittest to assert and vindicate the Authority of his Father's Laws, and this he carefully did, and made his appeal to all those Laws without exception, according as occasions offered themselves. After all then, if he would really put an end to the Ceremonial Law, and yet maintain to the last his Character of Truth and Justice, He must of necessity be the Son of God and God himself, his Authority otherwise notwithstanding, the mutable Nature of those Laws, not being sufficient to bear him out in so great an Alteration.  
Our Saviour was Incarnate, That the Law of God, as given to the Jews, might in our Nature be fulfilled exactly, and according to the Letter; and so that he who fulfilled it might be a complete example of Holiness and Obedience to us: and how great an Undertaker this required, we shall have hereafter Opportunities enough to understand. Now when I lay down this reason, by the word Law, I understand, whatsoever was given to the Jews, whether Moral, as confirming the Law of uncorrupted Nature, or Political, as relating to their Civil Government, or Ceremonial, as referring to their various Religious Rites, both the last, so far as they could, concern the Practice of a private Person: so that indeed the whole Law, as given to the Jews, contained in it whatsoever could have been expected from Adam had he retained his original Innocence, or whatsoever humane Nature, in its utmost perfection, could possibly attain to: Now that such a complete Obedience should be expected from some One Partaker of humane nature was but reasonable, when the great work of Man's Redemption was in hand; for, since Man, created in all that Perfection his Nature was capable of, had yet fallen from that Obedience which was justly expected from him, he being in a condition every way capable of performing it; and by that fall of his had necessarily involved all those who should be derived from him in all those Miseries attending the guilt of Sin, and since the intent of God's Goodness was, that from the Obedience of one man, descended of the same flesh and blood, many should be made righteous, or be blessed with those Rewards attending upon Righteousness, as the Apostle assures us it came to pass, it was but just and reasonable that that Man, from whom that righteousness was to descend to Mankind, that that Man should completely make up that Character of the first Man, when in Innocence, which, had he persevered in as he ought, his whole Posterity had been entirely happy; and yet that task was abundantly greater for the second Adam, our Lord Jesus Christ, than it was for the first Adam, our great Parent; for Adam had no Corruption derived down to him from his Original, from whence it has been not impertinently questioned, Whether before Sin entered into the World, and Death by Sin, He was liable to the common Rules of Mortality? But our Saviour, when he took Flesh of the Virgin, took it up at such a time as Humane nature was sunk into its utmost depravation; nor would an allowance of that Roman Foolery, That the Blessed Virgin was born without any Original Sin or Gild upon her, help the matter: For so long as she was descended from such Parents as had their share in the Corruption of Humane Nature, her Freedom would not, of consequence, free every one who should be born of her; but she being no way beyond other Women, but only on account of her Practical Holiness, our Lord, as descended from her, must be in all things like his Brethren, liable to all the Inconveniences attending a Body certainly mortal, for as for his being without Sin, it depended on the Union of a Mortal to an Immortal Being: the very nature of which superior Being was more effectual than the Refiner's Fire on Gold or Silver, purifying that otherwise corrupt Body it was united to, and fortifying it against all that proclivity to Sin and easy succumbency to Temptation which the rest of Mankind was obnoxious to. Nor was it any thing, but such a coacting Omnipotence, which could possibly have produced a clean thing out of an unclean, or a Body without Sin out of that which was naturally sinful. There is certainly such a state as that of Eternal Happiness, but it is attainable only as the reward of Merit in a proper sense, or, as we ordinarily say, it's as Wages, which he who faithfully performs his work deserves, and may justly lay claim to as his own, and therefore cannot be denied without Injustice; as for instance, whereas the condition of eternal Life is, This do and live, whosoever it is that performs the Condition, and does what's required, he has for so doing, provided there be no circumstantial failure in the performance of the work, a just and rightful claim to that eternal Life propounded, and God himself could not be just, should he deny the proposed reward to such a One as should completely perform the Condition set before him. Had Man continued in the state of Innocence, he had had this proper claim of his own to eternal Happiness, he might justly have claimed it, and could not without extremity of Injustice have been denied it; but that eternal Happiness which we now expect is of Grace, or it's the free Gift of God, which we, as Sinners, and such we are all without exception, have no proper or inherent right to; but it's not the immediate free Gift of God, as if he, without any performance of incumbent duty on our part, would bestow upon us an eternally glorious Inheritance, for this would be as inconsistent with that infinite Justice which makes up the Idea of the Supreme God, as it would be to deny Wages or a Reward to him that had truly deserved it; nor is it a free giving Man such an inward Ability to perform all the punctilios of the Divine revealed Will, as by which they might make a full compensation to Divine Justice for the original pravity of Nature, and do all such things to the utmost, as could be required from the beginning to the end of Life; for this were to alter the whole frame of Humane Nature, and to give it in the present state of things an universal advantage of Adam's primaeval Innocence; but this eternal Life is the free Gift of God: as he has been pleased to send his Son into the World, to perform that work of perfect Righteousness which was incumbent upon us, to suffer that Punishment which our Sins had deserved for us and in our stead, by this means God's infinite Justice was completely acquitted, and the impossibility of Sins escaping without Impunity demonstrated, since rather than it should pass without Punishment, it was punished even in Him, who of himself knew not Sin. Besides, the infinity of God's Mercy and Goodness was manifested, because he found out and bestowed upon Man such a Mediator, as was able to do and suffer so effectually on his behalf, and this, when sinful Man could find out no way whereby he could pretend to Pity or Mercy at the hand of God, nor could he ever possibly have pitched on such a Mean, as by virtue of which any Mercy could have been hoped for rationally from him; but it's certainly as great an effect of infinite Goodness, where a Man is naturally blind and has a difficult way to find out, to give him Eyes whereby he may see his way, and a guide who may direct him in it, though he must go it himself too; as it is to leave a Man still in his miserable Blindness, and to carry him so hoodwinked to his journey's end; since by so doing the Man shall be happy indeed, but shall neither know what Dangers and Difficulties he escaped in his way to Happiness, which yet render it the more valuable, how kind and knowing a Guide he had to assist him, nor how great that Happiness is he enjoyed at last, nor how wonderful his Goodness who gave him Eyes and Guide for his Journey, when of himself he knew no possibility of attaining either. That Man is made perfectly Blind by Sin, is unquestionable; and that Blindness without assistance must end in Misery, is so too; God, of his infinite grace and goodness, when poor Man was not able to conceive of such a thing, opened a way for him to recover that Happiness, which by Sin he had utterly lost all pretences to, and that was the powerful Interposition of One mighty to save, of One who could do what Man in his dark condition could not, even Jesus Christ the righteous; by his Word and Will declared to Man, he gave him Eyes whereby he saw the way so laid open; he gave him the Mediator himself, whose Mediation was the Way, to be his Guide and to direct him in all the Mazes, and Turn, and Difficulties in the way to Happiness, and he demonstrates to him the glories of that Happiness, which was attainable only by such wonderful means: and is not this more, than if God had immediately carried wretched Man, accoutred with all his Sins and Impurities, into Abraham's Bosom, or the Seats of eternal Bliss, whose Glories yet he, with all those miserable Encumbrances, could never rightly apprehend; but only, as a Man corporeally blind, feels some little refreshment of his Spirits when the Sun gets up on a cheerful day: while he who has Eyes open has an inexpressible contentment in those various and delightful objects that immense body of Light exposes to his Sense? A Blind man would scarce believe himself had the Advantage.  
The Socinians pretend they mightily advance the Glory of God, and set off his infinite Mercy with an extraordinary Lustre, when they represent God forgiving the Sins of Men without any meritorious Mediation at all, or without any thing of Satisfaction required at the hands of Men for those Sins and that Gild they are burdened with; which, that they may the better defend, they have set up new Notions of Goodness and Justice in God, from what the rest of the Christian World have hitherto entertained; they own indeed, in their account of the Divine Nature, 
Cat. Raco. §. 3. c. 3. p. 12. Crellii Ethica Arist. par. 2. c. 16. p. 187.  that God is summè Justus, vel perfectè Justus, that he's infinitely or perfectly Just: Now when Crellius comes, in his Ethics, to give us a definition of Justice, at first he tells us, that it's Virtus quâ praestamus quae alteri debentur, That it's a Virtue, whereby we make good to others all those things that are due to them; and afterwards giving us a definition of that which he calls universal Justice, he tells us, It is Virtus omnia ea praestans, quae legibus â vera prudentia profectis, sunt constituta, A Virtue performing all those things ordained by the Laws of true Prudence: and a while after reduces it to the first definition. The same Crellius, in his Book concerning God and his Attributes, makes no mention of Justice at all, as any distinct Attribute of God, but reduces it, I know not how, to that of Sanctity or Holiness; whereas yet, in our discourses concerning the Nature of God, we are wont to have distinct Notions of every paricular Attribute, however they all concentre in, and all those Notions together represent to us but One true God: and the Racovian Catechism, when it comes to teach us what it is to know God to be infinitely Just, makes it to amount to no more than this, That it's to know Quod rectitudinem in omnibus actionibus sequatur, ab omni autem pravitate adeóque ab injuria quavis, sit alienissimus, That God follows what's right in all his Actions, and is wholly a Stranger to all corrupt and injurious Deal; when they come to show how it's necessary to Salvation, that we should know God is infinitely Just, their Reasons are, First, that we may from thence be sure that God will perform every thing which He has promised to us; and then, Secondly, that we should patiently undergo all those Temptations, Calamities and Crosses we meet with in this World, considering there can be no Injustice in them, since they are permitted by God. Now we are generally ready to think, that as nothing terrifies ill Men more either in Church or State, or lays greater Restraints upon them in their vicious Courses, than an Apprehension of the Power and Justice of their Governors, so nothing should deter Men from Sin and Wickedness more than a just sense of the same Attributes in God, for so our Saviour teaches us, That we should not fear them who can hurt the body, and afterwards can proceed no further, 
Luke 12.5.  but that we should fear him, who after he hath killed hath power to cast into Hell; where our Saviour joins Justice and Power together, Justice in killing, so punishing for what's done amiss, Power in casting into Hell, in commanding eternal Torments, the force of which the Soul itself, that spiritual part, may be sensible of; and Power and Justice are co-incident: Power enables to punish temporally and eternally those that are disobedient to the Will of God, and Justice requires it; so that our Saviour's Argument is not designed to exempt us from all fear of Humane Authority or Justice, but it's à minore ad majus, from the less to the greater. If we should be afraid of humane Justice, which can only inflict temporal Punishments, much more should we fear that of Heaven, which equally extends to body and soul, to temporal and eternal Punishments; so that when the fear of one comes in competition with the other, we may choose rather to undergo humane Severities, than to cope with everlasting Burn. But if we look upon Justice in its own Nature, it's moral and good from Eternity, and therefore the obligations laid upon us to follow Justice, are indispensible. Now, as I formerly observed, the excellence of Moral Virtues flows from their agreeableness to the nature of Almighty God, who is the great and inexhausted source of every thing that's good; therefore whatsoever there is in Man that's really commendable, that Commendation flows from his endeavours to resemble God, to be holy as He is holy, and perfect as He is perfect; and every such part of true Goodness is infinite in God: so it's good for a Man to be Wise, and he may, by endeavours, acquire a considerable Talon in Wisdom, but God is infinitely Wise, so that, without any assistance or forecast, he knows and understands every thing at once with all those Circumstances attending on it; It's good for a man to cleanse and purify himself as far as possible from all filthiness and pollution both of Flesh and Spirit, to avoid the very garment spotted with the Flesh, every appearance of evil; endeavours of this Nature are always required of all Men, and those who are pure in heart have Blessedness ascertained to them; but God is infinite in Purity, nothing polluted can possibly approach him, nor can the least thought of it be affixed upon him, without denying him: It's good for a Man to be Tender, Compassionate, Loving, no Duty's more inculcated upon Men, nothing more agreeable to the temper of the Gospel, there will yet be some struggle in corrupt Nature against it; but God is Love itself, Infinite and Essential, yet, as Wisdom in a Man consists in knowing some things rightly, but in God consists in knowing all things; as Purity in Man consists in honest Endeavours after Innocence and Blamelesness in every respect, but in God exalts him infinitely above every thing that is corrupt or imperfect; as Love in Man shows itself in doing Good as we have opportunity within the narrow Sphere of our Activity, but in God is diffusive to all his Creatures; so if it be Justice universal in Man to make good, as far as he's capable, every thing that's due to others, universal Justice in God must be of the same nature, only infinitely perfect in him, because it's impossible he should be deceived or mistaken in any particular; and therefore consequently if it be Justice in any Man, according to that Power he's entrusted with, to punish those who do ill, and to reward those who do well, and if no Man can be counted universally Just, howsoever he may manage himself in all other Instances, if he be defective in this; It's then as certainly Justice in Almighty God to bestow Rewards and Punishments upon all Persons according to their Actions; and therefore the Apostle sets off the consummate Justice of the great Tribunal at last, by this, that when we appear before it, 
2 Cor. 5.10.  we shall all receive according to what we have done in the Flesh, whether it be good or evil; and therefore if it should be supposed that God should fail in this particular Distribution, we must, upon this supposition, conclude, God cannot be infinitely Just; and if he fail of Infinity in any one proper Attribute, he can really be infinite in none: so not infinitely Wise, or Merciful, or Holy, if withal he be not infinitely Just. But if we allow that God is indeed infinitely Just, then though we allow him to be infinitely Good and Merciful, yet his Justice must as certainly be satisfied in the punishment of Criminals, who are obstinate in their Crimes, as his Mercy in pardoning Criminals, who are truly sensible of that Gild they lie under: Now among the Sons of Men there are none who are not great Sinners, therefore they are all properly the objects of God's Justice, and infinite Justice can never be at rest till those who are Sinners are punished; therefore that must be true, that that Mercy is as infinite which pardons one Criminal who has deserved punishment, as that Justice is which condignly punishes all Delinquents, and this stands good, let the Pardon be granted on what considerations soever: for, for Justice to punish the guilty is but natural, but for Mercy to pardon them seems not so naturally necessary, since Mercy shows itself infinite in giving all things their Being, in providing every thing necessary for them, in giving them Rules and Laws of all kinds to act by, and all possible Encouragements for them to manage themselves by those Rules, and all this when there was no Merit on the side of the Creature to oblige him to it, and that God, being infinitely happy in himself, had no need either of their Existence or their Services, therefore the very Being of all things is only the effect of his eternal Will, as the four and twenty Elders acknowledge in their Eucharistic Hymns to God, Thou art worthy, say they, 
Rev. 4.11.  to receive Glory, and Honour, and Power, for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were Created. Now after all this Mercy shown, and this Mercy abused and despised, Justice might very properly take place in punishing the Despisers; nor indeed could Mercy, however infinite, have taken place to the prejudice of Justice or the Obstruction of its free passage, had there not been a proper Mean found out for the Satisfaction of Justice otherwise than by immediate or extreme Punishment, that is, by the Interposition of our Saviour, in and by whom Mercy and Pardon make their free approaches to undeserving Sinners. He that shall go about to make one Attribute in God inferior to another, goes about to ruin the right Notion of a God, for in an infinite Being nothing can be but what's infinite, and among Infinites there can be no inequality; but they go about to degrade Divine Justice exceedingly, who make all the effects of God's punishing Justice only Arbitrary, and not natural or necessary, and therefore determine, that he punishes those who are eternally damned only because it's his pleasure to do so, whereas he could forgive them all freely, were they never so guilty, and those who are at all Forgiven he really does forgive so, without any regard to any Merits of their Own, or to the Merits of any Other on their account; and all these things the Socinians assert, merely that they may take away all the Merit of our Saviour's Life or Death, and make good their Assertion, That there was no need of Satisfying God's Justice on the behalf of Sinners, and therefore that all what our Saviour did or suffered was not of a satisfactory Nature, and from hence too they endeavour to confirm their Heretical Opinion, That our Saviour was not God equal with his Father, for that Truth being throughly cleared, all the Socinian Chain of Heterodoxies is broken and comes to nothing.  
But They say, Christians generally think that Christ suffered proportionably for our Sins, 
Ca●. Rac. §. 6. c. 8. p. 145.  or, that He underwent Punishments equivalent to what we Sinners should have undergone, and that by the Merit of his Obedience, he made a complete compensation for our Disobedience; but this Opinion, say they, is fallax & erronea & admodum perniciosa, it is fallacious and erroneous and of very dangerous Consequence, and this they assert upon these grounds, Because such an Opinion is not founded upon clear Scriptures, and then, Because it is repugnant to the Rules of right Reason; and when they come to discourse of its not being founded upon Scripture, the great ground they go upon, is," Because the Scriptures testify, that God remits the Sins of Men freely: Now, this we assert as well as they, and are infallibly assured, that it's only by Grace, by free and unmerited Grace, on our part, that we are saved; and when we remember that it has been proved, by unanswerable Arguments, that our Saviour is the Son of God, that He is God himself, and that He, when there was no help left for guilty Mankind, according to the eternal purpose of his Will, came down from Heaven to Earth, and took our Nature upon him, only that, by what he did in that Nature, he might procure our eternal happiness: when we consider his eternal Father as acting in agreement with him, and, for his Son's sake, forgiving miserable Sinners, and the One willing, and the other doing and suffering so much on our accounts, when it was impossible we should have any Motives in ourselves that might serve to excite so immense a Goodness: when we remember all these things, we cannot but say, that as many of us as have our Sins forgiven, have them freely forgiven; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost all concurring jointly in the Pardon, and all the Motives procuring that Pardon, proceeding wholly from the Deity itself. And this Truth will receive yet more light, by considering the Import of those very Texts, which the Socinians, in their Catechism, bring to make good their own Opinions; so they prove the free Pardon of Sin from that of the Apostle, 
2 Cor. 5.19.  That God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses to them; we need not here take any notice of another gross Error, founded by them upon this Text, viz. That by the Death and Obedience of Christ God was not reconciled to the World, for he never was angry with it, but the World was reconciled to God, the World having foolishly forsaken him, and being altogether alienated from him by Sin: not to reflect any further directly on that Position; we find, by the Text now cited, that God does not impute the Trespasses of those who believe, to them, but why? only because they are reconciled to him in Christ, not because he passes by their Trespasses purely on account of his own Will, or because of his immediate Love to the Trespassers; but it is for the sake of Jesus Christ: their Trespasses must have stood imputed to them, had they not been reconciled in him; but if he particularly procured the Reconciliation of Sinners to his Father, then it's plain enough, they were incapable of making any such Reconciliation for themselves, and so could not procure the Remission or the non-Imputation of their Sins; the reason of which could be no other than their want of Merit, for had they had any inherent Merits of their own to plead, the same infinite Justice which was concerned to punish their Sins, was equally concerned to reward their Merits; but if the want of Merit hindered their procuring their own Reconciliation, there must have been some Merit in Christ which was able to effect it, and that Merit must have been exhibited on our account, and that Merit, supplying the Sinners defect, must have been satisfactory to divine Justice, which otherwise must have fallen upon Sinners, while they had no better deserving to plead on their own accounts; but if God reconcile the World to himself in Christ, and Christ be One eternal God, coessential with his Father, what's done by One is done by the Other, and so, though the Son merited at his Father's hand the Sinner's pardon, yet the Sinner is freely forgiven of God, the Son freely interposing between him and Divine Justice, and freely concurring in the same Pardon of his Trespasses. Again, the Socinians prove the Freedom of God's Grace or Favour to us by that, 
Rom. 3.24, 25.  Being justified freely by his Grace, through the Redemption that is in Jesus Christ, whom God hath set forth to be a Propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; here we own Free Grace, or Pardon, or Justification, which signify all the same thing, with respect to this passage, is plainly and clearly set forth; but still this free Pardon or Justification is the consequence of that Redemption wrought for us by Jesus Christ, that Redemption is effected by the offering of his Blood; that Blood which is of a propitiatory or atoning Nature, our Faith in, or our certain belief of the infinite value of which Blood, is necessary to procure us any good by it; but neither would that Faith of ours be necessary, nor would that Blood be so intrinsically valuable, if it were no way meritorious: nor could Redemption be wrought for us, if there were no Price paid on that account; for a Prince is not said to redeem a guilty Prisoner, when he sets him at liberty without any ransom, but he is said to redeem the Prisoner, who pays down that Price, or undergoes that Penalty which is set on the Criminal's head; so our Saviour paid that Price which was set on our Heads, without Blood there could be no Remission, therefore he gave his Blood for us; without Punishment for Sins there could be no acquittal of Justice, therefore he suffered to the loss of his Life, beside those unknown Sorrows, as the Ancient Church has styled them, which his innocent Soul underwent on our account: But after this Redemption effected, this Propitiation offered, the Remission of Sins followed. Now, the Punishment of Sins being the effect of Justice, and the Remission of them the effect of Mercy, this Redemption-Price paid down satisfied Justice and made way for Mercy, and therefore that Price so paid down was meritorious, and meritorious for us, who had no Merits of our own; therefore this Remission was really free with respect to us, howsoever God the Son satisfied his Father's Justice to procure that Remission for us. The last proof the Socinians allege, is, that Parable of our Saviour's, Matth. 18.23. etc. The great business of our Saviour in that Parable, is, to urge Men to mutual Charity and Forgiveness of one another, in case of any Trespasses by one committed against the other, this he urges from the Greatness of that Remission which is made to us, and the Smallness of the greatest Trespasses which can be committed against us, in comparison of those Trespasses we are guilty of against God; so the Argument amounts to this, If God forgive us our ten thousand Talents, a debt which we are utterly uncapable of ever discharging, we ought to forgive our offending Brethren those hundred pence, which its possible they may be engaged in to us, or those little inconsiderable Injuries, they may have done us, and for which, on occasion, they may be capable of making us a reasonable Compensation. If it be urged, that Forgiveness which we partake of is free, we own it, for it proceeds from one God, without any other Motive but what proceeds from himself; but the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, are that one God; therefore that Remission of our Sins, which is given by the Father, purchased by the Son, and sealed by the Holy Ghost, is, with respect to us, wholly gratuitous or free. But to this they presently object, At remissioni gratuitae nihil adversatur magis quam ejusmodi, qualem Christiani vulgo volunt Satisfactio & pretii aequalis solutio, That nothing can be more contrary to the free Remission of Sins, than such a Satisfaction as Christians generally talk of, or a purchase of such a Remission at a just Price; for, say they, when a Creditor is satisfied, either by the Debtor himself, or by some other in the Debtor's name, it cannot be truly said, That such a Creditor, so satisfied, hath freely forgiven his Debtor. This Instance may be true, but nothing to the purpose: for if a Debtor pay not what he owes me, Justice requires a legal Prosecution of that Debtor, nor can that Justice, with relation to the public or my own private Concern, be satisfied, unless the Debtor be so prosecuted; but if I, considering the extreme necessity of the Debtor, and the certain Ruin which must fall upon him if prosecuted, do therefore contrive a way to satisfy the Justice of the Law, that no ill Example be drawn from my remissness, and withal, to show my Kindness and Compassion to the poor insolvent Person, do, by a second Hand, but equally concerned, convey so much to the Debtor, as wherewith, if he apply it as originally designed, he may discharge the Debt, and so satisfy the eternal and immutable Law of Justice; yet after all, if the Debt be paid, as, when the Sum is truly and honestly laid down to the Creditor, it is truly and legally paid, than the Remission of that Debt is truly and properly called free: Free, because undeserved by the Debtor; Free, because the Debtor was, in himself, absolutely insolvent; Free, because this Method of Kindness was freely and without any adventitious or external Motive resolved on; Free, because the Person so assisted is discharged of the Debt, as if the Payment had proceeded wholly and only from himself. But in the mean time, we may safely assert, howsoever some may seem very shy in the matter, what Socinus himself, and after him Crellius, so strongly oppose, That God, 
Vid. Crell. in Grotium, c. 4. p. 99  with a due and necessary regard to his own Justice, could not pardon the Sins of Men without some satisfaction offered on their account; nor is this to deny God's Omnipotence, any more than it is to deny the possibility of Transubstantiation; but it's to vindicate and make good the true Notion we have of the Supreme God, in whom Justice and Mercy are co-existent from Eternity, and consequently, the just distribution of Rewards and Punishments essential to him, and whatsoever Men or Angels now do or ever have done, whatsoever they shall or do receive in consideration of their Actions, whatsoever by Gild they are liable to and must suffer, and whatsoever Effects infinite Mercy could have in respect to all or any of them, all these things were present from Eternity, with all Circumstances attending them, in the Divine Mind; so that no Methods nor Rules of God's dealing can now be changed, without supposing God himself changeable, concerning whom yet the Apostle assures us, 
James 1.7.  That with him there is no variableness nor shadow of turning. Now all these things being necessarily true to make up the Idea of an infinite God, whatsoever Notion we have of Justice or Mercy considered abstractively or simply in their own Natures, without any Object whatsoever on which they might be exercised, the same Notions we must have of that infinite Mercy and Justice which is in God, notwithstanding all the Variety in their Objects daily observable, and all the most minute Circumstances attending them; because all these Varieties and Circumstances were before God from Eternity, and so coexistent with that Justice and Mercy essential to the Divine Nature, and therefore can offer no reason why God should, now or in time, limit, or dilate, or change, his eternal Judiciary or Merciful Determinations. So if it be beyond the reach of Omnipotence for God to contradict himself, then it's beyond the reach of Omnipotence that the Effects of any Divine Attribute relating to Mankind should be frustrated, or Sins, being so direct a Contradiction to his holy Nature, should go unpunished, or Goodness, so agreeable to his Nature, and his revealed Will, should go unrewarded. The Socinians themselves confess, as I showed you before, that God cannot be injurious or do any wrong to any, because he is perfectè justus, perfectly or infinitely just; but if God could without any satisfaction on the part of Man, forgive all those Sins Man was guilty of, and yet did not, nor does forgive all, but only some particular Persons, (for some will certainly be damned, and it's as certain that those who are damned were never pardoned) then while God extends his Mercy to some, and those not the least, but even the greatest of Sinners, as St. Paul owns himself once was, and punishes others for the same, or it may be fewer or less aggravated Sins, God must be very unmerciful and very injurious to those so punished, unless we suppose arbitrary and irrespective Determinations of all things, to be the most powerful efforts of Divine Goodness or Justice, which few Persons, of any tolerable sense, will be persuaded to believe, Besides, could God forgive the Sins of Men, without any Satisfaction offered on their behalf, and yet not lay any Imputation on his own perfect Justice, I know not how to prove that he is not injurious to all those from whom He requires Faith, and that vigorous and persevering, and Obedience uninterrupted and universal, at least it must be said He's very unkind; for He who can forgive, and, as Socinus asserts, does forgive all our Sins without any Satisfaction tendered to his Justice, might as well forgive us without putting us to the trouble of informing our Minds, or regulating and restraining our Actions, for we cannot easily give any reason why he should exact such Duties of us, as Conditions of our Salvation, when, if it pleased him, he could give us Salvation without any Conditions at all. If it be objected, that He has declared otherwise in his revealed Will, and its Justice in him to be true to his own Declarations; that Plea again reduces all to perfect Arbitrariness, and he will be irrespectively Merciful, merely because he will be Merciful, and he will be irrespectively Vindictive, merely because he will be so; which things seem somewhat to contradict our common notion of Justice, That it does suum cuique tribuere, give to every one what's due and proper to him; We believe, more safely, that God lays those Duties, which yet we are unable to perform in that perfect manner we ought, upon us, that they might be as continual Remembrancers to us of that Satisfaction which he really requires at our hands; for could we perform all God's revealed Will, without any failure either in Time or Circumstance, God's Justice would be otherwise satisfied, and employed wholly in distributing Rewards among us; but since, when we take the utmost pains, our Duties are either at one time or other essentially or circumstantially sinful, therefore we ourselves ought to conclude some such Satisfaction necessary as may make up for our unavoidable defects; and since we are assured by God's Word, that One has undertaken that Work who was every way capable of performing it, we are obliged, in gratitude to so great a Benefactor, to endeavour after all that Holiness and Perfection (how little soever it is that we are capable of) and we are obliged to do it for our own sakes, because it's no way reasonable those should be Partakers of any benefit from Christ's Satisfaction, who do not perform those Conditions upon which only that Satisfaction can be any ways beneficial to us. To this we may add yet further, That if God can forgive Sinners without Satisfaction made for their Sins, without any derogation from his Justice, how merciful soever God may seem to Mankind, yet he seems wholly to have forgotten all that Mercy with respect to the fallen Angels; for if no Satisfaction was needful for Sin, why could not their Maker forgive their Transgressions too without it, as well as Men's? there might have been a thousand Means doubtless found out to confirm a Covenant of Grace with them, as well as that of the Death of Christ to confirm the same Covenant with Men; but it seems God would not so forgive them though he could, they could offer no Satisfaction for themselves, therefore they are eternally and immediately damned; these Conclusions are necessary and inevitable from Socinian Principles, but in themselves are detestable and damnable.  
But, what the Socinians fail to effect by God's Word, they make no doubt of making good by dint of Reason, in which they look upon themselves as wholly invincible. Here than they assert, That if Christ have made Satisfaction for us, and that suitable to our Necessities, than Christ must have suffered the pains of Eternal Death, because Mankind by Sins were liable to such Eternal Death; but here we may observe, that they fasten upon that single Instance of Christ's Sufferings, viz. his Death, in the matter of Satisfaction for Sinners, only; whereas our Lord was a continual Sufferer on that account, from his first Condescension to take our Nature upon him, to his Crucifixion; and I make no question but what he underwent when he bore humane Infirmities, when he was in that bitter Agony in the Garden, when he cried out upon the Cross, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me! I make no question but his Sufferings in those Instances were much greater than what he underwent in Death itself: and so the very Story of his Passion represents things in relation to those latter Scenes of his Life on Earth; for what prodigious Cause must we imagine there was that he declared to Peter and the Sons of Zebedee, 
Matth. 26.38.  My Soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto Death, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, my Soul is compassed round about, or even overwhelmed with Sorrow, for so the Original imports: In his Agony in the Garden, what through a clear Apprehension of that dreadful Task he was then to set about more immediately, what with the Fervour and Earnestness of his Prayers to his Father, either that, if it were possible, that Cup, that bitter Cup, he was then to drink, might pass from him, or that what he was then suffering might be truly effectual to that great End for which he suffered, 
Luke 22.44.  his Sweat was as if it had been great drops of blood falling down to the ground: the Terror of his instant Sufferings to that Flesh and Blood he had assumed, as well as the Strength of his Enemies, and the greatness of the Conflict he was then engaged in, might be the occasion of that stupendous Sweat; for experience tells us, that Fear opens the Pores of the Body and emits as grumous Sweats as the most earnest Intention whatsoever of the Body, or the Mind; and the Angel appearing to Christ, in the Garden, and strengthening him, seems more necessary with respect to those Terrors ready to seize on Flesh and Blood engaged in mighty Sorrows and oppressing Woes, than merely to reinforce that Earnestness in Prayer, which, the greater the Danger is, so long as the Soul is consistent with itself, will naturally be the more earnest and importunate for Assistance or Deliverance. His Sufferings yet seem to work more violently upon him when he comes to that bitter Cry, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me! why dost thou seem to hid thy Face from me, and to leave me wholly to the barbarous Cruelties of wicked and malicious Men? the Complaint was more natural, and carried with it a greater Emphasis when proceeding from that Son of God, that only, that beloved Son, in whom he was well pleased; so far his holy Soul seems to be upon the rack, but when he receives his last bitter Draught, and owns the mighty work, as well as the Types and Predictions, relating to him, were finished; the Storms that ruffled him before, seem to sink into a Calm, and he breathed out his Sacred Life with those charming eruptions of unbounded Love, Father forgive them, 
Luke 23.34.  for they know not what they do; and those full expressions of absolute Satisfaction in what he had undergone, Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit; 
v. 46.  Our Lord's Sufferings ended there, and there, with his dying Breath, he raised to himself the first Trophies of his glorious Victories, for though the bringing the Son of God to Death, who had so terribly overawed and baffled him before, were the utmost reach of Hell's impetuous Malice, yet that very Death of his, gave the infernal Tyrant that fatal Blow, which he strove by that very Prosecution to put off; that mighty Wound, which Hell, with all its Stratagems and Struggle, can never recover; and this great Event, the vanishing of that thick Darkness at that very Instant of his Expiration, which before, when Nature's Lord was in his Agonies, covered the Face of the whole Earth, the terrible Convulsions of the Earth, the Dissolution of mighty Rocks, the Rending of the Temples Veil, and long buried Saints starting from their Graves, as if at that very Instant of their Saviour's Death, all the Chains of that King of Terrors had been broke at once; with that great Event all these mighty Wonders seemed to sympathise. Now if with these greater, and more inexpressible Sufferings, we consider all the rest which our Saviour's Life was obnoxious to, from his Cradle to his Tomb, and withal reflect with due reverence upon the dignity of the Sufferer, the distance may not seem so immoderately great as the Socinians would have us believe, between the Satisfaction given and the Necessities of those it was given for. But further, we are to consider, that the Eternity of that Death Adam's Sin had laid him open to, did not proceed from the nature of the Sin itself, for no Crime infinite in its own Nature can proceed from a finite Being; but the Eternity of that Penalty annexed to Sin in Man arises from the absolute Infinity of that God against whom he sinned, and whose Anger when irreversible must be eternal, from a respect to that infinite Goodness and Justice, essential to him, whereby he had conferred such mighty Benefits upon Man, and laid so very reasonable Duties upon him, which yet Man had ingratefully slighted and abused: Now if the greatness of the Penalty arise from the greatness or immensity of the Being offended, than the Greatness and Value of the Satisfaction tendered in lieu of that Penalty, arises from the same Consideration, viz. the greatness of that God it's offered to and accepted by, and as we believe God to be infinitely Wise, and therefore not to be imposed upon so as, with Glaucus in the Poet, to exchange, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, things of the greatest consideration for Trifles, Gold for Brass, so we reasonably conclude, That God understands the true Value of that Satisfaction offered to Justice in the Sufferings of his Son, we are assured, that he has accepted of what his Son has done on our behalf, therefore we are assured too, that what he has so acted for us, was and is equivalent to those Punishments we ought, as Sinners, to have undergone for the Satisfaction of eternal Justice. Our Adversaries indeed would persuade us, That if we insist so much on the Dignity of the Person suffering, we must suppose that Christ suffered for our Sins, as he was God, or in his divine Nature, which Supposition would be blasphemous, and the Conclusion impossible; but by their leave, we neither mean nor pretend to any such thing: We know, and assert, that Immortality cannot die, and that the Deity cannot suffer; yet we believe that He who was and is true God, did both suffer and die, but we know, He that was God took upon him the Nature of Man, and therefore though he could not, nor did die as God, yet that Humane Nature which he assumed, both could and did suffer and die, and by that Suffering and Death, among other Proofs, evidenced the Reality of his being Man, as well as he demonstrated his Divinity by his continual Words and Actions. But now let us consider God condescending to take upon him our Nature, that very Condescension alone is of infinite weight; we look upon it as a very meritorious piece of Humility, for a Sovereign Prince to take upon him the Habit of a Beggar, only to procure good for some miserable undeserving Wretches; the Athenians therefore long celebrated the glorious Memory of their last Monarch Codrus, who put on the ignoble Arms of a private Centinel, merely that he might die by the hands of those Enemies, who had been forewarned by an Oracle not to kill him, by which private Habit assumed, he procured the safety of his Country; but we never admire much the Humility or Condescension of that Beggar, who wears Rags, because he has no richer Habits to put on. Now, had the Son of God taken upon him a Royal Grandeur, had he been wrapped in purple, adored by all Mankind in his Cradle, worn the Imperial Crown even in his Infancy, or had he taken any other Methods we could fancy to ourselves, which might have rendered him considerable to the World, yet this had been an infinitely greater Humiliation; than for a Cyrus, or an Alexander, or a Trajan, or a Constantine, or a Tamerlane to have taken upon him the Person of the most contemptible Wretch in the World, and for the noblest End. It cannot well be questioned, whether it was possible for God to take into his Own an Humane Nature or not? Humanity itself being the product of his own Eternal Power, was, as all other parts of the Creation, wholly at his command; and though God's assuming a Body might be supposed enough of itself to render that Body immortal, yet we may reasonably be assured, that he could make it according to his own good Pleasure, liable to Death, as well as other Humane Bodies were; but the Union between the Divine and Humane Nature being so close and absolute, the Humane Nature, howsoever submitted to Mortality, must contract an infinite Honour and Dignity from thence; but after all, the Condescension is not a whit the less, that he who is God should assume that mortal Nature, nor is his Love less admirable who should assume it for our sake, or who should stoop so low purely to make up that breach that was between his Father and Mankind; but if to this Condescension we add a due consideration of those many Calamities or extreme Sufferings this Humane Nature was all along obnoxious to, if we consider the Son of God, as he was Man, always in a state of Persecution, and that carried on by various Degrees to the utmost Extremity, and then recollect again that Honour it had contracted from that close and inseparable Union there was between the Divine and Humane Nature in Christ; such Sufferings in such a Person, must be acknowledged infinitely meritorious, and consequently capable of atoning or satisfying for infinite Gild, though such Sufferings were not Eternal, as those of sinful Men are or aught to have been; for it's not necessary that the Satisfaction given for Humane Sins should be of the same kind, as if Divine Anger could have been averted by no Method but that of the Lex talionis, or like for like, but that the Redemption-Price, paid for the guilty Prisoner, should be of equal value to those Injuries done by that Prisoner to him, to whom that Redemption-Price is paid down; as if I take up Goods or Silver Coin of any one, for which I myself am wholly insolvent, and another undertakes for me to discharge the Debt, the Creditor will scarce take it ill, if he paid to the full in Gold or Jewels for that Silver or those Goods he had given credit for, though the Debt be not paid in kind.  

Cat. Rac. §. 6. c. 8. p. 146.  But, say They, it's ordinary to say, That one D●●p of Christ's Blood was enough to wash away the Sins of the whole World, therefore God must be very unjust to exact so extraordinary Sufferings at the hand of his Son, that he should shed so much of his Blood, and die at last, and so pay a Price for Man's Sin, so much greater than necessary: We might easily answer this Cavil by saying, that an Argument drawn against an Article of Faith, merely from an Hyperbolical Expression, is altogether invalid; nor is the Christian Church, in general, bound to answer for every passionate Expression which one of her Sons may use. But we may consider further, that whereas the reason of the Bloody Sacrifices, offered by Men in former Ages, was to signify to the World, that an Expiation was to be made for the World's Sins, and to keep up their hopes and expectations of it; and whereas we are assured in God's Word, that without Blood there is no Remission, though the shedding one Drop of the Blood of the intended Sacrifice, be as real Bloodshedding, as the drawing out of all is, and though one Drop of that Blood of the Sacrifice had as much Virtue and Efficacy in it, as the whole Mass could be thought to have, yet that was not all that was aimed at; for the Blood of the Sacrifice was so to be shed, as that Death might naturally follow on that Action, which was not likely to follow on the shedding one or only a few Drops; and without this Death the Beast was not fit for Sacrifice; so much Blood being required as was necessary to sprinkle on several things, in agreeance with which, the Blood of Christ too is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Heb. 12.24.  the Blood of sprinkling. The Blood then, shed of old, represented somewhat Expiatory, but not as it was the Blood of an Animal, but as it was the Blood of such a Creature sacrificed on the Altar to that God who was to be atoned: so though the Blood of our Saviour, in every Drop of it, as shed for us, was of an infinite Worth; yet the Worth of that Blood, with respect to us, depended on his being Sacrificed, or made an Offering for Sin, which he could not have been, had not his Life been taken away by the pouring out of his Blood before; for as we easily apprehend, that the fairest Beast designed for Sacrifice by Men, if yet it died alone, or accidentally, was no Sacrifice; but that to make it such, it was necessary the Priests should make it bleed to Death: So had our Saviour's Humane Nature submitted only to the common Rules of Mortality, or fallen by a natural Death, he had been no Offering, no Sacrifice to God; but he really was a Sacrifice, and is owned as such in Scripture, therefore his Blood too was to be shed, and that so far as to put an end to his Humane Life, or the Union between his Rational Soul and his Mortal Body; so that the extraordinary Sufferings of our Saviour take not away from the Worth of his Blood, in itself, but his Blood could have had no effect upon us, for the washing away of our Sins, had it not been the Blood of our Sacrifice, our Propitiation, as well as it was the Blood of the Son of God; and therefore we own, with all Humility and Thankfulness, the Goodness of our Lord in offering up himself a Sacrifice for Sin on our account, by permitting those Powers to kill him, which he could have destroyed with one revenging Word: Nor can we less acknowledge the Goodness of his and our Father, who was pleased to accept of that Propitiation for our Sins, his Son's Satisfaction for our Debts, which he was no way obliged to, but by the Concurrence of the Divine Love and Goodness of the Father and the Son, from all Eternity. But from this Doctrine of Christ's making Satisfaction to his Father for our Sins, they draw a very unhappy Consequence, for they tell us, Quod Hominibus fenestram ad peccandi licentiam aperiat, aut certè ad socordiam in pietate colenda invitet, etc. That it gives Men an open Liberty to sin, or at least, gives them great encouragement to Slothfulness in the Duties of Religion: for if Christ has satisfied for all our Sins, than we are free from all obligation to any punishment for Sin, and therefore there can be no Conditions reasonably propounded to us, by virtue of which we should be free from those Punishments; or it's unreasonable that God should still make Practical Holiness a Condition of our Salvation, when Christ, by his Death, has fully satisfied his Father's Wrath, with respect to all our Sins, past, present, and to come: This Charge would be very heavy if it were true; but would they consider those very Texts they endeavour to confirm this Objection by, they would easily see how they confound themselves, and slander that Holy Doctrine. The Apostle tells us of Jesus Christ, 
Tit. 2.14.  That he gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works: All this we steadfastly believe. 
2 Cor. 5.15.  And that Christ died for all, that they which live, should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again: We believe, that our Lord Jesus Christ gave himself for our Sins, 
Gal. 1.4.  that he might deliver us from this present evil World; 
Eph. 5.27.  That he might present his Church to himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish: We believe, 
Heb. 9.14.  that our Lord offered himself without spot to God, that he might purge our Consciences from dead works to serve the living God; 
1 Pet. 1.18, 19  and that we are redeemed from our vain conversation, not with corruptible things, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot: and from all these things we conclude, That our Saviour's Sufferings for us, were originally designed to free us both from the Punishment and Gild of Sin; and therefore as we look up to our Saviour as our Priest and our Sacrifice, so we acknowledge him to be our Prophet and our King, our Instructor and our Governor; that he has been our Instructor in all Ages, by his Messengers Prophetical and Apostolical, and those, to this day, lawfully entrusted with the Dispensation of his Word and Sacraments; that he is that great and glorious King, in perpetual Obedience to whose Commands we are obliged to live, and without Obedience to whose Commands, performed according to our ability, we certainly merit Eternal Punishment: and this power over us as a Prophet and a King, we doubt not, took its Original from that Sacrifice he offered for our Sins in the fullness of time, but on account of the certainty of which, 
Rev. 13.8.  he was effectually, that Lamb slain from the beginning of the World. Well then, our Saviour, in his Suffering, paid a sufficient Price to satisfy for the Sins of all Mankind, to atone God's anger against them as Sinners, and to prevent their eternal Damnation: but these Advantages accrueing from his Priesthood and his Sacrifice, can only be participated in by those who submit to his Instruction and his Government; he purchased that Interest in us at a dear rate, and the Connexion between the one and the other is indissoluble: He therefore that would reap any Benefit from the Sufferings of our Saviour, must obey his Directions, submit to his Laws, do his Will; he who acts so, must certainly be very perfect in all Religious Duties; therefore those who are eternally saved by Christ's Death, must, as far as possible, be perfect in all Religious Duties; therefore, the true genuine Doctrine of Christ's Satisfaction must infer a necessity of Practical Holiness, not destroy it: thus we see when God appointed the brazen Serpent to be set up in the Wilderness, for the relief of those who were bitten by fiery Serpents, that brassy Representation had a power sufficient annexed to it to heal all that were hurt; but if any bitten Israelite, out of an obstinate humour, would not have cast his eyes upon the brazen Serpent, though the Serpent had been just over his head, he would have died by the Wound, because the Condition on which alone the Cure was to be had was annexed to the appointment of that Serpent, viz. that the wounded Person should look up to it. Or let us take our view of the Doctrine of Christ's Satisfaction from another place, than we shall find Faith as an originally necessary Condi ion of receiving any Benefit by it, and Faith, to be true, must as necessarily work by Love; for if I am cast into Prison as a Debtor, and another out of pity to my deplorable state, go and discharge all my Debts, and receive an entire acquittance of all such Debts for me and in my name, this is Love and Kindness, and sufficient in the case, in the Judgement of all Rational Men; but if, after all this done, and the Acquittance showed me and attested, I'll not believe one word of all the matter, and to prove I do not believe, will continue a Prisoner still, though always complaining of the sadness of my own Condition, my Friend did enough for me, but what am I the better? my Incredulity makes my state and condition still as sensibly lamentable as before; so, whereas by Adam's Transgression, all Men are brought into a state of Gild, and all stand as Prisoners under the hand of God, justly incensed against us, and are such Debtors to his Justice, as unless that Debt be discharged by or for us, we must be eternally miserable. Our blessed Saviour, assured of our Insolvency, has, by himself, satisfied his Father's Anger; he has discharged that Debt we stand engaged in to Heaven; his whole Gospel is a sufficient Evidence of what he has done for us, in it we are acquitted by God the Father from those Punishments we were liable to, for the sake of his Son; and the truth of that Gospel has through all Ages been sufficiently attested to the World; but if, after all this, we all turn Socinians, if we will not believe that our Saviour has really extended any such Goodness towards us, and to prove that we do not believe it, we slight all those Rules of Holy Living which are given us, and resolve, with the rebellious Citizens in the Gospel, that we will not have this Man to reign over us, that we will not submit to his Laws, nor acknowledge his Sovereignty, his Satisfaction is ineffectual to us; and though we groan under never so deep a sense of our natural Misery, we can reap no good from that: we must therefore believe in our Saviour, we must believe him able, willing, and really to have satisfied his Father for our Debt: we must believe that, by virtue of that Satisfaction so made, He's able to save to the uttermost all those that come to God in and by him: We must believe he's really able to Teach us, and that he certainly has a Right to Command us; and when we sincerely believe all these things, and that as it was one great end of our Lord's offering himself for us to free us from the Punishment, so it was another to free us from the Slavery of Sin, so that we should not obey it in the Lusts thereof, it will be impossible that we should indulge ourselves in Sin; nay we cannot confirm the Truth of our professed Faith, or make it credible to the World that we really Believe what we pretend to do, unless we endeavour, as he that has called us is holy, so to be ourselves holy in all manner of conversation.  
Let those then who talk so freely of the Doctrine of our Lord's Satisfaction, who would persuade us that it's so irrational and pernicious to believe any such thing, find out any Arguments from their own Scheme of Doctrine, which may serve to enforce Practical Holiness more vigorously than what we have delivered, if they can: Will They tell us we are obliged to it out of pure Gratitude to Heaven, because God is pleased to forgive us our Sins passed freely, and to confirm that free Pardon to us by the Death of his Son, as if he merely died a kind of Martyr for that Truth, which they make almost the sole end of all our Saviour's Sufferings? Gratitude, it's true, may operate powerfully upon a generous Soul, but the most generous of all would be willing to understand the nature of that Obligation they have to be so grateful, and the reasons of it. We are then obliged by God's free pardoning of our Sins; how do we know he has done so? By the Testimony of Scripture, that Word of God, which is sufficient to instruct us to Eternal Life: Well, we own Scripture does inform us, That our Sins are freely pardoned by God, and we should build very confidently on that evidence, did not those we have to do with teach us a great deal of Diffidence, and show us that such Passages of Scripture are capable of very different Interpretations, and that when we think we have a very clear proof of this or another Particular, when we come to scan things accurately by our own Reason, we find we have none at all; for the same Scripture which tells us we are freely pardoned, tells us as plainly, and as intelligibly, That the Lord Jesus Christ is that Lamb of God who takes away the Sins of the World; that Christ died for us, or for our Sins; that he bore our Sins, and carried our Transgressions; that he redeemed us with his own most precious Blood; that he gave his Soul a Redemption-Price for many; that he's our Mediator; that he has reconciled us to God, and is a Propitiation for our Sins; and that the Scripture has very distinctly stated the Comparison between Legal expiatory Sacrifices and the Sacrifice of Christ, the former being only so many Types and Shadows, the latter the Antitype, or the thing so long and so often represented by them: And yet, according to Socinian Doctrine, we must not believe one word of all this, but we must fly to foolish Glosses and impertinent Figures to elude the force of all these Assertions; and Scripture must be made a Nose of Wax, that it may the better be subservient to the ridiculous prejudices of pretended Rationalists. But if we may so slightly pass over these Assertions, we may as slightly pass the rest, and deny that we owe any Gratitude to God on account of the forgiveness of our Sins; according to true Catholic Principles we believe, both that our Saviour has satisfied for our Sins, and that our God has freely forgiven them: and none but a Socinian Reasoner would find any difficulty to reconcile those Truths to one another, as we have shown before. But we'll suppose Gratitude to Heaven for Mercies received, especially that of Salvation by Christ, would oblige us sufficiently to Holiness of Life; it will follow from thence, that that Doctrine which sets off the Love and Mercy of God and Christ to the greatest advantage, must needs offer the most considerable Motives for our Obedience; but here a new Vindicator of Socinianism acknowledges, 
Defence of the Hist. of Vnitar. p. 50.  That the Socinian Doctrine makes the Love of God less wonderful than the Trinitarian; therefore the Socinian Doctrine affords us less effectual Motives to grateful Obedience than the Trinitarian Doctrine does; and since the Love of God is of so extraordinary a Nature really that it passes knowledge, 
Eph. 3.19.  as the Apostle assures us; since no words can set it off according to its Excellence, nor the very Conceptions of Men reach it, (for if they could, Men might know the utmost dimensions of it) than whatsoever Scheme of Doctrine goes about to lessen that Love under a pretence of making it more intelligible, that is really destructive of true Piety, and, as far as possible, takes away all Obligations to Obedience arising from Gratitude for God's Love to Mankind. So the Doctrine of our Saviour's great Humiliation, in being incarnate for our Sakes, seems a very powerful reason why we should be meek and lowly in spirit; will their Opinion, that he was a mere Man, taking his first and sole Original from the Blessed Virgin, promote Humility more powerfully? that he was very great on that account, that he did many Miracles, we readily own; but we cannot but imagine our mighty Man of Reason talks Nonsense, when he tells us, 
Ib. Def p. 51.  That Christ by the power bestowed upon him cast out Devils, cured all sorts of Diseases, raised the dead, commanded the Winds and the Seas, and was then indeed in the likeness of God, but it was a great Humility in him, that he was so far from making an Ostentation of his Glory and Greatness, that he became like a Servant, etc. If indeed he had that power of doing such great Miracles, and had concealed it, or had never done any thing miraculous but in Corners, and where the Noise of it could never have crept out into the World, it might have looked like somewhat of our Author's Humility; but the greatest part of our Saviour's Miracles were done openly, in the Synagogues, on the Sabbath Day, and elsewhere when Multitudes were gathered together, and this, as we take it, was to own and publish his Greatness and Power to the World; and it was but necessary he should do so, for these Miracles of his were the authentic Evidences of his Messiahship, the Evidences to which he appealed when he declared, that If he had not done among them the works which never man did, 
John 15.24.  they had had no sin, but that now they had no cloak for their sin, because they themselves had been Eye-witnesses of those great things, which they could no more prove were done by any Diabolical Power, than our Socinians can that they were not done by a Power, Inherent, Natural, and Divine in himself; and the same Evangelist, after having given us the History of Christ's turning Water into Wine at the Marriage of Cana in Galilee, adds this Remark to it, 
2.11.  This beginning of Miracles did Jesus, and manifested forth his Glory, and his Disciples believed on him: so that, in this particular, we see our Saviour not expressing an unwillingness to be known, or to have it known what and how great he was; and as for his becoming a Servant, notwithstanding all that Power, it was no matter either so great or so peculiar to him, as should render him so extraordinary an Example to us; for his Birth, as to his Condition in this World, was very mean, and if we believe, as some do, that for many Years he followed the same Employ which Joseph, his supposed Father, did, and that he had an illiterate Education, 
7.15.  as the Jews object to him, (which particulars are almost unquestionable) his Condition was servile from the beginning, and therefore not so strange, that he should willingly be a Servant to others, especially since it has always been the Policy of those who endeavour to head a Party, to manage themselves with all the obliging Condescensions in the World; so Menelaus, in Euripides, tells Agamemnon, he should remember when he sought the Command of the Grecian Army, 
Euripid. in Aulide.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, How humble he was, taking every Man kindly by the Hand, and having his doors always open to the meanest Plow-jobber, and courteously speaking to all, though they seemed to take no notice of him. If this were the Mode of Great Men, aspiring after more Grandeur, what of wonder was there that He, who had not so much as where to lay his Head, should be so humble and so much a Servant to every one? especially since he came to call Men to follow him, and set up for the Sovereign Head of the greatest Society of Men in the World? As for our Saviour's Sufferings, notwithstanding his Power of doing Miracles, he was far from standing alone in that particular, for Moses himself, though so great, by God's own appointment, among his own People, though he were a King in Jesurun, 
Exod. 17.4.  though he did many Miracles, was in danger of Stoning by the discontented Israelites; Elijah, a Man of a very considerable Character, acted as a Servant when he girt up his Loins and ran before Ahab to the entering in of Jesreel, 
Numb. 14.10.  and as a poor persecuted Man when he was forced to fly for his Life from the fury of Jezebel: the Prophets generally died Martyrs for those Truths they published; and the Apostles, tho'mighty in those signs and wonders which they did in the World's View, yet several of them died by ways as cruel and tormenting as our Saviour himself: from whence it will follow, that Moses and Elijah, that the Prophets and Apostles, were as great Examples of Humility and Condescension as our Saviour himself, and therefore St. Paul, when he set Christ as an example of Humility before the Philippians, did it only at random, and might as well have named himself or any of his Fellow-Apostles on the same account; and doubtless this Doctrine tends very much to the Advancement of Christian Piety. But now, if we quit Socinian Reason, and consider the Truth of things; if we look upon our Saviour, as pre-existent to his appearing in the World, as being God of God and Light of Light, and that from Eternity, and consider him as condescending to assume our Nature, as appearing without those Terrors of Divinity, and clothed with all the Sweetnesses of innocent Humanity; if we respect him who had all things originally at command, and did yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 become poor for our sakes, (where we cannot but take notice of our new Author's pitiful Criticism, who tells us, that Word signifies not to become poor, but to be poor; yet Suidas tells us, that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies, 
Suidas in Verbo.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, one that falls into want from having been sufficiently provided for, which we think is becoming Poor from being Rich, and not being originally Poor; and so whereas Poverty in the Poet Aristophanes tells us, 
Aristoph. in Plut. p. 58. I.B.E.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, The Life of a Beggar is to be without any thing of his own, but what he receives from the Charity of others; which was really our Saviour's Case; Gerard, a better Critic than our Author, defines, according to ancient Etymologists, 
Car. Ger. in locum.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a Beggar as one falling or descending from Riches to Penury, from Sufficiency to extreme Want, so far as to have nothing but what's given by others) thus our Saviour became Poor, nay a Beggar, others administering to his Maintenance of their Substance; and he descended from that celestial Glory, with which he was robed from Eternity, to assume Humane Nature, and in that Nature to be so poor and despised on that account, as the Evangelists represent him: and we know, as well as he can tell us, that God, as God, cannot be poor; but we are as sure that that real Flesh and Blood, assumed by our Saviour, was liable to the same inconveniences with the rest that were Partakers of the same Nature, among which one was Poverty, very incident to those who are born to no worldly Estates. But how Men come to be Rich and Glorious, by having the power of doing Miracles conferred upon them, we cannot easily discover; our Saviour's Miracles brought him in no Treasures, and his Apostles, notwithstanding that Power of doing the like conferred on them by Heaven, were in a very low Condition in the World; and Paul, among his numerous Converts, was but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a poor Man, fain to get his Living by the Labours of his own hands: Now certainly the Jews were as much obliged to observe our Saviour's Humility as others, and they saw him low enough, but they, who very well knew the Meanness of his Birth, that could ask the Question, Is not this the Carpenter's Son? could not make any extraordinary Remark upon that; but could they have believed him the Son of God, which those converted among them afterwards did (by which they understood his being equal with God) they would have been very ready to admire his Humiliation, as his Disciples did, when, owning him their Master, they saw him stooping to wash their Feet; so that our Saviour was no way visibly Rich or Glorious in the World, unless they'll say he was so because contented, which every Wise and Good Man is, and they who saw neither any Riches nor Glory, that he had upon Earth, could not have been easily drawn to set him as a pattern of Humility before themselves, because they saw him in the form of a Servant; if he were a mere Man, when he was once more than a Servant, when all power was given to him both in Heaven and Earth, he appeared as a Master on every occasion, and quickly withdrew himself from the sight of Men: and the humility or condescension of one that has nothing, is neither admirable nor exemplary.  
If we could dwell longer on this Subject, I make no doubt but it would appear, that, above all other Doctrines, Socinianism should never be embraced as tending to the advancement of true Piety; and since we have had so many holy Martyrs living and dying in the belief of Christ's Satisfaction for our Sins, we may conclude that Doctrine of Christ's Satisfaction is neither so pernicious nor destructive of Holiness as those Heretics would persuade us; and therefore we may the better assert this Doctrine, and make good our Foundation of it, i. e. the notion of infinite Justice in God, which does necessarily infer, that every Sinner ought to be punished. But they tell us, 
Cat. Rac, §. 6. c. 8, p. 147.  That we make God's Mercy such as cannot but forgive all Sin, and his Justice such as cannot but punish all Sin, and so we set God's Attributes at irreconcilable odds one with another; but I do not remember infinite Mercy defined, by any of Ours, by that particular Character of necessarily forgiving every Sin: We believe indeed, that the Sins of those who are pardoned, could not be pardoned, were there not infinite Mercy in God; but we generally believe, that infinite Mercy exerted itself, when Christ came into the World to redeem Sinners; and that indefinite Expression of our Saviour, that God so loved the World, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting Life, teaches us as much. Now, if Faith be so necessary a Condition, that without it the Sins of none can be pardoned, then infinite Mercy cannot imply a necessity of pardoning every Sin; and if that Condition of believing be requisite, I know not why another Condition, such as a Christ offering up himself a Sacrifice to atone his Father's displeasure for men's sins, should not be so too: As for infinite Justice, we believe it necessarily infers a Punishment for every Transgression, and therefore we believe, that had not our Saviour undergone that Punishment for our sins which was due to us, every Sin of ours must have been inevitably punished; and therefore whereas we conclude, agreeably to Scripture, that the greatest part of Mankind are eternally damned, we conclude their Damnation is the effect of infinite Justice, and that they have no more than they deserve; and whereas all those who believe in Christ have their Sins pardoned, and are eternally saved, we believe that the consequence of the same infinite Justice; for since Christ has really satisfied for our Sins, and his Father has accepted it for us, and the Will of God the Father and of God the Son, being eternally the same; so that the Satisfaction and the Acceptance were of eternal Determination; God could not evidence that Justice to us, but by making good that Original Contract or Agreement, and so by bestowing Pardon and eternal Happiness on all those who believe in his Son; and the same Justice is as much evidenced in the condemnation of the Wicked, because the Satisfaction offered by Christ being sufficient to atone for all Sins, upon condition that all Sinners believe in him who has so satisfied, that slight put upon the Condition, or the Unbelief of the greater part of Mankind, exposes them justly to Divine Vengeance, as even common Reason teaches us. The Socinians tell us, as if they were the Privadoes of Heaven, that God's Mercy and Justice are both moderated by his Wisdom and Goodness, as if they needed somewhat of Limitation or Restraint: but why should Justice and Mercy be moderated or governed by Wisdom and Goodness, more than Wisdom or Goodness should be managed by Justice or Mercy? God's Attributes do not superintend one another, but they are all infinite, concentred in one infinite Being, therefore all equal, and no more capable of interfering one with another, than God can be supposed capable of disagreeing with himself; and whereas we are taught by those Men of Reason, that that Justice which is exercised in punishing Sinners, is called in Scripture God's Severity, his Anger, and his Fury; if we allow it, will they say, that Severity, in God, or Anger, or Fury, are unjust? We know those words are generally understood in an ill sense; Severity, among Men, can admit of no more favourable Character than that of Summum Jus, or extremity of Law, which is thought to be Summa injuria, or extremity of Injustice; and Anger and Fury, in Men, are generally taken for vicious Excesses, and such, as till a Man can govern or conquer, he's not looked upon as any extraordinary proficient in Virtue; but we hope there are no such vicious Excesses in God, therefore such words are made use of only according to men's Capacities, to show us how very angry God is with Sin and Sinners, (and yet no more than Justice, in consistence with Mercy, will allow) and to strike a just Aw and Terror upon Men; then they who will avoid breaking such or such a Law, out of Fear of the Indignation of the Lawgiver, whose superior Power and Authority may render him formidable, may much more be afraid of breaking the Laws of that God, whose Anger is , and whose Justice is inevitable: and though there be neither Justice nor Mercy in punishing the Innocent, or in acquitting the Guilty, yet there is no trespass upon either, in pardoning the Guilty, when the Innocent Freely and Voluntarily takes that Gild upon himself, especially when the Quality of that Innocent, so offering himself, is such, that the same degree of Punishment, or Punishment as heavy falling upon him, cannot possibly bring eternal Ruins upon Him, as it would upon inferior Offenders; as we often see among mere Men, some of so strong and vigorous a Constitution, that the same Pains shall scarce disorder them, which bring present Death to those of feebler Tempers. And if it were no Injustice for the Jewish High-Priests, by God's immediate Command, to transfer the Crimes of themselves and the People upon the Heads of those Beasts they offered in Sacrifice for Sin, which Translation of their Gild they signified by laying their Hands upon the Head of the intended Sacrifice, 
Exod. 29.10.  (which Beasts were really innocent, yet then died for men's Sins; not as in their own nature expiatory, 
Vid. Oughtram. de Sacrificiis. l. 1. c. 22.  but as referring to the Sacrifice of Christ, which alone was so in itself;) then neither was it Injustice in God, to lay upon Christ the Iniquity of us all, and, by so doing, to expiate our Sins in earnest, though the same Blessed Jesus were Holy, Harmless and Undefiled, as we are sure he was: Nor indeed could any thing but what was truly innocent be substituted to suffer for the Guilty, since otherwise, its native Crimes must have needed Expiation; whence among other Reasons, I conclude, Humane Sacrifices abominable to God, because all were Sinners, and one Sinner could not reasonably atone for another, which was no Exception to the Sacrifice of Christ.  
But our Adversaries have their artificial Glosses, whereby to put off the plainest Evidences of Scripture that assert, His Satisfaction for our Sins; for when we are told, that our Saviour Died for us, that He laid down his Life for Sinners, etc. they allow no more to be signified by it than this, That Christ was a Sacrifice for us, in the same manner as former Sacrifices were for those who offered them; so that as those Sacrifices were never looked upon as any Compensation for the Sins of the Offerers, neither could that of Christ be a Compensation for theirs for whom he offered himself; only his Offering Himself so seems like the others, as a certain Condition on which Remission of Sins should be granted; But if common Sense may be our Guide, the Difference must be very great between this of Christ and all former Sacrifices offered by the Jews, as generally the Antitype is accounted of a superior Nature to the Type: for tho' Remission of Sins were granted to the Offerer upon his Sacrifice being offered, yet it was not upon account of that Sacrifice offered, but upon account of the Sincerity and Obedience of the Offerer, and that respect his Sacrifice had to the Death of the Messiah yet to come; for, though Beasts were innocent, there was nothing meritorious in their being sacrificed, their Sufferings being involuntary, and themselves in a corrupt and insensible state; because there was nothing in the ancient Holocausts considerable but their relation to the Messiah, therefore they were offered continually, from their first Institution to the time of our Saviour's Death; but when the Messiah was once come, and had offered himself, knowingly and voluntarily, for Sin; the former Sacrifices were all effectually to cease; and our Lord to offer himself no more than once, therefore there must be something extraordinary in that one Sacrifice, which was not in others, and once offering of that must be more than equivalent to all the former; that really and effectually in itself expiating Sin, which the others did not; and this the Apostle himself urges, when he tells us, 
Heb. 9. 9● 11, 12.  That the Jewish Tabernacle was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both Gifts and Sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as concerning the Conscience, but Christ being come an Highpriest of good things to come, not by the Blood of Goats and Calves, but by his own Blood, he entered in once into the Holy Place, having obtained eternal Redemption for us: that eternal Redemption is an absolute Freedom from the Punishment of Sin, effected by Christ, but only signified by Jewish Institutions, the utmost of the virtue of those Symbolical Rites. The same Author presently subjoins, the Blood of Bulls and of Goats, and the ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the , sanctified to the purifying of the Flesh, i. e. God having, for the use of the Jews, ordained those Rites and Sacrifices, and promised to receive them as Clean who punctually observed his Institutions, they were consequently Legally clean who so observed them; but otherwise than in the Sense of the Law, no cleaner than the rest of Mankind, who never heard of those Institutions, but the Argument follows, à fortiori, How much more shall the Blood of Christ, 
v. 13, 14.  who, through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God, purge our Consciences from dead works to serve the Living God. The Difference then between the Sacrifices, is apparent enough, those could only give a Legal Purity to Jews, and that only to their Flesh, without which Ceremonial Purity Men may be saved; but the Sacrifice of Christ reaches the Pollutions of the Soul, takes away the Defilements of the Mind, and opens a free passage for us to the throne of Grace, without which means, Remission of Sins, and eternal Salvation are never to be obtained. Again, the Apostle, speaking of that Blood which, according to the Levital Law, was to be sprinkled upon several things, adds, It was necessary that the Patterns of things in the Heavens should be purified with these; or rather the Patterns of Heavenly things, for so the following Words explain the Phrase, but that the Heavenly things themselves should be purified with better Sacrifices than these, for Christ is not entered into the Holy places made with hands, which are the Figures of the true, but into Heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us, i e. as a Mediator on our behalf; but he entered not there that he might offer himself often, as the Highpriest entered into the Holy place every year with the Blood of others, for than must he often have suffered since the foundations of the World, 
v. 22. ad 27.  but now once 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in the perfection or completion of Ages, i. e. in the fullness of time, hath he appeared to put away sin, by the Sacrifice of himself. The same Divine Author urges the matter further in the following Chapter, and directly confirms what I before asserted, That the Law having a Shadow of good things to come, and not the very Image of the things, can never, with those Sacrifices, which they offered year by year continually, make the comers thereunto perfect, for than they would not have ceased to be offered, because that the Worshippers once purged should have had no more Conscience of Sins: and if the Worshippers could have been so purged at once by those Legal Sacrifices, the successive continuance of them, would, in the same manner, have purged all those concerned in them; and then another and a better and greater Sacrifice would have been altogether needless; but alas! in those Legal Sacrifices, there was every year made a Remembrance of the same Sins, and of the Gild of the same Sinners, 
Heb. 10.1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 11, 12, 14.  for it was not possible that the Blood of Bulls and of Goats should take away Sin; But now by the will of God, we are sanctified through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all; Every Jewish Highpriest stood daily ministering and offering the same Sacrifices which can never take away sin; but this Man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sin, for ever sat down on the right-hand of God, nor did he need to offer oftener, for by one Offering he has perfected for ever them that are sanctified. The Difference then between the Sacrifice of our Saviour and those of the Law is notorious; but now, if Remission of Sins could be granted to the Offerer of a Legal Sacrifice, and yet a Legal Sacrifice could not take away the Sins of the Offerers; and if the single Sacrifice of Christ did really take away Sins, both which things are asserted in the Texts now cited; then a great deal more must be meant, by Christ's Sacrifice taking away sin, than the bare Remission of Sins amounts to; It must signify taking away that Gild of sin, by which Men are rendered obnoxious to Punishment: which, considering that Justice inherent in Almighty God, cannot be removed but by substituting somewhat so innocent in the Sinner's room, that the Sufferings of that Innocent may satisfy for the Impunity of the Sinner; but it being inconsistent with Justice to punish the Innocent for the Sinner, if the Innocent be unwilling, or depend upon his Innocence as his Security from Punishment; therefore our Saviour, for the acquittal of Divine Justice, offered himself voluntarily to die for us, and that when no Power on Earth could have taken away his Life from him; which Offer of his being the effect of his eternal Will, and his eternal Will the same with that of his Father. Eternal Justice required his Sufferings, and accepted those Sufferings (though to be undergone in time) as really, and in their own intrinsic Nature, equivalent to those Punishments otherwise due to a sinful World. Upon the whole, Christ died for, or in the room of Sinners, not to prevent their temporal but their eternal Death; and by his Humiliation and his Death, who was so Innocent and so Great, gave eternal Justice as absolute Satisfaction as the eternal Punishment of all those who are now saved through Him would have done, and therefore when Socinians seek for a reason, for their denying Christ's Death to have been in our stead, and fly to that of St. Paul, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that Christ died for our Sins, 
1 Cor. 15.3.  and plead from thence, that since it cannot be said that Christ died in the room of our Sins, no more can it be said, that he died in the room of Sinners, this is mere Stuff and Cavil; for if Christ died on account of our Sins, which is the direct English of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, it's then the more probable, He died in the room, and stead, of those Sinners, or suffered a vicarious Punishment for them, for, or on account of whose Sins he resigned himself to the Death upon the Cross. Or they know it's no uncommon thing in Scripture to put Sin for Sinners, and they'll confess, though not in that sense which we do, that He who died for Sin died for Sinners, they being inseparable from one another: But the Socinians tell us otherwise, that Christ's dying for us, signifies his procuring a great deal of good for us by his Death; this we certainly believe he did, but cannot imagine it's any detraction from the Worth of that Good he procured for us, to conclude, that he suffered instead of Sinners; for if he offered himself to Divine Punishment in the place of those, who were unquestionably obnoxious to it, and if his Father accepted of that Offer, than all those Sinners who accept of those Conditions, on which alone his Death is effectually beneficial to them, are certain of the pardon of their Sins, and of eternal Happiness, the natural Consquence of that Pardon. But they have yet a farther Shift, and because St. John tells us, We ought to lay down our Lives for the Brethren, 
1 John 3.16. Col. 1.24.  and St. Paul tells the Colossians, that by his sufferings he filled up what was behind of the afflictions of Christ in his flesh, for his Body's sake which was the Church, they conclude, that as those who die for the Brethren cannot be said to die in their stead, nor St. Paul to satisfy by his sufferings for the sins of the Church, so neither could Christ, on account of his being said to die for us, be reasonably thought to satisfy for our sins; but this Allegation is impertinent; for, though we are obliged to expose our Lives to the utmost hazards for the Conversion and Edification of others, yet where was it ever said, We should be wounded for the Transgressions of our Brethren, or be bruised for their Iniquities? or that they should be healed by our stripes? that God should lay on us the Iniquities of all our Brethren? that We should make our Souls an Offering for Sin? that We should be delivered for the Offences of our Brethren, and should bear their Sins in our own Bodies on the Cross? all which things, with more to the same purpose, are spoken of Christ, and aught to be the Explications of the other. As for that of St. Paul, if we translate it, as we very well may, all their pretences from it are lost, I rejoice in all my sufferings for you all, or in those Troubles and Persecutions I undergo for Preaching the Gospel to you, and in my turn fulfil in my flesh the latter parts of Christ's Afflictions for his own Body, that is, the Church; and so Afflictions or Sufferings for the Church are not applied to St. Paul, but to Christ, who really laid down his Life for his Flock, and all the Afflictions of the Servants of Christ, are but the Counterparts of what Christ has done for them; it being their Duty to mantain what he has delivered to them, and to be faithful to Death as he died before for them: and the Church, the Body of Christ, is exceedingly edified and benefitted by the courageous Sufferings of their Fellow-Members, Martyrs and Confessors giving the best evidences of the Excellent Nature of the Gospel, and confirming and encouraging others in the same Resolutions, of dying rather than forsaking Truth; but neither can any of the former passages be applied to St. Paul, therefore his Words cannot bear the same sense as applied to him, as the same Expressions do, when they are applied to Christ, Scripture, which is its own best Interpreter, no where explaining it in the same manner.  
But further, our Saviour is said to have born our sins, and to have carried our sorrows; this seems to be a Metaphor taken from a Man carrying that Burden himself which another aught to carry; and this is commonly looked on as a considerable evidence of Love and Kindness: 
1 Tim. 3.16. c. 2.  the same has carried Men out to a willingness to die for one another, so Pylades was willing to die for his Friend Orestes, only that he might escape a Tyrant's Fury; and Nisus, in the Poet, would gladly have redeemed his loved Euryalus from the Enemy's Sword, by putting himself into their hands in lieu of him: but the tendry in these Cases was certainly a vicarious Death, and the Persons so offering themselves, without all doubt, concluded, that whatsoever could be pretended to by the most severe Justiciaries, would be well satisfied by an Innocent's offering his own Life for an Offender, and that voluntarily; by virtue of which Consent or Desire, there could be no wrong done to the innocent Sufferer; and hence St. Peter tells us of Christ, that he suffered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, once for sins, 
1 Pet. 3.18.  the Just for the  (where, by the way, we may observe the phrase of dying for Sins, is authentically explained by dying for Sinners, or for the Unjust) i. e. He bore that Burden of God's Displeasure in himself, though he were Just and Righteous, which was due to the Unrighteous; and yet, as among Men, those generous Offers made by Friends for one another are not wont to be displeasing to the greatest Princes, nor are they a whit the more angry with the vicarious Innocent, though, to satisfy the Rules of Justice, they accept the Offer; no more was God displeased with his Son for taking upon him that Burden due to Sinners, since it only was the Sin which had trespassed so much on Justice, and provided that were punished, either in the real or the substituted Offender, who was only putatively Criminal, infinite Justice would be satisfied, Sin condemned, and all Mankind be afraid of committing that which they saw was, in its own Nature, unpardonable. One would think too, that other passage of the same Apostle were plain enough, 
1 Pet. 2.24.  That Christ bore our Sins in his own body upon the Cross, Sins are there put for the Punishment due to Sins, and the bearing them in his own Body, must signify his Body's being punished for them, and if for them, then for those who had committed them; now if Christ did not take our place, or appear in our room in those Sufferings, there can be no reason, suitable to Divine Wisdom and Justice, why he, an Innocent, should die at all for our Transgressions; for to say, That his Father had designed him for it before, and therefore he must die, would be impertinent; to say, that without dying a vicarious Death for us, he could procure any good, with respect to our Sins, would be very hard to prove; for he might Die to make good the Truth of those things he had preached, to set us an example of Patience, Submission and Humility, which, Socinians tell us, were the great Ends of his Death, and yet we be as far from obtaining Remission of Sins, by the means of his Death, as we were at first. So we believe that St. Stephen was murdered for giving Testimony to Evangelic Truths, the very Circumstances of his Death prove him an eminent Example of Patience, Fortitude and Resignation; his Resolution appearing, upon a Socinian view, much beyond that of our Saviour himself, yet St. Stephen is not said to have died for the sins of the World, nor to have carried men's sins, or to have born them in his own Body, at the place of Execution; and it would be absurd and ridiculous to apply any such passages to him; and yet, as they say, the Sins of Men were the cause of the death of those Victims offered to Almighty God by the Sinners, and in the same manner, were the cause of our Saviour's Death; so the same Sins may truly be said to have been the cause of the death of St. Stephen and every Martyr; yet the former Expressions being inapplicable to them, and they contributing nothing to the Remission of men's sins, (Christ only being that Lamb of God who takes away the Sins of the World) those Scriptural Expressions concerning the Death of Christ, must signify a great deal more than bare Dying upon Common Reasons can amount to. But to answer this, they tell us, that whereas God proclaims himself, 
Exod. 34.7.  a God keeping Mercy for thousands, forgiving Iniquities, Transgressions and Sins, according to the Hebrew Original, it ought to be, bearing or carrying Iniquities, etc. which is the same attributed here unto Christ, and yet we cannot say, that God, as there named, has satisfied for any sins, therefore neither can Christ have satisfied for sins, notwithstanding any such passages concerning him; but this the Ancients easily answered, by asserting our Jesus, the Son of God, to have been that very Being, so often and emphatically called God, who all along conversed with the Israelites, during their wander in the Wilderness, as I formerly showed; and that Testimony given to their Opinion by St. Paul, when dehorting the Corinthians from several Sins, by the example of those Israelites, 
1 Cor. 10.9.  he inserts, Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, i. e. the same Christ, and were destroyed of Serpents; where Moses tells us they tempted God when they fell under that Judgement; therefore that God was Christ, therefore he really did converse with Israel in those days, otherwise he could not have been tempted, that Testimony, for any thing I have yet seen, may pass for unanswerable. But, with all respect to their Critical Skill, we must assert they are mistaken; the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, from whence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the cited Text, not signifying to carry in its primary acceptation, but levare to ease, or to take away, 
Marin. Brinxia. in verbo.  and so Marinus, in his Arca No, translates this very Text by levare or tollere, and so God, when he pardons or forgives sins, is rightly said to ease Men of that burden they bear, or to take them away; and consequently our translating the word by forgiving is true, and agreeable to the general sense of Interpreters; hence the Authors of the Septuagint Translation, as good Critics as our Socinians, render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, taking away, not carrying, Sins, and they could scarce be suspected of being Athanasians; no more could the Chaldee Paraphrast who interprets it by those, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, leaving or remitting Iniquity, the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, never signifying Carriage, or any thing of that Nature, but only leaving or remitting, with what else may be genuinely deduced from that Interpretation; 
Vid. castle. Lex. Heaped. in verbo.  so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Syriack Version, signifies, leaving, remitting, pardoning, sparing, but no where signifies supporting or carrying; the Samaritans use 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a word signifying easing and pardoning too; the Arabic 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, taking, or driving, as a flying Enemy is driven away by a pursuing Army: So that for them, because in a foreign sense the Hebrew word sometimes signifies to carry, to interpret it so in this place, contrary to the sense of all the World beside themselves, is absurd, and only shows what mean Shifts they are put to, to find some Parallels to their abusive Constructions of Plain Scripture. As for the Evangelists application of that Text, Isa. 53, 4. He hath born our griefs, and carried our sorrows, to our Saviour, 
Matth. 8.17.  upon healing all the sick that were brought to him; he only applies that to a particular there, which really is of a general Import; therefore, what he applies to the removal of bodily Diseases, St. Peter applies to Sins, the Diseases of the Soul; our Saviour visibly and openly removing the former, as a sign of his removing the latter; but not doing both in the same manner, he cured bodily Distempers, by a Word, a Touch, an Application of outward, though seemingly unpromising, Means; but removing the Distempers of the Soul only by his Death, and so by his blood cleansing us from all Sin, satisfying his Father for all our Sins by his shedding of it, purging our Souls from all the Filthiness and Corruption of Sins by the Application of it, and by Faith in it; and that Bloodshedding of our Saviour, as tending to his Death, proved its infinite Price and Value, so often taken notice of in Scripture, by being equivalent to those Punishments Divine Justice might and must have laid upon Transgressors; the Socinians indeed say, He taketh away our sins, i. e. He makes a show as if he died, and bore the Punishment due to our Sins, eorum quasi poenam in se recepit, so putting a shame upon the World, pretending or seeming to do what he never did, from which, if the World were convinced of the Truth of what they assert, it would be very hard to persuade them, that he did, by such seeming Means, eos à vera eorum poena exsolvere, discharge Mankind really from those certain Punishments attending upon Sin; so for that further put off, That our Saviour may justly be said to procure Salvation for us by his Death, because, by that Obedience showed to his Father in dying at his Command, he had all Power conferred upon him both in heaven and earth, and so had power to forgive our Sins, and to confer eternal Life upon us. It's against Reason to believe it, for all Power in Heaven and in Earth is infinite Power, infinite Power must have an infinite Subject to reside in, Christ, being mere Man, can be no such infinite Subject, therefore no such Power can be conferred on him, on account of his Obedience, for he cannot receive an impossible Reward; but that infinite Power being essential to him, as an infinite and eternal Spirit, his Humane Nature, as united to that, is made Partaker of that infinite Power, and consequently Christ, God and Man, can indeed bestow on us those mighty Blessings.  
To fix in our Minds the Notion of Christ's Satisfaction for our sins the more, we are told by the Apostle, as I formerly cited him, That we are justified freely by his Grace, 
Rom. 3.24, 25, 26.  through the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his Righteousness for the Remission of sins: to declare at this time his Righteousness, that he might be just, and the Justifier of him which believeth in Jesus; the last Verse teaches us that Care taken to vindicate Divine Justice, in the World's Eye, by the Death of Christ, which could scarce have been done, had not Christ laid down his Life for us, and in our room, so satisfying the Justice of his Father; and so the Justice of accepting as righteous every Believer in Christ, is apparent too: for, if he have paid an entire Satisfaction, a full Redemption-Price to his Father for our Sins, on that Condition, that those who believe on him should be Partakers of the Advantages flowing from thence, God then could not be just, should he refuse to justify such Believers; so that God's Justice is as deeply concerned in the Pardon of Believers, as in the Punishment of Infidels. Again, St. Paul tells the Elders at Miletum, 
Acts 20.28  that God had made them Overseers of that Church, which he had redeemed with his own most precious Blood; Now whereas God is said to have redeemed his People Israel from their Egyptian Bondage, that Redemption being really effected by Jesus Christ, who was that great and powerful Agent in that mighty Work, what was done for Israel then, was but the pre-signification of what he intended in due time for all Mankind; so that he is called their Redeemer, especially with respect to that future Design; though the rescue of them from the Power of their Enemies be a Metaphorical Redemption, and applicable, in such a figurative sense, to all those, who, even by an unjust Violence, set open the Prison-doors, and make a way for the escape of the most notorious Criminals. Again, 
Acts 7.35.  it's true, Moses is styled a Redeemer, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and a Leader to Israel, God making use of him as his Instrument to execute Vengeance upon rebellious Egypt, and to lead out Israel from thence with a mighty Hand and a stretched out Arm; but we no where find that the Israelites were redeemed by the Blood of Moses from their Slavery; We find not that the Sins of the Israelites were forgiven on account of that deliverance; God indeed sometimes heard the Intercessions of Moses for those ingrateful Wanderers, and, for his own Name's sake, was pleased to pass by their Offences, and to glorify his own Name in that constant protection he afforded them, among their observing Enemies; but the deliverance itself was no cause of God's remitting the Punishment due to their Trespasses; nay their Ingratitude for that Mercy was a frequent reason of their Sufferings, and amongst the rest of the total Destruction of that Generation of People who came out of Egypt; it's further observable, that that God who conversed with Israel in their passage to Canaan, calls them his Son, his Firstborn, and threatens Pharaoh, that if he would not let them go, He would destroy his Son, his Firstborn; 
Exod. 4.22.  besides, He required the Sanctification of the Firstborn of all Israel to himself; which requiry of his obeyed, together with the exact execution of his former Menace, was a kind of Redemption-Price, accepted by God, on account of which he gave them deliverance from their Enemies. Nor was the Blood of the Paschal Lamb insignificant in the case, that Blood prefiguring the Blood of the Lamb of God, which did really atone for the Sins of the World. Upon the whole, howsoever we may allow others, besides our Saviour, to be called Redeemers, yet so long as there is no Parallelism between the Circumstances of those Redemptions they have wrought, and the Circumstances of Christ's, we must of necessity conclude, that Scripture means a great deal more by naming Christ a Redeemer, than by giving Moses or any other eminent Person the same Character; that Name is figurative as applied to all others, it is proper as applied to Christ; we may illustrate the Case by such an Instance as this, A Sovereign Prince, blest with One only and infinitely beloved Son, having in his power a Capital Offender against his Laws, in concert with that Son, determines that such Punishment as is proportionable to his Crimes, aught to be inflicted on him; yet pitying the Weakness and deplorable Condition of the Criminal, and designing to make his Clemency towards the Offender evident, He, in concert with his own Son, order it to be proclaimed every where, that if any Person, not obnoxious to the same Punishment by reason of personal Gild, loves the Condemned so well, as to offer himself freely to undergo proportionable Penalties to what the Law would have inflicted upon him, the Criminal, acknowledging the Kindness offered, and his mighty engagements to his Deliverer, shall be free; this Condition once proposed, the Prince's Son lays hold on the Opportunity to express his Love to the Offender, offers himself to die for him, and, since the Law requires it and must be satisfied, really does so; the Prince, according to his Proclamation, accepts of his Son's vicarious Punishment, the Law and Justice have their Course, and the grateful Criminal obtains his Freedom: thus are Believing Sinners redeemed from that Punishment they are obnoxious to, with respect to infinite Justice. The Socinians tell us indeed, That Christ's Obedience to his Father, even to Death, was no more than was due, on his own account; and that, though it was perfect and blameless, yet he received Rewards for it, infinitely beyond what he could merit by such Obedience. This is to put our Saviour into the State and Condition of the common World; for all those Glories, promised to repenting Sinners, are infinitely greater than they, by any personal merit, can pretend to; but it seems very unreasonable, that he should take upon him as a Mediator between God and man, or that his Name should be so powerfully influential for the advantage of others, who had just cause to be wholly employed in expressions of Gratitude for his Father's Kindness to himself; or to be wholly ecstasied with Admirations of that unbounded Goodness, which had conferred such mighty Blessings on him beyond his deserts; this we rationally suppose will be the Employ of beatified Souls, and aught to be Christ's too, upon the Socinian Hypothesis; we own Christ's Obedience, as he was Man, to his Father's Will to have been most perfect and absolute, his Original Divine Nature never knew any thing of dissent with his Eternal Father; therefore that Humane Nature he assumed, could not be liable to Disobedience. 
2 Cor. 5.21.  It's observed of him, that He knew no sin, he neither had nor could have so much as a depraved Inclination; he had no struggle within himself between the Law of his Members and the Law of his Mind, which yet he could not have been without, had he been a mere Man, a Partaker of Flesh and Blood, at the same rate as the rest of Mankind were; but the Deity assuming Humanity, and so being naturally incapable of Sin, we are not wont to assign Merit to his Life and Conversation, any farther than as it laid him open to Sufferings, but only to his Death and Passion, and the Preliminaries to them: that absolute Innocence reigning in his Humane Nature, rendering all those Sufferings, to which Humane Nature alone was liable, the more meritorious; and that inexpressible Condescension of the Eternal Son of God to take our Nature upon him, joined with his consequent Sufferings, made one entire sufficient Oblation and Satisfaction for the Sins of the whole World. But to suppose, as Socinians do, that one great meaning of the Death of Christ, was, that God, by that means, might give Men a pledge of that Favour or Pardon he intended for them, is idle: those who had any thing of a true Notion of a God, would have depended upon his Word, authentically revealed, without any such extraordinary Pledge; those who had perverse Notions of him, would take very little notice of such a Pawn given; for the Argument would be very obvious to a Sceptic; If God be such as some define him, infinitely Wise, Good, Powerful, True, there's no need of such extraordinary Methods to confirm Men in an opinion of his Veracity; if he be of a different or less perfect Nature, a thousand such Stratagems can give us no sufficient reason of Confidence in him. We find indeed the Ancients, upon Leagues or Compacts between them, offering Sacrifices to their Gods, and with their Hands laid upon the Victim's Head, calling their Gods to witness their Sincerity in such Leagues, and making their solemn Protestations one to another to observe propounded Articles; the design of that Ceremony seems to be only to intimate the agreeing Persons serious Imprecation, that their own blood might be shed in the same manner as that of the dying Victims, in case they falsified that Contract then made; but we can imagine nothing of this nature to have passed between God and man in the Death of Christ; Men were so far consenting indeed as to shed the blood of Christ, but far from promising Faith and Obedience to their God at the same time; no, they acted in plain defiance to those Revelations God had made of himself, and those very Persons, who pretended to the most immediate Dependence upon Christ, had very little Confidence in him, till such time as his Resurrection from the dead reconfirmed their fading Hopes, and made them believe he was capable of being their Saviour and Redeemer. But if, at last, it were necessary that Almighty God should so seal the assurance of his Pardon to Mankind, a meaner Victim might have served than that of his only Son; since nothing could possibly create in guilty Men a greater Diffidence in God's Mercy, than so severe a procedure on so very slight and impertinent a Reason, with that Son, concerning whom he professed, that he was well pleased with him: After all, the Socinians would flamm us off with a metaphorical Redemption, the Consequence of which, I fear, must have been but a metaphorical Pardon of our Sins, in spite of which we might still be really and properly damned; St. Peter, drawing the parallel between ours and a proper Redemption, teaches us to believe, that our Redemption is proper too, forasmuch as we were not redeemed with corruptible things, as Silver and Gold, the ordinary means of redemption for Criminals or Captives, 
1 Pet. 1.18, 19  but with the precious Blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without Spot; which precious Blood, being of infinitely more value than Silver or Gold, could and did effect as proper a Redemption for them, for whom it was offered, as the greatest Sums of Treasures, paid down for their Ransom, possibly could.  
To convince us yet further of Christ's Satisfaction for our Sins, the Scripture represents him to us as a Mediator; but our Adversaries reply to this, that Moses is called a Mediator too, yet Moses never satisfied for the Sins of Israel; to prove that Moses is so called, they allege that of the Apostle, That the Law was ordained by Angels in the hand of a Mediator; 
Gal. 3.19.  yet it's well known that Ancient Writers and Interpreters generally understand that Passage of Christ, whom they certainly and truly conclude to have been that God, more particularly appearing to the Israelites in their passage from Egypt to Canaan; and so he delivered the Law to them by his own power, or with his own Hand, as we may well express it, the Decalogue, the great binding part of the Law, being written with the Finger of God, as Moses informs us, and so put into the Hands of Moses, and the blessed Angels, as ministering Spirits, attending their Lord in the Solemnity, and this Interpretation is not easily to be eluded. But if by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a Mediator, we only understand, with Suidas, one that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a Peacemaker, it than is applicable to Moses, or to any other, who goes between contending Parties, to make up any quarrel or breach that may be between them. But in this case we must always consider the Persons between whom matters are to be rectified, their Natures, and the nature of that Offence which may have caused a breach between them, and he who undertakes such a Work had need to have a considerable Interest in both the Parties who are at odds; for an Undertaker, in such a case, who is liable to any exception on either side, is like to mediate to very little purpose. Now, it's no very hard Task to find Persons fit enough to take up quarrels between Men and Men, all Men agreeing in one and the same Nature, and Offences between them generally arising from both sides; but that breach there is between God and man, is not so easily made up, their Natures are infinitely different, one absolutely pure and unchangeable, the other miserably corrupt and humourous; man continually offending, God continually obliging; man proud, haughty, disdainful, insensible; God kind, condescending, essential Love and Goodness: yet a Mediator, such as should be able to procure Peace between God and man, must have a very great Influence on both sides, to which purpose, it's indispensibly necessary he should be completely Innocent: Moses was uncapable of such a Mediation, though he interceded for the People of Israel, by his Prayers, and was earnest and importunate with God, to turn from that fierce Anger he had justly expressed against a stubborn and ungrateful Generation; but Moses himself, at the very time of his zealous Interposition for Israel, was, as other Men, obnoxious to God's anger, and felt the effect of it, when, for his Transgression at the Rock, he was denied entrance into the Land of Canaan; so that in effect he did no more than what's particularly incumbent on God's Priests in all Ages, i. e. to offer Prayers and Supplications for the People they live among, and by such means, to the utmost of their ability, to stand in the Gap, and to divert threatening Judgements from guilty Heads. Our Saviour, as necessity required, was Holy, Harmless, Undefiled, separate from Sinners, one that needed not first to pray for Pardon for his own Sins, and afterwards for the Sins of others, and therefore he might be, and is, properly called the one Mediator between God and Man, exclusively of all others; 
1 Tim. 2.5.  as we are told in the same Text, there is One God, exclusively of all other Deities; which could not be, if Moses had been a Mediator of the same kind and in the same manner, as Christ was: and it's further added of our Mediator, That he gave himself a ransom for all, which Moses never did; and tho', in the heat of his charitable Zeal, he was willing to have been blotted out of the Book which God had written, that God, by that means, might have been reconciled to his People, that Offer neither was nor could be accepted, because it could be no Satisfaction to Divine Justice, to punish one Sinner, and, on account of that punishment, to pardon another; for why should I pretend to satisfy that Justice, on behalf of another, which, should it proceed severely, would pass upon me without any such pretence; but he who conscious of his own Innocence, is secure from any legal Danger, may, with reason, interpose vigorously for another. In our present Case, our Lord endeavours to put an end to that difference there is between God and Man, arising from Sin; God is the Supreme Lawgiver, and has, in his own hand, the  Power of punishing Trespassers upon his Laws; Man is the continual Transgressor, having, by that means, wholly forfeited all pretences to Grace and Favour; therefore his Case, being itself desperate, the Mediation gins on God's part, our Lord not being styled, the Mediator between man and God, but between God and man, the whole Mediation arising not from man's hopes, but from God's mercy and goodness, which found out the means of reconciling us to himself, by his Son. Perhaps a Socinian would find it difficult to give a satisfactory reason why, seeing the first Covenant, or that between God and Israel, could be made by the Mediation of Moses, and confirmed with shedding the Blood only of ordinary Victims, the Evangelical Covenant managed by the Blessed Jesus, a Person very much superior to Moses, could not be confirmed with Blood of like Sacrifices as the former? We'll own freely, the Covenant of the Gospel is a better Covenant, the Promises in it more plain and numerous, the Hopes raised in Men by it stronger and more vigorous; but all these things are accounted for in the Dignity of the Undertaker; and why Christians should not confide in God, upon the same terms, on which the Jews did, is not easy to determine; I am sure they are generally represented as the most tractable Persons. Besides this, there appears a vast Difference between the Mediatorship of our Lord and Moses on these accounts; our Saviour, by virtue of his Mediatorial Power, was able to remit sins, was able to give eternal Life to Believers; but Moses could do no such thing; he was only a Suppliant to God for Pardon for Israel; and Socinians will scarce allow, he gave them so much as a Promise of Eternal Life, throughout the whole Systeme of his Laws, so that though we allow there aught to be some resemblance between the Type and the Anti-type, yet we must allow a mighty distance between a Common Man and one on whom the Title of the Son of God, his only begotten Son, was fixed, and the resemblance must be between Circumstances capable of being represented, and not between those which are incapable of it. The Death and Passion of our Saviour, as an external Accident, attending his Humanity, might be represented by the Death of those Creatures offered in Sacrifice frequently to God; the Intercession of our Saviour with his Father for a sinful World, by the Intercession of Moses for a sinful Nation; but that Satisfaction by Christ given for Sinners to his Father's Justice, was so great a thing, as nothing could make any proportionable adumbration of it; the Confession of the People's Sins over the Victim's head, and laying their Iniquiries on the Head of the Scape-Goat, as a devoted Creature, might keep up somewhat of an Idea of what the Messiah was afterwards to do and suffer, and the manner how; but the Symbol was so dark, that even the prophecy of Caiaphas pointing at the Anti-type, made very little Impression upon the Jews, and made them expect very little from Christ, though they saw frequent evidences of his Divine Mission, and his Death (as a Person devoved and made Sin, as the Apostle expresses it) for the safety of the Nation. But there's another Fetch, as subtle as the rest, that supposing a Mediator ought to partake of the Nature of both the Parties, between whom he is to make peace, yet this touches not our Saviour; for his Mediatorship was only to be employed in reconciling men to God, for so say they, we find God reconciling the world to himself in Christ, but there's no mention of reconciling himself to the World, supposing this assertion true, is it therefore impossible that God should be angry with a sinful World? If so; how comes it to pass he sends so many Judgements, particular and general, upon Men, Cities and Countries? does he lay his Rod on men's backs at random? without any displeasure against their Crimes, or without any respect to their Demerits? did he drown the old World without being angry with them? burn Sodom and Gomorrha with their neighbouring Cities, and yet not displeased with them? these things are incredible: That he was often angry with the People of Israel, we find frequently attested in Scripture; that, as an evidence of his Anger, he punished them severely too, we meet with upon record there: If he could be angry with the Sins of a particular People, he may certainly be angry with the Sins of the whole World; for Sin loses not its odious Nature by being more diffusive: If God be angry with their Sins, he must be angry with the Sinners too, especially if they be active and obstinate in their Sins; for tho' Man, as created at first in the likeness or in the image of God, be good; yet Man, wherein that sacred Image is defaced by Sin, is odious and detestable, a proper object of God's Displeasure, and, of himself, incapable of avoiding it; but if God may be displeased with Sin and Sinners, and if (his Nature being pure, and his Laws holy, just and good) he must be so, than he must be reconciled to Man, or Man must be eternally miserable; and though we find God frequently in Scripture calling upon Men to turn to Him, as if all the Work lay on their hands, yet he promises withal, that He will turn to them; 
Mal. 3.7.  and those kind repeated Calls are only evidences, that He, who has a great deal of reason to be averse to it, will yet be as ready to be reconciled to them, as they can be to return to their Obedience to him; and he is said to reconcile the World to himself in his Son; because He, in concert with his Son, determined on that means of Pardon and Remission, to be granted to Sinners, which Sinners themselves could never have pitched on, and because Man was naturally backward to his own good, but God ever seeking it: Yet when we consider 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as a word of Ecclesiastical use, and signifying particularly such a Reconciliation as is of Penitents to the Church, by which, for their Crimes, they had been before excommunicated. We look upon our Saviour, as our great Highpriest, making that Peace for us; and as Penitents are not required to forgive the Church which they have offended, but the Church kindly forgives them, though Offenders; so the World, reconciled to God, do not forgive God, or restore God to their Favour, but God, by the Sacrifice and Intercession of their Highpriest, forgives them and restores them to his Favour; to which end the Doctrine of Reconciliation, i.e. the Doctrine of Repentance is committed to God's Ministers, and we, 
2 Cor. 5.19, 20.  as Ambassadors from Christ, entreat Men that they would be reconciled to God, that is, that they would turn every one from the Wickedness of their Ways, and so be reinstated in his Favour.  
It might seem not very easy to pervert the meaning of Scripture, when it calls our Saviour a Propitiation for our sins; so St. John, 
1 Joh. 2.1, 2.  If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and he is the Propitiation, or the propitiatory or atoning Sacrifice for our Sins; and again, In this is Love, not that we loved God, 
4.10.  but that he loved us, and sent his Son a Propitiation for our sins; and so St. Paul, 
Rom. 3.25,  God hath set forth Christ to be a Propitiation through Faith in his Blood, etc. Now would I fain be satisfied what is the Benefit of our Faith in the Blood of Christ, a Faith peculiar, extraordinary and indispensibly necessary to Salvation, if the shedding of that precious Blood had no effect, with relation to atoning or satisfying God's Displeasure, justly expressed against our Sins? That Christ's Blood had a real intrinsic Value, it would look somewhat harshly to deny; yet it was not necessary it should have any such Worth, to render it capable of confirming the new Covenant; mutual Compacts made, among the Ancients, with the Solemnity of a Sacrifice, depended not at all on any inherent worth in the Blood of that Sacrifice, nay, Cataline's Conspiracy, though confirmed with Humane Blood, was not so confirmed because Humane Blood was of a greater value in itself than that of other Creatures, but that, by joining at first in so horrid an Action, they might desperately conclude it to no purpose to stand out at any Wickedness whatsoever; but our Saviour's Blood is particularly preferred in its Worth to Silver and Gold and any corruptible Riches whatsoever, therefore must be in itself of infinite or transcendent Worth, and that infinite Worth, could not but effect some mighty good for us, on account of which we were to depend on that Blood; nor could the Blood of our Redeemer, or his Sufferings be less Satisfactory, because God is said to have given him; for so he might, though our Lord's Humiliation was voluntary: the perfect agreement of the Divine Will in the Father and the Son, neither detracting from the Father's Bounty, nor the Son's Willingness or Freedom; so Isaac, who was a Type of our Saviour, must have been able to have resisted his aged Father, when he was preparing to sacrifice him, but he did not, imitating the Antitype, in that very particular, of being led as a Lamb to the slaughter; yet Isaac's Willingness did not hinder, but that, had the Solemnity gone on as begun, he would have been his Father Abraham's Sacrifice, or his Gift to Almighty God, as would Jephtha's Daughter too, notwithstanding her ready compliance with the Import of her Father's Vow. But it's objected, That the Covering of God's Ark, appointed to be made by Moses according to the Pattern in the Mount, is called the Propitiatory, 
Exod. 23.22.  which we translate the Mercy-seat, the Septuagint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the same Title by St. Paul affixed to our Blessed Saviour, the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was certainly in its original Signification no more than what answered to its position about the Ark, that is, a Covering, or that which closed it up on the Top, translated by the Word which signifies a Propitiatory, on account of that immediate Residence which God promised to keep there; from the Cherubims placed on which Covering he gave Answers to the Petitions of his Supplicants, thence called emphatically, That God who dwelled between the Cherubims; from whence it may appear, that when the Apostle applies that Word to our Lord, of whom that Propitiatory or Mercy-seat was always accounted a Type, he means, that the Man Christ Jesus was the peculiar Residence of the Deity, or, as he expresses himself, that Person in whom dwelled the fullness of the Godhead bodily: from which Body of his, God himself gave his answers of Mercy and Compassion to Mankind; and this must necessarily have been, if he informed his Disciples rightly when he told them, He and his Father were One, and that whosoever had seen Him had seen his Father also. The Socinians seem very willing to own that our Saviour's Passion served to expiate our Sins, 
Cat. Rac. §. 6. c. 8. p. 153.  Cum Joannes eum Propitiationem pro Peccatis nostris appellat, significat per eum Peccata nostra expiari, when St. John calls him the Propitiation for our Sins, he means, that our Sins are expiated by him; but nothing can expiate Sins, but what is satisfactory for Sins, or what bears that Punishment for Sinners, which Sinners themselves should have born; hence Expiation is often explained by Satisfying; so the Beasts offered in Sacrifice were put to death, to intimate the Demerits of the Offerers, who ought to have died for their own Transgressions; hence those Offerings made for the Sins of Men were styled Expiatory or Purging: not as if the Beasts, offered by Men to Almighty God, had any thing expiatory in themselves, but they were called so, on account of that relation they had to the great Sacrifice of our Saviour, which really did what they only shadowed out, i. e. made a sufficient Satisfaction for the Sins of the World, otherwise why should the Apostle tell us, that it's impossible the Blood of Bulls and of Goats should put away Sin, since they were appointed by God himself to be sacrificed as expiatory for Sin, but that their whole Effect depended on their relative Nature, and their Praesignification of that glorious Offering to be made for Men at last? it had been only to put a Shame upon miserable Wretches, to tell of expiating their Sins by those Means by which it was impossible they should be expiated; and to put them to extraordinary Troubles and Expense for those things, by which, in themselves, they could reap no good, and which further had no respect to any thing that could advantage them: the Jewish Rabbins therefore always understood by such Expiations the Transferring of that Punishment due to One upon some Other to whom it was not due; whence that Wish, 
Vid. Buxtorfii Lex. Talmud in voce 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  May those Chastisements which I undergo be expiatory or satisfy for Rabbi such a one, and his Children; and again, Let thy Expiation be upon us, and let us suffer in thy room, whatsoever thou oughtest to suffer; and Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, commenting on that Phrase used by one, May I be an Expiation for them, tells us, it's as much as to wish, that He might be a Redemption, 
Oughtr. de Sacrif. l. 2, c. 6. p. 336,  or the Redemption-Price, or the Ransom for them: and it's a mode of Speaking, whereby is expressed an extraordinary Love; to this the Apostle St. Paul alludes, when he wishes he might be Anathema, 
Rom. 9.3. Gal. 3.13.  for or in the room of his Countrymen, and our Lord really was made a Curse for us, or in our stead, and so became indeed an Expiation, or a Propitiation for our Sins. We allow it may be true, that He who is once reconciled may remit what he pleases of his Right; but he must be reconciled first, now that infinite Justice, essential to Almighty God, could not be reconciled to Man, without a complete Satisfaction, and yet he may be said justly to abate of the Rigour of his Right, who will accept of a Satisfaction offered, which he's not bound to do; as among Men it's wholly at the determination of the Supreme Power, whether they will execute the Malefactor himself, or accept of the Punishment of some other, who voluntarily offers himself to die for the Malefactor; Justice may if it please insist on the One, and it's no Injustice to accept the Other.  
What the Socinians at last endeavour to avoid, is, that Agreement between the Legal expiatory Sacrifices, and that of our Redeemer; where they would fain impose on us a new Fancy of their own, i. e. That our Saviour's Sacrifice was not completed, till he ascended into Heaven to present himself there before his Father; and this they conclude from the custom of the High-priest's entering into the Holy of Holies, with the Blood of the yearly Sacrifice, offered for the Sins of the People: We must certainly own, that the Highpriest did enter that Sacred place with Blood; but we are to consider, that there were other expiatory Sacrifices beside that which was offered once a Year, and which prefigured the Suffering of our Lord, in which no such Ceremony was used: as all those Sacrifices offered by particular Offenders for those Sins they were personally guilty of, they endeavouring, by such means, to make an Atonement for their Sins, and these particular Sacrifices were complete in themselves, and procured Remission of Sins for the Offerer, and were certain Types of that great Sacrifice, afterwards to be offered; and the Paschal Lamb itself, of all others the most lively representation of that Lamb of God who, in fullness of time, was to die for the Sins of the World, was killed and eaten without any such Circumstances, as carrying the Blood of it into the most Holy place, and the Annual Sacrifice was really offered, when it was killed, and afterwards burnt without the Camp: 
Levit. 16.16.  the End and Design of sprinkling the Blood of the Goat and of the Bullock upon and before the Mercy-seat, was, to make an atonement for the Holy place itself, because of the Uncleanness of the Children of Israel, and because of their Transgressions in all their sins, as the Text teaches us, i e. though the Holy of Holies were the place of the more special Presence of God, which rendered it venerable and glorious, yet, it being among Men who were very disobedient and rebellious, it contracted somewhat of Uncleanness and Pollution from them, a Pollution so infectious, 
Psal. 78.60.  that it made God forsake his Tabernacle in Shilo, even the Tent which he had pitched among Men; it was on account of such Pollutions, that God threatened Israel afterwards, to destroy that House which was called by his Name; and commands them, Go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh, 
Jer. 7.12, 14.  where I set my Name at the first, and see what I did to it for the Wickedness of my People Israel; therefore will I do unto this place which is called by my Name, wherein ye trust, as I did to Shiloh, i. e. I will make it a desolation, for such was Shiloh made on the same reason: This was then the case of the Holy of Holies, and it stood in need of a formal Sanctification, in the ceremonial way, for the Wickedness of those who were concerned about it; now this Expiation of the Holy place, had no relation to the Remission of men's Sins, as the devoting, and killing, and burning the Sacrifice had; but the great Sacrifice there offered by the Highpriest was that of Prayer and Supplication, shadowed out in that, 
Levit. 16.12, 13.  That he was to take with him into the most Holy place a Censer full of burning Coals of fire from off the Altar of the Lord, and his hands full of sweet Incense beaten small, and to put the Incense upon the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of Incense might cover the Mercy-seat, that was upon the Testimony, that he might not die: by all this, signifying that Sinners, appearing even before the Seat of Mercy, without offering an Atonement to Heaven in the most humble and solemn Devotions, can expect nothing but Ruins and Destruction; and as we rationally conclude, that the Priests were not wont to offer Sacrifices without Prayers in general, so we conclude, that even this Symbolical Ceremony was not performed without some Prayers and Ejaculations at least, God's Priests being appointed, under the Mosaic Law too, not only to offer Sacrifices of several kinds, but to offer up Prayers and Praises to God, in the name of that People over whom they presided in Religious matters. But now, though we commonly look upon the Holy of Holies, whether in the Tabernacle or in the Temple, as an Emblem of Heaven, being guided by the Apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews, yet we know that Heaven can be the Receptacle of nothing defiled or impure, therefore it can contract no Impurity from any thing in it or about it; therefore our Saviour's Sacrifice was complete in dying on the Cross for our Sins; 
Heb. 9.12.  but by his own Blood he entered into the most Holy, that is, into Heaven, in his humane Nature, or that Body in which he had suffered on Earth; his free offering himself, and freely sacrificing himself, he being our Priest and Sacrifice both at the same time, opened him that entrance into Heaven; but there, as our great and never-dying Highpriest, he makes Intercession for us to his Father, he presents to his Father's view those mighty Sufferings he had undergone on our Account, which serving as a Memorial of that eternal Determination of the Deity for Man's Redemption, has the same and greater Efficacy on our behalf, than a Plea from divine Truth and Justice itself; he being invested with that Almighty Power of bestowing those Blessings he has purchased for us, and the Demonstrations of his Merits, his Will, and his Goodness being all one Act. It's true, the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us, 
Heb. 9.7.  that the Highpriest went not into the Holy place without Blood, which he offered for himself and for the Errors of the people; but how that was we have explained before, since that Blood was made use of for purifying even the Holiest Place, rendered impure by the Sins of the Highpriest himself, and by the Errors of the People. Perhaps it would not be amiss, to take some notice of those different Expiations of Sins in the Old and in the New Testament, which the Socinians, in their discourses concerning Christ's Priesthood, tell us of, i. e. That Legal Sacrifices were only appointed for such Crimes as were committed by Imprudence or Infirmity, greater Offenders not being directed to make use of any, but were doomed to die for their Crimes; whereas, as they say, the greatest of Sins, provided Men persevere not in them, but are truly penitent, are expiated by the Sacrifice of Christ; and this they prove from that of St. Paul, Be it known unto you, 
Act. 13.38, 39  that through Christ is preached unto you the forgiveness of Sins, and by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses: But here we are to consider, that the Political as well as the Religious Laws of the Israelites, being given at one time by Almighty God, they are so blended together, and made Dependants on one another, that where an ordinary Sacrifice could not, there the Death of the Offender himself might satisfy for the Crime committed: A Sacrifice offered, though by its Institution it were expiatory, yet if the Sinner, however ignorant or weak, persisted in his Sin, or approached the Altar of God without true Humility and Repentance for the Sin committed, his Sin could not be pardoned on account of the Sacrifice offered, but if such a Sinner did truly repent and amend his Errors, his Offering was then accepted, and not only temporary but eternal Judgements diverted from him; for such Sacrifices typified the Sacrifice of Christ, which was powerful to save us from both Worldly Punishments and the Damnation of Hell; and as we have before observed, the Virtue of those Sacrifices consisted wholly in that relation the Types had to their Antitype. Now, where the Jewish political Laws reached the Life of the Delinquent, and took his Blood, there it would have been an Impertinence to offer the Blood of other Creatures for him; but it follows not, but that the same Conditions of hearty Repentance, and true Resolutions of amendment, might procure the Offender's pardon from God, though he suffered under the Rigour of the Sanguinary Laws; and the daily Sacrifices were of some import, with respect to such Criminals; and the Blood of Christ, though to be shed afterwards, was available to the Salvation of such; so a Terror was struck upon Others by the Delinquents outward Sufferings, and Encouragement was given to the greatest Sinners to repent by the reasonable Hopes of their being pardoned by Heaven, who yet were to suffer upon Earth. And so we find among Christians in Christian Governments, the Laws take notice of and animadvert upon notorious Sins, some are punished by lighter Penalties, some by Death itself; yet the Prayers and Intercessions of the Church offered to God, in the name of Christ, may be, and frequently are effectual to the Eternal Salvation of such Persons, so justly suffering for their Crimes; but for the Text alleged, the Import of it is this, That by the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ we are really and effectually freed from all Sins, whereas the Ceremonies of the Law had no such intrinsic purging Power of themselves, all their Validity depending wholly and only on their Relation to this All sufficient Sacrifice of the Son of God.  
But we are taught by these Innovators, that this Sacrifice was not complete till our Saviour entered Heaven, 
Cat. Raco. §. 7. p. 173.  nor he possessed of his High-Priesthood till that time; yet at the same time they own, Christ was a Priest when hanging on the Cross; if he were a Priest he must be our Highpriest, for we meet with no Gradations in that Office of his in Scripture, nor that by executing the Office of an inferior Priest very well, he purchased a title to an higher Dignity: If he were an Highpriest, he was completely so, else he was and he was not the Highpriest at the same time; but the Socinian Error, in this matter, lies in not distinguishing rightly of the Priests Offices: the Apostle teaches us, 
Heb. 5.1, 2.  That an Highpriest, taken from among men, is ordained for men in things pertaining to God: Now, things pertaining to God are not only external Gifts and Sacrifices, but those that are internal and Spritual too, such as are Prayers and Supplications, with respect to which, it's necessary an Highpriest should have compassion on the Ignorant, and on them who are out of the way, for that he himself also is compassed with Infirmities; a Sense of his own Wants is apt, in any Man, to raise a sympathising Tenderness for others; so that when he begs of God Pardon for his own Sins, he may at the same time implore Divine Mercy for the Sins of others: now, the Highpriest is completely such in doing both or either of these; so upon the Cross, our Saviour was our Highpriest, and his external expiatory Sacrifice was completely offered; in Heaven, interceding for us with his Father, he there presents that Sacrifice, shadowed to us by what we commonly understand to be the meaning of Prayers and Supplications, i. e. Christ, in Heaven, intercedes as powerfully and effectually for us, as if he really did pray and supplicate as present on our behalf; but that he should literally do so is unnecessary, and not to be understood by his Intercession for us; for he's an Intercessor, not only who prays and supplicates immediately for another, or on his behalf, but He's one who, by some extraordinary Action, pleasing to him with whom he intercedes, purchases a Power of doing that thing, or showing that Kindness to his Friends at all times by himself, which, without that purchase, he must make continual and repeated Entreaties for; such a Power has our Lord purchased for himself, by offering himself a Satisfaction for the World's Sins, in his Sufferings, completed by those particular Sufferings upon the Cross; for his Father accepting that Price so paid down, Christ, as Man, 
Heb. 7.25.  acquired that Power, as to be able to save, to the utmost, all those that come to God by him, and therefore his humane Nature is immortal, that he may always be capable of exerting such a Power. But the Socinians would prove their position by that, 
Heb. 8.4.  That if Christ were on Earth he should not be a Priest, seeing that there are Priests which offer Gifts according to the Law; but here they are vastly wide from the Apostle's meaning; for the Apostle, writing there to Jews, and arguing the matter with them concerning the Messiahship of Christ, shows them, that though he asserted Christ's High-priesthood, yet he pretended not that he was any Successor of Aaron or the Legal High-priests; for, says he, 
7. 13. 14.  it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah, of which Moses spoke nothing concerning the Priesthood, therefore our Saviour was a Priest, according to Prophecy, after the order of Melchisedech, and not only after that Order, but for ever so, a Highpriest never to die, never to be succeeded in that sacred Office by any other: now, being after that Order, and under a necessity of having somewhat to offer as a Priest; for so we are taught (and, 
8.3.  as a Priest, having no right to offer any Jewish Sacrifices or Gifts, the Order of Melchisedech not having any relation to them) Christ offered himself, the greatest, the noblest Offering in the World: having made that glorious Offering, he soon left Earth, having there no further immediate concern, for could he have made his Title to Priesthood never so plain, and offered himself never so freely among the Jews, to execute the Priestly Office, it had been to no purpose, they having Priests of their own, of the Aaronical Line, of whom by Divine prescription they were to make use in things pertaining to God, those Priests properly officiating so long as Sacrifices were legally necessary, and when they were rendered unnecessary by the perfection of our Saviour's Sacrifice, there being no need of any Priests at all to offer such external Sacrifices or Gifts, the Apostles of Christ, and their Followers, succeeding their Master only in the Instructing, Governing and Interceding Parts of his Sacerdotal Function. As for some part of their Argument, to prove that Christ was not a complete Highpriest till his Entrance into Heaven, it's more dark and unintelligible to me than all those Mysteries in Religion which they pretend to explode: for, say they, since the Apostle asserts, that he ought in all things to be like his Brethren, that he might be a compassionate and faithful Highpriest in things pertaining to God, and for expiating the Sins of the People, it's plain that, so long as he was not like to his Brethren in all things, i. e. in Afflictions and in Death, so long he was not a complete Highpriest: well, is the Consequence from all this, therefore he was not a complete Highpriest till he appeared in Heaven before his Father? nothing less: It will only follow, on their own Principles, that, upon his Death, without that Consequence, the expiatory Sacrifice was completed; for there was no need of sanctifying the highest Heavens with his own Blood; nor does this at all abate the necessity of Christ's Resurrection or Ascension into Heaven, since, without these, that Faith fixed in one who had been false to his own Promises concerning himself, who could neither have raised himself nor others, who could neither have possessed those eternal Mansions in his own Person, nor have prepared them for his Followers, who could neither have protected nor assisted them to the end of the World, could have been no way justifiable; but Christ's assimilation to his Brethren, could proceed no further than to the end of his Sufferings, which ended with his Death upon the Cross; since none of his Brethren had been so glorified, or had so risen as he did, or so ascended into the presence of God to make Intercession for Sinners; but indeed Death itself was not so essential to that Resemblance as they imagine; for whosoever is liable to common Infirmities, and obnoxious to Sufferings, must of necessity be obnoxious to Death on the same reason, though he should actually be translated with Enoch, or carried up into Heaven with Elijah; for though those holy Men, after such a Translation, were no more in a mortal state, yet all that was no greater Privilege than all are Partakers of, who after their final Resurrection die no more; or than those who shall be found alive at the day of judgement; for though such shall only be subjected to a change, and not really die as others, yet that hinders not but that, in their own Natures, they shall be mortal, and as liable to Distempers, so to Death, as well as others. To say truth, our Saviour, during the whose course of his Life, and in all its particulars, lived as Men do, and being a Partaker of real, and not fantastical Flesh and Blood, it was not probable he should live otherwise, only in his exemption from Sin, he was beyond that general Rule, the Deity not being capable of an Union with any thing imperfect or impure: But having lived as real Man, and suffered as such, and having by himself throughly purged our Sins, 
Heb. 1.3.  he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high; the Socinians indeed seem to point at somewhat of an Interstice between his Ascension and his Session at the right hand of God that's not at all grounded upon Scripture: for though we know he conversed some time with his Disciples before he left them, that was not the time of presenting himself before his Father, and for any thing of a formal presenting himself before his Father, as a Suppliant, with his own Blood, it's an irrational Dream, neither becoming Men pretending to Scriptural nor to Philosophical Reason; for since we must, to please their Fancies, make an exact Parallelism between the Annual Sacrifice and that of Christ, we must consider, that the Highpriest, entering into the Holy of Holies, had really with him the Blood of the Victim already dead, and in that state of Death to continue, till consumed by fire without the Camp, and so never capable of a Resurrection: but our Saviour risen again from the dead, and though those of Rome would persuade us, some of his Blood was gathered from under the Cross, and preserved as a venerable Relic by some very Pious and Devout Persons, and may be seen at this day by those who have Faith enough; yet we doubt not but that Blood so shed was reunited to his Body, being easily gathered, by Almighty Power, from that Diffusion it had suffered at his Crucifixion: so that though our Lord had died, yet his Blood, after his Resurrection, existed only as in a living Body, therefore it could be presented before God only as in such a Body; therefore it could not be presented so as the Blood of the Annual Sacrifice was by the Jewish Highpriest; nor could the Blood of Christ be so sprinkled, as that was, towards Heaven, or toward the Mercy seat; but our Lord's Ascension into Heaven, and sitting at the righ-hand of God, were one continued, uninterrupted Act, and that Blood, which had been once offered upon the Cross, needed not to be offered again; he was made a perfect Messiah, a real Saviour through Sufferings, a Saviour every way sufficient for those who should believe on him: and having, through his own Blood, made way to the Exaltation of his Humane Nature, he had no more to do, but to satisfy his Followers in the truth of his Resurrection, and to give them proper Instructions, with respect to their future Employs, and so immediately to ascend to, and to sit on the right hand of the Majesty on high, i. e. to exercise that absolute Dominion and Sovereignty over Believers, as Man, which, as Man, he had purchased at the dearest rate; and, as such, we find him appearing in Apocalyptical Visions, though at the same time bearing that Title, King of kings, and Lord of lords; and thus have we cleared those Proofs, justly alleged for our Saviour's Satisfaction for Humane Sins, from Socinian Glosses, and irrational Interpretations.  
I shall now add only some short positive Evidence of the same Truth, from particular Circumstances attending his Death, and so conclude this particular. It must therefore be remembered, That one End of our Saviour's exact fulfilling the Law, was, that he might be an example of Holiness and Obedience to us; but if our Saviour's Sufferings were of such a nature, as to import a great deal more than barely such an Example, than it was really to be considered further, and the Reasons of that Import to be enquired into. Holiness includes all sorts of Virtue, amongst the rest, Patience, Fortitude, Courage, and the like; supposing our Saviour to have satisfied our Heavenly Father for our Sins, to have atoned that Anger justly excited against a Rebellious World, these Virtues were prodigiously eminent in him: the weight of God's Wrath against Sin and Sinners was enough, had it been permitted to take its course, to have crushed a world of miserable Wretches; therefore it had been impossible for a mere Man to have struggled with, and to have averted that terrible Indignation from us; but if we take away this particular Consideration of his treading the wine-press of his Father's Indignation alone, nothing seems more mean, among the various accounts of the Sufferers for Truth, than the Carriage of our Blessed Saviour; that Man, whom yet Socinians themselves acknowledge to have moved in a Sphere superior to the rest of Adam's Race. If we look upon that Death our Saviour died, it must be owned, it was grievous and painful, yet when we consider it duly, the Shame and Ignominy in it, was the heaviest Circumstance attending it: otherwise, when we come to compare his Death, as to its outward Circumstances, with the Sufferings of Prophets and Martyrs of old, they were merely Trifles and inconsiderable: The Apostle tells us, among Faith's ancient Heroes, of those who were sawn asunder, so we are told, in particular, that great Prophet Isaiah was sawn with a wooden Saw, the more dull, the more lingering, the more tormenting; so the three Children were cast into the burning fiery Furnace by Nabuchadnezzar, and Daniel into the Lion's Den, to have been torn in pieces under the cruel Paws of ravening Beasts; where we are not to look upon the Miraculous Deliverance those illustrious Sufferers met with, but upon the barbarous Cruelties intended against them: but if, from them, we come to view the cruel Subtleties of Heathen Persecutors, there we find all the variety of Tortures exquisite Malice could invent, executed upon poor Christians; the terrible Racks stretching their disabled Limbs, and leaving no sound Joint in their Bodies, a Torment terrible indeed to the strongest natural Constitutions, they out-living their Pains, and recovering Strength only to enable them for renewing Miseries; some broken upon the Wheel, dying piece by piece, and Nature, in the mean time, sustained by Puddle-Water and Excrement; some burned alive in scorching Flames; some broiled or roasted before lingering Fires; some worried to Death by enraged Wild Beasts; others clothed with Pitchy Vestments, and so set on fire, to fry away in inexpressible Pains, merely to make sport, or to serve for Flambeaus to midnight Wanderers: What, should we descend lower to the poor persecuted Protestants in Merindo! and Chabrieres, or the unhappy Piedmonteses of late Years? to see men's Mouths and women's Privities stuffed with Gunpowder by barbarous Villains, and so their Bodies or their Heads blown in pieces by that murdering Artifice, to name no more of those inhuman Cruelties, managed so, that Holy Men, admirable Christians, have been Days, and Months, and Years a dying; and beside all this, it was ofttimes the Aggravation of their Sorrows, to see their Friends and nearest Relations murdered first before their Eyes, to have all the unjust and scandalous Reproaches in the World fixed upon them; for Women to see their sucking Infants thrust through with Swords, their own Blood, and their Mother's Milk flowing from their bleeding Wounds together; to see them tossed and carried triumphant upon their Spears, torn from their dying Mothers ripped up Wombs, and thrown immediately into consuming Flames; these Sights, such as might rack the most resolute Soul, and almost squeeze sympathising Tears from brute Beasts or insensate Rocks; the very reading those dismal Tragedies are enough to make Men shiver with Horror, and survey the Bloody Scene with Amazement and Consternation; yet, after all, we find those glorious Martyrs so far from Fear or Apprehensions of their approaching Fate, that never Happy Pair went, with more cheerful Looks, to the Bridal Bed, than they went with to Racks and Wheels, to Flames and Gibbets, or whatever else their angry and malicious Enemies could inflict upon them; nay, they were so far from being daunted with the cruel Executions of their Fellow Saints, that ambitious Princes were not more active to grasp at Crowns and Sceptres, than they at the more splendid bloody Crown of Martyrdom; nay, so desirous were they of that Honour, that whole Multitudes, made up of Men, Women and Children, readily, without being sought for or accused, offered their Throats voluntarily to Pagan Governors, to the Amazement and Confusion of their most violent Persecutors: If we observe the Behaviour of those admirable Persons under their Sufferings, their Management is all of a piece, though they were all the day long as Sheep appointed to be slain, though they found their Portion in this World never so severe or uncomfortable, yet in all these things they were more than Conquerors, through Christ who loved them; they feared not the Cruelty of their Enemies, but the Kindness of their Friends, lest, out of Compassion to them, they should find out any means to rob them of that Crown they longed for, Death, though in its most dreadful shape, was never half so terrible to them as such a Disappointment: in the midst of all their Pains, not Victors in the famed Olympic Games, not young Generals after mighty and unexpected Victories, were possessed with a more exulting Joy, than those triumphant Saints on their Natalitial days, for such they accounted those times of their Sufferings; then happy Visions pleased their parting Souls, and an expiring Stephen could see the Heavens opened, and the Son of Man, his glorious Redeemer, sitting at the right-hand of God; Flames were to them so many Beds of Roses; Racks and Wheels like yielding Down, or soft as Fanning Briezes on a Summer's Evening; no Mournings, no Complaints were heard, no Tears were seen among them, but Songs of Joy, and Praise, and Triumph were the Exercise of their suffering Hours, and their aspiring Souls mounted on them, as on Seraphic Wings, to Abraham's Bosom; and what was the original Ground and Reason of all these Joys, but only the certain Goodness of their Cause, the extraordinary Assistances of their King and Saviour, and an infallible Assurance of God's Love to them, and consequently of their future and eternal Happiness; 
Rom. 8.18.  They reckoned that the Sufferings of the present time were not worthy to be compared to the Glory which should be revealed in them; and therefore, 
Heb. 11.35.  though they were tortured, yet they accepted not of Deliverance, that they might obtain a better Resurrection; and all this was agreeable to the Doctrine of the Cross, as laid down by the Apostles in Scripture; here than was the Faith and Patience, the Courage and Resolution of the Saints; these were indeed to be imitated, the Spirit and Power they acted with was wholly Divine and irresistible; but if, after all this gallant Prospect of the noble Army of Martyrs, we turn our Looks upon the dying Jesus, or his behaviour of himself under his Sufferings, things will look very differently; we find in him all the evidences of Fear, and Sorrow, and cruel Apprehensions of that Death he was to undergo; His Soul was exceeding sorrowful even to death, he begged of his Father, if it were possible, that that bitter Cup might pass from him, and though he concluded his Prayer with that resigning Expression, nevertheless not my will but thy will be done, yet he repeated his deprecatory Prayer three times, to show how earnest and real he was in his Requests, his Fear and Earnestness produced that Bloody Sweat, and brought down the Angel from Heaven to strengthen him, all these were Prefaces to his Sufferings of a very disagreeable Nature to the sacred Ambition of his own martyred Followers; when he was in the Agonies of Death, he was so far from any Triumphant Expression on the occasion, that he vented his sorrowful Spirits in that despondent Cry, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me! we cannot pretend the Blessed Jesus, at this time was under any alienation of Mind, under any distraction of Spirit, by reason of the extremity of his Pains; we have shown before, that many suffered much greater Cruelties for his sake, than the pains of the Cross amounted to; consider it only as the Roman Method of putting Slaves to death, and even Pagan Philosophers have suffered much more to the World's eye, voluntarily and involuntarily, without any such inward distemper, as Anaxarchus and Calanus the Indian, the former being beaten to pieces in a Mortar by Nicocreon the Cyprian Tyrant, the latter walking gravely into the Fire, prepared for that purpose before Alexander the Great, and there Philosophising seriously and rationally, till his Breath was stopped by Smoke and Flames; and our Saviour showed as great a Mastery of his own Thoughts, and as undisturbed Apprehensions of things, when upon the Cross, as at other times; as in refusing Gall and Vinegar, in discoursing with the penitent Thief, in taking care for his blessed mourning Mother, etc. we cannot pretend it was the Delicacy of our Saviour's Body, who being conceived in an extraordinary Manner, was accompanied with a preternatural Tenderness, for we know its the Soul that sees in the Eyes, feels in the several Members, hears in the Ears, suffers in every bleeding Wound, the Body, without its Activity being only a stupid and insensible Lump of Earth, and the Soul of our Saviour being, according to the Confession of all, of a Nature far exalted above the common Standard of Mankind, having no Gild to clog it, no Sin to render it uneasy, and therefore could not be but far above any grovelling Earthy Thoughts, infinitely sensible of the Advantages of Death, to those that died in God's Favour, and therefore would more perfectly despise all the Effects of humane Rage or Malice: we cannot say our Saviour was the first that suffered under the Inhumanity of Persecutors, so many of the Prophets had been brought to violent Deaths before, not to mention that Persecution the faithful Jews underwent from the Tyranny of Antiochus Epiphanes; it cannot be alleged that Sufferings were the more heavy and insupportable to our Saviour, because he was conscious of his own Purity and Innocence, such a Conscience of inward Integrity must needs be the most comfortable Circumstance in the World for a dying Man, such an Innocent being infallibly certain of eternal Rest and Happiness in a future World; and it was, among other things, a clear Sense of their peace being made with God, (which those who are holy and harmless can never want) that made those eminent Servants of God so eager to be Martyrs, knowing it was better for them to be dissolved and to be with God, than to linger upon Earth, though compassed about with all the Grandeur and Felicity a state of Infirmity can be susceptible of: nor can it be supposed that the Ingratitude and Baseness of the Jews, among whom he had preached, and for whose Conviction he had done so many mighty Miracles, could work upon him so much as to press him with such exceeding Sorrows; it's true indeed, Ingratitude to Benefactors is a Crime, it's a very pungent Thought to Men in Adversity, to see those, on whom they have laid the greatest Obligations, stand among their Enemies and promote their Ruin; and it's further true, that never were any Generation of Men more unworthy, or more insensible of the most powerful Obligations, than the Jews contemporary with our Saviour; but, after all this granted, why should our Lord at that time more particularly pray to his Father, that the bitter Cup might pass from him, when he had all along, through the whole course of his Life, found the Jews as ill inclined to him as then, but only wanting proper Opportunities to show it? or why should the Blessed Jesus cry out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me! only because the Jews had repaid his Goodness with Ingratitude and Cruelty? besides, this was the Case of our Lord's Disciples and Followers, as well as of himself; they preached among both Jews and Gentiles the glad Tidings of Salvation, they, assisted by the Influences of the Holy Spirit, did a great many Miracles among them both; yet, where they were most venerable for their Miracles, where most zealous to spend and to be spent for the propagation of the Gospel, they met with very unkind Returns, and commonly sealed those saving Truths delivered, with their own Blood; so that when we have turned ourselves which way soever we can, we must of necessity conclude, either that the Martyrs were abundantly more exemplary in their Deaths, than Christ himself, their Lord and Master, which is either Blasphemy or very like it; or else we must conclude, there was somewhat distinct from any thing yet mentioned in the Death of that Lamb of God, which made it more terrible and heavy than all those exquisite Tortures expiring Martyrs underwent; for, is it possible, that, without any such Circumstances, He, who was emphatically styled the Son of God, the Son of his Love, that Son in whom he was well pleased, He, who was One with his eternal Father, should be afraid of Death, of Humane Cruelties, or complain of Dereliction? is it possible he should be able, at any time, to send such Assistances to those who believed on him, as should make them despise all the Terrors and Furies of a malicious World, and yet himself be weak and timid, start at the sting of that Death, which dying Martyrs smiled at? is it possible that He who knew no sin, nor had any guile found in his Mouth, should tremble before that King of Terrors, over whom his own Followers, and only by Faith in him, so gloriously triumphed? these things are incredible. But let us again consider our Dearest Lord as appearing as our Pledge and Surety before his Father, as paying in his Death a satisfactory Price to his incensed Father, for the Transgressions of Mankind; let us consider him as dying for our Sins, as being made a Curse for us, therefore apprehensive of Divine Displeasure, on our behalf; as being made Sin for us, as being made by God Justification and Redemption for us, as having redeemed us by his most precious Blood, as having reconciled us to God by his Death; let us remember that he is a Propitiation for us, through Faith in his Blood, that He bore our Sins in his Body upon the Cross, that he was sacrificed for us to take away our Sins, for all which Considerations we have the undeniable Warrants of Scripture; in short, let us consider our Saviour as undergoing those bitter Pains, in his last Sufferings; which, for the Quality of him the Sufferer, and for the Immensity of the Sufferings themselves, being internal as well as external, were equivalent to those eternal Punishments prepared for Impenitent Sinners; let us but seriously weigh these things, and that the Humane Nature of him who was the Son of God himself, should startle and recoil, can never be incredible; if we looked upon him as engaged in this dismal work, how prodigious was his Patience, how inexpressible, inconceivable his Charity! for him that was originally undefiled to be made Sin, him that was the wellbeloved Son to be made a Curse, him, whom an ungrateful World rejected, to become an expiatory Sacrifice for that World; for him, who had never done any Sin, nor deserved any Punishment, to undergo the severest Agonies, and Death itself, for the sake of obdurate and unconsidering Sinners; these are the stupendous Effects of inscrutably mysterious Love; such as, the more a pious Man meditates on, the more he is rapt into Amazement, and the more closely he reflects on Humane Demerits, his Astonishment grows the more profound; that Man, so miserable, should be considered, that the Son of Man should be so mercifully visited, these things observed, the sufferings of Martyrs, were not worth the naming on the same day with the Sufferings of the Son of God; their Agonies were sports compared with his, and he dearly purchased, by taking off that bitter Cup, all those Comforts, and Joys, and Triumphs, which they afterwards pretended to; He, in his own Person, conquered first those gigantic Monsters, Sin and Death and Hell in open field, he triumphed over them upon the Cross, He led Captivity captive, and how easy was it then for the Sons of Faith to follow the Captain of their Salvation, and to wear those Crowns of Righteousness which he had purchased for them, with his own most precious Blood? when they knew God's Anger was atoned, that they had One able to save, continually sitting on the Right-hand of God, as an Intercessor for them, when they were infallibly assured, those Persons were blessed who were persecuted for Righteousness sake, for that theirs was the Kingdom of Heaven; it was no wonder that they rejoiced and were exceeding glad; nor was it strange, that those who suffered for the sake of Truth, before the Incarnation of our Saviour, should express the same Courage, they being Partakers of the same Faith, and depending as unmovably upon God's Promises made to them, as if they lived upon Earth to see their utmost accomplishment; so that they too had the same Mediator, the same Redeemer, the same Saviour, the same glorious Hopes and Expectations.  
Having thus largely insisted upon some reasons why it was necessary that God, and particularly God the Son, should be incarnate, and consequently suffer for the Salvation of Mankind; we are now to consider the Force and Import of those Arguments, as laid together. That a Messiah was to be sent, and on such a saving Errand, is a Truth questioned by none, but that in a mere Man such things should be made good, as were foretold concerning him, was impossible: for in a mere Man all the Families of the earth could never have been blest, though they were all ruined in one that was no more; for the Repairer of Breaches, the Restorer of Ruins, the Raiser to Life, aught to be greater and more powerful than the ordinary Instruments of procuring one, or taking away the other; for we see how every little Creature can do mischief, where it requires a greater Care and extraordinary Industry to repair that Mischief when once done; it was no mere Man who should reign for ever, and of whose Kingdom there should be no end: for such a Kingdom requires Eternity in the Administration; the story of Scripture tells us, that, when Solomon had finished and dedicated his Temple, and the Ark was carried into the Holy of holies, upon the Priests coming out from thence, 
1 King. 8.10, 11.  the Cloud filled the House of the Lord, so that the Priests could not stand to minister because of the Cloud, for the Glory of the Lord had filled the House of the Lord: We meet with no account of any such Glory filling the Second Temple, built after the return from Babylon; yet the Comfort given by the Prophets to the mournful Elders of Israel, when they were dejected on account of the Meanness of that Second Building, was, that the Glory of the Second House should be greater than of the First; which yet could not be true, if God did not afford his more immediate Presence to the Latter than to the Former; but we read in the Gospel of no such Presence, unless in the Presence of Christ, which he frequently afforded to that Temple, during his Converse upon Earth, and the Text itself was always applied by the ancient Jews to the coming of the Messiah into that Temple, nor did they pretend to a contrary Opinion till after their destruction by Titus, as even Grotius himself asserts on that Prophecy; 
Grotius in Hagg. 2. 8.  therefore the Jews themselves could not but acknowledge God more especially present in the Messiah, than in that Glory which appeared in Solomon's Temple, which could not have been, had not the Fullness of the Godhead lived bodily in him, according to the Apostle's Phrase; or been essential to him, which it was not to that Cloud appearing in the Temple: nor could our Saviour have been God with us, if he had not been God at all while he was with us, nor God at all, truly or properly so called, if he had not been so from Eternity: nor could he have done Miracles in his own Name, nor have forgiven Sins in his own Name, etc. had he not been God: or have been the proper Subject of those glorious Titles given him by the Prophets, had he not been literally and properly Partaker of the Divine Nature. Again, the World's Saviour was to destroy the works of the Devil; to dispossess the strong Man armed he must be stronger than he, it's our Saviour's own Argument: now God, we know, is stronger than the Devil; Man, we know, is weaker when in his best Condition, the strength of good Angels we only guess at; but we are sure our Saviour appeared as a Man, and really and truly was such, we are sure that he was no Angel, we are sure that he did destroy the works of the Devil, for he did not lose the end of his Coming, therefore we are sure he was God, as well and as really as he was Man; and though we find, among Prophetic Miracles, some going so far as to heal Bodily Distempers, nay, as to restore Life to the dead by their Prayers; yet we meet with no pretences among them to cast the Enemy out of their Souls, or to work upon their Inclinations so as to change their Natures by a word's speaking, or knowing and understanding the Thoughts and Hearts of Men: Further yet, the Law of Moses being to be repealed, so far as it was his, and not natural or of eternal Obligation, it was necessary the Repealing Power should be as great as that which gave its first Sanction: now this, if we look upon our Saviour as a mere Man, he was no way qualified for; Moses was a King in Jeshurun, authorised, in a manner miraculous and extraordinary, to be the Leader of God's own People, taking him for his inward Qualification, he was the meekest Man upon Earth, a Person of wonderful Love, Condescension, Charity, one of a peculiar Intimacy with God, so that God declares of himself, that he would not speak to him by Dreams, or Visions, 
Numb. 12.6, 7, 8.  or Revelations, as he did to other Prophets, but he would speak with him face to face, as a Man speaks to his Friend: besides, he delivered the Law to the Jews with a great deal of Majesty and Terror, after long Converse with God, so plain and evident as was undeniable; and he had evidence of that Familiarity with Heaven in his glorious Countenance, so bright and terrible that the People were afraid to look upon it, till he put a Veil upon his Face, and, while he was in this mighty employ, none could so much as murmur against him or repine at his Authority, though it were Miriam his Sister, and herself a Prophetess, but immediate Vengeance from Heaven vindicated him; all these Circumstances were enough to confirm the sacred Nature of that Law he delivered, and the Danger that might arise from trespassing upon it. But if we come to our Saviour's state and condition in the World, it was such as could procure him no Veneration, nor pretend to get him any Authority in the World; nothing, to outward view, could be meaner or more contemptible than He, and though his Life were, beyond that of Moses, absolutely blameless, and indeed impeccable, yet the Obscurity of his Birth, and manner of Living were such as could conciliate no Reputation to him among the Jews; and yet, even in that lower Sphere wherein he moved, they could pick quarrels with him, and charge him as if he had been some very obstinate and daring Sinner: He never pretended to any exterior Dignity among the Jews, but declined it, and, though he were ill used by a malignant World on every hand, there was no sudden Vengeance executed on his Abusers; but he submitted with that Patience and Unconcernedness to all Wrongs offered him, that it seemed to the Jews like somewhat of a Conscience of his own Gild that made him so silent: we have no account in Scripture-Story of any particular Familiarity he had with Heaven, by ascending Mount Sinai, by receiving his Gospel with Thunders and Lightnings, and all those Terrors that strike an awe upon mean Souls, nor was he, at any time, withdrawn from ordinary Converse, but only when he was tempted in the Wilderness by the Devil, or when, sometimes for a few Hours, he went apart by himself to pray; for as for the Socinian Dream, of his bodily Ascent into Heaven, as a School where to learn his Lesson, we have exploded that before; and his several withdrawings from Company were so very private, that the World could take no notice of him on that account; nor do we hear of any Radiancy in his Face, any awful Glory in his Aspect, unless when he was transfigured on Mount Tabor, of which there were but three Witnesses, and they forbidden to divulge it, and even then he held Communion but with Moses and Elias, not face to face with God himself, as Moses had done; now, compare these two Lawgivers together as mere Men, and Moses has in every respect the advantage of our Saviour, he carries more of Lustre and Authority with him in his Person and his Actions, and therefore that Law given by Moses must be more authoritative and obliging than any thing delivered by Christ could be, therefore nothing given by Moses could be disannulled by Christ, as being every way an Inferior Person; and therefore the Jews could not have been reasonably condemned for adhering to Moses in all particulars against Christ: nor could Almighty God have been looked upon as so equitable and merciful to that unhappy People as he really was, had he sent one who was a mere Man, and so ill accoutred externally as our Lord was, on so weighty and surprising an Errand, as abolishing the Mosaic Law. But after all, state the matter rightly, acknowledge our Saviour to be God as well as Man, all the difficulty vanishes at once, his Person was more august, his Power and Authority greater, his Will , his Holiness and Dignity incomparable. Moses was but the Servant, he the Lord, and therefore, without any Impeachment to the Fidelity and Honour of Moses, he might reverse every Institution of his as he pleased, since he, as God, was able of himself, without any circumstantial Delay, to give the World a more complete and perfect Rule, whereby humane Happiness and God's Glory, the great ends of all divine Institutions, might be more directly promoted; the great work he undertook was proper to the Deity itself, but superior to any humbler Being: this requiring so much, the Satisfaction of God's Anger, raised against a stupid sinful World, cannot be supposed more easily brought about; for the weight of God's Anger against Sin being insupportable to mere Flesh and Blood, Helpe must of necessity be laid upon One mighty to save, or else Mankind, who had so long subsisted upon the lively Hope of a glorious Deliverance, must have perished without Remedy at last; and finally, the Justification of our Faith, Pardoning of our Sins, and the bestowing upon us Everlasting Life, are things compatible only with God, yet really and properly ascribed to our Saviour, therefore He must be God, therefore He that was incarnate or made Flesh for our Salvation must be God. But now, if we observe the Nature of this great Work for which God was manifested in the Flesh, we shall find it was wholly the effect of Immense Love and Pity to Mankind; and of extraordinary Interest and Power with the great Father of all things, therefore an Undertaking more peculiarly proper to God the Son, than to any other Person in the Trinity.  
Man's Redemption was an Effect of the Father's Love, the Deity itself is Love, the Design of saving such Sinners as should make use of Means to be offered, in due time, to that purpose, was an Effect of Love; the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, were all consenting in the Design; from the Father, as the beginning of Order, must the first motions of Eternal Love, and Goodness, and Will take its Original: not as if there were any Interstice of time between the Actions of Eternal Minds, (for Time can have no place or consideration in Eternity;) but we must speak of such things suitably to Humane Apprehensions, by which kind of Expressions, tho' our Ideas of God's Acts, cannot be adequate or proportionable, yet they may be true and safe; so we speak of God the Father as propounding, of God the Son as declaring his readiness to execute what's propounded, of God the Holy Ghost as consenting so to influence the Objects of Love and Mercy, that neither the Proposal nor its Prosecution should be frustrated; all these, though the distinct Acts of Three distinct Substances, are yet all one uninterrupted Act, and Determination of one Infinite and Eternal God; for where Infinity, or Eternity, or any other Attributes peculiar only to God, are given to Three distinct Substances, yet those Substances, which are infinite, howsoever really distinct, must of necessity be inseparable, therefore they must of necessity be One; for be the Substances never so much distinct, and never so perfect in themselves, yet Unity must follow upon Inseparability: But, according to our common way of speaking, God the Father, designing the greatest Goodness to Men, could show that Love and Pity to them by no other effectual Means, than by giving them his only Son, the very relative Term of Father and Son implies the greatest Nearness and Love in the World; and the kinder and more loving a Father is to his Son, the greater, of necessity, must that Favour and Love be, which can be content to part with a Relation so dear, for the Advantage or Satisfaction of another; hence God accepted it as an Effort of complete Love and Obedience in Abraham, that he had not withheld his Son his only Son from him, but was ready, without any murmuring, to sacrifice him at his Creator's Command; and if our blessed Redeemer was the Son of God, the Son of his Love, the Son in whom he was well pleased, the Apostle urges it home and excellently, He that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all, 
Rom. 8.32.  how shall he not with him give us all things? the Gift of his Son was the greatest Effort of Tenderness that was possible, therefore when Men had received that Gift from the Father's hand, there could be no reason of doubting whether they should receive any thing else that was fit for God to bestow, or for Man to receive. Indeed, when the Father had determined to express the greatest Love and Pity to his Creatures, there did remain nothing else to be done, but to send his Son into the World upon that Occasion; for he was still to move so as not to impeach his Justice, Justice could not be free and universal without Satisfaction in every respect; Man was, so soon as fallen, a continual Criminal, therefore Man was the Object of that  Justice; the acquitting him from the stroke of Justice, was the effect of the greatest Love, yet Justice, not being perverted, must be, and was satisfied on that particular account, therefore it must be, and was satisfied by the grant of God the Son, to put himself into a passable state, and to suffer a Punishment equivalent to that due to Sinners, and this could be effectually performed by none other but the only Son of God; for,  
The Redemption of trespassing Mankind from the stroke of Justice, according to the Father's Intention, required the most absolute Obedience, the greatest Interest, and the most extraordinary Compassion and Tenderness towards Mankind: Now, these things were all most naturally to be expected from the Son; for Identity or Sameness of Will in God the Father is Command and Determination, in God the Son is Submission and Obedience, in God the Holy Ghost is Concurrence and Assistance. Now, if we consider the Severity of the Condition, on which Man was to be redeemed from sinking under Wrath to the utmost, and without which it was impossible Man should be redeemed at all; if we reflect upon the weight of God's Displeasure due to Sin, the infinite Power of the Being displeased; the extreme Provocations whereby it's continually exasperated; these Considerations must convince us, that it required the greatest Obedience possible in the Undertaker, such an Obedience as could be startled by no Difficulty, diverted by no Temptation, nor conquered by any Extremity it could engage with. Of such an Obedience Isaac was a considerable Type, who, though so dear to his Father, so vigorous and strong, as he might have been able enough to have secured himself from the violent Zeal of his Aged Father, though Nature must have had some Reluctance against Death, against Death by the hand of his own Father, by his hand from whom he had deserved all Kindness and Love by his habitual Obedience, yet he stopped upon none of these Considerations, but was, for aught we can find by the Sacred Story, as ready to be offered as his Parent was to offer him; now, such a kind of Obedience cannot reasonably be expected from any but a Son, nor from any but the best of Sons, such was Isaac; but as the Burden the Son of God undertook was infinitely greater than what Isaac was concerned in; the Eternal Determination of Heaven in respect of Man, infinitely harder to comply with, so it required a Son more Powerful, more Obedient, more united with his Father than any Earthly Son could be with the most obliging Earthly Parent; therefore, there being that Eternal Unity of Will between God the Father and God the Son, it was impossible there should be the least Reluctance in the Son, against what was resolved on for the rescue of Sinners from the Wrath to come; and therefore that declining the terrible Hour which appears in his Prayer before his being seized on by the Jews, was purely the Effect of Humane Nature, necessarily infirm, but clearly understanding the Terror of the approaching Conflict, and therefore showing the result of the purest Flesh and Blood, yet without Sin. Again, when we reflect on the Relation between a Father and a Son, as it's very close, so their mutual Loves and Affections must needs be very extraordinary and tender; this is observed and expected among earthly Parents and Children, and its what Nature commands, and Religion, so far as true, obliges to: this than must be much more eminent between God the Father and the Son, and so our Lord himself teaches us, The Father loveth the Son, and, as the greatest evidence of that intense Love, 
John. 3.35.  he has given him all things into his hand; he asserts the same again, The Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that he doth, 
5.20.  which is an Expression of the greatest Intimacy and Unity; the same Jesus declares, that his Father hears him always; 
11.42.  and the Palmist, in the Person of the Father speaking to the Son, says, 
Psal. 2.8.  Ask of me and I will give thee the Heathen for thine Inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the Earth for thy Possession; and on assurance of this, Christ, when he reproves St. Peter for using his Sword against those who came to take him, tells him, he could pray to his Father, and he should presently send him more than twelve Legions of Angels; from all which Circumstances we may be assured, that the Interests of an infinitely Obedient Son with an infinitely Loving Father, must be infinite; therefore, whereas men's Sins were infinitely odious, and that Vengeance infinite, which was by consequence to fall upon Men for those Sins, there was nothing but an infinite Interest that could possibly, by any means whatsoever, divert that Vengeance, and this infinite Interest was proper to God the Son, that is, to such a Son as was at Unity, nay, was One with his Father; from whence it is that we are taught by the Rules of Christianity, and a Socinian himself will scarce contradict it, to present all our Prayers to God in the Name of his Son Jesus Christ; so, whereas our Lord teaches his Disciples, Whatsoever ye shall ask in my Name, 
John 14.13, 14.  that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; if ye shall ask any thing in my Name, I will do it; 
16.23, 26.  he afterwards varies thus, In that day ye shall ask me nothing; Verily, verily I I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my Name he will give it you; Hitherto ye have asked nothing in my Name, ask and ye shall receive, that your Joy may be full; which two Texts compared together, show the absolute Prevalency of the Name of the Son of God with our Heavenly Father, and the absolute and indissoluble Union of the Father and the Son; so that it may properly, and without any thing like a Contradiction, be asserted, that what One does the Other does, and what the Father grants for the Son's sake, that the Son grants; nor can any thing of an Heavenly Nature be granted to Mankind but by the Deity so united in itself; by which Consideration all inferior Intercessors between God and Man are excluded from being in themselves the Objects of our Religious Adorations, because there can be no such adequate Unions of Persons between them, nor any such absolute Power, or immediate Interest in such inferior Being's, as there can be no reasonable Competition of Interests between a Son adopted out of Commiseration, and an only begotten, and universally loving and obedient Heir; as then the Interest of a Son with the Father was necessary for Humane Redemption, so it was necessary, that God the Son, particularly, should assume our Nature, to do and suffer for us, in such a measure as we might be redeemed, upon acceptance of the proper Conditions, from Eternal Destruction: Finally, the Tenderness of the Son ofttimes shows itself, when the Gravity and just Severity of a Father seems inexorable to an Offender; yet even then when the Father seems of himself, and otherwise would be, inflexible to the Criminal, he is pleased to see the Tenderness of his Son, and will frequently encourage and accept of his Intercession; so, if we may compare small things with great, our Heavenly Father deals with us, in respect of the Intercession of his Son; and though Justice cried out for Vengeance against Sinners, he was particularly well pleased when he saw Him clothed with Flesh, for accomplishing that great Work of Mercy and Goodness; he was pleased at his Interposition between the Criminals and impendent Punishment; and since the Divine Nature was wholly incapable of flexible Affections, nothing but unbounded Love, Mercy, Justice, etc. concentring in it, the Apostle teaches us, that our incarnate Lord, our great Highpriest was such an One as could be affected with our Infirmities, 
Heb. 5.7, 8, 9  could have compassion on the Ignorant, and of them that are out of the way; who, in the days of his flesh, when he offered up Prayers and Supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; Though he were a Son, yet he learned Obedience by the things which he suffered, and, being made perfect, he became the Author of eternal Salvation to all them that believe; the Assumption of our Nature created in him a sympathetic Tenderness of Humane Infirmities, as appeared by his Tears over Jerusalem, and at the Grave of Lazarus, yet he was free from all Sin in those condescending Tears of his; now, he that had such extraordinary Compassion for miserable Sinners, could not but exert the utmost of his sacred Interests on their behalf, and make a free access for them to the Throne of Grace; where such Obedience, Interest and Compassion being indispensibly necessary for our Good, and those Qualifications being naturally 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 itself, 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 decayed, if he designed Mercy for them, rectify 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 proved 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 observed before, though an inferior Creature was able to bring one, in a happy state before, into a ruinous Condition, as any little mischievous Agent may, yet those Ruins, so easily procured, could not be so easily repaired 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 allege 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 complete 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 ruins of that Fall) than 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 Sovereignty, 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 ordained 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 Conductor 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 conformed to the Image of his Son, that he might be the Firstborn 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 only excepted, and he was the kindest and the tenderest Brother, who laid down his own sacred Life to restore a crew 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 only 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 fullness 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 than 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 through 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 merciful and faithful Highpriest, in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the Sins of the People, or to atone for them, i. e. to reconcile God to People that had sinned, for in that he himself hath suffered, being tempted, he is able to secure them that are tempted.  
There remains nothing more on this Subject to be done, but to draw a practical Inference or two, from our Apostolical doctrine, that God was manifest in the flesh, or that He who really and eternally was God, took upon him humane Nature for the Salvation of Mankind.  
From hence we should learn a just Admiration of that transcendent Love and infinite Compassion extended to us by God the Father, in sending, by God the Son in being sent to, and condescending to come among us. Words are too weak to express the mighty debt of Gratitude we are engaged in to Heaven, on that account, only Actions may, in some measure, express our Acknowledgements; let us not conceit ourselves exempt from the Condition of the rest of Mankind: We lost our original Innocence, we were precluded from Paradise, from tasting the Tree of Life, by Cherubims and a flaming Sword, when could we then hope for? We were created happy, we forfeited it too too easily, what could we afterwards pretend to? But God, however provoked, by the eternal Intercession of his Son, had reserved Mercy for us, therefore he allowed Mankind a time and space of Repentance; Repentance was the sole possible Condition of Eternal Happiness; Repentance, invalid yet and unfruitful in itself, had it not been rendered acceptable by the Blood of the Lamb slain from the Foundation of the World; the Truth of what I do assert in this particular appears, from the Song of the four Beasts and the twenty four Elders, when they adored this Lamb of God, and praised him in the name of the Saints, Thou wast slain, 
Rev. 5.9.  and hast redeemed us to God by thy Blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; those so redeemed from all parts, include all Persons, dying in the true Faith of God, from the beginning of the World, some of whom we find mentioned and praised for our Example in the Eleventh to the Hebrews, and therefore, when St. John afterwards gives us an account of those who received the Seal of God on their Foreheads, he first reckons up 144000 of the Tribes of Israel, a certain for an uncertain Number, but after them, he tells us, he saw a great multitude, 
7.9, 14.  which no man could number, of all nations, and kindred, and people, and tongues, who stood before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white Robes, and with Palms in their hands; of whom, and what they were, when the Apostle enquired of one of the Elders, he received this Answer, these are they which came out of great Tribulation, and have washed their Robes, and have made them white in the Blood of the Lamb; now this numberless Number of happy Souls, marked by Heaven for its own, represents all those walking and dying in the Fear of God through all Ages; for Tribulation was the Characteristic of a pious Man, before God was manifest in the Flesh, as well as afterwards; but they had all their Robes washed in the Blood of the same Lamb, therefore that Blood was effectual for Man's Salvation and rendered all their Religious Performances, of which Repentance was a chief, acceptable in the sight of God, before such time as it was actually and openly shed upon the Cross. That Mankind might be apprehensive of their Duties, and be as certain in their Repentance as they had been in their Miscarriages, God, who had given them all the Providential Encouragements possible to serve him faithfully and willingly, was pleased to send his Messengers from time to time to call them to Repentance; so Enoch, by the transcendent Holiness of his Life, which doubtless was accompanied with as edifying Instructions, preached Repentance to a World, even so early grown old in Sin; so Noah, for an Hundred Years together, preached Repentance to a perishing Generation; after the Renewal of the World again, from that Stock purposely preserved in the Ark, Prophets and Holy Men were frequently inspired by Heaven, and sent through the World on the Reforming, that too rarely successful, Errand; nor were they so wholly confined to Israel, the Lot of God's own Inheritance, but that they sometimes delivered Messages to the adjacent Gentiles; so Obadiah to Edom, Jonah and Nahum to Nineveh, etc. this was certainly an Effect of wonderful Compassion, that a God, so justly offended at Humane Crimes, should have any respect to them, or use so many Methods of bringing them to a Sense of their own Errors, and that Misery attending them; but what measure did those Messengers meet with? the same with those Servants in the Parable, whom their Lord sent to the Husbandmen to receive of the fruits of his Vineyard, some were beaten, some wounded, some murdered, all slighted and disregarded. Yet, to evidence his Love further, God, when he observed how unsuccessful his Ambassadors had been, He sent his Son, the Conclusion was rational, they will reverence my Son, but the Event was contrary, even that Son, by foolish Husbandmen, was cast out of his own Vineyard, and cruelly murdered: And was not that senseless Barbarism too much? was it not too much to affront Mercy so notoriously? would we thus requite the Lord, O foolish People, and unwise that we are! ill would it become those now, who call themselves Christians, to trample under foot the blood of the Gospel-Covenant, to crucify to themselves afresh the Lord of Life, and to put him once more to an open shame: Did he come down from Heaven to Earth, from Glory to Misery to save us, and shall we be so much Fools, as, having a Prize put into our Hands, not to have Hearts to make use of it? shall we refuse to be saved by him? nay, shall we not Love him? shall we not Admire him? shall we not Adore him? shall we not obey him in all things? shall we not be ready to suffer all that Hell and wicked Men can invent to our prejudice, rather than forsake his Truth or dishonour his Gospel? Reason would teach us these things; for they who have received the greatest Favours, aught to repay them with the greatest Gratitude; but alas, we generally discourse to senseless Walls, or try our Charms on deaf Adders, for who hath believed our Report, and to whom is the Arm of the Lord revealed? The Leopard may sooner change his Spots, or the Negro his Skin, than those who are enured to Wickedness be persuaded to relinquish it by the most cogent Arguments in the world; but how base and ridiculous does it look, that Holy Men of old could live upon God's Promises of redeeming them, that in confidence of his Veracity, in a full and strong Faith in his Goodness, they could account themselves but Pilgrims and Strangers here on Earth, and, by religious Lives and Actions, prove to the World they were in quest of a better Country; 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 Bondslaves 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 killed their Lord's Son indeed, but it was to their own Confusion; the rebellious Citizens refused 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 Ambassador of Peace is sent and slighted, the Dignity of the Ambassador 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 steadfast, and every Transgression and Disobedience received a just Recompense 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 confirmed 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 ourselves with empty Dreams of entering 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 Woe, 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 departed 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 coequal and coessential with his Father; I would to God the Caution were needless! There were some Heretics in the Ancient Church, who would needs maintain our Lord was not true Man, had only a fantastical Body, but not real Flesh and Blood as we have; others, as it were to balance them, would assert our Saviour was a mere Man, and no more, that he was not real God, nor his Love to us, nor his Undertake for us, so great as we are ready to conclude; God's Blessing upon the Labours of the Governors of the Church in those days crushed the growing Heresies, and they bequeathed to us a Faith undepraved, 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 Falsehoods 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 revived, and particularly that which denied the Eternal Divinity of the Son of God; which, as it walked 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 United Brethren, so those wretched Heretics, however at odds among themselves, agreed in the gay Name of unitarians, 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 Heresy detestable to every sober and intelligent Christian; a Heresy 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 mere 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 satisfy his Father's Displeasure against Sinners; the Mischief and Falsehood of such Opinions, I have proved at large in the former parts of this Discourse; yet God, in his Wisdom, and for the Trial of those who can adhere steadfastly 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 forced to conceal within their own Breasts before. Time was, when, by the just Judgement 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 itself 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 oily 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 extreme Debauchery and Looseness of the Age; they consider the Principles of solid Religion as generally slighted, the lazy Humours of Men as little careful to inquire into the Nature of Doctrines propounded, but ready either to sink into downright 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 subtle watchful Heretics 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 show of, easily observed 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 Sheep's 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 attacked by a Roman Priest, or by a pragmatic 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 obliged 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 Apostolic times could be pestered 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 Zion, 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 called by the Name of St. Athanasius, as guilty of Popery, and those things as Relics 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 impaired by Man's Fall. Page 21  
3. It's yet sufficient to convince us of a general Necessity of Religion. Page 25  
4. Well employed it meets with Divine Assistance. Page 32  
5. By Exercise it grows more knowing and comprehensive. Page 38  
6. Yet it's not complete till the Future Life's attained. 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 proved 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 proved 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  
men's Sentiments about the true Ends of Religion, before our Lord's Incarnation, enquired into. Page 114 

Those of the Jews. Ibid.  
Those of the Gentiles. Page 119    
The Ends of Religion, how depraved 

By the Jews. Page 127 

saducees what, and their Opinions Page 129  
Essenes', what. Page 131  
Pharisees what, and how charactered by Jews. Page 133    
By the Gentiles. Page 140 

Their Philosophers, what. Ibid.      
Things essential to Religion unchangeable. Page 145 

Therefore the Law of Regular Nature neither changed by Moses nor our Saviour, nor any thing as essential added to them. Page 148  
And therefore Mysteries not taken away, either in Faith's Foundation or Symbolical Rites. Ibid.    
Advantages of Religion founded on Mysteries. 

1. From them Men learn the Imperfection of their own Reason. Page 160  
2. Fundamental Mysterious Truths the distinguishing Characters between several Religions. Page 168  
3. Mysteries in Religion create a due Reverence for it. Page 177    
The Conclusion from all, That Mysteries are essential to Christianity as well as to any other Religion. Page 190  
It's then Essential to Salvation to know Christ is God. Page 193 

Scripture conclusive of it. Page 201    
II. Jesus Christ was truly and properly the Son of God. Page 209  
This proved, 

1. By the Promises and Predictions concerning his Birth, etc. Page 219 

Several instanced, in Page 221 etc.  
Christ expected by the Gentiles. Page 234    
2. By the Manner and Circumstances of his Birth. Page 237  
3. By the Doctrines of himself and his Minister. Page 259 

The gentle and peaceful, yet prevailing, Nature of his Doctrine. Page 267      
Scripture proved the Word of God to Deists. Page 283  
God necessarily perfect in all his Attributes. Page 287 

His Love in particular. Page 289  
Which obliges him to reveal his Will to those intelligent Creatures, from whom he expects Obedience to it. Page 294  
Scripture such a Revelation of his Will, and has all requisites in it. Page 299    
III. Jesus Christ the Son of God was God equal with his Father. Page 309  
Proved, 

1. By the Old Testament. Page 311 

The first Chapter to the Hebrews occasionally cleared. Page 315    
2. By the New Testament. Page 324  
3. By Actions done by himself in Person, or in his Name. Page 381 

By himself while on Earth Ibid.  
By his Apostles in his Name. Page 400    
4. By the Faith of the Ancient Ant- Nicene Church. Page 409  
Fathers alleged, Greek, 

Clemens Romanus. Page 411  
Ignatius Antiochenus. Page 415  
Justine Martyr. Page 420  
Irenaeus Lugdunensis. Page 425  
Clemens Alexandrinus. Page 427  
Origen. Page 430    
Latin, 

Tertullian. Page 439  
St. Cyprian. Page 447  
Arnobius. Page 452  
Lactantius. Page 457    
Zwicker alleges, Socinus rejects the Ant- Nicene Fathers. Page 462  
Why the Fathers suppose a Difference between God the Father and God the Son. Page 466  
The Confessions of the Ante- Nicene Councils. Page 470  
The Judgements of Eusebius and Constantine the Great. Page 477  
5. By the generally allowed Practice of Praying to our Saviour, he is proved true God. Page 481    
Under this Head is proved, 

1. That all Worship terminating on any but the One True God, is Idolatry. Page 483 

The Ancient Notion of Idolatry. Page 486  
unitarians divided about Worshipping our lord Page 496  
Their Vindication reflected on. Page 515    
2. That Christians, worshipping our Lord, are no Idolaters. Page 518 

Therefore our Lord is True God. Page 536  
The Summary of the precedent Discourse. Ibid.      
The Filiation of the Son of God enquired into. Page 541  
The Racovian, Lushington's Account, and that of Thoughts on Sherlock, etc. proved insufficient. Page 542  
Therefore a Necessity of Eternal Generation. Page 550  
IU. It was necessary that God the Son should be Incarnate. Page 562 

1. That he might destroy the Works of the Devil. Page 563  
He was Tyrannical over Mankind. 

1. With respect to their Bodies. Page 566 

Possessions by the Devil not bodily Diseases. Page 567  
The Devil permitted to possess Bodies, 

1. For Trial of Faith and Patience, and to excite the greater Long for a Messiah. Page 573  
2. For the Glory of the Incarnate Son. Page 577      
2. He was Tyrannical over men's Souls, corrupting them, 

1. With false Interests. Page 583  
2. Violent and unreasonable Prejudices. Page 588  
3. Prodigious and unaccountable Laziness. Page 592      
A Second Reason why the Son of God was Incarnate, 

2. That he might repeal the Mosaic Law by a just Authority. Page 595  
The Law of Moses, though Divine yet repealable, proved, 

1. By its general Import, it being wholly Typical, and referring to somewhat Future. Page 601  
2. The Ceremonial Law was not essential to the Being or Wellbeing of a Church. Page 610  
3. God always put a great Difference between the Ceremonial and the Moral Law. Page 617  
Hence necessary that the Repealer should be equal with the first Maker of that Law. Page 625    
3. The Son of God was Incarnate, that in our Nature He might fulfil the whole Law for us, and give us a complete Example of Holiness and Obedience Page 632      
God's Mercy not diminished by what Christ merited or suffered on our behalf. Page 639  
Crellius his Notion of Infinite Justice considered. Ibid.  
Justice in God no hindrance to his Mercy, and vice versâ. Page 645  
Christ's Sufferings Proportionable or Equivalent to our Demerits necessary. Page 646  
Satisfaction consistent with free Remission. Page 652  
Christ not necessarily to suffer Death Eternal, his Temporary Sufferings sufficient and equivalent to what was our Due. Page 658  
Why so much of Christ's Blood shed as to procure his Death. Page 666  
Our Lord's Satisfaction no Encouragement to Sinners. Page 668  
But a greater Encouragement and Obligation to Holiness than the Socinian Hypothesis. Page 674  
Confessed by the Defender of the Unitarians. Page 676  
Christ a Real and Effectual Sacrifice for us. Page 688  
Christ's Obedience in his Exinanition not necessary but on our account. Page 707  
His Sacrifice Expiatory. Page 722  
Completed before his Ascension. Page 724  
His Dying for our Sins proved positively Page 731 

From the Circumstances of that Death. Page 738    
Otherwise His inferior to the Sufferings of Martyrs. Page 739  
God the Son therefore necessarily the World's Redeemer, because that Redemption was 

1. An Effect of the greatest and Divinest Love. Page 758  
2. It required the greatest Interest in God the Father, and the greatest Tenderness toward Mankind. Page 761  
3. He who made all things was fittest to restore them. Page 767    
The Image of God not founded in Dominion of Man over his Fellow. Creatures. Page 768  
The Conclusion of all, in two Practical Inferences, 

1. We learn, from the whole, to admire God's wonderful Love and Compassion in condescending so far to us as to be Incarnate and to die for us. Page 772  
2. We ought to adhere constantly to that Faith by which we believe Jesus Christ our Lord to be the Eternal Son of God, true God himself, and the Propitiation for our Sins. Page 778     

Places of Scripture more particularly Explained and Vindicated.  

GEnesis 3.1, 2, 3, 4. Cain and Abel's Sacrifice. Page 98  
3.15. I will put Enmity between thee and the Woman. Page 607  
18.2. Abraham stood still before the lord Page 311  
32.28. Jacob wrestling with the Angel, called Israel. Page 313  
49.10. The Sceptre shall not departed from Judah. Page 241  
Exod. 4.16. Moses a God to Pharaoh, and Aaron his Prophet. Page 343 

7.1. Moses a God to Pharaoh, and Aaron his Prophet. Page 343  
14.21. They believed in the Lord, and in his Servant Moses. Page 329  
25.22. The Propitiatory or Mercy-seat. Page 721  
34.7. Forgiving Iniquity, Transgression and Sin. Page 699    
Levit. 16.12, 13. Censer of Burning Coals in the Holiest Place. Page 726 

v. 16. To make an Atonement for the most Holy Place. Page 725    
2 Kings 3.26, 27. King of Moab offering his Son. Page 105  
2 Chron. 30.18, 19, 20. Hezekiah's Prayer for the Unprepared. Page 603  
Psalm 40.6, 7, 8. Sacrifice and Burnt-Offerings not desired. Page 225 

45.2. Thy Throne, O God, is for ever and ever. Page 314  
82.6, 7. I have said, Ye are Gods. Page 342    
Isaiah 9.6. Unto us a Child is born, a Son is given. Page 320  
Jeremiah 23.5, 6. I will raise unto David a Righteous Branch. Page 321  
Micah 5.2 Thou Bethlehem Ephrata, etc. Page 323  
Haggai 2.8. The Glory of the Second House greater, etc. Page 753  
Matth. 1.23. Thou shalt call his Name Emanuel. Page 325 

18.23. The Parable of the Debtors to their lord Page 651  
28.18. All Power is given to me in Heaven and Earth. Page 407  
v. 19 In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Page 328    
Luke 4.29, 30. They led him to the Brow of the Hill. Page 382 

24.45. He opened their Understandings. Page 395    
John 1.1. In the beginning was the Word. Page 332 

3.13. No man hath ascended up into Heaven, etc. Page 337  
5.23. The Father hath committed all Judgement, etc. Page 202  
10.30. I and my Father are One. Page 354  
10.34, 35, 36. Is it not written in your Law? Page 558  
17 21. That they all may be One, as Thou, etc. Page 358  
20.28. My Lord and my God. Page 360    
Acts 7.59. Lord Jesus receive my Spirit. Page 524  
Rom. 2.6. God will render to every Man, etc. Page 124 

3.24, 25, 26. Justified freely by his Grace, etc. Page 649 703  
8.19, 20, 21, 22. The earnest Expectation of the Creature. Page 490  
9.5. Of whom as concerning the Flesh Christ came. Page 370  
10.13. Whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord, etc. Page 203    
1 Cor. 1.14, 15. Lest any should say, I had baptised in my own, etc. Page 402 

10.2. All were baptised into Moses, etc. Page 329  
15.3. Christ died for our Sins. Page 693    
2 Cor. 5.19, 20. Reconciling the World, etc. Page 648, 719 

12.7, 8, 9 For this cause I besought the Lord thrice. Page 527    
Gal. 3.19. In the hand of a Mediator. Page 711  
Philip. 2.5,— 11. Being in the Form of God, etc. Page 374  
Col. 1.24. What was behind of the Afflictions of Christ. Page 694  
1 Thess. 5.17. Pray without ceasing. Page 505  
Heb. 1.8, 9, 10. etc. When he bringeth his First-Begotten, etc. Page 314 

5.5 Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. Page 549  
6.1, 2. Leaving the Principles, etc. Page 184  
8.4. If on Earth he should not be a Priest, etc. Page 733  
c. 9 etc. 10. Page 689, 727, 728.  
11.1. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, etc. Page 87    
1 Pet. 2.24. Bore our Sins in his own Body on the Cross. Page 698. 

3.18. He suffered for our Sins, the just for the unjust. Page 697    
1 John 2.1, 2. He is the Propitiation for our Sins. Page 719 

5.7. There are Three that bear Record in Heaven. Page 458  
v. 20. This is the True God, and Eternal Life. Page 205       

ERRATA.  
PAge 3. l. 5. after Salvation deal. p. 5. l. 20. put a Period after Text. l. 30. after Attentatam d. ● p. 6. l. 3. r. Wissowatius. p. 130. in the Margin r. Serrarii. p. 142. l. 19 r. seemed. p. 148. l. 31. r. Posterity. p. 200. l. 14 r. One. p. 209. l. 26. r. really and indeed. p. 221. l. 7. r. Paradisiacum. p. 239. r. this. p. 139. l. 21. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 149. l. 21. d. And. p. 289. l. 29. r. those p. 312. l. 3. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the Margin r. Sandii Hist. Eccles. Enucl. p. 318. l. 6. r. for. p. 332. l. 16. r. those. p. 336. l. 25. r. Stranger. p. 364. l. 29. r. at. p. 413. l. 21. r. far. p. 448. l. 20. r. Libraries. p. 467. l. 22. r. Separation. p. 492. l. 26. d. One. p. 511. l. 10. r. deliver. p. 539. l. 3. r. Lazarus. p. 552. l. 31. in Marg. r. Epistolarum. p. 602. l. 12. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. p. 609. l. 13. r. Sacrifices. p. 666. l. 1. he be. p. 690. l. 29. r. Levitical. p. 700. in Marg. r. Brixian. l. 3. r. curing. p. 704. l. 31. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. p. 720. l. 11. r. Catiline. p. 752. l. 10. r. Administrator. Several smaller Mistakes, especially in the Pointing, the Reader will easily observe and pass by, or correct as fitting.   

Books Printed for Walter Kettilby, at the Bishop's-Head in St. Paul's Churchyard.  

TEN Sermons, with Two Discourses of Conscience. By the Lord Archbishop of York, 4 to  
— 's Sermon before the House of Lords, Nou. 5. 1691.  
— 's Sermon before the King and Queen on Christmass-Day, 1691.  
— 's Sermon before the Queen on Easter-Day, 1692.  
Henrici Mori, D. D. Opera omnia.  
Bishop Overal's Convocation-Book, 1606. concerning the Government of God's Catholic Church, and the Kingdoms of the whole World, 4 to  
Dr Falkner's Libertas Ecclesiastica, 8vo  
— 's Vindication of Liturgies, Ibid.  
— is Christian Loyalty, Ibid.  
Mr. Lamb's Fresh Suit against Independency, Ibid.  
Mr. W. Allen's Tracts, Ibid.  
Bishop Fowler's Libertas Evangelica, Ib.  
Jovian, or an Answer to Julian the Apostate, Ibid.  
Animadversions on Mr. Johnson's Answer to Jovian. In Three Letters to a Country Friend, Ibid.  
Turner de Angelorum & Hominum Lapsu, 4 to  
Mr. Raymond's Pattern of Pure and Undefiled Religion, 8vo  
— 's Exposition on the Church-Catechism, Ibid.  
Mr. Lamb's Dialogues between a Minister and his Parishioner, about the Lord's Supper, Ibid.  
— 's Sermon before the King at Windsor.  
— 's Sermon before the Lord Mayor.  
— 's Liberty of Humane Nature, stated, discussed and limited.  
— 's Sermon before the King and Queen, Jan. 19 1689.  
— 's Sermon before the Queen, Jan. 24. 1690.  
Dr Hickman's Thanksgiving-Sermon before the Honourable House of Commons, Oct. 19 1690.  
— 's Sermon before the Queen at Whitehall, Oct. 26. 1690.  
Dr Burnet's Theory of the Earth, 2 Vol. Folio.  
— 's Answer to Mr. Warren's Exceptions against the Theory of the Earth.  
— 's Consideration of Mr. Warren's Defence.  
— 's Telluris Theoria Sacra, 2 Vol. 4 to Bishop of Bath and Wells Reflections on a French Testament, Printed at Bourdeaux.  
— is Christian Sufferer supported, 8vo  
Dr Grove (now Lord Bishop of Chichester) his Sermon before the King and Queen, June 1. 1690.  
Dr Hooper's Sermon before the Queen, Jan. 24. 1690/ 1.  
Dr Pelling's Sermon before the King and Queen, Dec. 8. 1689.  
— 's Vindication of those that have taken the Oaths, 4 to  
Dr Worthington of Resignation, 8vo  
— 's Christian Love, Ibid.  
Religion the Perfection of Man, By Mr. Jeffery, Ibid.  
Faith and Practice of a Church of England Man, 12ᵒ The Fourth Edition.  
Kelsey Concio de Aeterno Christi Sacerdot.  
— 's Sermon of Christ Crucified, Aug. 23. 1691.  
Mr. Milbourn's Sermon, Jan. 30. 1682.  
— 's Sermon, Sept. 9 1683.  
An Answer to an Heretical Book, called the Naked Gospel, which was condemned and ordered to be publicly Burnt by the Convocation of the University of Oxford, Aug. 19 1690. With some Reflections on Dr Bury's new Edition of that Book; to which is added a Short History of Socinianism, by W. Nichols, M. A. etc.  
Two Letters of Advice, I. For the Susception of Holy Orders. II. For Studies Theological, especially such as are Rational. At the end of the former is inserted a Catalogue of the Christian Writers and Genuine Works that are Extant of the First Three Centuries, By Henry Dodwell, M. A. etc.