The Mystery of the Gospel Vindicated and Socinianism Examined
1. The first Effect or fruit of the first sin, rejected by M. B. is, its rendering men guilty of Hell fire; but the Scripture seems to be of another mind Rom. 5. 12. Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed on all men for that all have sinned. That all men sinned in Adam, that they contracted the guilt of the same death with him, that death entered by sin, the holy Ghost is express in. The death here mentioned is, that which God threatened to Adam, if he did transgress, Gen. 2. which that it was not death Temporal only, yea not at all, M. B. contends, by denying Mortallity to be a fruit of this sin: as also excluding in this very Query all room for death spiritual, which consists in the defacing of the Image of God in us, which he with this rejects; And what death remains, but that which hath Hell following after it, we shall afterwards consider.
Besides, that death which Christ died to deliver us from, was that which we were obnoxious to, upon the account of the first sin: for he came to save that which was lost: and tasted death to deliver us from death; dying to deliver them, who for fear of death were in bondage all their lives, Heb. 2, 13. But that this was such a death, as hath Hell-fire attending it, he manifests, by affirming, that he delivers us from the wrath to come; By Hell fire we understand nothing but the wrath of God for sin, into whose hand it is a fearful thing to fall, our God being a consuming fire. That the guilt of every sin is this death whereof we speak, that hath both Curse and Wrath attending it, and that it is the proper wages of sin, the Testimony of God is evident. What other death men are obnoxious to, on the account of the first sin, that hath not these concomitants, M. B. hath not as yet revealed. By nature also we are children of wrath; and on what foot of account our obnoxiousness now by nature unto wrath is to be stated, is sufficiently evident by the light of the preceding considerations.
The defacing of the Image of God in us, by this sin, as it is usually asserted, is in the next place denied. That man was created in the Image of God, and wherein that image of God doth consist, was before declared. That we are now borne with that Character upon us, as it was at first enstamped upon us, must be affirmed, or some common cause of the defect, that is in us, wherein all and everyone of the posterity of Adam are equally concerned, besides that of the first sin, is to be assigned. That this latter cannot be done, hath been already declared. He that shall undertake to make good the former, must engage in a more difficult work, then M. B. in the midst of his other employments, is willing to undertake. To insist on all particulars relating to the Image of God in man, how far it is defaced, whether anything properly and directly thereunto belonging, be yet left remaining in us; to declare how far our souls, in respect of their immortal substance, faculties, and Consciences, our Persons, in respect of that dominion over the Creatures, which yet by God's gracious and merciful Providence we retain, may be said to bare the Image of God, is a work of another nature, then what I am now engaged in. For the asserting of what is here denied by M. B. concerning the defacing of the Image of God in us by sin, no more is required, but only the tender of some demonstrations to the main of our intendment in the Assertion, touching the loss by the first sin, & our present want in the state of nature, of that Righteousness and Holiness, wherein man at his first Creation stood before God, (in reference unto the End whereunto he was Created,) in uprightness, and ability of walking unto all well pleasing. And as this will be fully manifested in the consideration of the ensuing particulars instanced in by M. B. so it is sufficiently clear and evident, from the renovation of that Image, which we have by Jesus Christ, & that expressed both in general, & in all the particulars wherein we affirm that image to be defaced. The new man, which we put on in Jesus Christ, which is renewed in knowledge, after the image of Him that treated him, Coll. 3. 10. is that which we want, by sins defacing ( s • o more ) of that Image of God in us, which we had in knowledge; so Ephes. 4. 23, 24. That new man is said to consist in the Renewing of our mind, whereby after God we are Created in Righteousness and Holiness. So that whereas we were created in the image of God, in Righteousness and Holiness, and are to be renewed again by Christ, unto the same condition of his Image in Righteousness and Holiness, we doubt not to affirm, that by the first same (the only interposition, of general concernment to all the sons of men,) the Image of God in us was exceedingly defaced. In sum, that which made us sinners, brought sin and death upon us, that which made us liable to condemnation, that defaced the image of God in us; that all this was done by the first sin, the Apostle plainly asserts, Rom. 5, 12, 15, 17, 18, &c.
To the next particular effect of sin, by M. B. rejected, (the darkening of our under standings, ) I shall only inquire of him, whether God made us at first with our understandings dark, and ignorant, as to those things which are of absolute necessity that we should be acquainted withal, for the attainment of the End whereunto he made us? For once, I will suppose he will not affirm it; and shall therefore proceed one stop farther, and ask him; whether there be not such a darkness now upon us by nature, opposed unto that light, that spiritual and saving Knowledge, which is of absolute necessity for everyone to have, and be furnished withal, that will again attain that glory of God, which we are borne short of: Now because this is that which will most probably be denied, I shall by the way only desire him.
1. To cast aside all the places of Scripture, where it is positively; and punctually asserted, that we are so dark and blind, and darkness it self in the things of God: and then,
2. All those where it is no less punctually, and positively asserted, that Christ gives us Light, Knowledge, Understanding, which of ourselves we have not. And if he be not able to do so, then
3. To tell me, whether the darkness mentioned in the former places, and innumerable others, and as to the manner and cause of its removal and taking away, in the latter, be part of that death which passed on all men, by the offense of one, or by what other chance it is come upon us?
Of the enslaving of our wills, and the depriving us of power to do good, there is the same Reason, as of that next before. It is not my purpose to handle the common place of the corruption of nature by sin; nor can I say, that it is well for M. Biddle, that he finds none of those effects of sin in himself; • n thing, of Darkness, Bondage, or Disabillity; or if he do, that he knows where to charge it, and not on himself, and the depravedness of his own nature? and that because I know none who are more desperately sick, then those who by a fever of pride, have lost the sense of their own miserable condition: Only to stop him in his hast from rejecting the evils mentioned, from being effects or consequences of the first sin, I desire him to peruse a little the ensuing Scriptures: And take them as they come to mind, Ephes. 2. 1, 2, 3, 5. Joh. 5. 25. Math 8. 22. Ephes. 5. 8. Luk. 4. 18. 2 Tim. 2. 25, 26. Joh. 8. 34. Rom. 6, 16. Gen. 6. 5. Rom. 7. 5. Joh: 3. 6. 1 Cor. 2 14. Rom. 3. 12. Acts 8. 31. Joh. 5. 41. Rom. 8. 7. Jerem. 13. 23 &c.
The last thing denied is, its causing Mortallity. God threatening man with death if he sinned, Gen. 2. 17. seems to instruct us, that if he had not sinned, he should not have died; And upon his sin, affirming, that on that account he should be dissolved, and return to his dust, Gen. 3. 18, 19. no less evidently convinces us, that his sin caused mortality actually, and in the event. The Apostle also affirming, that death entered by sin, and passed upon all, in as much as all have sinned, seems to be of our mind. Neither can any other sufficient cause be assigned on the account whereof, innocent man should have been actually, mortal, or eventually have died. M. Biddle it seems is of another persuasion. And for the confirmation of his judgment, gives you the words of the Curse of God to man upon his sinning; dust thou art, and unto dust then shalt return; The strength of his reason therein lying in this, that if God denounced the sentence of mortallity on man after his sinning, and for his sin, then mortallity was not an effect of sin, but man was mortal before in the state of innocence, who doubts but that at this rate he may be able to prove what he pleases.
A brief declaration of our sense, in ascribing Immortallity to the first man in the state of Innocency, that none be mistaken in the expressions used, may put a close to our considerations of this Chapter. In respect of his own Essence and Being, as also of all outward and extrinsical causes, God alone is eminently and perfectly immortal; He only in that sense hath life and immortality. Angels and souls of men, in material substances, are immortal as to their intrinsical Essence, free from principles of corruption and mortallity; But yet are obnoxious to it, in respect of that outward cause, (or the power of God) which can at any time reduce them into nothing. The immortality we ascribe to man in innocence, is only an assured preservation, by the power of God, from actual dying; notwithstanding the possibility thereof, which he was in, upon the account of the constitution of his person, and the principles there unto concurring: So that though from his own nature, he had a possibillity of dying, and in that sense was mortal, yet from God's institution, assigning him life in the way of obedience, he had a possibillity of not dying, and was in that sense immortal, as hath been declared. If any desire farther satisfaction herein, let him consult Johannes Junius his Answer to Socinus his Prelections, in the first Chapter whereof he pretends to answer in proof the assertion in title, Primus homo unte lapsum natura mortalis fuit: wherein he partly mistakes the thing in question, which respects not the constitution of man's nature, but the event of the condition wherein he was created. And himself in another place states it better.
The sum of the whole may be reduced to what follows. Simply immortal and absolutely is God only: He only hath immortality. 1 Tim. 6 16. Immortal in respect of its whole substance or Essence, is that which is separated from all matter, which is the principle of Corruption, as Angels, or is not educed from the power of it, whither of its own accord it should again resolve, as the souls of men. The bodies also of the Saints in Heaven, yea, and of the wicked in Hell, shall be immortal, though in their own natures corruptible, being changed, and preserved by the power of God. Adam was mortal, as to the constitution of his body, which was apt to die; immortal in respect of his soul, in its own substance; immortal in their union by God's appointment, and from his preservation, upon his continuance in obedience. By the composition of his body, before his fall, he had a posse mori; by the appointment of God, a posse non mori; by his fall, a non posse non mori.
In this estate, on his disobedience, He was threatened with death: and therefore was Obedience the tenure whereby he held his grant of immortality, which on his neglect, he was penally to be deprived of. In that estate he had (I.) The immortality mentioned or a power of not dying from the appointment of God. (2.) An uprightenesse and integrity of his person before God, with an ability to walk with him in all the Obedience he required, being made in the Image of God, & upright: (3.) A Right, upon his abode in that condition, to an Eternally blessed life, which he should (4.) Actually have enjoyed. For he had a pledge of it in the Tree of Life. He lost it for himself & us, which if he never had it, he could not do. The Death, wherewith he was threatened, stood in opposition to all these. It being most ridiculous to suppose, that anything penal in the Scripture comes under the name of death, that was not here threatened to Adam. Death of the body, in a deprivation of his immortality spoken of; of the soul, spritually in sin, by the loss of his righteousness, and integrity; of both, in their obnoxiousness to death eternal, actually to be undergone, without deliverance by Christ, in opposition to the right to a better, a blessed condition, which he had. That all these are penal, and called in the Scriptures by the name of Death, is evident to all, that take care to know what is contained in them.
For a close then of this Chapter and discourse, let us also propose a few Questions, as to the matter under consideration, and see what answer the Scripture will positively give in to our inquiries.
First then.
1. Q. In what state, and condition was man at first created?
A. God created man in his own Image, in the Image of God created he him, Male and Female Created he them. Gen. 1. 27.
And God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good. v. 31.
In the Image God made he man. Gen. 9. 6.
Lo! this only have I found, that God hath made man UPRIGHT, Eccles. 7. 29.
Put on the new man, which after God, is created in righteousness and Holiness, Eccles. 4. 24.
Put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge, after the Image of him that Created him, Col. 3. 10.
Q. 2. Should our First parents have died, had they not sinned, or were they obnoxious to death in the state of innocence?
A. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every Tree of the Garden thou mayst freely eat.
But of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou earest thereof, thou shalt surely die, Gen. 2. 16, 17.
By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned, Rom. 5. 12.
For the Wages of sin is death, Rom. 6. 23.
Q. 3. Are we now since the Fall, borne with the Image of God so enstamped on us, as at our first Creation in Adam?
A. All have sinned, and come short of the Glory of God, Rom. 3. 23.
Lo! this only have I found, that God hath made man Upright, but he hath found out many inventions. Eccles. 7. 29.
So then, they that are in the flesh cannot please God, Rom. 8. 8.
And you who were dead in trespasses and sins, Ephes. 2. 1.
For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts, and pleasures, living in Malice, and envy, hateful, and hating one another, Titus 3. 3.
The old man is corrupt according to deceitful lusts Ephes. 4. 22.
Q. 4. Are we now borne approved of God, and accepted with him, as when we were first created, or what is our condition now by nature, what say the Scriptures hereunto?
A. We were by nature the Children of wrath as well as others, Ephes 3. 3.
Excepta man be borne again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. Joh. 3. 3.
He that believeth not the Son, the wrath of God abideth on him v. 36.
That which is borne of the flesh is flesh, Joh. 4. 6.
Q. 4. Are our understandings by nature able to discern the things of God, or are they darkened, and blind.
A. The natural man receiveth not the things that are of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned 1 Cor. 2. 14.
The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not, Joh. 1. 5.
—To preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind. Luk. 4. 18.
Having their Understandings darkened, being alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart, Ephes. 4. 18.
Ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord. Ephes. 5. 8.
For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined into our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ, 2 Cor. 4. 6.
And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an Understanding, that we may know him that is true, 1 John 5. 20.
Q: 5. Are we able to do those things now in the state of nature, which are spiritually good, and acceptable to God?
A. The carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be Rom. 8. 7.
You were dead in trespasses and sins, Ephes. 2. 1.
The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth, Gen. 8. 21.
Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the Leopard his spots, then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil, Jerem. 13. 23.
For without me ye can do nothing, Joh. 15. 5.
Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves our sufficiency is of God, 2 Cor. 3. 5.
For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing, Rom 7. 18.
Q. 6. How came we into this miserable state and condition?
A. Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me, Psal. 51. 5.
Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one, Job. 14. 4.
That which is borne of the flesh is flesh. Joh. 3. 6.
Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned, Rom. 5. 12.
Q. 7. Is then the guilt of the first sin of our first Parents reckoned unto us?
A. But not as the offense so also is the free gift, for if through the offense of one many be dead, v. 15.
And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: For the judgment was by one to condemnation, v. 16.
For by one man's offense death reigned, v. 17.
Therefore by the offense of one, judgment came upon all men to condemna •• on, v. 18.
By one man's disobedience many were made sinners, v. 20.
Thus, and much more fully, doth the Scripture set out, and declare the condition of man, both before and after the fall: concerning which, although the most evident demonstration of the latter, lies in the Revelation made of the exceeding Efficacy of that power & Grace, which God in Christ puts forth for our conversion, and delivery from that state and condition, before described, yet so much is spoken of this dark side of it, as will render vain the attempts of any, who shall endeavor to plead the cause of corrupted nature, or alleviate the Guilt of the first sin.
It may not be amiss in the winding up of the whole, to give the Reader a brief account, of what sleight thoughts this Gentleman and his Companions have concerning this whole matter, of the state and condition of the first man, his fall or sin, and the interest of all his Posterity therein, which confessedly lie at the bottom of that whole dispensation of Grace in Jesus Christ, which is revealed in the Gospel.
1. For Adam himself, they are so remote from assigning to him any eminency of Knowledge, Righteousness, or Holiness, in the State wherein he was created: That
1. For his Knowledge, they say he was a mere great baby, that knew not that he was naked. So also taking away the difference between the simple knowledge of nakedness in innocence, and the knowledge joined with shame, that followed sin. Of his Wife he knew no more but what occur'd to his senses. Though the expression which he used at first view and sight of her, do plainly argue another manner of Apprehension. Gen. 2. 23, 24. For the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he knew not the virtue of it. Which yet I know not how well it agrees with another place of the same Author, where he concludes, that in the state of innocence, there was in Adam a predominancy of the natural appetite, which conquered or prevailed to the eating of the Fruit of that tree. Also that being mortal, he knew not himself to be so: The sum is, he was even a very beast, that knew neither himself, his duty, nor the will of God concerning him.
2. For his Righteousness and Holiness, which, as was said before, because he was made upright, in the image of God, we ascribe unto him, Socinus contend's in one whole chapter, in his Prelections, That he was neither Just, nor Holy, nor ought to be so esteemed or called.
And Smalcius in his confutation of Franzius his Theses de peccato Originally, all along derides, and laughs to scorn, the apprehension or persuasion, that Adam was created in Righteousness and Holiness, or that ever he lost anything of the Image of God, or that ever he had anything of the Image of God, beyond or besides that Dominion over the Creatures which God gave him.
Most of the residue of the Heard, describing the estate and condition of man, in his creation, do wholly omit any mention of any moral uprightness in him.
And this is the account these Gentlemen give us, concerning the condition and state, wherein the First man was of God created. An heavy burden of the earth, it seems he was, that had neither Righteousness, nor Holiness, whereby he might be enabled to walk before God, in reference to that great end, whereunto he was created; nor any knowledge of God, himself, or his Duty.
2. For his sin, the great Master of their Family disputes, that it was a bare transgression of that precept, of not eating the fruit of the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil. And that His nature was not viriated, or corrupted thereby. Wherein he is punctually followed by the Raccovian Catechism; which also giveth this Reason, why his nature was not depraved by it, namely, because it was but one Act; so light are their thoughts, and expressions of that great transgression.
3. For his state and condition, they all with open mouth cry out, that he was Mortall, and obnoxious to death, which should in a Natural way have come upon him, though he had not sinned. But of this before.
4. Farther, that the Posterity of Adam were no way concerned, as to their spiritual prejudice, in that sin of His, as though they should either partake of the guilt of it, or have their nature vitiated, or corrupted thereby: but that the whole doctrine of Original sin, is a figment of Augustine, and the Schoolmen that followed him, is the constant clamour of them all. And indeed this is the great foundation of all, or the greatest part of their Religion. Hence are the necessity of the satisfaction and merit of Christ, the efficacy of Grace, and the power of the Spirit in conversion, decried. On this account, is Salvation granted by them, without Christ; a power of keeping all the Commandments asserted; and Justification upon our Obedience; of which, in the process of our Discourse.
Such are the thoughts, such are the expressions of M. B.'s Masters, concerning this whole matter. Such was Adam, in their esteem; Such was his Fall; and such our concernment therein. He had no Righteousness, no Holiness, (yea Socinus as length confesses, that he did not believe his soul was immortal.) We contracted no guilt in him, derive no pollution from him: whether these men are in any measure acquainted with the plague of their own hearts, the severity and spirituality of the Law of God, with that Redemption which is in the blood of Jesus, the Lord will one day manifest: but into their secret let not my soul descend.
Least the weakest, or meanest Reader should be startled wich the mention of these things, not finding himself ready furnished with Arguments from Scripture, to disprove the boldness and folly of these men in their Assertions, I shall add some few Arguments, whereby the severals, by them denied, and opposed, are confirmed from Scriptures; the places before mentioned, being in them cast into that form and Method, wherein they are readily subservient to the purpose in hand.
1. That man was Created in the Image of God, in Knowledge, Righteousness, and Holiness, is evident on the ensuing considerations.
I. He who was made very good and upright, in a moral consideration, had the Original Righteousness pleaded for: for moral goodness, integrity, and uprightness, is equivalent unto Righteousness; so are the words used in the description of Job. cap. 1. v. 1. And Righteous and Upright are terms equivalent. Psal. 33. 1. Now that man was made thus good and upright, was manifested in the Scriptures, cited in answer to the question before proposed, concerning the condition wherein our first Parents were created. And indeed this Uprightness of man, this moral rectitude, was his formal aptitude, and fitness, for, and unto that obedience, which God required of him, and which was necessary for the end, whereunto he was created.
2. He who was created Perfect in his kind, was created with the Original Righteousness pleaded for. This is evident from hence, because Righteousness and Holiness is a perfection of a Rationall being, made for the service of God. This in Angels is called the Truth, or that original Holiness and rectitude, which the Devils abode not in, Joh. 8. 44. Now (as before,) man was created very good and upright, therefore-perfect, as to his state and condition: and whatever is in him of imperfection, flows from the corruption and depravation of nature.
3. He that was created in the Image of God, was created in a state of Righteousness, Holiness, and Knowledge. That Adam was created in the Image of God, is plainly affirmed in Scripture, and is not denied. That by the Image of God is especially intended the qualitys mentioned, is manifest from that farther description of the Image of God, which we have given us in the Scriptures before produced, in answer to our first Question. And what is recorded of the first man in his primitive condition, will not suffer us to esteem him such a baby in knowledge, as the Socinians would make him. His imposing of names on all Creatures, his knowing of his wife on first view, &c. exempt him from that imputation. Yea the very Heathens could conclude, that he was very wise indeed, who first gave names to things.
II. For the disproving of that Mortallity, which they ascribe to man in innocence. The ensuing Arguments may suffice.
1. He that was created in the Image of God in Righteousness and Holiness, whilst he continued in that state and condition, was immortal. That man was so created, lies under the demonstration of the foregoing Arguments, and Testimonyes. The Assertion thereupon, or the inference of Immortallity from the Image of God, appears on this double consideration. 1. In our Renovation by Christ, unto the image of God, we are renewed to a blessed Immortallity: and our likeness to God consisted no less in that, then in any other communinicable property of his Nature. 2. Where ever is naturally perfect Righteousness, there is naturally perfect life, that is, Immortallity: this is included in the very tenor of the promise of the Law. If a man keep mystatutes he shall live in them, Levite. 18. 5.
2. That which the first man Contracted, & drew upon himself by sin, was not natural to him before he sinned: But that man contracted, and drew death upon himself, or made himself liable and obnoxious unto it by sin, is proved by all the Texts of Scripture, that were produced above, in answer to our second Question. As Gen. 2. 17, 19. Rom. 5. 12, 14. chap. 6. 23. &c.
3. That which is besides, and contrary to nature, was not natural to the first man: but death is besides, and contrary to nature, as the voice of nature abundantly testifieth; therefore to man in his primitive condition it was not natural.
Unto these may sundry other Arguments be added, from the Promise of the Law, the End of man's Obedience, His constitution and state, denying all proximate causes of death, &c. But these may suffice.
III. That the sin of Adam is not to be consined to the mere eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil, but had its rise in Infidelity, and comprised universal Apostasy from God, in disobedience to the law of his creation, and dependence on God, I have elsewhere demonstrated, and shall not need here again to insist upon it. That it began in Infidelity, is evident from the beginning of the Temptation, wherewith he was overcome. It was to doubt of the Truth, and veracity of God, to which the woman was at first solicited by Satan. Gen: 3. 4. Hath God said so? pressing that it should be otherwise, then they seemed to have cause to apprehend from what God said: And their acquiescence in that reply of Satan, without revolving to the truth, and faithfulness of God, was plain Unbeliefe. Now as Faith is the root of all Righteousness and Obedience, so is Infidelity of all disobedience. Being overtaken, conquered, deceived into infidelity, man gave up himself to act contrary to God, and his will, shook off his sovereignty, rose up against his Law, and manifested the frame of his heart, in the pledge of his disobedience, eating the fruit that was sacramentally forbidden him.
IV. That all men sinned in Adam, and that his sin is imputed to all his Posterity, is by them denied, but is easily evinced. For
1. By whom sin entered into the world, so that all sinned in him, and are made sinners thereby, so that also his sin is called the sin of the world, in him all mankind sinned, and his sin is imputed to them. But that this was the condition, and state of the first sin of Adam, the Scriptures before mentioned, in answer to our seventh question, do abundantly manifest; and thence also is his sin called the sin of the world: John 1. 29,
2. In whom all are dead, and in whom they have contracted the guilt of death and condemnation, in him they have all sinned, and have his sin imputed to them. But in Adam all are dead: 1 Cor: 15. 22. as also Rom: 5. 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. And death is the wages of sin only, Rom: 6. 23.
3. As by the Obedience of Christ we are made Righteous, so by the disobedience of Adam we are made sinners. So the Apostle expressly, Rom: 5. but we are made Righteous by the Obedience of Christ, by the imputation of it to us, as if we had performed it: 1 Cor: 1. 30. Phil: 3. 9. Therefore are we sinners, by the imputation of the sin of Adam to us, as though we had committed it: which the Apostle also affirms. To what hath been spoken, from the consideration of that state and condition, wherein by God's appointment, in reference to all mankind, Adam was placed, namely, of a natural, and political, or Faederall Head, (of which the Apostle treats, 1 Cor. 15.) from the loss of that Image, wherein he was created, whereunto by Christ we are renewed, many more words like these might be added.
To what hath been spoken, there is no need that much should be added, for the removal of anything insisted on, to the same purpose with M. B's intimations, in the Raccovian Catechism. But yet seeing that that task also is undertaken, that which may seem necessary for the discharging of what may thence be expected, shall briefly be submitted to the Reader. To this Head they speak, in the first Chapter, of the way Salvation; the first Question whereof, is of the import ensuing.
Q. Seeing thou saidst in the beginning, that this life, which leadeth to immortality, is Divinely revealed, I would know of thee, why thou saidst so?
A. Because, as man by nature hath nothing to do with immortality (or hath no interest in it) so by himself he could by no means know the way which leadeth to immortality.
Propterea, quia ut homo naturâ nihil habet commune cum immortalitate, ita eam ipse viam, quae nos ad immortalitatem duceret, nulla ration per se cognoseere potuit. Catech. Raccov. de via Salut cap. 1.
Both Question and Answer being sophistical and ambiguous, the sense and intendment of them, as to their application to the matter in hand, and by them aimed at, is first to be rectifyed by some few distinctions, and then the whole will cost us very little farther trouble.
1. There is, or hath been, a twofold way to a blessed immortality, (1.) The way of perfect Obedience to the Law, for he that did it was to live therein, (2.) the way of Faith in the blood of the Son of God: For he that believeth shall be Saved.
2. Man by nature may be considered two ways, (1.) As he was in his created condition, not tainted, corrupted, weakened, nor lost by sin, (2.) As fallen, dead, polluted, and guilty.
3. Immortallity is taken either (1.) Nakedly, and purely in its self, for an eternal abiding of that which is said to be immortal. (2.) For a blessed condition, and state, in that abiding and continuance.
4. That expression ( by nature ) referring to man in his created condition, not fallen by sin, may be taken two ways (1.) Strictly, for the consequences of the natural principles whereof man was constituted, or (2.) More largely it comprises God's constitution and appointment, concerning man in that estate.
On these considerations, it will be easy to take off this Head of our Catechist's discourse, whereby also the remaining trunk will fall to the ground.
I say then, man by nature, in his primitive created condition, was by the appointment and constitution of God, immortal, as to the continuance of his life, and knew the way of perfect legal Obedience, tending to a blessed Immortallity, and that by himself, or by virtue of the Law of his Creation, which was concreated with him: But fallen man in his natural condition, being dead spiritually, obnoxious to death temporal and eternal, doth by no means know of himself, nor can know, the way of Faith in Jesus Christ, leading to a blessed immortality and Glory.
It is not then our want of interest in immortality, upon the account whereof we know not of ourselves the way to immortality by the blood of Christ; but there are two other reasons that enforce the Truth of it.
1. Because it is a way of mere Grace and mercy, hidden from all eternity in the treasures of God's infinite Wisdom, and sovereign Will, which he neither prepared for man in his created condition, nor had man any need of; nor is it in the least discovered by any of the Works of God, or the Law written in the heart; but is solely revealed from the bosom of the Father, by the only begotten Son, neither Angels, nor men, being able to discover the least glimpse of that Mystery, without that Revelation.
2. Because man in his fallen condition, though there be retained in his heart some weak and faint expressions of Good and Evil, reward and punishment, Rom. 2. 14, 15. yet is spiritually dead, blind, clienated from God, ignorant, dark, stub • orne, so far from being able of himself to find out the way of Grace unto blessed immortality, that he is not able upon the Revelation of it, savingly, and to the great end of its proposal, to receive, apprehend, believe, and wa • ke in it, without a new Spiritual Creation, Resurrection from the dead, or new • uth, wrought by the exceeding greatness of the power of God. And on these two doth depend our disability to discover, and know the way of Grace, leading to Life and Glory. And by this brief removal of the covering, is the weakness, and nakedness of their whole ensuing Discourse so discovered, as that I shall speedily take it, with its offense, out of the way. They proceed.
Q. But why hath man nothing to do with (or no interest in) immortality?
A. Therefore, because from the beginning he was formed of the ground, and so was created mortal: and then, because he transgressed the command given him of God, and so by the decree of God, expressed in his command, was necessarily subject to eternal death?
1. It is true, man was created of the dust of the Earth, as to his bodily substance; yet it is as true, that moreover God breathed into him the breath of life, whereby he became a living soul; & in that immediate constitution, & framing from the hand of God, was free from all nextly disposing causes unto dissolution: but his immortality we place on another account, as hath been declared, which is no way prejudiced by his being made of the Ground.
2. The second reason belongs unto man only as having sinned, and being fallen out of that condition, and Covenant, wherein he was created. So that I shall need only to let the Reader know, that the Eternal Death, in the judgment of our Catechists, whereunto man was subject by sin, was only an eternal dissolution or annihilation, (or rather an abode under dissolution, dissolution it self being not penal) and not any abiding punishment, as will afterwards be farther manifest. They go on.
Q. But how doth this agree with those places of Scripture, wherein it is written, that man was created in the Image of God, and created unto immortality, and that death entered into the world by sin. Gen. 1. 26. Wisd. 2. 23. Rom. 5. 12.
A. As to the Testimony, which declareth that man was created in the Image of God, it is to be known, that the Image of God doth not signify immortality; (which is evident from hence, because at that time, when man was subject to eternal death, the Scripture acknowledgeth in him that Image, Gen. 9. 6. Jam. 3. 9.) but it denoteth the power dominion over all things, made of God on the Earth: as the same place, where this Image is treated of, clearly showeth: Gen. 1, 26.
The Argument for that state and Condition, wherein we affirm man to have been created, from the consideration of the Image of God, wherein he was made, and whereunto in part we are renewed, was formerly insisted on. Let the Reader look back unto it, and he will quickly discern, how little is here offered to enervate it in the least. For
1. They cannot prove, that man in the condition and state of sin, doth retain anything of the Image of God; the places mentioned, as Gen. 9, 6. and Jam. 3. 9. testify only, that he was made in the Image of God at first, but that he doth still retain the image they intimate not; nor is the inference used in the places, taken from what man is, but what he was created.
2. That the Image of God did not consist in any one excellency, hath been above declared: So that the Argument to prove that it did not consist in immortality, because it did consist in the dominion over the Creatures, is no better then that would be, which should conclude, that the Sun did not give light because it gives heat. So that
3. Though the Image of God, as to the main of it, in reference to the end of everlasting communion with God, (whereunto we were created) was utterly lost by sin, or else we could not be renewed unto it again by Jesus Christ, yet as to some footsteps of it, in reference to our fellow Creatures, so much might be, and was retained, as to be a Reason one towards another, for our preservation from wrong and violence.
4. That place of Gen. 1. 26. Let us make man in our Image, and let him have dominion over the fish of the Sea, &c. Is so far from proving, that the Image of God, wherein man was created, did consist only in the dominion mentioned, that it doth not prove that dominion to have been any part of, or to belong unto, that Image. It is rather a grant made to them, who were made in the Image of God, then a description of that Image wherein they were made.
It is evident then, notwithstanding anything here excepted to the contrary, that the Immortallity pleaded for, belonged to the Image of God, and from man's being created therein, is rightly inferred, as above was made more evident.
Upon the Testimony of the Book of Wisdom, it being confessedly Apocriphall, I shall not insist. Neither do I think, that in the Orinall any new Argument, to that before mentioned, of the image God, is added: but that is evidently pressed, & the nature of the Image of God somewhat explained. The words are, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . The opposition that is put between the creation of man in integrity, and the Image of God, in one verse, and the entrance of sin, by the envy of the Devil, in the next, plainly evinces, that the mind of the Author of that book was, that man, by reason of his being created in the image of God, was immortal in his primitive condition. That which follows, is of another nature, concerning which they thus inquire and Answer.
What moreover wilt thou answer to the third Testimony?
A. The Apostle in that place treateth not of immortality, but of death it self. But mortallity differeth much from death: for a man may be mortal and yet never die. But
1. The Apostle eminently treats of man's becoming obnoxious to death, which until he was, he was immortal. For he says, that death entered the world by sin, and passed on all men, not actually, but in the guilt of it, and obnoxiousness to it. By what means death entered into the world, or had a right so to do, by that means man lost the immortality, which before he had.
2. It is true, a man may be mortal as to state and condition, and yet by Almighty power be preserved, and delivered from actual dying, as it was with Enoch and Elijah, but in an ordinary course he that is mortal must die, & is directly obnoxious to death: but that which we plead for from those words of the Apostle is, that man by God's constitution and appointment, was so immortal, as not to be liable, nor obnoxious to death, until he sinned. But they will prove their assertion in their progress.
Q. What therefore is the sense of these words, that death entered into the world by sin?
This, that Adam for sin by the decree and sentence of God, was subject to eternal death; and therefore all men, because, or in as much as they are borne of him, are subject to the same eternal death. And that this is so, the comparison of Christ with Adam, which the Apostle institu •• th, from v. 12. to the end of the chapter, doth declare.
Be it so: that this is the meaning of those words, yet hence it inevitably follows, that man was no way liable, or obnoxious to death, but upon the account of the commination of God annexed to the law he gave him. And this is the whole of what we affirm: namely, that by God's appointment man was immortal, and the tenure of his immortality was his obedience; And thereupon, his Right thereunto he lost by his Trangression.
2. This is farther evident from the comparison between Christ and Adam, instituted by the Apostle. For as we are all dead without Christ, and his righteousness, and have not the l •• st right to life, or a blessed immortality; so antecedently to the consideration of Adam, & his disobedience, we were not in the least obnoxious unto death, or any way liable to it, in our primitive condition.
And this is all that our Cat • chists have to plead for themselves, or to except against our Arguments, and Testimonys to the cause in hand. Which how weak it is in it self, and how short it comes of reaching to the strength we insist on, as little comparison of it, with what went before, will satisfy the pious Reader.
What remains of that chapter, consisting in the depravation of two or three Texts of Scripture, to another purpose then that in hand, I shall not divert to the consideration of; seeing it will more orderly fall under debate in another place.
What our Catechists add elsewere about original sin, or their attempt to disprove it, being considered, shall give a close to this discourse.
Their tenth Chapter is de libero Arbitrio, where after, in Answer to the first Question proposed, they have asserted, that it is in our power to yield obedience unto God, as having free will in our Creation so to do, and having by no way, or means, lost that liberty • ri • er: Their second Question is.
Is not this f ••• will corrupted by Original sin?
A. There is no such thing as Original sin: wherefore that cannot vitiate free will: Nor can that Original sin be proved out of the Scripture: and the fall of Adam being but one act, could not have that force as to corrupt his own nature, much less that of his Posterity. And that it was inflicted on him as a punishment, neither doth the Scripture teach, and it is incredible, that God, who is the fountain of all goodness, would so do.
1. This is yet plain dealing. And it is, well that men who know neither God nor themselves, have yet so much honesty left, as to speak down right what they intend. Quickly dispatched; there is no such thing as original sin. To us the denying of it, is one Argument to prove it. Were not men blind, and dead in sin, they could not but be sensible of it. But men swimming with the waters, feel not the strength of the stream.
2. But doth the Scripture teach no such thing? Doth it nowhere teach, that we who were created upright, in the image of God, are now dead intrespasses and sins, by nature children of wrath, having the wrath of God upon us, being blind in our understandings, and alienated from the life of God, not able to receive the things that are of God, which are spiritually discerned, our carnal minds being enmity to God, not subject to his Law, nor can be. That our hearts are stony, our affections sensual, that we are wholly come short of the Glory of God. That every figment of our heart is evil, so that we can neither think nor speak, nor do, that which is spiritually good, or acceptable to God; that being borne of the flesh we are flesh, and unless we are borne again, can by no means enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. That all this is come upon us by the sin of one man, whence also Judgment passed on all men to condemnation? Can nothing of all this be proved from the Scripture? These Gentlemen know, that we contend not about words or expressions; let them grant this heriditary corruption of our natures, alienation from God, impotency to good, deadness and obstinacy in sin, want of the Spirit, Image, and Grace of God, with obnoxiousness thereon to eternal condemnation; and give us a fitter expression to declare this state and condition by, in respect of every ones personal interest therein, and we will, so it may please them, call it original sin no more.
3. It is not impossible, that one act should be so high, and intense in its kind, as to induce an habit into the subject, and so Adams nature be vitiated by it; and he begot a Son in his own likeness. The Devils upon one sin, became obstinate in all the wickedness, that their nature is capable of. 2. This one act was a breach of Covenant with God, upon the tenor and observation whereof, depended the enjoyment of all that strength, and Rectitude with God, wherewith by the law of his creation, man was endued withal. 3. All man's Covenant Good, for that eternal end, to which he was created, depending upon his conformity to God, his subjection to him, him, and dependence on him, all which by that one sinned he willfully cast away, for himself and posterity, (whose common, natural, and faederall head he was.) and righteously fell into that condition which we described. 4. The Apostle is much of a different mind from our Catechists, Rom. 5. 15, 16, &c. as hath been declared.
4. What is credible concerning God & his goodness with these Gentlemen I know not. To me, that is not only in it self credible, which he hath revealed concerning himself, but of necessity to be believed. That he gave man a Law, threatening him, and all his Posterity in him and with him, with eternal death upon the breach of it, that upon that sin, he cast all man; kind judicially out of Covenant, imputing that sin unto them all, unto the guilt of condemnation, seeing it is his Judgment that they who commit sin are worthy of death, and that he is of purer eyes then to behold iniquity, is to us credible, yea (as was said) of necessity to be believed. But they will answer the proofs that are produced from Scripture, in the asserting of this Original sin.
But that there is Original sin, Those Testimonyes seem to prove Gen. 6. 5. Every cogitation of the heart of man is only evil every day. And Gen. 8. 21. The cogitation of m • ns heart is evil from his youth.
A. These Testimonyes deal concerning voluntary sin: from them therefore Original sin cannot be proved. As for the first, Moses showeth it to be such a sin for whose sake God repented him that he had made man and decreed to destroy him with a flood: which certainly can by no means be affirmed concerning a sin which should be in no man by nature, such as they think Original sin to be. In the other he showeth, that the sin of man shall not have that efficacy, that God should punnish the would for it with a flood; which by no means agreeth to Original sin.
That this attempt of our Catechists is most vain and frivolous, will quickly appear, for 1. Suppose Original sin be not asserted in those places, doth it follow there is no Original sin? do they not know, that we affirm it to be revealed in, and proved by an hundred places besides? And do they think to overthrow it by their exception against two or three of them? when if it be taught in any one of them it suffices. 2. The words as by them rendered, loose much of the efficacy for the confirmation of what they oppose, which in the Original they have. In the first place, it is not every thought of man's heart, but every imagination or figment of the thoughts of his heart. The motus primo primi, the very natural frame and temper of the heart of man, as to its first motions towards good or evil, are doubtless expressed in these words: so also is it in the latter place.
We say then, that Original sin is taught & proved in these places: Not singly or exclusively to actual sins, not a parte ante, or from the causes of it, but from its effects. That such a frame of heart is universally by nature in all mankind, and every individual of them, as that it is ever, always, or continually casting, coining, and devising evil, and that only, without the intermixture of anything of another kind, that is truly and spiriritually good, is taught in these places; and this is Original sin. Nor is this disproved by our Catechists.
For
1. Because the sin spoken of is voluntary, therefore it i • not Original, will not be granted. Original sin, as it is taken for peccatum Originans, was voluntary in Adam; and as it is Originatum in us, is in our wills habitually, and not against them, in any actings of it, or them. (2.) The Effects of it in the coining of sin, and in the thoughts of men's hearts, are all voluntary; which are here mentioned to demonstrate, and manifest that root from whence they spring, that prevailing principle, and predominant habit, from whence they so uniformly proceed.
2. Why it doth not agree to Original sin, that the account mentioned, v. 6. of God's repenting that He made man, and his resolution to destroy him, these Gentlemen offer not one word of Reason to manifest. We say, that it can agree to no other, but this original sin, with its infallible effects, wherein all mankind are equally concerned, and so became equally liable to the just Judgment of God; though some from the same Principle had acted much more boldly against his Holy Majesty then others: (2.) Its being in men by nature doth not at all l • ssen its guilt. It is not in their nature as created, nor in them so by nature: but is by the fall of Adam come upon the nature of all men, dwelling in the person of everyone; which lesseneth not its guilt, but manifests its advantage for provocation.
3. Why the latter testimony is not applicable to Original sin, they inform us not. The words joined with it, are an expression of that patience, and forbearance which God resolved, and promised to exercise towards the world, with a non Obstante, for sin. Now what sin should this be, but that which is the sin of the world. That actual sins are excluded we say not; but that Original sin is expressed, and aggravated by the Effects of it, our Catechists cannot disprove. There are many considerations of these Texts, from whence the Argument from them, for the proof of that corruption of nature, which we call Original sin, might be much improved; but that is not my present business; Our Catechists administering no occasion to such a Discourse. But they take some other texts into consideration.
What thinkest thou of that which David speaks Psal. 51. 7. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
It is to be observed, that David doth not here speak of any men but himself alome nor that simply, but with respect to his fall: and uses that form of speaking, which you have in him again, Psal. 58. 4. Wherefore Original sin cannot be evinced by this Testimony.
But
1. Though David speak of himself, yet he speaks of himself, in respect of that which was common to▪ himself with all mankind, being a child of wrath as well as others. Nor can these Gentlemen intimate anything of sin and iniquity, in the conception and birth of David, that was not common to all others with him. Any man's confession for himself of a particular guilt in a common sin, doth not free others from it. Yea it proves all others to be partakers in it, who share in that condition wherein he contracted the guilt.
2. Though David mention this by occasion of his fall, as having his conscience made tender, and awakened to search into the root of his sin, and transgression thereby; yet it was no part of his fall, nor was he ever the more or less conceived in 〈◊〉 and brought forth in iniquity, for that fall, which were ridiculous to imagine. He here acknowledges it, upon the occasion of his fall, which was a fruit of the sin wherewith he was borne, James 1. 14, 15. but was equally guilty of it before his fall and after.
3. The expression here used, and that of Psal. 58. 3. The wicked are enstranged from the womb, they go astray as soon as they be borne speaking lies; exceedingly differ. Here David expresses what was his infection in the womb, there what is wicked men's constant practice from the womb. In himself he mentions the root of all actual sin; in them the constant fruit that springs from that root in imregenerate men. So that by the favor of these Catechists, I yet say, that David doth here acknowledge a sin of nature, a sin wherewith he was defiled from his conception, and polluted when he was warmed, and so somented in his Mothers womb, and therefore this place doth prove Original sin.
One place more they call to an account, in these words. But Paulsaith, that in Adam all sinned. Rom. 5. 12.
It is not in that place, in Adam all sinned. But in the Greek the words are 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 which Interpreters do frequently render in Latin in quo, in whom, which yet may be rendered by the particles quoniam or quatenus, because, or in as much, as in like places Rom. 83. Phil. 3. 12. Heb. 2. 18. 2. Cor. 5. 4. It appeareth therefore that neither can Original sin be built up out of this place.
1. Stop these men from this shifting hole, and you may with much ease entangle and catch them 20 times a day. This word may be rendered otherwise, for it is so in another place. A course of proceedure that leaves nothing certain in the Book of God. 〈◊〉 . In two of the places cited, the words are not 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Rom. 5. 3. Heb. 2. 18. 3. The places are none of them parallel to this; for here the Apostle speaks of persons, or a person in an immediate precedency, in them of things. But 4. render 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 by quoniam, because, or for that, as our English translation doth: The Argument is no less evident for Original sin, then if they were rendered by, in whom. In the beginning of the verse the Apostle tells us, that death entered the world by the sin of one man, that one man of whom he is speaking, namely Adam, and passed upon all men: of which dispensation, that death passed on all men, he gives you the reason in these words, for that all have sinned, that is, in that sin of that one man, whereby death entered on the world, and passed on them all. I wonder how our Catechists could once imagine; that this exception against the Translation of those words, should enervate the Argument from the text, for the proof of all men's guilt of the first sin; seeing the conviction of it, is no less evident from the words, if rendered according to their desire.
And this is the sum of what they have to offer, for the acquitment of themselves from the guilt and stain of Original sin, and for answer to the three Testimonyes on its behalf, which themselves chose to call forth, upon the strength whereof they so confidently reject it at the entrance of their Discourse, and in the following question triumph upon it, as a thing utterly discarded from the thoughts of their Catechumens: what Reason or ground they have for their confidence, the Reader will judge. In the mean time, it is sufficiently known, that they have touched very little of the strength of our cause; nor once mentioned the Testimonyes and Arguments, on whose evidence and strength in this business we rely. And for themselves who write and teach these things, I should much admire their happiness, did I not so much as I do pity them in their pride and distemper, keeping them from an acquaintance with their own miserable condition.
CHAP. VII.
Of the Person of Jesus Christ, and on what account He is the Son of God.
M. BIDDLE'S fourth Chapter Examined
Q. HOW many Lord's of Christians are there, by way of distinction from the one God?
A. Eph. 4. 5.
Q. Who is that one Lord?
A 1 Cor. 8. 6.
Q. How was Jesus Christ borne?
A Mat. 1. 18. Luk. 1. 30, 31, 32, 34, 35
Q. How came Jesus Christ to be Lord, according to the opinion of the Apostle Paul?
A Rom. 14. 9.
Q What saith the Apostle Peter also concerning the time and manner of his being made Lord?
A Act. 2. 32, 33, 36.
Q Did not Jesus Christ approve himself to be God by his miracles? And did he not those Miracles by a divine nature of his own, and because he was God himself? What is the determination of the Apostle Peter in this behalf?
A Act. 2. 22. Act 10. 38.
Q Could not Christ do all things of himself? And was it not an Eternal Son of God that took flesh upon him, and to whom the human nature of Christ was personally united, that wrought all his works? Answer me to these things in the words of the Son himself?
A John 5. 19, 20, 30. John 14. 10.
Q What reason doth the Son render, why the Father did not forsake him, and cast him out of favor? Was it because he was of the same Essence with him, so that it was impossible for the Father to forsake him, or ceasen love him?
A John 8. 28, 29, John 15 9, 10.
Q Doth the Scripture avouch Christ to be the Son of God, because he was eternally begootten out of the divine Essence, or for other reasons agreeing 〈◊〉 him only as a man? Rehearse the passages to this purpose.
A Luke 1. 30, 31, 32, 34, 35. John 10. 36. Act. 13. 32, 33. Rev. 1. 5. Col. 1. 18. Heb. 1. 4, 5. Heb. 5. 5. Rom. 8. 29.
Q What saith the Son himself concerning the prerogative of God the Father above him?
A John 14. 28. Mark. 13. 32. Math. 24. 36.
Q What saith the Apostle Paul?
A 1 Cor. 15. 24, 28. 1 Cor. 11. 3. 1 Cor. 3. 22, 23.
Q Howbeit is not Christ dignified, as with the title of Lord, so also with that of God, in the Scripture?
A John 20. 28.
Q Was he so the God of Thomas, as that he himself in the mean time did not acknowledge another to be his God?
A Joh. 20. 17. Revel. 3. 12.
Q Have you any passage of the Scripture, where Christ, at the same time that he hath the appellation of God given to him, is said to have a God?
A Heb. 1. 8, 9.
EXAMINATION.
THE aim and design of our Catechist in this Chapter, being to despoile our blessed Lord Jesus Christ of his Eternal Deity, and to substitute an imaginary God-head, made, and feigned in the vain hearts of himself & his Masters, into the room thereof, I hope the discovery of the wickedness and vanity of his attempt, will not be unacceptable to them, who love him in sincerity. I must still desire the Reader, not to expect the handling of the Doctrine of the Deity of Christ at large, with the confirmation of it, & vindication from the vain Sophismes, wherewith by others, as well as by M. B. it hath been opposed. This is done abundantly by other hands. In the next chapters that also will have its proper place, in the vindication of many Texts of Scripture from the exceptions of the Raccovians. The removal of M. B's Sophistry, & the disintangling of weaker souls, who may in anything be intricated by his Queries, is my present intendment. To make our way clear and plain, that everyone that runs may read the vanity of M. B's undertaking against the Lord Jesus, and his kicking against the pricks therein, I desire to premise these few observations.
1. Distinction of persons (it being in an Infinite substance) doth no way prove difference of Essence between the Father and the Son. Where Christ as Mediator is said to be another from the Father, or God, spoken personally of the Father, it argues not in the least, that he is not partaker of the same nature with him. That in one Essence there can be but one person, may be true where the Substance is Finite, and limited, but hath no place in that which is infinite.
2. Distinction and inequallity in respect of office, in Christ, doth not in the least take away Equallity and sameness with the Father in respect of nature and Essence. A Son of the same nature with his Father, and therein equal to him, may in office be his inferior, his Subject.
3. The advancement and exaltation of Christ, as Mediator, to any dignity whatever, upon, or in reference to the work of our Redemption and Salvation, is not at all inconsistent with that Essentiall 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Honor, Dignity and Worth, which he hath in himself, as God blessed forever. Though he humbled himself and was exalted, yet in nature he was one and the same, he changed not.
4. The Scriptures asserting the Humanity of Christ with the concernments thereof, as his birth, life, and death, doth no more thereby deny his Deity, then by asserting his Deity, with the Essentiall Propertyes thereof, Eternity, Omniscience, and the like, it denies his Humanity.
5. God's working anything in and by Christ as he was Mediator, denotes the Fathers sovereign Appointment of the things mentioned to be done, not his immediate Efficiency in the doing of the things themselves.
The consideration of these few things being added to what I have said before in general, about the way of dealing with our Adversaries in these great and weighty things of the knowledge of God, will easily deliver us from any great trouble, in the Examination of M. B's Arguments, and insinuations against the Deity of Christ, which is the business of the present Chapter.
How many Lord's of Christians are there by way of distinction from that one God. And he Answers Ephes. 4. 5. One Lord.
That of these two words there is not one that looks towards the confirmation of what M. Biddle chiefly aims at, in the Question proposed, is I presume sufficiently clear in the light of the thing it self inquired after. Christ it is true, is the one Lord of Christians; and therefore God equal with the Father. He is also one Lord, in distinction from his Father, as his Father, in respect of his personallity; in which regard, there are three that bear witness in Heaven, of which he is one; but in respect of Essence and Nature He and his Father are one. Farther, unless he were one God with his Father, it is utterly impossible he should be the one Lord of Christians. That he cannot be our Lord in the sense intended, whom we ought to invocate and worship, unless also he were our God, shall be afterwards declared. And although he be our Lord in distinction from his Father, as he is also our Mediator, yet he is the same God with him which worketh all in all, 1 Cor. 12 6. His being Lord then distinctly, in respect of his mediation, hinders not his being God, in respect of his participation in the same nature with his Father. And though here he be not spoken of in respect of his absolute sovereign Lordship, but of his Lordship over the Church to whō the whole Church is spiritually subject, (as he is elsewere also so called on the same account, as Joh. 13. 13. Act. 7. 59. Rev. 22. 20.) yet were he not Lord in that sense also, he could not be so in this. The Lord our God only is to be worshipped: My Lord and my God, says Thomas. And the mention of one God, is here, as in other places, partly to deprive all false God's of their pretended Deity, partly to witness against the impossibillity of Polytheism, and partly to manifest the oneness of them who are worshipped as God, the Father, Word, and Spirit, all which things are also severally testified unto.
His second Question is an enquiry after this Lord who he is, in these words, Who is this Lord? And the Answer is from 1 Cer. 8. 6. Jesus Christ by whom are all things. The close of this second answer might have caused M. B. a little to recoil upon his insinuation in the first, concerning the distinction of this one Lord from that one God, in the sense by him insisted o • Who is he by whom are all things (in the same sense as they are said to be of the Father) who is that God? He that made all things is God, Heb. 3. 4. And it is manifest that he himself was not made, by whō all things were made. For he made not himself; not could so do, unless be were both before & after himself; nor was he made without his own concurrence by another, fo • by himself are all things. Thus M. B. hath no sooner opened his mouth to speak against the Lord Jesus Christ, but by the just Judgment of God, he stops it himself with a testimony of God against himself, which he shall never be able to rise up against unto Eternity.
And it is a manifest perverting & corrupting of the Text which we have in Grotius his Gloss upon the place, who interprets the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , referred to the Father, of all things simply, but the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , referred to Christ, of the things only of the new Creation; There being not the least color for any such variation, the frame and structure of the words requiring them to be expounded uniformly throughout. But to us there is one God the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him. The last expression and we by him, relates to the new creation: all things to the first. But Grotius follows Enjedinus, in this as well as other things.
His enquiry in the next place is after the birth of Jesus Christ, In answer whereunto the Story is reported from Matthew and Luke; which relating to his human nature, and no otherwise to the person of the Son of God, but as he was therein made flesh, or assumed the Holy Thing, so borne of the Virgin, into personal subsistence with himself, I shall let pass, with annexing unto it the observation before mentioned, viz. That what is affirmed of the Human Nature of Christ doth not at all prejudice that nature of his, in respect whereof he is said to be in the beginning with God, and to be God, and with reference whereunto himself said, before Abraham was I am. God possessed him in the beginning of his ways, being then his only begotten Son, full of Grace and Truth. M. B. indeed hath small hopes of dispoyling Christ of his Eternal Glory by his Queries, if they spend themselves in such fruitless sophistry as this.
Qu. 4, 5. How came Jesus Christ to be Lord according to the opinion of the Apostle Paul? The Answer is Rom. 14. 19.
What saith Peter also concerning the time and manner of his being made Lord? Answer Acts 2. 32, 33, 36.
1. R. That Jesus Christ as Mediator, and in respect of the work of Redemption and Salvation of the Church, to him committed, was made Lord by the Appointment, Authority, and Designation of his Father, we do not say was the opinion of Paul, but is such a divine truth, as we have the plentiful Testimony of the Holy Ghost unto. He was no less made a Lord, then a Priest, and Prophet of his Father; but that the Eternal Lordship of Christ, as he is one with his Father, God blessed forever more, is any way denied by the asserting of this Lordship given him of his Father as Mediator, M. B. wholly begs of men to apprehend & grant, but doth not once attempt from the Scripture to manifest or prove. The sum of what M. Biddle intends to Argue hence is, Christ's submitting himself to the form & work of a servant unto the Father, was exalted by him, and had a name given him above every name, Therefore he was not the Son of God, and equal to him. That his condescension into Office, is inconsistent with his divine Essence, is yet to be proved. But may we not beg of our Catechist at this le • sure to look a little farther into the Chapter, from whom be takes his first Testimony, concerning the Exaltation of Christ to be Lord; perhaps it may be worth his while. As another Argument to that of the Dominion and Lordship of Christ, to persuade Believers to a mutual for bearance, as to judging of one another, he adds v. 10. We shall all stand before the Judgment seat of Christ. And this v. 11. The Apostle proves from that Testimony of the Prophet Isa. 45. 23. as he renders the sense of the Holy Ghost. As I live saith the Lord, every knee shall • ow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So that Jesus Christ our Lord, is that I • hovah, that God, to whom all subjection is due, and in particulars, that of standing before his Judgment Seat. but this is over looked by Grotius, and not answered to any purpose by Enjedinus, and why should M. B. trouble himself with it.
2. For the time assigned by him of his being made Lord, specifyed by the Apostle, it doth not denote his first inve •• ture with that Office and Power, but the solemn admission into the glorious execution of that Lordy power, which was given him as Mediator. At his incarnation and Birth, God affirms by the Angel, that he was then Christ the Lord, Luke 2. 11. And when he brought his first begotten into the world, the Angels were commanded to worship him, which, if he were not a Lord, I suppose M. B. will not say they could have done. Yea, & as he was both believed in, & worshipped before his death and Resurrection, Joh. 9. 38. John 14. 1. which is to be performed only to the Lord our God, Math. 4. 10. so he actually in some measure exercised his Lordship towards, and over Angels, Men, Devils, and the residue of the Creation, as is known from the very story of the Gospel; not denying himself to be a King, yea witnessing thereunto when he was to be put to death. Luk. 23. 3. John. 18. 37. As he was from his first showing unto men, Ich. 1. 49.
Q. 6. Did not Jesus approve himself to be God by his miracles? And did he not these miracles by a divine nature of his own, and because he was God of himself, what is the determination of the Apostle Peter in this behalf? Aris Act. 2. 2 • . Act. 10. 38.
The intendment of M. Biddle in this Question, as is evident by his inserting of these words in a different Character. [ by a divine nature of his own, and because he was God himself, ] is to disprove, or insinuate an answer unto the Argument, taken from the Miracles that Christ did, to confirm his Deity. The naked working of Miracles, I confess, without the influence of such other Considerations, as this Argument is attended withal, in relation to Jesus Christ, will not alone of itself assert a divine nature in him, who is the instrument of their working or production. Though they are from divine power, or they are not miracles, yet it is not necessary, that he by whō they are wrought, should be possessor of that divine Power, as by whom may denote the instrumental, and not the principal cause of them. But for the Miracles wrought by Jesus Christ, as God is said to do them by him, because he appointed him to do them, as he designed him to his offices, and thereby gave Testimony to the Truth of the Doctrine he preached from his bosom, as also because he was with him, not in respect of power and virtue, but as the Father in the Son, John. 10. 38. So he working these miracles by his own power; and at his own will, even as his Father doth, Job 5. 21. and himself giving power and Authority to others to work miracles by his strength, and in his name, Mat. 10. 8. Mark. 16. 17, 18 Luk. 10. 19. There is that eminent evidence of his Deity in his working of miracles, as M. B. can by no means darken or obscure, by pointing to that which is of a clear consistency therewithal: as is his Fathers appointment of him to do them whereby he is said to do them in his name, &c. as in the place cited; of which afterwards. Act 2. 22. The intendment of Peter is to prove that he was the Messias of whom he spake; and therefore he calls him Jesus of Nazareth, as pointing out the man whom they knew by that name, and whom seven or eight weeks before they had crucified and rejected. That this man was approved of Ged, He convinces them from the Miracles which God wrought by him: which was enough for his present purpose. Of the other place there is another reason. For though Grotius expound those words 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . For God was with Him, God always loved him, and always heard him, according to Mat. 3 17. (where yet there is a peculiar Testimony given to the divine Sonship of Jesus Christ) and Joh. 11. 42. Yet the words of our Savious himself, about the same business, give us another interpretation, and sense of them. This I say he does, John. 10. 37, 38. If I do not the works of my Father believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works, that you may know and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him. In the doing of these works, the Father was so with him, as that he was in Him, and He in the Father. Not only 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , but by that divine Indwelling, which oneness of nature gives to Father and Son.
His 7. Question is exceeding implicate and involved: a great deal is expressed that M. B. would deny, but by what inference from the Scriptures he produceth, doth not at all appear, the words of it are, Could not Christ do all things of himself, and was it not an Eternal Son of God that took flesh upon him, and to whom the human nature of Christ was personally united, that wrought all these works? Answer me to these things in the words of the Son himself.
Ans. Joh 5. 19, 20, 30. Joh. 14. 10.
The Inference which alone appears from hence, is of the same nature with them that are gone before. That Christ could not do all things of himself, that He was not the Eternal Son of God, that He took not flesh, is that which is asserted; but the proof of all this doth disprove. Christ being accused by the Jews, and persecuted for healing a man on the Sabbath day, and their rage being increased, by his asserting his Equality with the Father (of which afterwards) v. 17, 18. He lets them know, that in the discharge of the office committed to Him, He did nothing but according to the Will, Commandment and appointment of his Father, with whom he is Equall, and doth of his own Wall also the things that he doth; so that they had no more to plead against him, for doing what he did, then they had against him, whom they acknowledged to be God. Wherein he is so far from declining the Assertion of his own Deity (which that he maintained, the Jews apprehended, affirming, that he made himself equal with God, with none but God is, or can be, for between God, and that which is not God, there is no proportion, much less Equallity) as that he farther confirms it, by affirming, that he doth whatever the Father doth, and that as the Father quickeneth whom he will, so He quickeneth whom he will. That redoubled assertion then of Christ, that he can do nothing of himself, is to be applied to the matter under consideration. He had not done, nor could do any work, but such as his Father did also: It was impossible he should; Not only because he would not, in which sense 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is one kind of those things which are impossible, but also because of the oneness in Will, Nature, and power of himself, and his Father, which he asserts in many particulars. Nor doth he temper his speech as one that would ascribe all the honor to the Father, and so remove the charge that he made a man equal to the Father, as Grotius vainly imagines: for although as man he acknowledges his subjection to the Father, yea as Mediator in the work he had in hand, & his subordination to him as the Son, receiving all things from him by divine & Eternal communication, yet the Action or work that gave occasion to that discourse, being an action of his person, wherein he was God, He all along asserts his own Equaility therein with the Father, as shall afterwards be more fully manifested.
So that though in regard of his divine Personallity, as the Son, he hath all things from the Father, being begotten by him, and as Mediator, doth all things by his appointment, and in his name, yet he in himself is still one with the Father, as to nature and Essence, God to be blessed forever more. And that it was an Eternal Son of God that took flesh upon him, &c. hath M. B. never read, that in the beginning was the word, and the word was God, and the Word was made flesh: that God was manifested in the flesh, and that God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the Law? Of which places afterward, in their vindication from the exception of his Masters.
His 8 th Question is of the very same import with that going before, attempting to exclude Jesus Christ from the Unity of Essence with his Father, by his Obedience to him, and his Fathers Acceptation of him in the work of Mediation; which being a most ridiculous beggin of the thing in Question, as to what he pretends in the Query to be Argumentative, that I shall not farther insist upon it.
Q. 9. We are come to the head of this Discourse, and of M. B's design in this Chapter; and indeed of the greatest design that he drives in Religion, viz. The denial of the Eternal Deity of the Son of God, which not only in this place directly, but in sundry others covertly he doth invade and oppose. His Question is, Doth the Scripture account Christ to be the Son of God, because he was Eternally begotten out of the divine Essence, or for other reasons agreeing to him only as a man? Rehearse the passages to this purpose.
His Answer is from Luk. 1 31, 32, 34, 35. John 10. 36. Acts 13. 32, 33. Rev. 1. 5. Col. 1. 18. Heb. 1-4, 5. Heb. 5. 5. Rom. 8. 29. most of which places are expressly contrary to him in his design, as the progress of our Discourse will discover.
This I say being the head of the difference between us in this Chapter, after I have rectifyed one mistake in M. B's Question, I shall state the whole matter so as to obviate farther labor and trouble, about sundry other ensuing Queries. For M. B's Question then, we say not, that the Son is begotten Eternally out of the divine Essence, but in it, not by an Eternal act of the divine Being, but of the Person of the Father; which being premised I shall proc • ed.
The question that lies before us is.
Doth the Scripture account Christ to be the Son of God, because he was Eternally beggotten out of the Divine Essence, or for other Reasons agreeing to him only as a man? Rebearse the passages to this purpose.
The Reasons as far as I can gather which M. B. lays at the bottom of this appellation, are 1. His birth of the Virgin from Joh. 1. 30, 31, 32, 33, 34. 2. His Mission, or sending into the world by the Father, Joh. 10. 36. 3. His Resurrection with power, Act. 13. 32, 33. Rev. 1. 5. Col. 1. 18. 4. His Exaltation, Heb. 5. 5. Rom. 8. 29.
For the removeal of all this, from prejudicing the eternal Sonship of Jesus Christ, there is an abundant sufficiency arising from the consideration of this one Argument. If Jesus Christ be called the Son of God, antecedently to his Incarnation, Mission, Resurrection, and Exaltation, then there is a reason and cause of that Appellation, before, and above all these Considerations; and it cannot be on any of these accounts that he is called the Son of God: but that he is so called antecedently to all these, I shall afterward abundantly manifest. Yet a little farther process in this business, as to the particulars intimated, may not be unseasonable.
1. Then I shall propose the causes, on the account whereof alone these men affirm that Jesus Christ is called the Son of God. Of these the first and chiefest they insist upon is, His Birth of the Virgin: viz. that he was called the Son of God, because he was conceived of the Holy Ghost, this our Catechist in the first place proposes; And before him his Masters. So the Recovlans in answer to that question.
Ans.
Of the same mind are the residue of their Companions. So do Ostorodus and Voidovius give an account of their Faith, in their Compendium, as they call it, of the Doctrine of the Christian Church, flourishing now chiefly in Poland.
The great Master of the Herd himself, from whom indeed the rest do glean, and gather almost all that they take so much pains to scatter about the world, gives continually this Reason of Christ's being called the Son of God, and his natural Son.
And this is the only Buckler which they have to keep off the sword of that Argument for the Deity of Christ, from his being the proper Son of God, from the throat, and heart of that cause which they have undertaken. And yet how faintly they hold it, is evident from the expressions of this most cunning and Skilful of all their Champions. There M A Y another reason be given. Which is the general Evasion of them all, from any express Testimony of Scripture. The words MAY have another sense, therefore nothing from them can be concluded; whereby they have left nothing stable, or unshaken in Christian Religion; and yet wipe their mouths, and say they have done no evil.
But now least any one should say, that they can see no reason why Christ should be called the Son of God, because he was so conceived by the Holy Ghost, nor wherefore God should therefore in a peculiar manner, and more eminently, then in respect of any other, be called the Father of Christ, to prevent any objection that on this hand might arise, Smalcius gives an account whence this is, & why God is called the Father of Christ, and what he did in his Conception; which, for the Abomination of it, I had rather you should hear in his words then in mine. In his answer to the second part of the refutation of Socinus by Smiglecius, cap. 17, 18. he contends to manifest, and make good, that Christ was the Son of God according to the flesh, in direct opposition to that of the Apostle, He was of the seed of David according to the flesh, declared to be the Son of God, &c. Rom. 1. 3, 4. He says then cap. 18. p. 156. Socinus affirmat Deum in generatione Christi vices patris supplevisse. —but how I pray? why! Satis est ad ostendendum, Deum in generatione Christi vices viri supplevisse, si ostendatur, Deum id ad Christi generationem adjecisse, quod in generatione hominis ex parte viri, ad hominem producendum adjeci solet: but what is that, or how is that done? Nos Dei virtutem in Virginis uterum aliquam substantiam creatam vel immisisse, aut ibi creasse affirmamus, ex qua juncto eo, quod ex ipsius Virginis substantia accessit, verus homo generatus fuit. Alias enim homo ill, Dei Filius a conceptione & nativitate proprie non fuisset. cap. 17. pag. 150. Very good, unless this abominable sigment may pass current, Christ was not the Son of God. Let the Reader observe by the way, that they cannot but acknowledge Christ to have been, and to have been called the Son of God in a most peculiar manner: To avoid the evidence of the inference from thence, that therefore he is God, of the same substance with his Father, They only have this shift, to say he is called the Son of God, upon the account of that, whereof there is not the least tittle, nor word in the whole book of God; yea which is expressly contrary to the Testimony thereof; & unless this be granted they affirm that Christ cannot be called the Son of God. But let us hear this great Rabbi of M. B's religion a little farther clearing up this mistery. Necessitas magna fuit, ut Christus ab initio vitae suae esset Deo Filius, qualis futurus non suisset nisi Dei virtute aliquid creatū suisset, quod ad constituendū Christi corpus, una cū Mariae Sanguine concurrit. Mansit sit autem nihilominus sanguis Mariae Virginis purissimus; etiamsi cum alio aliquo semine commixtus fuit. Potuit enim tam purum, imo purius semen, a Deo creari, & proculdubis creatum fuit, quam erat sanguis Mariae. Communis deni • sensus, & fides Christianorum omnium, quod Christus non ex virili semine conceptus sit; primum, communis error censendus est, si sacris literis repugnet: Deinde id quod omnes sentiunt, factle cum ipsa a veritate conciliari potest, ut scilicet semen illud, quod a Deo creatum, & cum semine Mariae conjunctum fuit, dicatur non virile, quia non a viro profectum sit, vel ex viro in uterum Virginis translatum, ut quidam opinantur, qui semen Josephi translatum in Virginis uterum credunt. cap. 18. pag. 158. And thus far are men arrived. Unless this horrible sigment may be admitted, Christ is not the Son of God. He who is the true God and eternal Life, will one day plead the cause of his own glory against these men.
I insist somewat the more on these things, that men may judge the better, whether in all probability M. Biddle in his impartial search into the Scripture, did not use the help of some of them that went before him, in the discovery of the same things, which He boasts Himself to have found out.
And this is the first reason which our Catechist hath taken from his Masters, to communicate to his Scholars, why Jesus Christ is called the Son of God. This He and they insist on, exclusively to his Eternal Sonship, or being the Son of God, in respect of his Eternal generation of the substance of his Father.
The other causes which they assign, why he is called the Son of God, I shall very briefly point unto. By the way that hath been spoken of, they say he was the Son of God; the natural Son of God. But they say he was the Son of God, before he was God. He grew afterward to be a God by degrees as he had those Graces, and excellencyes, and that power given him, wherein his God-head doth consist. So that He was the Son of God, but not God (in their own sense) until a while after. And then when he was so made a God, He came thereby to be more the Son of God. But by this addition to his Sonship he became the adopted Son of God: as by being begotten, as was before revealed, he was the natural Son of God. Let us hear Smalcius a little opening these mysteries;
And these are some of those monstrous sigments which under pretence of bare adherence to the Scripture, our Catechist would obtrude upon us. First Christ is the Son of God. Then growing like God in divine Qualities, he is made a God, and so becomes more the Son of God. And this, if the man may be believed, is the pure Doctrine of the Scripture. And if Christ be a God, because he is like God, by the same reason we are all God's in M. B's conceit, being all made in the Image and likeness of God, which (says he) by sin we have not lost.
But what kind of Sonship is added to Christ by all these excellencyes, whereby he is made like to God? The same author tells us, that it is a Sonship by adoption, and that Christ on these accounts was the adopted Son of God.
The reasons they commonly add, why in this sense Christ is called the Son of God, are the same which they give, why He is called God.
If the Reader desire to hear them speak in their own words, let him consult Smalcius de vera Divinit. Jes. Christ. cap. 7. &c. Socin. Dispute. cum Erasmo Johan. Rationum quatuor antecedent. Resut. Dispute. de Christi nature a pag. 14, 15. Adversus Weickum p. 224, 245. & passim. Volkel. devera Religi. lib. 5. cap. 10, 11, 12. Jonas Schlict. ad Meisner. p. 192, 193. &c. Especially the same person, fully and distinctly opening and declaring the minds of his Companions, and the several accounts on which they affirm Christ to be and to have been called the Son of God, in his Comment on the Epistle to the Hebrews p. 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. as also his notes upon Vechnerus his Sermon on Joh. 1. pag. 14. &c. Anonym. Respon. ad centum argumenta Cichorii Jesuitae pag. 8, 9. 10. Confessio Fidei Christianae, edita nomine Ecclesiarum in Polonia. pag. 24, 25.
Their good friend Episcopius hath ordered all their causes of Christ's Filiation under four heads.
2.
3.
4.
Thus He, evidently and plainly from the Persons before named. But yet after all this, he asks another Question, whether all this being granted, there do not yet moreover remain a more eminent and peculiar reason, why Christ is called the Son of God. He answers himself: there is, namely, his Eternal Generation of the Father; His being God of God from all Eternity, which he pursues with sundry Arguments; And yet in the close disputes, that the acknowledgement of this Truth is not Fundamental, or the denial of it exclusive of Salvation. So this great reconciler of the Arminian and Socinian Religions, whole composition and unity, into an opposition to them whom he calls Galvinists, is the great design of his Theological, institutions, and such at this day is the aim of Curcullaeus, & some others. By the way I shall desire, (before I answer what he offers to confirm his Assignation of this four fold manner of Filiation to Jesus Christ) to ask this learned Gentleman (or these of his mind who do survive him) this one Question seeing that Jesus Christ was from eternity the Son of God, and is called so after his Incarnation, and was on that account in his whole person the Son of God, by their own confessions, what tittle he or they can find in the Scripture of a manifold Filiation of Jesus Christ, in respect of God his Father, or whether it be not a diminution of his glory, to be called the Son of God upon any lower account, as by a new addition to him, who was eternally his only begotten Son, by virtue of his Eternal Generation of his own substance?
Having thus discovered the mind of them with whom we have to do, and from whom our Catechist hath borrowed his discoveries, I shall briefly do these two things.
1. Shew that the Filiation of Christ consists in his generation of the substance of his Father from Eternity; or that he is the Son of God upon the account of his Divine Nature, and subsistence therein, antecedent to his Incarnation.
2. That it consists solely therein, and that he was not, nor was called the Son of God upon any other account, but that mentioned; and therein answer what by M. B. or others is objected to the contrary.
3. To which I shall add Testimonies & Arguments for the Deity of Christ, whose opposition is the main business of that new Religion, which M. Biddle would Catechize poor unstable souls into, in the vindication of those excepted against by the Racovians.
For the demonstration of the first Assertion, I shall insist on some few of the Testimonies and Arguments, that might be produced for the same purpose.
1. He who is the True, Proper, only begotten Son of God, of the Living God, He is begotten of the Essence of God his Father, and is his Son by virtue of that Generation. But Jesus Christ was thus the only, true, proper, only begotten Son of God: and therefore is the Son of God upon the account before mentioned: That Jesus Christ is the Son of God in the manner expressed, the Scripture abundantly testifieth, Lo a voice from Heaven, saving, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, Math. 3. 17. Thou, art Christ the Son of the Living God, Math. 16. 16. & John 6. 6.
Which place in Matthew is the rather remarkable, because it is the Confession of the Faith of the Apostle, given in in answer to that question, who do you say that I the Son of man am? They answer, the Son of the Living God. And this in opposition to them, who said he was a Prophet, or as one of the Prophets, as Mark expresses it, cap. 6. 15. that is, only so. And the whole Confession manifests, that they did in it acknowledge both his Office of being the Mediator, and his divine nature, or person also. Thou art the Christ, those words comprize all the causes of Filiation, insisted on by them with whom we have to do, and the whole office of the Mediation of Christ, but yet hereunto they add, the Son of the Living God: expressing his divine nature, and Sonship on that account.
And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given is an understanding, that we may know him that is true; and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ, this is the true God, & eternal Life, John. 5. 20. He spared not his own Son, Rom. 8. 32. And the word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us, and we saw his Glory, the Glory as of the only begotten Son of God. John. 1. 14. No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath revealed him, v. 18.—Said also, That God was his Father, making himself equal with God 1 John. 5. 18. So God loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, John. 3. 16. In this was manifest the Love of God, that he sent his only begotten Son into the world, 1 John. 4. 9. Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee, Psal. 2. 7. &c. All which places will be afterwards vindicated at large.
To prove the inference laid down, I shall fix on one or two of these instances.
1. He who is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the proper Son of any, is begotten of the substance of his Father 〈◊〉 Christ is; the proper. Son of God: and God he called of ten 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 his proper Father. He is properly a Father, who begets another of his substance, and he is properly a Son, who is so begotten.
Grotius confesseth there is an emphasis in the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , whereby Christ is distinguished, from that kind of Sonship, which the Jews laid claim unto. Now the Sonship they laid claim unto, and enjoyed so many of them, as were truly so, was by Adoption. For to them pertained the Adoption, Rom. 9. 4. wherein this emphasis then, & specially of Christ's Sonship should consist, but in what we assert of his natural Sonship, cannot be made to appear. Grotius says it is, because the Son of God was a name of the Messiah. True, but on what account? Not that common of Adoption, but this of Nature, as shall afterwards appear.
Again, he who is properly a Son, is distinguished from him who is metaphorically so only. For anything what ever is metaphorically said to be, what it is said to be, by a Translation, and likeness to that which is true. Now if Christ be not begotten of the Essence of his Father, he is only a metaphorical Son of God, by way of Allusion, and cannot be called the proper Son of God, being only one who hath but a similitude to a proper Son. So that it is a plain contradiction, that Christ should be the proper Son of God, and yet not be begotten of his Fathers Essence. Besides, in that 8 th of the Romans, the Apostle had before mentioned other Sons of God, who became so by Adoption, v. 15, 16. but when he comes to speak of Christ, in opposition to them, he calls Him God's own, or proper Son, that is, his natural Son, they being so only by Adoption. And in the very words themselves, the distance that is given him by way of Eminence above all other things, doth sufficiently evince in what sense he is called the proper Son of God. He that spared not his own Son, how shall he not with him give us all things?
2. The only begotten Son of God, is his natural Son, begotten of his Essence, and there is no other Reason of this Appellation. And this is farther clear from the Antithesis, of this only begotten, to adopted: They are Adopted Sons who are received to be such by grace and favor. He is only begotten, who alone is begotten of the substance of his Father. Neither can any other reason be assigned, why Christ should so constantly, in way of distinction from all others, be called the only begotten Son of God. It were even ridiculous to say, that Christ were the only begotten Son of God, and his proper Son, if He were His Son only metaphorically and improperly. That Christ is the proper, only begotten Son of God, improperly and metaphorically, is that which is asserted to evade these Testimonies of Scripture. Add hereunto, the Emphaticall discriminating significancy of that voice from Heaven, this is He, that well beloved Son of • ine; and that Testimony which in the same manner Peter gave to this sonship of Christ in his Confession, thou art the Son of the Living God, and the ground of Christ's Filiation will be yet more evident. Why the Son of the living God, unless as begotten of God, as the living God, as living things beget of their own substance? but of that place before. Christ then, being the true, proper, beloved, only begotten Son of the living God, is his Natural Son, of his own substance and Essence.
2. The same Truth may have farther evidence given unto it, from the consideration of what kind of Son of God Jesus Christ is. He who is such a Son as is equal to his Father in Essence and properties; He is a Son begotten of the Essence of his Father. Nothing can give such an Equality, but a Communication of Essence. Then, with God Equality of Essence can alone give Equality of Dignity, and Honor. For between that Dignity, Power, and Honor, which belongs to God, as God, and that Dignity or Honor, that is, or may be given to any other, there is no proportion, much less Equality, as shall be evidenced at large afterwards. And this is the sole Reason, why a Son is equal to his Father in Essence and Properties, because he hath from him a Communication of the same Essence, whereof He is partaker. Now that Christ is such a Son, as hath been mentioned, the Scripture abundantly testifies. My Father (saith Christ) worketh hitherto, and I work: therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, not only because he had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God, Joh. 5. 17, 18. v. 17. having called God his Father, in the particular manner before mentioned, and affirmed to himself an equal nature, and power for operation with his Father, the Jews thence infer, that he testified of himself, that he was such a Son of God, as that he was equal with God.
The full opening of this place at large is not my present business. The Learned Readers know where to find that done to their hand. The intendment of those words is plain & evident. Grotius expounds 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; by, it was lawful for him to do what was so to God, and that he was no more bound to the Sabbath then he Which (saith he) was a gross calumn). So v. 19. those words of our Savior; The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father do (wherein the emphasis lies evidently in the words 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , for the Son can do nothing of himself, but what the Father doth, seeing he hath his Essence, and so consequently will, and Power communicated to him by the Father) He renders to be an Allusion to, and comparison between a Master and Scholar: as the scholar hoo • es diligently to what his master doth, and strives to imi ••• him: so was it with Christ and God; which exposition was the very same with that which the Arians assigned to this place, as Maldona • upon the place makes appear. That it is not an equal license with the Father, to work on the Sabbath, but an Equallity of Essence, Nature, and Power between Father and Son, that the Jews concluded from the saying of Christ, is evident on this consideration; that there was no strength in that plea of our Savior, of working on the Sabbath day, because his Father did so, without the violation of the Sabbath, unless there had been an Equallity between the Persons working. That the Jews did herein caldmnidie Christ, or accused him falsely, the Tritheits said indeed, as Zanchius testifyes; and Socinus is of the same mind; whose Interest G • o • i •• chiefly serves in his Annotations. But the whole context and carriage of the business, with the whole Reply of our Savior, do abundanly manifest, that the Jews, as to their collection, were in the Bight, that he made himself such a Son of God, as was equal to him.
For if in this conclusion they had been mistaken, & so had ca • uniniated Christ; There be two grand causes, why He should have delivered them from that mistake, by expounding to them what manner of Son of God He was. First, because of the just scandal they might take at what he had spoken, apprehending that to be the sense of his words, which they professed. Secondly, because on that account they sought to slay him, which if they had done, He should by his death have borne witness to that which was not true. They se • g • t to kill Him, because He made Himself such a Son of God, as by that sonship He was equal to God; which if it were not so, there was a necessity incumbent on him, to have cleared himself of that aspersion: which yet he is so far from, as that in the following verses, he farther confirms the same thing.
So he thought it not Robbery to be equal with God, Phil. 2. 6. It is of God the Father that this is spoken, as the Father; as it appears in the winding up of that Discourse, v. 1. That every tongue should confess, that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. And to him is Christ equal, and therefore begotten of his own Essence.
Yea he is such a Son as is one with his Father. I and my Father are one. John. 10. 30 Which the Jews again instantly interpret without the least reproof from him, that he being man, did yet aver himself to be God, v. 33.
This place also is attempted to be taken out of our hands by Grotius, though with no better success then the former. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . He joineth what he had spoken, with what went before: (saith he) if they cannot be taken from my Fathers power, they cannot be taken from mine; For I have my power of my Father, so that it is all to be kept of me, as of my Father: which he intends (as I suppose) to illustrate by the example of the power that Joseph had under Pharaoh, Gen. 41. though the verse he intend be false printed. But that it is an Unity of Essence, and Nature, as well as an a like Prevalency of power that our Savior intends, not only from that apprehension which the Jews had concerning the sense of those words, who immediately took up stones to kill him for blasphemy, from which apprehension he doth not at all labor to free them, but also from the exposition of his mind in these words, which is given us in our Savior's following discourse. For v. 16. He tells us, this is as much as if he had said, I am the Son of God. Now the unity between Father and Son, is in Essence, and Nature principally: & then that he doth the works of the Father, the same works that his Father doth, v. 37, 38. which were he not of the same nature with him he could not do: which he closes with this, that the Father is in him, and he in the Father, v. 38. of which words before, and afterwards.
He then (that we may proceed) who is so the Son of God, as that he is one with God, and therefore God, is the Natural and Eternal Son of God; but that such a Son is Jesus Christ, is thus plentifully testified unto, in the Scripture. But because I shall insist on sundry other places to prove the Deity of Christ, which also all confirm the Truth under demonstration, I shall here pass them by. The evidences of this Truth from scripture do so abound, that I shall but only mention some other heads of Arguments, that may be, and are commonly insisted on to this purpose. Then
3. He who is the Son of God, begotten of his Father, by an Eternal communication of his divine Essence, He is the Son begotten of the Essence of the Father. For these terms are the same, and of the same importance. But this is the description of Christ as to his Sonship, which the Holy Ghost gives us. Begotten he was of the Father according to his own Testimony; Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee, Psal. 2. 7. And he is the only begotten Son of God, Joh. 1. 14, And that he is so begotten by a communication of Essence, we have His own Testimony, when there were no hills I was brought forth, Prov. 8. 28. He was begotten and brought forth from Eternity. And how He tells you farther. John. 5. 26. The Father hath given unto the Son to have life in himself. It was by the Fathers Communication of life unto him, and His living Essence or Substance; for the Life that is in God, differs not from his being: And all this from Eternity. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old; I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was, when there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no fountains abounding with water: before the Mountains were settled, before the Hills were brought forth, &c. Prov. 8. 22. &c. to the end of v. 32. And thou Bethlehem-Ephratah,—out of thee shall come forth unto me, he that is to be Ruler in Israel: whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. Mich. 5. 2. In the beginning was the Word Joh. 1. 1. And now O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was, Joh. 17. 5. And again, when he bringeth in the first begotten into the world he saith, &c. Heb. 1. 6, &c.
4. The farther description which we have given us of this Son, makes it yet more evident. He is the brightness of his Fathers Glory, and the express image of his person. Heb. 1. 3. The image of the invisible God. Col. 1. 15. That Christ is the Essentiall Image of his Father, & not an accidental Image; an Image so as no Creature is, or can be admitted into copartnership with him therein, shall be on another occasion in this Treatise fully demonstrated. And thither the vindication of those Texts from the gloss of Grotius is also remitted.
And this may suffice (without insisting upon what more might be added) for the demonstration of the first Assertion; that Christ's Filiation ariseth from his eternal Generation; or He is the Son of God, upon the account of his being begotten of the Essence of his Father from Eternity.
2. That he is, and is termed the Son of God, solely on this account, and not upon the Reasons mentioned by M. B. and explained from his companions, is with equal clearness evinced: nay I see not how anything may seem necessary for this purpose to be added to what hath been spoken; but for the farther satisfaction of them who oppose themselves, the ensuing considerations, through the Grace and patience of God, may be of use.
1. If for the Reasons and causes above insisted on from the Socinians, Christ be the Son of God, then Christ is the Son of God according to the flesh, or according to his human nature. So he must needs be, if God be called his Father, because he supplied the room of a Father in his conception. But this is directly contrary to the Scripture: calling Him the Son of God in respect of his divine nature, in opposition to the Flesh, or his Human nature, &c. Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be Son of God with Power, Ro. 1. 2, 3. Of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all God blessed forever, Rom. 9. 5. The same distinction and opposition is observed, 2 Cor. 13. 4. 1 Pet. 3. 18. If Jesus Christ according to the flesh be the Son of David, in Contradistinction to the Son of God, then doubtless he is not called the Son of God according to the flesh: but this is the plain assertion of the Scripture in the places before named. Besides, on the same reason that Christ is the Son of man, on the same He is not the Son of God. But Christ was, and was called the Son of man, upon the account of his Conception of the substance of his Mother, and particularly the Son of David; and so is not on that account the Son of God.
Farther, That place of Rom. 1. 3, 4. passing not without some Exceptions, as to the sense insisted on, may be farther cleared, and vindicated. Jesus Christ is called the Son of God, v. 1, 3. The Gospel of God, concerning his Son Jesus Christ: This Son is farther described, 1. by his human Nature, He was made of the seed of David according to the flesh. 2. In respect of his person or divine nature, wherein he was the Son of God, and that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in power or existing in the power of God: For so 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 put absolutely doth often signify; as Rom. 1. 20. Math. 6. 13. and chap. 26. 64. Luk. 4. 36. He had, or was, in the omnipotency of God: and was this declared to be, not in respect of the flesh, in which he was made of a woman, but, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 (which is opposed to 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) according to, or in respect of his divine Holy Spirit: as is also the intendment of that word the Spirit, in the places above mentioned. Neither is it new, that the Deity of Christ should be called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Himself is called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Dan. 9. 24. sanctitas sanctitatum: as here spiritus sanctitatis. And all this saith the Apostle, was declared so to be, or Christ was declared to be thus the Son of God, in respect of his Divine, Holy, spiritual being, which is opposed to the flesh, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , by the ( 〈◊〉 his) Resurrection from the dead, whereby an eminent Testimony was given unto His Deity: He was declared to be the Son of God thereby, according to the sense insisted on.
To weaken this Interpretation, Grotius moves (as they say) every stone, and heaves at every word; but in vain (1.) 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , He tells is as much as 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; as by the vulgar latin it is translated, praedestinatus. So he pleads it was interpreted by many of the Ancients. The places he quotes were most of them collected by Beza, in his Annotations on the place; who yet rejects their Judgment therein, and cites others to the contrary. Luk. 22. 22. Acts 10. 42. Act. 17. 31. are also urged by him to evince this sense of the word: in each of which places it may be rendered declared, or to declare; and in neither of them ought to be by predestinated. Though the word may sometimes signify so, swhich is not proved) yet that it here doth so will not follow: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a definition (from whence that word comes) declares what a thing is, makes it known. And 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 may best be rendered to declare Heb. 4. 7. So in this place: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; says Chry • ostome on the place. And so doth the subject matter require. The Apostle treating of the way whereby Christ was manifested eminently to be the Son of God.
But the most Learned man's Exposition of this place is admirable. Jesus (saith he) is many ways said to be the Son of God. [This is begged in the beginning, because it will not be proved in the end. If this be granted it matters not much what follows.] But (most commonly or) most in a popular way, because he was raised unto a kingdom by God. [Not once in the whole Book of God. Let him, or any one for him, prove this by any one clear Testimony from Scripture, and take his whole interpretation. The Son of God, as Mediator, was exalted to a Kingdom, and made a Prince and Savior. But that, by that Exaltation, he was made the Son of God, or was so on that account, is yet to be proved: yea, it is most false.] He goes on: In that sense the words of the second Psalm were spoken of David, because he was exalted to a kingdom, which are applied to Christ, Act. 13. 33. Heb. 1. 5. [But it is not proved that these words do at all belong to David, so much as in the type; nor any of the words from v. 7. to the end of the Psalm. If they are so to be accommodated, they belong to the manifestation, not constitution of him: and so they are applied to our Savior when they relate to his Resurrection, as one who was thereby manifested to be the Son of God, according as God had spoken of him.] But now how was Christ Predestinated to this sonship? This Kingly dignity, or the dignity of a Son, of Jesus, was predestinated and prefigured, when leading a mortal life, he wrought signs and wonders which is the sense of the words 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . [The first sense of the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is here insensibly slipped from. Predestinated and prefigured are ill conjoined, as words of a neighbouring significancy. To Predestinate is constantly ascribed to God, as an act of his, foreappointing things to their end: neither can this learned man give one instance from the Scripture of any other signification of the word. And how comes now 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 to be presigured. Is there the least color for such a sense? Predestinated to be the Son of God with power: that is, The sign he wrought presigured that he should be exalted to a Kingdom. He was by them in a good towardliness for it. It is true, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and sometimes 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , being in construction with some transitive verb, do signify great or marvelous works: but that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , spoken of one declared to be so, hath the same signification is not proved. He adds, These signs Jesus did by the spirit of Holiness, that is, that divine efficacy wherewith he was sanctified from the beginning of his Conception Luk. 1. 35. Mark. 2. 8. Joh. 9. 36. [In the two latter places there is not one word to the purpose in hand, perhaps he intended some other, and these are false printed. The first shall be afterwards considered. How it belongs to what is here asserted, I understand not. That Christ wrought miracles by the efficacy of the grace of the Spirit, with which he was sanctified, is ridiculous. If by the Spirit is understood his spiritual divine naure; This whole interpretation falls to the ground.] To make out the sense of the words he proceeds, Jesus therefore is shown to be noble on the mothers side, as coming of an earthly King, but more noble on his Fathers part; being made a heavenly King of God after his Resurection. Heb. 5. 9. Act. 2. 30. & 26. 23, [And thus is this most evident Testimony of the Deity of Christ cluded, or endeavored to be so. Christ on the Mothers side was the Son of David, that is, according to the flesh, of the same nature with her and him. On the Fathers side, He was the Son of God, of the same nature with him. That God was his Father, and he the son of God, because after his Resurrection he was made an heavenly King, is an hellish sigment. Neither is there any one word or tittle in the Texts cited to prove it: that it is a marvel to what end they are mentioned, one of them expressly affirming, that He was the Son of God before his Resurrection Heb. 5. 8, 9.
2. He who was actually the Son of God, before his Conception, Nativity, Endowment with power, or exaltation, is not the Son of God on those accounts, but on that only, which is antecedent to them. Now by virtue of all the Arguments & Testimonies before recited, as also of all those that shall be produced for the proof and evincing of the Eternal Deity of the Son of God, the proposition is immovably established, and the inference evidently follows thereupon.
But yet the proposition as laid down may admit of farther confirmation at present. It is then testified to, Prov. 30. 4. What is his name, and what is his Sons name, if thou canst tell? He was therefore the Son of God, and he was incomprehensible, even then before his Incarnation. Psal. 2. 7. Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. Isa. 9. 6. Unto us a Son is borne, unto us a Child is given, and the Government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace. He is a Son, as he is the everlasting Father. And to this head of Testimonyes belongs what we urged before from Prov. 8. 24. &c. He is the Image of the invisible God, the first borne of every Creature, Col. 1. Which surely as to his Incarnation he was not, Before Abraham was I am. Joh. 8. 58. But of these places in the following Chapter I shall speak at large.
3. Christ was so the Son of God, that he that was made like Him was to be without Father, Mother, or Genealogy, Heb. 7. 3. Without Father, without Mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life, but made like the Son of God. But now Christ in respect of his Conception & nativity, had a Mother, & one (they say) that supplied the room of Father, had a Genealogy that is upon record, and beginning of life, &c. So that upon these accounts He was not the Son of God, but on that, wherein he had none of all these things, in the want whereof, Melchizedek was made like to him. I shall only add,
4. That which only manifests the filliation of Christ, is not the cause of it. The cause of a thing is that which gives it, its being. The manifestation of it is only that which declares it to be so. That all the things insisted on, as the causes of Christ's Filiation, by them with whom we have to do, did only declare & manifest him so to be, who was the Son of God, the Scripture witnesseth. The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee, therefore also that holy thing, which shall be borne of thee shall be called the Son of God. Luk. 1. 35. He shall be called so being thereby declared to be so. And great is the Mystery of Godliness, God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of Angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory 1 Tim. 3 16. All the causes of Christ's Filiation, assigned by our Adversaries, are evidently placed as manifestations of God in him; or his being the Son of God: Declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of Holiness, by the Resurrection from the dead, Rom. 1. 3. The Absurdity of assigning distinct, & so far different causes of the same Effect of filliation, whether you make them total, or partial, need not be insisted on.
Farther (to add one consideration more) says Socinus, Christ was the son of God, upon the account of his Holiness, and Righteousness, and therein his likeness to God. Now this he had not according to his principles in his Infancy. He proves Adam not to have been righteous in the state of innocence, because he had yielded actual obedience to no Law. No more had Christ done in his Infancy. Therefore (1.) He was not the son of God upon the account of his Nativity. Nor (2.) did he become the son of God any otherwise then we do, viz. by hearing the Word, learning the Mind, and doing the Will of God. (3.) God did not give his only begotten son for us, but gave the son of Mary, that he might (by all that which we supposed he had done for us) be made the son of God. And so (4) This sending of Christ doth not so much commend the Love of God to us, as to him, that he sent him to die & rise, that he might be made God, & the son of God. Neither (5.) can any eximious love to us of Christ, be seen in what he did & suffered; for had he not done and suffered what he did, he had not been the son of God. And also (6.) if Christ be on the account of his Excellencyes, Groces, and Gifts, the Son of God, which is one way of his Filiation insisted on, and to be God, and the Son of God, is as they say all one; and as it is indeed; then all who are renewed to the Image of God, and are thereby the Sons of God (as are all believers) are God's also.
And this that hath been spoken, may suffice for the confirmation of the second Assertion, laid down at the entrance of this discourse.
To the farther confirmation of this Assertion, two things are to be annexed. First, the Eversion of that fancy of Episcopius, before mentioned, and the rest of the Socinianizing Arminians, that Christ is called the son of God, both on the account of his Eternal sonship, and also of those other particulars mentioned from him above. 2. To consider the texts of Scripture produced by M. B. for the confirmation of his insinuation, that Christ is not called the Son of God, because of his eternal Generation of the Essence of his Father. The first may easily be evinced by the ensuing Arguments.
1. The question formerly proposed to Episcopius may be renewed. For if Christ be the Son of God, partly upon the account of his Eternal Generation, and so he is God's proper and natural Son, and partly upon the other accounts mentioned. Then
1. He is partly God's natural Son, and partly his adopted Son; partly his eternal Son, partly a temporary Son; partly a begotten Son, partly a ma • e Son. Of which distinction in reference to Christ, there is not one Iota in the whole Book of God.
2. He is made the son of God, by that which only manifests Him to be the son of God, as the things mentioned do.
3. Christ is equivocally only, and not univocally called the son of God: for that which hath various and diverse causes of its being so, is so equivocally. If the Filiation of Christ hath such equivocal causes, as Eternal generation, actual Incarnation, and Exaltation, he hath an equivocal Filiation: which whether it be consistent with the scripture, which calls him the proper Son of God, needs no great pains to determine.
2. The scripture never conjoins these causes of Christ's Filiation, as causes in, and of the same kind; but expressly makes the one the sole cause constituting, & the rest, causes manifesting only; as hath been declared. And to shut up this discourse; if Christ be the Son of man only, because he was conceived of the substance of his Mother, He is the Son of God only, upon the account of his being begotten of the substance of his Father.
There remaineth only the consideration of those Texts of scripture, which M. Biddle produceth to insinuate the Filiation of Christ to depend on other causes, and not his Eternal Generation of the Essence of his Father, which on the principles laid down and proved, will receive a quick and speedy dispatch.
The first place named by him, and universally insisted on by the whole tribe, is Luk. 1. 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35. It is the last verse only that I suppose weight is laid upon. Though M. B. name the others, his Masters never do so. That of v. 33. seems to deserve our notice in M. Biddles judgment, who changes the character of the words of it, for their significancy to his purpose. The words are: Thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a Son and shalt call his name Jesus; He shall be great, and shall be called the Son, of the Highest. What M. B. supposes may be proved from hence, at least how he would prove what he aims at, I know not. That Jesus Christ, who was borne of the Virgin, was the Son of the Highest, we contend. On what account He was so, the place mentioneth not; but the reason of it is plentifully manifested in other places, as hath been declared.
The words of v. 35. are more generally managed by them. The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also the holy Thing which shall be borne of thee shall be called the Son of God. But neither do these particles, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , render a reason of Christ's Filiation, nor are a note of the Consequen • , but only of an inference or consequence, that ensues from what he spake before. It being so as I have spoken, even that holy Thing that shall be borne of thee shall be called the Son of God. There is weight also in that Expression: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : that Holy Thing, that shall be borne of thee. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is not spoken in the concrete, or as an Adjective, but substantively, and points out the natural Essence of Christ, whence he was that Holy thing. Besides, if this be the cause of Christ's Filiation which is assigned, it must be demonstrated, that Christ was on that account called the Son of God; for so hath it been said, that He should be: but there is not anything in the New Testament to give light, that ever Christ was on this account called the Son of God; nor can the Adversaries produce any such instance.
2. It is evident, that the Angel in these words acquaints the blessed Virgin, that in, and by her conception, the Prophesy of Isaiah should be accomplished, which you have Chap. 7. 14. Behold a Virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call his name Immanuell: as the express words of v. 31. in Luke declare; being the same with these of the Prophesy, Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a Son, and shalt call &c. v. 31, 32. And Mat. 1. 21. this very thing being related, it is said expressly to be done according to what was foretold by the Prophet, v. 33. repeating the very words of the Holy Ghost by Isaiah, which are mentioned before. Now Isaiah foretelleth two things. First, that a Virgin should conceive. 2. That he that was so conceived should be Immanuel, God with us: or the Son of God, as Luke here expresses it. And this is that which the Angel here acquaints the blessed Virgin withal upon her enquiry v. 34. even that according to the prediction of Isaiah, she should conceive, and bare a Son, though a Virgin, and that that Son of hers should be called the Son of God.
By the way, Grotius his dealing with this Text, both in his Annotations on Isa. 8. as also in his large discourse on Math. 1. 21, 22, 23. is intolerable, and full of offense, to • all that seriously weight it. It is too large here to be insited on. His main design is to prove, that this is not spoken directly of Christ, but only aplyed to him by a certain general Accommodation. God may give time & leisure, farther to lay open the heap of Abominations, which are couched in those Learned Anotations throughout. Which also appears,
3. From the Emphaticallnesse of the expression 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 even also, that holy Thing which is borne of thee, even that shall be called the Son of God; and not only that Eternal Word that is incarnate. That 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , being in it self 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , shall be called the Son of God: shall be called so, that is, appear to be so, and be declared to be so with power. It is evident then that the cause of Christ's Filiation is not here insisted on, but the consequence of the Virgins Conception declared; that which was borne of her should be called the Son of God.
And this Socinus is so sensible of, that he dares not say, that Christ was compleately the Son of God, upon his Conception and Nativity, which if the cause of his Filiation were here expressed, he must be. It is manifest (saith he) that Christ before his Resurrection was not fully and completely the Son of God: being like God before in immortality and absolute rule.
M. Biddles next place, whereby the Sonship of Christ is placed on another account, as he supposes, is Joh. 10. 36. Say you of him whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, thou blasphemest, because I said I am the Son of God.
That this Scripture is called to remembrance not at all to M. B's advantage will speedily appear. For
1. Here is not in the words the least mention whence, or for What cause it is, that Christ is the Son of God: but only that He is so; He being expressed and spoken of, under that description which is used of him 20 times in that Gospel, He who is sent of the Father. This is all that is in this place asserted, that he whom the Father sanctified, and sent into the world, counted it no Robery to be equal with him, nor did blaspheme in calling himself his Son.
2. It is evident that Christ in these words asserts himself to be such a Son of God, as the Jews charged him with blasphemy, for affirming of himself that he was. For He justifies himself against their accusation; Not denying in the least, that they rightly apprehended and understood him, but maintaining what He had spoken to be most true. Now this was that which the Jews charged him withal, v. 33. that He being man, blasphemed in making himself God. For so they understood Him, that in asserting his Sonship, he asserted also his Deity. This Christ makes good, namely that he is such a Son of God, as is God also. Yea he makes good what he had said, v. 30. which was the foundation of all the following discourse about his blasphemy: I and my Father are one. So that
3. An invinsible Argument for the Sonship of Christ, to be placed only upon the account of his eternal Generation, ariseth from this very place that was produced to oppose it. He who is the Son of God, because he is one with the Father, and God equal to him, is the the Son of God, upon the account of his Eternal Relation to the Father: but that such was the condition of Jesus Christ, himself here bears wit • nesse to the Jews, although they are ready to stone him for it. And of his not biaspheming in this Assertion, be convinces his Adversaries by an Argument a minori, verse. 34, 35.
A brief Analysis of this place will give evidence to this Interpretation of the words. Our Savior Christ having given the Reason, why the Jews believed not on him, namely because they were not of his sheep, v. 26. describes thereupon both the nature of those Sheep of his v. 27. And their condition of safety v. 28. This he faerther confirms from the Consideration of his Fathers greatness and power, which is amplifyed by the comparison of it with others, who are all less them He, v. 29. As also from his own Power and Will, which appears to be sufficient for that end and purpose from his Essentiall unity with his Father, v. 30. The Effect of this discourse of Christ by Accident, is the Jews taking up of stones, which is amplifyed by this, that it was the second time they did so and that to this purpose, that they might stone him, v. 31. Their folly and madness herein Christ disproves with an Argument ab absurds; telling them, that it must be for some good work that they stoned him, for evil he had done 〈◊〉 . v. 32. This the Jews attempt to disprove, by a new Argument a disparati • , telling him that it was not for a good work, but for blasphemy, that he made himself to be God, whom they would prove to be but a man, v. 33. This pretence of Blasphemy Christ disproves (as I said before) by an Argment a mimori v. 35, 36. And with another from the Effects, or the works which he did, which sufficiently proved him to be God, v. 27, 38. Still maintaining what he said and what they thought to be Blasphemy, so that they attempt again to kill him, v. 39. It is evident then, that He still maintained what they charged him with.
4. And this answers that expression which is so frequent in the Scripture, of God's sending his Son into the world, and that he came down from Heaven, and came into the world, J •• . 3. 13. God. 4. 4. All evincing his being the Son of God, antecedently to that Mission, or Sanctification, whereby in the world he was declared so to be. Otherwise not the Son of God was sent, but one to be his Son.
Act. 13. 32, 33. is also insisted on: We declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the Fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us, their Children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again, as it is also written in the second Psalm, thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.
He that can see in this Text, a cause assigned of the Filiation of Christ, that should relate to the Resurrection, I confess is sharper sighted then I. This I know, that if Christ were made the Son of God by his Resurrection from the dead, He was not the Son of God who died, for that preceded this his making to be the Son of God. But that God gave his only begotten Son to die, that he spared not his only Son, but gave him up to death, I think is clear in Scripture, if anything be so.
2. Paul seems to interpret this place to me, when he informs us, that Christ was declared to be the Son of God with Power, by the Resurrection from the dead, Rom. 1. 3. Not that he was made so, but he was declared, or made known to be so. When being crucified through weakness, he lived by the Power of God, 2 Cor. 13. 4. Which power also was his own, Joh. 10. 18.
According as was before intimated, Grotius interprets these words, Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee: I have made thee a King; which (he says) was fulfilled in that, when all power was given him in Heaven and Earth Math. 28. 18. as Justin in his Colloquie with Trypho. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . But then he was not the Son of God before his Resurrection: for he was the Son of God by his being begotten of him: which as it is false, so contrary to his own Gloss on Luk. 1. 35. (2.) Christ was a King before his Resurrection, and owned himself so to be, as hath been shown. (3.) Iustins words are suited to our exposition of this place: He was said to be then begotten, because then he was made known to be so the Son of God. (4.) That these words are not applied to Christ in their first sense, in respect of Resurrection, from the preeminence assigned unto him above Angels by virtue of this expression, Heb. 1. 5. which he had before his death, Heb. 1. 6. Nor (5.) Are the words here used to prove the Resurrection, which is done in the verses following out of Isaiah, and another Psalm; And as concerning that he raised him from the dead &c. v. 34. but then
3. It is not an interpretation of the meaning of that passage in the Psalm, which Paul Act. 13. insists on; but the proving that Christ was the Son of God, as in that Psalm he was called, by his Resurrection from the dead: which was the great manifesting cause of his Deity in the world.
What M. B. intends by the next place mentioned by him, I know not. It is Rev. 1. 5. And from Jesus Christ who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead. That Christ was the first who was raised from the dead, to a blessed and glorious immortality, and is thence called the first begotten of them, or from the dead, and that all that rise to such an immortality, riseafter him, and by virtue of his Resurrection, is most certain and granted; but that from thence he is that only begotten Son of God, though thereby he was only declared so to be, there is not the least tittle in the Text giving occasion to such an apprehension.
And the same also is affirmed of the following place of Col. 1. 18. where the same words are used again. He is the head of the Church, who is the beginning, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : the first borne of the dead. Only I shall desire our Catechist to look at his leisure, a little higher into the chapter, where he will find him called also 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the first borne of all the Creation; so that he must surely be 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 before his Resurrection: nay he is so the first borne of every creature, as to be none of them: for by him they were all created, v. 16. He who is so before all Creatures, as to be none of them, but that they are all created by him, is God blessed forever: which when our Catechist disproves, he shall have me for one of his Disciples.
Of the same kind is that which M. Biddle next urgeth from Heb. 1. 4, 5. only it hath this further disadvantage, that both the verses going immediately before, and that immediately following after, do inevitably evince, that the Constitutive cause of the Sonship of Jesus Christ, a priori, is in his participatin of the divine nature, and that it is only manifested by any ensuing Consideration, v. 2, 3. The Holy Ghost tells us, that by him God made the world, who is the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, and this as the Son of God, antecedent to any exaltation as Mediator: & v. 6. He brings in the first begotten into the world, and say's, let all the Angels of God worship him. He is the first begotten before his bringing into the world; and that this is proved by the latter clause of the verse, shall be afterwards demonstrated. Between both these, much is not like to be spoken against the Eternal Sonship of Christ. Nor is the Apostle only declaring his preeminence above the Angels, upon the account of that name of his, the Son of God, which he is called upon record, in the Old Testament; but the causes also of that appellatio • he had before declared.
The last place urged to this purpose is of the same import. It is Heb. 5. 5. So Christ also glorified not himself, to be made an high Priest; but he that said unto him, thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. When M. B. proves anything more towards his purpose frō this place, but only that Christ did not of his own accord undertake the office of a Mediator, but was designed to it of God his Father, who said unto him, Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee declaring of him so to be, with power after his Resurrection, I shall acknowledge him to have better skill in disputing, then as yet I am convinced he is possessed of.
And thus have I cleared the Eternal Sonship of Jesus Christ, and evidenced the vanity of attempting to fix his prerogative therein upon any other account: nor doubting; but that all who love him in sincerity, will be zealous of his glory herein. For his growing up to be the Son of God by degrees, to be made a God in process of time, to be the adopted Son of God; to be the Son of God upon various accounts of diverse • ind • inconsistent with one-another, to have had such a Conception & Generation, as modesty forbids to think, or express; not to have been the Son of God, until after his death, and the like monstrous figments, I hope He will himself keep his own in an everlasting abhorring of.
The farther confirmation of the Deity Christ, whereby M▪ Biddles whole design will be obviated, and the vindication of the Testimonyes where • ewith it is so confirmed from his Masters, is the work designed for the next Chapter.
There are yet remaining of this Chapter two or three Questions, looking the same way with those already considered, and will upon the principles already laid down, & insisted on. easily, and in very few words be t • rned aside from prejudicing the Eternal Deity of the Son of God. His 10 th then is,
What saith the Son concerning the prerogative of the Father above him? And answer is given, Joh. 14. 28. Mark. 13. 22. Math. 24. 36. Whereunto is subjoined another of the same; What saith the Apostle Paul? Answ. 1 Cor. 15. 24, 28. 1 Cor. 11. 3.
The intendment of these questions being the application of what is spoken of Christ, either as Mediator or as man, unto his Person, to the exclusion of any other consideration, viz. that of adivine Nature therein, the whole of M Biddles aim in them is sufficiently already disappointed. It is true, there is an Order, yea a Subordination in the Persons of the Trinity themselves; whereby the Son, as to his Personality, may be said to depend on the Father, being begotten of him; but that is not the Subordination here aimed at by M. B. but that which he underwent by dispensation as Med • atour, or which attends him in respect of his Human Nature. All the difficulty that may arise from these kinds of attribution to Christ, the Apostle abundantly salves in the discovery of the rise and occasion of them, Phil. 2. 7 • 8, 9. He who was in the form of God, and equal to him, was in the form of a servant, whereunto • he humbled himself, his servant, and less then he. And there is no more difficulty in the Questions wherewith M. B. amuses himself and his Disciples, then there was in that, wherewith our Savior stopped the mouth of the Pharisees, viz. how Christ could be the Son of David, and yet his Lord, whom he worshipped? For the places of Scripture in particular urged by M. Biddle Job. 14. 28. Says our Savior, my Father is greater then I (mittens misso, says Grotius himself referring the words to Office not Nature ) which he was, and is in respect of that work of Mediation; which he had undertaken; but inaequalitas officii non tollit aequalitatem naturae. A Kings Son is of the same nature with his Father, though he may be employed by him in an inferior office. He that was less then his Father, as to the work of Mediation, being the Fathers servant therein, is equal to him as his Son, as God to be blessed forever, Mark. 13. 32. Math. 24. 36. affirm, that the Father only knows the times and seasons mentioned, not the Angels, nor the Son. And yet notwithstanding it was very truly said of Peter to Christ, Lord thou knowest all things, Joh. 22. 17. He that in, and of the knowledge & wisdom, which as man he had, and wherein he grew from his infancy, knew not that day, yet as he knew all things knew it: It was not hidden from him, being the day by him appointed. Let M. Biddle acknowledge, that his knowing all things proves him to be God, and we will not deny, but his not knowing the day of Judgment, proves him to have another capacity, and to be truly man.
As man he took on him those Affections, which we call 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; amongst which, or consequently unto which, he might be ignorant of some things. In the mean time he who made all times, as Christ did Heb. 1. 2. knew their end, as well as their beginning. He knew the Father, and the day by him appointed; yea all things that the Father hath were his: and in Him were all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hid, Col. 2. 3.
Paul speaks to the same purpose, 1 Cor: 15. 24, 28. The Kingdom that Christ doth now peculiarly exercise, is his Economical mediatory Kingdom, which shall have an end put to it, when the whole of his intendment in that work shall be fulfilled, and accomplished. But that He is not also sharer with his Father, in that universal Monarchy, which, as God by nature, he hath over all, this doth not at all prove. All the Argument from this place is but this; Christ shall cease to be Mediator, therefore he is not God. And that no more is here intended, is evident from the expression of it: Then shall the Son himself be subject; which if it intend anything, but the ceasing from the Administration of the mediatory Kingdom, wherein the human nature is a sharer, it would prove, that as Jesus Christ is Mediator, he is not in subjection to his Father, which himself abundantly hath manifested to be otherwise. Of 1 Cor. 11. 3. & 3. 22, 23. there is the same reason; both speaking of Christ as Mediator; whence that no Testimony can be produced against his Deity, hath been declared.
He Adds 12 th Q. Howbeit is not Christ dignified, as with the title of Lord, so with the title of God in the Scripture? Ans. Thomas saith my Lord, and my God. Verily, if Thomas said, that Christ was his God, and said true, M. B. is to blame, who denies him to be God at all. With this one blast of the spirit of the Lord is his fine Fabric of Religion blown to the ground. And it may be supposed, that M. B. made mention of this portion of Scripture, that he might have the honor of cutting his own throat, and destroying his own cause; or rather, that God in his Righteous judgment hath forced him to open his mouth to his own shame. What ever be the cause of it, M. B. is very far from escaping this sword of the Lord, either by his insinuation in the present Quere, or diversion in the following: For the present: it was not the intent of Thomas to dignify Christ with Titles, but to make a plain Confession of his Faith, being called upon by Christ to believe. In this state he professes, that he believes him to be his Lord and his God. Thomas doubtless was a Christian; and M. B. tells us that Christians have but one God, 1. Chap: Qu. 1. Eph. 4. 6. Jesus Christ then being the God of Thomas, he is the Christians one God: if M r B. may be believed. It is not then the dignifying of Christ with Titles, which it is not for men to do, but the naked confession of a Believers Faith, that in these words is expressed. Christ is the Lord and God of a Believer; Ergo, the only true God; as 1 Joh: 5. 19. M. B. perhaps will tell you, he was made a God; so one Abomination begets another, Infidelity Idolatry: of this afterward. But yet he was not according to his Companions made a God before his Ascension; which was not yet, when Thomas made his solemn Confession.
Some attempt also is made upon this place by Grotius. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Here first (saith he) in the story of the Gospel is this 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 word sound ascribed by the Apostle unto Jesus Christ (which Maldonado before him observed for another purpose) to wit, after he had by his Resurrection proved himself to be him, from whom life and that Eternal, ought to be expected. And this custom abode in the Church, as appears not only in the Apostolical writings, Rom. 9. 5. and of the Ancient Christians, as may be seen in Just in Martyr against Trypho, but in the Epistle also of Pliny unto Trajane, where he says, that the Christians sang verses to Christ, as to God: or as the words are in the Author, Carmen Christo, quasi Beo, • icere se • ù invitē. What the intendment of this discourse is, is evident to all those, who are a little exercised in the writings of them, whom out Author all along in his Annototions takes care of. That Christ was now made a God at his Resurrection, & is so called from the power wherewith he was entrusted at his Ascension, is the aim of this discourse. Hence he tells us, it became a custom to call him God among the Christians, which also abode amongst them. And to prove this custom, wrests that of the Apostle Rom. 9. 5. where the Deity of Christ is spoken of, in opposition to his human nature, or his flesh, that he had of the Jews, plainly asserting a divine nature in him, calling him God subjectively, and not only by way of Attribution. But this is it seems a custom taken up after Christ's Resurrection to call him God, and • o continued; though John testify expressly, that he was God 〈◊〉 the beginning. It is true indeed, much is not to be argued from the expression of the Apostles, before the pow • ing out of the Spirit upon them, as to any eminent acquaintance with Spiritual things: Yet they had before made this solemn Confession, that Christ was the Son of the Living God, Math. 16. 16, 17, 18. which is to the full as much as what is hereby Thomas expressed. That the primitive Christians worshipped Christ, and invocated him, not only as a God, but professing him to be the true God and Eternal life, we have better Testimonys then that of a blind Pagan, who knew nothing of them, nor their ways, but by the report of Apostates, as himself confesseth. But Learned men must have leave to make known their Readings, and observations, whatever become of the simplicity of the Scripture.
To escape the dint of this sword M. Biddle nextly Queries.
Was he so the God of Thomas, as that He himself in the moan time, did not acknowledge another to be his God? Ans. Joh. 20. 17. Revel. 3. 12.
True, He who being partaker of the divine Essence, in the form of God, was Thomas his God; as he was Mediator, the head of his Church, interceding for them, acknowledged his Father to be his God. Yea God may be said to be his God, upon the account of his Sonship, and Personality, in which regard he hath his Deity of his Father, and is God of God. Not that he is a secondary, lesser, made God, a Hero, Semideus, as M. B. fancies him: but God blessed forever, in order of subsistence depending on the Father.
Of the same nature is the last question, viz. Have you any passage in the Scripture, where Christ at the same time hath the Appellation of God given to him, and is said to have a God? Ans. Heb. 1. 8, 9.
By M. B's favor, Christ is not said to have a God, thought God be said to be his God, 2. v. 8. Christ by M. Biddles Confession is expressly called God. He is then the one true God with the Father, or another: if the first, what doth he contend about? If the second, He is a God, that is not God by nature, that is, not the one God of Christians, and consequently an Idol & indeed such is the Christ that M. B. worshippeth. Whither this will be waved by the help of that expression v. 9. God thy God; where it is expressly spoken of him, in respect of his undertaking the office of mediation, wherein he was anointed of God with the oil of gladness above his fellows, God and his Saints will judge.
Thus the close of this Chapter, through the good wise hand of the providence of God, leaving himself and his Truth not without witness, hath produced instances, and evidences of the Truth opposed, abundantly sufficient, without farther enquiry and labor, to discover the sophistry and vanity of all M. Biddles former Queries, and insinuations; for which let him have the praise.
CHAP. VIII.
An entrance into the examination of the R • covian Catechism, in the business of the Deity of Christ: their Arguments against it Answered: and testimonys of the Eternity of Christ vindicated.
ALthough the Testimonies & Arguments for the Deity of Christ might be urged, and handled to a better advantage, if liberty might be used to insist upon them, in the method that seems most natural for the clearing and confirmation of this important Truth, yet that I may do two works at once, I shall insist chiefly, if not only, on those texts of Scripture, which are proposed to be handled, and answered by the Author, or Authors of the Racovian Catechism, which work takes up near one fourth part of their Book, and (and as it is well known) there is no part of it, wherein so much diligence, pains, sophistry, and cunning are employed, as in that Chapter of the Person of Christ, which by God's assistance we are entering upon the consideration of.
Those who have considered their writings know, that the very substance of all they have to say, for the evading of the force of our Testimonys, for the Eternal Deity of Christ, is comprised in that Chapter, there being not anything material, that any of them have elsewhere written, there omitted. And those who are acquainted with them, their Persons, and Abili • ys, do also know, that their great strength and ability for disputation, lys in giving plausible Answers, and making exceptions against Testimonys, caveling at every word and letter, being in proof and Argument for the most part weak and contemptible. And therefore in this long Chapter of near an 100 d pages, all that themselves propose by way of Argument, against the Deity of Christ, is contained in two or three at the most; the residue being wholly taken up with exceptions to so many of the Texts of Scripture, wherein the Deity of Christ is asserted, as they have been pleased to take notice of. A course which themselves are forced to Apollogize for, as unbecoming Catechists.
I shall then, the Lord assisting, consider that whole Chapter of theirs, in both parts of it; as to what they have to say for themselves, or to plead against the Deity of Christ; as also what they bring forth for their defense against the evidence of the light that shineth from the Texts, whose consideration they propose to themselves, to which many of like sort may be added.
I shall only inform the Reader, that this is a business quite beyond my first intention in this Treatise, to whose undertaking I have been prevailed on, by the desires and entreaties of some, who knew that I had this other work imposed on me.
Their first Question and Answer are,
Declare now to me, what I ought to know concerning Jesus Christ?
A. Thou must know, that of the things which thou oughtest to know, some belong to the Essence of Christ, and some to his office.
Q. 2. What are they which relate to his Person?
A. That only, that by nature he is a true man, even as the Scriptures do often witness: amongst others, 1 Tim. 2. 5. 1 Cor. 15. 21. Such an one as God of old promised by the Prophets, and such as the • reed, commonly called the Apostles, witnesseth him to be, which with us all Christians embrace.
Ans. That Jesus Christ was a true man, in his nature like unto us, sin only excepted, we believe: and do abhor the abominations of Paracelsus, Wig • lius, &c. and the Pamelists amongst ourselves, who destroy the verity of his human Nature. But that the Socinians believe the same, that he is a man in Heaven, whatever he was upon the Earth, I presume the Reader will judge, that it may be justly questioned, from what I have to offer (and shall do it in its place) on that account. But that this is all that we ought to know concerning the Person of Christ, is a thing of whose • olly and vanity our Catechists will be one day convinced. The present trial of it between us depends in part, on the consideration of the Scriptures, which shall afterward be produced to evince the contrary: our plea from whence shall not here be Anticipated. The places of Scripture they mention prove him to be a true man: that as man he died and rose: but that he who was man, was not also in one person God, (The name of man there expressing the person, not the nature of man only,) they prove not. The Prophets foretold that Christ should be such a man, as should also be the Son of God, begotten of him Psal. 2. 7. the mighty God, Isa. 9. 6, 7. Jehovah Jerem. 23. 6. The Lord of Hosts, Zech. 2 8, 9. And the Apostles Creed also (as it is unjustly called) confesseth him to be the only Son of God, our Lord, and requires us to believe in him, as we do in God the Father; which if he were not God, were an accursed thing, Jerem. 17. 5.
Q. 3.
A.
1. Ans. But 1. I have abundantly demonstrated, that Christ neither was, nor was called the Son of God, upon the account here mentioned, nor any other intimated in the close of the Answer whatever; but merely and solely, on that of his Eternal Generation of the Essence of his Father.
2. The inquiry is after the Essence of Christ, which receives not any Alteration by any kind of eminency, or dignity that belongs to his Person. If Christ be by Essence only man, let him have what Dignity or Honor he can have possibly conferred, upon him, let him be borne by what means soever, as to his Essence and nature, he is a man still; but a man, and not more then a man; that is, purus hom • , A mere man, and not 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 God by nature; but such a God as the Gentiles worshipped Gal: 4. 8. His being made God, and the Son of God, afterward, which our Catechists pretend, relating to Office and Dignity, not to his Nature; exempts him not at all from being a mere man. This then is but a flourish to delude poor simple souls, into a belief of their honorable thoughts of Christ, whom yet they think no otherwise of, then the Turks do of Mahomet; nor believe he was otherwise indeed, or is to Christians, then as Moses to the Jews. That which Paul speaks of the Idols of the heathen, that they were not God's by nature, may according to the apprehension of these Catechists be spoken of Christ; notwithstanding any Exaltation or Deification that he hath received; He is by nature no God. Yea the apprehensions of these Gentlemen concerning Christ, and his Diety, are the same upon the matter with those of the Heathen, concerning their Worthies and Heroes, who by an 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 were translated into the number of their God's; as Jupiter, Hercules, and others. They called them God's indeed; but put them close to it, they acknowledged that properly there was but one God, but that these men were honored, as being upon their great Worth, and Noble Atchievements, taken up to blessedness and power. Such an Hero, an Hermes, or Mercury, do they make of Jesus Christ; who for his faithful declaring the will of God, was Deifyed; But, in respect of Essence and nature, which here is inquired after, if he be anything according to their principles, (of making which supposal I shall give the Reader a fair account) he was, he is, and will be a mere man to all Eternity, and no more. They allow him no more, as to his Essence, then that, wherein he was like us in all things, sin only excepted. Heb. 2.
Q. You said a little above, that the Lord Jesus is by nature man, hath he also a divine nature?
A. No: for that is not only repugnant to sound reason, but also to the Scriptures.
But this is that which is now to be put to the trial; whether the Asserting of the Diety of Christ be