The Mystery of the Gospel Vindicated

by John Owen

Table of Contents

PREFATORY NOTE BY THE EDITOR

Dedication

Epistle Dedicatory

Preface to the Reader

Mr Biddle's Preface to his Catechism

Mr Biddle's Preface briefly examined

I.—Mr Biddle's first chapter examined—Of the Scriptures

II.—Of the nature of God

III.—Of the shape and bodily visible figure of God

IV.—Of the attribution of passions and affections, anger, fear, repentance, unto God—In what sense it is done in the Scripture

V.—Of God's prescience or foreknowledge

VI.—Of the creation, and condition of man before and after the fall

VII.—Of the person of Jesus Christ, and on what account he is the Son of God

VIII.—An entrance into the examination of the Racovian Catechism in the business of the deity of Christ—Their arguments against it answered; and testimonies of the eternity of Christ vindicated

IX.—The pre-eternity of Christ farther evinced—Sundry texts of Scripture vindicated

X.—Of the names of God given unto Christ

XI.—Of the work of creation assigned to Jesus Christ, etc.—The confirmation of his eternal deity from thence

XII.—All-ruling and disposing providence assigned unto Christ, and his eternal Godhead thence farther confirmed, with other testimonies thereof

XIII.—Of the incarnation of Christ, and his pre-existence thereunto

XIV.—Sundry other testimonies given to the deity of Christ vindicated

XV.—Of the Holy Ghost, his deity, graces, and operations

XVI.—Of salvation by Christ

XVII.—Of the mediation of Christ

XVIII.—Of Christ's prophetical office

XIX.—Of the kingly office of Jesus Christ, and of the worship that is ascribed and due to him

XX.—Of the priestly office of Christ

XXI.—Of the death of Christ, the causes, ends, and fruits thereof, with an entrance into the doctrine of his satisfaction thereby

XXII.—The several considerations of the death of Christ as to the expiation of our sins thereby, and the satisfaction made therein—First, Of it as a price; secondly, As a sacrifice

XXIII.—Of the death of Christ as it was a punishment, and the satisfaction made thereby

XXIV.—Some particular testimonies evincing the death of Christ to be a punishment, properly so called

XXV.—A digression concerning the 53d chapter of Isaiah, and the vindication of it from the perverse interpretation of HUGO GROTIUS

XXVI.—Of the matter of the punishment that Christ underwent, or what he suffered

XXVII.—Of the covenant between the Father and the Son, the ground and foundation of this dispensation of Christ's being punished for us and in our stead

XXVIII.—Of redemption by the death of Christ as it was a price or ransom

XXIX.—Of reconciliation by the death of Christ as it is a sacrifice

XXX.—The satisfaction of Christ, on the consideration of his death being a punishment, farther evinced, and vindicated from the exceptions of Smalcius

XXXI.—Of election and universal grace—Of the resurrection of Christ from the dead

XXXII.—Of justification and faith

XXXIII.—Of keeping the commandments of God, and of perfection of obedience—How attainable in this life

XXXIV.—Of prayer; and whether Christ prescribed a form of prayer to be used by believers; and of praying unto him and in his name under the old testament

XXXV.—Of the resurrection of the dead and the state of the wicked at the last day

————

[APPENDIX.]

Of the Death of Christ, and of Justification

A REVIEW OF THE ANNOTATIONS OF HUGO GROTIUS

A Second Consideration of the Annotations of Hugo Grotius

Epistles of Grotius to Crellius

PREFATORY NOTE

IN 1654 the commands of the Council of State were laid upon Owen to undertake the refutation of Socinianism, which about that time was introduced into England, and in the following year the "Vindiciæ Evangelicæ" appeared;—a work of unequal merit, and in many parts obsolete under the new light shed on the subject by more recent discussions, but in the main so solid as never to have been answered; containing much that modern polemics have by no means superseded; full of information as to the early history of Socinianism, nowhere else to be gleaned in the theological literature of Britain; and altogether of such substantial excellence as to render its author's name worthy of its place as historically the first among that splendid catena of divines,—Bull, Waterland, Horsley, Magee, Fuller, Pye Smith, and Wardlaw,—by whom the cardinal doctrines of Christ's person, Godhead, and work, have been placed on a basis of unshaken demonstration from the Word of God.

In the execution of his task, our author resolved to meet three parties whose writings tended to unsettle the general belief of the Church of Christ respecting these doctrines;—Biddle, whose publications, devoted to the propagation of Unitarian sentiments, had drawn the attention and excited the fears of the Council; the Polish Socinians, as represented by the Racovian Catechism; and Hugo Grotius, whose Socinianizing comments on Scripture have left his orthodoxy on the vital truths of our Lord's divinity and satisfaction under a cloud of suspicion.

JOHN BIDDLE, the father of English Socinianism, was born in 1616, at Wotton-under-Edge. Having made considerable proficiency at the grammar school of his native town, he received from Lord Berkeley an exhibition of £10, was admitted a student of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and took his degree of A.M. in 1641. While occupied afterwards as a teacher in the city of Gloucester, he began to divulge his errors by the private circulation of a small tract, under the title, "Twelve Arguments drawn out of the Scriptures, wherein the commonly received opinion touching the Deity of the Holy Spirit is fully Refuted." He was summoned from the county jail, to which the magistrates had committed him, to answer for his errors before Parliament; and, on the report of a committee respecting his case, he was left under the custody of an officer of the House for five years. During this period he published successively his "Twelve Arguments," "A Confession of Faith concerning the Holy Trinity," and "The Testimonies of Irenæus, etc., concerning one God and the Persons of the Holy Trinity." By an atrocious act passed in 1648, in which it was made a capital offence to publish against the being and perfections of God, the deity of the Son and of the Spirit, and similar doctrines, Biddle had well-nigh fallen a martyr to his opinions. The act, however, never came into operation. He was even in more serious peril after the Long Parliament was dissolved and its opponents were in power; for he actually stood a trial for his life in 1655. Cromwell dexterously overruled these proceedings by the summary banishment of Biddle to Star Castle, in one of the Scilly Islands. He recovered his freedom only to be cast into prison anew on the Restoration; and having caught some distemper common in the jails of that time, he died a prisoner in 1662. He was a man of considerable attainments as a scholar. "Except his opinions," says Anthony Wood, "there was little or nothing blameworthy in him;" and his admirer, Toulmin, pronounces him "a pious, holy, and humble man." His piety must have been of a singular type, if we consider his views of the divine nature,—views replete with the moat profane and revolting materialism, at that time without a parallel in our literature, and calculated to shock the best feelings and holiest convictions of his countrymen, while the knowledge of them inspired continental divines with alarm, as if England were fast lapsing into the most impious heresies. It can only be from a desire that their cause may have the honour of having stood, in one instance at least, the test of civil penalties under British rule, that Socinians, who pride themselves on their views of the spirituality of God, claim affinity with poor Biddle.

Nicolas Estwick replied to him, in an "Examination of his Confession of Faith;" Poole, in his "Plea for the Godhead of the Holy Ghost;" and Francis Cheynel, in his "Divine Trinunity of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." Biddle held to his errors, and produced in 1654 his "Twofold Catechism," etc.; which the following work of Owen is designed to review and confute.

The RACOVIAN CATECHISM derives its name from the Polish city of Rakau, the chief seat of the Polish Unitarians. According to Sandius (Bib. Antitrin. p. 44), the first Catechism of this name was the work of Gregory Paul; and when Faustus Socinus and Peter Statorius, junior, were prevented by death from completing their revision of it, according to an appointment laid upon them by their brethren of the same creed, the task was devolved on Valentine Smalcius, Jerome Moscorovius, and John Volkelius. The first part of this statement seems to want authentication, and the original of the Catechism has been traced to a confession of faith prepared by George Schomann. Remodelled by the committee mentioned above, it appeared in 1605, and was the first edition of the Racovian Catechism. It was translated into German in 1608. A reprint of the original work in London attracted the notice of Parliament, and on the 2d of April 1652, the Sheriffs of London and of Middlesex were ordered to seize and burn all the copies of it at the London Exchange and at Palace Yard, Westminster. An English translation of it, prepared most probably by Biddle, issued from the Amsterdam press in 1652. The most correct and valuable edition of the Catechism, supplying the latest views of the old Socinian theology in Poland, is the quarto edition of 1680, printed at Amsterdam by Christopher Pezold. Modern Socinianism has added nothing to the plausibility with which the system is invested in this Catechism; and the refutation of its insidious principles by Owen was a service to the cause of scriptural truth, from which Christianity is yet reaping, and for generations will continue to reap, the highest benefit.

HUGO GROTIUS is a name which reminds us of a sadly chequered history, diversified gifts of the highest order, and a strangely piebald and ambiguous creed. We need not allude to the well-known incidents of his eventful career,—the high offices he held in his native country, his connection with the disputes between the Gomarists and the Remonstrants, the retribution under which he became the victim of that appeal to arms and force which his own party beyond all question had begun, his escape from prison through the ingenious device of his wife, his residence at Paris, and death at Rostock in 1645. He had published a work, "De Satisfactione Christi," designed to refute the errors of Socinianism, but towards the close of his life he prepared a series of annotations on Scripture, respecting which it was the charge of Owen that "he left but one place giving testimony clearly to the deity of Christ." Dr Hammond took him to task for misrepresenting the Dutch statesman. Owen, both in the "Vindiciæ Evangelicæ" and in his "Review of the Annotations," advances overwhelming evidence in support of his assertion. Whether we are to account it morbid candour or indifference to the great truths of the gospel, Grotius assuredly emitted a most uncertain sound respecting them. He is claimed alike by Socinians, Arminians, and Papists. The learned Jesuit Petavius said prayers for the repose of his soul; and Bossuet considered him so near the truth that "it was wonderful he did not take the last step,"—that is, connect himself with the Church of Rome,—while he affirms, at the same time, that "he stole from the Church her most powerful proofs of the divinity of Christ." Menâge wrote a witty epigram, to the effect that as many sects claimed the religion of Grotius as towns contended for the honour of being the birth-place of Homer. Who would not wish to rank among the abettors of his own tenets a statesman of such vast attainments and versatile ability? It is enough, however, to make us sympathize with Owen, who only followed the example of all the Protestant divines of Charenton, in repudiating fellowship with Grotius, when we peruse the epistles of the latter to the Socinian Crellius. See page 638. Is the difference between those who hold and those who deny the Godhead of Christ to be made matter of contemptuous aposiopesis, and to be spoken of as "quantilla causa?"—ED.

TO THE

RIGHT HONOURABLE THE COUNCIL OF STATE,

[AND]

TO HIS HIGHNESS,

THE ENSUING

VINDICATION OF THE GLORY AND DOCTRINE OF THE GREAT GOD AND OUR SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST,

WRITTEN UPON THEIR COMMAND,

IS HUMBLY DEDICATED BY ITS UNWORTHY AUTHOR,

J. O.

TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL, HIS REVEREND, LEARNED, AND WORTHY FRIENDS AND BRETHREN,

THE HEADS AND GOVERNORS OF THE COLLEGES AND HALLS,

WITH ALL OTHER STUDENTS IN DIVINITY, OR OF THE TRUTH WHICH IS AFTER GODLINESS, IN THE FAMOUS UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.

OF this second address unto you in this kind, whereunto I am encouraged by your fair and candid reception of my former, I desire you would be pleased to take the ensuing account. It is now, as I remember, about a year ago since one Mr Biddle (formerly a master of arts of this university, by which title he still owns himself) published two little Catechisms, as he calls them, wherein, under sundry specious pleas and pretences, which you will find discussed in the ensuing treatise, he endeavours to insinuate subtilely into the minds of unstable and unlearned men the whole substance of the Socinian religion. The man is a person whom, to my knowledge, I never saw, nor have been at all curious to inquire after the place of his habitation or course of his life. His opposition some years since to the deity of the Holy Ghost, and now to that of the Father and Son also, is all that he is known to me by. It is not with his person that I have any contest; he stands or falls to his own master. His arguments against the deity of the Holy Ghost were some while since answered by Cloppenburgh, then professor of divinity at Franeker, in Friesland, since at rest in the Lord; and, as I have heard, by one in English. His Catechisms also are gone over the seas; whereof farther mention must afterward be made. At their first publishing, complaint being given in by some worthy persons to the Honourable Council against them, as abusive to the majesty and authority of the word of God, and destructive to many important truths of the gospel (which was done without any knowledge of mine), they were pleased to send for me, and to require of me the performance of that work which is here presented unto you. Being surprised with their request, I laboured to excuse myself to the utmost, on the account of my many employments in the university and elsewhere, with other reasons of the like nature, which to my thoughts did then occur. Not prevailing with them, they persisting in their command, I looked on it as a call from God to plead for his violated truth; which, by his assistance, and according as I had opportunity, I was in general alway resolved to do. Having, indeed, but newly taken off my hand from the plough of a peculiar controversy about the perseverance of the saints, in the following whereof I was somewhat tired, the entrance into the work was irksome and burdensome unto me. After some progress made, finding the searching into and discussing of the important truths opposed of very good use to myself, I have been carried through the whole (according as I could break off my daily pressing occasions to attend unto it) with much cheerfulness and alacrity of mind. And this was the reason why, finding Mr Biddle came short of giving a fair occasion to the full vindication of many heads of religion by him oppugned, I have called in to his assistance and society one of his great masters, namely, Valentinus Smalcius, and his Catechism (commonly called the Racovian), with the expositions of the places of Scripture contended about by the learned Grotius, as also, on several occasions, the arguments and answers of most of the chief propugners of Mr Biddle's religion. Now, besides your interest in the truths pleaded for, there are other considerations also inducing me to a persuasion that this endeavour of mine will not be unacceptable unto you. Mr Biddle's Catechisms, as I said, being carried over and dispersed in sundry places of the United Provinces, the professors of their academies (who have all generally learned the English tongue, to enable them for the understanding of the treatises of divinity in all kinds written therein, which they begin to make use of to the purpose) cry out against them, and professedly undertake the refutation thereof. Now, certainly it cannot be for our advantage in point of repute amongst them, that they (who are yet glad of the occasion) should be enforced to undertake the confutation of a book written by one who styles himself a master of arts of this university (which they also take notice of), wherein they are so little concerned, the poison of it beingshut up from their people under the safe custody of an unknown tongue. Nicolaus Arnoldus, the professor of divinity at Franeker, gives an account of this book, as the most subtile insinuation of the Socinian religion that ever was attempted, and promises a confutation of it.

Maresius, professor at Groningen, a man well known by his works published, goes farther, and, on the account of these Catechisms, charges the whole nation and the governors of it with Socinianism; and, according to the manner of the man, raises a fearful outcry, affirming that that heresy hath fixed its metropolitical seat here in England, and is here openly professed, as the head sect in the nation, displaying openly the banners of its iniquity: all which he confirms by instancing in this book of a master of arts of the university of Oxford. Of his rashness in censuring, and his extreme ignorance of the state of affairs here amongst us, which yet he undertakes to relate, judge, and condemn, I have given him an account, in a private letter to himself.

Certainly, though we deserved to have these reproaches cast upon us, yet of all men in the world those who live under the protection and upon the allowance of the United Provinces are most unmeet to manage them; their incompetency in sundry respects for this service is known to all. However, it cannot be denied but that, even on this account (that it may appear that we are, as free from the guilt of the calumnious insinuations of Maresius, so in no need of the assistance of Arnoldus for the confutation of any one arising among ourselves speaking perverse things to draw disciples after him), an answer from some in this place unto those Catechisms was sufficiently necessary. That it is by Providence fallen upon the hand of one more unmeet than many others in this place for the performance of this work and duty, I doubt not but you will be contented withal; and I am bold to hope that neither the truth nor your own esteem will too much suffer by my engagement herein. Yea (give me leave to speak it), I have assumed the confidence to aim at the handling of the whole body of the Socinian religion, in such a way and manner as that those who are most knowing and exercised in these controversies may find that which they will not altogether despise, and younger students that whereby they may profit. To this end I have added the Racovian Catechism, as I said before, to Mr Biddle's; which as I was urged to do by many worthy persons in this university, so I was no way discouraged in the publishing of my answer thereunto by the view I took of Arnoldus' discourse to the same purpose, and that for such reasons as I shall not express, but leave the whole to the judgment of the reader.

From thence whence in the thoughts of some I am most likely to suffer, as to my own resolves, I am most secure. It is in meddling with Grotius' Annotations, and calling into question what hath been delivered by such a giant in all kinds of literature. Since my engagement in this business, and when I had well-nigh finished the vindication of the texts of Scripture commonly pleaded for the demonstration of the deity of Christ from the exceptions put in to their testimonies by the Racovian Catechism, I had the sight of Dr Hammond's apology for him, in his vindication of his dissertations about episcopacy from my occasional animadversions, published in the preface of my book of the Perseverance of the Saints. Of that whole treatise I shall elsewhere give an account. My defensative, as to my dealing with Grotius' Annotations, is suited to what the doctor pleads in his behalf, which occasions this mention thereof:—

"This very pious, learned, judicious man," he tells us, "hath fallen under some harsh censures of late, especially upon the account of Socinianism and Popery." That is, not as though he would reconcile these extremes, but being in doctrinals a Socinian, he yet closed in many things with the Roman interest; as I no way doubt but thousands of the same persuasion with the Socinians as to the person and offices of Christ do live in the outward communion of that church (as they call it) to this day; of which supposal I am not without considerable grounds and eminent instances for its confirmation. This, I say, is their charge upon him. For his being a Socinian, he tells us, "Three things are made use of to beget a jealousy in the minds of men of his inclinations that way:—1. Some parcels of a letter of his to Crellius; 2. Some relations of what passed from him at his death; 3. Some passages in his Annotations." It is this last alone wherein I am concerned; and what I have to speak to them, I desire may be measured and weighed by what I do premise. It is not that I do entertain in myself any hard thoughts, or that I would beget in others any evil surmises, of the eternal condition of that man that I speak what I do. What am I that I should judge another man's servant? He is fallen to his own master. I am very slow to judge of men's acceptation with God by the apprehension of their understandings. This only I know, that be men of what religion soever that is professed in the world, if they are drunkards, proud, boasters, etc., hypocrites, haters of good men, persecutors and revilers of them, yea, if they be not regenerate and born of God, united to the head, Christ Jesus, by the same Spirit that is in him, they shall never see God.

But for the passages in his Annotations, the substance of the doctor's plea is, "That the passages intimated are in his posthuma; that he intended not to publish them; that they might be of things he observed, but thought farther to consider;" and an instance is given in that of Col. 1:16, which he interprets contrary to what he urged it for, John 1:1–3. But granting what is affirmed as to matter of fact about his Collections (though the preface to the last part of his Annotations will not allow it to be true), I must needs abide in my dissatisfaction as to these Annotations, and of my resolves in these thoughts give the doctor this account. Of the Socinian religion there are two main parts; the first is Photinianism, the latter Pelagianism,—the first concerning the person, the other the grace of Christ. Let us take an eminent instance out of either of these heads: out of the first, their denying Christ to be God by nature; out of the latter, their denial of his satisfaction.

For the first, I must needs tell the apologist, that of all the texts of the New Testament, and Old, whereby the deity of Christ is usually confirmed, and where it is evidently testified unto, he hath not left any more than one, that I have observed, if one, speaking any thing clearly to that purpose. I say, if one, for that he speaks not home to the business in hand on John 1. I shall elsewhere give an account; perhaps some one or two more may be interpreted according to the analogy of that. I speak not of his Annotations on the Epistles, but on the whole Bible throughout, wherein his expositions given do, for the most part, fall in with those of the Socinians, and oftentimes consist in the very words of Socinus and Smalcius, and alway do the same things with them, as to any notice of the deity of Christ in them. So that I marvel the learned doctor should fix upon one particular instance, as though that one place alone were corrupted by him, when there is not one (or but one) that is not wrested, perverted, and corrupted, to the same purpose. For the full conviction of the truth hereof, I refer the reader to the ensuing considerations of his interpretations of the places themselves. The condition of these famous Annotations as to the satisfaction of Christ is the same. Not one text of the whole Scripture, wherein testimony is given to that sacred truth, which is not wrested to another sense, or at least the doctrine in it concealed and obscured by them. I do not speak this with the least intention to cast upon him the reproach of a Socinian; I judge not his person. His books are published to be considered and judged. Erasmus, I know, made way for him in most of his expositions about the deity of Christ; but what repute he hath thereby obtained among all that honour the eternal Godhead of the Son of God, let Bellarmine, on the one hand, and Beza, on the other, evince. And as I will by no means maintain or urge against Grotius any of the miscarriages in religion which the answerer of my animadversions undertakes to vindicate him from, nor do I desire to fight with the dust and ashes of men; yet what I have said is, if not necessary to return to the apologist, yet of tendency, I hope, to the satisfaction of others, who may inquire after the reason of my calling the Annotations of the learned man to an account in this discourse. Shall any one take liberty to pluck down the pillars of our faith, and weaken the grounds of our assurance concerning the person and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and shall not we have the boldness to call him to an account for so sacrilegious an attempt? With those, then, who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, I expect no blame or reproach for what I have endeavoured in this kind; yea, that my good will shall find acceptance with them, especially if it shall occasion any of greater leisure and abilities farther and professedly to remark more of the corruptions of those Annotations, I have good ground of expectation. The truth is, notwithstanding their pompous show and appearance—few of his quotations (which was the manner of the man) being at all to his purpose,—it will be found no difficult matter to discuss his assertions and dissipate his conjectures.

For his being a Papist, I have not much to say. Let his epistles (published by his friends) written to Dionysius Petavius the Jesuit be perused, and you will see the character which of himself he gives, as also what in sundry writings he ascribes to the pope.

What I have performed, through the good hand of God in the whole, is humbly submitted to your judgment. You know, all of you, with what weight of business and employment I am pressed, what is the constant work that in this place is incumbent on me, how many and how urgent my avocations are; the consideration whereof cannot but prevail for a pardon of that want of exactness which perhaps in sundry particulars will appear unto you. With those who are neither willing nor able to do any thing in this kind themselves, and yet make it their business to despise what is done by others, I shall very little trouble myself. That which seems, in relation hereunto, to call for an apology, is my engagement into this work, wherein I was not particularly concerned, suffering in the meantime some treatises against me to lie unanswered. Dr Hammond's answer to my animadversions on his dissertations about episcopacy, Mr Baxter's objections against somewhat written about the death of Christ, and a book of one Mr Horne against my treatise about universal redemption, are all the instances that I know of which in this kind may be given. To all that candidly take notice of these things, my defence is at hand. I do not know that I am more obliged to answer a treatise written against myself than any other written against the truth, though I am not particularly named or opposed therein; nor do I intend to put any such law of disquietness upon my spirit as to think myself bound to reply to every thing that is written against me, whether the matter and subject of it be worth the public ventilation or no. It is neither name nor repute that I eye in these contests: so the truth be safe, I can be well content to suffer. Besides, this present task was not voluntarily undertaken by me; it was, as I have already given account, imposed on me by such an authority as I could not waive. For Mr Horne's book, I suppose you are not acquainted with it; that alone was extant before my last engagement. Could I have met with any one uninterested person that would have said it deserved a reply, it had not have lain so long unanswered. In the meantime, I cannot but rejoice that some, like-minded with him, cannot impute my silence to the weakness of the cause I managed, but to my incompetency for the work of maintaining it. To Mr Baxter, as far as I am concerned, I have made a return in the close of this treatise; wherein I suppose I have put an end to that controversy. Dr Hammond's defensative came forth much about the time that half this treatise was finished, and being about a matter of so mean concernment, in comparison of those weighty truths of the gospel which I was engaged in the defence of, I durst not desert my station to turn aside thereto. On the cursory view I have taken of it, I look upon what is of real difference between that learned person and myself to be a matter of easy despatch. His leaves are much more soft and gentle than those of Socinus, Smalcius, Crellius, and Schlichtingius. If the Lord in his goodness be pleased to give me a little respite and leisure, I shall give a farther account of the whole difference between the learned doctor and me, in such a way of process as may be expected from so slow and dull a person as I am. In the meantime, I wish him a better cause to manage than that wherein against me he is engaged, and better principles to manage a good cause on than some of those in his treatise of schism, and some others. Fail he not in these, his abilities and diligence will stand him in very good stead. I shall not trouble you with things which I have advantages other ways to impart my thoughts concerning; I only crave that you would be pleased candidly to accept of this testimony of my respects to you, and, seeing no other things are in the ensuing treatise pleaded for but such as are universally owned amongst you, that, according to your several degrees, you would take it into your patronage or use, affording him in his daily labours the benefit of your prayers at the throne of grace, who is your unworthy fellow-labourer,

JOHN OWEN.

OXON. CH. CH. COLL.,

April 1, [1655.]

THE PREFACE TO THE READER

To those that labour in the word and doctrine in these nations of England, Scotland, and Ireland, with all that call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, John Owen wisheth grace and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

THAT so mean a person as I am should presume in this public manner to make address to all those comprised in the title of this epistle, I desire it may be ascribed to the business I come about and the message that I bring. It is about your great interest and concernment, your whole portion and inheritance, your all, that I am to deal with you. If he who passes by his neighbour's house, seeing a thief breaking up its foundations or setting fire to its chief materials, will be far from being censured as importune and impudent if he awake and call upon the inhabitants, though every way his betters (especially if all his own estate lie therein also), although he be not able to carry one vessel of water to the quenching of it, I hope that, finding persons endeavouring to put fire to the house of God, which house ye are, and labouring to steal away the whole treasure thereof, wherein also my own portion doth lie, I shall not be condemned of boldness or presumption if I at once cry out to all persons, however concerned, to take heed that we be not utterly despoiled of our treasure, though when I have so done, I be not able to give the least assistance to the defence of the house or quenching of the fire kindled about it. That of no less importance is this address unto you, a brief discovery of its occasion will evince.

The Holy Ghost tells us that we are "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: in whom we are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit," Eph. 2:20–22. And thus do all they become the house of Christ "who hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end," Heb. 3:6. In this house of God there are daily builders, according as new living stones are to be fitted to their places therein; and continual oppositions have there been made thereto, and will be, "till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ," Eph. 4:13. In this work of building are some employed by Jesus Christ, and will be so to the end of the world, Matt. 28:19, 20, Eph. 4:11, 12; and some employ themselves at least in a pretence thereof, but are indeed, to a man, every one like the foolish woman that pulls down her house with both her hands. Of the first sort, "other foundation can no man lay," nor doth go about to lay, "than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ," 1 Cor. 3:11; but some of them build on this foundation "gold, silver, and precious stones," keeping fast in the work to the form of "wholesome words," and contending for "the faith that was once delivered unto the saints."

Others, again, lay on "wood, hay, and stubble," either contending about "foolish questions," or "vain and unprofitable janglings," or adding to what God hath commanded, or corrupting and perverting what he hath revealed and instituted, contrary to the proportion of faith, which should be the rule of all their prophecy, whereby they discharge their duty of building in this house. Those with whom I am at present to deal, and concerning whom I desire to tender you the ensuing account, are of the latter sort; such as, not content, with others, to attempt sundry parts of the building, to weaken its contexture, or deface its comeliness, do with all their might set themselves against the work [rock?] itself, the great foundation and corner-stone of the church, the Lord Jesus, who is "God blessed for ever." They are those, I say, whom I would warn you of, in whom, of old and of late, the spirit of error hath set up itself with such an efficacy of pride and delusion, as, by all ways, means, [and] devices imaginable, to despoil our dear and blessed Redeemer, our Holy One, of his "eternal power and Godhead;" or to reject the eternal Son of God, and to substitute in his room a Christ of their own, one like themselves, and no more; to adulterate the church, and turn aside the saints to a thing of naught. If I may enjoy your patience whilst I give a brief account of them, their ways and endeavours for the compassing of their cursed ends; of our present concernment in their actings and seductions; of the fire kindled by them at our doors; of the sad diffusion of their poison throughout the world, beyond what enters into the hearts of the most of men to imagine,—I shall subjoin thereunto those cautions and directions which, with all humbleness, I have to tender to you, to guide some, and strengthen others, and stir up all to be watchful against this great, and I hope the last considerable attempt of Satan (by way of seduction and temptation) against the foundation of the gospel.

Those, then, who of old opposed the doctrine of the Trinity, especially of the deity of Christ, his person and natures, may be referred to three heads, and of them and their ways this is the sum:—

The first sort of them may be reckoned to be those who are commonly esteemed to be followers of SIMON MAGUS, known chiefly by the names of Gnostics and Valentinians. These, with their abominable figments of æons, and their combinations, conjugations, genealogies, and unintelligible imaginations, wholly overthrowing the whole revelation of God concerning himself and his will, the Lord Jesus and the gospel, chiefly, with their leaders, Marcus, Basilides, Ptolemæus, Valentinus secundus (all following or imitating Simon Magus and Menander), of all others most perplexed and infected the primitive church: as Irenæus, lib. i.; Tertullian, Præscrip. ad Hæret. cap. xlix; Philastrius, in his catalogue of heretics; Epiphanius in Panario, lib. i. tom. ii; and Augustine, in his book of Heresies, "ad quod vult deus manifeste." To these may be added Tatianus, Cerdo, Marcion, and their companions (of whom see Tertullian at large, and Eusebius, in their respective places.) I shall not separate from them Montanus, with his enthusiastical formal associates; in whose abominations it was hoped that these latter days might have been unconcerned, until the present madness of some, commonly called Quakers, renewed their follies; but these may pass (with the Manichees), and those of the like fond imaginations, that ever and anon troubled the church with their madness and folly.

Of the second rank CERINTHUS is the head, with Judaizing Ebion; both denying expressly the deity of Christ, and asserting him to be but a mere man; even in the entrance of the Gospel being confounded by John, as is affirmed by Epiphanius, Hær. li. "Hieronymus de Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis de Johanne." The same abomination was again revived by Theodotus, called Coriarius (who, having once denied Christ, was resolved to do so always); excommunicated on that account by Victor, as Eusebius relates, Hist. Eccles. lib. v. cap. ult., where he gives also an account of his associates in judgment, Artemon, Asclepiodotus, Natalius, etc.; and the books written against him are there also mentioned. But the most notorious head and patron of this madness was Paulus Samosatenus, bishop of Antioch, anno 272; of whose pride and passion, folly, followers, assistants, opposition, and excommunication, the history is extant at large in Eusebius. This man's pomp and folly, his compliance with the Jews and Zenobia, the queen of the Palmyrians, who then invaded the eastern parts of the Roman empire, made him so infamous to all Christians, that the Socinians do scarce plead for him, or own him as the author of their opinion. Of him who succeeded him in his opposition to Jesus Christ, some fifty or sixty years after, namely, Photinus, bishop of Sirmium, they constantly boast. Of Samosatenus and his heresy, see Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. vii. cap. xxix., xxx., and Hilary, De Synodis; of Photinus, Socrat. Eccles. Hist. lib. ii. cap. xxiv., xxv. And with these do our present Socinians expressly agree in the matter of the person of Christ.

To the third head I refer that deluge of ARIANISM, whose rise, conception, author, and promoters, advantages, success, and propagation; the persecutions, cruelty, and tyranny of the rulers, emperors, kings, and governors infected with it; its extent and continuance,—are known to all who have taken care in the least to inquire what was the state of the church of God in former days, that heresy being as it were the flood of water that pursued the church for some ages. Of Macedonius, Nestorius, and Eutyches,—the first denying the deity of the Holy Ghost, the second the hypostatical union of the two natures of Christ, and the last confounding them in his person,—I shall not need to speak. These by the Socinians of our days are disclaimed.

In the second sort chiefly we are at present concerned. Now, to give an account, from what is come down unto us, by testimonies of good report and esteem, concerning those named, Theodotus, Paulus, Photinus, and the rest of the men who were the predecessors of them with whom we have to do, and undertook the same work in the infancy of the church which these are now engaged in when it is drawing, with the world, to its period, with what were their ways, lives, temptations, ends, agreements, differences among them, and in reference to the persons of our present contest (of whom a full account shall be given), is not my aim nor business. It hath been done by others; and to do it with any exactness, beyond what is commonly known, would take up more room than to this preface is allotted. Some things peculiarly seem of concernment for our observation, from the time wherein some of them acted their parts in the service of their master. What could possibly be more desired, for the safeguarding of any truth from the attempts of succeeding generations, and for giving it a security above all control, than that, upon public and owned opposition, it should receive a confirmation by men acted by the Holy Ghost, and giving out their sentence by inspiration from God? That, among other important heads of the gospel (as that of justification by faith and not by works, of Christian liberty, of the resurrection of the dead), this most glorious truth, of the eternal deity of the Son of God, underwent an open opposition from some of them above written, during the life of some of the apostles, before the writing of the Gospel by John, and was expressly vindicated by him in the beginning thereof, is acknowledged by all who have in any measure inquired into and impartially weighed the reports of those days. What could the heart of the most resolved unbeliever desire more for his satisfaction, than that God should speak from heaven for the conviction of his folly and ignorance? or what can our adversaries expect more from us, when we tell them that God himself immediately determined in the controversy wherein they are engaged? Perhaps they think that if he should now speak from heaven they would believe him. So said the Jews to Christ, if he would come down from the cross when they had nailed him to it, in the sight and under the contempt of many miracles greater than the delivery of himself could any way appear to be. The rich man in torments thought his brethren would repent if one came from the dead and preached to them. Abraham tells him, "If they will not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." Doubtless, if what is already written be not sufficient to convince our adversaries, though God should speak from heaven they would not believe, nor indeed can, if they will abide by the fundamental principles of their religion. Under this great disadvantage did the persuasion of the Socinians set out in the world, that Christ is only ψιλὸς ἄνθρωπος,—by nature no more but a man; so that persons not deeply acquainted with the methods of Satan and the darkness of the minds of men could not but be ready to conclude it certainly bound up in silence for ever. But how speedily it revived, with what pride and passion it was once and again endeavoured to be propagated in the world, those who have read the stories of Paulus Samosatenus are fully acquainted, who γυμνῇ τῇ κεφαλῇ, blasphemed the Son of God as one no more than a man. In some space of time, these men being decried by the general consent of the residue of mankind professing the name of Jesus Christ, and their abomination destroyed by the sword of faith, managed in the hands of the saints of those days, Satan perceiving himself at a loss and under an impossibility of prevalency, whilst the grossness of the error he strove to diffuse terrified all sorts from having any thing to do therewith, he puts on it, by the help of Arius and his followers, another gloss and appearance, with a pretence of allowing Christ a deity, though a subordinate, created, made, divine nature, which in the fulness of time assumed flesh of the virgin;—this opinion being, indeed, no less really destructive to the true and eternal deity of the Son of God than that of theirs before mentioned, who expressly affirmed him to be a mere man, and to have had no existence before his nativity at Bethlehem; yet having got a new pretence and colour of ascribing something more excellent and sublime unto him than that whereof we are all in common partakers, it is incredible with what speedy progress, like the breaking out of a mighty flood, it overspread the face of the earth. It is true, it had in its very entrance all the advantages of craft, fraud, and subtilty, and in its carrying on, of violence, force, and cruelty, and from the beginning to its end, of ignorance, blindness, superstition, and profaneness, among the generality of them with whom it had to deal, that ever any corrupt folly of the mind of man met withal. The rise, progress, cruelty, and continuance of this sect, with the times and seasons that passed with it over the nations, its entertainment by the many barbarous nations which wasted, spoiled, and divided among themselves the Roman empire, with their parting with it upon almost as evil an account as at first they embraced it, are not, as I said, my business now to discover. God purposing to revenge the pride, ingratitude, ignorance, profaneness, and idolatry of the world, which was then in a great measure got in amongst the professors of Christianity, by another more spiritual, cruel, subtile, and lasting "mystery of iniquity," caused this abomination of Arianism to give place to the power of the then growing Roman antichristian state, which, about the sixth or seventh century of years since the incarnation of the Son of God, having lost all church order and communion of the institution of Jesus Christ, fell into an earthly, political, carnal combination, authorized and animated by the spirit of Satan, for the ends of superstition, idolatry, persecution, pride, and atheism; which thereby ever since [have been] vigorously pursued.

With these Arians, as was said, do our SOCINIANS refuse communion, and will not be called after their name: not that their profession is better than theirs, or that they have much to blame in what they divulge, though they agree not with them in allowing a pre-existing nature to Christ before his incarnation; but that generation of men having made themselves infamous to posterity by their wickedness, perjuries, crafts, and bloody cruelties, and having been pursued by eminent and extraordinary judgments from God, they are not willing to partake of the prejudices which they justly lie under.

From the year 600, for divers ages, we have little noise of these men's abominations, as to the person of Christ, in the world. Satan had something else to busy himself about.

A design he had in hand that was like to do him more service than any of his former attempts. Having, therefore, tried his utmost in open opposition to the person of Christ (the dregs of the poison thus shed abroad infecting in some measure a great part of the east to this day), by a way never before heard of, and which Christians were not exercised with nor in any measure aware of, he subtilely ruins and overthrows all his offices and the whole benefit of his mediation, and introduceth secretly a new worship from that which he appointed, by the means and endeavours of men pretending to act and do all that they did for the advancement of his kingdom and glory. And therefore, whilst the fatal apostasy of the western world, under the Roman antichrist, was contriving, carrying on, and heightening, till it came to its discovery and ruin, he stirs not at all with his old engines, which had brought in a revenue of obedience to his kingdom in no measure proportionable to this, which by this new device he found accruing to him. But when the appointed time of mercy was come, that God would visit his people with light from above, and begin to unravel the mystery of iniquity, whose abominations had destroyed the souls of them that embraced it, and whose cruelty had cut off the lives of thousands who had opposed it, by the Reformation, eminently and successfully begun and carried on from the year 1517, Satan perceiving that even this his great masterpiece of deceit and subtilty was like to fail him, and not to do him that service which formerly it had done, he again sets on foot his first design, of oppugning the eternal deity of the Son of God, still remembering that the ruin of his kingdom arose from the Godhead of his person and the efficacy of his mediation. So, then, as for the first three hundred years of the profession of the name of Christ in the world, he had variously opposed the Godhead of our blessed Saviour, by Simon Magus, Ebion, Cerinthus, Paulus Samosatenus, Marcus, Basilides, Valentinus, Calarbasus, Marcion, Photinus, Theodotus, and others; and from their dissipation and scattering, having gathered them all to a head in Arius and his abomination,—which sometimes with a mighty prevalency of force and violence, sometimes more subtilely (putting out by the way the several branches of Macedonianism, Nestorianism, Eutychianism, all looking the same way in their tendency therewith),—he managed almost for the space of the next three hundred years ensuing; and losing at length that hold, he had spent more than double that space of time in carrying on his design of the great antichristian papal apostasy; being about the times before mentioned most clearly and eminently discovered in his wicked design, and being in danger to lose his kingdom, which he had been so long in possession of, intending if it were possible to retrieve his advantage again, he sets on those men who had been instrumental to reduce the Christian religion into its primitive state and condition with those very errors and abominations wherewith he opposed and assailed the primitive professors thereof,—if they will have the apostles' doctrine, they shall have the opposition that was made unto it in the apostles' times: his hopes being possibly the same that formerly they were (but assuredly Christ will prevent him);—for as whilst the professors of the religion of Jesus Christ were spiritual, and full of the power of that religion the did profess, they defended the truth thereof, either by suffering, as under Constantius, Valens, and the Goths and Vandals, or by spiritual means and weapons; so when they were carnal, and lost the life of the gospel, yet endeavouring to retain the truth of the letter thereof, falling on carnal, politic ways for the supportment of it, and the suppressing of what opposed it, Satan quickly closed in with them, and accomplished all his ends by them, causing them to walk in all those ways of law, policy, blood, cruelty, and violence, for the destruction of the truth, which they first engaged in for the rooting out of errors and heresies. "Haud ignota Ioquor." Those who have considered the occasions and advantages of the bishop of Rome's rise and progress know these things to be so. Perhaps, I say, he might have thoughts to manage the same or the like design at the beginning of the Reformation, when, with great craft and subtilty, he set on foot again his opposition to the person of Christ; which being the business chiefly under consideration, I shall give some brief account thereof.

Those who have formerly communicated their thoughts and observations to us on this subject have commonly given rise to their discourses from Servetus, with the transactions about him in Helvetia, and the ending of his tragedy at Geneva. The things of him being commonly known, and my design being to deal with them in their chief seat and residence, where, after they had a while hovered about most nations of Europe, they settled themselves, I shall forbear to pursue them up and down in their flight, and meet with them only at their nest in Poland and the regions adjoining. The leaders of them had most of them separated themselves from the Papacy on pretence of embracing the reformed religion; and under that covert were a long time sheltered from violence, and got many advantages of insinuating their abominations (which they were thoroughly drenched withal before they left the Papacy) into the minds of many who professed the gospel.

The first open breach they made in Poland was in the year 1562 (something having been attempted before), most of the leaders being Italians, men of subtile and serpentine wits. The chief leaders of them were Georgius Blandrata, Petrus Statorius, Franciscus Lismaninus; all which had been eminent in promoting the Reformation.

Upon their first tumultuating, Statorius, to whom afterwards Socinus wrote sundry epistles, and lived with him in great intimacy, was summoned to a meeting of ministers, upon an accusation that he denied that the Holy Spirit was to be invocated. Things being not yet ripe, the man knowing that if he were cast out by them he should not know where to obtain shelter, he secured himself by dissimulation, and subscribed this confession: "I receive and reverence the prophetical and apostolical doctrine, containing the true knowledge of God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and freely profess that God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, ought to be worshipped with the same religion or worship, distinctly or respectively, and to be invocated, according to the truth of the holy Scripture. And, lastly, I do plainly detest every heretical blasphemy concerning God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, whether it be Arian, Servetian, Eunomian, or Stancarian." And this confession is to be seen in the acts of that convention, under his own hand, to this day; which notwithstanding, he was a fierce opposer of the doctrine here professed all his days afterward.

And I the rather mention this, because I am not without too much ground of persuasion that thousands of the same judgment with this man do at this day, by the like dissimulation, live and enjoy many advantages both in the Papacy and among the reformed churches, spreading the poison of their abominations as they can. This Statorius I find, by (the frequent mention made of him by Socinus, to have lived many years in Poland, with what end and issue of his life I know not, nor more of him but what is contained in Beza's two epistles to him, whose scholar he had been, when he seemed to have had other opinions about the essence of God than those he afterward settled in by the instruction of Socinus.

And this man was one of the first heads of that multitude of men commonly known by the name of Anabaptists among the Papists (who took notice of little but their outward worship), who, having entertained strange, wild, and blasphemous thoughts concerning the essence of God, were afterward brought to a kind of settlement by Socinus, in that religion he had prepared to serve them all; and into his word at last consented the whole droves of Essentiators, Tritheists, Arians, and Sabellians, that swarmed in those days in Silesia, Moravia, and some other parts of Germany.

For Blandrata, his story is so well known, from the epistles of Calvin and Beza, and others, that I shall not insist much upon it. The sum of what is commonly known of him is collected by Hornbeck.

The records of the synods in Poland of the reformed churches give us somewhat farther of him; as doth Socinus also against Weik. Being an excellent physician, he was entertained, at his first coming into Poland, by Prince Radzivil, the then great patron of the reformed religion in those parts of the world,—one of the same family with this captain-general of the Polonian forces for the great dukedom of Lithuania, a man of great success in many fights and battles against the Muscovites, continuing the same office to this day. To him Calvin instantly wrote, that he should take care of Blandrata, as a man not only inclinable to, but wholly infected with, Servetianism. In that, as in many other things he admonished men of by his epistles, that wise and diligent person had the fate to tell the truth and not be believed. See Calvin's epistles, about the year 1561. But the man on this occasion being sent to the meeting at Pinckzow (as Statorius), he subscribes this confession:—

"I profess myself to believe in one God the Father, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, his Son, and in one Holy Ghost, whereof each is essentially God. I detest the plurality of Gods, seeing to us there is one only God, indivisible in essence. I confess three distinct persons, the eternal deity and generation of Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, true and eternal God, proceeding from them both."

This did the wretched man think meet to do, that he might preserve the good esteem of his patron and reserve himself for a fitter opportunity of doing mischief; which also he did, obtaining a testimonial from the whole meeting of his soundness in the faith, with letters to Prince Radzivil and to Calvin signifying the same.

Not long after this, by the great repute of his skill in physic, he became known and physician to Stephen, king of Poland; by whose favour, having no small liberty indulged him, the became the patron of all the Anti-trinitarians of all sorts throughout Poland and Transylvania. What books he wrote, and what pains he took in propagating their cause, hath been declared by others. The last epistle of Socinus, in order as they are printed (it being without date, yet evidently written many years before most of them that went before it), is to this Blandrata, whose inscription is, "Amplissimo clarissimoque viro Georgio Blandratæ Stephani invictissimi regis Poloniæ, etc., archiatro et conciliario intimo, domino, ac patrono suo perpetua observantia colendo; et subscribitur, Tibi in Domino Jesu deditissimus cliens tuus F. S." To that esteem was he grown amongst them, because of his advantages to insinuate them into the knowledge of great men, which they mostly aimed at; so that afterward, when Socinus wrote his answer about magistrates to Palæologus, in defence of the Racovians, Marcellus Squarcialupus, his countryman, a man of the same persuasion with him, falls foully on him, that he would venture to do it without the knowledge and consent of this great patron of theirs.

But though this man by his dissimulation and falsehood thus escaped censure, and by his art and cunning insinuation obtained high promotions and heaped up great riches in the world, yet even in this life he escaped not the revenging hand of God. He was found at length with his neck broke in his bed; by what hand none knoweth. Wherefore Socinus, observing that this judgment of God upon him, as that on Franciscus David (of which mention shall be made afterward), would be fixed on in the thoughts of men to the prejudice of the cause which he favoured, considering more what was for his interest than what was decent or convenient, decries him for an apostate to the Jesuits before he was so destroyed, and intimates that he was strangled in his bed by a kinsman whom he had made his heir, for haste to take possession of his great wealth.

The story I have adjoined at large, that the man's ingenuity and thankfulness to his friend and patron may be seen. He tells us, that before the death of Stephen, king of Poland, he was turned from their profession by the Jesuits. Stephen, king of Poland, died in the year 1588, according to Helvicus. That very year did Socinus write his answer to Volanus, the second part whereof he inscribed with all the magnifical titles before mentioned to Blandrata, professing himself his devoted client, and him the great patron of their religion! So that though I can easily believe what he reports of his covetousness and treachery, and the manner of his death, yet as to his apostasy (though possibly he might fall more and more under the power of his atheism), I suppose the great reason of imputing that to him was to avoid the scandal of the fearful judgment of God on him in his death.

For Lismaninus, the third person mentioned, he was accused of Arianism at a convention at Morden, anno 1553, and there acquitted with a testimonial. But in the year 1561, at another meeting at Whodrislave, he was convicted of double dealing, and after that wholly fell off to the Anti-trinitarians, and in the issue drowned himself in a well.

And these were the chief settled troublers at the first of Polonian reformed churches. The stories of Paulus Alciatus, Valentinus Gentilis, Bernardus Ochinus, and some others, are so well known, out of the epistles of Calvin, Beza, Bullinger, Zanchins, with what hath of late from them been collected by Cloppenburgius, Hornbeck, Maresius, Becmannus, etc., that it cannot but be needless labour for me to go over them again. That which I aim at is, from their own writings, and what remains on record concerning them, to give a brief account of the first breaking in of Anti-trinitarianism into the reformed churches of Poland, and their confused condition before headed by Socinus, into whose name they have since been all baptized.

This, then, was the state of the churches in those days: The reformed religion spreading in great abundance, and churches being multiplied every day in Poland, Lithuania, and the parts adjoining; some tumults having been raised, and stirs made by Osiander and Stancarus about the essential righteousness and mediation of Christ (concerning which the reader may consult Calvin at large); many wild and foolish opinions being scattered up and down, about the nature of God, the Trinity, and Anabaptism, by many foreigners, sundry being thereby defiled, the opinions of Servetus having wholly infected sundry Italians: the persons before spoken of, then living at Geneva and about the towns of the Switzers, that embraced the gospel, being forced to flee for fear of being dealt withal as Servetus was (the judgment of most Christian rulers in whose days leading them to such a procedure, how rightly I do not now determine), scarce any one of them escaping without imprisonment and abjuration (an ill foundation of their after profession), they went most of them into Poland, looked on by them as a place of liberty, and joined themselves to the reformed churches in those places, and continuing many years in their communion, took the opportunity to entice and seduce many ministers with others, and to strengthen them who were fallen into the abominations mentioned before their coming to them.

After many tergiversations, many examinations of them, many false subscriptions, in the year 1562, they fell into open division and separation from the reformed churches. The ministers that fell off with them, besides Lismaninus and his companions (of whom before), were Gregorius Pauli, Stanislaus, Lutonius Martinus Crovicius, Stanislaus Paclesius, Georgius Schomanus, and others, most of whom before had taken good pains in preaching the gospel. The chief patrons and promoters were Johannes Miemoljevius, Hieronymus Philoponius, Johannes Cazaccovius, the one a judge, the other a captain, the third a gentleman,—all men of great esteem.

The year that this breach was made, LÆLIUS SOCINUS, then of the age of thirty-seven years, who laid the foundations that his nephew after built upon, died in Switzerland, as the author of the life of Faustus Socinus informs us. The man's life is known: he was full of Servetianism, and had attempted to draw sundry men of note to his abominations; a man of great subtilty and cunning, as Beza says of him, incredibly furnished for contradiction and sophism; which the author of the life of Socinus phrases, he was "suggerendæ veritatis mirus artifex." He made, as I said, many private attempts on sundry persons to entice them to Photinianism; on some with success, on others without. Of his dealing with him, and the advantage he had so to do, Zanchius gives an account in his preface to his book "De Tribus Elohim."

He was, as the author of the life of Faustus Socinus relates, in a readiness to have published his notions and conceptions, when God, by his merciful providence, to prevent a little the pouring out of the poison by so skilful a hand, took him off by sudden death; and Faustus himself gives the same account of the season of his death in an epistle to Dudithius.

At his death, FAUSTUS SOCINUS, being then about the age of twenty-three years, seizing upon all his uncle's books, after a while returned into Italy, and there spent in courtship and idleness in Florence twelve years; which he afterward grievously lamented, as shall be declared. Leaving him a while to his pleasure in the court of the great duke, we may make back again into Poland, and consider the progress of the persons who made way for his coming amongst them. Having made their separation, and drawn many after them, they at length brought their business to that height that they came to a disputation with the reformed ministers at Petricove (where the parliament of the kingdom then was) by the permission of Sigismund the king, in the year 1565, whereof the ensuing account is given by Antonius Possevine the Jesuit, in Atheis, sui sæculi, cap. xiii. fol. 15.

The assembly of states was called against the Muscovians. The nobility desiring a conference between the ministers of the reformed churches and the Anti-trinitarians, it was allowed by Sigismund the king. On the part of the reformed churches there were four ministers; as many of the other side came also prepared for the encounter. Being met, after some discourse the chief marshal of the kingdom, then a Protestant, used these words, "Seeing the proposition to be debated is agreed on, begin, in the name of the one God and the Trinity." Whereupon one of the opposite party instantly cried out, "We cannot here say Amen, nor do we know that God, the Trinity."6 Whereunto the ministers subjoined, "We have no need of any other proposition, seeing this hath offered itself; for, God assisting, we will, and are ready to demonstrate that the Holy Ghost doth not teach us any other God in the Scripture, but him only who is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; that is, one God in trinity."

This colloquy continued three days. In the first, the ministers who were the opponents (the other always choosing to answer), by express texts of Scripture in abundance, confirmed the truth. In the beginning of their testimonies they appealed to the beginning of the Old and New Testament; and upon both places confounded their adversaries. The second day the testimonies of the ancient writers of the church were produced, with no less success. And on the third, the stories of Arius and some other heretics of old. The issue of the disputation was to the great advantage of the truth; which Possevine himself cannot deny, though he affirms a little after that the Calvinists could not confute the Trinitarians, as he calls them, though they used the same arguments that the Catholics did, cap. xiv. p. 366.

Possevine confesses that the ministers (as they called themselves) of Sarmatia and Transylvania, in their book of the False and True Knowledge of God, took advantage of the images of the Catholics; for whose satisfaction, it seems, he subjoins the theses of Thyreus, wherein he labours to prove the use of those abominable idols to be lawful: of which in the close of this address.

And this was the first great obstacle that was laid in the way of the progress of the reformed religion in Poland; which, by Satan's taking the advantage of this horrible scandal, is at this day, in those parts of the world, weak and oppressed. With what power the gospel did come upon the inhabitants of those countries at the first, and what number of persons it prevailed upon to forsake their dumb idols, which in Egyptian darkness they had long worshipped, is evident from the complaint of Cichovius the priest, who tells us that "about those times, in the whole parliament of the dukedom of Lithuania, there were not above one or two Catholics," as he calls them, "besides the bishops." Yea, among the bishops themselves, some were come off to the reformed churches; amongst whom Georgius Petrovicius, bishop of Sarmogitia, is reckoned by Diatericus, Chron. p. 49. Yea, and so far had the gospel influenced those nations, that in the year 1542, upon the death of King Sigismund II., during the interregnum, a decree was made in parliament, with general consent, that no prejudice should arise to any for the protestant religion, but that a firm union should be between the persons of both religions, popish and protestant; and that whosoever was chosen king should take an oath to preserve this union and the liberty of the protestant religion.—Sarricius, Annal. Pol. lib. viii. p. 403.

And when Henry, duke of Anjou, brother to Charles IX., king of France, was elected king of Poland (being then a man of great esteem in the world, for the wars which in France he had managed for the Papists against the Prince of Condè and the never-enough-magnified Gasper Coligni,2 being also consenting at least to the barbarous massacre of the Protestants in that nation), and coming to the church where he was to be crowned, by the advice of the clergy, would have avoided the oath of preserving the Protestants and keeping peace between the dissenters in religion, John Shirli, palatine of Cracovia, took up the crown, and making ready to go away with it out of the convention, cried out, "Si non jurabis, non regnabis,"—"If you will not swear, you shall not reign;" and thereby compelled him to take the oath agreed upon.

This progress, I say, had the doctrine of the gospel made in those nations, so considerable a portion of the body of the people were won over to the belief of it, when; through the craft and subtilty of the old enemy of the propagation thereof, by this apostasy of some to Tritheism, as Gregorius Pauli, of some to Arianism, as Erasmus Johannes, of some to Photinianism, as Statorius and Blandrata, some to Judaism, as Seidelius (of whom afterward), the foundation of the whole building was loosened, and, instead of a progress, the religion has gone backwards almost constantly to this day. When this difference first fell out, the Papists not once moved a mouth or pen for a long time against the broachers of all the blasphemies mentioned, hoping that by the breaches made by them on the reformed churches they should at length be able to triumph over both; for which end, in their disputes since with Protestants, they have striven to take advantage of the apostasy of many of those who had pretended to plead against the Papacy in behalf of the reformed churches and afterward turned Antitrinitarians, as I remember it is particularly insisted on in an English treatise which I saw many years ago, called "Micheus, the Converted Jew." And indeed it is supposed that both Paulus Alciatus and Ochinus turned Mohammedans.4

Having thus, then, disturbed the carrying on of the Reformation, many ministers and churches falling off to Tritheism and Samosatenianism, they laid the foundation of their meeting at Racovia; from which place they have been most known since and taken notice of in the world. The first foundation of what they call the "church" in that place was made by a confluence of strangers out of Bohemia and Moravia, with some Polonians, known only by the name of Anabaptists, but professing a community of goods and a setting up of the kingdom of Christ, calling Raeovia, where they met, the New Jerusalem, or at least professing that there they intended to build and establish the New Jerusalem, with other fanatical follies; which Satan hath revived in persons not unlike them, and caused to be acted over again, in the days wherein we live, though, for the most part, with less appearance of holiness and integrity of conversation than in them who went before.

The leaders of these men, who called themselves their "ministers," were Gregorius Pauli and Daniel Bielenscius: of whom Bielenscius afterward recanted; and Gregorius Pauli, being utterly wearied, ran away from them as from a hard service, and, as Faustus Socinus tells us, in his preface to his answer to Palæologus, in his old age left off all study, and betook himself to other employments. Such were the persons by whom this stir began.

This Gregorius Pauli, Schlusselburgius very ignorantly affirms to have been the head of the Antitrinitarians and their captain, when he was a mere common trooper amongst them, and followed after others, running away betimes,—an enthusiastical, antimagistratical heretic, pleading for community of goods. But this Gregory had said that Luther did but the least part of the work for the destruction of antichrist; and hence is the anger of Doctor Conradus, who everywhere shows himself as zealous of the honour of Luther as of Jesus Christ. So was the man, who had some divinity, but scarce any Latin at all.

Be pleased now to take a brief view of the state of these men before the coming of Faustus Socinus into Poland and Transylvania, both these nations, after the death of Sigismund II., being in the power of the same family of the Bathori. Of those who professed the reformed religion and were fallen from the Papacy, there were three sorts,—Lutherans, and Calvinists, and the United Brethren; which last were originally Bohemian exiles, but, professing and practising a more strict way of church order and fellowship than the other, had very many of the nobility of Poland and the people joined to their communion. The two latter agreed in all points of doctrine, and at length came, in sundry meetings and synods, to a fair agreement and correspondeney, forbearing one another wherein they could not concur in judgment. Now, as these grew up to union amongst themselves, the mixed multitude of several nations that had joined themselves unto them in their departure out of Egypt fell a lusting after the abominations mentioned, and either withdrew themselves or were thrown out from their communion.

At first there were almost as many minds as men amongst them, the tessera of their agreement among themselves being purely opposition to the Trinity, upon what principle soever. Had a man learned to blaspheme the holy Trinity, were it on Photinian, Arian, Sabellian, yea, Mohammedan or Judaical principles, he was a companion and brother amongst them! To this the most of them added Anabaptism, with the necessity of it, and among the Papists were known by no other name. That they opposed the Trinity, that they consented not to the reformed churches, was their religion. For Pelagianism, afterward introduced by Socinus, there was little or no mention [of it] among them. In this estate, divided amongst themselves, notwithstanding some attempts in their synods (for synods they had) to keep a kind of peace in all their diversities of opinions, spending their time in disputes and quarrellings, were they when Faustus Socinus came into Poland; who at length brought them into the condition wherein they are, by the means and ways that shall be farther insisted on.

And this state of things, considering how not unlike the condition of multitudes of men is thereunto in these nations wherein we live, hath oftentimes made me fear that if Satan should put it into the heart of any person of learning and ability to serve his lust and ambition with craft, wisdom, and diligence, it were not impossible for him to gather the dispersed and divided opinionatists of our days to a consent in some such body of religion as that which Socinus framed for the Polonians. But of him, his person, and labours, by what ways and means he attained his end, it may not be unacceptable, from his own and friends' writings, to give some farther account.

That Faustus Socinus, of Sienna, was born of a good and ancient family, famous for their skill in the law, in the month of December in the year 1539; that he lived in his own country until he was about the age of twenty years; that then leaving his country after his uncle Lælius, he went to Leyden, and lived there three years; that then, upon the death of his uncle, having got his books, he returned into Italy, and lived in the court of the great Duke of Tuscany twelve years, about the close of which time he wrote his book in Italian, "De Authoritate Sacræ Scripturæ;" that leaving his country he came to Basil in Switzerland, and abode there three years and somewhat more,—are things commonly known, and so little to our purpose that I shall not insist upon them.

All the while he was at Basil and about Germany the kept his opinions much to himself, being intent upon the study of his uncle Lælius' notes, as the Polonian gentleman who wrote his life confesseth; whereunto he added the Dialogues of Bernardus Ochinus, as himself acknowledgeth, which about that time were turned into Latin by Castalio,2 as he professed, to get money by his labour to live upon (though he pleads that he read Ochinus' Dialogues in Poland, and as it seems not before), and from thence he was esteemed to have taken his doctrine of the mediation of Christ.

The papers of his uncle Lælius, of which himself often makes mention, were principally his comment upon the first chapter of St John, and some notes upon sundry texts of Scripture giving testimony to the deity of Christ; among which Faustus extols that abominable corruption of John 8:58, of which afterward I shall speak at large, Socin. Respon. ad Eras. Johan. His comment on the first of John, Beza tells us, is the most depraved and corrupt that ever was put forth, its author having outgone all that went before him in depraving that portion of Scripture.

The comment itself is published by Junius, "in defensione sanctæ Trinitatis," and confuted by him; and Zanchius, at large, "De Tribus Elohim, lib. vi. cap. ii., et deinceps;" Faustus varying something from his uncle in the carrying on of the same design.

His book, "De Jesu Christo Servatore," he wrote, as the author of his life assures us, whilst he was in and about Basil, as also many passages in his epistles and other writings manifest.

About the year 1575 he began it, which he finished about the year 1578, although the book was not printed till the year 1594; for upon the divulging of it (he then living at Cracovia), a tumult was raised against him by the unruly and disorderly students, wherein he was dragged up and down and beaten, and hardly escaped with his life; [against] which inhumane procedence he expostulates at large in an epistle to Martin Vaidovita, a professor of the university, by whose means he was delivered from being murdered. But this fell out in the year 1598, as is evident from the date of that epistle, four years after the book was printed.

The book is written against one Covet, whom I know by nothing else but what of his disputes with Socinus is by him published. Socinus confesseth that he was a learned man, and in repute for learning; and, indeed, if we may take an estimate of the man from the little that is there delivered of him, he was a godly, honest, and very learned man, and spake as much in the cause as might be expected or was needful, before farther opposition was made to the truth he did defend. Of all the books of him concerning whom we speak, this his disputation, "De Jesu Christo Servatore," is written with the greatest strength, subtilty, and plausibility, neither is any thing said afterward by himself or the rest of his followers that is not comprised in it. Of this book he was wont afterward to boast, as Crellius informs us, and to say, "That if he might have some excellent adversary to deal withal upon the point, he then would show what could farther be spoken of the subject."3

This book, at its first coming out, was confuted by Gregorius Zarnovecius (as Socinus testifies in his epistle to Vaidovita) in the Polonian language; which was afterward translated into Latin by Conradus Huberus, and printed at Francker, anno 1618; also by one Otho Casmannus; and thirdly, at large, by Sibrandus Lubbertus, anno 1611, who, together with his refutation, printed the whole book itself, I hope to no disadvantage of the truth, though a late apostate to Rome, whom we called here Hugh Cressey, but is lately commenced B. Serenus Cressey, a priest of the order of Benedict, and who would have been even a Carthusian (such high honour did the man aim at), tells us that some of his scholars procured him to do it, that so they might get the book itself in their hands. But the book will speak for itself with indifferent readers, and for its clearness is extolled by Vossius.5 Generally, all that have since written of that subject, in theses, common-places, lectures, comments, professed controversies, have made that book the ground of their procedure.

One is not to be omitted, which is in the hands of all those who inquire into these things, or think that they are concerned in the knowledge of them; this is Grotius' "Defensio Fidei Catholicæ de Satisfactione Christi, adversus Faustum Socinum Senensem." Immediately upon the coming out of that book, animadversions were put forth against it by Harmanus Ravenspergerus, approved, as it seems, by our Doctor Prideaux.

The truth is, those animadversions of Ravenspergerus are many of them slight, and in sundry things he was mistaken; whereby his endeavours were easily eluded by the learned Vossius, in his vindication of Grotius against him. Not that the dissertation of Grotius is free from being liable to many and just exceptions, partly in things wherein he was mistaken, partly wherein he failed in what he undertook (whereby many young students are deluded, as ere long may be manifested), but that his antagonist had not well laid his action, nor did pursue it with any skill.

However, the interpretations of Scripture given therein by that learned man will rise up in judgment against many of the annotations which in his after-comments on the Scripture he hath divulged. His book was at length answered by Crellius, the successor of Valentinus Smalcius, in the school and society of Racovia, after which Grotius lived about twenty years, and never attempted any reply. Hereupon it has been generally concluded that the man was wrought over to drink in that which he had before published to be the most destructive poison of the church; the belief whereof was exceedingly increased and cherished by an epistle of his to Crellius, who had subtilely managed the man, according to his desire of honour and regard, and by his annotations, of which we shall have cause to speak afterward. That book of Crellius has since been at large confuted by Essenius,4 and enervated by a learned and ingenious author in his "Specimen Refutationis Crellii de Satisfactione Christi," published about the same time with the well-deserving labour of Essenius, in the year 1648.

Most of the arguments and sophisms of Socinus about this business are refuted and dissolved by David Paræus, in his comment on the Romans, not mentioning the name of him whose objections they were.

About the year 1608, Michael Gitichius gathered together the sum of what is argumentative in that book of Socinus against the satisfaction of Christ; which was answered by Ludovicus Lucius, then professor at Hamburg, and the reply of Gitichius confuted and removed out of the way by the same hand. In that brief rescript of Lucius there is a clear attempt to the enervating of the whole book of Socinus, and that with good success, by way of a logical and scholastical procedure. Only, I cannot but profess my sorrow that, having in his first answer laid that solid foundation of the necessity of the satisfaction of Christ, from the eternal nature and justice of God, whereby it is absolutely impossible that, upon the consideration and supposition of sin committed, it should be pardoned without a due compensation, in his rejoinder to the reply of Gitichius, he closes with a commonly known expression of Augustine, "That God could, if he would, have delivered us without satisfaction, but he would not; so casting down the most stable and unmovable pillar of that doctrine which he so dexterously built up in spite of its adversaries.

I dare boldly acquaint the younger students in these weighty points of the religion of Jesus Christ, that the truth of this one particular, concerning the eternal justice of God indispensably requiring the punishment of sin, being well established (for which end they have not only the consent but the arguments of almost all who have handled these controversies with skill and success), will securely carry them through all the sophisms of the adversaries, and cut all the knots which, with so much subtilty, they endeavour to tie and cast upon the doctrine of the satisfaction of Christ; as I have in part elsewhere demonstrated. From this book also did Smalcius take the whole of what he has delivered about the death of Christ in his Racovian Catechism, not adding any thing at all of his own; which Catechism, as it was heretofore confuted by Frederick Bauldwinus, by order of the university of Wittenburgh, and is by several parcels by many removed out of the way, especially by Altingius and Maccovius, so of late it is wholly answered by Nicolaus Arnoldus,3 now professor at Franeker; which coming lately to my hands prevented me from proceeding to a just, orderly refutation of the Whole, as I was intended to do, although I hope the reader will not find any thing of importance therein omitted.

To close the story of this book of Socinus, and the progress it hath made in the world: this I dare assure them who are less exercised in these studies, that though the whole of the treatise hath at first view a very plausible pretence and appearance, yet there is a line of sophistry running through it, which being once discovered (as, indeed, it may be easily felt, with the help of some few principles), the whole fabric of it will fall to the ground, and appear as weak and contemptible a piece as any we have to deal withal in that warfare which is to be undertaken for the truths of the gospel. This also I cannot omit, as to the rise of this abomination of denying the satisfaction of Christ, that as it seems to have been first invented by the Pelagians, so in after ages it was vented by Petrus Abelardus, professor of philosophy at Paris; of whom Bernard, who wrote against him, saith, "Habemus in Francia novum de vetere magistro theologum, qui ab ineunte ætate sua in arte dialectica lusit, et nunc in Scripturis sanctis insanit:" and in his epistle (which is to Pope Innocent) about him, he strongly confutes his imaginations about this very business; whereupon he was condemned in a council at Rome, held by the same Innocent.5

This part of our faith being of so great weight and importance, the great basis and foundation of the church, you will find it at large insisted on and vindicated in the ensuing treatise.

The author of the life of Socinus tells us (as he himself also gives in the information) that whilst he abode about Switzerland, at Basil and Tigurum [Zurich], he had a dispute with Puccius; which also is since published. This was before his going into Poland in the year 1578.

The story of this Puccius, because it may be of some use as to the present estate of the minds of many in the things of God, I shall briefly give from Socinus himself (Ep. 3, ad Matt. Radec.), and that as a tremendous example of the righteous judgment of God, giving up a person of a light, unstable spirit to fearful delusions, with a desperate issue. Originally he was a merchant of a good and noble family, but leaving his profession he betook himself to study, and for his advantage therein came hither to Oxford.2 After he had stayed here until he began to vent some paradoxes in religion, about the year 1565 (being not able here to prevail with any to close with him), he went to Basil, where there was a dispute between him and Socinus, before mentioned; in the issue whereof they both professed that they could agree in nothing in religion but that there was a God that made the world. At Basil he maintained universal redemption and a natural faith, as they then termed it, or an innate power of believing without the efficacy of the grace of God, for which he was compelled thence to depart; which doing he returned again into England, where, upon the same account, he was cast into prison for a season; thence being released, he went into Holland, from whence by letters he challenged Socinus to dispute, and went one thousand miles (namely, to Cracovia in Poland) afterward to make it good. After some disputes there (both parties condescending to them on very ridiculous conditions), Socinus seeming to prevail, by having most friends among the judges, as the other professed, he stayed there a while, and wrote a book, which he styled "The Shut Bible, and of Elias," wherein he laboured to deny all ordinances, ministry, and preaching, until Elias should come and restore all things. His reason was taken from the defection and apostasy of the church; wherein, said he, all truth and order was lost, the state of the church being not again to be recovered, unless some with apostolical authority and power of working miracles were immediately sent of God for that purpose. How far this persuasion hath prevailed with some in our days, we all know and lament. Puccius at length begins to fancy that he shall himself be employed in this great restoration that is to be made of the church, by immediate mission from God! Whilst he was in expectation of his call hereunto, there come two Englishmen into Poland, men pretending discourse with angels and revelations from God: one of them was the chief at revelations (their names I cannot learn), the other gave out what he received, in his daily converse with angels, and the words he heard from God, about the destruction of all the present frame of the worship of God. To these men Puccius joined himself, and followed them to Prague in Bohemia, though his friends dealt with him to the contrary, assuring him that one of his companions was a mountebank and the other a magician; but being full of his former persuasion of the ceasing of all ordinances and institutions, with the necessity of their restitution by immediate revelation from God, having got companions fit to harden him in his folly and presumption, he scorned all advice, and away he went to Prague. No sooner came he thither but his prophet had a revelation by an angel that Puccius must become Papist, his cheating companion having never been otherwise. Accordingly he turns Papist; begs pardon publicly for his deserting the Roman church, is reconciled by a priest, in whose society after he had a while continued, and laboured to pervert others to the same superstition with himself, he died a desperate magician. Have none in our days been led into the like maze? hath not Satan led some in the same circle, setting out from superstition to profaneness, passing through some zeal and earnestness in religion, rising to a contempt of ministry and ordinances, with an expectation of revelations and communion with angels? And how many have again sunk down into Popery, atheism, and horrible abominations, is known to all in this nation who think it their duty to inquire into the things of God. I have given this instance only to manifest that the old enemy of our salvation is not playing any new game of deceit and temptation, but such as he hath successfully acted in former generations. Let not us be ignorant of his deceits.

By the way, a little farther to take in the consideration of men like-minded with him last mentioned: of those who denied all ordinances, and maintained such an utter loss and defection of all church state and order that it was impossible it should be restored without new apostles, evidencing their ministry by miracles, this was commonly the issue, that being pressed with this, that there was nothing needful to constitute a church of Christ but that there were a company of men believing in Jesus Christ, receiving the word of God, and taking it for their rule, they denied that indeed now there was or could be any faith in Jesus Christ, the ministers that should beget it being utterly ceased, and therefore it was advisable for men to serve God, to live justly and honestly, according to the dictates of the law of nature, and to omit all thoughts of Christ beyond an expectation of his sending persons hereafter to acquaint the world again with his worship.

That this was the judgment of Matt. Radecius, his honoured friend, Socinus informs us; though he mollifies his expression, p. 123, ascribing it to others. Whether many in our days are not insensibly fallen into the same abominations, a little time will discover. The main of the plea of the men of this persuasion in those days was taken from the example of the Israelites under that idolatrous apostasy wherein they were engaged by Jeroboam. "In the days of Elijah there were," said they, "seven thousand who joined not with the residue in their false worship and idolatry, but yet they never went about to gather, constitute, and set up a new church or churches, but remained in their scattered condition, keeping themselves as they could from the abominations of their brethren;"—not considering that there is not the same reason of the Judaical and Christian churches, in that the carrying on of the worship of God among them was annexed to one tribe, yea, to one family in that tribe, and chiefly tied to one certain place, no public instituted worship, such as was to be the bond of communion for the church, being acceptable that was not performed by those persons in that place: so that it was utterly impossible for the godly in Israel then, or the ten tribes, to set up a new church-state, seeing they neither had the persons nor were possessed of the place, without which no such constitution was acceptable to God, as not being of his appointment. Under the gospel it is not so, either as to the one or other. All places being now alike, and all persons who are enabled thereunto having liberty to preach the word in the order by Christ appointed, the erecting of churches and the celebration of ordinances is recoverable, according to the mind of God, out of the greatest defection imaginable, whilst unto any persons there is a continuance of the word and Spirit.

But to proceed with Socinus. Blandrata having got a great interest with the king of Poland and prince of Transylvania, as hath been declared, and making it his business to promote the Antitrinitarians, of what sort soever, being in Transylvania, where the men of his own abomination were exceedingly divided about the invocation and adoration of Jesus Christ, Franciseus David carrying all before him in an opposition thereunto (of which whole business I shall give a farther account afterward), he sends for Socinus, who was known to them, and, from his dealing with Puccius; began to be famed for a disputant, to come to him into Transylvania, to dispute with and confute Franciscus David, in the end of the year 1578; where what success his dispute had, in the imprisonment and death of David, shall be afterward related.

Being now fallen upon this controversy, which fell out before Faustus' going into Poland, before I proceed to his work and business there, I shall give a brief account of this business which I have now mentioned, and on which occasion he was sent for by Blandrata into Poland, referring the most considerable disputes he had about that difference to that place in the ensuing treatise where I shall treat of the invocation and worship of Christ.

After way was once made in the minds of men for the farther work of Satan, by denying the deity of our blessed Lord Jesus, very many quickly grew to have more contemptible thoughts of him than those seemed to be willing they should from whose principles they professed, and indeed righteously, that their mean esteem of him did arise. Hence Franciscus David, Georgius Enjedinus, Christianus Franken, and sundry others, denied that Christ was to be worshipped with religious worship, or that he might be invocated and called upon. Against these Socinus, indeed, contended with all his might, professing that he would not account such as Christians who would not allow that Christ might be invocated and was to be worshipped; which that he was to be, he proved by undeniable testimonies of Scripture. But yet when himself came to answer their arguments, whereby they endeavoured to prove that a mere man (such as on both sides they acknowledged Christ to be) might not be worshipped with religious worship or divine adoration, the man, with all his craft and subtilty, was entangled, utterly confounded, silenced, slain with his own weapons, and triumphed over, as I shall afterward manifest in the account which I shall give of the disputation between him and Christianus Franken about this business: God in his righteous judgment so ordering things, that he who would not embrace the truth which he ought to have received should not be able to maintain and defend that truth which he did receive; for having, what in him lay, digged up the only foundation of the religious worship and adoration of Christ, he was altogether unable to keep the building upright. Nor did this fall out for want of ability in the man, no man under heaven being able on his false hypothesis to maintain the worship of Christ, but, as was said, merely by the just hand of God, giving him up to be punished by his own errors and darkness.

Being hardened in the contempt of Christ by the success they had against Socinus and his followers, with whom they conversed and disputed, some of the men before mentioned stayed not with him at the affirming of him to be a mere man, nor yet where they began, building on that supposition that he was not to be worshipped, but proceeded yet farther, and affirmed that he was indeed a good man and sent of God, but yet he spake not by the spirit of prophecy, but so as that whatever was spoken by him and written by his apostles was to be examined by Moses and the prophets, whereto if it did not agree it was to be rejected: which was the sum of the first and second theses of Franciscus David, in opposition to which Socinus gave in his judgment in certain antitheses to Christopher Barthoræus, prince of Transylvania, who had then cast David into prison for his blasphemy.2

To give a little account, by the way, of the end of this man, with his contempt of the Lord Jesus:—

In the year 1579, in the beginning of the month of June, he was cast into prison by the prince of Transylvania, and lived until the end of November. That he was cast into prison by the instigation of Socinus himself and Blandrata, the testimonies are beyond exception; for this is not only recorded by Bellarmine and others of the Papists (to whose assertions, concerning any adversary with whom they have to do, I confess much credit is not to be given), but by others also of unquestionable authority.4 This, indeed, Socinus denies, and would willingly impose the odium of it upon others; but the truth is, considering the keenness and wrath of the man's spirit, and the thoughts he had of this miserable wretch,6 it is more than probable that he was instrumental towards his death. The like apology does Smalcius make in his answer to Franzius about the carriage of the Samosatenians in that business of Franciscus David; where they accused one another of craft, treachery, bloody cruelty, treason. Being cast into prison, the miserable creature fell into a frenetical distemper, through the revenging hand of God upon him, as Socinus confesseth himself.8 In this miserable condition the devils (saith the historian) appeared unto him; whereupon he cried out, "Behold who expect me their companion in my journey," whether really, or in his vexed, distempered imagination, disordered by his despairing mind, I determine not; but most certain it is that in that condition he expired, not in the year 1580, as Bellarmine, Weik, Ræmundus, and some of ours from them, inform us, but one year sooner, as he assures us who best knew. And the consideration of this man's desperate apostasy and his companions' might be one cause that about this time sundry of the Antitrinitarians were converted, amongst whom was Daniel Bielenscius, a man afterward of good esteem.2

But neither yet did Satan stop here, but improved the advantage given him by these men to the utter denying of Jesus Christ: for unto the principle of Christ's being not God, adding another of the same nature, that the prophecies of the Old Testament were all concerning temporal things, some amongst them at length concluded that there was no promise of any such person as Jesus Christ in the whole Old Testament; that the Messiah or king promised was only a king promised to the Jews, that they should have after the captivity, in case they did not offend but walk with God. "The kingdom," say they, "promised in the Old Testament, is a kingdom of this world only; but the kingdom which you assert to belong to Jesus of Nazareth was a kingdom not of this world, a heavenly kingdom, and so, consequently, not promised of God or from God;" and therefore with him they would not have aught to do. This was the argument of Martin Seidelius, in his epistle to Socinus and his companions.

What advantage is given to the like blasphemous imaginations with this, by such Judaizing annotations on the Old Testament as those of Grotius, time will evidence. Now, because this man's creed is such as is not to be paralleled, perhaps some may be contented to take it in his own words, which are as follow:—

"Cæterum ut sciatis cujus sim religionis, quamvis id scripto meo quod habetis ostenderim, tamen hie breviter repetam. Et primum quidem doctrina de Messia, seu rege illo promisso, ad meam religionem nihil pertinet: nam rex ille tantum Judæis promissus erat, sicut et bona illa Canaan. Sic etiam circumcisio, sacrificia, et reliquæ ceremoniæ Mosis ad me non pertinent, sed tantum populo Judaico promissa, data, et mandata sunt. Neque ista fuerunt cultus Dei apud Judæos, sed inserviebant cultui divino, et ad cultum divinum deducebant Judæos. Verus autem cultus Dei quem meam religionem appello, est decalogus, qui est æterna, et immutabilis voluntas Dei; qui decalogus ideo ad me pertinet, quia etiam mihi à Deo datus est, non quidem per vocem sonantem de cœlo, sicut populo Judaico, at per creationem insita est menti meæ; quia autem insitus decalogus, per corruptionem naturæ humanæ et pravis consuetudinibus, aliqua ex parte obscuratus est, ideo ad illustrandum eum, adhibeo vocalem decalogum, qui vocalis decalogus, ideo etiam ad me, et ad omnes populos pertinet, quia cum insito nobis decalogo consentit, imo idem ille decalogus est. Hæc est mea sententia de Messia, seu rege illo promisso, et hæc est mea religio, quam coram vobis ingenue profiteor."—Martin. Seidelius Olaviensis Silesius.

To this issue did Satan drive the Socinian principles in this man and sundry others, even to a full and peremptory denial of the Lord that bought them. In answering this man, it fell out with Socinus much as it did with him in his disputation with Franken about the adoration and invocation of Jesus Christ: for granting Franken that Christ was but a mere man, he could no way evade his inference thence, that he was not to be invocated; so, granting Seidelius that the promises of the Old Testament were all temporal, he could not maintain against him that Jesus Christ, whose kingdom is heavenly, was the king and Messiah therein promised; for Faustus hath nothing to reply but that "God gives more than he promised, of which no man ought to complain." Not observing that the question being not about the faithfulness of God in his promises, but about the thing promised, he gave away the whole cause, and yielded that Christ was not indeed the king and Messiah promised in the Old Testament.

Of an alike opinion to this of Seidelius was he of whom we spake before, Franciscus David; who as to the kingdom of Christ delivered himself to this purpose: "That he was appointed to be a king of the Jews, and that God sent him into the world to receive his kingdom, which was to be earthly and civil, as the kingdoms of other kings; but the Jews rejected him and slew him, contrary to the purpose of God, who therefore took him from them and placed him in a quiet place, where he is not at all concerned in any of the things of the church, but is there in God's design a king, and he will one day send him again to Jerusalem, there to take upon him a kingdom, and to rule as the kings of this world do or have done."—Thes. Francisci David de Adorat. Jes. Christi.

The reminding of these abominations gives occasion, by the way, to complain of the carnal apprehensions of a kingdom of Christ, which too many amongst ourselves have filled their thoughts and expectations withal. For my part, I am persuaded that, before the end of the world, the Lord Jesus, by his word and Spirit, will multiply the seed of Abraham as the stars of heaven, bringing into one fold the remnant of Israel and the multitude of the Gentiles; and that his church shall have peace, after he hath judged and broken the stubborn adversaries thereof, and laid the kingdoms of the nations in a useful subserviency to his interest in this world; and that himself will reign most gloriously, by a spirit of light, truth, love, and holiness, in the midst of them: but that he hath a kingdom of another nature and kind to set up in the world than that heavenly kingdom which he hath peculiarly exercised ever since he was exalted and made a ruler and a saviour, that he should set up a dominion over men as men, and rule, either himself present or by his substitutes, as in a kingdom of this world, which is a kingdom neither of grace nor glory, I know it cannot be asserted without either the denial of his kingdom for the present, or that he is or hitherto hath been a king (which was the blasphemy of Franciscus David before mentioned), or the affirming that he hath, or is to have, upon the promise of God, two kingdoms of several sorts; of which in the whole word of God there is not the least tittle.

To return: about the end of the year 1579, Faustus Socinus left Transylvania and went into Poland, which he chose for the stage whereon to act his design. In what estate and condition the persons in Poland and Lithuania were who had fallen off from the faith of the holy Trinity was before declared. True it is, that before the coming of Socinus, Blandrata, by the help of Franciscus David, had brought over many of them from Sabellianism, and Tritheism, and Arianism, unto Samosatenianism, and a full, plain denial of the deity of Christ.2

But yet with that Pelagian doctrine that Socinus came furnished withal unto them, they were utterly unacquainted, and were at no small difference, many of them, about the Deity. The condition of the first man to be mortal and obnoxious to death, that there was no original sin, that Christ was not a high-priest on the earth, that he made no satisfaction for sin, that we are not justified by his righteousness but our own, that the wicked shall be utterly consumed and annihilated at the last day, with the rest of his opinions, which afterward he divulged, they were utterly strangers unto; as is evident from the contests he had about these things with some of them in their synods, and by writing, especially with Niemojevius, one of the chief patrons of their sect.

In this condition of affairs, the man, being wise and subtile, obtained his purpose by the ensuing course of procedure:—

1. He joined himself to none of their societies, because, being divided amongst themselves, he knew that by adhering to any one professedly, he should engage all the rest against him. That which he pretended most to favour, and for whose sake he underwent some contests, was the assembly at Racovia, which at first was collected by Gregorius Paulus, as hath been declared.

From these his pretence for abstaining was, their rigid injunction of all to be rebaptized that entered into their fellowship and communion. But he who made it his design to gather the scattered Antitrinitarians into a body and a consistency in a religion among themselves saw plainly that the rigid insisting upon Anabaptism, which was the first principle of some of them, would certainly keep them at an unreconcilable distance. Wherefore he falls upon an opinion much better suited to his design, and maintained that baptism was only instituted for the initiation of them who from any other false religion were turned to the religion of Christ; but that it belonged not to Christian societies, nor to them that were born of Christian parents, and had never been of any other profession or religion, though they might use it, if they pleased, as an indifferent thing. And therefore he refused to join himself with the Racovians, unless upon this principle, that they would desist for the time to come from requiring any to be baptized that should join with them. In a short time he divided that meeting by this opinion, and at length utterly dissolved them, as to their old principles they first consented unto, and built the remainder of them, by the hand of Valentinus Smalcius, into his own mould and frame.

The author of his life sets it forth as a great trial of his prudence, piety, and patience, that he was repulsed from the society at Racovia, and that with ignominy; when the truth is, he absolutely refused to join with them, unless they would at once renounce their own principles and subscribe to his; which is as hard a condition as can be put upon my perfectly conquered enemy. This himself delivers at large on sundry occasions, especially insisting on and debating that business in his epistles to Simon Ronembergius and to Sophia Siemichovia. On this score did he write his disputation "De Baptismo Aquæ," with the vindication of it from the animadversions of A. D. (whom I suppose to be Andrew Dudithius), and of M. C., endeavouring with all his strength to prove that baptism is not an ordinance appointed for the use of Christians or their children, but only for such as were converted from Paganism or Mohammedanism; and this he did in the year 1580, two years after his coming into Poland, as he declares by the date of the disputation from Cracovia, at the close thereof. And in this persuasion he was so fixed, and laid such weight upon it, that after he had once before broken the assembly at Racovia, in his old days he encourages Valentinus Smalcius, then their teacher, to break them again, because some of them tenaciously held their opinion; and for those who, as Smalcius informed him, would thereupon fall of to the reformed churches, he bids them go, and a good riddance of them. By this means, I say, he utterly broke up, and divided, and dissolved the meeting at Racovia, which was collected upon the principles before mentioned, that there remained none abiding to their first engagement but a few old women, as Squarcialupus2 tells him, and as himself confesses in his answer for them to Palæologus. By this course of behaviour, the man had these two advantages:—(1.) He kept fair with all parties amongst them, and provoked not any by joining with them with whom they could not agree; so that all parties looked on him as their own, and were ready to make him the umpire of all their differences, by which he had no small advantage of working them all to his own principles. (2.) He was less exposed to the fury of the Papists, which he greatly feared (loving well the things of this world), than he would have been had he joined himself to any visible church profession; and, indeed, his privacy of living was a great means of his security.

2. His second great advantage was that he was a scholar, and was able to defend and countenance them against their opposers, the most of them being miserably weak and unlearned. One of their best defensatives, before his joining with them, was a clamour against logic and learning, as himself confesseth in some of his epistles. Now, this is not only evident by experience, but the nature of the thing itself makes it manifest that so it will be: whereas men of low and weak abilities fall into by-persuasions in religion, as they generally at first prevail by clamours and all sorts of reproaches cast on learning and learned men, yet if God in his providence at any time, to heighten the temptation, suffer any person of learning and ability to fall in amongst and with them, he is presently their head and ruler without control. Some testimony hereof our own days have afforded, and I wish we may not have more examples given us. Now, how far he availed himself of this advantage, the consideration of them with whom he had to do, of the esteem they had of his abilities, and the service he did them thereby, will acquaint us.

[As] for the leaders of them, they were for the most part unlearned, and so unable to defend their opinions in any measure against a skilful adversary. Blandrata, their great patron, was not able to express himself in Latin, but by the help of Statorius, who had some learning, but no judgment; and therefore, upon his difference with Franciscus David in Transylvania, he was forced to send for Socinus out of Helvetia to manage the disputation with him. And what kind of cattle those were with whom he had to do at Cracovia as well as Racovia, is manifest from the epistle of Simon Ronembergius, one of the leaders and elders of that which they called their "church," which is printed, with Socinus' answer unto it. I do not know that ever in my life I saw, for matter and form, sense and language, any thing so simple and foolish, so ridiculously senseless and incoherent, unless it were one or two in our own days, which with this deserve an eminent place "inter epistolas obscurorum virorum." And therefore Socinus justly feared that his party would have the worst in disputes, as he acknowledges it befell Licinius in his conference with Smiglecius at Novograde,2 and could not believe Ostorodius that he had such success as he boasted in Germany with Fabritius; and tells us himself a story of some pastors of their churches in Lithuania, who were so ignorant and simple that they knew not that Christ was to be worshipped.4 What a facile thing it was for a man of his parts, abilities, and learning, to obtain a kingdom amongst such as these is easily guessed. He complains, indeed, of his own lost time in his young days, by the instigation of the devil, and says that it made him weary of his life to think of it, when he had once set up his thoughts in seeking honour and glory by being the head and master of a sect, as Ignatius the father of the Jesuits did (with whom, as to this purpose, he is compared all along by the gentleman that wrote his life); yet it is evident that his learning and abilities were such as easily promoted him to the dictatorship among them with whom he had to do.

It may, then, be easily imagined what kind of esteem such men as those would have of so great an ornament and glory of their religion, who at least was with them in that wherein they dissented from the rest of Christians.

Not only after his death, when they set him forth as the most incomparable man of his time, but in his own life and to himself, as I know not what excellent person,—that he had a mind suited for the investigation of truth, was a philosopher, an excellent orator, and eminent divine, that for the Latin tongue especially he might contend with any of the great wits of Europe, they told him to his face; such thoughts had they generally of him. It is, then, no wonder they gave themselves up to his guidance. Hence Smalcius wrote unto him to consult about the propriety of the Latin tongue, and in his answer to him he excuses it as a great crime that he had used a reciprocal relative where there was no occasion for it.2

And to make it more evident how they depended on him, on this account of his ability for instructions, when he had told Ostorodius an answer to an objection of the Papists, the man having afterward forgot it, sends to him again to have his lesson over once more, that he might remember it.

And therefore, as if he had been to deal with school-boys, he would tell his chief companions that he had found out and discovered such or such a thing in religion, but would not tell them until they had tried themselves, and therefore was afraid lest he should through unawares have told it to any of them; upon one of which adventures, Ostorodius making bold to give in his conception, he does little better than tell him he is a blockhead.5 Being in this repute amongst them, and exercising such a dominion in point of abilities and learning, to prevail the more upon them, he was perpetually ready to undertake their quarrels, which themselves were not able with any colour to maintain. Hence most of his books were written, and his disputations engaged in, upon the desire of one assembly, synod, or company of them or other, as I could easily manifest by particular instances. And by this means got he no small advantage to insinuate his own principles; for whereas the men greedily looked after and freely entertained the things which were professedly written in their defence, he always wrought in together therewith something of his own peculiar heresy, that poison might be taken down with that which was most pleasing. Some of the wisest of them, indeed, as Niemojevius, discovered the fraud, who, upon his answer to Andræus Volanus, commending what he had written against the deity of Christ, which they employed him in, falls foul upon him for his delivering in the same treatise that Christ was not a priest whilst he was upon the earth; which one abominable figment lies at the bottom of his whole doctrine of the justification of a sinner. The case is the same about his judgement concerning the invocation of Christ, which was, "That we might do it, but it was not necessary from any precept or otherwise that so we should do."

And this was nine years after his coming into Poland, as appears from the date of that epistle; so long was he in getting his opinions to be entertained among his friends. But though this man were a little wary, and held out some opposition unto him, yet multitudes of them were taken with this snare, and freely drank down the poison they loathed, being tempered with that which they had a better liking to. But this being discovered, he let the rest of them know that though he was entreated to write that book by the Racovians, and did it in their name, yet, because he had published somewhat of his own private opinions therein, they might if they pleased deny, yea, and forswear, that they were written by their appointment.

And this was with respect to his doctrine about the satisfaction of Christ, which as he says, he heard they were coming over unto; and it is evident from what he writes elsewhere to Balcerovicius that he begged this employment of writing against Volanus, it being agreed by them that he should write nothing but by public consent, because of the novelties which he broached every day. By this readiness to appear and write in their defence, and so commending his writing to them on that account, it is incredible how he got ground upon them, and won them over daily to the residue of his abominations, which they had not received.

3. To these add, as another advantage to win upon that people, the course he had fixed on in reference to others; which was, to own as his, and of his party of the church, all persons whatever that, on any pretence whatever, opposed the doctrine of the Trinity and forsook the reformed church. Hence he dealt with men as his brethren, friends and companions, who scarcely retained any thing of Christians, some nothing at all; as Martin Seidelius, who denied Christ; with Philip Buccel, who denied all difference of good and evil in the actions of men; with Eramus Johannes, an Arian; with Matthias Radecius, who denied that any could believe in Christ without new apostles;—indeed, with all or any sorts of men whatever that would but join with him, or did consent unto the opposition of the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was the principal work which he engaged in.

4. Unto these and the like advantages the man added all the arts and subtilties, all the diligence and industry, that were any way tending to his end. Some of his artifices and insinuations, indeed, were admirable, though to them who now review them in cold blood, without recalling to mind the then state of things, they may seem of another complexion.

By these and the like means, thought he once despaired of ever getting his opinions received amongst them, as he professeth, yet in the long continuance of twenty-four years (so long he lived in Poland), with the help of Valentinus Smalcius, Volkelius, and some few others, who wholly fell in with him, he at length brought them all into subjection to himself, and got all his opinions enthroned, and his practice taken almost for a rule; so that whereas in former days they accused him for a covetous wretch, one that did nothing but give his mind to scrape up money, and were professedly offended with his putting money to usury, for his full justification, Ostorodius and Voidovius, in the close of the compendium of their religion which they brought into Holland, profess that their "churches did not condemn usury, so that it were exercised with moderation and without oppression."2

I thought to have added a farther account, in particular, of the man's craft and subtilty; of his several ways for the instilling of his principles and opinions; of his personal temper, wrath, and anger, and multiplying of words in disputes; of the foils he received in sundry disputations with men of his own antitrinitarian infidelity; of his aim at glory and renown, expressed by the Polonian gentleman who wrote his life; his losses and troubles, which were not many,—with all which, and the like concernments of the man and his business in that generation, by the perusal of all that he wrote, and of much that hath been written against him, with what is extant of the conferences and disputations, synods and assemblies of those days, I have some little acquaintance;—but being not convinced of much usefulness in my so doing, I shall willingly spare my labour. Thus much was necessary, that we might know the men and their conversation who have caused so much trouble to the Christian world; in which work, having the assistance of that atheism and those corrupted principles which are in the hearts of all by nature, without the infinite rich merey of God sparing a sinful world as to this judgment, for his elect's sake, they will undoubtedly proceed.

Leaving him, then, in the possession of his conquest, Tritheists, Sabelians, Arians, Eunomians, with the followers of Francis David, being all lost and sunk, and Socinians standing up in the room of them all, looking a little upon what ensued, I shall draw from the consideration of the persons to their doctrines, as at first proposed.

After the death of Socinus, his cause was strongly carried on by those whom in his life he had formed to his own mind and judgment; among whom Valentinus Smalcius, Hieronymus Moscorovius, Johannes Volkelius, Christopherus Ostorodius, were the chief. To Smalcius he wrote eleven epistles, that are extant, professing his great expectations of him, extolling his learning and prudence. He afterward wrote the Racovian Catechism, compiling it out of Socinus' works; many answers and replies to and with Smiglecius the Jesuit, and Franzius the Lutheran; a book of the divinity of Christ, with sundry others; and was a kind of professor among them at Racovia. The writings of the rest of them are also extant. To him succeeded Crellius, a man of more learning and modesty than Smalcius, and of great industry for the defence of his heresy. His defence of Socinus against Grotius' treatise, "De Causis Mortis Christi, de Effectu SS.," his comments and ethics, declare his abilities and industry in his way. After him arose Jonas Schlichtingius, a man no whit behind any of the rest for learning and diligence, as in his comments and disputations against Meisnerus is evident. As the report is, he was burned by the procurement of the Jesuits, some four years ago, that they might be sure to have the blood of all sorts of men found upon them. What advantage they have obtained thereby time will show. I know that generation of men retort upon us the death of Servetus at Geneva; but the case was far different. Schlichtingius lived in his own country, and conversed with men of his own persuasion, who in a succession had been so before he was born: Servetus came out of Spain on purpose to disturb and seduce them who knew nothing of his abominations. Schlichtingius disputed his heresy without reproaching or blaspheming God willingly, under pretence of denying the way and worship of his adversaries: Servetus stuffed all his discourses with horrid blasphemies. Beza tells us that he called the Trinity tricipitem Cerberum, and wrote that Moses was a ridiculous impostor, Beza, Ep. 1; and there are passages cited out of his book of the Trinity (which I have not seen) that seem to have as much of the devil in them as any thing that ever yet was written or spoken by any of the sons of men. If, saith he, Christ be the Son of God, "debuissent ergo dicere, quod Deus habebat uxorem quandam spiritualem, vel quod solus ipse masculus femineus aut hermaphroditus, simul erat pater et mater, nam ratio vocabuli non patitur, ut quis dicatur sine matre pater: et si Logos filius erat, natus ex patre sine matre; dic mihi quomodo peperit cum, per ventrem an per latus."

To this height of atheism and blasphemy had Satan wrought up the spirit of the man; so that I must say he is the only person in the world, that I ever read or heard of, that ever died upon the account of religion, in reference to whom the zeal of them that put him to death may be acquitted. But of these things God will judge. Socinus says he died calling on Christ; those that were present say quite the contrary, and that in horror he roared out misericordia to the magistrates, but nothing else. But arcana Deo.

Of these men last named, their writings and endeavours for the propagation of their opinions, others having written already, I shall forbear. Some of note amongst them have publicly recanted and renounced their heresy, as Vogelius and Peuschelius; whose retractations are answered by Smalcius. Neither shall I add much as to their present condition. They have as yet many churches in Poland and Transylvania; and have their superintendents, after the manner of Germany. Regenvolscius tells us that all the others are sunk and lost, only the Socinians remain; the Arians, Sabellians, David Georgians, with the followers of Franciscus David, being all gone over to the confession of Socinus: which makes me somewhat wonder at that of Johannes Lætus, who affirms that about the year 1619, in a convention of the states in Poland, those who denied that Christ ought to be invocated (which were the followers of Franciscus David, Christianus Franken, and Palælogus) pleaded that the liberty that was granted to Antitrinitarians was intended for them, and not for the Socinians; and the truth is, they had footing in Poland before ever the name of Socinus was there known, though he afterward insults upon them, and says that they most impudently will have themselves called Christians when they are not so.2

But what numbers they are in those parts of the world, how the poison is drunk in by thousands in the Papacy, by what advantages it hath [insinuated], and continues to insinuate itself into multitudes living in the outward profession of the reformed churches, what progress it makes and what ground it gets in our native country every day, I had rather bewail than relate. This I am compelled to say, that unless the Lord, in his infinite mercy, lay an awe upon the hearts of men, to keep them in some captivity to the simplicity and mystery of the gospel who now strive every day to exceed one another in novel opinions and philosophical apprehensions of the things of God, I cannot but fear that this soul-destroying abomination will one day break in as a flood upon us.

I shall only add something of the occasions and advantages that these men took and had for the renewing and propagation of their heresy, and draw to a close of this discourse.

Not to speak of the general and more remote causes of these and all other soul-destroying errors, or the darkness, pride, corruption, and wilfulness of men; the craft, subtilty, envy, and malice of Satan; the just revenging hand of God, giving men up to a spirit of delusion, that they might believe lies, because they delighted not in the truth,—I shall only remark one considerable occasion or stumbling-block at which they fell and drank in the poison, and one considerable advantage that they had for the propagation of what they had so fallen into.

Their great stumbling-block I look upon to be the horrible corruption and abuse of the doctrine of the Trinity in the writings of the schoolmen, and the practice of the devotionists among the Papists. With what desperate boldness, atheistical curiosity, wretched inquiries and babbling, the schoolmen have polluted the doctrine of the Trinity, and gone off from the simplicity of the gospel in this great mystery, is so notoriously known that I shall not need to trouble you with instances for the confirmation of the observation. This the men spoken of (being the most, if not all of them, brought up in the Papacy) stumbled at. They saw the doctrine concerning that God whom they were to worship rendered unintelligible, curious, intricate, involved in terms and expressions not only barbarous in themselves, and not used in Scripture, but insignificant, horrid, and remote from the reason of men: which, after some struggling, set them at liberty from under the bondage of those notions; and when they should have gone to "the law and to the testimony" for their information, Satan turned them aside to their own reasonings and imaginations, where they stumbled and fell. And yet of the forms and expressions of their schoolmen are the Papists so zealous, as that whoever departs from them in any kind is presently an antitrinitarian heretic. The dealings of Bellarmine, Genebrard, Possevine, and others, with Calvin, are known. One instance may be taken of their ingenuity: Bellarmine, in his book, "De Christo," lays it to the charge of Bullinger, that in his book, "De Scripturæ et Ecclesiæ Authoritate," he wrote that there were three persons in the Deity, "non statu, sed gradu, non subsistentia, sed forma, non potestate, sed specie differentes;" on which he exclaims that the Arians themselves never spake more wickedly: and yet these are the very words of Tertullian against Praxeas; which, I confess, are warily to be interpreted. But by this their measuring of truth by the forms received by tradition from their fathers, neglecting and forsaking the simplicity of the gospel, that many stumbled and fell is most evident.

Schlusselburgius, in his wonted respect and favour unto the Calvinists, tells us that from them and their doctrine was the occasion administered unto this new abomination; also, that never any turned Arian but he was first a Calvinist: which he seems to make good by a letter of Adam Neuserus, who, as he saith, from a Sacramentarian turned Arian, and afterward a Mohammedan, and was circumcised at Constantinople. "This man," says he, "in a letter from Constantinople to Doctor Gerlachius, tells him that none turned Arians but those that were Calvinists first; and therefore he that would take heed of Arianism had best beware of Calvinism." I am very unwilling to call any man's credit into question who relates a matter of fact, unless undeniable evidence enforce me, because it cannot be done without an imputation of the foulest crime; I shall therefore take leave to ask,—

1. What credit is to be given to the testimony of this man, who, upon Conradus' own report, was circumcised, turned Mohammedan, and had wholly renounced the truth which he once professed? For my part, I should except from such a person nothing but what was maliciously contrived for the prejudice of the truth; and therefore suppose he might raise this on purpose to strengthen and harden the Lutherans against the Calvinists, whom he hated most, because that hey professed the truth which he had renounced, and that true knowledge of Christ and his will which now he hated; and this lie of his he looked on as an expedient for the hardening of the Lutherans in their error, and helping them with a stone to cast at the Calvinists.

2. Out of what kindness was it that this man bare to Gerlachius and his companions, that he gives them this courteous admonition to beware of Calvinism? Is it any honour to Gerlachius, Conradus himself, or any other Lutheran, that an apostate, an abjurer of Christian religion, loved them better than he did the Calvinists? What person this Adam Neuserus was, and what the end of him was, we have an account given by Maresius from a manuscript history of Altingius. From Heidelberg, being suspected of a conspiracy with one Sylvanus, who for it was put to death, he fled into Poland, thence to Constantinople, where he turned Mohammedan, and was circumcised, and after a while fell into such miserable horror and despair, that with dreadful yellings and clamours he died; so that the Turks themselves confess that they never heard of a more horrid, detestable, and tragical end of any man; whereupon they commonly called him Satan Ogli, or the son of the devil. And so, much good may it do Conradus, with his witness.

3. But what occasion, I pray, does Calvinism give to Arianism, that the one should be taken heed of if we intend to avoid the other? What offence does it give to men inquiring after the truth, to make them stumble on their abominations? What doctrine doth it maintain that should prepare them for it? But no man is bound to burden himself with more than he can carry, and therefore all such inquiries Schlusselburgius took no notice of.

The truth is, many of the persons usually instanced in as apostates from Calvinism to Arianism were such as, leaving Italy and other parts of the pope's dominion, came to shelter themselves where they expected liberty and opportunity of venting their abomination among the reformed churches, and joined themselves with them in outward profession, most of them, as afterward appeared, being thoroughly infected with the errors against the Trinity and about the Godhead before they left the Papacy, where they stumbled and fell.

In the practice of the "church," as it is called, wherein they were bred, they nextly saw the horrible idolatry that was countenanced in abominable pictures of the Trinity, and the worship yielded to them; which strengthened and fortified their minds against such gross conceptions of the nature of God as by those pictures were exhibited.

Hence, when they had left the Papacy and set up their opposition to the blessed Trinity, in all their books they still made mention of those idols and pictures, speaking of them as the gods of those that worshipped the Trinity. This instance makes up a good part of their book, "De Falsa et Vera Cognitione Unius Dei, Patris, Filii, et Spiritus Sancti," written in the name of the ministers of the churches in Sarmatia and Transylvania; a book full of reproach and blasphemies. But this, I say, was another occasion of stumbling to those miserable wretches. They knew what thoughts the men of their communication had to God, by the pictures made of him, and the worship they yielded to them,—they knew how abhorrent to the very principles or reason it was that God should be such as by them represented; and therefore set themselves at liberty (or rather gave up themselves to the service of Satan) to find out another god whom they might worship.

Neither are they a little confirmed to this day in their errors by sundry principles which, under the Roman apostasy, got footing in the minds of men professing the name of Jesus Christ; particularly, they sheltered themselves from the sword of the word of God, evidencing the deity of Christ by ascribing to him divine adoration, by the shield of the Papists' doctrine, that those who are not gods by nature may be adored, worshipped, and invocated.

Now, that to this day the Papists continue in the same idolatry (to touch that by the way), I shall give you, for your refreshment, a copy of a verse or two, whose poetry does much outgo the old,—

"O crux spes unica!

Auge piis constantiam,

Hoc passionis tempore,

Reisque dona veniam;"

and whose blasphemy comes not at all short of it. The first is of Clarus Bonarus the Jesuit, lib. iii. Amphitrial. Honor. lib. iii. cap. ult. ad Divinam Hallensem et Puerum Jesum, as followeth:—

"Hæreo lac inter meditans, interque cruorem;

Inter delicias uberis et lateris.

Et dico (si forte oculus super ubera tendo),

Diva parens mammæ gaudia posco tuæ.

Sed dico (so deinde oculos in vulnera verto),

O Jesu lateris gaudia malo tui.

Rem scio, prensabo si fas erit ubera dextrâ,

Lævâ prensabo vulnera si dabitur.

Lac matris miscere volo cum sanguine nati;

Non possem antidoto nobiliore frui.

Vulnera restituant turpem ulceribus mendicum,

Testa cui saniem radere sola potest.

Ubera reficient Ismaëlem sitientem,

Quem Sara non patitur, quem neque nutrit Agar.

Ista mihi, ad pestem procul et procul expungendam;

Ista mihi ad longas evalitura febres.

Ira vomit flammas, fumatque libidinis Ætna;

Suffocare queo sanguine, lacte queo.

Livor inexpleta rubigine sævit in artus;

Detergere queo lacte, cruore queo:

Vanus honos me perpetua prurigine tentat;

Exsaturare queo sanguine, lacte quco.

Ergo parens et nate, meis advertite votis

Lac peto, depereo sanguinem, utrumque volo.

O sitio tamen! O vocem sitis intercludit!

Nate cruore, sitim comprime lacte parens.

Dic matri, meus hic frater sitit, optima mater,

Vis e fonte tuo promere, deque meo.

Dic nato, tuus hic frater mi mellee fili

Captivus monstrat vincula, lytron habes.

Ergo Redemptorem monstra te jure vocari,

Nobilior reliquis si tibi sanguis inest.

Tuque parens monstra, matrem te jure vocari,

Ubera si reliquis divitiora geris.

O quando lactabor ab ubere, vulnere pascar?

Deliciisque fruar, mamma latusque tuis."

The other is of Franciscus de Mendoza, in Viridario Utriusque Eruditionis, lib. ii. prob. 2, as ensueth:—

"Ubera me matris, nati me vulnera pascunt

Scilicet hæc animi sunt medicina mei,

Nam mihi dum lachrymas amor elicit ubera sugo

Rideat ut dulci mœstus amore dolor.

At me pertentant dum gaudia, vulnera lambo

Ut me læta pio mista dolore juvent.

Vulnera sic nati, sic ubera sugo parentis

Securæ ut variæ sint mihi forte vices.

Quis sine lacte precor, vel quis sine sanguine vivat?

Lacte tuo genetrix, sanguine nate tuo.

Sit lac pro ambrosia, suavi pro nectare sanguis

Sic me perpetuum vulnus et uber alit."

And this their idolatry is objected to them by Socinus, who marvels at the impudence of Bellarmine closing his books of controversies (as is the manner of the men of that Society) with "Laus Deo, virginique matri Mariæ," wherein, as he says (and he says it truly), divine honour with God is ascribed to the blessed Virgin.

The truth is, I see not any difference between that dedication of himself and his work, by Redemptus Baranzano the priest, in these words, "Deo, Virginique Matri, Sancto Paulo, Bruno, Alberto, Redempto, Francisco, Claræ, Joannæ, Catharinæ Senensi, divisque omnibus, quos peculiari cultu honorare desidero, omnis meus labor consecratus sit" (Baranzan. Nov. Opin. Physic. Diglad.), and that of the Athenians, by the advice of Epimenides, Θεοῖς Ἀσίας, καὶ Ἐυρώπης καὶ Λιζύης, Θεῷ ἀγνώστῳ καὶ Ξένῳ, both of them being suitable to the counsel of Pythagoras:—

Ἀθανάτους μὲν πρῶτα θεοὺς, νόμῳ ὡς διάκειται,

Τίμα καὶ σέζου ὅρκον, ἔπειθʼ ἥρωας ἀγαυούς.

Τούς τε καταχθονίους σέζε δαίμονας, ἔννομα ῥέζων.

Let them be sure to worship all sorts, that they may not miss. And by these means, amongst others, hath an occasion of stumbling and hardening been given to these poor souls.

As to the propagation of their conceptions, they had the advantage not only of an unsettled time, as to the civil government of the nations of the world, most kingdoms and commonweals in Europe undergoing in that age considerable mutations and changes (a season wherein commonly the envious man hath taken opportunity to sow his tares); but also, men being set at liberty from the bondage under which they were kept in the Papacy, and from making the tradition of their fathers the rule of their worship and walking, were found indeed to have, upon abiding grounds, no principles of religion at all, and therefore were earnest in the inquiry after something that they might fix upon. What to avoid they knew, but what to close withal they knew not; and therefore it is no wonder if, among so many (I may say) millions of persons as in those days there were that fell off from the Papacy, some thousands perhaps (much more scores) might, in their inquirings, from an extreme of superstition run into another almost of atheism.

Such was the estate of things and men in those days wherein Socinianism, or the opposition to Christ of this latter edition, set forth in the world. Among the many that were convinced of the abominations of Popery before they were well fixed in the truth, some were deceived by the cunning sleight of some few men that lay in wait to deceive. What event and issue an alike state and condition of things and persons hath gone forth unto in the places and days wherein we live is known to all; and that the saints of God may be warned by these things is this addressed to them. To what hath been spoken I had thought, for a close of this discourse, to have given an account of the learning that these men profess, and the course of their studies, of their way of disputing, and the advantages they have therein; to have instanced in some of their considerable sophisms, and subtile depravations of Scripture, as also to have given a specimen of distinctions and answers, which may be improved to the discovering and slighting of their fallacies in the most important heads of religion: but being diverted by new and unexpected avocations, I shall refer these and other considerations unto a prodromus for the use of younger students who intend to look into these controversies.

And these are the persons with whom we have to deal, these their ways and progress in the world. I shall now briefly subjoin some advantages they have had, something of the way and method wherein they have proceeded, for the diffusing of their poison, with some general preservatives against the infection, and draw to a close of this discourse.

1. At the first entrance upon their undertaking, some of them made no small advantage, in dealing with weak and unwary men, by crying out that the terms of trinity, person, essence, hypostatical union, communication of properties, and the like, were not found in the Scripture, and therefore were to be abandoned.

With the colour of this plea, they once prevailed so far on the churches in Transylvania as that they resolved and determined to abstain from the use of those words; but they quickly perceived that though the words were not of absolute necessity to express the things themselves to the minds of believers, yet they were so to defend the truth from the opposition and craft of seducers, and at length recovered themselves, by the advice of Beza: yea, and Socinus himself doth not only grant but prove that in general this is not to be imposed on men, that the doctrine they assert is contained in Scripture in so many words, seeing it sufficeth that the thing itself pleaded for be contained therein. To which purpose I desire the learned reader to peruse his words, seeing he gives an instance of what he speaks somewhat opposite to a grand notion of his disciple, with whom I have chiefly to do; yea, and the same person rejects the plea of his companions, of the not express usage of the terms wherein the doctrine of the Trinity is delivered in the Scripture, as weak and frivolous.2 And this hath made me a little marvel at the precipitate, undigested conceptions of some, who, in the midst of the flames of Socinianism kindling upon us on every side, would (contrary to the wisdom and practice of all antiquity, no one assembly in the world excepted) tie us up to a form of confession composed of the bare words of the Scripture, in the order wherein they are placed. If we profess to believe that Christ is God blessed for ever, and the Socinians tell us, "True, but he is a God by office, not by nature," is it not lawful for us to say, "Nay, but he is God, of the same nature, substance, and essence with his Father?" If we shall say that Christ is God, one with the Father, and the Sabellians shall tell us, "True, they are every way one, and in all respects, so that the whole Deity was incarnate," is it not lawful for us to tell them, that though he be one in nature and essence with his Father, yet he is distinct from him in person? And the like instances may be given for all the expressions wherein the doctrine of the blessed Trinity is delivered. The truth is, we have sufficient ground for these expressions in the Scripture, as to the words, and not only the things signified by them: the nature of God we have, Gal. 4:8; the person of the Father, and the Son distinct from it, Heb. 1:3; the essence of God, Exod. 3:14, Rev. 1:4; the Trinity, 1 John 5:7; the Deity, Col. 2:9.

2. Their whole business, in all their books and disputations, is to take upon themselves the part of answerers, so cavilling and making exceptions, not caring at all what becomes of any thing in religion, so they may with any colour avoid the arguments wherewith they are pressed. Hence almost all their books, unless it be some few short catechisms and confessions, are only answers and exceptions to other men's writings. Beside the fragments of a catechism or two, Socinus himself wrote very little but of this kind; so do the rest. How heavy and dull they are in asserting may be seen in Volkelius' Institutions; and here, whilst they escape their adversaries, they are desperately bold in their interpretations of Scripture, though, for the most part, it suffices [them to say] that what is urged against them is not the sense of the place, though they themselves can assign no sense at all to it. I could easily give instances in abundance to make good this observation concerning them, but I shall not mention what must necessarily be insisted on in the ensuing discourse. Their answers are, "This may otherwise be expounded;" "It may otherwise be understood;" "The word may have another signification in another place."

3. The greatest triumphs which they set up in their own conceits are, when by any ways they possess themselves of any usual maxim that passes current amongst men, being applied to finite, limited, created things, or any acknowledged notion in philosophy, and apply it to the infinite, uncreated, essence of God; than which course of proceeding nothing, indeed, can be more absurd, foolish, and contrary to sound reason. That God and man, the Creator and creature, that which is absolutely infinite and independent, and that which is finite, limited, and dependent, should be measured by the same rules, notions, and conceptions, unless it be by way of eminent analogy, which will not further their design at all, is most fond and senseless. And this one observation is sufficient to arm us against all their profound disputes about "essence," "personality," and the like.

4. Generally, as we said, in the pursuit of their design and carrying it on, they begin in exclaiming against the usual words wherein the doctrines they oppose are taught and delivered. "They are not Scripture expressions," etc.; "For the things themselves, they do not oppose them, but they think them not so necessary as some suppose," etc. Having got some ground by this on the minds of men, great stress is immediately laid on this, "That a man may be saved though he believe not the doctrine of the Trinity, the satisfaction of Christ, etc., so that he live holily, and yield obedience to the precepts of Christ; so that it is mere madness and folly to break love and communion about such differences." By this engine I knew, not long since, a choice society of Christians, through the cunning sleight of one lying in wait to deceive, disturbed, divided, broken, and in no small part of it infected. If they once get this advantage, and have thereby weakened the love and valuation of the truth with any, they generally, through the righteous judgment of God in giving up men of light and vain spirits to the imaginations of their own hearts, overthrow their faith, and lead them captive at their pleasure.

5. I thought to have insisted, in particular, on their particular ways of insinuating their abominations, of the baits they lay, the devices they have, their high pretences to reason, and holiness in their lives, or honesty; as also, to have evinced, by undeniable evidences, that there are thousands in the Papacy and among the Reformed Churches that are wholly baptized into their vile opinions and infidelity, though, for the love of their temporal enjoyments, which are better to them than their religion, they profess it not; as also, how this persuasion of their hath been the great door whereby the flood of atheism which is broken in upon the world, and which is almost always professed by them who would be accounted the wits of the times, is come in upon the nations; farther, to have given general answers and distinctions applicable to the most if not all of the considerable arguments and objections wherewith they impugn the truth: but referring all these to my general considerations for the study of controversies in divinity, with some observations that may be preservatives against their poison, I shall speedily acquit you from the trouble of this address. Give me leave, then, in the last place (though unfit and unworthy), to give some general cautions to my fellow-labourers and students in divinity for the freeing our souls from being tainted with these abominations, and I have done:—

1. Hold fast the form of wholesome words and sound doctrine: know that there are other ways of peace and accommodation with dissenters than by letting go the least particle of truth. When men would accommodate their own hearts to love and peace, they must not double with their souls, and accommodate the truth of the gospel to other men's imaginations. Perhaps some will suggest great things of going a middle way in divinity, between dissenters; but what is the issue, for the most part, of such proposals? After they have, by their middle way, raised no less contentions than was before between the extremes (yea, when things before were in some good measure allayed), the accommodators themselves, through an ambitious desire to make good and defend their own expedients, are insensibly carried over to the party and extreme to whom they thought to make a condescension unto; and, by endeavouring to blanch their opinions, to make them seem probable, they are engaged to the defence of their consequences before they are aware. Amyraldus (whom I look upon as one of the greatest wits of these days) will at present go a middle way between the churches of France and the Arminians. What hath been the issue? Among the churches, divisions, tumult, disorder; among the professors and ministers, revilings, evil surmisings; to the whole body of the people, scandals and offences; and in respect of himself, evidence of daily approaching nearer to the Arminian party, until, as one of them saith of him, he is not far from their kingdom of heaven. But is this all? Nay, but Grotius, Episcopius, Curcellæus, etc. (quanta nomina!) with others, must go a middle way to accommodate with the Socinians; and all that will not follow are rigid men, that by any means will defend the opinions they are fallen upon. The same plea is made by others for accommodation with the Papists; and still "moderation," "the middle way," "condescension," are cried up. I can freely say, that I know not that man in England who is willing to go farther in forbearance, love, and communion with all that fear God and hold the foundation, than I am; but that this is to be done upon other grounds, principles, and ways, by other means and expedients, than by a condescension from the exactness of the least apex of gospel truth, or by an accommodation of doctrines by loose and general terms, I have elsewhere sufficiently declared. Let no man deceive you with vain pretences; hold fast the truth as it is in Jesus, part not with one iota, and contend for it when called thereunto.

2. Take heed of the snare of Satan in affecting eminency by singularity. It is good to strive to excel and to go before one another in knowledge and in light, as in holiness and obedience. To do this in the road is difficult. Ahimaaz had not outrun Cushi but that he took a by-path. Many finding it impossible to emerge unto any consideration by walking in the beaten path of truth (all parts of divinity, all ways of handling it, being carried already to such a height and excellency, that to make any considerable improvement requires great pains, study, and an insight into all kinds of learning), and yet not able to conquer the itch of being accounted τίνες μεγάλοι, turn aside into by-ways, and turn the eyes of all men to them by scrambling over hedge and ditch, when the sober traveller is not at all regarded.

The Roman historian, giving an account of the degeneracy of eloquence after it once came to its height in the time of Cicero, fixeth on this as the most probable reason: "Difficilis in perfecto mora est; naturaliterque, quod procedere non potest, recedit; et ut primo ad consequendos, quos priores ducimus, accendimur: ita, ubi aut præteriri, aut æquari eos posse desperavimus, studium cum spe senescit; et quod adsequi non potest, sequi desinit; et, velut occupatam relinquens materiam, quærit novam: præteritoque eo in quo eminere non possumus, aliquid in quo nitamur conquirimus; sequiturque, ut frequens ac mobilis transitus maximum perfecti operis impedimentum sit."—Paterc. Hist. Rom. lib. i. cap. xvii.

I wish some such things may not be said of the doctrine of the reformed churches. It was not long since raised to a great height of purity in itself, and perspicuity in the way of its delivery; but athletic constitutions are seldom permanent. Men would not be content to walk after others, and finding they could not excel what was done, they have given over to imitate it or to do any thing in the like kind; and therefore, neglecting that wherein they could not be eminent, they have taken a course to have something peculiar wherein to put fourth their endeavours. Let us, then, watch against this temptation, and know that a man may be higher than his brethren, and yet be but a Saul.

3. Let not any one attempt dealing with these men that is not in some good measure furnished with those kinds of literature and those common arts wherein they excel; as, first, the knowledge of the tongues wherein the Scripture is written, namely, the Hebrew and Greek. He that is not in some measure acquainted with these will scarcely make thorough work in dealing with them. There is not a word, nor scarce a letter in a word (if I may so speak), which they do not search and toss up and down; not an expression which they pursue not through the whole Scripture, to see if any place will give countenance to the interpretation of it which they embrace. The curious use of the Greek articles, which, as Scaliger calls them, are "loquacissimæ gentis flabellum," is their great covert against the arguments for the deity of Christ. Their disputes about the Hebrew words wherein the doctrine of the satisfaction of Christ is delivered in the Old Testament, the ensuing treatise will in part manifest. Unless a man can debate the use of words with them in the Scripture, and by instances from other approved authors, it will be hard so to enclose or shut them up but that they will make way to evade and escape. Press them with any testimony of Scripture, if of any one word of the testimony, whereon the sense of the whole in any measure depends, they can except that in another place that word in the original hath another signification, and therefore it is not necessary that it should here signify as you urge it, unless you are able to debate the true meaning and import of the word with them, they suppose they have done enough to evade your testimony. And no less [necessary], nextly, are the common arts of logic and rhetoric, wherein they exercise themselves. Among all Socinus' works, there is none more pernicious than the little treatise he wrote about sophisms; wherein he labours to give instances of all manner of sophistical arguments in those which are produced for the confirmation of the doctrine of the blessed Trinity.

He that would re-enforce those arguments, and vindicate them from his exceptions and the entanglements cast upon them, without some considerable acquaintance with the principles of logic and artificial rules of argumentation, will find himself at a loss. Besides, of all men in the world, in their argumentations they are most sophistical. It is seldom that they urge any reason or give any exception wherein they conclude not "a particulari ad universale," or "ab indefinito ad universale, exclusivè," or "ab aliquo statu Christi ad omnem," or "ab œconomia Trinitatis ad theologiam Deitatis," or "ab usu vocis alicubi" to "ubique:" as, "Christ is a man, therefore not God; he is the servant of the Father, therefore not of the same nature." And the like instances may be given in abundance; from which kind of arguing he will hardly extricate himself who is ignorant of the rudiments of logic. The frequency of figurative expressions in the Scripture, which they make use of to their advantage, requires the knowledge of rhetoric also in him that will deal with them to any good purpose. A good assistance (in the former of these especially) is given to students by Keslerus, "in examine Logicæ, Metaphysicæ, et Physicæ Photinianæ." The pretended maxims, also, which they insist on from the civil law, in the business of the satisfaction of Christ, which are especially urged by Socinus, and by Crellius in his defence against Grotius, will make him who shall engage with them see it necessary in some measure to be acquainted with the principles of that faculty and learning also.

With those who are destitute of these, the great Spirit of truth is an abundantly sufficient preserver from all the cunning sleights of men that lie in wait to deceive. He can give them to believe and suffer for the truth. But that they should at any time look upon themselves as called to read the books or dispute with the men of these abominations, I can see no ground.

4. Always bear in mind the gross figments that they seek to assert and establish in the room of that which they cunningly and subtilely oppose. Remember that the aim of their arguments against the deity of Christ and the blessed Trinity is, to set up two true Gods, the one so by nature, the other made so,—the one God in his own essence, the other a God from him by office, that was a man, is a spirit, and shall cease to be a God. And some farther account hereof you will meet with in the close of the ensuing treatise.

5. Diligent, constant, serious reading, studying, meditating on the Scriptures, with the assistance and direction of all the rules and advantages for the right understanding of them which, by the observation and diligence of many worthies, we are furnished withal, accompanied with continual attendance on the throne of grace for the presence of the Spirit of truth with us, to lead us into all truth, and to increase his anointing of us day by day, "shining into our hearts to give us the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ," is, as for all other things in the course of our pilgrimage and walking with God, so for our preservation against these abominations, and the enabling of us to discover their madness and answer their objections, of indispensable necessity. Apollos, who was "mighty in the Scriptures," Acts 18:24, "mightily convinced the" gainsaying "Jews," verse 28. Neither, in dealing with these men, is there any better course in the world than, in a good order and method, to multiply testimonies against them to the same purpose; for whereas they have shifts in readiness to every particular, and hope to darken a single star, when they are gathered into a constellation they send out a glory and brightness which they cannot stand before. Being engaged myself once in a public dispute about the satisfaction of Christ, I took this course, in a clear and evident coherence, producing very many testimonies to the confirmation of it; which together gave such an evidence to the truth, that one who stood by instantly affirmed that "there was enough spoken to stop the mouth of the devil himself." And this course in the business of the deity and satisfaction of Christ will certainly be triumphant. Let us, then, labour to have our senses abundantly exercised in the word, that we may be able to discern between good and evil; and that not by studying the places themselves [only] that are controverted, but by a diligent search into the whole mind and will of God as revealed in the word; wherein the sense is given in to humble souls with more life, power, and evidence of truth, and is more effectual for the begetting of faith and love to the truth, than in a curious search after the annotations of men upon particular places. And truly I must needs say that I know not a more deplorable mistake in the studies of divines, both preachers and others, than their diversion from an immediate, direct study of the Scriptures themselves unto the studying of commentators, critics, scholiasts, annotators, and the like helps, which God in his good providence, making use of the abilities, and sometimes the ambition and ends of men, hath furnished us withal. Not that I condemn the use and study of them, which I wish men were more diligent in, but desire pardon if I mistake, and do only surmise, by the experience of my own folly for many years, that many which seriously study the things of God do yet rather make it their business to inquire after the sense of other men on the Scriptures than to search studiously into them themselves.

6. That direction, in this kind, which with me is instar omnium, is for a diligent endeavour to have the power of the truths professed and contended for abiding upon our hearts, that we many not contend for notions, but what we have a practical acquaintance with in our own souls. When the heart is cast indeed into the mould of the doctrine that the mind embraceth; when the evidence and necessity of the truth abides in us; when not the sense of the words only is in our heads, but the sense of the things abides in our hearts; when we have communion with God in the doctrine we contend for,—then shall we be garrisoned, by the grace of God, against all the assaults of men. And without this all our contending is, as to ourselves, of no value. What am I the better if I can dispute that Christ is God, but have no sense or sweetness in my heart from hence that he is a God in covenant with my soul? What will it avail me to evince, by testimonies and arguments, that he hath made satisfaction for sin, if, through my unbelief, the wrath of God abideth on me, and I have no experience of my own being made the righteousness of God in him,—if I find not, in my standing before God, the excellency of having my sins imputed to him and his righteousness imputed to me? Will it be any advantage to me, in the issue, to profess and dispute that God works the conversion of a sinner by the irresistible grace of his Spirit, if I was never acquainted experimentally with the deadness and utter impotency to good, that opposition to the law of God, which is in my own soul by nature, with the efficacy of the exceeding greatness of the power of God in quickening, enlightening, and bringing forth the fruits of obedience in me? It is the power of truth in the heart alone that will make us cleave unto it indeed in an hour of temptation. Let us, then, not think that we are any thing the better for our conviction of the truths of the great doctrines of the gospel, for which we contend with these men, unless we find the power of the truths abiding in our own hearts, and have a continual experience of their necessity and excellency in our standing before God and our communion with him.

7. Do not look upon these things as things afar off, wherein you are little concerned. The evil is at the door; there is not a city, a town, scarce a village, in England, wherein some of this poison is not poured forth. Are not the doctrine of free will, universal redemption, apostasy from grace, mutability of God, of denying the resurrection of the dead, with all foolish conceits of many about God and Christ, in this nation, ready to gather to this head?

Let us not deceive ourselves; Satan is a crafty enemy. He yet hovers up and down in the lubrieous, vain imaginations of a confused multitude, whose tongues are so divided that they understand not one the other. I dare boldly say, that if ever he settle to a stated opposition to the gospel, it will be in Socinianism. The Lord rebuke him; he is busy in and by many, where little notice is taken of him. But of these things thus far.

A particular account of the cause and reasons of my engagement in this business, with what I have aimed at in the ensuing discourse, you will find given in my epistle to the university, so that the same things need not here also be delivered. The confutation of Mr Biddle's Catechism, and Smalcius' Catechism, commonly called the "Racovian;" with the vindication of all the texts of Scripture giving testimony to the deity of Christ throughout the Old and New Testament from the perverse glosses and interpretations put upon them by Hugo Grotius in his Annotations on the Bible, with those also which concern his satisfaction; and, on the occasion hereof, the confirmation of the most important truths of the Scripture, about the nature of God, the person of Christ and the Holy Ghost, the offices of Christ, etc.,—have been in my design. With what mind and intention, with what love to the truth, with what dependence on God for his presence and assistance, with what earnestness of supplication to enjoy the fruit of the promise of our dear Lord Jesus, to lead me into all truth by his blessed Spirit, I have gone through this work, the Lord knows. I only know that in every particular I have come short of my duty therein, and that a review of my paths and pains would yield me very little refreshment, but that "I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded that even concerning this also he will remember me for good, and spare me, according to the greatness of his mercy." And whatever becomes of this weak endeavour before the Lord, yet "he hath make with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure, and this is all my salvation and all my desire, although he make it not to grow." What is performed is submitted humbly to the judgment of them to whom this address is made. About the thoughts of others, or any such as by envy, interest, curiosity, or faction, may be swayed or biassed, I am not solicitous. If any benefit redound to the saints of the Most High, or any that belong to the purpose of God's love be advantaged, enlightened, or built up in their most holy faith in the least, by what is here delivered, I have my reward.

MR BIDDLE'S PREFACE TO HIS CATECHISM

I HAVE often wondered and complained that there was no catechism yet extant (that I could ever see or hear of) from whence one might learn the true grounds of the Christian religion, as the same is delivered in the holy Scripture, all catechisms generally being so stuffed with the supposals and traditions of men that the least part of them is derived from the word of God: for when councils, convocations, and assemblies of divines, justling the sacred writers out of their place in the church, had once framed articles and confessions of faith according to their own fancies and interests, and the civil magistrate had by his authority ratified the same, all catechisms were afterward fitted to those articles and confessions, and the Scripture either wholly omitted or brought in only for a show, not one quotation amongst many being a whit to the purpose, as will soon appear to any man of judgment, who, taking into his hand the said catechisms, shall examine the texts alleged in them; for if he do this diligently and impartially, he will find the Scripture and those catechisms to be at so wide a distance one from another, that he will begin to question whether the catechists gave any heed at all to what they wrote, and did not only themselves refuse to make use of their reason, but presume that their readers also would do the same. In how miserable a condition, then, as to spiritual things, must Christians generally needs be, when thus trained up, not, as the apostle adviseth, "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord," but in the supposals and traditions of men, having little or no assurance touching the reality of their religion! which some observing, and not having the happiness to light upon the truth, have quite abandoned all piety whatsoever, thinking there is no firm ground whereon to build the same. To prevent which mischief in time to come, by bringing men to a certainty (I mean such men a own the divine authority of the Scripture), and withal to satisfy the just and pious desires of many who would fain understand the truth of our religion, to the end they might not only be built up themselves, but also instruct their children and families in the same, I have here (according to the understanding I have gotten by continual meditation on the word of God) compiled a Scripture Catechism; wherein I bring the reader to a sure and certain knowledge of the chiefest things pertaining both to belief and practice, whilst I myself assert nothing (as others have done before me), but only introduce the Scripture faithfully uttering its own assertions, which all Christians confess to be of undoubted truth. Take heed, therefore, whosoever thou art that lightest on this book, and there readest things quite contrary to the doctrines that pass current amongst the generality of Christians (for I confess most of the things here displayed have such a tendency), that thou fall not foul upon them; for thou canst not do so without falling foul upon the holy Scripture itself, inasmuch as all the answers throughout the whole Catechism are faithfully transcribed out of it and rightly applied to the questions, as thou thyself mayst perceive if thou make a diligent inspection into the several texts, with all their circumstances. Thou wilt perhaps here reply, that the texts which I have cited do indeed in the letter hold forth such things as are contrary to the doctrines commonly received amongst Christians, but they ought to have a mystical or figurative interpretation put upon them, and then both the doctrines and the texts of Scripture will suit well enough. To which I answer, that if we once take this liberty to impose our mystical or figurative interpretations on the Scripture, without express warrant of the Scripture itself, we shall have no settled belief, but be liable continually to be turned aside by any one that can invent a new mystical meaning of the Scripture, there being no certain rule to judge of such meanings as there is of the literal ones, nor is there any error, how absurd and impious soever, but may on such terms be accorded with the Scripture. All the abominable idolatries of the Papists, all the superstitious fopperies of the Turks, all the licentious opinions and practices of the Ranters, may by this means be not only palliated but defended by the word of God. Certainly, might we of our own heads figuratively interpret the Scripture, when the letter is neither repugnant to our senses nor to the scope of the respective texts, nor to a greater number of plain texts to the contrary (for in such cases we must of necessity admit figures in the sacred volume as well as we do in profane ones, otherwise both they and it will clash with themselves or with our senses, which the Scripture itself intimates to be of infallible certainty; see 1 John 1:1–3);—might we, I say, at our pleasure impose our figures and allegories on the plain words of God, the Scripture would in very deed be, what some blasphemously affirm it to be, "a nose of wax." For instance, it is frequently asserted in the Scripture that God hath a similitude or shape, hath his place in the heavens, hath also affections or passions, as love, hatred, mercy, anger, and the like; neither is any thing to the contrary delivered there unless seemingly in certain places, which neither for number nor clearness are comparable unto those of the other side. Why now should I depart from the letter of the Scripture in these particulars, and boldly affirm, with the generality of Christians (or rather with the generality of such Christians only as, being conversant with the false philosophy that reigneth in the schools, have their understandings perverted with wrong notions), that God is without a shape, in no certain place, and incapable of affections? Would not this be to use the Scripture like a nose of wax, and when of itself it looketh any way, to turn it aside at our pleasure? And would not God be so far from speaking to our capacity in his word (which is the usual refuge of the adversaries when in these and the like matters concerning God they are pressed with the plain words of the Scripture), as that he would by so doing render us altogether incapable of finding out his meaning, whilst he spake one thing and understood the clean contrary? Yea, would he not have taken the direct course to make men substitute an idol in his stead (for the adversaries hold that to conceive of God as having a shape, or affections, or being in a certain place, is idolatry), if he described himself in the Scripture otherwise than indeed he is, without telling us so much in plain terms, that we might not conceive amiss of him? Thus we see that when sleep, which plainly argueth weakness and imperfection, had been ascribed to God, Ps. 44:23, the contrary is said of him, Ps. 121:4. Again, when weariness had been attributed to him, Isa. 1:14, the same is expressly denied of him, Isa. 40:28. And would not God, think ye, have done the like in those forementioned things, were the case the same in them as in the others? This consideration is so pressing, that a certain author (otherwise a very learned and intelligent man) perceiving the weight thereof, and not knowing how to avoid the same, took up (though very unluckily) one erroneous tenet to maintain another, telling us in a late book of his, entitled Conjectura Cabalistica, "That for Moses, by occasion of his writings, to let the Jews entertain a conceit of God as in human shape, was not any more a way to bring them into idolatry than by acknowledging man to be God, as," saith he, "our religion does in Christ." How can this consist even with consonancy to his own principles, whilst he holds it to be false that God hath any shape, but true that Christ is God; for will a false opinion of God not sooner lead men into idolatry than a true opinion of Christ? But it is no marvel that this author, and other learned men with him, entertain such conceits of God and Christ as are repugnant to the current of the Scripture, whilst they set so high a rate on the sublime, indeed, but uncertain notions of the Platonists, and in the meantime slight the plain but certain letter of the sacred writers, as being far below the Divine Majesty, and written only to comply with the rude apprehensions of the vulgar, unless by a mystical interpretation they be serewed up to Platonism. This is the stone at which the pride of learned men hath caused them continually to stumble,—namely, to think that they can speak more wisely and worthily of God than he hath spoken of himself in his word. This hath brought that more than Babylonish confusion of language into the Christian religion, whilst men have framed those horrid and intricate expressions, under the colour of detecting and excluding heresies, but in truth to put a baffle on the simplicity of the Scripture and usher in heresies, that so they might the more easily carry on their worldly designs, which could not be effected but through the ignorance of the people, nor the people brought into ignorance but by wrapping up religion in such monstrous terms as neither the people nor they themselves that invented them (or at least took them from the invention of others) did understand. Wherefore, there is no possibility to reduce the Christian religion to its primitive integrity,—a thing, though much pretended, yea, boasted of in reformed churches, yet never hitherto sincerely endeavoured, much less effected (in that men have, by severe penalties, been hindered to reform religion beyond such a stint as that of Luther, or at most that of Calvin),—but by cashiering those many intricate terms and devised forms of speaking imposed on our religion, and by wholly betaking ourselves to the plainness of the Scripture: for I have long since observed (and find my observation to be true and certain), that when, to express matters of religion, men make use of words and phrases unheard of in the Scripture, they slily under them couch false doctrines and obtrude them on us; for without question the doctrines of the Scripture can be so aptly explained in no language as that of the Scripture itself. Examine, therefore, the expressions of God's being "infinite and incomprehensible, of his being a simple act, of his subsisting in three persons or after a threefold manner, of a divine circumincession, of an eternal generation, of an eternal procession, of an incarnation, of an hypostatical union, of a communication of properties, of the mother of God, of God dying, of God made man, of transubstantiation, of consubstantiation, of original sin, of Christ's taking our nature on him, of Christ's making satisfaction to God for our sins, both past, present, and to come, of Christ's fulfilling the law for us, of Christ's being punished by God for us, of Christ's merits or his meritorious obedience, both active and passive, of Christ's purchasing the kingdom of heaven for us, of Christ's enduring the wrath of God, yea, the pains of a damned man, of Christ's rising from the dead by his own power, of the ubiquity of Christ's body, of apprehending and applying Christ's righteousness to ourselves by faith, of Christ's being our surety, of Christ's paying our debts, of our sins imputed to Christ, of Christ's righteousness imputed to us, of Christ's dying to appease the wrath of God and reconcile him to us, of infused grace, of free grace, of the world of the elect, of irresistible workings of the Spirit in bringing men to believe, of carnal reason, of spiritual desertions, of spiritual incomes, of the outgoings of God, of taking up the ordinance," etc., and thou shalt find that us these forms of speech are not owned by the Scripture, so neither the things contained in them. How excellent, therefore, was that advice of Paul to Timothy in his second epistle to him, chap. 1:13, "Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus"! for if we once let go those forms of sound words learned from the apostles, and take up such as have been coined by others in succeeding ages, we shall together [with them] part with the apostles' doctrine, as woful experience hath taught us; for after Constantine the Great, together with the council of Nice, had once deviated from the language of the Scripture in the business touching the Son of God, calling him "coessential with the Father," this opened a gap for others afterward, under a pretence of guarding the truth from heretics, to devise new terms at pleasure; which did, by degrees, so vitiate the chastity and simplicity of our faith, delivered in the Scripture, that there hardly remained so much as one point thereof sound and entire. So that as it was wont to be disputed in the schools, whether the old ship of Theseus (which had in a manner been wholly altered at sundry times, by the accession of new pieces of timber upon the decay of the old) were the same ship it had been at first, and not rather another by degrees substituted in the stead thereof: in like manner there was so much of the primitive truth worn away, by the corruption that did, by little and little, overspread the generality of Christians, and so many errors in stead thereof tacked to our religion, at several times, that one might justly question whether it were the same religion with that which Christ and his apostles taught, and not another since devised by men and put in the room thereof. But thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ, who, amidst the universal corruption of our religion, hath preserved his written word entire (for had men corrupted it, they would have made it speak more favourably in behalf of their lusts and worldly interests than it doth); which word, if we with diligence and sincerity pry into, resolving to embrace the doctrine that is there plainly delivered, though all the world should set itself against us for so doing, we shall easily discern the truth, and so be enabled to reduce our religion to its first principles. For thus much I perceive by mine own experience, who, being otherwise of no great abilities, yet setting myself, with the aforesaid resolution, for sundry years together upon an impartial search of the Scripture, have not only detected many errors, but here presented the reader with a body of religion exactly transcribed out of the word of God: which body whosoever shall well ruminate and digest in his mind, may, by the same method wherein I have gone before him, make a farther inquiry into the oracles of God, and draw forth whatsoever yet lies hid; and being brought to light, [it] will tend to the accomplishment of godliness amongst us, for at this only all the Scripture aimeth;—the Scripture, which all men who have thoroughly studied the same must of necessity be enamoured with, as breathing out the mere wisdom of God, and being the exactest rule of a holy life (which all religions whatsoever confess to be the way unto happiness) that can be imagined, and whose divinity will never, even to the world's end, be questioned by any but such as are unwilling to deny their worldly lusts and obey the pure and perfect precepts thereof; which obedience whosoever shall perform, he shall, not only in the life to come, but even in this life, be equal unto angels.

JOHN BIDDLE.

MR BIDDLE'S PREFACE BRIEFLY EXAMINED

IN the entrance of Mr Biddle's preface he tells the reader very modestly "That he could never yet see or hear of a catechism" (although, I presume, he had seen, or heard at least, of one or two written by Faustus Socinus, though not completed; of one by Valentinus Smalcius, commonly called "The Racovian Catechism," from whence many of his questions and answers are taken; and of an "Exposition of the Articles of Faith, in the Creed called the Apostles', in way of catechism, by Jonas Schlichtingius," published in French, anno 1646, in Latin, anno 1651) "from whence the true grounds of Christian religion might be learned, as it is delivered in Scripture;" and therefore, doubtless, all Christians have cause to rejoice at the happy product of Mr B.'s pains, wherewith he now acquaints them, ushered in with this modest account, whereby at length they may know their own religion, wherein as yet they have not instructed to any purpose. And the reason of this is, because "all other catechisms are stuffed with many supposals and traditions, the least part of them being derived from the word of God," Mr B. being judge. And this is the common language of his companions, comparing themselves and their own writings with those of other men. The common language they delight in is, "Though Christians have hitherto thought otherwise."

Whether we have reason to stand to this determination, and acquiesce in this censure and sentence, the ensuing considerations of what Mr B. substitutes in the room of those catechisms which he here rejects will evince and manifest. But to give countenance to this humble entrance into his work, he tells his reader "That councils, convocations, and assemblies of divines, have justled out the Scripture, and framed confessions of faith according to their own fancies and interests, getting them confirmed by the civil magistrate; according unto which confessions all catechisms are and have been framed, without any regard to the Scripture." What "councils" Mr B. intends he informs us not, nor what it is that in them he chiefly complains of. If he intend some only, such as the apostatizing times of the church saw, he knows he is not opposed by them with whom he hath to do, nor yet if he charge them all for some miscarriages in them or about them. If all, as that of the apostles themselves, Acts 15, together with the rest that for some ages followed after, and that as to the doctrine by them delivered, fall under his censure, we have nothing but the testimony of Mr B. to induce us to a belief of this insinuation. His testimony in things of this nature will be received only by them who receive his doctrine.

What I have to offer on this account I have spoken otherwhere. That the confessions of faith which the first general councils, as they are called, during the space of four hundred years and upward, composed and put forth, were "framed according to the fancies and interests of men," beside the word, is Mr B.'s fancy, and his interest to have it so esteemed. The faith he professeth, or rather the infidelity he has fallen into, was condemned in them all, and that upon the occasion of its then first coming into the world; "Hinc illæ lacrimæ:" if they stand, he must fall. "That the catechisms of latter days" (I suppose he intends those in use amongst the reformed churches) "did wholly omit the Scripture, or brought it in only for a show, not one quotation amongst many being a whit to the purpose," you have the same testimony for as for the assertions foregoing. He that will say this, had need some other way evince that he makes conscience of what he says, or that he dare not say any thing, so it serve his turn. Only Mr B. hath quoted Scripture to the purpose! To prove God to be "finite, limited, included in heaven, of a visible shape, ignorant of things future, obnoxious to turbulent passions and affections," are some of his quotations produced; for the like end and purpose are the most of the rest alleged. Never, it seems, was the Scripture alleged to any purpose before! And these things, through the righteous hand of God taking vengeance on an unthankful generation, not delighting in the light and truth which he hath sent forth, do we hear and read. Of those who have made bold ἀκίνητα κινεῖν, and to shake the fundamentals of gospel truths or the mystery of grace, we have daily many examples. The number is far more scarce of them who have attempted to blot out those κοιναὶ ἔννοιαι, or ingrafted notions of mankind, concerning the perfections of God, which Mr B. opposeth. "Fabulas vulgaris nequitia non invenit." An opposition to the first principles of rational beings must needs be talked of. Other catechists, besides himself, Mr B. tells you, "have written with so much oscitancy and contempt of the Scripture, that a considering man will question whether they gave any heed to what they wrote themselves, or refused to make use of their reason, and presumed others would do so also." And so you have the sum of his judgment concerning all other catechisms, besides his own, that he hath either seen or heard of. "They are all fitted to confessions of faith, composed according to the fancies and interests of men, written without attending to the Scripture or quoting it to any purpose, their authors, like madmen, not knowing what they wrote, and refusing to make use of their reason that they might so do." And this is the modest, humble entrance of Mr B.'s preface.

All that have gone before him were knaves, fools, idiots, madmen. The proof of these assertions you are to expect. When a philosopher pressed Diogenes with this sophism, "What I am, thou art not; I am a man, therefore thou art not," he gave him no other answer but, "Begin with me, and the conclusion will be true." Mr B. is a Master of Arts, and knew, doubtless, that such assertions as might be easily turned upon himself are of no use to any but those who have not aught else to say. Perhaps Mr B. speaks only to them of the same mind with himself; and then, indeed, as Socrates said, it was no hard thing to commend the Athenians before the Athenians, but to commend them before the Lacedæmonians was difficult. No more is it any great undertaking to condemn men sound in the faith unto Socinians; before others it will not prove so easy.

It is not incumbent on me to defend any, much less all the catechisms that have been written by learned men of the reformed religion. That there are errors in some, mistakes in others; that some are more clear, plain, and scriptural than others, I grant. All of them may have, have had, their use in their kind. That in any of them there is any thing taught inconsistent with communion with God, or inevitably tending to the impairing of faith and love, Mr B. is not, I presume, such a φιλόπονος as to undertake to demonstrate. I shall only add, that notwithstanding the vain plea of having given all his answers in the express words of Scripture (whereby, with the foolish bird, he hides his head from the fowler, but leaves his whole monstrous body visible, the teaching part of his Catechism being solely in the insinuating, ensnaring, captious questions thereof, leading the understanding of the reader to a misapprehension and misapplication of the words of the Scripture, it being very easy to make up the grossest blasphemy imaginable out of the words of the Scripture itself), I never found, saw, read, or heard of any so grossly perverting the doctrine of the Scripture concerning God and all his ways as those of Mr B.'s do; for in sundry particulars they exceed those mentioned before of Socinus, Smalcius, Schlichtingius, which had justly gotten the repute of the worst in the world. And for an account of my reason of this persuasion I refer the reader to the ensuing considerations of them.

This, then, being the sad estate of Christians, so misinformed by such vile varlets as have so foully deceived them and misled them, as above mentioned, what is to be done and what course to be taken to bring in light into the world, and to deliver men from the sorrowful condition whereinto they have been catechised? For this end, he tells the reader, doth he show himself to the world (Θεὸς ἀπὸ μηχανῆς), to undeceive them, and to bring them out of all their wanderings unto some certainty of religion. This he discourses, pp. 4, 5. The reasons he gives you of this undertaking are two:—1. "To bring men to a certainty;" 2. "To satisfy the pious desire of some who would fain know the truth of our religion." The way he fixes on for the compassing of the end proposed is:—1. "By asserting nothing;" 2. "By introducing the plain texts of Scripture to speak for themselves." Each briefly may be considered.

1. What fluctuating persons are they, not yet come to any certainty in religion, whom Mr B. intends to deal withal? Those, for the most part, of them who seem to be intended in such undertakings, are fully persuaded from the Scripture of the truth of those things wherein they have been instructed. Of these, some, I have heard, have been unsettled by Mr B., but that he shall ever settle any (there being no consistency in error or falsehood) is impossible. Mr B. knows there is no one of the catechists he so decries but directs them whom he so instructs to the Scriptures, and settles their faith on the word of God alone, though they labour to help their faith and understanding by opening of it; whereunto also they are called. I fear Mr B.'s certainty will at length appear to be scepticism, and his settling of men to be the unsettling; that his conversions are from the faith; and that in this very book he aims more to acquaint men with his questions than the Scripture answers. But he says,—

2. Those whom he aims to bring to this certainty are "such as would fain understand the truth of our religion." If by "our religion" he means the religion of himself and his followers (or rather masters), the Socinians, I am sorry to hear that any are so greedy of its acquaintance. Happily this is but a pretence, such as his predecessors in this work have commonly used. [As] for understanding the truth of it, they will find in the issue what an endless work they have undertaken. "Who can make that straight which is crooked, or number that which is wanting?" If by "our religion" he means the Christian religion, it may well be inquired who they are, with their "just and pious desires," who yet understand not the truth of Christian religion? that is, that it is the only true religion. When we know these Turks, Jews, Pagans, which Mr B. hath to deal withal, we shall be able to judge of what reason he had to labour to satisfy their "just and pious desires." I would also willingly be informed how they came to so high an advancement in our religion as to desire to be brought up in it, and to be able to instruct others, when as yet they do not understand the truth of it, or are not satisfied therein. And,—

3. As these are admirable men, so the way he takes for their satisfaction is admirable also; that is, by "asserting nothing!" He that asserts nothing proves nothing; for that winch any one proves, that he asserts. Intending, then, to bring men to a certainly who yet understand not the truth of our religion, he asserts nothing, proves nothing (as is the manner of some), but leaves them to themselves;—a most compendious way of teaching (for whose attainment Mr B. needed not to have been Master of Arts), if it proves effectual! But by not asserting, it is evident Mr B. intends not silence. He hath said too much to be so interpreted. Only what he hath spoken, he hath done it in a sceptical way of inquiry; wherein, though the intendment of his mind be evident, and all his queries may be easily resolved into so many propositions or assertions, yet as his words lie, he supposes he may speak truly that he asserts nothing. Of the truth, then, of this assertion, that he doth not assert anything, the reader will judge. And this is the path to atheism which, of all others, is most trod and beaten in the days wherein we live. A liberty of judgment is pretended, and queries are proposed, until nothing certain be left, nothing unshaken. But,—

4. He "introduces the Scripture faithfully uttering its own assertions." If his own testimony concerning his faithful dealing may be taken, this must pass. The express words of the Scripture, I confess, are produced, but as to Mr B.'s faithfulness in their production, I have sundry exceptions to make; as,—

(1.) That by his leading questions, and application of the Scripture to them, he hath utterly perverted the scope and intendment of the places urged. Whereas he pretends not to assert or explain the Scripture, he most undoubtedly restrains the signification of the places by him alleged unto the precise scope which in his sophistical queries he hath included. And in such a way of procedure, what may not the serpentine wits of men pretend to a confirmation of from Scripture, or any other book that hath been written about such things as the inquiries are made after? It were easy to give innumerable instances of this kind, but we fear God, and dare not to make bold with him or his word.

(2.) Mr B. pretending to give an account of the "chiefest things pertaining to belief and practice," doth yet propose no question at all concerning many of the most important heads of our religion, and whereunto the Scripture speaks fully and expressly, or proposes his thoughts in the negative, leading on the scriptures from whence he makes his objections to the grand truths he opposeth, concealing, as was said, the delivery of them in the Scripture in other places innumerable; so insinuating to the men of "just and pious desires" with whom he hath to do that the Scripture is silent of them. That this is the man's way of procedure, in reference to the deity of Christ and of the Holy Ghost, the satisfaction and merit of Christ, the corruption of nature, and efficacy of grace, with many other most important heads of Christian religion, will be fully manifest in our consideration of the several particulars as they shall occur in the method wherein by him they are handled.

(3.) What can be concluded of the mind of God in the Scripture, by cutting off any place or places of it from their dependence, connection, and tendency, catching at those words which seem to confirm what we would have them so to do (whether, in the proper order wherein of God they are set and fixed, they do in the least cast an eye towards the thesis which they are produced to confirm, or no), might easily be manifested by innumerable instances, were not the vanity of such a course evident to all.

On the consideration of these few exceptions to Mr B.'s way of procedure, it will easily appear what little advantage he hath given him thereby, and how unjust his pretence is, which by this course he aims to prevail upon men withal. This he opens, page 6: "None", saith he, "can fall foul upon the things contained in this Catechism" (which he confesseth to be "quite contrary to the doctrine that passeth current among the generality of Christians"), "as they are here displayed, because the answers are transcribed out of the Scriptures." But Mr B. may be pleased to take notice that the "displaying," as he calls it, of his doctrines is the work of his questions, and not of the words of Scripture produced to confirm them, which have a sense cunningly and subtilely imposed on them by his queries, or are pointed and restrained to the things which in the place of their delivery they look not towards in any measure. We shall undoubtedly find, in the process of this business, that Mr B.'s questions, being found guilty of treason against God, will not be allowed sanctuary in the answers which they labour to creep into; and that, they disclaiming their protection, they may be pursued, taken, and given up to the justice and severity of truth, without the least profanation of their holiness. A murderer may be plucked from the horns of the altar.

Nor is that the only answer insisted on for the removal of Mr B.'s sophistry, which he mentions, p. 7, and pursues it for three or four leaves onward of his preface, namely, "That the scriptures which he urgeth do in the letter hold out such things as he allegeth them to prove, but yet they must be figuratively interpreted." For Mr B.'s "mystical sense," I know not what he intends by it, or by whom it is urged. This is applicable solely to the places he produceth for the description of God and his attributes, concerning whom that some expressions of Scripture are to be so interpreted himself confesseth, p. 13; and we desire to take leave to inquire whether some others, beside what Mr B. allows, may not be of the same consideration. In other things, for the most part, we have nothing at all to do with so much as the interpretation of the places he mentions, but only to remove the grossly sophistical insinuations of his queries. For instance, when Mr B. asks, "Whether Christ Jesus was a man or no?" and allegeth express Scripture affirming that he was, we say not that the Scripture must have a figurative interpretation, but that Mr B. is grossly sophistical, concluding from the assertion of Christ's human nature to the denial of his divine, and desperately injurious to the persons with whom he pretends he hath to do, who as yet "understand not the truth of our religion," in undertaking to declare to them the special "chief things of belief and practice," and hiding from them the things of the greatest moment to their salvation, and which the Scripture speaks most plentifully unto, by not stating any question or making any such inquiry as their affirmation might be suited unto. The like instance may be given in all the particulars wherein Mr B. is departed from "the faith once delivered to the saints." His whole following discourse, then, to the end of p. 13, wherein he decries the answer to his way of procedure, which himself had framed, he might have spared. It is true, we do affirm that there are figurative expressions in the Scripture (and Mr B. dares not say the contrary), and that they are accordingly to be interpreted; not that they are to have a mystical sense put upon them, but that the literal sense is to be received, according to the direction of the figure which is in the words. That these words of our Saviour, "This is my body," are figurative, I suppose Mr B. will not deny. Interpret them according to the figurative import of them, and that interpretation gives you the literal, and not a mystical sense, if such figures belong to speech and not to sense. That sense, I confess, may be spiritually understood (then it is saving) or otherwise; but this doth not constitute different senses in the words, but only denote a difference in the understandings of men. But all this, in hypothesi, Mr B. fully grants, p. 9; so that there is no danger, by asserting it, to cast the least thought of uncertainty on the word of God. But, p. 10, he gives you an instance wherein this kind of interpretation must by no means be allowed, namely, in the Scripture attributions of a shape and similitude (that is, of eyes, ears, hands, feet) unto God, with passions and affections like unto us; which that they are not proper, but figuratively to be interpreted, he tells you, p. 10–12, "those affirm who are perverted by false philosophy, and make a nose of wax of the Scripture, which plainly affirms such things of God." In what sense the expressions of Scripture intimated concerning God are necessarily to be received and understood, the ensuing considerations will inform the reader. For the present, I shall only say that I do not know scarce a more unhappy instance in his whole book that he could have produced than this, wherein he hath been blasphemously injurious unto God and his holy word. And herein we shall deal with him from Scripture itself, right reason, and the common consent of mankind. How remote our interpretations of the places by him quoted for his purpose are from wresting the Scriptures, or turning them aside from their purpose, scope, and intendment, will also in due time be made manifest.

We say, indeed, as Mr B. observes, that in those kinds of expressions God "condescendeth to accommodate his ways and proceedings" (not his essence and being) "to our apprehensions;" wherein we are very far from saying that "he speaks one thing and intends the clean contrary," but only that the things that he ascribes to himself, for our understanding and the accommodation of his proceedings to the manner of men, are to be understood in him and of them in that which they denote of perfection, and not in respect of that which is imperfect and weak. For instance, when God says, "his eyes run to and fro, to behold the sons of men," we do not say that he speaks one thing and understands another; but only because we have our knowledge and acquaintance with things by our eyes looking up and down, therefore doth he who hath not eyes of flesh as we have, nor hath any need to look up and down to acquaint himself with them, all whose ways are in his own hand, nor can without blasphemy be supposed to look from one thing to another, choose to express his knowledge of and intimate acquaintance with all things here below, in and by his own infinite understanding, in the way so suited to our apprehension. Neither are these kinds of expressions in the least an occasion of idolatry, or do give advantage to any of creating any shape of God in their imaginations, God having plainly and clearly, in the same word of his wherein these expressions are used, discovered that of himself, his nature, being, and properties, which will necessarily determine in what sense these expressions are to be understood; as, in the consideration of the several particulars in the ensuing discourse, the reader will find evinced. And we are yet of the mind, that to conceive of God as a great man, with mouth, eyes, hands, legs, etc., in a proper sense, sitting in heaven, shut up there, troubled, vexed, moved up and down with sundry passions, perplexed about the things that are to come to pass, which he knows not,—which is the notion of God that Mr B. labours to deliver the world from their darkness withal,—is gross idolatry, whereunto the scriptural attributions unto God mentioned give not the least countenance; as will in the progress of our discourse more fully appear. And if it be true, which Mr B. intimates, that "things implying imperfection" (speaking of sleep and being weary) "are not properly attributed to God," I doubt not but I shall easily evince that the same line of refusal is to pass over the visible shape and turbulent affections which are by him ascribed to him. But of these more particularly in their respective places.

But he adds, pp. 13, 14, "That this consideration is so pressing, that a certain learned author, in his book entitled 'Conjectura Cabalistica,' affirms that for Moses, by occasion of his writings, to let the Jews entertain a conceit of God as in human shape was not any more a way to bring them into idolatry than by acknowledging man to be God, as our religion doth in Christ;" which plea of his Mr B. exagitates in the pages following. That learned gentleman is of age and ability to speak for himself: for mine own part, I am not so clear in what he affirms as to undertake it for him, though otherwise very ready to serve him upon the account which I have of his worth and abilities; though I may freely say I suppose they might be better exercised than in such cabalistical conjectures as the book of his pointed unto is full of. But who am I, that judge another? We must every one give an account of himself and his labours to God; and the fire shall try our works of what sort they are. I shall not desire to make too much work for the fire. For the present, I deny that Moses in his writings doth give any occasion to entertain a conceit of God as one of a human shape; neither did the Jews ever stumble into idolatry on that account. They sometimes, indeed, changed their glory for that which was not God; but whilst they worshipped that God that revealed himself by Moses, Jehovah, Ehejeh, it doth not appear that ever they entertained in their thoughts any thing but purum numen, a most simple, spiritual, eternal Being, as I shall give a farther account afterward. Though they intended to worship Jehovah both in the calf in the wilderness and in those at Bethel, yet that they ever entertained any thoughts that God had such a shape as that which they framed to worship him by is madness to imagine. For though Moses sometimes speaks of God in the condescension before mentioned, expressing his power by his arm, and bow, and sword, his knowledge and understanding by his eye, yet he doth in so many places caution them with whom he had to do of entertaining any thoughts of any bodily similitude of God, that by any thing delivered by him there is not the least occasion administered for the entertaining of such a conceit as is intimated. Neither am I clear in the theological predication which that learned person hath chosen to parallel with the Mosaical expressions of God's shape and similitude, concerning man being God. Though we acknowledge him who is man to be God, yet we do not acknowledge man to be God. Christ under this reduplication, as man, is not a person, and so not God. To say that man is God, is to say that the humanity and Deity are the same. Whatever he is as man, he is upon the account of his being man. Now, that he who is man is also God, though he be not God upon the account of his being man, can give no more occasion to idolatry than to say that God is infinite, omnipotent. For the expression itself, it being in the concrete, it may be salved by the communication of properties; but as it lies, it may possibly be taken in the abstract, and so is simply false. Neither do I judge it safe to use such expressions, unless it be when the grounds and reasons of them are assigned. But that Mr B. should be offended with this assertion I see no reason. Both he and his associates affirm that Jesus Christ as man (being in essence and nature nothing but man) is made a God; and is the object of divine worship or religious adoration on that account. I may therefore let pass Mr B.'s following harangue against "men's philosophical speculations, deserting the Scripture in their contemplations of the nature of God, as though they could speak more worthily of God than he hath done of himself;" for though it may easily be made appear that never any of the Platonical philosophers spoke so unworthily of God or vented such gross, carnal conceptions of him as Mr. B. hath done, and the gentleman of whom he speaks be well able to judge of what he reads, and to free himself from being entangled in any of their notions, discrepant from the revelation that God hath made of himself in his word, yet we, being resolved to try out the whole matter, and to put all the differences we have with Mr B. to the trial and issue upon the express testimony of God himself in his word, are not concerned in this discourse.

Neither have I any necessity to divert to the consideration of his complaint concerning the bringing in of new expressions into religion, if he intends such as whose substance or matter, which they do express, is not evidently and expressly found in the Scripture. What is the "Babylonish language," what are "the horrid and intricate expressions," which he affirms to be "introduced under a colour of detecting and confuting heresies, but indeed to put a baffle upon the simplicity of the Scripture," he gives us an account of, p. 19, where we shall consider it and them. In general, words are but the figures of things. It is not words and terms, nor expressions, but doctrines and things, we inquire after. Mr B., I suppose, allows expositions of Scripture, or else I am sure he condemns himself in what he practises. His book is, in his own thoughts, an exposition of Scripture. That this cannot be done without varying the words and literal expressions thereof, I suppose will not be questioned. To express the same thing that is contained in any place of Scripture with such other words as may give light unto it in our understandings, is to expound it. This are we called to, and the course of it is to continue whilst Christ continues a church upon the earth. Paul spake nothing, for the substance of the things he delivered, but what was written in the prophets; that he did not use new expressions, not to be found in any of the prophets, will not be proved. But there is a twofold evil in these expressions: "That they are invented to detect and exclude heresies, as is pretended." If heretics begin first to wrest Scripture expressions to a sense never received nor contained in them, it is surely lawful for them who are willing to "contend for the faith once delivered to the saints" to clear the mind of God in his word by expressions and terms suitable thereunto; neither have heretics carried on their cause without the invention of new words and phrases.

If any shall make use of any words, terms, phrases, and expressions, in and about religious things, requiring the embracing and receiving of those words, etc., by others, without examining either the truth of what by those words, phrases, etc., they intend to signify and express, or the propriety of those expressions themselves, as to their accommodation for the signifying of those things, I plead not for them. It is not in the power of man to make any word or expression, not ῥητῶς found in the Scripture, to be canonical, and for its own sake to be embraced and received. But yet if any word or phrase do expressly signify any doctrine or matter contained in the Scripture, though the word or phrase itself be not in so many letters found in the Scripture, that such word or phrase may not be used for the explication of the mind of God I suppose will not easily be proved. And this we farther grant, that if any one shall scruple the receiving and owning of such expressions, so as to make them the way of professing that which is signified by them, and yet do receive the thing or doctrine which is by them delivered, for my part I shall have no contest with him. For instance, the word ὁμοούσιος was made use of by the first Nicene council to express the unity of essence and being that is in the Father and Son, the better to obviate Arius and his followers, with their ἦν ὅταν οὐκ ἦν, and the like forms of speech, nowhere found in Scripture, and invented on set purpose to destroy the true and eternal deity of the Son of God. If, now, any man should scruple the receiving of that word, but withal should profess that he believes Jesus Christ to be God, equal to the Father, one with him from the beginning, and doth not explain himself by other terms not found in the Scripture, namely, that he was "made a God," and is "one with the Father as to will, not essence," and the like, he is like to undergo neither trouble nor opposition from me. We know what troubles arose between the eastern and western churches about the words "hypostasis" and "persona," until they understood on each side that by these different words the same thing was intended, and that ὑπόστασις with the Greeks was not the same as "substantia" with the Latins, nor "persona" with the Latins the same with πρόσωπον among the Greeks, as to their application to the thing the one and the other expressed by these terms. That such "monstrous terms are brought into our religion as neither they that invented them nor they that use them do understand," Mr B. may be allowed to aver, from the measure he hath taken of all men's understandings, weighing them in his own, and saying, "Thus far can they go and no farther," "This they can understand, that they cannot;"—a prerogative, as we shall see in the process of this business, that he will scarcely allow to God himself without his taking much pains and labour about it. I profess, for my part, I have not as yet the least conviction fallen upon me that Mr B. is furnished with so large an understanding, whatever he insinuates of his own abilities, as to be allowed a dictator of what any man can or cannot understand. It his principle, or rather conclusion, upon which he limits the understandings of men be this, "What I cannot understand, that no man else can," he would be desired to consider that he is as yet but a young man, who hath not had so many advantages and helps for the improving of his understanding as some others have had; and, besides, that there are some whose eyes are blinded by the god of this world, that they shall never see or understand the things of God, yea, and that God himself doth thus oftentimes execute his vengeance on them, for detaining his truth in unrighteousness.

But yet, upon this acquaintance which he hath with the measure of all men's understandings, he informs his reader that "the only way to carry on the reformation of the church, beyond what yet hath been done by Luther or Calvin, is by cashiering those many intricate terms and devised forms of speaking," which he hath observed slily to couch false doctrines, and to obtrude them on us; and, by the way, that "this carrying on of reformation beyond the stint of Luther or Calvin was never yet so much as sincerely endeavoured." In the former passage, having given out himself as a competent judge of the understandings of all men, in this he proceeds to their hearts. "The reformation of the church," saith he, "was never sincerely attempted, beyond the stint of Luther and Calvin." Attempted it hath been, but he knows all the men and their hearts full well who made those attempts, and that they never did it sincerely, but with guile and hypocrisy! Mr B. knows who those are that say, "With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own." To know the hearts of men and their frame towards himself, Mr B. instructs us, in his Catechism, that God himself is forced to make trial and experiments; but for his own part, without any great trouble, he can easily pronounce of their sincerity or hypocrisy in any undertaking! Low and vile thoughts of God will quickly usher in light, proud, and foolish thoughts concerning ourselves. Luther and Calvin were men whom God honoured above many in their generation; and on that account we dare not but do so also. That all church reformation is to be measured by their line,—that is, that no farther discovery of truth, in, or about, or concerning the ways or works of God, may be made, but what hath been made to them and by them,—was not, that I know of, ever yet affirmed by any in or of any reformed church in the world. The truth is, such attempts as this of Mr. B.'s to overthrow all the foundations of Christian religion, to accommodate the Gospel to the Alcoran, and subject all divine mysteries to the judgment of that wisdom which is carnal and sensual, under the fair pretence of carrying on the work of reformation and of discovering truth from the Scripture, have perhaps fixed some men to the measure they have received beyond what Christian ingenuity and the love of the truth requireth of them. A noble and free inquiry into the word of God, with attendance to all ways by him appointed or allowed for the revelation of his mind, with reliance on his gracious promise of "leading us into all truth" by his holy and blessed Spirit, without whose aid, guidance, direction, light, and assistance, we can neither know, understand, nor receive the things that are of God; neither captivated to the traditions of our fathers, for whose labour and pains in the work of the gospel, and for his presence with them, we daily bless the name of our God; neither yet "carried about with every wind of doctrine," breathed or insinuated by the "cunning sleight of men who lie in wait to deceive,"—is that which we profess. What the Lord will be pleased to do with us by or in this frame, upon these principles; how, wherein, we shall serve our generation, in the revelation of his mind and will,—is in his hand and disposal. About using or casting off words and phrases, formerly used to express any truth or doctrine of the Scripture, we will not contend with any, provided the things themselves signified by them be retained. This alone makes me indeed put any value on any word or expression not ῥητῶς found in the Scripture, namely, my observation that they are questioned and rejected by none but such as, by their rejection, intend and aim at the removal of the truth itself which by them is expressed, and plentifully revealed in the word. The same care also was among them of old, having the same occasion administered. Hence when Valens, the Arian emperor, sent Modestus, his prætorian præfect, to persuade Basil to be an Arian, the man entreated him not to be so rigid as to displease the emperor and trouble the church, διʼ ὀλίγην δογμάτων ἀκρίζειαν, for an over-strict observance of opinions, it being but one word, indeed one syllable, that made the difference, and he thought it not prudent to stand so much upon so small a business. The holy man replied, Τοῖς θείοις λόγοις ἐντεθραμμένοι προέσθαι μὲν τῶν θείων δογμάτων οὐδὲ μίαν ἀνέχονται συλλαζήν·—"However children might be so dealt withal, those who are bred up in the Scriptures of nourished with the word will not suffer one syllable of divine truth to be betrayed." The like attempt to this of Valens and Modestus upon Basil was made by the Arian bishops at the council of Ariminum, who pleaded earnestly for the rejection of one or two words not found in the Scripture, laying on that plea much weight, when it was the eversion of the deity of Christ which they intended and attempted. And by none is there more strength and evidence given to this observation than by him with whom I have now to do, who, exclaiming against words and expressions, intends really the subversion of all the most fundamental and substantial truths of the gospel; and therefore, having, pp. 19–21, reckoned up many expressions which he dislikes, condemns, and would have rejected, most of them relating to the chiefest heads of our religion (though, to his advantage, he cast in by the way two or three gross figments), he concludes "that as the forms of speech by him recounted are not used in the Scripture, no more are the things signified by them contained therein." In the issue, then, all the quarrel is fixed upon the things themselves, which, if they were found in Scripture, the expressions insisted on might be granted to suit them well enough. What need, then, all this long discourse about words and expressions, when it is the things themselves signified by them that are the abominations decried? Now, though most of the things here pointed unto will fall under our ensuing considerations, yet because Mr B. hath here cast into one heap many of the doctrines which in the Christian religion he opposeth and would have renounced, it may not be amiss to take a short view of the most considerable instances in our passage.

His first is of God's being infinite and incomprehensible. This he condemns, name and thing,—that is, he says "he is in finite, limited, of us to be comprehended;" for those who say he is infinite and incomprehensible do say only that he is not finite nor of us to be comprehended. What advance is made towards the farther reformation of the church by this new notion of Mr. B.'s is fully discovered in the consideration of the second chapter of his Catechism; and in this, as in sundry other things, Mr B. excels his masters.2 The Scripture tells us expressly that "he filleth heaven and earth;" that the "heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain him;" that his presence is in heaven and hell, and that "his understanding is infinite" (Which how the understanding of one that is infinite may be, an infinite understanding cannot comprehend); that he "dwelleth in that light which no man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen, nor can see" (Which to us is the description of one incomprehensible); that he is "eternal," which we cannot comprehend. The like expressions are used of him in great abundance. Besides, if God be not incomprehensible, we may search out his power, wisdom, and understanding to the utmost; for if we cannot, if it be not possible so to do, he is incomprehensible. But "canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?" "There is no searching of his understanding." If by our lines we suppose we can fathom the depth of the essence, omnipotency, wisdom, and understanding of God, I doubt not but we shall find ourselves mistaken. Were ever any, since the world began, before quarrelled withal for asserting the essence and being of God to be incomprehensible? The heathen who affirmed that the more he inquired, the more he admired and the less he understood, had a more noble reverence of the eternal Being4 which in his mind he conceived, than Mr B. will allow us to entertain of God. Farther; if God be not infinite, he is circumscribed in some certain place; if he be, is he there fixed to that place, or doth he move from it? If he be fixed there, how can he work at a distance, especially such things as necessarily require divine power to their production? If he move up and down, and journey as his occasions require, what a blessed enjoyment of himself in his own glory hath he! But that this blasphemous figment of God's being limited and confined to a certain place is really destructive to all the divine perfections of the nature and being of God is afterward demonstrated. And this is the first instance given by Mr B. of the corruption of our doctrine, which he rejects name and thing, namely, "that God is infinite and incomprehensible." And now, whether this man be a "mere Christian" or a mere Lucian, let the reader judge.

That God is a simple act is the next thing excepted against and decried, name and thing; in the room whereof, that he is compounded of matter "and form," or the like, must be asserted. Those who affirm God to be a simple act do only deny him to be compounded of divers principles, and assert him to be always actually in being, existence, and intent operation. God says of himself is that his name is Ehejeh, and he is I AM,—that is, a simple being, existing in and of itself; and this is that which is intended by the simplicity of the nature of God, and his being a simple act. The Scripture tells us he is eternal, I AM, always the same, and so never what he was not ever. This is decried, and in opposition to it his being compounded, and so obnoxious to dissolution, and his being in potentia, in a disposition and passive capacity to be what he is not, is asserted; for it is only to deny these things that the term "simple" is used, which he condemns and rejects. And this is the second instance that Mr B. gives in the description of his God, by his rejecting the received expressions concerning him who is so: "He is limited, and of us to be comprehended; his essence and being consisting of several principles, whereby he is in a capacity of being what he is not." Mr B., solus habeto; I will not be your rival in the favour of this God.

And this may suffice to this exception of Mr B., by the way, against the simplicity of the being of God; yet, because he doth not directly oppose it afterward, and the asserting of it doth clearly evert all his following fond imaginations of the shape, corporeity, and limitedness of the essence of God (to which end also I shall, in the consideration of his several depravations of the truth concerning the nature of God, insist upon it), I shall a little here divert to the explication of what we intend by the simplicity of the essence of God, and confirm the truth of what we so intend thereby.

As was, then, intimated before, though simplicity seems to be a positive term, or to denote something positively, yet indeed it is a pure negation, and formally, immediately, and properly, denies multiplication, composition, and the like. And though this only it immediately denotes, yet there is a most eminent perfection of the nature of God thereby signified to us; which is negatively proposed, because it is in the use of things that are proper to us, in which case we can only conceive what is not to be ascribed to God. Now, not to insist on the metaphysical notions and distinctions of simplicity, by the ascribing of it to God we do not only deny that he is compounded of divers principles really distinct, but also of such as are improper, and not of such a real distance, or that he is compounded of any thing, or can be compounded with any thing whatever.

First, then, that this is a property of God's essence or being is manifest from his absolute independence and firstness in being and operation, which God often insists upon in the revelation of himself: Isa. 44:6, "I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God." Rev. 1:8, "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is," etc.: so chap. 21:6, 22:13. Which also is fully asserted, Rom. 11:35, 36, "Who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? for of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever." Now, if God were of any causes, internal or external, any principles antecedent or superior to him, he could not be so absolutely first and independent. Were he composed of parts, accidents, manner of being, he could not be first; for all these are before that which is of them, and therefore his essence is absolutely simple.

Secondly, God is absolutely and perfectly one and the same, and nothing differs from his essence in it: "The LORD our God is one LORD," Deut. 6:4; "Thou art the same," Ps. 102:27. And where there is an absolute oneness and sameness in the whole, there is no composition by an union of extremes. Thus is it with God: his name is, "I AM; I AM THAT I AM," Exod. 3:14, 15; "Which is," Rev. 1:8. He, then, who is what he is, and whose all that is in him is, himself, hath neither parts, accidents, principles, nor any thing else, whereof his essence should be compounded.

Thirdly, The attributes of God, which alone seem to be distinct things in the essence of God, are all of them essentially the same with one another, and every one the same with the essence of God itself. For, first, they are spoken one of another as well as of God; as there is his "eternal power" as well as his "Godhead." And, secondly, they are either infinite and infinitely perfect, or they are not. If they are, then if they are not the same with God, there are more things infinite than one, and consequently more Gods; for that which is absolutely infinite is absolutely perfect, and consequently God. If they are not infinite, then God knows not himself, for a finite wisdom cannot know perfectly an infinite being. And this might be farther confirmed by the particular consideration of all kinds of composition, with a manifestation of the impossibility of their attribution unto God; arguments to which purpose the learned reader knows where to find in abundance.

Fourthly, Yea, that God is, and must needs be, a simple act (which expression Mr B. fixes on for the rejection of it) is evident from this one consideration, which was mentioned before: If he be not so, there must be some potentiality in God. Whatever is, and is not a simple act, hath a possibility to be perfected by act; if this be in God, he is not perfect, nor all-sufficient. Every composition whatever is of power and act; which if it be, or might have been in God, he could not be said to be immutable, which the Scripture plentifully witnesseth that he is.

These are some few of the grounds of this affirmation of ours concerning the simplicity of the essence of God; which when Mr B. removes and answers, he may have more of them, which at present there is no necessity to produce.

From his being he proceeds to his subsistence, and expressly rejects his subsisting in three persons, name and thing. That this is no new attempt, no undertaking whose glory Mr B. may arrogate to himself, is known. Hitherto God hath taken thought for his own glory, and eminently confounded the opposers of the subsistence of his essence in three distinct persons. Inquire of them that went before, and of the dealings of God with them of old. What is become of Ebion, Cerinthus, Paulus Samosatenus, Theodotus Byzantinus, Photinus, Arius, Macedonius, etc.? Hath not God made their memory to rot, and their names to be an abomination to all generations? How they once attempted to have taken possession of the churches of God, making slaughter and havoc of all that opposed them, hath been declared; but their place long since knows them no more. By the subsisting of God in any person, no more is intended than that person's being God. If that person be God, God subsists in that person. If you grant the Father to be a person (as the Holy Ghost expressly affirms him to be, Heb. 1:3) and to be God, you grant God to subsist in that person: that is all which by that expression is intended. The Son is God, or is not. To say he is not God, is to beg that which cannot be proved. If he be God, he is the Father, or he is another person. If he be the Father, he is not the Son. That he is the Son and not the Son is sufficiently contradictory. If he be not the Father, as was said, and yet be God, he may have the same nature and substance with the Father (for of our God there is but one essence, nature, or being), and yet be distinct from him. That distinction from him is his personality,—that property whereby and from whence he is the Son. The like is to be said of the Holy Ghost. The thing, then, here denied is, that the Son is God, or that the Holy Ghost is God: for if they are so, God must subsist in three persons; of which more afterward. Now, is this not to be found in the Scriptures? Is there no text affirming Christ to be God, to be one with the Father, or that the Holy Ghost is so? no text saying, "There are three that bear record in heaven; and these, three are one?" none ascribing divine perfections, divine worship distinctly to either Son or Spirit, and yet jointly to one God? Are none of these things found in the Scripture, that Mr B. thinks with one blast to demolish all these ancient foundations, and by his bare authority to deny the common faith of the present saints, and that wherein their predecessors in the worship of God are fallen asleep in peace? The proper place for the consideration of these things will farther manifest the abomination of this bold attempt against the Son of God and the Eternal Spirit.

For the divine circumincession, mentioned in the next place, I shall only say that it is not at all in my intention to defend all the expressions that any men have used (who are yet sound in the main) in the unfolding of this great, tremendous mystery of the blessed Trinity, and I could heartily wish that they had some of them been less curious in their inquiries and less bold in their expressions. It is the thing itself alone whose faith I desire to own and profess; and therefore I shall not in the least labour to retain and hold those things or words which may be left or lost without any prejudice thereunto.

Briefly; by the barbarous term of "mutual circumincession," the schoolmen understand that which the Greek fathers called ἐμπεριχώρησις, whereby they expressed that mystery, which Christ himself teaches us, of "his being in the Father, and the Father in him," John 10:38, and of the Father's dwelling in him, and doing the works he did, chap. 14:10,—the distinction of these persons being not hereby taken away, but the disjunction of them as to their nature and being.

The eternal generation of the Son is in this next place rejected, that he may be sure to cast down every thing that looks towards the assertion of his deity, whom yet the apostle affirms to be "God blessed for ever," Rom. 9:5. That the Word, which "in the beginning was" (and therefore is) "God," is "the only begotten of the Father," the apostle affirms, John 1:14. That he is also "the only begotten Son of God" we have other plentiful testimonies, Ps. 2:7; John 3:16; Acts 13:33; Heb. 1:4–6;—a Son so as, in comparison of his sonship, the best of sons by adoption are servants, Heb. 3:5, 6; and so begotten as to be an only Son, John 1:14; though, begotten by grace, God hath many sons, James 1:18. Christ, then, being begotten of the Father, hath his generation of the Father; for these are the very same things in words of a diverse sound. The only question here is, whether the Son have the generation so often spoken of from eternity or in time,—whether it be an eternal or a temporal generation from whence he is so said to be "begotten." As Christ is a Son, so by him the "worlds were made," Heb. 1:2, so that surely he had his sonship before he took flesh in the fulness of time; and when he had his sonship he had his generation. He is such a Son as, by being partaker of that name, he is exalted above angels, Heb. 1:5; and he is the "first begotten" before he is brought into the world, verse 6: and therefore his "goings forth" are said to be "from the days of eternity," Micah 5:2; and he had "glory with the Father" (as the Son) "before of the world was," John 17:5. Neither is he said to be "begotten of the Father" in respect of his incarnation, but conceived by the Holy Ghost, or formed in the womb by him, of the substance of his mother; nor is he thence called the "Son of God." In brief, if Christ be the eternal Son of God, Mr B. will not deny him to have had an eternal generation: if he be not, a generation must be found out for him suitable to the sonship which he hath; of which abomination in its proper place.

This progress have we made in Mr. B.'s creed: He believes God to be finite, to be by us comprehended, compounded; he believes there is no trinity of persons in the Godhead,—that Christ is not the eternal Son of God. The following parts of it are of the same kind:—

The eternal procession of the Holy Ghost is nextly rejected. The Holy Ghost being constantly termed the "Spirit of God," the "Spirit of the Father," and the "Spirit of the Son" (being also "God," as shall afterward be evinced), and so partaking of the same nature with Father and Son (the apostle granting that God hath a nature, in his rejecting of them who "by nature are no gods"), is yet distinguished from them, and that eternally (as nothing is in the Deity that is not eternal), and being, moreover, said ἐκπορεύεσθαι, or to "proceed" and "go forth" from the Father and Son, this expression of his "eternal procession" hath been fixed on, manifesting the property whereby he is distinguished from Father and Son. The thing intended hereby is, that the Holy Ghost, who is God, and is said to be of the Father and the Son, is by that name, of his being of them, distinguished from them; and the denial hereof gives you one article more of Mr B.'s creed, namely, that the Holy Ghost is not God. To what that expression of "proceeding" is to be accommodated will afterward be considered.

The incarnation of Christ (the Deity and Trinity being despatched) is called into question, and rejected. By "incarnation" is meant, as the word imports, a taking of flesh (this is variously by the ancients expressed, but the same thing still intended), or being made so. The Scripture affirming that "the Word was made flesh," John 1:14; that "God was manifest in the flesh," 1 Tim. 3:16; that "Christ took part of flesh and blood," Heb. 2:14; that "he took on him the seed of Abraham," chap. 2:16; that he was "made of a woman," Gal. 4:4, 5; sent forth "in the likeness of sinful flesh," Rom. 8:3; "in all things made like unto his brethren," Heb. 2:17,—we thought we might have been allowed to say so also, and that this expression might have escaped with a less censure than an utter rejection out of Christian religion. The Son of God taking flesh, and so being made like to us, that he might be the "captain of our salvation," is that which by this word (and that according to the Scripture) is affirmed, and which, to increase the heap of former abominations (or to "carry on the work of reformation beyond the stint of Luther or Calvin"), is here by Mr B. decried.

Of the hypostatical union there is the same reason. Christ, who as "concerning the flesh" was of the Jews, and is God to be blessed for ever, over all, Rom. 9:5, is one person. Being God to be blessed over all, that is, God by nature (for such as are not so, and yet take upon them to be gods, God will destroy), and having "flesh and blood as the children" have, Heb. 2:14, that is, the same nature of man with believers, yet being but one person, one mediator, one Christ, the Son of God, we say both these natures of God and man are united in that one person, namely, the person of the Sun of God. This is that which Mr B. rejects (now his hand is in), both name and thing. The truth is, all these things are but colourable advantages wherewith he laboureth to amuse poor souls. Grant the deity of Christ, and he knows all those particulars will necessarily ensue; and whilst he denies the foundation, it is to no purpose to contend about any consequences or inferences whatever. And whether we have ground for the expression under present consideration, John 1:14, 18, 20:28; Acts 20:28; Rom. 1:3, 4, 9:5; Gal. 4:4; Phil. 2:5–8; 1 Tim. 3:16; 1 John 1:1, 2; Rev. 5:12–14, with innumerable other testimonies of Scripture, may be considered. If "the Word, the Son of God, was made flesh, made of a woman, took our nature," wherein he was pierced and wounded, and shed his blood, and yet continues "our Lord and our God, God blessed for ever," esteeming it "no robbery to be equal with his Father," yet being a person distinct from him, being the "brightness of his person," we fear not to say that the two natures of God and man are united in one person; which is the hypostatical union here rejected.

The communication of properties, on which depend two or three of the following instances mentioned by Mr B., is a necessary consequent of the union before asserted; and the thing intended by it is no less clearly delivered in Scripture than the truths before mentioned. It is affirmed of "the man Christ Jesus" that he "knew what was in the heart of man," that he "would be with his unto the end of the world," and Thomas, putting his hand into his side, cried out to him, "My Lord and my God," etc., when Christ neither did nor was so, as he was man.2 Again, it is said that "God redeemed his church with his own blood," that the "Son of God was made of a woman," that "the Word was made flesh," none of which can properly be spoken of God, his Son, or eternal Word, in respect of that nature whereby he is so; and therefore we say, that look what properties are peculiar to either of his natures (as, to be omniscient, omnipotent, to be the object of divine worship, to the Deity;4 to be born, to bleed, and die, to the humanity) are spoken of in reference to his person, wherein both those natures are united. So that whereas the Scriptures say that "God redeemed his church with his own blood," or that he was "made flesh;" or whereas, in a consonancy thereunto, and to obviate the folly of Nestorius, who made two persons of Christ, the ancients called the blessed Virgin the Mother of God,—the intendment of the one and other is no more but that he was truly God, who in his manhood has a son, had a mother, did bleed and die. And such Scripture expressions we affirm to be founded in this "communication of properties," or the assignment of that unto the person of Christ, however expressly spoken of as God or man, which is proper to him in regard of either of these natures, the one or other, God on this account being said to do what is proper to man, and man what is proper alone to God, because he who is both God and man doth both the one and the other. By what expressions and with what diligence the ancients warded the doctrine of Christ's personal union against both Nestorius and Eutyches,2 the one of them dividing his person into two, the other confounding his natures by an absurd confusion and mixture of their respective essential properties (Mr B. not giving occasion), I shall not farther mention.

And this is all Mr B. instances in of what he rejects as to our doctrine about the nature of God, the Trinity, person of Christ, and the Holy Ghost; of all which he hath left us no more than what the Turks and other Mohammedans will freely acknowledge. And whether this be to be a "mere Christian," or none at all, the pious reader will judge.

Having dealt thus with the person of Christ, he adds the names of two abominable figments, to give countenance to his undertaking, wherein he knows those with whom he hath to do have no communion, casting the deity of Christ and the Holy Ghost into the same bundle with transubstantiation and consubstantiation; to which he adds the ubiquity of the body of Christ, after mentioned,—self-contradicting fictions. With what sincerity, candour, and Christian ingenuity, Mr B. hath proceeded, in rolling up together such abominations as those with the most weighty and glorious truths of the gospel, that together he might trample them under his feet in the mire, God will certainly in due time reveal to himself and all the world.

The next thing he decries is original sin (I will suppose Mr B. knows what those whom he professeth to oppose intend thereby); and this he condemns, name and thing. That the guilt of our first father's sin is imputed to his posterity; that they are made obnoxious to death thereby, that we are "by nature children of wrath, dead in trespasses and sins, conceived in sin; that our understandings are darkness, so that we cannot receive the things that are of God; that we are able to do no good of ourselves, so that unless we are born again we cannot enter into the kingdom of God; that we are alienated, enemies, have carnal minds, that are enmity against God, and cannot be subject to him;"—all this and the like is at once blown away by Mr B.; there is no such thing. "Una litura potest." That Christ by nature is not God, that we by nature have no sin, are the two great principles of this "mere Christian's" belief.

Of Christ's taking our nature upon him, which is again mentioned, we have spoken before. If he was "made flesh, made of a woman, made under the law; if he partook of flesh and blood because the children partake of the same; if he took on him the seed of Abraham, and was made like to us in all things, sin only excepted; if, being in the form of God and equal to him, he took on him the form of a servant, and became like to us,"—he took our nature on him; for these, and these only, are the things which by that expression are intended.

The most of what follows is about the grace of Christ, which, having destroyed what in him lies his person, he doth also openly reject; and in the first place begins with the foundation, his making satisfaction to God for our sins, all our sins, past, present, and to come, which also, under sundry other expressions, he doth afterward condemn. God is a God of "purer eyes than to behold evil," and it is "his judgment that they which commit sin are worthy of death;" yea, "it is a righteous thing with him to render tribulation" to offenders; and seeing we have "all sinned and come short of the glory of God," doubtless it will be a righteous thing with him to leave them to answer for their own sins who so proudly and contemptuously reject the satisfaction which he himself hath appointed and the ransom he hath found out.2 But Mr B. is not the first who hath "erred, not knowing the Scriptures" nor the justice of God. The Holy Ghost acquainting us that "the LORD made to meet upon him the iniquity of us all; that he was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, and that the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed; that he gave his life a ransom for us, and was made sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him; that he was for us made under the law and underwent the curse of it; that he bare our sins in his body on the tree; and that by his blood we are redeemed, washed, and saved,"—we doubt not to speak as we believe, namely, that Christ underwent the punishment due to our sins, and made satisfaction to the justice of God for them; and Mr B., who it seems is otherwise persuaded, we leave to stand or fall to his own account.

Most of the following instances of the doctrines he rejects belong to and may be reduced to the head last mentioned, and therefore I shall but touch upon them. Seeing that "he that will enter into life must keep the commandments, and this of ourselves we cannot do, for in many things we offend all, and he that breaks one commandment is guilty of the breach of the whole law, God having sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of children; and that which was impossible to us by the law, through the weakness of the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us; and so we are saved by his life, being justified by his blood, he being made unto us of God righteousness, and we are by faith found in him, having on not our own righteousness, which is by the law, but that which is by Jesus Christ, the righteousness of God by faith;"5—we do affirm that Christ fulfilled the law for us, not only undergoing the penalty of it, but for us submitting to the obedience of it, and performing all that righteousness which of us it requires, that we might have a complete righteousness wherewith to appear before God. And this is that which is intended by the active and passive righteousness of Christ, after mentioned; all which is rejected, name and thing.

Of Christ's being punished by God, which he rejects in the next place, and, to multiply his instances of our false doctrines, insists on it again under the terms of Christ's enduring the wrath of God and the pains of a damned man, the same account is to be given as before of his satisfaction. That God "bruised him, put him to grief, laid the chastisement of our peace on him; that for us he underwent death, the curse of the law, which inwrapped the whole punishment due to sin, and that by the will of God, who so made him to be sin who knew no sin, and in the undergoing whereof he prayed and cried, and sweat blood, and was full of heaviness and perplexity,"2—the Scripture is abundantly evident; and what we assert amounts not one tittle beyond what is by and in it affirmed.

The false doctrine of the merit of Christ, and his purchasing for us the kingdom of heaven, is the next stone which this master-builder disallows and rejects. That "Christ hath bought us with a price; that he hath redeemed us from our sins, the world, and curse, to be a peculiar people, zealous of good works, so making us kings and priests to God for ever; that he hath obtained for us eternal redemption, procuring the Spirit for us, to make us meet for the inheritance of the saints in light, God blessing us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in him, upon the account of his making his soul an offering for sin," performing that obedience to the law which of us is required,—is that which by this expression of the "merit of Christ" we intend, the fruit of it being all the accomplishment of the promise made to him by the Father, upon his undertaking the great work of saving his people from their sins. In the bundle of doctrines by Mr B. at once condemned, this also hath its place.

That Christ rose from the dead by his own power seems to us to be true, not only because he affirmed that he "had power so to do, even to lay down his life and to take it again," John 10:18, but also because he said he would do so when he bade them "destroy the temple," and told them that "in three days he would raise it again." It is true that this work of raising Christ from the dead is also ascribed to the Father and to the Spirit (as in the work of his oblation, his Father "made his soul an offering for sin," and he "offered up himself through the eternal Spirit"), yet this hinders not but that he was raised by his own power, his Father and he being one, and what work his Father doth he doing the same.

And this is the account which this "mere Christian" giveth us concerning his faith in Christ, his person, and his grace: He is a mere man, that neither satisfied for our sins nor procured grace or heaven for us; and how much this tends to the honour of Christ and the good of souls, all that love him in sincerity will judge and determine.

His next attempt is upon the way whereby the Scripture affirms that we come to be made partakers of the good things which Christ hath done and wrought for us; and in the first place he falls foul upon that of apprehending and applying Christ's righteousness to ourselves by faith, that so there may no weighty point of the doctrine of the cross remain not condemned (by this wise man) of folly. This, then, goes also, name and thing: Christ is "of God made unto us righteousness" (that is, "to them that believe on him," or "receive" or "apprehend" him, John 1:12), God "having set him forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the forgiveness of sins," and declaring that every one who "believeth in him is justified from all things from which he could not be justified by the law," God imputing righteousness to them that so believe; those who are so justified by faith having peace with God. It being the great thing we have to aim at, namely, that "we may know Jesus Christ, and the fellowship of his sufferings, and the power of his resurrection, and be found in him, not having our own righteousness, which is of the law, but the righteousness which is by the faith of Christ, Christ being the end of the law to every one that believeth,"—we say it is the duty of every one who is called, to apprehend Christ by faith, and apply his righteousness to him; that is, to believe on him as "made the righteousness of God to him," unto justification and peace. And if Mr B. reject this doctrine, name and thing, I pray God give him repentance before it be too late, to the acknowledgment of the truth.

Of Christ's being our surety, of Christ's paying our debt, of our sins imputed to Christ, of Christ's righteousness imputed to us, of Christ's dying to appease the wrath of God and reconcile him to us, enough hath been spoken already to clear the meaning of them who use these expressions, and to manifest the truth of that which they intend by them, so that I shall not need again to consider them as they lie in this disorderly, confused heap which we have here gathered together.

Our justification by Christ being cashiered, he falls upon our sanctification in the next place, that he may leave us as little of Christians as he hath done our Saviour of the true Messiah. Infused grace is first assaulted. The various acceptations of the word "grace" in the Scripture this is no place to insist upon. By "grace infused" we mean grace really bestowed upon us, and abiding in us, from the Spirit of God. That a new spiritual life or principle, enabling men to live to God,—that new, gracious, heavenly qualities and endowments, as light, love, joy, faith, etc., bestowed on men,—are called "grace" and "graces of the Spirit," I suppose will not be denied. These we call "infused grace" and "graces;" that is, we say God works these things in us by his Spirit, giving us a "new heart and a new spirit, putting his law into our hearts, quickening us who were dead in trespasses and sins, making us light who were darkness, filling us with the fruits of the Spirit in joy, meekness, faith, which are not of ourselves but the gifts of God."3 Mr B. having before disclaimed all original sin, or the depravation of our nature by sin, in deadness, darkness, obstinacy, etc., thought it also incumbent on him to disown and disallow all reparation of it by grace; and all this under the name of a "mere Christian," not knowing that he discovereth a frame of spirit utterly unacquainted with the main things of Christianity.

Free grace is next doomed to rejection. That all the grace, mercy, goodness of God, in our election, redemption, calling, sanctification, pardon, and salvation, is free, not deserved, not merited, nor by us any way procured,—that God doth all that he doth for us bountifully, fully, freely, of his own love and grace,—is affirmed in this expression, and intended thereby. And is this found neither name nor thing in the Scriptures? Is there no mention of "God's loving us freely; of his blotting out our sins for his own sake, for his name's sake; of his giving his Son for us from his own love; of faith being not of ourselves, being the gift of God; of his saving us, not according to the works of righteousness which we have done, but of his own mercy; of his justifying us by his grace, begetting us of his own will, having mercy on whom he will have mercy; of a covenant not like the old, wherein he hath promised to be merciful to our unrighteousness," etc.? or is it possible that a man assuming to himself the name of a Christian should be ignorant of the doctrine of the free grace of God, or oppose it and yet profess not to reject the gospel as a fable? But this was, and ever will be, the condemnation of some, that "light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light."

About the next expression, of the world of the elect, I shall not contend. That by the name of "the world" (which term is used in the Scriptures in great variety of significations), the elect, as being in and of this visible world, and by nature no better than the rest of the inhabitants thereof, are sometimes peculiarly intended, is proved elsewhere, beyond whatever Mr B. is able to oppose thereunto.

Of the irresistible working of the Spirit, in bringing men to believe, the condition is otherwise. About the term "irresistible" I know none that care much to strive. That "faith is the gift of God, not of ourselves, that it is wrought in us by the exceeding greatness of the power of God; that in bestowing it upon us by his Spirit (that is, in our conversion), God effectually creates a new heart in us, makes us new creatures, quickens us, raises us from the dead, working in us to will and to do of his own good pleasure; as he commanded light to shine out of darkness, so shining into our hearts, to give us the knowledge of his glory; begetting us anew of his own will," so irresistibly causing us to believe, because he effectually works faith in us,—is the sum of what Mr B. here rejecteth, that he might be sure, as before, to leave nothing of weight in Christian religion uncondemned. But these trifles and falsities being renounced, he complains of the abuse of his darling, that it is called carnal reason; which being the only interpreter of Scripture which he allows of, he cannot but take it amiss that it should be so grossly slandered as to be called "carnal." The Scripture, indeed, tells us of a "natural man, that cannot discern the things which are of God, and that they are foolishness to him; of a carnal mind, that is enmity to God, and not like to have any reasons or reasonings but what are carnal; of a wisdom that is carnal, sensual, and devilish; of a wisdom that God will destroy and confound;" and that such is the best of the wisdom and reason of all unregenerate persons;—but why the reason of a man in such a state, with such a mind about the things of God, should be called "carnal," Mr B. can see no reason; and some men, perhaps, will be apt to think that it is because all his reason is still carnal. When a man is "renewed after the image of him that created him" he is made "spiritual, light in the Lord," every thought and imagination that sets up itself in his heart in opposition to God being led captive to the obedience of the gospel. We acknowledge a sanctified reason in such an one of that use in the dijudication of the things of God as shall afterward be declared.

Spiritual desertions are nextly decried. Some poor souls would thank him to make good this discovery. They find mention in the Scripture of "God's hiding his face, withdrawing himself, forsaking, though but for a moment," and of them that on this account "walk in darkness and see no light, that seek him and find him not, but are filled with troubles, terrors, arrows from him," etc. And this, in some measure, they find to be the condition of their own souls. They have not the life, light, power, joy, consolation, sense of God's love, as formerly; and therefore they think there are spiritual desertions, and that in respect of their souls these dispensations of God are signally and significantly so termed; and they fear that those who deny all desertions never had any enjoyments from or of God.

Of spiritual incomes there is the same reason. It is not the phrase of speech, but the thing itself, we contend about. That God who is the Father of mercy and God of all consolation gives mercy, grace, joy, peace, consolation, as to whom, so in what manner or in what degree be pleaseth. The receiving of these from God is by some (and that, perhaps, not inaptly) termed "spiritual incomes," with regard to God's gracious distributions of his kindness, love, good-will, and the receiving of them. So that it be acknowledged that we do receive grace, mercy, joy, consolation, and peace from God, variously as he pleaseth, we shall not much labour about the significancy of that or any other expression of the like kind. The Scriptures mentioning the "goings forth of God," Micah 5:2, leave no just cause to Mr B. of condemning them who sometimes call any of his works or dispensations his outgoings.

His rehearsal of all these particular instances, in doctrines that are found neither name nor thing in Scripture, Mr B. closeth with an "etc.;" which might be interpreted to comprise as many more, but that there remain not as many more important heads in Christian religion. The nature of God being abased, the deity and grace of Christ denied, the sin of our natures and their renovation by grace in Christ rejected, Mr B.'s remaining religion will be found scarce worth the inquiry after by those whom he undertakes to instruct, there being scarcely any thing left by him from whence we are peculiarly denominated Christians, nor any thing that should support the weight of a sinful soul which approacheth to God for life and salvation.

To prevent the entertainment of such doctrines as these, Mr B. commends the advice of Paul, 2 Tim. 1:13, "Hold fast the form of sound words," etc.; than which we know none more wholesome nor more useful for the safeguarding and defence of those holy and heavenly principles of our religion which Mr B. rejects and tramples on. Nor are we at all concerned in his following discourse of leaving Scripture terms, and using phrases and expressions coined by men; for if we use any word or phrase in the things of God and his worship, and cannot make good the thing signified thereby to be founded on and found in the Scriptures, we will instantly renounce it. But if indeed the words and expressions used by any of the ancients for the explication and confirmation of the faith of the gospel, especially of the doctrine concerning the person of Christ, in the vindication of it from the heretics which in sundry ages bestirred themselves (as Mr B. now doth) in opposition thereunto, be found consonant to Scripture, and to signify nothing but what is written therein with the beams of the sun, perhaps we see more cause to retain them, from the opposition here made to them by Mr B., than formerly we did, considering that his opposition to words and phrases is not for their own sake, but of the things intended by them.

The similitude of "the ship that lost its first matter and substance by the addition of new pieces, in way of supplement to the old decays," having been used by some of our divines to illustrate the Roman apostasy and traditional additionals to the doctrines of the gospel, will not stand Mr B. in the least stead, unless he be able to prove that we have lost, in the religion we profess, any one material part of what it was when given over to the churches by Christ and his apostles, or have added any one particular to what they have provided and furnished us withal in the Scriptures; which until he hath done, by these and the like insinuations he doth but beg the thing in question; which, being a matter of so great consequence and importance as it is, will scarce be granted him on any such terms. I doubt not but it will appear to every person whatsoever, in the process of this business, who hath his senses any thing exercised in the word to discern between good and evil, and whose eyes the god of this world hath not blinded, that the glorious light of the gospel of God should not shine into their hearts, that Mr B., as wise as he deems and reports himself to be, is indeed, like the foolish woman that pulls down her house with both her hand, labouring to destroy the house of God with all his strength, pretending that this and that part of it did not originally belong thereto (or like Ajax, in his madness, who killed sheep, and supposed they had been his enemies), upon the account of that enmity which he finds in his own mind unto them.

The close of Mr B.'s preface contains an exhortation to the study of the word, with an account of the success he himself hath obtained in the search thereof, both in the detection of errors and the discovery of sundry truths. Some things I shall remark upon that discourse, and shut up these considerations of his preface:—

For his own success, he tells us "That being otherwise of no great abilities, yet searching the Scriptures impartially, he hath detected many errors, and hath presented the reader with a body of religion from the Scriptures; which whoso shall well ruminate and digest will be enabled," etc.

As for Mr B.'s abilities, I have not any thing to do to call them into question: whether small or great, he will one day find that he hath scarce used them to the end for which he is intrusted with them; and when the Lord of his talents shall call for an account, it will scarce be comfortable to him that he hath engaged them so much to his dishonour as it will undoubtedly appear he hath done. I have heard, by those of Mr B.'s time and acquaintance in the university, that what ability he had then obtained, were it more or less, he still delighted to be exercising of it in opposition to received truths in philosophy; and whether an itching desire of novelty, and of emerging thereby, lie not at the bottom of the course he hath since steered, he may do well to examine himself.

What errors he hath detected (though but pretended such, which honour in the next place he assumes to himself) I know not. The error of the deity of Christ was detected in the apostles' days by Ebion, Cerinthus, and others,—not long after by Paulus Samosatenus, by Photinus, by Arius, and others;3 the error of the purity, simplicity, and spirituality of the essence of God, by Audæus and the Anthropomorphites; the error of the deity of the Holy Ghost was long since detected by Macedonius and his companions; the error of original sin, or the corruption of our nature, by Pelagius; the error of the satisfaction and merit of Christ, by Abelardus; all of them, by Socinus, Smalcius, Crellius, etc. What new discoveries Mr B. hath made I know not, nor is there any thing that he presents us with, in his whole body of religion, as stated in his questions, but what he hath found prepared, digested, and modelled to his hand by his masters, the Socinians, unless it be some few gross notions about the Deity; nor is so much as the language which here he useth of himself and his discoveries his own, but borrowed of Socinus, Ep. ad Squarcialupum.

We have not, then, the least reason in the world to suppose that Mr B. was led into these glorious discoveries by reading of the Scriptures, much less by "impartial reading of them;" but that they are all the fruits of a deluded heart, given up righteously of God to believe a lie, for the neglect of his word and contempt of reliance upon his Spirit and grace for a right understanding thereof, by the cunning sleights of the forementioned persons, in some of whose writings Satan lies in wait to deceive. And for the "body of religion" which he hath collected, which lies not in the answers, which are set down in the words of the Scripture, but in the interpretations and conclusions couched in his questions, I may safely say it is one of the most corrupt and abominable that ever issued from the endeavours of one who called himself a Christian; for a proof of which assertion I refer the reader to the ensuing considerations of it. So that whatever promises of success Mr B. is pleased to make unto him who shall ruminate and digest in his mind this body of his composure (it being, indeed, stark poison, that will never be digested, but will fill and swell the heart with pride and venom until it utterly destroy the whole person), it may justly be feared that he hath given too great an advantage to a sort of men in the world, not behind Mr B. for abilities and reason (the only guide allowed by him in affairs of this nature), to decry the use and reading of the Scripture, which they see unstable and unlearned men fearfully to wrest to their own destruction. But let God be true, and all men liars. Let the gospel run and prosper; and if it be hid to any, it is to them whom the god of this world hath blinded, that the glorious light thereof should not shine into their hearts.

What may farther be drawn forth of the same kind with what is in these Catechisms delivered, with an imposition of it upon the Scripture, as though any occasion were thence administered thereunto, I know not, but yet do suppose that Satan himself is scarce able to furnish the thoughts of men with many more abominations of the like length and breadth with those here endeavoured to be imposed on simple, unstable souls, unless he should engage them into downright atheism and professed contempt of God.

Of what tendency these doctrines of Mr B. are unto godliness, which he next mentioneth, will in its proper place fall under consideration. It is true, the gospel is a "doctrine according to godliness," and aims at the promotion of it in the hearts and lives of men, in order to the exaltation of the glory of God; and hence it is that so soon as any poor deluded soul falls into the snare of Satan, and is taken captive under the power of any error whatever, the first sleight he puts in practice for the promotion of it is to declaim about its excellency and usefulness for the furtherance of godliness, though himself in the meantime be under the power of darkness, and knows not in the least what belongs to the godliness which he professeth to promote. As to what Mr B. here draws forth to that purpose, I shall be bold to tell him that to the accomplishment of a godliness amongst men (since the fall of Adam) that hath not its rise and foundation in the effectual, powerful changing of the whole man from death to life, darkness to light, etc., in the washing off the pollutions of nature by the blood of Christ; that is not wrought in us and carried on by the efficacy of the Spirit of grace, taking away the heart of stone and giving a new heart circumcised to fear the Lord; that is not purchased and procured for us by the oblation and intercession of the Lord Jesus; a godliness that is not promoted by the consideration of the viciousness and corruption of our hearts by nature, and their alienation from God, and that doth not in a good part of it consist in the mortifying, killing, slaying of the sin of nature that dwelleth in us, and in an opposition to all the actings and workings of it; a godliness that is performed by our own strength in yielding obedience to the precepts of the word, that by that obedience we may justified before God and for it accepted, etc.,—there is not one tittle, letter, nor iota, in the whole book of God tending.

Mr B. closeth his preface with a commendation of the Scriptures, their excellency and divinity, with the eminent success that they shall find who yield obedience to them, in that they shall be, "even in this life, equal unto angels." His expressions, at first view, seem to separate him from his companions in his body of divinity, which he pretends to collect from the Scriptures, whose low thoughts and bold expressions concerning the contradictions in them shall afterward be pointed unto; but I fear "latet anguis in herba:" and in this kiss of the Scriptures, with "hail" unto them, there is vile treachery intended, and the betraying of them into the hands of men, to be dealt withal at their pleasure. I desire not to entertain evil surmises of any (what just occasion soever be given on any other account) concerning things that have not their evidence and conviction in themselves. The bleating of that expression, "The Scriptures are the exactest rule of a holy life," evidently allowing other rules of a holy life, though they be the exactest, and admitting other things or books into a copartnership with them in that their use and service, though the pre-eminence be given to them, sounds as much to their dishonour as any thing spoken of them by any who ever owned them to have proceeded from God. It is the glory of the Scriptures, not only to be the rule, but the only one, of walking with God. If you take any others into comparison with it, and allow them in the trial to be rules indeed, though not so exact as the Scripture, you do no less cast down the Scripture from its excellency than if you denied it to be any rule at all. It will not lie as one of the many, though you say never so often that it is the best. What issues there will be of the endeavour to give reason the absolute sovereignty in judging of rules of holiness, allowing others, but preferring the Scripture, and therein, without other assistance, determining of all the contents of it, in order to its utmost end, God in due time will manifest. We confess (to close with Mr B.) that true obedience to the Scriptures makes men, even in this life, equal in some sense unto angels; not upon the account of their performance of that obedience merely, as though there could be an equality between the obedience yielded by us whilst we are yet sinners, and continue so (for "if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves"), and the exact obedience of them who never sinned, but abide in doing the will of God: but the principal and main work of God required in them, and which is the root of all other obedience whatever, being to "believe on him whom he hath sent," to "as many as so believe on him and so receive him power is given to become the sons of God;" who being so adopted into the great family of heaven and earth, which is called after God's name, and invested with all the privileges thereof, having fellowship with the Father and the Son, they are in that regard, even in the life, equal to angels.

Having thus, as briefly as I could, washed off the paint that was put upon the porch of Mr B.'s fabric, and discovered it to be a composure of rotten posts and dead men's bones,—whose pargeting being removed, their abomination lies naked to all,—I shall enter the building or heap itself, to consider what entertainment he hath provided therein for those whom, in the entrance, he doth so subtilely and earnestly invite to turn in and partake of his provisions.

CHAPTER I

Mr Biddle's first chapter examined—Of the Scriptures.

MR BIDDLE having imposed upon himself the task of insinuating his abominations by applying the express words of Scripture in way of answer to his captious and sophistical queries, was much straitened in the very entrance, in that he could not find any text or tittle in them that is capable of being wrested to give the least colour to those imperfections which the residue of men with whom he is, in the whole system of his doctrine, in compliance and communion, do charge them withal: as, that there are contradictions in them, though in things of less importance; that many things are or may be changed and altered in them; that some of the books of the Old Testament are lost; and that those that remain are not of any necessity to Christians, although they may be read with profit. Their subjecting them, also, and all their assertions, to the last judgment of reason, is of the same nature with the other. But it not being my purpose to pursue his opinions through all the secret windings and turnings of them, so [as] to drive them to their proper issue, but only to discover the sophistry and falseness of those insinuations which grossly and palpably overthrow the foundations of Christianity, I shall not force him to speak to any thing beyond what he hath expressly delivered himself unto.

This first chapter, then, concerning the Scriptures, both in the Greater and Less Catechisms, without farther trouble I shall pass over, seeing that the stating of the questions and answers in them may be sound, and according to the common faith of the saints, in those who partake not with Mr B.'s companions in their low thoughts of them, which here he doth not profess; only, I dare not join with him in his last assertion, that such and such passages are the most affectionate in the book of God, seeing we know but in part, and are not enabled nor warranted to make such peremptory determinations concerning the several passages of Scripture, set in comparison and competition for affectionateness by ourselves.

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CHAPTER II

Of the nature of God

HIS second chapter, which is concerning God, his essence, nature, and properties, is second to none in his whole book for blasphemies and reproaches of God and his word.

The description of God which he labours to insinuate is, that he is "one person, of a visible shape and similitude, finite, limited to a certain place, mutable, comprehensible, and obnoxious to turbulent passions, not knowing the things that are future and which shall be done by the sons of men; whom none can love with all his heart, if he believe him to be 'one in three distinct persons.' "

That this is punctually the apprehension and notion concerning God and his being which he labours to beget, by his suiting Scripture expressions to the blasphemous insinuations of his questions, will appear in the consideration of both questions and answers, as they lie in the second chapter of the Greater Catechism.

His first question is, "How many Gods of Christians are there?" and his answer is, "One God," Eph. 4:6; whereunto he subjoins secondly, "Who is this one God?" and answers, "The Father, of whom are all things," 1 Cor. 8:6.

That the intendment of the connection of these queries, and the suiting of words of Scripture to them, is to insinuate some thoughts against the doctrine of the Trinity, is not questionable, especially being the work of him that makes it his business to oppose it and laugh it to scorn. With what success this attempt is managed, a little consideration of what is offered will evince. It is true, Paul says, "To us there is one God," treating of the vanity and nothingness of the idols of the heathen, whom God hath threatened to deprive of all worship and to starve out of the world. The question as here proposed, "How many Gods of Christians are there?" having no such occasion administered unto it as that expression of Paul, being no parcel of such a discourse as he insists upon, sounds pleasantly towards the allowance of many gods, though Christians have but one. Neither is Mr B. so averse to polytheism as not to give occasion, on other accounts, to this supposal. Jesus Christ he allows to be a god. All his companions, in the undertaking against his truly eternal divine nature, still affirm him to be "Homo Deificatus" and "Deus Factus," and plead "pro vera deitate Jesu Christi," denying yet, with him, that by nature he is God, of the same essence with the Father; so, Indeed, grossly and palpably falling into and closing with that abomination which they pretend above all men to avoid, in their opposition to the thrice holy and blessed Trinity. Of those monstrous figments in Christian religion which on this occasion they have introduced, of making a man to be an eternal God, of worshipping a mere creature with the worship due only to the infinitely blessed God, we shall speak afterward.

We confess that to us there is one God, but one God, and let all others be accursed. "The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth," let them be destroyed, according to the word of the Lord, "from under these heavens," Jer. 10:11. Yet we say, moreover, that "there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one," 1 John 5:7. And in that very place whence Mr B. cuts off his first answer, as it is asserted that there is "one God," so "one Lord" and "one Spirit," the fountain of all spiritual distributions, are mentioned; which whether they are not also that one God, we shall have farther occasion to consider.

To the next query concerning this one God, who he is, the words are, "The Father, from whom are all things;" in themselves most true. The Father is the one God whom we worship in spirit and in truth; and yet the Son also is "our Lord and our God," John 20:28, even "God over all, blessed for ever," Rom. 9:5. The Spirit also is the God "which worketh all in all," 1 Cor. 12:6, 11. And in the name of that one God, who is the "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost," are we baptized, whom we serve, who to us is the one God over all, Matt. 28:19. Neither is that assertion of the Father's being the one and only true God any more prejudicial to the Son's being so also, than that testimony given to the everlasting deity of the Son is to that of the Father, notwithstanding that to us there is but one God. The intendment of our author in these questions is to answer what he found in the great exemplar of his Catechism, the Racovian, two of whose questions are comprehensive of all that is here delivered and intended by Mr B. But of these things more afterward.

His next inquiry is after the nature of this one God, which he answers with that of our Saviour in John 4:24, "God is a spirit." In this he is somewhat more modest, though not so wary as his great master, Faustus Socinus, and his disciple (as to his notions about the nature of God) Vorstius. His acknowledgment of God to be a spirit frees him from sharing in impudence in this particular with his master, who will not allow any such thing to be asserted in these words of our Saviour. His words are (Fragment. Disput. de Adorat. Christi cum Christiano Franken, p. 60), "Non est fortasse eorum verborum ea sententia, quam plerique omnes arbitrantur: Deum scilicet esse spiritum, neque enim subaudiendum esse dicit aliquis verbum ἐστὶ, quasi vox πνεῦμα, recto casu accipienda sit, sed ἀπὸ κοινοῦ repetendum verbum ζητεῖ, quod paulo ante præcessit, et πνεῦμα quarto casu accipiendum, ita ut sententia sit, Deum quærere et postulare spiritum." Vorstius also follows him, Not. ad Disput. 3, p. 200. Because the verb substantive "is" is not in the original expressed (than the omission whereof nothing being more frequent, though I have heard of one who, from the like omission, 2 Cor. 5:17, thought to have proved Christ to be the "new creature" there intended), contrary to the context and coherence of the words, design of the argument in hand insisted on by our Saviour (as he was a bold man), and emphaticalness of significancy in the expression as it lies, he will needs thrust in the word "seeketh," and render the intention of Christ to be, that God seeks a spirit, that is, the spirit of men, to worship him. Herein, I say, is Mr B. more modest than his master (as, it seems, following Crellius, who in the exposition of that place of Scripture is of another mind), though in craft and foresight he be outgone by him; for if God be a spirit indeed, one of a pure spiritual essence and substance, the image, shape, and similitude, which he afterwards ascribes to him, his corporeal posture, which he asserts (ques. 4), will scarcely be found suitable unto him. It is incumbent on some kind of men to be very wary in what they say, and mindful of what they have said; falsehood hath no consistency in itself, no more than with the truth. Smalcius in the Racovian Catechism is utterly silent as to this question and answer. But the consideration of this also will in its due place succeed.

To his fourth query, about a farther description of God by some of his attributes, I shall not need to subjoin any thing in way of animadversion; for however the texts he cites come short of delivering that of God which the import of the question to which they are annexed doth require, yet being not wrested to give countenance to any perverse apprehension of his nature, I shall not need to insist upon the consideration of them.

Ques. 5, he falls closely to his work, in these words, "Is not God, according to the current of the Scriptures, in a certain place, namely, in heaven?" whereunto he answers by many places of Scripture that make mention of God in heaven.

That we may not mistake his mind and intention in this query, some light may be taken from some other passages in his book. In the preface he tells you "That God hath a similitude and shape" (of which afterward), "and hath his place in the heavens" (that "God is in no certain place," he reckons amongst those errors he opposes, in the same preface; of the same kind he asserteth the belief to be of God's "being infinite and incomprehensible);" and, Cat. Less. p. 6, "That God glisteneth with glory, and is resident in a certain place of the heavens, so that one may distinguish between his right and left hand by bodily sight." This is the doctrine of the man with whom we have to do concerning the presence of God. "He is," saith he, "in heaven, as in a certain place." That which is in a certain place is finite and limited, as, from the nature of a place and the manner of any thing's being in a place, shall be instantly evinced. God, then, is finite and limited; be it so (that he is infinite and incomprehensible is yet a Scripture expression): yea, he is so limited as not to be extended to the whole compass and limit of the heavens, but he is in a certain place of the heavens, yea, so circumscribed as that a man may see from his right hand to his left;—wherein Mr B. comes short of Mohammed, who affirms that when he was taken into heaven to the sight of God, he found three days' journey between his eye-brows; which if so, it will be somewhat hard for any one to see from his right hand to his left, being supposed at an answerable distance to that of his eye-brows. Let us see, then, on what testimony, by what authority, Mr B. doth here limit the Almighty and confine him to a certain place, shutting up his essence and being in some certain part of the heavens, cutting him thereby short, as we shall see in the issue, in all those eternal perfections whereby hitherto he hath been known to the sons of men.

The proof of that lies in the places of Scripture which, making mention of God, say, "he is in heaven," and that "he looketh down from heaven," etc.; of which, out of some concordance, some twenty or thirty are by him repeated. Not to make long work of a short business, the Scriptures say, "God is in heaven." Who ever denied it? But do the Scriptures say he is nowhere else? Do the Scriptures say he is confined to heaven, so that he is so there as not to be in all other places? If Mr B. thinks this any argument, "God is in heaven, therefore his essence is not infinite and immense, therefore he is not everywhere," we are not of his mind. He tells you, in his preface, that he "asserts nothing himself." I presume his reason was, lest any should call upon him for a proof of his assertions. What he intends to insinuate, and what conceptions of God he labours to ensnare the minds of unlearned and unstable souls withal, in this question under consideration, hath been, from the evidence of his intendment therein, and the concurrent testimony of other expressions of his to the same purpose, demonstrated. To propose any thing directly in way of proof of the truth of that which he labours insensibly to draw the minds of men unto, he was doubtless conscious to himself of so much disability for its performance as to waive that kind of procedure; and therefore his whole endeavour is, having filled, animated, and spirited the understandings of men with the notion couched in his question, to cast in some Scripture expressions, that, as they lie, may seem fitted to the fixing of the notion before begotten in them. As to any attempt of direct proof of what he would have confirmed, the man of reason is utterly silent.

None of those texts of Scripture where mention is made of God's being in heaven are, in the coherence and dependence of speech wherein they lie, suited or intended at all to give answer to this question, or any like it, concerning the presence of God or his actual existence in any place, but only in respect of some dispensations of God and works of his, whose fountain and original he would have us to consider in himself, and to come forth from him there where in an eminent manner he manifests his glory. God is, I say, in none of the places by him urged said to be in heaven in respect of his essence or being, nor is it the intention of the Holy Ghost in any of them to declare the manner of God's essential presence and existence in reference to all or any place; but only by the way of eminency, in respect of manifestations of himself and operations from his glorious presence, doth he so speak of him. And, indeed, in those expressions, heaven doth not so much signify a place as a thing, or at least a place in reference to the things there done, or the peculiar manifestations of the glory of God there; so that if these places should be made use of as to the proof of the figment insinuated, the argument from them would be a non causa pro causa. The reason why God is said to be in heaven is, not because his essence is included in a certain place so called, but because of the more eminent manifestations of his glory there, and the regard which he requires to be had of him manifesting his glory as the first cause and author of all the works which outwardly are of him.

3. God is said to be in heaven in an especial manner, because he hath assigned that as the place of the saints' expectation of that enjoyment and eternal fruition of himself which he hath promised to bless them withal; but for the limiting of his essence to a certain place in heaven, the Scriptures, as we shall see, know nothing, yea, expressly and positively affirm the contrary.

Let us all, then, supply our catechumens, in the room of Mr B.'s, with this question, expressly leading to the things inquired after:—

What says the Scripture concerning the essence and presence of God? is it confined and limited to a certain place, or is he infinitely and equally present everywhere?

Ans. "The LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath," Joshua 2:11. "But will God indeed dwell on the earth? behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded?" 1 Kings 8:27. "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there," etc., Ps. 139:7–10. "The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool," Isa. 66:1, Acts 7:47, 48. "Am I a God at hand, saith the LORD, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD," Jer. 23:23, 24.

It is of the ubiquity and omnipresence of God that these places expressly treat; and whereas it was manifested before that the expression of God being in heaven doth not at all speak to the abomination which Mr B. would insinuate thereby, the naked rehearsal of those testimonies, so directly asserting and ascribing to the Almighty an infinite, unlimited presence, and that in direct opposition to the gross apprehension of his being confined to a certain place in heaven, is abundantly sufficient to deliver the thoughts and minds of men from any entanglements that Mr B.'s questions and answers (for though it be the word of the Scripture he insists upon, yet male dum recitas incipit esse tuum) might lead them into. On that account no more need be added; but yet this occasion being administered, that truth itself, concerning the omnipresence or ubiquity of God, may be farther cleared and confirmed.

Through the prejudices and ignorance of men, it is inquired whether God be so present in any certain place as not to be also equally elsewhere, everywhere?

Place has been commonly defined to be "superficies corporis ambientis." Because of sundry inextricable difficulties and the impossibility of suiting it to every place, this definition is now generally decried. That now commonly received is more natural, suited to the natures of things, and obvious to the understanding. A place is "spatium corporis susceptivum,"—any space wherein a body may be received and contained. The first consideration of it is as to its fitness and aptness so to receive any body: so it is in the imagination only. The second, as to its actual existence, being filled with that body which it is apt to receive: so may we imagine innumerable spaces in heaven which are apt and able to receive the bodies of the saints, and which actually shall be filled with them when they shall be translated thereunto by the power of God.

Presence in a place is the actual existence of a person in his place, or, as logicians speak, in his ubi, that is, answering the inquiry after him where he is. Though all bodies are in certain places, yet persons only are said to be present in them. Other things have not properly a presence to be ascribed to them; they are in their proper places, but we do not say they are present in or to their places.

This being the general description of a place and the presence of any therein, it is evident that properly it cannot be spoken at all of God that he is in one place or other, for he is not a body that should fill up the space of its receipt, nor yet in all places, taking the word properly, for so one essence can be but in one place; and if the word should properly be ascribed to God in any sense, it would deprive him of all his infinite perfections.

It is farther said that there be three ways of the presence of any in reference to a place or places. Some are so in a place as to be circumscribed therein in respect of their parts and dimensions, such are their length, breadth, and depth: so doth one part of them fit one part of the place wherein they are, and the whole the whole; so are all solid bodies in a place; so is a man, his whole body in his whole place, his head in one part of it, his arms in another. Some are so conceived to be in a place as that, in relation to it, it may be said of them that they are there in it so as not to be anywhere else, though they have not parts and dimensions filling the place wherein they are, nor are punctually circumscribed with a local space: such is the presence of angels and spirits to the places wherein they are, being not infinite or immense. These are so in some certain place as not to be at the same time, wherein they are so, without it, or elsewhere, or in any other place. And this is proper to all finite, immaterial substances, that are so in a place as not to occupy and fill up that space wherein they are. In respect of place, God is immense, and indistant to all things and places, absent from nothing, no place, contained in none; present to all by and in his infinite essence and being, exerting his power variously, in any or all places, as he pleaseth, revealing and manifesting his glory more or less, as it seemeth good to him.

Of this omnipresence of God, two things are usually inquired after:

1. The thing itself, or the demonstration that he is so omnipresent;

2. The manner of it, or the manifestation and declaring how he is so present. Of this latter, perhaps, sundry things have been over curiously and nicely by some disputed, though, upon a thorough search, their disputes may not appear altogether useless. The schoolmen's distinctions of God's being in a place repletivè, immensivè, impletivè, superexcedenter, conservativè, attinctivè, manifestativè, etc., have, some of them at least, foundation in the Scriptures and right reason. That which seems most obnoxious to exception is their assertion of God to be everywhere present, instar puncti; but the sense of that and its intendment is, to express how God is not in a place, rather than how he is. He is not in a place as quantitive bodies, that have the dimensions attending them. Neither could his presence in heaven, by those who shut him up there, be any otherwise conceived, until they were relieved by the rare notions of Mr. B. concerning the distinct places of his right hand and left. But it is not at all about the manner of God's presence that I am occasioned to speak, but only of the thing itself. They who say he is in heaven only speak as to the thing, and not as to the manner of it. When we say he is everywhere, our assertion is also to be interpreted as to that only; the manner of his presence being purely of a philosophical consideration, his presence itself divinely revealed, and necessarily attending his divine perfections; yea, it is an essential property of God. The properties of God are either absolute or relative. The absolute properties of God are such as may be considered without the supposition of any thing else whatever, towards which their energy and efficacy should be exerted. His relative are such as, in their egress and exercise, respect some things in the creatures, though they naturally and eternally reside in God. Of the first sort is God's immensity; it is an absolute property of his nature and being. For God to be immense, infinite, unbounded, unlimited, is as necessary to him as to be God; that is, it is of his essential perfection so to be. The ubiquity of God, or his presence to all things and persons, is a relative property of God; for to say that God is present in and to all things supposes those things to be. Indeed, the ubiquity of God is the habitude of his immensity to the creation. Supposing the creatures, the world that is, God is by reason of his immensity indistant to them all; or if more worlds be supposed (as all things possible to the power of God without any absurdity may be supposed), on the same account as he is omnipresent in reference to the present world, he would be so to them and all that is in them.

Of that which we affirm in this matter this is the sum: God, who in his own being and essence is infinite and immense, is, by reason thereof, present in and to the whole creation equally,—not by a diffusion of his substance, or mixture with other things, heaven or earth, in or upon them, but by an inconceivable indistancy of essence to all things,—though he exert his power and manifest his glory in one place more than another; as in heaven, in Zion, at the ark, etc.

That this is the doctrine of the Scriptures in the places before mentioned needs no great pains to evince. In that, 1 Kings 8:27, the design of Solomon in the words gives light to the substance of what he asserted. He had newly, with labour, cost, charge, and wisdom, none of them to be paralleled in the world, built a temple for the worship of God. The house being large and exceedingly glorious, the apprehensions of all the nations round about (that looked on, and considered the work he had in hand) concerning the nature and being of God being gross, carnal, and superstitious, themselves answerably worshipping those who by nature were not God, and his own people of Israel exceedingly prone to the same abomination, lest any should suppose that he had thoughts of including the essence of God in the house that he had built, he clears himself in this confession of his faith from all such imaginations, affirming that though indeed God would dwell on the earth, yet he was so far from being limited unto or circumscribed in the house that he had built, that "the heaven and the heaven of heavens," any space whatever that could be imagined, the highest heaven, could not, "cannot contain him;" so far is he from having a certain place in heaven where he should reside, in distinction from other places where he is not. "He is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath," Josh. 2:11. That which the temple of God was built unto, that "the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain." Now, the temple was built to the being of God, to God as God: so Acts 7:47, "But Solomon built him an house;" him,—that is, the Most High,—"who dwelleth not," is not circumscribed, "in temples made with hands," verse 48.

That of Ps. 139:7–10 is no less evident; the presence or face of God is expressly affirmed to be everywhere: "Whither shall I go from thy face? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I go into hell, behold, thou art there." As God is affirmed to be in heaven, so everywhere else; now that he is in heaven, in respect of his essence and being, is not questioned.

Neither can that of the prophet Isaiah, chap. 66:1, be otherwise understood but as an ascribing of an ubiquity to God, and a presence in heaven and earth: "Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool." The words are metaphorical, and in that way expressive of the presence of a person; and so God is present in heaven and earth. That the earth should be his footstool, and yet himself be so inconceivably distant from it as the heaven is from the earth (an expression chosen by himself to set out the greatest distance imaginable), is not readily to be apprehended. "He is not far from every one of us; for in him we live, and move, and have our being," Acts 17:27, 28.

The testimony which God gives to this his perfection in Jer. 23:23, 24, is not to be avoided; more than what is here spoken by God himself as to his omnipresence we cannot, we desire not to speak: "Can any hide himself in secret places, that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD." Still where mention is made of the presence of God, there heaven and earth (which two are comprehensive of, and usually put for the whole creation) are mentioned: and herein he is neither to be thought afar off nor near, being equally present everywhere, in the hidden places as in heaven; that is, he is not distant from any thing or place, though he take up no place, but is nigh all things, by the infiniteness and existence of his being.

From what is also known of the nature of God, his attributes and perfections, the truth delivered may be farther argued and confirmed; as,—

1. God is absolutely perfect; whatever is of perfection is to be ascribed to him: otherwise he could neither be absolutely self-sufficient, all-sufficient, nor eternally blessed in himself. He is absolutely perfect, inasmuch as no perfection is wanting to him, and comparatively above all that we can conceive or apprehend of perfection. If, then, ubiquity or omnipresence be a perfection, it no less necessarily belongs to God than it does to be perfectly good and blessed. That this is a perfection is evident from its contrary. To be limited, to be circumscribed, is an imperfection, and argues weakness. We commonly say, we would do such a thing in such a place could we be present unto it, and are grieved and troubled that we cannot be so. That it should be so is an imperfection attending the limitedness of our natures. Unless we will ascribe the like to God, his omnipresence is to be acknowledged. If every perfection, then, be in God (and if every perfection be not in any, he is not God), this is not to be denied to him.

2. Again; if God be now "in a certain place in heaven," I ask where he was before these heavens were made? These heavens have not always been. God was then where there was nothing but God,—no heaven, no earth, no place. In what place was God when there was no place? When the heavens were made, did he cease this manner of being in himself, existing in his own infinite essence, and remove into the new place made for him? Or is not God's removal out of his existence in himself into a certain place a blasphemous imagination? "Ante omnia Deus erat solus ipse sibi, et locus, et mundus, et omnia," Tertul. Is this change of place and posture to be ascribed to God? Moreover, if God be now only in a certain place of the heavens, if he should destroy the heavens and that place, where would he then be? in what place? Should he cease to be in the place wherein he is, and begin to be in, to take up, and possess another? And are such apprehensions suited to the infinite perfections of God? Yea, may we not suppose that he may create another heaven? can he not do it? How should he be present there? or must it stand empty? or must he move himself thither? or make himself bigger than he was, to fill that heaven also?

3. The omnipresence of God is grounded on the infiniteness of his essence. If God be infinite, he is omnipresent. Suppose him infinite, and then suppose there is any thing besides himself, and his presence with that thing, wherever it be, doth necessarily follow; for if he be so bounded as to be in his essence distant from any thing, he is not infinite. To say God is not infinite in his essence denies him to be infinite or unlimited in any of his perfections or properties; and therefore, indeed, upon the matter Socinus denies God's power to be infinite, because he will not grant his essence to be, Cat. chap. 11. part 1. That which is absolutely infinite cannot have its residence in that which is finite and limited, so that if the essence of God be not immense and infinite, his power, goodness, etc., are also bounded and limited; so that there are, or may be, many things which in their own natures are capable of existence, which yet God cannot do for want of power. How suitable to the Scriptures and common notions of mankind concerning the nature of God this is will be easily known. It is yet the common faith of Christians that God is ἀπερίγραπτος, καὶ ἄπειρος.

4. Let reason (which the author of these Catechisms pretends to advance and honour, as some think, above its due, and therefore cannot decline its dictates) judge of the consequences of this gross apprehension concerning the confinement of God to the heavens, yea, "a certain place in the heavens," though he "glister" never so much "in glory" there where he is. For, (1.) He must be extended as a body is, that so he may fill the place, and have parts as we have, if he be circumscribed in a certain place; which though our author thinks no absurdity, yet, as we shall afterward manifest, it is as bold an attempt to make an idol of the living God as ever any of the sons of men engaged into. (2.) Then God's greatness and ours, as to essence and substance, differ only gradually, but are still of the same kind. God is bigger than a man, it is true, but yet with the same kind of greatness, differing from us as one man differs from another. A man is in a certain place of the earth, which he fills and takes up; and God is in a certain place of the heavens, which he fills and takes up. Only some gradual difference there is, but how great or little that difference is, as yet we are not taught. (3.) I desire to know of Mr B. what the throne is made of that God sits on in the heavens, and how far the glistering of his glory doth extend, and whether that glistering of glory doth naturally attend his person as beams do the sun, or shining doth fire, or can he make it more or less as he pleaseth? (4.) Doth God fill the whole heavens, or only some part of them? If the whole, being of such substance as is imagined, what room will there be in heaven for any body else? Can a lesser place hold him? or could he fill a greater? If not, how came the heavens [to be] so fit for him? Or could he not have made them of other dimensions, less or greater? If he be only in a part of heaven, as is more than insinuated in the expression that he is "in a certain place in the heavens," I ask why he dwells in one part of the heavens rather than another? or whether he ever removes or takes a journey, as Elijah speaks of Baal, 1 Kings 18:27, or is eternally, as limited in, so confined unto, the certain place wherein he is? Again; how doth he work out those effects of almighty power which are at so great a distance from him as the earth is from the heavens, which cannot be effected by the intervenience of any created power, as the resurrection of the dead, etc. The power of God doubtless follows his essence, and what this extends not to that cannot reach. But of that which might be spoken to vindicate the infinitely glorious being of God from the reproach which his own word is wrested to cast upon him, this that hath been spoken is somewhat that to my present thoughts doth occur.

I suppose that Mr B. knows that in this his circumscription of God to a certain place, he transgresses against the common consent of mankind; if not, a few instances of several sorts may, I hope, suffice for his conviction. I shall promiscuously propose them, as they lie at hand or occur to my remembrance. For the Jews, Philo gives their judgment. "Hear," saith he, "of the wise God that which is most true, that God is in no place, for he is not contained, but containeth all. That which is made is in a place, for it must be contained and not contain." And it is the observation of another of them, that so often as מָקוֹם, a place, is said of God, the exaltation of his immense and incomparable essence (as to its manifestation) is to be understood. And the learned Buxtorf tells us that when that word is used of God, it is by an antiphrasis, to signify that he is infinite illocal, received in no place, giving place to all.4 That known saying of Empedocles passed among the heathen, "Deus est circulus, cujus centrum ubique, circumferentia nusquam;" and of Seneca, "Turn which way thou wilt, thou shalt see God meeting thee. Nothing is empty of him: he fills his own work" "All things are full of God," says the poet;6 and another of them;—

"Estque Dei sedes nisi terræ, et pontus, et aer,

Est cœlum, et versus superos, quid quærimus ultra:

Jupiter est quodcunque vides, quocunque moveris."

Of this presence of God, I say, with and unto all things, of the infinity of his essence, the very heathens themselves, by the light of nature (which Mr B. herein opposes), had a knowledge. Hence did some of them term him κοσμοποιὸς νοῦς, "a mind framing the universe," and affirmed him to be infinite. "Primus omnium rerum descriptionem et modum, mentis infinitœ vi et ratione designari, et confici voluit," says Cicero of Anaxagoras, Tull. de Nat. Deor. lib. i. 11;—"All things are disposed of by the virtue of one infinite mind." And Plutarch, expressing the same thing, says he is νοῦς καθαρὸς, καὶ ἄκρατος ἐμμεμιγμένος πᾶσι,—"a pure and sincere mind, mixing itself, and mixed" (so they expressed the presence of the infinite mind) "with all things." So Virgil, "Jovis omnia plena,"—"All things are full of God," (for God they intended by that name, Acts 17:25, 28, 29; and says Lactantius, "Convicti de uno Deo, cum id negare non possunt, ipsum se colere, affirmant, verum hoc sibi placere, ut Jupiter nominetur," lib. i. cap. ii.); which, as Servius on the place observes, he had taken from Aratus, whose words are:—

Ἐκ διὸς ἀρχώμεσθα, τὸν οὐδέ ποτʼ ἄνδρες ἐῶμεν

Ἄῤῥητον· μεσταὶ δὲ διὸς πᾶσαι μὲν ἁγυιαὶ,

Πᾶσαι δʼ ἀνθρώπων ἀγοραὶ, μεστὴ δὲ θάλασσα,

Καὶ λιμένες, πάντη δὲ διὸς κεχρήμεθα πάντες,

—giving a full description, in his way, of the omnipresence and ubiquity of God. The same Virgil, from the Platonics, tells us in another place:—

"Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus

Mens agitat molem."—Æn. vi. 726.

And much more of this kind might easily be added. The learned know where to find more for their satisfaction; and for those that are otherwise, the clear texts of Scripture cited before may suffice.

Of those, on the other hand, who have, no less grossly and carnally than he of whom we speak, imagined a diffusion of the substance of God through the whole creation, and a mixture of it with the creatures, so as to animate and enliven them in their several forms, making God an essential part of each creature,2 or dream of an assumption of creatures into an unity of essence with God, I am not now to speak.

———

CHAPTER III

Of the shape and bodily visible figure of God.

MR BIDDLE'S question:—

Is God in the Scripture said to have any likeness, similitude, person, shape?

The proposition which he would have to be the conclusion of the answers to these questions is this, That, according to the doctrine of the Scriptures, God is a person shaped like a man;—a conclusion so grossly absurd that it is refused as ridiculous by Tully, a heathen, in the person of Cotta (De Nat. Deor. lib. i. 6), against Velleius the Epicurean, the Epicureans only amongst the philosophers being so sottish as to admit that conceit. And Mr B., charging that upon the Scripture which hath been renounced by all the heathens who set themselves studiously to follow the light of nature, and, by a strict inquiry, to search out the nature and attributes of God, principally attending to that safe rule of ascribing nothing to him that eminently included imperfection, hath manifested his pretext of mere Christianity to be little better than a cover for downright atheism, or at best of most vile and unworthy thoughts of the Divine Being. And here also doth Mr B. forsake his masters.2 Some of them have had more reverence of the Deity, and express themselves accordingly, in express opposition to this gross figment.

According to the method I proceeded in, in consideration of the precedent questions, shall I deal with this, and first consider briefly the scriptures produced to mate good this monstrous, horrid assertion. The places urged and insisted on of old by the Anthropomorphites were such as partly ascribed a shape in general to God, partly such as mention the parts and members of God in that shape, his eyes, his arms, his hands, etc.; from all which they looked on him as an old man sitting in heaven on a throne,—a conception that Mr B. is no stranger to. The places of the first sort are here only insisted on by Mr B., and the attribution of a "likeness, image, similitude, person, and shape" unto God, is his warrant to conclude that he hath a visible, corporeal, image and shape like that of a man; which is the plain intendment of his question. Now, if the image, likeness, or similitude, attributed to God as above, do no way, neither in the sum of the words themselves nor by the intendment of the places where they are used, in the least ascribe or intimate that there is any such corporeal, visible shape in God as he would insinuate, but are properly expressive of some other thing that properly belongs to him, I suppose it will not be questioned but that a little matter will prevail with a person desiring to emerge in the world by novelties, and on that account casting off that reverence of God which the first and most common notions of mankind would instruct him into, to make bold with God and the Scripture for his own ends and purposes.

1. I say then, first, in general, if the Scripture may be allowed to expound itself, it gives us a fair and clear account of its own intendment in mentioning the image and shape of God, which man was created in, and owns it to be his righteousness and holiness; in a state whereof, agreeable to the condition of such a creature, man being created is said to be created in the image and likeness of God,—in a kind of resemblance unto that holiness and righteousness which are in him, Eph. 4:23, 24, etc. What can hence be concluded for a corporeal image or shape to be ascribed unto God is too easily discernible. From a likeness in some virtue or property to conclude to a likeness in a bodily shape, may well befit a man that cares not what he says, so he may speak to the derogation of the glory of God.

2. For the particular places by Mr B. insisted on, and the words used in them, which he lays the stress of this proposition upon: the first two words are דְּמוּת and צֶלֶם; both of which are used in Gen. 1:26. The word דְּמוּת is used Gen. 5:1, and צֶלֶם, Gen. 9:6; but neither of these words doth, in its genuine signification, imply any corporeity or figure. The most learned of all the rabbins, and most critically skilful in their language, hath observed and proved that the proper Hebrew word for that kind of outward form or similitude is תֹּאַר; and if these be ever so used, it is in a metaphorical and borrowed sense, or at least there is an amphiboly in the words, the Scripture sometimes using them in such subjects where this gross, corporeal sense cannot possibly be admitted: בִּדְמוּת חֲמַת־וָחָשׁ,—"Like the poison of a serpent," Ps. 58:4. There is, indeed, some imaginable, or rather rational, resemblance in the properties there mentioned, but no corporeal similitude. Vide Ezek. 1:28, and 23:14 (to which may be added many more places), where if דְּמוּת shall be interpreted of a bodily similitude, it will afford no tolerable sense. The same likewise may be said of צֶלֶם. It is used in the Hebrew for the essential form rather than the figure or shape; and being spoken of men, signifies rather their souls than bodies. So it is used, Ps. 73:20; which is better translated, "Thou shalt despise their soul," than their "image." So where it is said, Ps. 39:6, "Every man walketh in a vain show" (the same word again), however it ought to be interpreted, it cannot be understood of a corporeal similitude. So that these testimonies are not at all to his purpose. What, indeed, is the image of God, or that likeness to him wherein man was made, I have partly mentioned already, and shall farther manifest, chap. 6; and if this be not a bodily shape, it will be confessed that nothing can here be concluded for the attribution of a shape to God; and hereof an account will be given in its proper place.

The sum of Mr B.'s reasoning from these places is: "God, in the creation of the lower world and the inhabitancy thereof, making man, enduing him with a mind and soul capable of knowing him, serving him, yielding him voluntary and rational obedience; creating him in a condition of holiness and righteousness, in a resemblance to those blessed perfections in himself, requiring still of him to be holy as he is holy, to continue and abide in that likeness of his; giving him in that estate dominion over the rest of his works here below,—is said to create him in his own image and likeness, he being the sovereign lord over all his creatures, infinitely wise, knowing, just, and holy: therefore he hath a bodily shape and image, and is therein like unto a man." "Quod erat demonstrandum."

His next quotation is from Num. 12:7, 8, where, it is said of Moses that he shall behold the "similitude of the LORD." The word is חְּמוּנָה; which, as it is sometimes taken for a corporeal similitude, so it is at other times for that idea whereby things are intellectually represented. In the former sense is it frequently denied of God; as Deut. 4:15, "Ye saw no manner of similitude," etc. But it is frequently taken, in the other sense, for that object, or rather impression, whereby our intellectual apprehension is made; as in Job 4:16, "An image was before mine eyes," namely, in his dream; which is not any corporeal shape, but that idea or objective representation whereby the mind of man understands its object,—that which is in the schools commonly called phantasm, or else an intellectual species, about the notion of which it is here improper to contend. It is manifest that, in the place here alleged, it is put to signify the clear manifestation of God's presence to Moses, with some such glorious appearance thereof as he was pleased to represent unto him; therefore, doubtless, God hath a bodily shape.

His next quotation is taken from James 3:9, "Made after the similitude of God,"—Τοὺς καθʼ ὁμοίωσιν Θεοῦ γεγονότας. Certainly Mr B. cannot be so ignorant as to think the word ὁμοίωσις to include in its signification a corporeal similitude. The word is of as large an extent as "similitude" in Latin, and takes in as well those abstracted analogies which the understanding of man finds out, in comparing several objects together, as those other outward conformities of figure and shape which are the objects of our carnal eyes. It is the word by which the LXX. use to render the word דְּמוּת; of which we have spoken before. And the examples are innumerable in the Septuagint translation, and in authors of all sorts written in the Greek language, where that word is taken at large, and cannot signify a corporeal similitude; so that it is vain to insist upon particulars. And this also belongs to the same head of inquiry with the former,—namely, what likeness of God it was that man was created in, whether of eyes, ears, nose, etc., or of holiness, etc.

His next allegation is from Job 13:7, 8, "Will ye accept his person?" הֲפָנָיו, πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ,—an allegation so frivolous that to stand to answer it studiously would be ridiculous. 1. It is an interrogation, and doth not assert any thing. 2. The thing spoken against is προσωποληψία, which hath in it no regard to shape or corporeal personality, but to the partiality which is used in preferring one before another in justice. 3. The word mentioned, with its derivatives, is used in as great or greater variety of metaphorical translations than any other Hebrew word, and is by no means determined to be a signification of that bulky substance which, with the soul, concurs to make up the person of man. It is so used, Gen. 33:18, אֶת־פְּנֵי,—"Jacob pitched his tent before" (or "in the face of") "the city." It is confessed that it is very frequently translated πρόσωπον by the LXX., as it is very variously translated by them; sometimes ὁ ὀφθαλμός. See Jer. 38:26; Neh. 2:13; Job 16:16; Deut. 2:36; Prov. 27:23. Besides that, it is used in many other places for ἀντί, ἔναντι, ἀπέναντι, ἐπάνω, ἐνώπιον, and in many more senses. So that to draw an argument concerning the nature of God from a word so amphibological, or of such frequent translation in metaphorical speech, is very unreasonable.

Of what may be hence deduced this is the sum: "In every plea or contest about the ways, dispensations, and judgments of God, that which is right, exact, and according to the thing itself, is to be spoken, his glory not standing in the least need of our flattery or lying; therefore God is such a person as hath a bodily shape and similitude, for there is no other person but what hath so."

His last argument is from John 5:37, "Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape,"—Οὔτε εἶδος αὐτοῦ ἑωράκατε. But it argues a very great ignorance in all philosophical and accurate writings, to appropriate εἶδος to a corporeal shape, it being very seldom used, either in Scripture or elsewhere, in that notion;—the Scripture having used it where that sense cannot be fastened on it, as in 1 Thess. 5:22, Ἀπὸ παντὸς εἴδους πονηροῦ ἀπέχεσθε· which may be rendered, "Abstain from every kind," or "every appearance," but not from every shape "of evil;" and all other Greek authors, who have spoken accurately and not figuratively of things, use it perpetually almost in one of these two senses, and very seldom if at all in the other.

How improperly, and with what little reason, these places are interpreted of a corporeal similitude or shape, hath been showed. Wherein the image of God consists the apostle shows, as was declared, determining it to be in the intellectual part, not in the bodily, Col. 3:10, Ἐνδυσάμενοι τὸν νέον (ἄνθρωπον) τὸν ἀνακαινούμενον εἰς επίγνωσιν, κατʼ εἰκόνα τοῦ κτίσαντος αὐτόν. The word here used, εἰκών, is of a grosser signification than εἶδος, which hath its original from the intellectual operation of the mind; yet this the apostle determines to relate to the mind and spiritual excellencies, so that it cannot, from the places he hath mentioned, with the least colour of reason, be concluded that God hath a corporeal similitude, likeness, person, or shape.

What hath already been delivered concerning the nature of God, and is yet necessarily to be added, will not permit that much be peculiarly spoken to this head, for the removal of those imperfections from him which necessarily attend that assignation of a bodily shape to him which is here aimed at. That the Ancient of Days is not really one in the shape of an old man, sitting in heaven on a throne, glistering with a corporeal glory, his hair being white and his raiment beautiful, is sufficiently evinced from every property and perfection which in the Scripture is assigned to him.

The Holy Ghost, speaking in the Scripture concerning God, doth not without indignation suppose any thing to be likened or compared to him. Maimonides hath observed that these words, Aph, Ira, etc., are never attributed to God but in the case of idolatry; that never any idolater was so silly as to think that an idol of wood, stone, or metal, was a god that made the heavens and earth; but that through them all idolaters intend to worship God. Now, to fancy a corporeity in God, or that he is like a creature, is greater and more irrational dishonour to him than idolatry. "To whom will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him?" Isa. 40:18. "Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he that sitteth," etc. "To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One," verses 21–23, 25. Because the Scripture speaks of the eyes and ears, nostrils and arms of the Lord, and of man being made after his likeness, if any one shall conclude that he sees, hears, smells, and hath the shape of a man, he must, upon the same reason, conclude that he hath the shape of a lion, of an eagle, and is like a drunken man, because in Scripture he is compared to them, and so of necessity make a monster of him, and worship a chimera.

Nay, the Scripture plainly interprets itself as to these attributions unto God. His arm is not an arm of flesh, 2 Chron. 32:8. Neither are his eyes of flesh, neither seeth he as man seeth, Job 10:4. Nay, the highest we can pretend to (which is our way of understanding), though it hath some resemblance of him, yet falls it infinitely short of a likeness or equality with him. And the HolyGhost himself gives a plain interpretation of his own intendment in such expressions: for whereas, Luke 11:20, our Saviour says that he "with the finger of God cast out devils;" Matt. 12:28, he affirms that he did it "by the Spirit of God," intending the same thing. It neither is nor can righteously be required that we should produce any place of Scripture expressly affirming that God hath no shape, nor hands, nor eyes, as we have, no more than it is that he is no lion or eagle. It is enough that there is that delivered of him abundantly which is altogether inconsistent with any such shape as by Mr B. is fancied, and that so eminent a difference as that now mentioned is put between his arms and eyes and ours, as manifests them to agree in some analogy of the thing signified by them, and not in an answerableness in the same kind. Wherefore I say, that the Scripture speaking of God, though it condescends to the nature and capacities of men, and speaks for the most part to the imagination (farther than which few among the sons of men were ever able to raise their cogitations), yet hath it clearly delivered to us such attributes of God as will not consist with that gross notion which this man would put upon the Godhead. The infinity and immutability of God do manifestly overthrow the conceit of a shape and form of God. Were it not a contradiction that a body should be actually infinite, yet such a body could not have a shape, such a one as he imagines. The shape of any thing is the figuration of it; the figuration is the determination of its extension towards several parts, consisting in a determined proportion of them to each other; that determination is a bounding and limiting of them; so that if it have a shape, that will be limited which was supposed to be infinite, which is a manifest contradiction. But the Scripture doth plainly show that God is infinite and immense, not in magnitude (that were a contradiction, as will appear anon) but in essence. Speaking to our fancy, it saith that "he is higher than heaven, deeper than hell," Job 11:8; that "he fills heaven and earth," Jer. 23:24; that "the heaven of heavens cannot contain him," 1 Kings 8:27; and it hath many [such] expressions to shadow out the immensity of God, as was manifest in our consideration of the last query. But not content to have yielded thus to our infirmity, it delivers likewise, in plain and literal terms, the infiniteness of God: "His understanding is infinite," Ps. 147:5; and therefore his essence is necessarily so. This is a consequence that none can deny who will consider it till he understands the terms of it, as hath been declared. Yet, lest any should hastily apprehend that the essence of God were not therefore necessarily infinite, the Holy Ghost saith, Ps. 145:3, that "his greatness hath no end," or is "inconceivable," which is infinite; for seeing we can carry on our thoughts, by calculation, potentially in infinitum,—that is, whatever measure be assigned, we can continually multiply it by greater and greater numbers, as they say, in infinitum,—it is evident that there is no greatness, either of magnitude or essence, which is unsearchable or inconceivable besides that which is actually infinite. Such, therefore, is the greatness of God, in the strict and literal meaning of the Scripture; and therefore, that he should have a shape implies a contradiction. But of this so much before as I presume we may now take it for granted.

Now, this attribute of infinity doth immediately and demonstratively overthrow that gross conception of a human shape we are in the consideration of; and so it doth, by consequence, overthrow the conceit of any other, though a spherical shape. Again,—

Whatever is incorporeal is destitute of shape; whatever is infinite is incorporeal: therefore, whatever is infinite is destitute of shape.

All the question is of the minor proposition. Let us therefore suppose an infinite body or line, and let it be bisected; either then, each half is equal to the whole, or less. If equal, the whole is equal to the part; if less, then that half is limited within certain bounds, and consequently is finite, and so is the other half also: therefore, two things which are finite shall make up an infinite; which is a contradiction.

Having, therefore, proved out of Scripture that God is infinite, it follows also that he is incorporeal, and that he is without shape.

The former argument proved him to be without such a shape as this catechist would insinuate; this, that be is without any shape at all. The same will be proved from the immutability or impassibility of God's essence, which the Scripture assigns to him: Mal. 3:6, "I am the LORD; I change not." "The heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou endurest: they shall be changed: but thou art the same," Ps. 102:25, 26.

If he be immutable, then he is also incorporeal, and consequently without shape.

The former consequence is manifest, for every body is extended, and consequently is capable of division, which is mutation; wherefore, being immutable, he hath no shape.

Mr B.'s great plea for the considering of his Catechism, and insisting upon the same way of inquiry with himself, is from the success which himself hath found in the discovery of sundry truths, of which he gives an account in his book to the reader. That, among the glorious discoveries made by him, the particular now insisted on is not to be reckoned, I presume Mr B. knoweth. For this discovery the world is beholding to one Audæus, a monk, of whom you have a large account in Epiphanius, tom. i. lib. iii., Hær. 70; as also in Theodoret, lib. iv. Eccles. Hist., cap. x., who also gives us an account of the man and his conversation, with those that followed him. Austin also acquaints us with this worthy predecessor of our author, De Hær. cap. l. He that thinks it worth while to know that we are not beholding to Mr B., but to this Audæus, for all the arguments, whether taken from the creation of man in the image of God or the attribution of the parts and members of a man unto God in the Scripture, to prove him to have a visible shape, may at his leisure consult the authors above mentioned, who will not suffer him to ascribe the praise of this discovery to Mr B.'s ingenious inquiries. How the same figment was also entertained by a company of stupid monks in Egypt, who, in pursuit of their opinion, came in a great drove to Alexandria, to knock Theophilus the bishop on the head, who had spoken against them, and how that crafty companion deluded them with an ambiguity of expression, with what learned stirs ensued thereon, we have a full relation in Socrat. Eccles. Hist. lib. vi. cap. vii.

As this madness of brain-sick men was always rejected by all persons of sobriety professing the religion of Jesus Christ, so was it never embraced by the Jews, or the wiser sort of heathens, who retained any impression of those common notions of God which remain in the hearts of men. The Jews to this day do solemnly confess, in their public worship, that God is not corporeal, that he hath no corporeal propriety, and therefore can nothing be compared with him. So one of the most learned of them of old: Οὔτε γὰρ ἀνθρωπόμορφος ὁ Θεὸς, οὔτε θεοειδὲς ἀνθρώπινον σῶμα, Phil. de Opificio Mundi;—"Neither hath God a human form, nor does a human body resemble him." And in Sacrifi. Abel.: Οὐδὲ τὰ ὄσα ἀνθρώποις, ἐπὶ Θεοῦ κυριολογεῖται, κατάχρησις δὲ ὀνομάτων ἐστὶ παρηγοροῦσα τὴν ἡμετέραν ἀσθένειαν·—"Neither are those things which are in us spoken properly of God, but there is an abuse of names therein, relieving our weakness."

Likewise the heathens, who termed God νοῦν, and ψύχωσιν and πνεῦμα, and δυναμοποιόν or δύναμιν, had the same apprehensions of him. Thus discourses Mercurius ad Tatium, in Stobæus, serm. 78: Θεὸν μὲν νοῆσαι χαλεπὸν, φράσαι δὲ ἀδύνατον· τὸ γὰρ ἀσώματον σώματι σημῆναι ἀδύνατον· καὶ τὸ τέλειον τῷ ἀτελεῖ καταλαζέσθαι οὐ δυνατόν· καὶ τὸ ἀΐδιον τῷ ὀλιγοχρονίῳ συγγενέσθαι, δύσκολον· ὁ μὲν γὰρ ἀεί ἐστι, τὸ δὲ παρέρχεται· καὶ τὸ μὲν ἀλήθειά ἐστι, τὸ δὲ ὑπὸ φαντασίας σκιάζεται· τὸ δὲ ἀσθενέστερον τοῦ ἰσχυροτέρου, καὶ τὸ ἔλαττον τοῦ κρείττονος διέστηκε τοσοῦτον, ὅσον τὸ θνητὸν τοῦ θείου· ἡδὲ μέση τούτων διάστασις, ἀμαυροῖ τὴν τοῦ καλοῦ θέαν· ὀφθαλμοῖς μὲν γὰρ τὰ σώματα θεατὰ, γλώττῃ δὲ τὰ ὁρατὰ λεκτὰ, τὸ δὲ ἀσώματον καὶ ἀφανὲς, καὶ ἀσχημάτιστον, καὶ μήτε ἐξ ὕλης ὑποκείμενον, ὑπὸ τῶν ἡμετέρων αἰσθήσεων καταληφθῆναι οὐ δύναται. Ἐννοοῦμαι ᾧ τάτʼ ἐννοοῦμαι, ὃ ἐξειπεῖν οὐ δυνατὸν, τοῦτό ἐστιν ὁ Θεὁς. And Calicratides apud Stob., Serm. 83: Τὸ δὲ ἕν ἐστιν ἄριστον αὐτὸς, ὅπερ ἐστὶ καττὰν ἔννοιαν, ζῶον οὐράνιον, ἄφθαρτον, ἀρχά τε καὶ αἰτία τᾶς τῶν ὅλων διακοσμάσιος.

Of the like import is that distich of Xenophanes in Clemens Alexan., Strom. 5:—

Εἷς Θεὸς ἔν τε θεοῖσι καὶ ἀνθρώποισι μέγιστος

Θὔτε δέμας θνητοῖσιν ὁμοίϊος, οὐδὲ νόημα.

"There is one great God among gods and men,

Who is like to mortals neither as to body nor mind."

Whereunto answers that in Cato:—

"Si Deus est animus nobis ut carmina dicunt," etc.

And Æschylus, in the same place of Clemens, Strom. 5:—

Χωρεῖτε θνητῶν τὸν Θεὸν καὶ μὴ δόκει

Ὅμοιον αὐτῷ σαρκικὸν καθεστάναι.

"Separate God from mortals, and think not thyself, of flesh, like him."

And Posidonius plainly in Stobæus as above: Ὁ Θεός ἐστι πνεῦμα νοερὸν καὶ πυρῶδες, οὐκ ἔχον μορφήν·—"God is an intelligent fiery spirit, not having any shape." And the same apprehension is evident in that of Seneca, "Quid est Deus? Mens universi. Quid est Deus? Quod vides totum, et quod non vides totum. Sic demum magnitudo sua illi redditur, qua nihil majus excogitari potest, si solus est omnia, opus suum et extra et intra tenet. Quid ergo interest inter naturam Dei et nostram? Nostri melior pars animus est, in illo nulla pars extra animum." Natural. Quæst. lib. i. Præfat. It would be burdensome, if not endless, to insist on the testimonies that to this purpose might be produced out of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Epictetus, Julius Firmicus, and others of the same order. I shall close with one of Alcinous, de Doctrina Platon. cap. x.: Ἄτοπον δὲ τὸν Θεὸν ἑξ ὕλης εἶναι καὶ εἴδονς· οὐ γὰρ ἔσται ἁπλοῦς οὐδὲ ἀρχικός·—"It is absurd to say that God is of matter and form; for if so, he could neither be simple, nor the principal cause."

The thing is so clear, and the contrary, even by the heathen philosophers, accounted so absurd, that I shall not stand to pursue the arguments flowing from the other attributes of God, but proceed to what follows.

CHAPTER IV

Of the attribution of passions and affections, anger, fear, repentance, unto God

In what sense it is done in the Scripture.

HIS next inquiry about the nature of God respects the attribution of several affections and passions unto him in the Scriptures, of whose sense and meaning he thus expresseth his apprehension:—

Ques. Are there not, according to the perpetual tenor of the Scriptures, affections and passions in God, as anger, fury, zeal, wrath, love, hatred, mercy, grace, jealousy, repentance, grief, joy, fear?

Concerning which he labours to make the Scriptures determine in the affirmative.

1. The main of Mr Biddle's design, in his questions about the nature of God, being to deprive the Deity of its distinct persons, its omnipresence, prescience, and therein all other infinite perfections, he endeavours to make him some recompense for all that loss by ascribing to him in the foregoing query a human visible shape, and in this, human, turbulent affections and passions. Commonly, where men will not ascribe to the Lord that which is his due, he gives them up to assign that unto him which he doth abhor, Jer. 44:15–17. Neither is it easily determinable whether be the greater abomination. By the first, the dependence of men upon the true God is taken off; by the latter, their hope is fixed on a false. This, on both sides, at present is Mr B.'s sad employment. The Lord lay it not to his charge, but deliver him from the snare of Satan, wherein he is "taken alive at his pleasure"! 2 Tim. 2:26.

2. The things here assigned to God are ill associated, if to be understood after the same manner. Mercy and grace we acknowledge to be attributes of God; the rest mentioned are by none of Mr B.'s companions esteemed any other than acts of his will, and those metaphorically assigned to him.

3. To the whole I ask, whether these things are in the Scriptures ascribed properly unto God, denoting such affections and passions in him as those in us are which are so termed? or whether they are assigned to him and spoken of him metaphorically only, in reference to his outward works and dispensations, correspondent and answering to the actings of men in whom such affections are, and under the power whereof they are in those actings? If the latter be affirmed, then as such an attribution of them unto God is eminently consistent with all his infinite perfections and blessedness, so there can be no difference about this question and the answers given thereunto, all men readily acknowledging that in this sense the Scripture doth ascribe all the affections mentioned unto God, of which we say as he of old, Ταῦτα ἀνθρωποπαθῶς μὲν λέγονται, θεοπρεπῶς δὲ νοοῦνται. But this, I fear, will not serve Mr B.'s turn. The very phrase and manner of expression used in this question, the plain intimation that is in the forehead thereof of its author's going off from the common received interpretation of these attributions unto God, do abundantly manifest that it is their proper significancy which he contends to fasten on God, and that the affections mentioned are really and properly in him as they are in us. This being evident to be his mind and intendment, as we think his anthropopathism in this query not to come short in folly and madness of his anthropomorphitism in that foregoing, so I shall proceed to the removal of this insinuation in the way and method formerly insisted on.

Mr B.'s masters tell us "That these affections are vehement commotions of the will of God, whereby he is carried out earnestly to the object of his desires, or earnestly declines and abhors what falls not out gratefully or acceptably to him." I shall first speak of them in general, and then to the particulars (some or all) mentioned by Mr B.:—

First, In general, that God is perfect and perfectly blessed, I suppose will not be denied; it cannot be but by denying that he is God. He that is not perfect in himself and perfectly blessed is not God. To that which is perfect in any kind nothing is wanting in that kind. To that which is absolutely perfect nothing is wanting at all. He who is blessed is perfectly satisfied and filled, and hath no farther desire for supply. He who is blessed in himself is all-sufficient for himself. If God want or desire any thing for himself, he is neither perfect nor blessed. To ascribe, then, affections to God properly (such as before mentioned), is to deprive him of his perfection and blessedness. The consideration of the nature of these and the like affections will make this evident.

1. Affections, considered in themselves, have always an incomplete, imperfect act of the will or volition joined with them. They are something that lies between the firm purpose of the soul and the execution of that purpose. The proper actings of affections lie between these two; that is, in an incomplete, tumultuary volition. That God is not obnoxious to such volitions and incomplete actings of the will, besides the general consideration of his perfections and blessedness premised, is evident from that manner of procedure which is ascribed to him. His purposes and his works comprise all his actings. As the Lord hath purposed, so hath he done. "He worketh all things after the counsel of his own will." "Who hath known his mind? or who hath been his counsellor? Of him, and through him, and to him, are all things."

2. They have their dependence on that wherewith he in whom they are is affected; that is, they owe their rise and continuance to something without him in whom they are. A man's fear ariseth from that or them of whom he is afraid; by them it is occasioned, on them it depends. Whatever affects any man (that is, the stirring of a suitable affection), in all that frame of mind and soul, in all the volitions and commotions of will which so arise from thence, he depends on something without him. Yea, our being affected with something without lies at the bottom of most of our purposes and resolves. Is it thus with God, with him who is I AM? Exod 3:14. Is he in dependence upon any thing without him? Is it not a most eminent contradiction to speak of God in dependence on any other thing? Must not that thing either be God or be reduced to some other without and besides him, who is God, as the causes of all our affections are? "God is in one mind, and who can turn him? what his soul desireth, that he doeth," Job 23:13.

3. Affections are necessarily accompanied with change and mutability; yea, he who is affected properly is really changed; yea, there is no more unworthy change or alteration than that which is accompanied with passion, as is the change that is wrought by the affections ascribed to God. A sedate, quiet, considerate alteration is far less inglorious and unworthy than that which is done in and with passion. Hitherto we have taken God upon his testimony, that he is the "LORD, and he changeth not," Mal. 3:6; that "with him there is neither change nor shadow of turning;"—it seems, like the worms of the earth, he varieth every day.

4. Many of the affections here ascribed to God do eminently denote impotence; which, indeed, on this account, both by Socinians and Arminians, is directly ascribed to the Almighty. They make him affectionately and with commotion of will to desire many things in their own nature not impossible, which yet he cannot accomplish or bring about (of which I have elsewhere spoken); yea, it will appear that the most of the affections ascribed to God by Mr B., taken in a proper sense, are such as are actually ineffectual, or commotions through disappointments, upon the account of impotency or defect of power.

Corol. To ascribe affections properly to God is to make him weak, imperfect, dependent, changeable, and impotent.

Secondly, Let a short view be taken of the particulars, some or all of them, that Mr B. chooseth to instance in. "Anger, fury, wrath, zeal" (the same in kind, only differing in degree and circumstances), are the first he instances in; and the places produced to make good this attribution to God are, Num. 25:3, 4; Ezek. 5:13; Exod. 32:11, 12; Rom. 1:18.

1. That mention is made of the anger, wrath, and fury of God in the Scripture is not questioned. Num. 25:4, Deut. 13:17, Josh. 7:26, Ps. 78:31, Isa. 13:9, Deut. 29:24, Judges 2:14, Ps. 74:1, 69:24, Isa. 30:30, Lam. 2:6, Ezek. 5:15, Ps. 78:49, Isa. 34:2, 2 Chron. 28:11, Ezra 10:14, Hab. 3:8, 12, are farther testimonies thereof. The words also in the original, in all the places mentioned, express or intimate perturbation of mind, commotion of spirit, corporeal mutation of the parts of the body, and the like distempers of men acting under the power of that passion. The whole difference is about the intendment of the Holy Ghost in these attributions, and whether they are properly spoken of God, asserting this passion to be in him in the proper significancy of the words, or whether these things be not taken ἀνθρωποπαθῶς, and to be understood θεοπρεπῶς, in such a sense as may answer the meaning of the figurative expression, assigning them their truth to the utmost, and yet to be interpreted in a suitableness to divine perfection and blessedness.

2. The anger, then, which in the Scripture is assigned to God, we say denotes two things:—

(1.) His vindictive justice, or constant and immutable will of rendering vengeance for sin. So God's purpose of the demonstration of his justice is called his being "willing to show his wrath" or anger, Rom. 9:22; so God's anger and his judgments are placed together, Ps. 7:6; and in that anger he judgeth, verse 8. And in this sense is the "wrath of God" said to be "revealed from heaven," Rom. 1:18; that is, the vindictive justice of God against sin to be manifested in the effects of it, or the judgments sent and punishments inflicted on and throughout the world.

(2.) By anger, wrath, zeal, fury, the effects of anger are denoted: Rom. 3:5, "Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance?" The words are, ὁ ἐπιφέρων τὴν ὀργήν,—"who inflicteth or bringeth anger on man;" that is, sore punishments, such as proceed from anger; that is, God's vindictive justice. And Eph. 5:6, "For these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience." Is it the passion or affection of anger in God that Mr B. talks of, that comes upon the children of disobedience? or is it indeed the effect of his justice for this sin? Thus the day of judgment is called the "day of wrath" and of "anger," because it is the day of the "revelation of the righteous judgment of God:" Rom. 2:5, "After thy hardness," etc. In the place of Ezekiel (chap. v. 13) mentioned by Mr B., the Lord tells them he will "cause his fury to rest upon them," and "accomplish it upon them." I ask whether he intends this of any passion in him (and if so, how a passion in God can rest upon a man), or the judgments which for their iniquities he did inflict? We say, then, anger is not properly ascribed to God, but metaphorically, denoting partly his vindictive justice, whence all punishments flow, partly the effects of it in the punishments themselves, either threatened or inflicted, in their terror and bitterness, upon the account of what is analogous therein to our proceeding under the power of that passion; and so is to be taken in all the places mentioned by Mr B. For,—

3. Properly, in the sense by him pointed to, anger, wrath, etc., are not in God. Anger is defined by the philosopher to be, ὄρεξις μετὰ λύπης τιμωρίας φαινομένης, διὰ φαινομένην ὀλιγωρίαν,—"desire joined with grief of that which appears to be revenge, for an appearing neglect or contempt." To this grief, he tells you, there is a kind of pleasure annexed, arising from the vehement fancy which an angry person hath of the revenge he apprehends as future,—which, saith he, "is like the fancy of them that dream,"2—and he ascribes this passion mostly to weak, impotent persons. Ascribe this to God, and you leave him nothing else. There is not one property of his nature wherewith it is consistent. If he be properly and literally angry, and furious, and wrathful, he is moved, troubled, perplexed, desires revenge, and is neither blessed nor perfect. But of these things in our general reasons against the propriety of these attributions afterward.

4. Mr. B. hath given us a rule in his preface, that when any thing is ascribed to God in one place which is denied of him in another, then it is not properly ascribed to him. Now, God says expressly that "fury" or anger "is not in him," Isa. 27:4; and therefore it is not properly ascribed to him.

5. Of all the places where mention is made of God's repentings, or his repentance, there is the same reason. Exod. 32:14, Gen. 6:6, 7, Judges 10:16, Deut. 30:9, are produced by Mr. B. That one place of 1 Sam. 15:29, where God affirms that he "knoweth no repentance," casts all the rest under a necessity of an interpretation suitable unto it. Of all the affections or passions which we are obnoxious to, there is none that more eminently proclaims imperfection, weakness, and want in sundry kinds, than this of repentance. If not sins, mistakes, and miscarriages (as for the most part they are), yet disappointment, grief, and trouble, are always included in it. So is it in that expression, Gen. 6:6, "It repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart." What but his mistake and great disappointment, by a failing of wisdom, foresight, and power, can give propriety to these attributions unto God? The change God was going then to work in his providence on the earth was such or like that which men do when they repent of a thing, being "grieved at the heart" for what they had formerly done. So are these things spoken of God to denote the kind of the things which he doth, not the nature of God himself; otherwise such expressions as these would suit him, whose frame of spirit and heart is so described: "Had I seen what would have been the issue of making man, I would never have done it. Would I had never been so overseen as to have engaged in such a business! What have I now got by my rashness? nothing but sorrow and grief of heart redounds to me." And do these become the infinitely blessed God?

6. Fear is added, from Deut. 32:26, 27. "Fear," saith the wise man, "is a betraying of those succours which reason offereth;"—nature's avoidance of an impendent evil; its contrivance to flee and prevent what it abhors, being in a probability of coming upon it; a turbulent weakness. This God forbids in us, upon the account of his being our God, Isa. 35:4; "Fear not, O worm Jacob," etc., chap. 41:14. Everywhere he asserts fear to be unfit for them who depend on him and his help, who is able in a moment to dissipate, scatter, and reduce to nothing, all the causes of their fear. And if there ought to be no fear where such succour is ready at hand, sure there is none in Him who gives it. Doubtless, it were much better to exclude the providence of God out of the world than to assert him afraid properly and directly of future events. The schools say truly, "Quod res sunt futuræ, a voluntate Dei est (effectiva vel permissiva)." How, then, can God be afraid of what he knows will, and purposeth shall, come to pass? He doth, he will do, things in some likeness to what we do for the prevention of what we are afraid of. He will not scatter his people, that their adversaries may not have advantage to trample over them. When we so act as to prevent any thing that, unless we did so act, would befall us, it is because we are afraid of the coming of that thing upon us: hence is the reason of that attribution unto God. That properly He should be afraid of what comes to pass who knows from eternity what will so do, who can with the breath of his mouth destroy all the objects of his dislike, who is infinitely wise, blessed, all-sufficient, and the sovereign disposer of the lives, breath, and ways of all the sons of men, is fit for Mr. B. and no man else to affirm. "All the nations are before him as the drop of the bucket, and the dust of the balance, as vanity, as nothing; he upholdeth them by the word of his power; in him all men live, and move, and have their being," and can neither live, nor act, nor be without him; their life, and breath, and all their ways, are in his hands; he brings them to destruction, and says, "Return, ye children of men;" and must he needs be properly afraid of what they will do to him and against him?

7. Of God's jealousy and hatred, mentioned from Ps. 5:4, 5, Exod. 20:5, Deut. 32:21, there is the same reason. Such effects as these things in us produce shall they meet withal who provoke him by their blasphemies and abominations. Of love, mercy, and grace, the condition is something otherwise: principally they denote God's essential goodness and kindness, which is eminent amongst his infinite perfections; and secondarily the effects thereof, in and through Jesus Christ, are denoted by these expressions. To manifest that neither they nor any thing else, as they properly intend any affections or passions of the mind, any commotions of will, are properly attributed to God, unto what hath been spoken already these ensuing considerations may be subjoined:—

(1.) Where no cause of stirring up affections or passions can have place or be admitted, there no affections are to be admitted; for to what end should we suppose that whereof there can be no use to eternity? If it be impossible any affection in God should be stirred up or acted, is it not impossible any such should be in him? The causes stirring up all affections are the access of some good desired, whence joy, hope, desire, etc., have their spring; or the approach of some evil to be avoided, which occasions fear, sorrow, anger, repentance, and the like. Now, if no good can be added to God, whence should joy and desire be stirred up in him? if no evil can befall him, in himself or any of his concernments, whence should he have fear, sorrow, or repentance? Our goodness extends not to him; he hath no need of us or our sacrifices, Ps. 16:2, 50:8–10; Job 35:6–8. "Can a man be profitable unto God, as he that is wise may be profitable to himself? Is it any pleasure to the Almighty, that thou art righteous? or is it gain to him, that thou makest thy ways perfect?" chap. 22:2, 3.

(2.) The apostle tells us that God is "blessed for ever," Rom. 9:5; "He is the blessed and only Potentate," 1 Tim. 6:15; "God all-sufficient," Gen. 17:1. That which is inconsistent with absolute blessedness and all-sufficiency is not to be ascribed to God; to do so casts him down from his excellency. But can he be blessed, is he all-sufficient, who is tossed up and down with hope, joy, fear, sorrow, repentance, anger, and the like? Doth not fear take off from absolute blessedness? Grant that God's fear doth not long abide, yet whilst it doth so, he is less blessed than he was before and than he is after his fear ceaseth. When he hopes, is he not short in happiness of that condition which he attains in the enjoyment of what he hoped for? and is he not lower when he is disappointed and falls short of his expectation? Did ever the heathens speak with more contempt of what they worshipped? Formerly the pride of some men heightened them to fancy themselves to be like God, without passions or affections, Ps. 50:21; being not able to abide in their attempt against their own sense and experience, it is now endeavoured to make God like to us, in having such passions and affections. My aim is brevity, having many heads to speak unto. Those who have written on the attributes of God,—his self-sufficiency and blessedness, simplicity, immutability, etc.,—are ready to tender farther satisfaction to them who shall desire it.

CHAPTER V

Of God's prescience or foreknowledge.

HIS next attempt is to overthrow and remove the prescience or foreknowledge of God, with what success the farther consideration of the way whereby he endeavours it will manifest. His question (the engine whereby he works) is thus framed:—

As for our free actions which are neither past nor present, but may afterward either be or not be, what are the chief passages of Scripture from whence it is wont to be gathered that God knoweth not such actions until they come to pass, yea, that there are such actions?

That we might have had a clearer acquaintance with the intendment of this interrogation, it is desirable Mr Biddle had given us his sense on some particulars, which at first view present themselves to the trouble of every ordinary reader; as,—

1. How we may reconcile the words of Scripture given in answer to his preceding query with the design of this. There it is asserted that God "understandeth our thoughts" (which certainly are of our free actions, if any such there are) "afar off;" here, that he knows not our free actions that are future, and not yet wrought or performed.

2. By whom is it "wont to be gathered" from the following scriptures that "God knoweth not our free actions until they come to pass." Why doth not this "mere Christian," that is of no sect, name his companions and associates in these learned collections from Scripture? Would not his so doing discover him to be so far from a mere Christian, engaged in none of the sects that are now amongst Christians, as to be of that sect which the residue of men so called will scarce allow the name of a Christian unto?

3. What he intends by the close of his query, "Yea, that there are such actions." An advance is evident in the words towards a farther negation of the knowledge of God than what was before expressed. Before, he says, God knows not our actions that are future contingent; here, he knows not that there are such actions. The sense of this must be, either that God knows not that there are any such actions as may or may not be,—which would render him less knowing than Mr B., who hath already told us that such there be,—or else that he knows not such actions when they are, at least without farther inquiring after them, and knowledge obtained beyond what from his own infinite perfections and eternal purpose he is furnished withal. In Mr B.'s next book or catechism, I desire he would answer these questions also.

Now in this endeavour of his Mr B. doth but follow his leaders. Socinus in his Prelections, where the main of his design is to vindicate man's free-will into that latitude and absoluteness as none before him had once aimed at, in his eighth chapter objects to himself this foreknowledge of God as that which seems to abridge and cut short the liberty contended for. He answers that he grants not the foreknowledge pretended, and proceeds in that and the two following chapters, labouring to answer all the testimonies and arguments which are insisted on for the proof and demonstration of it, giving his own arguments against it, chap. xi. Crellius is something more candid, as he pretends, but indeed infected with the same venom with the other; for after he hath disputed for sundry pages to prove the foreknowledge of God, he concludes at last that for those things that are future contingent, he knows only that they are so, and that possibly they may come to pass, possibly they may not.3 Of the rest of their associates few have spoken expressly to this thing. Smalcius once and again manifests himself to consent with his masters in his disputations against Franzius, expressly consenting to what Socinus had written in his Prelections, and affirming the same thing himself, yea, disputing eagerly for the same opinion with him.

For the vindication of God's foreknowledge, I shall proceed in the same order as before in reference to the other attributes of God insisted on, namely:—1. What Mr B. hath done, how he hath disposed of sundry places of Scripture for the proof of his assertion, with the sense of the places by him so produced, is to be considered; 2. Another question and answer are to be supplied in the room of his; 3. The truth vindicated to be farther confirmed.

For the first:—

In the proof of the assertion proposed Mr B. finds himself entangled more than ordinarily, though I confess his task in general be such as no man not made desperate by the loss of all in a shipwreck of faith would once have undertaken. To have made good his proceeding according to his engagement, he ought at least to have given us texts of Scripture express in the letter, as by him cut off from the state, condition, and coherence, wherein by the Holy Ghost they are placed, for the countenancing of his assertion: but here, being not able to make any work in his method, proposed and boasted in as signal and uncontrollable, no apex or tittle in the Scripture being pointed towards the denial of God's knowing any thing or all things, past, present, and to come, he moulds his question into a peculiar fashion, and asks, whence or from what place of Scripture may such a thing as he there avers be gathered; at once plainly declining the trial he had put himself upon of insisting upon express texts of Scripture only, not one of the many quoted by him speaking one word expressly to the business in hand, and laying himself naked to all consequences rightly deduced from the Scripture, and expositions given to the letter of some places suitable to "the proportion of faith," Rom. 12:6. That, then, which he would have, he tells you is gathered from the places of Scripture subjoined, but how, by whom, by what consequence, with what evidence of reason, it is so gathered, he tells you not. An understanding, indeed, informed with such gross conceptions of the nature of the Deity as Mr B. hath laboured to insinuate into the minds of men, might gather, from his collection of places of Scripture for his purpose in hand, that God is afraid, troubled, grieved, that he repenteth, altereth and changeth his mind to and fro; but of his knowledge or foreknowledge of things, whether he have any such thing or not, there is not the least intimation, unless it be in this, that if he had any such foreknowledge, he need not put himself to so much trouble and vexation, nor so change and alter his mind, as he doth. And with such figments as these (through the infinite, wise, and good providence of God, punishing the wantonness of the minds and lives of men, by giving them up to strong delusions and vain imaginations, in the darkness of their foolish hearts, 2 Thess. 2:10–12, so far as to change the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of a corruptible, weak, ignorant, sinful man, Rom. 1:23), are we now to deal.

But let the places themselves be considered. To these heads they may be referred:—1. Such as ascribe unto God fear and being afraid. Deut. 32:26, 27; Exod. 13:17; Gen. 3:22, 23, are of this sort. 2. Repentance, 1 Sam. 15:10, 11, ult. 3. Change, or alteration of mind, Num. 14:27, 30; 1 Sam. 2:30. 4. Expectation whether a thing will answer his desire or no, Isa. 5:4. Conjecturing, Jer. 36:1–3; Ezek. 12:1–3. 5. Trying of experiments, Judges 3:1, 4; Dan. 12:10; 2 Chron. 32:31. From all which and the like it may, by Mr B.'s direction and help, be thus gathered: "If God be afraid of what is to come to pass, and repenteth him of what he hath done when he finds it not to answer his expectation; if he sits divining and conjecturing at events, being often deceived therein, and therefore tries and makes experiments that he may be informed of the true state of things: then certainly he knows not the free actions of men, that are not yet come to pass." The antecedent Mr B. hath proved undeniably from ten texts of Scripture, and doubtless the consequent is easily to be gathered by any of his disciples. Doubtless it is high time that the old, musty catechisms of prejudicate persons, who scarce so much as once consulted with the Scriptures in their composures, as being more engaged into factions, were removed out of the way and burned, that this "mere Christian" may have liberty to bless the growing generation with such notions of God as the idolatrous Pagans of old would have scorned to have received.

But do not the Scriptures ascribe all the particulars mentioned unto God? Can you blame Mr B. without reflection on them? If only what the Scripture affirms in the letter, and not the sense wherein and the manner how it affirms it (which considerations are allowed to all the writings and speakings of the sons of men) is to be considered, the end seeming to be aimed at in such undertakings as this of Mr B., namely, to induce the atheistical spirits of the sons of men to a contempt and scorn of them and their authority, will probably be sooner attained than by the efficacy of any one engine raised against them in the world besides.

As to the matter under consideration, I have some few things in general to propose to Mr B., and then I shall descend to the particulars insisted on:—

First, then, I desire to know whether the things mentioned, as fear, grief, repentance, trouble, conjecturings, making trials of men for his own information, are ascribed properly to God as they are unto men, or tropically and figuratively, with a condescension to us, to express the things spoken of, and not to describe the nature of God. If the first be said, namely, that these things are ascribed properly to God, and really signify of him the things in us intended in them, then to what hath been spoken in the consideration taken of the foregoing query, I shall freely add, for mine own part, I will not own nor worship him for my God who is truly and properly afraid of what all the men in the world either will or can do; who doth, can do, or hath done any thing, or suffered any thing to be done, of which he doth or can truly and properly repent himself, with sorrow and grief for his mistake; or that sits in heaven divining and conjecturing at what men will do here below: and do know that he whom I serve in my spirit will famish and starve all such gods out of the world. But of this before. If these things are ascribed to God figuratively and improperly, discovering the kind of his works and dispensations, not his own nature or property, I would fain know what inference can be made or conclusion drawn from such expressions, directly calling for a figurative interpretation? For instance, if God be said to repent that he had done such a thing, because such and such things are come to pass thereupon, if this repentance in God be not properly ascribed to him (as by Mr B.'s own rule it is not), but denotes only an alteration and change in the works that outwardly are of him, in an orderly subserviency to the immutable purpose of his will, what can thence be gathered to prove that God foreseeth not the free actions of men? And this is the issue of Mr B.'s confirmation of the thesis couched in his query insisted on from the Scriptures.

2. I must crave leave once more to mind him of the rule he hath given us in his preface, namely, "That where a thing is improperly ascribed to God, in some other place it is denied of him," as he instances in that of his being weary; so that whatever is denied of him in any one place is not properly ascribed to him in any other. Now, though God be said, in some of the places by him produced, to repent, yet it is in another expressly said that he doth not so, and that upon such a general ground and reason as is equally exclusive of all those other passions and affections, upon whose assignment unto God the whole strength of Mr B.'s plea against the prescience of God doth depend: 1 Sam. 15:29, "Also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent." The immutability of his nature, and unlikeness to men in obnoxiousness to alterations, are asserted as the reason of his not repenting; which will equally extend its force and efficacy to the removal from him of all the other human affections mentioned. And this second general consideration of the foundation of Mr B.'s plea is sufficient for the removal of the whole.

3. I desire to know whether indeed it is only the free actions of men that are not yet done that Mr B. denies to be known of God, or whether he excludes him not also from the knowledge of the present state, frame, and actings of the hearts of men, and how they stand affected towards him, being therein like other rulers among men, who may judge of the good and evil actions of men so far as they are manifest and evident, but how men in their hearts stand affected to them, their rule, government, and authority, they know not? To make this inquiry, I have not only the observation premised from the words of the close of Mr B.'s query being of a negative importance ("Yea, that there are such actions"), but also from some of the proofs by him produced of his former assertion being interpreted according to the literal significancy of the words, as exclusive of any figure, which he insisteth on. Of this sort is that of Gen. 22:1, 2, 10–12, where God is said to tempt Abraham, and upon the issue of that trial says to him (which words Mr B., by putting them in a different character, points to as comprehensive of what he intends to gather and conclude from them), "Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not with-held thy son, thine only son, from me." The conclusion which Mr B. guides unto from hence is, that God knew not that which he inquired after, and therefore tempted Abraham that he might so do, and upon the issue of that trial says, "Now I know." But what was it that God affirms that now he knew? Not any thing future, not any free action that was not as yet done, but something of the present condition and frame of his heart towards God,—namely, his fear of God; not whether he would fear him, but whether he did fear him then. If this, then, be properly spoken of God, and really as to the nature of the thing itself, then is he ignorant no less of things present than of those that are for to come. He knows not who fears him nor who hates him, unless he have opportunity to try them in some such way as he did Abraham. And then what a God hath this man delineated to us! How like the dunghill deities of the heathen, who speak after this rate! Doubtless the description that Elijah gave of Baal would better suit him than any of those divine perfections which the living, all-seeing God hath described himself by. But now, if Mr B. will confess that God knows all the things that are present, and that this inquiry after the present frame of the heart and spirit of a man is improperly ascribed to him, from the analogy of his proceedings, in his dealing with him, to that which we insist upon when we would really find out what we do not know, then I would only ask of him why those other expressions which he mentions, looking to what is to come, being of the same nature and kind with this, do not admit of, yea call for, the same kind of exposition and interpretation.

Neither is this the only place insisted on by Mr B. where the inquiry ascribed unto God, and the trial that he makes, is not in reference to things to come, but punctually to what is present: Deut. 8:2, 13:3, "The LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul;" 2 Chron. 32:31, "God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart;" and Phil. 4:6, "In every thing let your requests be made known unto God." Let Mr B. tell us now plainly whether he supposes all these things to be spoken properly of God, and that indeed God knows not our hearts, the frame of them, nor what in them we desire and aim at, without some eminent trial and inquiry, or until we ourselves do make known what is in them unto him. If this be the man's mind (as it must be, if he be at any agreement with himself in his principles concerning these scriptural attributions unto God), for my part I shall be so far from esteeming him eminent as a mere Christian, that I shall scarcely judge him comparable, as to his apprehensions of God, unto many that lived and died mere Pagans. To this sense also is applied that property of God, that he "trieth the hearts," as it is urged by Mr B. from 1 Thess. 2:4;—that is, be maketh inquiry after what is in them; which, but upon search and trial, he knoweth not! By what ways and means God accomplisheth this search, and whether hereupon he comes to a perfect understanding of our hearts or no, is not expressed. John tells us that "God is greater than our hearts, and knoweth all things;" and we have thought on that account (with that of such farther discoveries as he hath made of himself and his perfections unto us) that he had been said to search our hearts; not that himself, for his own information, needs any such formal process by way of trial and inquiry, but because really and indeed he doth that in himself which men aim at in the accomplishment of their most diligent searches and exactest trials.

And we may, by the way, see a little of this man's consistency with himself. Christ he denies to be God,—a great part of his religion consists in that negative,—yet of Christ it is said that "he knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man, for he knew what was in man," John 2:24, 25: and this is spoken in reference to that very thing in the hearts of men which he would persuade us that God knows not without inquiry; that is, upon the account of his not committing himself to those as true believers whom yet, upon the account of the profession they made, the Scripture calls so, and says they "believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did," verse 23. Though they had such a veil of profession upon them that the Holy Ghost would have us esteem them as believers, yet Christ could look through it into their hearts, and discover and know their frame, and whether in sincerity they loved him and believed in his name or no; but this God cannot do without inquiry! And yet Christ (if we believe Mr B.) was but a mere man, as he is a "mere Christian." Farther; it seems, by this gentleman, that unless "we make known our requests to God," he knows not what we will ask. Yet we ask nothing but what is in our thoughts; and in the last query he instructs us that God knows our thoughts,—and doubtless he knows Mr B.'s to be but folly. Farther yet; if God must be concluded ignorant of our desires, because we are bid to make our requests known unto him, he may be as well concluded forgetful of what himself hath spoken, because he bids us put him in remembrance, and appoints some to be his remembrancers. But to return:—

This is the aspect of almost one-half of the places produced by Mr B. towards the business is hand. If they are properly spoken of God, in the same sense as they are of man, they conclude him not to know things present, the frame of the heart of any man in the world towards himself and his fear, nay, the outward, open, notorious actions of men. So it is in that place of Gen. 18:21, insisted on by Crellius, one of Mr B.'s great masters, "I will go down now, and see" (or know) "whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me." Yea, the places which, in their letter and outward appearance, seem to ascribe that ignorance of things present unto God are far more express and numerous than those that in the least look forward to what is yet for to come, or was so at their delivery. This progress, then, have we made under our catechist, if we may believe him, as he insinuates his notions concerning God: "God sits in heaven (glistering on a throne), whereunto he is limited, yea, to a certain place therein, so as not to be elsewhere; being grieved, troubled, and perplexed at the affairs done below which he doth know, making inquiry after what he doth not know, and many things (things future) he knoweth not at all."

Before I proceed to the farther consideration of that which is eminently and expressly denied by Mr B., namely, "God's foreknowledge of our free actions that are future," because many of his proofs, in the sense by him urged, seem to exclude him from an acquaintance with many things present,—as, in particular, the frame and condition of the hearts of men towards himself, as was observed,—it may not be amiss a little to confirm that perfection of the knowledge of God as to those things from the Scripture; which will abundantly also manifest that the expressions insisted on by our catechist are metaphorical and improperly ascribed to God. Of the eminent predictions in the Scripture, which relate unto things future, I shall speak afterward. He knew, for he foretold the flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the famine in Egypt, the selling and exaltation of Joseph, the reign of David, the division of his kingdom, the Babylonish captivity, the kingdom of Cyrus, the return of his people, the state and ruin of the four great empires of the world, the wars, plagues, famines, earthquakes, divisions, which he manifestly foretold. But farther, he knows the frame of the hearts of men; he knew that the Keilites would deliver up David to Saul if he stayed amongst them,—which probably they knew not themselves, 1 Sam. 23:12; he knew that Hazael would murder women and infants, which he knew not himself, 2 Kings 8:12, 13; he knew that the Egyptians would afflict his people, though at first they entertained them with honour, Gen. 15:13; he knew Abraham, that he would instruct his household, chap, 18:19; he knew that some were obstinate, their neck an iron sinew, and their brow brass, Isa 48:4; he knew the imagination or figment of the heart of his people, Deut. 31:21; that the church of Laodicea, notwithstanding her profession, was lukewarm, neither cold nor hot, Rev. 3:15. "Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart," 1 Sam. 16:7, "He only knoweth the hearts of all the children of men," 1 Kings 8:39. "Hell and destruction are before the LORD: how much more then the hearts of the children of men?" Prov. 15:11. So also Prov. 24:12; Jer. 17:9, 10; Ezek. 11:5; Ps. 38:9, 94:11; Job 31:4; Matt. 6:4, 6, 8; Luke 16:15; Acts 1:24, etc. Innumerable other places to this purpose may be insisted on, though it is a surprisal to be put to prove that God knows the hearts of the sons of men. But to proceed to that which is more directly under consideration:—

The sole foundation of Mr B.'s insinuation, that God knows not our free actions that are future, being laid, as was observed, on the assignation of fear, repentance, expectation, and conjecturing, unto God, the consideration which hath already been had of those attributions in the Scripture and the causes of them is abundantly sufficient to remove it out of the way, and to let his inference sink thither whence it came. Doubtless never was painter so injurious to the Deity (who limned out the shape of an old man on a cloth or board, and, after some disputes with himself whether he should sell it for an emblem of winter, set it out as a representation of God the Father) as this man is in snatching God's own pencil out of his hand, and by it presenting him to the world in a gross, carnal, deformed shape. Plato would not suffer Homer in his Commonwealth, for intrenching upon the imaginary blessedness of their dunghill deities, making Jupiter to grieve for the death of Sarpedon, Mars to be wounded by Diomedes, and to roar thereupon with disputes and conjectures in heaven among themselves about the issue of the Trojan war,2 though he endeavours to salve all his heavenly solecisms by many noble expressions concerning purposes not unmeet for a deity, telling us, in the close and issue of a most contingent affair, Διὸς δὲ τελείετο βουλή. Let that man think of how much sorer punishment he shall le thought worthy (I speak of the great account he is one day to make) who shall persist in wresting the Scripture to his own destruction, to represent the living and incomprehensible God unto the world trembling with fear, pale with anger, sordid with grief and repentance, perplexed with conjectures and various expectations of events, and making a diligent inquiry after the things he knows not; that is, altogether such an one as himself: let all who have the least reverence of and acquaintance with that Majesty with whom we have to do judge and determine. But of these things before.

The proposure of a question to succeed in the room of that removed, with a scriptural resolution thereof, in order to a discovery of what God himself hath revealed concerning his knowledge of all things, is the next part of our employment. Thus, then, it may be framed:—

Ques. Doth not God know all things, whether past, present, or to come, all the ways and actions of men, even before their accomplishment, or is any thing hid from him? What says the Scripture properly and directly hereunto?

Ans. "God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things," 1 John 3:20. "Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do," Heb. 4:13. "The LORD is a God of knowledge," 1 Sam. 2:3. "Thou knowest my down-sitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether," Ps. 139:2–4. "Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite," Ps. 147:5. "Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being his counsellor hath taught him? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding?" Isa. 40:13, 14. "There is no searching of his understanding," verse 28. Rom. 11:36, "Of him are all things;" and, "Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world," Acts 15:18, etc.

Of the undeniable evidence and conviction of God's prescience or foreknowledge of future contingents, from his prediction of their coming to pass, with other demonstrations of the truth under consideration, attended with their several testimonies from Scripture, the close of this discourse will give a farther account.

It remains only that, according to the way and method formerly insisted on, I give some farther account of the perfection of God pleaded for, with the arguments wherewith it is farther evidenced to us, and so to proceed to what followeth:—

1. That knowledge is proper to God, the testimony of the Scripture unto the excellency and perfection of the thing itself doth sufficiently evince "I cannot tell," says the apostle: "God knoweth," 2 Cor. 12:2, 3. It is the general voice of nature, upon relation of any thing that to us is hid and unknown, that the apostle there makes mention of: "God knoweth." That he knoweth the things that are past, Mr B. doth not question. That at least also some things that are present, yea some thoughts of our hearts, are known to him, he doth not deny. It is not my intendment to engage in any curious scholastical discourse about the understanding, science, knowledge, or wisdom of God, nor of the way of God's knowing things in and by his own essence, through simple intuition. That which directly is opposed, is his knowledge of our free actions, which, in respect of their second and mediate causes, may or may not be. This, therefore, I shall briefly explain, and confirm the truth of it by Scripture testimonies and arguments from right reason, not to be evaded without making head against all God's infinite perfections, having already demonstrated that all that which is insisted on by Mr B. to oppose it is spoken metaphorically and improperly of God.

That God doth foresee all future things was amongst mere Pagans so acknowledged as to be looked on as a common notion of mankind. So Xenophon tells us, "That both Grecians and barbarians consented in this, that the gods knew all things, present and to come."2 And it may be worth cur observation, that whereas Crellius, one of the most learned of this gentleman's masters, distinguisheth between ἐσόμενα and μέλλοντα, affirming that God knows τὰ ἐσόμενα, which, though future, are necessarily so, yet he knows not τά μέλλοντα, which are only, says he, likely so to be. Xenophon plainly affirms that all nations consent that he knows τὰ μέλλοντα. "And this knowledge of his," saith that great philosopher, "is the foundation of the prayers and supplications of men for the obtaining of good or the avoiding of evil." Now, that one calling himself a "more Christian" should oppose a perfection of God that a mere Pagan affirms all the world to acknowledge to be in him would seem somewhat strange, but that we know all things do not answer or make good the names whereby they are called.

For the clearer handling of the matter under consideration, the terms wherein it is proposed are a little to be explained:—

1. That prescience or foreknowledge is attributed to God, the Scripture testifieth. Acts 2:23, Rom. 8:29, 11:2, 1 Pet. 1:2, are proofs hereof. The term, indeed (foreknowing), rather relates to the things known, and the order wherein they stand one to another and among themselves, than is properly expressive of God's knowledge. God knows all things as they are, and in that order wherein they stand. Things that are past, as to the order of the creatures which he hath appointed to them, and the works of providence which outwardly are of him, he knows as past; not by remembrance, as we do, but by the same act of knowledge wherewith he knew them from all eternity, even before they were. Their existence in time and being, cast by the successive motion of things into the number of the things that are past, denotes an alteration in them, but not at all in the knowledge of God. So it is also in respect of things future. God knows them in that esse intelligibile which they have, as they may be known and understood; and how that is shall afterward be declared. He sees and knows them as they are, when they have that respect upon them of being future; when they lose this respect, by their actual existence, he knows them still as before. They are altered; his knowledge, his understanding is infinite, and changeth not.

2. God's knowledge of things is either of simple intelligence (as usually it is phrased) or of vision. The first is his knowledge of all possible things; that is, of all that he himself can do. That God knows himself I suppose will not be denied. An infinite understanding knows throughly all infinite perfections. God, then, knows his own power or omnipotency, and thereby knows all that he can do. Infinite science must know, as I said, what infinite power can extend unto. Now, whatever God can do is possible to be done; that is, whatever hath not in itself a repugnancy to being. Now, that many things may be done by the power of God that yet are not, nor ever shall be done, I suppose is not denied. Might he not make a new world? Hence ariseth the attribution of the knowledge of simple intelligence before mentioned unto God. In his own infinite understanding he sees and knows all things that are possible to be done by his power, would his good pleasure concur to their production.

Of the world of things possible which God can do, some things, even all that he pleaseth, are future. The creation itself, and all things that have had a being since, were so future before their creation. Had they not some time been future, they had never been. Whatever is, was to be before it was. All things that shall be to the end of the world are now future. How things which were only possible, in relation to the power of God, come to be future, and in what respect, shall be briefly mentioned. These things God knoweth also. His science of them is called of vision. He sees them as things which, in their proper order, shall exist. In a word, "scientia visionis," and "simplicis intelligentiæ," may be considered in a threefold relation; that is, "in ordine ad objectum, mensuram, modum:"—(1.) "Scientia visionis" hath for its object things past, present, and to come,—whatsoever had, hath, or will have, actual being. The measure of this knowledge is his will; because the will and decree of God only make those things future which were but possible before: therefore we say, "Scientia visionis fundatur in voluntate." For the manner of it, it is called "Scientia libera, quia fundatur in voluntate," as necessarily presupposing a free act of the divine will, which makes things future, and so objects of this kind of knowledge. (2.) As for that "scientia" which we call "simplicis intelligentiæ," the object of it is possible; the measure of it omnipotency, for by it he knows all he can do; and for the manner of it, it is "scientia necessaria, quia non fundatur in voluntate, sed potestate" (say the schoolmen), seeing by it he knows not what he will, but what he can do. Of that late figment of a middle science in God, arising neither from the infinite perfection of his own being, as that of simple intelligence, nor yet attending his free purpose and decree, as that of vision, but from a consideration of the second causes that are to produce the things foreknown, in their kind, order, and dependence, I am not now to treat. And with the former kind of knowledge it is, or rather in the former way (the knowledge of God being simply one and the same) is it, that we affirm him to know the things that are future, of what sort soever, or all things before they come to pass.

3. The things inquired after are commonly called contingent. Contingencies are of two sorts:—(1.) Such as are only so; (2.) Such as are also free.

(1.) Such as are only so are contingent only in their effects: such is the falling of a stone from a house, and the killing of a man thereby. The effect itself was contingent, nothing more; the cause necessary, the stone, being loosed from what detained it upon the house, by its own weight necessarily falling to the ground. (2.) That which is so contingent as to be also free, is contingent both in respect of the effect and of its causes also. Such was the soldier's piercing of the side of Christ. The effect was contingent,—such a thing might have been done or not; and the cause also, for they chose to do it who did it, and in respect of their own elective faculty might not have chosen it. That a man shall write, or ride, or speak to another person to-morrow, the agent being free, is contingent both as to the cause and to the effect. About these is our principal inquiry; and to the knowledge of God which he is said to have of them is the opposition most expressly made by Mr B. Let this, then, be our conclusion:—

God perfectly knows all the free actions of men before they are wrought by them. All things that will be done or shall be to all eternity, though in their own natures contingent and wrought by agents free in their working, are known to him from eternity.

Some previous observations will make way for the clear proof and demonstration of this truth. Then,—

1. God certainly knows everything that is to be known; that is, everything that is scibile. If there be in the nature of things an impossibility to be known, they cannot be known by the divine understanding. If any thing he scibile, or may be known, the not knowing of it is his imperfection who knows it not. To God this cannot be ascribed (namely, that he should not know what is to be known) without the destruction of his perfection. He shall not be my God who is not infinitely perfect. He who wants any thing to make him blessed in himself can never make the fruition of himself the blessedness of others.

2. Every thing that hath a determinate cause is scibile, may be known, though future, by him that perfectly knows that cause which doth so determine the thing to be known unto existence. Now, contingent things, the free actions of men that yet are not, but in respect of themselves may or may not be, have such a determinate cause of their existence as that mentioned. It is true, in respect of their immediate causes, as the wills of men, they are contingent, and may be or not be; but that they have such a cause as before spoken of is evident from the light of this consideration: in their own time and order they are. Now, whatever is at any time was future; before it was, it was to be. If it had not been future, it had not now been. Its present performance is sufficient demonstration of the futurition it had before. I ask, then, whence it came to be future,—that that action was rather to be than a thousand others that were as possible as it? for instance, that the side of Christ should be pierced with a spear, when it was as possible, in the nature of the thing itself and of all secondary causes, that his head should be cut off. That, then, which gives any action a futurition is that determinate cause wherein it may be known, whereof we speak. Thus it may be said of the same thing that it is contingent and determined, without the least appearance of contradiction, because it is not spoken with respect to the same things or causes.

3. The determinate cause of contingent things, that is, things that are future (for every thing when it is, and as it is, is necessary), is the will of God himself concerning their existence and being; either by his efficiency and working, as all good things in every kind (that is, that are either morally or physically so, in which latter sense all the actions of men, as actions, are so); or by his permission, which is the condition of things morally evil, or of the irregularity and obliquity attending those actions, upon the account of their relation to a law, which in themselves are entitative and physically good, as the things were which God at first created.2 Whether any thing come to pass beside the will of God and contrary to his purpose will not be disputed with any advantage of glory to God or honour to them that shall assert it. That in all events the will of God is fulfilled is a common notion of all rational creatures. So the accomplishment of his "determinate counsel" is affirmed by the apostle in the issue of that mysterious dispensation of the crucifying of his Son. That of James 4:15, Ἐὰν ὁ Κύριος θελήσῃ, intimates God's will to be extended to all actions, as actions, whatever. Thus God knew before the world was made, or any thing that is in it, that there would be such a world and such things in it; yet than the making of the world nothing was more free or contingent. God is not a necessary agent as to any of the works that outwardly are of him. Whence, then, did God know this? Was it not from his own decree and eternal purpose that such a world there should be? And if the knowledge of one contingent thing be from hence, why not of all? In brief, these future contingencies depend on something for their existence, or they come forth into the world in their own strength and upon their own account, not depending on any other. If the latter, they are God; if the former, the will of God or old Fortune must be the principle on which they do depend.

4. God can work with contingent causes for the accomplishment of his own will and purposes, without the least prejudice to them, either as causes or as free and contingent. God moves not, works not, in or with any second causes, to the producing of any effect contrary or not agreeable to their own natures. Notwithstanding any predetermination or operation of God, the wills of men, in the production of every one of their actions, are at as perfect liberty as a cause in dependence of another is capable of. To say it is not in dependence is atheism. The purpose of God, the counsel of his will, concerning any thing as to its existence, gives a necessity of infallibility to the event, but changes not the manner of the second cause's operation, be [it] what it will. That God cannot accomplish and bring about his own purposes by free and contingent agents, without the destruction of the natures he hath endued them withal, is a figment unworthy the thoughts of any who indeed acknowledge his sovereignty and power.

5. The reason why Mr B.'s companions in his undertaking, as others that went before him of the same mind, do deny this foreknowledge of God, they express on all occasions to be that the granting of it is prejudicial to that absolutely independent liberty of will which God assigns to men: so Socinus pleads, Prælect. Theol. cap. viii.; thus far, I confess, more accurately than the Arminians. These pretend (some of them, at least) to grant the prescience of God, but yet deny his determinate decrees and purposes, on the same pretence that the others do his prescience, namely, of their prejudicialness to the free-will of man. Socinus discourses (which was no difficult task) that the foreknowledge of God is as inconsistent with that independent liberty of will and contingency which he and they had fancied as the predetermination of his will; and therefore rejects the former as well as the latter. It was Augustine's complaint of old concerning Cicero, that "ita fecit homines liberos, ut fecit etiam sacrilegos."3 Cicero was a mere Pagan, and surely our complaint against any that shall close with him in this attempt, under the name of a "mere Christian," will not be less just than that of Augustine. For mine own part, I am fully resolved that all the liberty and freedom that, as creatures, we are capable of is eminently consistent with God's absolute decrees and infallible foreknowledge; and if I should hesitate in the apprehension thereof, I had rather ten thousand times deny our wills to be free than God to be omniscient, the sovereign disposer of all men, their actions, and concernments, or say that any thing comes to pass without, against, or contrary to the counsel of his will. But we know, through the goodness of God, that these things have their consistency, and that God may have preserved to him the glory of his infinite perfection, and the will of man not at all be abridged of its due and proper liberty.

These things being premised, the proof and demonstration of the truth proposed lies ready at hand in the ensuing particulars:—

1. He who knows all things knows the things that are future, though contingent. In saying they are things future and contingent, you grant them to be among the number of things, as you do those which you call things past; but that God knows all things hath already been abundantly confirmed out of Scripture. Let the reader look back on some of the many texts and places by which I gave answer to the query about the foreknowledge of God, and he will find abundantly enough for his satisfaction, if he be of those that would be satisfied, and dares not carelessly make bold to trample upon the perfections of God. Take some few of them to a review: 1 John 3:20, "God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things." Even we know things past and present. If God knows only things of the same kind, his knowledge may be greater than ours by many degrees, but you cannot say his understanding is infinite; there is not, on that supposition, an infinite distance between his knowledge and ours, but they stand in some measurable proportion. Heb. 4:13, "All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do." "Not that which is to come, not the free actions of men that are future," saith Mr B. But to distinguish thus when the Scripture doth not distinguish, and that to the great dishonour of God, is not to interpret the word, but to deny it. Acts 15:18, "Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world." I ask, whether God hath any thing to do in the free actions of men? For instance, had he any thing to do in the sending of Joseph into Egypt, his exaltation there, and the entertainment of his father's household afterward by him in his greatness and power? all which were brought about by innumerable contingencies and free actions of men. If he had not, why should we any longer depend on him, or regard him in the several transactions and concernments of our lives?

"Nullum numen abest, si sit prudentia: nos te,

Nos facimus, Fortuna, Deam."

If he had to do with it, as Joseph thought he had, when he affirmed plainly that "God sent him thither, and made him a father to Pharaoh and his house," Gen. 45:5–8, then the whole was known to God before, for "Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world." And if God may know any one free action beforehand, he may know all, for there is the same reason of them all. Their contingency is given as the only cause why they may not be known. Now, every action that is contingent is equally interested therein. "A quatenus ad omne valet argumentum." That place of the psalm before recited, Ps. 139:2–6, is express as to the knowledge of God concerning our free actions that are yet future. If any thing in the world may be reckoned amongst our free actions, surely our thoughts may; and such a close reserved treasure are they that Mr B. doth more than insinuate, in the application of the texts of Scripture which he mentioneth, that God knoweth them not when present without search and inquiry. But these, saith the psalmist, "God knoweth afar off,"—before we think them, before they enter into our hearts. And truly I marvel that any man, not wholly given up to a spirit of giddiness, after he had produced this text of Scripture to prove that God knows our thoughts, should instantly subjoin a question leading men to a persuasion that God knows not our free actions that are future; unless it was with a Julian design, to impair the credit of the word of God, by pretending it liable to self-contradiction, or, with Lucian, to deride God as bearing contrary testimonies concerning himself.

2. God hath, by himself and his holy prophets, which have been from the foundation of the world, foretold many of the free actions of men, what they would do, what they should do, long before they were born who were to do them. To give a little light to this argument, which of itself will easily overwhelm all that stands before it, I shall handle it under these propositions:—(1.) That God hath so foretold the free actions of men. (2.) That so he could not do unless he knew them, and that they would be, then when he foretold them. (3.) That he proves himself to be God by these his predictions. (4.) That he foretells them as the means of executing many of his judgments which he hath purposed and threatened, and the accomplishment of many mercies which he hath promised, so that the denial of his foresight of them so exempts them from under his providence as to infer that he rules not in the world by punishments and rewards.

For the first:—(1.) There needs no great search or inquiry after witnesses to confirm the truth of it; the Scripture is full of such predictions from one end to the other. Some few instances shall suffice: Gen. 18:18, 19, "Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him; for I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him." Scarce a word but is expressive of some future contingent thing, if the free actions of men be so before they are wrought. That "Abraham should become a mighty nation," that "all the nations of the earth should be blessed in him," that he would "command his children and his household after him to keep the ways of the LORD," it was all to be brought about by the free actions of Abraham and of others; and all this "I know," saith the Lord, and accordingly declares it. By the way, if the Lord knew all this before, his following trial of Abraham was not to satisfy himself whether he feared him or no, as is pretended.

So also Gen. 15:13, 14, "And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; and also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance." The Egyptians' affliction on the Israelites was by their free actions, if any be free. It was their sin to do it; they sinned in all that they did for the effecting of it. And, doubtless, if any men's sinful actions are free, yet doth God here foretell "They shall afflict them."

Deut. 31:16–18, you have an instance beyond all possible exception: "And the LORD said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers; and this people will rise up, and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land, whither they go to be among them, and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them. Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us?" etc. The sum of a good part of what is recorded in the Book of Judges is here foretold by God. The people's going a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land, their forsaking of God, their breaking his covenant, the thoughts of their hearts and their expressions upon the consideration of the evils and afflictions that should befall them, were of their free actions; but now all these doth God here foretell, and thereby engages the honour of his truth unto the certainty of their coming to pass.

1 Kings 13:2 is signal to the same purpose: "O altar, altar, behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee." This prediction is given out three hundred years before the birth of Josiah. The accomplishment of it you have in the story, 2 Kings 23:17. Did Josiah act freely? was his proceeding at Bethel by free actions, or no? If not, how shall we know what actions of men are free, what not? If it was, his free actions are here foretold, and therefore, I think, foreseen.

1 Kings 22:28, the prophet Micaiah, in the name of the Lord, having foretold a thing that was contingent, and which was accomplished by a man acting at a venture, lays the credit of his prophecy (and therein his life, for if he had proved false as to the event he was to have suffered death by the law) at stake, before all the people, upon the certainty of the issue foretold: "And Micaiah said, If thou return at all in peace, the LORD hath not spoken by me. And he said, Hearken, O people, every one of you."

Of these predictions the Scripture is full. The prophecies of Cyrus in Isaiah, of the issue of the Babylonish war and kingdom of Judah in Jeremiah, of the several great alterations and changes in the empires of the world in Daniel, of the kingdom of Christ in them all, are too long to be insisted on. The reader may also consult Matt. 24:5; Mark 13:6, 14:30; Acts 20:29; 2 Thess. 2:3, 4, etc.; 1 Tim. 4:1; 2 Tim. 3:1; 2 Pet. 2:1; and the Revelation almost throughout. Our first proposition, then, is undeniably evident, That God, by himself and by his prophets, hath foretold things future, even the free actions of men.

(2.) The second proposition mentioned is manifest and evident in its own light: What God foretelleth, that he perfectly foreknows. The honour and repute of his veracity and truth, yea, of his being, depend on the certain accomplishment of what he absolutely foretells. If his predictions of things future are not bottomed on his certain prescience of them, they are all but like Satan's oracles, conjectures and guesses of what may be accomplished or not,—a supposition whereof is as high a pitch of blasphemy as any creature in this world can possibly arrive unto.

(3.) By this prerogative of certain predictions in reference to things to come, God vindicates his own deity; and from the want of it evinces the vanity of the idols of the Gentiles, and the falseness of the prophets that pretend to speak in his name: Isa. 41:21–24, "Produce your cause, saith the LORD; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob. Let them bring them forth, and show us what shall happen: let them show the former things, what they be; or declare us things for to come. Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods. Behold, ye are of nothing." The Lord calling forth the idols of the Gentiles, devils, stocks, and stones, to plead for themselves, before the denunciation of the solemn sentence ensuing, verse 24, he puts them to the plea of foreknowledge for the proof of their deity. If they can foretell things to come certainly and infallibly, on the account of their own knowledge of them, gods they are, and gods they shall be esteemed. If not, saith he, "Ye are nothing, worse than nothing, and your work of nought; an abomination is he that chooseth you." And it may particularly be remarked, that the idols of whom he speaketh are in especial those of the Chaldeans, whose worshippers pretended above all men in the world to divination and predictions. Now, this issue doth the Lord drive things to betwixt himself and the idols of the world: If they can foretell things to come, that is, not this or that thing (for so, by conjecture, upon consideration of second causes and the general dispositions of things, they may do, and the devil hath done), but any thing or every thing, they shall go free; that is, "Is there nothing hid from you that is yet for to be?" Being not able to stand before this interrogation, they perish before the judgment mentioned. But now, if it may be replied to the living God himself that this is a most unequal way of proceeding, to lay that burden upon the shoulders of others which himself will not bear, bring others to that trial which himself cannot undergo, for he himself cannot foretell the free actions of men, because he doth not foreknow them, would not his plea render him like to the idols whom he adjudgeth to shame and confusion? God himself there, concluding that they are "vanity and nothing" who are pretended to be gods but are not able to foretell the things that are for to come, asserts his own deity, upon the account of his infinite understanding and knowledge of all things, on the account whereof he can foreshow all things whatever that are as yet future. In like manner doth he proceed to evince what is from himself, what not, in the predictions of any, from the certainty of the event: Deut. 18:21, 22, "If thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath Spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him."

(4.) The fourth proposition, That God by the free actions of men (some whereof he foretelleth) doth fulfil his own counsel as to judgments and mercies, rewards and punishments, needs no farther proof or confirmation but what will arise from a mere review of the things before mentioned, by God so foretold, as was to be proved. They were things of the greatest import in the world, as to the good or evil of the inhabitants thereof, and in whose accomplishment as much of the wisdom, power, righteousness, and mercy of God was manifest, as in any of the works of his providence whatever. Those things which he hath [so] disposed of as to be subservient to so great ends, certainly he knew that they would be. The selling of Joseph, the crucifying of his Son, the destruction of antichrist, are things of greater concernment than that God should only conjecture at their event. And, indeed, the taking away of God's foreknowledge of things contingent renders his providence useless as to the government of the world. To what end should any rely upon him, seek unto him, commit themselves to his care through the course of their lives, when he knows not what will or may befall them the next day? How shall he judge or rule the world who every moment is surprised with new emergencies which he foresaw not, which must necessitate him to new counsels and determinations? On the consideration of this argument doth Episcopius conclude for the prescience of God, Ep. 2, "ad Beverovicium de termino vitæ," which he had allowed to be questioned in his private Theological Disputations,2 though in his public afterward he pleads for it. The sum of the argument insisted on amounts to this:—

Those things which God foretells that they shall certainly and infallibly come to pass before they so do, those he certainly and infallibly knoweth whilst they are future, and that they will come to pass; but God foretells, and hath foretold, all manner of future contingencies and free actions of men, good and evil, duties and sins: therefore he certainly and infallibly knows them whilst they are yet future.

The proposition stands or falls unto the honour of God's truth, veracity, and power.

The assumption is proved by the former and sundry other instances that may be given.

He foretold that the Egyptians should afflict his people four hundred years, that in so doing they would sin, and that for it he would punish them, Gen. 15:13, 14; and surely the Egyptians' sinning therein was their own free action. The incredulity of the Jews, treachery of Judas, calling of the Gentiles, all that happened to Christ in the days of his flesh, the coming of antichrist, the rise of false teachers, were all foretold, and did all of them purely depend on the free actions of men; which was to be demonstrated.

3. To omit many other arguments, and to close this discourse: all perfections are to be ascribed to God; they are all in him. To know is an excellency; he that knows any thing is therein better than he that knows it not. The more any one knows, the more excellent is he. To know all things is an absolute perfection in the good of knowledge; to know them in and by himself who so knows them, and not from any discourses made to him from without, is an absolute perfection in itself, and is required where there is infinite wisdom and understanding. This we ascribe to God, as worthy of him, and as by himself ascribed to himself. To affirm, on the other side,—(1.) That God hath his knowledge from things without him, and so is taught wisdom and understanding, as we are, from the event of things, for the more any one knows the wiser he is; (2.) That he hath, as we have, a successive knowledge of things, knowing that one day which he knew not another, and that thereupon there is,—(3.) A daily and hourly change and alteration in him, as, from the increasing of his knowledge there must actually and formally be; and, (4.) That he sits conjecturing at events;—to assert, I say, these and the like monstrous figments concerning God and his knowledge, is, as much as in them lieth who so assert them, to shut his providence out of the world, and to divest him of all his blessedness, self-sufficiency, and infinite perfections. And, indeed, if Mr B. believe his own principles, and would speak out, he must assert these things, how desperate soever; for having granted the premises, it is stupidity to stick at the conclusion. And therefore some of those whom Mr B. is pleased to follow in these wild vagaries speak out, and say (though with as much blasphemy as confidence) that God doth only conjecture and guess at future contingents; for when this argument is brought, Gen. 18:19, " 'I know,' saith God, 'Abraham, that he will command his children and his household after him,' etc., therefore future contingents may be certainly known of him," they deny the consequence; or, granting that he may be said to know them, yet say it is only by guess and conjecture, as we do. And for the present vindication of the attributes of God this may suffice.

Before I close this discourse, it may not be impertinent to divert a little to that which alone seems to be of any difficulty lying in our way in the assertion of this prescience of God, though no occasion of its consideration be administered to us by him with whom we have to do.

"That future contingents have not in themselves a determinate truth, and therefore cannot be determinately known," is the great plea of those who oppose God's certain foreknowledge of them; "and therefore," say they, "doth the philosopher affirm that propositions concerning them are neither true nor false." But,—

1. That there is, or may be, that there hath been, a certain prediction of future contingents hath been demonstrated; and therefore they must on some account or other (and what that account is hath been declared) have a determinate truth. And I had much rather conclude that there are certain predictions of future contingents in the Scripture, and therefore they have a determinate truth, than, on the contrary, they have no determinate truth, therefore there are no certain predictions of them. "Let God be true, and every man a liar."

2. As to the falsity of that pretended axiom, this proposition, "Such a soldier shall pierce the side of Christ with a spear, or he shall not pierce him," is determinately true and necessary on the one side or the other, the parts of it being contradictory, which cannot lie together. Therefore, if a man before the flood had used this proposition in the affirmative, it had been certainly and determinately true; for that proposition which was once not true cannot be true afterward upon the same account.

3. If no affirmative proposition about future contingents be determinately true, then every such affirmative proposition is determinately false; for from hence, that a thing is or is not, is a proposition determinately true or false. And therefore if any one shall say that that is determinately future which is absolutely indifferent, his affirmation is false; which is contrary to Aristotle, whom in this they rely upon, who affirms that such propositions are neither true nor false. The truth is, of propositions that they are true or false is certain. Truth or falseness are their proper and necessary affections, as even and odd of numbers; nor can any proposition be given wherein there is a contradiction, whereof one part is true and the other false.

4. This proposition, "Petrus orat," is determinately true de præsenti, when Peter doth actually pray (for "quicquid est, dum est, determinate est"); therefore this proposition de futuro, "Petrus orabit," is determinately true. The former is the measure and rule by which we judge of the latter. So that because it is true de presenti, "Petrus orat;" ergo this, de futuro, "Petrus orabit," was ab æterno true (ex parte rei). And then (ex parte modi) because this proposition, "Petrus orat," is determinately true de præsenti; ergo this, "Petrus orabit," was determinately true from all eternity. But enough of this.

Mr B. having made a sad complaint of the ignorance and darkness that men were bred up in by being led from the Scripture, and imposing himself upon them for "a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, and a teacher of babes," doth, in pursuit of his great undertaking, in this chapter instruct them what the Scripture speaks concerning the being, nature, and properties of God. Of his goodness, wisdom, power, truth, righteousness, faithfulness, mercy, independency, sovereignty, infiniteness, men had before been informed by books, tracts, and catechisms, "composed according to the fancies and interests of men, the Scripture being utterly justled out of the way." Alas! of these things the Scripture speaks not at all; but the description wherein that abounds of God, and which is necessary that men should know (whatever become of those other inconsiderable things wherewith other poor catechisms are stuffed), is, that he is finite, limited, and obnoxious to passions, etc. "Thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege?"

———

CHAPTER VI

Of the creation, and condition of man before and after the fall.

MR BIDDLE'S THIRD CHAPTER.

Ques. Were the heaven and earth from all eternity, or created at a certain time? and by whom?

Ans. Gen. 1:1.

Q. How long was God a making them?

A. Exod. 20:11.

Q. How did God create man?

A. Gen. 2:7.

Q. How did he create woman?

A. Gen. 2:21, 22.

Q. Why was she called woman?

A. Gen. 2:23.

Q. What doth Moses infer from her being made a woman, and brought unto the man?

A. Gen. 2:24.

Q. Where did God put man after he was created?

A. Gen. 2:8.

Q. What commandment gave he to the man when he put him into the garden?

A. Gen. 2:16, 17.

Q. Was the man deceived to eat of the forbidden fruit?

A. 1 Tim. 2:14.

Q. By whom was the woman deceived?

A. 2 Cor. 11:3.

Q. How was the woman induced to eat of the forbidden fruit? and how the man?

A. Gen 3:6.

Q. What effect followed upon their eating?

A. Gen. 3:7.

Q. Did the sin of our first parents in eating of the forbidden fruit bring both upon them and their posterity the guilt of hell-fire, deface the image of God in them, darken their understanding, enslave their will, deprive them of power to do good, and cause mortality? If not, what are the true penalties that God denounced against them for the said offence?

A. Gen. 3:16–19.

EXAMINATION

Having delivered his thoughts concerning God himself, his nature and properties, in the foregoing chapters, in this our catechist proceeds to the consideration of his works, ascribing to God the creation of all things, especially insisting on the making of man. Now, although many questions might be proposed from which Mr B. would, I suppose, be scarcely able to extricate himself, relating to the impossibility of the proceeding of such a work as the creation of all things from such an agent as he hath described God to be, so limited both in his essence and properties, yet it being no part of my business to dispute or perplex any thing that is simply in itself true and unquestionable, with the attendancies of it from other corrupt notions of him or them by whom it is received and proposed, I shall wholly omit all considerations of that nature, and apply myself merely to what is by him expressed. That he who is limited and finite in essence, and consequently in properties, should by his power, without the help of any intervening instrument, out of nothing, produce, at such a vast distance from him as his hands can by no means reach unto, such mighty effects as the earth itself and the fulness thereof, is not of an easy proof or resolution. But on these things at present I shall not insist. Certain it is that, on this apprehension of God, the Epicureans disputed for the impossibility of the creation of the world.

His first question, then, is, "Were the heaven and earth from all eternity, or created at a certain time? and by whom?" To which he answers with Gen. 1:1, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

Right. Only in the exposition of this verse, as it discovers the principal efficient cause of the creation of all things, or the author of this great work, Mr B. afterward expounds himself to differ from us and the word of God in other places. By "God" he intends the Father only and exclusively, the Scripture plentifully ascribing this work also to the Son and Holy Ghost, manifesting their concurrence in the indivisible Deity unto this great work, though, by way of eminency, this work be attributed to the Father, as that of redemption is to the Son, and that of regeneration to the Holy Ghost, from neither of which notwithstanding is the Father excluded.

Perhaps the using of the name of God in the plural number, where mention is made of the creation, in conjunction with a verb singular, Gen. 1:1, and the express calling of God our Creators and Makers, Eccles. 12:1, Ps. 149:2, Job 35:10, wants not a significancy to this thing. And indeed he that shall consider the miserable evasions that the adversaries have invented to escape the argument thence commonly insisted on must needs be confirmed in the persuasion of the force of it.2 Mr B. may haply close with Plato in this business, who, in his "Timæus," brings in his δημιουργός speaking to his genii about the making of man, telling them that they were mortal, but encouraging them to obey him in the making of other creatures, upon the promise of immortality. "Turn you," saith he, "according to the law of nature, to the making of living creatures, and imitate my power which I used in your generation or birth;"—a speech fit enough for Mr B.'s god, "who is shut up in heaven," and not able of himself to attend his whole business. But what a sad success this demiurgus had, by his want of prescience, or foresight of what his demons would do (wherein also Mr B. likens God unto him), is farther declared; for they imprudently causing a conflux of too much matter and humour, no small tumult followed thereon in heaven, as at large you may see in the same author. However, it is said expressly the Son or Word created all things, John 1:3; and, "By him are all things," 1 Cor. 8:6, Rev. 4:11. Of the Holy Ghost the same is affirmed, Gen. 1:2, Job 26:13, Ps. 33:6. Nor can the Word and Spirit be degraded from the place of principal efficient cause in this work to a condition of instrumentality only, which is urged (especially in reference to the Spirit), unless we shall suppose them to have been created before any creation, and to have been instrumental of their own production. But of these things in their proper place.

His second question is, "How long was God in making them?" and he answers from Exod. 20:11, "In six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is."

The rule I formerly prescribed to myself of dealing with Mr B. causes me to pass this question also without farther inquiry; although, having already considered what his notions are concerning the nature and properties of God, I can scarce avoid conjecturing that by this crude proposal of the time wherein the work of God's creation was finished, there is an intendment to insinuate such a gross conception of the working of God as will by no means be suited to his omnipotent production of all things. But speaking of things no farther than enforced, I shall not insist on this query.

His third is, "How did God create man?" and the answer is, Gen. 2:7. To which he adds a fourth, "How did he create woman?" which be resolves from Gen. 2:21, 22.

Mr B., undertaking to give all the grounds of religion in his Catechisms, teacheth as well by his silence as his expressions. What he mentions not, in the known doctrine he opposeth, he may well be interpreted to reject. As to the matter whereof man and woman were made, Mr B.'s answers do express it; but as to the condition and state wherein they were made, of that he is silent, though he knows the Scripture doth much more abound in delivering the one than the other. Neither can his silence in this thing be imputed to oversight or forgetfulness, considering how subservient it is to his intendment in his last two questions, for the subverting of the doctrine of original sin, and the denial of all those effects and consequences of the first breach of covenant whereof he speaks. He can, upon another account, take notice that man was made in the image of God: but whereas hitherto Christians have supposed that that denoted some spiritual perfection bestowed on man, wherein he resembles God, Mr B. hath discovered that it is only an expression of some imperfection of God, wherein he resembles man; which yet he will as hardly persuade us of as that a man hath seven eyes or two wings, which are ascribed unto God also. That man was created in a resemblance and likeness unto God in that immortal substance breathed into his nostrils, Gen. 2:7, in the excellent rational faculties thereof, in the dominion he was intrusted withal over a great part of God's creation, but especially in the integrity and uprightness of his person, Eccles. 7:29, wherein he stood before God, in reference to the obedience required at his hands,—which condition, by the implanting of new qualities in our soul, we are, through Christ, in some measure renewed unto, Col. 3:10, 12, Eph. 4:24,—the Scripture is clear, evident, and full in the discovery of; but hereof Mr B. conceives not himself bound to take notice. But what is farther needful to be spoken as to the state of man before the fall will fall under the consideration of the last question of this chapter.

Mr B.'s process in the following questions is, to express the story of man's outward condition, unto the eighth, where he inquires after the commandment given of God to man when he put him into the garden, in these words:—"Q. What commandment gave he to the man when be put him into the garden?" This he resolves from Gen. 2:16, 17. That God gave our first parents the command expressed is undeniable. That the matter chiefly expressed in that command was all or the principal part of what he required of them, Mr B. doth not go about to prove. I shall only desire to know of him whether God did not in that estate require of them that they should love him, fear him, believe him, acknowledge their dependence on him, in universal obedience to his will? and whether a suitableness unto all this duty were not wrought within them by God? If he shall say No, and that God required no more of them but only not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, I desire to know whether they might have hated God, abhorred him, believed Satan, and yet been free from the threatening here mentioned, if they had only forbore the outward eating of the fruit? If this shall be granted, I hope I need not insist to manifest what will easily be inferred, nor to show how impossible this is, God continuing God, and man a rational creature. If he shall say that certainly God did require that they should own him for God,—that is, believe him, love him, fear him, and worship him, according to all that he should reveal to them and require of them,—I desire to know whether this particular command could be any other than sacramental and symbolical as to the matter of it, being a thing of so small importance in its own nature, in comparison of those moral acknowledgments of God before mentioned; and to that question I shall not need to add more.

Although it may justly be supposed that Mr B. is not without some thoughts of deviation from the truth in the following questions, yet the last being of most importance, and he being express therein in denying all the effects of the first sin, but only the curse that came upon the outward, visible world, I shall insist only on that, and close our consideration of this chapter. His question is thus proposed: "Q. Did the sin of our first parents in eating of the forbidden fruit bring both upon them and their posterity the guilt of hell-fire, deface the image of God in them, darken their understandings, enslave their wills, deprive them of power to do good, and cause mortality? If not, what are the true penalties denounced against them for that offence?" To this he answers from Gen. 3:16–19.

What the sin of our first parents was may easily be discovered from what was said before concerning the commandment given to them. If universal obedience was required of them unto God, according to the tenor of the law of their creation, their sin was an universal rebellion against and apostasy from him; which though it expressed itself in the peculiar transgression of that command mentioned, yet it is far from being reducible to any one kind of sin, whose whole nature is comprised in that expression. Of the effects of this sin commonly assigned, Mr B. annumerates and rejects six, sundry whereof are coincident with, and all but one reducible to, that general head of loss of the image of God; but for the exclusion of them all at once from being any effects of the first sin, Mr B. thus argues: "If there were no effects or consequences of the first sin but what are expressly mentioned, Gen. 3:16–19, then those now mentioned are no effects of it; but there are no effects or consequences of that first sin but what are mentioned in that place:" therefore those recounted in his query, and commonly esteemed such, are to be cashiered from any such place in the thoughts of men.

Ans. The words insisted on by Mr B. being expressive of the curse of God for sin on man, and on the whole creation here below for his sake, it will not be easy for him to evince that none of the things he rejects are not eminently inwrapped in them. Would God have denounced and actually inflicted such a curse on the whole creation, which he had put in subjection to man, as well as upon man himself, and actually have inflicted it with so much dread and severity as he hath done, if the transgression upon the account whereof he did it had not been as universal a rebellion against him as could be fallen into? Man fell in his whole dependence from God, and is cursed universally, in all his concernments, spiritual and temporal.

But is this indeed the only place of Scripture where the effects of our apostasy from God, in the sin of our first parents, are described? Mr B. may as well tell us that Gen. 3:15 is the only place where mention is made of Jesus Christ, for there he is mentioned. But a little to clear this whole matter in our passage, though what hath been spoken may suffice to make naked Mr B.'s sophistry:—

1. By the effects of the first sin, we understand every thing of evil that, either within or without, in respect of a present or future condition, in reference to God and the fruition of him whereto man was created, or the enjoyment of any goodness from God, is come upon mankind, by the just ordination and appointment of God, whereunto man was not obnoxious in his primitive state and condition. I am not at present at all engaged to speak de modo, of what is privative, what positive, in original sin, of the way of the traduction or propagation of it, of the imputation of the guilt of the first sin, and adhesion of the pollution of our nature defiled thereby, or any other questions that are coincident with these in the usual inquest made into and after the sin of Adam and the fruits of it; but only as to the things themselves, which are here wholly denied. Now,—

2. That whatsoever is evil in man by nature, whatever he is obnoxious and liable unto that is hurtful and destructive to him and all men in common, in reference to the end whereto they were created, or any title wherewith they were at first intrusted, is all wholly the effect of the first sin, and is in solidum to be ascribed thereunto, is easily demonstrated; for,—

(1.) That which is common to all things in any kind, and is proper to them only of that kind, must needs have some common cause equally respecting the whole kind: but now of the evils that are common to all mankind, and peculiar or proper to them and every one of them, there can be no cause but that which equally concerns them all; which, by the testimony of God himself, was this fall of Adam, Rom. 5:12, 15–19.

(2.) The evils that are now incumbent upon men in their natural condition (which what they are shall be afterward considered) were either incumbent on them at their first creation, before the sin and fall of our first parents, or they are come upon them since, through some interposing cause or occasion. That they were not in them or on them, that they were not liable or obnoxious to those evils which are now incumbent on them, in their first creation, as they came forth from the hand of God (besides what was said before of the state and condition wherein man was created, even "upright" in the sight of God, in his favour and acceptation, no way obnoxious to his anger and wrath), is evident by the light of this one consideration, namely, that there was nothing in man nor belonging to him, no respect, no regard or relation, but what was purely and immediately of the holy God's creation and institution. Now, it is contrary to all that he hath revealed or made known to us of himself, that he should be the immediate author of so much evil as is now, by his own testimony, in man by nature, and, without any occasion, of so much vanity and misery as he is subject unto; and, besides, directly thwarting the testimony which he gave of all the works of his hands, that they were exceeding good, it being evident that man, in the condition whereof we speak, is exceeding evil.

3. If all the evil mentioned hath since befallen mankind, then it hath done so either by some chance and accident whereof God was not aware, or by his righteous judgment and appointment, in reference to some procuring and justly-deserving cause of such a punishment. To affirm the first, is upon the matter to deny him to be God; and I doubt not but that men at as easy and cheap a rate of sin may deny that there is a God, as, confessing his divine essence, to turn it into an idol, and by making thick clouds, as Job speaks, to interpose between him and the affairs of the world, to exclude his energetical providence in the disposal of all the works of his hands. If the latter be affirmed, I ask, as before, what other common cause, wherein all and every one of mankind is equally concerned, can be assigned of the evils mentioned, as the procurement of the wrath and vengeance of God, from whence they are, but only the fall of Adam, the sin of our first parents, especially considering that the Holy Ghost doth so expressly point out this fountain and source of the evils insisted on, Rom. 5:12, 15–19?

4. These things, then, being premised, it will quickly appear that every one of the particulars rejected by Mr B. from being fruits or effects of the first sin are indeed the proper issues of it; and though Mr B. cut the roll of the abominations and corruptions of the nature of man by sin, and cast it into the fire, yet we may easily write it again, and add many more words of the like importance.

The first effect or fruit of the first sin rejected by Mr 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 upon 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. 2:17; which that it was not death temporal only, yea not at all, Mr B. contends by denying mortality 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 afterward 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 through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage," Heb. 2:15. 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 hands 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, Rom. 6:23. What other death men are obnoxious to on the account of the first sin, that hath not these concomitants, Mr B. hath not as yet revealed. "By nature," also, we are "children of wrath," Eph. 2:3. 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, were before declared. That we are now born 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 every one 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 than Mr 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 any thing 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, and 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 bear the image of God,—is a work of another nature than what I am now engaged in. For the asserting of what is here denied by Mr 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, and 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 Mr B., so it is sufficiently clear and evident from the renovation of that image which we have by Jesus Christ; and that is expressed both in general and 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 created him," Col. 3:10, is that which we want, by sin's defacing (suo more) of that image of God in us which we had in knowledge. So Eph. 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, then, whereas we were created in the image of God, in righteousness and holiness, and are to be renewed again by Christ into the same condition of his image in righteousness and holiness, we doubt not to affirm that by the first sin (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; and that all this was done by the first sin the apostle plainly asserts, Rom. 5:12, 15, 17–19, etc.

To the next particular effect of sin by Mr B. rejected, "the darkening of our understandings," 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 step farther, and ask him whether there he not such a darkness now upon us by nature, opposed unto that light, that spiritual and saving knowledge, which is of absolute necessity for every one to have and be furnished withal that will again attain that image of God which we are born 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 itself, 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 [of which mention is made], 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 offence 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 Mr B. that he finds none of those effects of sin in himself, nothing of darkness, bondage, or disability, 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 than those who, by a fever of pride, have lost the sense of their own miserable condition. Only to stop him in his haste 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 I take them as they come to mind: Eph. 2:1–3, 5; John 5:25; Matt. 8:22; Eph. 5:8; Luke 4:18; 2 Tim. 2:25, 26; John 8:34; Rom. 6:16; Gen. 6:5; Rom. 7:5; John 3:6; 1 Cor. 2:14; Rom. 3:12; Acts 8:31; John 5:40; Rom. 8:7; Jer. 13:23, etc.

The last thing denied is its "causing mortality." 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. 3:19, 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, inasmuch 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. Mr B., 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 shalt thou return;" the strength of his reason therein lying in this, that if God denounced the sentence of mortality on man after sinning, and for his sin, then mortality was not an effect of sin, but man was mortal before in the state of innocency. Who doubts but that at this rate he may be able to prove what he pleases?

A brief declaration of our sense in ascribing immortality to the first man in the state of innocency, that none may be mistaken in the expressions used, may put a close to our consideration 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, immaterial substances, are immortal as to their intrinsical essence, free from principles of corruption and mortality; 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 innocency 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 thereunto concurring. So that though from his own nature he had a possibility of dying, and in that sense was mortal, yet God's institution assigning him life in the way of obedience, he had a possibility of not dying, and was in that sense immortal, as hath been declared.2 If any one desire farther satisfaction herein, let him consult Johannes Junius' answer to Socinus' Prelections, in the first chapter whereof he pretends to answer in proof the assertion in title, "Primus homo ante 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.2

The sum of the whole may be reduced to what follows:—Simply and absolutely immortal is God only: "He only hath immortality," 1 Tim. 6:16. Immortal in respect of its whole substance or essence is that which is separate 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,—(1.) The immortality mentioned, or a power of not dying, from the appointment of God; (2.) An uprightness 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 and 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 and 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 any thing 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 spiritually, 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,—

Ques. 1. In what state and condition was man at first createa?

Ans. "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 every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good," verse 31. "In the image of God made he man," chap. 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 true holiness," Eph. 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 innocency?

A. "And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest 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 eatest 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," chap. 6:23.

Q. 3. Are we now, since the fall, born 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 they have sought 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," Eph. 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 the deceitful lusts," Eph. 4:22.

Q. 4. Are we now born 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, even as others," Eph. 2:3. "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God," John 3:3. "He that believeth not the Son, the wrath of God abideth on him," verse 36. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh," John 3:6.

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 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," John 1:5. "To preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind," Luke 4:18. "Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart," Eph. 4:18. "Ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord," chap. 5:8. "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in 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," Eph. 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," Jer. 13:23. "For without me ye can do nothing," John 15:5. "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but 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," Ps. 51:5. "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one," Job 14:4. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh," John 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 offence, so also is the free gift. For through the offence of one many be dead," Rom. 5:15. "And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation," verse 16. "For by one man's offence death reigned," verse 17. "Therefore by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation," verse 18. "By one man's disobedience many were made sinners," verse 19.

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 and 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 endeavour 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 slight 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.

First. [As] 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 innocency, and the knowledge joined with shame that followed sin. "Of his wife he knew no more but what occurred to his senses;"2 though the expressions which he used at first view and sight of her do plainly argue another manner of apprehension, Gen. 2:23. For "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he knew not the virtue of it;" which yet I know not how it well agrees with another place of the same author, where he concludes that in the state of innocency there was in Adam a real predominancy of the natural appetite, which conquered or prevailed to the eating of the fruit of that tree.4 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. [As] 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 contends in one whole chapter in his Prelections, "that he was neither just nor holy, nor ought to be so esteemed nor called."

And Smalcius, in his confutation of Franzius' "Theses de Peccato Originali," all along derides and laughs to scorn the apprehension or persuasion that Adam was created in righteousness and holiness, or that ever he lost any thing of the image of God, or that ever he had any thing of the image of God beyond or besides that dominion over the creatures which God gave him.

Most of the residue of the herd, 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: A 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.

Secondly. [As] 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 vitiated or corrupted thereby: wherein be is punctually followed by the Racovian 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!

Thirdly. [As] for his state and condition, they all, with open mouth, cry out that he was mortal and obnoxious to death, which should in a natural way have come upon him though he had not sinned. But of this before.

Fourthly. 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 Austin 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 Mr 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 at length confesses that he did not believe his soul was immortal3); 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.

Lest the weakest or meanest reader should be startled with 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 the Scriptures, the places before mentioned being in them cast into that form and method wherein they are readily subservient to the purpose in hand:—

First. That man was created in the image of God, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, is evident on the ensuing considerations:—

1. 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, chap. 1:1; and "righteous" and "upright" are terms equivalent, Ps. 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 rational being made for the service of God. This in angels is called "the truth," or that original holiness and rectitude which "the devil abode not in," John 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 qualities 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, etc., exempt him from that imputation. Yea, the very heathens could conclude that he was very wise indeed who first gave names to things.

Secondly. For the disproving of that mortality which they ascribe to man in innocency 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 testimonies. The assertion thereupon, or the inference of immortality from the image of God, appears on this double consideration:—(1.) In our renovation by Christ into the image of God, we are renewed to a blessed immortality; and our likeness to God consisted no less in that than in any other communicable property of his nature. (2.) Wherever is naturally perfect righteousness, there is naturally perfect life; that is, immortality. This is included in the very tenor of the promise of the law: "If a man keep my statutes, he shall live in them," Lev. 18:5.

2. That which the first man contracted and 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, 3:19; Rom. 5:12, 15, 17–19, 6:23, etc.

3. That which is beside and contrary to nature was not natural to the first man; but death is beside 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, etc.; but these may suffice.

Thirdly. That the sin of Adam is not to be confined 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 or veracity of God to which the woman was at first solicited by Satan: Gen. 3:1, "Hath God said so?" pressing that it should be otherwise than 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 unbelief. 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.

Fourthly. 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, 15, 17–19; 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 we are 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 federal head (of which the apostle treats, 1 Cor. 15), and 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 any thing insisted on to the same purpose with Mr B.'s intimations in the Racovian 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 to 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.

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 rectified 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. Immortality is taken either, (1.) Nakedly and purely in itself for an eternal abiding of that which is said to be immortal; or, (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, either,—(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 catechists' discourse, whereby also the remaining trunk will fall to the ground.

I say, then, man by nature, in his primitive 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 immortality, 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 himself, nor can know, the way of faith in Jesus Christ, leading to a blessed immortality and glory, Rom. 2:7–10.

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, nor by 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 majesty without that revelation, John 1:18; 1 Cor. 2:7; Eph. 3:8–11; Col. 2:2, 3; 1 Tim. 3:16.

2. Because man in his fallen condition, though there be retained in his heart some weak and faint impressions of good and evil, reward and punishment, Rom. 2:14, 15, yet is spiritually dead, blind, alienated from God, ignorant, dark, stubborn; so far from being able of himself to find out the way of grace unto a 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 walk in it, without a new spiritual creation, resurrection from the dead, or new birth, 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 offence 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," and in that immediate constitution and 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 subjected by sin, was only an eternal dissolution or annihilation (or rather an abode under dissolution, dissolution itself being not penal), and not any abiding punishment, as will afterward 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, James 3:9), but it denoteth the power and 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 any thing of the image of God. The places mentioned, as Gen. 9:6, and James 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 than 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," etc., 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 than a description of that image wherein they were made.

It is evident, then, notwithstanding any thing here excepted to the contrary, that the immortality 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 apocryphal, I shall not insist. Neither do I think that in the original any new argument to that before mentioned of the image of God is added; but that is evidently pressed, and the nature of the image of God somewhat explained. The words are, Ὅτι ὁ Θεὸς ἔκτισε τὸν ἄνθρωπον ἐπʼ ἀφθαρσίᾳ, καὶ εἰκόνα τῆς ἰδίας ἰδιότητος ἐποίησεν αὐτόν· Φθόνῳ δὲ διαζόλου θάνατος εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὸν κόσμον· πειράζουσι δὲ αὐτὸν οἱ τῆς ἐκείνου μερίδος ὄντες. 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:—

Q. What, moreover, wilt thou answer to the third testimony?

A. The apostle in that place treateth not of immortality [mortality], but of death itself. But mortality 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, and 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 or 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?"

A. This, that Adam for sin, by the decree and sentence of God, was subject to eternal death; and therefore all men, because (or inasmuch as) they are born of him, are subject to the same eternal death. And that this is so, the comparison of Christ with Adam, which the apostle instituteth from verse 12 to the end of the chapter, doth declare.

1. 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 transgression.

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 least right to life or a blessed immortality, so antecedently to the consideration of Adam and 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 catechists have to plead for themselves, or to except against our arguments and testimonies to the cause in hand; which how weak it is in itself, and how short it comes of reaching to the strength we insist on, a 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 than 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 elsewhere about original sin, or their attempt to disprove it, being considered, shall give a close to this discourse.

Their 10th 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 or power, their second question is,—

Q. Is not this free 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 downright what they intend. Quickly despatched!—"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 water 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 in trespasses 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 ore 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 born of the flesh, we are flesh, and unless we are born 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 hereditary corruption of our nature, 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 one's 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 a habit into the subject, and so Adam's 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. (3.) All man's covenant good, for that eternal end to which he was created, depended upon his conformity to God, his subjection to him, and dependence on him; all which, by that one sin, he wilfully cast away for himself and posterity (whose common, natural, and federal head be was), and righteously fell into that condition which we have described. (4.) The apostle is much of a different mind from our catechists, Rom. 5:15, 16, etc., as hath been declared.

4. What is credible concerning God and his goodness with these gentlemen I know not. To me, that is not only in itself 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 mankind 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 than to behold evil,"—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.

Q. But that there is original sin these testimonies 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 man's heart is evil from his youth?"

A. These testimonies 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 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 punish the world 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 the way of salvation, and proved by a 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, lose 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 and 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 so universally by nature in all mankind, and in every individual of them, as that it is ever, always, or continually, casting, coining, and devising evil, and that only, without the intermixture of any thing of another kind that is truly and spiritually 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 is not original," will not be granted. (1.) Original sin, as it is taken 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 [is] mentioned, verse 6, of God's repenting that he had made man, and his resolution to destroy him, these gentlemen offer not one word of reason to manifest. We say,—(1.) That it can agree to no other but this original sin, with its infallible effects, wherein all mankind were equally concerned, and so became equally liable to the last judgment of God; though some, from the same principle, had acted much more boldly against his holy Majesty than others. (2.) Its being in men by nature doth not at all lessen 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 every one; 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:—

Q. What thinkest thou of that which David speaks, Ps. 51:7, "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me?"

A. It is to be observed that David doth not here speak of any men but himself alone, nor that simply, but with respect to his fall, and uses that form of speaking which you have in him again, Ps. 58:3. Wherefore original sin cannot be evinced by this testimony.

But,—1. Though David speaks 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 any thing 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 mentions 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 sin 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 born, James 1:14, 15, but was equally guilty of it before his fall and after.

3. The expression here used, and that of Ps. 58:3, "The wicked are estranged from the womb, they go astray as soon as they be born, 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 unregenerate men. So that, by the favour 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 fomented in his mother's womb; and therefore this place doth prove original sin.

One place more they call to an account, in these words:—

Q. But Paul saith that "in Adam all sinned," Rom. 5:12.

A. It is not in that place, "In Adam all sinned;" but in the Greek the words are ἐφʼ ᾧ, which interpreters do frequently render in Latin in quo, "in whom," which yet may be rendered by the particles quoniam or quatenus, "because," or "inasmuch," as in like places, Rom. 8:3, 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 twenty times a day: "This word may be rendered otherwise, for it is so in another place,"—a course of procedure that leaves nothing certain in the book of God. 2. In two of the places cited, the words are not ἐφʼ ᾧ, but ἐν ᾧ, Rom. 8:3, 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. 4. But render ἐφʼ ᾧ by quoniam, "because," or "for that," as our English translation doth, the argument is no less evident for original sin than 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 testimonies 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 meantime, it is sufficiently known that they have touched very little of the strength of our cause, nor once mentioned the testimonies 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.

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CHAPTER VII

Of the person of Jesus Christ, and on what account he is the Son of God.

MR BIDDLE'S FOURTH CHAPTER.

Ques. How many Lords of Christians are there, by way of distinction from that one God?

Ans. Eph. 4:5.

Q. Who is that one Lord?

A. 1 Cor. 8:6.

Q. How was Jesus Christ born?

A. Matt. 1:18; Luke 1:30–35.

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. Acts 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. Acts 2:22, 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, 14:10.

Q. What reason doth the Son render why the Father did not forsake him and cast him out of favour? Was it because he was of the same essence with him, so that it was impossible for the Father to forsake him or cease to love him?

A. John 8:28, 29, 15:9, 10.

Q. 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.

A. Luke 1:30, 32, 34, 35; John. 10:36; Acts 13:32, 33; Rev. 1:5; Col. 1:18; Heb. 1:4, 5, 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; Matt. 24:36.

Q. What saith the apostle Paul?

A. 1 Cor. 15:24, 28, 11:3, 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 meantime did not acknowledge another to be his God?

A, John 20:17; Rev. 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 despoil our blessed Lord Jesus Christ of his eternal deity, and to substitute an imaginary Godhead, made and feigned in the vain hearts of himself and 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 and vindication from the vain sophisms wherewith by others, as well as by Mr B., it hath been opposed. This is done abundantly by other hands. In the next chapter that also will have its proper place, in the vindication of many texts of Scripture from the exceptions of the Racovians. The removal of Mr B.'s sophistry, and the disentangling of weaker souls, who may in any thing be intricated by his queries, are my present intendment. To make our way clear and plain, that every one that runs may read the vanity of Mr 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 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 inequality in respect of office in Christ doth not in the least take away equality 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 essential ἀξία, honour, dignity, and worth, which he hath in himself as "God blessed for ever." Though he humbled himself and was exalted, yet in nature he was one and the same, he changed not.

4. The Scripture's asserting the humanity of Christ with the concernments thereof, as his birth, life, and death, doth no more thereby deny his deity, than, by asserting his deity, with the essential properties thereof, eternity, omniscience, and the like, it denies his humanity.

5. God's working any thing in and by Christ, as he was mediator, denotes the Father's 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 Mr B.'s arguments and insinuations against the deity of Christ; which is the business of the present chapter.

His first question is, "How many Lords of Christians are there, by way of distinction from that one God?" and he answers, Eph. 4:5, "One Lord."

That of these two words there is not one that looks towards the confirmation of what Mr B. chiefly aims at in the question proposed, is, I presume, sufficiently clear in the light of the thing itself 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 personality, in which regard there are three that bear record 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 afterward 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 whom the whole church is spiritually subject (as he is elsewhere also so called on the same account, as John 13:13; Acts 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 gods of their pretended deity, partly to witness against the impossibility 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 inquiry after this Lord, who he is, in these words, "Who is that one Lord?" and the answer is from 1 Cor. 8:6, "Jesus Christ, by whom are all things." The close of this second answer might have caused Mr 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 on. Who is he "by whom are all things" (in the same sense as they are said to be "of" the Father)? who is that but God? "He that made all things is God," Heb. 3:4. And it is manifest that he himself was not made by whom all things were made: for he made not himself, nor could so do, unless he were both before and after himself; nor was he made without his own concurrence by another, for by himself are all things. Thus Mr 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 and corrupting of the text which we have in Grotius' gloss upon the place, who interprets the τὰ πάντα referred to the Father of all things simply, but the τὰ πάντα referred to Christ of the things only of the new creation, there being not the least colour 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.2

His inquiry 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 born of the Virgin, Luke 1:35, into personal subsistence with himself, I shall let pass with annexing unto it the observation before mentioned, namely, 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," John 1:1, 2, 8:58; Prov. 8:22, etc. God "possessed him in the beginning of his way," being then his "only-begotten Son, full of grace and truth." Mr B. indeed hath small hopes of despoiling Christ of his eternal glory by his queries, if they spend themselves in such fruitless sophistry as this:—"Q. 4. How came Jesus Christ to be Lord according to the opinion of the apostle Paul?" The answer is, Rom. 14:9. "Q. 5. What saith the apostle Peter also concerning the time and manner of his being made Lord?—A. Acts 2:32, 33, 36."

Ans. 1. 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 than a Priest and Prophet, of his Father. But that the eternal lordship of Christ, as he is one with his Father, "God blessed for ever," Rom. 9:5, is any way denied by the asserting of this lordship given him of his Father as mediator, Mr B. wholly begs of men to apprehend and grant, but doth not once attempt from the Scripture to manifest or prove. The sum of what Mr B. intends to argue hence is: Christ "submitting himself to the form and 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 unto office is inconsistent with his divine essence is yet to be proved. But may we not beg of our catechist, at his leisure, to look a little farther into the chapter from whence he 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 forbearance as to judging of one another, he adds, verse 10, "We shall all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ." And this, verse 11, the apostle proves from that testimony of the prophet Isaiah, chap. 45:23, as he renders the sense of the Holy Ghost, "As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God." So that Jesus Christ our Lord is that Jehovah, that God, to whom all subjection is due, and in particular that of standing before his judgment-seat. But this is overlooked by Grotius, and not answered to any purpose by Enjedinus, and why should Mr B. trouble himself with it?

2. For the time assigned by him of his being made Lord, specified by the apostle, it doth not denote his first investiture with that office and power, but the solemn admission into the glorious execution of that lordly 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 Mr B. will not say they could have done. Yea, and as he was both believed in and worshipped before his death and resurrection, John 9:38, 14:1, which is to be performed only to the Lord our God, Matt. 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, Luke 23:3, John 18:37, as he was from his first showing unto men, chap. 1:49.

"Q. 6. 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. Acts 2:22, 10:38."

The intendment of Mr B. 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 whom 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, chap. 5:21, and himself giving power and authority to others to work miracles by his strength and in his name, Matt. 10:8, Mark 16:17, 18, Luke 10:19, there is that eminent evidence of his deity in his working of miracles as Mr B. can by no means darken or obscure by pointing to that which is of a clear consistency therewithal,—as is his Father's appointment of him to do them, whereby he is said to do them "in his name," etc., as in the place cited, of which afterward. Acts 2:22, the intendment of Peter is, to prove that he was the Messiah 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 God," 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 expounds these words, Ὅτι ὁ Θεὸς ἦν μετʼ αὐτοῦ, "For God was with him," "God always loved him, and always heard him, according to Matt. 3:17" (where yet there is a peculiar testimony given to the divine sonship of Jesus Christ) "and John 11:42," yet the words of our Saviour 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 ye 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 ἐνεργητικῶς, but by that divine indwelling which oneness of nature gives to Father and Son.

His seventh question is exceeding implicate and involved: a great deal is expressed that Mr 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.—A. John 5:19, 20, 30, 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 disappear. Christ being accused by the Jews, and persecuted for healing a man oh the Sabbath-day, and their rage being increased by his asserting his equality with the Father (of which afterward), John 5:17, 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 equal, and doth of his own will also the things that he doth; so that they had no more to plead against him for doing what he did than 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 be maintained the Jews apprehended, affirming that he made himself equal with God, which none but God is or can be, for between God and that which is not God there is no proportion, much less equality) as that he farther confirms it, by affirming that he "doeth whatever the Father doeth, 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 τὸ ἀζούλητον 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 honour 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, and his subordination to him as the Son, receiving all things from him by divine and 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 equality therein with the Father, as shall afterward be more fully manifested.

So that though in regard of his divine personality 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 for evermore." And that it was "an eternal Son of God that took flesh upon him," etc., hath Mr. B. never read that "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God," that "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 exceptions of his masters.

His eighth 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 Father's acceptation of him in the work of mediation; which being a most ridiculous begging of the thing in question, as to what he pretends in the query to be argumentative, I shall not farther insist upon it

Q. 9. We are come to the head of this discourse, and of Mr B.'s design in this chapter, and, indeed, of the greatest design that he drives in religion, namely, 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 Luke 1:31–35; John 10:36; Acts 13:32, 33; Rev. 1:5; Col. 1:18; Heb 1:4, 5, 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 rectified one mistake in Mr B.'s question, I shall state the whole matter so as to obviate farther labour and trouble about sundry other ensuing queries. For Mr 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 proceed.

The question that lies before us 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."

The reasons, as far as I can gather, which Mr B. lays at the bottom of this appellation, are,—1. His birth of the Virgin, from Luke 1:30–35. 2. His mission, or sending into the world by the Father, John 10:36. 3. His resurrection with power. Acts 13:32, 33; Rev. 1:5; Col. 1:18. 4. His exaltation, Heb. 5:5; Rom. 8:29.

For the removal 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.

First, 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,—namely, 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 Racovians, in answer to that question, "Is therefore the Lord Jesus a mere man?" answer, "By no means: for he was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin; and therefore from his birth and conception was the Son of God, as we read in Luke 1:35;"—the place insisted on by the gentleman we are dealing withal.

Of the same mind are the residue of their companions. So do Ostorodius 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." "They teach," say they, "Jesus Christ to be that man that was conceived of the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin; besides and before whom they acknowledge no only-begotten Son of God truly existing. Moreover, they teach him to be God, and the only-begotten Son of God, by reason of his conception of the Holy Ghost," etc. Smalcius hath written a whole book of the true divinity of Jesus Christ; wherein he hath gathered together whatever excellencies they will allow to be ascribed unto him, making his deity to be the exurgency of them all. Therefore is he God, and the Son of God, because the things he there treats of are ascribed unto him! Among these, in his third chapter, which is "Of the conception and nativity of Jesus Christ," he gives this principal account why he is called the "Son of God," even from his conception and nativity. "He was," saith he, "conceived of the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary; because of which manner of conception and nativity he was by the angel called the 'Son of God,' and so may really be called the 'natural Son of God,' because he was born such. Only, Jesus Christ was brought forth to light by God his Father without the help of man."3

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." "I say," saith he, "that Christ is deservedly called the 'natural Son of God,' because he was born the Son of God, although he was not begotten of the substance of God. And that he was born the Son of God another way, and not by the generation of the substance of God, the words of the angel prove, Luke 1:35. Therefore, because that man, Jesus of Nazareth, who is called Christ, was begotten not by the help of any man, but by the operation of the Holy Spirit in the womb of his mother, he is therefore, or for that cause, called the 'Son of God.' " So he against Weik the Jesuit. He is followed by Volkelius, lib. v. cap. xi. p. 468; whose book, indeed, is a mere casting into a kind of a method what was written by Socinus and others, scattered in sundry particulars, and whose method is pursued and improved by Episcopius. Jonas Schlichtingius, amongst them all, seems to do most of himself. I shall therefore add his testimony, to show their consent in the assignation of this cause of the appellation of the "Son of God," ascribed to our blessed Saviour. "There are," saith he, "many sayings of Scripture which show that Christ is in a peculiar manner, and on an account not common to any other, the Son of God; but yet we may not hence conclude that he is a Son on a natural account, when besides this, and that more common, another reason may be given which hath place in Christ. Is he not the Son of God on a singular account, and that which is common to no other, if of God himself, by the virtue and efficacy of the Holy Spirit, he was conceived and begotten in the womb of his mother?"2

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 may 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 they wipe their mouths, and say they have done no evil

But now, lest 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 than 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, and 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 than in mine. In his answer to the second part of the refutation of Socinus by Smiglecius, cap. xvii. xviii., be 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 made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God," etc, Rom. 1:3, 4. He says then, cap. xviii. 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 genetationem adjecisse, quod in generationem hominis ex parte viri ad hominem producendum adjici 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 Virginia substantia accessit, verus homo generatus fuit. Alias enim homo ille, Dei Filius a conceptione et nativitate proprie non fuisset," cap. xvii. p. 150. Very good; unless this abominable figment 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 have only 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; and unless this be granted, they affirm that Christ cannot be called the "Son of God." But let us hear this great rabbi of Mr B.'s religion a little farther clearing up this mystery:—"Necessitas magna fuit, ut Christus ab initio vitæ suæ esset Deo Filius, qualis futurus non fuisset nisi Dei virtute aliquid creatum fuisset, quod ad constituendum Christi corpus, una cum Mariæ sanguine concurrit. Mansit autem nihilominus sanguis Mariæ Virginia purissimus, etiamsi cum alio aliquo semine commixtus fuit. Potuit enim tam purum, imo purius semen, a Deo creari, et proculdubio creatum fuit, quam erat sanguis Mariæ. Communis denique sensus et 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, facile cum ipsa veritate conciliari potest, ut scilicet semen illud, quod a Deo creatum, et cum semine Mariæ 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. xviii. p. 158. And thus far are men arrived: Unless this horrible figment 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 somewhat the more on these things, that men may judge the better whether in all probability Mr B., 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 excellencies and that power given him wherein his Godhead 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. "Neither," saith he, "was Christ God all the while he was the Son of God. To be the Son of God is referred to his birth, and all understand how one may be called the "Son of God" for his birth or original. But God none can be (besides that one God), but for his likeness to God. So that when Christ was made like God, by the divine qualities which were in him, he was most rightly so far the Son of God as he was God, and so far God as he was the Son of God. But before he had obtained that likeness to God, properly he could not be said to be God."

And these are some of those monstrous figments 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 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 gods in Mr 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 excellencies 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. "If," saith he, "what is the signification of this word adoptivus may be considered from the Scripture, we deny not but that Christ in this manner may be called the 'adopted Son of God,' seeing that such is the property and condition of an adopted son that he is not born such as he is afterward made by adoption. Certainly, seeing that Christ was not such by nature, or in his conception and nativity, as he was afterward in his succeeding age, he may justly on that account be called the 'adopted Son of God.' " Such miserable plunges doth Satan drive men into whose eyes he hath once blinded, that the glorious light of the gospel should not shine into them! And by this we may understand, whatever they add farther concerning the sonship of Christ, that all belongs to this adopted sonship; whereof there is not one tittle in the whole book 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." "He is the only-begotten Son of God," say the authors of the Compendium of the religion before mentioned, "because God sanctified him, and sent him into the world, and because of his exaltation at the right hand of God, whereby he was made our Lord and God."

If the reader desire to hear them speak in their own words, let him consult Smalcius, De Vera Divinit. Jes. Christ, cap. vii., etc.; Socin. Disput. cum Erasmo Johan. Rationum quatuor antecedent. Refut. Disput. de Christi Natura, pp. 14, 15; Adversus Weikum, pp. 224, 225, et passim; Volkel. De Vera Relig. lib. v. cap. x.–xii.; Jonas Schlicht. ad Meisner., pp. 192, 193, etc.; 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, pp. 16–20, as also his Notes upon Vechnerus' Sermon on John 1. p. 14, etc.; Anonym. Respon. ad Centum Argumenta Cichorii Jesuitæ, pp. 8–10; Confessio Fidei Christianæ, edita nomine Ecclesiarum in Polonia, pp. 24, 25.

Their good friend Episcopius hath ordered all their causes of Christ's filiation under four heads:—

1. The first way (saith he) whereby Christ is in the Scripture κατʼ ἐξοχὴν, called the "Son of God," is in that as man he was conceived of the Holy Ghost, and born of a virgin. And I doubt not (saith he) but that God is on this ground called eminently the "Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."

2. Jesus Christ by reason of that duty or office which was imposed on him by his Father, that he should be the king of Israel promised by the prophets, is called the "Son of God."

3. Because he was raised up by the Father to an immortal life, and, as it were, born again from the womb of the earth without the help of any mother.

4. Because being so raised from death, he is made complete heir of his Father's house, and lord of all his heavenly goods, saints, and angels.

The like he had written before, in his Apology for the Remonstrants, cap. ii. sect. 2.

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 acknowledgment of this truth is not fundamental, or the denial of it exclusive of salvation! So this great reconciler of the Arminian and Socinian religions, whose composition and unity into an opposition to them whom he calls Calvinists is the great design of his Theological Institutions; and such at this day is the aim of Curcellæus and some others. By the way, I shall desire (before I answer what he offers to confirm his assignation of this fourfold manner of filiation to Jesus Christ) to ask this learned gentleman (or those 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 can he or they 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 [three?] things:—I. Show 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. II. 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 Mr B. or others is objected to the contrary. III. To which I shall add testimonies and arguments for the deity of Christ,—whose opposition is the main business of that new religion which Mr B. would catechise poor unstable souls into,—in the vindication of those excepted against by the Racovians.

I. 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 he 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, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," Matt. 3:17; "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," chap. 16:16, John 6:69.

Which [latter] place in Matthew is the rather remarkable, because it is the confession of the faith of the apostles, given in answer to that question, "Whom say ye 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, chap. 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." These words comprise 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 us 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, and eternal life," 1 John 5:20. "He spared not his own Son," Rom. 8:32. "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father," John 1:14. "No man hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him," verse 18. "He said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God," John 5:18. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son," John 3:16. "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world," 1 John 4:9. "Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee," Ps. 2:7, etc. All which places will be afterward vindicated at large.

To prove the inference laid down, I shall fix on one or two of these instances:—

1. He who is ἴδιος υἱός, the "proper son" of any, is begotten of the substance of his father. Christ is the proper Son of God, and God he called often ἴδιον Πατέρα, 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 ἴδιος, 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, and 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 [one] of adoption, but this of nature, as shall afterward appear.

Again; he who is properly a son is distinguished from him who is metaphorically so only; for any thing whatever 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 Father's essence. Besides, in that 8th of the Romans, the apostle had before mentioned other sons of God, who became so by adoption, verses 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 favour. 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 emphatical, discriminating significancy of that voice from heaven, "This is he, that well-beloved Son of mine;" and that testimony which in the same manner Peter gave to this son-ship 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.

3. 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 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 honour; for between that dignity, power, and honour, which belong to God as God, and that dignity or honour that is or may be given to any other, there is no proportion, much less equality, as shall be evidenced at large afterward. 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, because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God," John 5:17, 18. Verse 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 inferred 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 and evident. Grotius expounds Ἴσον ἑαυτὸν τῷ Θεῷ, by "It was lawful for him to do what was so to God, and that he was no more bound to the Sabbath than he; which," saith he, "was a gross calumny." So verse 19, these words of our Saviour, "The Son can do nothing of himself but what he seeth the Father do" (wherein the emphasis lies evidently in the words ἀφʼ ἑαυτοῦ, 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 looks diligently to what his master doth, and strives to imitate him, so was it with Christ and God;—which exposition was the very same with that which the Arians assigned to this place, as Maldonate upon the place makes appear. That it was not an equal licence with the Father to work on the Sabbath, but an equality of essence, nature, and power between Father and Son, that the Jews concluded from the saying of Christ, is evident from this consideration, that there was no strength in that plea of our Saviour of working on the Sabbath-day because his Father did so, without the violation of the Sabbath, unless there had been an equality between the persons working. That the Jews did herein calumniate Christ or accuse him falsely, the Tritheists said, indeed, as Zanchius testifies;3 and Socinus is of the same mind, whose interest Grotius chiefly serves in his Annotations: but the whole context and carriage of the business, with the whole reply of our Saviour, do abundantly manifest that the Jews, as to their conclusion, were in the right, that he made himself such a Son of God as was equal to him. For if in this conclusion they had been mistaken, and so had calumniated 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 sought 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 appears in the winding up of that discourse: Verse 11, "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, verse 33.

This place also is attempted to be taken out of our hands by Grotius, though with no better success than the former. Ἐγὼ καὶ ὁ Πατὴρ ἕν ἐσμεν. "He joineth what he had spoken with what went before," saith he: "If they cannot be taken from my Father's power, they cannot be taken from mine, for I have my power of my Father; so that it is all one 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 alike prevalency of power, that our Saviour intends, [is evident,] 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 labour to free them), but also from the exposition of his mind in those words, which is given us in our Saviour's following discourse: for, verse 36, 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), and then that "he doeth the works of his Father," the same works that his Father doeth, verses 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," verse 38: of which words before and afterward.

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,—

4. 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," Ps. 2:7. And he is "the only-begotten Son of God," John 3:18. And that he is so begotten by a communication of essence we have his own testimony: "Before the hills, was I brought forth," Prov. 8:25. He was begotten and brought forth from eternity. And now he tells you farther, John 5:26, "The Father hath given to the Son to have life in himself." It was by the Father's 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 was I brought forth," etc., Prov. 8:22, etc., to the end of verse 31. "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting," Micah 5:2. "In the beginning was the Word," John 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," John 17:5. "And again, when he bringeth in the first-begotten into the world, he saith," etc., Heb. 1:6, etc.

5. The farther description which we have given us of this Son makes it yet more evident: "He is the brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person," Heb. 1:3. "The image of the invisible God," Col. 1:15. That Christ is the essential image of his Father, and 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 these 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.

II. That he is and is termed the Son of God solely on this account, and not upon the reasons mentioned by Mr B. and explained from his companions, is with equal clearness evinced. Nay, I see not how any thing 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 scriptures calling him the Son of God in respect of his divine nature, in opposition to the flesh or his human nature: "Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; and declared to be the Son of God with power," Rom. 1:3, 4. "Of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever," 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: Verses 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 ἐν δυνάμει, "in power," or "existing in the power of God," for so δύναμις put absolutely doth often signify: as Rom. 1:20; Matt. 6:13, 26:64; Luke 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 κατὰ Πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης (which is opposed to κατὰ σάρκα), "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 Πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης· himself is called קֹדֶשׁ קָדָשִׁים, 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, ἐξ ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν, "by the" (or 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.) Ὁρισθέντος, he tells us, is as much as προορισθέντος, as by the Vulgar Latin it is translated prœdestinatus. 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. Luke 22:22, Acts 10:42, 17:31, are also urged by him to evince the 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 (which is not proved), yet that it here doth so will not follow. Ὅρος, a "definition" (from whence that word comes), declares what a thing is, makes it known; and ὁρίζω may best be rendered "to declare," Heb. 4:7. So in this place. Τί οὖν ἐστιν ὁρισθέντος τοῦ Θεοῦ; δειχθέντος, ἀποφανθέντος, says Chrysostom 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 Saviour: 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, Acts 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 verse 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 Saviour, 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 ἐν δυνάμει." The first sense of the word ὁρισθέντος 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 fore-appointing 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 ὁρισθέντος to be "prefigured"? Is there the least colour for such a sense? "Predestinated to be the Son of God with power;" that is, "The signs he wrought prefigured that he should be exalted to a kingdom." He was by them in a good towardliness for it. It is true, δυνάμεις, and sometimes δύναμις, being in construction with some transitive verb, doth signify "great" or "marvellous works;" but that ἐν δυνάμει, 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, Luke 1:35; Mark 2:8; John 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 afterward 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 nature," this whole interpretation falls to the ground. To make out the sense of the words, he proceeds, "Jesus therefore is showed to be noble on the mother's side, as coming of an earthly king; but more noble on his Father's part, being made a heavenly king of God, after his resurrection, Heb. 5:9; Acts 2:30, 26:23." And thus is this most evident testimony of the deity of Christ eluded, or endeavoured to be so. Christ on the mother's side was the "son of David,"—that is, "according to the flesh,"—of the same nature with her and him. On the Father's 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 a heavenly king," is a hellish figment, neither is there any one word or tittle in the texts cited to prove it; so 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 these accounts, but on that only which is antecedent to them. Now, by virtue of all the arguments and testimonies before cited, 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 unmoveably 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 Son's name, if thou canst tell?" He was, therefore, the Son of God, and he was incomprehensible, even then before his incarnation. Ps. 2:7, "Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee." Isa. 9:6, "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, 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 testimonies belongs what we urged before from Prov. 8:22, etc. "He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature," Col. 1:15, which surely as to his incarnation he was not. "Before Abraham was, I am," John 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 unto the Son of God." But now Christ, in respect of his conception and nativity, had a mother (and one, they say, that supplied the room of father), had a genealogy that is upon record, and beginning of life, etc.; 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 Melchisedec was made like to him. I shall only add,—

4. That which only manifests the filiation 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 things insisted on as the causes of Christ's filiation, by them with whom we have to do, did only declare and 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 born of thee shall be called the Son of God," Luke 1:35. He shall be called so,—thereby declared to be so: "And great was 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 of 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, 4. The absurdity of assigning distinct and so far different causes of the same effect of filiation, 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 innocency, 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 than we do, namely, 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 and rise that he might be made God and the Son of God. (5.) Neither can any eximious love of Christ to us be seen in what he did and suffered; for had he not done and suffered what he did, he had not been the Son of God. (6.) And also, if Christ be, on the account of his excellencies, graces, 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 into the image of God, and are thereby the sons of God (as are all believers), are gods 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. Secondly, To consider the texts of Scripture produced by Mr 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 made Son;—of which distinctions, 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 constituting, and 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.

Secondly, There remaineth only the consideration of those texts of Scripture which Mr B. produceth to insinuate the filiation of Christ to depend on other causes, and not on his eternal generation of the essence of his Father; which, on the principles laid down and proved, will receive a quick and speedy despatch.

1. The first place named by him, and universally insisted on by the whole tribe, is Luke 1:30–35. It is the last verse only that I suppose weight is laid upon. Though Mr B. names the others, his masters never do so. That of verses 31, 32 seems to deserve our notice in Mr B.'s 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 Mr 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 born of the Virgin, was a 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 verse 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 that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." But neither do these particles, διὸ καὶ, render a reason of Christ's filiation, nor are [they] a note of the consequent, 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 born of thee shall be called the Son of God." There is weight also in that expression, Ἅγιον τὸ γεννώμενον, "That holy thing that shall be born of thee." Ἅγιον 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 any thing 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 prophecy 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 Immanuel," as the express words of Luke declare, being the same with those of the prophecy, "Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call," etc., verses 31, 32. And Matt. 1:20, 21, this very thing being related, it is said expressly to be done according to what was foretold by the prophet, verses 22, 23, repeating the very words of the Holy Ghost by Isaiah, which are mentioned before. Now Isaiah foretelleth two things:—(1.) 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 inquiry, verse 34, even that, according to the prediction of Isaiah, she should conceive and bear a son, though a virgin, and that that son of her's should be called the "Son of God."

By the way, Grotius' dealing with this text, both in his annotations on Isa. 7, as also in his large discourse on Matt. 1:21–23, is intolerable and full of offence to all that seriously weigh it. It is too large here to be insisted on. His main design is to prove that this is not spoken directly of Christ, but only applied to him by a certain general accommodation. God may give time and leisure farther to lay open the heap of abominations which are couched in those learned annotations throughout. Which also appears,—

3. From the emphaticalness of the expression διὸ καὶ, "even also." "That holy thing which is to be born of thee, even that shall be called the Son of God, and not only that eternal Word that is to be incarnate. That ἅγιον τὸ γεννώμενον, being in itself ἀνυπόστατον, 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 Virgin's conception declared; that which was "born of her should be called the Son of God."

And this Socinus is so sensible of that he dares not say that Christ was completely 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 not like God before in immortality and absolute rule."

Mr B.'s next place, whereby the sonship of Christ is placed on another account, as he supposes, is John 10:36, "Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?"

That this scripture is called to remembrance not at all to Mr 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 twenty 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 robbery 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, verse 33, "That he, being a 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, verse 30, which was the foundation of all the following discourse about his blasphemy, "I and my Father are one." So that,—

3. An invincible 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 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 witness to the Jews, although they are ready to stone him for it; and of his not blaspheming in this assertion he convinces his adversaries by an argument a minori, verses 34–36.

A brief analysis of this place will give evidence to this interpretation of the words. Our Saviour Christ having given the reason why the Jews believed not on him, namely, "because they were not of his sheep," verse 26, describes thereupon both the nature of those sheep of his, verse 27, and their condition of safety, verse 28. This he farther confirms from the consideration of his Father's greatness and power, which is amplified by the comparison of it with others, who are all less than he, verse 29; as also from his own power and will, which appears to be sufficient for that end and purpose from his essential unity with his Father, verse 30. The effect of this discourse of Christ by accident is the Jews taking up of stones, which is amplified by this, that it was the second time they did so, and that to this purpose, that they might stone him, verse 31. Their folly and madness herein Christ disproves with an argument ab absurdo, telling them that it must be for some good work that they stoned him, for evil had he done none, verse 32. This the Jews attempt to disprove by a new argument a disparatis, 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, verse 33. This pretence of blasphemy Christ disproves, as I said before, by an argument a minori, verses 34–36, and with another from the effects or the works which he did, which sufficiently proved him to be God, verses 37, 38, still maintaining what he said and what they thought to be blasphemy; so that they attempt again to kill him, verse 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, Gal. 4:4, John 3:13; 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, the Son of God was not sent, but one to be his Son.

Acts 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."

1. 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 than 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 any thing 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. 1:4. 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, John 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, Matt. 28:18; as Justin in his colloquy with Trypho: Τότε γένεσιν αὐτοῦ λέγων γενέσθαι, ἐξότου ἡ γνῶσις αὐτοῦ ἔμελλε γενέσθαι." (1.) But then he was 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 Luke 1:35. (2.) Christ was a king before his resurrection, and owned himself so to be, as hath been showed. (3.) Justin's 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 his resurrection, [is evident] from the pre-eminence assigned unto him above angels by virtue of this expression, Heb. 1:5, which he had before his death, chap. 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 up from the dead," etc., Acts 13:34, 35. But then,—

3. It is not an interpretation of the meaning of that passage in the psalm which Paul, Acts 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 Mr 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 rise after 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, πρωτότοκος ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν,—the first-born 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 πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως, "the first-born of all the creation;" so that he must surely be πρωτότοκος before his resurrection. Nay, he is so the first-born of every creature as to be none of them; for by him they were all created, verse 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 for ever:" which when our catechist disproves, he shall have me for one of his disciples.

Of the same kind is that which Mr B. next urgeth from Heb. 1:4, 5, only it hath this farther 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, à priori, is in his participation of the divine nature, and that it is only manifested by any ensuing consideration. Verses 2, 3, the Holy Ghost tells us that "by him God made the worlds, 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. And verse 6, "He bringeth in the first-begotten into the world, and saith, 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 afterward demonstrated. Between both these, much is not like to be spoken against the eternal sonship of Christ. Nor is the apostle only declaring his pre-eminence 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 appellation he had before declared.

The last place urged to this purpose is of the same import. It is Heb. 5:5, "So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest; but he that said unto him, Thou art my Son, to-day have I begotten thee." When Mr B. proves any thing more towards his purpose from 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, to-day have I begotten thee," declaring him so to be with power after his resurrection, I shall acknowledge him to have better skill in disputing than as yet I am convinced he is possessed of.

And thus have I cleared the eternal sonship of Jesus Christ, and evinced the vanity of attempting to fix his prerogative therein upon any other account, not 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 kinds, inconsistent with one another, to have had such a conception and 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 of Christ, whereby Mr B.'s whole design will be obviated, and the vindication of the testimonies wherewith 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, which will, upon the principles already laid down and insisted on, easily and in very few words be turned aside from prejudicing the eternal deity of the Son of God. His 10th, then, is,—

"What saith the Son himself concerning the prerogative of God the Father above him?" and answer is given John 14:28; Mark 13:32; Matt. 24:36: whereunto is subjoined another of the same, "What saith the apostle Paul?—A. 1 Cor. 15:24, 28, 11:3, 3:22, 23."

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, namely, that of a divine nature therein, the whole of Mr B.'s 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 Mr B., but that which he underwent by dispensation as mediator, 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. 2:7–9. 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 than he. And there is no more difficulty in the questions wherewith Mr B. amuses himself and his disciples than there was in that wherewith our Saviour stopped the mouth of the Pharisees,—namely, how Christ could be the son of David, and yet his Lord, whom he worshipped. For the places of Scripture in particular urged by Mr B., [such as] John 14:28, says out Saviour, "My Father is greater than 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 "inæqualitas officii non tollit æqualitatem naturæ." A king's son is of the same nature with his father, though he may be employed by him in an inferior office. He that was less than his Father as to the work of mediation, being the Father's servant therein, is equal to him as his Son, as God to be blessed for ever. Mark 13:32, Matt. 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," John 21:17. He that in and of the knowledge and 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 Mr B. 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 φυσικὰ καὶ ἀδιάζλητα πάθη, amongst which, or consequently unto which, he might be ignorant of some things. In the meantime, he who made all things, 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 hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," 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 any thing 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, and 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, 12th, "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,] Thomas said, "My Lord and my God." Verily, if Thomas said that Christ was his God, and said true, Mr 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 Mr B. made mention of this portion of Scripture that he might have the honour 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. Whatever be the cause of it, Mr B. is very far from escaping this sword of the Lord, either by his insinuation in the present query, 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 Mr B. tells us that Christians have but one God, chap. 1. ques. 1, Eph. 4:6. Jesus Christ, then, being the God of Thomas, he is the Christians' one God, if Mr 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 believer's faith, that in these words is expressed. Christ is the Lord and God of a believer; ergo the only true God, as 1 John 5:20. Mr 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. Καὶ ὁ Θεός μου. "Here first," saith he, "in the story of the gospel, is this word found ascribed by the apostle unto Jesus Christ" (which Maldonate 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 Justin Martyr against Trypho, but in the Epistle also of Pliny unto Trajan, where he says that the Christians sang verses to Christ as to God;" or, as the words are in the author, "Carmen Christo, quasi Deo, dicere secum invicem." What the intendment of this discourse is is evident to all those who are a little exercised in the writings of them whom our author all along in his Annotations takes care of. That Christ was now made a God at his resurrection, and is so called from the power wherewith he was intrusted 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" he 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 so continued; though John testifies expressly that he was God in the beginning. It is true, indeed, much is not to be urged from the expressions of the apostles before the pouring 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," Matt. 16:16–18, which is to the full as much as what is here by 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 testimonies than 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, Mr B. nextly queries: "Q. Was he so the God of Thomas as that he himself in the meantime did not acknowledge another to be his God?—A. John 20:17; Rev. 3:12."

True, he who, being partaker of the divine essence, in the form of God, was Thomas' 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 Mr B. fancies him, but "God blessed for ever," in order of subsistence depending on the Father.

Of the same nature is the last question, namely, "Have you any passage in 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."

By Mr B.'s favour, Christ is not said to have a God, though God be said to be his God. Verse 8, Christ, by Mr B.'s 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; and indeed such is the Christ that Mr B. worshippeth. Whether this will be waived by the help of that expression, verse 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 inquiry and labour, to discover the sophistry and vanity of all Mr B.'s former queries and insinuations; for which let him have the praise.

CHAPTER VIII

An entrance into the examination of the Racovian Catechism in the business of the deity of Christ

Their arguments against it answered; and testimonies of the eternity of Christ vindicated.

III. ALTHOUGH the testimonies and 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, 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 testimonies for the eternal deity of Christ is comprised in that chapter, there being not any thing material that any of them have elsewhere written there omitted. And those who are acquainted with them, their persons and abilities, do also know that their great strength and ability for disputation lies in giving plausible answers, and making exceptions against testimonies, cavilling 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 a hundred 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 tests 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 apologize 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 defence against the evidence of the light that shineth from the tests 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:—

Ques. Declare now to me what I ought to know concerning Jesus Christ?

Ans. Thou must know that of the things of which thou oughtest to know, some belong to the essence of Christ and some to his office.

Q. 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 a one as God of old promised by the prophets, and such as the creed, 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, Wigelius, etc., and the Familists 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 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 folly 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, Ps. 2:7; "The mighty God," Isa. 9:6, 7; "Jehovah," Jer. 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, Jer. 17:5.

Q. Is therefore the Lord Jesus a pure (or mere) man?

A. By no means; for he was conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, and therefore from his very conception and birth was the Son of God, as we read, Luke 1:35, that I may not bring other causes, which thou wilt afterward find in the person of Christ, which most evidently declare that the Lord Jesus can by no means be esteemed a pure (or mere) man.

Ans. 1. But I have abundantly demonstrated that Christ neither was nor was called the Son of God upon the account here mentioned, nor any other whatever intimated in the close of the answer, 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 honour he can have possibly conferred upon him, let him be born by what means soever, as to his essence and nature he is a man still, but a man, and not more than a man,—that is, purus homo, a "mere man,"—and not φύσει Θεός, "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 honourable thoughts of Christ, whom yet they think no otherwise of than the Turks do of Mohammed, nor believe he was otherwise indeed, or is to Christians, than as Moses to the Jews. That which Paul speaks of the idols of the heathen, that they were not gods 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 deity are the same upon the matter with those of the heathen concerning their worthies and heroes, who, by an ἀποθέωσις, were translated into the number of their gods, as Jupiter, Hercules, and others. They called them gods, indeed; but put them close to it, they acknowledged that properly there was but one God, but that these men were honoured as being, upon [account of] their great worth and noble achievements, 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 deified; but in respect of essence and nature, which here is inquired after, if he be any thing 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, than that wherein he was like us in all things, sin only excepted, Heb. 2:17.

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 deity of Christ be repugnant to the Scriptures or no. And as we shall see in the issue that as these catechists have not been able to answer or evade the evidence of any one testimony of Scripture, of more than an hundred that are produced for the confirmation of the truth of his eternal deity, so, notwithstanding the pretended flourish here at the entrance, that they are not able to produce any one place of Scripture, so much as in appearance, rising up against it. [As] for that right reason, which in this matter of mere divine revelation they boast of, and give it the pre-eminence in their disputes against the person of Christ above the Scripture, unless they discover the consonancy of it to the word, to the law and testimony, whatever they propose on that account may be rejected with as much facility as it is proposed. But yet, if by "right reason" they understand reason so far captivated to the obedience of faith as to acquiesce in whatever God hath revealed, and to receive it as truth,—than which duty there is not any more eminent dictate of right reason indeed,—we for ever deny the first part of this assertion, and shall now attend to the proof of it. Nor do we here plead that reason is blind and corrupted, and that the natural man cannot discern the things of God, and so require that men do prove themselves regenerate before we admit them to judge of the truth of the propositions under debate; which though necessary for them who would know the gospel for their own good, so as to be wise unto salvation, yet it being the grammatical and literal sense of propositions as laid down in the word of the Scripture that we are to judge of in this case, we require no more of men, to the purpose in hand, but an assent to this proposition (which if they will not give, we can by undeniable demonstration compel them to), "Whatever God, who is prima veritas, hath revealed is true, whether we can comprehend the things revealed or no;" which being granted, we proceed with our catechists in their attempt.

Q. Declare how it is contrary to right reason.

A. 1. In this regard, that two substances having contrary properties cannot meet in one person; such as are to be mortal and immortal, to have a beginning and to want a beginning, to be changeable and unchangeable. 2. Because two natures, each of them constituting a person, cannot likewise agree or meet in one person; for instead of one there must (then) be two persons, and so also two Christs would exist, whom all without controversy acknowledge to be one, and his person one.

And this is all which these gentlemen offer to make good their assertion that the deity of Christ is repugnant to right reason; which, therefore, upon what small pretence they have done, will quickly appear.

1. It is true that there cannot be such a personal uniting of two substances with such diverse properties as by that union to make an exequation, or an equalling of those diverse properties; but that there may not be such a concurrence and meeting of such different substances in one person, both of them preserving entire to themselves their essential properties, which are so diverse, there is nothing pleaded nor pretended. And to suppose that there cannot be such an union is to beg the thing in question against the evidence of many express testimonies of Scripture, without tendering the least inducement for any to grant their request.

2. In calling these properties of the several natures in Christ "adverse" or "contrary," they would insinuate a consideration of them as of qualities in a subject, whose mutual contrariety should prove destructive to the one, if not both, or, by a mixture, cause an exurgency of qualities of another temperature. But neither are these properties such qualities, nor are they inherent in any common subject; but [they are] inseparable adjuncts of the different natures of Christ, never mixed with one another, nor capable of any such thing to eternity, nor ever becoming properties of the other nature, which they belong not unto, though all of them do denominate the person wherein both the natures do subsist. So that instead of pleading reason, which they pretended they would, they do nothing, in this first part of their answer, but beg the thing in question; which, being of so much importance and concernment to our souls, is never like to be granted them on any such terms. Will Christ, on their entreaties, cease to be God?

Neither is their second pretended argument of any other kind.

1. We deny that the human nature of Christ had any such subsistence of its own as to give it a proper personality, being from the time of its conception assumed into subsistence with the Son of God. This we prove by express texts of Scripture, Isa. 7:14, 9:6; John 1:14; Rom. 1:3, 9:5; Heb. 2:16; Luke 1:35; Heb. 9:14; Acts 3:15, 20:28; Phil. 2:7; 1 Cor. 2:8, etc.; and by arguments taken from the assigning of all the diverse properties by them mentioned before, and sundry others, to the same person of Christ, etc. That we would take it for granted that this cannot be, is the modest request of these gentlemen with whom we have to do.

2. If by natures constituting persons they mean those who, antecedently to their union, have actually done so, we grant they cannot meet in one person, so that upon this union they should cease to be two persons. The personality of either of them being destroyed, their different beings could not be preserved. But if by "constituting" they understand only that which is so in potentia, or a next possibility of constituting a person, then, as before, they only beg of us that we would not believe that the person of the Word did assume the human nature of Christ, that "holy thing that was born of the Virgin," into subsistence with itself; which, for the reasons before mentioned, and others like to them, we cannot grant.

And this is the substance of all that these men plead and make a noise with in the world, in an opposition to the eternal deity of the Son of God! This pretence of reason (which evidently comes short of being any thing else) is their shield and buckler in the cause they have unhappily undertaken. When they tell us of Christ's being hungry and dying, we say it was in the human nature, wherein he was obnoxious to such things no less than we, being therein made like unto us in all things, sin only excepted;—when of his submission and subjection to his Father, we tell them it is in respect of the office of mediator, which he willingly undertook, and that his inequality unto him as to that office doth no way prejudice his equality with him in respect of his nature and being. But when, with the Scriptures and arguments from thence, as clear and convincing as if they were written with the beams of the sun, we prove our dear Lord Jesus, in respect of a divine nature, whereof he was partaker from eternity, to be God, blessed for ever, they tell us it cannot be that two such diverse natures as those of God and man should be united in one person; and it cannot be so, because it cannot be so,—there is no such union among other things! And these things must be, that those who are approved may be tried. But let us hear them out.

Q. But whereas they show that Christ consisteth of a divine and human nature, as a man consisteth of soul and body, what is to be answered them?

A. That here is a very great difference; for they say that the two natures in Christ are so united that Christ is both God and man. But the soul and body are in that manner conjoined in man, that a man is neither soul nor body; for neither soul nor body doth singly of itself constitute a person. But as the divine nature by itself constitutes a person, so it is necessary that the human nature should do.

Ans. 1. In what sense it may be said that Christ, that is, the person of Christ, consisteth of a divine and human nature, was before declared. The person of the Son of God assumed the human nature into subsistence with itself, and both in that one person are Christ.

2. If our catechists have no more to say, to the illustration given of the union of the two natures in the person of Christ by that of the soul and body in one human person, but that there is "a great difference" in something between them, they do but filch away the grains that are allowed to every similitude, and show wherein the comparates differ, but answer not to that wherein they do agree.

3. All that is intended by this similitude is, to show that besides the change of things, one into another, by the loss of one, as of water into wine by Christ, and besides the union that is in physical generation by mixture, whereby and from whence some third thing ariseth, that also there is a substantial union, whereby one thing is not turned into another nor mixed with it. And the end of using this similitude (which, to please our catechists, we can forbear, acknowledging that there is not among created beings any thing that can fully represent this, which we confess "without controversy to be a great mystery") is only to manifest the folly of that assertion of their master on John 1., "That if the 'Word be made flesh' in our sense, it must be turned into flesh; for," saith he, "one thing cannot be made another but by change, conversion, and mutation into it:" the absurdity of which assertion is sufficiently evinced by the substantial union of soul and body, made one person, without that alteration and change of their natures which is pleaded for. Neither is the Word made flesh by alteration, but by union.

4. It is confessed that the soul is not said to be made the body, nor the body said to be made the soul, as the Word is said to be made flesh; for the union of soul and body is not a union of distinct substances subsisting in one common subsistence, but a union of two parts of one nature, whereof the one is the form of the other. And herein is the dissimilitude of that similitude. Hence will that predication be justified in Christ, "The Word was made flesh," without any change or alteration, because of that subsistence whereunto the flesh or human nature of Christ was assumed, which is common to them both. And so it is in accidental predications. When we say a man is made white, black, or pale, we do not intend that he is as to his substance changed into whiteness, etc., but that he who is a man is also become white.

5. It is true that the soul is not a person, nor the body, but a person is the exurgency of their conjunction: and therefore we do not say that herein the similitude is [to be] urged, for the divine nature of Christ had its own personality antecedent to this union; nor is the union of his person the union of several parts of the same nature, but the concurrence of several natures in one subsistence.

6. That it is "of necessity that Christ's human nature should of itself constitute a person," is urged upon the old account of begging the thing in question. This is that which in the case of Christ we deny, and produce all the proofs before mentioned to make evident the reason of our denial; but our great masters here say the contrary, and our under-catechists are resolved to believe them. Christ was a true man, because he had the true essence of a man, soul and body, with all their essential properties. A peculiar personality belongeth not to the essence of a man, but to his existence in such a manner. Neither do we deny Christ to have a person as a man, but to have a human person: for the human nature of Christ subsisteth in that which, though it be in itself divine, yet as to that act of sustentation which it gives the human nature, is the subsistence of a man; on which account the subsistence of the human nature of Christ is made more noble and excellent than that of any other man whatever.

And this is the whole plea of our catechists from reason, that whereto they so much pretend, and which they give the pre-eminence unto in their attempts against the deity of Christ, as the chief, if not the only engine they have to work by. And if they be thus weak in the main body of their forces, certainly that reserve which they pretend from Scripture,—whereof, indeed, they have the meanest pretence and show that ever any of the sons of men had who were necessitated to make a plea from it in a matter of so great concernment as that now under consideration,—will quickly disappear. Thus, then, they proceed:—

Q. Declare, also, how it is repugnant to Scripture that Christ hath a divine nature.

A. First, Because that the Scripture proposeth to us one only God by nature, whom we have above declared to be the Father of Christ. Secondly, The same Scripture testifieth that Jesus Christ was by nature a man, whereby it taketh from him any divine nature. Thirdly, Because whatever divine thing Christ hath, the Scripture plainly teacheth that he had it by a gift of the Father, Matt. 28:18; Phil. 2:9; 1 Cor. 15:27; John 5:19, 10:25. Lastly, Because the same Scripture most evidently showing that Jesus Christ did not vindicate and ascribe all his divine works to himself, or to any divine nature? of his own, but to his Father, makes it plain that divine nature in Christ was altogether in vain, and would have been without any cause.

And this is that which our catechists have to pretend from Scripture against the deity of Christ, concluding that any such divine nature in him would be superfluous and needless,—themselves being judges. In the strength of what here they have urged, they set themselves to evade the evidence of near fifty express texts of Scripture, by themselves produced and insisted on, giving undeniable testimony to the truth they oppose. Let, then, what they have brought forth be briefly considered:—

1. The Scripture doth indeed propose unto us "one only God by nature," and we confess that that only true God is the "Father of our Lord Jesus Christ;" but we say that the Son is partaker of the Father's nature, of the same nature with him, as being his proper Son, and, by his own testimony, one with him. He is such a Son (as hath been declared) as is begotten of the essence of his Father; and is therefore God, blessed for ever. If the Father be God by nature, so is the Son; for he is of the same nature with the Father.

2. To conclude that Christ is not God because he is man, is plainly and evidently to beg the thing in question. We evidently discover in the person of Christ properties that are inseparable adjuncts of a divine nature, and such also as no less properly belong to a human nature. From the asserting of the one of these to conclude to a denial of the other, is to beg that which they are not able to dig for.

3. There is a twofold communication of the Father to the Son:—(1.) By eternal generation. So the Son receives his personality, and therein his divine nature, from him who said unto him, "Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee." And this is so far from disproving the deity of Christ that it abundantly confirms it. And this is mentioned, John 5:19–23. This Christ hath by nature. (2.) By collation of gifts, honour and dignity, exaltation and glory, upon him as mediator, or in respect of that office which he humbled himself to undergo, and for the full execution whereof and investiture [where] with glory, honour, and power were needful; which is mentioned, Matt. 28:18, Phil. 2:9, 1 Cor. 15:27: which is by no means derogatory to the deity of the Son; for inequality in respect of office is well consistent with equality in respect of nature. This Christ hath by grace. Matt. 28:18, Christ speaks of himself as thoroughly furnished with authority for the accomplishing of the work of mediation which he had undertaken. It is of his office, not of his nature or essence, that he speaks. Phil. 2:9, Christ is said to be exalted; which he was in respect of the real exaltation given to his human nature, and the manifestation of the glory of his divine, which he had with his Father before the world was, but had eclipsed for a season. 1 Cor. 15:27 relates to the same exaltation of Christ as before.

4. It is false that Christ doth not ascribe the divine works which he wrought to himself and his own divine power, although that he often also makes mention of the Father, as by whose appointment he wrought those works, as mediator: John 5:17, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work;" verse 19, "For what things soever the Father doeth, these also doeth the Son;" verse 21, "For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom he will." Himself wrought the works that he did, though as to the end of his working them, which belonged to his office of mediation, he still relates to his Father's designation and appointment.

And this is the whole of our catechists' plea from reason and Scripture against the deity of Christ. [As] for the conclusion, of the superfluousness and needlessness of such a divine nature in the Mediator, as it argues them to be ignorant of the Scriptures, and of the righteousness of God, and of the nature of sin, so it might administer occasion to insist upon the demonstration of the necessity which there was that he who was to be mediator between God and man should be both God and man, but that I aim at brevity, and the consideration of it may possibly fall in upon another account, so that here I shall not insist thereon.

Nextly, then, they address themselves to that which is their proper work (wherein they are exceedingly delighted),—namely, in giving in exceptions against the testimonies produced for the confirmation of the truth under consideration, which they thus enter upon:—

Q. But they endeavour to assert the divine nature of Christ from the Scriptures.

A. They endeavour it, indeed, diverse ways; and that whilst the study either to evince out of certain scriptures what is not in them, or whilst they argue perversely from those things which are in the scriptures, and so evilly bring their business to pass.

These, it seems, are the general heads of our arguments for the deity of Christ; but before we part we shall bring our catechists to another reckoning, and manifest both that what we assert is expressly contained in the Scriptures, and what we conclude by ratiocination from them hath an evidence in it which they are not able to resist. But they say,—

Q. What are those things which they labour to evince concerning Christ out of the Scriptures, which are not contained in them?

A. Of this sort is, as they speak, his pre-eternity; which they endeavour to confirm with two sorts of scriptures:—1. Such as wherein they suppose this pre-eternity is expressed; 2. Such as wherein, though it be not expressed, yet they think that it may be gathered from them.

That we do not only "suppose," but have also as great an assurance as the plain, evident, and redoubled testimony of the Holy Ghost can give us of the eternity of Jesus Christ, shall be made evident in the ensuing testimonies, both of the one sort and the other, especially by such as are express thereunto; for in this matter we shall very little trouble the reader with collections and arguings, the matter inquired after being express and evident in the words and terms of the Holy Ghost himself. They say, then,—

Q. Which are those testimonies of Scripture which seem to them to express his pre-eternity?

A. They are those in which the Scripture witnesseth of Christ that he was in the beginning, that he was in heaven, that he was before Abraham, John 1:1, 6:62, 8:58.

Before I come to the consideration of the particular places proposed by them to be insisted on, I shall desire to premise one or two things; as,—

1. That it is sufficient for the disproving of their hypothesis concerning Christ if we prove him to have been existent before his incarnation, whether the testimonies whereby we prove it reach expressly to the proof of his eternity or no. That which they have undertaken to maintain is, that Christ had no existence before his conception and birth of the Virgin;—which if it be disproved, they do not, they cannot, deny but that it must be on the account of a divine nature; for as to the incarnation of any pre-existing creature (which was the Arians' madness), they disavow and oppose it.

2. That those three places mentioned are very far from being all wherein there is express confirmation of the eternity of Christ; and therefore, when I have gone through the consideration of them, I shall add some others also, which are of no less evidence and perspicuity than those whose vindication we are by them called unto.

To the first place mentioned they thus proceed:—

Q. What dost thou answer to the first?

A. In the place cited there is nothing about that pre-eternity, seeing here is mention of the beginning, which is opposed to eternity. But the word "beginning" is almost always in the Scripture referred to the subject-matter, as may be seen, Dan. 8:1; John 15:27, 16:4; Acts 11:15: and therefore, seeing the subject-matter here is the gospel, whose description John undertakes, without doubt, by his word "beginning," John understood the beginning of the gospel.

This place being express to our purpose, and the matter of great importance, I shall first confirm the truth contended for from thence, and then remove the miserable subterfuge which our catechists have received from their great apostles, uncle and nephew.

1. That John, thus expressly insisting on the deity of Christ in the beginning of his Gospel, intended to disprove and condemn sundry that were risen up in those days denying it, or asserting the creation or making of the world to another demiurgus, we have the unquestionable testimony of the first professors of the religion of Jesus Christ, with as much evidence and clearness of truth as any thing can be tendered on uncontrolled tradition; which at least will give some insight into the intendment of the Holy Ghost in the words.

2. That by ὁ Λόγος, howsoever rendered, Verbum or Sermo, or on what account soever he be so called, either as being the eternal Word and Wisdom of the Father, or as the great Revealer of his will unto us (which yet of itself is not a sufficient cause of that appellation, for others also reveal the will of God unto us, Acts 20:27, Heb. 1:1), Jesus Christ is intended, is on all hands confessed, and may be undeniably evinced from the context. This ὁ Λόγος came into the world and was rejected by his own, verse 11; yea, expressly, he "was made flesh," and was "the only-begotten of the Father," verse 14.

3. That the whole of our argument from this place is very far from consisting in that expression, "In the beginning," though that, relating to the matter whereof the apostle treats, doth evidently evince the truth pleaded for. It is part of our catechists' trade so to divide the words of Scripture that their main import and tendence may not be perceived. In one place they answer to the first words, "In the beginning;" in another, to "He was with God, and he was God;" in a third, to that, "All things were made by him;" in a fourth (all at a great distance one from another), to "The Word was made flesh:" which desperate course of proceeding argues that their cause is also desperate, and that they durst not meet this one testimony, as by the Holy Ghost placed and ordered for the confirmation of our faith, without such a bold mangling of the test as that instanced in.

4. I shall, then, insist upon the whole of this testimony as the words are placed in the contexture by the Holy Ghost, and vindicate them from what, in several places, they have excepted against several parcels of them. Thus, then, from these words (these divine words, whose very reading reclaimed as eminent a scholar as the world enjoyed in his days from atheism) we proceed.

He that was in the beginning before the creation of the world, before any thing of all things that are made was made, who was then with God, and was God, who made all things, and without whom nothing was made, in whom was life,—he is God by nature, blessed for ever; nor is there, in the whole Scripture, a more glorious and eminent description of God, by his attributes, names, and works, than here is given of him concerning whom all these things are spoken. But now all this is expressly affirmed of the "Word that was made flesh;" that is, confessedly, of Jesus Christ: therefore he is God by nature, blessed for ever. Unto the several parts of this plain and evident testimony, in several places they except several things; thinking thereby to evade that strength and light which each part yields to other as they lie, and all of them to the whole. I shall consider them in order as they come to hand.

Against that expression, "In the beginning," they except, in the place mentioned above, that it doth not signify pre-eternity, which hath no beginning. But,—

1. This impedes not at all the existence of Jesus Christ before the creation, although it denies that his eternity is expressly asserted. Now, to affirm that Christ did exist before the whole creation, and made all things, doth no less prove him to be no more a creature, but the eternal God, than the most express testimony of his eternity doth or can do. 2. Though eternity has no beginning, and the sense of these words cannot be, "In the beginning of eternity," yet eternity is before all things, and "In the beginning" may be the description of eternity, as it is plainly, Prov. 8:23. "From everlasting," and "In the beginning, before the earth was," are of the same import. And the Scripture saying that "In the beginning the Word was," not "was made," doth as evidently express eternity as it doth in these other phrases of, "Before the world was," or "Before the foundation of the world," which more than once it insists on, John 17:5. 3. By "In the beginning" is intended before the creation of all things. What will it avail our catechists if it do not expressly denote eternity? Why, the word "beginning" is to be interpreted variously, according to the subject-matter spoken, of, as Gen. 1:1; which being here the gospel, it is the beginning of the gospel that is intended! But,—

Be it agreed that the word "beginning" is to be understood according to the subject-matter whereunto it is applied, yet that the apostle doth firstly and nextly treat of the gospel, as to the season of its preaching, is most absurd. He treats evidently and professedly of the person of the author of the gospel, of the Word that was God and was made flesh. And that this cannot be wrested to the sense intended is clear; for,—1. The apostle evidently alludes to the first words of Genesis, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth;" and the Syriac translation from the Hebrew here places בְּרִשִׁית. So here, "In the beginning the Word made all things." 2. The following words, "The Word was with God, and the World was God," manifest the intendment of the Holy Ghost to be, to declare what and where the Word was before the creation of the world, even with God. 3. The testimony that he was God in the beginning will no way agree with this gloss. Take his being God in their sense, yet they deny that he was God in the beginning of the gospel or before his suffering, as hath been showed. 4. The sense given by the Socinians to this place is indeed senseless. "In the beginning," say they, "that is, when the gospel began to be preached by John Baptist" (which is plainly said to be before the world was made), "the Word, or the man Jesus Christ" (the Word being afterward said to be made flesh, after this whole description of him as the Word), "was with God, so hidden as that he was known only to God" (which is false, for he was known to his mother, to Joseph, to John Baptist, to Simeon, Anna, and to others), "and the Word was God; that is, God appointed that he should be so afterward, or made God" (though it be said he was God then when he was with God). "And all things were made by him; the new creature was made by him; or the world by his preaching, and teaching, and working miracles, was made, or reformed" (that is, something was mended by him). Such interpretations we may at any time be supplied withal at an easy rate. 5. To view it a little farther: "In the beginning,—that is, when John preached Jesus, and said, 'Behold the Lamb of God,'—was the Word, or Jesus was;" that is, he was when John preached that he was. "Egregiam vero laudem!" He was when he was! "The Word was in the beginning;" that is, Jesus was flesh and blood, and then was afterward made flesh, and dwelt among us, when he had dwelt amongst us! And this is that interpretation which Faustus Socinus, receiving from his uncle Lælius, first set up upon, in the strength whereof he went forth unto all the abominations which afterward he so studiously vented.

Passing by these two weighty and most material passages of this testimony, "The Word was God," and "The Word was with God," the one evidencing his oneness of nature with, and the other his distinctness of personality from, his Father, our catechists, after an interposition of near twenty pages, fix upon verse 3, and attempt to pervert the express words and intendment of it, having cut it off from its dependence on what went before, that evidently gives light into the aim of the Holy Ghost therein. Their words concerning this verse are,—

Q. Declare to me with what testimonies they contend to prove that Christ created the heaven and the earth?

A. With those where it is written, that "by him all things were made, and without him was nothing mode that was made," and "the world was made by him," John 1:3, 10; as also Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2, 10–12.

Q. But how dost thou answer to the first testimony?

A. 1. It is not, in the first testimony, they were created, but they were "made." 2. John says "They were made by him;" which manner of speaking doth not express him who is the first cause of any thing, but the second or mediate cause. Lastly, The word "all things" is not taken for all things universally, but is altogether related to the subject-matter; which is most frequent in the Scriptures, especially of the New Testament, whereof there is a signal example, 2 Cor. 5:17, wherein there is a discourse of a thing very like to this whereof John treats, where it is said "All things are made new," whereas it is certain that there are many things which are not made new. Now, whereas the subject-matter in John is the gospel, it appeareth that this word "all things" is to be received only of all those things which belong to the gospel.

Q. But why doth John add, that "without him nothing was made that was made?"

A. John added these words that he might the better illustrate those before spoken, "All things were made by him;" which seem to import that all those things were made by the Word or Son of God, although some of them, and those of great moment, were of such sort as were not done by him but the apostles,—as the calling of the Gentiles, the abolishing of legal ceremonies: for although these things had their original from the preaching and works of the Lord Jesus, yet they were not perfected by Christ himself, but by his apostles; but yet not without him, for the apostles administered all things in his name and authority, as the Lord himself said, "Without me ye can do nothing," John 15:5.

Thus to the third verse, of which afterward. We shall quickly see how these men are put to their shifts to escape the sword of this witness, which stands in the way to cut them off in their journeying to curse the church and people of God by denying the deity of their blessed Saviour.

The connection of the words is wholly omitted, "He was God, and he was in the beginning with God, and all things were made by him." The words are an illustration of his divine nature by divine power and works. He was God, and he made all things. "He that made all things is God," Heb. 3:4; "The Word made all things," John 1:3; therefore he is God. Let us see what is answered.

1. "It is not said they were created by him, but 'made.' " But the word here used by John is the same that in sundry places the LXX. (whom the writers of the New Testament followed) used about the creation; as Gen. 1:3, Καὶ εἶπεν ὁ Θεὸς, Γενηθήτω φῶς, καὶ ἐγένετο φῶς, and verse 6, Ἐγένετο στερέωμα. And if, as it is affirmed, he was in the beginning (before all things), and made them all, he made them out of nothing; that is, he created them. To create is but to produce something out of nothing, "nothing" supplying the term from whence of their production. But,—

2. "They are said to be made 'by him:' it is διʼ αὐτοῦ, which denotes not the principal, but mediate or instrumental cause." But it is most evident that these men care not what they say, so they may say something that they think will trouble them whom they oppose.

(1.) This might help the Arians, who fancied Christ to be created or made before all things, and to have been the instrumental cause whereby God created all other things; but how this concerns them to insist on who deny that Christ had any existence at all before the world was some thousands of years old is not easy to be apprehended.

(2.) In their own sense this is not to the purpose, but expressly contradictory to what they offer in the last place, by way of answer to the latter part of the third verse. Here they say he is not the principal efficient cause, but the second or mediate; there, that all things were either done by him or in his name and authority, which certainly denotes the principal cause of the things done. But,—

(3.) This very expression is sundry times used concerning God the Father himself, whom our catechists will not therefore deny to have been the principal efficient cause of the things ascribed to him: Rom. 11:36, "From him, and διʼ αὐτοῦ, by him are all things;" 1 Cor. 1:9, "God is faithful, διʼ οὖ, by whom ye were called;" Gal. 1:1, "Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, καὶ Θεοῦ Πατρός, by Jesus Christ and God the Father;" Eph. 1:1, Διὰ θελήματος Θεοῦ, "By the will of God." So that this also is frivolous. Thus far we have nothing to the purpose. But,—

3. " 'All things' are to be referred to the gospel, all things of the gospel whereof John treats; so are the words to be restrained by the subject-matter." But,—

(1.) This is merely begged. John speaks not one word of the gospel as such, gives no description of it, its nature or effects; but evidently, plainly, and directly speaks of the Word that was God, and that made all things, describing him in his eternity, his works, his incarnation, his employment, his coming into the world, and his business; and treats of the gospel, or the declaration of the will of God by Jesus Christ, distinctly afterward, from verse 15 and forwards.

(2.) For the expression, 2 Cor. 5:17, "All things are become new," it is expressly restrained to the "new creature," to them that are "in Christ Jesus;" but as to this general expression here, there is no colour why it should be so restrained, the expression itself everywhere signifying the creation of all things. See Gen. 2:1, 2; Ps. 33:6, 121:2; Isa. 37:16, 44:24, 66:1, 2; Jer. 32:17; Acts 14:15, 17:24.

And this is it which they plead to the first part of the verse, "All things were made by him."

4. The other expression, they say, is added to manifest that "what was done after by the apostles was not done without him; and that is the meaning of these words, 'And without him was not any thing made that was made.' " But,—

(1.) Their πρῶτον ψεῦδος, of referring the whole passage to the description of the gospel, whereof there is not the least tittle nor intimation in the text, being removed out of the way, this following figment falls of itself.

(2.) This gloss is expressly contrary to the text. The "all things" here mentioned are the "all things" that were made in the beginning of the world, but this gloss refers it to the things made in the end of the world.

(3.) It is contradictory to itself, for by the "beginning" they understand the beginning of the gospel, or the first preaching of it, but the things that they say here were made by Christ are things that were done after his ascension.

(4.) It is true, the apostles wrought not any miracles, effected no mighty works, but by the presence of Christ with them (though the text cited to prove it, John 15:5, be quite of another importance, as speaking of gospel obedience, not works of miracles or conversions); but that those works of theirs, or his by them, are here intended, is not offered to proof by our catechists. And this is the sense of the words they give: "Christ in the beginning of the gospel made all things, or all things were made by him, even those which he made by others after his ascension into heaven;" or thus, "All things, that is, some things, were made, that is, mended, by him, that is, the apostles, in the beginning of the gospel, that is, after his ascension."

(5.) Our sense of the words is plain and obvious. Says the apostle, "He who was in the beginning, and was God, made all things;" which he first expresseth positively, and then by an universal negative confirms and explains what was before asserted in an universal affirmative, "Without him was not any thing made that was made."

And this is the sum of what they have to except against this part of our testimony, than which nothing can be more vain and frivolous.

The 10th verse is also by them taken under consideration, and these words therein, "The world was made by him;" against which this is their procedure:—

Q. What dost thou answer to the second?

A. 1. That John doth not write here that the world was created, but "made." 2. He uses the same manner of speech which signifieth the mediate cause; for he saith "The world was made by him." Lastly, This word mundus, the world, as others of the same import, doth not only denote heaven and earth, but, besides other significations, it either signifieth human kind, as the present place manifesteth, "He was in the world, and the world knew him not," and John 12:19, or also future immortality, as Heb. 1:6; which is to be understood of the world to come, as it appears from chap. 2, where he saith, "He hath not put the world to come into subjection to the angels, of which we speak," but he had nowhere spoken of it but chap. 1:6. Furthermore, you have a place, chap. 10:5, where, speaking of Christ, he saith, "Wherefore coming into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not have, but a body," etc.; where, seeing it is evident that he speaks of that world into which Jesus being entered was made our priest, as all the circumstances demonstrate, it appears that he speaks not of the present, but of the world to come, seeing, chap. 8:4, he had said of Christ, "If he were on earth he should not be a priest."

The first two exceptions have been already cashiered; those which follow are of as little weight or consideration: for,—

1. It is confessed that the word "world" hath in Scripture various acceptations, and is sometimes taken for men in the world; but that it can be so taken when the world is said to be made or created, when it is equivalent to all things, when it is proposed as a place whereunto one comes, and where he is, as is the state of the expression here, there can nothing more absurd or foolish be imagined.

2. Heb. 1:6 speaks not of the world to come, nor is there any place in the Scripture where the word "world" doth signify immortality or the world to come, nor any thing looking that way. Heb. 2:5, mention is made not simply of the world, but of the "world to come;" nor doth that expression of the apostle relate unto that of chap. 1:6, where the word "world" is used, but to what goes before and after in the same chapter, where the thing itself is insisted on in other terms. Nor is future immortality intended there, by the "world to come," but the present state of the Christian church, called the "world to come," in reference to that of the Jews, which was past in that use of speech whereby it was expressed before it came; as also chap. 6:5. Nor is the "world to come" life eternal or blessed immortality; life is to be had in it, but "immortality" and the "world to come" are not the same. Nor is that world ever said to be made, nor is it anywhere described as made already, but as to come: as Matt. 12:32; Luke 18:30, 20:35; Eph. 1:21. Nor can it be said of the world to come that it knew not Christ, as it is of this that he made; nor can Christ be said to come into that world in the beginning, which he did not until after his resurrection; nor is the world to come that whereof it is said in the next verse, which expounds this, "He came εἰς τὰ ἴδια," "to his own," for then "his own," οἱ ἴδιοι, "knew him not." So that there is not the least colour or pretence of this foppery that here they would evade the testimony of the Holy Ghost withal.

3. These words, Heb. 10:5, "Coming into the world, he saith," etc., do not in the least intimate any thing of the world to come, but express the present world, into which Christ came when God prepared a body for him at his incarnation and birth; which was in order to the sacrifice which he afterward offered in this world, as shall be evidently manifested when we come to the consideration of the priesthood of Christ.

It remains only that we hear their sense of these words, which they give as followeth:—

Q. But what dost thou understand by these words, "The world was made by him"?

A. A twofold sense may be given of them:—First, that human kind was reformed by Christ, and as it were made again, because he brought life, and that eternal, to human kind, which was lost, and was subject to eternal death (which also John upbraideth the world withal, which being vindicated by Christ from destruction acknowledged him not, but contemned and rejected him); for that is the manner of the Hebrew speech, that in such terms of speaking, the words to "make" and "create" are as much as to "make again" or to "create again," because that tongue wants those words that are called compounds. The latter sense is, that that immortality which we expect is, as to us, made by Christ; as the same is called "the world to come" in respect of us, although it be present to Christ and the angels."

1. That these expositions are destructive to one another is evident, and yet which of them to adhere unto our catechists know not, such good builders are they for to establish men in the faith. Pull down they will, though they have nothing to offer in the room of what they endeavour to destroy.

2. That the latter sense is not intended was before evinced. The world that was made in the beginning, into which Christ came, in which he was, which knew him not, which is said to be made, is a world, is not immortality or life eternal; nor is there any thing in the context that should in the least give countenance to such an absurd gloss.

3. Much less is the first sense of the words tolerable; for,—

(1.) It is expressly contradictory to the text. "He made the world," that is, he reformed it; and, "The world knew him not," when the world is not reformed but by the knowledge of him!

(2.) To be made doth nowhere simply signify to be renewed or reformed, unless it be joined with other expressions restraining its significancy to such renovation.

(3.) The world was not renewed by Christ whilst he was in it; nor can it be said to be renewed by him only on the account of laying the foundation of its renovation in his doctrine. " 'By him the world was made;' that is, he preached that doctrine whereby some in the world were to be reformed." The world that Christ made knew him not; but the renewed world know him.

4. The Hebraism of "making" for "re-forming" is commonly pretended, without any instance for its confirmation. John wrote in Greek, which language abounds with compositions above any other in the world, and such as on all occasions he makes use of.

There is one passage more that gives strength to the testimony insisted on, confirming the existence of Christ in his divine nature antecedently to his incarnation, and that is verse 14, "The Word was made flesh." Who the Word is, and what, we have heard. He who was in the beginning, who was God, and was with God, who made all things, who made the world, in whom was light and life, he was made flesh,—flesh, so as that thereupon he dwelt amongst men, and conversed with them. How he was, and how he was said to be, made flesh, I have declared in the consideration of his eternal sonship, and shall not again insist thereon. This, after the interposition of sundry questions, our catechists take thus into consideration:—

Q. How do they prove Christ to have been incarnate?

A. From those testimonies where, according to their translation, it is read, "The Word was made flesh," John 1:14, etc.

Q. How dost thou answer it?

A. On this account, because in that testimony it is not said (as they speak) God was incarnate, or the divine nature assumed the human. "The Word was made flesh" is one thing, and God was incarnate, or the divine nature assumed the human, another. Besides, these words, "The Word was made flesh," or rather, "The Speech was made flesh," may and ought to be rendered, "The Word was flesh." That it may be so rendered appears from the testimonies in which the word ἐγένετο (which is here translated "was made") is found rendered by the word "was," as in this chapter, verse 6, and Luke 24:19, etc. Also, that it ought to be so rendered the order of John's words teacheth, who should have spoken very inconveniently, "The Word was made flesh,"—that is, as our adversaries interpret it, the divine nature assumed the human,—after he had spoken those things of the Word which followed the nativity of the man Christ Jesus: such as are these, "John bare witness of him;" "he came into the world;" "he was not received of his own;" that "to them that received him, he gave power to become the sons of God."

This is the last plea they use in this case. The dying groans of their perishing cause are in it, which will provide them neither with succour nor relief; for,—

1. It is not words or expressions that we contend about. Grant the thing pleaded for, and we will not contend with any living about the expressions wherein it is by any man delivered. By the "incarnation of the Son of God," and by the "divine nature assuming the human," we intend no more than what is here asserted,—the Word, who was God, was made flesh.

2. All they have to plead to the thing insisted on is, that the word ἐγένετο may, yea ought to be, translated fuit, "was," and not factus est, "was made." But,—

(1.) Suppose it should be translated "was," what would it avail them? He that was a man was made a man. In that sense it expresses what he was, but withal denotes how he came so to be. He who was the Word before was also a man. Let them show us any other way how he became so but only by being made so, and, upon a supposition of this new translation, they may obtain something. But,—

(2.) How will they prove that it may be so much as rendered by fuit, "was." They tell you it is so in two other places in the New Testament; but doth that prove that it may so much as be so rendered here? The proper sense and common usage of it is, "was made," and because it is once or twice used in a peculiar sense, may it be so rendered here, where nothing requires that it be turned aside from its most usual acceptation, yea much enforcing it thereunto?

(3.) That it ought to be rendered by fuit, "was," they plead the mentioning before of things done after Christ's incarnation (as we call it), so that it cannot be "He was made flesh." But,—

[1.] Will they say that this order is observed by the apostle,—that that which is first done is first expressed as to all particulars? What, then, becomes of their interpretation who say "The Word was made God by his exaltation, and made flesh in his humiliation?" and yet how much is that which in their sense was last expressed before that which went before it? Or will they say, in him was the life of man before he was made flesh, when the life of man, according to them, depends on his resurrection solely, which was after he ceased to be flesh in their sense? Or what conscience have these men, who in their disputes will object that to the interpretation of others which they must receive and embrace for the establishing of their own?

[2.] The order of the words is most proper. John having asserted the deity of Christ, with some general concomitants and consequences of the dispensation wherein he undertakes to be a mediator, in his 14th verse enters particularly upon a description of his entrance upon his employment, and his carrying it on, by the revelation of the will of God; so that without either difficulty or straining, the sense and intendment of the Holy Ghost falls in clearly in the words.

3. It is evident that the word neither may nor ought to be translated according to their desire; for,—

(1.) It being so often said before that the Word was, the word is still ἦν, and not ἐγένετο. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God;"—the same was. "He was in the world, he was the light;"—still the same word. So that if no more were intended but what was before expressed, the terms would not be changed without exceedingly obscuring the sense; and therefore ἐγένετο must signify somewhat more than ἦν.

(2.) The word ἐγένετο, applied to other things in this very place, denotes their making or their original; which our catechists did not question in the consideration of the places where it is so used: as verse 3, "All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made;" and verse 10, "The world was made by him."

(3.) This phrase is expounded accordingly in other places: as Rom. 1:3, Τοῦ γενομένου ἐκ σπέρματος Δαζὶδ κατὰ σάρκα,—"Made of the seed of David according to the flesh;" and Gal. 4:4, Γενόμενον ἐκ γυναικός, "Made of a woman." But they think to salve all by the ensuing exposition of these words:—

Q. How is that to be understood, "The Word was flesh?"

A. That he by whom God perfectly revealed all his will, who is therefore called "Sermo" by John, was a man, subject to all miseries and afflictions, and lastly to death itself: for the Scripture useth the word "flesh" in that sense, as is clear from those places where God speaks, "My Spirit shall not always contend with man, seeing he is flesh," Gen. 6:3; and Peter, "All flesh is grass," 1 Pet. 1:24.

This is the upshot of our catechists' exposition of this first chapter of John, as to the person of Christ; which is,—

1. Absurd, upon their own suppositions; for the testimonies produced affirm every man to be flesh, so that to say he is a man is to say he is flesh, and to say that man was flesh is to say that a man was a man, inasmuch as every man is flesh.

2. False, and no way fitted to the intendment of the Holy Ghost; for he was made flesh antecedently to his dwelling amongst us; which immediately follows in the text. Nor is his being made flesh suited to any thing in this place but his conversation with men; which answers his incarnation, not his mediation; neither is this exposition confirmed by any instance from the Scriptures of the like expression used concerning Jesus Christ, as that we urge is, Rom. 1:3, Gal. 4:4, and other places. The place evidently affirms the Word to be made something that he was not before, when he was the Word only, and cannot be affirmed of him as he was man, in which sense he was always obnoxious to miseries and death.

And this is all which our catechists, in several places, have thought meet to insist on, by way of exception or opposition to our undeniable and manifest testimonies from this first chapter of John unto the great and sacred truth contended for; which I have at large insisted on, that the reader from this one instance may take a taste of their dealing in the rest, and of the desperateness of the cause which they have undertaken, driving them to such desperate shifts for the maintenance and protection of it. In the residue I shall be more brief.

John 6:62 is in the next place taken into consideration. The words are, "What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?" What we intend from hence, and the force of the argument from this testimony insisted on, will the better appear if we add unto it those other places of Scripture wherein the same thing is more expressly and emphatically affirmed; which our catechists cast (or some of them) quite into another place, on pretence of the method wherein they proceed, but indeed to take off from the evidence of the testimony, as they deal with what we plead from John 1. The places I intend are:—

John 3:13, "And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven." Verse 31, "He that cometh from above is above all: he that cometh from heaven is above all." Chap. 8:23, "Ye are from beneath; I am from above." Chap. 16:28, "I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father."

Hence we thus argue:—He that was in heaven before he was on the earth, and who was also in heaven whilst he was on the earth, is the eternal God; but this doth Jesus Christ abundantly confirm concerning himself: therefore he is the eternal God, blessed for ever.

In answer to the first place our catechists thus proceed:—

Q. What answerest thou to the second testimony, John 6:62?

A. Neither is here any mention made expressly of pre-eternity; for in this place the Scripture witnesseth that the Son of man, that is a man, was in heaven, who without all controversy was not eternally pre-existent.

So they. 1. It is expressly affirmed that Christ was in heaven before his coming into the world. And if we evince his pre-existence to his incarnation against the Socinians, the task will not be difficult to prove that pre-existence to be in an eternal divine nature against the Arians. It is sufficient, as to our intendment in producing this testimony, that it is affirmed that Christ ἦν πρότερον in heaven before his coming forth into the world; in what nature we elsewhere prove.

2. It is said, indeed, that the Son of man was in heaven; which makes it evident that he who is the Son of man hath another nature besides that wherein he is the Son of man, wherein he is the Son of God. And by affirming that the Son of man was in heaven before, it doth no more assert that he was eternal and in heaven in that nature wherein he is the Son of man, than the affirmation that God redeemed his church with his own blood doth prove that the blood shed was the blood of the divine nature. Both the affirmations are concerning the person of Christ. As he who was God shed his blood as he was man, so he who was man was eternal and in heaven as he was God. So that the answer doth merely beg the thing in question, namely, that Christ is not God and man in one person.

3. The insinuation here of Christ's being in heaven as man before his ascension mentioned in Scripture, shall be considered when we come to the proposal made of that figment by Mr. B., in his chapter of the prophetical office of Christ. In answer to the other testimonies cited, they thus proceed, towards the latter end of their chapter concerning the person of Christ:—

Q. What answerest thou to John 3:13, 10:36, 16:28, 17:18?

A. That a divine nature is not here proved appeareth, because the words of the first testimony. "He came down from heaven," may be received figuratively: as James 1:17, "Every good and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights;" and Rev. 21:2, 10, "I saw the holy city Jerusalem coming down from God." But if the words be taken properly, which we willingly admit, it appears that they are not spoken of any other than the Son of man, who, seeing he hath necessarily a human person, cannot by nature be God. Moreover, for what the Scripture witnesseth of Christ, that the Father sent him into the world, the same we read of the apostles of Christ in the same words above alleged; as John 17:18, "As thou hast sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world." And these words, "Christ came forth from the Father," are of the same import with "He descended from heaven." "To come into the world" is of that sort as the Scripture manifests to have been after the nativity of Christ, John 18:37, where the Lord himself says, "For this I am born, and come into the world, that I might bear witness to the truth;" and 1 John 4:1, it is written, "Many false prophets are gone forth into the world." Wherefore from this kind of speaking a divine nature in Christ cannot be proved; but in all these speeches only what was the divine original of the office of Christ is described.

1. That these expressions are merely figuratively to be expounded they dare not assert; nor is there any colour given that they may be so received from the instances produced from James 1:17 and Rev. 21:2, 10; for there is only mention made of descending or coming down, which word we insist not on by itself, but as it is conjoined with the testimony of his being in heaven before his descending, which takes off all pretence of a parity of reason in the places compared.

2. All that follows is a perfect begging of the thing in question. Because Christ is the Son of man, it follows that he is a true man, but not that he hath the personality of a man, or a human personality. Personality belongs not to the essence but to the existence of a man. So that here they do but repeat their own hypothesis in answer to an express testimony of Scripture against it. Their confession of the proper use of the word is but to give colour to the figment formerly intimated; which shall be in due place (God assisting) discovered.

3. They utterly omit and take no notice of that place where Christ says he so came from heaven as that he was still in heaven; nor do they mention any thing of that which we lay greatest weight on,—of his affirming that he was in heaven before,—but merely insist on the word "descending" or "coming down;" and yet they can no other way deal with that neither but by begging the thing in question.

4. We do not argue merely from the words of Christ's being sent into the world, but in this conjunct consideration that he was so sent into the world as that he was in heaven before, and so came forth from the Father, and was with him in heaven before his coming forth; and this our catechists thought good to oversee.

5. The difference of Christ's being sent into the world, and the apostles by him, which they parallel as to the purpose in hand, lies in this, that Christ was so sent of the Father that he came forth from the Father, and was with him in heaven before his sending; which proves him to have another nature than that wherein he was sent. The similitude alleged consists quite in other things. Neither,—

6. Doth the scripture in John 18:37 testify that Christ's sending into the world was after his nativity, but only that the end of them both was to "bear witness to the truth." And, indeed, "I was born," and "came into the world," are but the same, the one being exegetical of the other. But his being born and his coming into the world are, in the testimonies cited, plainly asserted in reference to an existence that he had in heaven before. And thus as our argument is not at all touched in this answer, so is their answer closed as it began, with the begging of that which is not only questioned but sufficiently disproved,—namely, that Christ was, in his human nature, taken up into heaven and instructed in the will of God before his entrance upon his prophetical office.

And this is the whole of what they have to except against this evident testimony of the divine nature of Christ. He was in heaven with the Father before he came forth from the Father, or was sent into the world, and κατὰ ἄλλο καὶ ἄλλο, was in heaven when he was on the earth, and at his ascension returned thither where he was before. And so much for the vindication of this second testimony.

John 6:62 is the second place I can meet with, in all the annotations of Grotius, wherein he seems to assert the union of the human nature of Christ with the eternal Word,—if he do so. It is not with the man that I have any difference, nor do I impose any thing on him for his judgment; I only take liberty, having so great cause given, to discuss his Annotations.

There remains one more of the first rank, as they are sorted by our catechists, for the proof of the eternity of Christ, which is also from John, chap. 8:58, "Before Abraham was, lam," that they insist on:—

In this place the pre-eternity of Christ is not only not expressed, seeing it is one thing to be before Abraham, and another to be eternal, but also, it is not so much as expressed that he was before the Virgin Mary. For these words may otherwise be read, namely, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was made, I am;" as it appears from those places in the same evangelist where the like Greek phrase is used, chap. 13:19, 14:29.

Q. What then would be the sense of this reading?

A. Very eminent. For Christ admonisheth the Jews, who would have ensnared him in his speech, that whilst they had time, they should believe in him as the light of the world, before the divine grace which Christ offered to them should be taken from them and be carried to the Gentiles. But that these words, "I am," are to be supplied in that manner as if himself had added to them, "I am the light of the world," appears, because that in the beginning of his speech, verse 12, he had twice in these words, "I am," called himself the light of the world, verses 24, 28. And that these words, "Before Abraham be," do signify that have said, may be perceived from the notation of that word "Abraham;" for it is evident that "Abraham" denotes "the father of many nations." Seeing, then, that Abram was not made Abraham before the grace of God manifested in Christ redounded to many nations, fur Abraham before was the father of one nation only, it appears that that is the very sense of the words which we have given.

If our adversaries can well quit themselves of this evidence, I believe they will have no small hopes of escaping in the whole trial; and if they meet with judges so partially addicted to them and their cause as to accept of such manifest juggling and perverting of the Scriptures, I know not what they may not expect or hope for, especially seeing how they exult and triumph in this invention, as may be seen in the words of Socinus himself in his answer to Erasmus Johannes, p. 67. For whereas Erasmus says, "I confess in my whole life I never met with any interpretation of Scripture more wrested, or violently perverting the sense of it;" the other replies, "I hoped rather that thou wouldst confess that in thy whole life thou hadst never heard an interpretation more acute and true than this, nor which did savour more of somewhat divine, or evidenced more clearly its revelation from God. I truly have not light conjectures that he who brought it first to light in our age (now this was he who in this age renewed the opinion of the original of Christ, which I constantly defend)" (that is, his uncle Lælius) "obtained it of Christ by many prayers. This truly I do affirm, that whereas God revealed many things to that man at that time altogether unknown to others, yet there is scarce any thing amongst them all that may seem more divine than this interpretation."

Of this esteem is this interpretation of these words with them. They profess it to be one of the best and most divine discoveries that ever was made by them; whereto, for my part, I freely assent, though withal I believe it to be as violent a perverting of the Scripture and corrupting of the word of God as the world can bear witness to.

Let the Christian reader, without the least prejudicial thought from the interpretation of this or that man, consult the text and context. The head of the discourse which gives occasion to these words of Christ concerning himself lies evidently and undeniably in verse 51, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death." Upon this the Jews rise up against him, as one that boasted of himself above measure, and preferred himself before his betters: Verse 52, "Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death;" and, verse 53, "Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself?" Two things are here charged on him by the Jews: First, in general, That he preferred, exalted, and honoured himself. Secondly, in particular, That he made himself better than Abraham their father. To both which charges Christ answers in order in the following words. 1. To the first or general charge of honouring himself: Verses 54, 55 "Jesus answered, If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that he is your God. Ye have not known him; but I know him: and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know him, and keep his saying." His honour he had from God, whom they professed [to know,] but knew not. 2. To that of Abraham he replies, verse 56, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad;"—"Though Abraham was so truly great, and the friend of God, yet his great joy was from his belief in me, whereby he saw my day." To this the Jews reply, labouring to convince him of a falsehood, from the impossibility of the thing that he had asserted, verse 57, "Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?"—"Abraham was dead so many hundred years before thou was born, how couldst thou see him, or he thee?" To this, in the last place, our Saviour replies, verse 58, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am." The Jews knowing that by these words he asserted his deity, and that it was impossible on any other account to make good that he, who in their esteem was not fifty years old (indeed but a little above thirty), should he before Abraham, as in a case of blasphemy, they take up stones to stone him, verse 59, as was their perpetual manner, to attempt to kill him under pretence of blasphemy, when he asserted his deity; as John 5:18, "Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he said that God was his Father, making himself equal with God."

This naked and unprejudicate view of the text is sufficient to obviate all the operose and sophistical exceptions of our catechists so that I shall not need long to insist upon them. That which we have asserted may be thus proposed: He who in respect of his human nature was many hundred years after Abraham, yet was in another respect existing before him; he had an existence before his birth, as to his divine nature. Now this doth Christ expressly affirm concerning himself; and nothing else is pretended but only his divine nature wherein he should so exist. They say, then,—

1. That these words do not signify pre-eternity, but only something before Abraham. It is enough that his existence so many hundred years before his nativity is evidently asserted; his eternity from thence will evidently be concluded; and they will not deny that he may as well be eternal as be before Abraham. But,—

2. The words may be rendered, "Priusquam Abraham fiat, ego sum," "Before Abraham be made." But that they may be so rendered is no proof at all that they ought to be so; and, as was before observed, if this be sufficient to evade the sense of a place, that any word in it may be otherwise rendered, because it is or may be so in some other place, nothing certain can be concluded from any testimony of the Scriptures whatever. But that they may not be so rendered is evident,—(1.) From the context, as before declared; (2.) From the opposition between ἐγώ εἰμι, "I am," and "Abraham was," which evidently denotes a time past, as it stands in comparison with what Christ says of himself; and, (3.) The words in such a construction as this require an interpretation as to the time past; and, (4.) Because this interpretation of the words corrupts the whole sense of the place, and wrests it contrary to the design and intendment of our Saviour. But then they say,—

3. "The sense is excellent; for 'Before Abraham be made' is as much as before he be Abraham, or the father of many nations, which he was when the gospel was preached to the conversion of the Gentiles. 'I am,' that is, 'I am the light of the world,' which you should do well to walk in and attend unto.' "

(1.) That this interpretation in general is altogether alien and strange from the scope of the place, the Christian reader, upon the bare view of it, will be able to judge. (2.) It is false:—[1.] Because Abraham was the father of many nations, Jews and proselytes, before the preaching of the gospel, as Gen. 15:5. [2.] It is false that Abram was not Abraham until after the ascension of Christ and preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles. He was made Abraham from his first enjoyment of his name and seed in Isaac, and is constantly so called. [3.] It is frivolous; for if Christ was before Abram was made Abraham, we obtain what we plead for, for he was made so when God gave him that name. But it should be, "Before Abram be made Abraham," or there is no sense in the words; nor then neither, unless Abraham be taken as a common appellative for "the father of many nations," and not as a proper name, whereof in Scripture there is not any example. [4.] It is horribly wrested,—1st. In making the words "I am" elliptical, whereas there is neither need of nor colour for such a pretence. 2dly. In supplying the feigned ellipsis with a word at such a distance as from verse 12 to verse 58. 3dly. In making Christ to say he is the light of the world before the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles, when the "world" is everywhere in the gospel taken quite in another sense, for the Jews and Gentiles, and not for the Jews only, which according to this interpretation it must be. 4thly. It leaves no reason of the following attempt of the Jews to stone him, upon the particular provocation of this assertion, he having before affirmed himself to be the light of the world, which they were not moved at. There is indeed no end of the falsities, follies, and corruptions of this perverting and corrupting of the word of God.

For the grammatical vindication of the words, and the translation of the word γενέσθαι in a sense of that which is past, there is no occasion administered by our catechists; and therefore I shall not trouble the reader therewith.

And of the first sort of testimonies which they except against, and their exceptions, thus far.

A little animadversion upon the catechists' good friend Grotius shuts up this discourse and chapter. In the end he agrees with them, but fixes on a new medium for the accomplishment of it, not daring to espouse an interpretation so absurd in itself, and so abhorrent from the common sense of all men that ever professed the name of Christ. He takes, then, another course, yet no less aiming than they to disappoint this evidence of the pre-existence of Christ before his nativity. "Πρὶν Αβραὰμ γενέσθαι, antequam esset," saith he, "before he was;" and he gives many instances to prove the propriety of so translating that expression: "Ἐγώ είμι, præsens pro imperfecto, eram, Syrus; Ἐγὼ πέλον, Nonnus. Sic in Græco: Ps. 90:2, Πρὸ τοῦ ὄρη γενηθῆναι σὺ εἶ." Very good: before Abraham was, or was born, Christ was; as in that of the psalm, "Before the mountains were made, thou art." And, a little to help a friend at so good a work, it is no new thing for this evangelist to use the present for the preterimperfect tense; as chap. 14:9, Τοσοῦτον χρόνον μεθʼ ὑμῶν ἐιμι, καὶ οὐκ ἔγνωκάς με·—"I am so long," for "I was," or "I have been so long with you," etc. And chap. 15:27, Ὅτι ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς μετʼ ἐμοῦ ἐστε·—"Because ye have been with me from the beginning." Thus far, then, we are agreed. But how should this be, that Christ thus was before Abraham was? "Fuerat," saith he, "autem ante Abrahamum Jesus divina constitutione;"—"In God's appointment Jesus was before Abraham was born." Yea, and so was Grotius, and Socinus, and every man in the world; for "known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world." And this is that great privilege, it seems, that our Saviour vindicates to himself, without any occasion, to no purpose, insisting on that which is common to him with all the elect of God in the best sense of the words! Of that other text of Scripture, John 17:5, which together with this he labours to corrupt, I shall speak afterward. I shall only add, that our great doctors do not in this business agree. Grotius here makes no mention of Socinus' gloss, and Socinus beforehand rejects this of Grotius as absurd and fond; and as such let it pass, as having no occasion given from the words foregoing, nor colour from the matter or phrase of words, nor significancy to the business in hand.

———

CHAPTER IX

The pre-eternity of Christ farther evinced—Sundry texts of Scripture vindicated.

IN the consideration of the ensuing testimonies, I shall content myself with more brief observations upon and discoveries of the corruptions of our adversaries, having given a large testimony thereof in the chapter foregoing. Thus, then, they proceed:—

Ques. What are the testimonies of Scripture wherein they think that this pre-eternity of Christ is not indeed expressed, but yet may thence be proved?

Ans. Those which seem to attribute to the Lord Jesus some things from eternity, and some things in a certain and determinate time.

Let the gentlemen take their own way and method; we shall meet with them at the first stile, or rather brazen wall, which they endeavour to climb over.

Q. What are the testimonies which seem to attribute some things to the Lord Jesus from eternity?

A. They are those from which they endeavour to confirm that Christ was begotten from eternity of the essence of his Father.

These are some of the places wherein this property of the Godhead, eternity, is ascribed to our Saviour, it is confessed.

Q. But from what places do they endeavour to prove that Christ was from eternity begotten of the essence of his Father?

A. From these chiefly, Mic. 5:2; Ps. 2:7, 110:3; Prov. 8:23.

1. These are only some of the testimonies that are used to this purpose. 2. It is enough to prove Christ eternal if we prove him begotten of his Father, for no such thing can be new in God. 3. That he is the only-begotten Son of the Father, which is of the same import with that here opposed by our catechists, hath been before declared and proved, chap. 7.

Q. But how must we answer these testimonies?

A. Before I answer to each testimony, it is to be known that this generation of the essence of the Father is impossible; for if Christ were begotten of the essence of his Father, either he took his whole essence or but part. Part of his essence he could not take, for the divine essence is impartible; nor the whole, for it being one in number is incommunicable.

And this is the fruit of measuring spiritual things by carnal, infinite by finite, God by ourselves, the object of faith by corrupted rules of corrupted reason. But,—1. That which God hath revealed to be so is not impossible to be so. Let God be true, and all men liars. That this is revealed hath been undeniably evinced. 2. What is impossible in finite, limited essences, may be possible and convenient to that which is infinite and unlimited, as is that whereof we speak. 3. It is not impossible, in the sense wherein that word must here be used, if any thing be signified by it. "It is not, it cannot be so in limited things, therefore not in things infinite;"—"We cannot comprehend it, therefore it cannot be so;"—"But the nature of the thing about which it is is inconsistent with it." This is denied, for God hath revealed the contrary. 4. For the parting of the divine essence, or receiving a part of the divine essence, our catechists might have left it out, as having none to push at with it, none standing in the way of that horn of their dilemma. 5. We say, then, that in the eternal generation of the Son, the whole essence of the Father is communicated to the Son as to a personal existence in the same essence, without multiplication or division of it, the same essence continuing still one in number; and this without the least show of impossibility in an infinite essence, all the arguments that lie against it being taken from the properties and attendancies of that which is finite.

Come we to the particular testimonies. The first is Micah 5:2, "But thou, Beth-lehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting," or "the days of eternity."

Q. How must this first testimony of the Scripture be answered?

A. This testimony hath nothing at all of his generation of the essence of his Father, and a pre-eternal generation it no way proves; for here is mention of beginning and days, which in eternity have no place. And those words, which in the Vulgar are "from the days of eternity," in the Hebrew are "from the days of seculi,"—the days of an age; and "dies seculi" are the same with "dies antiqui," as Isa. 63:9, 11; Mal. 3:4. The sense of this place is, that Christ should have the original of his nativity from the beginning, and from the ancient years; that is, from that time wherein God established a king among his people, which was done really in David, who was a Bethlehemite, and the author of the stock and family of Christ.

Ans. 1. Who necessitated our catechists to urge this place to prove the generation of Christ, when it is used only to prove his generation to be eternal, the thing itself being proved by other testimonies in abundance? That he was begotten of the Father is confessed; that he was begotten of the essence of his Father was before proved. Yea, that which is here called מוֹצָאֹתָיו, his "goings forth," is his generation of his Father, or somewhat else that our adversaries can assign; that it is not the latter shall immediately be evinced.

2. Here is no mention of the מִקֶּרֶם, "beginning;" and those who in the latter words reject the Vulgar edition cannot honestly insist on the former from thence because it serves their turn. Yet how that word is sometimes used, and in what sense it may be so, where "eternity" is intended, hath been declared in the last chapter.

3. That "days" are not used with and to express "eternity" in Scripture, though strictly there be no days or time in eternity, is absurd negligence and confidence to affirm: Job 10:5, "Are thy days as the days of man? are thy years as man's days?" Hence God is called "The Ancient of days," Dan. 7:9. "Thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail," Heb. 1:12.

4. For the word gnolam [עוֹלָם], translated "seculi," it hath in the Scripture various significations. It comes from a word signifying "to hide," and denotes an unknown, hidden duration. Principally "perpetuum, æternum, sempiternum,"—that which is pre-eternal and eternal. Sometimes a very long time, Gen. 9:12, and verse 16, that is perpetual: so Gen. 17:13, and in other places, with a reference to the sovereignty of God. Gen. 21:33, it is ascribed to God as a property of his, and signifies "eternal," Jehova gnolam [יְהוָה עוֹלָם]: so Ps. 89:2, as also Isa. 45:17. Let all places where the word in Scripture in this sense is used be reckoned up (which are above three hundred), and it will appear that in far the greatest number of them it signifies absolutely "eternity." In the places of Isa. 63:9, 11, and Mal. 3:4, only a long time, indeed, is signified, but yet that which reaches to the utmost of the thing or matter treated of. And upon the same rule, where it is put absolutely it signifies "eternity." So doth ἀιών in the New Testament, by which the LXX. often render gnolam [עוֹלָם]; whence πρὸ χρόνων αἰωνίων may be "from eternity," 2 Tim. 1:9, Tit. 1:2; wherein, also, with a like expression to that under consideration, the "times of eternity" are mentioned, though perhaps with a peculiar respect to something at the beginning of the world. This, then, is here expressed: He that was in the fulness of time born at Bethlehem, had his goings forth from the Father from eternity.

5. The pretended sense of our adversaries is a bold corruption of the text; for,—(1.) It applies that to David and his being born at Bethlehem which the Holy Ghost expressly applies to Jesus Christ, Matt. 2:5, 6 and John 7:42. (2.) The goings forth of Christ in this sense are no more from everlasting than every other man's who is from Adam, when yet this is peculiarly spoken of him, by way of incomparable eminency. (3.) They cannot give any one instance of the like expression,—that "his goings forth are from eternity" should signify he had his original from an ancient stock. (4.) If only Christ's original of the tribe of Judah and of the house of David were intended, why was not that expressed in plain terms, as it is in other places, and as the place of his birth, namely, Bethlehem, is in this? So that we have already met our catechists and stopped them at this wall, their attempt at it being very faint and absurd. And yet this is the sum of what is pleaded by Socinus against Weik, cap. vii. p. 424; Smalcius against Smiglecius, cap. xxvi.; Ostorod. Instit. cap. vii., with the rest of them. He, then, who was born at Bethlehem in the fulness of time, of the house of David as concerning the flesh, Rom. 1:3, had also his "goings forth," his birth or generation of the Father, "of old, from the days of eternity;" which is that which this testimony confirms.

Grotius on this place, according to his wont, outgoes his companions one step at least (as he was a bold man at conjectures), and applies this prophecy to Zerubbabel: "Natus ex Bethlehemo Zorobabel rectè dicitur, quòd ex Davidis familia esset, quæ orta Bethlehemo;"—"Zerubbabel is rightly said to be born at Bethlehem, being of the family of David, which had its original from Bethlehem."

That Zerubbabel is here at all intended he doth not attempt to prove, either from the text, context, circumstances of the place, design of the prophecy, or any thing else that might give light into the intendment of the Holy Ghost. That it belongs properly to Christ we have a better interpreter to assure us than Grotius or any of his rabbins, Matt. 2:4–6. I know that in his annotations on that place he allows the accommodation of the words to Christ; but we cannot allow them to be spoken of any other, the Holy Ghost expressly fitting them to him. And if Zerubbabel, who was born at Babylon, may be said to be born at Bethlehem because David, from whom he descended, was born there, what need all that labour and trouble that our Saviour might be born at Bethlehem? If it could not be said of Christ that he was born at Bethlehem, though he were of the lineage of David, unless he had actually been born there indeed, certainly Zerubbabel, who was born at Babylon, could not be said, on the account of his progenitor five hundred years before, to be born there.

For the second part of this text, or the words we insist on for the proof of our intention, he useth the same shift in the same words with our catechists, "Origo ipsi ab olim, a temporibus longis; id est, originem trahit à domo illustri antiquitus, et per quingentos annos regnatrice;"—"His original is from of old, from a long time; that is, he hath his original from an ancient illustrious house that had reigned five hundred years."

Of the sense of the words I have spoken before. I shall only add, that the use of this note is to confute the other; for if his being born at Bethlehem signify his being of the family of David, and nothing else, he being not indeed born there, what need this addition, if these obscure words signify no more but what was spoken before? Yea, and herein the learned man forsaketh his masters, all generally concluding that it is the Messiah who is here alone intended. The Chaldee paraphrast expressly puts in the name of Messiah. His words are, "Out of thee shall the Messiah come forth before me." And some of them do mystically interpret kedem [קֶדֶם] of the mind of God, from whence the word or wisdom of God is brought forth; because, as they say, the word denotes the first numeration of the crown, or of that name of God which signifies his essence.

The second is Ps. 2:7, "The LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee."

Q. To this second what is to be answered?

A. Neither in that is there any thing of generation of the essence of the Father, nor of a pre-eternal generation; for the word "to-day," signifying a certain time, cannot denote pre-eternity. But that God begot him doth not evince that he was begotten of his essence; which appears from hence, 1. That the same wards, "This day have I begotten thee," are in the first sense used of David, who was begotten neither from eternity nor of the essence of the Father. 2. Because the apostle Paul brings these words to prove the resurrection of Christ, Acts 13:33. And the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews cites them for the glorifying of the Lord Jesus, Heb. 1:5, and 5:5. And lastly, from hence, that it is manifest that God otherwise begets than by his essence, seeing the Scripture declares believers to be begotten of God, as is to be seen, John 1:13; 1 John 3:9; James 1:18.

1. There is mention in these words of Christ's generation of his Father, of being "begotten" of him before his incarnation, this being spoken of him under the old testament; and to deny that there is any such thing in the text as that which, upon this consideration, we urge it to prove, is only to beg the thing in question.

2. "This day," being spoken of God, of him who is eternal, to whom all time is so present as that nothing is properly yesterday nor today, does not denote necessarily such a proportion of time as is intimated, but is expressive of an act eternally present, nor past nor future.

3. It cannot be proved that these words are spoken at all of David so much as typically, nor any thing else in that psalm from verse 7 to the end; yea, the contrary is evident from every verse following, especially the 12th, where kings and rulers are called to worship him of whom he speaks, and threatened with destruction if they do not; and they are pronounced blessed who put their trust in him; which cannot be spoken of David, God declaring them to be cursed who put their trust in man, Jer. 17:5–8.

4. It is granted that the apostle makes use of these words when he mentions the resurrection and exaltation of Christ; not that Christ was then begotten, but that he was then declared to be the only-begotten Son of God, his resurrection and exaltation being manifestations of his sonship, not causes of his filiation, as hath been at large declared. So the sun is said to arise when it doth first to us appear.

5. True, "God hath other sons, and believers are said to be begotten of God;" but how? By regeneration, and turning from sin, as in the places quoted is evident. That Christ is so begotten of God is blasphemous once to imagine. Besides, he is the only-begotten Son of the Father, so that no other is begotten with a generation of the same kind with him. It is evident, then, by this testimony, and from these words, that Christ is so the Son of God as no angels are his sons in the same kind: for that the apostle produceth these words to prove, Heb. 1:5, "For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?" Now, the angels are the sons of God by creation, Job 1:6, 37:7. He is also such a Son and so begotten as believers are not; for they are begotten by regeneration from sin and adoption into the family of God. Therefore Christ, who is the Son of God in another kind than angels and men, who are so by creation, regeneration, and adoption, is the natural Son of God by eternal generation; which is also proved from this place.

In this whole psalm Grotius takes no notice of Jesus Christ: indeed, in the entrance he tells us that a mystical and abstruse sense of it may belong to Christ, and so the rabbins acknowledge, and so the apostle took it; but throughout the whole doth he not make the least application of it to Christ, but merely to David, although so many passages of it are urged in the New Testament to have had their accomplishment in Christ and the things which concerned him. These words, "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee," he says may be thus rendered, "O fili mi, hodie (id est, hoc tempore) ego te genui: novam vitam, scilicet regalem tibi contuli." But, 1. That the words may not aptly be so translated, that they are not so rendered by the apostle, Heb. 1:5, he knew well enough. בְּנִי אַתָּה is filius meus tu, not fili mi. Nor doth the rendering of it by the vocative any way answer the words going before, " 'I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son:' that is the thing I will declare." 2. That "hodie" should be "hoc tempore," relating to any certain time of David's reign, cannot be reconciled to the apostle's application of that expression on sundry occasions, as hath been manifested. 3. "I have given thee a 'new or a regal life,' " is somewhat an uncouth exposition of "genui te," without warrant, without reason or argument; and it is inconsistent with the time of the psalm's writing, according to Grotius himself. He refers it to 2 Sam. 8, when David had been king over Israel many years.

To serve his hypothesis, the last two verses are miserably wrested. The command of worshipping Christ, verse 12, is a command of doing homage to David! And the last verse is thus glossed, "Beati omnes qui confidunt in eo, i.e., qui fidei ejus regis (id est, meæ) se permittunt." "They are blessed," says David, "who commit themselves to my faith and care." Doubtless the thought of any such thing was as remote from the heart of the holy man as this gloss is from the sense of the place. That they are blessed who trust in the Lord, that is, "commit themselves to his care," he everywhere declareth, yea, this he makes always the property of a blessed man; but that they are so who trust in him, not the least word to that purpose did the holy person ever utter. He knew they are cursed of God who put their trust in man. The word here is חוֹסֵי, from חָסָה, "to repair to any one for protection;" and it is used to express our trusting in God, Ps. 18:30, as also Ps. 31:19, on which men are frequently pronounced blessed; but that it should be applied to David, and a blessing annexed thereunto, we were to learn.

The third testimony, of Ps. 110:3, we pass over with our adversaries, as not to the purpose in hand, being a mistake of the Vulgar Latin.

The fourth is Prov. 8:23, "I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was."

Q. What dost thou answer to this testimony?

A. That thou mayst understand the matter the better, know that from this place they thus dispute: "The Wisdom of God is begotten from eternity; Christ is the Wisdom of God: therefore he is begotten from eternity, 1 Cor. 1:24." That this argument is not firm appears from hence, that,—1. Solomon treats of wisdom simply and absolutely considered, without the addition of the word "God;" Paul not simply and absolutely, but with the addition of the word "God." 2. Solomon treats of wisdom, which neither is a person nor can be, as appears from the diverse effects ascribed to this wisdom, chap. 7, 8, 9; amongst which are these words, "By me kings rule, and princes decree righteousness;" and in the beginning of the 9th chapter, he brings in wisdom sending her maidens, and inviting all to her: but Paul treateth of that Wisdom which is a person. 3. The words which are rendered "from everlasting," in the Hebrew are "a seculo;" but that "from everlasting" and "a seculo" are diverse, Isa. 64:4, Jer. 2:20, Luke 1:70, with many like places, do declare.

1. Our argument hence is: "Christ, the second person of the Trinity, is spoken of, Prov. 8:23, under the name of Wisdom; now, it is said expressly there of Wisdom that it was 'begotten from everlasting:' and therefore the eternal generation of Christ is hence confirmed." Our reasons are:—(1.) Because the things here spoken of can be applied to no other. (2.) Because the very same things are affirmed of Christ, John 1:1. (3.) Because Christ is the Wisdom of God, and so called in the Scripture, not only in the expression of ὁ Λόγος, but ῥητῶς, 1 Cor. 1:30. (4.) That by Wisdom Solomon intended the Wisdom of God, and that word may be supplied, is most evident from what is spoken of it. Let the place be read. (5.) Christ is called not only the "Wisdom of God," but also Wisdom absolutely and simply; and that not only Prov. 1:20, but Matt. 11:19. (6.) The Wisdom that Solomon treats of is evidently a person, and such things are ascribed thereunto as can be proper to none but a person. Such are these, chap. 8:30, 31, "I was by him, one brought up with him; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth," etc. That it is the same wisdom spoken of chap.7. and here is not evident; yet is there not any thing in that attributed to it but what suits well unto a person,—much less in the beginning of the 9th chapter, the invitation there being such as may be made by a person only. It is a person who sends out messengers to invite to a banquet, as Christ doth in the gospel. "Kings rule and princes decree justice" by the authority of a person, and without him they can do nothing.

2. The word translated "from everlasting" is the same with that considered before, Micah 5:2. The words following do so evidently confirm the meaning of the word to be as expressed that it is marvellous the gentlemen durst venture upon the exception in this place: "The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old;" that is, before the creation, as is at large expounded, verses 23–29.

And this is all, the whole sum of what any of our adversaries, or rather the adversaries of Jesus Christ, have to object in their cause against these testimonies; whence we thus argue:—

He who was begotten of God the Father with an eternal generation is eternal, and so, consequently, God; but so is Jesus Christ begotten of God the Father with an eternal generation: therefore he is eternal, and God blessed for ever.

To clear what hath been spoken, I shall close my considerations of this text of Scripture with a brief parallel between what is spoken in this place of Wisdom and what is asserted of Jesus Christ in the New Testament:—

1. It is Wisdom that is spoken of: so is Christ, Matt 11:19; 1 Cor. 1:24; Col. 2:3. 2. "Wisdom was set up from everlasting," chap. 8:23; "Grace is given in Christ, πρὸ χρόνων αἰωνίων, from everlasting," 2 Tim. 1:9; "He is the beginning," Col. 1:18; "The first and the last," Rev. 1:17. 3. "The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way," says Wisdom, verse 23: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God," John 1:1. 4. "Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth," verse 25: "He is the first-born of every creature," Col. 1:15; "He is before all," verse 17. 5. "I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him," verse 30: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," Matt. 3:17; "The only-begotten Son is in the bosom of the Father," John 1:18. 6. "By me kings reign, and princes," etc, verses 15, 16: He is "the Prince of the kings of the earth," Rev. 1:5; the "King of kings, and Lord of lords," Rev. 19:16. 7. "Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth, and my delights were with the sons of men," verse 31: "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father," John 1:14. 8. Compare also verse 34 with John 13:17, Luke 11:28, John 10:9; and verses 35, 36 with John 4:44, 47. And many the like instances might be given.

Grotius takes no notice of Christ in this place, yea, he seems evidently to exclude him from being here intended. His first note on verse 1 is, "Hæc de ea sapientia quæ in Lege apparet exponunt Hebræi: et sane ei, si non soli, at præcipue, hæc attributa conveniunt;"—"The Hebrews expound these things of that wisdom which appears in the law; and truly these attributes agree thereunto, if not only, yet chiefly." Of this assertion he gives no reason. The contrary is evident from what is above said and proved. The authority of the modern rabbins, in the exposition of those places of Scripture which concern the Messiah, is of no value. They do not only, as their forefathers, err, not knowing the Scriptures, but maliciously corrupt them, out of hatred to Jesus Christ. In the meantime, one no less versed in the Hebrew authors than our annotator, expounding this place, from them concludes, "Nec dubito, hinc Johannem angustum illud et magnificum Evangelii sui initium sumpsisse, 'In principio erat Verbum;' nam Verbum et Sapientia idem sunt, et secundam Trinitatis personam indicant;"—"I doubt not but that John took that reverend and lofty entrance of his Gospel, 'In the beginning was the Word' from hence; for the Word and Wisdom are the same, and denote the second person of the Trinity."

Before I proceed to those that follow, I shall add some of them which are produced and insisted on usually for the same end and purpose with those mentioned before, and which in other places are excepted against by the catechists with whom we have to do, but properly belong to this head.

Of those is John 17:5, "And now, O Father, glorify me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." To this they put in their exceptions towards the end of the chapter under consideration, saying,—

Q. What answerest thou to this?

A. Neither is here a divine nature proved; for that one may have glory with the Father before the world was made and yet not be God appeareth from that of 2 Tim. 1:9, where the apostle says of believers that grace was given unto them before the world began. Besides, it is here written that Jesus asked this glory, which is repugnant to the divine nature. But the sense of the place is, that Christ asked God that he would really give him that glory which he had with God in his decree before the world was.

1. A divine glory proves a divine nature. This Christ had from eternity, for he had it before the world began; therefore he had a divine nature also. It is the manifestation of his glory, which he had eclipsed and laid aside for a season, that here he desires of God, Phil. 2:6–11. He glorified his Father by manifesting the glory of his deity, his name, to others; and he prays the Father to glorify him as he had glorified him on the earth. 2. There is not the same reason of what is here asserted of Christ and what is said of the elect., 2 Tim. 1:9. Christ here positively says he had "εἶχον (glory) with his Father before the world was;" nor is this anywhere, in any one tittle in the Scripture expounded to be any otherwise but in a real having of that glory. The grace that is given to believers is not said to be before the world was, but πρὸ χρόνων αἰωνίων, which may denote the first promise, Gen. 3:15, as it doth Tit. 1:2; and if it be intended of the purpose of God, which was from eternity (as the words will bear), it is so expounded in twenty places. 3. Though the divine nature prayed not, yet he who was in the form of God, and humbled himself to take upon him the form and employment of a servant, might and did pray. The Godhead prayed not, but he who was God prayed. 4. For the sense assigned, let them once show us, in the whole book of God, where this expression, "I had εἶχον," may be possibly interpreted, "I had it in purpose," or "I was predestinated to it," and not "I had it really and indeed," and they say something to the purpose. In the meantime, they do but corrupt the word of God (as many do) by this pretended interpretation of it. 5. If predestination only be intended, here is nothing singular spoken of Christ, but what is common to him with all believers, when evidently Christ speaks of something that belonged to him eminently. 6. The very express tenor of the words will not admit of this gloss (let what violence can be used): Καὶ νῦν δόξασόν με, σὺ Πάτερ, παρὰ σεαυτῷ, τῇ δόξῃ ᾗ εἶχον, πρὸ τοῦ τὸν χόσμον εἶναι, παρὰ σοί·—"The glory that I had with thee, let me have it manifested with thee, now my work is done."

Grotius falls in with our catechists: "Τῇ δόξῃ ᾗ εἷχον, Destinatione tua; ut 1 Pet. 1:20, Apoc. 13:8, sic et Eph. 1:3, 4, et infra, ver. 24. Simile loquendi genus. Sic Legem fuisse ante mundum aiunt Hebræi." Again, "Παρὰ σοί, refer ad illud εἶχον, et intellige, ut diximus, in decreto tuo."

But what intends the learned man by those places of 1 Pet. 1:20, Rev. 13:8? Is it to expound the thing that he supposes to be expressed? or to intimate that the phrase here used is expounded by the use of it in those other places? If the first, he begs that to be the sense of this place which is the sense of them, though neither the scope of the places nor the sense of the words themselves will bear it. If the latter, it is most false. There is not one word, phrase, or expression, in any one of the places pointed unto, at all coincident with them here used. Besides, the two places mentioned are of very different senses, the one speaking of God's purpose appointing Christ to be a mediator, the other of the promise given presently after the fall. 2. We grant that Christ, in respect of his human nature, was predestinated unto glory; but that he calls God's purpose his "glory," "the glory which he had," "which he had with God," wherewith he desires to be "glorified with him again," is to be proved from the text, or context, or phrase of speech, or parallel place, or analogy of faith, or somewhat, and not nakedly to be imposed on us. Let Prov. 8:22–31, Phil. 2:6–11, be consulted, as parallel to this place. Eph. 1:3, 4, speaks indeed of our predestination in Christ, "that we should be holy," and so come to glory, but of the glory that Christ had before the world was it speaks not; yea, verse 3, we are said to be actually "blessed," or to have the heavenly blessings, when we do enjoy them, which we are elected to, verse 4. What the Jews say of the Law, and the like, we must allow learned men to tell us, that they may be known to be so, although the sense of the Scripture be insensibly darkened thereby.

To the same purpose is that of Peter, 1 Epist. 1:10, 11, "Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow." To which add that more clear place, 1 Pet. 3:18–20, "Quickened by the Spirit, by which also he wont and preached unto the spirits in prison, which sometime were disobedient.… in the days of Noah." He who was in the days of the prophets of old, and in the days of Noah, so long before his being born according to the flesh, he was from everlasting, or had an existence antecedent to his incarnation; but this is expressly affirmed of our Saviour. It was his Spirit that spake in the prophets; which if he were not, could not be, for of him who is not nothing can be affirmed. He preached by his Spirit in the days of Noah to the spirits that are in prison.

Of this latter place our catechists take no notice; about the first they inquire,—

Q. What answerest thou to this?

A. Neither is a divine nature proved from hence: for the Spirit which was in the prophets may be said to be "the Spirit of Christ," not that he was given of Christ, but because he fore-declared the things of Christ, as Peter there speaks; "he testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow." Which manner of speaking we have, 1 John 4:6, "Hence know we the spirit of truth, and the sprit of error;" where it is not called the spirit of truth and error because truth and error as persons do bestow the spirit, but because the spirit of truth speaks the things of truth, and the spirit of error the things of error.

1. It is confessed that if the Spirit that was in the prophets was the Spirit of Christ, then he hath a divine nature; for the only evasion used is, that it is not, or may not (possibly) be, so meant in this place, not denying but that if it be so, then the conclusion intended follows. 2. That this place is to be interpreted by 1 John 4:6 there is no colour nor pretence. Christ is a person; he was so when Peter wrote: truth and error are not, and the spirit of them is to be interpreted according to the subject-matter. 3. The Spirit in other places is called the Spirit of Christ in the same sense as he is called the Spirit of God, Rom. 8:9, Gal. 4:6. 4. The Spirit of Christ is said directly to take of his and show it to his apostles, John 16:15; and so he did to the prophets. They may as well, on the pretence of 1 John 4:6, deny him to be the Spirit of God the Father as the Spirit of Christ, as being of him and sent by him.

And thus far of the testimonies proving the pre-existence of Christ unto his incarnation, and so, consequently, his eternity: whence it follows that he is God over all, blessed for ever, having this evidence of his eternal power and Godhead. Sundry others of the same tendency will fall under consideration in our progress.

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CHAPTER X

Of the names of God given unto Christ

IN the next place, as a third head, our catechists consider the scriptural attributions of the names of God unto our Saviour, Jesus Christ; whence this is our argument:—

"He who is Jehovah, God, the only true God, he is God properly by nature; but Jesus Christ is Jehovah, the true God, etc.: therefore he is God properly by nature."

The proposition is clear in itself. Of the innumerable testimonies which are or may be produced to confirm the assumption, our catechists fix upon a very few,—namely, those which are answered by Socinus against Weik the Jesuit, whence most of their exceptions to these witnesses are transcribed. To the consideration of these they thus proceed:—

Ques. What are those places of Scripture which seem to attribute something to Christ in a certain and definite time?

Ans. They are of two sorts, whereof some respect the names, others the works, which they suppose in the Scriptures to be attributed to Christ.

Q. Which are they that respect the names of Christ?

A. Those where they suppose in the Scripture that Christ is called "Jehovah," etc., Jer. 23:6; Zech. 2:8; 1 John 5:20; Jude 4; Tit. 2:13; Rev. 1:8, 4:8; Acts 20:28; 1 John 3:16.

The first testimony is Jer. 23:6, in these words, "In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, JEHOVAH OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS." To which add the next, Zech. 2:8.

Before I come to consider their exceptions to these texts in particular, some things in general may be premised, for the better understanding of what we are about, and what from these places we intend to prove and confirm:—

1. The end of citing these two places is, to prove that Jesus Christ is in the Old Testament called Jehovah; which is by them denied, the granting of it being destructive to their whole cause.

2. It is granted that Jehovah is the proper and peculiar name of the one only true God of Israel;—a name as far significant of his nature and being as possibly we are enabled to understand; yea, so far expressive of God, that as the thing signified by it is incomprehensible, so many have thought the very word itself to be ineffable, or at least not lawful to be uttered. This name God peculiarly appropriates to himself in an eminent manner, Exod. 6:2, 3; so that this is taken for granted on all hands, that he whose name is Jehovah is the only true God, the God of Israel. Whenever that name is used properly, without a trope or figure, it is used of him only. What the adversaries of Christ except against this shall be vindicated in its proper place.

3. Our catechists have very faintly brought forth the testimonies that are usually insisted on in this cause, naming but two of them; wherefore I shall take liberty to add a few more to them out of the many that are ready at hand: Isa. 40:3, "The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of Jehovah, make straight in the desert a highway for our God." That it is Christ who is here called Jehovah is clear from that farther expression in Mal. 3:1, and from the execution of the thing itself, Matt. 3:3, Mark 1:2, 3, John 1:23. Isa. 45:22–25, "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. Surely, shall one say, in Jehovah have I righteousness and strength: even to him shall men come: and all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed. In Jehovah shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory." The apostle expressly affirms all this to be spoken of Christ, Rom. 14:10–12, etc. Hos. 13:14 is also applied to Christ, 1 Cor. 15:54, 55. He that would at once consider all the texts of the Old Testament, chiefly ascribing this name to Christ, let him read Zanchius "De Tribus Elohim," who hath made a large collection of them.

Let us now see what our catechists except against the first testimony:—

Q. What dost thou answer to the first testimony?

A. First, that hence it cannot be necessarily evinced that the name of Jehovah is attributed to Christ. For these words, "And this is his name whereby they shall call him, The LORD our righteousness," may be referred to Israel, of whom he spake a little before, "In his days shall Judah be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely," etc., as from a like place may be seen in the same prophet, chap. 33:15, 16, where he saith, "In those days, and at that time, will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land. In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The LORD our righteousness." For in the Hebrew it is expressly read, "They shall call her;" which last words are referred of necessity to Jerusalem, and in this place answereth to Israel, which is put in the first place. It seems, therefore, likely that also, in the first place, these words, "They shall call him," are referred to Israel. But although we should grant that the name of Jehovah may be referred unto Christ, yet from the other testimonies it appears that it cannot be asserted that Christ is called Jehovah simply, neither doth it thence follow that Christ is really Jehovah. Whether, therefore, these last words in this testimony of Jeremiah be understood of Christ or of Israel, their sense is, "Thou Jehovah, our one God, wilt justify us;" for at that time when Christ was to appear God would do that in Israel.

The sum of this answer is:—1. It may be these words are not spoken of Christ, but of Israel; 2. The same words are used of that which is not God; 3. If they be referred to Christ, they prove him not to be God; 4. Their sense is, that God will justify us in the days of Christ. Of each briefly:—

1. The subject spoken of all along is Christ:—(1.) He is the subject-matter of whatever here is affirmed: "I will raise up a righteous Branch to David; he shall be a king, and he shall reign, and his name shall be called The LORD our righteousness." (2.) Why are these words to be referred to Israel only, and not also to Judah (if to any but Christ), they being both named together, and upon the same account (yea, and Judah hath the pre-eminence, being named in the first place)? And if they belong to both, the words should be, "This is their name whereby they shall be called." (3.) Israel was never called "our righteousness," but Christ is called so upon the matter in the New Testament sundry times, and is so, 1 Cor. 1:30; so that, without departing from the propriety of the words, intendment, and scope of the place, with the truth of the thing itself, these words cannot be so perverted. The violence used to them is notoriously manifest.

2. The expression is not the same in both places, neither is Jerusalem there called "The LORD our righteousness," but He who calls her is "The LORD our righteousness;" and so are the words rendered by Arias Montanus and others. And if what Jerusalem shall be called be intimated, and not what His name is that calls her, it is merely by a metonymy, upon the account of the presence of Christ in her; as the church is called "Christ" improperly, 1 Cor. 12:12: Christ properly is Jesus only. But the words are not to be rendered, "This is the name whereby she shall be called," but, "This is the name whereby he shall call her, The LORD our righteousness;" that is, he who is the LORD our righteousness shall call her to peace and safety, which are there treated on. Christ is our righteousness; Jerusalem is not.

3. It is evident that Christ is absolutely called Jehovah in this as well as in the other places before mentioned, and many more; and it hence evidently follows that he is Jehovah, as he who properly is called so, and understood by that name. Where God simply says his name is Jehovah, we believe him; and where he says the name of the Branch of the house of David is Jehovah, we believe him also. And we say hence that Christ is Jehovah, or the words have not a tolerable sense. Of this again afterward.

4. The interpretation given of the words is most perverse and opposite to the meaning of them. The prophet says not that "Jehovah the one God shall be our righteousness," but, "The Branch of David shall be the LORD our righteousness." The subject is the Branch of David, not Jehovah. "The Branch of David shall be called The LORD our righteousness;" that is, say they, "The LORD shall justify us when the Branch of David shall be brought forth." Who could have discovered this sense but our catechists and their masters, whose words these are! It remaineth, then, that the Branch of David, who ruleth in righteousness, is Jehovah our righteousness;—our righteousness, as being made so to us; Jehovah, as being so in himself.

Grotius expounds this place, as that of Mic. 5:2, of Zerubbabel, helping on his friends with a new diversion which they knew not of; Socinus, as he professes, being not acquainted with the Jewish doctors,—though some believe him not. And yet the learned annotator cannot hold out as he begins, but is forced to put out the name Zerubbabel, and to put in that of the people, when he comes to the name insisted on; so leaving no certain design in the whole words from the beginning to the ending.

Two things doth he here oppose himself in to the received interpretation of Christians:—1. That it is Zerubbabel who is here intended. 2. That it is the people who are called "The LORD our righteousness."

For the first, thus he on verse 15, "Germen justum,—a righteous Branch:"—"Zorobabelem, qui צֶמַח ut hic appellatur, ita et Zechariæ 6:12, nimirum quod velut surculus renatus esset ex arbore Davidis, quasi præcisa. Justitiæ nomine commendatur Zorobabel etiam apud Zechariam 9:9;"—"Zerubbabel, who is here called the Branch, as also Zech. 6:12, because as a branch he arose from the tree of David, which was as cut off. Also, Zerubbabel is commended for justice (or righteousness), Zech. 9:9."

That this is a prophecy of Christ the circumstances of the place evince. The rabbins were also of the same mind, as plentiful collections from them are made to demonstrate it, by Joseph de Voysin, Pug. Fid. par. 3, dist. 1, cap. iv. And the matter spoken of can be accommodated to no other, as hath been declared. Grotius' proofs that Zerubbabel is intended are worse than the opinion itself. That he is called the Branch, Zech. 6:12, is most false. He who is called the Branch there is a king and a priest, "He shall rule upon his throne, and he shall be a priest;" which Zerubbabel was not, nor had any thing to do with the priestly office, which in his days was administered by Joshua. More evidently false is it that he is spoken of Zech. 9:9; which place is precisely interpreted of Christ, and the accomplishment, in the very letter of the thing foretold, recorded, Matt. 21:5. The words are: "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass." That a man professing Christian religion should affirm any one but Jesus Christ to be here intended is somewhat strange.

Upon the accommodation of the next words to Zerubbabel, "A King shall reign and prosper," etc., I shall not insist. They contain not the matter of our present contest, though they are pitifully wrested by the annotator, and do no ways serve his design.

For the particular words about which our contest is, this is his comment: " 'And this is the name whereby they shall call him,' nempe populum;"—namely, the people. "They shall call the people." How this change comes, "In his days Judah shall be saved, and this is the name whereby he shall be called,"—that is, the people shall be called,—he shows not. That there is no colour of reason for it hath been showed; what hath been said need not to be repeated. He proceeds, "Dominus justitia nostra," that is, "Deus nobis bene fecit,"—"God hath done well for us, or dealt kindly with us." But it is not about the intimation of goodness that is in the words, but of the signification of the name given to Jesus Christ, that here we plead. In what sense Christ is "The LORD our righteousness" appears, Isa. 45:22–25, 1 Cor. 1:30.

The second testimony is Zech. 2:8, in these words, "For thus saith the LORD of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye. For, behold, I will shake mine hand upon them," etc., verses 9–12.

Briefly to declare what this witness speaks to, before we permit him to the examination of our adversaries: The person speaking is the LORD of hosts: "Thus saith the LORD of hosts." And he is the person spoken of. "After the glory," saith he (or, "After this glorious deliverance of you, my people, from the captivity wherein ye were among the nations"), "hath he sent me;"—"Even me, the LORD of hosts, hath he sent." "Thus saith the LORD of hosts, He hath sent me." And it was to the nations, as in the words following. And who sent him? "Ye shall know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me;"—"The people of Israel shall know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me, the LORD of hosts, to the nations." But how shall they know that he is so sent? He tells them, verse 11, it shall be known by the conversion of the nations: "Many nations shall be joined to the LORD in that day." And what then? "They shall be my people;"—"mine who am sent; my people; the people of the LORD of hosts that was sent;" that is, of Jesus Christ. "And I," saith he whose people they are, "will dwell in the midst of them" (as God promised to do), "and thou shalt know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me." I omit the circumstances of the place. Let us now see what is excepted by our catechists:—

Q. What dost thou answer to this second testimony?

A. The place of Zechariah they thus cite: "This saith the LORD of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me to the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of mine eye;" which they wrest unto Christ, because here, as they suppose, it is said that the Lord of hosts is sent from the Lord of hosts. But these things are not so; for it is evident that these words, "After the glory hath he sent me," are spoken of another, namely, of the angel who spake with Zechariah and the other angel. The same is evident in the same chapter a little before, beginning at the fourth verse, where the angel is brought in speaking; which also is to be seen from hence, that those words which they cite, "This saith the LORD of hosts," in the Hebrew may be read, "Thus saith the LORD of hosts;" and those, "Toucheth the apple of mine eye," may be read, "The apple of his eye;" which of necessity are referred to his messenger, and not to the Lord of hosts."

These gentlemen being excellent at cavils and exceptions, and thereunto undertaking to answer any thing in the world, do not lightly acquit themselves more weakly and jejunely in any place than in this; for,—

1. We contend not with them about the translation of the words, their exceptions being to the Vulgar Latin only; we take them as they have rendered them. To omit that, therefore,—

2. That these words are spoken by him who is called the angel we grant; but the only question is, Who is this angel that speaks them? It is evident, from the former chapter and this, that it is the man who was upon the red horse, chap. 1:8, who is called "Angelus Jehovæ," verse 11, and makes intercession for the church, verse 12; which is the proper office of Jesus Christ. And that he is no created angel, but Jehovah himself, the second person of the Trinity, we prove, because he calls himself "The LORD of hosts;" says he will destroy his enemies with the shaking of his hand; that he will convert a people, and make them his people; and that he will dwell in his church. And yet unto all this he adds three times that he is sent of the Lord of hosts. We confess, then, all these things to be spoken of him who was sent; but upon all these testimonies conclude that he who was sent was the Lord of hosts.

Grotius interprets all this place of an angel, and names him to boot! Michael it is; but who that Michael is, and whether he be no more than an angel (that is, a messenger), he inquires not. That the ancient Jewish doctors interpreted this place of the Messiah is evident. Of that no notice here is taken; it is not to the purpose in hand. To the reasons already offered to prove that it is no mere creature that is here intended, but the Lord of hosts who is sent by the Lord of hosts, I shall only add my desire that the friends and apologizers for this learned annotator would reconcile this exposition of this place to itself, in those things which at first view present themselves to every ordinary observer. Take one instance: "Ye shall know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me,"—that is, Michael; "and I will dwell in the midst of thee." "Templum meum ibi habebo,"—"I will have my temple there." If he who speaks be Michael, a created angel, how comes the temple of Jehovah to be his? And such let the attempts of all appear to be who manage any design against the eternal glory of the Son of God.

The third testimony is 1 John 5:20, "And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us 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, and eternal life."

Q. What dost thou answer to this?

A. These words, "This is the true God," I deny to be referred to the Son of God. Not that I deny Christ to be true God, but that place will not admit those words to be understood of Christ; for here he treats not only of the true God, but of the only true God, as the article added in the Greek doth declare. But Christ, although he be true God, he is not yet of himself that one God, who by himself, and upon the most excellent account, is God, seeing that is only God the Father. Nor doth it avail the adversaries, who would have those words referred to Christ, because the mention of Christ doth immediately go before those words, "This is the true God:" for pronoun relatives, as "this" and the like, are not always referred to the next antecedent, but often to that which is chiefly spoken of, as Acts 7:19, 20, 10:6, John 2:7; from which places it appears that the pronoun relative "this" is referred not to the next, but to the most remote person.

1. It is well it is acknowledged that the only true God is here intended, and that this is proved by the prefixed article. This may be of use afterward.

2. In what sense these men grant Christ to be a true God we know;—a made God, a God by office, not nature; a man deified with authority: so making two true Gods, contrary to innumerable express texts of Scripture and the nature of the Deity.

3. That these words are not meant of Christ they prove, because "he is not the only true God, but only the Father." But, friends, these words are produced to prove the contrary, as expressly affirming it; and is it a sufficient reason to deny it by saying, "He is not the only true God, therefore these words are not spoken of him," when the argument is, "These words are spoken of him, therefore he is the only true God?"

4. Their instances prove that in some cases a relative may relate to the more remote antecedent, but that in this place that mentioned ought to do so they pretend not once to urge; yea, the reason they give is against themselves, namely, that "it refers to him chiefly spoken of," which here is eminently and indisputably Jesus Christ. In the places by them produced it is impossible, from the subject-matter in hand, that the relative should be referred to any but the remoter antecedent; but that therefore here we must offer violence to the words, and strain them into an incoherence, and transgress all rules of construction (nothing enforcing to such a procedure), is not proved.

5. In the beginning of the 20th verse it is said, "The Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding;" and we are said to be "in him," even "in Jesus Christ;" on which it immediately follows, Οὗτος, "This," this Jesus Christ, "is the true God, and eternal life."

6. That Jesus Christ is by John peculiarly called "life," and "eternal life," is evident both from his Gospel and this Epistle; and without doubt, by the same term, in his usual manner, he expresses here the same person. Chap. 1:2, 5:12, 20, "The Son of God is life, eternal life: he that hath the Son hath life: we are in him, in his Son Jesus Christ: this is the true God, and eternal life." So he began, and so he ends his Epistle.

And this is all our adversaries have to say against this most express testimony of the divine nature of Jesus Christ; in their entrance whereunto they cry, "Hail, master!" as one before them did ("He is a true God"), but in the close betray him, as far as lies in them, by denying his divine nature.

Even at the light of this most evident testimony, the eyes of Grotius dazzled that he could not see the truth. His note is, "Οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ ἀληθινὸς Θεός, Is nempe quem Iesus monstravit colendumque docuit, non alius. Οὗτος sæpe refertur ad aliquid præcedens non ἀμέσως, Act. 8:19, 10:6." The very same plea with the former; only Acts 8:19 is mistaken for Acts 7:19, the place urged by our catechists, and before them by Socinus against Weik, to whom not only they but Grotius is beholden. That citation of Acts 10:6 helps not the business at all. Οὗτος is twice used, once immediately at the beginning of the verse, secondly being guided by the first; the latter is referred to the same person, nor can possibly signify any other. Here is no such thing, not any one circumstance to cause us to put any force upon the constructure of the words, the discourse being still of the same person, without any alteration; which in the other places is not.

Of the next testimony, which is from these words of Jude, "Denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ," verse 4 (not to increase words), this is the sum: There being but one article prefixed to all the words, it seems to carry the sense that it is wholly spoken of Christ. The catechists reckon some places where one article serves to sundry things, as Matt. 21:12; but it is evident that they are utterly things of another kind and another manner of speaking than what is here: but the judgment hereof is left to the reader, it being not indeed clear to me whether Christ be called Δεσπότης anywhere in the New Testament, though he be [called] Lord, and God, and the true God, full often.

The second [chapter] of Titus, verse 13, must be more fully insisted on: "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearance of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ."

Q. What dost thou answer to this?

A. In this place they strive to evince by two reasons that the epithet of the "great God" is referred to Christ. The first is the rule forementioned, of one article prefixed to all the words; the other, that we do not expect that coming of the Father, but of the Son. To the first you have an answer already in the answer to the fourth testimony; to the other I answer, Paul doth not say, "Expecting the coming of the great God," but, "Expecting the appearance of the glory of the great God." But now the words of Christ show that the glory of God the Father may be said to be illustrated when Christ comes to judgment, when he saith that he shall come in glory, that is, with the glory of God his Father, Matt. 16:27; Mark. 8:38. Besides, what inconvenience is it if it shall be said that God the Father shall come (as they cite the words out of the Vulgar), when the Son comes to judge the world? Shall not Christ sustain the person of the Father, as of him from whom he hath received this office of judging?

About the reading of the words we shall not contend with them. It is the original we are to be tried by, and there is in that no ambiguity. That Ἐπιφάνεια τῆς δόξης, "The appearance of the glory," is a Hebraism for "The glorious appearance" cannot be questioned. A hundred expressions of that nature in the New Testament may be produced to give countenance to this. That the blessed hope looked for is the thing hoped for, the resurrection to life and immortality, is not denied. Neither is it disputed whether the subject spoken of be Jesus Christ and his coming to judgment. The subject is one; his epithets here two:—1. That belonging to his essence in himself, he is "the great God;" 2. That of office unto us, he is "our Saviour." That it is Christ which is spoken of appears,—1. From the single article that is assigned to all the words, Τοῦ μεγάλου Θεοῦ καὶ Σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ· which no less signifies one person than that other expression, Ὁ Θεὸς καὶ Πατὴρ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ,—"The God and Father of Jesus Christ." Should I say that one person is here intended, and not two (God and the Father of Jesus Christ being the same), our catechists may say, "No; for it is found in another place that there is but one article prefixed where sundry persons are after spoken of." But is it not evident in those places, from the subject-matter, that they are sundry persons, as also from the several conditions of them mentioned, as in that of Matt. 21:12, "He cast out the sellers and buyers?" The proper force, then, of the expression enforces this attribution to Jesus Christ. 2. Mention is made τῆς ἐπιφανείας,—of the glorious appearance of him of whom the apostle speaks. That Christ is the person spoken of, and his employment of coming to judgment, primarily and directly, is confessed. This word is never used of God the Father, but frequently of Christ, and that, in particular, in respect of the things here spoken of; yea, it is properly expressive of his second coming, in opposition to his first coming, under contempt, scorn, and reproach: 1 Tim. 6:14, "Keep this commandment, μέχρι τῆς ἐπιφανείας τοῦ χριστοῦ." 2 Tim. 4:8, "Which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them that love τὴν ἐπιφάνειαν αὐτοῦ." Neither, as was said, is it ever used of the Father, but is the word continually used to express the second coming of Jesus Christ. Sometimes παρουσία hath the same signification; and is therefore never ascribed to the father. 3. It is not what may be said to be done, whether the glory of the Father may be said to be illustrated by the coming of Christ, but what is said. "The glorious appearance of the great God" is not the manifestation of his glory, but his glory is manifested in his appearance. 4. It is true, it is said that Christ shall "come in the glory of his Father," Matt. 16:27, Mark. 8:38; but it is nowhere said that the glory of the Father shall come or appear. 5. Their whole interpretation of the words will scarce admit of any good sense; nor can it be properly said that two persons come when only one comes, though that one have glory and authority from the other. 6. Christ shall also judge in his own name, and by the laws which, as Lord, he hath given. 7. There is but the same way of coming and appearance of the great God and our Saviour: which if our Saviour come really and indeed, and the great God only because he sends him, the one comes and the other comes not; which is not, doubtless, they both come.

Grotius agrees with our catechists, but says not one word more for the proof of his interpretation, nor in way of exception to ours, than they say, as they say no more than Socinus against Bellarmine, nor he much more than Erasmus before him, from whom Grotius also borrowed his comment of Ambrose, which he urges in the exposition of this place; which, were it not for my peculiar respect to Erasmus, I would say were not honestly done, himself having proved that comment under the name of Ambrose to be a paltry, corrupted, depraved, foisted piece: but Grotius hath not a word but what hath been spoken to.

The next testimony mentioned is Rev. 1:8, "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty;" to which is added that of chap. 4:8, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come."

Q. What sayest thou to this?

A. This place they say refers to Christ, because they suppose none is said to come but only Christ, for he is to come to judge the quick and dead. But it is to be noted, that that word which they have rendered "to come," may equally be rendered "is to be," as John 16:13, where the Lord says of the Spirit, which he promised to the apostles, that he should "show them things to come;" and Acts 18:21, we read that the feast day was "to be," in which place the Greek word is ἐρχόμενος. Lastly, Who is there that knows not that seeing it is said before, "which was, and is," this last which is added may be rendered "to be," that the words in every part may be taken of existence, and not in the two former of existence, in the latter of coming? Neither is there any one who doth not observe that the eternity of God is here described, which comprehendeth time past, present, and to come. But that which discovers this gross error is that which we read in Rev. 1:4, 5, "Grace be to you, and peace, from him which is, which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne; and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness;"—from which testimony it appears that Jesus Christ is quite another from him which is, and was, and is to be, or, as they think, is to come.

1. There is not one place which they have mentioned wherein the word here used, ἐρχόμενος, may not properly be translated "to come;" which they seem to acknowledge at first to be peculiar to Christ. But, 2. These gentlemen make themselves and their disciples merry by persuading them that we have no other argument to prove these words to be spoken of Christ but only because he is said to be ὁ ἐρχόμενος: which yet, in conjunction with other things, is not without its weight, being as it were a name of the Messiah, Matt. 11:3, from Gen. 49:10, though it may be otherwise applied. 3. They are no less triumphant, doubtless, in their following answer, that these words describe the eternity of God, and therefore belong not to Christ; when the argument is, that Christ is God, because, amongst other things, these words ascribe eternity to him. Is this an answer to us, who not only believe him, but prove him eternal? 4. And they are upon the same pin still in their last expression, that these words are ascribed to the Father, verse 4, when they know that the argument which they have undertaken to answer is, that the same names are ascribed to the Son as to the Father, and therefore he is God equal with him. Their answer is, "This name is not ascribed to Christ, because it is ascribed to the Father." Men must beg when they can make no earnings at work. 5. We confess Christ to be "alius," "another," another person from the Father; not another God, as our catechists pretend.

Having stopped the mouths of our catechists, we may briefly consider the text itself. 1. That by this expression, "Who is, and who was, and who is to come," the apostle expresses that name of God, Ehejeh [אֶהְיֶה], Exod. 3:14, which, as the rabbins say, is of all seasons, and expressive of all times, is evident. To which add that other name of God, "Almighty," and it cannot at all be questioned but that he who is intended in these words is "the only true God." 2. That the words are here used of Jesus Christ is so undeniable from the context that his adversaries thought good not once to mention it. Verse 7, his coming is described to he in glory: "Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him;" whereupon himself immediately adds the words of this testimony, "I am Alpha and Omega." For, (1.) They are words spoken to John by him who gave him the Revelation, which was Jesus Christ, verse 1. (2.) They are the words of him that speaks on to John, which was Jesus Christ, verse 18. (3.) Jesus Christ twice in this chapter afterward gives himself the same title, verse 11, "I am Alpha and Omega;" and verse 17, "I am the first and the last." But who is he? "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I live for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death," verse 18. He gave the Revelation, he is described, he speaks all always, he gives himself the same title twice again in this chapter.

But our catechists think they have taken a course to prevent all this, and therefore have avoided the consideration of the words as they are placed, chap. 1:8, considering the same words in chap. 4:8, where they want some of the circumstances which in this place give light to their application. They are not there spoken by any one that ascribes them to himself, but by others are ascribed "to him that sitteth upon the throne;" who cry (as the seraphims, Isa. 6:3), "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come." But yet there wants not evidence to evince that these words belong immediately in this place also to Jesus Christ; for,—1. They are the name, as we have seen, whereby not long before he revealed himself. 2. They are spoken of "him who sitteth upon the throne" in the midst of the Christian churches here represented. And if Christ be not intended in these words, there is no mention of his presence in his church, in that solemn representation of its assembly, although he promised to be in the "midst" of his "to the end of the world." 3. The honour that is here ascribed to him that is spoken of is because he is ἄξιος, "worthy," as the same is assigned to the Lamb by the same persons in the same words, chap. 5:12. So that in both these places it is Jesus Christ who is described: "He is, he was, he is to come" (or, as another place expresses it, "The same yesterday, to-day, and for ever"), "the Lord God Almighty."

I shall not need to add any thing to what Grotius hath observed on these places. He holds with our catechists, and ascribes these titles and expressions to God in contradistinction to Jesus Christ, and gives in some observations to explain them: but for the reason of his exposition, wherein he knew that he dissented from the most of Christians, we have οὐδὲ γρύ, so that I have nothing to do but to reject his authority; which, upon the experience I have of his design, I can most freely do.

Proceed we to the next testimony, which is Acts 20:28, "Feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood." He who purchased the church with his blood is God; but it was Jesus Christ who purchased his church with his blood, Eph. 5:25–27, Tit. 2:14, Heb. 9:14: therefore he is God.

Q. What dost thou answer to this?

A. I answer, the name of "God" is not necessarily in this place referred to Christ, but it may be referred to God the Father, whose blood the apostles call that which Christ shed, in that kind of speaking, and for that cause, with which God, and for which cause the prophet says, "He who toucheth you toucheth the apple of the eye of God himself." For the great conjunction that is between Father and Son, although in essence they are altogether diverse, is the reason why the blood of Christ is called the blood of God the Father himself, especially if it be considered as shed for us; for Christ is the Lamb of God, that takes away the sins of the world, whence the blood shed to that purpose may be called the blood of God himself. Nor is it to be passed by in silence, that in the Syriac edition, in the place of God, Christ is read.

There is scarce any place in returning an answer whereunto the adversaries of the deity of Christ do less agree among themselves than about this. 1. Some say the name of God is not here taken absolutely, but with relation to office, and so Christ is spoken of, and called "God by office:" so Socin. ad Bellar. et Weik. p. 200, etc. Some say that the words are thus to be read, "Feed the church of God, which Christ hath purchased by his own blood:" so Ochinus and Lælius Socinus, whom Zanchius answers, "De Tribus Elohim," lib. iii. cap. vi. p. 456. Some flee to the Syriac translation, contrary to the constant consenting testimony of all famous copies of the original, all agreeing in the word Θεοῦ, some adding τοῦ Κυρίου. So Grotius would have it, affirming that the manuscript he used had τοῦ Κυρίου, not telling them that it added Θεοῦ, which is the same with what we affirm; and therefore he ventures at asserting the text to be corrupted, and, in short writing, θοῦ to be crept in for χοῦ [manuscript contractions for Θεοῦ and Χριστοῦ], contrary to the faith and consent of all ancient copies: which is all he hath to plead. 2. Our catechists know not what to say: "Necessarily this word 'God' is not to be referred to Christ; it may he referred to God the Father." Give an instance of the like phrase of speech, and take the interpretation. Can it be said that one's blood was shed when it was not shed, but another's? and there is no mention that that other's blood was shed. 3. If the Father's blood was shed, or said truly to be shed, because Christ's blood was shed, then you may say that God the Father died, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and that God the Father rose from the dead; that he was dead, and is alive; that that blood that was shed was not Christ's, but somebody's else that he loved, and was near unto him. 4. There is no analogy between that of the prophet, of the "apple of God's eye," and this here spoken of. Uncontrollably a metaphor must there be allowed;—here is no metaphor insisted on; but that which is the blood of Christ is called the blood of God, and Christ not to be that God is their interpretation. There, divers persons are spoken of, God and believers; here, one only, that did that which is expressed. And all the force of this exposition lies in this, "There is a figurative expression in one place, the matter spoken of requiring it, therefore here must be a figure admitted also," where there is not the same reason. What is this but to "make the Scripture a nose of wax?" The work of "redeeming the church with his blood" is ever ascribed to Christ as peculiar to him, constantly, without exception, and never to God the Father; neither would our adversaries allow it to be so here, but that they know not how to stand before the testimony wherewith they are pressed. 5. If, because of the conjunction that is between God the Father and Christ, the blood of Christ may be called the blood of God the Father, then the hunger and thirst of Christ, his dying and being buried, his rising again, may be called the hunger and thirst of God the Father, his sweating, dying, and rising. And he is a strange natural and proper Son who hath a quite different nature and essence from his own proper Father, as is here affirmed. 6. Christ is called "The Lamb of God," as answering and fulfilling all the sacrifices that were made to God of old; and if the blood of Christ may be called the blood of God the Father because he appointed it to be shed for us, then the blood of any sacrifice was also the blood of the man that appointed it to be shed, yea, of God, who ordained it. The words are, Ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἣν περιεποιήσατο διὰ τοῦ ἰδίου ἅιματος. If any words in the world can properly express that it is one and the same person who is intended, that it is his own blood properly that bought the church with it, surely these words do it to the full. Christ, then, is God.

The next place they are pleased to take notice of, as to this head of testimonies about the names of God, is 1 John. 3:16, "Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us." He who laid down his life for us was God; that is, he was so when he laid down his life for us, and not made a God since.

Q. To the eighth what sayest thou?

A. First take this account, that neither in any Greek edition (but only the Complutensis) nor in the Syriac the word "God" is found. But suppose that this word were found in all copies, were therefore this word "he" to be referred to "God"? No, doubtless; not only for that reason which we gave a little before, in answer to the third testimony, that such words are not always referred to the next person, but, moreover, because John doth often in this epistle refer the Greek word ἐκεῖνος to him who was named long before, as in the 3d, 5th, and 7th verses of this chapter.

1. Our catechists do very faintly adhere to the first exception, about the word Θεοῦ in the original, granting that it is in some copies, and knowing that the like phrase is used elsewhere, and that the sense in this place necessarily requires the presence of that word. 2. Supposing it as they do, we deny that this is a very just exception which they insist upon, that as a relative may sometimes, and in some cases, where the sense is evident, be referred to the remote antecedent, therefore it may or ought to be so in any place, contrary to the propriety of grammar, where there are no circumstances enforcing such a construction, but all things requiring the proper sense of it. 3. It is allowed of only where several persons are spoken of immediately before, which here are not, one only being intimated or expressed. 4. They can give no example of the word "God" going before, and ἐκεῖνος following after, where ἐκεῖνος is referred to any thing or person more remote; much less here, where the apostle, having treated of God and the love of God, draws an argument from the love of God to enforce our love of one another. 5. In the places they point unto, ἐκεῖνος in every one of them is referred to the next and immediate antecedent, as will be evident to our reader upon the first view.

Give them their great associate and we have done: "Ἐκεῖνος hic est Christus, ut supra ver. 5, subintelligendum hic autem est, hoc Christum fecisse Deo sic decernente nostri causa quod expressum est, Rom. 5:8." That ἐκεῖνος is Christ is confessed; but the word being a relative, and expressive of some person before mentioned, we say it relates unto Θεοῦ, the word going immediately before it. No, says Grotius, but "the sense is, 'Herein appeared the love of God, that by his appointment Christ died for us.' " That Christ laid down his life for us by the appointment of the Father is most true, but that that is the intendment of this place, or that the grammatical construction of the words will bear any such sense, we deny.

And this is what they have to except to the testimonies which themselves choose to insist on to give in their exceptions to, as to the names of Jehovah and God being ascribed unto Jesus Christ; which having vindicated from all their sophistry, I shall shut up the discourse of them with this argument, which they afford us for the confirmation of the sacred truth contended for: He who is Jehovah, God, the only true God, etc., he is God by nature; but thus is Jesus Christ God, and these are the names the Scripture calls and knows him by: therefore he is so, God by nature, blessed for ever.

That many more testimonies to this purpose may be produced, and have been so by those who have pleaded the deity of Christ against its opposers, both of old and of late, is known to all that inquire after such things. I content myself to vindicate what they have put in exceptions unto.

CHAPTER XI

Of the work of creation assigned to Jesus Christ, etc.

The confirmation of his eternal deity from thence.

THE scriptures which assign the creating of all things to Jesus Christ they propose as the next testimony of his deity whereunto they desire to give in their exceptions. To these they annex them wherein it is affirmed that he brought the people of Israel out of Egypt, and that he was with them in the wilderness; with one particular out of Isaiah, compared with the account given of it in the gospel, about the prophet's seeing the glory of Christ. Of those which are of the first sort they instance in John 1:3, 10; Col. 1:16, 17; Heb. 1:2, 10–12.

The first and second of these I have already vindicated, in the consideration of them as they lay in their conjuncture with them going before in verse 1; proceed we therefore to the third, which is Col. 1:16, 17, "For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist."

1. That these words are spoken of Jesus Christ is acknowledged. The verses foregoing prevent all question thereof: "He hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature: for by him were all things," etc.

2. In what sense Christ is the "image of the invisible God," even the "express image of his Father's person," shall be afterward declared. The other part of the description of him belongs to that which we have in hand. He is πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως,—"the first-born of every creature;" that is, before them all, above them all, heir of them all, and so none of them. It is not said he is πρωτόκτιστος, first created, but πρωτότοκος, the first-born. Now, the term "first" in the Scripture represents either what follows, and so denotes an order in the things spoken of, he that is the first being one of them, as Adam was the first man; or it respects things going before, in which sense it denies all order or series of things in the same kind. So God is said to be the "first," Isa. 41:4, because before him there was none, Isa. 43:10. And in this sense is Christ the "first-born,"—so the first-born as to be the "only-begotten Son of God," John 3:18. This the apostle proves and gives an account of in the following verses; for the clearing of his intendment wherein a few things may be premised:—

1. Though he speaks of him who is Mediator, and describes him, yet he speaks not of him as Mediator; for that he enters upon verse 18, "And he is the head of the body, the church," etc.

2. That the things whose creation is here assigned unto Jesus Christ are evidently contradistinguished to the things of the church, or new creation, which are mentioned verse 18. Here he is said to be the "first-born of every creature;" there, the "first-born from the dead;"—here, to make all things; there, to be "the head of the body, the church."

3. The creation of all things simply and absolutely is most emphatically expressed:—(1.) In general: "By him all things were created." (2.) A distribution is made of those "all things" into "all things that are in heaven and that are in earth;" which is the common expression of all things that were made at the beginning, Exod. 20:11, Acts 4:24. (3.) A description is given of the things so created according to two adjuncts which divide all creatures whatever,—whether they are "visible or invisible." (4.) An enumeration is in particular made of one sort, of things invisible; which being of greatest eminency and dignity, might seem, if any, to be exempted from the state and condition of being created by Jesus Christ: "Whether they be thrones," etc. (5.) This distribution and enumeration being closed, the general assumption is again repeated, as having received confirmation from what was said before: "All things were created by him," of what sort soever, whether expressed in the enumeration foregoing or no; all things were created by him. They were created for him εἰς αὐτόν, as it is said of the Father, Rom. 11:36; which, Rev. 4:11, is said to be for his will and "pleasure." (6.) For a farther description of him, verse 17, his pre-existence before all things, and his providence in supporting them and continuing that being to them which he gave them by creation, are asserted: "And he is before all things, and by him all things consist."

Let us consider, then, what is excepted hereunto by them with whom we have to do. Thus they,—

Q. What dost thou answer to this place?

A. Besides this, that this testimony speaks of Christ as of the mediate and second cause, it is manifest the words "were created" are used in Scripture, not only concerning the old, but also the new creation; of which you have an example, Eph. 2:10, 15, James 1:18. Moreover, that these words, "All things in heaven and in earth," are not used for all things altogether, appeareth, not only from the words subjoined a little after, verse 20, where the apostle saith, that "by him are all things reconciled in heaven and in earth," but also from those words themselves, wherein the apostle said not that the heavens and earth were created, but "all things that are in heaven and in earth."

Q. But how dost thou understand that testimony?

A. On that manner wherein all things that are in heaven and in earth were reformed by Christ, after God raised him from the dead, and by him translated into another state and condition; and this whereas God gave Christ to be head to angels and men, who before acknowledged God only for their lord.

What there is either in their exceptions or exposition of weight to take off this evident testimony shall briefly be considered.

1. The first exception, of the kind of causality which is here ascribed to Christ, hath already been considered and removed, by manifesting the very same kind of expression, about the same things, to be used concerning God the Father. 2. Though the word creation be used concerning the new creation, yet it is in places where it is evidently and distinctly spoken of in opposition to the former state wherein they were who were so created. But here, as was above demonstrated, the old creation is spoken of in direct distinction from the new, which the apostle describes and expresses in other terms, verse 20; if that may be called the new creation which lays a foundation of it, as the death of Christ doth of regeneration; and unless it be in that cause, the work of the new creation is not spoken of at all in this place. 3. Where Christ is said "to reconcile all things unto himself, whether things in earth, or things in heaven," he speaks plainly and evidently of another work, distinct from that which he had described in these verses; and whereas reconciliation supposes a past enmity, the "all things" mentioned in the 20th verse can be none but those which were sometime at enmity with God. Now, none but men that ever had any enmity against God, or were at enmity with him, were ever reconciled to God. It is, then, men in heaven and earth, to whose reconciliation, in their several generations, the efficacy of the blood of Christ did extend, that are there intended. 4. Not [only] heaven and earth are named, but "all things in them," as being most immediately expressive of the apostle's purpose, who, naming all things in general, chose to instance in angels and men, as also insisting on the expression which is used concerning the creation of all things in sundry places, as hath been showed, though he mentions not all the words in them used.

[As] for the exposition they give of these words, it is most ridiculous; for,—1. The apostle doth not speak of Christ as he is exalted after his resurrection, but describes him in his divine nature and being. 2. To translate out of one condition into another is not to create the thing so translated, though another new thing it may be. When a man is made a magistrate, we do not say he is made a man but he is made a magistrate. 3. The new creation, which they here affirm to be spoken of, is by no means to be accommodated unto angels. In both the places mentioned by themselves, and in all places where it is spoken of, it is expressive of a change from bad to good, from evil actions to grace, and is the same with regeneration or conversion, which cannot be ascribed to angels, who never sinned nor lost their first habitation. 4. The dominion of Christ over angels and men is nowhere called a new creation, nor is there any colour or pretence why it should be so expressed. 5. The new creation is "in Christ," 2 Cor. 5:17; but to be "in Christ" is to be implanted into him by the Holy Spirit by believing, which by no means can be accommodated to angels. 6. If only the dominion of Christ be intended, then, whereas Christ's dominion is, according to our adversaries (Smalc. de Divin. Christi, cap. xvi.), extended over all creatures, men, angels, devils, and all other things in the world, men, angels, devils, and all things, are new creatures! 7. Socinus says that by "principalities and powers" devils are intended. And what advancement may they be supposed to have obtained by the new creation? The devils were created, that is, delivered! There is no end of the folly and absurdities of this interpretation: I shall spend no more words about it. Our argument from this place stands firm and unshaken.

Grotius abides by his friends in the interpretation of this place, wresting it to the new creature and the dominion of Christ over all, against all the reasons formerly insisted on, and with no other argument than what he was from the Socinians supplied withal. His words on the place are:—"It is certain that all things were created by the Word; but those things that go before show that Christ is here treated of, which is the name of a man, as Chrysostom also understood this place. But he would have it that the world was made for Christ, in a sense not corrupt; but on the account of that which went before, ἐκτίσθη is better interpreted 'were ordained,' or 'obtained a certain new state.' " So he, in almost the very words of Socinus. But,—

1. In what sense "all things were created by the Word," and what Grotius intends by the "Word," I shall speak elsewhere. 2. Is Christ the name of a man only? or of him who is only a man? Or is he a man only as he is Christ? If he would have spoken out to this, we might have had some light into his meaning in many other places of his Annotations. The apostle tells us that Christ is "over all, God blessed for ever," Rom. 9:5; and that Jesus Christ was "declared to be the Son of God, by the resurrection from the dead," chap. 1:4. If "Christ" denote the person of our mediator, Christ is God, and what is spoken of Christ is spoken of him who is God. But this is that which is aimed at: The Word, or Wisdom of God, bears eminent favour towards that man Jesus Christ; but that he was any more than a man, that is, the union of the natures of God and man in one person, is denied. 3. The words before are so spoken of Christ as that they call him the Son of God, and the image of the invisible God, and the first-born of the creation; which though he was who was a man, yet he was not as he was a man. 4. All the arguments we have insisted on, and farther shall insist on (by God's assistance), to prove the deity of Christ, with all the texts of Scripture wherein it is plainly affirmed, do evince the vanity of this exception, "Christ is the name of a man; therefore the things spoken of him are not proper and peculiar to God." 5. Into Chrysostom's exposition of this place I shall not at present inquire, though I am not without reason to think he is wronged; but that the word here translated "created" may not, cannot be rendered ordained, or placed in a new state and condition, I have before sufficiently evinced, neither doth Grotius add any thing to evince his interpretation of the place, or to remove what is objected against it.

1. He tells us that of that sense of the word κτίζειν he hath spoken in his Prolegomena to the Gospels; and urges Eph. 2:10, 13, 3:9, 4:24, to prove the sense proposed. (1.) It is confessed that God doth sometimes express the exceeding greatness of his power and efficacy of his grace in the regeneration of a sinner, and enabling him to live to God, by the word "create,"—whence such a person is sometimes called the "new creature,"—according to the many promises of the Old Testament, of creating a new heart in the elect, whom he would take into covenant with himself,—a truth which wraps that in its bowels whereunto Grotius was no friend; but that this new creation can be accommodated to the things here spoken of is such a figment as so learned a man might have been ashamed of. The constant use of the word in the New Testament is that which is proper, and that which in this place we insist on: as Rom. 1:25; 1 Tim. 4:3; Rev. 4:11. (2.) Eph. 2:10 speaks of the "new creature" in the sense declared; which is not illustrated by verse 13, which is quite of another import. Chap. 4:24 is to the same purpose. Chap. 3:9, the creation of all things, simply and absolutely, is ascribed to God; which to wrest to a new creation there is no reason, but what arises from opposition to Jesus Christ, because it is ascribed also to him.

2. The latter part of the verse he thus illustrates, or rather obscures: "Τὰ πάντα δἰ αὐτοῦ, intellige omnia quœ ad novam creationem pertinent." How causelessly, how without ground, how contrary to the words and scope of the place, hath been showed. "Καὶ εἰς αὐτὸν ἔκτισται, propter ipsum, ut ipse omnibus illis præesset, Rev. 5:13, Heb. 2:8." This is to go forward in an ill way. (1.) What one instance can he give of this sense of the expression opened? The words, as hath been showed, are used of God the Father, Rom. 11:36, and are expressive of absolute sovereignty, as Rev. 4:11. (2.) The texts cited by him to exemplify the sense of this place (for they are not instanced in to explain the phrase, which is not used in them) do quite evert his whole gloss. In both places the dominion of Christ is asserted over the whole creation; and particularly, in Rev. 5:13, things in heaven, earth, under the earth, and in the sea, are recounted. I desire to know whether all these are made new creatures or no. If not, it is not the dominion of Christ over them that is here spoken of; for he speaks only of them that he created.

Of the 17th verse he gives the same exposition: "Καὶ αὐτός ἐστι πρὸ πάντων, id est, A et Ω, ut ait Apoc. 1:8, πρὸ πάντων, intellige ut jam diximus." Not contented to pervert this place, he draws another into society with it, wherein he is more highly engaged than our catechists, who confess that place to be spoken of the eternity of God: "Καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκε· Et hæc vox de veteri creatione ad novam traducitur. Vid. 2 Pet. 3:5." Prove it by any one instance; or, if that may not be done, beg no more in a matter of this importance. In Peter it is used of the existence of all things by the power of God, in and upon their creation; and so also here, but spoken with reference to Jesus Christ, who is "God over all, blessed for ever." And so much for the vindication of this testimony.

Heb. 1:2 is "nextly mentioned, "By whom also the made he worlds."

That these words are spoken of Christ is not denied. They are too express to bear any exception on that account. That God is said to make the world by Christ doth not at all prejudice what we intend from this place. God could no way make the world by Christ but as he was his own eternal Wisdom; which exempts him from the condition of a creature. Besides, as it is said that God made the world by him, denoting the subordination of the Son to the Father and his being his Wisdom, as he is described Prov. 8; so also the Word is said to make the world, as a principal efficient cause himself, John 1:3 and Heb. 1:10. The word here used is αἰῶνας. That αἰών is of various acceptations in the New Testament is known. A duration of time, an age, eternity, are sometimes expressed thereby; the world, the beginning of it, or its creation, as John 9:32. In this place it signifies not "time" simply and solely, but the things created in the "beginning of time" and "in all times;" and so expressly the word is used, Heb. 11:3. The framing αἰώνων, is the creation of the world; which by faith we come to know. "The worlds," that is, the world and all in it, were made by Christ.

Let us now hear out catechists:—

Q. How dost thou answer to this testimony?

A. On this manner, that it is here openly written, not that Christ made, but that God by Christ made the worlds. It is also confessed that the word "secula" may signify not only the ages past and present, but also to come. But that here it signifies things future is demonstrated from hence, that the same author affirmeth that by him whom God appointed heir of all things he made the worlds: for Jesus of Nazareth was not made heir of all things before he raised him from the dead; which appears from hence, because then all power in heaven and in earth was given him of God the Father; in which grant of power, and not in any other thing, that inheritance of all things is contained.

1. For the first exception, it hath been sufficiently spoken to already; and if nothing else but the pre-existence of Christ unto the whole creation be hence proved, yet the cause of our adversaries is by it destroyed for ever. This exception might do some service to the Arians; to Socinians it will do none at all. 2. The word "secula" signifies not things future anywhere. This is gratis dictum, and cannot be proved by any instance. "The world to come" may do so, but "the world" simply doth not. That it doth not so signify in this place is evident from these considerations:—(1.) These words, "By whom he made the worlds," are given as a reason why God made him "heir of all things,"—even because by him he made all things; which is no reason at all, if you understand only heavenly things by "the worlds" here: which also removes the last exception of our catechists, that Christ was appointed heir of all things antecedently to his making of the world; which is most false, this being given as a reason of that,—his making of the world of his being made heir of all things. Besides, this answer, that Christ made not the world until his resurrection, is directly opposite to that formerly given by them to Col. 1:16, where they would have him to be said to make all things because of the reconciliation he made by his death, verse 20. (2.) The same word or expression in the same epistle is used for the world in its creation, as was before observed, chap. 11:3; which makes it evident that the apostle in both places intends the same. (3.) Αἰών is nowhere used absolutely for "the world to come;" which being spoken of in this epistle, is once called οἰκουμένην τὴν μέλλουσαν, chap. 2:5, and ἀιῶνα μέλλοντα, chap. 4:5, but nowhere absolutely ἀιῶνα or ἀιῶνας. (4.) "The world to come" is nowhere said to be made, nor is this expression used of it. It is said, chap. 2:5, to be put into subjection to Christ, not to be made by him; and chap. 4:5, the "powers" of it are mentioned, not its creation. (5.) That is said to be made by Christ which he upholds with the word of his power; but this is said simply to be all things: "He upholdeth all things by the word of his power," chap. 1:3. (6.) This plainly answers the former expressions insisted on, "He made the world," "He made all things," etc. So that this text also lies as a two-edged sword at the very heart of the Socinian cause.

Grotius seeing that this interpretation could not be made good, yet being no way willing to grant that making of the world is ascribed to Christ, relieves his friends with one evasion more than they were aware of. It is, that διʼ οὗ, "by whom," is put for διʼ ὃν, "for whom," or for whose sake; and ἐποίησε is to be rendered by the preterpluperfect tense, "he had made." And so the sense is, "God made the world for Christ;" which answereth an old saying of the Hebrews, "That the world was made for the Messiah."

But what will not great wits give a colour to! 1. Grotius is not able to give me one instance in the whole New Testament where διʼ οὗ is taken for διʼ ὃν: and if it should be so anywhere, himself would confess that it must have some cogent circumstance to enforce that construction, as all places must have where we go off from the propriety of the word. 2. If διʼ οὗ be put for διʼ ὃν, διὰ must be put for εἰς, as, in the opinion of Beza, it is once in the place quoted by Grotius, and so signify the final cause, as he makes διʼ ὃν to do. Now, the Holy Ghost doth expressly distinguish between these two in this business of making the world, Rom. 11:36, Διʼ αὐτοῦ καὶ εἰς αὐτὸν τὰ πάντα: so that, doubtless, in the same matter, one of these is not put for the other. 3. Why must ἐποίησε be "condiderat?" and what example can be given of so rendering that aoristus? If men may say what they please, without taking care to give the least probability to what they say, these things may pass. 4. If the apostle must be supposed to allude to any opinion or saying of the Jews, it is much more probable that he alluded, in the word αἰῶνας, which he uses, to the threefold world they mention in their liturgy,—the lower, middle, and higher world, or [residence of the] souls of the blessed,—or the fourfold, mentioned by Rab. Alschech: "Messias prosperabitur, vocabulum est quod quatuor mundos complectitur; qui sunt mundus inferior, mundus angelorum, mundus sphærarum, et mundus supremus," etc. But of this enough.

Though this last testimony be sufficient to confound all gainsayers, and to stop the mouths of men of common ingenuity, yet it is evident that our catechists are more perplexed with that which follows in the same chapter; which, therefore, they insist longer upon than on any one single testimony besides,—with what success comes now to be considered.

The words are, Heb. 1:10–12, "Thou, LORD, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: they shall perish, but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail." That these words of the psalmist are spoken concerning Christ we have the testimony of the apostle applying them to him; wherein we are to acquiesce. The thing also is clear in itself, for they are added in his discourse of the deliverance of the church; which work is peculiar to the Son of God, and where that is mentioned, it is he who eminently is intended. Now, very many of the arguments wherewith the deity of Christ is confirmed are wrapped up in these words:—1. His name, Jehovah, is asserted: "Thou, LORD;" for of him the psalmist speaks, though he repeats not that word. 2. His eternity and pre-existence to his incarnation: "Thou, LORD, in the beginning,"—that is, before the world was made. 3. His omnipotence and divine power in the creation of all things: "Thou hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands." 4. His immutability: "Thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail;" as Mal. 3:6. 5. His Sovereignty and dominion over all: "As a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed." Let us now see what darkness they are able to pour forth upon this sun shining in its strength.

Q. What dost thou answer to this testimony?

A. To this testimony I answer, that it is not to be understood of, Christ, but of God. But because this writer refers it to the Son of God, it is to be considered that the discourse in this testimony is expressly about not one, but two things chiefly. The one is the creation of heaven and earth; the other, the abolishing of created things. Now, that that author doth not refer the first unto Christ is hence evident, because in that chapter he proposeth to himself to demonstrate the excellency of Christ above the angels; not that which he hath of himself, but that which he had by inheritance, and whereby he is made better than the angels, as is plain to any one, verse 4; of which kind of excellence seeing that the creation of heaven and earth is not, nor can be, it appeareth manifestly that this testimony is not urged by this writer to prove that Christ created heaven and earth. Seeing, therefore, the first part cannot be referred to Christ, it appeareth that the latter only is to be referred to him, and that because by him God will abolish heaven and earth, when by him he shall execute the last judgment, whereby the excellency of Christ above angels shall be so conspicuous that the angels themselves shall in that very thing serve him. And seeing this last speech could not be understood without those former words, wherein mention is made of heaven and earth, being joined to them by this word "they," therefore the author had a necessity to mate mention of them also; for if other holy writers do after that manner cite the testimonies of Scripture, compelled by no necessity, much more was this man to do it, being compelled thereunto.

Q. But where have the divine writers done this?

A. Amongst many other testimonies take Matt. 12:18–21, where it is most manifest that only verse 19 belongeth to the purpose of the evangelist, when he would prove why Christ forbade that he should be made known. So Acts. 2:17–21, where also verses 17, 18, only do make to the apostle's purpose, which is to prove that the Holy Ghost was poured forth on the disciples; and there also, verses 25–28, where verse 27 only is to the purpose, the apostle proving only that it was impossible that Christ should be detained of death. Lastly, in this very chapter, verse 9, where these words, "Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity," are used, it is evident that they belong not to the thing which the apostle proveth, which is that Christ was made more excellent than the angels.

That in all this discourse there is not any thing considerable but the horrible boldness of these men, in corrupting and perverting the word of God, will easily to the plainest capacity be demonstrated; for which end I offer the ensuing animadversions:—

1. To say these things are not spoken of Christ, because they are spoken of God, is a shameless begging of the thing in question. We prove Christ to be God because those things are spoken of him that are proper to God only.

2. It is one thing in general that is spoken of, namely, the deity of Christ; which is proved by one testimony, from Ps. 102, concerning one property of Christ, namely, his almighty power, manifested in the making of all things, and disposing them in his sovereign will, himself abiding unchangeable.

3. It is shameless impudence in these gentlemen, to take upon them to say that this part of the apostle's testimony which he produceth is to his purpose, that not; as if they were wiser than the Holy Ghost, and knew Paul's design better than himself.

4. The foundation of their whole evasion is most false,—namely, that all the proofs of the excellency of Christ above angels, insisted on by the apostle, belong peculiarly to what he is said to receive by inheritance. The design of the apostle is to prove the excellency of Christ in himself, and then in comparison of angels: and therefore, before the mention of what he received by inheritance, he affirms directly that by him "God made the worlds;" and to this end it is most evident that this testimony, that he created heaven and earth, is most directly subservient.

5. Christ also hath his divine nature by inheritance,—that is, he was eternally begotten of the essence of his Father, and is thence by right of inheritance his Son, as the apostle proves from Ps. 2:7

6. Our catechists speak not according to their own principles when they make a difference between what Christ had from himself and what he had from inheritance, for they suppose he had nothing but by divine grant and voluntary concession, which they make the inheritance here spoken of; nor according to ours, who say not that the Son, as the Son, is a seipso, or hath any thing a seipso; and so know not what they say.

7. There is not, then, the least colour or pretence of denying this first part of the testimony to belong to Christ. The whole is spoken of to the same purpose, to the same person, and belongs to the same matter in general; and that first expression is, if not only, yet mainly and chiefly, effectual to confirm the intendment of the apostle, proving directly that Christ is better and more excellent than the angels, in that he is Jehovah, that made heaven and earth, they are but his creatures,—as God often compares himself with others. In the psalm, the words respect chiefly the making of heaven and earth; and these words are applied to our Saviour. That the two works of making and abolishing the world should be assigned distinctly unto two persons there is no pretence to affirm. This boldness, indeed; is intolerable.

8. To abolish the world is no less a work of almighty power than to make it, nor can it be done by any but him that made it, and this confessedly is ascribed to Christ; and both alike belong to the asserting of the excellency of God above all creatures, which is here aimed to be done.

9. The reason given why the first words, which are nothing to the purpose, are cited with the latter, is a miserable begging of the thing in question; yea, the first words are chiefly and eminently to the apostle's purpose, as hath been showed. We dare not say only; for the Holy Ghost knew better than we what was to his purpose, though our catechists be wiser in their own conceits than he. Neither is there any reason imaginable why the apostle should rehearse more words here out of the psalm than were directly to the business he had in hand, seeing how many testimonies he cites, and some of them very briefly, leaving them to be supplied from the places whence they are taken.

10. That others of the holy writers do urge testimonies not to their purpose, or beyond what they need, is false in itself, and a bold imputation of weakness to the penmen of the Holy Ghost. The instances hereof given by our adversaries are not at all to the purpose which they are pursuing; for,—

(1.) In no one of them is there a testimony cited whereof one part should concern one person, and another another, as is here pretended;—and without farther process this is sufficient to evince this evasion of impertinency; for nothing will amount to the interpretation they enforce on this place but the producing of some place of the New Testament where a testimony is cited out of the Old, speaking throughout of the same person, whereof the one part belongs to him and the other not, although that which they say doth not belong to him be most proper for the confirmation of what is affirmed of him, and what the whole is brought in proof of.

(2.) There is not any of the places instanced in by them wherein the whole of the words is not directly to the purpose in hand, although some of them are more immediately suited to the occasion on which the whole testimony is produced, as it were easy to manifest by the consideration of the several places.

(3.) These words, "Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity," are not mentioned to prove immediately the excellency of Christ above angels, but his administration of his kingdom, on which account, among others, he is so excellent; and thereunto they are most proper.

And this is the issue of their attempt against this testimony; which, being thus briefly vindicated, is sufficient alone of itself to consume with its brightness all the opposition which, from the darkness of hell or men, is made against the deity of Christ.

And yet we have one more to consider before this text be dismissed. Grotius is nibbling at this testimony also. His words are: "Again, that which is spoken of God he applies to the Messiah; because it was confessed among the Hebrews that this world was created for the Messiah's sake (whence I should think that ἐθεμελίωσας is rightly to be understood, 'Thou wast the cause why it was founded;'—and, 'The heavens are the works of thy hands;' that is, 'They were made for thee'), and that a new and better world should be made by him." So he.

This is not the first time we have met with this conceit, and I wish that it had sufficed this learned man to have framed his Old Testament annotations to rabbinical traditions, that the New might have escaped. But jacta est alea. 1. I say, then, that the apostle doth not apply that to one person which was spoken of another, but asserts the words in the psalm to be spoken of him concerning whom he treats, and thence proves his excellency, which is the business he hath in hand. It is not to adorn Christ with titles which were not due to him (which to do were robbery), but to prove by testimonies that were given of him that he is no less than he affirmed him to be, even "God, blessed for ever." 2. Let any man in his right wits consider this interpretation, and try whether he can persuade himself to receive it: Ἐθεμελίωσας σὺ Κύριε,—"For thee, O Lord, were the foundations of the earth laid, and the heavens are the works of thy hands;" that is, "They were made for thee." Any man may thus make quidlibet ex quolibet; but whether with due reverence to the word of God I question. 3. It is not about the sense of the Hebrew particles that we treat (and yet the learned man cannot give one clear instance of what he affirms), but of the design of the Holy Ghost in the psalm and in this place of the Hebrews, applying these words to Christ. 4. I marvel he saw not that this interpretation doth most desperately cut its own throat, the parts of it being at an irreconcilable difference among themselves: for, in the first place, he says the words are spoken of God, and applied to the Messiah, and then proves the sense of them to be such that they cannot be spoken of God at all, but merely of the Messiah; for to that sense doth he labour to wrest both the Hebrew and Greek texts. Methinks the words being spoken of God, and not of the Messiah, but only fitted to him by the apostle, there is no need to say that "Thou hast laid the foundation of the earth," is, "It was laid for thy sake;" and, "The heavens are the works of thy hands," that is, "They were made for thee," seeing they are properly spoken of God. This one rabbinical figment of the world's being made for the Messiah is the engine whereby the learned man turns about and perverts the sense of this whole chapter. In brief, if either the plain sense of the words or the intendment of the Holy Ghost in this place be of any account, yea, if the apostle deals honestly and sincerely, and speaks to what he doth propose, and urges that which is to his purpose, and doth not falsely apply that to Christ which was never spoken of him, this learned gloss is directly contrary to the text.

And these are the testimonies given to the creation of all things by Christ, which our catechists thought good to produce to examination.

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CHAPTER XII

All-ruling and disposing providence assigned unto Christ, and his eternal Godhead thence farther confirmed, with other testimonies thereof.

THAT Christ is that God who made all things hath been proved by the undeniable testimonies in the last chapter insisted on. That, as the great and wise Creator of all things, he doth also govern, rule, and dispose of the things by him created, is another evidence of his eternal power and Godhead, some testimonies whereof, in that order of procedure which by our catechists is allotted unto us, come now to be considered.

The first they propose is taken from Heb. 1:3, where the words spoken of Christ are, Φέρων τε τὰ πάντα τῷ ῥήματι τῆς δυνάμεως αὑτοῦ,—"Upholding all things by the word of his power."

He who "upholdeth all things by the word of his power" is God. This is ascribed to God as his property; and by none but by him who is God by nature can it be performed. Now, this is said expressly of Jesus Christ: "Who being the brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person, upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins," etc.

This place, or the testimony therein given to the divine power of Jesus Christ, they seek thus to elude:—

The word here, "all things," doth not, no more than in many other places, signify all things universally without exception, but is referred to those things only which belong to the kingdom of Christ; of which it may truly be said that the Lord Jesus "beareth," that is, conserveth, "all things by the word of his power." But that the word "all things" is in this place referred unto those things only appeareth sufficiently from the subject-matter itself of it. Moreover, the word which this writer useth, "to bear," doth rather signify governing or administration than preservation, as these words annexed, "By the word of his power," seem to intimate.

This indeed is jejune, and almost unworthy of these men, if any thing may be said so to be; for,—1. Why is τὰ πάντα here "the things of the kingdom of Christ"? It is the express description of the person of Christ, as "the brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person," that the apostle is treating of, and not at all of his kingdom as mediator. 2. It expressly answers the "worlds" that he is said to make, verse 2; which are not "the things of the kingdom of Christ," nor do our catechists plead them directly so to be. This term, "all things," is never put absolutely for all the things of the kingdom of Christ. 3. The subject-matter here treated of by the apostle is the person of Jesus Christ and the eminency thereof. The medium whereby he proves it to be so excellent is his almighty power in creating and sustaining of all things. Nor is there any subject-matter intimated that should restrain these words to the things of the kingdom of Christ. 4. The word φέρων, neither in its native signification nor in the use of it in the Scripture, gives any countenance to the interpretation of it by "governing or administering," nor can our catechists give any one instance of that signification there. It is properly "to bear, to carry, to sustain, to uphold." Out of nothing Christ made all things, and preserves them by his power from returning into nothing. 5. What insinuation of their sense they have from that expression, "By the word of his power," I know not. "By the word of his power" is "By his powerful word." And that that word or command is sometimes taken for the effectual strength and efficacy of God's dominion, put forth for the accomplishing of his own purposes, I suppose needs not much proving.

Grotius would have the words δύναμις αὑτοῦ to refer to the power of the Father, "Christ upholdeth all things by the word of his Father's power," without reason or proof, nor will the grammatical account bear that reddition of the relative mentioned.

About that which they urge out of Jude 5 I shall not contend. The testimony from thence relies on the authority of the Vulgar Latin translation; which, as to me, may plead for itself.

Neither of what is mentioned from 1 Cor. 10 shall I insist on any thing, but only the 9th verse, the words whereof are, "Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents." The design of the apostle is known. From the example of God's dealing with the children of Israel in the wilderness upon their sins and provocations, there being a parity of state and condition between them and Christians as to their spiritual participation of Jesus Christ, verses 1–4, he dehorts believers from the ways and sins whereby God was provoked against them. Particularly in this verse he insists on the tempting of Christ; for which the Lord sent fiery serpents among them, by which they were destroyed, Num. 21:6. He whom the people tempted in the wilderness, and for which they were destroyed by serpents, was the Lord Jehovah; now, this doth the apostle apply to Christ: he therefore is the Lord Jehovah. But they say,—

From those words it cannot be proved that Christ was really tempted in the wilderness, as from the like speech, if any one should so speak, may be apprehended. "Be not refractory to the magistrates, as some of our ancestors were." You would not thence conclude straightway that the same singular magistrates were in both places intended. And if the like phrases of speech are found in Scripture, in which the like expression is referred to him whose name was expressed a little before, without any repetition of the same name, it is there done where another besides him who is expressed cannot be understood; as you have an example of here, Deut. 6:16, "You shall not tempt the LORD your God, as you tempted him in Massah." But in this speech of the apostle of which we treat, another besides Christ may be understood, as Moses or Aaron; of which see Num. 21:5.

1. Is there the same reason of these two expressions, "Do not tempt Christ, as some of them tempted," and, "Be not refractory against the magistrates, as some of them were"? "Christ" is the name of one singular individual person, wherein none shareth at any time, it being-proper only to him. "Magistrate" is a term of office, as it was to him that went before him, and will be to him that shall follow after him.

2. They need not to have puzzled their catechumens with their long rule, which I shall as little need to examine, for none can be understood here but Christ. That the word "God" should be here understood they do not plead, nor if they had had a mind thereunto is there any place for that plea; for if the apostle had intended God in distinction from Christ, it was of absolute necessity that he should have expressed it; nor, if it had been expressed, would the apostle's argument have been of any force unless Christ had been God, equal to him who was so tempted.

3. It is false that the Israelites tempted Moses or Aaron, or that it can be said they tempted them. It is God they are everywhere said to tempt, Ps. 78:18, 56, 106:14; Heb. 3:9. It is said, indeed, "that they murmured against Moses, that they provoked him, that they chode with him;" but to tempt him,—which is to require a sign and manifestation of his divine power,—that they did not, nor could be said to do, Num. 21:5.

Grotius tries his last shift in this place, and tells us, from I know not what ancient manuscript, that it is not, "Let us not tempt Christ," but, "Let us not tempt God:" "Error commissus ex notis Θ̅ν̅. et Χ̅ν̅." That neither the Syriac, nor the Vulgar Latin translation, nor any copy that either Stephanus in his edition of the New Testament or in his various lections had seen, nor any of Beza's, nor Erasmus' (who would have been ready enough to have laid hold of the advantage), should in the least give occasion of any such conjecture of an alteration, doth wholly take off, with me, all the authority either of the manuscript or of him that affirms it from thence.

As they please to proceed, the next place to be considered is John 12:41, "These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him."

The words in the foregoing verses, repeated by the apostle, manifest that it is the vision mentioned Isa. 6 that the apostle relates unto. Whence we thus argue: He whose glory Isaiah saw, chap. 6., was "the Holy, holy, holy, LORD of hosts," verse 3, "the King, the LORD of hosts," verse 5; but this was Jesus Christ whose glory Isaiah then saw, as the Holy Ghost witnesses in these words of John 12:41. What say our catechists?

First, it appears that these words are not necessarily referred to Christ, because they may be understood of God the Father; for the words a little before are spoken of him, "He hath blinded, hardened, healed." Then, the glory that Isaiah saw might be, nay was, not present, but future; for it is proper to prophets to see things future, whence they are called "seers," 1 Sam. 9:9. Lastly, although these words should be understood of that glory which was then present and seen to Isaiah, yet to see the glory of one and to see himself are far different things. And in the glory of that one God Isaiah saw also the glory of the Lord Christ; for the prophet says there, "The whole earth is full of the glory of God," verse 3. But then this was accomplished in reality when Jesus appeared to that people, and was afterward preached to the whole world.

It is most evident that these men know not what to say nor what to stick to in their interpretation of this place. This makes them heap up so many several suggestions, contradictory one to another, crying that "It may be thus," or "It may be thus." But,—1. That these words cannot be referred to God the Father, but must of necessity be referred to Christ, is evident, because there is no occasion of mentioning him in this place, but an account is given of what was spoken verse 37, "But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him;" to which answers this verse, "When he saw his glory, and spake of him." The other words of "blinding" and "hardening" are evidently alleged to give an account of the reason of the Jews' obstinacy in their unbelief, not relating immediately to the person spoken of. The subject-matter treated of is Christ. The occasion of mentioning this testimony is Christ. Of him here are the words spoken. 2. The glory Isaiah saw was present; all the circumstances of the vision evince no less. He tells you the time, place, and circumstances of it;—when he saw the seraphims; when he heard their voice; when the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried; when the house was filled with glory; and when he himself was so terrified that he cried out, "Woe is me, for I am undone!" If any thing in the world be certain, it is certain that he saw that glory present. 3. He did not only see his glory, but he saw him; or he so saw his glory as that he saw him, so as he may be seen. So the prophet says expressly, "I have seen the King, the LORD of hosts," And what the prophet says of seeing the Lord of hosts, the apostle expresses by seeing "his glory;" because he saw him in that glorious vision, or saw that glorious representation of his presence. 4. He did, indeed, see the glory of the Lord Christ in seeing the glory of the one God, he being the true God of Israel; and on no other account is his glory seen than by seeing the glory of the one true God. 5. The prophet doth not say that "the earth was full of the glory of God," but it is the proclamation that the seraphims made one to another concerning that God whose presence was then there manifested. 6. When Christ first appeared to the people of the Jews, there was no great manifestation of glory. The earth was always full of the glory of God. And if those words have any peculiar relation to the glory of the gospel, yet withal they prove that he was then present whose glory in the gospel was afterward to fill the earth.

Grotius hath not aught to add to what was before insisted on by his friends. A representation he would have this to be of God's dealing in the gospel, when it is plainly his proceeding in the rejection of the Jews for their incredulity, and tells you, "Dicitur Esaias vidisse gloriam Christi, sicut Abrahamus diem ejus;"—"Isaiah saw his glory, as Abraham saw his day." Well aimed, however! Abraham saw his day by faith; Isaiah saw his glory in a vision. Abraham saw his day as future, and rejoiced; Isaiah so saw his glory as God present that he trembled. Abraham saw the day of Christ all the days of his believing; Isaiah saw his glory only in the year that king Uzziah died. Abraham saw the day of Christ in the promise of his coming; Isaiah saw his glory with the circumstances before mentioned. Even such let all undertakings appear to be that are against the eternal deity of Jesus Christ!

In his annotations on the 6th of Isaiah, where the vision insisted on is expressed, he takes no notice at all of Jesus Christ or the second person of the Trinity; nor (which is very strange) doth he so much as once intimate that what is here spoken is applied by the Holy Ghost unto Christ in the gospel, nor once name the chapter where it is done! With what mind and intention the business is thus carried on God knows; I know not.

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CHAPTER XIII

Of the incarnation of Christ, and his pre-existence thereunto.

THE testimonies of Scripture which affirm Christ to have been incarnate, or to have taken flesh, which inevitably proves his pre-existence in another nature to his so doing, they labour, in their next attempt, to corrupt, and so to evade the force and efficacy which from them appeareth so destructive to their cause; and herein they thus proceed:—

Ques. From what testimonies of Scripture do they endeavour to demonstrate that Christ was, as they speak, incarnate?

Ans. From these, John 1:14; Phil. 2:6, 7; 1 Tim. 3:16; Heb. 2:16; 1 John 4:2, 3; Heb. 10:5.

Of the first of these we have dealt already, in the handling of the beginning of that chapter, and sufficiently vindicated it from all their exceptions; so that we may proceed immediately to the second.

Q. What dost thou answer to the second?

A. Neither is that here contained which the adverse party would prove: for it is one thing which the apostle saith, "Being in the form of God, he took the form of a servant;" another, that the divine nature assumed the human; for the "form of God" cannot here denote the divine nature, seeing the apostle writes that Christ exinanivit,—made that form of no reputation, but God can no way make his nature of no reputation; neither doth the "form of a servant" denote human nature, seeing to be a servant is referred to the fortune and condition of a man. Neither is that also to be forgotten, that the writings of the New Testament do once only, it may be, use that word "form" elsewhere, namely, Mark 16:12, and that in that sense wherein it signifies not nature, but the outward appearance, saying, "Jesus appeared in another form unto two of his disciples."

Q. But from those words which the apostle afterward adds, "He was found in fashion as a man," doth it not appear that he was, as they say, incarnate?

A. By no means; for that expression contains nothing of Christ's nature: for of Samson we read that he should be "as a man," Judges 16:7, 11; and, Ps. 82, Asaph denounced to those whom he called "sons of the Most High," that they "should die like men;"—of whom it is certain that it cannot be said of them that they were, as they speak, incarnate.

Q. How dost thou understand this place?

A. On this manner, that Christ, who in the world did the works of God, to whom all yielded obedience as to God, and to whom divine adoration was given,—God so willing, and the salvation of men requiring it,—was made as a servant and a vassal, and as one of the vulgar, when he had of his own accord permitted himself to be taken, bound, beaten, and slain.

Thus they. Now, because it is most certain and evident to every one that ever considered this text, that, according to their old trade and craft, they have mangled it and taken it in pieces, at least cut off the head and legs of this witness, we must seek out the other parts of it and lay them together before we may proceed to remove this heap out of our way. Our argument from this place is not solely from hence, that he is said to be "in the form of God," but also that he was so in the form of God as to be "equal with him," as is here expressed; nor merely that "he took upon him the form of a servant," but that he took it upon him when he was "made in the likeness of men," or "in the likeness of sinful flesh," as the apostle expresses it, Rom. 8:3. Now, these things our catechists thought good to take no notice of in this place, nor of one of them any more in any other. But seeing the very head of our argument lies in this, that "in the form of God" he is said to be "equal with God," and that expression is in another place taken notice of by them, I must needs gather it into its own contexture before I do proceed. Thus, then, they:—

Q. How dost thou answer to those places where Christ is said to be equal to God, John 5:18, Phil. 2:6?

A. That Christ is equal to God doth no way prove that there is in him a divine nature. Yea, the contrary is gathered from hence; for if Christ be equal to God, who is God by nature, it follows that he cannot be the same God. But the equality of Christ with God lies herein, that, by that virtue that God bestowed on him, he did and doth all those things which are God's, as God himself.

This being the whole of what they tender to extricate themselves from the chains which this witness casts upon them, now lying before us, I shall propose our argument from the words, and proceed to the vindication of it in order.

The intendment and design of the apostle in this place being evidently to exhort believers to self-denial, mutual love, and condescension one to another, he proposes to them the example of Jesus Christ; and lets them know that he, being "in the form of God," and "equal with God" therein (ὑπάρχων, existing in that form, having both the nature and glory of God), did yet, in his love to us, "make himself of no reputation," or lay aside and eclipse his glory, in this, that "he took upon him the form of a servant," being made man, that in that form and nature he might be "obedient unto death" for us and in our behalf. Hence we thus plead:—

He that was "in the form of God," and "equal with God," existing therein, and "took on him the" nature and "form of a servant," he is God by nature, and was incarnate or made flesh in the sense before spoken of; now all this is affirmed of Jesus Christ: ergo.

1. To this they say (that we may consider that first which is first in the text), "That his being equal to God doth not prove him to be God by nature, but the contrary," etc., as above. But,—(1.) If none is, nor can be, by the testimony of God himself, like God, or equal to him, who is not God by nature, then be that is equal to him is so. But, "To whom will ye liken me? or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things," Isa. 40:25, 26. None that hath not created all things of nothing can be equal to him. And, "To whom will ye liken me, and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be like?" chap. 46:5. (2.) Between that which is finite and that which is infinite, that which is eternal and that which is temporal, the creature and the Creator, God by nature and him who by nature is not God, it is utterly impossible there should be any equality. (3.) God having so often avouched his infinite distance from all creatures, his refusal to give his glory to any of them, his inequality with them all, it must have been the highest robbery that ever any could be guilty of, for Christ to make himself equal to God if he were not God. (4.) The apostle's argument arises from hence, that he was equal to God before he took on him the form of a servant; which was before his working of those mighty works wherein these gentlemen assert him to be equal to God.

2. Themselves cannot but know the ridiculousness of their begging the thing in question, when they would argue that because he was equal to God he was not God. He was the same God in nature and essence, and therein equal to him to whom he was in subordination as the Son, and in office a servant, as undertaking the work of mediation.

3. The case being as by them stated, there was no equality between Christ and God in the works he wrought; for,—(1.) God doth the works in his own name and authority, Christ in God's. (2.) God doth them by his own power, Christ by God's. (3.) God doth them himself, Christ not, but God in him, as another from him. (4.) He doth not do them as God, however that expression be taken: for, according to these men, he wrought them neither in his own name, nor by his own power, nor for his own glory; all which he must do who doth things as God.

He is said to be "equal with God," not as he did such and such works, but as ἐν μορφῇ Θεοῦ ὑπάρχων,—being in the form of God antecedently to the taking in hand of that form wherein he wrought the works intimated.

To work great works by the power of God argues no equality with him, or else all the prophets and apostles that wrought miracles were also equal to God. The infinite inequality of nature between the Creator and the most glorious creature will not allow that it be said, on any account, to be equal to him. Nor is it said that Christ was equal to God in respect of the works he did, but, absolutely, "He thought it not robbery to be equal with God."

And so is their last plea to the first part of our argument accounted for: come we to what they begin withal.

1. We contend not, as hath been often said, about words and expressions. (1.) That the divine nature assumed the human we thus far abide by, that the Word, the Son of God, took to himself, into personal subsistence with him, a human nature; whence they are both one person, one Christ. And this is here punctually affirmed, namely, he that was and is God took upon him the form of a man. (2.) The apostle doth not say that Christ made that form of no reputation, or Christ ἐκένωσε that form; but Christ, being in that form, ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσε, "made himself of no reputation," not by any real change of his divine nature, but by taking to himself the human, wherein he was of no reputation, it being he that was so, in the nature and by the dispensation wherein he was so. And it being not possible that the divine nature of itself, in itself, should be humbled, yet he was humbled who was in the form of God, though the form of God was not.

2. It is from his being "equal with God," "in the form of God," whereby we prove that his being in the form of God doth denote his divine nature; but of this our catechists had no mind to take notice.

3. The "form of a servant" is that which he took when he was made ἐν ὁμοιώματι ἀνθρώπων, as Adam begat a son in his own likeness. (1.) Now, this was not only in condition a servant, but in reality a man. (2.) The form of a servant was that wherein he underwent death, the death of the cross; but he died as a man, and not only in the appearance of a servant. (3.) The very phrase of expression manifests the human nature of Christ to be denoted hereby: only, as the apostle had not before said directly that he was God, but "in the form of God," expressing both his nature and his glory, so here he doth not say he was a man, but in the "form of a servant," expressing both his nature and his condition, wherein he was the servant of the Father. Of him it is said ἐν μορφῇ Θεοῦ ὑπάρχων, but μορφὴν δούλου λαζών,—he was in the other, but this he took. (4.) To be a servant denotes the state or condition of a man; but for one who was "in the form of God," and "equal with him," to be made in the "form of a servant," and to be "found as a man," and to be in that form put to death, denotes, in the first place, a taking of that nature wherein alone he could be a servant. And this answers also to other expressions, of the "Word being made flesh," and "God sending forth his Son, made of a woman." (5.) This is manifest from the expression, Σχήματι εὑρεθεὶς ὡς ἄνθρωπος,—"He was found in fashion as a man;" that is, he was truly so: which is exegetical of what was spoken before, "He took on him the form of a servant."

But they say, "This is of no importance, for the same is said of Samson, Judges 16:7, 11, and of others, Ps. 82, who yet we do not say were incarnate."

These gentlemen are still like themselves. Of Christ it is said that he humbled himself, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was found in likeness as a man; of Samson, that being stronger than a hundred men, if he were dealt so and so withal, he would "become as other men," for so the words expressly are,—no stronger than another man. And these places are parallel! Much good may these parallels do your catechumens! And so of those in the psalm, that though in this world they are high in power for a season, yet they should die as other men do. Hence, in a way of triumph and merriment, they ask if these were incarnate, and answer themselves that surely we will not say so. True, he who being as strong as many becomes by any means to be as one, and they who live in power but die in weakness as other men do, are not said to be incarnate; but he who, "being God, took on him the form of a servant, and was in this world a very man," may (by our new masters' leave) be said to be so.

[As] for the sense which they give us of this place (for they are bold to venture at it), it hath been in part spoken to already. 1. Christ was in the world, as to outward appearance, no way instar Dei, but rather, as he says of himself, instar vermis. That he did the works of God, and was worshipped as God, was because he was God; nor could any but God either do the one, as he did them, or admit of the other. 2. This is the exposition given us: " 'Christ was in the form of God, counting it no robbery to be equal to him;' that is, whilst he was here in the world, in the form of a servant, he did the works of God, and was worshipped." 3. Christ was in the form of a servant from his first coming into the world, and as one of the people; therefore he was not made so by any thing afterward. His being bound, and beat, and killed, is not his being made a servant; for that by the apostle is afterward expressed, when he tells us why, or for what end (not how or wherein), he was made a servant, namely, "He became obedient to death, the death of the cross."

And this may suffice for the taking out of our way all that is excepted against this testimony by our catechists; but because the text is of great importance, and of itself sufficient to evince the sacred truth we plead for, some farther observations for the illustration of it may be added.

The sense they intend to give us of these words is plainly this, "That Christ, by doing miracles in the world, appeared to be as God, or as a God; but ho laid aside this form of God, and took upon him the form of a servant, when he suffered himself to be taken, bound, and crucified. He began to be," they say, "in the form of God, when, after his baptism, he undertook the work of his public ministry, and wrought mighty works in the world; which form he ceased to be in when he was taken in the garden, and exposed as a servant to all manner of reproach."

That there is not any thing in this whole exposition answering the mind of the Holy Ghost is evident, as from what was said before, so also, 1. Because it is said of Christ, that ἐν μορφῇ Θεοῦ ὑπάρχων, he was "in the form of God," before he "took the form of a servant." And yet the taking of the form of a servant in this place doth evidently answer his being "made flesh," John 1:14; his being made "in the likeness of sinful flesh," Rom. 8:3; his coming or being sent into the world, Matt. 10:40, 20:28; John 3:16, 17, etc. 2. Christ was still in the form of God, as taken essentially, even then when he was a servant; though, as to the dispensation he had submitted to, he emptied himself of the glory of it, and was not known to be the "Lord of glory," 2 Cor. 8:9. 3. Even all the while that they say he was in the form of God, he was in the form of a servant; that is, he was really the servant of the Father, and was dealt withal in the world as a servant, under all manner of reproach, revilings, and persecutions. He was not more in the form of a servant when he was bound than when he had not where to lay his head. 4. The state and condition of a servant consists in this, that he is not sui juris. No more was Christ, in the whole course of his obedience; he did not any private will of his own, but the will of him that sent him. Those who desire to see the vindication of this place to the utmost, in all the particulars of it, may consult the confutation of the interpretation of Erasmus, by Beza, annot. in Phil. 2:6, 7; of Ochinus and Lælius Socinus, by Zanchius in locum, et de Tribus Elohim, p. 227, etc.; of Faustus Socinus, by Beckman, Exercitat. p. 168, et Johan. Jun. Examen Respon. Socin. pp. 201, 202; of Enjedinus, by Gomarus, Anal. Epist. Paul. ad Phil. cap. ii.; of Ostorodius, by Jacobus a Porta, Fidei Orthodox. Defens. pp. 89, 150, etc. That which I shall farther add is in reference to Grotius, whose Annotations may be one day considered by some of more time and leisure for so necessary a work.

Thus then he: Ὃς ἐν μορφῇ Θεοῦ ὑπάρχων. "Μορφή in nostris libris non significat internum et occultum aliquid, sed id quod in oculos incurrit, qualis erat eximia in Christo potestas sanandi morhos omnes, ejiciendi dæmonas, excitandi mortuos, mutandi rerum naturas, quæ verè divina sunt; ita ut Moses, qui tam magna non fecit, dictus ob id fuerit deus Pharaonis. Vocem μορφῆς quo dixi sensu habes, Marc. 16:12, Isa. 44:13, ubi in Hebræo תַּבְנִית; Dan. 4:33, 5:6, 10, 7:28, ubi in Chaldæo זִיו; Job. 4:16, ubi in Hebræo תְּמוּנָה;"—"Μορφή in our books doth not signify an internal or hidden thing, but that which is visibly discerned, such as was that eminent power in Christ of healing all diseases, casting out of devils, raising the dead, changing the nature of things, which are truly divine; so that Moses, who did not so great things, was therefore called the god of Pharaoh. The word μορφή, in the sense spoken of, you have Mark 16:12, Isa. 44:13, where in the Hebrew it is תַּבְנִית; Dan. 4:33, etc., where in the Chaldee it is זִיו; Job 4:16, where in the Hebrew it is תְּמוּנָה."

Ans. 1. A form is either substantial or accidental,—that which is indeed, or that which appears. That it is the substantial form of God which is here intended, yet with respect to the glorious manifestation of it (which may be also as the accidental form), hath been formerly declared and proved. So far it signifies that which is internal and hidden, or not visibly discerned, inasmuch as the essence of God is invisible. The proofs of this I shall not now repeat. 2. Christ's power of working miracles was not visible, though the miracles he wrought were visible, insomuch that it was the great question between him and the Jews by what power he wrought his miracles; for they still pleaded that he cast out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. So that if the power of doing the things mentioned were μορφὴ Θεοῦ, that form was not visible and exposed to the sight of men; for it was "aliquid internum et occultum,"—a thing internal and hidden. 3. If to be "in the form of God," and thereupon to be "equal with him," be to have power or authority of healing diseases, casting out devils, raising the dead, and the like, then the apostles were in the form of God, and equal to God, having power and authority given them for all these things, which they wrought accordingly, casting out devils, healing the diseased, raising the dead, etc.; which whether it be not blasphemy to affirm the reader may judge. 4. It is true, God says of Moses, Exod. 7:1, "I have made thee a god to Pharaoh;" which is expounded chap. 6:16, where God tells him that "Aaron should be to him instead of a mouth, and he should be to him instead of God;" that is, Aaron should speak and deliver to Pharaoh and the people what God revealed to Moses, Moses revealing it to Aaron,—Aaron receiving his message from Moses as other prophets did from God; whence he is said to be to him "instead of God." And this is given as the reason of that expression, chap. 7:1, of his being "a god to Pharaoh," even as our Saviour speaks, because the word of God came by him, because he should reveal the will of God to him: "Thou shalt be a god to Pharaoh: and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet. Thou shalt speak all that I command thee: and Aaron thy brother shall speak unto Pharaoh." He is not upon the account of his working miracles called God, or said to be in the form of God, or to be made equal to God; but revealing the will of God to Aaron, who spake it to Pharaoh, he is said to be "a god to Pharaoh," or "instead of God," as to that business. 5. It is truth, the word μορφή, or "form," is used, Mark 16:12, for the outward appearance; and it is as true the verb of the same signification is used for the internal and invisible form of a thing, Gal. 4:19, Ἄχρις οὗ μορφωθῇ Χριστὸς ἐν ὑμῖν, "Until Christ be formed in you." So that the very first observation of our annotator, that "in our books" (that is, the Scriptures, for in other authors it is acknowledged that this word signifies the internal form of a thing) "this word μορφή signifies not any thing internal or hidden," is true only of that one place, Mark 16:12. In this it is otherwise, and the verb of the same signification is evidently otherwise used. And, which may be added, other words that bear the same ambiguity of signification, as to things substantial or accidental, being applied to Christ, do still signify the former, not the latter, yea, where they expressly answer what is here spoken, as εἰκών, Col. 1:15, and ὑπόστασις, Heb. 1:3; both of the same import with μορφή here, save that the latter adds personality. 6. As for the words mentioned out of the Old Testament, they are used in businesses quite of another nature, and are restrained in their signification by the matter they speak of. תַּבְנִית is not μορφή properly, but εἰκών, and is translated "imago" by Arias Montanus. תּאַר is rather μορφή, Gen. 29:17, 1 Sam. 28:14. תְּמוּנָה is used ten times in the Bible, and hath various significations, and is variously rendered: ὁμοίωμα, Deut. 4:15; γλυπτὸν ὁμόιωμα, verse 16; so most commonly. זִיו in Daniel is "splendor," δόξα, not μορφή. And what all this is to the purpose in hand I know not. The "form of God," wherein Christ was, is that wherein he was "equal with God,"—that which, as to the divine nature, is the same as his being in the "form of a servant," wherein he was obedient to death, was to the human. And, which is sufficiently destructive of this whole exposition, Christ was then in the "form of a servant," when this learned man would have him to be "in the form of God;" which two are opposed in this place, for he was the servant of the Father in the whole course of the work which he wrought here below, Isa. 42:1.

He proceeds on this foundation: Οὐχ ἁρπαγμὸν ἡγήσατο τὸ εἷναι ἶσα Θεῷ. "Ἁρπαγμὸν ἡγεῖσθαι est locutio Syriaca. In Liturgia Syriaca, Johannes Baptista Christo baptismum ab ipso expetenti, dicit, 'non assumam rapinam.' Solent qui aliquid bellicâ virtute peperere, id omnibus ostentare, ut Romani in triumpho facere solebant. Non multò aliter Plutarchus in Timoleonte: Οὐχ ἁρπαγὴν ἡγήσατο. Sensus est: Non venditavit Christus, non jactavit istam potestatem; quin sæpe etiam imperavit ne quod fecerat vulgaretur. Ἶσα hic est adverbium; sic Odyss. Ο: Τὸν νῦν ἶσα Θεῷ, etc. Ἰσόθεα φρονεῖν, dixit scriptor, 2 Macc. 9:12. Εἶναι ἶσα Θεῷ est spectari tanquam Deum." The sum of all is, "He thought it no robbery," that is, he boasted not of his power, "to be equal to God, so to be looked on as a God."

The words, I confess, are not without their difficulty. Many interpretations are given of them; and I may say, that of the very many which I have considered, this of all others, as being wrested to countenance a false hypothesis, is the worst. To insist particularly on the opening of the words is not my present task. That Grotius is beside the sense of them may be easily manifested; for,—1. He brings nothing to enforce this interpretation. That the expression is Syriac in the idiom of it he abides not by, giving us an instance of the same phrase or expression out of Plutarch, who knew the propriety of the Greek tongue very well, but of the Syriac not at all. Others also give a parallel expression out of Thucydides, lib. viii., Σκεύη ἁρπαγὴν ποιησάμενος. 2. I grant ἶσα may be used adverbially, and be rendered "æqualiter;" but now the words are to be interpreted "pro subjecta materia." He who was in the form of God, and counted it no robbery (that is, did not esteem it to be any wrong, on that account of his being in the form of God) to be equal to his Father, did yet so submit himself as is described. This being "equal with God" is spoken of Christ accidentally to his "taking on him the form of a servant," which he did in his incarnation, and must relate to his being "in the form of God;" and if thereunto it be added that the intendment reaches to the declaration he made of himself, when he declared himself to be equal to God the Father, and one with him as to nature and essence, it may complete the sense of this place.

Ἀλλʼ ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσε he renders "libenter duxit vitam inopem," referring it to the poverty of Christ whilst he conversed here in the world. But whatever be intended by this expression, 1. It is not the same with μορφὴν δούλου λαζών, which Grotius afterward interprets to the same purpose with what he says here of these words. 2. It must be something antecedent to his "taking the form of a servant;" or rather, something that he did, or became exceptively to what he was before, in becoming a servant. He was "in the form of God," ἀλλʼ ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσε, but "he humbled," or "bowed down himself," in "taking the form of a servant;" that is, he condescended thereunto, in his great love that he bare to us, the demonstration whereof the apostle insists expressly upon. And what greater demonstration of love, or condescension upon the account of love, could possibly be given, than for him who was God, equal to his Father, in the same Deity, to lay aside the manifestation of his glory, and to take upon him our nature, therein to be a servant unto death?

He proceeds: Μορφὴν δούλου λαζών. "Similis factus servis, qui nihil proprium possident;"—"He was made like unto servants, who possess nothing of their own." Our catechists, with their great master, refer this, his being like servants, to the usage he submitted to at his death; this man, to his poverty in his life. And to this sense of these words is that place of Matt. 8:20 better accommodated than to the clause foregoing, for whose exposition it is produced by our annotator.

But,—1. It is most certain that the exposition of Grotius will not, being laid together, be at any tolerable agreement with itself, if we allow any order of process to be in these words of the apostle. His aim is acknowledged to be an exhortation to brotherly love, and mutual condescension in the same, from the example of Jesus Christ; for he tells you that "he, being in the form of God, made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant." Now, if this be not the gradation of the apostle, that being "in the form of God," free from any thing of that which follows, he then debased and humbled himself, and "took upon him the form of a servant," there is not any form of plea left from this example here proposed to the end aimed at. But now, says Grotius, "his being in the form of God was his working of miracles; his debasing himself, his being poor, his taking the form of a servant, possessing nothing of his own." But it is evident that there was a coincidence of time as to these things, and so no gradation in the words at all; for then when Christ wrought miracles, he was so poor and possessed nothing of his own, that there was no condescension nor relinquishment of one condition for another discernible therein. 2. The "form of a servant" that Christ took was that wherein he was like man, as it is expounded in the words next following: he was "made in the likeness of men." And what that is the same apostle informs us, Heb. 2:17, Ὅθεν ὤφειλε κατὰ πάντα τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς ὁμοιωθῆναι,—"Wherefore he ought in all things to be made like his brethren:" that is, ἐν ὁμοιώματι ἀνθρώπων γενόμενος, he was "made in the likeness of men;" or, as it is expressed Rom. 8:3, ἐν ὁμοιώματι σαρκός, "in the likeness of flesh;" which also is expounded, Gal. 4:4, γενόμενος ἐκ γυναικός, "made of a woman;"—which gives us the manner of the accomplishment of that, John 1:14, Ὁ Λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο, "The Word was made flesh." 3. The employment of Christ in that likeness of man is confessedly expressed in these words; not his condition, that he had nothing, but his employment, that he was the servant of the Father, according as it was foretold that he should be, Isa. 42:1, 19, and which he everywhere professed himself to be. He goes on,—

Ἐν ὁμοιώματι ἀνθρώπων γενόμενος. "Cum similis esset hominibus, illis nempe primis, id est, peccati expers," 2 Cor. 5:21;—"Whereas he was like men, namely, those first; that is, without sin."

That Christ was without sin, that in his being made like to us there is an exception as to sin, is readily granted. He was ὅσιος, ἄκακος, ἀμίαντος κεχωρισμένος ἀπὸ τῶν ἁμαρτωλῶν, Heb. 7:26. But,—1. That Christ is ever said to be made like Adam on that account, or is compared with him therein, cannot be proved. He was δεύτερος ἄνθρωπος and ἔσχατος Ἀδάμ, but that he was made ἐν ὁμοιώματι τοῦ Ἀδάμ is not said. 2. This expression was sufficiently cleared by the particular places formerly urged. It is not of his sinlessness in that condition, of which the apostle hath no occasion here to speak, but of his love in taking on him that condition, in being sent in the likeness of sinful flesh, yet without sin, that these words are used. It is a likeness of nature to all men, and not a likeness of innocency to the first, that the apostle speaks of; a likeness, wherein there is a ταυτότης, as to the kind, a distinction in number, as, "Adam begat a son in his own likeness," Gen. 5:3.

All that follows in the learned annotator is only an endeavour to make the following words speak in some harmony and conformity to what he had before delivered; which being discerned not to be suited to the mind of the Holy Ghost in the place, I have no such delight to contend about words, phrases, and expressions, as to insist any farther upon them. Return we to our catechists.

The place they next propose to themselves to deal withal is 1 Tim. 3:16, "And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, revealed unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory."

If it be here evinced that by "God" is meant Christ, it being spoken absolutely, and in the place of the subject in the proposition, this business is at a present close, and our adversaries' following attempt to ward themselves from the following blows of the sword of the word, which cut them in pieces, is to no purpose, seeing their death's wound lies evident in the efficacy of this place. Now, here not only the common apprehension of all professors of the name of Christ in general, but also the common sense of mankind, to be tried in all that will but read the books of the New Testament, might righteously be appealed unto; but because these are things of no importance with them with whom we have to do, we must insist on other considerations:—

First, then, That by the word Θεός, "God," some person is intended, is evident from hence, that the word is never used but to express some person, nor can in any place of the Scriptures be possibly wrested to denote any thing but some person to whom that name doth belong or is ascribed, truly or falsely. And if this be not certain and to be granted, there is nothing so, nor do we know any thing in the world or the intendment of any one word in the book of God. Nor is there any reason pretended why it should have any other acceptation, but only an impotent begging of the thing in question. "It is not so here, though it be so everywhere else; because it agrees not with our hypothesis." Λῆρος! Secondly, That Christ, who is the second person [of the Trinity], the Son of God, is here intended, and none else, is evident from hence, that whatever is here spoken of Θεός, of this "God," was true and fulfilled in him as to the matter; and the same expressions, for the most of the particulars, as to their substance, are used concerning him and no other; neither are they possible to be accommodated to any person but him. Let us a little accommodate the words to him: 1. He who as "God" was "in the beginning with God," in his own nature invisible, ἐφανερώθν ἐν σαρκί, "was manifested in the flesh," when σὰρξ ἐγένετο, when he was "made flesh," John 1:14, and made ἐν ὁμοιώματι σαρκός, Rom. 8:3, "in the likeness of flesh," γενόμενος ἐκ σπέρματος Δαζὶδ κατὰ σάρκα, chap. 1:3; so made "visible and conspicuous," or ἐφανερώθη, when ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν, "dwelling among men; who also saw his glory, as the glory of the only-begotten of the Father," John 1:14. Being thus "manifest in the flesh," having taken our nature on him, he was reviled, persecuted, condemned, slain, by the Jews, as a malefactor, a seditious person,—an impostor. But, 2. Ἐδικαιώθη ἐν Πνεύματι, he was "justified in the Spirit" from all their false accusations and imputations. He was justified by the eternal Spirit, when he was raised from the dead, and "declared to be the Son of God with power" thereby, Rom. 1:4; for though he was "crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God," 2 Cor. 13:4. So he also sent out his Spirit to "convince the world of sin, because they believed not on him, and of righteousness, because he went to his Father," John 16:8–10; which he also did, justifying himself thereby to the conviction and conversion of many thousands who before condemned him or consented to his condemnation, upon the account formerly mentioned, Acts 2:47. And this is he who, 3. ὤφθη ἀγγέλοις, was "seen of angels," and so hath his witnesses in heaven and earth; for when he came first into the world, all the angels receiving charge to worship him, by Him who said, Προσκυνησάτωσαν αὐτῷ πάντες ἄγγελοι αὐτοῦ, Heb. 1:6, one came down at his nativity to declare it, to whom he was seen, and instantly a multitude of the heavenly host saw him, Luke 2:9–14, and afterward went away into heaven, verse 15. In the beginning also of his ministry, angels were sent to him in the wilderness, to minister to him, Matt. 4:11; and when he was going to his agony in the garden, an angel was sent to comfort him, Luke 22:43, and he then knew that he could at a word's speaking have more than twelve legions of angels to his assistance, Matt. 26:53; and when he rose again the angels saw him again, and served him therein, chap. 28:2. And as he shall come again with his holy angels to judgment, Matt. 25:31, 2 Thess. 1:7, so no doubt but in his ascension the angels accompanied him; yea, that they did so is evident from Ps. 68:17, 18. So that there was no eminent concernment of him wherein it is not expressly affirmed that ὤφθη ἀγγέλοις. At his birth, entrance on his ministry, death, resurrection, ascension, ὤφθη ἀγγέλοις. 4. Ἐκηρύχθη ἐν ἔθνεσιν, He was "preached unto the Gentiles," or among the people or Gentiles; which, besides the following accomplishment of it to the full in the preaching of the gospel concerning him throughout the world, had a signal entrance in that declaration of him to "devout men dwelling at Jerusalem, out of every nation under heaven," Acts 2:5. And hereupon, 5. Ἐπιστεύθη ἐν κόσμῳ, He was "believed on in the world." He that had been rejected as a vile person, condemned and slain, being thus justified in the Spirit and preached, was believed on, many thousands being daily converted to the faith of him,—to believe that he was the Messiah, the Son of God,—whom before they received not, John 1:10, 11. And, for his own part, 6. ἀνελήφθη ἐν δόξῃ, he was "received up into glory;" the story whereof we have, Acts 1:9–11, "When he had spoken to his disciples, he was taken up, and a cloud received him:" of which Luke says briefly, as Paul here, ἀνελήφθη, Acts 1:2; as Mark also doth, chap. 16:19, ἀνελήφθη εἰς τὸν οὐρανόν,—that is, ἀνελήφθη ἐν δόξῃ, "he was taken up into heaven," or "to glory." Ἀνελήφθη is as much as ἄνω ἐλήφθη, "he was taken up" (ἐν for εἰς) "into glory."

This harmony of the description of Christ here, both as to his person and office, with what is elsewhere spoken of him (this being evidently a summary collection of what is more largely in the gospel spoken of), makes it evident that he is "God" here intended; which is all that is needful to be evinced from this place.

Let us now hear our catechists pleading for themselves:—

Q. What dost thou answer to 1 Tim. 3:16?

A. 1. That in many ancient copies, and in the Vulgar Latin itself. the word "God" is not read; wherefore from that place nothing certain can be concluded. 2. Although that word should be rend, yet there is no cause why it should not be referred to the Father, seeing these things may be affirmed of the Father, that he appeared in Christ and the apostles, who were flesh. And for what is afterward read, according to the usual translation, "He was received into glory," in the Greek it is, "He was received in glory,"—that is, "with glory," or "gloriously."

Q. What, then, is the sense of this testimony?

A. That the religion of Christ is full of mysteries: for God,—that is, his will for the saving of men,—was perfectly made known by infirm and mortal men; and yet, because of the miracles and various powerful works which were performed by such weak and mortal men, it was acknowledged for true; and it was at length perceived by the angels themselves; and was preached not only to the Jews but also to the Gentiles: all believed thereon, and it was received with great glory, after an eminent manner.

Thus they, merely rather than say nothing, or yield to the truth. Briefly to remove what they offer in way of exception or assertion,—

1. Though the word "God," be not in the Vulgar Latin, yet the unanimous, constant consent of all the original copies, confessed to be so both by Beza and Erasmus, is sufficient to evince that the loss of that translation is not of any import to weaken the sense of the place. Of other ancient copies, whereof they boast, they cannot instance one. In the Vulgar also it is evident that by the "mystery" Christ is understood.

2. That what is here spoken may be referred to the Father, is a very sorry shift against the evidence of all those considerations which show that it ought to be referred to the Son.

3. It may not, it cannot with any tolerable sense be, referred to the Father. It is not said that "in Christ and the apostles he appeared," and was "seen of angels," etc.; but that "God was manifested in the flesh," etc.: nor is any thing that is here spoken of God anywhere ascribed, no not once in the Scripture, to the Father. How was he "manifested in the flesh"? how was he "justified in the Spirit"? how was he "taken up into glory"?

4. Though, ἐν δόξῃ may be rendered "gloriously," or "with glory," yet ἀνελήφθη may not, "receptus est," but rather "assumptus est," and is applied to the ascension of Christ in other places, as hath been showed.

[As] for the sense they tender of these words, let them,—1. Give any one instance where "God" is put for the "will of God," and that exclusively to any person of the Deity, or, to speak to their own hypothesis, exclusively to the person of God. This is intolerable boldness, and argues something of searedness. 2. The "will of God for the salvation of men" is the gospel. How are these things applicable to that?—how was the gospel "justified in the Spirit"? how was it "received up into glory"? how was it "seen of angels, ὤφθη ἀγγέλοις"? In what place is any thing of all this spoken of the gospel? Of Christ all this is spoken, as hath been said. In sum, "the will of God" is nowhere said to be "manifested in the flesh;" Christ was so. That "the will of God" should be "preached by weak and mortal men" was no "great mystery;" that God should assume human nature is so. The "will of God" cannot be said to "appear to the angels;" Christ did so. Of the last expression there can be no doubt raised.

Grotius insists upon the same interpretation with our catechists, in the whole and in every part of it; nor doth he add any thing to what they plead but only some quotations of Scripture not at all to the purpose, or at best suited to his own apprehensions of the sense of the place, not opening it in the least, nor evincing what he embraces to be the mind of the Holy Ghost, to any one that is otherwise minded. What he says, because he says it, deserves to be considered.

Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί. "Suspectam nobis hanc lectionem faciunt interpretes veteres, Latinus, Syrus, Arabs, et Ambrosius, qui omnes legunt, ὅ ἐφανερώθη." Addit Hincmarus Opusculo 55. illud Θεός, "hic positum a Nestorianis." 1. But this suspicion might well have been removed from this learned man by the universal consent of all original copies, wherein, as it seems, his own manuscript, that sometimes helps him at a need, doth not differ. 2. One corruption in one translation makes many. 3. The Syriac reads the word "God," and so Tremellius hath rendered it; Ambrose and Hincmarus followed the Latin translation; and there is a thousand times more probability that the word Θεός was filched out by the Arians than that it was foisted in by the Nestorians. But if the agreement of all original copies may be thus contemned, we shall have nothing certain left us. But, saith he, "Sensum bonum facit illud, ὅ ἐφανερώθη. Evangelium illud cœleste innotuit primum non per angelos, sed per homines mortales, et quantum extera species ferebat infirmos, Christum, et apostolos ejus. Ἐφανερώθη, … bene convenit mysterio, id est, rei latenti. Sic et Col. 1:26; σάρξ hominem significat mortalem, 2 Cor. 5:16. Vide 1 John 4:2, et quæ ad eum locum dicentur."

1. Our annotator, having only a suspicion that the word Θεός was not in the text, ought, on all accounts, to have interpreted the words according to the reading whereof he had the better persuasion, and not according unto that whereof he had only a suspicion. But then it was by no means easy to accommodate them according to his intention, nor to exclude the person of Christ from being mentioned in them; which, by joining in with his suspicion, he thought himself able to do. 2. He is not able to give us any one instance in the Scripture of the like expression to this, of "manifest in the flesh," being referred to the gospel. When referred to Christ, nothing is more frequent, John 1:14, 6:53; Acts 2:31; Rom. 1:3, 8:3, 9:5; Eph. 2:14, 15; Col. 1:22; Heb. 5:7, 10:19, 20; 1 Pet. 3:18, 4:1; 1 John 4:2, etc. Of the "flesh of the gospel," not one word. 3. There is not the least opposition intimated between men and angels as to the means of preaching the gospel; nor is this any mystery, that the gospel was preached by men. Ἐφανερώθη is well applied to a "mystery" or "hidden thing;" but the question is, what the "mystery" or "hidden thing" is. We say it was the great matter of the Word's being made flesh, as it is elsewhere expressed. In the place urged out of the Corinthians, whether it be the 5th or 11th chapter that is intended, there is nothing to prove that σάρξ signifies a mortal man. And this is the entrance of this exposition. Let us proceed.

Ἐδικαιώθη ἐν Πνεύματι. "Per plurima miracula approbata est ea veritas. Πνεῦμα sunt miracula divina, per μετωνυμίαν quæ est, 1 Cor. 2:4, et alibi." " 'Justified in the Spirit;' that is, approved by many miracles, for Πνεῦμα is miracles by a metonymy." Then let every thing be as the learned man will have it. It is in vain to contend; for surely never was expression so wrested. That Πνεῦμα simply is "miracles" is false; that to have a thing done ἐν Πνέυματι signifies "miracles" is more evidently so, 1 Cor. 2:4. The apostle speaks not at all of miracles, but of the efficacy of the Spirit with him in his preaching the word, to "convince the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment," according to the promise of Christ. For the application of this expression to Jesus Christ see above. He adds, δικαιοῦσθαι is here "approbare," ut Matt. 11:19. It is here to "approve;" and that because it was necessary that the learned annotator should δουλεύειν ὑποθέσει. In what sense the word is taken, and how applied to Christ, with the genuine meaning of the place, see above. See also John 1:33, 34. Nor is the gospel anywhere said to be "justified in the Spirit;" nor is this a tolerable exposition, " 'Justified in the Spirit,'—that is, it was approved by miracles."

Ὤφθη ἀγγέλοις. "Nempe cum admiratione maxima. Angeli hoc arcanum per homines mortales didicere, Eph. 3:10; 1 Pet. 1:12." How eminently this suits what is spoken of Jesus Christ was showed before. It is true, the angels, as with admiration, look into the things of the gospel; but that it is said the gospel ὤφθη ἀγγέλοις is not proved.

It is true, the gospel was preached to the Gentiles; but yet this word is most frequently applied to Christ. Acts 3:20, 8:5, 25, 9:20, 19:13; 1 Cor. 1:23, 15:12; 2 Cor. 1:19, 4:5, 11:4; Phil. 1:15, are testimonies hereof.

Ἐπιστεύθη ἐν κόσμῳ. "Id est, in magna mundi parte, Rom. 1:8, Col. 1:6." But then, I pray, what difference is between ἐδικαιώθη ἐν Πνεύματι and ἐπιστεύθη ἐν κόσμῳ? The first is, "It was approved by miracles;" the other, "It was believed." Now, to approve the truth of the gospel, taken actively, is to believe it. How much more naturally this is accommodated to Christ, see John. 3:17, 18, and verses 35, 36, 6:40; Acts 10:43, 16:31; Rom. 3:22, 10:8, 9; Gal. 2:16; 1 John 5:5, etc.

The last clause is, ἀνελήφθη ἐν δόξῃ. "Gloriose admodum exaltatum est, nempe quia multo majorem attulit sanctitatem, quam ulla antehac dogmata." And this must be the sense of the word ἀναλαμζάνομαι in this business: see Luke 9:51; Mark 16:19; Acts 1:2, 11, 22. And in this sense we are indifferent whether ἐν δόξῃ be εἰς δόξαν, "unto glory," which seems to be most properly intended; or σὺν δόξῃ, "with glory," as our adversaries would have it; or "gloriously," as Grotius: for it was gloriously, with great glory, and into that glory which he had with his Father before the world was. That the gospel is glorious in its doctrine of holiness is true, but not at all spoken of in this place.

Heb. 2:16 is another testimony insisted on to prove the incarnation of Christ; and so, consequently, his subsistence in a divine nature antecedently thereunto. The words are, "For verily he took not on aim the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham." To this they answer, that—

Herein not so much as any likeness of the incarnation, as they call it, doth appear; for this writer doth not say that "Christ took" (as some read it, and commonly they take it in that sense), but "he takes." Nor doth he say "human nature," but the "seed of Abraham;" which in the holy Scriptures denotes them who believe in Christ, as Gal. 3:20.

Q. What then is the sense of this place?

A. This is that which this writer intends, that Christ is not the Saviour of angels, but of men believing; who, because they are subject to afflictions and death (which he before expressed by the participation of flesh and blood), therefore did Christ willingly submit himself unto them, that he might deliver his faithful ones from the fear of death, and might help them in all their afflictions.

The sense of this place is evident, the objections against it weak. 1. That the word is ἐπιλαμζάνεται, not ἐπελάζετο, "assumit," not "assumpsit," is an enallage of tense so usual as that it can have no force as an objection; and, verse 14, it is twice used in a contrary sense, the time past being put for the present, as here the present for that which is past, κεκοινώνηκε for κοινωνεῖ, and μετέσχε for μετέχει. See John 3:31, 21:13. 2. That by the "seed of Abraham" is here intended the human nature of the seed of Abraham, appears,—(1.) From the expression going before, of the same import with his, "He took part of flesh and blood," verse 14. (2.) From the opposition here made to angels or the angelical nature; the Holy Ghost showing that the business of Christ being to save his church by dying for them, he was not therefore to take upon him an angelical, spiritual substance or nature, but the nature of man. 3. The same thing is elsewhere in like manner expressed, as where he is said to be "made of the seed of David according to the flesh," Rom. 1:3, and to "come of the fathers as concerning the flesh," chap. 9:5. 4. Believers are called Abraham's seed sometimes spiritually, in relation to the faith of Abraham, as Gal. 3:29, where he is expressly spoken of as father of the faithful by inheriting the promises; but take it absolutely, to be of the "seed of Abraham" is no more but to be a man of his posterity: John 8:37, "I know that ye are Abraham's seed." Rom. 9:7, "Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children." Verse 8, "That is, They are the children of the flesh." So Rom. 11:1. "Are they the seed of Abraham? so am I," 2 Cor. 11:22.

[As] for the sense assigned,—1. It is evident that in these words the apostle treats not of the help given, but of the way whereby Christ came to help his church, and the means thereof; his actual helping and relieving of them is mentioned in the next verse. 2. Here is no mention in this verse of believers being obnoxious to afflictions and death; so that these words of theirs may serve for an exposition of some other place of Scripture (as they say of Gregory's comment on Job), but not of this. 3. By "partaking of flesh and blood" is not meant, primarily, being obnoxious to afflictions and death, nor doth that expression in any place signify any such thing, though such a nature as is so obnoxious be intended.

The argument, then, from hence stands still in its force, that Christ, subsisting in his divine nature, did assume a human nature of the seed of Abraham into personal union with himself.

Grotius is still at a perfect agreement with our catechists. Saith he, "Ἐπιλαμζάνεσθαι apud Platonem et alios est solenniter vindicare; hic autem ex superioribus intelligendum est, vindicare, seu asserere in libertatem manu injectâ;"—"This word in Plato and others is to vindicate into liberty; here, as is to be understood from what went before, it is to assert into liberty by laying hold with the hand." Of the first, because he gives no instances, we shall need take no farther notice. The second is denied. Both the help afforded and the means of it by Christ are mentioned before. The help is liberty; the means, partaking of flesh and blood, to die. These words are not expressive of nor do answer the latter, or the help afforded, but the means of the obtaining of it, as hath been declared. But he adds, "The word signifies to lay hold of with the hand, as Mark 8:23," etc. Be it granted that it doth so. "To lay hold with the hand, and to take to one's self," this is not to assert into liberty, but by the help of a metaphor; and when the word is used metaphorically, it is to be interpreted "pro subjecta materia," according to the subject-matter, which here is Christ's taking a nature upon him that was of Abraham, that was not angelical. The other expression he is singular in the interpretation of.

"He took the seed of Abraham." "Id est, Id agit ut vos Hebrœos liberet a peccatis et metu mortis. Eventûs enim nomen sæpe datur operæ in id impensæ;"—"That is, 'He doth that that he may deliver you Hebrews from sin and fear of death.' The name of the event is often given to the work employed to that purpose." But,—1. Here, I confess, he takes another way from our catechists. The "seed of Abraham" is with them believers; with him only Jews. But the tails of their discourse are tied together with a firebrand between them, to devour the harvest of the church. 2. This taking the seed of Abraham is opposed to his not taking the seed of angels. Now the Jews are not universally opposed to angels in this thing, but human kind. 3. He "took the seed of Abraham" is, it seems, he endeavoured to help the Jews. The whole discourse of the help afforded, both before and after this verse, is extended to the whole church; how comes it here to be restrained to the Jews only? 4. The discourse of the apostle is about the undertaking of Christ by death, and his being fitted thereunto by partaking of flesh and blood; which is so far from being in any place restrained or accommodated only to the Jews, as that the contrary is everywhere asserted, as is known to all.

[The next place is] 1 John 4:2, "Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God." He who comes into the world, or comes into flesh or in the flesh, had a subsistence before he so came. It is very probable that the intendment of the apostle was to discover the abomination of them who denied Christ to be a true man, but assigned him a fantastical body; which yet he so doth as to express his coming in the flesh in such a manner as evidences him to have another nature (as was said) besides that which is here synecdochically called "flesh." Our catechists to this say,—

That this is not to the purpose in hand; for that which some read, "He came into the flesh," is not in the Greek, but "He came in the flesh." Moreover, John doth not write, "That spirit which confesseth Jesus Christ, which came in the flesh, is of God;" but that "That spirit which confesseth Jesus Christ, who is come in the flesh, is of God." The sense of which words is, that the spirit is of God which confesseth that Jesus Christ, who performed his office in the earth without any pomp or worldly ostentation, with great humility as to outward appearance, and great contempt, and lastly underwent a contumelious death, is Christ, and King of the people of God.

I shall not contend with them about the translation of the words. 1. Ἐν σαρκί seems to be put for εἰς σάρκα, but the intendment is the same; for the word "came" is ἐληλυθότα, that is, "that came," or "did come." 2. It is not τὸν ἐληλυθότα, "who did come," that thence any colour should be taken for the exposition given by them, of confessing that Christ, or him who is the Christ, is the King of the people of God, or confessing him to be the Christ, the King of the people of God; but it is, "that confesseth him who came in the flesh," that is, as to his whole person and office, his coming, and what he came for. 3. They cannot give us any example nor any one reason to evince that that should be the meaning of ἐν σαρκί which here they pretend. The meaning of it hath above been abundantly declared, so that there is no need that we should insist longer on this place, nor why we should trouble ourselves with Grotius' long discourse on this place. The whole foundation of it is, that "to come in the flesh" signifies to come in a low, abject condition,—a pretence without proof, without evidence. "Flesh" may sometimes be taken so; but that to "come in the flesh" is to come in such a condition, we have not the least plea pretended.

The last place they mention to this purpose is Heb. 10:5, "Wherefore, when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me." He who had a body prepared for him when he came into the world, he subsisted in another nature before that coming of his into the world. To this they say,—

Neither is there here any mention made of the incarnation (as they call it), seeing that world, into which the author says Christ entered, is the world to come, as was above demonstrated; whence to come into the world doth not signify to be born into the world, but to enter into heaven. Lastly, in these words, "A body hast thou prepared me," that word, "a body" (as appeared from what was said where his entering this world was treated of), may be taken for an immortal body.

Q. What is the sense of this place?

A. That God fitted for Jesus such a body, after he entered heaven, as is fit and accommodate for the discharging of the duty of a high priest.

But, doubtless, than this whole dream nothing can be more fond or absurd. 1. How many times is it said that Christ came into this world, where no other world but this can be understood! "For this cause," saith he, "came I into the world, that I might bear witness unto the truth," John 18:37. Was it into heaven that Christ came to bear witness to the truth? "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners," 1 Tim. 1:15. Was it into heaven? 2. These words, "A body hast thou prepared me," are a full expression of what is synecdochically spoken of in the Psalms in these words, "Mine ears hast thou opened," expressing the end also why Christ had a body prepared him,—namely, that he might yield obedience to God therein; which he did signally in this world when he was "obedient unto death, the death of the cross." 3. As I have before manifested the groundlessness of interpreting the word "world," put absolutely, of the "world to come," and so taken off all that here they relate unto, so in that demonstration which, God assisting, I shall give of Christ's being a priest and offering sacrifice in this world before he entered into heaven, I shall remove what farther here they pretend unto. In the meantime, such expositions as this, that have no light nor colour given them from the texts they pretend to unfold, had need of good strength of analogy given them from elsewhere; which here is not pretended. " 'When he cometh into the world,' that is, when he enters heaven, he says, 'A body hast thou prepared me,' that is, an immortal body thou hast given me." And that by this immortal body they intend indeed no body I shall afterward declare.

Grotius turns these words quite another way, not agreeing with our catechists, yet doing still the same work with them; which, because he gives no proof of his exposition, it shall suffice so to have intimated. In sum, verse 4, he tells us how the blood of Christ takes away sin, namely, "Because it begets faith in us, and gives right to Christ for the obtaining of all necessary helps for us," in pursuit of his former interpretation of chapter 9, where he wholly excludes the satisfaction of Christ. His coming into the world is, he says, "His showing himself to the world, after he had led a private life therein for a while," contrary to the perpetual use of that expression of the New Testament. And so the whole design of the place is eluded, the exposition whereof I shall defer to the place of the satisfaction of Christ.

And these are the texts of Scripture our catechists thought good to endeavour a delivery of themselves from, as to that head or argument of our plea for his subsistence in a divine nature antecedently to his being born of the Virgin,—namely, because he is said to be incarnate or "made flesh."

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CHAPTER XIV

Sundry other testimonies given to the deity of Christ vindicated

IN the next place they heap up a great many testimonies confusedly, containing scriptural attributions unto Christ of such things as manifest him to be God; which we shall consider in that order, or rather disorder, wherein they are placed of them.

Their first question here is:—

Ques. In what scriptures is Christ called God?

Ans. John 1:1, "The Word was God;" John 20:28, "Thomas saith unto Christ, My Lord and my God;" Rom. 9:5, the apostle saith that "Christ is God over all, blessed for ever."

Q. What can be proved by these testimonies?

A. That a divine nature cannot be demonstrated from them, besides the things that are before produced, is hence manifest, that in the first testimony the Word is spoken of, and John saith that he was "with God;" in the second, Thomas calleth him "God" in whose feet and hands he found the print of the nails, and of the spear in his side; and Paul calleth him who according to the flesh was of the fathers, "God over all, blessed for ever;"—all which cannot be spoken of him who by nature is God, for thence it would follow that there are two Gods, of whom one was with the other; and these things, to have the prints of wounds and to be of the fathers, belong wholly to a man, which were absurd to ascribe to him who is God by nature. And if any one shall pretend that veil of the distinction of natures, we have above removed that, and have showed that this distinction cannot be maintained.

That in all this answer our catechists do nothing but beg the thing in question, and flee to their own hypothesis, not against assertions but arguments, themselves so far know as to be forced to apologize for it in the close. 1. That Christ is not God because he is not the person of the Father, that he is not God because he is man, is the sum of their answer; and yet these men knew that we insisted on these testimonies to prove him God though he be man, and though he be not the same person with the Father. 2. They do all along impose upon us their own most false hypothesis, that Christ is God although he be not God by nature. Those who are not God by nature, and yet pretend to be gods, are idols, and shall be destroyed. And they only are the men who affirm there are two Gods,—one who is so by nature, and another made so; one indeed God, and no man; the other a man, and no God. The Lord our God is one God. 3. In particular, John 1:1, the Word is Christ, as hath been above abundantly demonstrated,—Christ, in respect of another nature than he had before he took flesh and dwelt with men, verse 14. Herein is he said to be with the Father, in respect of his distinct personal subsistence, who was one with the Father as to his nature and essence. And this is that which we prove from his testimony, which will not be warded with a bare denial: "The Word was with God, and the Word was God;"—God by nature, and with God in his personal distinction. 4. Thomas confesses him to be his Lord and God in whose hands and feet he saw the print of the nails, as God is said to redeem the church with his own blood. He was the Lord and God of Thomas, who in his human nature shed his blood, and had the print of the nails in his hands and feet. Of this confession of Thomas I have spoken before, and therefore I shall not now farther insist upon it. He whom Thomas, in the confession of his faith as a believer, owned for his Lord and God, he is the true God, God by nature. Of a made god, a god by office, to be confessed and believed in, the Scripture is utterly silent. 5. The same is affirmed of Rom. 9:5. The apostle distinguishes of Christ as to his flesh and as to his deity: as to his flesh or human nature, he says he was of the fathers; but in the other regard he is "over all, God blessed for ever." And as this is a signal expression of the true God, "God over all, blessed for ever," so there is no occasion of that expression, τὸ κατὰ σάρκα, "as to the flesh," but to assert something in Christ, which he afterward affirms to be his everlasting deity, in regard whereof he is not of the fathers. He is, then, of the fathers, τὸ κατὰ σάρκα, ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων Θεὸς εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς ἀιῶνος, ἀμήν. The words are most emphatically expressive of the eternal deity of Christ, in contradistinction to what he received of the fathers. Ὁ ὤν, even then when he took flesh of the fathers, then was he, and now he is, and ever will be, "God over all," that is, the Most High God, "blessed for ever." It is evident that the apostle intends to ascribe to Christ here two most solemn attributes of God,—the Most High, and the Blessed One. Nor is this testimony to be parted with for their begging or with their importunity. 6. It is our adversaries who say there are two Gods, as hath been showed, not we; and the prints of wounds are proper to him who is God by nature, though not in that regard on the account whereof he is so. 7. What they have said to oppose the distinction of two natures in the one person of Christ hath already been considered, and manifested to be false and frivolous.

I could wish to these testimonies they had added one or two more, as that of Isa. 54:5, "Thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called." That Jesus Christ is the husband and spouse of the church will not be denied, Eph. 5:25, Rev. 21:9; but he who is so is "The LORD of hosts, the Holy One of Israel, the God of the whole earth." And Heb. 3:4, the apostle says, "He that made all things is God,"—that is, his church, for of that he treats. He that created all things,—that is, "the church, as well as all other things,"—he is God, none could do it but God; but Christ built this house, verse 3. But this is not my present employment

The learned Grotius is pitifully entangled about the last two places urged by our catechists. Of his sleight in dealing with that of John 20:28, I have spoken before, and discovered the vanity of his insinuations. Here he tells you, that after Christ's resurrection, it grew common with the Christians to call him God, and urges Rom. 9:5; but coming to expound that place, he finds that shift will not serve the turn, it being not any Christians calling him God that there is mentioned, but the blessed apostle plainly affirming that he is "God over all, blessed for ever;" and therefore, forgetting what he had said before, he falls upon a worse and more desperate evasion, affirming that the word Θεός ought not to be in the text, because Erasmus had observed that Cyprian and Hilary, citing this text, did not name the word! And this he rests upon, although he knew that all original copies whatever, constantly, without any exception, do read it, and that Beza had manifested, against Erasmus, that Cyprian adver. Judæos, lib. ii. cap. vi., and Hilary ad Ps. 12, do both cite this place to prove that Christ is called God, though they do not express the text to the full; and it is known how Athanasius used it against the Arians, without any hesitation as to the corruption of the text. This way of shifting indeed is very wretched, and not to be pardoned. I am well contented with all who, from what he writes on John 1:1 (the first place mentioned), do apprehend that when he wrote his annotations on that place he was no opposer of the deity of Christ; but I must take leave to say, that, for mine own part, I am not able to collect from all there spoken in his own words that he doth at all assert the assuming of the human nature into personal subsistence with the Son of God. I speak as to the thing itself, and not to the expressions which he disallows. But we must proceed with our catechists:—

Q. Where doth the Scripture testify that Christ is one with the Father?

A. John 10:29–31, "My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of his hand. I and my Father are one. Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him."

Q. How dost thou answer this testimony?

A. That from hence, that Christ is said to be one with the Father, it cannot be proved that he is one with him in nature, the words of Christ to his Father of the disciples do show: John 17:11, "That they may be one, as we are;" and a little after, verse 22, "That they may be one, even as we are one." That Christ is one with the Father, this ought to be understood either of will or power in the business of our salvation. Whence that a divine nature cannot be proved is manifest from those places where Christ saith his Father is greater than all, and, consequently, than Christ himself, as he expressly confesseth, and that he gave him his sheep, John 14:28.

Of this place I have spoken before. That it is an unity of essence that is here intended by our Saviour appears,—1. From the apprehension the Jews had of his meaning in those words, who immediately upon them took up stones to stone him for blasphemy, rendering an account of their so doing, verse 33, "Because he, being a man, did make himself God." 2. From the exposition he makes himself of his words, verse 36, "I am the Son of God;"—"That is it I intended; I am so one with him as a son is with his father,"—that is, one in nature and essence. 3. He is so one with him as that the Father is in him, and he in him, by a divine immanency of persons.

Those words of our Saviour, John 17:11, 22, 1. Do not argue a parity in the union of believers among themselves with that of him and his Father, but a similitude (see John 17:20),—that they may be one in affection, as his Father and he are in essence. We are to be holy, as God is holy. 2. If oneness of will and consent be the ground of this, that the Son and Father are one, then the angels and God are one, for with their wills they always do his. 3. Oneness of power with God in any work argues oneness of essence. God's power is omnipotent, and none can be one with him in power but he who is omnipotent,—that is, who is God. And if it be unity of power which is here asserted, it is spoken absolutely, and not referred to any particular kind of thing. 4. It is true, God the Father is greater than Christ, as is affirmed John 14:28, in respect of his office of mediation, of which there he treats; but they are one and equal in respect of nature. Neither is God in this place said to be greater than all in respect of Christ, who is said to be one with him, but in reference to all that may be supposed to attempt the taking of his sheep out of his hands. 5. Christ took or received his sheep, not simply as God, the eternal Son of God, but as mediator; and so his Father was greater than he. This testimony, then, abides: He that is one with the Father is God by nature; Christ is thus one with the Father. "One" is the unity of nature; "are," their distinction of persons. "I and my Father are one."

Grotius adheres to the same exposition with our catechists, only he goes one step farther in corrupting the text. His words are: "Ἐγὼ καὶ ὁ Πατὴρ ἕν ἐσμεν. Connectit quod dixerat cum superioribus. Si Patris potestati eripi non poterunt, nec meæ poterunt; nam mea potestas a Patre emanat, et quidem ita, ut tantundem valeat a me, aut a Patre, custodiri. Vid. Gen. 41:25, 27." I suppose he means verse 44, being the words of Pharaoh delegating power and authority immediately under him to Joseph;—but, as it is known, potestas is ἐξουσία, "authority," and may belong to office; but potentia is δύναμις, "force," "virtue," or "power," and belongs to essence. It is not potestas or authority that Christ speaks of, but strength, might, and power, which is so great in God that none can take his sheep out of his hand. Now, though unitas potestatis doth not prove unity of essence in men, yet unitas potentiœ, which is here spoken of, in God evidently doth; yea, none can have unitatem potestatis with God but he who hath unitatem essentiœ.

What they except in the next place against Christ's being equal with God, from John 5:18, Phil. 2:6, 7, hath been already removed, and the places fully vindicated. They proceed:—

Q. But where is it that Christ is called the "Son of the living God," the "proper" and "only-begotten Son of God?"

A. Matt. 16:16; Rom. 8:32; John 3:16, 18.

Q. But how are these places answered?

A. From all these attributes of Christ a divine nature can by no means be proved; for as to the first, it is notorious that Peter confessed that the Son of man was Christ and the Son of the living God, who, as it is evident, had not such a divine nature as they feign. Besides, the Scripture testifieth of other men that they are the sons of the living God, as the apostle out of Hosea, Rom. 9:26. And as to what belongeth to the second and third places, in them we read that the "proper" and "only-begotten Son of God" was delivered to death; which cannot be said of him who is God by nature. Yea, from hence, that Christ is the Son of God, it appears that he is not God, for otherwise he should be Son to himself. But the cause why these attributes belong to Christ is this, that he is the chiefest and most dear to God among all the sons of God: as Isaac, because he was most dear to Abraham, and was his heir, is called his "only-begotten son," Heb. 11:17, although he had his brother Ishmael; and Solomon the "only-begotten of his mother," although he had many brethren by the same mother, 1 Chron. 3:1–6, etc.; Prov. 4:3.

I have spoken before fully to all these places, and therefore shall be very brief in the vindication of them in this place. On what account Christ is, and on what account alone he is called, the Son of God, hath been sufficiently demonstrated, and his unity of nature with his Father thence evinced. It is true,—1. That Peter calls Christ, who was the Son of man, the "Son of the living God;" not in that or on that account whereon he is the Son of man, but because he is peculiarly, in respect of another nature than that wherein he is the Son of man, the Son of the living God. And if Peter had intended no more in this assertion but only that he was one among the many sons of God, how doth he answer that question, "But whom say ye that I am?" being exceptive to what others said, who yet affirmed that he was a prophet, one come out from God, and favoured of him. It is evident that it is something much more noble and divine that is here affirmed by him, in this solemn confession of him on whom the church is built. It is true, believers are called "children of the living God," Rom. 9:26, in opposition to the idols whom they served before their conversion; neither do we argue from this expression barely, "Of the living God," but in conjunction with those others that follow, and in the emphaticalness of it, in this confession of Peter, Christ instantly affirming that this was a rock which should not be prevailed against. 2. What is meant by the "proper" and "only-begotten Son of God" hath been already abundantly evinced. Nor is it disproved by saying that the proper and only Son of God was given to death, for so he was; and thereby "God redeemed his church with his own blood." He that is the proper and only-begotten Son of God was given to death, though not in that nature and in respect of that wherein he is the proper and only-begotten Son of God. 3. Christ is the Son of the Father, who is God, and therein the Son of God, without any danger of being "the Son of himself," that is, of God as he is the Son. This is a begging of the thing in question, without offering any plea for what they pretend to but their own unbelief and carnal apprehensions of the things of God. 4. Our catechists have exceedingly forgotten themselves and their masters, in affirming that "Christ is called the proper and only-begotten Son of God, because he is most dear to God of all his sons;" themselves and their master having, as was showed at large before, given us reasons quite of another nature for this appellation, which we have discussed and disproved elsewhere. 5. If Christ be the only-begotten Son of God only on this account, because he is most dear among all the sons of God, then he is the Son of God upon the same account with them,—that is, by regeneration and adoption; which that it is most false hath been showed elsewhere. Christ is the proper, natural, only-begotten Son of God, in contradistinction to all others, the adopted sons of God, as was made manifest. Isaac is called the "only-begotten son" of Abraham, not absolutely, but in reference to the promise; he was his only-begotten son to whom the promise did belong: "He that had received the promises offered up his only-begotten son." Solomon is not said to be the "only-begotten of his mother," Prov. 4:3, but only "before the face" or "in the sight of his mother," eminently expressing his preferment as to her affections. How little is this to what the gospel says of Jesus Christ!

I have only to say concerning Grotius in this matter, that from none of these expressions, in any place, doth he take the least notice of what is necessarily concluded concerning the deity of Christ; wherein he might use his own liberty. The opening, interpretation, and improvement of these testimonies to the end aimed at, I desire the reader to see, chap. 7. They proceed:—

Q. What scripture calls Christ the "first-born of every creature"?

A. Col. 1:15.

Q. What dost thou answer thereunto?

A. Neither can it hence be gathered that Christ hath a divine nature: for seeing Christ is the "first-born of every creature," it is necessary that he be one of the number of the creatures; for such is the force of the word "first-born" in the Scriptures, that it is of necessity that he who is first-born be one of the number of them of whom he is the first-born, Col. 1:18; Rom. 8:29; Rev. 1:5. Neither that our Lord Jesus was one of the things created in the old creation can our adversaries grant, unless they will be Arians. It behoveth them that they grant him to be one of the new creation. From whence not only the divine nature of Christ cannot be proved, but also that Christ hath no such divine nature is firmly evinced. But now that Jesus is called by that name by the apostle, it is from hence, that in time and worth he far exceedeth all other things of the new creation.

1. That by the "creation" in this verse, and the things enumerated to be created in the verses following, are intended the creation of the world, and all things therein, "visible and invisible," was before abundantly evinced, in the consideration of the ensuing verses, and the exceptions of these catechists wholly removed from being any hinderance to the embracing of the first obvious sense of the words. All, then, that is here inferred from a supposition of the new creation being here intended (which is a most vain supposition) falls to the ground of itself; so that I shall not need to take the least farther notice of it. 2. That Christ is so the first-born of the old creation as to be a prince, heir, and lord of it, and the things thereof (which is the sense of the word as here used), and yet not one of them, is evident from the context. The very next words to these, "He is the first-born of every creature," are, "For by him were all things created." He by whom all things, all creatures, were created, is no creature; for he else must create himself. And so we are neither Arians nor Photinians. Though the former have more colour of saving themselves from the sword of the word than the latter, yet they both perish by it. 3. The word πρωτότοκος, "first-born," in this place is metaphorical, and the expression is intended to set out the excellency of Christ above all other things. That that is the design of the Holy Ghost in the place is confessed. Now, whereas the word may import two things concerning him of whom it is spoken,—(1.) that he is one of them in reference to whom he is said to be the first-born, or, (2.) that he hath privilege, pre-eminence, rule, and inheritance of them and over them,—I ask, Which of these significations suits the apostle's aim here, to set out the excellency of Christ above all creatures? that which makes him one of them, or that which exalts him above them? 4. Πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως, is "begotten before all creatures," or "every creature." The apostle doth not say Christ was πρῶτος κτισθείς, "the first of them made," but, he was born or begotten before them all,—that is, from eternity. His being begotten is opposed to the creation of all other things; and though the word, where express mention is made of others in the same kind, may denote one of them, yet where it is used concerning things so far distant, and which are not compared, but one preferred above the other, it requires no such signification. See Job 18:13; Ps. 89:27; Jer. 31:9.

Grotius is perfectly agreed with our catechists, and uses their very words in the exposition of this place; but that also hath been considered, and his exposition called to an account formerly.

The next testimonies insisted on they produce in answer to this question:—

Q. What scriptures affirm that Christ hath all things that the Father hath?

A. John 16:15, 17:10.

Q. What sayest thou to these?

A. We have above declared that the word omnia, "all things," is almost always referred to the subject-matter; wherefore from these places that which they intend can no way be proved. The subject-matter, chap. 16, is that which the Holy Spirit was to reveal to the apostles, which belonged to the kingdom of Christ; and, chap. 17, it is most apparent that he treateth of his disciples, whom God gave him, whom he calls his. Moreover, seeing that whatever Christ hath, he hath it by gift from the Father, and not of himself, it hence appeareth that he can by no means have a divine nature, when he who is God by nature hath all things of himself.

Of these texts the consideration will soon be despatched. 1. John 16:15, Christ saith, "All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you." Now, if all things that the Father hath are his, then the divine nature is his, for the Father hath a divine nature. But they say this "all things" is to be expounded according to the subject-matter treated of; that is, only what the Holy Ghost was to reveal to the apostles. Let, then, the expression be expounded according to the subject-matter. Christ renders a reason why he said that the Spirit should take of his: even because what he had of the Father he had also of him, all that the Father hath being his. Now, it was the knowledge of all truth, and all things to come, and all things concerning the kingdom of Christ, that he was thus to show to the apostles. But look, whence the Holy Ghost hath his knowledge, thence he hath his essence; for those things do not really differ in a divine nature. The Spirit, then, having his knowledge of the Son, hath also his essence of the Son, as he hath of the Father. And by this it is most evidently confirmed, that among the "all things" that the Father hath, which the Son hath, his divine nature is also, or else that could be no reason why he should say that the Spirit should take of his, and show to them.

2. John 17:10, a reason is rendered why those who are Christ's are also God's, and to be in his care; that is, because all his things (τὰ ἐμὰ πάντα) were the Father's, and all the Father's his. It is not, then, spoken of the disciples; but is a reason given why the disciples are so in the love of God, because of the unity of essence which is between Father and Son, whence all the Son's things are the Father's, and all the Father's are the Son's.

3. Christ's having all things not from himself, but by gift from the Father, may be understood two ways. Either it refers to the nature of Christ as he is God, or to the person of Christ as he is the Son of God. In the first sense it is false; for the nature of Christ being one with that of the Father hath all things, without concession, gift, or grant made to it, as the nature. But as the person of the Son, in which regard he receives all things, even his nature, from the Father, so it is true (those words being expounded as above); but this only proves him to be the Son of God, not at all that he is not God.

Grotius on the first place, Πάντα ὃσα ἔχει ὁ πατὴρ, ἐμά ἐστι·—"Etiam præscientia et decreta de rebus futuris, quatenus ecclesiam spectant." Did he truly intend what the first words do import, we should judge ourselves not a little beholding to him. The foreknowledge of God is not in any who is not God, nor his decrees. The first is an eternal property of his nature; the latter are eternal acts of his will. If Christ have these, he must have the nature of God. But the last words evidently take away what the first seem to grant, by restraining this participation of Christ in the foreknowledge and decrees of God to things concerning the church; in which sense Socinus grants the knowledge of Christ to be infinite, namely, in respect of the church, Disput. de Adorat. Christi cum Christiano Franken, p. 15. But it being certain that he whose the prescience of God and his purposes are properly as to any one thing, his they are universally, it is too evident that he intends these things to belong to Christ no otherwise but as God revealeth the things that are to come concerning his church to him; which respects his office as Mediator, not his nature as he is one with God, blessed for ever. Of the deity of Christ, neither in this nor the other place is there the least intimation in that author.

Q. But what scripture calleth Christ "the eternal Father"?

A. Isa. 9:6.

Q. What sayest thou thereunto?

A. From thence a divine nature cannot be proved, seeing Christ is called the "Father of eternity" for a certain cause, as may be seen from the words there a little before expressed. But it is marvellous that the adversaries will refer this place to the Son, which treats of the eternal Father, who, as it is evident, according to themselves, is not the Father. But Christ is said to be the "Father of eternity," or of the "world to come," because he is the prince and author of eternal life, which is future.

It were well for our adversaries if they could thus shift off this testimony. Let the words be considered, and it will quickly appear what need they have of other helps, if they intend to escape this sword that is furbished against them and their cause. The words of the verse are, "For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."

1. Our catechists, confessing that this is spoken of Christ, and that he is here called "The everlasting Father" (they are more modest than Grotius, whose labour to corrupt this place is to be bewailed, having ventured on the words as far as any of the modern rabbins, who yet make it their business to divert this text from being applied to the Messiah), have saved me the labour of proving from the text and context that he only can possibly be intended. This, then, being taken for granted, that is that which is here affirmed of him, that "his name shall be called," or "he shall be," and "shall be known to be" (for both these are contained in this expression), "Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." He who is "The mighty God" and "The everlasting Father" is God by nature; but so is Jesus Christ. The expression here used of "The mighty God" is ascribed to God, Deut. 10:17, Nehem. 9:32, Jer. 32:18; and is a most eminent name of God,—a name discriminating him from all that are not God by nature. And this may be added to the other names of God that are attributed to Christ: as "Adonai," Ps. 110:1;—"Elohim," Ps. 45:6; Heb. 1:8;—"Jehovah," Jer. 23:6, 33:16; Mal. 3:1; Ps. 83:18;—"God," John 1:1;—"The true God," 1 John 5:20;—"The great God," Titus 2:13, (of which places before);—and here "The mighty God, The everlasting Father."

2. What say our catechists to all this? They fix only on that expression, "The eternal Father," and say that we cannot intend the Son here, because we say he is not the Father; and yet so do these gentlemen themselves! They say Christ is the Son of God, and no way the same with the Father; and yet they say that upon a peculiar account he is here called "The eternal Father."

3. On what account, then, soever Christ is called "The eternal Father," yet he is called so, and is eternal. Whether it be because in nature he is one with the Father, or because of his tender and fatherly affections to his church, or because he is the author of eternal life, or because in him is life, it is all one as to the testimony to his deity in the words produced. He who is "The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace," is God by nature; which was to be confirmed.

So much for them. But our other friend must not be forgotten. The place is of great importance, the testimony in it evident and clear; and we must not suffer ourselves, on any pretence, to be deprived of the support thereof. Thus, then, he proceeds in the exposition of this place:—

"For unto us a child is born." "Id est, nascetur. Nam Hebræa præterita sumuntur pro futuris;"—"That is, shall be born," etc. Of this we shall have use in the very next words.

"Unto us a Son is given." "Dabitur. Ezechias patri Achazo multum dissimilis. Sic tamen ut multo excellentius hæc ad Messiam pertinere, non Christiani tantum agnoscant, sed et Chaldæus hoc loco;"—that is, "Shall be given. Hezekiah, most unlike his father Ahaz. Yet so that these things belong more excellently to the Messiah, not only as the Christians acknowledge, but the Chaldee in this place."

Here begins the exposition. Hezekiah is intended. So, indeed, say some of the rabbins. But,—1. This prophecy is evidently a continuance of that which is begun chap. 7, and was given at the time of the invasion of Judah by Rezin and Pekah; which was after Ahaz had reigned some years, as is evident, 2 Kings 16:1–5. Now, he reigned but sixteen years in all, and when Hezekiah came to the crown, in succession to him, he was twenty-five years of age, 2 Kings 18:1, 2; so that he must needs be born before this prophecy. There is, then, already an inconsistency in these annotations, making the prophet to speak of that which was past as future and to come.

2. It is true that the Chaldee paraphrast applies this prophecy unto the Messiah, whose words are, "Dicit propheta domui David; quoniam parvulus natus est nobis, Filius datus est nobis, et suscepit legem super se, ut servaret eam; et vocabitur nomen ejus, a facie admirabilis consilii Deus, vir permanens in æternum; Christus cujus pax multiplicabitur super nos in diebus ejus." He not only refers the whole to Christ, without any intimation of Hezekiah, but says also that his name shall be "The God of counsel."

3. Neither is he alone, but the ancient rabbins generally are of the same judgment, as Petrus Galatinus and Raymundus Martinus abundantly manifest. To repeat what is or may be collected from them to that purpose is not much to mine.

4. The present difference between us and the learned annotator is, whether Hezekiah be here intended at all or no. To what hath been spoken we have that to add in opposition to him which we chiefly insist upon, namely, that none of the things ascribed to the person here spoken of can be attributed to Hezekiah, as expressing somewhat more divine than can be ascribed to any mere man whatever. Indeed, as Grotius wrests the words in his following interpretation, they may be ascribed to any other; for he leaves no name of God, nor any expression of any thing divine, to him that is spoken of.

Among the rabbins that interpret this place of Hezekiah, one of the chief said he was the Messiah indeed, and that they were to look for no other! This is the judgment of Rabbi Hillel in the Talmud. Hence, because Maimonides said somewhere that the faith of the Messiah to come is the foundation of the law, it is disputed by Rabbi Joseph Albo, Orat. i. cap. i., whether Hillel were not to be reckoned among the apostates and such as should have no portion in the world to come; but he resolves the question on Hillel's side, and denies that the faith of the Messiah to come is the foundation of the law. Others, who apply these words to Hezekiah, say he should have been the Messiah, but that God altered his purpose upon the account which they assign. This they prove from verse 6, where, in the word לְסַרְבֵּה, "mem clausum" is put in the middle of a word. This Grotius takes notice of, and says, "Eo stabilitatem significari volunt Hebræi, ut per mem apertum in fine rupturam." Perhaps sometimes they do so, but here some of them turn it to another purpose, as they may use it to what purpose they please, the observation being ludicrous. The words of Rabbi Tanchum, in libro Sanhedrim, to this purpose, are: "Dixit Rabbi Tanchum, Quomodo omne mem quod est in medio vocis apertum est, et istud לְסַרְבֵּה, Isa. 9:6, clausum est? Quæsivit Deus sanctus benedictus facere Ezechiam Messiam, et Sennacheribum Gog et Magog. Dixit proprietas judicii coram eo, 'Domine mundi, et quid Davidem, qui dixit faciei tuæ tot cantica et laudes, non fecisti Messiam, Ezechiam vero, cui fecisti omnia signa hæc, et non dixit canticum faciei tuæ, vis facere Messiam?' Propterea clausum fuit statim, etc. Egressa est vox cælestis, 'Secretum meum mihi;' "—"Rabbi Tanchum said, Seeing every mem that is in the middle of a word is open, how comes that in לְסַרְבֵּה to be closed? The holy, blessed God sought to make Hezekiah to be the Messiah, and Sennacherib to be Gog and Magog. Propriety of judgment" (that is, the right measure of judgment), "said before him, 'Lord of the whole earth, why didst thou not make David Messiah, who spake so many songs and praises before thee? and wilt [thou] make Hezekiah to be the Messiah, for whom thou hast wrought those great signs, and he spake no song before thee?' Instantly mem was shut, and a heavenly voice went forth, 'My secret belongs to me.' "

And so Hezekiah lost the Messiahship for want of a song! And these are good masters in the interpretation of prophecies concerning Christ. I wholly assent to the conjecture of the learned annotator about this business: "Non incredibile est," says he, "quod unus scriba properans commiserat, id, alios superstitiose imitatos;"—"One began this writing by negligence, and others followed him with superstition." The conjectures of some Christians from hence are with me of no more weight than those of the Jews: as, that by this mem clausum is signified the birth of Christ of a virgin; and whereas in number it signifies six hundred, it denotes the space of time at the end whereof Christ was to be born, which was so many years from the fourth of Ahaz, wherein this prophecy, as is supposed, was given.

I have not insisted on these things as though they were of any importance, or in themselves worthy to be repeated, when men are dealing seriously about the things of God, but only to show what little cause Grotius had to follow the modern rabbins in their exposition of this place, whose conceits upon it are so foolish and ridiculous.

Return we to the Annotations. The first passage he fixes on is, "And the government shall be upon his shoulder." Saith he, "Id est, erit πορφυρογένητος, ab ipsis cunis purpuram, feret regiam, ut in regnum natus. Confer Ezech. 28:13;"—"He shall be born to purple; from his very cradle he shall wear the kingly purple, being born to the kingdom."

1. But this is nothing peculiar to Hezekiah. His son Manasseh was all this as well as he; and how this, being in itself a light and trivial thing, common to all other kings' sons with him, should be thus prophesied of as an eminent honour and glory, none can see any cause. 2. But is this indeed the meaning of these words, "Hezekiah, when he is a boy, shall wear a purple coat?" which the prophet, when he gave forth this prophecy, perhaps saw him playing in every day. Certainly it is a sad thing to be forsaken of God, and to be given up to a man's own understanding in the exposition of the Scripture. That the government, the principality here mentioned, which is said to be upon the shoulder of him concerning whom the words are spoken,—that is, committed to him as a weighty thing,—is the whole rule and government of the church of God, committed to the management of the Lord Jesus Christ, the mediator, to the inconceivable benefit and consolation of his people, the reader may find evinced in all expositors on the place (unless some one or other of late, persons of note, who, to appear somebodies, have ventured to follow Grotius); it is not my business to insist on particulars.

His next note is on these words, "His name shall be called." "In Hebræo est vocabit; supple quisque. Etiam Chaldæus vocabitur transtulit. Notum autem Hebræis dici sic vel sic vocari aliquem cui tales tituli aut ἐπίθετα conveniunt." I delight not to contend at all, nor shall do it without great cause. For the sense of these words, I am content that we take up thus much: The titles following are his names, and they agree to him; that is, he is, or shall be, such an one as answers the description in them given of him. But here our great doctors, whom this great man follows, are divided. Some of them not seeing how it is possible that the names following should be ascribed to Hezekiah, some of them directly terming him "God," they pervert the words, and read them thus: "The wonderful Counsellor, the mighty God, etc., shall call his name The Prince of Peace;" so ascribing the last name only to Hezekiah, all the former to God. The advantage they take is from the want of variation by cases in the Hebrew. And this way go all the present rabbins, being set into it by Solomon Jarchi on the place. But as this is expressly contrary to the judgment of the old doctors, as hath been abundantly proved out of their Targum and Talmud, where Hezekiah is called the "lord of eight names," and is opposed to Sennacherib, who they say had eight names also, so it is contrary to all their own rules of grammar to place the name of him who calls after the verb calling, of which there is not one instance to be given. Grotius, therefore, takes in with them who apply all these names to Hezekiah, shift with them afterward as well as he can. So he proceeds:—

"Wonderful." "Ob summas quæ in eo erunt virtutes;"—"For the excellent virtues that shall be in him." But, I pray, why more than David or Josiah? "This is his name, 'Wonderful;' that is, he shall be very virtuous, and men shall admire him." How much better this name agrees to Him, and how much more proper it is, whose person is so great a mystery, 1 Tim. 3:16, and whose name is so abstruse, Prov. 30:4, and that upon the wonderful conjunction of two natures in one person, here mentioned (he who is "The mighty God" being also "a child given" unto us), is evident to all.

"Counsellor, The mighty God." "Imo consultator Dei fortis; id est, qui in omnibus negotiis consilia a Deo poscet, per Prophetas scilicet, ut jam sequetur;"—"Yea, 'he who asketh counsel of the mighty God;' that is, who in all his affairs asks counsel of God, namely, by the prophets."

And is not this boldness thus to correct the text, "Counsellor, The mighty God," "Yea, he who asketh counsel of the mighty God?" What colour, what pretence, what reason or plea, may be used for this perverting the words of the text, our annotator not in the least intimates.

The words are evidently belonging to the same person, equally parts of that name whereby he is to be called; and the casting of them, without any cause, into this construction, in a matter of this importance (because it is to be said), is intolerable boldness. It is, not without great probability of truth, pleaded by some, that the first two words should go together, "The wonderful Counsellor," as those that follow do;—not that פֶּלֶא, "admirabilis," is an epithet, or an adjective, it being a substantive, and signifying a wonder or a miracle; but that the weight of what is said being laid much upon the force of "Counsellor," setting out the infinite wisdom of Christ, in all his ways, purposes, and counsels concerning his church, this other term seems to be suited to the setting forth thereof. But this corruption of the text is the more intolerable in our annotator, because, in the close of his observations on this place, he confesses that all the things here mentioned have a signification in Christ, much more sublime and plain than that which he hath insisted on; so that had he been any friend to the deity of Christ he would not have endeavoured to have robbed him of his proper name, "The mighty God," in this place. But this was necessary, that the rabbinical accommodation of this place to Hezekiah might be retained.

That this place, then, is spoken of Christ we have evinced, nor can it be waived without open perverting of the words; and he is here called "The mighty God," as was before declared.

Grotius proceeds to apply the residue of this glorious name to Hezekiah: "The everlasting Father," or, as it is in the Vulgar Latin, "Pater futuri seculi." "In Hebræo non est futuri. Pater seculi est qui multos post se relicturus sit posteros, et in longum tempus;"—"In the Hebrew the word future is not; the 'father of the age' is he who leaves many of his posterity behind him, and that for a long time."

About the Vulgar Latin translation we do not contend. Of the meaning and use of the word עוֹלָם I have spoken already. When it is applied to God, it signifies "eternity." But the word here is not עוֹלָם, but עַד, properly "eternity," when applied to God: Ps. 10:16, "The LORD is King עוֹלָם וָעֶד,"—"seculi et æternitatis, for ever and ever." Instances might be multiplied to this purpose. That this should be, "Hezekiah shall leave many children, and that for a long season," credat Apella. What sons he left, besides one, and him a wicked one for the most part of his days, is uncertain. Within one hundred and thirty years, or thereabout, his whole posterity was carried captive. How exceedingly unsuited this appellation is to him is evident. "The Father of eternity;" that is, one that leaves a son behind him, and a possibility for his posterity to continue in the condition wherein he was for one hundred and thirty years! Many such everlasting fathers may we find out. What in all this is peculiar to Hezekiah, that this should so emphatically be said to be his name?

The next is, "Princeps Pacis;"—"The Prince of Peace." "Princeps pacificus, et in pace victurus;"—"A peaceable prince, and one that should live in peace."

1. On how much better, more noble and glorious account this title belongs to Christ, is known. 2. The Prince of Peace is not only a peaceable prince, but the author, giver, procurer, establisher of peace. 3. Neither did Hezekiah reign in peace all his days. His kingdom was invaded, his fenced cities taken, and himself and chief city delivered by a miraculous slaughter of his enemies.

"Of the increase of his government, and of peace no end;" which he reads according to the Vulgar Latin, "Multiplicabitur ejus imperium, et pacis ejus non erit finis." Literally, "For the multiplying of his kingdom, and of peace no end." As to the first part, his exposition is, "Id est, durabit per annos 29;"—"His kingdom should continue for twenty-nine years." Who would believe such gross darkness should cover the face of so learned a man? "Of the increase of his government there shall be no end;" that is, he shall reign nine and twenty years! This might almost twice as properly be spoken of his son Manasseh, who reigned fifty-five.

And now let him that hath a mind to feed on such husks as these go on with his annotations in this place; I am weary of considering such trash. And let the pious reader tremble at the righteous judgment of God, giving up men trusting to their own learning and abilities, refusing to captivate their hearts to the obedience of the truth, to such foolish and childish imaginations, as men of common sense must needs abhor.

It appears, then, that we have here a description of Jesus Christ, and of him only, and that the names here ascribed to him are proper to him, and declare who he was and is, even "The mighty God, The Prince of Peace," etc. Let us proceed with our catechists.

In the next place they heap up sundry places, which they return slight answers unto; and yet to provide them in such manner as that they might be the easier dealt withal, they cut off parcels and expressions in the middle of sentences, and from the context, from whence the greatest evidence, as to the testimony they give in this matter, doth arise. I shall consider them apart as they are proposed:—

Christ is called the Word of God, John 1:1, Rev. 19:13. They say,—

From hence, that Christ is called "The Word of God," a divine nature in Christ cannot be proved, yea, the contrary may be gathered; for seeing he is the Word of the one God, it is apparent that he is not that one God. But Jesus is therefore called the Word of God, because he expounds to us the whole will of God, as John there declares a little after, John 1:18; as he is also in the same sense said to be life and truth.

1. Christ is the Word of God. The Word, or ὁ Λόγος, is either προφορικός, or the word which outwardly is spoken of God; or ἐνδιάθετος, his eternal, essential Word or Wisdom. Let our catechists prove another acceptation of the word in any place. That Christ is not the word spoken by God they will grant; for he was a person, that revealed to us the word of God. He is, then, God's eternal Word or Wisdom; and so, consequently, God. 2. Christ is so called the Word of God, John 1:1, as that he is in the same place said to be God. And our adversaries are indeed too impudent, whereas they say, "If he be the Word of the one God, he cannot be that one God," the Holy Ghost affirming the flat contrary, namely, that he was "The Word, and was with God, and was God;" that is, doubtless, the one true God, verses 1–3. He was "with God" in his person as the Son; and he "was God" as to his nature. 3. Christ is not called the Word, John 1:1, upon the account of his actual revealing the word of God to us in his own person on the earth (which he did, verse 18), because he is called so in his everlasting residence with the Father before the world was, verse 1; nor is he so called on that account, Rev. 19:13, it being applied to him in reference to the work of executing judgment on his enemies as a king, and not to his revealing the word of God as a prophet. So that notwithstanding this exception, this name of the "Word of God," applied to Christ, as in the places mentioned, proves him to have a divine nature, and to be God, blessed for ever.

The next place is Col. 1:15, "Christ is the image of the invisible God." To which they say only,—

The same may be said of this as of that foregoing.

But an image is either an essential image or accidental,—a representation of a thing in the same substance with it, as a son is the image of his father, or a representation in some resemblance, like that of a picture. That Christ cannot be the latter is evident. Our catechists refer it to his office, not his person. But,—1. It is the person of Christ that is described in that and the following verses, and not his office. 2. The title given to God, whose image he is, "The invisible God," will allow there be no image of him but what is invisible; nor is there any reason of adding that epithet of God but to declare also the invisible spiritual nature of Christ, wherein he is like his Father. And the same is here intended with what is mentioned in the third place:—

Heb. 1:3, "He is the express image of his person."

This is to be understood that whatever God hath promised, he hath now really exhibited in Christ.

Well expounded! Christ is the character of his Father's person; that is, what God promised he exhibited in Christ! Would not any man admire these men's acumen and readiness to interpret the Scriptures? The words are part of the description of the person of the Son of God, "He is the brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person, upholding all things by the word of his power;" that is, he reveals the will of God! This the apostle had expressly affirmed, verse 2, in plain and familiar terms; that he should now repeat over the same thing again, in words so exceedingly insignificant of any such matter, is very strange. 2. The apostle speaks of the hypostasis of the Father, not of his will; of his subsistence, not his mind to be revealed. We do not deny that Christ doth represent his Father to us, and is to us the "express image of his person;" but, antecedently hereunto, we say he is so in himself. Grotius' corruption of this whole chapter was before discovered, and in part removed.

John 14:9, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father," is next proposed. To which they say,—

Neither can any divine nature be proved from hence, for this "seeing" cannot be spoken of the essence of God, which is invisible, but of the knowledge of the things that Christ did and spake.

Christ so speaks of his and his Father's oneness, whereby he that saw one saw both, as he describes it to be in the verse following, where he says "the Father is in him, and he in the Father." Now, that the Father is in him and he in the Father, and that he and the Father are one in nature and essence, hath been before sufficiently demonstrated. The seeing here intended is that of faith, whereby both Father and Son are seen unto believers.

Col. 2:9 is the last in this collection, "In whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." To this they say,—

That this word divinitas may signify the will of God. And seeing the apostle opposeth that speech not to persons, but to philosophy and the law, it is manifest that it is to be understood of the doctrine, and not of the person of Christ. Of this word "bodily" thou shalt hear afterward.

But,—1. It is not divinity but deity, not θειότης but θεότης, that is here spoken of; and that not simply neither, but πλήρωμα θεότητος, "the fulness of the Godhead." 2. That θεότης, or πλήρωμα θεότητος, is ever taken for the will of God, they do not, they cannot prove. 3. How can it be said that the will of God κατοικεῖ σωματικῶς, "doth dwell bodily" in any, or what can be the sense of that expression? Where they afterward interpret the word "bodily" I do not remember; when I meet with their exposition it shall be considered. 4. That the words are to be referred to the person of Christ, and not to his doctrine, is manifest, not only from the words themselves, that will not bear any such sense as whereunto they are wrested, but also from the context; for not only the whole order and series of words before and after do speak of the person of Christ (for "In him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," verse 3; "Him we receive," verse 6; "In him we are built up," verse 7; "In him we are complete," verse 10; "In him we are circumcised," verse 11; "With him we are buried," verse 12; "Together with him are we quickened," verse 13; and it was he that was crucified for us, verses 14, 15), but also the design of the Holy Ghost enforces this sense, it being to discover a fulness and sufficiency in Christ of all grace and wisdom, that men should not need to seek relief from either law or philosophy. The fulness of the Godhead inhabiting in the person of Christ substantially, he is God by nature. And of these places so far. The three following, of John 17:5, 1 Pet. 1:10, 11, John 3:13, have been in their proper places already vindicated.

Grotius interprets that of Col. 2:9 according to the analogy of the faith of our catechists: "Christi doctrina non modo philosophiæ sed et Legi Mosis plurimum præstat." That πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα τῆς θεότητος should be doctrina, and κατοικεῖ ἐν Χρίστω should make it "the doctrine of Christ," and σωματικῶς should be no man knows what, is but a cross way of interpretation. And yet Augustine is quoted, with a saying from him to give countenance unto it; which makes me admire almost as much as at the interpretation itself. The words our annotator mentions are taken from his Epist. 57 ad Dardan., though he mentions it not. The reason will quickly appear to any one that shall consult the place; for notwithstanding the expression here cropped off from his discourse, he gives an interpretation of the words utterly contrary to what this learned man would here insinuate, and perfectly agreeing with that which we have now proposed!

Our catechists proceed to the consideration of sundry places where Christ is called "The only Lord, the Lord of glory, the King of kings, the Lord of lords,"—all which being titles of the one true God, prove him to be so;—and the first proposed is, "To us there is one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him," 1 Cor. 8:6.

A little to give light to our argument from hence, and that the strength of it may appear, some few observations concerning the context and the words themselves will be necessary:—

1. Verse 5, the apostle, speaking of the heathens and their opinion of the Deity, says, "There be," that is, to them, in their apprehension, "gods many, and lords many;" that is, many supreme powers, who are gods and lords. The terms of "gods many, and lords many," are not expressive of several kinds of deities, but of the same. Whom they esteemed lords they esteemed gods, and so on the contrary. In opposition to this polytheism of theirs, he declares that Christians have but one God, one Lord; wherein if the apostle did not intend to assert one only God unto Christians, in the different persons of the Father and Son, he had not spoken in such an opposition as the adversative ἀλλά at the beginning of the words and the comparison instituted do require.

2. That this "one Lord" of Christians is the only true God is manifest from Deut. 6:4, "The LORD our God is one LORD." So the apostle here, "To us there is one Lord:" not many gods, as the heathens fancied; in opposition also to whose idolatry is that assertion of Moses. And so Thomas, in his confession, joins these two together, intending one and the same person, "My Lord and my God."

3. Κύριος, being put to signify God, is the word which the LXX. render Jehovah by, and so εἷς Κύριος is that "only Jehovah."

4. The attribution of the same works in this verse to Father and Son manifests them to be the same one God: "Of whom are all things, and we in him; … by whom are all things, and we by him." These things being premised, what our catechists except to this testimony may be considered. Thus, then, they:—

Hence a divine nature cannot be proved; for,—1. He doth manifestly difference him from the Father, whom we have taught above to be the only God by nature. 2. This that it says of him, that "by him are all things," shows him not to be God by nature, seeing, as hath been above declared, this particle "by" doth not signify the first, but the second cause; which can by no means be spoken of him who is God by nature. And though the Scriptures do sometimes say of the Father, "By him are all things," yet these words are to be taken otherwise of the Father than of the Son. It is manifest that this is said of the Father, because all mediate causes by which any thing is done are not from any other, but from himself, nor are they such as that he cannot work without them; but it is spoken of Christ, because by him another, namely, God, worketh all things, as it is expressly said, Eph. 3:9. That I need not to remember, that the word "all things," as was showed above, is to be referred to the subject-matter; which that it so appeareth hence, that the apostle dealeth of all those things which belong to the Christian people, as these two words "to us" and "Father" do declare. Whence it is proved that Christ is not simply and absolutely, but in some certain respect, called the "one Lord, by whom are all things." Wherefore his divine nature is not proved from hence.

It is very evident that they are much entangled with this testimony, which necessitates them to turn themselves into all manner of shapes, to try whether they can shift their bonds, and escape or no. Their several attempts to evade shall be considered in their order.

1. It is true, Christ is differenced clearly from the Father as to his person, here spoken of; but that they have proved the Father to be the only God by nature, exclusively to the Son and Holy Ghost, is but a boasting before they put off their harness. It is true, the Father is said here to be the "one God;" which no more hinders the Son from being so too than the assertion that the Son is the "one Lord" denies the Father's being so also.

2. That cavil at the word "by" hath been already considered and removed. It is enough for us to manifest that this assignation of the creation of all things to Christ by the expression of, "By him are all things," doth by no means depose him from the honour of principal efficient cause in that work, the same attribution being made to the Father in the same words. And to say, as our catechists do, that this expression is ascribed to the Father in such a sense, and not to Christ, is purely, without any pretence of proof, to beg the thing in question. Neither is that any thing to the purpose which is urged from Eph. 3:9, for we confess that as Christ is equal with his Father as to his nature, wherein he is God, so as he is the Son in office, he was the servant of the Father, who accomplishes his own mind and will by him.

3. The subject-matter in this place, as to the words under consideration, is the demonstration of the one God and Lord of Christians, asserted in opposition to the many gods and lords of the heathen, from the effects or works of that one God and Lord, "of him and by him are all things;" and this is the difference that God elsewhere puts between himself and idols, Jer. 10:10, 11. And if there be any such subject-matter as proves Christ not to be the one Lord absolutely, but in some respect, it proves also that the Father is not the one God absolutely, but in some respect only.

4. The words "to us" and "Father" do one of them express the persons believing the doctrine proposed concerning the one true God and Lord, the other describes that one true God by that name whereby he revealed himself to those believers; neither of them at all enforcing the restriction mentioned.

Christ, then, is absolutely the one Lord of Christians, who made all things; and so is by nature God, blessed for ever.

I should but needlessly multiply words, particularly to animadvert on Grotius' annotations on this place. I do it only where he seems to add some new shifts to the interpretation of our adversaries, or varies from them in the way, though he agrees in the end; neither of which reasons occurring in this place, I shall not trouble the reader with the consideration of his words. By διʼ οὗ τὰ πάντα, to maintain his former expositions of the like kind, he will have all the things of the now creation only intended; but without colour or pretence of proof, or any thing to give light to such an exposition of the words.

Our catechists next mention 1 Cor. 2:8, "For had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory."

Who is the Lord of glory, or God of glory, the Holy Ghost declares, Acts 7:2, "The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia;" and Ps. 24:8, "Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle." Christ, therefore, is this God; and, indeed, is intended in that psalm. But they say,—

A divine nature cannot be proved from hence, seeing it treateth of him who was crucified, which cannot be said of a divine nature, but of a man; who is therefore called the "Lord of glory," that is, the glorious Lord, because he is crowned of God with glory and honour.

But,—1. Though the divine nature could not be crucified, yet he that had a divine nature might be and was crucified in the nature of a man, which he also had. Our catechists know they do but beg in these things, and would fain have us grant that because Christ had a human nature, he had not a divine. 2. He is called "The Lord of glory," as God is called "The God of glory;" and these terms are equivalent, as hath been showed. 3. He was the Lord of glory when the Jews crucified him, or else they had not crucified him who was the Lord of glory, but one that was to be so; for he was not crowned with glory and honour until after his crucifying.

Grotius' annotation on this place is worth our observation, as having somewhat new and peculiar in it. "Κύριον τῆς δόξης. Eum quem Deus vult esse omnium judicem. Nam gloria Christi maxime illum diem respicit, 1 Pet. 4:13. Christus Κύριος δόξης, præfiguratus per arcam, quæ מֶלֶךְ הַכָּבוֹד, Ps. 24:9." For the matter and substance of it, this is the same plea with that before mentioned: the additions only deserve our notice. 1. Christ is called "The Lord of glory," as God is called "The God of glory;" and that term is given him to testify that he is the God of glory. If his glory at the day of judgment be intended, the Jews could not be said to crucify the Lord of glory, but him that was to be the Lord of glory at the end of the world. Our participation of Christ's glory is mentioned 1 Pet. 4:13, not his obtaining of glory. He is essentially the Lord of glory; the manifestation whereof is various, and shall be eminent at the day of judgment. 2. That the ark is called מָלֶךְ הַכָּבוֹד is little less than blasphemy. It is he alone who is the Lord of hosts who is called "The Lord of glory," Ps. 24:9. But this is another shift for the obtaining of the end designed,—namely, to give an instance where a creature is called "Jehovah," as that king of glory is; than which a more unhappy one could scarce be fixed on in the whole Scripture. The annotations of the learned man on that whole psalm are very scanty. His design is to refer it all to the story of David's bringing home the ark, 2 Sam. 6. That it might be occasioned thereby I will not deny; that the ark is called "The King of glory" and "The LORD of hosts," and not he of whose presence and favour the ark was a testimony, no attempt of proof is offered. Neither, by the way, can I assent unto his interpretation of these words, " 'Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors:' that is. Ye gates of Zion, made of cedar, that are made hanging down, and when they are opened, they are lifted up." Certainly something more sublime and glorious is intended.

The process of our catechists is unto Rev. 17:14, 19:16; in both which places Christ is called "The Lord of lords and King of kings." This also is expressly the name of God: 1 Tim. 6:15, 16, "Who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light," etc. To this they say:—

In this testimony he is treated of who is the Lamb, who hath garments, who was killed, and redeemed us with his blood, as John evidently testifieth; which can by no means be referred to a divine nature, and therefore a divine nature cannot hence be proved. But all things that in these testimonies are attributed to Christ do argue that singular authority which God hath given unto Christ in those things that belong to the new covenant.

These are but drops; the shower is past. Because he who is the Lamb who was slain is King of kings and Lord of lords, we prove him to have another nature, in respect whereof he could be neither killed nor slain; therefore he is God, God only is so. And the answer is, "Because he was the Lamb he was killed and slain, therefore he is not God,"—that is, he is not King of kings and Lord of lords;—which the Holy Ghost, who gave him this name, will prove against them. 2. Our adversaries have nothing to except against this testimony, but that the King of kings and Lord of lords is not God; which they do not prove, nor labour to disprove our confirmation of it. 3. Kings and lords of the world are not of the things of the new covenant, so that Christ's absolute sovereignty over them is not of the grant which he hath of his Father as Mediator, but as he is God by nature.

And so much for this collection concerning these several names of God attributed to Christ.

What follows in the three questions and answers ensuing relates to the divine worship attributed to Christ in the Scriptures, though it be marvellous faintly urged by them. Some few texts are named, but so much as the intendment of our argument from them is not once mentioned. But because I must take up this elsewhere, namely, in answer to Mr Biddle, chap. 10., I shall remit the consideration of what here they except to the proper place of it; where, God assisting, from the divine worship and invocation of Jesus Christ, I shall invincibly demonstrate his eternal power and Godhead.

In the last place, they heap up together a number of testimonies,—each of which is sufficient to cast them down to the sides of the pit in the midst of their attempts against the eternal deity of the Son of God,—and accommodate a slight general answer to them all. The places are worth the consideration; I shall only propose them, and then consider their answer.

The first is Isa. 8:13, 14, "Sanctify the LORD of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel." He that is to be for a rock of offence and a stone of stumbling is the Lord of hosts, whom we must sanctify in our hearts, and make him our dread and our fear. But this was Jesus Christ: Luke 2:34, "This child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel." "As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumbling-stone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed," Rom. 9:33. "The stone which the builders refused, … a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence," 1 Pet. 2:7, 8. In all which places that prophecy is repeated. Christ, therefore, is the LORD of hosts, whom we are to sanctify in our heart, and to make him our dread and our fear.

Isa. 45:22, 23, "I am God, and there is none else. I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear." He who is God, and none else, is God by nature. But now "we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ. For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God," Rom. 14:10, 11. It is the judgment-seat of Christ that men must appear before when they bow their knee to him,—that is, to him who is God, and none else.

Isa. 41:4, "I, Jehovah, the first, and with the last; I am he." Chap. 44:6, "I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God." So chap.48:12. That this is spoken of Christ we have his own testimony, Rev. 1:17, "Fear not; I am the first and the last" He who is the first and the last, he is God, and there is none besides him.

Zech. 12:10, "I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced." He that speaks is unquestionably Jehovah, the Lord of hosts. So the whole context, so the promising of the Spirit in this verse, evinces. But that Jesus Christ is here intended, that it is he who is spoken of, is evident, Rev. 1:7, "Every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him." He, then, is Jehovah, the Lord of hosts. "These things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken. And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they pierced," John 19:36, 37. It is, as I said, beyond dispute that it is Jehovah, the only true God, that spake; and what he spoke of himself is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Ps. 68:17, 18, "The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place. Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; that the LORD God might dwell among them." This also is a glorious description of the triumphant majesty of God; and yet the God here intended is Jesus Christ: Eph. 4:8–10, "Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended."

Grotius on both these places says that what is properly spoken of God is by Paul mystically applied to Christ; to the same purpose with what our catechists afterward insist on. That it is the same person who is intended in both places, and not that applied to one which was spoken of another (which is most evident in the context), he takes no notice. There being nothing of plea or argument in his annotations against our testimonies from hence, but only an endeavour to divert the meaning of the places to another sense, I shall not insist longer on them.

But what say our catechists to all these,—which are but some of the instances of this kind that might be given? Say they:—

To all these it may be so answered as that it may appear that a divine nature in Christ cannot from them be proved: for those things which are spoken of God under the law may be spoken of Christ under the gospel, as also they are spoken, for another cause,—namely, because of that eminent conjunction that is between God and Christ, on the account of dominion, power, and office; all which the scriptures of the New Testament do frequently witness that he received by gift from God. And if the Scripture delivers this of Moses, that he brought Israel out of Egypt, Exod. 32:7, and that he was the redeemer of the people, Acts 7:35, and of others the same things, that were evidently written of God, when neither Moses nor others had so near a conjunction with God as was between God and Christ, much more justly may those things which in the first respect are spoken of God be accommodated to Christ, because of the eminent and near conjunction that was between them.

And this is their defence, the answer they fix upon to all the testimonies recited; wherein how little truth or strength there is will quickly appear. 1. These scriptures perhaps may be answered thus or thus, as what will not the serpentine wits of men find out to wrest the word withal to their own destruction? but the question is, How ought they to be interpreted, and what is their sense and intendment? 2. We do not say that what is spoken of God under the law is accommodated to Christ under the gospel, but that the things instanced in, that were spoken of God, were then spoken of Christ as to his nature wherein he is God; which appears by the event, expounded in the books of the New Testament. The Scripture doth not say in the New Testament of Christ what was said in the Old of God, but evinces those things which were so spoken of God to have been spoken of Christ. So that, 3. The folly of that pretence, that what was spoken of God is referred to Christ upon the account of the conjunction mentioned,—which, whatever it be, is a thing of nought in comparison of the distance that is between the Creator and a mere creature,—is manifest; for let any one be in never so near conjunction with God, yet if he be not God, what is spoken of God, and where it is spoken of God, and denoting God only, cannot be spoken of him, nor, indeed, accommodated to him. 4. The instances of Moses are most remote from the business in hand. It is said of Moses that he brought the children of Israel out of Egypt; and so he did, as their chief leader and ruler, so that he was a redeemer to that people, as he was instrumental in the hand of God, working by his power and presence with him those mighty works which made way for their deliverance and redemption. But where is it said of Moses or any one else that he was God; that what God said of himself was said of Moses and accomplished in him? or where ever did Moses speak in the name of God, and say, "I, Jehovah, will do this and this, or be so and so, unto my people?" 5. It is true, men may be said to do in their place and kind of operation what God doth do,—he as the principal efficient, they as the instrumental cause,—and so may every other creature in the world, as the sun gives light and heat; but shall therefore that which God speaks in his own name of himself be so much as accommodated unto them? 6. The conjunction that is between God and Christ, according to our catechists, is but of love and favour on the part of God, and of obedience and dependence on the part of Christ; but this in the same kind, though not in the same degree, is between God and all believers, so that of them also what is spoken of God may be spoken.

And thus, through the presence of God, have I gone through with the consideration of all the testimonies given in the Scripture of the deity of Christ which these catechists thought good to take notice of, with a full answer to their long chapter "De persona Christi." The learned reader knows how much all the arguments we insist on and the testimonies we produce in this cause might have been improved to a greater advantage of clearness and evidence, had I taken liberty to handle them as they naturally fall into several heads, from the demonstration of all the names and properties, all the works and laws, all the worship and honour of God, to be given and ascribed to Jesus Christ; but the work I had to do cast my endeavour in this business into that order and method wherein it is here presented to the reader.

The conclusion of our catechists is a long harangue, wherein they labour to insinuate the prejudicialness of our doctrine to the true knowledge of Christ and the obtaining of salvation by him, with the certain foundation that is laid in theirs for the participation of all the benefits of the gospel. The only medium they fix upon for to gain both these ends by is this, that we deny Christ to be a true man, which they assert. That the first of these is notoriously false is known to all other men, and is acknowledged in their own consciences; of the truth of the latter elsewhere. He that had a perfect human nature, soul and body, with all the natural and essential properties of them both, he who was born so, lived so, died so, rose again so, was and is a perfect man; so that all the benefits that we do or may receive from Jesus Christ as a perfect man, like unto us in all things, sin only excepted, there is a way open for in this our confession of him. In the meantime, the great foundation of our faith, hope, and expectation, lies in this, that "he is the Son of the living God;" and so that "God redeemed his church with his own blood," he who was of the fathers "according to the flesh being God over all, blessed for ever:" which if he had not been, he could not have performed the work which for us he had to do. It is true, perhaps, as a mere man he might do all that our catechists acknowledge him to have done, and accomplish all that they expect from him; but for us, who flee to him as one that suffered for our sins, and made satisfaction to the justice of God for them, who wrought out a righteousness that is reckoned to all that believe, that quickens us when we are dead, and sends the Holy Ghost to dwell and abide in us, and is himself present with us, etc., it is impossible we should ever have the least consolation in our fleeing for refuse to him unless we had this grounded persuasion concerning his eternal power and Godhead. We cannot think he was made the Son of God and a God upon the account of what he did for us; but that being God, and the Son of God, herein was his love made manifest, that he was "made flesh," "took upon him the form of a servant," and became therein for us "obedient unto death, the death of the cross." Many, indeed, and inexpressible, are the encouragements unto faith and consolation in believing that we do receive from Christ's being made like to us, a perfect man, wherein he underwent what we were obnoxious unto, and whereby he knows how to be compassionate unto us; but that any sweetness can be hence derived unto any who do refuse to own the fountain whence all the streams of love and mercy that run in the human nature of Christ do flow, that we deny. Yea, that our adversaries in this business have any foundation for faith, love, or hope, or can have any acceptance with God or with Jesus Christ, but rather that they are cursed, on the one hand for robbing him of the glory of his deity, and on the other for putting their confidence in a man, we duly demonstrate from innumerable testimonies of Scripture. And for these men, the truth is, as they lay out the choicest of all their endeavours to prove him not to be God by nature, and so not at all (for a made god, a second-rank god, a deified man, is no God, the Lord our God being one, and the conceit of it brings in the polytheism of the heathen amongst the professors of the name of Christ), so they also deny him to be true man now he is in heaven, or to retain the nature of a man; and so, instead of a Christ that was God from eternity, made a man in one person unto eternity, they believe in a Christ who was a man, and is made a god, who never had the nature of God, and had then the nature of man, but hath lost it. This, Mr B., after his masters, instructs his disciples in, in his Lesser Catechism, chap. 10, namely, that although Christ rose with his fleshly body, wherein he was crucified, yet now he hath a spiritual body, not in its qualities, but substance,—a body that hath neither flesh nor bones. What he hath done with his other body, where he laid it aside, or how he disposeth of it, he doth not declare.

CHAPTER XV

Of the Holy Ghost, his deity, graces, and operations

MR BIDDLE'S FIFTH CHAPTER EXAMINED

Ques. How many Holy Spirits of Christians are there?

Ans. Eph. 4:4.

Q. Wherein consists the prerogative of that Holy Spirit above other spirits?

A. 1 Cor. 2:10, 11.

Q. Whence is the Holy Ghost sent?

A. 1 Pet. 1:12.

Q. By whom?

A. Gal. 4:6.

Q. Doth not Christ affirm that he also sends him? how speaketh he?

A. John 16:7.

Q. Had Jesus Christ always the power to send the Holy Ghost, or did he obtain it at a certain time?

A. Acts. 2:32, 33; John 7:39.

Q. What were the general benefits accruing to Christians by the Holy Ghost?

A. 1 Cor. 12:13; Rom. 8:16, 26, 27, 5:5; Col. 1:8; Eph. 1:17; Rom. 15:13, 14:17; Acts 9:31; Eph. 3:16.

Q. What are the special benefits accruing to the apostles by the Holy Ghost? what saith Christ to them hereof?

A. John 15:26, 16:13.

Q. Should the Holy Ghost lead them into all truth, as speaking of himself, and imparting of his own fulness? what saith Christ concerning him?

A. John 16:13, 14.

Q. Do men receive the Holy Ghost while they are of the world and in their natural condition, to the end that they may become the children of God, may receive the word, may believe, may repent, may obey Christ; or after they are become the children of God, have received the word, do believe, do repent, do obey Christ?

A. John 14:16, 17; 1 Cor. 2:14; Gal. 4:6; Acts 8:14–16; John 7:38, 39; Acts 19:1, 2; Eph. 1:13; Gal. 3:14; Acts 15:7, 8, 2:38, 5:32.

EXAMINATION

THE fifth chapter of our catechist is concerning the Holy Ghost, for reducing of whom into the order and rank of creatures Mr Biddle hath formerly taken great pains; following therein the Macedonians of old, and leaving his new masters the Socinians, who deny him his personality, and leave him to be only the efficacy or energy of the power of God. The design is the same in both; the means used to bring it about differ. The Socinians, not able to answer the testimonies proving him to be God, to be no creature, do therefore deny his personality. Mr B., being not able to stand before the clear evidence of his personality, denies his deity. What he hath done in this chapter I shall consider; what he hath elsewhere done hath already met with a detection from another hand.

"Q. How many Holy Spirits of Christians are there?—A. 'One Spirit,' Eph. 4:4."

I must take leave to put one question to Mr B., that we may the better know the mind and meaning of his; and that is, what he means by the "Holy Spirits of Christians?" If he intend that Spirit which they worship, invocate, believe, and are baptized into his name, who quickens and sanctifies them, and from whom they have their supplies of grace, it is true there is but one only Spirit of Christians, as is evident, Eph. 4:4; and this Spirit is "God, blessed for ever;" nor can any be called that one Spirit of Christians but he that is so. But if by the "Holy Spirits of Christians" he intend created spiritual beings, sent out from God for the good of Christians, of those that believe, there are then an innumerable company of holy spirits of believers; for all the angels are "ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation," Heb. 1:14. So that by this one testimony, that there is but one Holy Spirit of Christians, that Holy Spirit is exempted from the number of all created spirits, and reckoned as the object of their worship with the "one God" and "one Lord," Eph. 4:4–6; when yet they worship the Lord their God alone, and him only do they serve, Matt. 4:10.

His second question is, "Wherein consists the prerogative of that Holy Spirit above other spirits?—A. 1 Cor. 2:10, 11."

The prerogative of that Holy Spirit of whom we speak is that of God above his creatures,—the prerogative of an infinite, eternal, self-subsisting being. Yea, and that this is indeed his prerogative we need not seek for proof beyond that testimony here produced by Mr B. (though to another purpose) in answer to his question. He that "searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God," is God. To "search all things" is the same with knowing all things; so the apostle interprets it in the next verse, "The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God." To know all things is to be omniscient; but he that is omniscient is God. His angels he charged with folly. Omniscience is an essential attribute of God; and therefore Socinus, in his disputation with Franken, durst not allow Christ to be omniscient, lest he should also grant him to be infinite in essence. Again, he that searches or knows τὰ βάθη τοῦ Θεοῦ, the "deep things of God," is God. None can know the deep things of an infinite wisdom and understanding but he that is infinite. All creatures are excluded from an acquaintance with the deep things of God, but only as he voluntarily revealeth them: Rom. 11:34, "Who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor?" that is, no creature hath so been. Θεὸν οὐδεὶς ἑώρακε πώποτε, John 1:18. Now the Spirit doth not know the deep things of God by his voluntary revelation of them; for as the spirit of a man knows the things of a man, so doth the Spirit of God know the things of God. This is not because they are revealed to the spirit of a man, but because that is the principle of operation in a man, and is conscious to all its own actions and affairs. And so it is with the Spirit of God: being God, and having the same understanding, and will, and power, with God the Father and Son, as the spirit of a man knows the things of a man, so doth he the things of God. Thus in the beginning of this, as in the close of the last chapter, Mr B. hath provided sufficiently for his own conviction and scattering of all his paralogisms and sophistical insinuations, running through them both.

The design of this present chapter being to pursue what Mr B. hath some years since publicly undertaken, namely, to disprove the deity of the Holy Ghost,—his aim here being to divert the thoughts of his catechumens from an apprehension thereof, by his proposal and answer of such questions as serve to his design, pretending to deliver the doctrine concerning the Holy Ghost from the Scripture, and not once producing any of those texts which are most usually insisted on for the confirmation of his deity (with what Christian candour and ingenuity is easily discovered),—I shall briefly, from the Scripture, in the first place establish the truth concerning the eternal deity of the person of the Holy Ghost, and then consider his questions in their order, so far as shall be judged meet or necessary.

I shall not go forth unto any long discourse on this subject: some plain testimonies of Scripture will evince the truth we contend for, being the heads of as many arguments, if any one shall be pleased to make use of them in that way.

First, then, the Spirit created, formed, and adorned this world, and is therefore God: "He that made all things is God," Heb. 3:4. "By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the Spirit of his mouth," Ps. 33:6. "By his Spirit hath he garnished the heavens," Job 26:13. "The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life," chap. 33:4; Ps. 104:30. He that makes the heavens and garnisheth them, he that maketh man and giveth him life, is God. So in the beginning מְרַחֶפֶת, motabat se, moved himself, as a dove warming its young, as he afterward appeared in the form of a dove. And hence that which is ascribed unto God absolutely in one place is in another ascribed to the Spirit absolutely: as, Exod. 4:15, Num. 12:8, what it is affirmed that God doth, will do, or did, is affirmed of the Spirit, Acts 1:16, 28:25: so Num. 14:22, Deut. 6:16, what is said of God is affirmed of the Spirit, Isa. 63:10, Acts 7:51: so also Deut. 32:12, compared with Isa. 63:14. Innumerable other instances of the same kind might be added.

Secondly, He regenerates us. "Except we be born of water and of the Spirit, we cannot enter into the kingdom of God," John 3:5; 2 Thess. 2:13; 1 Pet. 1:2. He also "searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God," as was before observed, 1 Cor. 2:10, 11. From him is our illumination, Eph. 1:17, 18; 2 Cor. 3:18. John 14:26, "The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, he shall teach you all things." Chap. 16:13, "The Spirit of truth will guide you into all truth." "The Holy Ghost shall teach you," Luke 12:12. And he foretelleth "things to come," John 16:13, 1 Tim. 4:1; which is a property of God, whereby he will be known from all false gods, Isa. 41:22, 23, etc. And he is in some of these places expressly called God, as also 1 Cor. 12:5, 6, compared with verse 11; and he is immense, who dwells in all believers.

Thirdly, He dwelleth in us, as God in a temple, Rom. 8:9, 1 Cor. 3:16; thereby sanctifying us, chap. 6:11; comforting us, John 16:7; and helping our infirmities, Rom. 8:26; mortifying our sins, chap. 8:13; creating in us Christian graces, Gal. 5:22, 23; yea, he is the author of all grace, as is evident in that promise made of his presence with the Messiah, Isa. 11:2. I say, with the Messiah, for of him only are those words to be understood; to which purpose I cannot but add the words of an old friar, to the shame of some amongst us who should know more, or be more Christian in their expositions of Scripture. Saith he, speaking of this place, "Note that in innumerable places of the Talmud this is expounded of the Messiah, and never of any other, by any one who is of any authority among the Hebrews. Wherefore it is evident that some amongst us, too much Judaizing, do err, whilst they fear not to expound this literally of Josiah. But that this is to be understood of the Messiah only is showed by Rabbi Solomon, who expounds it of him, and not of Josiah; which, according to his way, he would never have done, if, without the injury of his Talmud and Targum, and the prejudice of all his predecessors, he could have expounded it otherwise." So far he.

It is not a little strange that some Christians should venture farther in perverting the testimonies of Scripture concerning the Messiah than the Jews dare to do.

4. He makes and appoints to himself and his service ministers of the church, Acts 13:2, giving unto them powers, and working various and wonderful works, as he pleaseth, 1 Cor. 12:8–11.

5. He is sinned against, and so offended with sin that the sin against him shall never be forgiven, Matt. 12:31; though it be not against his person, but some especial grace and dispensation of his.

6. He is the object of divine worship, we being baptized into his name, as that of the Father and Son, Matt. 28:19. And grace is prayed for from him as from Father and Son, 2 Cor. 13:14; Rev. 1:4, 5; Rom. 10:14. He is to be head of churches, Rev. 2:3; but God will not give this glory to another, Isa. 42:8. Also, he hath the name of God given him, Isa. 6:8, 9, compared with Acts 28:25, 26; and Isa. 63:13, 14, with Ps. 78:41, 52; 2 Sam. 23:2, 3; Acts 5:3, 4.

7. And the attributes of God are ascribed to him, as,—(1.) Ubiquity, or omnipresence, Ps. 139:7; 1 Cor. 3:16. (2.) Omniscience, 1 Cor. 2:10; John 16:13. His omnipotency and eternity are both manifest from the creation.

8. To all this, in a word, it may be added that he is a person, the denial whereof is the only κρησφύγετον of the Socinians. They acknowledge that if he be a person, he is God. But, (1.) He is a person who hath a name, and in whose name something is done, as we are said to be baptized in the name of the Holy Ghost, Matt. 28:19. And, (2.) He is conjoined with the other divine persons as one of them, 2 Cor. 13:14; Rev. 1:4, 5; Matt. 28:19. (3.) He hath an understanding, 1 Cor. 2:11; and a will, chap. 12:11. (4.) To him are speaking and words ascribed, and such actions as are peculiar to persons, Acts 13:2, 20:28, etc.

What remains of this chapter will be of a brief and easy despatch. The next question is, "Whence is the Holy Ghost sent?—A. 1 Pet. 1:12, 'Down from heaven.' "

1. This advantageth not at all Mr B.'s design against the Holy Ghost, to prove him not to be God, that he is "sent down from heaven;" whereby he supposeth that his coming from one place to another is intimated, seeing he supposes God to be so in heaven, yea, in some certain place of heaven, as at the same time not to be elsewhere, so that if ever he be in the earth he must come down from heaven.

2. Nor is there any thing in his being sent prejudicial to the prerogative of his divine being; for he who is God, equal in nature to the Father and Son, yet, in respect of the order of that dispensation that these three who are in heaven, who are also one, 1 John 5:7, have engaged in for the salvation of men, may be sent of the Father and the Son, having the execution of that work, which they respectively concur in, in an eminent manner to him committed.

3. Wherever the Spirit is said to descend from heaven, it is to be understood according to the analogy of what we have already spoken concerning the presence of God in heaven, with his looking and going down from thence; which I shall not repeat again. Essentially he is everywhere, Ps. 139:7.

4. In that place of Peter alleged by Mr B., not the person of the Spirit, but his gifts on the apostles, and his operations in them, whose great and visible foundations were laid on the day of Pentecost, Acts 2, are intended.

The two next questions leading only to an expression of the sending of the Holy Ghost by the Father and the Son, though Mr B.'s Christians differ about the interpretation of the places produced for the proof thereof, and there lie no small argument and evidence of the deity of Christ in his sending of the Holy Ghost as the Father sends him, yet there being an agreement in the expressions themselves, I shall not insist upon them. He proceeds:—"Q. Had Jesus Christ always the power to send the Holy Ghost, or did he obtain it at a certain time?—A. Acts 2:32, 33; John 7:39."

1. The intendment of this query is, to conclude from some certain respect and manner of sending the Holy Ghost to the thing itself,—from the sending him in a visible, glorious, plentiful, eminent manner, as to the effusion of his gifts and graces, to the sending of him absolutely; which methinks a Master of Arts should know to be a sophistical way of arguing. 2. It endeavours, also, from the exercise of power to conclude to the receiving of the power itself; and that not the absolute exercise of it neither, but in some certain respect, as was spoken. 3. This, then, is that which Mr B. concludes: "Because Christ, when he was exalted, or when he ascended into heaven, had the accomplishment of the promise actually, in the sending forth of the Spirit in that abundant and plentiful manner which was prophesied of by Joel, chap. 2:28–31, therefore he then first received power to send the Spirit:" which, 4. By the testimony of Christ himself is false, and not the sense of the Holy Ghost in the places mentioned, seeing that before his ascension he breathed on his disciples, and bade them receive the Holy Ghost, John 20:22. Nay, 5. That he had the power of sending the Holy Ghost, and did actually send him, not only before his ascension and exaltation, but also before his incarnation, is expressly affirmed, 1 Pet. 1:11. The Spirit that was in the prophets of old was the "Spirit of Christ," and sent by him; as was that Spirit by which he preached in the days of the old disobedient world: which places have been formerly vindicated at large. So that, 6. As that place, Acts 2:32, 33, is there expounded to be concerning the plentiful effusion of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the times of the gospel, according to the prophecy of Joel, so also is that of John 7:39, it being positively affirmed as to the thing itself that he gave the Holy Ghost before his exaltation, though not in that abundant manner as afterward; and so neither of them concludes any thing as to the time of Christ's receiving power to send the Spirit; which, upon the supposition of such a work as for the accomplishment whereof it was necessary the Holy Ghost should be sent, he had from eternity.

About the next question we shall not contend. It is:—"Q. What were the general benefits accruing to Christians by the Holy Ghost?" whereunto sundry texts of Scripture that make mention of the Holy Ghost, his graces, and gifts, are subjoined. Upon the whole I have only some few things to animadvert:—

1. If by the words "general benefits" he limits the receiving of those benefits of the Holy Ghost to any certain time (as suppose the time of his first plentiful effusion, upon the ascension of Jesus Christ, and the preaching of the gospel to all nations thereupon), as it is a sacrilegious conception, robbing believers of after ages to the end of the world of all the fruits of the efficacy of the Spirit, without which they can neither enjoy communion with God in this life nor ever be brought to an eternal fruition of him, so it is most false, and contrary to the express prayer of our Saviour, desiring the same things for them who should believe on his name to the end of the world as he did for those who conversed with him in the days of his flesh. But I will suppose this is not his intention, because it would plainly deny that there are any Christians in the world (which yet was the opinion of some of his friends heretofore), for "if we have not the Spirit of Christ we are none of his," Rom. 8:9.

2. The things enumerated may be called "general benefits," because they are common to all believers as to the substance, essence, or being of them, though in respect of their degrees they are communicated variously to the several individuals, the same Spirit dividing to every one as he will, 1 Cor. 12:11. They are so general to them all that every particular believer enjoys them all.

3. The enumeration here given us is very far and remote from being complete, there being only some few fruits of the Spirit and privileges which we receive by our receiving of him recounted, and that in a very confused manner, one thing being added after another without any order or coherence at all. Yea, of the benefits we receive by the Spirit, of the graces he works in us, of the helps he affords us, of that joy and consolation he imparts unto us, of the daily assistances we receive from him, of the might of his power put forth in us, of the efficacy of his operations, the constancy of his presence, the privileges by him imparted, there is not by any in this life a full account to be given. To insist on particulars is not my present task; I have also in part done it elsewhere.

4. I desire Mr B. seriously to consider whether even the things which he thinks good to mention may possibly be ascribed to a mere creature, or that all believers are by such an one "baptized into one body," or that we "are all made to drink into one Spirit," etc. But of these things before. Unto this he adds: "Q. What are the special benefits accruing to the apostles by the Holy Ghost? what saith Christ to them hereof?—A. John 15:26, 16:13."

Besides the graces of the Spirit, which the apostles, as believers, received in a plentiful manner, they had also his presence by his extraordinary gifts, to fit them for that whole extraordinary work whereunto of him they were called: for as by his authority they were separated to the work, and were to perform it unto him, Acts 13:2, so whatever work they were to perform, either as apostles or as penmen of the scripture of the New Testament, they had suitable gifts bestowed on them by him, 1 Cor. 12,—inspiration from him suitable to their work; the Scripture being of inspiration from God, because the holy men that wrote it were inspired or moved by the Holy Ghost, 2 Pet. 1:21, 2 Tim. 3:16, 17. And as this Holy Ghost, who is God, working all in all, divideth of his gifts as he will, 1 Cor. 12:6, 11, and giveth all gifts whatever to the church that it doth enjoy, so did he in an especial manner with the apostles.

Now, our Saviour, Christ, being to leave the world, giving gracious promises to his disciples, he considered them under a twofold capacity or condition:—1. Of believers, of such as followed him and believed in him; wherein their estate was common with that of all them who were to believe on him to the end of the world, John 17:20. 2. Of apostles, and of such as he intended to employ in that great work of planting his church in the world, and propagating his gospel to the ends of it. Under both these considerations doth he promise the Spirit to his disciples, John 14:26, 15:26, 16:7, 13, praying his Father for the accomplishment of those promises, chap. 17;—that as believers they might be kept in the course of their obedience to the end (in which regard he made those promises no less to us than to them); and that as apostles they might be furnished for their work, preserved, and made prosperous therein. Of this latter sort some passages in the verses here mentioned seem to be, and may have a peculiar regard thereunto, and yet in their substance they are of the first kind, and are made good to all believers. Neither is there any more said concerning the teaching and guidance of the Spirit into the truth in John 15:26, 16:13, than is said in 1 John 2:20, 27, where it is expressly assigned to all believers. Of that unction and teaching of the Spirit, of his preserving us in all truth needful for our communion with God, of his bringing to mind what Christ had spoken, for our consolation and establishment, with efficacy and power (things, I fear, despised by Mr B.), this is not a season to treat.

That which follows concerns the order and way of procedure insisted on by the Son and Holy Ghost in carrying on the work of our salvation and propagation of the gospel, whose sovereign fountain is in the bosom of the Father. His query is, "Q. Should the Holy Ghost lead them into all truth, as speaking of himself, and imparting of his own fulness? what saith Christ concerning him?—A. John 16:13, 14."

1. The Scripture proposeth the Holy Ghost, in the communication of his gifts and graces, under a double consideration:—(1.) Absolutely, as he is God himself; and so he speaketh of himself, and the churches are commanded to attend to what he so saith, Rev. 2:29. And he imparts of his own fulness, "the self-same Spirit dividing to every man severally as he will," 1 Cor. 12:11. And in this sense, what the prophets say in the Old Testament, "The word of the LORD," and "Thus saith the LORD," in the New they are said to speak by the Spirit, Matt. 22:43; Acts 1:16; 2 Pet. 1:21. (2.) Relatively, and that both in respect of subsistence and operation, as to the great work of saving sinners by Jesus Christ. And as in the first of these senses he is not of himself, being the Spirit of the Father and the Son, proceeding from them both, so neither doth he speak of himself, but according to what he receiveth of the Father and the Son. 2. Our Saviour, Christ, says here, "He shall not speak of himself;" but he nowhere says, "He shall not impart of his own fulness," which is Mr B.'s addition. To "speak of himself" shows the original authority of him that speaks, whereby he speaks to be in himself; which, as to the words and works pointed to, is not in the Holy Ghost personally considered, and as in this dispensation. But to impart of his own fulness, is to give out of that which is eminently in himself; which the Holy Ghost doth, as hath been shown. 3. Christ, in the words insisted on, comforting his disciples with the promise of the presence of his Spirit when he should be bodily absent from them, acquaints them also with the works that he should do when he came to them and upon them, in that clear, eminent, and abundant manner which he had promised;—which is not any new work, nor any other than what he had already acquainted them with, nor the accomplishment of any thing but what he had laid the foundation of; yea, that all the mercy, grace, light, guidance, direction, consolation, peace, joy, gifts, that he should communicate to them and bless them withal, should be no other but what were procured and purchased for them by himself. These things is the Spirit said to hear and speak, to receive and communicate, as being the proper purchase and inheritance of another; and in so doing to glorify him whose they are, in that peculiar sense and manner. All that discourse which we have of the mission and sending of the Holy Ghost, and his proceeding or coming forth from the Father and Son for the ends specified, John 14:26, 15:26, 16:7, 13, concerns not at all the eternal procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and Son, as to his distinct personality and subsistence, but belongs to that economy, or dispensation, or ministry, that the whole Trinity proceedeth in for the accomplishment of the work of our salvation.

The last query, by the heap of scriptures that is gathered in answer to it, seems to have most weight laid upon it; but it is indeed, of all the rest, most weakly sophistical. The words of it are, "Q. Do men receive the Holy Ghost while they are of the world and in their natural condition, to the end that they may become the children of God, may receive the word, may believe, may repent, may obey Christ; or after they are become the children of God, have received the word, do believe, do repent, do obey Christ?" The answer is as above. To the same purpose is that of the Racovian Catechism:—

Ques. Is there not need of the internal gift of the Spirit, that we may believe the gospel?

Ans. By no means; for we do not read in the Scripture that that gift is conferred on any but him that believes the gospel.

Remove the ambiguity of that expression, "Believe the gospel," and these two questions perfectly fall in together. It may, then, be taken either for believing the doctrine of the gospel in opposition to the law, and in this sense it is not here inquired after; or for the power of believing in the subject, and in that sense it is here denied.

1. Now, the design of this question is, to deny the effectual operation of the Holy Ghost for and in the conversion, regeneration, and sanctification of the elect, and to vindicate the whole work of faith, holiness, quickening, etc., to ourselves. The way designed for the proof and establishment of this insinuation consists in producing sundry testimonies wherein it is affirmed that those who do believe and are the children of God do receive the Spirit for other ends and purposes than those here enumerated. The sum of his argument is this: "If they who do believe and are the children of God do receive the Spirit of God for their adoption, and the carrying on of the work of their sanctification, with the supply of new grace, and the confirmation and enlargement of what they have received, with joy, consolation, and peace, with other gifts that are necessary for any work or employment that they are called unto, then the Holy Spirit doth not quicken or regenerate them, nor work faith in them, nor make them the children of God, nor implant them into Christ." Now, when Mr. B. proves this consequence, I will confess him to be master of one art which he never learned at Oxford, unless it were his business to learn what he was taught to avoid.

2. But Mr B. hath one fetch of his skill more in this question. He asks whether men do receive the Holy Ghost when they are of the world; and for a confutation of any such apprehension produceth testimonies of Scripture that the world cannot receive the Holy Ghost, nor the natural man the things of God. But who told this gentleman that we say men whilst they are in and of the world do receive the Spirit of God, or the things of the Spirit, in the Scripture sense or use of that word "receiving?" The expression is metaphorical, yet always, in the case of the things of the gospel, denoting the acting of faith in them who are said to "receive" any thing from God. Now, if this gentleman could persuade us that we say that we receive the Spirit by faith, to the end that we may have faith, he might as easily lead us about whither he pleased as the Philistines did Samson when they had put out his eyes. A little, then, to instruct this catechist: I desire him to take notice, that properly the Spirit is received by faith to the ends and purposes by him mentioned, with many such others as might be added; but yet, before men's being enabled to receive it, that Spirit, by his power and the efficacy of his grace, quickeneth, regenerateth, and worketh faith in their hearts. In brief, the Spirit is considered and promised either as a Spirit of regeneration, with all the concomitants and essential consequents thereof, or as a Spirit of adoption, with the consequents thereof. In the first sense he works in men in order of nature antecedent to their believing, faith being a fruit of the Spirit; in the latter, and for the ends and purposes thereof, he is received by faith, and given in order of nature upon believing.

3. That the world cannot receive the Spirit, nor the natural man the things of God, is from hence, that the Spirit hath not wrought in them that which is necessary to enable them thereunto; which is evident from what is affirmed of the impotency of the natural man as to his receiving the things of God: for if the reason why he cannot receive the things of God is because he is a natural man, then, unless there be some other power than what is in himself to translate him from that condition, it is impossible that he who is a natural man should ever be otherwise, for he can only alter that condition by that which he cannot do. But,—

4. That the Spirit is given for and doth work regeneration and faith in men, I shall not now insist on the many testimonies whereby it is usually and invincibly confirmed. There is no one testimony given to our utter impotency to convert or regenerate ourselves, to believe, repent, and turn to God; no promise of the covenant to give a new heart, new obedience through Christ; no assertion of the grace of God and the efficacy of his power, which is exalted in the vocation and conversion of sinners,—but sufficiently evinces the truth thereof. That one eminent instance shall close our consideration of this chapter, which we have Titus 3:5, 6, "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration; and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour."

Of the first head made by men professing the religion of Jesus Christ against the deity of the Spirit, attempting to rank him among the works of his own hand; of the peculiar espousing of an enmity against him by Macedonius, bishop of Constantinople, from whom the ensuing πνευματομάχοι took their name; of the novel inventions of Faustus Socinus and his followers, denying the personality of the Spirit, making him to be nothing but the efficacy of the power of God, or the power of God,—this is no place to treat. Besides, the truth is, until they will speak clearly what they mean by the "Spirit of God," and so assert something, as well as deny, they may justly be neglected. They tell us it is virtus Dei; but whether that virtus be substantia or accidens they will not tell us. It is, they say, potentia Dei. This we confess; but we say he is not potentia ἐνεργητική, but ὑποστατική, and that because we prove him to he God.

What, then, hath been spoken of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I shall shut up with that distich of Greg. Naz. Sanct. Spir. lib. iii.

Πάντα μὲν αἰὲν ἄριστα θεοπρεπὲς ἔργα τελείσθω

Ἡ δὲ τριὰς πάντων ἑξοχά σοι μελέτοι.

CHAPTER XVI

Of salvation by Christ

MR BIDDLE'S SIXTH CHAPTER CONSIDERED

THIS is a short chapter, and will speedily receive its consideration. That Christ is a Saviour, and that he is so called in Scripture, is confessed on all hands. Mr Biddle's masters were the first who directly called into question amongst Christians on what account principally he is so called. Of his faith in this business and theirs we have the sum, with the reasons of it, in the book of their great apostle, "De Jesu Christo Servatore." This book is answered throughout with good success by Sibrandus Lubbertus; the nerves of it cut by Grotius, "De Satisfactione Christi;" and the reply of Crellius thereunto thoroughly removed by Essenius, in his "Triumphus Crucis." The whole argumentative part of it, summed up into five heads by Michael Gitichius, is answered by Ludovicus Lucius, and that answer vindicated from the reply of Gitichius. And generally those who have written upon the satisfaction of Christ have looked upon that book as the main master-piece of the adversaries, and have made it their business to remove its sophistry and unmask its pretensions.

Mr B. is very slight and overly in this business, being not able, in the method of procedure imposed on himself, so much as to deliver his mind significantly as to what he does intend. The denial and rejection of the satisfaction and merit of Christ is that which the man intends, as is evident from his preface, where he denies them, name and thing. This he attempts partly in this chapter, partly in that concerning the death of Christ, and also in that of justification. In this he would attempt the notion of salvation, and refer it only to deliverance from death by a glorious resurrection. Some brief animadversions may possibly rectify the man's mistakes. His first question we pass, as a principle in the terms of it on all sides confessed, namely, that "Christ is our Lord and Saviour." His second is:—

Ques. Is Christ our Saviour originally and of himself, or because he was given, exalted, and raised up by another to be a Saviour?

Ans. Acts 4:12, 5:31, 13:23.

The intendment of this query is to pursue the former insinuations of our catechist against the deity of Christ, as though his appointment to his office of mediation were inconsistent with his divine nature; the vanity of which pretence hath been sufficiently already discovered. In brief, Christ is considered either absolutely with respect to his divine nature and person, as he is God in himself, and so he is a Saviour originally of himself; for "as for our Redeemer, the LORD of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel," Isa. 47:4. "Thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel," chap. 54:5. In this sense was Christ a Saviour originally and of himself. But as he took flesh, to accomplish the work of our redemption by tasting death for us, though his own merciful and gracious will did concur therein, yet was he eminently designed to that work and given, by his Father, in love and mercy, contriving the work of our salvation. And this latter is mentioned not only in the places cited by our catechist, but also in a hundred more, and yet not one of them lying in the least subserviency to Mr B.'s design. His last query is:—

Q. How do the saints expect to be saved by Christ?

A. Rom. 5:10; Phil. 3:20, 21.

The intendment of this question must be to answer the general proposal, in what sense Christ is our Saviour, and how his people are saved by him. Now, however that be true in itself which is here asserted, and is the exurgency of the question and answer as connected, the saints expecting salvation by Christ in the complete accomplishment of it by his power in heaven, yet as here proposed to give an account of the whole sense wherein Christ is our Saviour, [it] is most false and deceitful. Christ is a Saviour principally as he was promised, and came to "save his people from their sins,"—whence he had his name of Jesus, or a Saviour, Matt. 1:21,—and that by his death, Heb. 2:14, 15, or laying down his life a ransom for us, Matt. 20:28, and giving himself a price of redemption for us, 1 Tim. 2:6, "in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins," Eph. 1:7, so saving or delivering us from the wrath that is to come, 1 Thess. 1:10. The salvation which we have by Christ, which this chapter in title pretends to discover, is from sin, the world, Satan, death, wrath, curse, the law, bearing of us unto acceptation with God, peace, reconciliation, and glory. But that the doctrines before mentioned, without which these things cannot once be apprehended, may be obscured or lost, are these wholly omitted. Of the sense of Rom. 5:10, and what is there intended by the "life of Christ," I shall farther treat when I come to speak about justification, and of the whole business under our consideration of the death of Christ.

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CHAPTER XVII

Of the mediation of Christ

IN his seventh chapter he proposeth two questions in general about the mediation of Christ, answering, first, that he is a "mediator," from 1 Tim. 2:5; second, that he is the "mediator of the new covenant," Heb. 8:6, 12:24. But as to his work of mediation, what it is, wherein it doth consist, on what account principally Christ is called our mediator, whether he be a mediator with God for us, as well as a mediator with us for God, and how he carries on that work,—wherein he knows the difference between us and his masters about this matter doth lie,—he speaks not one word, nor gives any occasion to me to enter into the consideration of it. What I suppose necessary to offer to this head, I shall do in the ensuing discourse of the death of Christ, the ends thereof, and the satisfaction thereby.

And therefore I shall hereunto add his ninth chapter also, which is concerning remission of sins by Jesus Christ. The difference between his masters and us being about the meritorious and procuring cause of remission of sins by Christ, which here he mentions not, what is farther to be added thereabout will fall in also under the consideration of the death of Christ, and our justification thereby.

His first question is altogether out of question, namely, "Who shall have remission of sins by Christ?" It is granted all, and only, believers. "He that believeth shall be saved; and he that believeth not shall be damned," Mark 16:16. "To as many as receive him, power is given to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name," John 1:12.

To his next question an answer may be given that will suit that following also, which is the whole of this chapter. The question is, "Doth not Christ forgive sins?—A. 'Christ forgave you,' Col. 3:13."

That Christ forgives sins is taken for granted; and yet forgiveness of sin is the supremest act of sovereign, divine power that God exerciseth in the world. Now, Christ may be considered two ways:—1. Absolutely, as "God over all, blessed for ever." So he forgave sins by his own original authority and power, as the lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy. 2. As Mediator, God and man; and so his power was delegated to him by God the Father, as himself speaks, Matt. 28:18, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth;" and chap. 9:6, he saith that he had "power on earth to forgive sins,"—that is, given unto him. Now, forgiveness of sins is either authoritative or declarative. The latter Christ delegated to his apostles and all their successors in the work of preaching the gospel, and it is such a power as a mere man may be invested withal. That forgiveness of sins which we term "authoritative," being an act of sovereign, divine power, exercised about the law and persons concerned therein, may be said to be given to Christ two ways:—(1.) As to the possession of it; and so he hath it from his Father as God, as he hath his nature, essence, and life from him. Whence, whatever works the Father doth, he doth likewise,—quicken as he quickens, pardon as he pardons,—as hath been declared. (2.) As to the execution of it, for such an end and purpose as the carrying on of the work of mediation, committed to him; and so it is given him in commission from the Father, who sent him into the world to do his will; and in this sense had he, the Son of man, power to forgive sins whilst he was on the earth. And to Mr B.'s ninth chapter this may suffice.

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CHAPTER XVIII

Of Christ's prophetical office

THE eighth chapter in Mr Biddle is of Christ's prophetical office, or his entrance into a dealing with Christ in respect of his offices, as he hath done with him in respect of his person already.

His first question is,—

Ques. Is not Christ dignified, as with the title of mediator, so also with that of prophet?

Ans. Acts 3:20, 22.

1. Mr B. tells us, chap. 4, that Christ is dignified with the title of God, though he be not so; and here that he is dignified with the title of a prophet, but leaves it at large whether he were so indeed or no. We are resolved in the case. The first promise made of him by God to Adam was of him generally as a mediator, particularly as a priest, as he was to break the head of Satan by the bruising of his own heel; the next solemn renovation of it to Abraham was of him as king, taking all nations to be his inheritance; and the third by Moses, after the giving of the law, as a prophet to teach and instruct his redeemed people, Gen. 3:15, 12:2, 3, Deut. 18:18. And a prophet he is, the great prophet of his church; not only dignified with that title, but so he is indeed.

2. But says Mr B., "He is dignified with the title of a prophet as well as of mediator,"—as though his being a prophet were contradistinguished from his being a mediator. Christ's teaching of his people is part of the mediation he hath undertaken. All that he doth on their part in offering gifts and sacrifices to God for them, all that he doth on the part of God towards them by instructing and ruling of them, he doth as he is the mediator between God and man, the surety of the covenant. He is not, then, a mediator and a prophet, but he who is the mediator is the high priest and prophet of his church. Nor are there any acts that he exerciseth on the one or other of these accounts but they are all acts of his mediation, and of him as a mediator. Mr B., indeed, tells us not what he understands by the mediation of Christ. His masters so describe it as to make it all one with his prophetical office, and nothing else; which makes me somewhat to wonder why this man seems to distinguish between them.

3. Many more notions of Mr B.'s masters are here omitted; as, that Christ was not the prophet of his people under the old testament, though by his Spirit he preached even to those that were disobedient in the days of Noah, and it was the Spirit of Christ that was in all the prophets of old, whereby God instructed his church, 1 Pet. 3:19, 20, 1:11;—that he is a prophet only because he hath given unto us a new law, though he promise effectually to open blind eyes, and to send his Spirit to teach us and to lead us into all truth, giving us understanding that we may know him that is true, Isa. 61:1; Luke 4:18; John 16:7–13; 1 John 5:20. But he lays dirt enough in our way, so that we shall not need farther to rake into the dunghill.

4. I should not have thought that Mr B. could have taken advantage for his end and purpose from the place of Scripture he mentions, Acts 3:20, 22, "Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me," but that I find him in his next query repeating that expression, "Like unto me," and wresting of it to be the foundation of a conceit plainly jocular. Christ was like to Moses as he was a prophet, and like to Aaron as he was a priest, and like to David as he was a king; that is, he was represented and typified by all these, and had that likeness to them which the antitype (as the thing typified is usually but improperly called) hath to the type: but that therefore he must not only be like them in the general office wherein the correspondency doth consist, but also in all the particular concernments of the office as by them administered, is to confound the type and the antitype (or rather thing typified.) Nor do the words used, either by Moses, Deut. 18:18, or by Peter, Acts 3:22, intimate any such similitude or likeness between Christ and Moses as should extend to such particulars as are afterward intimated. The words of Peter are, "God shall raise you up a prophet, ὠς ἐμέ," rather "as he raised up me," than "like unto me," not the least similitude being intimated between them but in this, that they were both prophets, and were both to be hearkened unto. And so the word used by God to Moses, כָּמוֹךָ, "sicut te" ("a prophet as thou art"), doth import, "I will raise up one that shall be a prophet as thou art a prophet." The likeness is only in the office. For such a similitude as should give the least occasion to Mr B.'s following figments there is no colour. And so the whole foundation being rooted up, the tottering superstruction will easily fall to the ground. But then to proceed:—

Q. Forasmuch as Christ was to be a prophet like unto Moses, and Moses had the privilege above other prophets that God made not himself known to him in a vision, nor spake to him in a dream, but face to face, as a man speaketh to his friend, and showed to him the similitude of the Lord, Exod. 33:11, Num. 12:6–8, can you tell any passage of Scripture which intimateth that Christ did see God before the discharge of his prophetical office?

A. John 6:45, 46, "Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is from God, he hath seen the Father."

1. This passage is indeed very pretty, whether the principles or the inferences of it are considered.

The principles of it are sundry:—(1.) That God hath a bodily shape and similitude, face and hands, and the like corporeal properties; (2.) That Moses saw the face of God as the face of a man;2 (3.) That Christ was in all things like Moses, so that what Moses did he must do also. Therefore, (1.) Christ did see the face of God as a man; (2.) He did it before he entered on his prophetical office; whereunto add, (3.) The proof of all, "No man hath seen the Father, save he which is from God." That is, Christ only saw the face of God, and no man else, when the ground of the whole fiction is that Moses saw it before him!

2. Of the bodily shape of God, and of Moses seeing his face, I have already spoken that which Mr B. will not take out of his way. Of Christ's being like Moses something also hath now been delivered.

That which, Exod. 33:11, in the Hebrew is פָּנִים אֶל־פָּנִים, panim el panim, the LXX. have rendered ἐνώπιος ἐνωπίῳ,—that is, "præsens præsenti," "as one present with him;" and the Chaldee paraphrast, "verbum ad verbum,"—that is, God dealt with him kindly and familiarly, not with astonishing terror, and gave him an intimate acquaintance with his mind and will. And the same expression is used concerning God's speaking to all the people, Deut. 5:4; of whom yet it is expressly said that they saw no likeness at all, chap. 4:12.

If from the likeness mentioned there must be a sameness asserted unto the particular attendancies of the discharge of that office, then Christ must divide the sea, lift up a brazen serpent, and die in a mountain and be buried by God where no man could ever know. Moses, indeed, enjoyed an eminency of revelation above other prophets, which is called his conversing with God as a friend, and beholding him face to face, but even in that wherein he is exalted above all others, he is infinitely short of the great Prophet of his church: for Moses, indeed, as a servant was faithful in all the house of God, but this man is over his own house; whose house we are, Heb. 3:5, 6.

3. This figment is for ever and utterly everted by the Holy Ghost, John 1:17, 18, where he expressly urges a dissimilitude between Moses and the only-begotten Son in that particular wherein this gentleman would have the likeness to consist. "Herein," says Mr B., "is Christ like to Moses, that as Moses saw God face to face, so he saw God face to face." "No," saith the Holy Ghost; "the law, indeed, was given by Moses, but no man hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." It is true that it is said of Moses that "God spake to him face to face,"—that is, in a more clear and familiar manner than he did to other prophets,—though he told him plainly that he should not, or could not, see his face, Exod. 33:18–23, though he gave him some lower manifestations of his glory: so that notwithstanding the revelations made to him, "no man hath seen God at any time, but the only-begotten Son." He who is of the same nature and essence with the Father, and is in his bosom love, he hath seen him, John 6:46; and in this doth Moses, being a man only, come infinitely short of the only-begotten Son, in that he could never see God, which He did: which is also asserted in the place of Scripture cited by Mr B.

4. To lay this axe, then, also to the root of Mr B.'s tree, to cut it down for the fire: The foundation of Christ's prophetical office, as to his knowledge of the will of his Father, which he was to reveal, doth not consist in his being "taken up into heaven," and there being taught the will of God in his human nature, but in that he was the "only-begotten Son of the Father," who eternally knew him and his whole will and mind, and, in the dispensation which he undertook, revealed him and his mind, according as it was appointed to him. In respect, indeed, of his human nature, wherein he declared and preached the will of God, he was taught of God, being filled with wisdom and understanding by the Spirit, whereby he was anointed for that purpose; but as the only-begotten Son in the bosom of the Father, he always saw him, knew him, and revealed him, Luke 4:18; Isa. 61:1; Heb. 1:9.

I shall only add, that this fancy of Mr B. and the rest of the Socinians (Socinianism being, indeed, a kind of modest and subtile Mohammedanism), of Christ's seeing God, as did Moses, seems to be taken from, or taken up to comply with, the Alcoran, where the same is affirmed of Mohammed. So Beidavi on these words of the Alcoran, "Et sunt ex iis quibuscum locutus est ipse Deus." Saith he, "Est hic Moses; aut juxta alios Moses et Mahumed, super quibus Pax; Mosi Deus locutus est ea nocte, qua in exstasi quasi fuit in monte Sinai. Mahumedi vero locutus est illa nocte, qua scalis cœlo admotis, angelos vidit ascendere, tunc enim vix jactum duarum sagittarum ab eo fuit." How near Moses came is not expressed, but Mohammed came within two bow-shots of him! How near the Socinian Christ came I know not, nor doth Mr B. inform us.

But yet as Mr B. eats his word as to Moses, and after he had affirmed that he saw the face of God, says he only saw the face of an angel, so do the Mohammedans also as to the vision of their prophet, who tell us that indeed he was not able to see an angel in his own proper shape, as Socinus says we cannot see a spiritual body, though Mr B. thinks that we may see God's right hand and his left. But of this you have a notable story in Kessæus. Saith he, "They report of the prophet that on a certain day, or once upon a time, he said to Gabriel, O Gabriel, I desire to see thee in the form of thy great shape or figure, wherein God created thee. Gabriel said to him, O beloved of God, my shape is very terrible; no man can see it, and so not thou, but he will fall into a swoon. Mohammed answered, Although it be so, yet I would see thee in a bigger shape. Gabriel therefore answered, O beloved of God, where dost thou desire to see me? Mohammed answered, Without the city of Mecca, in the stony village. Says Gabriel, That village will not hold me. Therefore answered Mohammed, Let it be in mount Orphath. That is a larger and fitter place, says Gabriel. Away, therefore, went Mohammed to mount Orphath, and, behold, Gabriel with a great noise covered the whole horizon with his shape; which when the prophet saw, he fell upon the earth in a swoon. When, therefore, Gabriel, on whom be peace, had returned to his former shape, he came to the prophet, and embracing and kissing him, said to him, Fear not, O beloved of God, I am thy brother Gabriel. The prophet answers, Thou speakest truly, O my brother Gabriel; I could never have thought that any creature of God had had such a figure or shape. Gabriel answered, O beloved of God, what wouldst thou say if thou sawest the shape of the angel Europhil?"

They who know any thing of the Mohammedan forgeries and abominations, in applying things spoken of in the Scripture to their great impostor, will quickly perceive the composition of this fiction from what is spoken of Moses and Daniel. This lying knave, it seems, was of Mr B.'s mind, that it was not God indeed, but an angel, that appeared to Moses on mount Sinai; and thence is this tale, which came to pass "once upon a time." He proceeds:—

Q. From whence doth it appear that Christ, like Moses, heard from God the things that he spake?

A. John 8:26, 28, 40, 14:10.

All the difficulty of this question ariseth from these words, "Like Moses;" and the sense by Mr B. put upon them,—how falsely, how inconsistently with himself, with what perverting of the Scripture,—hath been declared. The scriptures in the answer affirm only that Christ "heard and was taught of the Father;" which is not at all denied, but only the modus that Mr B. would impose upon the words is rejected. Christ "heard of the Father," who taught him, as his servant in the work of mediation, by his Spirit, wherewith he was anointed; but it is his "going into heaven" to hear a lesson with his bodily ears which Mr B. aims at, and labours under the next query to prove,—how unsuccessfully shall briefly be demonstrated. Saith he,—

Q. Can you farther cite any passage to prove that Christ as a man ascended into heaven, and was there, and came from God out of heaven, before he showed himself to the world and discharged his prophetical office, so that the talking of Moses with God, in the person of an angel bearing the name of God, was but a shadow of Christ's talking with God?

A. John 3:13, 30–32, 6:29, 32, 33, 38, 41, 42, 51, 57, 58, 62, 8:29, 42, 13:1, 3, 16:27–30, 17:8.

We are come now to the head of this affair, to that which has been aimed at all along in the former queries. The sum is: "Christ until the time of his baptism was ignorant of the mind and will of God, and knew not what he was to do or to declare to the world, nor what he came into the world for, at least only in general; but then when he was led into the wilderness to be tempted, he was rapt up into heaven, and there God instructed him in his mind and will, made him to know the message that he came to deliver, gave him the law that he was to promulge, and so sent him down again to the earth to preach it." Though the Scripture, says that he knew the will of God, by being his "only-begotten Son, full of grace and truth," and that he was "full of the Holy Ghost" when he went to the wilderness, being by him "anointed to preach the gospel;" though at his solemn entrance so to do "the heavens were opened, and the Spirit of God descended on him in the form of a dove," God giving solemn testimony to him and charge to "hear him;"3 yet, because Mr B.'s masters are not able to answer the testimonies of Scripture for the divine nature of Christ, which affirm that he was in heaven before his incarnation, and came down to his work by incarnation, this figment is set on foot, to the unspeakable dishonour of the Son of God. Before I proceed farther in the examination of this invention and detection of its falsehood, that it may appear that Mr B. made not this discovery himself by his impartial study of the Scripture (as he reports), it may not be amiss to inquire after the mind of them in this business whose assistance Mr B. has in some measure made use of.

The Racovian Catechism gives us almost the very same question and answer:—

Q. Whence is it manifest that Christ revealed the will of God perfectly unto us?

A. Hence, because Jesus himself was in a most perfect manner taught it of God in heaven, and was sent from heaven magnificently for the publishing of it to men, and did perfectly declare it to them.

Q. But where is it written that Christ was in heaven, and was sent from heaven?

A. John 6:38,—

—and so do they proceed with the places of Scripture here cited by Mr B. The same Smalcius spends one whole chapter in his book of the Divinity of Christ, whose title is, "De Initiatione Christi ad Munus Propheticum," to declare and prove this thing, that Christ was so taken up into heaven, and there taught the mind of God, Smalc. de Divin. Jes. Christ. cap. iv.; only in this he seems to be at variance with Mr B., that he denies that Moses saw the face of God, which this man makes the ground of affirming that Christ did so. But here Mr B. is at variance also with himself in the end of the last question, intimating that Moses saw only the face of an angel that bare the name of God; which now serves his turn as the other did before. Ostorodius, in his Institutions, cap. xvi, pursues the same business with vehemency, as the manner of the man was: but Smalcius is the man who boasts himself to have first made the discovery; and so he did, as far as I can find, or at least he was the first that fixed the time of this rapture to be when he was in the wilderness. And saith he, "Hoc mysterium nobis a Deo per sacras literas revelatum esse plurimum gaudemus," Idem ibid. And, of all his companions, this man lays most weight on this invention. His eighth chapter, in the refutation of Martinus Smiglecius, de Verbi Incarnationis Naturâ, is spent in the pursuit of it; so also is a good part of his book against Ravenspergerus. Socinus himself ventures at this business, but so faintly and slightly as I suppose in all his writings there is not any thing to be found wherein he is less dogmatical; his discourse of it is in his first answer to the Parænesis of Volanus, pp. 38–40. One while he says the words are to be taken metaphorically; then, that Christ was in heaven in his mind and meditation; and at last, it may be, "was taken into heaven," as Paul was.

To return to our catechists and to the thing itself, the reader may take of it this brief account:—

1. There is, indeed, in the New Testament abundant mention of our Saviour's coming down from heaven, of his coming forth from God, which in what sense it is spoken hath been fully before declared; but of his being taken up into heaven after his incarnation before his death, and being there taught the mind of God and the gospel which he was to preach, there is not one word nor syllable. Can it be supposed that, whereas so many lesser things are not only taken notice of, but also to the full expressed, with all their circumstances, this, which, according to the hypothesis of them with whom we have to do, is of such importance to the confirmation of his doctrine, and, upon a supposition of his being a mere man, eminently suited to the honour of his ministry above all the miracles that he wrought, [should not have been mentioned,]—that he and all his followers should be utterly silent therein; that when his doctrine was decried for novelty and folly, and whatever is evil and contemptible, that none of the apostles in its vindication, none of the ancients against the Pagans, should once make use of this defensative, that Christ was taken up into heaven, and there instructed in the mind of God? Let one word, testimony, or expression, be produced to this purpose, that Christ was taken up into heaven to be instructed in the mind of God before his entrance upon his office, and let our adversaries take the cause. If not, let this story be kept in the old golden legend, as a match for any it contains.

2. There was no cause of this rapture or taking of Christ into heaven. That which is assigned, that there he might be taught the gospel, helps not in any measure; for the Scripture not only assigns other causes of his acquaintance with the mind and will of God,—namely, his oneness with the Father, being his only-begotten Son, his Word and Wisdom, as also (in respect of his condescension to the office of mediation) his being anointed with the fulness of the Spirit, as was promised and prophesied of him,—but also affirms that this was accomplished both on him and towards him before such time as this fiction is pretended to fall out, John 1:1, 18; Prov. 8:14–16; Col. 2:3; Heb. 1:9; John 3:34.

Instantly upon his baptism Luke tells you that he was πλήρης Πνεύματος ἁγίου, "full of the Holy Ghost," chap. 4:1; which was all that was required to give him a full furnishment for his office, and all that was promised on that account. This answers what he expresses to be necessary for the discharge of his prophetical office: Πλήρης Πνεύματος ἁγίου is as much as רוּחַ אֲדֹנָי יֱהוִֹה עָלָי, Isa. 61:1; and upon that he says, "He hath sent me to preach." God also solemnly bare witness to him from heaven to the same purpose, Matt. 3:17. And before this John affirmed that he was "the Light of the world, the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world," John 1:9; which how he should be, and yet himself be in darkness, not knowing the will of God, is not easily to be apprehended.

3. To what purpose served all that glory at his baptism, that solemn inauguration, when he took upon him the immediate administration of his prophetical office in his own person, if after this he was to be taken up into heaven to be taught the mind of God? To what end were the heavens opened over him? to what end did the Holy Ghost descend upon him in a visible shape, which God had appointed as a sign whereby he should be known to be the great prophet, John 1:32–34? to what end was that voice from heaven, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased?"—I say, to what end were all these, if after all this he was ignorant of the gospel and of the will of God, and was to be taken up into heaven to be instructed?

4. If this must be supposed to be without any mention, yet why is it said always, that Christ came from heaven to the earth? If he was first on the earth, and was taken into heaven, and came again to the earth, he had spoken to the understanding of men if he had said, "I am returned from heaven;" and not, as he doth, "I am come from heaven." This in lesser matters is observed. Having gone out of Galilee to Jordan, and come again, it is said he "returned from Jordan," Luke 4:1; and having been with the Gadarenes, upon his coming to the other side, from whence he went, it is said he returned from the Gadarenes back again, Luke 8:40. But where is it said that he returned from heaven, which, on the supposition that is made, had alone in this case been proper? which propriety of speech is in all other cases everywhere observed by the holy writers.

5. It is said that Christ "entered once into the holy place," and that "having obtained eternal redemption," Heb. 9:12; yea, and expressly that he ought to suffer before he so entered, Luke 24:26. But, according to these men, he went twice into heaven,—once before he suffered and had obtained eternal redemption, and once afterward. It may also be observed, that when they are pressed to tell us some of the circumstances of this great matter, being silent to all others, they only tell us that they conjecture the time to be in the space of that forty days wherein he was in the wilderness;—on purpose, through the righteous judgment of God, to entangle themselves in their own imaginations, the Holy Ghost affirming expressly that he was the whole "forty days in the wilderness, with the wild beasts," Mark 1:13.

Enough being said to the disprovement of this fiction, I shall very briefly touch upon the sense of the places that are produced to give countenance thereunto.

1. In most of the places insisted on there is this expression, "He that came down from heaven," or, "I came down from heaven;" so John 6:32, 33, 38, 41, 42, 51, 57, 58, 3:30–32. Hence this is the conclusion, "If our Saviour came down from heaven, then, after he had lived some time in the world, he was taken up into heaven, there to be taught the mind of God." He that hath a mind to grant this consequence is willing to be these men's disciple. The Scripture gives us another account of the intendment of this phrase,—namely, "That the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and his glory was seen, as the glory of the only-begotten of the Father," John 1:1, 2, 14; so that it is not a local descension, but a gracious condescension, that is intimated, with his voluntary humiliation, when he who was "in the form of God humbled himself to take upon him the form of a servant," therein to learn obedience. So that these expressions yield very little relief to our adversary.

2. The second sort are those wherein he is said to "come forth from God," or "from the Father,"—this is expressed, John 8:42, 13:1, 3, 16:27–30, 17:8,—from whence an argument of the same importance with the former doth arise: "If Christ came from God, from the Father, then, after he had been many years in the world, he was taken into heaven, and there taught the gospel, and sent again into the world." With such invincible demonstrations do these men contend! That Christ came from God, from the Father,—that is, had his mission and commission from God, as he was mediator, the great prophet, priest, and king of his church.—none denies, and this is all that in these places is expressed; of which afterward.

3. Some particular places are yet remaining. The first is John 3:13, "No man hath ascended into heaven, but he that came down from heaven, the Son of man, which is in heaven." That "which is" Mr B. renders rather "which was," whether with greater prejudice to his cause or conscience I know not;—to his cause, in that he manifests that it cannot be defended without corrupting the word of God; to his conscience, by corrupting it to serve his own end and turn accordingly. The words are, ὑ ὢν ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, which will by no means admit of his corrupting gloss.

I say, then, let the words speak [for] themselves, and you need no other [sword] to cut the throat of the whole cause that this man hath undertaken to manage. He that speaks is the Son of man, and all the time of his speaking he was in heaven. "He," saith he, "is in heaven." In his human nature he was then on the earth, not in heaven; therefore he had another nature, wherein at that time he was in heaven also, he who was so being the Son of man. And what, then, becomes of Mr B.'s Christ? and what need of the rapture whereof he speaks?

[As] for the "ascending into heaven," mentioned in the beginning of the verse, that it cannot be meant of a local ascent of Christ in his human nature antecedent to his resurrection is evident, in that he had not yet "descended into the lower parts of the earth," which he was to do before his local ascent, Eph. 4:9, 10. The ascent there mentioned answers the discourse that our Saviour was then upon; which was to inform Nicodemus in heavenly things. To this end he tells him (verse 12) that they were so slow of believing that they could not receive the plainest doctrine, nor understand even the visible things of the earth, as the blowing of the wind, nor the causes and issue of it; much less did they understand the heavenly things of the gospel, which none (saith he, verse 13) hath pierced into, is acquainted withal, hath ascended into heaven, in the knowledge of, but he who is in heaven, and is sent of God into the world to instruct you. He who is in heaven in his divine nature, who is come down from heaven, being sent of God, having taken flesh, that he might reveal and do the will of God, he, and none but he, hath so ascended into heaven as to have the full knowledge of the heavenly things whereof I speak. Of a local ascent, to the end and purpose mentioned, there is not the least syllable.

Thus, I say, the context of the discourse seems to exact a metaphorical interpretation of the words, our Saviour in them informing Nicodemus of his acquaintance with heavenly things, whereof he was ignorant. But yet the propriety of the words may be observed without the least advantage to our adversaries, for it is evident that the words are elliptical: Οὐδεῖς ἀναζέζηκεν εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν, εἰ μὴ ὁ υἱός. "Ascend" must be repeated again to make the sense complete; and why may not μέλλει ἀναζῆναι be inserted as well as ἀναζέζηκε? So are the words rendered by Theophylact; and in that sense [they] relate not to what was before, but what was to be. And an instance of the necessity of an alike supplement is given in Matt. 11:27. Moreover, some suppose that ἀναζέζηκεν, affirming the want of a potential conjunction, as ἄν, or the like (which the following exceptive εἰ μή require), in the place, is not to be taken for the act done, but for the power of doing it, of which examples may be given: so that the propriety of the words may also be preserved without the least countenance afforded to the figment under consideration.

The remaining place is John 6:62, "What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?" Ὅπου ἦν τὸ πρότερον. That Christ was in heaven before his local ascent thither in his human nature is part of our plea to prove his divine nature, and what will thence be obtained I know not.

And this is the first attempt that these gentlemen make upon the prophetical office of Christ: "He did not know the will of God as the only-begotten Son of the Father in his bosom; he was not furnished for the declaring of it in his own immediate ministry by the unction of the Holy Ghost, and his being filled therewith; he was not solemnly inaugurated thereinto by the glorious presence of the Father and the Holy Ghost with him, one in a voice, and the other in a bodily shape, bearing witness to him to be the prophet sent from God; but being for many years ignorant of the gospel and the will of God, or what he came into the world to do, he was, no man knows where, when, nor how, rapt into heaven, and there taught and instructed in the mind of God (as Mohammed pretended he was also), and so sent into the world, after he had been sent into the world many a year."

Here the Racovians add:—

Q. What is that will of God which by Christ is revealed?

A. It is the new covenant, which Christ, in the name of God, made with human kind; whence also he is called "the mediator of the new covenant."

1. It seems, then, that Christ was taken into heaven to be taught the new covenant, of which before he was ignorant; though the very name that was given him before he was born contained the substance of it, Matt. 1:21. 2. Christ did not make the covenant with us as mediator, but confirmed and ratified it, Heb. 9:15–17. God gave him in the covenant which he made, and therefore is said to "give him for a covenant," Isa. 42:6. 3. The covenant of grace is not made with all mankind, but with the seed of the woman, Gen. 3:15; Gal. 3:16; Rom. 9:7, 8. 4. Christ is not called the mediator of the new covenant because he declared the will of God concerning it, but because he gave his life a ransom for those with whom it is made, 1 Tim. 2:5, 6; and the promises of it were confirmed in his blood, Heb. 9:15, 10:16–20. 5. This covenant was not first made and revealed when Christ taught in his own person. It was not only made but confirmed to Abraham in Christ four hundred and thirty years before the law, Gal. 3:17; yea, ever since the entrance of sin, no man hath walked with God but in the same covenant of grace, as elsewhere is declared.

Let us see what follows in Mr B. Says he,—

Q. You have already showed that Christ was like unto Moses in seeing God, and hearing from him the things which he spake: but Moses exceeded all other prophets likewise in that he only was a lawgiver; was Christ therefore like unto Moses in giving of a law also, and is there any mention of this law?

A. Gal. 6:2, "Fulfil the law of Christ;" Rom. 3:27, "By the law of faith;" James 2:12, "By the law of liberty;" James 1:25.

1. That Moses did not see the face of God hath been showed, and Mr B. confesseth the same. That Christ was not rapt into heaven for any such end or purpose as is pretended, that he is not compared to Moses as to his initiation into his prophetical office, that there is not one word in the Scripture giving countenance to any of these figments, hath been evinced; nor hath Mr B. showed any such thing to them who have their senses exercised to discern good and evil, what apprehensions soever his catechumens may have of his skill and proofs.

2. What is added to this question will be of an easy despatch. The word "law" may be considered generally, as to the nature of it, in the sense of Scripture, for a revelation of the mind of God; and so we say Christ did give a law, in that he revealed fully and clearly the whole mind of God as to our salvation and the obedience he requireth of us. And so there is a law of faith, that is, a doctrine of faith, opposite to the law as to its covenant ends, simply so called. And he also instituted some peculiarly significant ceremonies to be used in the worship of God; pressing, in particular, in his teaching and by his example, the duty of love; which thence is peculiarly called "a new commandment," John 13:34, and "the law of Christ," Gal. 6:2, even that which he did so eminently practise. As he was a teacher, a prophet come out from God, he taught the mind, and will, and worship of God, from his own bosom, John 1:18, Heb. 1:1, 2. And as he was and is the king of his church, he hath given precepts, and laws, and ordinances, for the rule and government thereof, to which none can add, nor from them any detract. But take the word "law" strictly in reference to a covenant end, so that he which performs it shall be justified by his performance thereof, so we may say he gave the law originally as God, but as mediator ho gave no such law, or no law in that sense, but revealed fully and clearly our justification with God upon another account, and gave no new precepts of obedience but what were before given in the law, written originally in the heart of man by nature, and delivered to the church of the Jews by Moses in the wilderness; of which in the chapter of justification.

For the places quoted by Mr B., that of Gal. 6:2, "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ," speaks only of that one command of brotherly love and forbearance which is called peculiarly, as I said, "a new commandment," though the Jews had it from the beginning, and the "law of Christ," because of the eminent accomplishment of it by "him who loved us, and gave himself for us," transmitting it anew to us with such new motives and inducements as it had not received before, nor ever shall again. The "law of faith," mentioned Rom. 3:27, is no more but the doctrine of the gospel, and of justification without the works of the law,—that is, all works commanded, by what law soever; as the whole doctrine of the word of God is called "the law" near an hundred times in the Psalms. The "law of faith" is that which is opposed to the "law of works," as a means of obtaining righteousness, which is not by obedience to new commands.

The places in James 2:12, 1:25, speak directly of the moral law; which is manifest by that particular enumeration of its precepts which we have subjoined, chap. 2:10–12.

3. But Mr B.'s masters have a farther reach in the asserting Christ to have given a new law,—namely, whereas they place justification as a consequent of our own obedience, and observing how impossible it is to do it on the obedience yielded to the moral law, the apostle having so frequently and expressly decried all possibility of justification thereby, they have therefore feigned to themselves that Christ Jesus hath given a new law, in obedience whereunto we may be justified; which when they attempt to prove, it will be needful for them to produce other manner of evidences than that here by Mr B. insisted on, which speaks not one word to the purpose in hand. But that this is the intendment of the man is evident from his ensuing discourse.

Having reckoned up the expositions of the law, and its vindication given by our Saviour, Matt. 5, in the next query he calls them, very ignorantly, "the law of faith, or the new covenant." If Mr B. knows no more of the new covenant but that it is a new law given by our Saviour, Matt. 5–7 (as upon other accounts), I pity the man. He proceeds,—

Q. Doth not Christ, then, partly perfect, partly correct the law of Moses? What is the determination of Christ concerning this matter?

A. Matt. 5:21–45.

1. The reason of this query I acquainted the reader with before. These men, seeking for a righteousness, as it were, by the works of the law, and not daring to lay it upon that which the apostle doth so often expressly reject, they strive to relieve themselves with this, that our Saviour hath so dealt with the law as here is expressed; so that to yield obedience to it now, as mended, perfected, and reformed, must needs be sufficient to our justification.

2. Two things are here affirmed to be done by the Lord Christ in reference to the "law of Moses," as it is called,—that is, the moral law, as is evident by the following instances given to make good the assertion,—first, That he perfects it; secondly, That he corrects it: and so a double imputation is laid on the law of God, (1.) Of imperfection; (2.) Of corruption, that needed amendment or correction.

Before I proceed to examine the particular instances whereby the man attempts to make good his insinuation, the honour of God and his law requires of us that it be vindicated from this double calumny, and demonstrated to be neither imperfect nor to stand in need of correction:—

1. For its perfection, we have the testimony of God himself expressly given thereunto: Ps. 19:7, "The law of the LORD is PERFECT, converting the soul;" it is the "perfect law of liberty," James 1:25; yea, so perfect as that God hath forbidden any thing to be added to it or to be taken from it, Deut. 12:32.

2. If the law wants perfection, it is in respect of its essential parts, or its integral parts, or in respect of degrees. But for its essential parts, it is perfect, being, in matter and form, in sense and sentence, divine, holy, just, good, Rom. 7:12. For its integrals, it compriseth "the whole duty of man," Eccles. 12:13; which doing he was to live. And for the degrees of its commands, it requireth that we love the Lord our God with all our hearts and all our souls, and our neighbours as ourselves; which our Saviour confirms as a rule of perfection, Matt. 22:36–40.

3. If the law of God was not perfect, but needed correction, it is either because God could not or would not give a perfect and complete law. To say the first is blasphemy; for the latter, there is no pretence for it. God giving a law for his service, proclaiming his wisdom and holiness to be therein, and that if any man did perform it, he should live therein, certainly would not give such a law as, by its imperfection, should come short of any of the ends and purposes for which it was appointed.

4. The perfection of the law is hence also evinced, that the precepts of Christ, wherein our obedience requires us to be perfect, are the same and no other than the precepts of the law. His new commandment of love is also an old one, 1 John 2:7, 8, which Christ calls his new commandment, John 13:34; and the like instances might be multiplied. Neither will the instance of Mr B. evince the contrary, which he argues from Matt. 5; for that Christ doth not in that chapter correct the law, nor add any new precept thereunto, but expounds and vindicates it from the corrupt glosses of the scribes and Pharisees, appears,—

(1.) From the occasion of the discourse, and the proposition which our Saviour makes good, establisheth, and confirmeth therein, which is laid down, verse 20, "Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." In pursuit of this proposition, he manifesteth what their righteousness was, by examining their catechism upon the commandments, and the exposition they made therein of them. It is not the righteousness of the law that our Saviour rejects, and requires more in his disciples, but that of the Pharisees, whom he everywhere called hypocrites. But for the law, he tells them a tittle of it shall not pass away, and he that keeps it shall be called great, or be of great esteem, in the kingdom of God; and the good works that our Saviour then required in his disciples are no other but those that were commanded in the law.

(2.) The very phraseology and manner of speech here used by our Saviour manifests of whom and concerning what he speaks: "Ye have HEARD that it was SAID to THEM OF OLD TIME;"—"Ye have heard," not "Ye have read." "Ye have heard it of the scribes and Pharisees out of Moses' chair; they have told you that it was thus said." And, "Ye have heard that it was said to them of old;" not "that it was written, that it was written in the law," the expression whereby he citeth what was written. And, "It was said to them of old,"—the common pretence of the Pharisees, in the imposing their traditions and expositions of the law. "It is the tradition of the elders; it was said to them by such and such blessed masters of old."

(3.) Things are instanced in that are nowhere written in the law, nor ever were; as that, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy;" which is so remote from the law as that the contrary is directly commanded, Lev. 19:18; Exod. 23:4, 5; Prov. 20:22. To them who gave this rule, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy," doth Christ oppose himself. But those were the scribes and Pharisees in their corrupt glosses, from which God's law is vindicated, not in itself before corrupted.

(4.) Whose sayings Christ rejects, their sayings he did not come to fulfil; but he came to fulfil and accomplish the law: and therefore it is not the law and the sentence thereof that he rejects in that form of speech, "But I say unto you."

Before I come to the consideration of the particular instances given by Mr B., a brief consideration of what is offered to this purpose by Smalcius, in his Racovian Catechism, may be premised. His first chapter, about the prophetical office of Christ, is "De præceptis Christi, quæ legi addidit;"—"Of the precepts of Christ, which he added to the law." And therein this is his first question and answer:—

Q. What are the perfect commands of God revealed by Christ?

A. Part of them is contained in the precepts given by Moses, with those which are added thereunto in the new covenant; part is contained in those things which Christ himself prescribed.

The commands of God revealed by Jesus Christ are here referred to three heads:—1. The ten commandments given by Moses; for so that part is explained in the next question, where they are said to be the decalogue. 2. The additions made by Christ thereunto. 3. His own peculiar institutions.

1. As to the first, I desire only to know how the ten commandments were revealed by Jesus Christ. The catechist confesseth that they were given to Moses, and revealed by that means; how are they, then, said to be revealed by Christ? If they shall say that he may be said to reveal them because he promulged them anew, with new motives, reasons, and encouragements, I hope he will give us leave to say also that what he calls "a new commandment" is not so termed in respect of the matter of it, but its new enforcement by Christ. We grant Christ revealed that law of Moses, with its new covenant ends, as he was the great prophet of his church, by his Spirit, from the foundation of the world; but this Smalcius denies.

2. That Christ made no new additions to the moral law hath been partly evidenced from what hath been spoken concerning the perfection thereof, with the intention of our Saviour in that place, and those things wherein they say these additions are found and do consist, and shall yet farther be evinced from the consideration of the particulars by them instanced in.

3. It is granted that our blessed Saviour did, for the times of the new testament, institute the two ordinances of baptism and the Lord's supper, in the room of them which, together with their representation of the benefits which believers receive by him, did also prefigure him as to come. But,—(1.) These are no new law, nor part of a new law, with a law design in them. (2.) Though there is an obedience in their performance yielded to God and Christ, yet they belong rather to the promises than the precepts of Christ; to our privilege,—before, unto our duty.

In the progress of that catechist, after some discourse about the ceremonial and judicial law, with their abolition, and his allowance of magistrates among Christians notwithstanding (which they do upon condition they shed no blood, for any cause whatever), he attempts in particular to show what Christ added to the moral law in the several precepts of it. And to the first he says that Christ added two things;—1. In that he prescribed us a certain form of prayer; of which afterward, in the chapter designed to the consideration of what Mr B. speaks to the same purpose. 2. That we acknowledge himself for God, and worship him; of which also in our discourse of the kingly office of Christ. To the second, he says, is added in the New Testament, not only that we should not worship images, but avoid them also; which is so notoriously false, the avoiding of images of our own making being no less commanded in the Old Testament than in the New, that I shall not insist thereon. The residue of his plea is the same with Mr B.'s from Matt. 5, where what they pretend shall be considered in order.

To consider, then, briefly the particular instances. 1. The first is in reference to the sixth commandment, "Thou shalt not kill." This the Pharisees so interpreted as that if a man kept himself from blood and from causing the death of another, he was righteous as to the keeping of this commandment. Our Saviour lets his disciples know that there is a closer and nearer sense of this law: "I say unto you, in the exposition of this commandment, that any rash anger, anger without a cause, all offence given proceeding from thence, in light, vilifying expressions, such as 'Raca,' much more all provoking taunts and reproaches, as 'Thou fool,' are forbidden therein, so as to render a man obnoxious to the judgment of God, and condemnation in their several degrees of sinfulness;" as there were amongst themselves several councils, according to several offences,—the judgment, the council, and utter cutting off as a child of hell. Hence, then, having manifested the least breach of love or charity towards our brother to be a breach of the sixth commandment, and so to render a man obnoxious to the judgment of God in several degrees of sin, according as the eruptions of it are, he proceeds in the following verses to exhort his disciples to patience, forbearance, and brotherly love, with readiness to agreement and forgiveness, verses 23–26.

2. In the next place, he proceeds to the vindication and exposition of the seventh commandment, verse 27, "Thou shalt not commit adultery;" which the Pharisees had so expounded as that if a man kept himself from actual uncleanness, however loosely he lived, and put away his wife at his pleasure, he was free from the breach thereof. To give them the true meaning and sense of this commandment, and farther to discover the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, he lets them know,—

(1.) That the concupiscence of the heart or inordinate desire of any person is the adultery here no less forbidden than that of actual uncleanness, which the law made death. And certainly he must needs be as blind as a Pharisee who sees not that the uncleanness of the heart and lust after woman was forbidden by the law and under the old testament.

(2.) As to their living with their wives, he mentions, indeed, the words of Moses, "Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a bill of divorcement," but opposeth not himself thereunto at all, but only shows that permission of divorce is to be interpreted according to the rule and instruction given in the first institution of marriage (as afterward, on another occasion, he explains himself, Matt. 19), and not that men might therefore, for every cause that they would or could pretend, instantly put away their wives, as the Pharisees taught men to do, and as Josephus, one of them, testifies of himself that he did: "I put away my wife," saith he, "because she did not please me." "No," saith our Saviour; "that permission of Moses is not to be extended beyond the just cause of divorce, as it is by the Pharisees, but made use of only in the case of fornication," verses 31, 32; and he thereupon descends to caution his disciples to be careful and circumspect in their walking in this particular, and not be led by an offending eye or hand (the beginning of evil) to greater abominations, verses 28–30.

3. In like manner doth he proceed in the vindication of the third commandment. The scribes and Pharisees had invented or approved of swearing by creatures, the temple, altar, Jerusalem, the head, and the like; and thereupon they raised many wicked and cursed distinctions, on purpose to make a cloak for hypocrisy and lying, as you may see, Matt. 23:16–19. "If a man swear by the temple, it is nothing, he is not bound by his oath; but if he swear by the gold of the temple, be is obliged." In like manner did they distinguish of the altar and the gift. And having mixed these swearings and distinctions in their ordinary conversation, there was nothing sincere or open and plain left amongst them. This wicked gloss of theirs (being such as their successors abound withal to this day) our blessed Saviour decries, and commands his disciples to use plainness and simplicity in their conversation, in plain affirmations and negations, without the mixture of such profane and cursed distinctions, verses 34–37, which that it was no new duty, nor unknown to the saints of the old testament, is known to all that have but read it.

4. In matter of judgment between man and man, he proceeds in the same manner. Because the law had appointed the magistrate to exercise talionem in some cases, and to take an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, the blind Pharisees wrested this to countenance private men in revenging themselves, and pursuing them who had injured them with a hostile mind, at least until the sentence of the law was executed on them. To root the rancour and malice out of the minds of men which by this means were nourished and fomented in them, our Saviour lets them know that notwithstanding that procedure of the magistrate by the law, yet indeed all private revenges were forbidden and all readiness to contend with others, which he amplifieth in the proposal of some particular cases; and all this by virtue of a rule which himself affirms to be contained in the law, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," verses 38–42, pressing also lending and giving, as works of charity, whereunto a blessing is so often pronounced in the Old Testament.

5. His last instance is in the matter of love, concerning which the Pharisees had given out this note, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy;" for whereas there were certain nations whom God had appointed to utter destruction at his people's first coming into Canaan, he commanded them to show them no mercy, but utterly to destroy them, Deut. 7:2. This the wretched hypocrites laid hold of to make up a rule and law for private men to walk by in reference to them whom they accounted their enemies, in express contradiction to the command of God, Exod. 23:4, 5, Lev. 19:18. Wherefore our blessed Saviour vindicates the sense of the law from this cursed tradition also, and renews the precept of loving and doing good to our enemies, verses 43–47. So that in none of the instances mentioned is there the least evidence of what was proposed to be confirmed by them,—namely, that our Saviour gave a new law, in that he did partly perfect, partly correct the law of Moses,—seeing he did only vindicate the sense and meaning of the law, in sundry precepts thereof, from the false glosses and traditions of the scribes and Pharisees, invented and imposed on their disciples to be a cloak to their hypocrisy and wickedness. And this also may fully suffice to remove what on this account is delivered by the Racovian Catechism. But on this foundation Mr B. proceeds:—

Q. You have made it appear plainly that the law of faith or the new covenant, whereof Christ was the mediator, is better than the law of works or the old covenant, whereof Moses was the mediator, in respect of precepts; is it also better in respect of promises?

A. Heb. 8:6, 7:19.

This is indeed a comfortable passage! for the better understanding whereof I shall single out the several noble propositions that are insinuated therein, and evidently contained in the words of it; as,—

1. Christ was the mediator of the law of faith, the new law, in the same sense as Moses was mediator of the old law, the law of works.

2. Christ's addition of precepts and promises to the law of Moses is the law of faith, or the new covenant.

3. The people or church of the Jews lived under the old covenant, or the law of works, whereof Moses, not Christ, was the mediator.

4. The difference between the old and the new covenant lies in this, that the new hath more precepts of obedience and more promises than the old.

And now, truly, ho that thinks that this man understands either the old covenant or the new, either Moses or Christ, either faith or works, shall have liberty from me to enjoy his opinion, for I have not more to add to convince him of his mistake than what the man himself hath here delivered.

For my part, I have much other work to do, occasioned by Mr B., and therefore I shall not here divert to the consideration of the two covenants and their difference, with the twofold administration of the covenant of grace, both before and after Christ's coming in the flesh; but I shall content myself with some brief animadversions upon the forementioned propositions and proceed:—

1. In what sense Christ is the mediator of the new covenant, I shall, God assisting, at large declare, when I come to treat of his death and satisfaction, and shall not here prevent myself in any thing of what must then and there be delivered.

2. That there are precepts and promises attending the new covenant is granted; but that it consists in any addition of precepts to the Mosaical law, carried on in the same tenor with it, with other promises, is a figment directly destructive of the whole gospel and the mediation of the Son of God. By this means, the whole undertaking of Jesus Christ to lay down his life a ransom for us,—our justification by his blood, his being of God made righteousness to us, the free pardon of our sins and acceptation with God by and for him, as he is the end of the law for righteousness; all communication of effectual grace to work in us new obedience, the giving of a new, clean heart, with the law of God written in it by the Spirit; in a word, the whole promise made to Abraham, the whole new covenant, is excluded from the covenant, and men left yet in their sins. The covenant of works was, "Do this, and live;" and the tenor of the law, "If a man do the things thereof, he shall live thereby,—that is, if a man by his own strength perform and fulfil the righteousness that the law requires, he shall have eternal life thereby. "This covenant," saith the apostle, "God hath disannulled, because no man could be saved by it," Heb. 7:18. "The law thereof, through sin, was become weak and insufficient as to any such end and purpose," Rom. 8:3. What, then, doth God substitute in room thereof? Why, a new covenant, that hath more precepts added to the old, with all those of the old continued that respected moral obedience! But is this a remedy? is not this rather a new burden? If the law could not save us before, because it was impossible, through sin, that we should perfectly accomplish it, and therefore "by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified," is it a likely way to relieve us by making an addition of more precepts to them which before we could not observe? But that, through the righteous hand of God, the interest of men's immortal souls is come to be concerned therein, I should think the time exceedingly lavished that is spent in this discourse. "Let him that is ignorant be ignorant still," were a sufficient answer. And this that hath been said may suffice to the fourth particular also.

3. That Moses was a mediator of a covenant of works, properly and formally so called, and that the church of the Jews lived under a covenant of works, is a no less pernicious figment than the former. The covenant of works was, "Do this, and live;"—"On perfect obedience you shall have life." Mercy and pardon of sins were utter strangers to that covenant; and therefore by it the Holy Ghost tells us that no man could be saved. The church of old had the promises of Christ, Rom. 9:4, Gen. 3:15, 12:3; were justified by faith, Gen. 15:6, Rom. 4, Gal. 3; obtained mercy for their sins, and were justified in the Lord, Isa. 45:24, 25; had the Spirit for conversion, regeneration, and sanctification, Ezek. 11:19, 36:26; expected and obtained salvation by Jesus Christ;—things as remote from the covenant of works as the east is from the west.

It is true, the administration of the covenant of grace which they lived under was dark, legal, and low, in comparison of that which we now are admitted unto since the coming of Christ in the flesh; but the covenant wherein they walked with God and that wherein we find acceptance is the same, and the justification of Abraham their father the pattern of ours, Rom. 4:4, 5.

Let us now see what answer Mr B. applies to his query. The first text he mentions is Heb. 8:6, "But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises." That which the Holy Ghost here affirms is, that the new covenant, whereof Christ is the mediator, is better than the old, and that it hath better promises; which, I suppose, none ever doubted. The covenant is better, seeing that could by no means save us, while by this Christ doth to the uttermost. The promises are better, for it hath innumerable promises of conversion, pardon, and perseverance, which that had not at all; and the promise of eternal life, which that had, is given upon infinitely better and surer terms. But all this is nothing at all to Mr B.'s purpose.

No more is the second place which he mentioneth, Heb. 7:19, "The law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did."

Not that by "the law" in that place the covenant of works is intended, but the legal administration of the covenant of grace. "This," saith the apostle, "made nothing perfect." Men were kept under types and shadows; and though they were children of God by adoption, yet in comparison they were kept as servants, being under age, until the fulness of time came, when the bringing in of Jesus Christ, that "better hope," made the administration of grace perfect and complete, Gal. 4:1–6. Mr B. all along obscures himself under the ambiguous term of "the law," confounding its covenant and subsequent use. As for the covenant use of the law, or as it was the tenor of the covenant of works, the saints of the old testament were no more concerned in it than are we. The subsequent use of it may be considered two ways,—1. As it is purely moral, exacting perfect obedience, and so the use of it is common to them and us; 2. As attended with ceremonial and judicial institutions in the administration of it, and so it was peculiar to them. And this one observation will lead the reader through much of the sophistry of this chapter, whose next question is,—

Q. Were those better promises of God touching eternal life and immortality hidden in the dark and not brought to light under the law?

A. "Jesus Christ hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel," 2 Tim. 1:10.

The whole ambiguity of this question lies in these expressions, "Hidden in the dark and not brought to light." If he intend comparatively, in respect of the clear revelation made of the mind and will of God by Jesus Christ, we grant it. If he mean it absolutely, that there were no promises of life and immortality given under the law, it is absolutely false; for,—

1. There are innumerable promises of life and immortality in the Old Testament given to the church under the law. See Heb. 11:14; Deut. 12:1, 30:6; Ps. 16:10, 11; Deut. 32:29; Ps. 130:8; Isa. 25:8, 9, 45:17, 26:19; Jer. 23:6; Ps. 2:12, 32:1, 2, 33:12.

2. They believed in eternal life, and therefore they had the promise of it; for faith relieth always on the word of promise. Thus did Job, chap. 19:25–27; and David, Ps. 17:15; so did Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Heb. 11:10, 13, 14; yea, and some of them, as a pattern and example, without dying obtained it, as Enoch and Elijah.

3. The covenant of Abraham was that which they lived in and under. But this covenant of Abraham had promises of eternal life, even that God would be his God, dead and alive, Gen. 17:1, 7. And that the promises thereof were promises of eternal life, Paul manifests, Rom. 4:3, Gal. 3:14. But this hath been so abundantly manifested by others that I shall not longer insist upon it. We are come to the last query of this chapter, which is:—

Q. Though the promises of the gospel be better than those of the law, yet are they not, as well as those of the law, proposed under conditions of faith and perseverance therein, of holiness and obedience, of repentance, and suffering for Christ? how speak the Scriptures?

A. John 3:14–16, 18, 36; Hab. 2:4; Heb. 11:6; 2 Tim. 2:11; Rom. 8:13; Acts 3:19; Rev. 2:5, 16; John 5:14.

Neither will this query long detain us. In the new testament, there being means designed for the attainment of an end,—faith, obedience, and perseverance, for the attainment of salvation and enjoyment of God through Christ,—the promises of it are of two sorts. Some respect the end, or our whole acceptation with God; some the means, or way whereby we come to be accepted in Christ. The first sort are those insisted on by Mr B., and they are so far conditional as that they declare the firm connection and concatenation of the end and means proposed, so that without them it is not to be attained; but the other, of working faith, and new obedience, and perseverance, are all absolute to the children of the covenant, as I have so fully and largely elsewhere declared that I shall not here repeat any thing there written, nor do I know any necessity of adding any thing thereunto. I thought to have proceeded with the Racovian Catechism also, as in the former part of the discourse; but having made this process, I had notice of an answer to the whole by Arnoldus, the professor of divinity at Franeker; and therefore, that I may not actum agere, nor seem to enter another's labour, I shall not directly and κατὰ πόδα carry on a confutation thereof hereafter, but only divert thereunto as I shall have occasion, yet not omitting any thing of weight therein, as in this chapter I have not, as to the matter under consideration.

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CHAPTER XIX

Of the kingly office of Jesus Christ, and of the worship that is ascribed and due to him

OF the nature of the kingly office of Jesus Christ, his investiture with it, his administration of it, with the efficacy of that power which therein he puts forth, both towards his elect and others, Mr Biddle doth not administer any occasion to discourse. It is acknowledged by him that he was, or at least is, a king, by the designation and appointment of the Father, to whom, as he was mediator, he was subject; that he abides in his rule and dominion as such, and shall do so to the end of the world; and I shall not make any farther inquiry as to these things, unless farther occasion be administered. Upon the account of this authority they say he is God. But whereas it is certain that this authority of his shall cease at the end of the world, 1 Cor. 15:28, it seems that he shall then also cease to be God, such a God as they now allow him to be.

By some passages in his second and third questions, he seems to intimate that Christ was not invested in his kingdom before his ascension into heaven. So question the second, "Is Christ already invested in his kingdom, and did he, after his ascension and sitting down at the right hand of God, exercise dominion and sovereignty over men and angels?" and question third, "For what cause and to what end was Jesus Christ exalted to his kingdom!"—to which he answers from Phil. 2:8–10 in both places; intimating that Christ was not invested with his kingly power until after his exaltation. (As for the ends of his exaltation, these being some mentioned, though not all, nor the chief, I shall not farther insist on them.) But this, as it is contrary to the testimony that himself gave of his being a king in a kingdom which was not of this world, it being a great part of that office whereunto he was of his Father anointed, so it is altogether inconsistent with Mr B.'s principles, who maintains that he was worshipped with religious worship and honour whilst he was upon the earth; which honour and worship, says he, are due to him and to be performed merely upon the account of that power and authority which is given him of God, as also say all his companions; and certainly his power and authority belong to him as king. The making of him a king and the making of him a god is with them all one; but that he was a god whilst he was upon the earth they acknowledge from the words of Thomas to him, "My Lord and my God."

And the title of the 12th chapter of Smalcius' book, "De Vera Jesu Christi Divinitate," is, "De nomine Dei, quod Jesus Christus in terris mortalis degens habuit;" which in the chapter itself he seeks to make good by sundry instances, and in the issue labours to prove that the sole cause of the attribution of that name to him is from his office; but what office, indeed, he expresseth not. The name of God, they say, is a name of office and authority; the authority of Christ, on which account he is to be worshipped, is that which he hath as king. And yet the same author afterward contends that Christ was not a king until after his resurrection and ascension. For my part, I am not solicitous about reconciling him to himself; let them that are so take pains, if they please, therein. Some pains, I conceive, it may cost them, considering that he afterward affirms expressly that he was called Lord and God of Thomas because of his divine rule or kingdom; which, as I remember, was before his ascension.

As for his exaltation at his ascension, it was not by any investiture in any new office, but by an admission to the execution of that part of his work of mediatorship which did remain, in a full and glorious manner, the whole concernment of his humiliation being past. In the meantime, doubtless, he was a king when the Lord of glory was crucified, 1 Cor. 2:8.

But that which remains of this chapter is more fully to be considered.

Question 4 is, "How ought men to honour the Son of God?"

From hence to the end of the chapter, Mr B. insists on the religious worship and invocation of Jesus Christ; which, with all his companions, he places as the consequent of his kingly office and of that authority wherewith, for the execution and discharge thereof, from God he is invested. I shall very briefly consider what is tendered by Mr B. to the purpose in hand, and then take liberty a little more largely to handle the whole business of the worship of Jesus Christ, with the grounds, reasons, and motives thereof.

His fourth question to this matter is, "How ought men to honour the Son of God, Christ Jesus?" and it is answered, "John 5:23, 'Even as they honour the Father.' "

This, then, is consented unto on both sides, that Jesus Christ is to be worshipped and honoured with the same worship and honour wherewith the Father is worshipped and honoured; that is, with that worship and honour which is divine and religious,—with that subjection of soul, and in the performance of those duties, which are due to God alone. How Socinus himself doubled in this business and was entangled shall be afterward discovered. What use will be made of this in the issue of this discourse the reader may easily conjecture.

His next question, discovering the danger of the non-performance of this duty of yielding divine honour and worship to Christ, strengthens the former assertion, and therefore I have nothing to except or add thereunto.

In question the sixth, Mr B. labours to defend the throat of his cause against the edge of that weapon which is sharpened against it by this concession, that Jesus Christ is to be worshipped with divine worship as the Father is, by a diversion of it, with a consideration of the grounds of the assignation of this worship to Christ. His words are:—

Q. Ought men to honour the Son as they honour the Father because he hath the same essence with the Father, or because he hath the same judiciary power? what is the decision of the Son himself concerning this point?

A. John 5:22, 23.

The sum is: The same worship is to be given to the Father and the Son, but upon several grounds;—to the Father, because he is God by nature, because of his divine essence; to the Son, because of a delegated judiciary power committed to him by the Father. For the discovery of the vanity of this assertion, in the close of our consideration of this matter, I shall manifest,—

1. That there neither is nor can be any more than one formal cause of the attribution of the same divine worship to any one; so that to whomsoever it is ascribed, it is upon one and the same individual account, as to the formal and fundamental cause thereof.

2. That no delegated power of judgment is or can be a sufficient ground or cause of yielding that worship and honour to him to whom it is delegated which is proper to God.

For the present, to the text pleaded, "The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son, that all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father," I say in brief, that ἵνα πάντες τιμῶσι is not expressive of the formal cause of the honouring and adoration of Christ, but of an effectual motive to men to honour him, to whom, upon the account of his divine nature, that honour is due;—as in the first commandment, "I am the LORD thy God, that brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; thou shalt have no other gods before me," that expression, "That brought thee out of the land of Egypt," is a motive to the worship of God, but not the formal cause of it, that being due to him as he is by nature God, blessed for ever, though he had never brought that people out of Egypt. But of this more afterward.

Question 7, a farther diversion from the matter in hand is attempted by this inquiry:—

Q. Did the Father give judiciary power to the Son, because he had in him the divine nature personally united to the human, or because he was the Son of man? what is the decision of the Son himself concerning this point also?

A. "He hath given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of man," John 5:27.

1. A point in difference is stated, and its decision inquired after, wherein there is no such difference at all. Nor do we say that God gave Christ the judiciary power, wherewith as mediator he is invested, because he had in him the divine nature personally united to the human. The power that Christ hath upon the account of his divine nature is not delegated, but essential to him. Nor can Mr B. name any that have so stated the difference as he here proposes it.

2. We say not that Christ had in him the divine nature personally united to the human, but that the human nature was personally united to the divine, his personality belonging to him upon the account of his divine nature, not his human.

3. We grant that the judiciary power that was delegated to Christ as mediator, he being appointed of God to judge the world, was given him "because he is the Son of man," or was made man to be our mediator, and to accomplish the great work of the salvation of mankind; but that divine worship, proper to God the Father, is due, and to be yielded and ascribed to him, on this ground and reason, "because he is the Son of man," Mr B. cannot prove, nor doth attempt it.

The 8th, 9th, and 10th questions belong not to us. We grant it was and is the will and command of God that Jesus Christ, the mediator, should be worshipped of angels and men, and that he was so worshipped even in this world, for "when he brought the first-begotten into the world, he said, Let all the angels of God worship him," Heb. 1:6; and that he is also to be worshipped now, having finished his work, being exalted on the right hand of God;—but that the bottom, foundation, and sole formal cause of the worship which God so commands to be yielded to him, is any thing but his being "God, blessed for evermore," or his being the "only-begotten Son of God," there is not in the places mentioned the least intimation.

The 11th and 12th look again the same way with the former, and with the same success. Saith he,—

Q. When men ascribe glory and dominion to Jesus Christ in the Scripture, and withal intimate the ground thereof, is it because they conceive him to be very God, and to have been eternally begotten out of the divine essence, or because he gave himself to death? let me hear how they explain themselves?

A. Rev. 5:9.

Q. Are the angels of the same opinion with the saints, when they also ascribe the glory and dominion to him? let me hear how they also explain themselves?

A. Rev. 5:11, 12.

Of both these places afterward.

At present,—1. Christ as a lamb is Christ as mediator, both God and man, to whom all honour and glory is due.

2. Neither saints nor angels do give, nor pretend to give, the reason why Christ is to be worshipped, or what is the formal reason why divine worship is ascribed to him, but only what is in their thoughts and considerations a powerful and effectual motive to love, fear, worship, and ascribe all glory to him; as David often cries, "Bless the LORD, O my soul!" (or assigns glory and honour to him), because he had done such or such things, intimating a motive to his worship, and not the prime foundation and cause why he is to be worshipped.

Having spoken thus to the adoration of Christ, his last question is about his invocation, which he proves from sundry places of Scripture, not inquiring into the reasons of it; so that, adding that to the former concession of the worship and honour due to him, I shall close these considerations with this one syllogism: "He who is to be worshipped by angels and men with that divine worship which is due to God the Father, and to be prayed unto, called on, believed in, is God by nature, blessed for ever; but, according to the confession of Mr B., Jesus Christ is to be worshipped by angels and men with that divine worship which is due even to God the Father, and to be prayed unto: therefore is he God by nature, over all, blessed for ever." The inference of the major proposition I shall farther confirm in the ensuing considerations of the worship that is ascribed to Jesus Christ in the Scripture.

In the endeavour of Faustus Socinus to set up a new religion, there was not any thing wherein he was more opposed, or wherewith he was more exercised by the men of the same design with himself, than in this, about the worship and invocation of Jesus Christ. He and his uncle Lælius urging amongst others this proposition, "That Christ was not God," Franciscus David, Budæus, Christianus Franken, Palæologus, with others, made the conclusion that he was not to be worshipped as God, nor called upon. With some of these he had sundry disputes and conferences, and was miserably intricated by them, being unable to defend his opinion upon his hypothesis of the person of Christ. That Christ is to be worshipped and invocated, indeed, he proves well and learnedly, as in many places, so especially in his third epistle to Matthias Radecius; but coming to knit his arguments to his other opinion concerning Christ, he was perpetually gravelled, as more especially it befell him in his dispute with Christianus Franken, anno 1584, as is evident in what is extant of that dispute, written by Socinus himself. Of the chief argument insisted on by Franken I shall speak afterward: see "Disput. cum Franken," pp. 24, 25, 28, 35, etc. Against Franciscus David he wrote a peculiar tract, and to him an epistle, to prove that the words of Thomas, "My Lord and my God," were spoken of Christ, and therefore he was to be worshipped (Epist. p. 186); wherein he positively affirms that there was no other reading of the words (as David vainly pretended) but what is the common use, because Erasmus made mention of no such thing, who would not have omitted it could he have made any discovery thereof, being justly supposed to be no good friend to the Trinity. That men may know what to judge of some of his annotations, as well as those of Grotius, who walks in the same paths, in this remarked. Wherefore he and his associates rejected this Franciscus David afterward as a detestable heretic, and utterly deserted him when he was cast into prison by the prince of Transylvania, where he died miserably, raving and crying out that the devils expected and waited for his company in his journey which he had to go (Florim. Rem. lib. iv. cap. xii.); the account whereof Smalcius also gives us in his refutation of Franzius, Theses de Hypocrit. disput. 9, p. 298.

After these stirs and disputations, it grew the common tenet of Socinus and his followers (see his epistle to Enjedinus) that those who denied that Christ was to be worshipped and invocated were not to be accounted Christians (which how well it agrees with other of his assertions shall instantly be seen). So Socinus himself leads the way, Respon. ad Niemojevium, Ep. 1; who is followed by Volkelius. "Unless," saith he, "we dare to call on the name of Christ, we should not be worthy of the name of Christians."3 And he is attended by the Racovian Catechism, De præcept. Christi, cap. i., whose author affirms plainly that he esteemed them not Christians who worshipped him not, and accounted that indeed they had not Christ, however in word they durst not deny him.

And of the rest the same is the judgment; but yet with what consistency with what they also affirm concerning this invocation of Christ, we shall now briefly consider.

Socinus, in his third epistle to Matthias Radecius, whom ho everywhere speaks honourably of, and calls him "excellent man," "friend," "brother," and "much-to-be-observed lord" (because he was a great man), who yet denied and opposed this invocation of Christ, lays this down in the entrance of his discourse, that there is nothing of greater moment in Christian religion than the demonstration of this, "That invocation and adoration, or divine worship, do agree to Christ, although he be a created thing." And in the following words he gives you the reason of the importance of the proof of this assertion, namely, "Because the Trinitarians' main strength and argument lies in this, that adoration and invocation are due to Christ, which are proper only to the most high God."2 Which makes me bold on the other side to affirm, that there is nothing in Christian religion more clear, nor more needful to be confirmed, than this, that divine worship neither is, can, nor ought, by the will of God, to be ascribed to any who by nature is not God, to any that is a mere creature, of what dignity, power, and authority soever. But yet now, when this zealous champion for the invocation of Christ comes to prove his assertion, being utterly destitute of the use of that which is the sure bottom and foundation thereof, he dares go no farther, but only says that we may call upon Christ if we will, but for any precept making it necessary so to do, that he says there is none.

And therefore he distinguisheth between the adoration of Christ and his invocation. For the first, he affirms that it is commanded, or at least that things are so ordered that we ought to adore him; but of the latter, says he, "There is no precept, only we may do so if we will." The same he had before affirmed in his answer to Franciscus David.4 Yea, in the same discourse he affirms, that "if we have so much faith as that we can go with confidence to God without him, we need not invocate Christ." "We may," saith he, "invocate Christ; but we are not bound so to do." Whence Niemojevius falls upon him, and tells him that he had utterly spoiled their cause by that concession;6 to deliver himself from which charge, how pitifully he intricates himself may be seen in his answer to that epistle. Now, whether this man hath sufficient cause to exclude any from being Christians for the non-performance of that which himself dares not affirm that they ought to do, and with what consistency of principles these things are affirmed, is easy to judge.

Of the same judgment with him is Volk. de Vera Relig. lib. iv. cap. xi. de Christi invocatione, Schlichting. ad Meisner., pp. 206, 207, and generally the rest of them; which again how consistent it is with what they affirm in the Racovian Catechism,—namely, that this is an addition which Jesus Christ hath made to the first commandment, that he himself is to be acknowledged a God, to whom we are bound to yield divine honour,—I see not; for if this be added to the first commandment, that we should worship him as God, it is scarce, doubtless, at our liberty to call upon him or no. Of the same mind is Smalcius, de Divinitate Jesu Christi,—a book that he offered to Sigismund III., king of Poland, by the means of Jacobus Sienienska, palatine of Podolia, in the year 1608; who, in his epistle to the king, calls him his pastor.2 And yet the same person doth, in another place of the same treatise, most bitterly inveigh against them who will not worship nor invocate Christ, affirming that they are worse than the Trinitarians themselves,—than which, it seems, he could invent nothing more vile to compare them with,—and yet again [he says] that there is no precept that he should be invocated, Cat. Rac. (that is, the same person with the former), cap. v. De præcep. Christi, quæ legem prefecerunt.4 So also Ostorodius, Compendiolum Doctrinæ Ecclesiæ Christianæ nunc in Polonia potissimum florentis, cap. i. sect. 2.

It is, then, on all hands concluded that Jesus Christ is to be worshipped with divine and religious worship, due to God only.

Fixing this as a common and indisputable principle, I shall subjoin and prove these two assertions:—1. In general, Divine worship is not to be ascribed to any that is not God by nature, who is not partaker of the divine essence and being. 2. In particular, Jesus Christ is not to be worshipped on the account of the power and authority which he hath received from God as mediator, but solely on the account of his being "God, blessed for ever." And this is all that is required in answer to this tenth chapter of Mr B. What follows on the heads mentioned is for the farther satisfaction of the reader in these things upon the occasion administered, and for his assistance to the obviating of some other Socinian sophisms that he may meet withal. I shall be brief in them both.

For the first, Divine worship is not to be ascribed to them whom God will certainly destroy. Ho will not have us to worship them whom himself hateth. But, now, all gods that have not made the heavens and the earth he will destroy from under these heavens: Jer. 10:11, "Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens." It is a thing that God would have the nations take notice of, and therefore is it written in the Chaldee dialect in the original, that they who were principally concerned in those days might take the more notice of it. And it is an instruction that God put into the mouths of the meanest of his people, that they should say it to them: "Say ye to them." And the assertion is universal, to all whomsoever that have not made the heavens and earth,—and so is applicable to the Socinians' Christ. A god they say he is, as Elijah said of Baal, 1 Kings 18:27; he is made so: but that he made the heavens and earth they deny; and therefore he is so far from having any right to be worshipped, that God hath threatened he shall be destroyed.

Again; the apostle reckons it among the sins of the Gentiles that "they worshipped them who by nature were no gods," Gal. 4:8, from which we are delivered by the knowledge of God in the gospel. And the weight of the apostle's assertion of the sin of the Gentiles lies in this, that by nature they were not gods who were worshipped. So that this is a thing indispensable, that divine worship should not be given to any who is not God by nature; and surely we are not called in the gospel to the practice of that which is the greatest sin of the heathens, that know not God. And to manifest that this is a thing which the law of nature gives direction in, not depending on institution, Rom. 1, it is reckoned among those sins which are against the light of nature. They "worshipped the creature" (besides, or) "more than" (or with) "the Creator," verse 25, "who is God, blessed for evermore." To worship a creature, him who is not the Creator, God, blessed for ever, is that idolatry which is condemned in the Gentiles as a sin against the light of nature; which to commit God cannot (be it spoken with reverence!) dispense with the sons of men (for he cannot deny himself), much less institute and appoint them so to da. It being, then, on all hands confessed that Christ is to be worshipped with divine or religious worship, it will be easy to make the conclusion that he is God by nature, blessed for evermore.

That also is general and indispensable which you have, Jer. 17:5, 6, "Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh." That which we worship with divine worship we trust in, and make it our arm and strength. And these words, "And whose heart departeth from the LORD," are not so much an addition to what is before cursed as a declaration of it. All trust in man, who is no more but so, with that kind of trust wherewith we trust in Jehovah (as by the antithesis, verse 7, is evident that it is intended), is here cursed. If Christ be only a man by nature, however exalted and invested with authority, yet to trust in him as we trust in Jehovah,—which we do if we worship him with divine worship,—would, by this rule, be denounced a cursed thing.

Rev. 19:10 and 22:8, 9, do add the command of God to the general reason insisted on in the places before mentioned: "I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God." So again, chap. 22:9. There are evidently two reasons assigned by the angel why John ought not to worship him:—1. Because he was a servant. He that is a servant of God, and is no more, is not to be worshipped. Now, he that is not God at his best estate, however exalted, is but a servant in respect of God, and a fellow-servant of the saints, and no more, chap. 6:11. All his creatures serve him, and for his will they were made. Such and no other is the Socinians' Christ, who is clearly deprived of all worship by this prohibition and reason of it. 2. From the command, and the natural and eternal obligation of it, in these repeated words, Τῷ Θεῷ προσκύνησον. It is the word of the law that our Saviour himself insists on, Matt. 4:10, that is here repeated; and the force of the angel's reason for the strengthening his prohibition is from hence, that no other but he who is God, that God intended by the law and by our Saviour, Matt. 4, is to be worshipped. For if the intendment of the words were only positive, that God is to be worshipped, and did not also at the same time exclude every one whatever from all divine worship who is not that God, they would be of no force for the reproof of John in his attempt to worship the angel nor have any influence into his prohibition. And thus that angel, who, chap. 5:9–13, shows John all creatures in heaven and on earth yielding divine worship and adoration to the Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ, in the close of all appropriates all that worship to God himself alone, and for ever shuts out the most glorious creature from our thoughts and intentions in the performance of any divine worship or religious adoration.

And it may hence appear how vain is that plea of the adversaries, to avoid the force of this reproof, which is managed by Schlichtingius against Meisnerus. "To those places," saith he, "where mention is made of God as alone to be worshipped, I answer, that by those exclusive particles, 'alone,' and the like, when they are used of God, they are not simply excluded who depend on God in that thing which is treated of. So is he said to be only wise, only powerful, only immortal, and yet those who are made partakers of them from God ought not simply to be excluded from wisdom, power, and immortality. Wherefore, when it is said that God alone is to be worshipped and adored, he ought not to be simply excluded who herein dependeth on God, because of that divine rule over all which he hath of him received, yea, he is rather included." So the most learned of that tribe. But,—

1. By this rule nothing is appropriated unto God, nor any thing excluded from a participation with him, by that particle mentioned: and wherever any thing is said of God only, we are to understand it of God and others; for on him, in all things, do all other things depend.

2. When it is said that God only is wise, etc., though it doth not absolutely deny that any other may be wise with that wisdom which is proper to them, yet it absolutely denies that any one partakes with God in his wisdom,—is wise as God is wise, with that kind of wisdom wherewith God is wise. And so where it is said that God only is to be worshipped and honoured, though it doth not exclude all others from any kind of worship and honour, but that they may have that which is due to them by God's appointment, from their excellency and pre-eminence, yet it doth absolutely exclude any from being worshipped with divine worship; that is due and proper to God.

3. We shall show afterward that whatever dignity, rule, and dominion they say is given to Christ, and whatever excellency in him doth thence arise, yet it is quite of another kind, and stands upon another foot of account, than that essential excellency that is in God; and so cannot nor doth require the same kind of worship as is due to God.

4. Angels and men are depending on God in authority and power, and therefore, if this rule be true, they are not excluded from divine and religious worship in the command of worshipping God only; and so they may be worshipped with divine and religions adoration and invocation as well as Jesus Christ. Neither is it any thing but a mere begging of the thing in question, to say that it is divine power that is delegated to Christ, which that is not that is delegated to angels and men. That power which is properly divine and the formal cause of divine worship is incommunicable, nor can be delegated, nor is in any who is not essentially God. So that the power of Christ and angels being of the same kind, though his be more and greater than theirs as to degrees, they are to be worshipped with the same kind of worship, though he may be worshipped more than they.

5. This is the substance of Schlichtingius' rule, "When any thing is affirmed of God exclusively to others,—indeed others are not excluded, but included"!

6. We argue not only from the exclusive particle, but from the nature of the thing itself. So that, this pretended rule and exception notwithstanding, all and every thing whatever that is not God is by God himself everlastingly excluded from the least share in divine or religious worship, with express condemnation of them who assign it to them.

The same evasion with that insisted on by Schlichtingius, Socinus himself had before used, who professes that this is the bottom and foundation of all his arguments in his disputation with Franciscus David about the invocation of Christ, that others as well as God may be worshipped and invocated, in his third epistle to Volkelius, where he labours to answer the objection of John's praying for grace from "the seven spirits that are before the throne of Christ," Rev. 1:4, "But why, I pray, is it absurd to affirm that those seven spirits (supposing them mere creatures) were invocated of John? Is it because God alone is to be invocated? But that this reason is of no value that whole disputation doth demonstrate, not only because it is nowhere forbidden that we should invocate any other but God" (os durum), "but also, and much rather, because those interdictions never exclude those who are subordinate to God himself." That is, as was observed before, they exclude none at all; for all creatures whatever are subordinate to God. To say that they are subordinate as to this end, that under him they may be worshipped, is purely to beg the question. We deny that any is or may be in such a subordination to God. And the reasons the man adds of this his assertion contain the grand plea of all idolaters, heathenish and antichristian: "Whatever is given to them," saith he, "who are in that subordination is given to God."2 So said the Pagans of old, so say the Papists at this day; all redounds to the glory of God, when they worship stocks and stones, because he appoints them so to do. And so said the Israelites when they worshipped the golden calf: "It is a feast to Jehovah." But if John might worship and invocate (which is the highest act of worship) the seven spirits, Rev. 1:4, because of their subordination to God, supposing them to be so many created spirits, why might he not as well worship the spirit or angel in the end of the book, chap. 22:8, 9, who was no less subordinate to God? Was the matter so altered during his visions, that whom he might invocate in the entrance he might not so much as worship in the close?

The Racovian Catechism takes another course, and tells you that the foundation of the worship and adoration of Christ is because "Christ had added to the first commandment that we should acknowledge him for God;" that is, he who hath divine authority over us, to whom we are bound to yield divine honour. But,—1. That Jesus Christ, who is not God by nature, did add to the command of God that he himself should be acknowledged God, is intolerable blasphemy, asserted without the least colour or pretence from the Scripture, and opens a door to downright atheism. 2. The exposition of his being God, that is, one who hath divine authority over us, is false. God is a name of nature, not of office and power, Gal. 4:8. 3. Christ was worshipped, and commanded to be worshipped, before his coming in the flesh, Ps. 2:12; Gen. 48:16; Exod. 23:21.

But if this be added to the first commandment, that Christ be worshipped as God, then is he to be worshipped with the worship required in the first commandment. Now, this worship is that which is proper to the only true God, as the very words of it import, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." How, then, will Smalcius reconcile himself with his master, who plainly affirms that Jesus Christ is not to be worshipped with that divine worship which is due to God alone, and strives to answer that place of John 5:23 to the contrary, that "all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father?" That Christ should be commanded to be worshipped in the first commandment (or by an addition made thereto), which commands us to have only one God, and not be worshipped with the worship which is due to that one God, is one of the mysteries of these men's religion. But to proceed:—

Where the formal cause of divine worship is not, there divine worship ought not to be exhibited; but in no creature there is, nor can be, the formal cause of divine worship: therefore no creature, who is only such, can be worshipped without idolatry. The formal reason of any thing is but one; the reason of all worship is excellency or pre-eminence. The reason of divine or religious worship is divine pre-eminence and excellency. Now, divine excellency and pre-eminence is peculiar unto the divine nature. Wherein is it that God is so infinitely excellent above all creatures? Is it not from his infinitely good and incomprehensible nature? Now, look what difference there is between the essence of the Creator and the creature, the same is between their excellency. Let a creature be exalted to ever so great a height of dignity and excellency, yet his dignity is not at all nigher to the dignity and excellency of God, because there is no proportion between that which is infinite and that which is finite and limited. If, then, excellency and pre-eminence be the cause of worship, and the distance between the excellency of God and that of the most excellent and most highly-advanced creature be infinite, it is impossible that the respect and worship due to them should be of the same kind. Now, it is religious or divine adoration that is due to God, whereof the excellency of his nature is the formal cause: this, then, cannot be ascribed to any other;—and to whomsoever it is ascribed, thereby do we acknowledge to be in him all divine perfections; which, if he be not God by nature, is gross idolatry. In sum, adorability, if I may so say, is an absolute, incommunicable property of God; adoration thence arising, a respect that relates to him only.

I shall, for a close of this chapter, proceed to manifest that Christ himself is not by us worshipped under any other formal reason but as he is God; which will add some light to what hath already been spoken. And here, lest there should be any mistake among the meanest in a matter of so great consequence, I shall deliver my thoughts to the whole of the worship of Christ in the ensuing observations:—

1. Jesus Christ, the mediator, being Θεάνθρωπος, God and man, the Son of God having assumed τὸ γεννώμενον ἅγιον, Luke 1:35, "that holy thing" that was born of the Virgin, ἀνυπόστατον, having no subsistence of its own, into personal subsistence with himself, is to be worshipped with divine, religious worship, even as the Father. By "worshipped with divine worship," I mean believed in, hoped in, trusted in, invocated as God, as an independent fountain of all good, and a sovereign disposer of all our present and everlasting concernments: by doing whereof we acknowledge in him, and ascribe to him, all divine perfections,—omnipotency, omniscience, infinite goodness, omnipresence, and the like.

This proposition was sufficiently confirmed before. In the Revelation you have the most solemn representation of the divine, spiritual worship of the church, both that militant in the earth and that triumphant in the heavens; and by both is the worship mentioned given to the Mediator: "Unto him" (to Jesus Christ) "that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, be glory and dominion for ever and ever, Amen," chap. 1:5, 6. So again, the same church, represented by four living creatures and twenty-four elders, falls down before the Lamb, chap. 5:8, 12, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory and blessing;" and, verse 13, joint worship is given to him who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb by the whole creation, "And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever," etc. And this also is particularly done by the church triumphant, chap. 7:9, 10. Now, the Lamb is neither Christ in respect of the divine nature nor Christ in respect of the human nature, but it is Christ the mediator. That Christ was mediator in respect of both natures shall in due time be demonstrated. It is, then, the person of the mediator, God and man, who is the "Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world," to whom all this honour and worship is ascribed. This the apostle perfectly confirms, Rom. 14:8–11, "Whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living. But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ. For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God." To Christ, exalted in his dominion and sovereignty, we live and die; to him do we bow the knee and confess, that is, perform all worship, and stand before him, as at his disposal; we swear by him;—as in the place from whence these words are taken.

2. That our religious, divine, and spiritual worship, hath a double or twofold respect unto Jesus Christ:—(1.) As he is the ultimate formal object of our worship, being God, to be blessed for evermore, as was before declared. (2.) As the way, means, and cause, of all the good we receive from God in our religious approach to him.

In the first sense, we call upon the name of Christ, 1 Cor. 1:2: in the other, we ask the Father in his name, according to his command, John 16:23. In the first, we respect him as one with the Father, as one who thinks it no robbery to be equal with him, Phil. 2:6; the "fellow of the LORD of hosts," Zech. 13:7: in the other, as one that doth intercede yet with the Father, Heb. 7:25, praying him yet to send the Comforter to us, being yet, in that regard, less than the Father; and in which respect as he is our head, so God is his head, as the apostle tells us, 1 Cor. 11:3, "The head of every man" (that is, every believer) "is Christ, and the head of Christ is God." In this sense is he the way whereby we go to the Father, John 14:6; and through him we have an access to the Father, Eph. 2:18, Διὰ Χριστοῦ, πρὸς τὸν Πατέρα. In our worship, with our faith, love, hope, trust, and prayers, we have an access to God. Thus, in our approach to the throne of grace, we look upon Christ as the high priest over the house of God, Heb. 4:14–16, by whom we have admission, who offers up our prayers and supplications for us, Rev. 8:3. In this state, as he is the head of angels and of his whole church, so is he in subordination to the Father; and therefore he is said at the same time to receive revelations from the Father, and to send an angel as his servant on his work and employment, Rev. 1:1. And thus is he our advocate with the Father, 1 John 2:1. In this respect, then, seeing that in our access to God, even the Father, as the Father of him and his, John 20:17, with our worship, homage, service, our faith, love, hope, confidence, and supplications, eyeing Christ as our mediator, advocate, intercessor, upon whose account we are accepted, for whose sake we are pardoned, through whom we have admission to God, and by whom we have help and assistance in all that we have to do with God; it is evident, I say, that in this respect he is not eyed nor addressed to in our worship as the ultimate, adequate, formal object of it, but as the meritorious cause of our approach and acceptance, and so of great consideration therein. And therefore, whereas, Rom. 3:25, it is said that "God hath set him forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood," it is not intended that faith fixes on his blood or blood-shedding, or on him as shedding his blood, as the prime object of it, but as the meritorious cause of our forgiveness of sin, through the righteousness of God.

And these two distinct respects have we to Jesus Christ, our mediator, who is Θεάνθρωπος, God and man, in our religious worship, and all acts of communion with him: As one with the Father, we honour him, believe in him, worship him, as we do the Father; as mediator, depending on the Father, in subordination to him, so our faith regards him, we love him and hope in him, as the way, means, and meritorious cause, of our acceptance with the Father. And in both these respects we have distinct communion with him.

3. That Jesus Christ, our mediator, Θεάνθρωπος, God and man, who is to be worshipped with divine or religious worship, is to be so worshipped because he is our mediator. That is, his mediation is the "ratio quia," an unconquerable reason and argument, why we ought to love him, fear him, believe in him, call upon him, and worship him in general. This is the reason still urged by the Holy Ghost why we ought to worship him: Rev. 1:5, 6, "Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever." Who would not love him, who would not ascribe honour to him, who hath so loved us and washed us in his own blood? So Rev. 5:12, there is an acknowledgment of the power, riches, goodness, wisdom, strength, glory, and blessing, that belong to him, because as the Lamb, as Mediator, he hath done so great things for us. And, I dare say, there is none of his redeemed ones who finds not the power of this motive upon his heart. The love of Christ in his mediation, the work he has gone through in it, and that which he continueth in, the benefits we receive thereby, and our everlasting misery without it, are all chains upon our souls to bind us to the Lord Christ in faith, love, and obedience. But yet this mediation of Christ is not the formal and fundamental cause of our worship (as shall be showed), but only a motive thereunto. It is not the "ratio formalis, et fundamental is cultus," but only the "ratio quia," or an argument thereunto. Thus God dealing with his people, and exhorting them of old to worship and obedience, he says, "I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage: thou shalt have no other gods before me," Exod. 20:2, 3. He makes his benefit of bringing them out of the land of Egypt the reason of that eternally indispensable moral worship which he requires in the first commandment: not that that was the formal cause of that worship, for God is to be worshipped as the first, sovereign, independent good, as the absolute Lord of all and fountain of all good, whether he gives any such benefits or no; but yet all his mercies, all his benefits, every thing he doth for us in his providence and in his grace, as to the things of this life or of another, are all arguments and motives to press us to the performance of all that worship and service which we owe unto him as our God and Creator. "Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits," saith David, Ps. 103:1, 2. So is it in the case of our mediator. For the work of his mediation we are eternally obliged to render all glory, honour, and thanksgiving to him; but yet his mediation is not the formal cause thereof, but only an invincible motive thereunto. Let this, therefore, be our fourth and last observation:—

4. Though Jesus Christ, who is our mediator, God and man, is to be worshipped with divine worship, even as we honour the Father, yet this is not as he is mediator, but as he is God, blessed for evermore. He is not to be worshipped under this reduplication as mediator, though he who is mediator is to be worshipped, and he is to be worshipped because he is mediator. That is, his mediatory office is not the formal cause and reason of yielding divine worship to him, nor under that consideration is that worship ultimately terminated in him. The formal reason of any thing, strictly taken, is but one, and it is that from the concession whereof that thing or effect whereof it is the cause or reason, without any other help, doth arise or result from it. Now, the formal cause or reason of all divine worship is the deity or divine nature;—that being granted, divine worship necessarily follows to be due; that being denied, that worship also is, and is to be for ever, denied. We may not worship them who by nature are not God. If it could be supposed that we might have had a mediator that should not have been God (which was impossible), religious worship would not have been yielded to him; and if the Son of God had never been our mediator, yet he was to be worshipped.

It is the deity of Christ, then, which is the fundamental, formal cause and reason, and the proper object, of our worship: for that being granted, though we had no other reason or argument for it, yet we ought to worship him; and that being denied, all other reasons and motives whatever would not be a sufficient cause or warrant for any such proceeding.

It is true, Christ hath a power given him of his Father above all angels, principalities, and powers, called "All power in heaven and in earth," Matt 28:18, and "a name above every name," Phil. 2:9, giving him an excellency, an ἀξία, as he is μεσίτης ἱκέτης, as he is the king and head of his church, which is to be acknowledged, owned, ascribed to him; and the consideration whereof, with his ability and willingness therein to succour, relieve, and save us to the uttermost, in a way of mediation, is a powerful, effectual motive (as was said before) to his worship: but yet this is an excellency which is distinct from that which is purely and properly divine, and so cannot be the formal reason of religious worship. Excellency is the cause of honour; every distinct excellency and eminence is the cause of honour; every distinct excellency and eminence is the cause of distinct honour and worship. Now, what excellency or dignity so-ever is communicated by a way of delegation is distinct and of another kind from that which is original, infinite, and communicating, and therefore cannot be the formal cause of the same honour and worship.

I shall briefly give the reasons of the assertion insisted on, and so pass on to what remains.

1. The first is taken from the nature of divine or religious worship. It is that whereby we ascribe the honour and glory of all infinite perfections to him whom we so worship,—to be the first cause, the fountain of all good, independent, infinitely wise, powerful, all-sufficient, almighty, all-seeing, omnipotent, eternal, the only rewarder; as such we submit ourselves to him religiously, in faith, love, obedience, adoration, and invocation. But now we cannot ascribe these divine excellencies and perfections unto Christ as mediator, for then his mediation should be the reason why he is all this, which it is not; but it is from his divine nature alone that so he is, and therefore thence alone is it that he is so worshipped.

2. Christ under this formal conception, as they speak, as mediator, is not God; but under this, as partaker of the nature of God. Christ as mediator is an expression, as they speak, in the concrete, whose form is its abstract. Now, that is his mediation or mediatory office; and therefore if Christ under this formal conception of a mediator be God, his mediatory office and God must be the same, which is false and absurd: therefore as such, or on that fundamental account, he is not worshipped with divine worship.

3. Christ in respect of his mediation dependeth on God, and hath all his power committed to him from God: Matt. 11:27, "All things," saith he, "are delivered unto me of my Father;" and chap. 28:18, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth;" John 17:2, "Thou hast given him power over all flesh;" and in innumerable other places is the same testified. God gives him as mediator his name,—that is, his authority. Now, God is worshipped because he is independent: he is, and there is none besides him; he is Alpha and Omega,—the first and the last. And if the reason why we worship God with divine worship be because he is αὐτάρκης and independent, certainly that wherein Christ is dependent and in subordination to him, as receiving it from him, cannot be the formal cause of attributing divine worship to him.

4. Christ in respect of his divine nature is "equal with God," that is, the Father, Phil. 2:6; but in respect of his mediation he is not equal to him, he is less than he. "My Father," saith he, "is greater than I," John 14:28. Now, whatever is less than God, is not equal to him, is infinitely so; for between God and that which is not God there is no proportion, neither in being nor excellency. That Christ in respect of his office is not equal to God is commonly received in that axiom, whereby the arguments thence taken against his deity are answered, "Inæqualitas officii non tollit æqualitatem naturæ." Now, certainly, that which is infinitely unequal to God cannot be the formal cause of that worship which we yield to him as God.

5. That which shall cease and is not absolutely eternal cannot be the formal cause of our worship, for the formal reason of worship can no more cease than God can cease to be God; for when that ceaseth, we cease to worship him, which while he is the Creator and sovereign Lord of his creatures cannot be. Now, that the mediatory office of Christ shall cease the Holy Ghost affirmeth, 1 Cor. 15:24, "Then cometh the end," etc. He then gives up his kingdom to God. And there is the same reason from the other parts of his mediatory office. It is true, indeed, the efficacy of his office abideth to eternity, whilst the redeemed ones live with God and praise him; but as to the administration of his office, that ceaseth when, at the last day, the whole work of it shall be perfectly consummated, and he hath saved to the uttermost all that come to God by him.

The sum of all is: Jesus Christ, God and man, our mediator, who is to be worshipped in all things and invocated as the Father, and whom we ought night and day to honour, praise, love, and adore, because of his mediation and the office of it, which for our sakes he hath undertaken, is so to be honoured and worshipped, not as mediator, exalted of God, and intrusted with all power and dignity from him, but as being equal with him, God, to be blessed for ever, his divine nature being the fundamental, formal reason of that worship, and proper ultimate object of it. And to close up this digression, there is not any thing that more sharply and severely cuts the throat of the whole sophistical plea of the Socinians against the deity of Christ than this one observation. Themselves acknowledge that Christ is to be worshipped with religious worship, and his name to be invocated, denying to account them Christians, whatever they are, who are otherwise minded, as Franciscus David and those before mentioned were. Now, if there be no possible reason to be assigned as the formal cause of this worship but his deity, they must either acknowledge him to be God or deny themselves to be Christians.

Some directions, by the way, may be given from that which hath been spoken as to the guidance of our souls in the worship of God, or in our addresses to the throne of grace by Jesus Christ. What God hath discovered of himself unto us, he would have us act faith upon in all that we have to deal with him in. By this we are assured we worship the true God, and not an idol, when we worship him who has revealed himself in his word, and as he has revealed himself. Now, God hath declared himself to be three in one; for it is written, "There are three that bear record in heaven, and these three are one," 1 John 5:7. So, then, is he to be worshipped. And not only so, but the order of the three persons in that Deity, the eternal, internal order among themselves, is revealed to us. The Father is of none, is αὔταυτος. The Son is begotten of the Father, having the glory of the only-begotten Son of God, and so is αὐτόθεος in respect of his nature, essence, and being, not in respect of his personality, which he hath of the Father. The Spirit is of the Father and the Son. He is often so called the Spirit of God and the Spirit of the Son. For the term of "proceeding," or "going forth," I profess myself ignorant whether it concern chiefly his eternal personality or his dispensation in the work of the gospel. The latter I rather like; of which this is no time to give my reasons. But be those expressions of what import so-ever, he is equally the Spirit of the Father and the Son, and is of them both and from them both. God, then, by us is to be worshipped as he hath revealed the subsistence of the three persons in this order, and so are we to deal with him in our approaches to him: not that we are to frame any conception in our minds of distinct substances, which are not; but by faith closing with this revelation of them, we give up our souls in contemplation and admiration of that we cannot comprehend.

2. There is an external economy and dispensation of the persons in reference to the work of our salvation, and what we draw nigh to them for. So the Father is considered as the foundation of all mercy, grace, glory, every thing that is dispensed in the covenant or revealed in the gospel, the Son receiving all from him, and the Spirit [being] sent by the Son to effect and complete the whole good pleasure of God in us and towards us. And in and under the consideration of this economy is God of us to be worshipped.

"All things," saith Christ, "are delivered unto me of my Father," Matt. 11:27 (that is, to me as mediator); therefore "come unto me." And in his prayer, John 17:8, "I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me." So most fully John 3:34, 35. He is sent of God; and from the love of the Father to him as mediator are all things given him. "It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell," Col. 1:19; John 1:16. John 5:26, "He hath given him to have life,"—that is, as he is mediator, appointed him to be the fountain of spiritual life to his elect. And Rev. 1:1, the revelation of the will of God is given unto Christ by the Father, as to this end of discovering it to the church.

Hence ariseth the second way of faith's acting itself towards God in our worship of him. It eyes the Father as the fountain of this dispensation, and the Son as the mediator, as the storehouse, and the Spirit as immediate communicator thereof. Here also it considers the Son under these two distinct notions:—first, as the ordinance and servant of the Father in the great work of mediation. So it loves him, delights in him, and rejoiceth in the wisdom of God in finding out and giving such a means of life, salvation, and union with himself; and so by Christ believes in God, even the Father. It considers him, secondly, as the way of going to the Father; and there it rests, as the ultimate object of all the religious actings of the soul. So we are very often said through and by Christ to believe in God, and by him to have an access to God and an entrance to the throne of grace. In this sense, I say, when we draw nigh to God in any religious worship, yea, in all the first actings and movings of our souls towards him in faith and love, the Lord Christ is considered as mediator, as clothed with his offices, as doing the will of the Father, as serving the design of his love; and so the soul is immediately fixed on God through Christ, being strengthened, supported, and sustained, by the consideration of Christ as the only procuring cause of all the good things we seek from God, and of our interest in those excellencies which are in him, which make him excellent to us.

And this is the general consideration that faith hath of Christ in all our dealings with God. We "ask in his name," "for his sake," go to God "on his account," "through him," and the like; are strengthened and emboldened upon the interest of him as our high priest and intercessor; God the Father being yet always immediately in our eye as the primary object of our worship. But yet now again, this Christ as mediator, so sent and intrusted by the Father, as above, is also one with the Father, God, to be blessed for evermore. Faith also takes in this consideration; and so he who before was the means of fixing our faith on God is thereupon become the proper object of cur faith himself. We believe in him, invocate, call upon him, worship him, put our trust in him, and live unto him. Over and above, then, the distinction that the eternal persons have in the manner of in-being in the same essence, which also is the object of our faith, that distinction which they have in the external economy is to be considered in our religious worship of God;—and herein is Christ partly eyed as the Father's servant, the means and cause of all our communion with God, and so is the medium of our worship, not the object; partly as God and man vested with that office, and so he is the primary and ultimate object of it also. And this may give us, I say, some assistance to order our thoughts aright towards God, and some light into that variety of expressions which we have in Scripture about worshipping of God in Christ, and worshipping of Christ also. So is it in respect of the Spirit.

Having cleared the whole matter under consideration, it may be worth the while a little to consider the condition of our adversaries in reference to this business, wherein, of all other things, as I said before, they are most entangled. Of the contests and disputes of Socinus with Franciscus David about this business, I have given the reader an account formerly, and of the little success he had therein. The man would fain have stood when he had kicked away the ground from under his feet, but was not able. And never was he more shamefully gravelled in any dispute than in that which he had with Christianus Franken about this business, whereof I shall give the reader a brief account.

This Franken seems to have been a subtile fellow, who, denying with Socinus that Christ was God, saw evidently that it was impossible to find out a foundation of yielding religious worship or adoration unto him. With him about this matter Socinus had a solemn dispute in the house of one Paulicovius, anno 1584, March 14. Franken in this disputation was the opponent, and his first argument is this: "Look how great distance there is between the Creator and the creature, so great ought the difference to be between the honour that is exhibited to the one and the other. But between the Creator and the creature there is the greatest difference, whether you respect nature and essence, or dignity and excellency; and therefore there ought to be the greatest difference between the honour of the Creator and the creature. But the honour that chiefly is due to God is religious worship; therefore this is not to be given to a creature, therefore not to Christ, whom you confess to be a mere creature."2 This, I say, was his first argument. To which Socinus answers: "Although the difference between God and the creature be the greatest, yet it doth not follow that the difference between their honour must be so; for God can communicate his honour to whom he will, especially to Christ, who is worthy of such honour, and who is not commanded to be worshipped without weighty causes for it."

But, by the favour of this disputant, God cannot give that honour that is due unto him upon the account of his excellency and eminency, as he is the first cause of all things and the last end (which is the ground of divine worship), to any one who hath not his nature. The honour due to God cannot be given to him who is not God. His honour, the honour of him as God, is that which is due to him as God. Now, that he should give that honour that is due to him as God to him which is not God, is utterly impossible and contradictory to itself. We confess that there be most weighty causes why Christ should be worshipped, yet but one formal reason of that worship we can acknowledge; and therefore when Franken had taken off this absurd answer by sundry instances and reasons, Socinus is driven to miserable evasions. First, he cries out, "I can answer all these testimonies;" to which when the other replied, "And I can give a probable answer to all the texts you produce arguing the adoration of Christ,"3 being driven to hard shifts, he adds, "I am as certain of the truth of my opinion as I am that I hold this hat in my hand,"—which is a way of arguing that is commonly used by men that have nothing else to say. Wherefore Franken laughs at him, and tells him, "Your certainty cannot be a rule of truth to me and others, seeing another man may be found that will say he is most certain to the contrary opinion."5 So that, prevailing nothing by this means, he is forced to turn the tables; and instead of an answer, which he could not give to Franken's argument, to become opponent and urge an argument against him. Saith he, "My certainty of this thing is as true as it is true that the apostle saith of Christ, 'Let all the angels of God worship him.' " But, by the favour of this disputant, this is not his business. He was to answer Franken's argument, whereby he proved that he was not to be worshipped, and not to have brought a contrary testimony, which is certainly to be interpreted according to the issue of the reason insisted on. And this was the end of that first argument between them.

The next argument of Franken, whereby he brought his adversary to another absurdity, had its rise from a distinction given by Socinus about a twofold religious worship;—one kind whereof, without any medium, was directed to God; the other is yielded him by Christ as a means. The first he says is proper to God, the other belongs to Christ only. Now, he is blind that doth not see that, for what he doth here to save himself, he doth but beg the thing in question. Who granted him that there was a twofold religious worship,—one of this sort, and another of that? Is it a sufficient answer, for a man to repeat his own hypothesis to answer an argument lying directly against it? He grants, indeed, upon the matter all that Franken desired,—namely, that Christ was not to be worshipped with that worship wherewith God is worshipped, and consequently not with divine. But Franken asks him whether this twofold worship was of the same kind or no?2 to which he answered, that it was because it abode not in Christ, but through him passed to God. Upon which, after the interposition of another entangling question, the man thus replies unto him: "This, then, will follow, that even the image of Christ is to be worshipped, because one and the same worship respects the image as the means, Christ as the end, as Thomas Aquinas tells us, from whom you borrowed your figment."4 Yet this very fancy Socinus seems afterward to illustrate, by taking a book in his hand, sliding it along upon a table, showing how it passed by some hands where truly it was, but stayed not till it came to the end: for which gross allusion he was sufficiently derided by his adversary. I shall not insist on the other arguments wherewith on his own hypothesis he was miserably gravelled by this Franken, and after all his pretence of reason forced to cry out, "These are philosophical arguments, and contrary to the gospel." The disputation is extant, with the notes of Socinus upon it, for his own vindication; which do not indeed one whit mend the matter. And of this matter thus far.

CHAPTER XX

Of the priestly office of Christ

How he was a priest—When he entered on his office—And how he dischargeth it

MR BIDDLE'S ELEVENTH CHAPTER EXAMINED

HIS eleventh chapter is concerning the priestly office of Jesus Christ. In the first and second questions he grants him to be a priest, from Heb. 4:14, and to be appointed to that office by the Father, from chap. 5:5. The remainder of the chapter is spent in sundry attempts to prove that Christ was not a priest whilst he was on the earth, as also to take off from the end of his priesthood, with the benefit redounding to the church thereby.

For the first, a man would suppose Mr Biddle were fair and ingenuous in his concessions concerning the priesthood of Jesus Christ. May we but be allowed to propose a few questions to him, and to have answers suggested according to the analogy of his faith, I suppose his acknowledgment of this truth will be found to come exceedingly short of what may be expected. Let him, therefore, show whether Christ be a high priest properly so called, or only in a metaphorical sense, with respect to what he doth in heaven for us, as the high priest of old did deal for the people in their things when he received mercy from God. Again, whether Christ did or doth offer a proper sacrifice to God; and if so, of what kind; or only that his offering of himself in heaven is metaphorically so called. If any shall say that Mr B. differs from his masters in these things, I must needs profess myself to be otherwise minded, because of his following attempt to exclude him from the investiture with and execution of his priestly office in this life and at his death; whence it inevitably follows that he can in no wise be a proper priest, nor have a proper sacrifice to offer, but that both the one and the other are metaphorical, and so termed in allusion to what the high priest among the Jews did for the people. That which I have to speak to in this ensuing discourse will hinder me from insisting much on the demonstration of this, that Christ was a priest so called, and offered to God a sacrifice of atonement or propitiation, properly so called, whereof all other priests and sacrifices appointed of God were but types. Briefly, therefore, I shall do it.

The Scripture is so positive that Jesus Christ, in the execution of his office of mediation, was and is a priest, a high priest, that it is, amongst all that acknowledge him, utterly out of question. That he is not properly so called, but metaphorically, and in allusion to the high priest of the Jews, as was said, the Socinians contend. I shall, then, as I said, in the first place, prove that Christ was a high priest properly so called, and then evince when he was so, or when he entered on that office:—

1. This first is evident, from that description or definition of a high priest which the apostle gives, Heb. 5:1, "Every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sin." That this is the description of a high priest properly so called is manifest from the apostle's accommodation of this office spoken of to Aaron, or his exemplifying of the way of entrance thereinto from that of Aaron, verse 4, "And no man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron;" that is, to be such a high priest as Aaron was, which here he describes,—one that had that honour which Aaron had. Now, certainly Aaron was a high priest properly and truly, if ever any one was so in the world. That Jesus Christ was such a high priest as is here described, yea, that he is the very high priest so described by the Holy Ghost, appears upon this twofold consideration:—

(1.) In general, the apostle accommodates this definition or description of a high priest to Jesus Christ: Verse 5, "So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest." Were it not that very priesthood of which he treats that Christ was so called to, it were easy so to reply, "True, to a proper priesthood a man must be called, but that which is improper and metaphorical only he may assume to himself, or obtain it upon a more general account, as all believers do;" but this the apostle excludes, by comparing Christ in his admission to this office with Aaron, who was properly so.

(2.) In particular, all the parts of this description have in the Scripture a full and complete accommodation unto Jesus Christ, so that he must needs be properly a high priest, if this be the description of such an one:—[1.] He was taken from amongst men. That great prophecy of him so describes him, Deut. 18:18, "I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren." He was taken from among men, or raised up from among men, or raised up from among his brethren. And, in particular, it is mentioned out of what tribe amongst them he was taken: Heb. 7:13, 14, "For he of whom these things are spoken pertaineth to another tribe: for it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Juda." And the family he was of in that tribe, namely, that of David, is everywhere mentioned: "God raised up the horn of salvation in the house of his servant David," Luke 1:69. [2.] He was ordained for men, τὰ πρὸς τὸν Θεόν, as to things appointed by God. Καθίσταται is, "appointed to rule, and preside, and govern, as to the things of God." This ordination or appointment is that after mentioned which he had of God, his ordination to this office: Heb. 5:5, 6, "So also Christ 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," etc. He had his ordination from God. He who made him both Lord and Christ made him also a high priest. And he was made in a more solemn manner than ever any priest was, even by an oath: Chap. 7:20, 21, "Inasmuch as not without an oath," etc. And he was so appointed for men, to preside and govern them in things appertaining to God, as it was with the high priest of old. The whole charge of the house of God, as to holy things, his worship and his service, was committed to him. So is it with Jesus Christ: Chap. 3:6, "Christ is a Son over his own house; whose house are we." He is for us and over us in the things of the worship and house of God. And that he was ordained for men the Holy Ghost assures us farther, chap. 7:26, "Such an high priest became us;" he was so for us. Which is the first part of the description of a high priest, properly so called. [3.] The prime and peculiar end of this office is to offer gifts and sacrifices for sin. And as we shall abundantly manifest afterward that Christ did thus offer gifts and sacrifices for sin, so the apostle professedly affirms that it was necessary he should do so, because he was a high priest: Chap. 8:3, "For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices: wherefore it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer." The force of the apostle's argument concerning the necessity of the offering of Christ lies thus: Every high priest is to offer gifts and sacrifices; but Christ is a high priest: therefore he must have somewhat to offer. Now, if Christ was not a high priest properly so called, it is evident his argument would be inconclusive; for from that which is properly so to that which is only so metaphorically and as to some likeness and proportion, no argument will lie. For instance, every true man is a rational creature; but he that shall thence conclude that a painted man is so will find his conclusion very feeble. What it is that Christ had to offer, and what sacrifice he offered, shall afterward be declared. The definition, then, of a high priest, properly so called, in all the parts of it, belonging unto Christ, it is necessary that the thing defined belong also unto him.

2. He who is a priest according to the order of a true and real priesthood, he is a true and real priest. Believers are called priests, Rev. 1:6, and are said to offer up sacrifices to God, spiritual sacrifices, such as God is pleased with, Heb. 13:16. Whence is it that they are not real and proper priests? Because they are not priests of any real order of priesthood, but are so called because of some allusion to and resemblance of the priests of old in their access unto God, 1 Pet. 2:9; Eph. 2:18; Heb. 10:22. This will also, by the way, discover the vanity of them among us who would have the ministers of the gospel, in contradistinction to other believers, be called priests. Of what order were they who did appropriate that appellation? The absurdity of this figment the learned Hooker could no otherwise defend than by affirming that priest was an abbreviation of presbyter, when both in truth and in the intendment of them that used that term, its sense was otherwise. But to return. The sons of Aaron were properly priests. Why so? Because they were so appointed in the line of the priesthood of Levi, according to the order of Aaron. Hence I assume, Christ being called a priest according to the order of a true and proper priesthood, was truly and properly so. He was "a priest after the order of Melchizedek," Ps. 110:4; which the apostle often insists on in the Epistle to the Hebrews. If you say that Christ is called "a priest after the order of Melchizedek," not properly, but by reason of some proportion and analogy, or by way of allusion to him, you may as well say that he was a priest according to the order of Aaron, there being a great similitude between them; against which the apostle expressly disputes in the whole of the 7th chapter to the Hebrews. He therefore was a real priest, according to a real and proper order.

3. Again; he that was appointed of God to offer sacrifices for the sins of men was a priest properly so called; but that Christ did so and was so appointed will appear in our farther consideration of the time when he was a priest, as also in that following, of the sacrifice he offered, so that at present I shall not need to insist upon it.

4. Let it be considered that the great medium of the apostolical persuasion against apostasy in that Epistle to the Hebrews consists in the exalting of the priesthood of Christ above that of Aaron. Now, that which is only metaphorically so in any kind is clearly and evidently less so than that which is properly and directly so. If Christ be only metaphorically a priest, he is less than Aaron on that consideration. He may be far more excellent than Aaron in other respects, yet in respect of the priesthood he is less excellent; which is so directly opposite to the design of the apostle in that epistle as nothing can be more.

It is, then, evident on all these considerations, and might be made farther conspicuous by such as are in readiness to be added, that Christ was and is truly and properly a high priest; which was the first thing designed for confirmation.

The Racovian Catechism doth not directly ask or answer this question, Whether Christ be a high priest properly so called? but yet insinuates its author's judgment expressly to the contrary:—

The sacerdotal office of Christ is placed herein, that as by his kingly office he can help and relieve our necessities, so by his sacerdotal office he will help, and actually doth so; and this way of his helping or relieving us is called his sacrifice.

Thus they begin. But,—1. That any office of Christ should be-speak power to relieve us without a will, as is here affirmed of his kingly, is a proud, foolish, and ignorant fancy. Is this enough for a king among men, that he is able to relieve his subjects, though he be not willing? or is not this a proper description of a wicked tyrant? Christ as a king is willing as well as able to save, Isa. 32:1, 2. 2. Christ as a high priest is no less able than willing also, and as a king he is no less willing than able, Heb. 7:25. That is, as a king he is both able and willing to save us, as to the application of salvation and the means thereof; as a priest he is both willing and able to save us, as to the procuring of salvation and all the means thereof. 3. It is a senseless folly, to imagine that the sacrifice of Christ consists in the manner of affording us that help and relief which as a king he is able to give us. Such weak engines do these men apply for the subversion of the cross of Christ! But of this more afterward.

But they proceed to give us their whole sense in the next question and answer, which are as follow:—

Q. Why is this way of his affording help called a sacrifice?

A. It is called so by a figurative manner of speaking; for as in the old covenant the high priest entering into the holiest of holies did do those things which pertained to the expiation of the sins of the people, so Christ hath now entered the heavens, that there he might appear before God for us, and perform all things that belong to the expiation of our sins.

The sum of what is here insinuated is,—1. That the sacrifice of Christ is but a figurative sacrifice, and so, consequently, that he himself is a figurative priest: for as the priest is, such is his sacrifice,—proper, if proper; metaphorical, if metaphorical. What say our catechists for the proof hereof? They have said it; not one word of reason or any one testimony of Scripture is produced to give countenance to this figment. 2. That the high priest made atonement and expiation of sins only by his entering into the most holy place and by what he did there; which is notoriously false, and contrary to very many express testimonies of Scripture, Lev. 4:3, 13, 22, 27, 5:17, 6:2–7, 16:1–6, etc. 3. That Christ was not a high priest until he entered the holy place; of which afterward. 4. That he made not expiation of our sins until he entered heaven and appeared in the presence of God; of the truth whereof let the reader consult Heb. 1:3. If Christ be a figurative priest, I see no reason why he is not a figurative king also; and such, indeed, those men seem to make him.

The second thing proposed is, that Christ was a high priest whilst he was on the earth, and offered a sacrifice to God. I shall here first answer what was objected by Mr B. to the contrary, and then confirm the truth itself.

I say then, first, that Christ was a priest while he was on earth; and he continueth to be so for ever,—that is, until the whole work of mediation be accomplished.

Socinus first published his opinion in this business in his book, "De Jesu Christo Servatore," against Covet. For some time the venom of that error was not taken notice of. Six years after, as himself telleth us (Ep. ad Niemojev. 1), he wrote his answer to Volanus, wherein he confirmed it again at large; whereupon Niemojevius, a man of his own antitrinitarian infidelity, writes to him, and asks him sharply (in substance) if he was not mad, to affirm a thing so contrary to express texts of Scripture2 (Ep. 1 Joh. Niemojev. ad Faust. Socin.) Before him, that atheistical monk Ochinus had dropped some few things in his dialogues hereabout. Before him, also, Abelardus had made an entrance into the same abomination; of whom says Bernard, Ep. 190, "Habemus in Francia novum de veteri magistro theologum, qui ab ineunte ætate sua in arte dialectica lusit; et nunc in Scripturis sanctis insanit."

How the whole nation of the Socinians have since consented into this notion of their master, I need not manifest. It is grown one of the articles of their creed, as this man here lays it down among the substantial grounds of Christian religion. Confessedly on their part, the whole doctrine of the satisfaction of Christ and justification turns on this hinge: for though we have other innumerable demonstrations of the truth we assert, yet as to them, if this be proved, no more is needful; for if Christ was a priest, and offered himself a sacrifice, it cannot but be a sacrifice of atonement, seeing it was by blood and death. Crellius tells us that Christ died for us on a double account; partly as the mediator and surety of the new covenant, partly as a priest that was to offer himself to God. A man might think he granted Christ to have been a priest on the earth, and as such to have offered himself a sacrifice. So also doth Volkelius allow the killing of the sacrifice to represent the death of Christ.4 Now, the killing of the sacrifice was the sacrificing of it. So Stuckius proves from that of the poet, "Et nigram mactabis ovem, lucumque revises." But Crellius afterward expounds himself, and tells us that this twofold office of Christ (than which nothing can be spoken more ridiculously) of a mediator and a priest did as it were meet in the death of Christ, the one ending (that is, his being a mediator), and the other beginning; and Volkelius doth the like, with a sufficient contradiction to his assertion, calling the death of Christ the beginning and entrance of his priesthood.2 As for his mediatorship, Crellius telleth us that it is most evident that Christ therein was "subordinate to God" (so he phrases it); that is, he was a mediator with us for God, and not at all with God for us. And this he proves, because he put not himself into this office, nor was put into it by us, so as to confirm the covenant between God and us, but was a minister and messenger of God, who sent him for this purpose.4 But the folly of this shall be afterward manifested. Christ was given of God, by his own consent, to be a mediator for us, and to lay down his life a ransom for us, 1 Tim. 2:3–6; which certainly he did to God for us, and not for God to us, as shall afterward be evinced. But coming to speak of his priesthood he is at a loss. "When," saith he, "he is considered as a priest" (for that he was properly a priest he denies, calling it "Sacerdotii, et oblationis metaphora,") "although he seemeth to be like one who doth something with God in the name of men, if we consider diligently, we shall find that he is such a priest as performs something with us in the name of God."

This proof is παρὰ τὴν σύνθεσιν καὶ διαίρεσιν. But this is no new thing with these men: "Because Christ, as a high priest, doth something with us for God, therefore he did nothing with God for us;" as though, because the high priest of old was over the house of God and ruled therein, therefore he did not offer sacrifices to God for the sins of the people. All that Crellius in his ensuing discourse hath to prove this by, is because, as he saith, "Christ offered not his sacrifice until he came to heaven;" which because he proves not, nor endeavours to do it, we may see what are the texts of Scripture urged for the confirmation of that conceit by Mr B. and others.

Seeing all the proofs collected for this purpose are out of the Epistle to the Hebrews, I shall consider them in order as they lie in the epistle, and not as transposed by his questions with whom I have to do.

The first is in his 11th question, thus insinuated: "Why would God have Christ come to his priestly office by suffering?" According to the tenor of the doctrine before delivered, the inference is, that until after his sufferings he obtained not his priestly office, for by them he entered upon it. The answer is, "Heb. 2:10, 17, 18."

Ans. The apostle doth not say absolutely that it became Christ to be made like us that he might be a high priest, but that he might be a merciful high priest; that is, his sufferings and death were not required antecedently that he might be a priest, but they were required to the execution of that end of his priesthood which consists in sympathy and sufferance together with them in whose stead he was a priest. He sustained all his afflictions, and death itself, not that he might be a priest, but that being merciful, and having experience, he might on that account be ready to "succour them that are tempted;" and this the words of the last verse do evidently evince to be the meaning of the Holy Ghost, "In that he himself hath suffered being tempted," etc. His sufferings were to this end of his priesthood, that he should be "merciful, able to succour them that are tempted." Besides, it is plainly said that he was a high priest, εἰς τὸ ἱλάσκεσθαι τάς ἁμαρτίας τοῦ λαοῦ, or ἱλάσκεσθαι τὸν Θεὸν περὶ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν,—"to make reconciliation for the sins of the people." Now, that reconciliation was made by his blood and death the Scripture informs us: Rom. 5:10, "When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son;" Dan. 9:24. So that even from this place of Scripture, produced to the contrary, it is evident that Christ "was a high priest on earth," because he was so when he made reconciliation, which he did in his death on the cross.

But yet Mr B.'s candid procedure in this business may be remarked, with his huckstering the word of God. He reads the words in this order: "It became him to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest." Who would not conclude that this is the series and tenor of the apostle's discourse, and that Christ is said to be made perfect through sufferings, that he might be a merciful high priest? These words, of "making perfect through sufferings," are part of the 10th verse; "that he might be a merciful high priest," part of the 17th; between which two there intercedes a discourse of a business quite of another nature,—namely, his being "made like his brethren" in taking on him "the seed of Abraham," whereof these words, "that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest," are the immediate issue; that is, he had a body prepared him that he might be a priest and have a sacrifice. "Our high priest was exercised with sufferings and temptations," says the apostle: "Jesus was exercised with sufferings and temptations that he might be our high priest," says Mr B.!

Heb. 8:1, 2, is insisted on to the same purpose in his third question, which is,—

Q. What manner of high priest is Christ?

A. Heb. 8:1, 2, "We have such a high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle," etc.

I name this in the next place, because it is coincident with that of chap. 4:14, insisted on by Socinus, though omitted by our author.

Hence it is inferred that Christ entered the heavens before he was a high priest, and is a high priest only when he is "set down on the right hand of the Majesty on high."

Ans. That Christ is a high priest there also we grant; that he is so there only, there is not one word in the place cited to prove. Heb. 4:14 saith, indeed, that "our high priest is passed into the heavens," but it says not that he was not our high priest before he did so, as the high priest of the Jews entered into the holy place, but yet he was a high priest before, or he could not have entered into it. He is "such an high priest who is set on the right hand of the throne of Majesty;" that is, not like the typical high priest, who died and was no more, but he abides in his office of priesthood; not to offer sacrifice, for that he did once for all, but to intercede for us for ever.

Heb. 8:4 is nextly produced, in answer to this question,—

Q. Was not Christ a priest whilst he was upon earth, namely, when he died on the cross?

A. Heb. 8:4, 7:15, 16.

The same question and answer are given by the Racovian Catechism, and this is the main place insisted on by all the Socinians: "For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law."

Ans. 1. Ἐπὶ γῆς may be interpreted of the state and condition of him spoken of, and not of the place wherein he was. If he were ἐπὶ γῆς, of a mere earthly condition, as the high priest of the Jews, he should not be a priest: so is the expression used elsewhere. Col. 3:2, we are commanded "not to mind τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς,"—that is, "terrene things, earthly things." And verse 5, "Mortify your members τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς,"—that is, "your earthly members."

2. If the words signify the place, and not the condition of the things whereof they are [expressive], they may be referred to the tabernacle, of which he speaks, and not to the high priest. Verse 2, the apostle tells us that he is the minister or priest of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man; and then, verse 3, that in the other tabernacle there were priests that offered daily sacrifices: so that, saith he, if this tabernacle ἦν ἐπὶ γῆς, he should not be a priest of it; for in the earthly tabernacle there were other administrators. But to pass these interpretations,—

3. The apostle does not say that he that is upon the earth can be no priest, which must be our adversaries' argument, if any, from this place, and thus formed: He that is upon the earth is no priest; Christ before his ascension was upon the earth: therefore he was no priest. This is not the intendment of the apostle, for in the same verse he affirms that there were priests on the earth. This, then, is the utmost of his intendment, that if Christ had been only to continue on the earth, and to have done what priests did or were to do upon the earth, there was neither need of him nor room for him; but now he is a priest, seeing he was not to take upon him their work, but had an eternal priesthood of his own to administer. There is no more in this place than there is in chap. 7:19, 23, 24; which is a clear assertion that Christ had a priesthood of his own, which was to perfect and complete all things, being not to share with the priests, that had all their work to do upon the earth; and in verses 13–15 of chap. 7 you have a full exposition of the whole matter. The sum is, Christ was none of the priests of the old testament, no priest of the law; all their earthly things vanished when he undertook the administration of the heavenly. So that neither doth this at all evince that Christ was not a priest of the order of Melchizedek even before his ascension.

To this Heb. 7:15, 16 is urged, and these words, "After the power of an endless life," are insisted on; as though Christ was not a priest until after he had ended his life and risen again.

But is this the intendment of the apostle? doth he aim at any such thing? The apostle is insisting on one of his arguments, to prove from the institution of the priesthood of Melchizedek, or rather a priesthood after his order, the excellency of the priesthood of Christ above that of Aaron. From the manner of the institution of the one and of the other this argument lies. Says he, "The priests of the Jews were made κατὰ νόμον ἐντολῆς σαρκικῆς, according to the law of a carnal commandment,"—that is, by carnal rites and ceremonies, by carnal oil and ordinances; "but this man is made a priest after the order of Melchisedec, κατὰ δύναμιν ζωῆς ἀκαταλύτου, by virtue of an endless life,—by the appointment of God, having such a life as should never by death interrupt him in the administration of his office:" for though the life of Christ was intercepted three days, yet his person was never dissolved as to the administration of his office of priesthood, which is the thing spoken of, and in respect of that he had an "endless life."

Question 9 is to the same purpose:—

Q. How did Christ enter into the holy place to offer himself?

A. Heb. 9:12, "By his own blood."

Ans. Would not any one imagine, [from this question,] that it was said in the Scripture that Christ entered into the holy place to offer himself? that that is taken for granted, and the modus or manner how he did it is alone inquired after? This is but one part of the sophistry Mr B. makes use of in this Scripture Catechism; but it is so far from being a true report of the testimony of the Scripture, that the plain contrary is asserted,—namely, that Christ offered himself before his entrance into the holy place not made with hands, and then entered thereinto, to appear in the presence of God for us. Christ entered by his own blood into the holy place, inasmuch as, having shed and offered his blood a sacrifice to God, with the efficacy of it, he entered into his presence to carry on the work of his priesthood in his intercession for us; as the high priest, having offered without a sacrifice to God, entered with the blood of it into the most holy place, there to perfect and complete the duties of his office in offering and interceding for the people.

The remaining questions of this chapter may be speedily despatched. His sixth is:—

Q. What benefit happeneth by Christ's priesthood?

A. Heb. 5:9, 10.

Though the place be very improperly urged as to an answer to the question proposed, there being very many more testimonies clearly and distinctly expressing the immediate fruits and benefits of the priestly office of Christ, yet because we grant that by his priesthood, principally and eminently, Christ is become the author of salvation, we shall not dissent as to this question and answer. Only, we add as to the manner, that the way whereby Christ by his priesthood became the author of salvation consists principally in the offering up of himself to death in and by the shedding of his blood, whereby he obtained for us eternal redemption, Heb. 9:14, 26.

But this Mr B. makes inquiry after:—

Q. How can Christ save them by his priesthood?

A. Heb. 7:25, 9:28.

Ans. We acknowledge the use of the intercession of Christ for the carrying on and the completing of the work of our salvation, as also that it is the apostle's design there to manifest his ability to save beyond what the Aaronical priests could pretend unto, which is mentioned chap. 7:25; but that "he saves us thereby," exclusively to the oblation he made of himself at his death, or any otherwise but as carrying on that work whose foundation was laid therein (redemption being meritoriously procured thereby), I suppose Mr B. doth not think that this place is any way useful to prove. And that place which he subjoins is not added at all to the advantage of his intendment; for it is most evident that it is of the offering of Christ by death and the shedding of his blood, or the sacrifice of himself, as verse 26, that the apostle there speaks.

There is not any thing else that is needful for me to insist upon in this chapter; for though the Scripture instructs us in many other uses that we are to make of the doctrine of the priesthood of Christ than what he expresses in his last question, yet that being one eminent one amongst them (especially the foundation of coming with boldness to the throne of grace, being rightly understood), I shall not need to insist farther on it.

Not to put myself or reader to any needless trouble, Mr B. acknowledging that Christ is a high priest, and having opposed only his investiture with the office whilst he was upon the earth, and that to destroy the atonement made by the sacrifice of himself, having proved that he was a priest properly so called, I shall now prove that he was a high priest whilst he was upon earth, and show afterward what he had to offer, with the efficacy of his sacrifice, and the intent thereof:—

1. The Scripture will speedily determine the difference: Eph. 5:2, "Christ hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour." He that offereth sacrifices and offerings unto God is a priest; so the apostle defines a priest, Heb. 5:1. He is one "taken from amongst men," and "ordained to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins." Now, thus did Christ do in his giving himself for us. Παρέδωκεν, "he delivered himself for us." "To deliver himself," or "to be delivered for us," notes his death, always in contradistinction to any other act of his: so Eph. 5:25, Gal. 2:20, Rom. 8:32, 4:25, Ὃς παρεδόθη διὰ τὰ παραπτώματα ἡμῶν, καὶ ἠγέρθη διὰ τὴν δικαίωσιν ἡμῶν. In that delivery of himself he sacrificed, therefore he was then a priest.

To this Socinus invented an answer, in his book "De Servatore," which he insists on again, Ep. 2 ad Niemojev., and whereunto his followers have added nothing, it being fixed on by them all, in particular by Smalcius in Cat. Rac.; and yet it is in itself ludicrous, and almost jocular. The words, they tell us, are thus to be read: Παρέδωκεν ἑαυτὸν ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν, and there they place a point in the verse, προσφορὰν καὶ θυσίαν τῷ Θεῷ, without any dependence upon the former words; making this to be the sense of the whole: "Christ gave himself to death for us; and O what an offering was that to God! and O what a sacrifice!" that is, in a metaphorical sense; not that Christ offered himself to God for us, but that Paul called his giving himself to die "an offering," or a thing grateful to God, as good works are called "an offering," Phil. 4:18;—that is, the dying of Christ was "præclarum facinus," as Volkelius speaks. But,—

(1.) It is easy to answer or avoid any thing by such ways as this. Divide, cut off sentences in the dependence of the words, and you may make what sense of them you please, or none at all.

(2.) These words, προσφορὰν καὶ θυσίαν, have no other word to be regulated by but παρέδωκεν, and therefore must relate thereunto; and Christ is affirmed in them to have given himself "an offering and a sacrifice."

(3.) These words, "An offering and a sacrifice," are not a commendation of Christ's giving himself, but an illustration and a description of what he gave,—that is, himself, a sacrifice of sweet savour to God. So that notwithstanding this exception (becoming only them that make it), it is evident from hence that Christ offered himself a sacrifice in his death, and was therefore then a priest fitted for that work.

2. Heb. 5:6, 7, "As he saith also in another place, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec. Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death," etc. Verse 6, the apostle tells us that he was a priest; and, verse 7, what he did by virtue of that priesthood,—προσήνεγκε δεήσεις καὶ ἱκετηρίας. It is a temple expression of the office of a priest that is used. So verse 1, a high priest is appointed ἵνα προσφέρῃ, "that he may offer." Now, when did Christ do this? It was "in the days of his flesh, with strong crying and tears;" both which evidence this his offering to have been before his death and at his death. And his mentioning of prayers and tears is not so much to show the matter of his offering, which was himself, as the manner, or at least the concomitants of the sacrifice of himself,—prayers and tears. And these were not for himself, but for his church, and the business that for their sakes he had undertaken.

3. Heb. 1:3, "When he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." The purging of our sins was by sacrifice; there was never any other way καθαρισμοῦ. But now Christ did this before his ascension: Καθαρισμὸν ποιησάμενος,—"When he had by himself," or after he had, "purged our sins;" and that διʼ ἑαυτοῦ, "by himself," or the sacrifice of himself. That our sins are purged by the oblation of Christ the Scripture is clear; hence his blood is said to "cleanse us from all sin," 1 John 1:7. And, Heb. 10:10, "sanctified" is the same with "purged," and this "through the offering of the body of Christ ἐφάπαξ." Christ, then, offering this sacrifice whilst he was on the earth, was a priest in so doing.

Unto this may be added sundry others of the same import: Chap. 7:27, "Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's: for this he did once, when he offered up himself." The one sacrifice of Christ is here compared to the daily sacrifices of the priests. Now, those daily sacrifices were not performed in the most holy place, whither the high priest entered but once in a year; which alone was a representation of heaven: so that what Christ did in heaven cannot answer to them, but what he did on earth, before he entered the holy place not made with hands.

And chap. 9:12, "He entered by his own blood into the holy place, αἰωνίαν λύτρωσιν εὑράμενος,"—"after he had obtained eternal redemption." Redemption is everywhere in the Scripture ascribed to the blood of Christ; and himself abundantly manifesteth in what account it is to be had, when he says that "he gave his life a ransom," or "a price of redemption." Where and when Christ laid down his life we know; and yet that our redemption or freedom is by the offering of Christ for us is as evident: Chap. 9:26, "He put away sin" (which is our redemption) "by the sacrifice of himself;" so that this sacrifice of himself was before he entered the holy place; and consequently he was a priest before his entrance into heaven. It is, I say, apparent from these places that Christ offered himself before he went into the holy place, or sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high; which was to be proved from them.

4. Christ is often said to "offer himself once for all;" designing by that expression some individual action of Christ, and not such a continued course of procedure as is his presentation of himself in heaven, or the continuation of his oblation, as to its efficacy, by his intercession. So Heb. 7:27, Τοῦτο ἐποίησεν ἐφάπαξ· 9:28, Ἅπαξ προσενεχθείς, etc.; 10:10, 12, 14. In all these places the offering of Christ is not only said to be one, but to be once offered. Now, no offering of Christ besides that which he offered on the earth can be said to be once offered; for that which is done in heaven is done always and for ever, but that which is done always cannot be said to be done once for all. To be always done or in doing, as is Christ's offering himself in heaven, and to be done once for all, as was the oblation spoken of in those places, whereby our sins are done away, are plainly contradictory. It is said to be so offered ἅπαξ as to be opposed unto πολλάκις, whereby the apostle expresses that of the Aaronical sacrifice, which in two other words he had before delivered. They were offered εἰς τὸ διηνεκές and καθʼ ἡμέραν, that is, πολλάκις: in which sense his offering himself in heaven cannot be said to be done ἅπαξ, but only that on the cross. Besides, he was ἅπαξ προσενεχθεὶς εἰς τὸ πολλῶν ἀνενεγκεῖν ἁμαρτίας, chap. 9:28, and how he did that we are informed, 1 Pet. 2:24, Ὃς τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν αὐτὸς ἀνήνεγκεν ἐν τῷ σώματι αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τὸ ξύλον,—he did it in his own body on the tree.

Besides, the apostle, Heb. 9:26, tells us that he speaks of such an offering as was accompanied with suffering: "He must often have suffered since the foundation of the world." It was such an offering as could neither be repeated nor continued without suffering that he treats of. We do not deny that Christ offers himself in heaven,—that is, that he presents himself as one that was so offered to his Father; but the offering of himself, that was on earth: and therefore there was he a priest.

5. Once more; that sacrifice which answered those sacrifices whose blood was never carried into the holy place, that must be performed on earth, and not in heaven. That many proper sacrifices were offered as types of Christ, whose blood was not carried into the holy place, the apostle assures us, Heb. 10:11. The daily sacrifices had none of their blood carried into the holy place, for the high priest went in thither only once in the year; but now these were all true sacrifices and types of the sacrifice of Christ, and therefore the sacrifice of Christ also, to answer the types, must be offered before his entrance into heaven, as was in part declared before: yea, there was no other sacrifice of these but what was performed in their killing and slaying; and therefore there must be a sacrifice, prefigured by them, consisting in killing and shedding of blood. All this is asserted by the apostle, Heb. 7:27, "Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins and then for the people's: for this he did once, when he offered up himself." Those sacrifices which were offered καθʼ ἡμέραν, "daily," were types of the sacrifice of Christ, and that of his which was offered ἐφάπαξ did answer thereunto,—which was his death, and nothing else.

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CHAPTER XXI

Of the death of Christ, the causes, ends, and fruits thereof, with an entrance into the doctrine of his satisfaction thereby

MR BIDDLE'S twelfth chapter is concerning the death of Christ, the causes, and fruits, and ends thereof; the error and mistake where-about is the second great head of the Socinian religion. Next to his person, there is not any thing they set themselves so industriously to oppose as his death, in the sense wherein it hath constantly hitherto been embraced by all Christians,—as the great foundation of their faith and confidence.

That the Lord Jesus, our mediator, did not, by his death and sufferings, undergo the penalty of the law as the punishment due to our sins; that he did not make satisfaction to God, or make reconciliation for transgressors; that he did not thereby properly redeem us by the payment of a ransom, nor so suffer for us as that our sins should, in the justice of God, be a meritorious cause of his suffering,—is the second great article of the creed which they labour to assert and maintain.

There is not any thing about which they have laid out so much of their strength as about this, namely, that Jesus Christ is called our Saviour in respect of the way of salvation which he hath revealed to us, and the power committed to him to deliver us and save us, in and by obedience required at our hands, not on the account of any satisfaction he hath made for us, or atonement by the sacrifice of himself.

How Faustus Socinus first broached this opinion, with what difficulty he got it to be entertained with the men of his own profession as to the doctrine of the Trinity, has been before declared. What weight he laid upon this opinion about the death of Christ, and the opposition he had engaged in against his satisfaction, with the diligence he used and the pains he took about the one and the other, is evident from his writings to this purpose which are yet extant. His book, "De Jesu Christo Servatore," is wholly taken up with this argument; so is the greatest part of his "Prelections;" his "Lectiones Sacræ" are some of them on the same subject; and his "Parænesis" against Volanus, many of his epistles, especially those to Smalcius, and Volkelius, and Niemojevius, as also his treatises about justification, have the same design. Smalcius is no less industrious in the same cause, both in his Racovian Catechism and in his answers and replies with Franzius and Smiglecius. It is the main design of Schlichtingius' comment on the Hebrews. Crellius, "De Causis Mortis Christi," and in his defence of Socinus against Grotius, dwells on this doctrine. Volkelius hath his share in the same work, etc.

What those at large contend for, Mr B. endeavours slily to insinuate into his catechumens in this chapter. Having, therefore, briefly spoken of salvation by Christ, and of his mediation in general, in consideration of his sixth and seventh chapters, I shall now, God assisting, take up the whole matter, and, after a brief discovery of his intendment in his queries concerning the death of Christ, give an account of our whole doctrine of his satisfaction, confirming it from the Scriptures, and vindicating it from the exceptions of his masters.

For the order of procedure, I shall first consider Mr B.'s questions; then state the point in difference by expressing what is the judgment of our adversaries concerning the death of Christ, and what we ascribe thereto; and then demonstrate from the Scripture the truth contended for.

Mr B.'s first question is,—

Q. Was it the will and purpose of God that Christ should suffer the death of the cross? What saith the apostle Peter to the Jews concerning this?

A. Acts 2:22, 23.

To which he subjoins,—

Q. What say the disciples in general concerning the same?

A. Acts 4:24–28.

It is not unknown what difference we have both with the Socinians and Arminians about the purposes and efficacious decrees, and the infallibility of the prescience of God. Something already hath been spoken to this purpose, in our discourse concerning the prescience of God, as formerly in that of perseverance. How unable Mr B.'s companions are to disentangle themselves from the evidence of that testimony which is given to the truth we contend for by these texts which here he with so much confidence recites, hath been abundantly by others demonstrated. I shall not here enter into the merits of that cause, nor shall I impose on Mr B. the opinion of any other man which he doth not expressly own; only I shall desire him to reconcile what he here speaks in his query with what he before delivered concerning "God's not foreseeing our free actions that are for to come." What God purposes shall be and come to pass, he certainly foresees that that will come to pass. That Christ should die the death of the cross was to be brought about by the free actions of men, if any thing in the world was ever so, and accomplished in the same manner; yet that this should be done, yea, so done, God purposed: and therefore, without doubt, he foresaw that it should be accomplished, and so foresaw all the free actions whereby it was accomplished. And if he foresaw any one free action, why not all, there being the same reason of one and all? But at the present let this pass. His second question is,—

Q. Did Christ die to reconcile and bring God to us, or, on the contrary, to bring us to God?

A. Rom. 5:10; Eph. 2:14, 16; 2 Cor. 5:19; 1 Pet. 3:18.

That I may by the way speak a little to this question, reserving the full discussion of the matter intended to the ensuing discourse, the terms of it are first to be explained:—

1. By "reconciling God," we intend the making of such an atonement as whereby his wrath or anger, in all the effects of it, is turned away. Though we use not the expression of "reconciling God to us," but of "reconciling us to God," by the taking away or removal of his wrath and anger, or the making reconciliation with God for sin, yet, as to reconcile God intends the appeasing of the justice and anger of God, so that whereas before we were obnoxious to his displeasure, enmity, hatred, and wrath, thereby and on that account, we come to be accepted with him, we say Christ died to reconcile God to us; which in the progress of this discourse, with plentiful demonstrations from the Scripture, shall be evinced.

2. Of "bringing God to us" we speak not; unless by "bringing God to us" he intends the procurement of the grace and favour of God toward us, and his loving presence to be with us, and then we say in that sense Christ by his death brought God to us.

3. "Our reconciliation to God," or the reconciliation as it stands on our part, is our conversion unto God, our deliverance from all that enmity and opposition unto God which are in us by nature; and this also we say is the effect and fruit of the death of Christ.

4. "Our bringing unto God," mentioned 1 Pet. 3:18, is of a larger and more comprehensive signification than that of our reconciliation, containing the whole effect of the death of Christ, in the removal of every hinderance and the collation of every thing necessarily required to the perfect and complete accomplishment of the work of our salvation; and so contains no less the reconciliation of God to us than ours to him, and is not proper to make up one member of the division there instituted, being a general expression of them both.

Now, concerning these things Mr B. inquires whether Christ by his death reconciled God to us, or, on the contrary, us to God; so insinuating that one of these effects of the death of Christ is inconsistent with the other. This seems to be the man's aim:—

1. To intimate that this is the state of the difference between him and us, that we say Christ died "to reconcile God to us;" and he, that he died "to reconcile us to God."

2. That these things are contrary, so that they who say the one must deny the other;—that we, who say that Christ died to reconcile God to us, must of necessity deny that he died to reconcile us to God; and that he also, who saith he died to reconcile us to God, may and must deny, on that account, the other effect by us ascribed to his death. But this sophistry is so gross that it is not worth the while to insist upon its discovery. We say that Christ died to reconcile God to us, in the sense before explained, and us unto God; and these things are so far from being of any repugnancy one to another, as to the making up of one entire end and effect of the death of Christ, that without them both the work of reconciliation is by no means complete.

Not to prevent the full proof and evidence hereof, which is intended, it may at present suffice that we evince it by the light of this one consideration: If in the Scripture it is expressly and frequently affirmed, that, antecedently to the consideration of the death of Christ and the effects thereof, there is not only a real enmity on our part against God, but also a law enmity on the part of God against us, and that both of these are removed by virtue of the death of Christ, then the reconciliation of God to us and our reconciliation to God are both of them one entire effect of the death of Christ. That there is in us by nature a real enmity against God, before it be taken away by virtue of the death of Christ, and so we reconciled to him, is not denied; and if it were, it might be easily evinced from Rom. 8:7, 8, Tit. 3:3, Eph. 2:12, and innumerable other places. And certainly the evidence on the other side, that there was a law-enmity on the part of God against us, antecedent to the consideration of the death of Christ, is no less clear. The great sanction of the law, Gen. 3, Deut. 27:26, considered in conjunction with the justice of God, Rom. 1:32, Hab. 1:13, Ps. 5:4–6, 2 Thess. 1:5, 6, and the testimonies given concerning the state and condition of man in reference to the law and justice of God, John 3:36, Rom. 5:18, Eph. 2:3, 12, etc., with the express assignation of the reconciliation pleaded for to be made by the death of Christ, Dan. 9:24, Heb. 2:14, do abundantly evince it. There being, then, a mutual enmity between God and us, though not of the same kind (it being physical on our part, and legal or moral on the part of God), Christ, our mediator, making up peace and friendship between us doth not only reconcile us to God by his Spirit, but God also to us by his blood. But of this more afterward, under the consideration of the death of Christ as it was a sacrifice.

For the texts cited by Mr B. as making to his purpose, the most, if not all of them, look another way than he intends to use them; they will in the following chapter come under full consideration. Rom. 5:10, "When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son," is the first mentioned. That our being reconciled to God in this place doth not intend our conversion to him, and our deposition of the real enmity that is in us against him, but our acceptance with him upon the account of the atonement made in the blood of Christ, whereby he is reconciled to us, is evident from sundry circumstances of the place; for,—

1. That which is called being "reconciled by his death," in verse 10, is being "justified by his blood," verse 9. The observation of the same antithesis in both verses makes this evident. Now, to be justified by the blood of Christ is not to have our enmity with God slain and destroyed (which is our sanctification), but our acceptation with God upon the account of the shedding of the blood of Christ for us; which is his reconciliation to us.

2. We are thus reconciled when we are enemies, as in the verse insisted on, "When we were enemies, we were reconciled." Now, we are not reconciled in the sense of deposing our enmity to God (that deposition being our sanctification) whilst we are enemies; and therefore it is the reconciliation of God to us that is intended.

3. Verse 11, we are said to "receive" this "reconciliation," or, as the word is rendered, the "atonement," καταλλαγήν. The word is the same with that used verse 10. Now, we cannot be said to receive our own conversion; but the reconciliation of God by the blood of Christ, his favour upon the atonement made, that by faith we do receive.

Thus Mr B.'s first witness speaks expressly against him and the design for the carrying on whereof he was called forth, as afterward will more fully appear.

His second also, of Eph. 2:14, 16, speaks the same language, "He is our peace, who hath made both one, that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby." Setting aside the joint design of the apostle, to manifest the reconciliation made of Jews and Gentiles by the cross of Christ, it is evident the reconciliation here meant consists in slaying the enmity mentioned, so making peace. Now, what is the enmity intended? Not the enmity that is in our hearts to God, but the legal enmity that lay against us on the part of God, as is evident from verse 15 and the whole design of the place, as afterward will appear more fully.

There is, indeed, 2 Cor. 5:18–20, mention made of reconciliation in both the senses insisted on;—of us to God, verse 20, where the apostle saith the end of the ministry is to reconcile us to God, to prevail with us to lay down our enmity against him and opposition to him; of God to us, verse 19, "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself:" which to be the import of the words is evinced from the exegetical expression immediately following, "Not imputing their trespasses unto them." God was so reconciling the world unto himself in Christ as that, upon the account of what was done in Christ, he will not impute their sins; the legal enmity he had against them, on the account whereof alone men's sins are imputed to them, being taken away. And this is farther cleared by the sum of his former discourse, which the apostle gives us, verse 21, declaring how God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself: "For," saith he, "he hath made him sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." Thus he was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, in that he made him to be sin, or a sacrifice for sin, so to make an atonement for us, that we might be accepted before God as righteous on the account of Christ.

Much less doth that of 1 Pet. 3:18, in the last place mentioned, speak at all to Mr B.'s purpose: "Christ hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God." "Bringing to God" is a general expression of the accomplishment of the whole work of our salvation, both in the removal of all hinderances and the collation of all things necessary to the fulfilling of the work. Of this the apostle mentions the great fundamental and procuring cause, which is the suffering of Christ in our stead, the just for the unjust. Christ in our stead suffered for our sins, that he might bring us to God. Now, this suffering of Christ in our stead, for our sins, is most eminently the cause of the reconciliation of God to us; and, by the intimation thereof, of our reconciliation to God, and so of our manuduction to him.

Thus, though it be most true that Christ died to reconcile us to God by our conversion to him, yet all the places cited by Mr B. to prove it (so unhappy is he in his quotations) speak to the defence of that truth which he doth oppose, and not of that which he would assert; and which by asserting in opposition to the truth, with which it hath an eminent consistency, he doth corrupt.

The next question I shall not insist upon; it is concerning the object of the death of Christ and the universality thereof. The words of it are, "For whom did Christ die?" The answer is from 2 Cor. 5:14, 15; 1 Tim. 2:6; Heb. 2:9; John 3:16; where mention is made of "all" and "the world," in reference to the death of Christ. The question concerning the object of the death of Christ, or for whom he died, hath of late by very many been fully discussed, and I have myself spoken elsewhere somewhat to that purpose. It shall not, then, here be insisted on. In a word, we confess that Christ died for "all" and for "the world;" but whereas it is very seldom that these words are comprehensive of all and every man in the world, but most frequently are used for some of all sorts,—they for whom Christ died being in some places expounded to be "the church, believers, the children, those given unto him out of the world," and nowhere described by any term expressive constantly of an absolute universality,—we say the words insisted on are to be taken in the latter sense, and not the former; being ready, God assisting, to put it to the issue and trial with our adversaries when we are called thereunto.

He proceeds:—

Q. What was the procuring cause of Christ's death?

A. Rom. 4:25; Isa. 53:5; 1 Cor. 15:3.

The expressions are, that Christ was "delivered for our offences," that Christ was "bruised for our iniquities," and "died for our sins."

That in these and the like places, that clause, "For our offences, iniquities, and sins," is expressive of the procuring cause of the death of Christ, Mr B. grants. Sin can be no otherwise the procuring cause of the death of Christ but as it is morally meritorious thereof. To say, "Our sins were the procuring cause of the death of Christ," is to say that our sins merited the death of Christ; and whereas this can no otherwise be but as our sins were imputed to him, and he was put to death for them, Mr B. hath in this one question granted the whole of what in this subject he contends against! If our sins were the procuring cause of the death of Christ, then the death of Christ was that punishment which was due to them, or in the justice, or according to the tenor, of the law of God, was procured by them; and so, consequently, he in his death underwent the penalty of our sins, suffering in our stead, and making thereby satisfaction for what we had done amiss. Mr B.'s masters say generally that the expression of "dying for our sins" denotes the final cause of the death of Christ; that is, Christ intended by his death to confirm the truth, in obedience whereunto we shall receive forgiveness of sin. This grant of Mr B.'s, that the procuring cause of the death of Christ is hereby expressed, will perhaps appear more prejudicial to his whole cause than he is yet aware of, especially being proposed in distinction from the final cause or end of the death of Christ, which in the next place he mentions, as afterward will more fully appear; although, I confess, he is not alone, Crellius making the same concession.

The last question of this chapter is, "What are the ends of Christ's suffering and death intimated by the Scripture?" whereunto, by way of answer, sundry texts of Scripture are subjoined, every one of them expressing some one end or other, some effect or fruit, something of the aim and intendment of Christ in his suffering and death; whereunto exceeding many others might be annexed. But this business of the death of Christ, its causes, ends, and influence into the work of our salvation,—the manifestation that therein he underwent the punishment due to our sins, making atonement and giving satisfaction for them, redeeming us properly by the price of his blood, etc.,—being of so great weight and importance as it is, lying at the very bottom and foundation of all our hope and confidence, I shall, leaving Mr B., handle the whole matter at large in the ensuing chapters.

For our more clear and distinct procedure in this important head of the religion of Jesus Christ, I shall first lay down the most eminent considerations of the death of Christ as proposed in the Scripture, and then give an account of the most special effects of it in particular, answering to those considerations of it; in all manifesting wherein the expiation of our sins by his blood doth consist.

The principal considerations of the death of Christ are of it,—I. As a price; II. As a sacrifice; III. As a penalty: of which in the order wherein they are mentioned.

CHAPTER XXII

The several considerations of the death of Christ as to the expiation of our sins thereby, and the satisfaction made therein

First, Of it as a price; secondly, As a sacrifice

I. THE death of Christ in this business is a PRICE, and that properly so called: 1 Cor. 6:20, Ἠγοράσθητε τιμῆς,—"Ye are bought with a price." And if we will know what that price was with which we are bought, the Holy Ghost informs us, 1 Pet. 1:18, 19, "Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ." It is the blood of Christ which in this business hath that use which silver and gold have in the redeeming of captives; and paid it is into the hand of him by whose power and authority the captive is detained, as shall be proved. And himself tells us what kind of a price it is that is so paid; it is λύτρον, Matt. 20:28, "He came to lay down his life λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν·" which, for its more evidence and clearness, is called ἀντίλυτρον, 1 Tim. 2:6, "a price of redemption" for the delivery of another.

The first mention of a ransom in the Scripture is in Exod. 21:30: "If there be laid on him a sum of money, then he shall give for the ransom of his life whatsoever is laid on him." The word in the original is פִּדְיֹן; which the LXX. there render λύτρα· Δώσει λύτρα τῆς ψυχῆς αὐτοῦ. And it is used again in the same sense, Ps. 49:9; and in both places intends a valuable price, to be paid for the deliverance of that which, upon guilt, became obnoxious to death. It is true, the word is from פָּדָה, "redimere, vindicare, asserere in libertatem," by any ways and means, by power, strength, or otherwise; but where-ever it is applied to such a kind of redemption as had a price going along with it, the LXX. constantly render it by ἀπολυτροῦν, and sometimes λυτρώσασθαι, otherwise by ῥύομαι, and the like.

It is, then, confessed that פָּדָה in the Old Testament is sometimes taken for redemit in a metaphorical sense, not strictly and literally by the intervention of a price; but that λυτρώσασθαι, the word whereby it is rendered when a price intervened, is ever so taken in the New Testament, is denied. Indeed, Moses is called λυτρωτής, Acts 7:35, in reference to the metaphorical redemption of Israel out of Egypt,—a deliverance by power and a strong arm; but shall we say, because that word is used improperly in one place, where no price could be paid, where God plainly says it was not done by a price but by power, therefore it must be so used in those places where there is express mention of a price, both the matter of it and its formality as a price, and speaketh not a word of doing it any other way but by the payment of a price? But of this afterward.

There is mention of "a ransom" in ten places of the Old Testament; "to ransom" and "ransomed" in two or three more. In two of these places, Exod. 21:30 and Ps. 49:9, the word is פִּדְיֹן, from פָּדָה, as before, and rendered by the LXX. λύτρον. In all other places it is in the Hebrew כֹּפֶר, which properly signifies a propitiation, as Ps. 49:9; which the LXX. have variously rendered. Twice it is mentioned in Job, chap. 33:24 and 36:18. In the first place they have left it quite out, and in the latter so corrupted the sense that they have rendered it altogether unintelligible. Prov. 6:35 and 13:8, they have properly rendered it λύτρον, or a price of redemption, it being in both places used in such business as a ransom useth to be accepted in. Chap. 21:18, they have properly rendered it to the subject-matter, περικάθαρμα. Περικαθάρματα are things publicly devoted to destruction, as it were to turn away anger from others, coming upon them for their sakes.

So is κάθαρμα, "homo piacularis pro lustratione et expiatione patriæ devotus;" whence the word is often used, as scelus in Latin, for a wicked man, a man fit to be destroyed and taken away. Γρύζειν δὲ καὶ τολμᾶτον ὦ καθάρματε, says he in the poet. Καθαρμός is used in the same sense by Herodotus: Καθαρμὸν τῆς χώρης ποιευμένων Ἀχαιῶν, Ἀθάμαντα τὸν Αἰόλου,—"Athamas was made a piaculum, or a propitiation for the country." Whence Budæus renders that of the apostle, Ὡς περικαθάρματα τοῦ κόσμου ἐγενήθημεν, "Nos tanquam piacula mundi facti sumus, et succedaneæ pro populo victimæ,"—"We are as the accursed things of the world, and sacrifices for the people," 1 Cor. 4:13; reading the words, ὥσπερ καθάρματα, not ὠς περικαθάρματα: the Greek scholiast, who reads it as we commonly do, rendering it by ἀποσαρώματα, as the Vulgar Latin "purgamenta," to the same purpose,—such as have all manner of filth cast upon them. And Isa. 43:3, they have rendered the same word ἄλλαγμα, "a commutation by price." So Matt. 16:26, Τὶ δώσει ἄνθρωπος ἀντάλλαγμα τῆς ψυχῆς, "a price in exchange." Now, in all these places and others, the Hebrews use the word כֹּפֶר, "a propitiation," by way of allusion; as is most especially evident from that of Isaiah, "I will give Egypt a propitiation for thee." That is, as God is atoned by a propitiatory sacrifice, wherein something is offered him in the room of the offender, so will he do with them,—put them into trouble in room of the church, as the sacrificed beast was in the room of him for whom it was sacrificed. And hence does that word signify a ransom, because what God appointed in his worship to redeem any thing that by the law was devoted, which was a compensation by his institution (as a clean beast in the room of a first-born was to be offered a sacrifice to God), was so called. And the word "satisfaction," which is but once used in the Scripture, or twice together, Num. 35:31, is כֹפֶר in the original. כֹפֶר, indeed, is originally "pitch" or "bitumen;" hence what God says to Noah about making the ark, וְבָפַרְתָּ, Gen. 6:14, the LXX. have rendered ἀσφαλτώσεις τῇ ἀσφάλτῳ,—"bituminabis bitumine." כִפֶּר in pihel is "placavit, expiavit, expiationem fecit;" because by sacrifice sins are covered as if they had not been, to cover or hide being the first use of the word.

And this is the rise and use of the word "ransom" in the Scripture, both פִּדְיֹן, פָּדֹה and כֹפָר, which are rendered by λύτρον, περικάθαρμα, ἀντίλυτρον, ἄλλαγμα. It denotes properly a price of redemption, a valuable compensation made by one thing for another, either in the native signification, as in the case of the first word, or by the first translation of it from the sacrifice of atonement, as in the latter. Of this farther afterward, in the business of redemption. For the present it sufficeth that the death of Christ was a price of ransom, and these are the words whereby it is expressed.

II. It was a SACRIFICE; and what sacrifice it was shall be declared:—

That Christ offered a sacrifice is abundantly evident from what was said before, in the consideration of the time and place when and wherein Christ was a high priest. The necessity of this the apostle confirms, Heb. 8:3, "For every high priest is ordained to offer both gifts and sacrifices: wherefore it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer." If he be a priest, he must have a sacrifice; the very nature of his employment requires it. The whole and entire office and employment of a high priest, as a priest, consists in offering sacrifice, with the performance of those things which did necessarily precede and follow that action. It is of necessity, then, that he should also have somewhat to offer as a sacrifice to God.

For the other part of our inquiry, namely, what it was that he sacrificed, I shall manifest in this order of process (taking leave to enlarge a little in this, intending not so much the thing, proved before, as the manner of it):—1. He was not to offer any sacrifice that any priest had offered before by God's appointment; 2. He did not actually offer any such sacrifice; 3. I shall show positively what he did offer.

1. He was not to offer any sacrifice that the priests of old had appointed for them to offer. He came to do another manner of work than could be brought about with the blood of bulls and goats. It cost more to redeem our souls. That which was of more worth in itself, of nearer concernment to him that offered it, of a more manifold alliance to them for whom it was offered, and of better acceptation with God, to whom it was offered, was to be his sacrifice. This is the aim of the Holy Ghost, Heb. 10:1–7, "For the law," etc.

This is the sum of the apostle's discourse: The sacrifices instituted by the law could not effect or work that which Christ, our high priest, was to accomplish by his sacrifice; and therefore he was not to offer them, but they were to be abolished, and something else to be brought in that might supply their room and defect.

What was wanting in these sacrifices the apostle ascribes to the law whereby they were instituted. (1.) The law could not do it; that is, the ceremonial law could not do it. The law which instituted and appointed these sacrifices could not accomplish that end of the institution by them. And with this expression of it he subjoins a reason of this weakness of the law: "It had a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things" themselves,—an obscure representation of those good things which, when they were instituted and in force, were μέλλοντα, to come, though now actually exhibited and existent; that is, Jesus Christ himself, and the good things of the gospel accompanying of him. It had but a "shadow" of these things, not the "image,"—that is, the substance of them; for so I had rather understand "image" here substantially, as that may be called the image of a picture by which it is drawn, than to make σκιά and εἰκών here to differ but gradually, [i. e., in degree,] as the first rude shape and proportion and the perfect limning of any thing do. The reason, then, why all the solemn, operose, burdensome service of old could not of itself take away sin, is because it did not contain Christ in it, but only had a shadow of him.

(2.) The apostle instances, in particular, by what means the law could not do this great work of "making the comers thereunto perfect;" τοῦς προσερχομένους,—that is, those who come to God by it, the worshippers; which is spoken in opposition to what is said of Christ, Heb. 7:25, "He is able to save to the uttermost τοὺς προσερχομένους,"—"those that come to God by him." The word expresseth any man under the consideration of one coming to God for acceptation; as chap. 11:6, "He that cometh unto God,"—Δεῖ τὸν προσερχόμενον. These it could not make perfect; that is, it could not perfectly atone God, and so take away their sins that the conscience should no more be troubled or tormented with the guilt of sin, as chap. 10:2–4. By what could not the law do this? By those sacrifices which it offered year by year continually.

Not to speak of sacrifices in general, the sacrifices of the Jews may be referred to four heads:—

(1.) The daily sacrifice of morning and evening, which is instituted Exod. 29:38, 39; which being omitted, was renewed by Nehemiah, chap. 10:33, and wholly taken away for a long season by Antiochus, according to the prophecy of Daniel, chap. 11:31. This is the juge sacrificium, typifying Christ's constant presence with his church in the benefit of his death always.

(2.) Voluntary and occasional, which had no prefixed time nor matter; so that they were of such creatures as God had allowed to be sacrificed, they were left to the will of the offerer, according as occasion and necessity were by providence administered. Now, of these sacrifices there was a peculiar reason, that did not, as far as I can find, belong unto any of the rest. The judicial government of that nation being, as their own historian, Josephus, calls it, Θεοκρατία, and immediately in the hand of God, he appointed these voluntary sacrifices, which were a part of his religious worship, to have a place also in the judicial government of the people; for whereas he had appointed death to be the punishment due to every sin, he allowed that for many sins sacrifice should be offered for the expiating of the guilt contracted in that commonwealth of which himself was the governor. Thus for many sins of ignorance and weakness, and other perversities, sacrifice was offered, and the guilty person died not, according to the general tenor of the law, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all these things." Hence David, in his great sin of murder and adultery, flees to mere mercy, acknowledging that God had appointed no sacrifice for the expiation of those sins as to the guilt political contracted in that commonwealth, though otherwise no sins nor sinners were excluded from the benefit of sacrifices, Ps. 51:16. This was their political regard; which they had and could have only on this account, that God was the supreme political governor of that people, their lord and king.

(3.) Sacrifices extraordinary on solemn occasions, which seem some of them to be mixed of the two former kinds, stated and voluntary. Such was Solomon's great sacrifice at the dedication of the temple. These partly answered the sacrifice instituted at the dedication of the altar and tabernacle, partly the free-will offerings which God allowed the people, according to their occasions, and appointed them for them.

(4.) Appointed sacrifices on solemn days; as on the sabbath, new moons, passover, feast of weeks, lesser and greater jubilee, but especially the solemn anniversary sacrifice of expiation, when the high priest entered into the holy place with the blood of the beast sacrificed, on the tenth day of the month Tisri. The institution of this sacrifice you have Lev. 16 throughout. The matter of it was one bullock, and two goats, or kids of goats, verses 3, 5. The manner was this:—[1.] In the entrance, Aaron offered one bullock peculiarly for himself and his house, verse 6. [2.] Lots were cast on the two goats, one to be a sin-offering, the other to be azazel, verses 8, 9. [3.] The bullock and goat being slain, the blood was carried into the holy place. [4.] Azazel, having all the sins of the people confessed over him, was sent into the wilderness to perish, verse 21. [5.] The end of this sacrifice was atonement and cleansing, verse 30. Of the whole nature, ends, significancy, and use of this sacrifice, as of others, elsewhere; at present I attend only to the thesis proposed.

Now, if perfect atonement and expiation might be expected from any of the sacrifices so instituted by God, certainly it might be from this; therefore this doth the apostle choose to instance in. This was the sacrifice offered κατʼ ἐνιαυτόν and εἰς τὸ διηνεκές. But these, saith he, could not do it; the law by them could not do it. And this he proves with two arguments:—

1st. From the event: Heb. 10:2, 3, "For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there was a remembrance again made of sins every year." The words of the second verse are to be read with an interrogation, conclusive in the negative: "Would they not have ceased to have been offered?" that is, certainly they would. And because they did not do so, it is evident from the event that they could not take away sin. In most copies the words are, Ἐπεὶ ἂν ἐπαύσαντο προσφερόμεναι. Those that add the negative particle οὐκ put it for οὐχί, as it is frequently used.

2dly. From the nature of the thing itself: Verse 4, "For it was not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins." The reason in these words is evident and plain, especially that of verse 4. There is a twofold impossibility in the thing;—

(1st.) In regard of impetration. It was impossible they should really atone God, who was provoked. First, the conjunction between the sinner and the sacrificed beast was not such or so near (being only that of possessor and possessed) that really, and beyond representation and type, the blood of the one could satisfy for the sin of the other. Much less, secondly, was there an innate worth of the blood of any beast, though never so innocent, to atone the justice of God, that was offended at sin, Micah 6:6, 7. Nor, thirdly, was there any will in them for such an undertaking or commutation. The sacrifice was bound with cords to the horns of the altar; Christ went willingly to the sacrifice of himself.

(2dly.) In regard of application. The blood of common sacrifices being once shed was a dead thing, and had no more worth nor efficacy; it could not possibly be a "living way" for us to come to God by, nor could it be preserved to be sprinkled upon the conscience of the sinner.

Hence doth the apostle make it evident, in the first place, that Christ was not to offer any of the sacrifices which former priests had offered, first, Because it was utterly impossible that by such sacrifices the end of the sacrifice which he was to offer should be accomplished. This also he proves, secondly, Because God had expressly disallowed those sacrifices as to that end. Not only it was impossible in the nature of the thing itself, but also God had absolutely rejected the tender of them as to the taking away sin and bringing sinners to God.

But it may be said, "Did not God appoint them for that end and purpose, as was spoken before? The end of the sacrifice in the day of expiation was to atone and cleanse: Lev. 16:30, 'On that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you' (for the priest made an atonement actively, by offering the sacrifice; the sacrifice itself passively, by undergoing the penalty of death: Christ, who was both priest and sacrifice, did both.)" I answer, They were never appointed of God to accomplish that end by any real worth and efficacy of their own, but merely to typify, prefigure, and point out, him and that which did the work which they represented; and so served, as the apostle speaks, "until the time of reformation," Heb. 9:10. They served the use of that people in the under-age condition wherein God was pleased to keep them.

But now that God rejected them as to this end and purpose, the apostle proves by the testimony of David, speaking of the acceptance of Christ: Ps. 40:6, 7, "Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt-offering and sin-offering hast thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I come," etc.; which the apostle insists on, Heb. 10:5–9. There are several accounts upon which God in Scripture is said to disregard and not to approve or accept of sacrifices which yet were of his own institution:—First, In respect of the hypocrisy of the offerers. That people being grown formal and corrupt, trusted in sacrifices and the work wrought in them, and said that by them they should be justified: God, expressing his indignation against such sacrifices, or the sacrifices of such persons, rejects the things themselves wherein they trusted, that is, in reference to them that used them. This is the intention of the Holy Ghost, Isa. 1:12, 13. But this is not the cause of their rejection in this place of the psalmist, for he speaketh of them who walked with God in uprightness and waited for his salvation, even of himself and other saints, as appears in the context, verse 1, etc. Secondly, Comparatively. They are rejected as to the outward work of them, in comparison of his more spiritual worship, as Ps. 50:12–14. But neither are they here rejected on that account, nor is there mention of any opposition between the outward worship of sacrifice and any other more spiritual and internal part thereof, but between sacrifice and the boring of the ears, or preparing of the body of Christ, as expressly, verse 6.

Their rejection, then, here mentioned, is in reference to that which is asserted in opposition to them, and in reference to the end for which that is asserted. Look to what end Christ had a body fitted and prepared, for and to that end, and the compassing of it, are all sacrifices rejected of God. Now, this was to take away sin, so that as to that end are they rejected.

And here, in our passage, may we remove what the Racovian Catechism gives us as the difference between the expiation under the old testament and that under the new; concerning which, cap. de Mun. Chris. Sacer. q. 5, they thus inquire:—

Q. What is the difference between the expiation of sin in the old and new testament?

A. The expiation of sins under the new testament is not only much different from that under the old, but also is far better and more excellent; and that chiefly for two causes. The first is, that under the old testament, expiation by those legal sacrifices was appointed only for those sins which happened upon imprudence and infirmity; from whence they were also called infirmities and ignorances: but for greater sins, such as were manifest transgressions of the command of God, there were no sacrifices instituted, but the punishment of death was proposed to them; and if God did forgive such to any, he did not do it by virtue of the covenant, but of singular mercy, which God, beside the covenant, did afford when and to whom he would. But under the new covenant, not only those sins are expiated which happen by imprudence and infirmity, but those also which are transgressions of most evident commands of God, whilst he who happened so to fall doth not continue therein, but is changed by true repentance, and falleth not into that sin again. The latter cause is, because under the old testament expiation of sins was so performed that only temporal punishment was taken away from them whose sins were expiated; but under the new the expiation is such as not only takes away temporal but eternal punishment, and in their stead offers eternal life, promised in the covenant, to them whose sins are expiated.

Thus they. Some brief animadversions will give the reader a clear account of this discourse:—Sundry things are here splendidly supposed by our catechists, than which nothing could be imagined or invented more false; as, that the covenant was not the same for substance under the old and new testament, before and after the coming of Christ in the flesh; that those under the old testament were not pardoned or saved by Christ; that death temporal was all that was threatened by the law; that God forgave sin, and not in or by the covenant; that there were no promises of eternal life under the old testament, etc. On these and the like goodly principles is this whole discourse erected. Let us now consider their assertions.

The first is, That expiation by legal sacrifices was only for some sins, and not for all, as sins of infirmity and ignorance, not great crimes: wherein, First, They suppose that the legal sacrifices did by themselves and their own efficacy expiate sin; which is directly contrary to the discourse of the apostle now insisted on. Secondly, Their affirmation hereon is most false. Aaron, making an atonement for sin, "confessed over the goat all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins," Lev. 16:21; and, besides, all manner of sins are comprised under these expressions, "ignorances and infirmities."

Secondly, They say, "For greater sins there was then no expiation, but death was threatened to them." But, First, Then none that ever committed such sins were saved; for without expiation there is no salvation. Secondly, Death was threatened and inflicted without mercy for some sins, as the law with its judicial additaments was the rule of the judaical polity, and for those sins there was no sacrifice for a deliverance from death temporal; but death was threattened to every sin, small and great, as the law was a rule of moral obedience unto God; and so in respect of sacrifices there was no distinction. This difference of sacrifices for some sins, and not for others, in particular, did depend merely on their use by God's appointment in the commonwealth of that people, and had no regard to the spiritual expiation of sin, which they typified.

Thirdly, That God forgave the sins of his people of old by singular mercy, and not by virtue of his covenant, is a bold figment. God exercises no singular mercy but in the covenant thereof, Eph. 2:12.

Fourthly, Their condition of expiation (by the way) under the new testament, "That the sinner fall not again into the same sin," in a matter that these men understand not; but this is no place to discuss it.

Fifthly, That the expiation under the old testament reached only to the removal of temporal punishment is another imagination of our catechists. It was death eternal that was threatened as the punishment due to the transgression of the law, as it was the rule of obedience to God, as hath been proved, even the death that Christ delivered us from, Rom. 5:12, etc.; Heb. 2:14, 15. God was atoned by those sacrifices, according to their way of making atonement, Lev. 16:30; so that the punishment avoided was eternal punishment. Neither is this, indeed, spoken by our catechists as though they believed any punishment should be eternal; but they only hide themselves in the ambiguity of the expression, it being annihilation they intend thereby. The πρῶτον ψεῦδος of this discourse is, that expiation by sacrifices was no other than what was done really by the sacrifices themselves; so everting their typical nature and institution, and divesting them of the efficacy of the blood of Christ, which they did represent.

Sixthly, It is confessed that there is a difference between the expiation under the old testament and that under the new, but this is of application and manifestation, not of impetration and procurement. This is "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever."

But they plead proof of Scripture for what they say, in the ensuing question:—

Q. How dost thou demonstrate both these?

A. That the sins which could not be expiated under the old testament are all expiated under the new, Paul witnesseth, Acts 13:38, 39; and the same is also affirmed Rom. 3:26, Heb. 9:15: but that sins are so expiated under the new testament as that also eternal punishment is removed, and life eternal given, we have Heb. 9:12.

This work will speedily be at an issue. First, It is denied that Paul, Acts 13:38, 39, makes a distinction of sins, whereof some might be expiated by Moses' law, and others not. He says no more there than in this place to the Hebrews,—namely, that the legal sacrifices, wherein they rested and trusted, could not of themselves free them or their consciences from sin, or give them peace with God, being but types and shadows of good things to come, the body being Christ, by whom alone all justification from sin is to be obtained. Absolutely, the sacrifices of the law expiated no sin, and so were they rested in by the Jews; typically, they expiated all, and so Paul calls them from them to the antitype (or rather thing typified), now actually exhibited.

Secondly, The two next places, of Rom. 3:25, Heb. 9:15, do expressly condemn the figment they strive to establish by them, both of them assigning the pardon of sins that were past and their expiation unto the blood and sacrifice of Christ. Though there were, then, purifications, purgations, sacrifices, yet the meritorious and efficient cause of all expiation was the blood of Christ; which manifests the expiation under the old and new testament for substance to have been the same.

Thirdly, That the expiation under the new testament is accompanied with deliverance from eternal punishment and a grant of life eternal is confessed; and so also was that under the old, or it was no expiation at all, that had respect neither to God nor the souls of men. But to proceed with the sacrifice of Christ.

This is the first thing I proposed: Christ being to offer sacrifice, was not to offer the sacrifices of the priests of old, because they could never bring about what he aimed at in his sacrifice. It was impossible in the nature of the thing itself, and they were expressly as to that end rejected of God himself.

2. Christ as a priest did never offer those sacrifices. It is true, as one made under the law, and whom it became to fulfil all righteousness, he was present at them; but as a priest he never offered them: for the apostle expressly affirms that he could not be a priest that had right to offer those sacrifices (as before); and he positively refuses the owning himself for such a priest, when, having cured the leprous man, he bade him go show himself to the priest, according to the law.

3. What Christ did offer indeed, as his sacrifice, is nextly to be mentioned. This the apostle expresseth in that which is asserted in opposition to the sacrifices rejected: Heb. 10:5, "But a body hast thou prepared me."

The words in the psalm are in the sound of them otherwise: Ps. 40:6, אָזְנַים בָּרִיתָ לִּי,—"Mine ears hast thou digged;" which the LXX. render, and the apostle from them, Σῶμα κατηρτίσω μοι,—"A body hast thou prepared me." Of the accommodation of the interpretation to the original there is much contention. Some think here is an allusion to the custom among the Jews of boring the ear of him who was, upon his own consent, to be a servant for ever. Now, because Christ took a body to be obedient and a servant to his Father, this is expressed by the boring of the ear; which therefore the LXX. render by "preparing a body" wherein he might be so obedient. But this to me seems too curious on the part of the allusion, and too much strained on the part of the application; and therefore I shall not insist on it.

Plainly, בָּרָה signifies not only, in its first sense, to "dig," but also to "prepare;" and is so rendered by the LXX. Now, whereas the original expresseth only the ears, which are the organ by which we hear and become obedient (whence to hear is sometimes as much as to be obedient), it mentions the ears synecdochically for the whole body, which God so prepared for obedience to himself; and that which the original expressed synecdochically, the LXX., and after them the apostle, rendered more plainly and fully, naming the whole body wherein he obeyed, when the ears were only expressed, whereby he learned obedience.

The interpretation of this place by the Socinians is as ridiculous as any they make use of. Take it in the words of Volkelius:—

Add hereto that the mortal body of Christ, which he had before his death, yea, before his ascension into heaven, was not fit for his undergoing this office of priesthood or wholly to accomplish the sacrifice; wherefore the divine writer to the Hebrews, chap. 10:5, declareth that then he had a perfect body, accommodated unto this work, when he went into the world that is to come, which is heaven.

A heap of foolish imaginations! First, The truth is, no body but a mortal body was fit to be this sacrifice, which was to be accomplished, according to all the types of it, by shedding of blood; without which there is no remission. Secondly, It is false that Christ had a mortal body after his resurrection, or that he hath any other body now in heaven than what he rose withal. Thirdly, It is false that "the world," spoken of simply, doth anywhere signify the world to come, or that "the world" here signifies heaven. Fourthly, It is false that the coming into the world signifies going out of the world, as it is here interpreted. Fifthly, Christ's bringing into the world was by his incarnation and birth, Heb. 1:6, according to the constant use of that expression in the Scripture; as his ascension is his leaving the world and going to his Father, John 13:1, 14:12, 16:28.

But I must not insist on this. It is the body that God prepared Christ for his obedience,—that is, his whole human nature,—that is asserted for the matter of Christ's offering; for the clearing whereof the reader may observe that the matter of the offering and sacrifice of Christ is expressed three ways:—

(1.) It is said to be of the body and blood of Christ, Heb. 10:10. The offering of the body of Jesus and the blood of Christ is said to purge us from our sins, that is, by the sacrifice of it, and in his blood have we redemption, Eph. 1:7, 1 John 1:7; and by his own blood did he enter into the holy place, Heb. 9:12, and most expressly chap. 13:12.

(2.) His soul: Isa. 53:10, "When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin."

(3.) It is most frequently said to be himself that was offered, Eph. 5:2, Heb. 1:3, 9:14, 25, 26, 7:27. Hence it appears what was the matter of the sacrifice of this high priest, even himself: he sacrificed himself,—his whole human nature; he offered up his body and soul as a propitiatory sacrifice to God, a sacrifice for atonement and expiation.

Farther to clear this, I must desire the reader to take notice of the import of this expression, "He sacrificed himself," or Christ sacrificed himself. "He," in the first place, as it is spoken of the sacrificer, denotes the person of Christ, and both natures therein; "himself," as the sacrificed, is only the human nature of Christ, wherein and whereof that sacrifice was made. He makes the atonement actively, as the priest; himself passively, as the sacrifice:—

[1.] "He" is the person of Christ, God and man jointly and distinctly acting in the work:—

1st. As God: Heb. 9:14, "Through, the eternal Spirit he offered himself to God." His eternal Spirit or Deity was the principal agent, offering; and wherever there is mention of Christ's offering himself, it relates principally to the person, God-man, who offered.

2dly. The free will of his human nature was in it also; so Heb. 10:7, "Lo, I come to do thy will." When God had prepared him a body, opened his ears, he says, "Lo, I come to do thy will," as it was written of him in the volume of God's book. And that this expression, "Lo, I come to do thy will," sets out the readiness of the human will of Christ, is evident from that exposition which is given of it, Ps. 40:8, "Yea, thy law is within my heart," or "in the midst of my bowels;"—"Thy law, the law of the mediator, that I am to undertake, it is in the midst of my heart;" which is an expression of the greatest readiness and willingness possible.

He, then, that offers is our mediator, God and man in one person; and the offering is the act of the person.

[2.] "Himself," offered as the matter of the sacrifice, is only the human nature of Christ, soul and body, as was said; which is evident from the description of a sacrifice, what it is.

A sacrifice is a religious oblation, wherein something by the ministry of a priest, appointed of God thereunto, is dedicated to God, and destroyed as to what it was, for the ends and purposes of spiritual worship whereunto it is instituted. I shall only take notice of that one part of this definition, which asserts that the thing sacrificed was to be destroyed as to what it was. This is clear from all the sacrifices that ever were; either they were slain, or burned, or sent to destruction. Now, the person of Christ was not dissolved, but the union of his natures continued, even then when the human nature was in itself destroyed by the separation of soul and body. It was the soul and body of Christ that was sacrificed, his body being killed and his soul separated; so that at that season it was destroyed as to what it was, though it was impossible he should be detained by death.

And this sacrifice of Christ was typified by the two goats: his body, whose blood was shed, by the goat that was slain visibly; and his soul by azazel, on whose head the sins of the people were confessed, and he sent away into the wilderness, to suffer there by a fall or famishment.

This also will farther appear in our following consideration of the death of Christ as a punishment, when I shall show that he suffered both in soul and body.

But it may be said, "If only the human nature of Christ was offered, how could it be a sacrifice of such infinite value as to [satisfy] the justice of God for all the sins of all the elect, whereunto it was appointed?"

Ans. Though the thing sacrificed was but finite, yet the person sacrificing was infinite, and the ἀποτέλεσμα of the action follows the agent, that is, our mediator, Θεάνθρωπος,—whence the sacrifice was of infinite value.

And this is the second consideration of the death of Christ,—it was a sacrifice. What is the peculiar influence of his death as a sacrifice into the satisfaction he hath made shall be declared afterward.

From what hath been spoken, a brief description of the sacrifice of Christ, as to all the concernments of it, may be taken:—

1. The person designing, appointing, and instituting this sacrifice, is God the Father, as in grace contriving the great work of the salvation of the elect. "A body did he prepare him;" and therein "he came to do his will," Heb. 10:5, 7, in that which he did, which the sacrifices of old could not do. He came to fulfil the will of God, his appointment and ordinance, being his servant therein, made βραχύ τι, less than the Father, that he might be obedient to death. God the Father sent him when he made his soul an offering.

2. He to whom it was offered was God, God essentially considered, with his glorious property of justice, which was to be atoned: "He gave himself an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour," Eph. 5:2; that is, to atone him, being provoked, as we shall see afterward.

3. The person offering was Christ, the mediator, God and man: "He offered himself to God," Heb. 9:14. And because he did it who was God and man, and as God and man, God is said to "redeem his church with his own blood," Acts 20:28.

4. The matter of the sacrifice was his whole human nature, body and soul, called "himself," as I have showed in sundry particulars.

5. The immediate efficient cause of his offering, and the destruction of that which he offered unto God, as before described, was his own will: "Lo, I come," saith he, "to do thy will," Heb. 10:7; and, "No man," saith he, "taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of myself: I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again," John 10:18. What men and devils did to him, or what he suffered from the curse of the law, comes under another consideration,—as his death was a penalty; as it was a sacrifice, his own will was all the cause immediately effecting it.

6. The fire that was to set this holocaust on a flame was the Holy Spirit: Heb. 9:14, "Through the Eternal Spirit." That the fire which came down from heaven and was always kept alive upon the altar was a type of the Holy Ghost might easily be demonstrated. I have done it elsewhere. Now, the Holy Spirit did this in Christ; he was offered through the Eternal Spirit, as others were by fire.

7. The Scripture speaks nothing of the altar on which Christ was offered; some assign the cross. That of our Saviour is abundantly sufficient to evince the folly thereof, Matt. 23:18, 19. If the cross was the altar, it was greater than Christ, and sanctified him; which is blasphemy. Besides, Christ himself is said to be an altar, Heb. 13:10; and he is said to sanctify himself to be an offering or a sacrifice, John 17:19. So that, indeed, the deity of Christ, that supported, bore up, and sanctified the human nature as offered, was the altar, and the cross was but an instrument of the cruelty of man, that taketh place in the death of Christ as it was a penalty, but hath no place in it as a sacrifice.

That this sacrifice of Christ was a sacrifice of propitiation, as made by blood, as answering the typical sacrifices of old, and that the end and effect of it was atonement or reconciliation, shall elsewhere be more fully manifested; the discovery of it, also, will in part be made by what in the ensuing discourse shall be spoken about reconciliation itself.

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CHAPTER XXIII

Of the death of Christ as it was a punishment, and the satisfaction made thereby

So is the death of Christ revealed as a price and a sacrifice. What are the proper effects of it under these considerations shall be afterward declared.

III. The third consideration of it is its being a PENALTY or a punishment. To clear this I shall demonstrate four things:—1. What punishment, properly so called, is; 2. That Christ's death was a punishment, or that in his death he did undergo punishment; 3. What that was that Christ underwent, or the material cause of that punishment; 4. Wherein the formality of its being a punishment did consist, or whence that dispensation had its equity.

For the FIRST, I shall give, 1. The definition of it, or the description of its general nature; 2. The ends of it are to be considered.

1. For the first, that usual general description seemeth to be comprehensive of the whole nature of punishment; it is "malum passionis quod infligitur ob malum actionis,"—an evil of suffering inflicted for doing evil. Or, more largely to describe it, it is an effect of justice in him who hath sovereign power and right to order and dispose of offenders, whereby he that doth contrary to the rule of his actions is recompensed with that which is evil to himself, according to the demerit of his fault.

(1.) It is an effect of justice. Hence God's punishing is often called an inflicting of anger; as Rom. 3:5, "Is God unrighteous, ὁ ἐπιφέρων τὴν ὀργήν, who inflicteth anger?" Anger is put for the justice of God, Rom. 1:18, "The anger (or wrath) of God is revealed from heaven," etc.; that is, his vindictive justice against sin is manifested by its effects. And again, the cause [is put] for the effect,—anger for the effect of it in punishment; and therefore we have translated the word "vengeance," Rom. 3:5, which denotes the punishment itself.

(2.) It is of him who hath sovereign power and judiciary right to dispose of the offenders: and this is either immediate in God himself, as in the case whereof we speak,—he is the "only lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy," James 4:12,—or it is by him delegated to men for the use of human society; so Christ tells Pilate, he could have no power over him (whom he considered as a malefactor) unless it were given him from above, John 19:11, though that is spoken in reference to that peculiar dispensation.

(3.) The nature of it consists in this, that it be evil to him on whom it is inflicted, either by the immission of that which is corrupting, vexing, and destroying, or the subtraction of that which is cheering, useful, good, and desirable, in what kind soever; and therefore did the ancients call the punishment "fraus," because when it came upon men, they had deceived and cut short themselves of some good that otherwise they might have enjoyed. So the historian: "Cæteræ multitudini diem statuit, ante quam liceret sine fraude ab armis discedere;" that is, that they might go away freely without punishment. And so is that expression explained by Ulpian, Dig. lib. xx.: "Capitalem fraudem admittere est tale aliquid delinquere, propter quod capite puniendus sit."

The schoolmen have two rules that pass amongst them without control:—First, that "Omne peccatum est adeo voluntarium, ut si non sit voluntarium non est peccatum." It is so of the nature of sin that it be voluntary, that if any thing be not voluntary, it is not sin. The other is, "Est ex natura pœnæ ut sit involuntaria." It is so of the nature of punishment that it be against the will of him that is punished, that if it be not so, it is not punishment.

Neither of which rules is true, yea, the latter is undoubtedly false.

For the former, every sin is thus far, indeed, voluntary, that what is done contrary to the express will of him that doth it is not his sin; but that the actual will or willing of the sinner is required to make any thing his sin is false,—in the case of original sin manifestly. Wherefore John gives us another definition of sin than theirs is, that it is "dictum, factum, concupitum, contra legem,"—namely, that it is ἀνομία, "a transgression of the law." Have it the actual consent of the will or no, if it be a transgression of the law, an inconformity to the law, it is sin.

For the latter, it is true, indeed, that for the most part it falls out that every one that is to be punished is unwilling to undergo it, and there is an improper nolleity (if I may so speak) in nature unto the subtracting of any good from it, or the immission of any evil upon it; yet as to the perfection of the nature of punishment, there is no more required than what was laid down in general before, that there be "malum passionis ob malum actionis,"—a suffering of evil for doing of evil, whether men will or no: yea, men may be willing to it, as the soldiers of Cæsar, after their defeat at Dyrrachium, came to him and desired that they might be punished "more antiquo," being ashamed of their flight. But whatever really or personally is evil to a man for his evil, is punishment. Though chiefly among the Latins "punishment" relates to things real, capital revenges had another name. Punishments were chiefly pecuniary, as Servius on that of Virgil, Æn. i. 140: " 'Post mihi non simili pœna commissa luetis.' Luetis, persolvetis, et hic sermo a pecunia descendit, antiquorum enim pœnæ omnes pecuniariæ fuerunt." And "supplicium" is of the same importance. Punishments were called "supplicia," because with the mulcts of men they sacrificed and made their supplications to God: whence the word is sometimes used for that worship, as in Sallustius; describing the old Romans, he says they were "in suppliciis deorum magnifici," Bell. Cat. cap. ix.

(4.) There is the procuring cause of it, which is doing evil, contrary to the law and rule whereby the offender ought to walk and regulate his actings and proceedings. "Omnis pœna, si justa est, peccati pœna est," says Augustine; indeed, not only "si justa est," but "si pœna est." Taking it properly, offence must precede punishment. And whatever evil befalls any that is not procured by offence is not properly punishment, but hath some other name and nature. The name "pœna" is used for any thing that is vexatious or troublesome, any toil or labour; as in the tragedian, speaking of one who tired himself with travel in hunting, "Quid te ipse pœnis gravibus infestus gravas:" but improperly is it thus used. This Abraham evinceth in his plea with God, Gen. 18:25, "That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" It is God as the judge of all the earth of whom he speaks; that is, of him that hath the supreme power of disposing of offenders; and of his justice inflicting, which, as I said, was the cause of punishment. It is that whereby God doth right. And he gives the procuring cause of all punishment,—the wickedness of men: "That be far from thee, to slay the righteous with the wicked." And therefore that place of Job, chap. 9:22, "This is one thing, therefore I said it, He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked," is not to be understood absolutely, but according to the subject of the dispute in hand between him and Bildad. Bildad says, chap. 8:20, that "God will not cast away a perfect man;" that is, he will not afflict a godly man to death. He grants that a godly man may be afflicted, which Eliphaz' companion seemed to deny; yet, says he, he will not cast him away,—that is, leave him without relief from that affliction, even in this life. To this Job's answer is, "This is one thing,"—that is, "One thing I am resolved on,"—"and therefore I said it," and will abide by it, "He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked." Not only wicked men are destroyed and cut off in this life, but perfect men also; but yet in this very destruction, as there is a difference in the persons, one being perfect, the other wicked, so there is in God's dealing with them, one being afflicted to the door of heaven, the other cursed into hell. But for punishment, properly so called, the cause is sin, or the offence of the person punished; and therefore in the Hebrew, the same words (many of them) signify both sin and punishment,—so near and indissoluble is their relation! Προσήκει δήπουθεν ὡς χρέα κληρονομίας διαδέχεσθαι τῆς πονηρίας τὴν κόλασιν, Plut. de Sera Numin. Vindicta.

(5.) The measure of any penalty is the demerit of the offence; it is a rendering to men, as for their works, so according to them:—

"Nec vincet ratio hoc, tantundem ut peccet idemque,

Qui teneros caules alieni fregerit horti

Et qui nocturnus Divûm sacra legerit. Adsit

Regula, peccatis quæ pœnas irroget æquas:

Ne scutica dignum horribili sectere flagello."

I shall not trouble the reader with the heathens' apprehension of Rhadamanthean righteousness, and the exact rendering to every one according to his desert, even in another world.

There is a twofold rule of this proportion of sin and punishment, the one constitutive, the other declarative. The rule constitutive of the proportion of penalty for sin is the infinitely wise, holy, and righteous will of God; the rule declarative of it is the law.

For the first, it is his judgment "that they which commit sin are worthy of death," Rom. 1:32. This the apostle fully declares, chap. 2:5–11. The day of punishing he calls "The day of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God;" that is, what his judgment is concerning the demerit of sin. The world shall then know what in justice he requires for the due vengeance of it, and this according to his will. Verse 6, he will, in his righteous judgment, render to every one according to his deeds.

And here it is to be observed, that though there be an exceeding great variation in sin in respect of degrees, so that some seem as mountains, others in comparison of them but as mole-hills, yet it is the general nature of sin (which is the creature's subducting itself from under the dominion of God and dependence upon him) that punishment originally is suited unto; whence death is appointed to every sin, and that eternal, wherein the degrees of punishment vary, not the kind.

2. For the several kinds of punishment (I call them so in a general acceptation of both words), they are distinguished according to their ends and causes. The ends of punishments, or of all such things as have in them the nature of punishments, may be referred to the ensuing heads:—

(1.) The first end of punishment is the good of him that is punished; and this is twofold:—

[1.] For amendment and recovery from the evil and sin that he hath committed. This kind of punishing is frequently mentioned in Scripture: so eminently, Lev. 26, doth the Lord describe it at large, and insist upon it, reckoning up in a long series a catalogue of several judgments, he interposing, "But if ye will not be reformed by me by these things, but will walk contrary to me" (as verse 23), "then will I do so and so," or add this or that punishment to them foregoing; and this in reference to the former end, of their reformation. And the success of this procedure we find variously expressed. Sometimes the end of it in some measure was fulfilled, Ps. 78:32–35; sometimes otherwise, Isa. 1:5, "Why should ye be smitten any more? ye will revolt more and more," intimating that the end of the former smiting was to cure their revoltings. And this kind of punishment is called νουθεσία, correction for instruction, and is not punishment in its strict and proper sense.

[2]. For the taking off of sinners, to prevent such other wickednesses as they would commit, should patience be exercised towards them. The very heathen saw that he that was wicked and not to be reclaimed, it was even good for him and to him that he should be destroyed. Such an one, as Plutarch says, was ἑτέροις γε πάντὼς βλαζερὸν αὐτῷ τε βλαζερώτατον,—"hurtful to others, but most of all to himself." How much more is this evident to us, who know that future judgments shall be proportionably increased to the wickedness of men in this world! And if every drop of judgment in the world to come be incomparably greater than the greatest and heaviest a man can possibly suffer in this life or lose his life by, it is most evident that a man may be punished with death for his own good, "mitius punientur." This is κολασία. And this hath no place in human administrations of punishments when they arise to death itself. Men cannot kill a man to prevent their dealing worse with him, for that is their worst; they can do no more, says our Saviour: but accidentally it may be for his good. Generally, κόλασις or κολασία is, as Aristotle speaks, πάσχοντος ἕνεκα, and is thereby differenced from τιμωρία (of which afterward), which, as he says, is τοῦ πονοῦντος ἕνεκα ἵνα ἀποπληρωθῆ. Hence ἀκολάστος is one not corrected, not restrained, "incastigatus." And therefore the punishment of death cannot at all properly be κόλασις: but cutting off by God to prevent farther sin hath in it τὶ ανάλογον thereunto.

(2.) The second end of punishment, which gives a second kind of them, in the general sense before mentioned, is for the good of others, and this also is various:—

[1.] It is for the good of them that may he like-minded with him that is punished, that they may be deterred, affrighted, and persuaded from the like evils. This was the end of the punishing of the presumptuous sinner, Deut. 17:12, 13, "That man shall die; and all the people shall hear, and fear, and do no more presumptuously." "The people;" that is, any among them that were like-minded unto him that was stoned and destroyed. So in some places they have taken lions that have destroyed men, and hung them on crosses, to fright others that should attempt the like. Hence "exemplum" is sometimes put absolutely for punishment, because punishment is for that end. So in the comedian, "Quæ futura exempla dicunt in eum indigna;" on which place Donatus, "Graves pœnæ, quæ possunt cæteris documento esse, exempla dicuntur." And this is a tacit end in human punishment. I do not know that God hath committed any pure revenge unto men,—that is, punishing with a mere respect to what is past; nor should one man destroy another but for the good of others. Now, the good of no man lies in revenge. The content that men take therein is their sin, and cannot be absolutely good to them. So the philosopher, "Nemo prudens punit quia peccatum est, sed ne peccetur: revocari enim præterita non possunt, futura prohibeantur;" and Rom. 13:4, "If thou do that which is evil, be afraid," etc.;—"See what he hath done to others, and be afraid."

[2.] It is for the good of others, that they may not be hurt in the like kind as some were by the sin of him who is punished for it. This seems to be the main end of that great fundamental law of human society, "Let him that hath killed by violence be killed, that the rest of men may live in peace."

And these kinds of punishments, in reference to this end, are called παραδείγματα, "examples," that others by impunity be not enticed to evil, and that the residue of men may be freed from the harm that is brought upon them by reason of such evils.

Hence the historian says, that commonwealths should rather be mindful of things done evilly than of good turns. The forgetfulness of the latter is a discouragement to some good, but of the former an encouragement to all licentiousness. Thus Joseph suspecting his espoused consort, yet refused παραδειγματίσαι, to make an open example of her by punishment, Matt. 1:19. And these punishments are thus called from their use, and not from their own nature; and therefore differ not from κολασίαι and τιμωρίαι, but only as to the end and use, from whence they have their denomination.

[3.] The good of him that punisheth is aimed at; and this is proper to God. Man punisheth not, nor can, nor ought, for his own good, or the satisfaction of his own justice; but "the LORD made all things for himself, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil," Prov. 16:4, Rom. 9:22: and in God's dealing with men, whatever he doth, unless it be for this end, it is not properly punishment.

This is τιμωρία, "vindicta noxæ," purely the recompensing of the evil that is committed, that it may be revenged. This, I say, in God's dealing is properly punishment, the revenge of the evil done, that himself or his justice may be satisfied; as was seen before from Rom. 2:5–11. Whatever of evil God doth to any,—which is therefore called "punishment," because it partaketh of the general nature of punishment, and is evil to him that is punished,—yet if the intendment of God be not to revenge the evil past upon him in a proportion of law, it is not punishment properly so called; and therefore it will not suffice, to prove that believers are or may be punished for sin, to heap up texts of Scripture where they are said to be punished, and that in reference to their sin, unless it can be also proved that God doth it "animo ulciscendi," and that their punishment is "vindicta noxæ," and that it is done τοῦ πονοῦντος ἕνεκα ἵνα ἀποπληρωθῆ: but of this I am not now to treat.

The reader may hence see what punishment is in general, what are the ends of it, and its kinds from thence, and what is punishment from God, properly so called. It is "vindicta noxæ, animo ulciscendi, ut ipsi satisfiat:" and this kind of punishment was the death of Christ; which is to be proved.

SECONDLY, That the death of Christ was a punishment properly so called (which is the third consideration of it, as I said), is next to be proved. Of all the places of Scripture and testimonies whereby this may be demonstrated, I shall fix only on one portion of Scripture, and that is Isa. 53. What in particular shall be produced from thence will appear when I have given some general considerations of the chapter; which I shall do at large, as looking on that portion of Scripture as the sum of what is spoken in the Old Testament concerning the satisfactory death of Jesus Christ.

1. This whole prophecy, from verse 13 of chap. 52, which is the head of the present discourse, is evinced to belong to the Messiah, against the Jews:—

(1.) Because the Chaldee paraphrast, one of their most ancient masters, expressly names the Messiah, and interprets that whole chapter of him: "Behold," saith he, "my servant, the Messiah, shall deal prudently." And the ancient rabbins, as is abundantly proved by others, were of the same mind: which miserably entangles their present obdurate masters, who would fix the prophecy upon any rather than on the Messiah, seeing evidently that if it be proved to belong to the Messiah in thesi, it can be applied to none other in hypothesi but Jesus of Nazareth.

(2.) Because they are not able to find out or fix on any one whatever to whom the things here spoken of may be accommodated. They speak, indeed, of Jeremiah, Josiah, a righteous man in general, the whole people of Israel, of Messiah Ben Joseph, a man of straw of their own setting up: but it is easy to manifest, were that our present work, that scarce any one expression in this prophecy, much less all, doth or can agree to any one or all of them named; so that it must be brought home to its proper subject. Of this at large in the ensuing digression against Grotius.

2. That to us it is evident above all contradiction that the whole belongs to Jesus Christ; because not only particular testimonies are taken from hence in the New Testament, and applied to him, as Matt. 8:17, Mark 15:28, Luke 22:37, Rom. 10:16, but it is also expounded of him in general for the conversion of souls, Acts 8:26–40. The story is known of Philip and the eunuch.

3. This is such a prophecy of Christ as belongs to him not only properly but immediately; that is, it doth not in the first place point out any type of Christ, and by him shadow out Christ, as it is in sundry psalms, where David and Solomon are firstly spoken of, though the Messiah be principally intended: but here is no such thing. Christ himself is immediately spoken of. Socinus says, indeed, that he doubted not but that these things did primarily belong to another, could he be discovered who he was, and that from him was the allusion taken, and the accommodation made to Christ; "And if," saith he, "it could be found out who he was, much light might be given into many expressions in the chapter." But this is a bold figment, for which there is not the least countenance given either from Scripture or reason, which is evidently decried from the former arguments, whereby the impudence of the Jews is confounded, and shall be farther in the ensuing digression, where it shall be proved that it is impossible to fix on any one but Jesus Christ to whom the several expressions and matters expressed in this prophecy, may be accommodated.

Now, there are three general parts of this prophecy, to consider it with reference to the business in hand, as the seat of this truth in the Old Testament:—

1. A description given of Christ in a mean, low, miserable condition, from verse 14 of chap. 52 to verse 4 of chap. 53: "His visage was marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men," chap. 52:14; "he hath no form nor comeliness, no beauty," chap. 53:2; "he is despised and rejected, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief," verse 3; looked on as "stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted," verse 4.

2. The reason is given of this representation of the Messiah, of whom it is said in the entrance of the prophecy that he should "deal prudently, and be exalted and extolled, and be very high;" to which this description of him seems most adverse and contrary. The reason, I say, hereof is given from verses 5 to 10; it was on the account of his being punished and broken for us and our sins.

3. The issue of all this, from verse 10 to the end, in the justification and salvation of believers.

It is the second that I shall insist upon, to prove the death of Christ to have in it the nature of punishment, properly and strictly so called.

Not to insist upon all the particular passages, that might be done to great advantage, and ought to be done, did I purpose the thorough and full handling of the business before me (but I am "in transitu," and pressing to somewhat farther), I shall only urge two things:—First, The expressions throughout that describe the state and condition of Christ as here proposed. Secondly, One or two singular assertions, comprehensive of much of the rest.

For the first, let the reader consider what is contained in the several words here setting forth the condition of Christ. We have "despising and rejecting, sorrow and grief," verse 3. He was "stricken, smitten, afflicted," or there was striking, smiting, affliction on him, verse 4; "wounded, bruised, chastised with stripes,"—wounding, bruising, chastising unto soreness, verse 5; "oppressed, stricken, cut off, killed, brought to slaughter," verses 7–9; "bruised, sacrificed, and his soul made an offering for sin," verse 10.

Now, certainly, for the material part, or the matter of punishment, here it is abundantly: here is "malum passionis" in every kind,—immission of evil, subtraction of good in soul and body; here is plentiful measure, heaped up, shaken together, and running over.

But it may be said, though here be the matter of punishment, yet it may be all this was for some other end; and so it may be it was νουθεσία, or δοκιμασία, or παιδεία, not τιμωρία, or punishment properly so called.

Consider, then, the ends of punishment before insisted on, and see what of them is applicable to the transaction between God and Christ here mentioned.

1. Was it for his own correction? No; says the prophet, verse 9, "He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth." He was perfectly innocent, so that he had no need of any chastisement for his amendment. And so signally in sundry places, where mention is made of the death of Christ, his own spotless innocency is often pleaded.

2. Neither was it for his instruction, that he might be wise and instructed in the will of God; for at the very entrance of the prophecy, chap. 52:13, he says he shall "deal prudently, and be exalted." He was faithful before in all things. And though he experimentally learned obedience by his sufferings, yet habitually to the utmost his ears were bored, and himself prepared to the will of God, before the afflictions here principally intended. Neither,—

3. Was he παράδειγμα, punished for example, to be made an example to others that they might not offend; for what can offenders learn from the punishment of one who never offended? "He was cut off, but not for himself," Dan. 9:26. And the end assigned, verse 11, which is not the instruction only, but the justification and salvation of others, will not allow this end: "He shall justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities." He set us an example in his obedience, but he was not punished for an example. Neither,—

4. Was it μαρτυρία, a suffering to bear witness and testimony to the truth. There is no mention of any such end in this place; yea, to make that the main intendment here is a monstrous figment. The expressions all along, as we shall see in the next place, are, that all this was "for our transgressions, for our sins, for our iniquities, for our peace." God wounded, bruised, killed him, for our iniquities; that is, he died to bear witness to his doctrine! "Credat Apella."

Then, the matter of punishment being expressed, see the cause of the infliction of it. It was for "transgressions," for "iniquities," verse 5; for wandering and "iniquity," verse 6; for "transgression," verse 8; for "sin," verse 12. Let us now remember the general description of punishment that was given at the beginning,—it is "malum passionis quod infligitur ob malum actionis,"—and see how directly it suits with this punishment of Jesus Christ: first, Here is "malum passionis" inflicted, wounding, bruising, killing; and, secondly, There is "malum actionis" deserving, sin, iniquity, and transgression. How these met on an innocent person shall be afterward declared. Go we along to the peculiar description of punishment properly so called, as managed by God,—it is "vindicta noxæ." Now, if all other ends and causes whatever, as of chastisement for example, etc., be removed, and this only be asserted, then this affliction of Christ was "vindicta noxæ," punishment in the most proper sense; but that these ends are so removed hath been declared upon the particular consideration of them.

And this is the first argument from this place to prove that the death of Christ and his suffering have the nature of punishment.

The second is from the more particular expressions of it to this purpose, both on the part of the person punishing and on the part of the person punished. A single expression on each part may be insisted on:—

1. On the part of God punishing, take that of verse 6, "The LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all;" of which sort also is that of verse 10, "Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin," etc.

2. On the part of him punished, verse 11, "He shall bear their iniquities." From the consideration of these expressions we shall evidently evince what we have proposed. Of these in the nest chapter.

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CHAPTER XXIV

Some particular testimonies evincing the death of Christ to be a punishment, properly so called

THE two expressions that I chose in particular to consider are nextly to be insisted on.

The first relates to him who did inflict the punishment; the other to him that was punished. The first is in verse 6, "The LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." The person punishing is Jehovah, the person punished called "him,"—that is, he who is spoken of throughout the whole prophecy, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, as above declared.

For the opening of the words, that the efficacy of them to our purpose in hand may appear, two of them are especially to be considered:—First, What is meant by that which is rendered "laid on him;" secondly, What is meant by "iniquity."

The first by our translation is rendered in the margin, "made to meet:" "He made to meet on him the iniquities of us all." The Vulgar Latin, "Posuit Dominus in eo,"—"The LORD put upon him," according to our translation in the text. Montanus, "Dominus fecit occurrere in eum,"—"God hath caused to meet on him," according to our translation in the margin. Junius to the same purpose, "Jehovah fecit ut incurrat,"—"The LORD made them meet and fall on him." The LXX. render it, Καὶ Κύριος παρέδωκεν αὐτὸν ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ἡμῶν,—"The LORD delivered him to our sins," that is, to be punished for them. By others the word is rendered "impegit, traduxit, conjecit,"—all to the same purpose, importing an act of God in conveying our sins to Christ.

The word here used is הִפְנִּיעַ; its root is פָּנַע, to which all the significations mentioned are assigned, "occurrere, obviam ire, incurrere, aggredi, rogare, precari."

1. The first general signification of it is "to meet," as the bounds of a field, or country, or house, meet with one another: Joshua 19:34, וּפָגַע בִּזְבוּלֻן; so all along in that chapter, where the bounds of one country are said to reach to another, that is, to meet with them. It is the word here used. So in voluntary agents it is "obviam ire," or "to meet," and that either for good or evil. For good it is spoken of God, Isa. 64:5, "Thou meetest him," etc.; and so for evil, Amos 5:19, "As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him," וּפְנָעוֹ,—that is, to tear him in pieces. Hence, because men that met others went to them to desire some help of them, the word also signifies "to ask, to pray, entreat, or intercede:" so the word is used, Isa. 59:16, "There was no entreater," מַפְגִּיעַ,—none to meet, to come and ask; and in this very chapter, verse 12, "He made intercession for the transgressors." The word is the same with that here used. To meet the Lord, and intercede for transgressors, to stay his hand against them, is its sense.

2. "To meet," or "to make to meet" properly, which is the first and most clear sense of the word. It is often used for to meet "animo hostili," to meet, to fall upon, for hurt. 1 Sam. 22:17, "The servants of the king would not put forth their hand לִפְגֹּעַ, to meet," that is, as we have translated it, to "fall upon the priests" and kill them. So 2 Sam. 1:15, David bade his young man arise, פְּגַע, "fall upon" the Amalekite,—that is, to kill him. Samson made the men of Judah swear that they would not תִּפְּנְּעוּן, "meet with him," or fall on him, themselves, Judges 15:12.

Nextly, it may be inquired in what sense the word is here used, whether in the first spoken of, "to ask, entreat, intercede;" or in the latter, "to meet," or "to meet with."

Grotius interpreteth it (to remove so much of his interpretation by the way), "Permisit Deus, ut ille nostro gravi crimine indignissima pateretur," that so he might suit what is spoken to Jeremiah, without pretence or colour of proof. For the word, it is forty-six times used in the Old Testament, and if in any one of them it may be truly rendered "permisit," as it is done by him, or to that sense, let it be here so applied also. And for that sense (which is, that God suffered the Jews by their wickedness to entreat him evilly), it is most remote from the intendment of the words, and the Holy Ghost in them.

First, then, that the words cannot be interpreted "to pray or intercede" is evident from the contexture, wherein it is said (in this sense), "He prayed him for the iniquity of us all;" that is, the LORD prayed Christ for the iniquities of us all. This sense of the word הִפְנִּיעַ, in this place, Socinus himself grants not to be proper nor consistent: "Porro significatio illa, precari, in loco nostro locum habere non potest; alioqui sequeretur Esaiam voluisse dicere, Deum fecisse, ut omnium nostrûm iniquitas per Christum, vel pro Christo precata fuerit, quod longe absurdissimum esse nemo non videt,' Cap. xxi. p. 132, Prælec. Socin.

It is, then, "to meet." Now, the word here used being in hiphil, which makes a double action of that expressed, by adding the cause by whose power, virtue, and impress the thing is done, thence it is here rendered "occurrere fecit,"—"he made to meet." And so the sense of it is, "God made our sins, as it were, to set upon or to fall upon Jesus Christ;" which is the most common use of the word, as hath been showed.

It is objected that the word signifies to meet, yet no more but this may be the meaning of them, "God in Christ met with all our iniquities;" that is, for their pardoning, and removal, and taking away.

Of the many things that may be given in for the eversion of this gloss I shall name only two, whereof the first is to the word, the latter to the matter. For the word, the conjugation, according to the common rule, enforces the sense formerly mentioned: he made to meet, and not he met. Secondly, The prophet in these words renders a reason of the contemptible, sad condition of the Messiah, at which so many were scandalized, and whereupon so few believed the report of the gospel concerning him; and this is, that God laid on him our iniquities. Now, there is no reason why he should be represented in so deplorable a state and condition if God only met with and prevented our sin in and by him; which he did (as they say) in his resurrection, wherein he was exceeding glorious. So that the meaning of the word is, that God made our sins to meet on him by laying them on him; and this sense Socinus himself consents unto, Prælec. cap. xxi. p. 133. But this also will farther appear in the explication of the next word, and that is "our iniquity."

Secondly, "The LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all," עֲוֹן. How the iniquity of us? That is, the punishment of our iniquity. I shall offer three things to make good this interpretation:—

1. That the word is often found in that sense, so that it is no new or uncouth thing that here it should be so: Gen. 4:13, עֲוֹנִי, "Mine iniquity is greater than I can bear;" it is the same word here used. They are the words of Cain, upon the denunciation of God's judgment on him; and what iniquity it is he gives you an account in the nest words, "Behold, thon hast driven me out," verse 14. That was only the punishment laid on him. It is used in like manner several times, Lev. 20:17, 19; 1 Sam. 28:10, Saul sware to the witch that no iniquity should befall her,—that is, no punishment for that which she did at his command, in raising up a spirit to consult withal, contrary to the law; and also in sundry other places: so that this is no new signification of the word, and is here most proper.

2. It appears from the explication that is given of this thing in many other expressions in the chapter: "The LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." How? In that "it pleased him to bruise him, and put him to grief," verse 10; in that he "was wounded for our transgressions, and he was bruised for our iniquities," verse 5; as will be made more evident when I come to the next phrase, "He shall bear their iniquities," which answers to this, "He laid them on him."

3. Because he did so lay our sin on Christ that "he made his soul an offering for sin." When our iniquities were on him, "his soul" (that is, he himself, by a usual synecdoche, the soul for the person) "was made אָשָׁם, an offering for sin." The word here used is like "piaculum" in Latin; which signifies the fault, and him who is punished for it in a way of a public sacrifice. So is this word taken both for a sin, a trespass, and a sacrifice for the expiation of it, as another word, namely, חָטָא, is used also, Lev. 4:3, "He shall offer it לְחַטָּאת, for a sin,"—that is, an offering for sin. So also Exod. 29:14, Lev. 4:29. And this very word is so used, Lev. 7:2, "They shall kill אָשָׁם;" that is, the sin, or sin-offering, or "trespass-offering," as there it is rendered. And other instances might be given. Now, God did so cause our iniquities to meet on Christ that he then under them made himself אָשָׁם, or "an offering for sin." Now, in the offering for sin the penalty of the offence was, "suo more," laid on the beast that was sacrificed or made an offering. Paul interpreteth these words by other expressions: 2 Cor. 5:21, "He made him to be a sin for us;" that is, an offering for sin, אַשַׁם. He made him sin when he made him "a curse, the curse of the law," Gal. 3:13; that is, gave him up to the punishment by the law due to sin. Rom. 8:3, "God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin," καὶ περὶ ἁμαρτίας, for sin, a sacrifice for sin, "condemned sin in the flesh." Heb. 10:6, Ὁλοκαυτώματα καὶ περὶ ἁμαρτίας οὐκ εὐδόκησας, "In burnt-offerings and for sin thou hast had no pleasure;" and again, Ὅτι θυσίαν καὶ προσφορὰν καὶ ὁλοκαυτώματα καὶ περὶ ἁμαρτίας, verse 8.

It appears, then, from all that hath been said, that our iniquities that were laid on Christ were the punishment due to our iniquity.

Farther to clear this, I shall a little consider what act of God this was whereby he laid our iniquities on Christ; and these two things are considerable therein: 1. How it was typically prefigured; 2. How it was done, or in what act of God the doing of it doth consist.

1. This was eminently represented in the great anniversary sacrifice, of which I have spoken formerly, especially in that part which concerns the goat, ἀποπομπαῖος, on which the lot fell to be sent away. That that goat was a sacrifice is evident from Lev. 16:5, where both the kids of the goats (afterward said to be two goats) are said to be "a sin-offering." How this was dealt withal, see verse 21: "Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the bead of the goat." Now, in what sense could the sins of the people be put upon the head of the goat?

(1.) This was not merely a representation, as it were a show or pageant, to set forth the taking away of iniquity, hut sins were really, as to that typical institution, laid on the head of the goat; whence he became a "piaculum," an ἀνάθεμα, and he that touched him was defiled: so verse 26, the man that carried out the goat was unclean until he was legally purified; and that because the sin of the people was on the head of the goat which he so carried away.

(2.) The proper pravity, malice, and filth of sin could not be laid on the goat. Neither the nature of the thing nor the subject will bear it: for neither is sin, which is a privation, an irregularity, an obliquity, such a thing as that it can be translated from one to another, although it hath an infectious and a contagious quality to diffuse itself,—that is, to beget something of the like nature in others; nor was the goat a subject wherein any such pernicious or depraved habit might reside, which belongs only to intelligent creatures, which have a moral rule to walk by.

(3.) It must be the punishment of sin that is here intended, which was, in the type, laid on the head of the goat; and therefore it was sent away into a land not inhabited, a land of separation, a wilderness, there to perish, as all the Jewish doctors agree,—that is, to undergo the punishment that was inflicted on it. That in such sacrifices for sin there was a real imputation of sin unto punishment shall afterward be farther cleared.

Unto this transaction doth the prophet allude in this expression, "He laid on," or "put on him." As the high priest confessed all the sins, iniquities, and transgressions of the people, and laid them on the head of the scape-goat, which he bare, undergoing the utmost punishment he was capable of, and that punishment which, in the general kind and nature, is the punishment due to sin,—an evil and violent death; so did God lay all the sins, all the punishment due to them, really upon one that was fit, able, and appointed to bear it, which he suffered under to the utmost that the justice of God required on that account. He then took a view of all our sins and iniquities. He knew what was past and what was to come, knowing all our thoughts afar off. Not the least error of our minds, darkness of our understandings, perverseness of our wills, carnality of our affections, sin of our nature or lives, escaped him. All were γυμνὰ καὶ τετραχηλισμένα before him. This is set out by the variety of expressions used in this matter in the type: "All the iniquities, all the transgressions, and all the sins." And so by every word whereby we express sin in this 53d of Isaiah,—"going astray, turning aside, iniquity, transgression, sin," and the like. God, I say, made them all to meet on Christ, in the punishment due to them.

2. What is the act of God whereby he casts our sins on Christ.

I have elsewhere considered how God in this business is to be looked on. I said now in the entrance of this discourse, that punishment is an effect of justice in him who had power to dispose of the offender as such. To this two things are required:—

(1.) That he have in his hand power to dispose of all the concernments of the offence [offender] and sinners, as the governor of him and them all. This is in God. He is by nature the king and governor of all the world, our lawgiver, James 4:12. Having made rational creatures and required obedience at their hands, it is essentially belonging to him to be their governor, and not only to have the sovereign disposal of them, as he hath the supreme dominion over them, with the legal dispose of them, in answer to the moral subjection to him and the obedience he requires of them.

(2.) That as he be a king, and have supreme government, so he be a judge to put in execution his justice. Thus, "God is judge himself," Ps. 50:6; he is "the judge of all the earth," Gen. 18:25; Ps. 94:2; Ps. 75:7; Isa. 33:22, as in innumerable other places. Now, as God is thus the great governor and judge, he pursues the constitutive principle of punishment, his own righteous and holy will, proportioning penalties to the demerit of sin.

Thus, in the laying our sins on Christ, there was a twofold act of God,—one as a governor, the other as a judge properly:—

[1.] The first is "innovatio obligationis," the "innovation of the obligation," wherein we were detained and bound over to punishment; whereas in the tenor of the law, as to its obligation unto punishment, there was none originally but the name of the offender,—"In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," and "Cursed is every one that continueth not," and "The soul that sinneth it shall die,"—God now puts in the name of the surety, of Jesus Christ, that he might become responsible for our sins, and undergo the punishment that we were obliged to. Christ was ὑπὸ νόμον γενόμενον, he was made under the law; that is, he was put into subjection to the obligation of it unto punishment. God put his name into the obligation, and so the law came to have its advantage against him, who otherwise was most free from the charge of it. Then was Christ "made sin," when, by being put into the obligation of the law, he became liable to the punishment of it. He was the "mediator of the new covenant," Heb. 12:24, the "mediator between God and men," 1 Tim. 2:5; so a mediator as to "give himself a ransom" for them for whom he was a mediator, verse 6. And the "surety of the covenant" is he also, Heb. 7:22; such a surety as paid that which he never took, made satisfaction for those sins which he never did.

[2.] The second act of God, as a judge, is "inflictio pœnæ." Christ being now made obnoxious, and that by his own consent, the justice of God finding him in the law, layeth the weight of all on him. "He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth." Well, then, it will be well with him; surely it shall be well with the innocent; no evil shall befall him. Nay but saith he, verse 10, "Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief." Yea, but what was the reason of this? why was this the will of God? why did this seem good to the just "Judge of all the earth?" The reason is in the very next words, "His soul was made an offering for sin;" which before is expressed, "He bare our griefs, he was wounded for our transgressions." Being made liable to them, he was punished for them.

By that which is said, it is evident from this first expression, or the assignation of an action to God in reference to him, that this death of Christ was a punishment, he who had power to do it bringing in him (on his own voluntary offer) into the obligation to punishment, and inflicting punishment on him accordingly.

The second expression, whereby the same thing is farther evinced, is on the part of him that was punished, and this [occurs] in verse 4, "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows;" or, which is more evident, verse 11, "He shall bear their iniquities."

For the right understanding of the words, I shall give a few brief previous observations, that may give light to the matter we treat of. And the first is,—

1. That as this whole thing was done in the justice of God, as hath been declared, so it was done by the counsel and appointment of God. The apostles confess the death of Christ to have proceeded thence, Acts 4:28, 2:23. Now, as laying of our sins on Christ, being designed our mediator, and undertaking the work, was an act of God as the governor of all and the righteous judge, so this of the determinate counsel and fore-appointment, or the eternal designation, of Christ to his office, is an act of sovereign power and dominion in God, whereby he doth as he pleaseth, according to the counsel of his will. As he would make the world in his sovereign good pleasure when he might have otherwise done, Rev. 4:11, so he would determine that Christ should bear our iniquities when he might otherwise have disposed of them, Rom. 11:33–37.

2. In respect of us, this pre-appointment of God was an act of grace,—that is, a sovereign act of his good pleasure,—whence all good things, all fruits of love whatever, to us do flow. Therefore it is called love, John 3:16; and so in the fruit of it is it expressed, Rom. 8:32; and on this John often insists in his Gospel and First Epistle, 1 John 4:9–11. His aim on his own part was the declaration of his righteousness, Rom. 3:25, and to make way for the "praise of his glorious grace," Eph. 1:6; on our part, that we might have all those good things which are the fruits of the most intense love.

3. That Christ himself was willing to undergo this burden and undertake this work. And this, as it is consistent with his death being a punishment, so it is of necessity to make good the other considerations of it, namely, that it should be a price and a sacrifice; for no man gives a price, and therein parts with that which is precious to him, unwillingly, nor is a sacrifice acceptable that comes not from a free and willing mind. That he was thus willing himself professeth, both in the undertaking and carrying of it on. In the undertaking: Heb. 10:7, "Lo, I come to do thy will, O God." It is the expression of one breaking out with a ready joy to do the thing proposed to him. So the church of old looked on him as one that came freely and cheerfully: Cant. 2:8, 9, "The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. My beloved is like a roe or a young hart: he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, showing himself through the lattice." The church looked on Christ as yet at a distance from the actual performance of the work he had undertaken, and so herself kept off from that clear and close communion which she longed after; and hence she says of him that he "stood behind the wall," that he "looked forth at the windows," and "showed himself through the lattice." There was a wall yet hindering the actual exhibition of Christ; the "fulness of time" was not come; the purpose of God was not yet to bring forth: but yet, in the meantime, Christ looked on the church through the window of the promise and the lattice of the Levitical ceremonies.

And what discovery do they make of him in the view they take in the broad light of the promises and the many glimpses of the ceremonial types? They see him "coming leaping upon the mountains and skipping upon the hills,"—coming speedily, with a great deal of joy and willingness.

So of himself ho declares what his mind was from old, from everlasting: Prov. 8:30, 31, "Rejoicing always before him,"—that is, before God his Father. But in what did he rejoice? "In the habitable part of his earth; and his delights were with the sons of men." When this joy of his was he tells you, verses 22–30. He rejoiced before God his Father in the sons of men before they were created; that is, in the work he had to do for them.

His will was also in the carrying of it on unto accomplishment; he must be doing his Father's business, his will who sent him: Luke 12:50, Πῶς συνέχομαι! He was pained as a woman in travail to be delivered, to come to be baptized in his own blood. And when he was giving himself up to the utmost of it, he professes his readiness to it, John 18:11; when Peter, who once before would have advised him to spare himself, now, seeing his counsel was not followed, would have rescued him with his sword. As for his advice he was called Satan, so for his proffered assistance he is now rebuked; and the reason of it is given, "Shall I not drink of the cup?" It is true, that it might appear that his death was not a price and a sacrifice only, but a punishment also, wherein there was an immission of every thing that was evil to the suffering nature and a subtraction of that which was good, he discovered that averseness to the drinking of the cup which the truth of the human nature absolutely required (and which the amazing bitterness of the cup overpowered him withal); yet still his will conquered and prevailed in all, Matt. 26:53, 54.

4. Christ's love was also in it; "his delights were with the sons of men," his love towards them carried him out to the work. And Paul proves it by the instance of himself, Gal. 2:20, "Who loved me;" and John applies the same to all believers, Rev. 1:5, 6, "Unto him that loved us," etc. And thus was this great work undertaken.

These things being premised, let us look again to the words under consideration:—

1. For the word he bare our griefs, verse 4, it is נָשָׂא, a word of as large and as many various acceptations as any, if not absolutely the most extensive in the whole Hebrew tongue. It hath usually assigned unto it by the lexicographer eight or nine several significations; and to make it evident that it is of various acceptations, it is used (in the collections of Calasius) eight hundred and eighteen times in the Old Testament, whereof not a third part is answered in any language by one and the same word. With those senses of it that are metaphorical we have not any thing to do. That which is the first or most proper sense of it, and what is most frequently used, is to "carry" or "bear," and by which it is here translated, as in very many other places.

Socinus would have it here be as much as "abstulit," "he took away." So saith he, "God took away our sin in Christ, when by him he declared and confirmed the way whereby pardon and remission is to be obtained, as he pardoned our sin in Christ by discovering the new covenant and mercy therein." Now, because the word is of such various significations, there is a necessity that it be interpreted by the circumstances of the place where it is used. And because there is not any circumstance of the place on the account whereof the word should be rendered "abstulit," "he took away," and not "tulit," "he took," "bare," or "suffered," we must consider what arguments or reasons are scraped together "aliunde" by them, and then evince what is the proper signification of it in this place:—

(1.) "This very expression is used of God, Exod. 34:7, נֹשֵׂא עָוֹן, 'ferens iniquitatem,' as also it is again repeated, Num. 14:18; in both which places we translate it 'forgiving,' 'forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.' Nor can it be properly spoken of God to bear, for God cannot bear, as the word properly signifies."

The sum of the objection is, the word that is used so many times, and so often metaphorically, is once or twice in another place used for to take away or to pardon, therefore this must be the sense of it in this place! God cannot be said to bear iniquities but only metaphorically, and so he is often said to bear, to be pressed, to be weary, and made to serve with them. He is said to bear our sins in reference to the end of bearing any thing, which is to carry it away. God in Christ taking away, pardoning our sins, is said to bear them, because that is the way which sins are taken away; they are taken up, carried, and laid aside. But he of whom these words are spoken here did bear properly, and could do so, as shall be showed.

(2.) The interpretation of this place by Matthew, or the application of it, is insisted on, which is of more importance: "Matt. 8:16, 17, Christ curing the diseases of many, and bodily sicknesses, is said to 'bear our griefs,' according as it is said in Isaiah that he should do. Now, he did not bear our diseases by taking them upon himself, and so becoming diseased, but morally, in that by his power he took them away from them in whom they were."

Not to make many words, nor to multiply interpretations and accommodations of those places,—which may be seen in them who have to good purpose made it their business to consider the parallel places of the Old and New Testaments, and to reconcile them,—I say only, it is no new thing to have the effect and evidence and end of a thing spoken of in the New Testament, in answer to the cause and rise of it mentioned in the Old, by the application of the same words unto it which they are mentioned in. For instance, Paul, Eph. 4:8, citing that of the psalmist, Ps. 68:18, "Thou hast ascended up on high, and hast led captivity captive, and received gifts for men," renders it, "When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men;" and that because his giving of them was the end of his receiving of them, and his receiving of them the foundation of his giving of them, the effect and fruit being here expressed, the foundation and ground supposed. So also, "Mine ears hast thou bored," Ps. 40:6, is rendered "A body hast thou prepared me," Heb. 10:5; because the end of the boring of the ears of Christ was, that he might offer his body a sacrifice to God. So it is here in this place of Matthew. Christ's taking away the bodily distempers and sicknesses of men was an effect and an evidence of his taking away their sins, which was done by bearing of them; and therefore Matthew mentioning the effect and evidence of the thing doth it in the words that express the cause and foundation of it. Not that that was a complete accomplishment of what was foretold, but that it was so demonstrated in the effect and evidence of it. Nor do the Socinians themselves think that this was a full accomplishment of what is spoken by the prophet, themselves insisting on another interpretation of the words. So that notwithstanding these exceptions, the word here may have its proper signification, of bearing or carrying; which also that it hath may be farther evidenced.

(1.) Here is no cogent reason why the metaphorical use of the word should be understood. When it is spoken of God, there is necessity that it should be interpreted by the effect, because properly he cannot bear nor undergo grief, sorrow, or punishment: but as to the Mediator, the case is otherwise, for he confessedly underwent these things properly, wherein we say that this word "bearing of punishment" doth consist; he was so bruised, so broken, so slain. So that there is no reason to depart from the propriety of the word.

(2.) Those who would have the sense of the word to be, "to take away," in this place, confess it is by way of the allusion before mentioned, that he that takes away a thing takes it up, and bears it on his shoulders, or in his arms, until he lay it down, and by virtue of this allusion doth it signify "to take away." But why? Seeing that taking up and bearing in this place is proper, as hath been showed, why must that be leaped over, and that which is improper and spoken by way of allusion be insisted on?

(3.) It appears that this is the sense of the word from all the circumstances of the text and context. Take three that are most considerable:—

[1.] The subject spoken of who did thus bear our griefs, and this is Christ, of whom such things are affirmed, in answer to this question, How did he bear our griefs? as will admit of no other sense. The Holy Ghost tells us how he did it, 1 Pet. 2:24, "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree." That Peter in that place expressed this part of the prophecy of Isaiah which we insist upon is evident; the phrase at the close of verse 24 and the beginning of verse 25 of this chapter make it so; they are the very words of the end of the 5th and beginning of the 6th verses here. How, then, did Christ bear our griefs? Why, in that "he bare our sins in his own body on the tree."

I shall not insist on the precise signification of the word ἀναφέρω, here used, as though it expressed the outward manner of that suffering of Christ for sin when he was lifted up on the cross or tree. It is enough that our sins were on him, his body,—that is, his whole human nature, by a usual synecdoche,—when he was on the tree; that he did it when he "suffered in the flesh," 1 Pet. 4:1. He that did so bear our griefs, sins, and iniquities, as to have them in his own body when he suffered in the flesh, he is said properly therein "tulisse," not "abstulisse," to "have borne," not "taken away," our griefs. But that this is the case in Christ's bearing our griefs the Holy Ghost doth thus manifest.

[2.] The manner how Christ bare them evidently manifesteth in what sense this expression is to be understood. He so bare them that in doing so "he was wounded and bruised, grieved, chastised, slain," as it is at large expressed in the context. Christ bare our griefs so as in doing of it to be wounded, broken, grieved, killed; which is not to take them away, but really to bear them upon himself.

[3.] The cause of this bearing our griefs is assigned to be sin, "He was wounded for our transgressions;" as was shown before. Now, this cannot be the sense, "For our sins, he took them away;" but, "For our sins, he bare the punishment due to them," 2 Cor. 5:21.

(4.) To put all out of question, the Holy Ghost in this chapter useth another word in the same matter with this, that will admit of no other sense than that which is proper, and that is מָבַל: Verse 11, וַעֲוֹנֹתָם הוּא יִסְבֹּל,—"He shall bear their iniquities;" and it is used immediately after this we have insisted on, as explicative of it, "And carried our sorrows." Now, as נָשָׂא properly signifies "to lift," to "take up" that which a man may carry, so סָבַל signifies to "bear" and "undergo" the burden that is taken up, or that a man hath laid on his shoulders. And Matthew hath rendered this word by βαστάζω, τὰς νόσους ἐζάστασεν,—that is, "bajulo, porto," to bear a thing as a man doth a burden on his shoulders. Nor is it once used in the Scriptures but it is either properly to bear a burden, or metaphorically from thence to undergo that which is heavy and burdensome. Thus did Christ bear our griefs, our iniquities, by putting his shoulder under them, taking them on himself.

2. What did he thus bear? Our griefs, our sins; or our iniquities, our sins. Let us see, by a second instance, what it is in the language of God "to bear iniquities," and this argument will be at an issue: Lam. 5:7, "Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities." "We have borne their iniquities," or the punishment that was due to them. "They are not,"—"They are gone out of the world before the day of recompense came; and we lie under the punishment threatened and inflicted for their sins and our own." Distinctly,—

(1.) Men are said to bear their own sin: Lev. 19:8, "Every one that eateth it shall bear his iniquity;" that is, he shall be esteemed guilty, and be punished. Lev. 20:17, "He shall bear his iniquity," is the same with "He shall be killed," verse 16, and "He shall be cut off from among his people," verse 18. For a man to "bear his iniquity," is, constantly, for him to answer for the guilt and undergo the punishment due to it.

(2.) So also of the sins of others: Num. 14:33, "And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms." "Bear your whoredoms;" that is, "My anger for them, and the punishment due to them." Num. 30:15, he that compels by his power and authority another to break a vow shall himself be liable to the punishment due to such a breach of vow. Ezek. 18:20 is an explanation of all these places: "The soul that sinneth, it shall die,"—"it shall be punished." "The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father," etc.,—"The son shall not be punished for the sin of the father, nor the father for the sin of the son." In brief, this expression, "to bear iniquities," is never otherwise used in Scripture but only for "to undergo the punishment due thereunto."

Thus much, then, we have clearly evinced: God did so lay our sins on Christ as that he bare and underwent that which was due to them, God inflicting it on him, and he willingly undergoing it; which is my second demonstration from this place, that the death of Christ is also a punishment; which is all that I shall urge to that purpose. And this is that, and all, that we intend by the satisfaction of Christ.

But now, having laid so great stress, as to the doctrine under demonstration, upon this place of the prophet, and finding some attempting to take away our foundation, before I proceed I shall divert to the consideration of the annotations of Grotius on this whole chapter, and rescue it from his force and violence, used in contending to make what is here spoken to suit the prophet Jeremiah, and to intend him in the first place; to establish which vain conjecture, he hath perverted the sense of the whole and of every particular verse, from the beginning to the end of this prophecy.

CHAPTER XXV

A digression concerning the 53d chapter of Isaiah, and the vindication of it from the perverse interpretation of HUGO GROTIUS

THIS chapter is well by some termed "Carnificina Rabbinorum,"—a place of Scripture that sets them on the rack, and makes them turn themselves all ways possible to escape the torture which it puts their unbelieving hearts unto. Not long since a worthy and very learned friend told me, that speaking with Manasseh Ben Israel at Amsterdam, and urging this prophecy unto him, he ingenuously told him, "Profecto locus iste magnum scandalum dedit;" to whom the other replied, "Recte, quia Christus vobis lapis scandali est." Hulsius, the Hebrew professor at Breda, professes that some Jews told him that their rabbins could easily have extricated themselves from all other places of the prophets, if Isaiah in this place had but held his peace, Huls. Theolog. Judaic. lib. i. part. ii. Dict. Sapp. de Tempor. Messiæ. Though I value not their boasting of their extricating themselves from the other prophecies, knowing that they are no less entangled with that of Daniel, chap. 9 (of which there is an eminent story in Franzius de Sacrificiis concerning his dispute with a learned Jew on that subject), yet it appears that by this they are confessedly intricated beyond all hope of evading, until they divest themselves of their cursed hypothesis.

Hence it is that with so much greediness they scraped together all the copies of Abrabanel's comment on this chapter, so that it was very hard for a Christian a long time to get a sight of it, as Constantine l'Empereur acquaints us in his preface to his refutation of it, because they thought themselves in some measure instructed by him to avoid the arguments of the Christians from hence by his application of the whole to Josiah; and I must needs say he hath put as good, yea, a far better colour of probability upon his interpretation than he with whom I have to do hath done on his.

How ungrateful, then, and how unacceptable to all professors of the name of Jesus Christ, must the labours of Grotius needs be, who hath to the utmost of his power reached out his hand to relieve the poor blind creatures from their rack and torture, by applying, though successlessly, this whole prophecy to Jeremiah, casting himself into the same entanglements with them, not yielding them indeed the least relief, is easy to conjecture. And this is not a little aggravated, in that the Socinians, who are no less racked and tortured with this scripture than the Jews, durst never yet attempt to accommodate the things here spoken of to any other, though they have expressed a desire of so doing, and which if they could compass, they would free themselves from the sharpest sword that lies at the throat of their cause, seeing if it is certain that the things here mentioned may be applied to any other, the satisfaction of Christ cannot from them be confirmed. This digression, then, is to cast into the fire that broken crutch which this learned man hath lent unto the Jews and Socinians to lean upon, and keep themselves from sinking under their unbelief.

To discover the rise of that learned man's opinion, that Jeremiah is intended in this prophecy, the conceits of the Jewish doctors may a little be considered, who are divided amongst themselves.

1. The ancient doctors generally conclude that it is the Messiah who is here intended. "Behold, my servant the Messiah shall prosper," says the Chaldee paraphrast upon the place. And Constantine l'Empereur tells [us] from R. Simeon, in his book Salkout, that the ancient rabbins, in their ancient book Tanchuma, and higher, were of the same judgment. Rabbi Moses Alscheth is urged to the same purpose at large by Hulsius; and in his comment on this place he says expressly, "Ecce doctores nostri laudatæ memoriæ uno ore statuunt, et a majoribus acceperunt, de rege Messia sermonem esse, et doctorum L. M. vestigiis insistemus." And one passage in him is very admirable, in the same place; saith he, "Dicunt doctores nostri L. M. omnium afflictionum quæ mundum ingressæ sunt, tertia pars Davidi et patriarchis obtigit, tertia altera seculo excisionis, ultima tertia pars regi Messiæ incumbet;" where he urgeth the common consent of their doctors for the sufferings of the Messiah. Of the same mind was R. Solomon, as he is cited by Petrus Galatinus, lib. viii. cap. xiv.; as the same is affirmed by the Misdrach Resh, cap. ii. 14; and in Bereshith Rabba on Gen. 24, as is observed by Raymundus Martinus, Pug. Fidei 3, p. dist. 1, cap. x. So that before these men grew impudent and crafty in corrupting and perverting the testimonies of the Old Testament concerning the Messiah, they generally granted him and only him to be here intended. It was not for want of company, then, that Grotius took in with the modern rabbins, who, being mad with envy and malice, care not what they say, so they may oppose Jesus Christ.

2. Many of the following Jewish doctors interpret this place of the whole people of the Jews. And this way go the men who are of the greatest note amongst them in these latter days, as R. D. Kimchi, Aben Ezra, Abrabanel, Lipman, with what weak and mean pretences, with what inconsistency as to the words of the text, hath been by others manifested.

3. Abrabinel, or Abrabanel, a man of great note and honour amongst them, though he assents to the former exposition, of applying the whole prophecy to the people of the Jews, and interprets the words at large accordingly,—which exposition is confuted by Constantine l'Empereur,—yet he inclines to a singular opinion of his own, that Josiah is the man pointed at and described; but he is the first and last that abides by that interpretation.

4. Grotius interprets the words of Jeremiah in the first place, not denying them, as we shall see, to have an accommodation to Christ. In this he hath the company of one rabbi, R. Saadias Gaon, mentioned by Aben Ezra upon the 52d chapter of this prophecy, verse 13. But this fancy of Saadias is fully confuted by Abrabanel; whose words, because they sufficiently evert the whole design of Grotius also, I shall transcribe as they lie in the translation of Hulsius: "Revera ne unum quidem versiculum video, qui de Jeremiah exponi possit: qua ratione de eo dicetur, 'Extolletur et altus erit valde?' Item illud, 'propter eum obdent reges os suum,' nam ætas illa prophetas habere consueverat. Quomodo etiam dici potest morbos nostros portasse, et dolores nostros bajulasse, et in tumice ejus curationem nobis esse, Deum in ipsum incurrere fecisse peccata omnium nostrûm: quasi ipsi pœna incubuisset, et Israel fuisset immunis? Jam illud, 'Propter peccatum populi mei plaga ipsis,' item, 'Dedit cum improbis sepulcrum ejus,' ad ipsum referri nequit; multo minus illud, 'Videbit semen, prolongabit dies,' item, 'cum robustis partietur spolium.' In quibus omnibus nihil est quod de ipso commode affirmari possit. Unde vehementer miror, quomodo R. Hagaon in hanc sententiam perduci potuerit, et sapientes dari qui hanc expositionem laudant; cum tamen tota ista exponendi ratio plane aliena sit, et e Scriptura non facta."

Now, certainly, if this Jew thought he had sufficient cause to admire that the blind rabbi should thus wrest the sense of the Holy Ghost, and that any wise man should be so foolish as to commend it, we cannot but be excused in admiring that any man professing himself a Christian should insist in his steps, and that any should commend him for so doing.

That, therefore, which here is affirmed in the entrance of his discourse by Abrabanel, namely, that not one verse can or may be expounded of Jeremiah, shall now particularly be made good against Grotius:—

He confesseth with us that the head of this prophecy and discourse is in verse 13, chap, 52. The words of that verse are,—

"Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high."

Of the sense of which words, thus he:—

"Ecce intelliget servus meus. Hæc omnia clarissimè sibi revelata cognoscet Jeremias. Exaltabitur et elevabitur, et sublimis erit valde. In magno honore erit apud ipsos Chaldæos, Jer. 39 in fine, et 40.;"—"My servant Jeremiah shall have all these things clearly revealed to him, and he shall be in great honour with the Chaldeans." So he.

1. For the words themselves: יַשְׂכִּיל, with the Vulgar Latin, he renders "intelliget," "shall understand." The word signifies rather "prudence" for action with success, than any speculative knowledge by revelation. 1 Sam. 18:30, it is used of David behaving himself wisely in the business of his military and civil employment. Its opposite, saith Pagnine, is טָבַל, "quod incogitantiam significat in rebus agendis et ignavam levitatem,"—"which signifies incogitancy in the management of affairs and idle lightness." Whence the word is usually taken for to "prosper" in affairs; as it is used of our Saviour, Jer. 23:5, "A King shall reign" וְהִשְׂכַּיל, "and prosper." Nor can it be otherwise used here, considering the connection of the words wherein it stands, it being the precedent to his being "highly exalted" who is spoken of; which rather follows his "dealing prudently" than his "receiving revelations." So that in the very entrance there is a mistake in the sense of the word, and that mistake lies at the bottom of the whole interpretation.

2. I deny that God speaks anywhere in the Scripture of any one besides Jesus Christ in this phrase, without any addition, "My servant," as here, "Behold, my servant." So he speaks of Christ, Isa. 42:1, 19, and other places; but not of any other person whatever. It is an expression κατʼ ἐξοχήν, and not to be applied to any but to him who was the great servant of the Father in the work of mediation.

3. Even in respect of revelations, there is no ground why those made to Jeremiah should be spoken of so emphatically, and by way of eminence above others, seeing he came short of the prophet by whom these words are written. Nor can any instance be given of such a prediction used concerning any prophet whatever that was to be raised up in the church of the Jews, but of Christ himself only.

4. The exposition of the close of these words, "He shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high" (the great exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ in his kingdom, when he was made a prince and a saviour in a most eminent manner, being set forth in various expressions, no one reaching to the glory of it), is unworthy the learned annotator. "He shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high;"—that is, the Chaldeans shall give him "victuals and a reward," Jer. 40:5; and after a while he shall be carried a prisoner into Egypt, and there knocked on the head. Such was the exaltation of the poor prophet! What resemblance hath all this to the exaltation of Jesus Christ, whom the learned man confesseth to be intended in these words?

The sense, then, of these words is: Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the servant of the Father, Isa. 42:1, 19, Phil. 2:7, 8, "shall deal prudently," and prosper in the business of doing his Father's will, and carrying on the affairs of his own kingdom, Isa. 9:7, "and be exalted" far above all principalities and powers, having "a name given him above every name, that at the name of Jesus," etc., Phil. 2:9, 10.

The next verse is,—

"As many were astonished at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men."

Of the accomplishment of this in and upon the Lord Jesus Christ there is no difficulty. The astonishment mentioned is that of men at his low and despicable condition as to outward appearance; which was such as that he said of himself "he was a worm, and no man," Ps. 22:6. His condition was such and his visage such as all that knew any thing of him were astonished to the purpose. The marring of his visage and form, as it may point out all the acts of violence that were done upon his face, by spitting, buffeting, and the like, so it expresses his whole despised, contemned, persecuted estate and condition. But let us attend to our annotate:—

"Modò secundâ, modò tertiâ personâ, de Jeremia loquitur, quod frequens Hebræis. Sicut multi mirati erant hominem tam egregium tam fœdè tractari, detrudi in carcerem, deinde in lacum lutosum, ibique et pædore et cibi inopiâ contabescere; sic contra, rebus mutatis admirationi erit honos ipsi habitus;"—"He speaks of Jeremiah sometimes in the second, sometimes in the third person; which is frequent with the Hebrews. As many wondered that so excellent a person should so vilely be dealt with, be thrust into prison, and then into a miry lake, and there to pine with stink and want of food; so on the contrary, affairs being changed, the honour afforded him shall be matter of admiration."

1. To grant the first observation, as to the change of persons in the discourse, the word (שָׁמְמוּ, "shall be astonished") here used signifies not every slight admiration, by wondering upon any occasion or that may be a little more than ordinary, but mostly an astonishment arising from the contemplation of some ruthful spectacle. So Lev. 26:32, "I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it;" and the word is near twenty times used to the same purpose. This by way of diminution is made, "mirati sunt, admirationi erit."

2. This astonishment of men is by Grotius referred both to the dejection and exaltation of Jeremiah, whereof there is nothing in the words. It is the amazement of men at the despicable condition on him that is spoken of only that is intended; but without intruding something of his exaltation, this discourse had wanted all colour of pretext.

3. Was it so great a matter in Jerusalem that a prophet should be put in prison there, where they imprisoned, stoned, tortured, and slew them almost all, one after another, in their several generations, that it should be thus prophesied of as a thing that men would and should be amazed at? Was it any wonder at all in that city, whose streets not long before had run with the blood of innocent men, that a prophet should be cast into prison? Or was this peculiar to Jeremiah to be dealt so withal? Is it any matter of astonishment to this very day? Was his honour afterward such an amazing thing, in that for a little season he was suffered to go at liberty, and had victuals given him? Was not this, as to the thing itself, common to him with many hundred others? Were his afflictions such as to be beyond compare with those of any man, or any of the sons of men? or his honours such as to dazzle the eyes of men with admiration and astonishment? Let a man dare to make bold with the word of God, and he may make as many such applications as he pleaseth, and find out what person he will to answer all the prophecies of the Messiah. This not succeeding, let us try the next verse:—

"So shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see, and that which they had not heard shall they consider."

"Ita asperget gentes multas. In Hebræo, 'Sic asperget,' ut respondeat illi 'sicut,' quod præcessit. Multos ex gentibus ab idolorum cultu avertet. Similitudo sumpta ab aspersionibus legalibus; unde et Chaldæis נָזָה est objurgare. At LXX. habent, Οὕτω θανμάσονται ἔθνη πολλὰ ἐπʼ αὐτῷ, non male; nam mirari est aspergi fulgore alicujus;"—"In the Hebrew it is, 'So he shall sprinkle,' that it might answer to the 'as' that went before. He shall turn many of the nations from the worship of idols. A similitude taken from the legal washings; whence נָזָה with the Chaldees is to 'rebuke.' The LXX. render it, 'So shall many nations wonder at him,' not badly; for to wonder is as it were to be sprinkled with any one's brightness."

For the exposition of the words,—

1. We agree that it is, "So he shall sprinkle," an ἀπόδοσις, relating to the πρότασις, verse 14, "As many were astonished," etc.; the great work of Christ and his exaltation therein being rendered in opposition to his humiliation and dejection, before mentioned. As he was in so mean a condition that men were astonished at him, so he shall be exalted, in his great work of converting the nations, to their admiration.

2. It is granted that the expression, "He shall sprinkle," is an allusion to the legal washings and purifications; which as they were typical of real sanctification and holiness, so from them is the promise thereof so often expressed in the terms of "washing" and "cleansing," Ezek. 36:25, the term being preserved and used in the New Testament frequently; the blood of Christ, whereby this work is done, being therefore called "the blood of sprinkling," Heb. 12:24, Eph. 5:25, 26. The pouring out of the Spirit by Jesus Christ, for the purifying and sanctifying of many nations, not the Jews only, but the children of God throughout the world, by faith in his blood, is that which is here intended. What the use of נָזָה the Chaldee to this purpose is I know not.

3. The LXX. have very badly rendered the words, "Many nations shall wonder at him," both as to words and sense; for,—(1.) As the words will not bear it, so, (2.) They make that the action of the nations towards Christ which is his towards them. They lose the whole sense of the words; and what they say falls in with what follows, and is clearly expressed. (3.) It is not helped by the explanation given to it by the annotator. The first expression is metaphorical, which the LXX. render by a word proper, remote from the sense intended, which the annotator explains by another metaphor; by which kind of procedure, men may lead words and senses whither and which way they please.

4. [As] for the accommodation of the words to Jeremiah, how did he sprinkle many nations, so as to answer the type of legal cleansing? Did he pour out the Spirit upon them? did he sanctify and make them holy? did he purge them from their iniquities? "But he turned many amongst the nations from the worship of idols." But who told Grotius so? where is it written or recorded? He prophesied, indeed, of the desolation of idols and idolaters. Of the conversion of many, of any, among the heathen by his preaching, he being not purposely sent to them, what evidence have we? If a man may feign what he please, and affix it to whom he please, he may make whom he will to be foretold in any prophecy.

"Kings shall shut their mouths at him." "Reges, ut Nebuchodonosor Chaldæorum, et Nechos Ægyptiorum, eorumque satrapæ, admirabuntur cum silentio, ubi videbunt omnia quæ dicet Jeremias ità adamussim et suis temporibus impleta;"—"Kings, as Nebuchodonosor of the Chaldees, and Necho of the Egyptians, and their princes, shall admire with silence, when they shall see all things foretold by Jeremiah come to pass exactly and to be fulfilled in their own time."

That by this expression wonder and amazement is intended is agreed. As men, all sorts of men, before were astonished at his low condition, so even the greatest of them shall be astonished at the prosperity of his work and exaltation. The reason of this their shutting their mouths in silence and admiration is from the work which he shall do,—that is, "he shall sprinkle many nations,"—as is evident from the following reason assigned: "For that which hath not been told them shall they see;" which expresseth the means whereby he should "sprinkle many nations," even by the preaching of the gospel to their conversion.

[As] for the application hereof to Jeremiah:—1. That the kings mentioned did so become silent with admiration at him and astonishment is ἄγραφον: and all these magnificent thoughts of the Chaldeans' dealing with Jeremiah are built only on this, that looking on him as a man that had dissuaded the Jews from their rebellion against them, and rebuked all their wickedness, and foretold their ruin, they gave him his life and liberty. 2. The reason assigned by Grotius why they should so admire him is for his predictions; but the reason of the great amazement and astonishment at him in the text is his sprinkling of many nations: so that nothing, not a word or expression, doth here agree to him; yea, this gloss is directly contrary to the letter of the text.

The close of these words is, "That which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider;" of which he says, "They shall see that come to pass, foreseen and foretold by him, which they had not heard of by their astrologers or magicians."

1. But what is it that is here intended? the desolation of Jerusalem? That was it which Jeremiah foretold, upon the account whereof he had that respect with the Chaldees which, through the mercy of God, he obtained. Is this that which is thus emphatically expressed, "That which they had not heard, that which they had not been told, this they should see, this they should consider?" That this is directly spoken of Jesus Christ, that he is the thing which they had not seen nor heard of, the apostle tells us, Rom. 15:21. Strange that this should be the desolation of Jerusalem!

2. It is probable that the magicians and astrologers, whose life and trade it was to flatter their kings with hope of success in their wars and undertakings, had foretold the taking of Jerusalem, considering that the king of the Chaldees had used all manner of divinations before he undertook the war against it, Ezek. 21:21, 22. It is too much trouble to abide on such vain imaginations; nor doth Grotius take any care to evidence how that which be delivers as the sense of the words may so much as be typically spoken of Jesus Christ, or be any way accommodated to him.

The prophet proceeds, chap. 53, with the same continued discourse: Verse 1, "Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?" which words are thus illustrated by the annotator:—

"Vultis scire, inquit, quis ille sit futurus de quo cœpi agere, qui et meis prophetiis plenam habebit fidem, et ipse de maximis rebus quas potentia Dei peraget revelationes accipiet exactissimas, omnibus circumstantiis additis? dabo vobis geminas ejus notas unde cognosci possit. Hæ notæ in Jeremiam quidem congruunt prius, sed potius in sublimiúsque, sæpe et magis κατὰ λέξιν, in Christum;"—" 'Will ye know,' saith he, 'who he shall be of whom I have begun to treat, who shall both fully believe my prophecies and shall himself receive most exact revelations of the great things that the power of God shall bring to pass, all the circumstances being added? I will give you two notes of him by which he may be known.' These notes, in the first place, agree to Jeremiah, but rather to Christ."

1. I suppose if we had not had the advantage of receiving quite another interpretation of these words from the Holy Ghost himself in the New Testament, yet it would not have been easy for any to have swallowed this gloss, that is as little allied to the text as any thing that can possibly be imagined. The Holy Ghost tells us that these words are the complaint of the prophet and the church of believers unto God concerning the paucity of them that would believe in Christ, or did so believe, when he was exhibited in the flesh, the power of the Lord with him for our salvation being effectually revealed to very few of the Jews. So John 12:37, 38, "But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him: that the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, Lord, who hath believed our report! and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?" So Rom. 10:16, "But they have not all obeyed the gospel; for Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report?"

2. Let us now a little compare these several interpretations: "Who hath believed our report?"—"Lord, how few do believe on Christ, working miracles himself, and preached by the apostles." "Jeremiah shall believe my prophecies," saith Grotius. "To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?"—"To how few is the power of God unto salvation made known by the Holy Ghost." "Jeremiah also shall have clear revelations," says Grotius. And this is counted learnedly to interpret the Scriptures! and every day are such annotations on the Scripture multiplied.

3. It is not, then, the prophet's prediction of what he should do of whom he treats, what he should believe, what he should receive, whereof there is notice given in this verse; but what others shall do in reference to the preaching of him. They shall not believe: "Who hath believed?"

4. The annotator tells us these words do agree to Christ chiefly and magis, κατὰ λέξιν. This, then, must be the signification of them, according to his interpretation, in relation unto Christ, "He shall believe the prophecies of Isaiah, and receive revelations of his own." For my part, I am rather of the mind of John and Paul concerning these words than of the learned annotator's.

5. There is no mention of describing the person spoken of by "two notes;" but in the first words the prophet enters upon the description of Christ, what he was, what he did and suffered for us, which he pursues to the end of the chapter.

Verse 2, "For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him."

An entrance is made in these words into the account that the prophet intends to give why so few believed in Christ, the Messiah, when he came, after they had looked for him and desired him so long,—namely, his great unsuitableness to their expectation. They looked for a person shining in honour and glory, raising a visible, pompous, terrene kingdom, whereof they should he made partakers. But Christ when he comes indeed grows up, both in his human nature and his kingdom, as a tender plant,—obnoxious to the incursions of beasts, winds, and storms, and treading-on of every one; yet, preserved by the providence of God, under whose eye and before whom he grew up, he shall prosper. And he shall be as a root preserved in the dry ground of the parched house of David and poor family of Mary and Joseph,—every way outwardly contemptible; so that from thence none could look for the springing of such a "Branch of the LORD." And whereas they expected that he should appear with a great deal of outward form, loveliness, beauty, and every thing that should make a glorious person desirable, when they come to see him indeed in his outward condition, they shall not be able to discover any thing in the world for which they should desire him, own him, or receive him. And therefore after they shall have gone forth, upon the report that shall go of him, to see him, they shall be offended, and return and say, "Is not this the carpenter's son? and are not his brethren with us?" This sword of the Lord, which lies at the heart of the Jews to this day, the learned annotator labours to ease them of, by accommodating these words to Jeremiah; which, through the favour of the reader, I shall no otherwise refute than by its repetition: " 'For he shall grow up before the LORD as a tender plant;'—Jeremiah shall serve God in his prophetical office whilst he is young. 'And as a root out of a dry ground;'—He shall be born at Anathoth, a poor village. 'He hath no form not comeliness;'—He shall be heavy and sad. 'And when we shall see him,' etc.;—He shall not have an amiable countenance." Whom might not these things be spoken of, that was a prophet, if the name of Anathoth be left out, and some other supplied in the room thereof?

The third verse pursues the description of the Messiah in respect of his abject outward condition; which being of the same import with the former, and it being not my aim to comment on the text, I shall pass by.

Verse 4, "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted."

Having formerly given the sense of these words, and vindicated them from the exceptions of the Socinians, I shall do no more but animadvert upon their accommodation to Jeremiah by Grotius. Thus, then, he,—

"Vere languores nostros ipse tulit. Ille non talia meritus mala tulit quæ nos eramus meriti. Hæc omnia ait dicturos Judæos post captam urbem;"—"He that deserved no such thing underwent the evils that we had deserved. All these things he saith the Jews shall say after the taking of the city."

It is of the unworthy dealing of the Jews with the prophet in Jerusalem during the siege that he supposes these words are spoken, and spoken by the Jews after the taking of the city. The sum is, "When he was so hardly treated, we deserved it, even to be so dealt withal, not he, who delivered the word of God."

But, 1. The words are, "He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows." That by "our griefs and sorrows," our sins and the punishment due to them are intended hath been declared. That the force of the words "bearing and carrying" do evince that he took them upon himself hath also been manifested. That he so took them as that God made them meet upon him, in his justice, hath likewise been proved. That by his bearing of them we come to have peace, and are freed, shall be farther cleared, as it is expressly mentioned, verses 5, 11. Let us now see how this may be accommodated to Jeremiah. Did he undergo the punishment due to the sins of the Jews, or did they bear their own sins? Did God cause their sins to meet on him then when he bare them, or is it not expressly against his law that one should bear the sins of another? Were the Jews freed,—had they peace by Jeremiah's sufferings; or rather, did they not hasten their utter ruin? If this be to interpret the Scripture, I know not what it is to corrupt it.

2. There is not the least evidence that the Jews had any such thoughts, or were at all greatly troubled, after the taking of the city by the Chaldeans, concerning their dealings with Jeremiah, whom they afterward accused to his face of being a false prophet, and lying to them in the name of the Lord. Neither are these words supposed to be spoken by the Jews, but by the church of God.

"Et nos putavimus eum quasi leprosum ac percussum à Deo et humiliatum. Nos credidimus Jeremiam merito conjectum in carcerem et lutum, Deo illum exosum habente, ut hostem urbis, templi, et pseudoprophetam," Grot.;—"We believed that Jeremiah was deservedly cast into the prison and mire, God hating him as an enemy of the city and temple, and as a false prophet." But,—

1. These words may be thus applied to any prophet whatever that suffered persecution and martyrdom from the Jews (as who of them did not, the one or the other?) for they quickly saw their error and mistake as to one, though at the same time they fell upon another, as our Saviour upbraideth the Pharisees. Nor,—

2. Was this any such great matter, that the Jews should think a true prophet to be a false prophet, and therefore deservedly punished, as in the law was appointed, that it should thus signally be foretold concerning Jeremiah. But that the Son of God, the Son and heir of the vineyard, should be so dealt withal, this is that which the prophet might well bring in the church thus signally complaining of. Of him to this day are the thoughts of the Jews no other than as here recorded; which they express by calling him תָּלוּי.

The reason of the low condition of the Messiah, which was so misapprehended of the Jews, is rendered in the next verse, and their mistake rectified:—

"But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed."

I suppose it will not be questioned but that these words belong to our blessed Saviour, and that redemption which he wrought for us by his blood and death. Not only the full accomplishment of the thing itself as delivered in the New Testament, but the quotation of the words themselves to that end and purpose, 1 Pet. 2:24, doth undeniably evince it. In what sense the words are to be understood of him we have formerly declared; that in that sense they are applicable to any other will not be pleaded. That they have any other sense is yet to be proved. To this, thus the annotator:—

"Ipse autem vulneratus est propter iniquitates nostras. In Hebræo, 'At vero ipse vulneratus' (id est, male tractatus est) 'nostro crimine.' In nobis culpa fuit, non in ipso. Sic et quod sequitur, 'Attritus est per nostram culpam.' Iniquissima de eo sensimus, et propterea crudeliter eum tractavimus: id nunc rebus ipsis apparet. Similia dixerunt Judæi qui se converterunt die Pentecostes, et deinceps," Grot.;—" 'But he was wounded for our transgressions.' In the Hebrew, 'But he was wounded' (that is, evilly entreated) 'by our fault.' The fault was in us, not in him. And so that which follows, 'He was bruised by our fault.' We thought ill of him, and therefore handled him cruelly. This, now, is evident from the things themselves. The like things said the Jews who converted themselves on the day of Pentecost, and afterward."

The reading of the words must first be considered, and then their sense and meaning; for against both these doth the learned annotator transgress, perverting the former that he might the more easily wrest the latter.

1. "He was wounded for our sins, crimine nostro," "by our crime;" that is, it was our fault, not his, that he was so evilly dealt with. And not to insist on the word "wounded," or "tormented with pain," which is slightly interpreted by "evil-entreated," the question is, whether the efficient or procuring and meritorious cause of Christ's wounding be here expressed.

2. The words used to express this cause of wounding are two, and both emphatical. The first is פָּשַׁע: "He was wounded מִפְּשָׁעֵינוּ, for our prevarications, our proud transgressing of the law." "פָּשַׁע est rebellare, et exire a voluntate Domine vel præcepto, ex superbia," R. D. in Michi. It is, properly, to rebel against man or God. Against man; 2 Kings 3:7, "The king of Moab פָשַׁע, hath rebelled against me;" and chap. 8:20, "In his days Edom פָּשַׁע, rebelled." As also against God: Isa. 1:2, "I have brought up children, and they פָּשְׁעוּ, have rebelled against me." Nor is it used in any other sense in the Scriptures but for prevarication and rebellion with a high hand, and through pride. The other word is עָוָה: "He was bruised מֵעֲוֹנוֹתַינוּ, for our iniquities." The word signifies a declining from the right way with perversity and frowardness. "עָוָה est inique vel perverse agere; proprie curvum esse vel incurvari." So that all sorts of sins are here emphatically and distinctly expressed, even the greatest rebellion, and most perverse, crooked turning aside from the ways of God.

3. Their causality in reference to the wounding of him here mentioned is expressed in the preposition מִן, which properly is "de, ex, a, e," "from," or "for." Now, to put an issue to the sense of these words, and thence, in a good measure, to the sense of this place, let the reader consult the collections of the use of this preposition in Pagnine, Buxtorf, Calasius, or any other. When he finds it with "sin," as here, and relating to punishment, if he find it once to signify any thing but the meritorious procuring cause of punishment, the learned annotator may yet enjoy his interpretation in quietness. But if this be so, if this expression do constantly and perpetually denote the impulsive, procuring cause of punishment, it was not well done of him to leave the preposition quite out in the first place, and in the next place so to express it as to confine it to signify the efficient cause of what is affirmed.

This, then, being the reading of the words, "He was wounded or tormented for our sins," the sense as relating to Jesus Christ is manifest: "When we thought he was justly for his own sake, as a seducer and malefactor, smitten of God, he was then under the punishment due to our iniquities, was so tormented for what we had deserved." This is thus rendered by our annotator: "Jeremiah was not in the fault, who prophesied to us, but we, that he was so evilly dealt with. 'He was bruised for our iniquities;' that is, we thought hard of him, and dealt evilly with him;"—which may pass with the former.

The LXX. render these words, Αὐτὸς δὲ ἐτραυματίσθη διὰ τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἠμῶν, καὶ μεμαλάκισται διὰ τὰς ἀνομίας ἠμῶν. Rightly! to be wounded διὰ τὰς ἁμαρτίας is to be wounded for and not by sin, no otherwise than that also signifies the impulsive cause. And the Chaldee paraphrast, not able to avoid the clearness of the expression denoting the meritorious cause of punishment, and yet not understanding how the Messiah should be wounded or punished, thus rendered the words: "Et ipse ædificabit domum sanctuarii nostri, quod violatum est propter peccata nostra, et traditum est propter iniquitates nostras;"—"He shall build the house of our sanctuary, which was violated for our sins" (that is, as a punishment of them) "and delivered for our iniquities." So he. Not being able to offer sufficient violence to the phrase of expression, nor understanding an accommodation of the words to him spoken of, he leaves the words with their own proper significancy, but turns their intendment, by an addition to them of his own.

Proceed we to the next words, which are exegetical of these: "The chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." Of these thus the annotator:—

"Disciplina pacis nostrœ super eum. Apud eum: id est, monitis nobis attulit salutaria, si ea recepissemus;"—"He gave ns wholesome warnings, if we would have received them."

But,—1. There is in this sense of the words nothing peculiar to Jeremiah. All the rest of the prophets did so, and were rejected no less than he.

2. The words are not, "He gave us good counsel, if we would have taken it;" but, "The chastisement of our peace was upon him." And what affinity there is between these two expressions, that the one of them should be used for the explication of the other, I profess I know not. Peter expounds it by, "He bare our sins in his own body on the tree," 1 Pet. 2:24.

3. The word rendered by us "chastisement," and by the Vulgar Latin, which Grotius follows, "disciplina," is מוּסַר, which as it hath its first signification "to learn," so it signifies also "to correct," because learning is seldom carried on without correction; and thence "disciplina" signifies the same. Now, what is the "correction of our peace?" Was it the instruction of Christ,—not that he gave, but that he had,—that we have our peace by? The word עָלָיו, he renders "apud eum," contrary to the known sense of the word. עָלָה is "to ascend, to lift up, to make to ascend," a word of most frequent use; thence is the word used rendered "super," intimating that the chastisement of our peace was made to ascend on him. As Peter expresseth the sense of this place, Ὃς τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν αὐτὸς ἀνήνεγκεν ἐν τῷ σώματι αὑτοῦ ἐπὶ τὸ ξύλον·—"He carried up our sins on his body on the tree;" they were made to ascend on him. The LXX. render the words ἐπʼ αὐτόν; the Vulgar Latin, "super eum;" and there is not the least colour for the annotator's "apud eum." Now, "the chastisement of our peace,"—that is, the punishment that was due that we might have peace, or whereby we have peace with God,—"was upon him," is, it seems, "He gave us good counsel and admonition, if we would have followed it"!

4. Here is no word expressing any act of the person spoken of, but his suffering or undergoing punishment. But of this enough.

"Et livore ejus sanati sumus. Livore ejus (id est, ipsius patientia), nos sanati fuissemus: id est, liberati ab impendentibus malis, si verbis ipsius, tanta malorum tolerantia confirmatis, habuissemus fidem. Hebræi potentialem modum aliter quam per indicativum exprimere nequeunt; ideo multa adhibenda attentio ad consequendos sensus;"—" 'With his stripes we are healed.' With his wound, or sore, or stripe, that is, by his patience, we might have been healed, that is, freed from impendent evils, had we believed his words, confirmed with so great bearing of evils. The Hebrews cannot express the potential mood but by the indicative; therefore much attention is to be used to find out the sense."

I cannot but profess that, setting aside some of the monstrous figments of the Jewish rabbins, I never in my whole life met with an interpretation of Scripture offering more palpable violence to the words than this of the annotator. Doubtless, to repeat it, with all sober men, is sufficient to confute it. I shall briefly add,—

1. The prophet says, "We are healed;" the annotator, "We might have been healed, but are not."

2. The healing in the prophet is by deliverance from sin, mentioned in the words foregoing, and so interpreted by Peter, 1 Ep. 2:24, whereby we have peace with God, which we have; the healing in the annotator is the deliverance from the destruction by the Chaldeans, which they were not delivered from, but might have been.

3. חֲבוּרָה in the prophet is μώλωψ in Peter, but "patience" in the annotator.

4. "By his stripes we are healed," is in the annotator, "By hearkening to him we might have been healed," or delivered from the evils threatened. "By his stripes;" that is, "By hearkening to his counsel, when he endured evils patiently." "We are healed," that is, "We might have been delivered, but are not."

5. As to the reason given of this interpretation, that the Hebrews have no potential mood, I shall desire to know who compelled the learned annotator to suppose himself wiser than the Holy Ghost, 1 Pet 2:24, to wrest these words into a potential signification which he expresseth directly, actually, indicatively? For a Jew to have done this out of hatred and enmity to the cross of Christ had been tolerable; but for a man professing himself a Christian, it is a some what strange attempt.

6. To close with this verse, we do not esteem ourselves at all beholding to the annotator for allowing an accommodation of these words to our blessed Saviour, affirming that the Jews who converted themselves (for so it must be expressed, lest any should mistake, and think their conversion to have been the work of the Spirit and grace of God) on the day of Pentecost used such words as those that the Jews are feigned to use in reference to Jeremiah. It is quite of another business that the prophet is speaking; not of the sin of the Jews in crucifying Christ, but of all our sins, for which he was crucified.

"Munera magna quidem misit, sed misit in hamo."—Martial. lib. vi. Ep. 63.

Verse 6, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."

Grotius: "Erraveramus jam a Manassis temporibus, alii ad alia idola; et permisit Deus ut ille nostro gravi crimine indignissima pateretur;"—"We have all erred from the days of Manasseh, some following some idols, others others; and God permitted that he by our grievous crime should suffer most unworthy things."

Though the words of this verse are most important, yet having at large before insisted on the latter words of it, I shall be brief in my animadversions on the signal depravation of them by the learned annotator. Therefore,—

1. Why is this confession of sins restrained to the times of Manasseh, and not afterward? The expression is universal, כֻּלָּנוּ, "all of us," and a man to his own way. And if these words may be allowed to respect Jesus Christ at all, they will not bear any such restriction. But this is the πρῶτον ψεῦδος of this interpretation, that these are the words of the Jews after the destruction of Jerusalem, which are the words of the converted Jews and Gentiles after the suffering of Jesus Christ.

2. Why is the sin confessed restrained to idolatry? Men's "own ways," which they walk in when they turn from the ways of God, and know not the ways of peace, comprehend all the evils of every kind that their hearts and lives are infected withal.

3. The last words are unworthy a person of much less learning and judgment than the annotator; for,—

(1.) The word הִפְנִּיעַ (of which before) is interpreted, without pretence, warrant, or colour, "permisit,"—God permitted. But of that word sufficiently before.

(2.) By "his suffering unworthy things through our fault" he understands not the meritorious cause of his suffering, but the means whereby he suffered, even the unbelief and cruelty of the Jews; which is most remote from the sense of the place.

(3.) He mentions here distinctly the fault of them that speak, and his suffering that is spoken of, "Permisit Deus ut ille nostro gravi crimine indignissima pateretur," when in the text the fault of them that speak is the suffering of him that is spoken of: "Our iniquities were laid on him,"—that is, the punishment due to them.

(4.) His suffering in the text is God's act; in the Annotations, the Jews' only.

(5.) There is neither sense nor coherence in this interpretation of the words, "We have all sinned and followed idols, and God hath suffered him to be evilly entreated by us;" when the whole context evidently gives an account of our deserving, and the way whereby we are delivered, and therein a reason of the low and abject condition of the Messiah in this world. But of this at large elsewhere.

Verse 7, "He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth."

"Oblatus est quia ipse voluit, et non aperuit os suum. In Heb., 'Oppressus et afflictus fuit, et non aperuit os suum.' Sensum bene exprimunt LXX. Καὶ αὐτὸς διὰ τὸ κεκακῶσθαι οὐκ ἀνοίγει τὸ στόμα αὐτοῦ. Etiam tunc cum in carcerem ageretur, et in locum lutosum, nihil fecit dixit ve iracunde.

"Sicut ovis, Ovis mitissimum animal.

"Et quasi agnus, cum quo ipse Jeremias se comparat, cap. xi. ver. 19."

' "He was offered because he would, and he opened not his mouth'. In the Hebrew, 'He was oppressed and afflicted.' The LXX. have well expressed the sense, 'Because of affliction he opened not his mouth.' Even then when he was thrown into the prison and mire, he neither did nor spake any thing angrily.

" 'As a sheep,' a most mild creature.

" 'And as a lamb,' wherewith Jeremiah compares himself, chap. 11. verse 19."

The process of the words is to give an account of the same matter formerly insisted on, concerning one's suffering for the sins of others. That the words are spoken of the Lord Jesus, the Holy Ghost hath long since put it out of question, Acts 8:32. And though there be some difficulty and variety in the interpretation of the first words, yet his patient suffering as the Lamb of God, typed out by all the sacrifices of the Jews, under the punishment due to our sins, shines through the whole.

1. For the words themselves, they are נִנַּשׂ וְהוּא נַעֲנֶה, which are variously rendered: Καὶ αὐτὸς διὰ τὸ κεκακῶσθαι, LXX;—"And he for (or because of) affliction." "Oblatus est quia ipse voluit," Vulg. Lat.;—"He was offered because he would." "Oppressus est et ipse afflictus est," Arias Montanus. "Exigitur et ipse affligitur," Junius;—"It was exacted, and he was afflicted." Others, "It was exacted, and he answered," which seems most to agree with the letter. נִנַּשׁ is sometimes written with the point on the right corner of ש, and then it signifies "to approach, to draw nigh;" and in the matter of sacrifice it signifies "to offer," because men drew nigh to the Lord in offering. So Amos 5:25, הִנַּשְׁתֶּם לִי, "Have ye made to draw nigh your offerings and sacrifices?" or, "Have ye offered?" Thus the Vulgar Latin read the word, and rendered it "Oblatus est,"—"He was offered." With the point on the left corner, it is "to exact, to require, to afflict, to oppress." To exact and require at the hands of any is the most common sense of the word. So 2 Kings 23:35, "Jehoiakim exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land." Thence is נוֹנֵשׂ "an exactor," one that requires what is imposed on men, Zech. 9:8, 10:4. Being used here in a passive sense, it is, "It was exacted and required of him,"—that is, the punishment due to our sins was required of Jesus Christ, having undertaken to be a sponsor; and so Junius hath supplied the words, "Exigitur pœna,"—"Punishment was exacted." And this is more proper than what we read, "He was oppressed," though that also be significant of the same thing. How the punishment of our sins was exacted or required of Jeremiah the annotator declares not.

The other word is נַעֲנֶה. The Vulgate Latin seems to look to the active use of the word, "to answer," and therefore renders it "voluit," "he would,"—he willingly submitted to it, or he undertook to do that which was exacted; and much may be said for this interpretation from the use of the word in Scripture. And then the sense will be, "It was exacted of him, or our punishment was required of him, and he undertook it with willingness and patience." So it denotes the will of Christ in undergoing the penalty due to our sins; which he expresseth, Ps. 40:8, Heb. 10:6, 7. Take it in the sense wherein it is most commonly used, and it denotes the event of the exacting the penalty of our sins of him: "He was afflicted." In what sense this may possibly be applied to Jeremiah, I leave to the annotator's friends to find out.

2. The next words, "He openeth not his mouth," he applies unto the patience of Jeremiah, who did neither speak nor do any thing angrily when he was cast into prison. Of that honour which we owe to all the saints departed, and in an especial manner to the great builders of the church of God, the prophets and apostles, this is no small part, that we deliver them from under the burden of having that ascribed to them who are members which is peculiar to their Head. I say, then, the perfect submission and patience expressed in these words were not found in holy Jeremiah, who in his affliction and trial opened his mouth and cursed the day wherein he was born; and when he says that himself was as a lamb, and as an ox appointed to the slaughter, in the same place, and at the same time, he prays for vengeance on his adversaries, Jer. 11:20; in those words not denoting his patience, but his being exposed to their cruelty.

Verse 8, "He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken."

The person speaking is here changed, as is manifest from the close of the verse, "For the transgression of my people," who were the speakers before. These, then, are the words of God by the prophet; and they are not without their difficulties, concerning which the reader may consult commentators at large. Grotius thus:—

"De carcere et de judicio ablatus est. Id est, liberatus tandem. Judicium vocat hoc, quia specie judicii ipsi hæc mala imposita fuerunt. Vide Jer. 32:3, liberatus autem per Babylonios.

"Generationem ejus quis enarrabit? Quis numerare poterit dies vitæ ejus? Id est, erit valde longævus.

"Quia abscissus est de terra viventium, nempe, cum actus fuit primum in carcerem, deinde in lacum illum cœnosum, et rursum in carcerem."

" 'He was taken from prison and judgment.' That is, he was at length delivered. He calls it 'judgment,' because these evils were imposed on him with a pretence of judgment. But he was freed by the Babylonians.

" 'Who shall declare his generation?' Who shall be able to number the days of his life? That is, he shall live very long.

" 'For he was cut off out of the land of the living,' namely, when he was thrown into the prison, and then into the miry pit, and then into prison again."

He adds, " 'Propter scelus populi mei percussi eum.' In Heb. est, plaga ipsi, supple evenit, populi summo errore ac crimine, ut et ante dictum est;"—" 'For the wickedness of my people I have stricken him.' In the Hebrew it is, 'Stroke on him,' that is, befell him, through the great error and fault of the people, as is before said." So far he.

The sense of these words being a little tried out, their application will be manifest. 1. The first words are not without their difficulty: מֵעֹצֶר, "from prison," say we. The word is from עָצַר, "prohibere," "coercere," to "forbid," to "restrain," and is nowhere used for a prison directly. The LXX. have rendered it, Ἐν τῇ ταπεινώσει ἡ κρίσις αὐτοῦ ἤρθη,—"In his humility (or humiliation), his judgment (or sentence) was taken away," referring one of the words to one thing, and another to another. The Vulgar Latin, "angustia;" Arias Montanus, "clausura;" Junius, "per coarctationem," rendering the preposition "by," not "from." The word is rendered by us "oppression," Ps. 107:39. It is, at the utmost, in reference to a prison, "claustrum," a place where any may be shut up, but may as well be rendered "angustia" with the Vulgar Latin, better "coarctation" with Junius, being taken for any kind of strait and restraint. And, indeed, properly our Saviour was not cast into a prison, though he was all night under restraint. If the intendment of the words be about what he was delivered from, under which he was, and not what he was delivered from that he should not undergo it, וּמִמִּשְׁפָּט, and "from judgment," there is no difficulty in the world. Only, whose judgment it is that he was taken from is worth inquiry, whether that of God or man. לֻקָּח, "he was taken;" "ablatus est," the Vulgar Latin, "he was taken up." לקָחַ is "capere, accipere, ferre, tollere," a word of very large use, both in a good and in a bad sense;—"to be taken up," it will scarcely be found to signify; "to be taken away," very often.

Now, the sense of these words is, that either Christ was taken away, that is, killed and slain, by his pressures, and the pretended judgment that was passed on him, or else that he was delivered from the straits and judgment that might have come upon him. Although he was so afflicted, yet he was taken away from distress and judgment. Junius would have the former sense; and the exegesis of the word "taken away" by the following words, "He was cut off from the land of the living," seems to require it. In that sense the words are, "By durance, restraint, affliction, and judgment,"—either the righteous judgment of God, as Junius, or the pretended juridical process of men,—"he was taken away" or slain. If I go off from this sense of the words, of all other apprehensions, I should cleave to that of eternal restraint or condemnation, from which Christ was delivered in his greatest distress, Isa. 50:7, 8, Heb. 5:7. Though his afflictions were great and his pressures sore, yet he was delivered from eternal restraint and condemnation, it being not possible that he should be detained of death.

Applying all this to Jeremiah, says Grotius, "He was delivered from prison and judgment by the Babylonians." That לֻקָּח is "delivered," and that he was delivered by the Babylonians from judgment, after that judgment had passed on him and sentence been executed for many months, is strange. But let us proceed to what follows:—

2. "Who shall declare his generation?"—"Who shall speak it, or be able to speak it?" דּוֹרוֹ, "his generation." דוֹר is "ætas, generatio, sæculum." Gr. γενεά· Τὴν γενεὰν αὐτοῦ τίς διηγήσεται;—"Who shall expound his generation?" or declare it; that is, "Though he be so taken away by oppression and judgment, yet his continuance, his generation, his abiding, shall be such as 'quis eloquetur?' who shall speak it?" It shall be for ever and ever; for he was to he "satisfied with long or eternal life," and therein to "see the salvation of God."

This is, says Grotius, "Who can declare the generation of Jeremiah, he shall live so great a space of time?" He began his prophecy when he was very young, chap. 1:5, even in the thirteenth year of Josiah, and he continued prophesying in Jerusalem until the eleventh year of Zedekiah, about forty years, and how long he lived after this is uncertain. Probably he might live in all sixty years, whereas it is evident that Hosea prophesied eighty years or very near. Now, that this should be so marvellous a thing, that a man should live sixty or seventy years, that God should foretell it as a strange thing above twice so many years before, and express it by way of admiration that none should be able to declare it, is such an interpretation of Scripture as becomes not the learned annotator. Let the learned reader consult Abrabanel's accommodation of these words to Josiah, and he will see what shifts the poor man is put to to give them any tolerable sense.

3. "For he was cut off out of the land of the living." Ὅτι αἴρεται ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς ἠ ζωὴ αὐτοῦ·—"His life was taken from the earth;" to the sense, not the letter. נִגְזַר, "cut off," as a branch is cut off a tree. גָזַר is "abscindere, succidere, extidere," to cut off. "The land of the living" is the state and condition of them that live in this world; so that to be "cut off from the land of the living" is a proper expression for to be slain, as in reference to Christ it is expressed by another word, Dan. 9:26. "The meaning of this is," says Grotius, "Jeremiah was cast into prison and into the miry lake. 'He was cut off out of the land of the living;' that is, he was put into prison twice, and taken out again." If this be not to offer violence to the word of God, I know not what is. The learned man confesses that this whole prophecy belongs to Christ also, but he leaves no sense to the words whereby they possibly may be applied to him. How was Christ cast into prison and a miry pit, and taken out from thence by the way of deliverance?

4. "For the transgression of my people was he stricken," Of the sense of this expression, that Christ was stricken, or that the stroke of punishment was upon him, for our sins, or the sins of God's people, I have spoken before. Grotius would have it "by the sin;" that is, the "people sinned in doing of it;" that is, in putting Jeremiah into prison. The whole context evidently manifests, and the proposition in the relation wherein it stands to sin and punishment necessarily requires, that the impulsive and meritorious, not the efficient cause, be denoted thereby.

Verse 9, "And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth."

"Et dabit impios pro sepultura, et divitem pro morte sua. Illi ipsum etiam interficere voluerant, ut legimus Jer. 26. At Deus ipsius vice viros potentes quidem, sed improbos, sacerdotes nempe mortem Jeremiæ machinatos, morti dedit per Chaldæos 2 Reg. 25:18–21. Nihil illis divitiæ suæ profuerunt, quibus redimi se posse speraverant. Eo quod iniquitatem non fecerit, neque dolus fuerit in ore ejus. Quanquam nihil aliud dixerat quam quod Deus ei mandaverat;"—" 'And he shall give the wicked for his grave (or burial), and the rich for his death.' They would have slain him, as we read Jer. 26. But God gave them that were very powerful, indeed, but wicked, even the priests that designed his death, up to death by the Chaldeans, 2 Kings 25:18–21. Their riches, whereby they hoped to redeem themselves, profited them nothing. 'Because he had done,' etc. Although he had not said any thing but what God commanded him."

It is confessed that the first words are full of difficulty, and various are the interpretations of them, which the reader may consult in expositors. It is not my work at present to comment on the text, but to consider its accommodation by Grotius. The most simple sense of the words to me seems to be, that Christ, being cut off from the land of the living, had his sepulchre among wicked men, being taken down from the cross as a malefactor, and yet was buried in the grave of a rich man,—by Joseph of Arimathea in his own grave; the consent of which interpretation with the text is discovered by Forsterus and Mercerus, names of sufficient authority in all Hebrew literature. The sense that Grotius fixes on is, that "God delivered Jeremiah from death, and gave others to be slain in his stead, who had contrived his death." But,—

1. Of deliverance from death here is no mention; yea, he who is spoken of was בְּמֹתָיו, "in mortibus ejus," in his deaths, or under death and its power. So that it is not, "Others shall die for him," but, "He being dead, under the power of death, his grave, or burial, or sepulchre, shall be so disposed of."

2. There is not any word spoken of putting others to death, but of giving or placing his grave with the wicked. Nor were those mentioned in 2 Kings 25:18–21, that were slain by the king of Babel, as it doth any way appear, of the peculiar enemies of Jeremiah, the chief of them, Seraiah, being probably he to whom Jeremiah gave his prophecy against Babylon, who is said to be a "quiet prince," Jer. 51:59–64.

3. It is well that it is granted that pro is as much as vice, "for one, in one's stead;" which the learned annotator's friends will scarce allow.

4. The application of these words, "He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth" (which are used to express the absolutely perfect innocency of the Sod of God), to any man, who as a man is or was a liar, is little less than blasphemy; and to restrain them to the prophet's message from God is devoid of all pretence or plea.

Verse 10, "Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand."

"Tamen Deo visum est eum conterere et infirmare; id est, attenuare fame, illuvie, squalore. Verba activa apud Hebræos sæpe permittendi habent significatum. Causa sequitur cur id Deus permiserit, Si posuerit pro delicto animam suam, videbit semen long-œvum. Verteris recte, 'ut cum semetipsum subjecerit pœnis, videat semen, diuque vivat.' Hebræis pœna etiam injuste irrogata אָשָׁם dicitur, quia infligitur si non sonti, certe quasi sonti: sic חָטַא sumi apparet, Gen. 31:39; Zach. 14:19. Vixit diu Jeremias in Egypto;"—" 'Yet it seemed good to God to bruise and weaken him;' that is, to weaken him, and bring him down by hunger, filth, etc. Active verbs among the Hebrews have often the signification of permitting. The reason follows why God suffered this, 'If he make his soul,' etc. You shall rightly read it, 'that when he hath submitted himself to punishment, then he may see his seed and live long.' Amongst the Hebrews punishment, [even though] unjustly inflicted, is called אָשָׁם, because it is inflicted on him that is guilty, or supposed so: so it is evident that חָטַא is taken, Gen. 31:39; Zech. 14:19. Jeremiah lived long in Egypt."

The words and sense are both briefly to be considered. 1. חָפֵץ, "voluit,"—"The LORD would bruise him." "Delectatus est," Jun. "It pleased the LORD," say we. The Greek renders this word βούλεται, properly, although in the following words it utterly departs from the original. The word is not only "velle," but "voluntatem seu complacentiam habere,"—to take delight to do the thing, and in the doing of it, which we will to be done, Num. 14:8; Judges 13:23. Our translation refers it to the purpose and good pleasure of God; so is the word used Jonah 1:14, and in sundry other places. The noun of the same signification is used again in this verse, חֵפֶץ, and is translated "The pleasure:" "The pleasure of the LORD shall prosper,"—that is, the thing which pleases him, and which he hath purposed to do. The purpose and pleasure of the Lord in giving Christ up to death, Acts 2:23, and 4:27, 28, is doubtless that which the prophet here intends; which also, as to the execution of it, is farther expressed Zech 13:7.

2. It pleased the LORD דּכְּאוֹ, "eum contundere, conterere, frangere," to bruise or break him; in answer to what was said before, verse 5, "He was wounded, he was bruised," etc.

That which is said, to accommodate all this to Jeremiah, is, that by all this is intended that God permitted it to be done to him. But,—

1. The word חָפֵץ is nowhere used in that sense, nor will anywhere bear that interpretation. And though some active verbs in the Hebrew may be interpreted in a sense of permitting or suffering the thing to be done which is said to be done, yet that all may so be interpreted when we please, without a cogent reason for such an interpretation, [and] that this verb, signifying not only to will, but to will with delight and purpose, should be so interpreted, and that in this place, not admitting of such a gloss in any other place, is that which was needful to be said by the learned annotator, but with what pretence of reason or truth I know not.

2. As to Christ, to whom he confesseth these words properly belong, the proper sense of the word is to be retained, as hath been showed; and it is very marvellous the improper sense of the word should be used in reference to him to whom it nextly belongs, and the proper in reference to him who is more remotely and secondarily signified.

For the second passage, "When (or if thou shalt) he shall make his soul an offering for sin," or; as it may be read, "When his soul shall make an offering for sin," it may relate either to God giving him up for a sacrifice,—his soul for his whole human nature,—or to Christ, whose soul was [offered], or who offered himself, as a sacrifice to God, Eph. 5:2. Which way soever it be taken, it is peculiar to Christ; for neither did God ever make any one else an offering for sin, nor did ever any person but Christ make himself an offering, or had power so to do, or would have been accepted in so doing. To suit these words to Jeremiah, it is said that אָשָׁם in the Hebrew signifies any punishment, though unjustly inflicted.

I will not say that the learned annotator affirms this with a mind to deceive, but yet I cannot but think that as he hath not given so he could not give one instance out of the Scripture of that use of the word which he pretends. This I am sure of, that his assertion hath put me to the labour of considering all the places of Scripture where the word is used in the full collections of Calasius, and I dare confidently assure the reader that there is no colour for this assertion, nor instance to make it good. The Greeks have rendered it περὶ ἁμαρτίας, "an offering for sin," as is expressed, Rom. 8:3, Heb. 10:6, 8: so the word is used Lev. 5:16, 7:1. But,—

If אָשָׁם be not used in that sense, yet חָטַא is, in Gen. 31:39, Zech. 14:19. But,—

1. This doth not satisfy, "If this word may not be so interpreted which is here used, yet another, which is not here used, may be so interpreted; and therefore that which is here used must have the same sense!" Nor,—

2. Can he prove that חֵטְא [חַטָּאָה] hath any other signification but either of sin, or punishment, or satisfaction. In the first place instanced in, Gen. 31:39, Jacob says that for that which was taken away out of the flock of Laban, he expiated it, he made satisfaction for it, as the law afterward required in such cases should be done, Exod. 22:12; and in that place of Zech. 14:19, it is precisely punishment for sin. But this word is not in our text.

Take, then, the word in any sense that it will admit of, to apply this expression to Jeremiah is no less than blasphemy. To say that either God or himself made him a sacrifice for sin is to blaspheme the one sacrifice of the Son of God.

For the next words, "He shall see his seed," Grotius knows not how to make any application of them to Jeremiah, and therefore he speaks nothing of them. How they belong to Christ is evident, Ps. 22:30, Heb. 2:8. That "he shall prolong his days" is not applicable to Jeremiah, of whom the annotator knew not how long he lived in Egypt, hath been formerly declared. Christ prolonged his days, in that notwithstanding that he was dead he is alive, and lives for ever.

The last clause, concerning the prospering of the good pleasure, the will and pleasure, of the Lord, in the hand of Jesus Christ, for the gathering of his church through his blood, and making peace between God and man, hath little relation to anything that is spoken of Jeremiah, whose ministry for the conversion of souls doth not seem to have had any thing eminent in it above that of other prophets; yea, falling in a time when the wickedness of the people to whom he was sent was come up to the height, his message seemed to be almost totally rejected.

Verse 11, "He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities."

The event and glorious issue of the suffering of Christ, in respect of himself and others, with the reason thereof, is briefly comprised and expressed in this verse.

"Videbit et saturabitur. Videbit diu, ad satietatem. Simile loquendi genus in Hebræo, Gen 25:8, 35:29, 1 Paral. xxiii. 1, xxix. 28, 2 Paral. xxiv. 15.

"In scientia sua. Per eam quam habet Dei cognitionem.

"Justificabit ipse Justus servus meus multos. Exemplo et institutione corriget multos etiam ex gentibus. Hæc est maxime propria verbi יַצְדִּיק significatio, et Græci δικαιοῦν, ut apparet Dan. 12:3, Apoc. 22:11, et alibi sæpe.

"Et iniquitates eorum ipse portabit. Id est, auferet, per μετωνυμίαν, quia qui sordes aliquas auferunt solent eos collo supposito portare. Abstulit Jeremias multorum peccata, ita ut diximus, eos corrigendo."

" 'He shall see, and be satisfied.' He shall see long, unto satiety. The like phrase of speech you have in the Hebrew, Gen. 25:8, etc.

" 'By his knowledge.' By that knowledge which he hath of God.

" 'He shall justify many.' By his example and institution he shall convert many even from among the heathen. This is the most proper sense of the word יַצְדִּיק, and of δικαιοῦν in the Greek, as appeareth, Dan. 12:3, Rev. 22:11, etc.

" 'For he shall bear their iniquities;' that is, take them away, by a metonymy, because those that take away filth used to take it on their necks and bear it. Jeremiah took away the sins of many, as was said, by correcting or amending them."

The intelligent reader will easily perceive the whole Socinian poison about the death of Christ to be infolded in this interpretation. His "knowledge" is the knowledge that he had of God and his will, which he declares; to "justify" is to amend men's lives; and to "bear sin" is to take it away. According to the analogy of this faith, you may apply the text to whom you please, as well as to Jeremiah. But the words are of another import, as we shall briefly see:—

1. These words, מֵעֲמַל נַפְשׁוֹ, which the Vulgar Latin renders "pro eo quod laboravit," ad verbum, "propter laborem animæ suæ," which express the object of the seeing mentioned, and that wherewith he was satisfied, are not taken notice of. The "travail of the soul" of Christ is the fruit of his labour, travail, and suffering. This, says the prophet, he "shall see," that is, "receive, perceive, enjoy," as the verb רָאָה in many places signifies; verbs of sense with the Hebrews having very large significations. יִשְׂבָּע, "saturabitur," he shall be "full and well-contented," and pleased with the fruit that he shall have of all his labour and travail. This, saith Grotius, is, "He shall see to satiety," whereby he intends he should "live very long," as is evident from the places whither he sends us for an exposition of these words, Gen. 25:8, etc., in all which mention is made of men that were old and full of days.

(1.) But to "live to satiety," is to live till a man be weary of living, which may not be ascribed to the prophet.

(2.) This of his "long life" was spoken of immediately before, according to the interpretation of our annotator, and is not probably instantly again repeated.

(3.) The long life of Jeremiah, by way of eminency above others, is but pretended, as hath been evinced. But,—

(4.) How came this word, "to see," to be taken neutrally, and to signify "to live?" What instance of this sense or use of the word can be given? I dare boldly say, Not one. "He shall see unto satiety;" that is, "He shall live long."

(5.) The words "videbit, saturabitur," do not stand in any such relation to one another or construction as to endure to be cast into this form. It is not "videbit diu ad satietatem," much less "vivet ad satietatem," but "videbit, saturabitur."

(6.) The word "shall see" evidently relates to the words going before, "the travail of his soul." If it had been, "He shall see many years, or many days, and be satisfied," it had been something; but it is, "He shall see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied."

2. "By his knowledge," בְּדָעְתּוֹ, "In (or by) his knowledge;" "In scientia sua," Vulg. Lat.; "Cognitione sui," Jun. The LXX. wholly pervert all the words of this verse, except the last, as they do also of the former. That by the "knowledge" here mentioned is meant the knowledge of Christ taken objectively, and not the knowledge of God taken actively, as our annotator supposes, is evident from the fruit that is ascribed hereunto, which is the justification of them that have that knowledge: "By his knowledge,"—that is, the knowledge of him,—"they shall be justified," Phil. 3:8. So, "Teach me thy fear," that is, "The fear of thee;" "My worship," that is, "The worship of me." No "knowledge of God" in the land. But the use of this is in the next words.

3. "My righteous servant shall justify many." That this term, used thus absolutely, "My righteous servant," is not applied to any in the Scripture besides Jesus Christ, hath been declared; especially where that is ascribed to him which here is spoken of, it can be no otherwise understood. יַצְדִּיק, "shall justify," that is, shall absolve from their sins, and pronounce them righteous. Grotius would have the word here to signify, "to make holy and righteous by instruction and institution," as Dan. 12:3, and δικαιοῦν, Rev. 22:11. That both these words are to be taken in a forensical signification; that commonly, mostly, they are so taken in the Scriptures; that scarce one and another instance can be given to the contrary; that in the matter of our acceptation with God through Christ they can no otherwise be interpreted,—have been abundantly manifested by those who have written of the doctrine of justification at large: that is not now my present business. This I have from the text to lay in the way of the interpretation of the learned annotator.

The reason and foundation of this justification here mentioned is in the following words, which indeed steer the sense of the whole text:—

4. "For he shall bear their iniquities." Now, what justification of men is a proper effect of another's bearing their iniquities? Doubtless the acquitting of them from the guilt of their sins, on the account of their sins being so borne, and no other. But, says our annotator, "To bear their sins is to take them away," by a figurative expression. If this may not be understood, I suppose every one will confess that the annotator hath laboured in vain as to his whole endeavour of applying this prophecy unto Jeremiah. If by "bearing our iniquities" be intended the undergoing of the punishment of those iniquities, and not the delivering men from their iniquities, the whole matter here treated of can relate to none but Jesus Christ; and to him it doth relate in the sense contended for. Now, to evince this sense, we have all the arguments that any place is capable to receive the confirmation of its proper sense by. For,—

(1.) The word, as is confessed, signifies properly to "bear" or "carry," and not to "take away," nor is it ever otherwise used in the Scripture, as hath been declared; and the proper use of a word is not to be departed from and a figurative one admitted without great necessity.

(2.) The whole phrase of speech of "bearing iniquity" is constantly in the Scripture used for bearing or undergoing the punishment due to sin, as hath been proved by instances in abundance, nor can any instance to the contrary be produced.

(3.) The manner whereby Christ "bore the iniquities of men," as described in this chapter, namely, by being "wounded," "bruised," "put to grief," will admit of no interpretation but that by us insisted on. From all which it is evident how violently the Scripture is here perverted, by rendering, "My righteous servant shall justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities," by "Jeremiah shall instruct many in godliness, and so turn them from their sins."

Verse 12, "Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors."

A farther fruit of the travail of the Lord Christ, in his conquest over all oppositions, in the victory he obtained, the spoils that he made, expressed after the manner of the things of men, with the causes and antecedents of his exaltation, is summarily comprised in these last words. Hereof thus Grotius:—

"Dispertiam ei plurimos. Dabo ei partem in multis; id est, multos servabunt Chaldæi in ejus gratiam, vide Jer. 39:17.

"Et fortium dividet spolia; id est, Nabuzardan magister militum, capta urbe, de præda ipsi dona mittet, Jer. 40:5. Oblatum etiam ipsi a Chaldeis terræ quantum vellet.

"Pro eo quod tradidit in mortem animam suam. In Hebræo, 'Quia effudit in mortem animam suam.' Id est, periculis mortis semet objecit colendo veritatem quæ odium parit. Vide historiam ad hanc rem oppositam, Jer. 26:13. Sic τιθέναι ψυχήν dici pro periculo mortis semet objicere diximus ad, Johan. 10:11.

"Et cum sceleratis reputatus est. Ita est tractatus quomodo scelerati solent in carcere, catenis, et barathro.

"Et ipse peccata multorum tulit, pessime tractatus fuit per multorum improbitatem, uti sup. ver. 5.

"Et pro transgressoribus rogavit. יַפְנִּיעַ est deprecari. Sensus est: eo ipso tempore cum tam dura pateretur a populo, non cessavit ad Deum preces pro eis fundere, vide Jer. 14:7," etc.

" 'I will divide him a portion with the great,' or many; that is the Chaldeans shall preserve many for his sake, Jer. 39:17.

" 'He shall divide the spoil with the strong;' that is, Nebuzaradan, the chief captain, the city being taken, shall send him gifts of the prey, Jer. 40:5. As much land also as he would was offered him by the Chaldeans.

" 'Because he poured out his soul unto death;' that is, he exposed himself to the danger of death by following truth, which begets hatred. See Jer. 26:13. Τιθέναι ψυχήν is spoken for exposing a man's life to danger of death, John 10:11.

" 'He bare the sin of many,' or was evilly treated by the wickedness of the many.

" 'And made intercession for the transgressors.' He prayed for the people," etc.

To run briefly over this exposition,—

1. "I will divide him a portion with the great." That is, "The Chaldees shall save many for his sake." How is this proved? Jer. 39:17, 18, where God says he will save Ebedmelech, because he put his trust in him! Such is the issue commonly when men will wrest the Scripture to their own imagination,—such are their proofs of what they affirm.

2. "He shall divide the spoil with the strong." That is, "The city being taken, the captain of the guard gave him victuals and a reward, and set him at liberty, as we read, Jer. 40:5."

3. "Because he poured out his soul unto death." That is, "He ventured his life by preaching the truth, although he did not die." For,—

4. "He bare the sin of many," that is, "By the wickedness of many he was wronged;" though this expression in the verse foregoing be interpreted, "He shall take away their sins," and that when a word of a more restrained signification is used to express "bearing" than that here used. At this rate a man may make application of what he will to whom he will.

Upon the sense of the words, and their accomplishment in and upon the Lord Jesus Christ, I shall not insist. That they do not respect Jeremiah at all is easily evinced from the consideration of the intolerable wresting of the words and their sense by the learned annotator to make the least allusion appear betwixt what befell him and what is expressed.

To close these animadversions, I shall desire the reader to observe,—

1. That there is not any application of these words made to the prophet Jeremiah, that suits him in any measure, but what may also be made to any prophet or preacher of the word of God that met with affliction and persecution in the discharge of his duty, and was delivered by the presence of God with him; so that there is no reason to persuade us that Jeremiah was peculiarly intended in this prophecy.

2. That the learned annotator, though he professes that Jesus Christ was intended in the letter of this scripture, yet hath interpreted the whole not only without the least mention of Jesus Christ or application of it unto him, but also hath so opened the several words and expressions of it as to leave no place or room for the main doctrine of his satisfaction, here principally intended. And how much the church of God is beholding to him for his pains and travail herein the reader may judge.

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CHAPTER XXVI

Of the matter of the punishment that Christ underwent, or what he suffered

HAVING despatched this digression, I return again to the consideration of the death of Christ as it was a punishment, which shall now be pursued unto its issue.

The THIRD thing proposed to consideration on this account, was the matter of this punishment that Christ underwent, which is commonly expressed by the name of his "death."

Death is a name comprehensive of all evil, of what nature or of what kind soever,—all that was threatened, all that was ever inflicted on man. Though much of it falls within the compass of this life, and short of death, yet it is evil purely on the account of its relation to death and its tendency thereunto; which when it is taken away, it is no more generally and absolutely evil, but in some regard only.

The death of Christ, as comprehending his punishment, may be considered two ways: 1. In itself; 2. In reference to the law.

On the first head I shall only consider the general evident concomitants of it as they lie in the story, which are all set down as aggravations of the punishment he underwent; on the latter I shall give an account of the whole in reference to the law:—

1. Of death natural, which in its whole nature is penal (as hath been elsewhere evinced), there are four aggravations, whereunto all others may be referred: as,—(1.) That it be violent or bloody; (2.) That it be ignominious or shameful; (3.) That it be lingering and painful; (4.) That it be legal and accursed. And all these to the height met in the death of Christ.

(1.) It was violent and bloody: hence he is said to be,—[1.] Slain, Acts 2:23, Ἀνείλετε, "Ye have slain;" [2.] Killed, Acts 3:15, Ἀπεκτείνατε, "Ye have killed;" [3.] Put to death, John 18:31, 32; [4.] Cut off, Dan. 9:26.

The death of Christ and the blood of Christ are on this account in the Scripture the same. His death was by the effusion of his blood, and what is done by his death is still said to be done by his blood. And though he willingly gave up himself to God therein as he was a sacrifice, yet he was taken by violence and nailed to the cross as it was a punishment; and the dissolution of his body and soul was by a means no less violent than if he had been most unwilling thereunto.

(2.) It was ignominious and shameful. Such was the death of the cross,—the death of slaves, malefactors, robbers, pests of the earth and burdens of human society, like those crucified with him. Hence he is said to be "obedient unto death, the death of the cross," Phil. 2:8, that shameful and ignominious death. And when he "endured the cross," he "despised the shame" also, Heb. 12:2. To be brought forth and scourged as a malefactor amongst malefactors in the eye of the world, made a scorn and a by-word, men wagging the head and making mouths at him in derision, when he was full of torture, bleeding to death, is no small aggravation of it. Hence the most frequent expression of his death is by the cross, or crucifying.

(3.) It was lingering. It was the voice of cruelty itself concerning one who was condemned to die, "Sentiat se mori,"—"Let him so die that he may feel himself dying;" and of one who, to escape torture, killed himself, "Evasit,"—"He escaped me." Sudden death, though violent, is an escape from torture. Such was this of Christ. From his agony in the garden, when he began to die (all the powers of hell being then let loose upon him), until the giving up of the ghost, it was from the evening of one day to the evening of another; from his scourging by Pilate, after which he was under continual pain and suffering in his soul and in his body, to his death, it was six hours; and all this while was he under exquisite tortures, as, on very many considerations, might easily be made manifest.

(4.) It was legal, and so an accursed death. There was process against him by witness and judgment. Though they were, indeed, all false and unjust, yet to the eye of the world his death was legal, and consequently accursed: Gal. 3:13, "Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree,"—that is, because of the doom of the law, whose sentence is called a curse, Deut. 21:23. Such was that of Christ, Isa. 53:4.

2. As all these aggravations attended his death as it was death itself, so there was a universality in all the concernments of it as it was a legal punishment. Briefly to give some instances:—

(1.) There was a universality of efficient causes, whether principal or instrumental. The first great division of causes efficient is into the Creator and the creatures; and both here concurred:—

[1.] The Creator, God himself, laid it upon him. He was not only "delivered by his determinate counsel," Acts 2:22, 23, 4:27, 28; not spared by him, but given up to death, Rom. 8:32; but "it pleased him to bruise him, and to put him to grief," Isa. 53:10, as also to "forsake him," Ps. 22:1: so acting in his punishment, by the immission of that which is evil and the subtraction of that which is good, so putting the cup into his hand which he was to drink, and mixing the wine thereof for him, as shall afterward be declared.

[2.] Of creatures, one general division is into intelligent and brute or irrational; and both these also, in their several ways, concurred to his punishment, as they were to do by the sentence and curse of the law.

Intelligent creatures are distinguished into spiritual and invisible, and visible and corporeal also:—

1st. Of the first sort are angels and devils; which agree in the same nature, differing only in qualities and states or conditions. Of all beings, the angels seem to have had no hand in the death of Christ: for, being not judge, as was God; nor opposite to God, as is Satan; nor under the curse of the law, as is mankind and the residue of the creatures,—though they had inestimable benefit by the death of Christ, yet neither by demerit nor efficacy, as is revealed, did they add to his punishment. Only, whereas it was their duty to have preserved him, being innocent, and in his way, from violence and fury, their assistance was withheld.

But from that sort of spiritual invisible creatures he suffered in the attempts of the devil.

Christ looked on him at a distance, in his approach to set upon him. "The prince of this world," saith he, "cometh," John 14:30. He saw him coming, with all his malice, fury, and violence, to set upon him, to ruin him if it were possible. And that he had a close combat with him on the cross is evident from the conquest that Christ there made of him, Col. 2:15, which was not done without wounds and blood; when he brake the serpent's head, the serpent bruised his heel, Gen. 3:15.

2dly. As for men, the second rank of intellectual creatures, they had their influence into this punishment of Christ, in all their distributions that on any account they were cast into:—

(1st.) In respect of country or nation, and the privileges thereon attending. The whole world on this account is divided into Jews and Gentiles; and both these had their efficiency in this business: Ps. 2:1, "Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?" Heathen and people, Gentiles and Jews, are all in it, as the place is interpreted by the apostles, Acts 4:25, 26. And to make this the more eminent, the great representatives of the two people conspired in it, the sanhedrim of the Jews and the body of the people in the metropolitical city on the one hand, and the Romans for the Gentiles, who then were "rerum domini," and governed οἰκουμένην, as Luke tells us, chap. 2:1. The whole on both hands is expressed Matt. 20:18, 19.

(2dly.) As to order, men are distinguished into rulers and those under authority, and both sorts herein concurred.

Rulers are either civil or ecclesiastical; both which (notwithstanding all their divisions) conspired in the death of Christ.

As for civil rulers, as it was foretold, Ps. 2:2, 22:12, so it was accomplished, Acts 4:25, 26. The story is known of the concurrence of Herod and Pilate in the thing;—the one, ruler of the place where he lived and conversed; the other, of the place where he was taken and crucified.

As for ecclesiastical rulers, what was done by the priests and all the council of the elders is known; the matter of fact need not be insisted on. Indeed, they were the great contrivers and malicious plotters of his death, using all ways and means for the accomplishing of it, Acts 3:17; in particular, Annas, the usurper of the priesthood, seems to have had a great hand in the business, and therefore to him was he first carried.

As for those under authority, besides what we have in the story, Peter tells the body of the people, Acts 2:23, that "they took him, and with wicked hands crucified and slew him;" and chap. 3:15, that they "killed the Prince of life." So Zech. 12:10, not only the "house of David," the rulers, but the "inhabitants of Jerusalem," the people, are said to "pierce him;" and thence "they which pierced him" is a periphrasis of the Jews. Rev. 1:7, after "Every eye shall see him," there is a distribution into "They which pierced him," that is, the Jews, and "All kindreds of the earth," that is, the Gentiles. The very rabble were stirred up to cry, "Crucify him, crucify him," and did it accordingly, Matt. 27:20; and they all consented as one man in the cry, verse 22, and that with violence and clamour, verse 23. Abjects made mouths at him, Ps. 35:15, 22:7.

(3dly.) Distinguish man in relation to himself, either upon a natural or moral account, as his kindred and relations, or strangers, and they will appear to be all engaged; but this is so comprised in the former distinction of Jews and Gentiles that it need not be insisted on.

On a moral account, as they were either his friends or his enemies, he suffered from both.

His friends, all his disciples, forsook him and fled, Matt. 26:56. The worst of them betrayed him, verses 14, 15, and the best of them denied him, verse 70; and so "there was none to help," Ps. 22:11.

And if it were thus with him in the house of his friends, what may be expected from his enemies? Their malice and conspiracy, their implacableness and cruelty, their plotting and accomplishment of their designs, take up so great a part of the history of his crucifying that I shall not need insist on particular instances.

Yea, mankind was engaged as distinguished into sexes. Of men of all sorts you have heard already; and the tempting, ensnaring, captious question of the maid to Peter manifests that amongst his persecutors there were of that sex also, Matt. 26:69.

Of men's distinction by their employments, of soldiers, lawyers, citizens, divines, all concurring to this work, I shall not add any thing to what hath been spoken.

Thus the first order of creatures, those that are intellectual, were universally, at least with a distributive universality, engaged in the suffering of the Lord Jesus; and the reason of this general engagement was, because the curse that was come upon them for sin had filled them all with enmity one against another:—First, Fallen men and angels were engaged into an everlasting enmity on the first entrance of sin, Gen. 3:15. Secondly, Men one towards another were filled with malice, and envy, and hatred, Tit. 3:3.

The Jews and Gentiles were engaged, by way of visible representation of the enmity which was come on all mankind, John 4:9, Eph. 2:14–17; and therefore he who was to undergo the whole curse of the law was to have the rage and fury of them all executed on him. As I said before, all their persecution of him concerned not his death as it was a sacrifice, as he made his soul an offering for sin; but as it was a punishment, the utmost of their enmity was to be executed towards him.

The residue of the creatures concurred thus far to his sufferings as to manifest themselves at that time to be visibly under the curse and indignation that was upon him, and so withdrew themselves, as it were, from yielding him the least assistance. To instance in general, heaven and earth lost their glory, and that in them which is useful and comfortable to the children of men, without which all the other conveniencies and advantages are as a thing of naught. The glory of heaven is its light, Ps. 19:1, 2; and the glory of the earth is its stability. He hath fixed the earth that it shall not be moved.

Now, both these were lost at once. The heavens were darkened when it might be expected, in an ordinary course, that the sun should have shone in its full beauty, Matt. 27:45, Luke 23:44, 45; and the earth lost its stability, and shook or trembled, and the rocks rent, and the graves opened, Matt. 27:51, 52;—all evidences of that displeasure against sin which God was then putting in execution to the utmost, Rom. 1:18.

Thus, first, in his suffering there was universality of efficient causes.

(2.) There was a universality in respect of the subjects wherein he suffered. He suffered,—[1.] In his person; [2.] In his name; [3.] In his friends; [4.] In his goods; as the curse of the law extended to all, and that universally in all these:—

[1.] In his person or his human nature. In his person he suffered, in the two essential, constituent parts of it, his body and his soul:—1st. His body. In general, as to its integral parts, his body was "broken," 1 Cor. 11:24, or crucified; his blood was "shed," Matt. 26:28, or poured out. 2dly. His soul. His "soul was made an offering for sin," Isa. 53:10; and his "soul was heavy unto death," Matt. 26:37, 38.

1st. In particular, his body suffered in all its concernments,—namely, all his senses and all its parts or members.

(1st.) In his feeling. He was full of pain, which made him, as he says, cry for disquietness; and this is comprised in every one of those expressions which say he was broken, pierced, and lived so long on the cross in the midst of most exquisite torture, until, being full of pain, he "cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost," Matt. 27:50.

(2dly.) His tasting. When he fainted with loss of blood and grew thirsty, "they gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall," Matt. 27:34, John 19:29, Matt. 27:48, not to stupify his senses, but to increase his torment.

(3dly.) His seeing, though not so much in the natural organ of it as in its use. He saw his mother and disciples standing by full of grief, sorrow, and confusion; which exceedingly increased his anguish and perplexity, John 19:25, 26. And he saw his enemies full of rage and horror standing round about him, Ps. 22:12, 16. He saw them passing by and wagging the head in scorn, Matt. 27:39, Ps. 22:7, 8.

(4thly.) His ears were filled with the reproach and blasphemy of which he grievously complains, Ps. 22:7, 8; which also is expressed in its accomplishment, Matt. 27:39–44, Luke 23:36, 37. They reproached him with God, and his ministry, and his profession; as did also one of the thieves that were crucified with him. And,—

(5thly.) They crucified him in a noisome place, a place of stink and loathsomeness, a place where they cast the dead bodies of men, from whose bones it got the name of "Golgotha,"—a place of dead men's skulls, Matt. 27:33.

He suffered in all the parts of his body, especially those which are most tender and full of sense:—

(1st.) For his head, they platted a crown of thorns, and put it on him; and, to increase his pain, smote it on (that the thorns might pierce him the deeper) with their staves, Matt. 27:29, 30, as the Jews had stricken him before, chap. 26:67, 68, John 19:2, 3.

(2dly.) His face they spat upon, buffeted, smote, and plucked off his hair, Isa 50:6, Matt. 26:67, 68.

(3dly.) His back was torn with whips and scourges, Matt. 27:26, John 19:1, ἐμαστίγωσε· there "they made long their furrows."

(4thly.) His hands, and feet, and side, were pierced with nails and spear, Ps. 22:16.

(5thly.) To express the residue of his body, and the condition of it when he hung on the cross so long, by the soreness of his hands and his feet, says he, "All my bones are out of joint," Ps. 22:14, and also verses 16, 17.

Thus was it with his body.

2dly. The like also is expressed of his soul; for,—

(1st.) On his mind was darkness,—not in it, but on it,—as to his apprehension of the love and presence of God. Hence was his cry, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Ps. 22:1, Matt. 27:46. Though his faith was, upon the whole of the matter, prevalent and victorious, Isa. 50:7–9, yet he had many sore conflicts with the sense and apprehension of God's wrath for sin, and that desertion he was then under as to any cheering influences of his love and presence.

(2dly.) For the rest of his faculties, he was not only under the pressure of the most perplexing, grievous, and burdensome passions that human nature is obnoxious unto, as,—[1st.] Heaviness, "His soul was heavy unto death," Matt. 26:37, 38; [2dly.] Grief, "No sorrow like to his," Lam. 1:12; [3dly.] Fear, Heb. 5:7;—but was also pressed into a condition beyond what we have words to express, or names of passions or affections to set it forth by. Hence he is said to be "in an agony," Luke 22:44; to be "amazed," Mark 14:33; with the like expressions, intimating a condition miserable and distressed beyond what we are able to comprehend or express.

[2.] In his name, his repute, or credit, he suffered also. He was numbered amongst transgressors, Isa. 53:12, Ps. 22; counted a malefactor, and crucified amongst them; a seducer, a blasphemer, a seditious person, a false prophet; and was cruelly mocked and derided on the cross as an impostor, that saved others but could not save himself, that pretended to be the Messiah, the King of Israel, but could not come down from the cross; laid in the balance with Barabbas, a rogue and a murderer, and rejected for him, Matt. 27.

[3.] In his friends. The Shepherd was smitten, and the sheep scattered, Zech. 13:7,—all his friends distressed, scattered, glad to flee for their lives, or to save themselves by doing the things that were worse than death.

[4.] In his goods, even all that he had: "They parted his garments, and cast lots for his vesture," Ps. 22:18.

Thus did he not in any thing go free, that the curse of the law in all things might be executed on him. The law curses a man in all his concernments, with the immission and infliction of every thing that is evil, and the subtraction of every thing that is good; that is, with "pœna sensus et pœna damni," as they are called.

In reference to the law, I say that Christ underwent that very punishment that was threatened in the law and was due to sinners; the same that we should have undergone, had not our surety done it for us. To clear this briefly, observe that the punishment of the law may be considered two ways:—

1. Absolutely in its own nature, as it lies in the law and the threatening thereof. This in general is called "death," Gen. 2:17, Ezek. 18:4, Rom. 5:12; and by way of aggravation, because of its comprising the death of body and soul, "death unto death," 2 Cor. 2:16; and "the second death," Rev. 20:14; and "the curse," Deut. 27–29, Matt. 25:41; and "wrath," 1 Thess. 1:10 (hence we are said to be "delivered from the wrath to come"); and "wrath," or "the day of wrath," Rom. 2:5, and in innumerable other places: all which are set out, in many metaphorical expressions, by those things which are to the nature of man most dreadful; as of "a lake with fire find brimstone," of "Tophet, whose pile is much wood," and the like.

Of this punishment in general there are two parts:—

(1.) Loss, or separation from God, expressed in these words, "Depart from me," Matt. 7:23; "Depart, ye cursed," chap. 25:41; as also, 2 Thess. 1:9.

(2.) Sense or pain; whence it is called "fire," as 2 Thess. 1:8; "torments," etc., Luke 16:23. All this we say Christ underwent, as shall be farther manifested.

2. Punishment of the law may be considered relatively to its subject, or the persons punished, and that in two regards:—

(1.) In reference to its own attendancies and necessary consequents, as it falls upon the persons to be punished; and these are two:—

[1.] That it be a "worm that dieth not," Mark. 9:44, Isa. 66:24.

[2.] That it be a "fire not to be quenched,"—that it be everlasting, that its torments be eternal.

And both these, I say, attend and follow the punishment of the law, on the account of its relation to the persons punished; for,—

1st. The worm is from the in-being and everlasting abiding of a man's own sin. That tormenting anguish of conscience which shall perplex the damned to eternity attends their punishment merely from their own sin inherent. This Christ could not undergo. The worm attends not sin imputed, but sin inherent, especially not sin imputed to him who underwent it willingly, it being the cruciating vexation of men's own thoughts, kindled by the wrath of God against themselves about their own sin.

2dly. That this worm never dies, that this fire can never be quenched, but abides for ever, is also from the relation of punishment to a finite creature that is no more. Eternity is not absolutely in the curse of the law, but as a finite creature is cursed thereby. If a sinner could at once admit upon himself that which is equal in divine justice to his offence, and so make satisfaction, there might be an end of his punishment in time; but a finite and every way limited creature, having sinned his eternity in this world against an eternal and infinite God, must abide by it for ever. This was Christ free from. The dignity of his person was such as that he could fully satisfy divine justice in a limited season; after which God in justice loosed the pains of death, for it was impossible he should be detained thereby, Acts 2:24, and that because he was able to "swallow up death in victory."

(2.) Punishment, as it relates to the persons punished, may be also considered in respect of the effects which it produceth in them which are not in the punishment absolutely considered; and these are generally two:—

[1.] Repining against God and blaspheming of him, as in that type of hell, Isa. 8:21, 22. This is evil or sin in itself, which punishment is not. It is from the righteous God, who will do no iniquity. This proceeds from men's hatred of God. They hate him in this world, when he doth them good and blesses them with many mercies; how much more will their hatred be increased when they shall be cut off from all favour or mercy whatever, and never enjoy one drop of refreshment from him! They hate him, his justice, yea, his blessedness, and all his perfections. Hence they murmur, repine, and blaspheme him. Now, this must needs be infinitely remote from him who, in love to his Father, and for his Father's glory, underwent this punishment. He was loved of the Father, and loved him, and willingly drank off this cup, which poisons the souls of sinners with wrath and revenge.

[2.] Despair in themselves. Their hopes being cut off to eternity, there remaining no more sacrifice for sin, they are their own tormentors with everlastingly perplexing despair. But this our Saviour was most remote from, and that because he believed he should have a glorious issue of the trial he underwent, Heb. 12:2, Isa. 50:7–9.

But as to the punishment that is threatened in the law, in itself considered, Christ underwent the same that the law threatened, and which we should have undergone; for,—

1. The law threatened death, Gen. 2:17, Ezek. 18:4; and he tasted death for us, Heb. 2:9, Ps. 22:15. The punishment of the law is the curse, Deut. 27–29; and he was made a curse, Gal. 3:13. The law threatened loss of the love and the favour of God, and he lost it, Ps. 22:1.

To say that the death threatened by the law was one, and that Christ underwent another, that eternal, this temporal, and so also of the curse and desertion threatened (besides what shall be said afterward), would render the whole business of our salvation unintelligible, as being revealed in terms equivocal, nowhere explained.

2. There is not the least intimation in the whole book of God of any change of the punishment in reference to the Surety from what it was or should have been in respect of the sinner. God "made all our iniquities to meet on him;" that is, as hath been declared, the punishment due to them. Was it the same punishment, or another? Did we deserve one punishment, and Christ undergo another? Was it the sentence of the law that was executed on him, or was it some other thing that he was obnoxious to? It is said that he was "made under the law," Gal. 4:4; that "sin was condemned in his flesh," Rom. 8:3; that "God spared him not," verse 32; that he "tasted death," Heb. 2:9; that he was "made a curse," Gal. 3:13;—all relating to the law. That he suffered more or less there is no mention.

It is strange to me that we should deserve one punishment, and he who is punished for us should undergo another, yet both of them be constantly described by the same names and titles. If God laid the punishment of our sins on Christ, certainly it was the punishment that was due to them. Mention is everywhere made of a commutation of persons, the just suffering for the unjust, the sponsor for the offender, his name as a surety being taken into the obligation, and the whole debt required of him; but of a change of punishment there is no mention at all. And there is this desperate consequence, that will be made readily, upon a supposal that any thing less than the curse of the law or death, in the nature of it eternal, was inflicted on Christ,—namely, that God indeed is not such a sore revenger of sin as in the Scripture he is proposed to be, but can pass it by in the way of composition on much easier terms.

3. The punishment due to us, that is in the "curse of the law," consists, as was said, of two parts:—(1.) Loss, or separation from God; (2.) Sense, from the infliction of the evil threatened. And both these did our Saviour undergo.

(1.) For the first, it is expressed of him, Ps. 22:1; and he actually complains of it himself, Matt. 27:46: and of this cry for a while he says, "O my God, I cry in the day-time, but thou hearest not," Ps. 22:2, until he gives out that grievous complaint, verse 15, "My strength is dried up like a potsherd;" which cry he pressed so long with strong cries and supplications, until he was heard and delivered from what he feared, Heb. 5:7. They who would invent evasions for this express complaint of our Saviour that he was deserted and forsaken, as that he spake it in reference to his church, or of his own being left to the power and malice of the Jews, do indeed little less than blaspheme him, and say he was not forsaken of God, when himself complains that he was;—forsaken, I say, not by the disjunction of his personal union, but as to the communication of effects of love and favour; which is the desertion that the damned lie under in hell. And as for his being forsaken or given up to the hands of men, was that it which he complained of? was that it whereof he was afraid, which he was troubled at, which he sweat blood under the consideration of, and had need of an angel to comfort and support him? Was he so much in courage and resolution below those many thousands who joyfully suffered the same things for him? If he was only forsaken to the power of the Jews, it must be so. Let men take heed how they give occasion of blaspheming the holy and blessed name of the Son of God.

Vaninus, that great atheist, who was burned for atheism at Toulouse in France, all the way as he went to the stake did nothing but insult over the friars that attended him, telling them that their Saviour when he was led to death did sweat and tremble, and was in an agony; but that he, upon the account of reason, whereunto he sacrificed his life, went with boldness and cheerfulness. God visibly confuted his blasphemy, and at the stake he not only trembled and quaked, but roared with horror. But let men take heed how they justify the atheistical thoughts of men, in asserting our blessed Redeemer to have been cast into that miserable and deplorable condition merely with the consideration of a temporary death, which perhaps the thieves that were crucified with him did not so much tremble at.

(2.) For "pœna sensus." From what hath been spoken, it is sufficiently manifest what he underwent on this account. To what hath been delivered before, of his being "bruised, afflicted, broken of God," from Isa. 53—, although he was "taken from prison and from judgement," verse 8, or everlasting condemnation,—add but this one consideration of what is affirmed of him, that "he tasted death for us," Heb. 2:9, and this will be cleared. What death was it he tasted? The death that had the curse attending it: Gal. 3:13, "He was made a curse." And what death that was himself declares, Matt. 25:41, where, calling men accursed, he cries, "Depart into everlasting fire;"—"Ye that are obnoxious to the law, go to the punishment of hell." Yea, and that curse which he underwent, Gal. 3:13, is opposed to the blessing of Abraham, verse 14, or the blessing promised him; which was doubtless life eternal.

And to make it yet more clear, it was by death that he delivered us from death, Heb. 2:14, 15; and if he died only a temporal death, he delivered us only from temporal death as a punishment. But he shows us what death he delivered us from, and consequently what death he underwent for us, John 8:51, "He shall never see death;" that is, eternal death, for every believer shall see death temporal.

On these considerations, it is evident that the sufferings of Christ in relation to the law were the very same that were threatened to sinners, and which we should have undergone had not our Surety undertaken the work for us. Neither was there any difference in reference to God the judge and the sentence of the law, but only this, that the same persons who offended did not suffer, and that those consequences of the punishment inflicted which attend the offenders' own suffering could have no place in him. But this being not the main of my present design, I shall not farther insist on it.

Only I marvel that any should think to implead this truth of Christ's suffering the same that we did, by saying that Christ's obligation to punishment was "sponsionis propriæ," ours "violatæ legis;" as though it were the manner how Christ came to be obnoxious to punishment, and not what punishment he underwent, that is asserted when we say that he underwent the same that we should have done. But as to say that Christ became obnoxious to punishment the same way that we do or did, that is, by sin of his own, is blasphemy: so to say he did not, upon his own voluntary undertaking, undergo the same is little less. It is true, Christ was made sin for us,—had our sin imputed to him, not his own, was obliged to answer for our fault, not his own; but he was obliged to answer what we should have done. But hereof elsewhere.

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CHAPTER XXVII

Of the covenant between the Father and the Son, the ground and foundation of this dispensation of Christ's being punished for as and in our stead

THE FOURTH thing considerable is the ground of this dispensation of Christ's being punished for us, which also hath influence into his whole mediation on our behalf. This is that compact, covenant, convention, or agreement, that was between the Father and the Son, for the accomplishment of the work of our redemption by the mediation of Christ, to the praise of the glorious grace of God.

The will of the Father appointing and designing the Son to be the head, husband, deliverer, and redeemer of his elect, his church, his people, whom he did foreknow, with the will of the Son voluntarily, freely undertaking that work and all that was required thereunto, is that compact (for in that form it is proposed in the Scripture) that we treat of.

It being so proposed, so we call it, though there be difficulty in its explication. Rabbi Ruben, in Galatinus, says of Isa. 66:16, that if the Scripture had not said it, it had not been lawful to have said it, but being written, it may be spoken, "In fire, or by fire, is the LORD judged:" for it is not שׁוֹפֵט, that is, "judging;" but נִשְׁפָּט, that is, "is judged;"—which by some is applied to Christ and the fire he underwent in his suffering. However, the rule is safe, That which is written may be spoken, for for that end was it written, God in his word teaching us how we should speak of him. So it is in this matter.

It is true, the will of God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is but one. It is a natural property, and where there is but one nature there is but one will: but in respect of their distinct personal actings, this will is appropriated to them respectively, so that the will of the Father and the will of the Son may be considered [distinctly] in this business; which though essentially one and the same, yet in their distinct personality it is distinctly considered, as the will of the Father and the will of the Son. Notwithstanding the unity of essence that is between the Father and the Son, yet is the work distinctly carried on by them; so that the same God judges and becomes surety, satisfieth and is satisfied, in these distinct persons.

Thus, though this covenant be eternal, and the object of it be that which might not have been, and so it hath the nature of the residue of God's decrees in these regards, yet because of this distinct acting of the will of the Father and the will of the Son with regard to each other, it is more than a decree, and hath the proper nature of a covenant or compact. Hence, from the moment of it (I speak not of time), there is a new habitude of will in the Father and Son towards each other that is not in them essentially; I call it new, as being in God freely, not naturally. And hence was the salvation of men before the incarnation, by the undertaking, mediation, and death of Christ. That the saints under the old testament were saved by Christ at present I take for granted; that they were saved by virtue of a mere decree will not be said. From hence was Christ esteemed to be incarnate and to have suffered, or the fruits of his incarnation and suffering could not have been imputed to any; for the thing itself being denied, the effects of it are not.

The revelation of this covenant is in the Scripture; not that it was then constituted when it is first mentioned in the promises and prophecies of Christ, but [it was] then first declared or revealed. Christ was declared to be the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead, but he was so from eternity. As in other places, as shall be evinced, so in Isa. 53 is this covenant mentioned: in which chapter there is this prophetical scheme,—The covenant between Father and Son, which was past, is spoken of as to come; and the sufferings of Christ, which were to come, are spoken of as past; as appears to every one that but reads the chapter. It is also signally ascribed to Christ's coming into the world; not constitutively, but declaratively. It is the greatest folly about such things as these, to suppose them then done when revealed, though revealed in expressions of doing them. These things being premised, I proceed to manifest how this covenant is In the Scripture declared.

Now, this convention or agreement, as elsewhere, so it is most clearly expressed Heb. 10:7, from Ps. 40:7, 8, "Lo, I come to do thy will, O God." And what will? Verse 10, "The will by which we are sanctified, through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." The will of God was that Jesus should be offered; and to this end, that we might be sanctified and saved. It is called "The offering of the body of Jesus Christ," in answer to what was said before, "A body hast thou prepared me," or a human nature, by a synecdoche. "My will," says God the Father, "is, that thou have a body, and that that body be offered up; and that to this end, that the children, the elect, might be sanctified." Says the Son to this, "Lo, I come to do thy will;"—"I accept of the condition, and give up myself to the performance of thy will."

To make this more distinctly evident, the nature of such a compact, agreement, or convention, as depends on personal service, such as this, may be a little considered.

There are five things required to the complete establishing and accomplishing of such a compact or agreement:—

1. That there be sundry persons, two at least, namely, a promiser and undertaker, agreeing voluntarily together in counsel and design for the accomplishment and bringing about some common end acceptable to them both; so agreeing together. Being both to do somewhat that they are not otherwise obliged to do, there must be some common end agreed on by them wherein they are delighted; and if they do not both voluntarily agree to what is on each hand incumbent to do, it is no covenant or compact, but an imposition of one upon the other.

2. That the person promising, who is the principal engager in the covenant, do require something at the hand of the other, to be done or undergone, wherein he is concerned. He is to prescribe something to him, which is the condition whereon the accomplishment of the end aimed at is to depend.

3. That he make to him who doth undertake such promises as are necessary for his supportment and encouragement, and which may fully balance, in his judgment and esteem, all that is required of him or prescribed to him.

4. That upon the weighing and consideration of the condition and promise, the duty and reward prescribed and engaged for, as formerly mentioned, the undertaker do voluntarily address himself to the one, and expect the accomplishment of the other.

5. That, the accomplishment of the condition being pleaded by the undertaker and approved by the promiser, the common end originally designed be brought about and established.

These five things are required to the entering into and complete accomplishment of such a covenant, convention, or agreement as is built on personal performances; and they are all eminently expressed in the Scripture, and to be found in the compact between the Father and the Son whereof we speak, as upon the consideration of the severals will appear.

On the account of these things, found at least virtually and effectually in this agreement of the Father and Son, we call it a covenant; not with respect to the Latin word "fœdus," and the precise use of it, but to the Hebrew בְרִית, and the Greek διαθήκη, whose signification and use alone are to be attended to in the business of any covenant of God; and in what a large sense they are used is known to all that understand them and have made inquiry into their import. The rise of the word "fœdus" is properly paganish and superstitious; and the legal use of it strict to a mutual engagement upon valuable considerations. The form of its entrance, by the sacrifice and killing of a hog, is related in Polybius, Livius, Virgil, and others. The general words used in it were, "Ita fœde me percutiat magnus Jupiter, ut fœde hunc porcum macto, si pactum fœderis non servavero;" whence is that phrase of one in danger, "Sto inter sacrum et saxum," the hog being killed with a stone. So "fœdus" is "a feriendo:" though sometimes even that word be used, in a very large sense, for any orderly-disposed government; as in the poet:—

—"Regemque dedit, qui fœdere certo

Et premere, et laxas sciret dare jussus habenas," etc.

Virg. Æn. i. 66.

But unto the signification and laws hereof, in this business, we are not bound. It sufficeth for our present intendment that the things mentioned be found virtually in this compact, which they are.

1. There are the Father and the Son as distinct persons agreeing together in counsel for the accomplishment of the common end,—the glory of God and the salvation of the elect. The end is expressed, Heb. 2:9, 10, 12:2. Now, thus it was, Zech. 6:13, "The counsel of peace shall be between them both,"—"Inter ambos ipsos." That is, the two persons spoken of, not the two offices there intimated, that shall meet in Christ. And who are these? The Lord Jehovah, who speaks, and the man whose name is צֶמַח, "The Branch," verse 12, who is to do all the great things there mentioned: "He shall grow up," etc. But the counsel of peace, the design of our peace, is between them both; they have agreed and consented to the bringing about of our peace. Hence is that name of the Son of God, Isa. 9:6, "Wonderful Counsellor." It is in reference to the business there spoken of that he is so called. This is expressed at the beginning of the verse, "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given." To what end that was is known, namely, that he might be a Saviour or a Redeemer, whence he is afterward called "The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace;" that is, a father to his church and people in everlasting mercy, the grand author of their peace, that procured it for them and established it unto them. Now, as to this work, that he who is אֵל נִּבּוֹר, "The mighty God," might be בֵּן נִתַּן, "A son given, a child born," and carry on a work of mercy and peace towards his church, is he called "The wonderful Counsellor," as concurring in the counsel and design of his Father, and with him, to this end and purpose. Therefore, when he comes to suffer in the carrying on of this work, God calls him his "fellow," עֲמִיתִי, "my neighbour" in counsel and advice, Zech. 13:7; as David describes his fellow of companion, Ps. 55:14, "We took sweet counsel together." He was the fellow of the Lord of hosts on this account, that they took counsel together about the work of our salvation, to the glory of God. Prov. 8:22 to 31 makes this evident. That it is the Lord Jesus. Christ, the eternal Word and Wisdom of the Father, who is here intended, was before evinced. What, then, is here said of him? "I was daily the delight of God, rejoicing always before him, rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men." When was this that the Wisdom of God the Father did so rejoice before him on the account of the sons of men? Verses 24–26, "When there were no depths, when there were no fountains abounding with water, before the mountains were settled," etc., "while as yet he had not made the earth," etc. But how could this be? namely, by the counsel of peace that was between them both, which is the delight of the soul of God, and wherein both Father and Son rejoice.

The first thing, then, is manifest, that there was a voluntary concurrence and distinct consent of the Father and Son for the accomplishment of the work of our peace, and for bringing us to God.

2. For the accomplishment of this work, the Father, who is principal in the covenant, the promiser, whose love "sets all on work," as is frequently expressed in the Scripture, requires of the Lord Jesus Christ, his Son, that he shall do that which, upon consideration of his justice, glory, and honour, was necessary to be done for the bringing about the end proposed, prescribing to him a law for the performance thereof; which is called his "will" so often in Scripture.

What it was that was required is expressed both negatively and positively:—

(1.) Negatively, that he should not do or bring about this work by any of those sacrifices that had been appointed to make atonement "suo more," and to typify out what was by him really to be performed. This the Lord Jesus professeth at the entrance of his work, when he addresses himself to the doing of that which was indeed required: "Sacrifice and offering," etc., "thou wouldest not." He was not to offer any of the sacrifices that had been offered before, as at large hath been recounted. It was the will of God that, by them, he and what he was to do should be shadowed out and represented; whereupon, at his coming to his work, they were all to be abrogated. Nor was he to bring silver and gold for our redemption, according to the contrivance of the poor convinced sinner, Micah 6:6, 7; but he was to tender God another manner of price, 1 Pet 1:18.

He was to do that which the old sacrifices could not do, as hath been declared: "For it was not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins," Heb. 10:4. Ἀφαιρεῖν ἁμαρτίας, quod supra ἀθετεῖν et ἀναφέρειν, est extinguere peccata, sive facere ne ultra peccetur; id sanguis Christi facit, tum quia fidem in nobis parit, tum quia Christo jus dat nobis auxilia necessaria impetrandi," Grot. in loc. Falsely and injuriously to the blood of Christ! Ἀφαιρεῖν ἁμαρτίας is nowhere in the Scripture to cause men to "cease to sin;" it never respects properly what is to come, but what is past. The apostle treats not of sanctification, but of justification. The taking away of sins he insists on is such as that the sinner should no more be troubled in conscience for the guilt of them, verse 2. The typical taking away of sins by sacrifices was by making atonement with God principally, not by turning men from sin, which yet was a consequent of them. The blood of Christ takes away sins as to their guilt by justification, and not only as to their filth by sanctification. This purification also by blood he expounds in his Annotations, chap. 9:14: "Sanguini autem purgatio ista tribuitur, quia per sanguinem, id est, mortem Christi, secutâ ejus excitatione et evectione, gignitur in nobis fides, Rom. 3:25, quæ deinde fides corda purgat, Act. 15:9." The meaning of these words is evident to all that have their senses exercised in these things. The eversion of the expiation of our sins by the way of satisfaction and atonement is that which is aimed at. Now, because the annotator saw that the comparison insisted on with the sacrifices of old would not admit of this gloss, he adds, "Similitudo autem purgationis legalis, et evangelicæ, non est in modo purgandi sed in effectu;" than which nothing is more false, nor more directly contrary to the apostle's discourse, Heb. 9:10.

(2.) Positively. And here, to lay aside the manner how he was to do it, which relates to his office of priest, and prophet, and king, the conditions imposed upon him may be referred to three heads:—

[1.] That he should take on him the nature of those whom he was to bring to God. This is as it were prescribed to him, Heb. 10:5, "A body hast thou prepared me," or "appointed that I should be made flesh,—take a body therein to do thy will." And the apostle sets out the infinite love of the Son of God, in that he condescended to this inexpressible exinanition and eclipsing of his glory, Phil. 2:6, 7, "Being in the form of God, and equal with God, he made himself of no reputation, but took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men," or made a man. He did it upon his Father's prescription, and in pursuit of what God required at his hands. Hence it is said, "God sent forth his Son, made of a woman," Gal. 4:4; and "God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh," Rom. 8:3. And properly in answer to this of the Father's appointing him a body is it that the Son answers, "Lo, I come to do thy will,"—"I will do it, I will undertake it, that the great desirable end may be brought about," as we shall see afterward. So Heb. 10:9. And though I see no sufficient reason of relinquishing the usual interpretation of σπέρματος Αβραὰμ ἐπιλαμζάνεται, Heb. 2:16, yet if it be "apprehendit," and expressive of the effect, not "assumpsit," relating to the way of his yielding us assistance and deliverance, the same thing is intimated.

[2.] That in this "body," or human nature, he should be a "servant," or yield obedience. Hence God calls him his servant, Isa. 42:1, "Behold my servant, whom I uphold." And that this was also the condition prescribed to him our Saviour acknowledges, Isa. 49:5, "Now, saith the LORD that formed me from the womb to be his servant," etc. And in pursuit hereof, Christ takes upon him "the form of a servant," Phil. 2:7: and this is his perpetual profession, "I came to do the will of him that sent me;" and, "This commandment I have received of my Father." So, "though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience." All along, in the carrying on of his work, he professes that this condition was by his Father prescribed him, that he should be his servant, and yield him obedience in the work he had in hand. Hence he says his Father is greater than he, John 14:28, not only in respect of his humiliation, but also in respect of the dispensation whereunto he, as the Son of God, submitted himself, to perform his will and yield him obedience. And this God declares to be the condition whereon he will deliver man: Job 33:23, 24, "If there be a messenger (a servant), one of a thousand, to undertake for him, it shall be so, I will say, Deliver man; otherwise not."

[3.] That he should suffer and undergo what in justice is due to him that he was to deliver;—a hard and great prescription, yet such as must be undergone, that there may be a consistence of the justice and truth of God with the salvation of man. This is plainly expressed, Isa. 53:10, אִם־תָּשִׂים אָשָׁם נַפְשׁוֹ, "When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin," or rather, "If his soul shall make an offering for sin, then he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand." As if he should say, "If this work be brought about, and if the counsel of peace which we have consented in be carried on, if my pleasure therein be to prosper, thou must make thy soul an offering for sin." And that this was required of our Saviour, himself fully expresses even in his agony, when, praying for the removal of the cup, he submits to the drinking of it in these words: " 'Thy will, O Father, be done;' this is that which thou wilt have me do, which thou hast prescribed unto me, even that I drink of this cup;" wherein he "tasted of death," and which comprised the whole of his sufferings. And this is the third thing in this convention and agreement.

3. Promises are made, upon the supposition of undertaking that which was required, and these of all sorts that might either concern the person that did undertake, or the accomplishment of the work that he did undertake.

(1.) For the person himself that was to undertake, or the Lord Jesus Christ, seeing there was much difficulty and great opposition to be passed through in what he was to do and undergo, promises of the assistance of his Father, by his presence with him, and carrying him through all perplexities and trials, are given to him in abundance. Some of these you have, Isa. 42:4, "He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth;" and verse 6, "I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thy hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people;"—"Whatever opposition thou mayst meet withal, I will hold thee, and keep thee, and preserve thee." "I will not leave thy soul in hell, nor suffer mine Holy One to see corruption," Ps. 16:10. So Ps. 89:28, "My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him." And hence was our blessed Saviour's confidence in his greatest trial, Isa. 50:5–9. Verses 5, 6, our Saviour expresses his undertaking, and what he suffered therein; verses 7–9, the assistance that he was promised of his Father in this great trial, on the account whereof he despises all his enemies, with full assurance of success, even upon the Father's engaged promise of his presence with him. This is the first sort of promises made to Christ in this convention, which concern himself directly, that he should not be forsaken in his work, but carried through, supported and upheld, until he were come forth to full success, and had "sent forth judgment unto victory." Hence, in his greatest trial, he makes his address to God himself, on the account of these promises, to be delivered from that which he feared: Heb. 5:7, "Who in the days," etc. So Ps. 89:27, 28.

(2.) There were promises in this compact that concerned the work itself that Christ undertook, namely, that if he did what was required of him, not only he should be preserved in it, but also that the work itself should thrive and prosper in his hand. So Isa. 53:10, 11, "When thou shalt make," etc. Whatever he aimed at is here promised to be accomplished. "The pleasure of the LORD shall prosper;"—the design of Father and Son for the accomplishment of our salvation shall prosper. "He shall see his seed,"—a seed of believers shall be raised up, that shall "prolong their days;" that is, the seed shall prolong or continue whilst the sun and moon endure; all the elect shall be justified and saved. Satan shall be conquered, and the spoil delivered from him. And this our Saviour comforts himself withal in his greatest distress, Ps. 22:30, 31. And for this "joy that was set before him," the joy of "bringing many sons unto glory" that was promised to him, "he endured the cross, and despised the shame," Heb. 12:2. So also Isa. 42:1–4.

And this is the third thing in this compact, He who prescribes the hard conditions of incarnation, obedience, and death, doth also make the glorious promises of preservation, protection, and success. And to make these promises the more eminent, God confirms them solemnly by an oath. He is consecrated a high priest for evermore by the "word of the oath," Heb. 7:28. "The Lord sware and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever," etc., verse 21.

4. The Lord Jesus Christ accepts of the condition and the promise, and voluntarily undertakes the work: Ps. 40:7, 8, "Then said I, Lo, I come: I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart." He freely, willingly, cheerfully, undertakes to do and suffer whatever it was the will of his Father that he should do or suffer for the bringing about the common end aimed at. He undertakes to be the Father's servant in this work, and says to the LORD, "Thou art my Lord," Ps. 16:2;—"Thou art he to whom I am to yield obedience, to submit to in this work." "Mine ears hast thou bored, and I am thy servant;"—"I am not rebellious, I do not withdraw from it," Isa. 50:5. Hence the apostle tells us that this mind was in him, that whereas he was "in the form of God, he humbled himself to the death of the cross," Phil. 2:6–8. And so, by his own voluntary consent, he came under the law of the mediator; which afterward, as he would not, so he could not decline. He made himself surety of the covenant, and so was to pay what he never took. He voluntarily engaged himself into this sponsion; but when he had so done, he was legally subject to all that attended it,—when he had put his name into the obligation, he became responsible for the whole debt. And all that he did or suffered comes to be called "obedience;" which relates to the law that he was subject to, having engaged himself to his Father, and said to the LORD, "Thou art my Lord; lo, I come to do thy will."

5. The fifth and last thing is, that on the one side the promiser do approve and accept of the performance of the condition prescribed, and the undertaker demand and lay claim to the promises made, and thereupon the common end designed be accomplished and fulfilled. All this also is fully manifest in this compact or convention.

(1.) God the Father accepts of the performance of what was to the Son prescribed. This God fully declares, Isa. 49:5, 6, "And now, saith the LORD that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the LORD, and my God shall be my strength. And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth." And eminently, verses 8, 9, "Thus saith the LORD, In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee: and I will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages; that thou mayest say to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Show yourselves," etc.;—"Now, I have been with thee, and helped thee in thy work, and thou hast performed it; now thou shalt do all that thy heart desires, according to my promise." Hence that which was originally spoken of the eternal generation of the Son, Ps. 2:7, "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee," is applied by the apostle to his resurrection from the dead: Acts 13:33, "God hath fulfilled his word unto us, 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." That is, God by the resurrection from the dead gloriously manifested him to be his Son, whom he loved, in whom he was well pleased, and who did all his pleasure. So Rom. 1:4, "He was declared to be the Son of God with power, by the resurrection from the dead." Then was he declared to be the Son of God. God, approving and accepting the work he had done, loosed the pains of death, and raised him again, manifesting to all the world his approbation and acceptation of him and his work; whence he immediately says to him, Ps. 2:8, "Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance;"—"Now ask what thou wilt, whatever I have promised, whatever thou didst or couldst expect upon thy undertaking this work; it shall be done, it shall be granted thee." And,—

(2.) Christ, accordingly, makes his demand solemnly on earth and in heaven. On earth: John 17, throughout the whole chapter is the demand of Christ for the accomplishment of the whole compact and all the promises that were made to him when he undertook to be a Saviour, which concerned both himself and his church; see verses 1, 4–6, 9, 12–16, etc. And in heaven also: he is gone into "the presence of God," there "to appear for us," Heb. 9:24, and is "able to save them to the uttermost that come to God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them," chap. 7:25; not as in the days of his flesh, with strong cries and supplications, but by virtue of his oblation, laying claim to the promised inheritance in our behalf And,—

(3.) The whole work is accomplished, and the end intended brought about: for in the death of Christ he "finished the transgression, and made an end of sins, and made reconciliation for iniquity, and brought in everlasting righteousness," Dan. 9:24; and of sinful man God says, "Deliver him, for I have found a ransom," Job 33:24. Hence our reconciliation, justification, yea, our salvation, are in the Scripture spoken of as things actually done and accomplished in the death and blood-shedding of Jesus Christ Not as though we were all then actually justified and saved, but upon the account of the certainty of the performance and accomplishment of those things in their due time towards us and upon us are these things so delivered: for in reference to the undertaking of Christ in this covenant is he called "The second Adam," becoming a common head to his people (with this difference, that Adam was a common head to all that came of him necessarily, and, as I may so say, naturally, and whether he would or no; Christ is so to his voluntarily, and by his own consent and undertaking, as hath been demonstrated); now, as we all die in Adam federally and meritoriously, yet the several individuals are not in their persons actually dead in sin and obnoxious to eternal death before they are by natural generation united to Adam, their first head; so, though all the elect be made alive and saved federally and meritoriously in the death of Christ, wherein also a certain foundation is laid of that efficacy which works all these things in us and for us, yet we are not viritim made partakers of the good things mentioned before we are united to Christ by the communication of his Spirit to us.

And this, I say, is the covenant and compact that was between Father and Son, which is the great foundation of what hath been said and shall farther be spoken about the merit and satisfaction of Christ. Here lies the ground of the righteousness of the dispensation treated of, that Christ should undergo the punishment due to us: It was done voluntarily, of himself, and he did nothing but what he had power to do, and command from his Father to do. "I have power," saith he, "to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again; this commandment have I received of my Father;" whereby the glory both of the love and justice of God is exceedingly exalted. And,—

1. This stops the mouth of the Socinian clamour concerning the unrighteousness of one man's suffering personally for another man's sin. It is true, it is so if these men be not in such relation to one another that what one doth or suffereth, the other may be accounted to do or suffer; but it is no unrighteousness, if the hand offend, that the head be smitten. But Christ is our head; we are his members. It is true, if he that suffereth hath not power over that wherein he suffers; but Christ had power to lay down his life and take it again. It is true, if he that is to suffer and he that is to punish be not willing or agreed to the commutation; but here Father and Son, as hath been manifested, were fully agreed upon the whole matter. It may be true, if he who suffers cannot possibly be made partaker of any good afterward that shall balance and overweigh all his suffering; not where the cross is endured and the shame despised for the glory proposed or set before him that suffers,—not where he is made low for a season, that he may be crowned with dignity and honour. And,—

2. This is the foundation of the merit of Christ. The apostle tells us, Rom. 4:4, what merit is: it is such an adjunct of obedience as whereby "the reward is not reckoned of grace, but of debt." God having proposed unto Christ a law for obedience, with promises of such and such rewards upon condition of fulfilling the obedience required, he performing that obedience, the reward is reckoned to him of debt, or he righteously merited whatever was so promised to him. Though the compact was of grace, yet the reward is of debt. Look, then, whatever God promised Christ upon his undertaking to be a Saviour, that, upon the fulfilling of his will, he merited. That himself should be exalted, that he should be the head of his church, that he should see his seed, that he should justify and save them, sanctify and glorify them, were all promised to him, all merited by him. But of this more afterward.

Having thus fully considered the threefold notion of the death of Christ, as it was a price, a sacrifice, and a punishment, and discovered the foundation of righteousness in all this, proceed we now to manifest what are the proper effects of the death of Christ under this threefold notion. Now these also, answerably, are three:—I. Redemption, as it is a price; II. Reconciliation, as it is a sacrifice; III. Satisfaction, as it is a punishment. Upon which foundation, union with Christ, vocation, justification, sanctification, and glory, are built.

——

CHAPTER XXVIII

Of redemption by the death of Christ as it was a price or ransom

HAVING given before the general notions of the death of Christ, as it is in Scripture proposed, all tending to manifest the way and manner of the expiation of our sins, and our delivery from the guilt and punishment due to them, it remains that an accommodation of those several notions of it be made particularly and respectively to the business in hand.

I. The first consideration proposed of the death of Christ was of it as a price; and the issue and effect thereof is REDEMPTION. Hence Christ is spoken of in the Old Testament as a Redeemer: Job 19:25, "I know that my Redeemer liveth." The word there used is נּוֹאֵל, whose rise and use is commonly known.

גַּאַל is "vindicare, redimere;" ἐπιλαμζάνεσθαι in Greek; which is commonly used for "suum vindicate:" Ὅτι ἄν τις ἐκτημένος ᾖ, … καὶ μηδεὶς ἐπιλάζηται, ἐὰν οὕτω τις ἐνιαυτὸν ὁτιοῦν ἐκτημένος.… μὴ ἐξέστω τοιούτου κτήματος ἐπιλαζέσθαι μηδὲν ἀπελθόντος ἐνιαυτοῦ, Plato de Legib. 12. And that may be the sense of the word ἐπιλαμζάνεται, if not in the effect, yet in the cause, Heb. 2:16.

The rise and use of this word in this business of our deliverance by Christ we have Lev. 25:25, "If any of his kin come to redeem it." גֹאֲלוֹ הַקָּרֹב,—"redimens illud propinquus." The next who is גֹּאֵל [is to] redeem it, or vindicate the possession out of mortgage. On this account Boaz tells Ruth that, in respect of the possession of Elimelech, he was goël, Ruth 3:13, a redeemer; which we have translated "a kinsman," because he was to do that office by right of propinquity of blood or nearness of kin, as is evident from the law before mentioned. Christ, coming to vindicate us into liberty by his own blood, is called by Job his goël, chap. 19:25; so also is he termed, Isa. 41:14, גֹאֲלֵךְ, "thy redeemer," or "thy next kinsman;" and chap. 44:6, in that excellent description of Christ, also verse 24, chap. 47:4, 48:17, 49:26, 54:5, 59:20, 60:16, 63:16, and in sundry other places. Neither is the church of God at all beholding to some late expositors, who, to show their skill in the Hebrew doctors, would impose upon us their interpretations, and make those expressions to signify deliverance in general, and to be referred to God the Father, seeing that the rise of the use of the word plainly restrains the redemption intended to the paying of a price for it; which was done only by Jesus Christ. So Jer. 32:7, 8. Hence they that looked for the Messiah, according to the promise, are said to look for, or to wait for, λύτρωσιν, "redemption in Israel," Luke 2:38: and, in the accomplishment of the promise, the apostle tells us that Christ by his blood obtained for us "eternal redemption," Heb. 9:12. And he having so obtained it, we are "justified freely by the grace of God, διὰ τῆς ἀπολυτρώσεως τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ,—by the redemption that is in Christ Jesus;" ἐν for διά, "in him," for "by him," or wrought by him, Rom. 3:24. And this being brought home to us, "we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins," Eph. 1:7, Col. 1:14; whence he is said to be "made unto us ἀπολύτρωσις," or "redemption," 1 Cor. 1:30.

How this is done will be made evident by applying of what is now spoken to what was spoken of the death of Christ as a price. Christ giving himself or his life λύτρον and ἀντίλυτρον, a price of redemption, as hath been showed, a ransom, those for whom he did it come to have λύτρωσιν and ἀπολύτρωσιν, redemption thereby, or deliverance from the captivity wherein they were. And our Saviour expresses particularly how this was done as to both parts, Matt. 20:28. He came δοῦναι τὴν ψυχὴν λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν,—that is, he came to be an ἀντίψυχος, one to stand in the room of others, and to give his life for them.

To make this the more evident and clear, I shall give a description of redemption properly so called, and make application of it in the several parts thereof unto that under consideration:—

"Redemption is the deliverance of any one from bondage or captivity, and the misery attending that condition, by the intervention or interposition of a price or ransom, paid by the redeemer to him by whose authority he is detained, that, being delivered, he may be in a state of liberty, at the disposal of the redeemer."

And this will comprise the laws of this redemption, which are usually given. They are, first, On the part of the redeemer:—1. "Propinquus esto;"—"Let him be near of kin." 2. "Consanguinitatis jure redimito;"—"Let him redeem by right of consanguinity." 3. "Injusto possessori prædam eripito;"—"Let him deliver the prey from the unjust possessor." 4. "Huic pretium nullum solvito;"—"To him let no price be paid." 5. "Sanguinem pro redemptionis pretio vero Domino offerto;"—"Let him offer or give his blood to the true Lord for a ransom, or price of redemption," Secondly, On the part of the redeemed;—1. "Libertatis jure felix gaudeto;"—"Let him enjoy his liberty." 2. "Servitutis jugum ne iterum sponte suscipito;"—"Let him not again willingly take on him the yoke of bondage." 3. "Deinceps servum se exhibeto redemptori;"—"Let him in liberty be a servant to his redeemer."

The general parts of this description of redemption Socinus himself consents unto: for whereas Covet had a little inconveniently defined "to redeem," saying, "Redimere aliquem est debitum solvere creditoris ejus nomine, qui solvendo non erat, sicque satisfacere creditori," which is a proper description of the payment of another man's debts, and not of his redemption, Socinus, correcting this mistake, affirms that "redimere aliquem nihil aliud proprie significat quam captivum e manibus illius qui eum detinet pretio illi dato liberare,"—"to redeem any one properly signifies nothing else but to deliver him out of his hands that detained him captive, by a price given to him who detained him;" which, as to the general nature of redemption, contains as much as what was before given in for the description of it. With the accommodation, therefore, of that description to the redemption which we have by the blood of Christ, I shall proceed, desiring the reader to remember that if I evince the redemption we have by Christ to be proper, and properly so called, the whole business of satisfaction is confessedly evinced.

FIRST. The general nature of it consists in deliverance. Thence Christ is called Ὁ ῥυόμενος, "The deliverer:" Rom. 11:26, "As it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer:" The word in the prophet, Isa. 59:20, is נּוֹאֵל, that we may know what kind of deliverer Christ is,—a deliverer by redemption. "He gave himself for our sins ὅπως ἐξέληται ἡμᾶς, that he might deliver us," Gal 1:4. He delivered us; but it was by giving himself for our sins. 1 Thess. 1:10, "To wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Ἰησοῦν, τὸν ῥυόμενον ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τῆς ὀργῆς τῆς ἐρχομένης,—Jesus, who delivered us from the wrath to come." So Luke 1:74; Rom. 7:6; Heb. 2:15; Col. 1:13.

Now, as redemption, because its general nature consists in deliverance, is often expressed thereby, so deliverance, because it hath the effect of redemption, is or may be called redemption, though it be not properly so, but agrees in the end and effect only. Hence Moses is said to be λυτρωτής: Acts 7:35, Τοῦτον ὁ Θεὸς ἄρχοντα καὶ λυτρωτὴν ἀπέστειλεν, "Him did God send a prince and a redeemer;" that is, a deliverer, one whom God used for the deliverance of his people. And because what he did, even the delivery of his people out of bondage, agreed with redemption in its end, the work itself is called redemption, and he is termed therein a redeemer, though it was not a direct redemption that he wrought, no ransom being paid for delivery.

It is pleaded, First, "That God being said to redeem his people in sundry places in the Old Testament, which he could not possibly do by a ransom, therefore the redemption mentioned in the Scripture is metaphorical, a mere deliverance; and such is also that we have by Christ, without the intervention of any price."

Secondly, "Moses, who was a type of Christ and a redeemer, who is so often said to redeem the people, yet, as it is known, did it without any ransom, by a mere deliverance; therefore did Christ so also."

Not to trouble the reader with repetition of words, this is the sum of what is pleaded by the Racovian Catechism to prove our redemption by Christ not to be proper, but metaphorical; and so, consequently, that no satisfaction can be thence evinced:—

"E verbo redimendi non posse effici satisfactionem hanc hinc est planum, quod de ipso Deo in novo et in prisco fœdere scribitur, eum redimisse populum suum ex Ægypto, eum fecisse redemptionem populo suo; quod Moses fuerit redemptor, Act. 7:35. Vox ideo redemptionis, simpliciter liberationem denotat."—Rac. Cat. cap. viii. de Christo.

And, indeed, what there they speak is the sum of the plea of Socinus as to this part of our description of redemption, "De Jesu Christo Servatore," lib. i. part. ii. cap. i.–iii.

To remove these difficulties (if they may be so called), I shall only tender the ensuing considerations:—

1. That because redemption is sometimes to be taken metaphorically, for mere deliverance, when it is spoken of God without any mention of a price or ransom, in such cases as wherein it was impossible that a ransom should be paid (as in the deliverance of the children of Israel from Egypt and Pharaoh, when it is expressly said to be done by power and an out-stretched arm, Deut 4:34), therefore it must be so understood when it is spoken of Christ, the mediator, with express mention of a price or ransom, and when it was impossible but that a ransom must be paid, is a loose consequence, not deserving any notice.

2. That all the places of Scripture where mention is made of God being a redeemer and redeeming his people may be referred unto these heads:—

(1.) Such as call God the redeemer of his church in general, as the places before mentioned; and these are all to be referred immediately to the Son of God (the manner of his redemption being described in the New Testament); and so proper redemption is intended in them, compare Isa. 54:5, with Eph. 5:25, 26.

(2.) Such as mention some temporal deliverance that was typical of the spiritual redemption which we have by Jesus Christ; and it is called redemption, not so much from the general nature of deliverance, as from its pointing out to us that real and proper redemption that was typified by it. Such was God's redeeming his people out of Egypt.

So there is no mention of redemption in the Scripture, but either it is proper, or receives that appellation from its relation to that which is so.

3. This is indeed a very wretched and cursed way of interpreting Scripture, especially those passages of it which set out the grace of God and the love of Christ to us,—namely, to do it by way of diminution and lessening. God takes and uses this word that is of use amongst men, namely, "redemption;" saith he, "Christ hath redeemed you with his own blood,—he hath laid down a price for you." For men to come and interpret this, and say "He did it not properly, it was not a complete redemption, but metaphorical, a bare deliverance," is to blaspheme God and the work of his love and grace. It is a safe rule of interpreting Scripture, that in places mentioning the love and grace of God to us, the words are to be taken in their utmost significancy. It is a thing most unworthy a good and wise man to set out his kindness and benefits with great swelling words of mighty weight and importance, which, when the things signified by them come to be considered, must be interpreted by way of minoration; nor will any worthy man do so. Much less can it be once imagined that God has expressed his love and kindness and the fruits of it to us in great and weighty words, that, in their ordinary use and significancy, contain a great deal more than really he hath done. For any one so to interpret what he hath spoken, is an abomination into which I desire my soul may never enter.

What the redemption of a captive is, and how it is brought about, we know. God tells us that Christ hath redeemed us, and that with his own blood. Is it not better to believe the Lord, and venture our souls upon it, than to go to God and say, "This thou hast said, indeed, but it is an improper and metaphorical redemption, a deliverance, that we have?" The truth is, it is so far from truth that God hath delivered the work of his grace, and our benefit thereby, in the death of Christ, in words too big in their proper signification for the things themselves, that no words whatever are sufficient to express it and convey it to our understandings.

That Moses, who was a type of Christ in the work of redemption, and is called a redeemer, did redeem the people without the proper payment of a valuable ransom, therefore Christ did so also;—to conclude thus, I say, is to say that the type and thing typified must in all things be alike; yea, that a similitude between them in that wherein their relation consists is not enough to maintain their relation, but there must be such an identity as in truth overthrows it. Christ tells us that the brazen serpent was a type of him: John 3:14, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up." Now, if a man should thence argue, that because the brazen serpent was only lifted up, not crucified nor did shed his blood, therefore Christ was not crucified nor did shed his blood, would he be attended unto? The like may be said of Jonah, who was alive in the belly of the whale, when he was a type of Christ being dead in the earth. In the general nature of deliverance from captivity, there was an agreement in the corporeal deliverance of Moses and the spiritual of Christ, and here was the one a type of the other; in the manner of their accomplishment, the one did not represent the other, the one being said expressly to be done by power, the other by a ransom.

SECONDLY. It is the delivery of one in captivity. All men, considered in the state of sin and alienation from God, are in captivity. Hence they are said to be "captives," and to be "bound in prison," Isa. 61:1. And the work of Christ is to "bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness" (that is, in the dungeon) "out of the prison-house," Isa. 42:7. He says "to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Show yourselves," chap. 49:9: as it is eminently expressed, Zech. 9:11, "As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water." Here are prisoners, prisoners belonging to the daughter of Zion; for unto her, the church, he speaks, verse 9, "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion." Those other sheep of the fold of Christ, not yet gathered when this promise was given, are spoken of; and they are "in the pit wherein is no water;"—a pit for security to detain them, that they may not escape; and without water, that they may in it find no refreshment. How are these prisoners delivered? By the blood of his covenant of whom he speaks: see verse 9, "Behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass." It is a description of Christ when he rode to Jerusalem, to seal and confirm the covenant for the deliverance of the prisoners with his own blood; which is therefore called "The blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified," Heb. 10:29. Hence in the next verse, "Prisoners of hope" is a description of the elect, Zech. 9:12.

So also are they called captives expressly: Isa. 49:25, "Thus saith the LORD, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered." Those who were in their captivity a prey to Satan, that mighty and cruel one, shall be delivered. And who shall do this? "The LORD thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob," verse 26. He proclaims "liberty to the captives," Isa. 61:1, Luke 4:18. And this is given in as the great fruit of the death of Christ, that upon his conquest of it he "led captivity captive," Ps. 68:18, Eph. 4:8,—that is, either captivity actively, Satan who held and detained his in captivity, or passively, those who were in captivity to him.

Thus being both prisoners and captives, they are said to be in bondage. Christ gives us liberty from that yoke of bondage, Gal. 5:1; and men are in bondage by reason of death all their days, Heb. 2:15. There is, indeed, nothing that the Scripture more abounds in than this, that men in the state of sin are in prison, captivity, and bondage,—are prisoners, captives, and slaves.

Concerning this two things are considerable:—1. The cause of men's bondage and captivity, deserving or procuring it. 2. The efficient, principal cause of it, to whom they are in captivity.

1. As for the first, as it is known, it is sin. To all this bondage and captivity men are sold by sin. In this business sin is considered two ways:—

(1.) As a debt, whereof God is the creditor. Our Saviour hath taught us to pray for the forgiveness of our sins under that notion, Matt. 6:12, Ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰ ὀφειλήματα ἡμῶν,—"Remit to us our debts." And in the parable of the lord and his servants, Matt. 18:23–35, he calls it τὸ δάνειον, verse 27, and τὸ ὀφειλόμενον, verse 30, "due debt;" all which he expounds by παραπτώματα, verse 35,—"offences" or "transgressions." Debt makes men liable to prison for non-payment; and so doth sin (without satisfaction made) to the prison of hell. So our Saviour expresses it, Matt. 5:25, 26, "Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing." On this account are men prisoners for sin: They are bound in the prison-house because they have wasted the goods of their Master, and contracted a debt that they are no way able to pay; and if it be not paid for them, there they must lie to eternity. All mankind were cast into prison for that great debt they contracted in Adam, in their trustee. Being there, instead of making any earnings to pay the debt already upon them by the law, they contract more, and increase thousands of talents. But this use of the words "debt" and "prison," applied to sin and punishment, is metaphorical.

(2.) As a crime, rebellion, transgression against God, the great governor and judge of all the world. The criminalness, rebellion, transgression, the disobedience that is in sin, is more or less expressed by all the words in the original whereby any sins are signified and called. Now, for sin considered as rebellion are men cast into prison, captivity, and bondage, by way of judicial process and punishment.

2. As for the principal cause of this captivity and imprisonment, it is God; for,—

(1.) He is the creditor to whom these debts are due: Matt. 6:9, 12, "Our Father which art in heaven, … forgive us our debts." It is to him that we stand indebted the ten thousand talents. "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned," says David, Ps. 51:4. God hath intrusted us with all we have to sin by or withal; he hath lent it us, to lay out for his glory. Our spending of what we have received upon our lusts, is running into debt unto God. Though he doth not reap where he did not sow, yet he requires his principal with advantage.

(2.) And properly he is the great king, judge, and governor of the world, who hath given his law for the rule of our obedience; and every transgression thereof is a rebellion against him. Hence, to sin is to rebel, and to transgress, and to be perverse, to turn aside from the way, to cast off the yoke of the Lord, as it is everywhere expressed. God is "the one lawgiver," James 4:12, who is able to kill and to destroy for the transgression of it. It is his law which is broken, and upon the breach whereof he says, "Cursed be every one that hath so done," Deut. 27:26. He is "the judge of all the earth," Gen. 18:25, yea, "God is judge himself," Ps. 50:6; and we shall be judged by his law, James 2:10–12; and his judgment is, "That they which commit sin are worthy of death," Rom. 1:32. And he is the "king for ever and ever," Ps. 10:16. He reigneth and executeth judgment. Now, who should commit the rebel that offends, who should be the author of the captivity and imprisonment of the delinquent, but he who is the king, judge, and lawmaker?

(3.) He doth actually do it: Rom. 11:32, Συνέκλεισε ὁ Θεὸς τοὺς πάντας εἰς ἀπείθειαν·—"God hath shut up all under disobedience." He hath laid them up close prisoners for their disobedience; and they shall not go out until satisfaction be made. In the parable, Matt. 18, of the lord or master and his servants, this is evident; and chap. 5:25, it is the judge that delivers the man to the officer to be cast into prison. Look who it is that shall inflict the final punishment upon the captives, if a ransom be not paid for them, he it is by whose power and authority they are committed, and to whom principally they are prisoners and captives. Now, this is God only. He can cast both body and soul into hell fire, Matt. 10:28; and wicked men shall be destroyed "from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power," 2 Thess. 1:9. In brief, God is the judge; the law is the law of God; the sentence denounced is condemnation from God; the curse inflicted is the curse of God; the wrath wherewith men are punished is the wrath of God; he that finds a ransom is God: and therefore it is properly and strictly he to whom sinners are prisoners and captives, 2 Pet. 2:4. And therefore, when in the Scripture at any time men are said to be in bondage to Satan, it is but as to the officer of a judge, or the jailer; to their sin, it is but as to their fetters, as shall be afterward more fully discovered.

And this removes the first question and answer of the Racovians to this purpose. Socinus, "De Servatore," expresses himself to the whole business of redemption in three chapters, lib. i. part. ii. cap. i–iii; the sum of which the catechists have laboured to comprise in as many questions and answers. The first is,—

Q. What dost thou answer to those testimonies which witness that we are redeemed of Christ?

A. It is hence evident that satisfaction cannot be confirmed from the word "redeeming,"—1. Because it is written of God himself, both in the Old and New Testament, that he redeemed his people out of Egypt, that he redeemed his people; 2. Because it is written that God redeemed Abraham and David, and that Moses was a redeemer, and that we are redeemed from our iniquities and our vain conversation, and from the curse of the law; for it is certain that God made satisfaction to none, nor can it be said that satisfaction is made either to our iniquities, or to our vain conversation, or to the law.

I say this whole plea is utterly removed by what hath been spoken; for,—1. In what sense redemption is ascribed to God and Moses, without the least prejudice of that proper redemption that was made by the blood of Christ, hath been declared, and shall be farther manifested when we come to demonstrate the price that was paid in this redemption.

2. It is true, there is no satisfaction made to our sin and vain conversation when we are redeemed; but satisfaction being made to Him to whom it is due, we are delivered from them. But of this afterwards.

3. Satisfaction is properly made to the law when the penalty which it threatens and prescribes is undergone, as in the case insisted on it was. In the meantime, our catechists are sufficiently vain, in supposing our argument to lie in the word "redimere." Though something hath been spoken of the word in the original, yet our plea is from the thing itself.

This Socinus thus expresses:—

There is also required he who held the captive, otherwise he is not a captive. To him, in our deliverance, if we will consider the thing itself exactly, many things do answer, for many things do detain us captives; now they are sin, the devil, and the world, and that which followeth sin, the guilt of eternal death, or the punishment of death appointed to us.

Ans. A lawful captive is detained two ways,—First, Directly; and that two ways also:—

1. Legally, juridically, and authoritatively: so is sinful man detained captive of God. "The wrath of God abideth on him," John 3:36, as hath been declared.

2. Instrumentally, in subservience to the authority of the other: so is man in bondage to Satan, and the law, and fear of death to come, Heb. 2:14, 15.

Secondly, Consequentially, and by accident: so a man is detained by his shackles, as in the filth of the prison; so is a man captive to sin and the world.

Nor are all these properly the detainers of us in captivity, from which we are redeemed, any more than the gallows keeps a malefactor in prison, from which by a pardon and ransom he is delivered.

To proceed with the description of redemption given, it is the delivery of him who was captive from prison or captivity, and all the miseries attending that condition.

1. What I mean by the prison is easily gathered from what hath been delivered concerning the prisoner or captive, and Him that holds him captive. If the captive be a sinner as a sinner, and he who holds him captive be God, by his justice making him liable to punishment, his captivity must needs be his obnoxiousness unto the wrath of God on the account of his justice for sin. This are we delivered from by this redemption that is in the blood of Jesus, Rom. 3:23–25: "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God." Verse 23 is the description of the state of our captivity. Having "sinned," we are "come short of the glory of God." Ὑστεροῦνται, they fall short in their race, and are by no means able to come up to a participation of God. Our delivery and the means of it are expressed, verse 24. Our delivery: we are "justified freely by his grace," or delivered from that condition and state of sin wherein it was impossible for us to reach and attain the glory of God. The procuring cause of which liberty is expressed in the next words, διὰ τῆς ἀπολυτρώσεως, by the redemption or ransom-paying that is in the blood of Jesus; that is the cause of our deliverance from that condition wherein we were. Whence and how it is so is expressed, verse 25: God set him forth for that end, that we might have deliverance "through faith in his blood," or by faith be made partakers of the redemption that is in his blood, or purchased by it. And this to "declare his righteousness." We have it this way, that the righteousness of God may be declared, whereto satisfaction is made by the death of Christ; for that also is included in the word "propitiation," as shall be afterward proved.

Thus, whilst men are in this captivity, "the wrath of God abideth on them," John 3:36; and the full accomplishment of the execution of that wrath is called "The wrath to come," 1 Thess. 1:10, which we are delivered from.

In this sense are we said to "have redemption in his blood," Col. 1:14, or to have deliverance from our captivity by the price he paid, and by his death to be delivered from the fear of death, Heb. 2:15, or our obnoxiousness thereto; it being the justice or judgment of God "that they which commit sin are worthy of death," Rom. 1:32. Christ by undergoing it delivered us from it.

Whence is that of the apostle, Rom. 8:33, 34, "Who shall lay any thing to their charge? who shall condemn them?" Who should but God? It is God, against whom they have sinned, whose the law is, and who alone can pronounce sentence of condemnation on the offenders, and inflict penalty accordingly. Yea, but "it is God that justifieth;" that is, that frees men from their obnoxiousness to punishment for sin in the first sense of it, which is their captivity, as hath been declared. But how comes this about? Why, "it is Christ that died." It is by the death of Christ that we have this redemption.

2. From all the miseries that attend that state and condition. These are usually referred to three heads:—(1.) The power of Satan; (2.) Of sin; (3.) Of the world; from all which we are said to be redeemed. And these are well compared to the jailer, filth, and fetters of the prison wherein the captives are righteously detained.

(1.) For the first, Col. 1:13, 14, "Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son; in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins." The "power of darkness" is the power of the prince of darkness, of Satan. This God delivers us from, by the redemption that is in the blood of Christ, verse 14. And how? Even as he who delivers a captive from the judge by a price delivers him also from the jailer who kept him in prison. By his death (which, as hath been showed, was a price and a ransom), he deprived Satan of all his power over us; which is called his destroying of him, Heb. 2:14,—that is, not the devil as to his essence and being, but as to his power and authority over those who are made partakers of his death.

The words of Socinus to this purpose may be taken notice of, Lib. de Servat. lib. i. part. ii. cap. ii.:—

Nothing is wanting in this deliverance, that it might wholly answer a true redemption, but only that he who detained the captive should receive the price. Although it seems to some that it may be said that the devil received the price which intervened in our redemption, as the ancient divines, among whom was Ambrosius and Augustine, made bold to speak, yet that ought to seem most absurd, and it is true that this price was received by none: for on that account chiefly is our deliverance not a true but a metaphorical redemption, because in it there is none that should receive the price; for if that which is in the place of a price be received (by him who delivers the captive), then not a metaphorical but a true price had intervened, and thereupon our redemption had been proper.

It is confessed that nothing is wanting to constitute that we speak of to be a true, proper, and real redemption, but only that the price paid be received of him that delivered the captives. That this is God we proved; that the price is paid to him we shall nextly prove.

The only reason given why the price is not paid to any, is because it is not paid to the devil. But was it the law of Satan we had transgressed? was he the judge that cast us into prison? was it him to whom we were indebted? was it ever heard that the price of redemption was paid to the jailer? Whether any of the ancients said so or no I shall not now trouble myself to inquire, or in what sense they said it; the thing in itself is ridiculous and blasphemous.

(2.) Sin. "He redeemed us from all iniquity," Tit. 2:14; and we were "redeemed by the precious blood of Christ from our vain conversation received by tradition from our fathers," 1 Pet. 1:18, 19. This redeeming us from our sins respects two things:—[1.] The guilt of them, that they should not condemn us; and, [2.] The power of them, that they should not rule in us. In the places mentioned it is the latter that is principally intended; which is evident from what is opposed to the captivity under sin that is spoken of. In the one place it is "purifying unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works," Tit. 2:14; in the other, the "purifying of our souls in obedience to the truth through the Spirit," 1 Pet. 1:22. Now, we are redeemed from the power of our sins by the blood of Christ, not immediately, but consequentially, as a captive is delivered from his fetters and filth upon the payment of his ransom. Christ's satisfying the justice of God, reconciling him to us by his death, hath also procured the gift of his Spirit for us, to deliver us from the power of our sins. The foundation of this being laid in the blood of Christ, and the price which thereby he paid, our delivery from our sins belongs to his redemption; and we are therefore said to be redeemed by him from our vain conversation.

And the great plea of our adversaries, that this redemption is not proper because we are redeemed from our iniquities and vain conversation, to which no ransom can be paid, will then be freed from ridiculous folly, when they shall give an instance of a ransom being paid to the prisoner's fetters before his delivery, whereunto our sins do rather answer, than to the judge.

There is a redeeming of us from the guilt of sin, which hath a twofold expression:—Of redeeming us from the "curse of the law," Gal. 3:13; and of the "redemption of transgressions," Heb. 9:15.

For the first, the "curse of the law" is the curse due to sin, Deut. 27:26; that is, to the transgression of the law. This may be considered two ways:—In respect of its rise and fountain, or its "terminus a quo;" in respect of its end and effect, or its "terminus ad quem."

For the first, or the rise of it, it is the justice of God, or the just and holy will of God, requiring punishment for sin, as the vengeance that is inflicted actually for sin is called the "wrath of God," Rom. 1:18; that is, his justice and indignation against sin. In this sense, to "redeem us from the curse of the law," is to make satisfaction to the justice of God, from whence that curse doth arise, that it should not be inflicted on us; and thus it falls in with what was delivered before concerning our captivity by the justice of God. Secondly, As it is the penalty itself, so we are delivered from it by this ransom-paying of Christ, as the punishment which we should have undergone, had not he undertaken for us and redeemed us.

Secondly, For the ἀπολύτρωσις παραζάσεων, Heb. 9:15, it can be nothing but making reparation for the injury done by transgression. It is a singular phrase, but may receive some light from that of Heb. 2:17, where Christ is said to be a high priest, εἰς τὸ ἱλάσκεσθαι τὰς ἁμαρτίας τοῦ λαοῦ, "to reconcile the sins of the people,"—that is, to make reconciliation for them; of the sense whereof afterward.

(3.) He redeems from the world, Gal. 4:5.

The THIRD thing is, that this deliverance from captivity be by the intervention of a price properly so called. That Christ did pay such a price I proved before,—which is the foundation of this discourse.

The word λύτρον, and those arising from thence, were specially insisted on. The known use of the word is "redemptionis pretium;" so among the best authors of the Greek tongue: Ζῶντα λαζόντες ἀφῆκαν ἄνευ λύτρων, Xenoph. Hellen. 7;—"They took him away without paying his ransom," or the price of his redemption. And, Ἔπεμψε τὰ λύτρα τῷ Ἀννίζᾳ καὶ τοὺς αἰχμαλώτους ἀπέλαζε, says Plutarch in Fabius;—"He sent their ransom to Hannibal and received the prisoners." And from thence λυτρόω is of the same import and signification. So in the argument of the first book of the Iliad, speaking of Chrysis, that he came to the camp βουλόμενος λυτρώσασθαι τὴν θυγατέρα,—"to pay a price for the redemption of his daughter." And Aristotle, Ethic lib. ix. cap. ii., disputing whether a benefit or good turn be not to be repaid rather than a favour done to any other, gives an instance of a prisoner redeemed, τῷ λυτρωθέντι παρὰ ληστῶν, πότερον τὸν λυσάμενον ἀντιλυτρωτέον, etc.,—whether he who is redeemed by the payment of a ransom from a robber be to redeem him who redeemed him, if captive, etc. But this is so far confessed, that if it may be evinced that this price is paid to any, it will not be denied but that it is a proper price of redemption, as before was discovered.

That the death of Christ is such a price I proved abundantly at the entrance of this discourse. It is so frequently and evidently expressed in the Scripture to be such that it is not to be questioned. I shall not farther insist upon it.

All that our adversaries have to object is, as was said, that seeing this price is not paid to any, it cannot be a price properly so called; for as for the nature of it, they confess it may be a price. So Socinus acknowledged it. Saith he:—

I understand the proper use of the word to "redeem" to be when a true price is given. True price I call not only money, but whatever is given to him that delivers the captive to satisfy him, although many things in the redemption be metaphorical.

That God detains the captive hath been proved; that the price is paid to him, though it be not silver and gold, and that that he might be satisfied, shall be farther evinced: so that we have redemption properly so called.

FOURTHLY. It remains, then, that we farther manifest that the price was paid to God.

Although enough hath been said already to evince the truth of this, yet I shall farther put it out of question by the ensuing observations and inferences:—

1. To the payment of a price or ransom properly so called,—which, as is acknowledged, is not necessary that it should be money or the like, 1 Pet. 1:18, but any thing that may satisfy him that detains the captive,—it is not required that it should be paid into the hand of him that is said to receive it, but only that it be some such thing as he requires as the condition of releasing the captive. It may consist in personal service, which is impossible to be properly paid into the hand of any. For instance, if a father be held captive, and he that holds him so requires that, for the delivery of his father, the son undertake a difficult and hazardous warfare wherein he is concerned, and he do it accordingly, this son doth properly ransom his father, though no real price be paid into the hand of him that detained him. It is sufficient to prove that this ransom was paid by Christ unto God, if it be proved that, upon the prescription of God, he did that and underwent that which he esteemed, and was to him a valuable compensation for the delivery of sinners.

2. The propriety of paying a ransom to any, where it lies in undergoing the penalty that was due to the ransomed, consists in the voluntary consent of him to whom the ransom is paid and him that pays it unto this commutation; which in this business we have firmly evinced. And the price paid by Christ could be no other; for God was not our detainer in captivity as a sovereign conqueror, that came upon us by force and kept us prisoners, but as a just judge and lawgiver, who had seized on us for our transgressions: so that not his power and will were to be treated withal, but his law and justice; and so the ransom was properly paid to him in the undergoing that penalty which his justice required.

3. There must some differences be allowed between spiritual, eternal, and civil, corporeal, temporal deliverances; which yet doth not make spiritual redemption to be improper, nay, rather the other is said to be improper wherein it agrees not thereunto. The one is spiritual, the other temporal; so that in every circumstance it is not to be expected that they should agree.

4. There are two things distinctly in God to be considered in this business:—(1.) His love, his will, or purpose; (2.) His justice, law, and truth. In respect of his love, his will, his purpose, or good pleasure, God himself found out, appointed, and provided this ransom. The giving of Christ is ascribed to his love, will, and good pleasure, John 3:16, Rom. 5:8, 8:32, 1 John 4:9, 10, as he had promised by his prophets of old, Luke 1:67–70. But his justice, and law, and truth, in their several considerations, required the ransom; and in respect of them he accepted it, as hath been showed at large. So that nothing in the world is more vain than that of our adversaries, that God procured and appointed this price, therefore he did not accept it. That is, either God's love or his justice must be denied; either he hath no justice against sin or no love for sinners;—in the reconciliation of which two, the greatest and most intense hatred against sin, and the most inexpressible love to some sinners in the blood of his only Son, lies the great mystery of the gospel; which these men are unacquainted withal.

5. That God may be said to receive this price, it was not necessary that any accession should be made to his riches by the ransom, but that he underwent no loss by our deliverance. This is the difference between a conqueror or a tyrant and a just ruler, in respect of their captives and prisoners. Says the tyrant or conqueror, "Pay me so much, whereby I may be enriched, or I will not part with my prisoner;" says the just ruler and judge, "Take care that my justice be not injured, that my law be satisfied, and I will deliver the prisoner." It is enough, to make good God's acceptance of the price, that his justice suffer not by the delivery of the prisoner, as it did not, Rom. 3:25; yea, it was exalted and made glorious above all that it could have been in the everlasting destruction of the sinner.

These things being thus premised, it will not be difficult to establish the truth asserted, namely, that this price or ransom was paid to God; for,—

1. A price of redemption, a ransom, must be paid to some one or other; the nature of the thing requires it. That the death of Christ was a price or ransom, properly so called, hath been showed before. The ridiculous objection, that then it must be paid to Satan or our sin, hath also been sufficiently removed: so that God alone remains to whom it is to be paid; for unless to some it is paid, it is not a price or ransom.

2. The price of redemption is to be paid to him who detains the captive by way of jurisdiction, right, and law-power. That God is he who thus detained the captive was also proved before. He is the great householder that calls his servants, that do or should serve him, to an account, συνᾶραι λόγον, Matt. 18:23, 24; and wicked men are κατάρας τέκνα, 2 Pet. 2:14, the children of his curse, obnoxious to it. It is his judgment "that they which commit sin are worthy of death," Rom. 1:32; and Christ is a propitiation to "declare his righteousness," chap. 3:25; and it is his wrath from which we are delivered by this ransom, chap. 2:5, 1 Thess. 1:10; the law was his to which Christ was made obnoxious, Gal. 4:4; the curse his which he was made, chap. 3:13; it was his will he came to do and suffer, Heb. 10:7,—it was his will that he should drink off the cup of his passion, Matt. 26:42; it pleased him to bruise him, Isa. 53:10; he made all our iniquities to meet upon him, verse 6: so that, doubtless, this ransom was paid to him. We intend no more by it than what in these places is expressed.

3. This ransom was also a sacrifice, as hath been declared. Look, then, to whom the sacrifice was offered, to him the ransom was paid. These are but several notions of the same thing. Now, the sacrifice he offered to God, Eph. 5:2; to him, then, also and only was this ransom paid.

4. Christ paid this ransom as he was a mediator and surety. Now he was the mediator between God and man, and therefore he must pay this price to one of them, either to God or man, and it is not difficult to determine whether. 1 Tim. 2:5, 6, gives us this fully. He is the mediator, and as such he gave himself ἀντίλυτρον, a price of redemption to God.

From this description of redemption properly so called, and the application of it to the redemption made by Jesus Christ, we thus argue:—

He who by his own blood and death paid the price of our redemption to God, in that he underwent what was due to us, and procured our liberty and deliverance thereby, he made satisfaction properly for our sins; but when we were captives for sin to the justice of God, and committed thereon to the power of sin and Satan, Christ by his death and blood paid the price of our redemption to God, and procured our deliverance thereby: therefore he made satisfaction to God for our sins.

For the farther confirmation of what hath been delivered, some few of the most eminent testimonies given to this truth are to be explained and vindicated, wherewith I shall close this discourse of our redemption by Christ. Out of the very many that may be insisted on, I shall choose only those that follow:—

1. Rom. 3:24, 25, "Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God." Redemption in itself, in its effect in respect of us, with all its causes, is here expressed. Its effect in respect of us is, that we are "justified freely," δικαιούμενοι δωρεάν: not brought easily, and with little labour, to be righteous or honest, as some vainly imagine (Grot. in loc.), but accepted freely with God, without the performance of the works of the law, whereby the Jews sought after righteousness. The end on the part of God is the declaration of his righteousness. The means procuring this end is the blood of Christ, redemption by Christ and in his blood. The means of communicating this effect, on the part of God, is the setting forth Christ a propitiation; on our part, as to application, it is faith in his blood.

(1.) As to the effect of our justification, it shall afterward be considered. The manner, or rise of it rather (for both may be denoted), on the part of God, is δωρεάν, that is, "freely;" or, as it is expounded in the next words, τῇ αὐτοῦ χάριτι, "by his grace." Our redemption and the effects of it are free on the part of God, in respect of his purpose and decree, which is called ἐκλογὴ χάριτος, Rom. 11:5, his great design and contrivance of the work of our salvation and deliverance. This he did "according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace," Eph. 1:5, 6; "according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself," verse 9; "according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will," verse 11. And it is free in regard of the love from whence Christ was sent, John 3:16; which also is ascribed τῇ χάριτι Θεοῦ, Heb. 2:9. And it is free in respect of us; we do not obtain it by the works of the law, Rom. 4:6, neither can it be so attained, nor is that required of us: and free on our part, in that nothing of us is required in way of satisfaction, recompense, or ransom. "He spared not his own Son," but "with him freely gives us all things," Rom. 8:32. Δικαιούμενοι δωρεάν, "We are justified freely;" that is, we are delivered from our bondage without any satisfaction made by us, or works performed by us to attain it, God having freely designed this way of salvation, and sent Jesus Christ to do this work for us.

They are [says Grotius] brought to righteousness without that labour that is required for lesser, even philosophical virtues. Faith makes an abridgment of the work.

The πρῶτον ψεῦδος of the great man, in the whole interpretation of that epistle, as of others of sundry sorts besides himself, is, that to be justified is to be brought to righteousness by the practice of virtue and honesty (which answers to that the Scripture calls sanctification), with as gross a shutting out of light as can befall any man in the world. This, with that notion which he hath of faith, is the bottom of this interpretation. But,—

Let him tell us freely what instance he can give of this use of the word δωρεάν, which here he imposeth on us, that it should signify the facility of doing a thing; and withal, whether these words, δικαιούμενοι δωρεάν, denote an act of God or of them that are justified;—whether "being justified freely by his grace" be his free justifying of us, as to what is actively denoted, or our easy performance of the works of righteousness? That δωρεάν in this place should relate to our duties, and signify "easily," and not to the act of God accepting us, and import "freely," is such a violence offered to the Scripture as nothing could have compelled the learned man to venture on but pure necessity of maintaining the Socinian justification.

As for the "philosophical virtues," which the gods sold for labour, they were "splendida peccata," and no more.

As to this part of the words, Socinus himself was not so far out of the way as the annotator. Saith he, "Justificati gratis, sensus est, partam nobis esse peccatorum nostrorum absolutionem (id enim ut scis quod ad nos attinet reipsa justificari est) non quidem per legis opera, quibus illam commeriti sumus, sed gratis per gratiam Dei," De Servat. lib. i. part. ii. cap. ii.

(2.) The end on the part of God is ἔνδειξις δικαιοσύνης, "the declaration of his righteousness." Δικαιοσύνη is properly God's justice as he is a judge. It is true, חֶסֶד is often rendered by the LXX. δικαιοσύνη, and by us from thence, "righteousness," which signifies, indeed, benignity, kindness, and goodness,—and so צְדָקָה, which is "righteousness," is rendered by them sometimes ἔλεος, "mercy," and the circumstances of the place may sometimes require that signification of the word,—but firstly and properly, it is that property of God whereby as a judge he renders to every one according to their ways before him, rewarding those that obey him, and punishing transgressors. This I have elsewhere declared at large. Hence he is שׁוֹפֵט צֶדֶק, Ps. 9:5; which, as Paul speaks, 2 Tim. 4:8, is ὁ δίκαιος κριτής, the "righteous judge." So Rom. 1:32; 2 Thess. 1:6; Rev. 15:5: so Isa. 59:16, "And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him." His righteousness sustained him in executing vengeance on the enemies of his church. This is the righteousness that God aimed to manifest and to declare in our redemption by Christ, "that he might be just," as the words follow, namely, that he might be known to be just and righteous in taking such sore vengeance of sin in the flesh of Jesus Christ his Son, Rom. 8:3. Hence did God appear to be exceeding righteous,—of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. He declared to all the world, what was due to sin, and what must be expected by men if they are not partakers of the redemption which is in the blood of Jesus Christ, Rom. 8:3.

Grotius would have δικαιοσύνη here to signify "goodness" and "bounty;" which as we deny not but that in some places in the Old Testament where it is used by the LXX. it doth or may do, so we say here that sense can have no place which nowhere is direct and proper; for the thing intended by it in that sense is expressed before in these words, Δωρεὰν τῇ χάριτι αὐτοῦ, and is not consistent with that that follows, Εἰς τὸ εἶναι αὐτὸν δίκαιον, which represents God as he is δίκαιος κριτής, as was spoken before.

Socinus goes another way. Says he, "In Christo, Deus ut ostenderet se veracem et fidelem esse, quod significant verba illa, justitiæ suæ," etc., referring it to God's righteousness of verity and fidelity in fulfilling his promise of forgiveness of sins. But says Grotius, righteousness cannot be here interpreted, "de fide in promissis prœstandis, quia quæ sequuntur non ad Judæos solos pertinent, sed etiam ad Gentes quibus promissio nulla erat facta,"—"because Gentiles are spoken of, and not the Jews only, but to them there was no promise given." A reason worthy the Annotations; as though the promise was not made to Abraham that he should be heir of the world, and to all his seed, not according to the flesh only; and as though the learned man himself did not think the first promise to have been made, and always to have belonged, to all and every man in the world. But yet neither will the sense of Socinus stand, for the reasons before given.

But how are these ends brought about, that we should be δικαιούμενοι δωρεάν, and yet there should be ἔνδειξις δικαιοσύνης?

(3.) Ans. The means procuring all this is the blood of Christ; it is διὰ τῆς ἀπολυτρώσεως τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ,—"by the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." And how that redemption is wrought he expresseth when he shows how we are made partakers of it, διὰ τῆς πίστεως ἐν τῷ αὐτοῦ αἵματι,—"through faith in his blood." The redemption wrought and procured by the blood of Christ is the procuring cause of all this. The causa προηγουμένη is the grace of God, of which before; the causa προκαταρκτική is this blood of Christ. This redemption, as here, is called ἀπολύτρωσις, Luke 21:28, Eph. 1:7, Col. 1:14; λύτρωσις, Luke 1:68, 2:38, Heb. 9:12; λύτρον, Matt. 20:28, Mark 10:45; ἀντίλυτρον, 1 Tim. 2:6; and in respect of the effect, ῥύσις, Rom. 7:24, 11:26, Col. 1:13, 1 Thess. 1:10. This is the procuring cause, as I said, of the whole effect of God's free grace here mentioned. We are justified freely, because we have redemption by the blood of Christ; he obtained it for us by the price of his blood.

I rather abide in the former sense of λύτρον (from whence is ἀπολύτρωσις), to be "a price of redemption," than to interpret it by "lustrum," and so to refer it to the sacrifices of purification, which belong to another consideration of the death of Christ. And yet the consideration of the blood of Christ as a sacrifice hath place here also, as shall be discovered. This is that which is here asserted, We have forgiveness of sins by the intervention of the blood of Christ, obtaining redemption for us; which is that we aim to prove from this place.

Grotius gives this exposition of the words:—

Christ by his obedience (especially in his death), and the prayers accompanying it, obtained this of his Father, that he should not forsake and harden mankind, drenched in grievous sins, but should give them a way of coming to righteousness by Jesus Christ, and should deliver them from a necessity of dying in their sin, by revealing a way whereby they might escape it.

[1.] It is well it is granted that the death of Christ respected God in the first place, and the obtaining somewhat of him; which the annotator's friends deny.

[2.] That the purchase of Christ was not for all mankind, that they might be delivered, but for the elect, that they should be delivered, has elsewhere been declared.

[3.] Christ by his death did not obtain of his Father that he should reveal or appoint that way of obtaining deliverance and salvation which by him we have. This, as the giving of Christ himself, was of the free grace and love of God. Nor is the appointment of the way of salvation, according to the covenant of grace, anywhere assigned to the death of Christ, but to the love of God sending his Son and appointing him to be a mediator, though the good things of the covenant be purchased by him.

[4.] This is all the effect here assigned to the blood-shedding of Jesus Christ, this is the redemption we have thereby: "He obtained of his Father that a better way of coming to righteousness than that of the law or that of philosophy might be declared to us"! The mystery of the whole is: "Christ, by his obedience to God, obtained this, that himself should be exalted to give a new law and teach a new doctrine, in obedience whereunto we might come to be righteous;" which must needs be an excellent explication of these words, "We have redemption by his blood," which plainly express the price he paid for us, and the effect that ensued thereon.

Socinus goes another way. Says he:—

The intervention of the blood of Christ, though it moved not God to grant us deliverance from the punishment of sin, yet it moved us to accept of it being offered, and to believe in Christ.

That is, the blood of Christ, being paid as a price of our redemption, hath no effect in respect of him to whom it is paid, but only in respect of them for whom it is paid; than which imagination nothing can be more ridiculous.

(4.) The means of application of the redemption mentioned, or participation in respect of us, is faith. It is διὰ πίστεως ἐν αἵματι αὐτοῦ. Of this we have no occasion to speak.

(5.) The means of communication on the part of God is in these words, Ὅν προέθετο ὁ Θεὸς ἱλαστήριον·—"Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation." God set him forth for this end and purpose. The word προέθετο may design various acts of God; as,—

[1.] His purpose and determination or decree of giving Christ; whence our translators have in the margin rendered it "foreordained," as the word is used Eph. 1:9, Ἣν προέθετο ἐν αὑτῷ,—"Which he fore-purposed in himself." Or,—

[2.] God's proposal of him beforehand in types and sacrifices to the Jews, the preposition πρό being often in composition used in that sense in this epistle, chap. 3:9, 11:35, 15:4. Or,—

[3.] For the actual exhibition of him in the flesh when God sent him into the world. Or,—

[4.] It may refer to the open exposition and publication of him in the world by the gospel; for, as we shall afterward show, the ensuing words hold out an allusion to the art, which now in Christ, the veil being rent, is exposed to the open view of believers. Hence John tells us, Rev. 11:19, when the temple was opened, "there was seen in it the ark of the testament;" which, as it was not at all in the second temple, the true Ark being to be brought in, no more was it to be seen upon the opening of the first, where it was, being closed in the holiest of holies. But now in the ordinances of the gospel, the Ark is perspicuous, because Θεὸς προέθετο,—God hath set it forth to believers.

Now, he was set forth ἱλαστήριον, "a propitiation." There is none but has observed that this is the name of the covering of the ark or the mercy-seat that is applied to Christ, Heb. 9:5; but the true reason and sense of it hath scarce been observed. Ours generally would prove from hence that Christ did propitiate God by the sacrifice of himself. That may have something from the general notice of the word referred to, the "sacrificia," ἱλαστικά (whereof afterward), but not from the particular intimated. The mercy-seat did not atone God for the sins that were committed against the law that was in the ark, but declared him to be atoned and appeased. That this is the meaning of it, that as the mercy-seat declared God to be atoned so also is Christ set forth to declare that God was atoned, not to atone him, Socinus contends at large, but to the utter confusion of his cause; for,—

[1.] If this declares God to be "pacatus" and "placatus," then God was provoked, and some way was used for his atonement. And,—

[2.] This is indeed the true import of that type and the application of it here by our apostle. The mercy-seat declared God to be appeased; but how? By the blood of the sacrifice that was offered without, and brought into the holy place. The high priest never went into that place about the worship of God but it was with the blood of that sacrifice, which was expressly appointed to make atonement, Lev. 16. God would not have the mercy-seat once seen, nor any pledge of his being atoned, but by the blood of the propitiatory sacrifice. So it is here. God sets out Jesus Christ as a propitiation, and declares himself to be appeased and reconciled; but how? By the blood of Christ, by the sacrifice of himself, by the price of redemption which he paid. This is the intendment of the apostle: Christ by his blood, and the price he paid thereby, with the sacrifice he made, having atoned God, or made atonement with him for us, God now sets him forth, the veil of the temple being rent, to the eye of all believers, as the Mercy-seat wherein we may see God fully reconciled to us.

And this may serve for the vindication of the testimony to the truth insisted on; and this is the same with 2 Cor. 5:18.

It would be too long for me to insist in particular on the full vindication of the other testimonies that are used for the confirmation of this truth; I shall give them, therefore, together in such a way as that their efficacy to the purpose in hand may be easily discerned.

We are bought by Christ, saith the apostle: Ἠγοράσθητε, "Ye are bought," 1 Cor. 6:20. But this buying may be taken metaphorically for a mere deliverance, an certainly it is, 2 Pet. 2:1, "Denying the Lord that bought them,"—that is, delivered them,—for it is spoken of God the Father. It may be so, the word may be so used, and therefore, to show the propriety of it here, the apostle adds τιμῆς, "with a price:" "Ye are bought with a price." To be bought with a price doth nowhere signify to be barely delivered, but to be delivered with a valuable compensation for our deliverance. But what is this price wherewith we are bought? 1 Pet. 1:18, 19, "Not with silver and gold, but τιμίῳ αἵματι Χριστοῦ,"—"with the precious (honourable) blood of Christ." Why τίμιον αἷμα, "the precious blood?" That we may know that in this business it was valued at a sufficient rate for our redemption, and it did that which in temporal, civil redemption is done by silver and gold, which are given as a valuable consideration for the captive. But what kind of price is this blood of Christ? It is λύτρον, Matt. 20:28, that is, a "price of redemption;" whence it is said that "he gave himself for us, ἵνα λυτρώσηται ἡμᾶς," Tit. 2:14, "that he might fetch us off with a ransom." But it may be that it is called λύτρον, not that he put himself in our stead, and underwent what was due to us, but that his death was as it were a price, because thereon we were delivered. Nay, but his life was λύτρον properly; and therefore he calls it also ἀντίλυτρον, 1 Tim. 2:6. Ἀντί in composition signifies either opposition, as 1 Pet. 3:9, or substitution and commutation, as Matt. 2:22. In the first sense, here it cannot be taken; therefore it must be in the latter. He was ἀντίλυτρον,—that is, did so pay a ransom that he himself became that which we should have been; as it is expressed, Gal. 3:13, "He redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." To whom he paid this price was before declared, and the apostle expresseth it, Eph. 5:2. What now is the issue of all this? We have redemption thereby: chap. 1:7, "In whom we have ἀπολύτρωσιν διὰ τοῦ αἵματος αὐτοῦ,—redemption by his blood;" as it is again asserted in the same words, Col. 1:14. But how came we by this redemption? He obtained it of God for us: "He entered into heaven, αἰωνίαν λύτρωσιν εὑράμενος, having found (or obtained) eternal redemption for us." By the price of his blood he procured this deliverance at the hand of God. And that we may know that this effect of the death of Christ is properly towards God, what is the immediate issue of this redemption is expressed. It is "forgiveness of sins," Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14; Rom. 3:24, 25.

And this is as much as is needful to the first notion of the death of Christ, as a price and ransom, with the issues of it, and the confirmation of our first argument from thence for the satisfaction of Christ.

———

CHAPTER XXIX

Of reconciliation by the death of Christ as it is a sacrifice

II. THE next consideration of the death of Christ is of it as a sacrifice, and the proper effect thereof is RECONCILIATION by his death as a sacrifice.

Reconciliation in general is the renewal of lost friendship and peace between persons at variance. To apply this to the matter treated of, the ensuing positions are to be premised:—

1. There was at first, in the state of innocency, friendship and peace between God and man. God had no enmity against his creature; he approved him to be good, and appointed him to walk in peace, communion, confidence, and boldness with him, Gen. 2. Nor had man, on whose heart the law and love of his Maker was written, any enmity against his Creator, God, and Rewarder.

2. That by sin there is division, separation, and breach of peace and friendship, introduced between God and the creature; Isa. 59:2, "Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you." chap. 63:10, "They rebelled, and vexed his holy Spirit; therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and fought against them." chap. 57:21, "There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." And therefore it is that, upon a delivery from this condition, we are said (and not before) to have "peace with God," Rom. 5:1.

3. That by this breach of peace and friendship with God, God was alienated from the sinner, so as to be angry with him, and to renounce all peace and friendship with him, considered as such and in that condition. "He that believeth not, the wrath of God abideth on him," John 3:36. And, therefore by nature and in our natural condition we are "children of wrath," Eph. 2:3; that is, obnoxious to the wrath of God, that abides upon unbelievers,—that is, unreconciled persons.

4. This enmity on the part of God consists,—

(1.) In the purity and holiness of his nature, whence he cannot admit a guilty, defiled creature to have any communion with him. He is a God of "purer eyes than to behold evil," Hab. 1:13. And sinners cannot serve him, because "he is a holy God, a jealous God, that will not forgive their transgressions nor their sins," Josh. 24:19.

(2.) In his will of punishing for sin: Rom. 1:32, "It is the judgment of God, that they which commit sin are worthy of death," and this from the righteousness of the thing itself. 2 Thess. 1:6, "It is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation" to sinners. "He is not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness," etc., Ps. 5:4–6.

(3.) In the sentence of his law, in the establishing and execution whereof his truth and honour were engaged: "In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die," Gen. 2:17. And, "Cursed is every one that continueth not," etc., Gal. 3:13, Deut. 27:26. And of this enmity of God against sin and sinners, as I have elsewhere at large declared, there is an indelible persuasion abiding on the hearts of all the sons of men, however, by the stirrings of lust and craft of Satan, it may be more or less blotted in them. Hence,—

(4.) As a fruit and evidence of this enmity, God abominates their persons, Ps. 1:4–6; rejects and hates their duties and ways, Prov. 15:8, 9; and prepares wrath and vengeance for them, to be inflicted in his appointed time, Rom. 2:5;—all which make up perfect enmity on the part of God.

5. That man was at enmity with God as on his part, I shall not need to prove, because I am not treating of our reconciliation to God, but of his reconciliation to us.

Where there is such an enmity as this, begun by offence on the one part, and continued, by anger and purpose to punish on the other, to make reconciliation is properly to propitiate and turn away the anger of the person offended, and thereby to bring the offender into favour with him again, and to an enjoyment of the same, or a friendship built on better conditions than the former. This description of reconciliation doth God himself give us, Job 42:7–9, "And it was so, that after the LORD had spoken these words unto Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath. Therefore take unto you now seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you: for him will I accept: lest I deal with you after your folly, in that ye have not spoken of me the thing which is right, like my servant Job," etc. The offenders are Eliphaz and his two friends; the offence is their folly in not speaking aright of God; the issue of the breach is, that the wrath or anger of God was towards them. Reconciliation is the turning away of that wrath. The means whereby this was to be done, appointed of God, is the sacrifice of Job for atonement.

This, then, is that which we ascribe to the death of Christ when we say that, as a sacrifice, we were reconciled to God by it, or that he made reconciliation for us. Having made God our enemy by sin (as before), Christ by his death turned away his anger, appeased his wrath, and brought us into favour again with God. Before the proof of this, I must needs give one caution as to some terms of this discourse, as also remove an objection that lies at the very entrance against the whole nature of that which is treated of.

For the first, When we speak of the anger of God, his wrath, and his being appeased towards us, we speak after the manner of men; but yet by the allowance of God himself. Not that God is properly angry, and properly altered from that state and appeased, whereby he should properly be mutable and be actually changed;—but by the anger of God, which sometimes in Scripture signifieth his justice, from whence punishment proceeds, sometimes the effects of anger, or punishment itself, the obstacles before mentioned on the part of God, from his nature, justice, law, and truth, are intended; and by his being appeased towards us, his being satisfied as to all the bars so laid in the way of receiving us to favour, without the least alteration in him, his nature, will, or justice. And according to the analogy hereof, I desire that whatever is spoken of the anger of God, and his being appeased or altered (which is the language wherein he converseth with us and instructs us to wisdom), may be measured and interpreted.

The objection I shall propose in the words of Crellius:—

If this be the chiefest and highest love of God, that he sent Christ, his only Son, to be a propitiation for our sins, how then could Christ by his death appease the wrath of God that was incensed against us? for seeing that God's love was the cause of sending Christ, he most needs before that have laid aside his anger; for otherwise, should he not intensely love us and not love us at the same time? And if God could then be angry with us when he gave up his Son to bitter death for our everlasting happiness, what argument or evidence at any time can we have from the effect of it, whence we may know that God is not farther angry with us?

To the same purpose Socinus himself: "Demonstravi non modo Christum Deo nos, non autem Deum nobis reconciliasse, verum etiam Deum ipsum fuisse qui hanc reconciliationem fecerit," Socin. de Servator. lib. i. part. i. cap. i.

To the same purpose is the plea of the catechist, cap. viii., "De Morte Christi," q. 31, 32.

Ans. 1. The love wherewith God loved us when he sent his Son to die for us was the most intense and supreme in its own kind, nor would admit of any hatred or enmity in God towards us that stood in opposition thereunto. It is everywhere set forth as the most intense love, John 3:16; Rom. 5:7, 8; 1 John 4:10. Now, this love of God is an eternal free act of his will; his "purpose," Rom. 9:11; "his good pleasure," his purpose that he "purposed in himself," as it is called, Eph. 1:5, 9; it is his πρόθεσις, εὐδοκία, πρόγνωσις, 1 Pet. 1:2, as I have elsewhere distinctly declared; a love that was to have an efficacy by moans appointed. But for a love of friendship, approbation, acceptation as to our persons and duties, God bears none unto us, but as considered in Christ and for his sake. It is contrary to the whole design of the Scripture and innumerable particular testimonies once to fancy a love of friendship and acceptation towards any in God, and not consequent to the death of Christ.

2. This love of God's purpose and good pleasure, this "charitas ordinativa," hath not the least inconsistency with those hinderances of peace and friendship on the part of God before mentioned; for though the holiness of God's nature, the justice of his government, the veracity of his word, will not allow that he take a sinner into friendship and communion with himself without satisfaction made to him, yet this hinders not but that, in his sovereign good-will and pleasure, he might purpose to recover us from that condition by the holy means which he appointed. God did not love us and not love us, or was angry with us, at the same time and in the same respect. He loved us in respect of the free purpose of his will to send Christ to redeem us and to satisfy for our sin; he was angry with us in respect of his violated law and provoked justice by sin.

3. God loves our persons as we are his creatures, is angry with us as we are sinners.

4. It is true that we can have no greater evidence and argument of the love of God's good-will and pleasure in general than in sending his Son to die for sinners, and that he is not angry with them with an anger of hatred opposite to that love,—that is, with an eternal purpose to destroy them; but for a love of friendship and acceptation, we have innumerable other pledges and evidences, as is known, and might be easily declared.

These things being premised, the confirmation of what was proposed ensues:—

The use and sense of the words whereby this doctrine of our reconciliation is expressed evince the truth contended for. Ἱλάσκεσθαι, καταλάσσειν, and ἀποκαταλάσσειν, which are the words used in this business, are as much as "iram avertere," "to turn away anger:" so is "reconciliare, propitiare," and "placare," in Latin. "Impius, ne audeto placare iram deorum," was a law of the Twelve Tables. Ἱλάσκομαι, "propitior, placor," ἱλασμός, "placatio, exoratio," Gloss, vetus. And in this sense is the word used: Ὅσα μέντοι πρὸς ἱλασμοὺς θεῶν ἢ τεράτων ἀποτροπὰς συνηγόρευον οἱ μάντεις, Plut. in Fabio,—to "appease their gods, and turn away the things they feared." And the same author tells us of a way taken ἐξιλάσασθαι τὸ μήνιμα τῆς θεοῦ,—to "appease the anger of the goddess." And Xenophon useth the word to the same purpose: Πολλὰ μὲν πέμπων ἀναθήματα χρυσᾶ, πολλὰ δὲ ἀργυρᾶ, πάμπολλα δὲ θύων, ἐξιλασάμην ποτὲ αὐτόν. And so also doth Livy use the word "reconcilio:" "Non movit modo talis oratio regem, sed etiam reconciliavit Annibali," Bell Macedon. And many more instances might be given. God, then, being angry and averse from love of friendship with us, as hath been declared, and Christ being said thus to make reconciliation for us with God, he did fully turn away the wrath of God from us, as by the testimonies of it will appear.

Before I produce our witnesses in this cause, I must give this one caution: It is not said anywhere expressly that God is reconciled to us, but that we are reconciled to God; and the sole reason thereof is, because he is the party offended, and we are the parties offending. Now, the party offending is always said to be reconciled to the party offended, and not on the contrary. So Matt. 5:23, 24, "If thy brother have ought against thee, go and be reconciled to him." The brother being the party offended, he that had offended was to be reconciled to him by turning away his anger. And in common speech, when one hath justly provoked another, we bid him go and reconcile himself to him; that is, do that which may appease him and give an entrance into his favour again. So is it in the case under consideration. Being the parties offending, we are said to be reconciled to God when his anger is turned away and we are admitted into his favour. Let now the testimonies speak for themselves:—

Rom. 5:10, "When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son." Κατηλλάγημεν τῷ Θεῷ,—"We were reconciled to God," or "brought again into his favour." Amongst the many reasons that might be given to prove the intention of this expression to be, "that we were reconciled to God" by the averting of his anger from us, and our accepting into favour, I shall insist on some few from the context:—

1. It appears from the relation that this expression bears to that of verse 8, "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us," with which this upon the matter is the same, "We are reconciled to God by the death of his Son." Now, the intent of this expression, "Christ died for us sinners," is, he died to bring us sinners into the favour of God, nor will it admit of any other sense; so is our being "reconciled to God by the death of his Son." And that this is the meaning of the expression, "Christ died for us," is evident from the illustration given to it by the apostle, verses 6, 7. "Christ died for the ungodly;" how? As one man dieth for another,—that is, to deliver him from death.

2. From the description of the same thing in other words: Verse 9, "Being justified by his blood." That it is the same thing upon the matter that is here intended appears from the contexture of the apostle's speech, "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us; much more then being justified by his blood;" and, "If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God." The apostle repeats what he had said before, "If, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us," and "we were justified by the blood of Christ;" that is, "If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God." Now, to be justified is God's reconciliation to us, his acceptation of us into favour, not our conversion to him, as is known and confessed.

3. The reconciliation we have with God is a thing tendered to us, and we do receive it: Verse 11, Καταλλαγὴν ἐλάζομεν, "We have received the reconciliation (or atonement)." Now, this cannot be spoken in reference to our reconciliation to God as on our side, but of his to us, and our acceptation with him. Our reconciliation to God is our conversion; but we are not said to receive our conversion, or to have our conversion tendered to us, but to convert ourselves or to be converted.

4. The state and condition from whence we are delivered by this reconciliation is described in this, that we are called enemies,—being "enemies, we were reconciled." Now, enemies in this place are the same with sinners; and the reconciliation of sinners,—that is, of those who had rebelled against God, provoked him, were obnoxious to wrath,—is certainly the procuring of the favour of God for them. When you say, "Such a poor, conquered rebel, that expected to be tortured and slain, is by means of such a one reconciled to his prince," what is it that you intend? Is it that he begins to like and love his prince only, or that his prince lays down his wrath and pardons him?

5. All the considerations before insisted on, declaring in what sense we are saved by the death of Christ, prove our reconciliation with God to be our acceptation with him, not our conversion to him.

2 Cor. 5:18–21 is a place of the same importance with that above mentioned, wherein the reconciliation pleaded for is asserted, and the nature of it explained: "And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation, to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

There is in these words a twofold reconciliation:—1. Of God to man: Verse 18, "God hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ." 2. Our reconciliation to God, in the acceptance of that reconciliation which we are exhorted to.

The first is that inquired after, the reconciliation whereby the anger of God by Christ is turned away, and those for whom he died are brought into his favour, which comprises the satisfaction proposed to confirmation; for,—

1. Unless it be that God is so reconciled and atoned, whence is it that he is thus proclaimed to be a Father towards sinners, as he is here expressed? Out of Christ he is a "consuming fire" to sinners and "everlasting burnings," Isa. 33:14, being of "purer eyes than to behold evil," Hab. 1:13; before whom no sinner shall appear or stand, Ps. 5:4, 5. So that, where there is no "sacrifice for sins," there "remaineth nothing to sinners but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries," Heb. 10:26, 27. How comes, then, this jealous God, this holy God and just Judge, to command some to beseech sinners to be reconciled to him? The reason is given before. It is because he reconciles us to himself by Christ, or in Christ; that is, by Christ his anger is pacified, his justice satisfied, and himself appeased or reconciled to us.

2. The reconciliation mentioned is so expounded, in the cause and effect of it, as not to admit of any other interpretation.

(1.) The effect of God's being reconciled, or his reconciling the world to himself, is in these words, "Not imputing to them their trespasses." God doth so reconcile us to himself by Christ as not to impute our trespasses to us; that is, not dealing with us according as justice required for our sins, upon the account of Christ's [work] remitting the penalty due to them, laying away his anger, and receiving us to favour. This is the immediate fruit of the reconciliation spoken of, if not the reconciliation itself. Non-imputation of sin is not our conversion to God.

(2.) The cause of it is expressed, verse 21, "He made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin." How comes it to pass that God, the righteous judge, doth thus reconcile us to himself, and not impute to us our sins? It is because he hath made Christ to be sin for us,—that is, either a sacrifice for sin, or as sin,—by the imputation of our sin to him. He was "made sin for us," as we are "made the righteousness of God in him." Now, we are made the righteousness of God by the imputation of his righteousness to us: so was he made sin for us by the imputation of our sin to him. Now, for God to reconcile us to himself by imputing our sin to Christ, and thereon not imputing it to us, can be nothing but his being appeased and atoned towards us, with his receiving us into his favour, by and upon the account of the death of Christ.

(3.) This reconciling of us to himself is the matter committed to the preachers of the gospel; whereby, or by the declaration whereof, they should persuade us to be reconciled to God. "He hath committed to us τὸν λόγον τῆς καταλλαγῆς, this doctrine concerning reconciliation mentioned, 'we therefore beseech you to be reconciled to God.' " That which is the matter whereby we are persuaded to be reconciled to God cannot be our conversion itself, as is pretended. The preachers of the gospel are to declare this word of God, namely, "that he hath reconciled us to himself" by the blood of Christ, the blood of the new testament that was shed for us, and thereon persuade us to accept of the tidings, or the subject of them, and to be at peace with God. Can the sense be, "We are converted to God, therefore be ye converted?" This testimony, then, speaks clearly to the matter under debate.

The next place of the same import is Eph. 2:12–16, "At that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: but now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby."

1. Here is mention of a twofold enmity:—(1.) Of the Gentiles unto God; (2.) Of the Jews and Gentiles among themselves.

(1.) Of the Gentiles unto God, verse 12. Consider them as they are there described, and their enmity to God is sufficiently evident. And what in that estate was the respect of God unto them? what is it towards such persons as there described? "The wrath of God abideth on them," John 3:36; they are "children of wrath," Eph. 2:3. So are they there expressly called. "He hateth all the workers of iniquity," Ps. 5:5, and "will by no means clear the guilty," Exod. 34:7; yea, he curseth those families that call not on his name, Jer. 10:25.

(2.) Of the Jews and Gentiles among themselves; which is expressed both in the thing itself and in the cause of it. It is called "enmity," and said to arise from, or be occasioned and improved by, "the law of commandments contained in ordinances." The occasion, improvement, and management of this enmity between them see elsewhere.

2. Here is mention of a twofold reconciliation:—(1.) Of the Jews and Gentiles among themselves: Verses 14, 15, "He is our peace, who hath made both one, abolishing the enmity, so making peace." (2.) Of both unto God: Verse 16, "That he might reconcile both unto God."

3. The manner whereby this reconciliation was wrought: "In his body, by the cross."

The reconciliation unto God is that aimed at. This reconciliation is the reconciling of God unto us on the account of the blood of Christ, as hath been declared,—the bringing of us into his favour by the laying away of his wrath and enmity against us: which appears,—

(1.) From the cause of it expressed; that is, the body of Christ, by the cross, or the death of Christ. Now, the death of Christ was immediately for the forgiveness of sins: "This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." It is by shedding of his blood that we have remission or forgiveness. That this is by an atoning of God, or our acceptance into favour, is confessed.

(2.) From the expression itself: Ἀποκαταλλάξῃ ἐν ἑνὶ σώματι τῷ Θεῷ. Τῷ Θεῷ denotes one party in the business of reconciliation. He made peace between them both, between the Gentiles on the one hand and the Jews on the other, and he made peace between them both and God, Jews and Gentiles on the one hand and God on the other. So that God is a party in the business of reconciliation, and is therein reconciled to us; for our reconciliation to him is mentioned in our reconciliation together, which cannot be done without our conversion.

(3.) From the description of the enmity given, verse 12, which plainly shows (as was manifested) that it was on both sides. Now, this reconciliation unto God is by the removal of that enmity; and if so, God was thereby reconciled and atoned, if he hath any anger or indignation against sin or sinners.

(4.) Because this reconciliation of both to God is the great cause and means of their reconciliation among themselves. God, through the blood of Christ, or on the account of his death, receiving both into favour, their mutual enmity ceased; and without it never did nor ever will.

And this is the reconciliation accomplished by Christ.

The same might be said of the other place, Col. 1:20–22; but I shall not need to multiply testimonies to the same purpose. Thus we have reconciliation by Christ, in that he hath made atonement or satisfaction for our sins.

The observations given on these texts have been suited to obviate the exceptions of Socinus, treating of this subject in his book "De Servatore," without troubling the reader with the repetition of his words.

That which in the next place I thought to do is, to prove that we have this reconciliation by the death of Christ as a sacrifice. But because I cannot do this to my own satisfaction without insisting, first, on the whole doctrine of sacrifices in general; secondly, on the institution, nature, end, and efficacy of the sacrifices of the Aaronical priesthood; thirdly, the respect and relation that was between them and the sacrifice of Christ, both in general and in particular; and from all these considerations at large deducing the conclusion proposed;—and finding that this procedure would draw out this treatise to a length utterly beyond my expectation, I shall not proceed in it, but refer it to a peculiar discourse on that subject.

That which I proposed to confirmation at the entrance of this discourse was the satisfaction made by the blood of Christ. This being proposed under several considerations, hath thus far been severally handled. That his death was a price, that we have redemption thereby properly so called, was first evinced. That truth standing, the satisfaction of Christ is sufficiently established, our adversaries themselves being judges. The sacrifice that he offered in his death hath also been manifested. Hereof is the reconciliation now delivered the fruit and effect. This also is no less destructive of the design of these men. What they have to object against that which hath been spoken shall have the nest place in our discourse:—

Thus, then, our catechists to this business, in the 31st and 32d questions of the 8th chapter, which is about the death of Christ:—

Q. What say you, then, to those places that affirm that he reconciled us to God?

A. 1. That the Scripture nowhere says that God was reconciled to us by Christ, but this only, that by Christ, or the death of Christ, we are reconciled, or reconciled to God; as may appear from all those places where reconciliation is treated of: wherefore from those places the satisfaction cannot be proved. 2. Because it is evident in the Scripture that God reconciled us to himself, which evinceth the opinion of the adversaries to be altogether false, 2 Cor. 5:18. Col. 1:20–22.

Ans. 1. Whether there be any mention in the Scripture of such a reconciliation as whereby the anger of God is turned away and we received into favour, the reader will judge from what hath been already proposed, and thither we appeal. It is not about words and syllables that we contend, but things themselves. The reconciliation of God to us by Christ is so expressed as the reconciliation of a judge to an offender, of a king to a rebel, may be expressed.

2. If Christ made reconciliation for us and for our sins an atonement, he made the satisfaction for us which we plead for.

3. It is true, God is said to reconcile us to himself, but always by Christ, by the blood of Christ, proposing himself as reconciled thereby, and declaring to us the atonement that we may turn unto him.

They add,—

Q. But what thinkest thou of this reconciliation?

A. That Jesus Christ showed a way to us, who by reason of our sins were enemies to God and alienated from him, how we ought to turn unto God, and by that means be reconciled to him.

Ans. I suppose there was never a more perverse description of any thing, part or parcel, of the gospel by any men fixed on. Some of the excellencies of it may be pointed out:—

1. Here is a reconciliation between two parties, and yet a reconciliation but of one, the other excluded.

2. An enmity on one side only, between God and sinners, is supposed, and that on the part of the sinners, when the Scriptures do much more abound in setting out the enmity of God against them as such, his wrath abiding on them,—as some will find one day to their eternal sorrow.

3. Reconciliation is made nothing but conversion, or conversion to God, which yet are terms and things in the Scriptures everywhere distinguished.

4. We are said to be enemies to God "propter peccata nostra," when the Scripture says everywhere that God is an enemy to us "propter peccata nostra." He hateth and is angry with sinners. His judgment is, "that they which commit sin are worthy of death," Rom. 1:32.

5. Here is no mention of the death and blood of Christ, which, in every place in the whole Scripture where this reconciliation is spoken of, is expressly laid down as the cause of it, and necessarily denotes the reconciliation of God to us, by the averting of his anger, as the effect of it.

6. Did Christ by his death show us a way whereby we might come to be reconciled to God or convert ourselves? What was that way? Is it that God lays punishment, and affliction, and death, on them who are no way liable thereunto? What else can we learn from the death of Christ, according to these men? The truth is, they mention not his death, because they know not how to make their ends hang together.

This is the sum of what they say: "We are reconciled to God, that is, we convert ourselves, by the death of Christ; that is, not by his death, but according to the doctrine he teacheth. And this is the sum of the doctrine of reconciliation: Christ teacheth us a way how we should convert ourselves to God." And so much for reconciliation.

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CHAPTER XXX

The satisfaction of Christ on the consideration of his death being a punishment farther evinced, and vindicated from the exceptions of Smalcius

III. THE third consideration of the death of Christ was of it as it was penal, as therein he underwent punishment for us, or that punishment which for sin was due to us. Thence directly is it said to be SATISFACTORY. About the word itself we do not contend, nor do our adversaries except against it. If the thing itself be proved that is intended by that expression, this controversy is at end. Farther to open the nature of satisfaction, then, by what is said before about bearing of sins, etc., I see no reason; our aim in that word is known to all, and the sense of it obvious. This is made by some the general head of the whole business. I have placed it on the peculiar consideration of Christ's bearing our sins and undergoing punishment for us. What our catechists say to the whole I shall briefly consider.

Having assigned some causes and effects of the death of Christ, partly true in their own place, partly false, they ask, question 12,—

Ques. Is there no other cause of the death of Christ?

Ans. None at all. As for that which Christians commonly think, that Christ by his death merited salvation for us, and satisfied fully for our sins, that opinion is false (or deceitful), erroneous, and very pernicious.

That the men of this persuasion are bold men we are not now to learn; only, this assertion, that there is no other cause of the death of Christ but what they have mentioned, is a new experiment thereof.

If we must believe that these men know all things and the whole mind of God, so that all is "false and pernicious" that lies beyond their road and understanding, there may be some colour for this confidence; but the account we have already taken of them will not allow us to grant them this plea.

Of the merit of Christ I have spoken briefly before. His satisfaction is the thing opposed chiefly. What they have to say against it shall now be considered; as also, how this imputation or charge on the common faith of Christians, about the satisfaction of Christ to be "false, erroneous, and pernicious," will be managed.

Q. How is it false (or deceitful)?

A. That it is false (or deceitful) and erroneous is hence evident, that not only there is nothing of it extant in the Scripture, but also that it is repugnant to the Scriptures and sound reason.

For the truth of this suggestion, that it is not extant in Scripture, I refer the reader to what hath been discoursed from the Scripture about it already. When they, or any for them, shall answer or evade the testimonies that have been produced, or may yet be so (for I have yet mentioned none of those which immediately express the dying of Christ for us, and his being our mediator and surety in his death), they shall have liberty, for me, to boast in this manner. In the meantime, we are not concerned in their wretched confidence. But let us see how they make good their assertion by instances:—

Q. Show that in order?

A. That it is not in the Scripture this is an argument, that the assertors of that opinion do never bring evident scriptures for the proof of it, but knit certain consequences by which they endeavour to make good what they assert; which as it is meet to admit when they are necessarily deduced from Scripture, so it is certain they have no force when they are repugnant to the Scripture.

But what is it that we do not prove by express Scripture, and that in abundance? That "our iniquity was laid upon Christ;" that "he was bruised, grieved, wounded, killed for us;" that "he bare our iniquities," and that "in his own body on the tree;" that "he was made sin for us" and "a curse;" that we deserved death, and "he died for us;" that "he made his soul an offering for sin, laid down his life a price and ransom for us," or in our stead; that we are thereby "redeemed and reconciled to God;" that our "iniquities being laid on him," and he "bearing them" (that is, the punishment due to them), "we have deliverance;" God being atoned, and his wrath removed,—we prove not by consequence, but by multitudes of express testimonies. If they mean that the word "satisfaction" is not found in Scripture in the business treated of, we tell them that אָשָׁם is; and λύτρον, ἀντίλυτρον, and λύτρωσις, ἀπολύτρωσις, καταλλαγή (all words of a cognate significancy thereto, and of the same importance as to the doctrine under consideration), are frequently used. It is, indeed, a hard task to find the word satisfaction in the Hebrew of the Old Testament or the Greek of the New; but the thing itself is found expressly a hundred times over; and their great master doth confess that it is not the word, but the thing itself, that he opposeth. So that, without any thanks to them at all for granting that consequences from Scripture may be allowed to prove matters of faith, we assure them our doctrine is made good by innumerable express testimonies of the word of God, some whereof have been by us now insisted on; and, moreover, that if they and their companions did not wrest the Scriptures to strange and uncouth senses, never heard of before amongst men professing the name of Christ, we could willingly abstain wholly from any expression that is not ῥητῶς, found in the Word itself. But if, by their rebellion against the truth, and attempts to pervert all the expressions of the Word, the most clear and evident, to perverse and horrid abominations, we are necessitated to them, they must bear them, unless they can prove them not to be true.

Let the reader observe, that they grant that the consequences we gather from Scripture would evince that which we plead and contend for, were it not that they are repugnant to other scriptures. Let them, then, manifest the truth of their pretension by producing those other scriptures, or confess that they are self-condemned.

Wherefore they ask,—

Q. How is it repugnant to the Scriptures?

A. In this sort, that the Scriptures do everywhere testify that God forgives sin freely, 2 Cor. 5:19, Rom. 3:24, 25; but principally under the new covenant, Eph. 2:8, Matt. 18:23, etc. Now, nothing is more opposite to free remission than satisfaction; so that if a creditor be satisfied either by the debtor himself or by any other in the name of the debtor, he cannot be said to forgive freely.

If this be all that our consequences are repugnant unto in the Scripture, we doubt not to make a speedy reconciliation; indeed there was never the least difference between them. Not to dwell long upon that which is of an easy despatch,—

1. This objection is stated solely to the consideration of sin as a debt, which is metaphorical. Sin properly is an offence, a rebellion, a transgression of the law, an injury done, not to a private person, but to a governor in his government.

2. The first two places mentioned, 2 Cor. 5:18–20, Rom. 3:24, 25, do expressly mention the payment of this debt by Christ as the ground of God's forgiveness, remission, and pardon; the payment of it, I say, not as considered metaphorically as a debt, but the making an atonement and reconciliation for us who had committed it, considered as a crime and rebellion or transgression.

3. We say that God doth most freely forgive us, as Eph. 2:8, Matt. 18:23, etc., without requiring any of the debt at our hands, without requiring any price or ransom from us or any satisfaction at our hands; but yet he forgives us for Christ's sake, setting forth him to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, he laying down his life a ransom for us, God not sparing him, but giving him up to death for us all.

4. The expression of another satisfying in the name of the debtor intends either one procured by the debtor, and at his entreaty undertaking the work, or one graciously given and assigned to be in his stead by the creditor. In the first sense it hath an inconsistency with free remission, in the latter not at all.

The truth is, men that dream of an opposition between the satisfaction made by Christ, the surety and mediator of the new covenant, and free remission made to us, are utterly ignorant of the whole mystery of the gospel, nature of the covenant, and whole mediation of Christ, advancing carnal imaginations against innumerable testimonies of the Scripture, witnessing the blessed conspiration between them, to the praise of the glorious grace of God. But they say,—

That it is contrary to reason also, because it would hence follow "that Christ underwent eternal death, if he satisfied God for our sins, seeing it is manifest that the punishment we deserved by our sins was eternal death. Also, it would follow that we should be more bound to Christ than to God himself, as to him who had shown us greater favour in satisfaction; but God receiving satisfaction afforded us no favour."

What little relief this plea will afford our adversaries will quickly appear; for,—

1. I have proved that Christ underwent that death that was due unto sinners, which was all that justice, law, or reason required. He underwent it, though it was impossible for him to be detained by it.

2. If the Racovians do not think us obliged to God for sending his Son, out of his infinite and eternal love, to die for us, causing all our iniquities to meet on him, justifying us freely (who could do nothing for our own delivery) through the redemption that is in the blood of Christ, we must tell them that (we bless his holy name!) we are not of that mind, but, finding a daily fruit of his love and kindness upon our souls, do know that we are bound unto him eternally, to love, praise, serve, honour, and glorify him, beyond what we shall ever be able to express.

For the inquiry made and comparison instituted between our obligation to the Father and the Son, or which of them we are most beholden to, we profess we cannot speak unto it. Our obligation to both, and either respectively, is such that if our affections were extended immeasurably to what they are, yet the utmost and exactest height of them would be due to both, and each of them respectively. We are so bound to one as we cannot be more to the other, because to both in the absolutely highest degree. This we observe in the Scriptures, that in mentioning the work of redemption, the rise, fountain, and spring of it is still assigned to be in the love of the Father, the carrying of it on in the love and obedience of the Son, and so we order our thoughts of faith towards them; the Father being not one whit the less free and gracious to us by loving us upon the satisfaction of his Son than if he had forgiven us (had it been possible) without any satisfaction at all.

And thus is this article of the Christian faith contrary to Scripture, and to reason. They add:—

Q. How also is it pernicious?

A. In that it openeth a door unto men to sin, or at least incites them to sloth in following after holiness. But the Scripture witnesseth that this amongst others is an end of the death of Christ, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and deliver us from this evil world, that we might be redeemed from our vain conversation, and have our consciences purged from dead works, that we might serve the living God, Tit. 2:14; Gal. 1:4; 1 Pet. 1:18; Heb. 9:14.

That the deliverance of us from the power and pollution of our sin, the purifying of our souls and consciences, the making of us a peculiar people of God, zealous of good works, that we might be holy and blameless before him in love, is one eminent end of the death of Christ, we grant. For this end, by his death, did he procure the Spirit to quicken us, "who were dead in trespasses and sins," sprinkling us with the pure water thereof, and giving us daily supplies of grace from him, that we might grow up in holiness before him, until we come to the measure in this life assigned to us in him. But that the consideration of the cross of Christ, and the satisfaction made thereby, should open a door of licentiousness to sin, or encourage men to sloth in the ways of godliness, is fit only for them to assert to whom the gospel is folly.

What is it, I pray, in the doctrine of the cross that should thus dispose men to licentiousness and sloth? Is it that God is so provoked with every sin that it is impossible and against his nature to forgive it without inflicting the punishment due thereto? or is it that God so loved us that he gave his only Son to die for us? or is it that Christ loved us and washed us in his own blood? or is it that God for Christ's sake doth freely forgive us? Yea, but our adversaries say that God freely forgives us; yea, but they say it is without satisfaction. Is it, then, an encouragement to sin to affirm that God forgives us freely for the satisfaction of his Son, and not so to say that he forgives us freely without satisfaction? Doth the adding of satisfaction, whereby God to the highest manifested his indignation and wrath against sin, doth that, I say, make the difference and give the encouragement? Who could have discovered this but our catechists and their companions! Were this a season for that purpose, I could easily demonstrate that there is no powerful or effectual motive to abstain from sin, no encouragement or incitation unto holiness, but what ariseth from or relateth unto the satisfaction of Christ.

And this is that which they have to make good their charge against the common faith, that "it is false, erroneous, and pernicious"! Such worthy foundations have they of their great superstruction, or rather so great is their confidence and so little is their strength for the pulling down of the church built upon the Rock!

They proceed to consider what testimonies and proofs (they say) we produce for the confirmation of the truth contended for. What (they say) we pretend from reason (though indeed it be from innumerable places of Scripture), I have vindicated not long since to the full in my book of the vindictive justice of God, and answered all the exceptions given thereunto, so that I shall not translate from thence what I have delivered to this purpose, but pass to what follows.

Question 12 they make this inquiry;—

Q. Which are the scriptures out of which they endeavour to confirm their opinion?

A. Those which testify that Christ died for us, or for our sins, also that he redeemed us, or that he gave himself or his life a redemption for many; then that he is our mediator; moreover, that he reconciled us to God, and is a propitiation for our sins; lastly, from those sacrifices which, as figures, shadowed forth the death of Christ.

So do they huddle up together those very many express testimonies of the truth we plead for which are recorded in the Scripture; of which I may truly say that I know no one truth in the whole Scripture that is so freely and fully delivered, as being, indeed, of the greatest importance to our souls. What they except in particular against any one of the testimonies that may be referred to the heads before recounted (except those which have been already spoken to) shall be considered in the order wherein they proceed.

They say, then,—

For what belongeth unto those testimonies wherein it is contended that Christ died for us, it is manifest that satisfaction cannot necessarily be therein asserted, because the Scripture witnesseth that we ought even to lay down our lives for the brethren, 1 John 3:16; and Paul writes of himself, Col. 1:24, "Now I rejoice in my affliction for you, and fill up the remainder of the affliction of Christ for his body, which is the church:" but it is certain that neither do believers satisfy for any of the brethren, nor did Paul make satisfaction to any for the church.

Q. What then is the sense of these words, "Christ died for us?"

A. That these words "for us" do not signify in our place or stead, but for us, as the apostle expressly speaks, 1 Cor. 8:11, which also alike places do show, where the Scripture saith that Christ died for our sins; which word cannot have this sense, that Christ died instead of our sins, but that he died for our sins, as it is expressly written, Rom. 4:25. Moreover, these words, "Christ died for us," have this sense, that he therefore died, that we might embrace and obtain that eternal salvation which he brought to us from heaven; which how it is done you heard before.

Ans. Briefly to state the difference between us about the meaning of this expression, "Christ died for us," I shall give one or two observations upon what they deliver, then confirm the common faith, and remove their exceptions thereto:—

1. Without any attempt of proof, they oppose "vice nostri" and "propter nos," as contrary and inconsistent, and make this their argument that Christ did not die "vice nostri," because he died "propter nos," when it is one argument whereby we prove that Christ died in our stead, because he died for us in the sense mentioned 1 Cor. 8:11, where it is expressed by διά, because we could no otherwise be brought to the end aimed at.

2. Our sense of the expression is evident from what we insist upon in the doctrine in hand. "Christ died for us,"—that is, he underwent the death and curse that was due to us, that we might be delivered therefrom.

3. The last words of the catechists are those wherein they strive to hide the abomination of their hearts in reference to this business. I shall a little lay it open:—

(1.) Christ, say they, "brought us eternal salvation from heaven;" that is, "he preached a doctrine in obedience whereunto we may obtain salvation." So did Paul.

(2.) "He died that we might receive it;" that is, "rather than he would deny the truth which he preached, he suffered himself to be put to death." So did Paul, and yet he was not crucified for the church.

(3.) "It is not indeed the death of Christ, but his resurrection, that hath an influence into our receiving of his doctrine, and so our obtaining salvation."

And this is the sense of these words, "Christ died for us"!

For the confirmation of our faith from this expression, "Christ died for us," we have,—

(1.) The common sense and customary usage of humankind as to this expression. Whenever one is in danger, and another is said to come and die for him that he may be delivered, a substitution is still understood. The ἀντίψυχοι of old, as Damon and Pythias, etc., make this manifest.

(2.) The common usage of this expression in Scripture confirms the sense insisted on. So David wished that he had died for his son Absalom, that is, died in his stead, that he might have lived, 2 Sam. 18:33. And that supposal of Paul, Rom. 5:7, of one daring to die for a good man, relating (as by all expositors on the place is evinced) to the practice of some in former days, who, to deliver others from death, bad given themselves up to that whereunto they were obnoxious, confirms the same.

(3.) The phrase itself of ἀπέθανε, or ἀπέθανεν ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν, which is used, Heb. 2:9, 1 Pet. 1:21, Rom. 5:6–8, 2 Cor. 5:14, sufficiently proves our intention, compared with the use of the preposition in other places, especially being farther explained by the use of the preposition ἀντί, which ever denotes a substitution in the same sense and business, Matt. 20:28, Mark 10:45, 1 Tim. 2:6. That a substitution and commutation is always denoted by this preposition (if not an opposition, which here can have no place), 1 Pet. 3:9, Rom. 12:17, Matt. 5:38, Luke 11:11, Heb. 12:16, 1 Cor. 11:15, amongst other places, are sufficient evidences.

(4.) Christ is so said to die ἀντὶ ἡμῶν, that he is said in his death to have "our iniquity laid upon him," to "bear our sins in his own body on the tree," to be "made sin and a curse for us," to "offer himself a sacrifice for us" by his death, his blood, to "pay a price or ransom for us," to "redeem," to "reconcile us to God," to "do away our sins in his blood," to "free us from wrath, and condemnation, and sin." Now, whether this, to "die for us," be not to die in our place and stead, let angels and men judge.

4. But say they, "This is all that they have to say in this business: yet 'we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren;' and Paul saith, that be 'filled up the measure of the affliction of Christ, for his body's sake, the church;' but neither the one nor the other did make satisfaction to God by their death or affliction," But,—

(1.) If all we had to plead for the sense of this expression, "Christ died for us," depended solely on the sense and use of that word ὑπέρ, then the exception would have this force in it: "The word is once or twice used in another sense in another business; therefore the sense of it contended for in this business cannot be such as you seek to maintain." But, [1.] This exception at best, in a cause of this importance, is most frivolous, and tends to the disturbance of all sober interpretation of Scripture. [2.] We are very far from making the single sense of the preposition to be the medium which, in the argument from the whole expression, we insist on.

(2.) The passage in 1 John 3:16, being a part of the apostle's persuasive to love, charity, and the fruits of them, tending to the relief of the brethren in poverty and distress, disclaims all intendment and possibility of a substitution or commutation, nor hath any intimation of undergoing that which was due to another, but only of being ready to the utmost to assist and relieve them. The same is the condition of what is affirmed of Paul. Of the measure of affliction which, in the infinitely wise providence and fatherly care of God, is proportioned to the mystical body of Christ's church, Paul underwent his share for the good of the whole; but that Paul, that any believers, were crucified for the church, or died for it in the sense that Christ died for it, that they redeemed it to God by their own blood, it is notorious blasphemy once to imagine. The meaning of the phrase, "He died for our sins," was before explained. Christ, then, "dying for us," being "made sin for us," "bearing our iniquities," and "redeeming us by his blood," died in our place and stead, and by his death made satisfaction to God for our sins.

Also, that Christ made satisfaction for our sins appears from hence, that he was our mediator. Concerning this, after their attempt against proper redemption by his blood, which we have already considered, question 28, they inquire,—

Q. What say you to this, that Christ is the mediator between God and men, or [the mediator] of the new covenant?

A. Seeing it is read that Moses was a mediator, Gal. 3:19 (namely, of the old covenant between God and the people of Israel), and it is evident that he no way made satisfaction to God, neither from hence, that Christ is the mediator of God and men, can it be certainly gathered that he made any satisfaction to God for our sins.

I shall take leave, before I proceed, to make a return of this argument to them from whom it comes, by a mere change of the instance given. Christ, they say, our high priest, offered himself to God in heaven. Now, Aaron is expressly said to be a high priest, and yet he did not offer himself in heaven; and therefore it cannot be certainly proved that Christ offereth himself in heaven because he was a high priest. Or thus:—David Was a king, and a type of Christ; but David reigned at Jerusalem, and was a temporal king: it cannot therefore be proved that Christ is a spiritual king from hence, that he is said to be a king. This argument, I confess, Faustus Socinus could not answer when it was urged against him by Seidelius. But for the former, I doubt not but Smalcius would quickly have answered that it is true, it cannot be necessarily proved that Christ offereth himself in heaven because he was a high priest, which Aaron was also, but because he was such a high priest as entered into the heavens to appear personally in the presence of God for us, as he is described to be. Until he can give us a better answer to our argument, I hope he will be content with this of ours to his. It is true, it doth not appear, nor can be evinced necessarily, that Christ made satisfaction for us to God because he was a mediator in general, for so Moses was, who made no satisfaction; but because it is said that he was such a "mediator between God and men" as gave his life a "price of redemption" for them for whom with God he mediated, 1 Tim. 2:6, it is most evident and undeniable; and hereunto Smalcius is silent.

What remains of this chapter in the catechists hath been already fully considered; so to them and Mr B., as to his twelfth chapter, about the death of Christ, what hath been said may suffice. Many weighty considerations of the death of Christ in this whole discourse, I confess, are omitted,—and yet more, perhaps, have been delivered than by our adversaries occasion hath been administered unto; but this business is the very centre of the new covenant, and cannot sufficiently be weighed. God assisting, a farther attempt will ere long be made for the brief stating of all the several concernments of it.

CHAPTER XXXI

Of election and universal grace—Of the resurrection of Christ from the dead

MR BIDDLE'S intention in this thirteenth chapter being to decry God's eternal election, finding himself destitute of any scripture that should, to the least outward appearance, speak to his purpose, he deserts the way and method of procedure imposed on himself, and in the very entrance falls into a dispute against it, with such arguments as the texts of Scripture after mentioned give not the least colour or countenance unto. Not that from me he incurs any blame for using any arguments whereby he supposeth he may further or promote his cause is this spoken; but having at the entrance protested against such a procedure, he ought not, upon any necessity, to have transgressed the law which to himself he had prescribed. But as the matter stands, he is to be heard to the full in what he hath to offer. Thus, then, he proceeds:—

Q. Those scriptures which you have already alleged, when I inquired for whom Christ died, intimate the universality of God's love to men; yet, forasmuch as this is a point of the greatest importance, without the knowledge and belief whereof we cannot have any true and solid ground of coming unto God (because if he from eternity intended good only to a few, and those few are not set down in the Scriptures, which were written that we through the comfort of them might have hope, no man can certainly, yea, probably, infer that he is in the number of those few, the contrary being ten thousand to one more likely), what other clear passages of Scripture have you which show that God, in sending Christ and proposing the gospel, aimed not at the salvation of a certain elect number, but of men in general?

A. John 3:16, 17, 6:33, 4:42; 1 John 4:14; John 12:46, 47; Mark 16:15, 16; Col. 1:23, 28; 1 Tim. 2:1–4; 2 Pet. 3:9; 2 Cor. 5:19; 1 John 2:1, 2.

1. That God is good to all men, and bountiful, being a wise, powerful, liberal provider for the works of his hands, in and by innumerable dispensations and various communications of his goodness to them, and may in that regard be said to have a universal love for them all, is granted; but that God loveth all and every man alike, with that eternal love which is the fountain of his giving Christ for them and to them, and all good things with him, is not in the least intimated by any of those places of Scripture where they are expressed for whom Christ died, as elsewhere hath been abundantly manifested.

2. It is confessed that "this is a point of the greatest importance" (that is, of very great), "without the knowledge and belief whereof we cannot have any true and solid ground of coming unto God,"—namely, of the love of God in Christ; but that to know the universality of his love is of such importance cannot be proved, unless that can be numbered which is wanting, and that weighed in the balance which is not.

3. We say not that "God from all eternity intended good only to a few," etc. He intended much good to all and every man in the world, and accordingly, in abundance of variety, accomplisheth that his intention towards them,—to some in a greater, to some in a lesser measure, according as seems good to his infinite wisdom and pleasure, for which all things were created and made, Rev. 4:11 And for that particular eminent good of salvation by Jesus Christ, for the praise of his glorious grace, we do not say that he intended that from eternity for a few, absolutely considered, for these will appear in the issue to be "a great multitude, which no man can number," Rev. 7:9; but that in comparison of them who shall everlastingly come short of his glory, we say that they are but a "little flock," yea, "few they are that are chosen," as our Saviour expressly affirms, whatever Mr B. be pleased to tell us to the contrary.

4. That the granting that they are but few that are chosen (though many be called), and that "before the foundation of the world" some are chosen to be holy and unblamable in love through Christ, having their "names written in the book of life," is a discouragement to any to come to God, Mr B. shall persuade us when he can evince that the secret and eternal purpose of God's discriminating between persons as to their eternal conditions is the great ground and bottom of our approach unto God, and not the truth and faithfulness of the promises which he hath given, with his holy and righteous commands. The issue that lies before them who are commanded to draw nigh to God is, not whether they are elected or no, but whether they will believe or no, God having given them eternal and unchangeable rules: "He that believeth shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned." Though no man's name be written in the Scripture, he that believes hath the faith of God's veracity to assure him that he shall be saved. It is a most vain surmisal, that as to that obedience which God requires of us, there is any obstruction laid by this consideration, that they are but few which are chosen.

5. This is indeed the only true and solid ground of coming unto God by Christ, that God hath infallibly conjoined faith and salvation, so that whosoever believes shall be saved; neither doth the granting of the pretended universality of God's love afford any other ground whatever; and this is not in the least shaken or impaired by the effectual love and purpose of God for the salvation of some. And if Mr B. hath any other true and solid ground of encouraging men to come to God by Christ besides and beyond this, which may not, on one account or other, be educed from it or resolved into it (I mean of God's command and promise), I do here beg of him to acquaint me with it, and I shall give him more thanks for it, if I live to see it done, than as yet I can persuade myself to do on the account of all his other labours which I have seen.

6. We say, though God hath chosen some only to salvation by Christ,—yet the names of those some are not expressed in Scripture, the doing whereof would have been destructive to the main end of the word, the nature of faith, and all the ordinances of the gospel,—yet God having declared that whosoever believeth shall be saved, there is sufficient ground for all and every man in the world to whom the gospel is preached to come to God by Christ, and other ground there is none, nor can be offered by the assertors of the pretended universality of God's love. Nor is this proposition, "He that believeth shall be saved," founded on the universality of love pleaded for, but on the sufficiency of the means for the accomplishment of what is therein asserted,—namely, the blood of Christ, who is believed on.

Now, because Mr B. expresseth that the end of his asserting this universality of God's love is to decry his eternal purpose of election, it being confessed that between these two there is an inconsistency, without entering far into that controversy, I shall briefly show what the Scripture speaks to the latter, and how remote the places mentioned by Mr B. are from giving countenance to the former, in the sense wherein by him who asserts it it is understood.

For the first, methinks a little respect and reverence to that testimony of our Saviour, "Many are called, but few are chosen," might have detained this gentleman from asserting with so much confidence that the persuasion of God's choosing but a few is an obstruction of men's coming unto God. Though he looks upon our blessed Saviour as a mere man, yet I hope he takes him for a true man, and one that taught the way of God aright. But a little farther to clear this matter:—

1. Some are chosen from eternity, and are under the purpose of God, as to the good mentioned. 2. Those some are some only, not all; and therefore, as to the good intended, there is not a universal love in God as to the objects of it, but such a distinguishing one as is spoken against: Eph. 1:4, 5, "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: having predestinated us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will." Here are some chosen, and consequently an intention of God concerning them expressed, and this from eternity, or before the foundation of the world, and this to the good of holiness, adoption, salvation; and this is only of some, and not of all the world, as the whole tenor of the discourse, being referred to believers, doth abundantly manifest. Rom. 8:28–30, "We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified." The good here intended is glory, that the apostle closes withal, "Whom he justified, them he also glorified;" the means to that end consist in vocation and justification; the persons to be made partakers of this end are, not all the world, but "the called according to his purpose;" the designation of them so distinguished to the end expressed is from the purpose, foreknowledge, and predestination of God,—that is, his everlasting intention. Were it another man with whom We had to do, I should wonder that it came into his mind to deny this eternal intention of God towards some for good; but nothing is strange from the gentleman of our present contest. They are but some which are "ordained to eternal life," Acts 13:48; but some that are "given to Christ," John 17:6; "a remnant according to election," Rom. 11:5; one being chosen when another was rejected "before they were born, or had done either good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand," chap. 9:11, 12; and those who obtain salvation are "chosen thereunto through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth," 2 Thess. 2:13. All that is intended by them whom Mr B. thinketh to load with the opinion he rejects is but what in these and many other places of Scripture is abundantly revealed: God from all eternity, "according to the purpose of his own will," or "the purpose which is according to election," hath chosen some, and appointed them to the obtaining of life and salvation by Christ, to the praise of his glorious grace. For the number of these, be they few or many, in comparison of the rest of the world, the event doth manifest.

Yet farther to evidence that this purpose of God or intention spoken of is peculiar and distinguishing, there is express mention of another sort of men who are not thus chosen, but lie under the purpose of God as to a contrary lot and condition: "The LORD hath made all things for himself; yea, even the wicked for the day of evil," Prov. 16:4. They are persons "whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb," Rev. 13:8; being "of old ordained to condemnation," Jude 4; being as "natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed," 2 Pet. 2:12. And therefore the apostle distinguisheth all men into those who are "appointed to wrath," and those who are "appointed to the obtaining of salvation by Jesus Christ," 1 Thess. 5:9; an instance of which eternally discriminating purpose of God is given in Jacob and Esau, Rom. 9:11, 12: which way and procedure therein of God the apostle vindicates from all appearance of unrighteousness, and stops the mouths of all repiners against it, from the sovereignty and absolute liberty of his will in dealing with all the sons of men as he pleaseth, verses 14–21; concluding that, in opposition to them whom God hath made "vessels of mercy prepared unto glory," there are also "vessels of wrath fitted to destruction," verses 22, 23.

Moreover, in all eminent effects and fruits of love, in all the issues and ways of it, for the good of and towards the sons of men, God abundantly manifests that his eternal love, that regards the everlasting good of men, as it was before described, is peculiar, and not universally comprehensive of all and every one of mankind.

1. In the pursuit of that love he gave his Son to die: "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us," Rom. 5:8. "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins," 1 John 4:10. Now, though he died not for the Jews only, but for all, for the whole world, or men throughout the whole world, yet that he died for some only of all sorts throughout the world, even those who are so chosen, as is before mentioned, and not for them who are rejected, as was above declared, himself testifies: John 17:9, "I pray for them; I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me;" "Thine they were, and thou gavest them me," verse 6; "And for their sakes I sanctify myself," verse 19: even as he had said before, that he came to "give his life a ransom for many," Matt. 20:28; which Paul afterward abundantly confirms, affirming that "God redeemed his church with his own blood," Acts 20:28. Not the world, as contradistinguished from his church, nor absolutely, but his church throughout the world. And to give us a clearer insight into his intendment in naming the church in this business, he tells us they are God's elect whom he means: Rom. 8:32–34, "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." They are the elect for whom God gave his Son, and that out of his love (which the apostle eminently sets out, verse 32), those to whom with his Son he gives all things, and who shall on that account never be separated from him.

Farther, to manifest that this great fruit and effect of the love of God, which is extended to the whole object of that love, was not universal,—(1.) The promise of giving him was not so; God promised Christ to all for and to whom he giveth him: "The Lord God of Israel by him visited and redeemed his people, raising up an horn of salvation for them in the house of his servant David; as he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began," Luke 1:68–70. In the very first promise of him, the seed of the serpent (as are all reprobate unbelievers) are excluded from any interest therein, Gen. 3:15. And it was renewed again, not to all the world, but to "Abraham and his seed," Gen. 12:2, 3; Acts 2:39, 3:25. And for many ages the promise was so appropriated to the seed of Abraham, Rom. 9:4, with some few that joined themselves to them, Isa. 56:3–7, that the people of God prayed for a curse on the residue of the world, Jer. 10:25, as they which were "strangers from the covenants of promise," Eph. 2:12; they belonged not to them. So that God made not a promise of Christ to the universality of mankind; which sufficiently evinceth that it was not from a universal but a peculiar love that he was given. Nor,—

(2.) When Christ was exhibited in the flesh, according to the promise, was he given to all, but to the church, Isa. 9:6; neither really as to their good, nor ministerially for the promulgation of the gospel to any, but to the Jews. And therefore when "he came unto his own," though "his own received him not," John 1:11, yet as to the ministry which he was to accomplish, he professed he was "not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," and gave order to them whom he sent forth to preach in his own lifetime "not to go into the way of the Gentiles, nor to enter into any city of the Samaritans," Matt. 10:5. Yea, when he had been "lifted up" to "draw all men unto him," John 3:14, 12:32, and, being ascended, had broken down the partition wall and taken away all distinction of Jew and Gentile, circumcision and uncircumcision, having died not only for that nation of the Jews (for "the remnant according to the election of grace," Rom. 11:5), but that he "might gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad," John 11:52,—whence the language and expressions of the Scripture as to the people of God are changed, and instead of "Judah and Israel," they are expressed by "the world," John 3:16, "the whole world," 1 John 2:1, 2, and "all men," 1 Tim. 2:4, in opposition to the Jews only, some of all sorts being now taken into grace and favour with God,—yet neither then doth he do what did remain for the full administration of the covenant of grace towards all, namely, the pouring out of his Spirit with efficacy of power to bring them into subjection to him, but still carries on, though in a greater extent and latitude, a work of distinguishing love, taking some and refusing others. So that, being "exalted, and made a prince and a saviour," he gives not repentance to all the world, but to them whom he "redeemed to God by his blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation," Rev. 5:9.

It appears, then, from the consideration of this first most eminent effect of the love of God, in all the concernments of it, that that love which is the foundation of all the grace and glory, of all the spiritual and eternal good things, whereof the sons of men are made partakers, is not universal, but peculiar and distinguishing.

Mr B. being to prove his former assertion, of the universality of God's love, mentions sundry places where God is said to love the world, and to send his Son to be the Saviour of the world, John 3:16, 17, 6:33, 4:42; 1 John 4:14; John 12:46, 47; 1 John 2:1, 2: the reason of which expressions the reader was before acquainted with. The benefits of the death of Christ being now no more to be confined to one nation, but promiscuously to be imparted to the children of God that were scattered abroad throughout the world in every kindred, tongue, and nation under heaven, the word "world" being used to signify men living in the world, sometimes more, sometimes fewer, seldom or never "all" (unless a distribution of them into several sorts, comprehensive of the universality of mankind, be subjoined), that word is used to express them who, in the intention of God and Christ, are to be made partakers of the benefits of his mediation, men of all sorts throughout the world being now admitted thereunto, as was before asserted.

2. The benefit of redemption being thus grounded upon the principle of peculiar, not universal love, whom doth God reveal his will concerning it unto? and whom doth he call to the participation thereof? If it be equally provided for all out of the same love, it is all the reason in the world that all should equally be called to a participation thereof, or, at least, so be called as to have it made known unto them. For a physician to pretend that he hath provided a sovereign remedy for all the sick persons in a city, out of an equal love that he bears to them all, and when he hath done takes care that only some few know of it, whereby they may come and be healed, but leaves the rest in utter ignorance of any such provision that he hath made, will he be thought to deal sincerely in the profession that he makes of doing this out of an equal love to them all? Now, not only for the space of almost four thousand years did God suffer incomparably the greatest part of the whole world to walk in their own ways, not calling them to repent, Acts 14:16, winking at that long time of their ignorance, wherein they worshipped stocks, stones, and devils, all that while "showing his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel, not dealing so with any nation, whereby they knew not his judgments," Ps. 147:19, 20,—so, in the pursuit of his eternal love, calling a few only in comparison, leaving the bulk of mankind in sin, "having no hope, and without God in the world," Eph. 2:12; but even also since the giving out of a commission and express command not to confine the preaching of the word and calling of men to Judea, but to "go into all the world and to preach the gospel to every creature," Mark 16:15,—whereupon it is shortly after said to be "preached to every creature under heaven," Col. 1:23, the apostle thereby "warning every man, and teaching every man, that he might present every man perfect in Christ Jesus," verse 28, namely, of all those to whom he came and preached, not of the Jews only, but of all sorts of men under heaven, and that on this ground, that "God would have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth," 1 Tim. 2:3, 4, be they of what sort they will, kings, rulers, and all under authority,—to this very day, many whole nations, great and numerous, sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, having neither in their own days nor in the days of their forefathers ever been made partakers of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, whereby alone life and immortality are brought to light, and men are made partakers of the love of God in them. So that yet we have not the least evidence of the universal love pleaded for. Yea,—

3. Whereas, to the effectual bringing of men "dead in trespasses and sins" to a participation of any saving, spiritual effect of the love of God in Christ, besides the promulgation of the gospel and the law thereof,—which consisteth in the infallible connection of faith and salvation, according to the tenor of it, Mark 16:16, "He that believeth shall be saved," which is accompanied with God's command to believe, wherein he declares his will for their salvation upon the terms proposed, approving the obedience of faith, and giving assurance of salvation thereupon, 1 Tim. 2:1–4,—there is moreover required the operation of God by his Spirit with power, to evince that all this dispensation is managed by peculiar, distinguishing love, this is not granted to all to whom the commanding and approving word doth come, but only "to them who are the called according to his purpose," Rom. 8:28; that is, to them who are "predestinated," verse 30, for them he calls, so as to justify and glorify them thereupon.

4. Not, then, to insist on any other particular effects of the love of God, as sanctification, justification, glorification, this in general may be affirmed, that there is not any one good thing whatsoever that is proper and peculiar to the covenant of grace, but it proceeds from a distinguishing love and an intention of God towards some only therein.

5. It is true that God inviteth many to repentance, and earnestly inviteth them, by the means of the word which he affords them, to turn from their evil ways, of whom all the individuals are not converted, as he dealt with the house of Israel (not all the world, but) those who had his word and ordinances, Ezek. 18:31, 32, affirming that it is not for his pleasure but for their sins that they die; but that this manifests a universal love in God in the way spoken of, or any thing more than the connection of repentance and acceptation with God, with his legal approbation of turning from sin, there is no matter of proof to evince.

6. Also, "he is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance," 2 Pet. 3:9, even all those towards whom he exercises patience and long-suffering for that end; which, as the apostle there informs us, is "to us-ward,"—that is, to believers, of whom he is speaking. Of them, also, it is said that "he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men," Lam. 3:33, even his church, of which the prophet is speaking; although this also may be extended to all, God never afflicting or grieving men but it is for some other reason and cause than merely his own will, their destruction being of themselves. David, indeed, tells us that "the LORD is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy;" that "the LORD is good to all; and his tender mercies are over all his works," Ps. 145:8, 9: but he tells us withal whom he intends by the "all" in this place, even the "generations which praise his works and declare his mighty acts," verse 4; those who "abundantly utter the memory of his great goodness, and sing of his righteousness," verse 7; or his "saints," as he expressly calls them, verse 10. The work he there mentions is the work of the kingdom of Christ over all, wherein the tender mercies of God are spread abroad in reference to them that do enjoy them. Not but that God is good to all, even to his whole creation, in the many unspeakable blessings of his providence, wherein he abounds towards them in all goodness, but that is not here intended. So that Mr B. hath fruitlessly from these texts of Scripture endeavoured to prove a universality of love in God, inconsistent with his peculiar love, purpose, and intention of doing good, in the sense declared, to some only.

And thus have I briefly gone through this chapter, and by the way taken into consideration all the texts of Scripture which he there wrests to confirm his figment. On the goodness of the nature of God; of the goodness and love to all which he shows, in great variety and several degrees, in the dispensation of his providence throughout the world; of this universal love, and what it is in the sense of Mr B. and his companions; of its inconsistency with the immutability, prescience, omnipotence, fidelity, love, mercy, and faithfulness of God,—this being not a controversy peculiar to them with whom in this treatise I have to do, I shall not farther insist.

As I have in the preface to this discourse given an account of the rise and present state of Socinianism, so I thought in this place to have given the reader an account of the present state of the controversy about grace and free-will, and the death of Christ, with especial reference to the late management thereof amongst the Romanists, between the Molinists and Jesuits on the one side, and the Jansenians or Bayans on the other, with the late ecclesiastical and political transactions in Italy, France, and Flanders, in reference thereunto, with an account of the books lately written on the one side and the other, and my thoughts of them; but finding this treatise grown utterly beyond my intention, I shall defer the execution of that design to some other opportunity, if God think good to continue my portion any longer in the land of the living.

The fourteenth chapter of the catechist is about the resurrection of Christ. What are the proper fruits of the resurrection of Christ, and the benefits we receive thereby, and upon what account our justification is ascribed thereto,—whether as the great and eminent confirmation of the doctrine he taught, or as the issue, pledge, and evidence of the accomplishment of the work of our salvation by his death, it being impossible for him to be detained thereby,—is not here discussed. That which appears to be the great design of this chapter, is to disprove Christ's raising himself by his own power; concerning which this is the question:—

Q. Did Christ rise by his own power, yea, did he raise himself at all? or was he raised by the power of another, and did another raise him? What is the perpetual tenor of the Scripture to this purpose?

In answer hereunto, many texts of Scripture are rehearsed, where it is said that God raised him from the dead, and that he was raised by the power of God.

But we have manifested that Mr B. is to come to another reckoning before he can make any work of this argument, "God raised him, therefore he did not raise himself." When he hath proved that he is not God, let him freely make such an inference and conclusion as this. In the meantime, we say, because God raised him from the dead, he raised himself; for he is "over all, God blessed for ever."

It is true that Christ is said to be raised by God, taken personally for the Father, whose joint power, with his own, and that also of the Spirit, was put forth in this work of raising Christ from the dead. And for his own raising himself, if Mr B. will believe him, this business will be put to a short issue. He tells us that "he laid down his life, that he might take it again." "No man," saith he, "taketh it from me. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again," John 10:17, 18. And speaking of the temple of his body, he bade the Jews destroy it, and said that he would raise it again in three days; which we believe he did, and if Mr B. be otherwise minded, we cannot help it.

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CHAPTER XXXII

Of justification and faith

THIS chapter, for the title and subject of it, would require a large and serious consideration; but by Mr Biddle's loose procedure in this business (whom only I shall now attend), we are absolved from any strict inquiry into the whole doctrine that is concerned herein. Some brief animadversions upon his questions and suiting of answers to them will be all that I shall go forth unto. His first is:—

Ques. How many sorts of justification or righteousness are there?

This question supposeth righteousness and justification to be the same, which is a gross notion for a Master of Arts. Righteousness is that which God requires of us; justification is his act concerning man considered as vested or endued with that righteousness which he requires. Righteousness is the qualification of the person to be justified; justification, the act of him that justifies. A man's legal honesty in his trial is not the sentence of the judge pronouncing him so to be, to all ends and purposes of that honesty. But to his question Mr B. answers from Rom. 10:5, "The righteousness which is of the law;" and Phil. 3:9, "The righteousness which is of God by faith."

It is true, there is this twofold righteousness that men may be partakers of,—a righteousness consisting in exact, perfect, and complete obedience yielded to the law, which God required of man under the covenant of works; and the righteousness which is of God by faith, of which afterward. Answerable hereunto there is, hath been, or may be, a twofold justification;—the one consisting in God's declaration of him who performs all that he requires in the law to be just and righteous, and his acceptation of him according to the promise of life which he annexed to the obedience which of man he did require; and the other answers that righteousness which shall afterward be described. Now, though these two righteousnesses agree in their general end, which is acceptation with God, and a reward from him according to his promise, yet in their own natures, causes, and manner of attaining, they are altogether inconsistent and destructive of each other, so that it is utterly impossible they should ever meet in and upon the same person.

For the description of the first, Mr B. gives it in answer to this question:—

Q. How is the righteousness which is of the law described?

A. Rom. 10:5, "Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, that the man which doeth those things shall live by them."

This description is full and complete. "The doing of the things of the law," or all the things the law requireth, to this end, that a man may "live by them," or a "keeping of the commandments" that we may "enter into life," makes up this righteousness of the law; and whatsoever any man doth or may do that is required by the law of God (as believing, trusting in him, and the like), to this end, that he may live thereby, that it may be his righteousness towards God, that thereupon he may be justified, it belongs to this righteousness of the law here described by Moses. I say, whatever is performed by man in obedience to any law of God, to this end, that man may live thereby, and that it may be the matter of his righteousness, it belongs to the righteousness here described. And of this we may have some use in the consideration of Mr B.'s ensuing queries. He adds:—

Q. What speaketh the righteousness which is of faith?

A. Rom. 10:8, 9, "The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."

The object of justifying faith, namely, Jesus Christ as dying and rising again from the dead, to the obtaining of eternal redemption and bringing in everlasting righteousness, is in these words described. And this is that which the righteousness of faith is said to speak, because Christ dying and rising is our righteousness. He is made so to us of God, and being under the consideration of his death and resurrection received of us by faith, we are justified.

His next question is:—

Q. In the justification of a believer, is the righteousness of Christ imputed to him, or is his own faith counted for righteousness?

A. Rom. 4:5, "His faith is counted for righteousness."

What Mr B. intends by faith, and what by accounting of it for righteousness, we know full well. The justification he intends by these expressions is the plain old pharisaical justification, and no other, as shall elsewhere be abundantly manifested. For the present, I shall only say that Mr B. doth most ignorantly oppose the imputing of the righteousness of Christ to us, and the accounting of our faith for righteousness, as inconsistent. It is the accounting of our faith for righteousness and the righteousness of works that is opposed by the apostle. The righteousness of faith and the righteousness of Christ are every way one and the same;—the one denoting that whereby we receive it and are made partakers of it; the other, that which is received and whereby we are justified. And, indeed, there is a perfect inconsistency between the apostle's intention in this expression, "To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness," taken with his explication of it, that we are made partakers of the righteousness of Christ by faith, and therein he is made righteousness to them that believe, and Mr B.'s interpretation of it, which is (as shall be farther manifested), "To him that worketh, and believes on him that justifies the righteous, his obedience is his righteousness." But of this elsewhere.

The next question and answer are about Abraham and his justification; which being but an instance exemplifying what was spoken before, I shall not need to insist thereon. Of his believing on God only, our believing on Christ, which is also mentioned, I have spoken already, and shall not trouble the reader with repetition thereof.

But he farther argues:—

Q. Doth not God justify men because of the full price Christ paid to him in their stead, so that he abated nothing of his right, in that one drop of Christ's blood was sufficient to satisfy for a thousand worlds? If not, how are they saved?

A. Rom. 3:24, "Being justified freely," Eph. 1:7.

That Christ did pay a full price or ransom for us, that he did stand in our stead, that he was not abated any jot of the penalty of the law that was due to sinners, that on this account we are fully acquitted, and that the forgiveness of our sins is by the redemption that is in his blood, have been already fully and at large evinced. Let Mr B., if he please, attempt to evert what hath been spoken to that purpose.

The expression about "one drop of Christ's blood" is a fancy or imagination of idle monks, men ignorant of the righteousness of God and of the whole nature of the mediation which our blessed Saviour undertook, wherein they have not the least communion. The close of the chapter is,—

Q. Did not Christ merit eternal life and purchase the kingdom of heaven for us?

A. Rom. 6:23, "The gift of God is eternal life." Luke 12:32, "It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."

Eternal life is the gift of God, in opposition to any merit of ours, and in respect of his designation of him who is eternal life to be our mediator and purchaser of it; yet that Christ did not therefore obtain by his blood for us eternal redemption, Heb. 9:12, that he did not purchase us to himself, Tit. 2:14, or that the merit of Christ for us and the free grace of God unto us are inconsistent, our catechist attempts not to prove. Of the reconciliation of God's purpose and good pleasure, mentioned Luke 12:32, with the satisfaction and merit of the Mediator, I have spoken also at large already.

I have thus briefly passed through this chapter, although it treateth of one of the most important heads of our religion, because (the Lord assisting) I intend the full handling of the doctrine opposed in it in a treatise just to that purpose, [vol. v.]

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CHAPTER XXXIII

Of keeping the commandments of God, and of perfection of obedience

How attainable in this life

THE title of the sixteenth chapter in our catechist is, "Of keeping the commandments and having an eye to the reward; of perfection in virtue and godliness to be attained; and of departing from righteousness and faith." What the man hath to offer on these several heads shall be considered in order. His first question is,—

Ques. Are the commandments possible to be kept?

Ans. 1 John 5:3, "His commandments are not grievous." Matt. 11:30, "My yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

1. I presume it is evident to every one at the first view that there is very little relation between the question and the answer thereunto suggested. The inquiry is of our strength and power; the answer speaks to the nature of the commands of God. It never came, sure, into the mind of any living that the meaning of this question, "Are the commandments possible to be kept?" is, "Is there an absolute impossibility, from the nature of the commands of God themselves, that they can be kept by any!" nor did ever any man say so, or can, without the greatest blasphemy against God. But the question is, what power there is in man to keep those commandments of God; which certainly the texts insisted on by Mr Biddle do not in the least give an answer unto.

2. He tells us not in what state or condition he supposes that person to be concerning whom the inquiry is made whether he can possibly keep the commandments of God or no,—whether he speaks of all men in general, or any man indefinitely, or restrainedly of believers. Nor,—

3. Doth he inform us what he intends by keeping the commands of God; whether an exact, perfect, and every way complete keeping of them, up to the highest degree of all things, in all things, circumstances, and concernments of them, or whether the keeping of them in a universal sincerity, accepted before God, according to the tenor of the covenant of grace, be intended. Nor,—

4. What commandments they are which he chiefly respects, and under what consideration,—whether all the commands of the law of God as such, or whether the gospel commands of faith and love, which the places from whence he answers do respect. Nor,—

5. What he means by the impossibility of keeping God's commands, which he intends to deny,—that which is absolutely so from the nature of the thing itself, or that which is so only in some respect, with reference to some certain state and condition of man.

When we know in what sense the question is proposed, we shall be enabled to return an answer thereunto; which he that hath proposed it here knew not how to do. In the meantime, to the thing itself intended, according to the light of the premised distinctions, we say, 1. That all the commandments of God, the whole law, is excellent, precious, not grievous in itself or its own nature, but admirably expressing the goodness, and kindness, and holiness of him that gave it, in relation to them to whom it was given, and can by no means be said, as from itself and upon its own account, to be impossible to be kept. Yet,—

2. No unregenerate man can possibly keep, that is, hath in himself a power to keep, any one of all the commandments of God, as to the matter required and the manner wherein it is required. This impossibility is not in the least relating to the nature of the law, but to the impotency and corruption of the person lying under it.

3. No man, though regenerate, can fulfil the law of God perfectly, or keep all the commandments of God, according to the original tenor of the law, in all the parts and degrees of it, nor did ever any man do so since sin entered into the world; for it is impossible that any regenerate man should keep the commandments of God as they are the tenor of the covenant of works. If this were otherwise, the law would not have been made weak by sin that it should not justify.

4. That it is impossible that any man, though regenerate, should by his own strength fulfil any one of the commands of God, seeing "without Christ we can do nothing," and it is "God which worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure."

5. That to keep the commandments of God, not as [to] the tenor of the covenant of works, or in an absolute perfection of obedience and correspondency to the law, but sincerely and uprightly unto acceptation, according to the tenor of the covenant of grace and the obedience it requires, through the assistance of the Spirit and grace of God, is not only a thing possible, but easy, pleasant, and delightful.

Thus we say,—

(1.) That a person regenerate, by the assistance of the Spirit and grace of God, may keep the commandments of God, in yielding to him, in answer to them, that sincere obedience which in Jesus Christy, according to the tenor of the covenant of grace, is required; yea, it is to him an easy and pleasant thing so to do.

(2.) That an unregenerate person should keep any one of God's commandments as he ought is impossible, not from the nature of God's commands, but from his own state and condition.

(3.) That a person, though regenerate, yet being so but in part, and carrying about with him a body of death, should keep the commands of God in a perfection of obedience, according to the law of the covenant of works, is impossible from the condition of a regenerate man, and not from the nature of God's commands.

What is it, now, that Mr B. opposes? or what is that he asserts?

I suppose he declares his mind in his Lesser Catechism, chap. 7 ques. 1, where he proposes his question in the words of the ruler amongst the Jews, "What good shall a man do that he may have eternal life?" An answer of it follows in that of our Saviour, Matt. 19:17–19, "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments."

The intendment of this inquiry must be the same with his that made it, as his argument in the whole is, or the answer of our Saviour is no way suited thereunto. Now, it is most evident that the inquiry was made according to the principles of the Pharisees, who expected justification by the works of the law, according to the tenor of a covenant of works; to which presumption of theirs our Saviour suits his answer, and seeing they sought to be justified and saved, as it were, by the works of the law, to the law he sends them. This, then, being Mr B.'s sense, wherein he affirms that it is possible to keep the commandments so as, for doing good and keeping them, to enter into life, I shall only remit him, as our Saviour did the Pharisee, to the law; but yet I shall withal pray that our merciful Lord would not leave him to the foolish choice of his own darkened heart, but in his due time, "by the blood of the covenant," which yet he seems to despise, send him forth "out of the pit wherein is no water."

Q. But though it be possible to keep the commandments, yet is it not enough if we desire and endeavour to keep them, although we actually keep them not? and doth not God accept the will for the deed?

A, 1 Cor. 7:19; Matt. 7:21, 24, 26; James 1:25; Rom. 2:10; John 13:17; Luke 11:28; 2 Cor. 5:10; Matt. 16:27; Rev. 22:12; Matt. 19:17–19; in all which places there is mention of doing the will of God, of keeping the commandments of God.

The aim of this question is to take advantage of what hath been delivered by some, not as an ordinary rule for alt men to walk by, but as an extraordinary relief for some in distress. When poor souls are bowed down under the sense of their own weakness and insufficiency for obedience, and the exceeding unsuitableness of their best performances to the spiritual and exact perfection of the law of God (things which the proud Pharisees of the world are unacquainted withal), to support them under their distress, they have been by some directed to the consideration of the sincerity that was in the obedience which they did yield, and guided to examine that by their desires and endeavours. Now, as this direction is not without a good foundation in the Scripture, Nehemiah describing the saints of God by this character, that they "desire to fear the name of God," chap. 1:11, and David everywhere professing this as an eminent property of a child of God, so they who gave it were very far from understanding such desires as may be pretended as a colour for sloth and negligence, to give countenance to the souls and consciences of men in a willing neglect of the performance of such duties as they are to press after; but such they intend as had adjoined to them, and accompanying of them, earnest, continual, sincere endeavours (as Mr B. acknowledgeth) to walk before God in all well-pleasing, though they could not attain to that perfection of obedience that is required. And in this case, though we make not application of the particular rule of accepting the will for the deed to the general case, yet we fear not to say that this is all the perfection which the best of the saints of God in this life attain to, and which, according to the tenor of that covenant wherein we now walk with God in Jesus Christ, is accepted. This is all the doing or keeping of the commandments that is intended in any of the places quoted by Mr B., unless that last, wherein our Saviour sends that proud Pharisee, according to his own principles, to the righteousness of the law which he followed after, but could not attain. But of this more afterward. He farther argues:—

Q. Though it be not only possible but also necessary to keep the commandments, yet is it lawful so to do that we may have a right to eternal life and the heavenly inheritance? May we seek for honour, and glory, and immortality, by well-doing? Is it the tenor of the gospel that we should live uprightly in expectation of the hope hereafter? And, finally, ought we to suffer for the kingdom of God, and not, as some are pleased to mince that matter, from the kingdom of God? Where are the testimonies of Scripture to this purpose?

A. Rev. 22:14; Rom. 2:6–8; Tit. 2:11–13; 2 Thess. 1:5.

Ans. 1. In what sense it is possible to keep the commandments, in what not, hath been declared. 2. How it is necessary, or in what sense, or for what end, Mr B. hath not yet spoken, though he supposeth he hath; but we will take it for granted that it is necessary for us so to do, in that sense and for that end and purpose for which it is of us required. 3. To allow, then, the gentleman the advantage of his captious procedure by a multiplication of entangled queries, and to take them in that order wherein they lie:—

To the first, "Whether we may keep the commandments that we may have right to eternal life," I say,—1. Keeping of the commandments in the sense acknowledged may be looked on, in respect of eternal life, either as the cause procuring it or as the means conducing to it. 2. A right to eternal life may be considered in respect of the rise and constitution of it, or of the present evidence and last enjoyment of it. There is a twofold right to the kingdom of heaven,—a right of desert, according to the tenor of the covenant of works, and a right of promise, according to the tenor of the covenant of grace. I say, then, that it is not lawful,—that is, it is not the way, rule, and tenor of the gospel,—that we should do or keep the commandments, so that doing or keeping should be the cause procuring and obtaining an original right, as to the rise and constitution of it, or a right of desert, to eternal life. This is the perfect tenor of the covenant of works and righteousness of the law, "Do this, and live; if a man do the work of the law, he shall live thereby;" and, "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments;" which, if there be any gospel or new covenant confirmed in the blood of Christ, is antiquated as to its efficacy, and was [so,] ever since the entrance of sin into the world, as being ineffectual for the bringing of any soul unto God, Rom. 8:3; Heb. 8:11, 12. This, if it were needful, I might confirm with innumerable texts of Scripture, and the transcription of a good part of the epistles of Paul in particular. 3. The inheritance which is purchased for us by Christ, and is the gift of God, plainly excludes all such confidence in keeping the commandments as is pleaded for. For my part, I willingly ascribe to obedience any thing that hath a consistency (in reference to eternal life) with the full purchase of Christ and the free donation of God; and therefore I say,—4. As a means appointed of God, as the way wherein we ought to walk, for the coming to and obtaining of the inheritance so fully purchased and freely given, for the evidencing of the right given us thereto by the blood of Christ, and giving actual admission to the enjoyment of the purchase, and to testify our free acceptation with God and adoption on that account, so we ought to do and keep the commandments,—that is, walk in holiness, without which none shall see God. This is all that is intended, Rev. 22:14. Christ speaks not there to unbelievers, showing what they must do to be justified and saved, but to redeemed, justified, and sanctified ones, showing them their way of admission and the means of it to the remaining privileges of the purchase made by his blood.

His next question is, "May we seek for honour, and glory, and immortality, by well-doing?" which words are taken from Rom. 2:7.

I answer, The words there are used in a law sense, and are declarative of the righteousness of God in rewarding the keepers of the law of nature, or the moral law, according to the law of the covenant of works. This is evident from the whole design of the apostle in that place, which is to convince all men, Jews and Gentiles, of sin against the law, and of the impossibility of the obtaining the glory of God thereby. So, in particular, from verse 10, where salvation is annexed to works in the very terms wherein the righteousness of the law is expressed by Mr B. in the chapter of justification, and in direct opposition whereunto the apostle sets up the righteousness of the gospel, chap. 1:17, 3, 4. But yet, translate the words into a gospel sense; consider "well-doing" as the way appointed for us to walk in for the obtaining of the end mentioned, and consider "glory, and honour, and immortality," as a reward of our obedience, purchased by Christ and freely promised of God on that account, and I say we may, we ought, "by patient continuing in well-doing, to seek for glory, and honour, and immortality;" that is, it is our duty to abide in the way and use of the means prescribed for the obtaining of the inheritance purchased and promised. But yet this with the limitations before in part mentioned; as,—1. That of ourselves we can do no good; 2. That the ability we have to do good is purchased for us by Christ; 3. This is not so full in this life as that we can perfectly, to all degrees of perfection, do good or yield obedience to the law; 4. That which by grace we do yield and perform is not the cause procuring or meriting of that inheritance; which, 5. As the grace whereby we obey, is fully purchased for us by Christ, and freely bestowed upon us by God.

His next is, "Is it the tenor of the gospel that we should live uprightly in expectation of the hope hereafter?" Doubtless, neither shall I need to give any answer at all to this part of the inquiry but what lies in the words of the scripture produced for the proof of our catechist's intention, "The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ," Tit. 2:11–13. Christ, the great God our Saviour, having promised an inheritance to us with himself, at his glorious appearance, raiseth up our hearts with a hope and expectation thereof; his grace, or the doctrine of it, teacheth us to perform all manner of holiness and righteousness all our days; and this is the tenor and law of the gospel, that so we do. But what this is to Mr B.'s purpose I know not.

His last attempt is upon the exposition of some (I know not whom) who have minced the doctrine so small, it seems, that he can find no relish in it. Saith he, "Finally, ought we to suffer for the kingdom of God, or from the kingdom of God?" His answer is, 2 Thess. 1:5, "That ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer." I confess, "suffering from the kingdom of God" is something an uncouth expression, and those who have used it to the offence of this gentleman might have more commodiously delivered what they did intend; but "the kingdom of God" being sometimes taken for that rule of grace which Christ hath in the hearts of believers, and thereupon being said to be "within us," and the word "from" denoting the principle of obedience in suffering; there is a truth in the expression, and that very consistent with "suffering for the kingdom of God," which here is opposed unto it. To "suffer from the kingdom of God" is no more than to be enabled to suffer from a principle of grace within us, by which Christ bears rule in our hearts; and in this sense we say that no man can do or suffer any thing, so as it shall be acceptable unto God, but it must be from the kingdom of God; for they that are in the flesh cannot please God, even their sacrifices are an abomination to him. This is so far from hindering us as to suffering for the kingdom of God, that is, to endure persecution for the profession of the gospel ("for," in the place of the apostle cited, denotes the procuring occasion, not final cause), that without it so we cannot do. And so the minced matter hath, I hope, a savoury relish recovered unto it again.

His next questions are, first,—

Q. Have you any examples of keeping the commandments under the law? What saith David of himself?

A. Ps. 18:20–24.

And secondly,—

Q. Have you any example under the gospel?

A. 1 John 3:22, "Because we keep his commandments."

All this trouble is Mr B. advantaged to make from the ambiguity of this expression of "keeping the commandments." We know full well what David saith of his obedience, and what he said of his sins; so that we know his keeping of the commandments was in respect of sincerity as to all the commandments of God and all the parts of them, but not as to his perfection in keeping all or any of them. And he who says, "We keep his commandments," says also, "If we say we have no sin, we lie and deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." He adds:—

Q. Have you not examples of the choicest saints who obeyed God in hope of the reward, both before, under, and after the law?

A. Heb. 11:8–10, 24–26, 12:1, 2; Tit. 1:1, 2.

To obey in hope of eternal life is either to yield obedience in hope of obtaining eternal life as a reward procured by or proportioned to that obedience, and so no saint of God since the fall of Adam did yield obedience to God, or ought to have so done; or, to obey in hope of eternal life is to carry along with us in our obedience a hope of the enjoyment of the promised inheritance in due time, and to be encouraged and strengthened in obeying thereby. Thus the saints of God walk with God in hope and obedience at this day, and they always did so from the beginning. They have hope in and with their obedience of that whereunto their obedience leads, which was purchased for them by Christ.

Q. Do not the Scriptures intimate that Christians may attain to perfection of virtue and godliness, and that it is the intention of God and Christ and his ministers to bring them to this pitch? Rehearse the texts to this effect.

A. Eph. 1:4, etc.

Not to make long work of that which is capable of a speedy despatch: By "virtue and godliness," Mr B. understands that universal righteousness and holiness which the law requires; by "perfection" in it, an absolute, complete answerableness to the law in that righteousness and holiness, both as to the matter wherein they consist and the manner how they are to be performed; "that Christians may attain" expresses a power that is reducible into act. So that the "intention" of God and the ministers is not that they should be pressing on towards perfection, which it is confessed we are to do whilst we live in this world, but actually in this life to bring them to an enjoyment of it. In this sense we deny that any man in this life "may attain to perfection of virtue and godliness;" for,—

1. All our works are done out of faith, 1 Tim. 1:5, Gal. 5:6. Now, this faith is the faith of the forgiveness of sins by Christ, and that purifieth the heart, Acts 15:8, 9; but the works that proceed from faith for the forgiveness of sins by Christ cannot be perfect absolutely in themselves, because in the very rise of them they expect perfection and completeness from another.

2. Such as is the cause, such is the effect; but the principle or cause of the saints' obedience in this life is imperfect: so therefore is their obedience. That our sanctification is imperfect in this life, the apostle witnesseth, 2 Cor. 4:16; 1 Cor. 13:9.

3. Where there is flesh and Spirit there is not perfection, for the flesh is contrary to the Spirit, from whence our perfection must proceed, if we have any; but there is flesh and Spirit in all believers whilst they live in this world, Gal. 5:17; Rom. 7:15.

4. They that are not without sin are not absolutely perfect, for to be perfect is to have no sin; but the saints in this life are not without sin, 1 John 1:8, Matt. 6:12, James 3:2, Eccles. 7:20, Isa. 64:6. But to what end should I multiply arguments and testimonies to this purpose? If all the saints of God have acknowledged themselves sinners all their days, always deprecated the justice of God, and appealed to mercy in their trial before God,—if all our perfection be by the blood of Christ, and we are justified not by the works of the law but by grace,—this pharisaical figment may be rejected as the foolish imagination of men ignorant of the righteousness of God, and of him who is the end of the law for righteousness to them that do believe.

But take "perfection" as it is often used in the Scripture, and ascribed men of whom yet many great and eminent failings are recorded (which, certainly, were inconsistent with perfection absolutely considered), and so it denotes two things,—1. Sincerity, in opposition to hypocrisy; and, 2. Universality as to all the parts of obedience, in opposition to partiality and halving with God. So we say perfection is not only attainable by the saints of God, but is in every one of them. But this is not such a perfection as consists in a point, which if it deflects from it ceases to be perfection, but such a condition as admits of several degrees, all lying in a tendency to that perfection spoken of; and the men of this perfection are said to be "perfect" or "upright" in the Scripture, Ps. 37:14, 119:1, etc.

Not, then, to insist on all the places mentioned by Mr B. in particular, they may all be referred to four heads:—1. Such as mention an unblamableness before God in Christ, which argues a perfection in Christ, but only a sincerity in us; or, 2. Such as mention a perfection in "fieri," but not in "facto esse," as we speak,—a pressing towards perfection, but not a perfection obtained, or here obtainable; or, 3. A comparative perfection in respect of others; or, 4. A perfection of sincerity accompanied with universality of obedience, consistent with indwelling sin and many transgressions. The application of the several places mentioned to these rules is easy, and lies at hand for any that will take the pains to consider them. He proceeds:—

Q. If works be so necessary to salvation, as you have before showed from the Scripture, how cometh it to pass that Paul saith, "We are justified by faith without works?" Meant he to exclude all good works whatsoever, or only those of the law? How doth he explain himself?

A. Rom. 3:28, "We are justified by faith, without the deeds of the law."

Ans. 1. How and in what sense works are necessary to salvation hath been declared, and therefore I remit the reader to its proper place.

2. A full handling of the doctrine of justification was waived before, and therefore I shall not here take it up, but content myself with a brief removal of Mr B.'s attempts to deface it. I say, then,—

3. That Paul is very troublesome to all the Pharisees of this age; who therefore turn themselves a thousand ways to escape the authority of the word and truth of God, by him fully declared and vindicated against their forefathers, labouring to fortify themselves with distinctions, which, as they suppose, but falsely, their predecessors were ignorant of. Paul then, this Paul, denies all works, all works whatsoever, to have any share in our justification before God, as the matter of our righteousness or the cause of our justification; for,—

(1.) He excludes all works of the law, as is confessed. The works of the law are the works that the law requires. Now, there is no work whatever that is good or acceptable to God but it is required by the law; so that in excluding works of the law, he excludes all works whatever.

(2.) He expressly excludes all works done by virtue of grace and after calling, which, if any, should be exempted from being works of the law; for though the law requires them, yet they are not done from a principle, nor to an end of the law. These Paul excludes expressly, Eph. 2:8–10, "By grace are ye saved; … not of works." What works? Those which "we are created unto in Christ Jesus."

(3.) All works that are works are excluded expressly, and set in opposition to grace in this business: Rom. 11:6, "If it be by grace, then is it no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace: but if it be of works, then is it no more grace; otherwise work is no more work;" and chap. 4:3–5.

(4.) All works are excluded that take off from the absolute freedom of the justification of sinners by the redemption that is in Christ, Rom. 3:20–28. Now, this is not peculiar to any one sort of works, or to any one work more than to another, as might be demonstrated; but this is not a place for so great a work as the thorough handling of this doctrine requires. He adds:—

Q. Can you make it appear from elsewhere that Paul intended to exclude from justification only the perfect works of the law, which leave no place for either grace or faith, and not such works as include both; and that by a justifying faith he meant a working faith, and such a one as is accompanied with righteousness?

A. Eph. 2:8–10; Rom. 4:3–5, 11:5, 6, 4:14, 16; Gal. 5:6; Rom. 1:17, 18.

Ans. 1. Still Paul and his doctrine trouble the man, as they did his predecessors. That Paul excluded all works, of what sort soever, from our justification, as precedaneous causes or conditions thereof, was before declared. Mr B. would only have it that the perfect works of the law only are excluded, when, if any works take place in our justification with God, those only may be admitted; for certainly if we are justified or pronounced righteous for our works, it must be for the works that are perfect, or else the judgment of God is not according to truth. Those only, it seems, are excluded that only may be accepted, and imperfect works are substituted as the matter of a perfect righteousness, without which none shall stand in the presence of God. But,—

2. There is not one text of Scripture mentioned by Mr B. whence he aims to evince his intention but expressly denies what he asserts, and sets all works whatever in opposition to grace, and excludes them all from any place in our justification before God! so that the man seems to have been infatuated by his pharisaism to give direction for his own condemnation. Let the places be considered by the reader.

3. The grace mentioned as the cause of our justification is not the grace of God bringing forth good works in us,—which stand thereupon in opposition to the works of the law, as done in the strength of the law,—but the free favour and grace of God towards us in Christ Jesus, which excludes all works of ours whatever, as is undeniably manifest, Rom. 4:4, 11:5, 6.

4. It is true, justifying faith is a living faith, purging the heart, working by love, and bringing forth fruits of obedience; but that its fruits of love and good works have any causal influence into our justification is most false. We are justified freely by grace, in opposition to all fruits of faith whatever which God hath ordained us to bring forth. That faith whereby we are justified will never be without works; yet we are not justified by the works of it, but freely, by the blood of Christ. How and in what sense we are justified by faith itself, what part, office, and place, it hath in our justification, its consistency in its due place and office with Christ's being our righteousness, and its receiving of remission of sins, which is said to be our blessedness, shall elsewhere, God assisting, be manifested.

What, then, hath Mr B. yet remaining to plead in this business? The old abused refuge of opposing James to Paul is fixed on. This is the beaten plea of Papists, Socinians, and Arminians. Saith he;—

Q. What answer, then, would you give to a man who, wresting the words of Paul in certain places of his Epistles to the Romans and Galatians, should bear you in hand that all good works whatever are excluded from justification and salvation, and that it is enough only to believe?

A. James 2:20–26.

Ans. 1. He that shall exclude good works from salvation, so as not to be the way and means appointed of God wherein we ought to walk who seek and expect salvation from God, and affirm that it is enough to believe, though a man bring forth no fruits of faith or good works, if he pretend to be of that persuasion on the account of any thing delivered by Paul in the Epistles to the Romans or Galatians, doth wrest the words and sense of Paul, and is well confuted by that passage mentioned out of James.

But he that, excluding all works from justification in the sense declared, and affirming that it is by faith only without works, affirms that the truth and sincerity of that faith, with its efficacy in its own kind for our justification, is evinced by works, and the man's acceptation with God thereon justified by them, doth not wrest the words nor sense of Paul, and speaks to the intendment of James.

2. Paul instructs us at large how sinners come to be justified before God; and this is his professed design in his Epistles to the Romans and Galatians. James, professedly exhorting believers to good works, demands of them how they will acquit themselves before God and man to be justified, and affirms that this cannot be done but by works. Paul tells us what justification is; James describes justifying faith by its effects. But of this also elsewhere. To all this he subjoins:—

Q. I would know of you who is a just or righteous man? Is it not such a one as apprehendeth and applieth Christ's righteousness to himself, or at most desires to do righteously? Is not he accepted of God?

A. 1 John 3:7–10, 2:29; Acts 10:34, 35; Ezek. 18:5–9.

Ans. 1. He to whom "God imputeth righteousness" is righteous. This he doth "to him who worketh not, but believeth on him who justifieth the ungodly," Rom. 4:5–7. There is, then, a righteousness without the works of the law, Phil. 3:9. To "apprehend and apply Christ's righteousness to ourselves" are expressions of believing unto justification which the Scripture will warrant, John 1:12; 1 Cor. 1:30. He that believeth so as to have Christ made righteousness to him, to have righteousness imputed to him, to be freely justified by the redemption that is in the blood of Jesus, he is just. And this state and condition, as was said, is obtained by applying the righteousness of Christ to ourselves,—that is, by receiving him and his righteousness by faith, as tendered unto us in the offer and promises of the gospel.

Of "desiring to do righteously," and what is intended by that expression, I have spoken before. But,—

2. There is a twofold righteousness,—a righteousness imputed, whereby we are justified, and a righteousness inherent, whereby we are sanctified. These Mr B. would oppose, and from the assertion of the one argue to the destruction of the other, though they sweetly and eminently comply in our communion with God. The other righteousness was before evinced. Even our sanctification also is called our righteousness, and we are said to be just in that respect:—

(1.) Because our faith and interest in Christ are justified thereby to be true, and such as will abide the fiery trial.

(2.) Because all the acts of it are fruits of righteousness, Rom. 6:19–22.

(3.) Because it stands in opposition to all unrighteousness, and he that doth not bring forth the fruit of it is unrighteous.

(4.) With men, and before them, it is all our righteousness. And of this do the places mentioned by Mr B. treat, without the least contradiction or colour of it to the imputed righteousness of Christ, wherewith we are righteous before God.

The intendment of the last query in this chapter is to prove the apostasy of saints, or that true believers may fall away totally and finally from grace. I suppose it will not be expected of me that I should enter here into a particular consideration of the places by him produced, having lately at large gone through the consideration of the whole doctrine opposed, wherein not only the texts here quoted by Mr B., but many others, set off by the management of an able head and dexterous hand, are at large considered; thither therefore I refer the reader.

It might perhaps have been expected, that having insisted so largely as I have done upon some other heads of the doctrine of the gospel corrupted by Mr B. and his companions, I should not thus briefly have passed over this important article of faith, concerning justification; but besides my weariness of the work before me, I have for a defensative farther to plead, 1. That this doctrine is of late become the subject of very many polemical discourses, to what advantage of truth time will show, and I am not willing to add oil to that fire. 2. That if the Lord will, and I live, I intend to do something purposely for the vindication and clearing of the whole doctrine itself, and therefore am not willing occasionally to anticipate here what must in another order and method be insisted on; to which, for a close, I add a desire, that if any be willing to contend with me about this matter, he would forbear exceptions against these extemporary animadversions until the whole of my thoughts lie before him, unless he be of the persons principally concerned in this whole discourse, of whom I have no reason to desire that respect or candour.

CHAPTER XXXIV

Of prayer; and whether Christ prescribed a form of prayer to be used by believers; and of praying unto him and in his name under the old testament

THE first question is:—

Ques. Is prayer a Christian duty?

Ans. 1 Thess. 5:17, "Pray without ceasing."

If by "a Christian duty" a duty whereunto all Christians are obliged is understood, we grant it a Christian duty. The commands for it, encouragements to it, promises concerning it, are innumerable; and the use and benefit of it in our communion with God, considering the state and condition of sin, emptiness, want, temptation, [and] trials, that here we live in, inestimable. If by "a Christian duty" it be intended that it is required only of them who are Christians, and is instituted by something peculiar in Christian religion, it is denied. Prayer is a natural acknowledgment of God that every man is everlastingly and indispensably obliged unto by virtue of the law of his creation, though the matter of it be varied according to the several states and conditions whereinto we fall or are brought. Every one that lives in dependency on God and hath his supplies from him is, by virtue of that dependence, obliged to this duty, as much as he is to own God to be his God. He proceeds:—

Q. How ought men to pray?

A. "Lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting," 1 Tim. 2:8.

The inquiry being made of the manner of acceptable prayer, the answer given, respecting only one or two particulars, is narrow and scanty. The qualification of the person praying, the means of access to God, the cause of acceptation with him, the ground of our confidence in our supplications, the efficacy of the Spirit of grace as promised, are either all omitted or only tacitly intimated. But this and many of the following questions, with the answers, being in their connection capable of a good and fair interpretation, though all be not expressed that the Scripture gives in answer to such questions, and the most material requisite of prayer, "in the Holy Ghost," be omitted, yet, drawing to a close, I shall not farther insist upon them, having yet that remaining which requires a more full animadversion.

Q. Did not Christ prescribe a form of prayer to his disciples, so that there remaineth no doubt touching the lawfulness of using a form?

A. Luke 11:1–4.

Ans. If Christ prescribed a form of prayer to his disciples, to be used as a form, by the repetition of the same words, I confess it will be out of question that it is lawful to use a form; but that it is lawful not to use a form, or that a man may use any prayer but a form, on that supposition will not be so easily determined. The words of Christ are, "When ye pray, say, Our Father," etc. If in this prescription, not the matter only but the words also are intended, and that form of them which follows is prescribed to be used by virtue of this command of Christ, it will be hard to discover on what ground we may any otherwise pray, seeing our Saviour's command is positive, "When ye pray, say, Our Father," etc.

That which Mr B. is to prove is, that our Saviour hath prescribed the repetition of the same words ensuing; and when he hath done so, if so he can do, his conclusion must be that that form ought to be used, not at all that any else may. If our Saviour have prescribed us a form, how shall any man dare to prescribe another? or can any man do it without casting on his form the reproach of imperfection and insufficiency? "Our Saviour hath prescribed us a form of prayer, to be used as a form, by the repetition of the same words, therefore we may use it, yea, we must," is an invincible argument, on supposition of the truth of the proposition. But, "Our Saviour hath prescribed us such a form, etc., therefore we may use another which he hath not prescribed," hath neither show nor colour of reason in it.

But how will Mr B. prove that Christ doth not only here instruct his disciples in what they ought to pray, and for what they ought in prayer to address themselves to God, and under what considerations they are to look on God in their approaches to him, and the like, but also that he prescribes the words there mentioned by him to be repeated by them in their supplications? Luke 11:2, he bids them say, "Our Father," etc.; which at large, Matt 6:9, is, Pray after this manner,—οὕτως, to this purpose. I do not think the prophet prescribes a form of words to be used by the church when he says, "Take with you words, and turn to the LORD: say unto him, Take away all iniquity," Hos. 14:2; but rather calls them to fervent supplication for the pardon of sin, as God should enable them to deal with him. And though the apostles never prayed for any thing but what they were for the substance directed to by this prayer of our Saviour, yet we do not find that ever they repeated the very words here mentioned, or once commanded or prescribed the use of them to any of the saints in their days, whom they exhorted to pray so fervently and earnestly: nor in any of the rules and directions that are given for our praying, either in reference to ourselves or him by whom we have access to God, is the use of these words at any time in the least recommended to us, or recalled to mind as a matter of duty.

Our Saviour says, "When ye pray, say, Our Father," etc. On supposition of the sense contended for, and that a form of words is prescribed, I ask whether we may at any time pray and not say so, seeing he says, "When ye pray, say,"—whether we may say any thing else, or use any other words? whether the saying of these words be a part of the worship of God, or whether any promise of acceptation be annexed to the saying so? whether the Spirit of grace and supplications be not promised to all believers, and whether he be not given them to enable them to pray, both as to matter and manner? and if so, whether the repetition of the words mentioned by them who have not the Spirit given them for the ends before mentioned be available? and whether prayer by the Spirit, where these words are not repeated, as to the letters and syllables and order wherein they stand, be acceptable to God? whether the prescription of a form of words and the gift of a spirit of prayer be consistent? whether the form be prescribed because believers are not able to pray without it, or because there is a peculiar holiness, force, and energy in the letters, words, and syllables, as they stand in that form? and whether to say the first of these be not derogatory to the glory of God and efficacy of the Spirit promised and given to believers; and the second to assert the using of a charm in the worship of God? whether, in that respect, "Pater noster" be not as good as "Our Father?" whether innumerable poor souls are not deluded and hardened by satisfying their consciences in and with the use of this form, never knowing what it is to pray in the Holy Ghost? and whether the asserting this form of words to be used have not confirmed many in their atheistical blaspheming of the Holy Spirit of God and his grace in the prayers of his people? and whether the repetition of these words, after men have been long praying for the things contained in them, as the manner of some is, be not so remote from any pretence or colour of warrant in the Scripture as that it is, in plain terms, ridiculous? When Mr B., or any on his behalf, hath answered these questions, they may be supplied with more of the like nature and importance.

Of our address with all our religious worship to the Father by Jesus Christ, the mediator, how and in what manner we do so, and in what sense he is himself the ultimate object of divine worship, I have spoken before, and therefore I shall not need to insist on his next question, which makes some inquiry thereabout. That which follows is all that in this chapter needs any animadversion. The words are these:—

Q. Was it the custom during the time that Christ conversed on the earth (much less before he came into the world) to pray unto God in the name of Christ or through Christ? or did it begin to be used after the resurrection and exaltation of Christ? What saith Christ himself concerning this?

A. John 16:24–26.

The times of the saints in this world are here distinguished into different seasons,—that before Christ's coming in the flesh, the time of his conversation on earth, and the time following his resurrection and exaltation. What was the custom in these several seasons of praying to God in the name of Christ or through him is inquired after; and as to the first and second it is denied, but granted as to the last, which is farther confirmed, in the answer to the last question, from Heb. 13:20, 21. Some brief observations will disentangle Mr B.'s catechumens, if they shall be pleased to attend unto them.

1. It is not what was the custom of men to do, but what was the mind of God that they should do, that we inquire after. 2. That Jesus Christ, in respect of his divine nature, wherein he is one with his Father, was always worshipped and invocated ever since God made any creatures to worship him, hath been formerly declared. 3. That there is a twofold knowledge of Christ the mediator,—(1.) In general, in thesi, of a mediator, the Messiah promised; which was the knowledge of the saints under the old testament. (2.) Particular, in hypothesi, that Jesus of Nazareth was that Messiah; which also was and is known to the saints under the new testament. 4. That as to an explicit knowledge of the way and manner of salvation, which was to be wrought, accomplished, and brought about, by the Messiah, the promised seed, Jesus Christ, and the address of men unto God by him, it was much more evidently and clearly given after the resurrection and the ascension of Christ than before, the Spirit of revelation being then poured out in a more abundant manner than before. 5. There is a twofold praying unto God in the name of Christ,—one in express words, clear and distinct intention of mind, insisting on his mediation and our acceptance with God on his account; the other implied in all acts of faith and dependence on God, wherein we rely on him as the means of our access to God.

I say, these things being premised,—1. That before Christ's coming into the world, the saints of the old testament did pray, and were appointed of God to pray, in the name of Jesus Christ, inasmuch as, in all their addresses unto God, they leaned on him, as promised to them, through whom they were to receive the blessing and to be blessed, believing that they should be accepted on his account. This was virtually prayer to God in the name of Christ, or through him. This is evident from the tenor of the covenant wherein they walked with God, in which they were called to look to the Seed of the woman, to expect the blessing in the Seed of Abraham, speaking of the Seed as of one and not of many; as also by all their types and sacrifices, wherein they had, by God's institution, respect to him, with Abraham, by faith, even as we: so that whether we consider the promise on the account whereof they came to God, which was of Christ and of blessing in him; or the means whereby they came, which were sacrifices and types of him; or the confidence wherein they came, which was of atonement and forgiveness of sin by him,—it is evident that all their prayers were made to God in the name of Christ, and not any upon any other account. And one of them is express in terms to this purpose, Dan. 9:17. If they had any promise of him, if any covenant in him, if any types representing him, if any light of him, if any longing after him, if any benefit by him or fruit of his mediation, all their worship of God was in him and through him.

2. For them who lived with him in the days of his flesh, their faith and worship were of the same size and measure with theirs that went before, so was their address to God in the same manner and on the same account: only in this was their knowledge enlarged, that they believed that that individual person was he who was promised and on whom their fathers believed; and therefore they prayed to him for all mercies, spiritual and temporal, whereof they stood in need, as to be saved in a storm, to have their faith increased, and the like, though they had not expressly and clearly made mention of his name in their supplications. And that is the sense of our Saviour in the place of John insisted on, "Hitherto ye have asked nothing in my name,"—that is, expressly and in direct application of the promises made in the Messiah unto him,—though they had their access to God really and virtually by and through him, in all the ways before expressed. And indeed, to evidence the glory of the presence of the Spirit when poured forth upon them with a fulness of gifts and graces, such things are recorded of their ignorance and darkness in the mysteries of the worship of God, that it is no great wonder if they, who were then also to be detained under the judaical pedagogue for a season, had not received as yet such an improvement of faith as to ask and pray in the name of Jesus Christ as exhibited, which was one of the great privileges reserved for the days of the gospel.

And this is all that Mr B. gives occasion unto in this chapter.

———

CHAPTER XXXV

Of the resurrection of the dead and the state of the wicked at the last day

IN his last chapter Mr Biddle strives to make his friends amends for all the wrong he had done them in those foregoing. Having attempted to overthrow their faith and to turn them aside from the simplicity of the gospel, he now informs them that the worst that can happen to them if they follow his counsel is but to be annihilated, or utterly deprived of their being, body and soul, in the day of judgment! For that everlasting fire, those endless torments, wherewith they have been so scared and terrified formerly by the catechisms and preachings of men that left and forsook the Scripture, it is all but a fable, invented to affright fools and children! On this account he lets his followers know that if, rejecting the eternal Son of God and his righteousness, they may not go to heaven, yet as to hell, or an everlasting abode in torments, they may be secure; there is no such matter provided for them nor any else. This is the main design in this chapter, whose title is, "Of the resurrection of the dead and the last judgment, and what shall be the final condition of the righteous and wicked thereupon."

The first questions lead only to answers that there shall be a resurrection of the dead in general, and that they shall be raised and judged by Christ, who hath received authority from God to that purpose, that being the last great work that he shall accomplish by virtue of his mediatory kingdom committed to him. Some snares seem to be laid in the way in his questions, being captiously proposed; but they have been formerly broken in pieces in the chapters of the deity of Christ and his person, whither I remit the reader if he find himself entangled with them.

I shall only say, by the way, that if Mr B. may be expounded by his masters, he will scarce be found to give so clear an assent to the resurrection of the dead as is here pretended; that is, to a raising again of the same individual body for the substance and all substantial parts. This his masters think not possible, and therefore reject it, though it be never so expressly affirmed in the Scripture. But Mr B. is silent of this discovery made by his masters, and so shall I be also.

That wherewith I am to deal he enters upon in this question:—

Ques. Shall not the wicked and unbelievers live for ever, though in torments, as well as the godly and faithful? or is eternal life peculiar to the faithful?

Ans. John 3:36.

The assertion herein couched is, that the wicked shall not live for ever in torments; and the proof of it is, because eternal life is promised only to the faithful; yea, "he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him," John 3:36. As to the assertion itself, we shall attend farther unto it instantly.

When Socinus first broached this abomination, he did it with the greatest cunning and sleight that possibly he could use, labouring to insinuate it insensibly into the minds of men, knowing full well how full of scandal the very naming of it would prove; but the man's success was in most things beyond his own imagination.

For the proof insinuated; "life" and "eternal life," in the gospel, as they are mentioned as the end and reward of our obedience, are not taken merely physically, nor do express only the abode, duration, and continuance of our being, but our continuance in a state and condition of blessedness and glory. This is so evident, that there is no one place where life to come and eternal life are spoken of simply, in the whole New Testament, but as they are a reward and a blessed condition to be obtained by Jesus Christ. In this sense we confess the wicked and impenitent "shall never see life," or obtain eternal life,—that is, they shall never come to a fruition of God to eternity; but that therefore they shall not have a life or being, though in torments, is a wild inference. I desire to know of Mr B. whether the evil angels shall be consumed or no, and have an utter end? If he say they shall, he gives us one new notion more; if not, I ask him whether they shall have eternal life or no? If he say they shall not enjoy eternal life in the sense mentioned in the Scripture, I shall desire him to consider that men also may have their being preserved and yet not be partakers of eternal life in that sense wherein it is promised.

The proof insisted on by Mr B. says that the wrath of God abides upon unbelievers, even then when they do not see life. Now, if they abide not, how can the wrath of God abide on them? doth God execute his wrath upon that which is not? If they abide under wrath, they do abide. "Under wrath" doth not diminish from their abiding, but describes its condition.

Death and life in Scripture, ever since the giving of the first law, and the mention made of them therein, as they express the condition of man in way of reward or punishment, are not opposed naturally, but morally, not in respect of their being (if I may so say) and relation, as one is the privation of the other in the way of nature, but in respect of the state and condition which is expressed by the one and the other,—namely, of blessedness or misery. So that as there is an eternal life, which is as it were a second life, a life of glory following a life of grace, so there is an eternal death, which is the second death, a death of misery following a death of sin.

The death that is threatened, and which is opposed to life, and eternal life, doth not anywhere denote annihilation, but only a deprivation and coming short of that blessedness which is promised with life, attended with all the evils which come under that name and are in the first commination. Those who are dead in trespasses and sins are not nothing, though they have no life of grace. But Mr B. proceeds, and saith,—

Q. Though this passage which you have quoted seems clearly to prove that eternal life agreeth to no other men but the faithful, yet, since the contrary opinion is generally held among Christians, I would fain know of you whether you have any other places that affirm that the wicked die directly, and that a second death, are destroyed and punished with everlasting destruction, are corrupted, burnt up, devoured, slain, pass away, and perish?

A. Rom. 6:23, 8:13; Rev. 21:6, 8, 2:10, 11; 1 Thess. 5:3; 2 Pet. 3:7; 2 Thess. 1:7–9; Gal. 6:8; 2 Pet. 2:12; 1 Cor. 3:17; Heb. 10:39; Matt. 3:12; Heb. 10:26, 27; Luke 19:27; 1 John 2:17; 2 Cor. 2:15, 16.

1. How well Mr B. hath proved his intention by the place of Scripture before mentioned hath been in part discovered, and will in our process yet farther appear. The ambiguity of the words "life" and "eternal life" (which yet are not ambiguous in the Scripture, being constantly used in one sense and signification as to the purpose in hand) is all the pretence he hath for his assertion. Besides that, his proof that unbelievers do not abide lies in this, that "the wrath of God abideth on them"!

2. This is common with this gentleman and his masters, "Christians generally think otherwise, but we say thus;" so light do they make of the common faith, which was once delivered to the saints. But he may be pleased to take notice that not only Christians think so, but assuredly believe that it shall be so, having the express word of God to bottom that their faith upon. And not only Christians believe it, but mankind generally in all ages have consented to it, as might abundantly be evinced.

3. But let the expressions wherewith Mr B. endeavours to make good this his monstrous assertion of the annihilation of the wicked and unbelievers at the last day be particularly considered, that the strength of his conclusion, or rather the weakness of it, may be discovered.

The first is, that they are said to "die, and that a second death," Rom. 6:23, 8:13; Rev. 21:6, 8, 2:10, 11. But how, now, will Mr B. prove that by dying is meant the annihilation of body and soul? There is mention of a natural death in Scripture; which, though it be a dissolution of nature as to its essential parts of body and soul, yet it is an annihilation of neither, for the soul abides, and Mr B. professes to believe that the body shall rise again. There is a spiritual death in sin also mentioned; which is not a destruction of the dead person's being, but a moral condition wherein he is. And why must the last death be the annihilation pretended? As to a coming short of that which is the proper life of the soul, in the enjoyment of God, which is called "life" absolutely, and "eternal life," it is a death; and as to any comfortable attendancies of a being continued, it is a death. That it is a total deprivation of being, seeing those under it are to eternity to abide under torments (as shall be showed), there is no colour.

2. It is called "destruction," and "perdition," and "everlasting destruction," 1 Thess. 5:3; 2 Pet. 3:7; 2 Thess. 1:7–9. True, it is a destruction as to the utter casting men off from all and every thing wherein they had any hope or dependence,—a casting them eternally off from the happiness of rational creatures, and the end which they ought to have aimed at; that is, they shall be destroyed in a moral, not a natural sense. To be cast for ever under the wrath of God, I think, is destruction; and therefore it is called "everlasting destruction," because of the punishment which in that destruction abideth on them. To this are reduced the following expressions of "utterly perishing," and the like, Gal. 6:8; 2 Pet. 2:12; 1 Cor. 3:17; 2 Pet. 3:16.

3. "Burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire" is mentioned, Matt. 3:12; but if this burning of the chaff do consume it, pray what need it be done with "fire that cannot be quenched?" When it hath done its work, it will surely be put out. The expression is metaphorical, and the allusion is not in the consumption of chaff in the fire, but in the casting it into the fire, or the setting fire unto it. So the "fiery indignation" is said to "devour the adversaries," Heb. 10:27; not that they shall no more be, but that they shall never see happiness any more. All these expressions are metaphorical, and used to set out the greatness of the wrath and indignation of God against impenitent sinners, under which they shall lie for ever. The residue of the expressions collected are of the same importance. Christ's punishment of unbelievers at the last day is compared to a king saying, "Bring hither mine enemies, and slay them before me," Luke 19:27; because as a natural death is the utmost punishment that men are able to inflict, which cuts men off from hopes and enjoyments as to their natural condition, so Christ will lay on them the utmost of his wrath, cutting them off from all hopes and enjoyments as to their spiritual and moral condition. It is said, "The world passeth away," because it can give no abiding, continuing refreshment to any of the sons of men, when he that doeth the will of God hath an everlasting continuance in a good condition, notwithstanding the intervening of all troubles which are in this life, 1 John 2:17; but that wicked men have not their being continued to eternity nothing is here expressed.

A very few words will put an issue to this controversy, if our blessed Saviour may be accepted for an umpire. Saith he, Matt. 25:46, "These shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal." Certainly he that shall be everlastingly punished shall be everlastingly. His punishment shall not continue when he is not. He that hath an end cannot be everlastingly punished. Again, saith our Saviour, "In hell the fire never shall be quenched; where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched," Mark 9:43, 44; which he repeats again verse 46, and, that Mr B. may not cause any to hope the contrary, again verse 48. This adds to the former miracle,—that men should be punished and yet not be,—that they shall be punished by the stings of a worm to torment them when they are not, and the burning of a fire when their whole essence is consumed! So also Isa. 66:24, their torments shall be endless, and the means of their torments continued for ever; but for themselves, it seems, they shall have an end as to their being, and so NOTHING shall be punished with an everlasting worm and a fire never to be quenched! Nay, which is more, there shall be amongst them "weeping, and gnashing of teeth," Matt. 8:12, the utmost sorrow and indignation expressible, yea, beyond expression, and yet they shall not be! God threatens men with death and destruction, and describes that death and destruction to consist in the abiding under his wrath in endless torments; which inexpressible state evidently shows that death is not a consumption of them as to the continuance of their being, but a deprivation of all the good of life natural, spiritual, and eternal, with an infliction of the greatest evils that they can be capacitated to endure and undergo, called their "destruction and perdition."

What hath been the intention and design of Mr B. in this his Catechism, which I have thus far considered, I shall not judge. There is one Lawgiver to whom both he and I must give an account of our labour and endeavours in this business. That the tendency of the work itself is to increase infidelity and sin in the world I dare aver. Let this chapter be an instance; and from the savour that it hath let a taste be taken of the whole, and its nature be thereby estimated. That the greatest part of them to whom the mind of God, as revealed in Scripture, is in some measure made known, are not won and prevailed upon by the grace, love, and mercy, proclaimed therein and tendered through Christ, so as to give up themselves in all holy obedience unto God, I suppose will be granted. That these men are yet so overpowered by the terror of the Lord therein discovered, and the threats of the wrath to come, as not to dare to run out to the utmost that the desperate thoughts of their own hearts and the temptations of Satan meeting in conjunction would carry them unto, as it hath daily and manifold experiences to evince it, so the examples of men so awed by conviction mentioned in the Scripture do abundantly manifest. Now, what is it, among all the considerations of the account that men are to make and the judgment which they are to undergo, which doth so amaze their souls and fill them with horror and astonishment, so strike off their hands when they are ready to stretch them out to violence and uncleanness, or so frequently make their conception of sin abortive, as this of the eternity of the punishment which impenitent sinners must undergo? Is not this that which makes bitter the otherwise sweet morsels that they roll under their tongues, and is an adamantine chain to coerce and restrain them, when they break all other cords and cast all other bonds behind them? Yea, hath not this been, from the creation of the world, the great engine of the providence of God for the preserving of mankind from the outrageousness and unmeasurableness of iniquity and wickedness, which would utterly ruin all human society, and work a degeneracy in mankind into a very near approximation unto the beasts that perish,—namely, by keeping alive, in the generality of rational creatures, a prevailing conviction of an abiding condition of evil doers in a state of misery? To undeceive the wretched world, and to set sinful man at liberty from this bondage and thraldom to his own causeless fears, Mr B. comes forth and assures them all that the eternity of torments is a fable, and everlasting punishment a lie. Let them trouble themselves no more; the worst of their misery may be past in a moment. It is but annihilation, or rather perdition of soul and body, and they are for ever freed from the wrath of the Almighty! Will they not say, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall die?" Down we lie of a season; God, it seems, will see us once again, and then farewell for ever. Whether ever there were a more compendious way of serving the design of Satan, or a more expedient engine to cast down and demolish the banks and bounds given to the bottomless lust and corruption of natural men, that they may overflow the world with a deluge of sin and confusion, considering the depraved condition of all men by nature and the rebellion of the most against the love and mercy of the gospel, I much doubt. But who is more fit to encourage wicked men to sin and disobedience than he who labours also to pervert the righteous and obedient from their faith?

To close this whole discourse, I shall present Mr B.'s catechumens with a shorter catechism than either of his, collected out of their master's questions, with some few inferences naturally flowing from them; and it is as follows:—

Ques. 1. What is God?

Ans. God is a spirit, that hath a bodily shape, eyes, ears, hands, feet, like to us.

Q. 2. Where is this God?

A. In a certain place in heaven, upon a throne, where a man may see from his right hand to his left.

Q. 3. Doth he ever move out of that place?

A. I cannot tell what he doth ordinarily, but he hath formerly come down sometimes upon the earth.

Q. 4. What doth he do there in that place?

A. Among other things, he conjectures what men will do here below.

Q. 5. Doth he, then, not know what we do?

A. He doth know what we have done, but not what we will do.

Q. 6. What frame is he in upon his knowledge and conjecture?

A. Sometimes he is afraid, sometimes grieved, sometimes joyful, and sometimes troubled.

Q. 7. What peace and comfort can I have in committing myself to his providence, if he knows not what will befall me to-morrow?

A. What is that to me? see you to that.

Q. 8. Is Jesus Christ God?

A. He is dignified with the title of God, but he is not God.

Q. 9. Why, then, was he called the only-begotten son of God?

A. Because he was born of the Virgin Mary.

Q. 10. Was he Christ the Lord then when he was born?

A. No; he became the Lord afterward.

Q. 11. Hath he still in heaven a human body?

A. No; but he is made a spirit: so that being not God, but man, he was made a god, and being made a god, he is a spirit, and not a man.

Q. 12. What is the Holy Ghost?

A. A principal angel.

Q. 13. Did death enter by sin, or was mortality actually caused by sin?

A. No.

Q. 14. Why is Christ called a saviour?

A. Because at the resurrection he shall change our vile bodies.

Q. 15. On what other account?

A. None that I know of.

Q. 16. How then shall I be saved from sin and wrath?

A. Keep the commandments, that thou mayst have a right to eternal life.

Q. 17. Was Christ the eternal son of God in his bosom, revealing his mind from thence, or was he taken up into heaven, and there taught the truths of God, as Mohammed pretended?

A. He ascended into heaven, and talked with God before he came and showed himself to the world.

Q. 18. What did Christ do as a prophet?

A. He gave a new law.

Q. 19. Wherein?

A. He corrected the law of Moses.

Q. 20. Who was it that said of old, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy?"

A. God, in the law of Moses, which Christ corrects.

Q. 21. Is Christ to be worshipped became he is God?

A. No, but because he redeemed us.

Q. 22. May one that is a mere creature be worshipped with divine or religious worship?

A. Yes.

Q. 23. How can Christ, being a mere man, and now so far removed from the earth, understand and hear all the prayers and desires of the hearts of men that are put up to him all the world over?

A. I cannot tell, for God himself doth not know that there are such actions as our free actions are but upon inquiry.

Q. 24. Did Christ give himself for an offering and sacrifice to God in his death?

A. No; for he was not then a priest.

Q. 25. Did Christ by his death make reconciliation for our sins, the sins of his people, and bear their iniquities, that they might have peace with God?

A. No, but only died that they might turn themselves to God.

Q. 26. Did he so undergo the curse of the law, and was he so made sin for us, were our iniquities so laid on him, that he made satisfaction to God for our sins?

A. No; there is no such thing in the Scripture.

Q. 27. Did he merit or procure eternal life for us by his obedience and suffering?

A. No; this is a fiction of the generality of Christians.

Q. 28. Did he redeem us properly with the price of his blood, that we should be saved from wrath, death, and hell?

A. No; there is no such use or fruit of his death and blood-shedding.

Q. 29. If he neither suffered in our stead, nor underwent the curse of the law for us, nor satisfied justice by making reconciliation for our sins, nor redeemed us by the price of his blood, what did he do for us,—on what account is he our saviour?

A. He taught us the way to heaven, and died to leave us an example.

Q. 30. How then did he save them, or was he their saviour, who died before his teaching and dying?

A. He did not save them, nor was their saviour, nor did they ask any thing in his name, or receive any thing on his account.

Q. 31. Did Christ raise himself, according as he spake of the temple of his body, "Destroy this temple, and the third day I will raise it again?"

A. No, he raised not himself at all.

Q. 32. Hath God from eternity loved some even before they did any good, and elected them to life and salvation, to be obtained by Jesus Christ?

A. No, but he loved all alike.

Q. 33. Did God in the sending of Christ aim at the salvation of a certain number, or his elect?

A. No, but at the salvation of men in general, whether ever any be saved or no.

Q. 34. Are all those saved for whom Christ died?

A. The least part of them are saved.

Q. 35. Is faith wrought in us by the Spirit of God, or are we converted by the efficacy of his grace?

A. No, but of ourselves we believe and are converted, and then we are made partakers of the Spirit and his grace.

Q. 36. Are all true believers preserved by the power of God unto salvation?

A. No, many of them fall away and perish.

Q. 37. Is the righteousness of Christ imputed to us for our justification?

A. No, but our own faith and works.

Q. 38. Are we to receive or apprehend Christ and his righteousness by faith, that we may be justified through him?

A. No, but believe on him that raised him from the dead, and without that it suffices.

Q. 39. Are we able to keep all God's commandments?

A. Yes.

Q. 40. Perhaps in our sincere endeavours, but can we do it absolutely and perfectly?

A. Yes, we can keep them perfectly.

Q. 41. What need a man then to apprehend Christ's righteousness and apply it to himself by faith?

A. None at all, for there is no such thing required.

Q. 42. What shall become of wicked men after the resurrection?

A. They shall be so consumed, body and soul, as not at all to remain in torments.

OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST, AND OF JUSTIFICATION

THE DOCTRINE CONCERNING THEM FORMERLY DELIVERED VINDICATED FROM THE ANIMADVERSIONS OF MR R. B[AXTER.]

OF this task I would complain if I durst, but I know not how it may be taken, and whether it may not occasion another apology. So are writings of this nature as waves, that thrust on one another. "Books," says one, "are like good turns; they must be new covered, or it will rain through." I was in some hope to have escaped this trouble; but πόνος πόνῳ πόνον φέρει. And Chrysostom tells us that πολλῆς γέμει ταραχῆς ἡ ζωὴ, καὶ θορύζων μεστὸς ὁ παρῶν βίος ἐστίν. I desire to be content with my portion, being better yet than that of Livius Drusus, who complained "uni sibi nec puero quidem unquam ferias contigisse." So it be in and about things of real use and advantage to the souls of men, I can be content with any pains that I have strength to answer. But this is an evil which every one who is not stark blind may see in polemical writings; almost their constant end is, λογομαχία, τεριαυτολογία, ἀπολογία: whence saith the apostle, Γίνεται φθόνος, ἔρις, βλασφημίαι, ὑπόνοιαι πονηραὶ, παραδιατριζαί. Having, through the providence of God, whether on my part necessarily or wisely I know not (Θεὸς οἶδε), engaged in public for the defence of some truths of the gospel (as I believe), I was never so foolish as to expect an escape without opposition. He that puts forth a book sentences his reason to the gantelope: every one will strive to have a lash at it in its course; and he must be content to bear it. It may be said of books of this kind as Menander said of children (things often compared), Τὸ γίνεσθαι πατέρα παίδων, λύπη, φόζος, φροντίς,—"Anxiety, fear, and trouble, attend theirs authors." For my own part, as I provoked no man causelessly in any of my writings, defended no other doctrine professedly but the common faith of the protestant churches, of which I found the saints of God in possession when I became first acquainted with them, so I have from the beginning resolved not to persist in any controversy, as to the public debate of it, when once it begins to degenerate into a strife of words and personal reflections. So much the more grievous is it to me to engage in this now in hand; of the necessity whereof I shall give the reader a brief account. That as to the matter of the contest between Mr B. and myself, Mr B. is my witness that I gave not the occasion of it; so as to the manner of its handling, that I carried not on the provocation, I appeal to all that have read my treatise which is now animadverted on. The same person "et initium dedit et modum abstulit." Some freedom of expression that, perhaps, I might righteously have made use of, to prevent future exacerbations, I designedly forbore. I know that some men must have Βύσσινα ῥήματα. Expressions concerning them had need be μυροζρεχεῖς, or like the letters that men print one of another, which are oftentimes answerable to that of Augustus to Mæcenas, "vale mel gemmeum, Medulliæ ebur ex Hetruria, laser arietinum, adamas supernas, Tiberinum margaritum, Cilniorum smaragde, jaspis figulorum, berille Porsennæ, carbunculum Italiæ," καὶ ἵνα συντέμω πάντα, etc. I hoped, therefore, this business had been at an issue; others also were of the same mind, especially considering that he had almost professed against proceeding farther in this controversy in some other treatises and apologies. For my own part, I must profess my thoughts arose only from his long silence. The reason of this I knew could not be that of him in the poet, φιλεῖ γὰρ ὀκνεῖν πρᾶγμʼ ἀνὴρ πράσσων μίγα, seeing he could have done it as speedily as have written so much paper. The expressions in his books seemed to me as the fermentation of a spirit that, at one time or other, would boil over. I confess I was something delivered from the fear of it, when, not long before the publishing of his confession and apology, I met with him, and had occasion of much conference with him at London, even about justification, and he made not the least mention of this confutation of me which he hath now published; but φιλικοῖς ἔνειδεν ὄμμασιν. But though this present contest might have been easily prevented (as the reader will instantly perceive), yet I presume the book was then wholly printed, and Mr B. was not to lose his pains, nor the world the benefit thereof, nor the printer his ink and paper, for so slight a cause as the preventing of the aspersion of me for an Antinomian.

But "jacta est alea;" now it is out, we must make the best of it; and I hope the reader will excuse me in what follows. Ὡς οὐχʼ ὑπάρχων ἀλλὰ τιμωρούμενος.

But why must my arguments be answered and myself confuted? Two reasons hereof are given. The first by very many insinuations, namely, that I have delivered dangerous doctrines, such as subvert the foundation of the gospel,—plain Antinomianism. And these two positions are laid down to be confuted, namely, first, That the elect are justified from eternity, or from the death of Christ, before they believe; secondly, That justification by faith is but in foro conscientiœ, or in our own feeling, and terminated in conscience, and not in foro Dei; farther, then, conscience may be so called: and my arguments for them are answered, chap. viii. p. 189. But what should a man do in this case? I have already published to Mr B. and all the world that I believe neither of these propositions. Must I take my oath of it, or get compurgators, or must we have no end of this quarrel? Let Mr B. prove any such thing out of any thing I have written, and, as Nonius says out of Nævius, "Ei dum vivebo fidelis ero." I am sure this minds me of that passage in the Jewish liturgy, "Placeat tibi, Domine, liberare me a lite difficili, et ab adversario difficili, sive is ad fœdus tuum pertineat sive non pertineat." The following examination of the particulars excepted against by Mr B. will make this evident, whence it will appear that μικρὰ πρόφασις ἐστὶ τοῦ πρᾶξαι κακῶς. Yea, but,—

Secondly, Two or three reverend brethren told him that, as to that part which he hath considered, it was necessary I should be confuted. Who these reverend brethren are I know not. I presume they may be of those friends of Mr B. that blame him for replying to Mr Blake, but say for all the rest with whom he hath dealt (of whom I am forced to be one) that it is no matter, they deserved no better. Whoever they are, they might have had more mercy than not a little to pity poor men under the strokes of a heavy hand. Nor do I know what are the reasons of the brethren why my name must be brought on this stage; nor, perhaps, is it meet they should be published. It may be it is necessary that Mr Owen should be confuted among Antinomians, and that ἐκ τρίποδος. But what if it should appear in the issue that Mr Owen hath deserved better at their hands, and that this advice of theirs might have been spared? But not to complain of I know not whom, to those reverend advisers I shall only say, Εἴδε πᾶν ἔχει καλῶς, τῷ παιγνίω, δότε κρότον, καὶ πάντες ὑμεῖς μετὰ χαρᾶς ποππύσατε. But if it appear in the issue that I was charged with that which I never delivered nor wrote, and that my arguments to one purpose are answered in reference to another, and that this is the sum of Mr B.'s discourse against me, I shall only recommend to them some verses of old Ennius, as I find them in Aus. Pop.:—

"Nam qui lepide postulat alterum frustrari,

Quem frustratur, frustra eum dicit frustra esse.

Nam qui sese frustrari quem frustra, sentit,

Qui frustatur is frustra est, si non, ille est frustra."

What, then, shall I do? I am imposed on to lay the foundation of all Antinomianism (as Mr Burgess is also),—to maintain the justification from eternity, or at least in the cross of Christ, of all that should believe, and justification by faith to be but the sense of it in our consciences (which last I know better and wiser men than myself that do, though I do not); and so reckoned amongst them that overthrow the whole gospel, and place the righteousness of Christ in the room of our own believing and repentance, rendering them useless.

Shall I undertake to confute Mr B.'s book, at least wherein we differ, and so acquit myself both from Antinomianism and Socinianism in the business in hand? But,—1. The things of this discourse are such, and the manner of handling them of that sort, that Mr B. heartily, in the close of his book (p. 462), begs pardon for them who have necessitated him to spend so much time to so little purpose, καὶ ταῦτα πράσσων φάσκʼ ἀνὴρ οὐδὲν ποιῶν. As I see not yet the necessity of his pains, so I desire his reverend advisers may thank him for this intercession; for I suppose myself, at least, not concerned therein. But this I can say, that I am so far from engaging into a long operose contest, in a matter of such importance and consequence as the subject of that book is represented to be, that I would rather burn my pens and books also than serve a provocation so far as to spend half that time therein which the confutation of it would require from so slow and dull a person as myself.

2. He hath, in his preface, put such terrible conditions upon those that will answer him, that I know no man but must needs be affrighted with the thoughts of the attempt. He requires that whoever undertake this work be of a stronger judgment and a more discerning head than he, that he be a better proficient in these studies than he, that he be freer from prejudice than he, that he have more illumination and grace than he; that is, that he be a better, wiser, more holy, and learned man than Mr B. Now, if we may take Mr B.'s character by what he discourseth of his mortification and sincerity, his freedom from prejudice, etc., as there is no reason but that we should, I profess I know not where to find his match, much less any to excel him, with whom I might intercede for his pains in the consideration of this treatise: for as for myself, I am, seriously, so far from entertaining any such thoughts in reference to Mr B., that I dare not do it in reference to any one godly minister that I know in the world; yea, I am sure that I am not, in respect of all the qualifications mentioned put together, to be preferred before any one of them. If it be said that it is not requisite that a man should know this of himself, but only that he be so indeed, I must needs profess that, being told beforehand that such he must be, if he undertake this work, I am not able to discern how he should attempt it and not proclaim himself to have an opinion of his own qualifications answerable to that which is required of him.

3. It is of some consideration, that a man that doth not know so much of him as I do, would by his writings take him to be immitis and immisericors,—a very Achilles, that will not pardon a man in his grave, but will take him up and cut him in a thousand pieces. I verily believe that if a man (who had nothing else to do) should gather into one heap all the expressions which in his late books, confessions, and apologies, have a lovely aspect towards himself, as to ability, diligence, sincerity, on the one hand, with all those which are full of reproach and contempt towards others, on the other, the view of them could not but a little startle a man of so great modesty and of such eminency in the mortification of pride as Mr B. is. But,—

Οὐθεὶς ἐπʼ αὐτοῦ τὰ κακὰ συνορᾶ,

Σαφῶς ἑτέρου δʼ ἀσχημονοῦντος ὄψεται.

Had I not heard him profess how much he valued the peace of the church, and declare what his endeavours for it were, I could not but suppose, upon evidences which I am unwilling to repeat together, that a humour of disputing and quarrelling was very predominant in the man. However, though a profession may pass against all evidences of fact to the contrary whatever, yes I dare say that he lives not at ἀπραγόπολις. [Sueton. Aug. 98.]

That he hath been able to discern the positions he opposes in the beginning of his eighth chapter to be contained in any writings of mine, as maintained by me, I must impute to such a sharp-sightedness as was that of Caius Caligula, to whom, when he inquired of Vitellius whether he saw him not embracing the moon, it was replied, "Solis (domine) vobis diis licet invicem videre," Dio.

What shall I do, then? Shall I put forth a creed or an apology to make it appear that indeed I am not concerned in any of Mr Baxter's contests? But,—

1. I dare not look upon myself of any such consideration to the world, as to write books to give them an account of myself (with whom they very little trouble their thoughts); to tell them my faith and belief; to acquaint them when I am well and when I am sick; what sin I have mortified most; what books I have read; how I have studied; how I go, and walk, and look; what one of my neighbours says of me, and what another; how I am praised by some and dispraised brothers; what I do, and what I would have others do; what diligence, impartiality, uprightness, I use; what I think of other men: so dealing unmercifully with perishing paper, and making books by relating to myself, worthy

"Deferri in vicum vendentem thus et odores,

Et piper, et quicquid chartis amicitur ineptis."—Hor. Ep. ii. 269.

And I should plainly show myself ἀλαζονοχαυνοφλύαρος.

2. I know there is no need of any such thing: for all that know me, or care to know me, know full well that, in and about the doctrine of justification by faith, I have no singular opinion of my own, but embrace the common, known doctrine of the reformed churches; which, by God's good assistance, in due time I shall farther explicate and vindicate from Papists, Socinians, and Arminians. I cannot complain that ἐγώ εἰμι μόνος τῶν ἡμῶν ἐμός, Apollodorus; I have companions and counsellors. And, in truth, it is very marvellous to some that this learned person, who hath manifested so great a tenderness on his own behalf as to call their books "monsters" and themselves "liars," who charged his opinion about justification with a coincidence with that of the Papists, should himself so freely impute Antinomianism to others, an opinion which he esteems as had, if not every way worse, than that of the Papists about justification. But "contenti simus hoc Catone;" which is all I shall say, though some would add,—

"Homine imperito nunquam quidquam injustius,

Qui, nisi quod ipse facit, nihil rectum putat."

3. I must add, if for a defensative of myself I should here transcribe and subscribe some creed already published, I must profess it must not be that of Mr B. (pp. 12, 13), which he calls the "Worcestershire profession of faith;" and that, as for other reasons, so especially for the way of delivering the doctrine of the Trinity, which but in one expression at most differs from the known confession of the Socinians, and in sundry particulars gives so great a countenance to their abominations. For instance, the first article of it is, "I believe that there is one only God, the Father, infinite in being," etc., which, being carried on towards the end, and joined to the "profession of consent," as it is called, in these words, "I do heartily take this one God for my only God and chiefest good, and this Jesus Christ for my only Lord, Redeemer, and Saviour," evidently distinguishes the Lord Jesus Christ our Redeemer, as our Lord, from that one true God; which not only directly answers that question of Mr Biddle's, "How many Lords of Christians are there in distinction from this one God?" but in terms falls in with that which the Socinians profess to be the "tessera" of their sect and churches, as they call them, which is, that they believe in the "one true, living God the Father, and in his only Son Jesus Christ our Lord." Nor am I at so great an indifferency in the business of the procession of the Holy Ghost as to those expressions of "from," and "by the Son," as that confession is at, knowing that there is much more depends on these expressions, as to the doctrine of the Trinity, than all the confessionists can readily apprehend. But yet here,—that we may not have occasion to say, Λεπτολόγων ἀπολογιῶν φεῦ πληθύος!—I do freely clear the subscribers of that confession from any sinister opinion of the Trinity or the deity of Jesus Christ; though as to myself I suppose my reasons abundantly sufficient to detain me from a subscription of it. But if this course be not to be insisted on, shall I,—

4. Run over all the confessions of faith and common-places which I have or may have here at Oxford, and manifest my consent with them in the matter under question? I confess this were a pretty easy way to make up a great book; but for many reasons it suits not with my judgment, although I would have the advantage of giving what they positively deliver in abundance as their main thesis and foundation, without cutting off discourses from their connection and coherence, to give them a new face and appearance, which in their own proper place they had not, or gathering up their concessions to the adversaries to one purpose and applying them to another: and therefore I shall wholly waive that way of procedure, although I might by it, perhaps, keep up some good reputation with the orthodox.

To have passed over, then, this whole business in silence would have seemed to me much the best course, had I not seen a man of so great integrity and impartiality as Mr B. (who so much complains of want of candour and truth in others) counting it so necessary to vindicate himself from imputations as to multiply books and apologies to that end and purpose, and that under the chains of very strong importunities and entreaties to turn the course of his studies and pains to things more useful, wherein his labours, as he says, have met with excessive estimation and praises; and may doubtless well do so, there being, as he informs us, "too few divines that are diligently and impartially studious of truth, and fewer that have strong judgments that are able to discern it, though they do study it" (pref.); which though Mr B. arrogates not to himself, yet others may do well to ascribe to him. I hope, then, he will not be offended if in this I follow his steps, though "haud passibus æquis" and "longo proximus intervallo." Only in this I shall desire to be excused, if, seeing the things of myself are very inconsiderable, and whatever I can write on that account being like the discourses of men returning "e lacu furnoque," I multiply not leaves to no purpose. I shall, then, desire,—

1. To enter my protest that I do not engage with Mr B. upon the terms and conditions by him prescribed in his preface, as though I were wiser, or better, or more learned than he; being fully assured that a man more unlearned than either of us, and less studied, may reprove and convince us of errors, and that we may deal so with them who are much more learned than us both.

2. To premise that I do not deliver my thoughts and whole judgment in the business of the justification of a sinner; which to do I have designed another opportunity, εἰ Θεὸς θέλει, καὶ ζήσω, and shall not now prevent myself.

These things being premised, I shall,—

1. Set down what I have delivered concerning the three heads wherein it is pretended the difference lies between us.

2. Pass through the consideration of the particular places where Mr B. is pleased to take notice of me and my judgment and arguments as to the things of the contests wherein he is engaged. And this course I am necessitated unto because, as Mr B. states the controversies he pursues in the beginning of the eighth chapter, I profess myself wholly unconcerned in them.

The things, then, that I am traduced for the maintaining and giving countenance unto are:—1. The justification of the elect from eternity; 2. Their justification at the death of Christ, as dying and suffering with him; 3. Their absolution in heaven before their believing; 4. That justification by faith is nothing but a sense of it in the conscience; 5. That Christ suffered the idem which we should have done, and not only tantundem. Of all which very briefly.

1. For the first, I neither am nor ever was of that judgment; though, as it may be explained, I know better, wiser, and more learned men than myself, that have been and are. This I once before told Mr B., and desired him to believe me, "Of the Death of Christ," p. 33 [works, vol. x. p. 449.] If he will not yet do it, I cannot help it.

2. As to the second, I have also entreated Mr B. to believe that it is not my judgment, in that very book on which he animadverts, and hoped I might have obtained credit with him, he having no evidence to the contrary. Let the reader see what I deliver to this purpose, pp. 34, 35 [pp. 451, 452]. In what sense I maintain that the "elect died and rose with Christ," see pp. 82–84 [pp. 472, 473].

3. The third, or absolution in heaven before believing. What I mean hereby I explain, pp. 77–79 [pp. 470, 471]. Let it be consulted.

It was, on I know not what grounds, before by Mr B. imposed on me that I maintained justification upon the death of Christ before believing; which I did with some earnestness reject, and proved by sundry arguments that we are not changed in our state and condition before we do believe. Certainly never was man more violently pressed to a warfare than I to this contest.

4. That justification by faith is nothing but a sense of it in the conscience, I never said, I never wrote, I never endeavoured to prove. What may a man expect from others, who is so dealt withal by a man whose writings so praise him as Mr B.'s do!

5. For the last thing, what I affirm in it, what I believe in it, what I have proved, the preceding treatise will give an account to the reader. And for my judgment in these things, this little at present may suffice. Mr. B.'s animadversions, in the order wherein they lie, shall nextly be considered.

The first express mention that I am honoured withal is towards the end of his preface; occasioned only by a passage in my brief proem to Mr Eyre's book of justification. My words, as by him transcribed, are:—

"For the present I stall only say, that there being too great evidence of a very welcome entertainment and acceptation given by many to on almost pure Socinian justification and exposition of the covenant of grace," etc.

To which Mr B. subjoins:—

"But to be almost an error is to be a truth. There is but a thread between truth and error, and that which is not near to that error is not truth, but is liker to be another error in the other extreme. For truth is one straight line; error is manifold, even all that swerves from that line, in what space or degree soever."

"Malum omen!" and the worse because of choice. Whether this proceed παρὰ τὴν τοῦ ἑλέγχου ἄγνοιαν, or whether it be τὸ ἐκ σημείου (ἀσυλλογίστου γὰρ καὶ τοῦτο), it matters not, but I am sure it is sophistical. The doctrine of justification, which I reflected on, I did not say was near to error, or almost an error, but near to Socinianism, or almost Socinian. If Mr B. takes error and Socinianism to be terms convertible, I must crave liberty to dissent. That which is almost error is true; but that which is almost Socinianism may he quite an error, though not an error quite so had as that of the Socinians concerning the same matter. He that shall deny the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, and maintain that our performance of new obedience is the matter of our justification before God, according to the tenor of the new covenant, and jet grant the satisfaction of Christ, and assign it a place (some or other) in the business of our justification, his doctrine is but almost Socinian, and yet, in my judgment, is altogether an error. And so the heat of this first conflict is allayed, "pulveris exigui jactu," its foundation having been only ἀμετρία ἀνθολκῆς.

But, notwithstanding this seeming discharge, perhaps it may he said that indeed this was not an honest insinuation, there being no such doctrines abroad amongst us as hold any blamable correspondency with the Socinian doctrine of justification, and it is not an ingenuous and candid way of proceeding to seek to oppress truths, or at least opinions, that are managed with a fair and learned plea, with names of public abomination, with which indeed they have no communion. I confess this is an unworthy course, a path wherein I am not desirous to walk; I shall, therefore, from their own writings, give the reader a brief summary, in some few propositions, of the doctrine of the Socinians concerning justification, and then nakedly, without deprecating his censure, leave him to judge of the necessity and candour of my forementioned expressions. They say, then,—

1. That justifying faith, or that faith whereby we are justified, is our receiving of Christ as our Lord and Saviour, trusting in him and yielding obedience to him:—

"Credere in Jesum Christum nihil aliud est quam Jesu Christo confidere, et idcirco ex ejus præscripto vitam instituere."—Socin. Justificat. Synop. ii. p. 17. "Fides est fiducia per Deum in Christum, unde apparet eam in Christo fidem duo comprehendere: unum, ut non solum Deo, verum et Christo confidamus; deinde ut Deo obtemperemus," etc.—Cat. Rac. cap. ix. de fide; Volkel. de Vera Relig., lib. iv. cap. iii. p. 179, 180; Smalc. Refut. Thes. Franz. disp. 4, p. 103, et disp. 6, p. 184. "Credere in Christum nihill aliud est quam illi confidere, hoc est, ipsi, sub spe promissionum, ab eo nobis factarum, obedire," etc.—Smalc. Refut. Thes. Franz. disp. 7, p. 209. "Fides in Christum est fiduciam in eum collocare, et credere illum esse omnibus obtemperantibus sibi æternæ salutis causam. Si proprie et stricte sumatur, ab obedientia differt. Sed per metonymiam quandam synecdochiam sæpe tam late sumitur, ut omnia pietatis et justitiæ opera comprehendat."—Schlichting. Comment. in cap. xi. ad Heb. p. 519. "Quid est credere in nomen Christi? Res. Eum excipere, ejus dictis fidem habere, ei confidere, ei denique obtemperare."—Dialog. Anon. de Justificat. p. 4. "Ex his quæ hactenus dicta sunt, satis intelligi potest, etiamsi verissimum sit, quemadmodum Scriptura apertissime testatur, nos per mortem Christi perque sanguinis ejus fusionem servatos esse, nostraque peccata deleta fuisse, non tamen hoc ipsum credere, esse eam fidem in Christum, qua, ut sacræ literæ docent, justificamur, id quod multi et olim putarunt, et hodie putant, adeoque similiter credunt: longe enim aliud est istud credere, et sub spe vitæ æternæ ab ipso consequendæ, Christo obedire; quod necessario requiri ad justificationem nostram, antea a nobis et dictum et demonstratum est."—Fragm. de Justificat.; Faust. Socin. Opusc. p. 115.

2. That faith, in justifying, is not to be considered as a hand whereby we lay hold on the righteousness of another, or as an instrument, as though righteousness were provided for us and tendered unto us; which would overthrow all necessity of being righteous in ourselves:—

"Patet quam incpte Meisnerus fidem vocet causam instrumentalem qua justificationem (seu justitiam) apprehendamus seu recipiamus; patet denique quam falso (qui error ex priore consequitur) fidem, quæ virtus aut opus est, justificare neget. Quid magis perversum et sacris literis adversum dici potuit? Parum nobis fuerat, omner reliquas virtutues et pia opera, a comparanda nobis salute excludere, nisi etiam ipsam in Deo fidem, virtutum omnium matrem et reginam, de sno solio deturbatam, tam fœda ignominia notasset. Fidem perverse prorsus intelligitis, non enim tanquam conditionem adipiscendæ justificationis consideratis, sed tanquam instrumentum vel manum," etc.—Jo. Schlichting. Disput. pro Faust, Socin, ad Meisner. p. 120–131. "De eo quod homo justitiam accipiat, nihil legitur in sacris literis; et si id explicetur ex mente adversariorum, ridicula est fabula. Fides vero non est, accurate loquendo, causa instrumentalis, sed causa sine qua non (efficiens) justificationis nostræ."—Smalc. Refut. Thes. Franz. disp. 4, p. 103.

3. Nor yet doth faith, repentance, or obedience, procure our justification, or is the efficient or meritorious cause thereof:—

"Ut autem cavendum est, ne, ut hodie plerique faciunt, vitæ sanctitatem atque innocentiam, effectum justificationis nostræ coram Deo esse dicamus; sic diligenter cavere debemus ne ipsam sanctitatem atque innocentiam, justificationem nostram coram Deo esse credamus, neve illam nostræ justificationis coram Deo causam efficientem aut impulsivam esse affirmemus, sed tantummodo," etc.—Socin. Justificat. Synop. ii. p. 14. "Fides justificationem non meretur, neque est ejus causa efficiens; non ignoramus fidei nostræ nequaquam esse ea merita, quibus justificatio qua sempiterna continetur felicitas, tanquam merces debita, sit tribuenda. Hinc porro consequitur, fidem istam, quamvis obedientiam et pietatem in se comprehendat, nequaquam tamen per se, et principaliter efficere, ut justificationis beneficium consequamur."—Volkel. de Vera Relig. lib. iv. cap. iii. p. 181; Smalc. Refut. Thes. Franz. disp. 4, 5, 7. "Obedientia nostra, quam Christo præstamus, nec efficiens nec meritoria causa est nostræ justificationis."—Socin. Thes. de Justificat. p. 17. Vide Anon. Dialog. de Justificat. p. 32.

4. But the true use of our faith (and repentance), as to our justification before God, is that they are the "causa sine qua non," or the condition whereby, according to the appointment of God, we come to be justified; and so is imputed to us.

"Diligenter cavere debemus ne vitæ sanctitatem et innocentiam, justificationem nostram coram Deo esse credamus, neve illam nostræ justificationis coram Deo causam efficientem aut impulsivam esse affirmemus, sed tantummodo causam sine qua eam justificationem nobis non contingere decrevit Deus."—Socin. Synop. Justificat. ii. p. 14. "Id a nobis revera exegit, ut in Christum credamus, vitam emcndaremus (quam conditionem salva sanctitiate et majestate sua non poterat non exigere)."—Crell. de Caus. Mort. Christi, p. 5. "Interim tamen sic habendum est, cum Deus non nisi illis, qui fidem virtutemque pro sua virili parte colunt, vitam sempiternam designaverit, fiduciam istam ne quidem causam meritoriam, aut principaliter efficientem, sed causam sine qua non (ut loquuntur) justificationis nostræ esse."—Volkel. de Vera Relig. lib. iv. cap. iii. p. 181. "Quod vero ad nos pertinet, non aliter reipsa justi coram Deo habemur, et delictorum nostrorum veniam ab ipso consequimur, quam si in Jes. Christ. credamus."—Socin. Justificat. Synop. ii. p. 11. "Itaque nemo justificatus est coram Deo nisi prius Christo confidat, eique obediat; quæ obedientia sunt illa opera ex quibus nos justificari Jacobus apostolus affirmat."—Socin. Thes. de Justificat. p. 14. "Sunt enim opera nostra, id est, ut dictum fuit, obedientia, quam Christo præstamus, licet nec efficiens nec meritoria, tamen causa (ut vocant) sine qua non justificationis coram Deo, atque æternæ salutis nostræ."—Id. ibid. "Imputatur nobis a Deo id quod revera in nobis est, non aliquid quod a nobis absit vel in alio sit, nempe quod firmiter in animo decreverimus nihil dubitantes de Dei promissionibus, neque considerantes nostram infirmitatem, nos propositum fidei certamen decurrere velle."—Anon. Dialog. de Justificat. p. 29. (Hæc vero corrigit Faustus Socinus, Notæ in Dialog. p. 64, "Beatitatem et remissionem peccatorum nobis imputari asserens.") "Certum est ex sacris literis requiri ad hoc, ut quis consequatur apud Deum remissionem peccatorum, et ita coram Deo justificetur, ut de illo merito dici possit, quod pactum Dei servet."—Fragm. de Justificat. "Apparet Paulum absolute intelligere opera quæcunque illa tandem sint. Quod tamen non eam vim habet, ut a causa justificationis nostræ omnino quæcunque opera, et quocunque modo considerata, excludere velit. Sed sensus ipsius est, nulla esse opera quæ tanti sint, ut propter ipsorum meritum justificari possimus. Quando scilicet nemo est qui perfectissime et integerrime per totam vitam ea opera faciat quæ sub vetere sive sub novo testamento præscripta sunt, id quod tamen omnino requiritur, sive requiretur ad hoc, ut per ipsa opera tanquam ejus rei aliquo modo meritoria, justificatio contingeret. Diximus autem aliquot modo meritoria, ut ab ipsis operibus excludamus, non mode absolutum et maxime proprium meritum, quod oritur ex ipsa operum præstantia per se considerata; sed etiam illud, quod minus propriè et respectivè meritum est, … quod ex solo Dei promisso oritur ac proficiscitur, adeo ut nemo nec per illud neque per hoc meritum suorum operum justificationem et absolutionem a peccatis suis adipiscatur," etc.—Vid. Plu. Fragm. de Justificat. Faust. Socin. p. 110. "Cum Paulus negat nos ex operibus justificari, considerat opera tanquam meritoria, et sua ipsorum vi hominem justificantia, et consequenter ejusmodi, quibus si ad Dei præceptum examinentur, nihil prorsus desit; at Jacobus operum nomine eam obedientiam intelligit, sine qua Deus hominem sibi carum habere non vult; seu mavis opera ejusmodi sine quibus dici nequeat, ulla ratione hominem Deo obedire … Ex hac collatione istorum duorum Pauli et Jacobi locorum et sententiarum manifestum est, quemadmodum ad justificationem nostram non requiritur necessario perfecta obedientia mandatorum Dei, sic ad eandem justificationem omnino requiri, ut Dei mandata ita conservaremus, ut merito dici possit nos Deo obedientes esse."—Fragm. Faust. p. 221.

5. That our justification is our absolution from the guilt of sin, and freedom from obnoxiousness unto punishment for it, and nothing else. Our regeneration is the condition of our absolution, and in them both, in several respects, is our righteousness.

"Justificatio est cum nos Deus pro justis habet, quod ea ratione facit, cum nobis et peccata remittit, et jus vitæ donat."—Cat. Rac. cap. xi. de justificat. "Justificatio nihil aliud est quam peccatorum remissio."—Schlichting contra Trinit. p. 147. "Justificatio nostra coram Deo, ut uno verbo dicam, nihil aliud est quam a Deo pro justis haberi; hoc vero fit per absolutionem peccatorum."—Socin. Synop. Justificat. ii. p. 11. "Justificatio nihil aliud est quam pro justo habere, itemque peccata remittere et condonare."—Ibid, pp. 13, 14. "Quæro primum quid sit justificatio? R. Peccatorum absolutio."—Anon. (ni fallor Ostorod.) Dialog. de Justificat. p. 2. "Hic tacite continetur ea sententia, quam nos supra ab initio attigimus, et non obscure refutavimus, justificationem, videl. a justo faciendo dici, et a justitia ac sanctitate qua quis sit præditus; cum tamen certissimum sit, justificationem in sacris literis aliud nihil significare quam justum pronuntiare sive ut justum tractare."—Faust. Socin. Notæ in Dialog. de Justificat. p. 60. "Sed manifestum est Paulum negare, non modo ex operibus legis, sed simpliciter ex operibus nos justificari; itaque alia ratione omnino est hic nodus solvendus, et dicendum, Paulum operum nomine non quælibet opera intelligere, nec quolibet modo accepta, sed quæ sua vi hominem justum coram Deo reddere possunt, cum negat nos ex operibus justificari, qualis est absoluta et perpetua per totum vitæ curriculum legis divinæ observatio."—Faust. Socin. Notæ in Dialog. de Justificat. p. 74. "Formalis itaque (ut ita loquar) justificatio nostra coram Deo fuit, et semper erit, propter carnis nostræ infirmitatem, remissio peccatorum nostrorum, non autem impletio divinæ legis, quod Paulus operari vocat. Veruntamen nulli re ipsa conceditur ista remissio, nisi Deo confisus fuerit, seque ipsi regendum et gubernandum tradidcrit."—Faust. Socin. Ep. ad Virum Clariss. de Fide et Operibus.

6. That the way whereby we come to obtain this absolution is this: Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, being sent by him to reveal his love and grace to lost, sinful mankind, in that work yielding obedience unto God even unto death, was, for a reward of that obedience, exalted, and had divine authority over them for whom he died committed to him to pardon and save them; which accordingly he doth, upon the performance of the condition of faith and obedience by him prescribed to them, at once effecting a universal conditional application of all actually justifying every individual upon the performance of the condition.

"Ipsi Jesu, tantam in cœlo et terra, tanquam obedientiæ scilicet usque at mortem crucis insigne præmium, potestatem dedit, ut eis," etc.—Socin. Synop. Justificat. i. p. 4. "Interea tamen haudquaquam negamus, Christi mortem, conditionem quandam fuisse remissionis peccatorum nobis concedendæ; quatenus conditio fuit Christo imposita, sine qua potestatem obtinere ex Dei decreto non potuit, peccata nobis remittendi, et nos ab æterno interitu vindicandi."—Crell. de Caus. Mort. Christi, p. 8. ("Paulus ea a fide opera removet, quæ perpetuam perfectissimamque, per omnem vitæ cursum obedientiam continent. Jacobus ergo ea intelligit."—Volkel. de Vera Relig. lib. iv. cap. iii. p. 180 ad 461.) Vide plura. "Quia nos Christus ab æterna morte liberavit, et ut nos liberare posset, mortuus est, jure dicitur eum pro nobis, et pro peccatis nostris mortuum esse, et sanguinem ipsius nos emundare a peccatis: neque enim nos dicimus, Christum ob hoc vel solum vel principale obedivisse, ut nos ad se imitandum extimularet, sed constantissime affirmamus, illum ideo patri suo obedientem, et pro nobis mortuum fuisse, ut potestatem divinam, interveniente morte sua, consecutus saiutem nostram administrare, et tandem reipsa perficere posset."—Smalc. Refut. Thes. Franz. disp. 4, p. 108. "Quamvis autem certissimum ac testatissimum sit, Jesum Christum Dei Filium sanguinem suum in remissionem peccatorum nostrorum fudisse: tamen ipsa mors Christi per se sine resurrectione," etc.—Socin. Thes. de Justificat. thes. 3; Vid. Fragm. de Justificat. p. 115.

7. That as to good works, and their place in this business, Paul speaks of the perfect works of the law and legal manner of justifying, which leave no place for grace or pardon; James, of gospel works of new obedience, which leave place for both.

"Sola fides justificait, at non quatenus sola, præsertim si de plena et permanente justificatione loquamur, quatenus quibusvis bonis operibus opponitur. Hoc est particula exclusiva sola, non quævis opera, sed opera de quibus apostolus loquitur, opera legis, opera plena, ob quæ non secundum gratiam justificatio imputatur, sed secundum debitum tribuitur, excludit. Non excludit autem ullo pacto opera ex fide provenientia, cum Jacobus expertissime doceat, hominem justificari ex operibus, non ex fide tantum."—Schlichting. ad Meisner. Disput. pro Socin. pp. 290, 291. "In iis locis ubi apostolus fidem operibus opponit, de operibus ejusmodi agit, quæ et perfectam et perpetuam obedientiam continent, qualem sub lege Deus ab hominibus requirebat: verum non de iis operibus, quæ obedientiam, quam Deus a nobis qui in Christum credidimus, requirat, comprehendunt."—Rac. Cat. cap. ix. de fide. "Hinc jam demum intelligo non bona opera, quæ Deus ipse præparavit, sed legis opera a justificatione nostra excludi."—Anon. Dialog. de Justificat. p. 47.

8. That the denial of our faith and obedience to be the condition of our justification, or the asserting that we are justified by the obedience of Christ imputed to us, is the ready way to overthrow all obedience, and drive all holiness and righteousness out of the world.

"Quod Christus factus sit nobis a Deo justitia, 1 Cor. 1:30, id minime eo sensu dici, quasi loco nostri legem impleverit, sic ut nobis deinceps ipsius justitia imputetur," etc.—Schlichting. ad Meisner. Disput. pro Socin. p. 277. "Tertius error est, Deum imputare credeutibus innocentiam et justitiam Christi. Non innocentiam, non justitiam Christi Deus imputat credentibus, sed fidem illorum illis imputat pro justitia."—Smalc. Refut. Thes. Franz. disp. 4, p. 104. "Alterum est extremum, quod vulgo receptum est, non sine summa animarum pernicie; videlicet, ad justificationem nostrum nihil prorsus bona opera pertinere, nisi quatenus sunt ipsius justificationis effecta. Ubi qui ita sentiunt,"etc.—Idem.

9. That, as the beginning, so the continuance of our justification depends on the condition of our faith, repentance, and obedience, which are not fruits consequent of it, but conditions antecedent to it, Socin. Thes. de Justificat. p. 18; Fragm. de Justificat. p. 113. And therefore, in the first place, we are to be solicitous about what is within us, about our sanctification, before our absolution or justification, Socin. Ep. ad Ch. MN. de Fide et Operibus.

"Sic apparet tandem vestigationem nostram circa ea esse debere, quæ in nobis invenientur, cum justificati sumus.—Quocirca diligenter primum vestigare debemus an revera res istæ, sive utraque, sive una tantum, et utra (si modo res diversæ sint) ad nos justificandos pertineat, ac deinde quid sint, aut quales esse debeant, ne erremus, nobisque fortasse videamur illas habere, cum tamen longe ab eis absimus. Quod enim ad misericordiam Dei attinet Christique personam, una cum iis omnibus, quæ idem Christus pro nobis fecit, et facturus est, quamvis hæ sunt veræ, et præcipuæ causæ justificationis nostræ, tamen aut jam illarum sumus, erimusve participes, antequam intra nos certum aliquid sit, et sic supervacaneum est de illis cogitare, quatenus per eas justificari velimus; aut illarum, nec jam sumus, nec futuri erimus participes, nisi prius intra nos certum aliquid sit, et sic de hoc accurate quærere debemus. Id autem inveniemus nihil prætur fidem et opera, esse."—Socin.

10. As to the death of Christ, our sins were the impulsive cause of it, and it was undergone for the forgiveness of sins, and occasioned by them only, and is in some sense the condition of our forgiveness.

"Causa impulsiva externa sunt peccata nostra, quod itidem aperte sacræ literæ docent, dum aiunt, Christum propter peccata nostra percussum, vulneratum, et traditum esse."—Crell. de Caus. Mort. Christi, p. 2. "Q. What was the procuring cause of Christ's death? A. He was delivered for our offences."—Biddle's Cat. chap. xii. p. 69.

Though some (not of them) say that his death was rather occasioned than merited by sin; as they speak sometimes,—

"Finis ideo mortis Christi, ut sacræ literæ sat aperte docent, est remissio peccatorum nostrorum, et vitæ nostræ emendatio, ad quorum finem priorem vel solum, vel potissimum, illi loquendi modi referendi sunt; cum dicitur Christum mortuum esse pro peccatis nostris, seu pro nobis."—Crell. de Caus. Mort. Christi, p. 1.

11. That absolution and pardon of sin are by no means the immediate effects of the death of Christ:—

"Cum sacræ Scripturæ asserunt Christum aut pro peccatis nostris aut pro nobis esse mortuum, aut sanguinem ejus esse effusam in remissionem peccatorum, et siqua sint his similia, eorum verborum ea vis non est, ut significent omnino effectum illum qui morti Christi in his locutionibus tribuitur, proxime fuisse ex ea consecutem."—Crell. de Caus. Mort. Christi, p. 35.

And now let the Christian reader judge whether I had any just occasion for the expressions above mentioned or no. If he be resolved that those words had better been omitted, I shall only profess myself in a very great readiness to pass by such mistakes in others, but leave myself to his censure.

And with this touch by the way am I (as far as I have observed) dismissed to the eighth chapter, where all that I am concerned in will receive an equally speedy despatch.

In the entrance of that chapter Mr B. lays down two propositions that he rejects, and another that he intends to prove.

Those he rejects were before mentioned, and my concernment in them spoken to.

That which he proposes unto confirmation is:—

"The justification by faith, so called in the Scripture, is not the knowledge or feeling of justification before given, or a justification in and by our own conscience, or terminated in conscience, but is somewhat that goes before all such justification as this is, and is, indeed, a justification before God."

There is but one expression in all this proposition that I am concerned in, which the reader may easily discover to be plucked into the thesis by head and ears; and that is, "Terminated in conscience." What it is I intend by that expression, or what inconsistency it hath with that Mr B. asserts in pretended opposition unto it, he doth not explain. Now, I say that in the sense wherein I affirm that justification is terminated in conscience, I may yet also affirm, and that suitably to the utmost intention of mine in that expression, that "justification by faith is not the knowledge or feeling of justification before given, or a justification in and by our own conscience, but somewhat that goes before all such justification as this is, and is a justification before God." I am, then, utterly unconcerned in all Mr B.'s arguments ensuing, but only those that prove and evince that our justification before God is not terminated in our consciences; which when I can find them out, I will do my endeavour to answer them, or renounce my opinion. I find, indeed, in some of his following conclusions the words mentioned; but I suppose he thought not himself that they were any way influenced from his premises. I know he will not ask what I mean then by "terminated in conscience," seeing it would not be honourable for him to have answered a matter before he understood it. But upon this expression chiefly is it that I am enrolled in to the troop of Antinomians.

—Ὁ δὲ ὁρῶν τοὺς νόμους

Λίαν ἀκριζῶς συκοφάντης φαίνεται.

But that is in the matter of laws; these are but words. Now, though I have just cause to abstain from calling in associates in my judgment, lest I should bring them under the suspicion of Antinomianism, though not of the ruder sort, p. 190, or at least of laying the foundation of Antinomianism, which Mr Burgess, after all his pains against them, is said to do (præf.),—but the best is, that he does it superficially and without proof (præf.),—and although I cannot come up to the judgment of the man whom I shall name, yet, seeing he is deservedly of good esteem in the judgment of others, and particularly of Mr B., for his opposition to the Antinomians, I will for once make use of his authority for my shield in this business, and see if in this storm I can lie safe behind it. It is Mr Rutherford, who, in his learned exercitations, De Gratia, exercit. 1, cap. ii., tit., "Quomodo justificamur fide," having treated of the matter of justification, p. 44, thus proceeds:—

"Dicent ergo Arminiani, nos hic justificationem sumere pro sensu et notitia justificationis: ideoque homines fide justificantur, idem valet, ac homines tum demum justificantur quando credunt, hoc est, sentiunt se justificari, cum antea essent justificati. Nugæ et tricæ siculæ! nam justificari est plus quam sentire se justificari: nam (1.) est actus Dei absolventis terminatus in conscientia hominis, citati et tracti ad tribunale tremendi judicis; qui actus ante hoc instans non terminabatur in conscientia," etc.

Now, if this man be an Antinomian, I am sure he much mistakes himself; and yet he says justification may be terminated in conscience, and yet not be a sense of an antecedent justification, nor from eternity.

But how it may fare with him I cannot guess. Mr Pemble and Dr Twisse (quanta nomina!) are in the next page recounted as the assertors of the position here opposed by Mr B.; and indeed as to some part of it they are, but yet, if I durst say it, they were not Antinomians: but Mr B. knows these things better than I.

But what say I to the whole position?

P. 190.—"One learned man" (so am I called, that the sacrifice may not fall without some flowers on its head, which I professedly shake off, and dare not own my name amongst them who are or ought to be so styled) "saith that 'absolution in heaven and justification differ as part and whole, and that justification is terminated in conscience,'—and so makes a longer work of justification than they that say it is simul and semel, or than I, whom Mr Cr. blames for it—and so that whole, begun in eternal absolution, or from Christ's death, and ended in conscience, should contain immanent and transient acts together, and no small number of our own, as there described."

Ans. Though I do not perfectly understand the coherence of these words, yet the intendment of them being more obvious (and being myself in great haste), I shall not stay to make any farther inquiry thereabout.

What I mean by "absolution in heaven," the reader, if he please, may see, chap. 12. pp. 75–78 [pp. 470, 471] of that treatise whence Mr B. urges these expressions. It is neither eternal absolution nor absolution from Christ's death (if from denote a simulty of time, and not a connection in respect of causality, in which sense Mr B. will not deny that absolution is from Christ's death), but an absolution at the time of actual justification, when God gives Christ to us, and with him all things, that I intend.

That by asserting this absolution in heaven and justification to differ as part and whole, and justification to be terminated in conscience, I make longer work of it than those who say it is simul and semal, is said. Simul and semel refer unto time; I expressly affirm, as Mr B. knows (or ought to have known), that there is in these things an order of nature only. At the same time wherein God absolves us in heaven, the term of the stipulation for our deliverance being accomplished, by reckoning Christ to us, or in making him righteousness to us, he infuses a principle of life into our souls, whereby radically and virtually the whole is accomplished.

That actual justification should contain permanent and transient acts together, and that it is so by me described, is affirmed by a failure of Mr B.'s memory. Having made this entrance and progress, adding the judgment of some whom he calls "most learned and judicious" (as he is "perspicax ingeniorum arbiter"), he concludes his first section in these words: "So that however some, by plausible words, would put a better face on it, the sense of all seems to be the same, that justification by faith is the revelation of God in and by the conscience that we are formerly justified; and so their justification by faith is the same that we commonly call the assurance or knowledge of our justification, in some degrees at least: I prove the contrary." And so falls he into his arguments.

That this is my sense I profess I knew not before, and should be sorry I should dwell so little at home that Mr B. should know me and my mind better than I do myself. I look upon him as my friend, and,—

Τὰ τῶν φέλων κοινʼ, οὐ μόνον τὰ χρήματα,

Καὶ νοῦς δὲ, καὶ φρονήσεως κοινωνία.

But yet he may possibly be mistaken. For the present I will make bold to deny this to be my sense, and refer the reader, for evidence to be given to my negation, unto that chapter of my book whence Mr B. gathers my sense and meaning. Let them, then, that are concerned look to his following arguments (especially those two whom he affirms to have more wit than the rest, p. 204), and woe be to them if they find as many distinct mediums as there are figures hung up as signs of new arguments! For my own part, whatever my thoughts are to the whole business pleaded about, I shall not (be they as mean and base as can be imagined) cast them away in such a scambling chase as this. Only, whereas (p. 205), speaking to somebody (I know not whom) whom he acknowledges to have some learning and wit, he says that "the act of the promise, law, or grant, constituting right, giving title, remitting the obligation to punishment, in itself is totally distinct from the act of declaring this to ourselves, which is said to be terminated in conscience, and is before it, and may be without it," etc., I shall, if it please him, desire that it may only, with a little alteration, be thus rendered, "The act of the promise" (not that I approve that expression, but at present it will serve the turn) "giving right, etc., is complete justification by faith, and is in itself totally distinct from, and in order of time before, any act of God justifying terminated in our consciences," and proved with one clear testimony or argument speaking to the terms and sense of the proposition, and I shall confess myself, as to what I have as yet published of my judgment about this business, to be concerned in the discourse. And so passing through the pikes of fifty-six arguments, I come to the ninth chapter, where I am again called to an account. Three things doth Mr B. propose to confirmation in this chapter:—

"1. That the elect are not justified from eternity.

"2. That they are not justified at Christ's death.

"3. Not while they are infidels and impenitent."

Any man living would wonder how I should come to stand in his way in this chapter; but strong currents sometimes pass their bounds in their courses, and bear all before them. Real or reputed success gives great thoughts and pretexts for any thing. Αἱ γὰρ εὐπραξίαι δειναὶ συγκρύψαι καὶ συσκιάσαι τὰ τοιαῦτα ὀνείδη, Demost. Olynth. B. ζʼ. In the very treatise which Mr B. considers in these imputations, I have expressly denied (and in particular to Mr B.) that I maintain any one of these. If he should send but his servant, and tell me that he is not to be found in such an opinion, I would believe him. But "quid verba audiat facta cum videat?" If I do maintain them indeed, must I be believed upon my denial? But "en tabulas!" let my book traduced be consulted. I dispute as well as I can against justification from eternity, and that I cannot do it like Mr B. is my unhappiness, not my crime. I hope every one must not be sentenced to be of an opinion which he cannot confute so learnedly as another more learned man may. For justification at the death of Christ (though I must assure the reader that I have other thoughts of the great transaction of the business of our salvation in the person of our Representative than are consistent with Mr B.'s principles, or than I have yet published, wherein I have the consent of persons as eminently insighted in the mystery of the gospel as any I know in the world), I directly affirm, and endeavour to prove, that the elect are not then actually justified, but, notwithstanding what is done for them, until their own actual believing, they are obnoxious to the law, etc., as at large chap. xii. p. 75 [p. 468] of that treatise, which includes the last particular also.

But we must proceed, "non qua eundum est, sed qua itur." In the entrance of his ninth chapter, Mr B. attempts to prove that the elect are not justified from eternity, and concludes his discourse:—

"The words of one that writes this way are these:—

" 'Here two things may be observed:—

" '1. What we ascribe to the merit of Christ,—namely, the accomplishment of the condition which God required to make way that the obligation which he had freely put upon himself might be in actual force. And so much (I leave to himself to consider how rightly) doth Mr B. assign to our works, thes. 26.'

"And all know that a condition is such is no cause, but an antecedent or 'causa sine qua non.' And is not the death of Christ here fairly advance, and his merits well vindicated! My constant affirmation was, and still is, that man's works are not in the least degree truly and properly meritorious, and that they are such mere conditions of our salvation (not of our first justification) as that they are no causes of any right we have, no not to a bit of bread, much less to heaven. Do not these men well defend the honour of Christ's merits, then, if they give, no more to them than I do to man's works? that is, not to be the meritorious cause so much as of an hour's temporal mercy; that is, to be properly no merit at all. It seems to me, therefore, that they do, by their doctrine of eternal justification or pardon, not only destroy justification by faith, but also all the merits of Christ, and leave nothing for them to do for the causing of our pardon or justification before God. Nay, whether this learned man can make Christ's sufferings and obedience so much as a bare condition, let them consider that read him, affirming that conditions properly must be uncertain, and nothing is so to God, therefore there can be no condition with God, therefore Christ's death could be no more."

"En cor Zenodoti, en jecur Cratetis."

What is most admirable in this discourse I know not.

1. I am suggested to maintain "justification from eternity;" I am "one that write that way;" I am "one that, by the doctrine of justification from eternity, overthrow justification by faith and the merits of Christ." What I shall say more to this business I know not; the comedian tells me all that I can say is in vain:—

"Ne admittam culpam, ego meo sum promus pectori,

Suspicio est in pectore alieno sita.

Nam nunc ego te si surripuisse suspicer

Jovi coronam de capite e Capitolio,

Quod in culmine astat summo; si non id feccris,

Atque id tamen mihi lubeat suspicarier,

Qui tu id prohibere me potes ne suspicer?"—Plaut. Trin. 1. 2. 44.

2. Methinks it had been equal that Mr B., who requires (δεινῶς) that men judge not any thing in his aphorisms but according as it is interpreted in this his confession, should have interpreted this passage of mine by the analogy of what I have written in the same book about the death of Christ and merit thereof. He would have found (and in these things doth my soul live) that all the mercy, grace, or privileges whatever, of what sort soever, that in this life we are made partakers of, all the glory, honour, and immortality that we are begotten anew to a hope of, is by me everywhere ascribed to the death of Christ and the merit thereof, as the sole causa προκαταρκτική of them all. The making out of this takes up the greatest part of my writings and preaching. I can truly say that I desire to know nothing but Christ and him crucified; and I shall labour to make the honour, glory, exaltation, and triumph of the cross of Christ, the whole of my aim and business in this world. May I be convinced of speaking, uttering, writing any one word to the derogation of the honour, efficacy, power of the death and merits of our dear Lord Jesus, I shall quickly lay my mouth in the dust, and give myself to be trampled on by the feet of men; which perhaps on other accounts I am only meet for. It is only that Christ may have the pre-eminence in all things that I will voluntarily contend with any living. That as a king, and priest, and prophet, he may be only and all in his church, is the design of my contesting.

But is not this expression to the derogation of his merits? I say, If it be, I disavow it, condemn it, reject it. If the intendment of the expression be not that the Lord Jesus Christ, by the performance of what was prescribed to him of his Father, that he might save us to the utmost, according to the compact between Father and Son, did merit, purchase, and procure for us, all the grace, mercy, salvation promised in the new covenant, I desire here to condemn it. But if that be the sense of it (as the words immediately going before, with the whole tenor of the discourse, do undeniably evince), I would desire Mr B. a little to reflect upon his dealings with other men upon their pretended mistakes in representing him and his judgment to the world. All the advantage that is given to this harangue is from the ambiguity of the word "condition." It is evident that I take it here, in a large sense, for the whole prescription of obedience unto the Lord Jesus, whereupon the promise of all the good things that are the fruits of his death is made to him; which being grounded in voluntary compact, and laid thereby in due proportion, gives rise to merit properly and strictly so called. If the reader desire farther satisfaction herein, let him but read that very treatise which Mr B. excepts against, where he will find abundantly enough for the clearing of my intendment; or to him that loses his time in perusing this appendix, I shall recommend the foregoing treatise for the same purpose.

3. For what Mr B. ascribes to our works, I shall not, for my part, much trouble myself whilst I live, being little or not at all concerned therein. He is not for me to deal with.

Τίκτει τοι κόρος ὕζριν, ὅταν κακῷ ὄλζος ἕπηται

Ἀνθρώπῳ, καὶ ὅτῳ μὴ νόο; ἄρτιος ᾖ.—Theogn.

If I dispute in print any more (as I hope I shall not), it shall be with them that, understanding my meaning, will fairly, closely, and distinctly, debate the thing in difference, and, not insisting on words and expressions to no purpose (especially if their own haste allows them not oftentimes to speak congruously), shall press and drive the things themselves to their issue.

——"Dabitur ignis tamen etsi ab inimicis petam."

Mr B. proceeds, in his second section, to prove that all the elect are not justified at the death of Christ. In this passage, one expression of mine about the sense of Rom. 4:5 is taken notice of; but that relates to a business of a greater importance than to be now mentioned. Something Mr B. discourses about the state and condition of the elect in reference to the death of Christ, some texts to that purpose he considers, but so jejunely, so much below the majesty of the mystery of grace in this particular, that I shall not make his discourse an occasion of what may be offered on that account. Something I have spoken in the former treatise concerning the transaction of the compact and agreement that was between the Father and Son about the salvation of the elect; of their interest and concernment therein, with the state of his body, of those that were given him on that account, God assisting, hereafter.

But, p. 228, from words of mine, which from several places of my treatise are put together, he makes sundry inferences, and opposes to them all two conclusions of his own, p. 229.

"This man," says he, "seems to judge that the name of complete justification is proper to that in conscience, and not to be given to any before. He seems also to judge that justification hath degrees and parts at many hundred or thousand years' distance one from another, or else absolution at least hath, which we have hitherto taken for the same thing with justification; for he calls that in conscience complete justification. So, saith he, absolution in heaven and justification differ as part and whole."

So he.

"Egregie cordatus homo Catus Eliu' Sextus!"

It seems Mr B. knows not what my judgment is, by his repeating that "it seems this is his judgment." He might have stayed from his confutation of it until he had known it; it is not for his honour that he hath done otherwise.

I deny that it is my judgment that the name of complete justification is proper to that in conscience; nor do I know of any proper or complete justification in conscience. I only said, complete justification is terminated in conscience. If Mr B. know not what I mean thereby, let him stay a little and I shall explain myself.

It is most false that I judge justification to have degrees and parts at a hundred or thousand years' distance; unless under the name of justification you comprise all the causes and effects of it, and then it reaches from everlasting to everlasting.

That absolution in heaven (as I call it) is before our actual believing in order of time, I have nowhere said, but only in order of nature; and that Mr B. hath not disproved.

What Mr B. thinks of absolution and justification to be the same is no rule to us; when he proves it, so it is. But to what I and others have said Mr B. opposes two conclusions, p. 229, whereof the first is,—

"1. We did neither really nor in God's account die with Christ when he died, nor in him satisfy God's justice, nor fulfil the law."

The second,—

"2. Though Christ was given for the elect more than for others, yet is he no more given to them than to others before they are born, or before they have faith."

"The first of these," he saith (he means the first of them before mentioned, which the first of these is set down in opposition unto), "is of so great moment, and is the heart and root of so many errors, yea, of the whole body of Antinomianism, that I had rather write as great a volume as this," etc.

What it is that I intended by dying with Christ, Mr B. does not know, nor guess near the matter. The consideration of God's giving the elect to Christ, of his constitution to be a common person, a mediator and surety, of the whole compact or covenant between Father and Son, of his absolution as a common person, of the sealing, confirmation, and establishment, of the covenant of grace by his death, of the economy of the Holy Spirit founded therein, of the whole grant made upon his ascension, must precede the full and clear interpretation of that expression. For the present it may suffice, I have not said that we did satisfy God's justice in him, or satisfy the law in him, so that we should be (personally considered) the principals of the satisfaction or obedience, nor that we so died in him as to be justified or absolved actually upon his death before we were born. So that I shall not be concerned at all if Mr B.'s thoughts should incline him to write a volume as big as this about his confession, which is no small content to me.

For the second, "That Christ was given to the elect more than for others," I say not, because I say that he was not given as a mediator, price, and ransom for any others at all. When the demonstrations that "Christ died for all," which Mr B. hath some while talked of, are published, I may perhaps find cause (if I see them) to change my mind; but as yet I do not suppose that I shall so do. That he is given to any before they are born I have not said, though they are given to him before they are born, or that he is given to them in order of time before they do believe;—but this I say, that faith and forgiveness of sin are given them for his sake; which when Mr B. disproves, or pretends so to do, I shall farther consider it, as being a matter of importance. With his strife of words (if I can choose) I shall no more trouble myself.

This process being made, sect. 3, Mr B. lays down the conclusion as contrary to them before, which, as he informs me, are maintained by myself and others:—

"No man now living was justified, pardoned, or absolved actually from the guilt of Sin and obligation to death, at the time of Christ's death or undertaking, or from eternity, or at any time before he was born, or did believe."

After I know not how many arguments brought forth to confirm this position, my arguments against it are produced and answered; but what the learned man means I profess I know not, unless "disputandi prurigine abreptus," he cares not what he says, nor against whom, so he may multiply arguments and answers, and put forth books one upon another. In that very book of mine which he animadverts upon, I use sundry of those very arguments which here he useth, to prove the same assertion, for the substance of it, as Mr B. hath here laid down; and this I had assured him as to a former mistake of his. My words are, p. 33 [p. 449]:—

"As for evangelical justification, whereby a sinner is completely justified, that it should precede believing, I have not only not asserted but positively denied, and disproved by many arguments. To be now traduced as a patron of that opinion, and my reasons for it publicly answered, seems to me something uncouth."

Farther now to acquit myself from that which nothing but self-fulness, oscitancy, and contempt of others, can possibly administer any suspicion of, I shall not turn aside.

Yea, but I have said that "the elect, upon the death of Christ, have a right to all the fruit of the death of Christ, to be enjoyed in the appointed season." Because this is made the occasion of so many outcries of Antinomianism, and I know not what, I shall direct the reader to what I have affirmed in this case, and leave it with some brief observations to his judgment, having somewhat else to do than to engage myself in a long wordy contest with Mr B., who, knowing not of any difference between himself and me, would very fain make one; wherein he may possibly find his labour prevented hereafter, and a real difference stated between us, if any of his rare notions fall in my way.

The discourse is, p. 69 line 23, unto p. 72 line 24 [462–468].

The sum of all is this: Upon the death of Christ, that is, on the consideration of the death of Christ, upon his undertaking (for surely I suppose it will be granted that his death was no less effectual upon his undertaking to them who died before his incarnation than afterward upon his actual accomplishment of that undertaking) to be a mediator and redeemer, it becomes just, right, and equal, that all the good things which are the fruits of his death should be in a due and appointed season made out to them for whom he died in their several generations.

What says Mr B. to this? "Suppose this be so, yet they are not actually absolved, but only have a right to it." Who said they were? Do I offer to make any such conclusion? do I dispute against Mr B.'s position, or for justification upon or at the death of Christ, or his undertaking? "Homini homo quid interest?"

But I say, there being such a right to these good things, they have a right to them. "Crimen inauditum Caie Cæsar!" Did I not also say how I understood that expression? Though I used it to make out the thing I intended, yet did I not say directly that that right was not subjectively in them;—that is, that it was not actionable, as I expressed it, that they could not plead it; but it was as above? Yea, "but then this is no more but non injustum est." This is false, as I have showed. Many divines think that this was the estate between God and sinners antecedently to the consideration of the death of Christ, or might have been without it, namely, that it was not unjust with God to pardon and save them. By the death of Christ there is a jus of another nature obtained, even such as I have described in the treatise Mr B. opposeth. But then "God doth not give those good things to us upon condition." I say he doth not, taking condition in its strict and proper sense in respect of God, though he hath made one thing to be the condition of another. All graces are alike absolutely purchased for us, but not alike absolutely received by us; the economy of the gospel requires another order. The first grace, Mr B. confesseth, is bestowed upon us absolutely and without condition; and this grace is the condition of the following privileges, as to the order of communication. And all the difference between us is about the sense of the word "condition" in that place; which, when I have nothing else to do, I will write a volume as big as this is about.

This is that I say, Christ hath purchased all good things for us; these things are actually to be conferred upon us in the time and order by God's sovereign will determined and disposed. This order, as revealed in the gospel, is, that we believe and be justified, etc. Faith, whereby we believe, is bestowed on us absolutely, always without condition, sometimes without outward means. This faith, by the constitution of God, is attended with the privileges contended about; which are constitution of God, is attended with the privileges contended about; which are no less purchased for us by Christ than faith itself. Yea, the purchase of our justification or acceptation with God is, in order of nature, antecedent in consideration to the purchase of faith for us. If Mr B. hath a mind to oppose any thing of this (which is all that as yet to this business I have declared), let him do it when he pleaseth; and if it be tantidem, as he speaketh, I shall give him a farther account of my thoughts about it. But he would know what I mean by "Christ's undertaking for the elect." Let him consider what I have delivered about the covenant between the Father and Son in this business, and he will know at least what I intend thereby. He will see how Christ, being then only God, did undertake the business to do it, not as God only; and withal the wideness of that exception, that the prophecy of Isaiah was written a long time after, and could not give any such right as is pretended. A right is given there in respect of manifestation, not constitution. Isaiah in that prophecy speaks of things to come as past, verses 5, 6, and of things past and present as to come; it reveals, not constitutes a covenant. But he saith, we use to distinguish between the undertaking and accomplishment. Divines use to say that upon man's fall Christ undertook satisfaction, but it was in the fulness of time that he accomplished it. How, therefore, he accomplished it in the undertaking, I do not well see. But that he did perfectly accomplish what he undertook I easily grant. But how you learned divines distinguish I know not. This I know, that such poor men as myself do believe that, as to the efficacy of satisfaction and merit, Christ's undertaking was attended with no less than his actual accomplishment of what he undertook, or we know not how to grant salvation to the saints under the old testament. It was concerning their efficacy as to merit, not their distinction between themselves, that I spake.

These things being premised, Mr B. proceeds to answer may arguments, which were produced to prove that upon the death of Christ there was a right obtained for the elect to all the benefits of his death, this right residing in the justice of God, or in the equalling of these things by divine constitution (as I fully declared in the place by Mr B. opposed). Upon the interposing of some expressions, in the process of my discourse, of the grant being made to the elect, and mentioning of their right (which in what sense they were to be taken I expressly declared), Mr B. takes advantage to answer them all with this intendment put upon them, that they aimed to prove a subjective personal right, which at any time they may plead, when the utmost that my words can be extended unto is, that they have it ex fœdere, not realiter, for the subject of it I place elsewhere. Now, if Mr B. will send me word that he supposes he hath answered my arguments as they were proposed to my own purpose, I will promise, if I live, to return him an answer. In the meantime, I shall have no itch to be scribbling to no purpose. "Ego me, tua causa, ne erres, non rupturus sum." Yet of the whole he may for the present be pleased to receive the ensuing account, both as to the nature of a jus and its application.

For the description of jus, Mr B. relies on Grotius; and something also he mentions out of Sayrus. Grotius, in the first chapter of his book "De Jure Belli et Pacis," in the sections transcribed (in part) by Mr B. and some others, expresses, in his way, the distinction given at the beginning both of the Institutions and Digests about jus, and those also which they handle under the head "de statu." So do all men commonly that write of that subject. How exactly this is done by Grotius, those who are learned in the law will judge. For my part, I am so far at liberty as not to be concluded by his bare affirmation either as to law or gospel. Yet neither doth he exclude the right by me intended. He tells us, indeed, that facultas, which the lawyers call sui, is that which properly and strictly he intends to call jus. But the other member of the distinction he terms aptitudo; which though in a natural sense it respects the subject immediately, yet he tells you that in the sense of Michael Ephesius, which he contradicts not, it is but τὸ πρέπον, "id quod convenit," which respects only the order of things among themselves. And though out of Aristotle he calls it also ἀξιά, yet that word (as he also afterward expounds it out of Cicero) is of much a lower signification than many imagine. This τὸ πρέπον is that which I assert; and Sayrus' definition of jus ad rem may also be allowed.

But for others, jus artificially is ars boni et œqui, Ponz. de Lamiis, num. 14, tom. xi. Jus Gregor. p. 2, and D. D., cap. i. Celsus; though some dispute against this definition, as Conanus, Comment. Jur. Civil, lib. i. cap. i. That which is œquum is the subject of it. So the comedian, "Quid cum illis agas, qui neque jus, neque bonum, neque æquum sciunt," Terent. Heauton. iv. 1, 29;—all terms equipollent. And in this sense, one that is not born may have a jus, if it be in a thing that is profitable to him: "Quod dicimus eum qui nasci speratur pro superstite esse, tune verum est, cum de ipsius jure quæritur, alias non prodest, nisi natus sit," Paulus de Verbor. Significat.; which one interpretation will overbear, with me, a hundred modern exceptioners, if they should deny that a man may be said to have a right unless he himself be the immediate subject of the right, as if it were a natural accident inherent to him. So is it in the case proposed by Cicero in secundo [libro] de Inventione, 42: "Pater-familias cum liberorum nihil haberet, uxorem autem haberet, in testaments ita scripsit, 'Si mihi filius genitus fuerit unus, pluresve, is mihi hæres esto.' " The father dies before the son is born; a right accrues to him that is not born. Such a right, I say, there is, although this right is not immediately actionable. Gaius tells us that "actio est prosecutio juris sui." This jus suum is that which Grotius calls facultas, and is jus proprie et stricte dictum. And this jus suum I did not Intend in that I said it was not actionable: and therefore, whereas Conanus says that "nullum est jus, cui non sit aut a natura, aut a lege data quædam obligatio, tanquam comes et adjutrix," Comment. Jur. Civil. lib. ii. cap. i., which obligation is the foundation of action, it is evident that he intends jus proprie et stricte dictum; for Gaius distinguisheth between jus utendi, fruendi, and jus obligationis, D. lib. i. 1, 8, which he could not do if all and every right had an obligation attending it. And such is that right whereof we speak. If any one thinks to plead it, he will be like him whom the lawyers call "agentem sine actione," of whom they dispute "an liceat ei experiri," and whether his plea be to be admitted; concerning which the variety of cases and opinions are repeated by Menochius de Arbit. Judic. lib. i. qu. 16, 2.

And such a jus as this ariseth "ex contractibus innominatis!" for as "jus ex innominato contractu oritur, quum ex parte debentis, implere id quod convenerat, impletum eat," Ludovic. Roman. Consul, lxxxvi. p. 23; so "ex contractu innominato, non transeunt actiones sine mandato," as Bartholus tells us: for though the covenant between Father and Son, whence this right ariseth, be not in itself of the nature of a "contractus innominatus, do ut des," yet to them it is of that import. Hence the Socinians, who are skilled in the law, though they wholly suspend the actual obtaining of remission of sins upon the fulfilling of the conditions required, do yet grant that a plenary jus or right of obtaining forgiveness of sins was given to all in the death of Christ: "Jam vero quidnam mediator fœderis, ab una paciscentium parte legatus, et ipsius sponsor constitutus, ac quoddam veluti testamentum ejus nomine constituens, qua talis est, aliud præstat, quam ut jus alteri parti, et jus quidem plenum largiatur, ad fœderis hujus, aut testamenti promissa consequenda; obstringit nimirum atque obligat promissorem qui ipsum obligaverat ad servanda fœderum promissa, eaque rata prorsus habenda," Crell. de Caus. Mort. Christi, p. 9. So, in the common speech of the ancients, Budæus tells us that "bonum jus dicere" is as much as that which is now vulgarly expressed, "requesta tua rationabilis est." If there be an equity in the thing, there is a jus belonging to the person. Any thing that made it equitable that a man should be regarded, they called his jus; whence is his complaint in Plautus, finding himself every way unworthy: "Sine modo et modestia sum, sine bono jure atque honore:" Bachid. and Paulus, in lib. iii. ff. de servitut. urb. præd., "Ne jus sit vicino invitis nobis altius ædificare." It were very facile, both from lawyers and most approved authors, to multiply instances of this large acceptation of the word jus, or right. And whether the grant of the Father and purchase of the Mediator, before mentioned, be not sufficient to constitute or denominate such a jus or right in them for whom and whose profit and benefit the grant is made, I question not. Again, consider that of Paulus lib. xi. ad Edict. D.D. de verb, signif. tit. 16: "Princeps bona concedendo, videtur etiam obligationem concedere;" which adds a propriety to the "jus," as was showed before. Yet that it should be presently actionable doth not follow: "Actio est jus persequendi in judicio, quod sibi debetur," Institut. lib. iv. de action. Every "jus ad rem" is not "jus persequendi in judicio;" whence is the gloss of Aldobrandinus on that place: "Nec facias magnam vim ibi; quia cum multas habeat significationes hæc dictio jus, ut ff. de inst. et jus l: p. et, si, hoc est unum de significatis ejus, ut dicatur jus agendi vel persequendi." Besides, it must be quod sibi debetur, that is, actionable, the obligation whence that debitum arises being, as the lawyers speak, mater actionis. But yet even "debere" itself is of so large and various signification in the law, both in respect to things and persons, as will not admit of any determinate sense unless otherwise restrained, ff. de verb. signif. b. pecuniæ, sect. 8, si. Yea, and on the other side, sometimes a plea may lie where there is no debitum: "Quandoque ago etiam ad id quod mihi non debetur; R. de pact. 1, si pacto quo pœnam; nam ibi non ago ad id quod est debitum, sed ad id quod ex nudo pacto convenit:" that Mr B. may know what to do with his schemes of actions, produced on the account of my assertions.

This for the word and my use of it. I hope, in the things of God, about words I shall not much contend. I had rather, indeed, insist on the propriety of words in the originals, their use in the law and amongst men, so all be regulated by the analogy of faith, than square the things of God to the terms and rules of art and philosophy; to which, without doubt, they will not answer. Let any man living express any doctrine of the gospel whatever in the exactest manner, with artificial, philosophical terms, and I will undertake to show that in many things the truth is wrested and fettered thereby, and will not bear an exact correspondence with them; yet hence are many of our learned strifes, which as they have little of learning in them, so for my part I value them not at a nut-shell, properly so called.

This being premised, his answers to my arguments may very briefly be considered.

My first argument is, It is justum that they should have the fruits of the death of Christ bestowed on them, therefore they have jus unto them; for "jus est quod justum est."

1. Mr B. denies the consequence, and says though it be justum, yet they may not be subjects of this jus. To this I have answered by showing what is jus in general, and what is their jus, and where fixed.

2. He questions the antecedent; for the confirmation whereof, and its vindication from his exceptions, I refer the reader to what I had written of the covenant between the Father and the Son some good while before I saw Mr B.'s animadversions, or [knew] that they were public.

My second is, That which is procured for any one, thereunto he hath a right; the thing that is obtained is granted by him of whom it is obtained, and that to them for whom it is obtained. To this it is answered,—

1. In the margin, "That I should make great changes in England if I could make all the lawyers believe this strange doctrine." But of what the lawyers believe or do not believe Mr B. is no competent judge,—be it spoken without disparagement,—for the law is not his study. I, who, perhaps, have much less skill than himself, will be bound at any time to give him twenty cases out of the civil and canon law to make good this assertion; which if he knows not that it may be done, he ought not to speak with such confidence of these things. Nay, amongst our own lawyers (whom perhaps he intends), I am sure he may be informed that if a man intercede with another to settle his land by conveyance to a third person, giving him that conveyance to keep in trust until the time come that he should by the intention of the conveyer enjoy the land, though he for whom it is granted have not the least knowledge of it, yet he hath such a right unto the land thereby created as cannot be disannulled. But,—

2. He says, "That the fruits of the death of Christ are procured for us finaliter, not subjectivè."

Ans. They are procured for us objectivè, are granted "ex adæquatione rerum," and may make us subjects of the right, though not of the things themselves which it regards; may, I say, though I do not say it doth. The following similitudes of my horse and a king have no correspondency with this business at all. Of the right of horses there is nothing in the law; in the latter, there is nothing omitted in the comparison but merit and purchase, which is all.

Thirdly, All the fruits of the death of Christ are obtained and procured by his merit for them for whom he died.

Mr B.:—

"1. Not all, not the same measure of sanctification for one as for another; not faith for all for whom he died as for his elect."

"2. He procured it for us as the finis cui, not subjects of the present right."

Ans. 1. The substance of the fruits of the death of Christ and the ultimate end belong to his purchase; the measure and degrees of them to the Father's sovereign disposal, ad ornatum universi.

2. It is most false that Christ did not purchase faith for all for whom he died.

3. What our right is hath been before delivered; the finis cui and subject of a present right are not very accurately opposed.

4. The nature of merit infers an attendant right, Rom. 4:4.

Mr B.;—

"If this be your debt, you may say, 'Lord, I have merited salvation in Christ, therefore it is mine of debt.' Christ hath of debt the right to pardon you; you have no debt," etc.

Ans. Very good, but I use no forms of prayer of other men's composing. Who said it was our debt? who says our right is actionable? The whole here intended is, that Christ meriting pardon of sins for the elect, it is just they should obtain it in the appointed season. Such another prayer as that here mentioned doth Mr B. afterward compose, in a suitableness, as he supposes, to my principles; but what may he not do or say!

Fourthly, He for whom a ransom is paid hath a right to his liberty by virtue of that payment.

Mr B.:—

"All unproved, and by me unbelieved. If you pay a sum to the Turk for a thousand slaves, thereby buying them absolutely into your own power, I do not believe that they have any more right to freedom than they had before. If a prince pay a ransom for some traitors to the king his father, thereby purchasing to himself a dominion or a propriety over them, so that they are absolutely his, yet I think it gives them no more right than they had before."

Ans. 1. I suppose it is not yet determined that this business is to be regulated absolutely according to what Mr B. thinks or believes; for I must needs say that whether he believes it or no, I am still of the same mind that I was.

He for whom a ransom is paid hath a right to a deliverance, as to him to whom the ransom was paid. If Mr B. believe not this, let him consult the civil lawyers, with whom he is so conversant, tit. de pact.

2. I say that the law of redemption requires that the redeemed be at the disposal of the redeemer, where he hath no plea jure postiliminii; and it is most certain that Christ hath a dominion over his elect (for a "propriety over them" I understand not); yet that dominion is the proximate end of the death of Christ, under the potion of a ransom, price, or purchase (which yet are of various considerations also), is the πρῶτον ψεῦδος of this discourse.

Having given this specimen of Mr B.'s answers to my instances, as an addition to the former explication given of my judgment in this business, I shall not farther trouble the reader with the consideration of what of that same kind ensues.

To tell the whole truth, I expressed the effects of the death of Christ in the manner above mentioned, to obviate that stating of his satisfaction and the use of it which I had observed to be insisted on by the Remonstrants in their Apology, and in other writings of theirs, but especially by Episcopius. For some time I met not with any great opposition made to the expressions of their imaginations in this business, but only what was briefly remarked by the Leyden professors in their "Specimina." Of late I find Voetius reckoning it among the principal controversies that we have with the enemies of the cross of Christ. I shall set down his words about it, and leave them to the consideration of them who may think themselves concerned in them.

His words in his disputation "de Merito Christi," anno 1650, are:—

"Secunda controversia capitalis quæ Christianismo cum quibusdam heterodoxis (Remonstrantibus scilicet in Belgio, viris, si non Socinianæ, saltem dubiæ theologiæ) intercedit, est de merito Christi pro nobis, hoc est, vice et loco nostro, et sic in bonum nostrum actualiter præstito, seu de satisfactione plena ac proprie dictâ a Christo sponsore, loco nostro justitiæ divinæ præstita: illi satisfactionem et meritum sic accipiunt quasi nihil aliud sit, quam partis offenses talis placatio qua offenso hactenus satisfit, ut in gratiam redire velit cum eo qui offendit, et per quam Christus Deo Patri jus et voluntatem acquisiverit novum fœdus ineundi cum hominibus."

So he. The expression of our dying with Christ is fallen upon again, p. 226; of which he desires leave to speak as confidently as myself. Truly, I thought he had not been to ask leave for that now. But why may he not use it without leave as well as others? Some perhaps will say, "Mira edepol sunt, ni hic in ventrem sumpsit confidentiam," to consider what he hath written already. But with this leave he falls a conjecturing at what I mean by that expression, to no purpose at all, as may be seen by what I have delivered concerning it. The like I may say, by the way, to the passage mentioned of the right which ariseth from the decree of God. It seems to me that what God hath decreed to do for any, that is or may be a real privilege to him, it is jus, ex justitia condecentiœ, that in the appointed season he should receive it. If Mr B. be otherwise minded I cannot help it; "habeo aliquid magis ex memet et majus," than that I should attend to the disputes thereabout; nor will I stand in his way if I can choose, for he seems to cry, "Ad terram dabo et dentilegos omnes mortales faciam quemque offendero," Plaut. cap. iv. 1, 29.

After this I find not myself particularly smitten, until he comes, at the close of the chapter, to talk of idem and tantidem, unless it be in his passage, p. 274. That which makes me suspect that I am there intended is his former imputation of some such thing unto me, namely, that I should say that the deputation of Christ in our stead is an act of pardon. But I suppose that I have so fully satisfied him as to that surmise, by showing that not only my sense, but my expressions were, not that the deputation of Christ was our pardon, but that the freedom of pardon did in part depend thereon, that I will not take myself in this place to be concerned, because I cannot do it and prevent the returnal of a charge of some negligence on this person, whose writings seem sufficiently to free him from all just suspicion thereof. In the close of this discourse (with the method of a new line) Mr B. falls upon the consideration of the payment made by Christ in our stead, or the penalty that he underwent for us, and pleads that it was not the idem that was due to us, but tantundem. Although some say this difference is not tantidem, as some speak, it seems yet he is resolved of the contrary, and that this one assertion is the bottom of all Antinomianism. Seeing I profess myself to be contrary minded, I suppose it will be expected that I should consider what is here to the purpose in hand insisted on by Mr B. What I intend by paying the idem, or rather undergoing the idem, that we should have done, I have so fully elsewhere expressed that I shall not stay the reader with the repetition of it. But, says Mr B., this subverts the substance of religion: ἰδοὺ Ῥὸδος, ἰδοὺ πήδημα. Now you shall have the proofs of it. Saith he,—

"The idem is the perfect obedience or the full punishment of the man himself, and in case of personal disobedience, it is personal punishment that the law requires,—that is, supplicium ipsius delinquentis."

Ans. But the idem that we should pay or undergo is perfect obedience to the law, and proportionable punishment, by God's constitution, for disobedience. This Christ paid and underwent. That the man himself should undergo it is the law originally, but the undergoing or doing of it by another is the undergoing of the idem, I think. It is personal punishment that the law originally requires; but he that undergoes the punishment (though he be not personally disobedient) which the law judgeth to him that was personally disobedient, undergoes the idem that the law requires.

The idem is supplicium delinquenti debitum by whomsoever it be undergone, not supplicium ipsius delinquentis only. He proceeds:—

"The law never threatened a surety, nor granted any liberty of substitution; that was an act of God above the law; therefore Christ did not undergo the idem."

I deny the consequence; nor is the least shadow of proof made of it. The question is not whether Christ be the sinner, but whether he underwent that which was due to the sinner. He adds:—

"If, therefore, the thing due was paid, it was we ourselves morally or legally that suffered."

I know not well what is meant by "morally;" but, however, I deny the consequence. The thing itself was paid by another for us, and the punishment itself was undergone by another in our stead.

That which follows falls with that which went before, being built thereon:—

"It could not be ourselves legally," saith he, "because it was not ourselves naturally."

Though for the security of the hypothesis opposed there is no need of it, yet I deny this proposition also, if taken universally. A man may be accounted to do a thing legally by a sponsor, though he do it not in his own person. But he says,—

"If it had been ourselves legally, the strictest justice could not have denied us a present deliverance, 'ipso facto,' seeing no justice can demand any more than the 'idem quod debitur' " (as Mr B.'s printer speaks.)

But,—1. It is supposed that all legal performance of any thing by any one must be done in his own person.

2. It supposes that there is such an end as deliverance assigned, or assignable, to the offender's own undergoing of the penalty, which is false.

3. The reasons and righteousness of our actual deliverance, at the time and in the manner prescribed by God (and, as to the latter, revealed in the gospel), upon Christ's performance of personal obedience and undergoing the penalty due to us in our stead, which are founded in the economy of the Trinity, voluntarily engaged into for the accomplishing the salvation of the elect, I have elsewhere touched on, and may, if I find it necessary, hereafter handle at large.

That which is feared in this business is, that if the idem be paid, then, according to the law, the obligation is dissolved and present deliverance follows. But if by "the law" be meant the civil law, whence these terms are borrowed, it is most certain that any thing, instead of that which is in the obligation, doth, according to the rules of the law, dissolve the obligation, and that whether it be paid by the principal debtor or delinquent, or any for him. The beginning of that section, "Quibus modis tollitur obligatio," lib. iii. Instit., will evince this sufficiently. The title of the section is,—

"Si solvitur ID quod debctur, vel ALIUD loco illius, consentiente creditore, omnis tollitur obligatio, tum rei principalis, quam fide-jussoris."

The words of the law itself are more full:—

"Tollitur autem omnis obligatio solutione EJUS quod debetur; vel siquis consentiente creditore ALIUD pro ALIO solverit; nec interest quis solverit, utrum IPSE qui debet, an ALIUS pro eo: liberatur enim et alio solvente, sive sciente, sive ignorante debitore, vel invito, ea solutio fiat. Si fide-jussor solverit, non enim ipse solus liberatur, sed reus."

So that there is no difference in the law whether "solutio" be "ejusdem" or "tantidem;" and this is the case in the things that are "ex maleficio, aut quasi," as may be seen at large in the commentators on that place.

To caution all men against the poison of Antinomian doctrines, now so strenuously opposed by Mr B., and to deliver students from the unhappy model of theology which the men of the preceding contests have entangled themselves and others withal, Mr B. seriously advises them to keep in their minds and "carefully to distinguish between the will of God's purpose and his precepts or law," his determining and commanding will, in the first place; the ignorance whereof, it seems, confounded the theology of Dr Twisse, Pemble, and others.

Nextly, that "they would carefully distinguish between the covenant between the Father and the Son about the work of his mediation, and the covenant of grace and mercy confirmed to the elect in his blood."

Now, if these two distinctions, as carefully heeded and as warily observed as we are able, will prove such an antidote against the infection, for my part in all probability I shall be secure, having owned them ever since I learned my catechism.

Καὶ ταῦτα μὲν δὴ ταῦτα.

And so am I dismissed. This may perhaps be the close of this controversy; if otherwise, I am indifferent. On the one side it will be so. I delight not in these troubled waters. If I must engage again in the like kind, I shall pray that He from whom are all my supplies would give me a real humble frame of heart, that I may have no need, with many pretences and a multitude of good words, to make a cloak for a spirit breaking frequently through all with sad discoveries of pride and passion, and to keep me from all magisterial insolence, pharisaical, supercilious self-conceitedness, contempt of others, and every thing that is contrary to the rule whereby I ought to walk.

If men be in haste to oppose what I have delivered about this business, let them (if they please, I have no authority to prescribe them their way) speak directly to the purpose, and oppose that which is affirmed, and answer my reasons in reference to that end only for which by me they are produced and insisted on.

Because I see some men have a desire to be dealing with me, and yet know not well what to fix upon, that I may deliver them from the vanity of contending with their own surmises, and, if it be possible, prevail with them to speak closely, clearly, and distinctly, to the matter of their contests, and not mix heterogeneous things in the same discourse, I will briefly shrive myself, for their satisfaction.

First, then, I do not believe that any man is actually justified from eternity, because of that of the apostle, Rom. 8:28–30. But yet what is the state of things in reference to the economy of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, engaged in from eternity for the salvation of sinners, with that fountain union that is between Christ and his body in their predestination, I shall desire a little more time to deliver myself unto.

Secondly, I do believe that there was a covenant, compact, or agreement, between Father and Son for the salvation of the elect by his mediation; which, upon sin's entering into the world, had an efficacy and effect of the very same nature with that which it hath when he hath actually accomplished what was on his part required for the end proposed to him, and that therefore in the Old Testament his death is spoken of sometimes as past, Isa. 53:4–6; and that to make this covenant in its constitution to be contemporary to its revelation, or the promises of it to be then made to Christ when the church is acquainted that those promises are made, is a wide mistake.

But under what consideration the elect lie unto God upon the transaction of this original covenant with the Mediator, I desire liberty for a while, as above.

Thirdly, I do not believe that the elect that live after the death of Christ are all actually in their own persons justified and absolved at his death, because the wrath of God abides on men that believe not, John 3:36; but yet what to the advantage of the church is inwrapped in the discharge of their great Representative, who died in their stead (for that I believe also, and not only "for their good"), I desire respite for my thoughts, as formerly.

Fourthly, I do believe that Christ underwent the very same punishment for us, for the nature and kind of it, which we were obnoxious unto, and should have undergone had not he undertaken for us, and paid the idem that we should have done, 2 Cor. 5:21, Gal. 3:13.

Fifthly, I believe that upon the death of Christ, considering what hath been said before concerning the compact or agreement between God and the Mediator about that matter, it became just and righteous, with reference to God's justice, as supreme governor and moderator of the creatures and all their concernments, that those for whom he died should all be made partakers of all the good things which Christ by his death procured for them, in the season appointed by the sovereign will of God; but that this right, though indissoluble, is so actually vested in them as to be actionable in the gospel without faith, I believe not.

Sixthly, I believe that all spiritual blessings, mercies, privileges whatever, are fruits of the death of Christ, and that, notwithstanding the order wherein they stand one to another, they all depend immediately on its causality, though "respectu termini" they have not a natural immediation.

Seventhly, I profess that we are absolved, pardoned, and justified, for Christ's sake, and therefore that Christ is reckoned to us, or made righteousness to us, in order of nature antecedently to all those things which for his sake we do receive, and are made partakers of with and by him, etc.

For a close of all, I must profess that I will not contend with any man who discovers in himself such a resolution θέσιν διαφυλάττειν, that if he be pressed, rather than let it go, he will go backward, and attempt ἀκίνητα κινεῖν, and to question common received principles, knowing the multitude of errors and abominations that the church of God hath been pestered withal by men of that principle and practice. Hence are the beginnings of men modest, but their endings desperate; hence is Arminianism ended in Episcopianism, and Arianism in Socinianism, and in many, Socinianism in Mohammedanism and atheism. If I find this resolution and spirit in any man, he shall rather enjoy his own present conceits than by me be precipitated into worse abominations. Nor shall I (the Lord assisting) be unmindful of that of the apostle, 1 Tim. 6:3–5, Εἴ τις ἑτεροδιδασκαλεῖ, καὶ μὴ προσίρχεται ὑγιαίνουσι λόγοις τοῖς τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, καὶ τῇ κατʼ εὐσέζειαν διδασκαλίᾳ, τετύφωται, μηδὲν ἐπιστάμενος, ἀλλὰ νοσῶν περὶ ζητήσεις καὶ λογομαχίας, ἐξ ὧν γίνεται φθόνος, ἔρις, βλασφημίαι, ὑπόνοιαι πονηραὶ, παραδιατριζαί, etc.; as also that of the same apostle, Tit. 3:9, Μωρὰς δὲ ζητήσεις, καὶ γενεαλογίας, καὶ ἔρεις, καὶ μάχας νομιχὰς περεΐστασο· εἰσὶ γὰρ ἀνωφελεῖς καὶ μάταιοι. If I must contend with any, as I am resolved for the matter προτιμᾷν τὴν ἀλήθειαν, so for the manner of handling it, it shall not be my endeavour to cloud and darken things easy, trite, common in themselves, with new, dark, artificial expressions, but rather to give plainness and perspicuity to things hard and difficult, confirming them with the authority of Scripture, opened by the import of the words insisted on and design of the Holy Ghost in their contexture. Nor will I contend with any whose motto is that of him in Plautus, "Dicat quod quisque vult, ego de hac sententia non dimovebor," or that hath thoughts of his own notions like those of him in Nævius, who cried out, "Primum quod dicebo recte, secundum quod dicebo eo melius." And as my aim is to know Christ and him crucified; to exalt him, and ascribe to him the pre-eminence in all things; to discover the whole of our salvation, and glory of God thereby, centred in his person and mediation, with its emanation from thence, through the efficacy of the eternal Spirit; and all our obedience to receive life, power, and vigour from thence only, knowing that it is the obedience of faith, and hath its foundation in blood and water: so I equally abhor all doctrines that would take self out of the dust, make something of that which is worse than nothing, and spin out matter for a web of peace and consolation from our own bowels, by resolving our acceptation with God into any thing in ourselves; and those that by any means would intercept the efficacy of the death and cross of Christ from its work of perpetual and constant mortification in the hearts of believers, or cut off any obligation unto obedience or holiness that by the discovery of the will of God, either in the law or gospel, is put upon the redeemed ones of the Lord.

Τὰς δὲ μωρὰς καὶ ἀπαιδεύτους ζητήσεις παραιτοῦ, εἰδὼς ὅτι γεννῶσι μάχας, 2 Tim. 2:23.

A REVIEW OF THE ANNOTATIONS OF HUGO GROTIUS

IN REFERENCE UNTO THE

DOCTRINE OF THE DEITY AND SATISFACTION OF CHRIST;

WITH

A DEFENCE OF THE CHARGE FORMERLY LAID AGAINST THEM

PREFATORY NOTE

———

HENRY HAMMOND, the chaplain of Charles I., and the sub-dean of Christ Church, Oxford, from which office he was expelled by the Parliamentary visitors in 1648, was a divine of eminent learning, and, besides other works, was the author of "Annotations on Scripture," which still deserve to be consulted, although disfigured by his habit of explaining much in the New Testament by reference to the Gnostic heresy. He was the opponent of Owen on several questions, relating to the nature of church-government, the authority of the Ignatian Epistles, and the orthodoxy of Hugo Grotius.

In 1617 Grotius published a refutation of the errors of Faustus Socinus, entitled, "A Defence of the Catholic Faith concerning the Satisfaction of Christ." Though opposed to the Socinians, the work was not deemed in perfect harmony with orthodox sentiment. Ravensperger in consequence assailed him, in a work entitled, "Judicium de Libro Grotii," etc. G. J. Vossius came to his defence in the following year. On the part of the Socinians, Crellius replied to Grotius. A complimentary letter from the latter to his opponent confirmed the suspicions entertained of his own orthodoxy. Crellius was answered by Essenius, Velthuysenius, and Stillingfleet.

Owen, in the preface to his treatise on the "Perseverance of the Saints," had alluded to Dr Hammond as indebted to Grotius "for more than one rare notion" in his expositions of Scripture. An elaborate reply to the whole argument of Dr Owen against the Ignatian Epistles, contained in the same preface, appeared in 1655 from the pen of Hammond, and under the title, "An Answer to the Animadversions on the Dissertations concerning the Epistles of Ignatius." In the course of it, a digression was introduced vindicating Grotius from charges which Owen certainly had not mooted, but in which, to a certain extent, he could not refrain from concurring. These charges were, that towards the close of his life the learned Dutchman had veered towards Socinianism, and had become favourable to the interests of the church of Rome. In regard to the charge of Socinian leanings, it was founded partly on his letter to Crellius, partly on certain expressions which fell from him on his death-bed, and partly on his Scholia on the Bible. Two volumes of these Scholia appeared in 1641 and 1644, before the death of Grotius; and two, one including the Acts and the Epistles of Paul and James, and the other including the six Catholic Epistles and the Revelation, were published posthumously in 1646 and 1650. These Scholia contain expositions of Scripture which differ considerably from what Grotius had given in his work "De Satisfactione Christi." Hammond argues that his letter to Crellius was but an interchange of civilities, in which he was not called to discuss the points of controversy between them; gives a different version of his death-bed utterances; and maintains that the posthumous Scholia, because contrary to the opinions which he avowed in his lifetime, were notes taken by Grotius in the course of his reading, and by no means to be regarded as expressing his own views. Owen, in his "Vindiciæ Evangelicæ," proceeded to trace the perfect correspondence between Grotius and the Socinians, in their exegesis of those passages in Scripture which relate to the person of Christ. Hammond issued his "Second Defence of Grotius." Owen answered him in the following treatise; and was answered by his indefatigable adversary in "A Continuation of the Defence of Grotius." If the position of Owen had been that Grotius was in reality a Socinian, he would have been worsted in this collision with Hammond; but he guards himself against being supposed to assume it, making express admission that Grotius allowed one text to be proof of the Saviour's Godhead. That Grotius played into the hands of the enemy, by the surrender of almost every other scriptural fortress in defence of this cardinal doctrine, and spoke of it in terms which betokened no very cordial appreciation of its importance, is what Owen asserted, and what cannot be disproved, except by the most worthless special pleading. Hammond could only make out his case for Grotius by denying all authority to his posthumous Annotations, "which," says he, "I deem not competent measures to judge him by."—ED.

A SECOND CONSIDERATION

OF

THE ANNOTATIONS OF HUGO GROTIUS

———

HAVING, in my late defence of the doctrine of the gospel from the corruptions of the Socinians, been occasioned to vindicate the testimonies given in the Scripture to the deity of Christ from their exceptions, and finding that Hugo Grotius, in his Annotations, had (for the most part) done the same things with them as to that particular, and some other important articles of the Christian faith, that book of his being more frequent in the hands of students than those of the Socinians, I thought it incumbent on me to do the same work in reference to those Annotations which it was my design to perform towards the writings of Socinus, Smalcius, and their companions and followers. What I have been enabled to accomplish by that endeavour, with what service to the gospel hath been performed thereby, is left to the judgment of them who desire ἀληθεύειν ἐν ἀγάπῃ. Of my dealing with Grotius I gave a brief account in my epistle to the governors of the university, and that with reference to an apology made for him not long before. This hath obtained a new apology, under the name of "A Second Defence of Hugo Grotius;" with what little advantage either to the repute of Grotius as to the thing in question or of the apologist himself, it is judged necessary to give the ensuing account, for which I took the first leisure hour I could obtain, having things of greater weight daily incumbent on me. The only thing of importance by me charged on those Annotations of Grotius was this,—that the texts of Scripture, both in the Old Testament and New, bearing witness to the deity and satisfaction of Christ, are in them wrested to other senses and significations, and the testimonies given to those grand truths thereby eluded. Of those of the first kind I excepted one, yet with some doubt, lest his expressions therein ought to be interpreted according to the analogy of what he had elsewhere delivered; of which afterward.

Because that which concerns THE SATISFACTION OF CHRIST will admit of the easiest despatch, though taking up most room, I shall in the first place insist thereon. The words of my charge on the Annotations, as to this head of the doctrine of the Scripture, are these: "The condition of these famous Annotations as to the satisfaction of Christ is the same;—not one text in the whole Scripture wherein testimony is given to that sacred truth which is not wrested to another sense, or at least the doctrine in it concealed and obscured by them."

This being a matter of fact, and the words containing a crime charged on the Annotations, he that will make a defence of them must either disprove the assertion by instances to the contrary, or else granting the matter of fact, evince it to be no crime. That which is objected in matter of fact "aut negandum est aut defendendum," says Quintilian, lib. v. cap. de Refut., and "extra hæc in judiciis fere nihil est." In other cases, "patronus neget, defendat, transferat, excuset, deprecetur, molliat, minuat, avertat, despiciat, derideat;" but in matters of fact the first two only have place. Aristotle allows more particulars for an apologist to divert unto, if the matter require it. He may say of what is objected, Ἢ ὡς οὐκ ἔστιν, ἢ, ὡς οὐ βλαζερὸν, ἢ οὐ τούτῳ, ἢ ὡς οὐ τηλικοῦτο, ἢ οὐκ ἄδικον, ἢ οὐ μέγα, ἢ οὐκ αἰσχρὸν, ἢ οὐκ ἔχον μέγεθος (Rhet. lib. iii. cap. xv.); all which, in a plain matter of fact, may be reduced to the former heads. That any other apology can or ought to take place in this or any matter of the same importance will not easily be proved. The present apologist takes another course; such ordinary paths are not for him to walk in. He tells us of the excellent book that Grotius wrote, "De Satisfactione Christi," and the exposition of sundry places of Scripture, especially of divers verses of Isa. 53 given therein, and then adds sundry inducements to persuade us that he was of the same mind in his "Annotations;" and this is called a defence of Grotius! The apologist, I suppose, knows full well what texts of Scripture they are that are constantly pleaded for the satisfaction of Christ by them who do believe that doctrine. I shall also for once take it for granted that he might without much difficulty have obtained a sight of Grotius' Annotations; to which I shall only add, that probably, if he could from them have disproved the assertion before mentioned by any considerable instances, he is not so tender of the prefacer's credit as to have concealed it on any such account. But the severals of his plea for the Annotations is this particular, I am persuaded, are accounted by some worthy of consideration. A brief view of them will suffice.

The signal place of Isa. 53, he tells us, "he hath heard taken notice of by some" (I thought it had been probable the apologist might have taken notice of it himself), as that wherein his Annotations are most suspected, therefore on that he will fasten a while. Who would not now expect that the apologist should have entered upon the consideration of those Annotations, and vindicated them from the imputations insinuated? but he knew a better way of procedure, and who shall prescribe to him what suits his purpose and proposal?

This, I say, is the instance chosen to be insisted on; and the vindication of the Annotations therein by the interpretation given in their author's book, De Satisfactione Christi, is proposed to consideration. That others, if not the apologist himself, may take notice of the emptiness of such precipitate apologies as are ready to be tumbled out without due digestion or consideration, I shall not only compare the Annotations and that book as to the particular place proposed, and manifest the inconsistency of the one with the other, but also, to discover the extreme negligence and confidence which lie at the bottom of his following attempt to induce a persuasion that the judgment of the man of whom we speak was not altered (that is, as to the interpretation of the scriptures relating to the satisfaction of Christ), nor is other [i.e., different] in his Annotations than in that book, I shall compare the one with the other by sundry other instances, and let the world see how, in the most important places contested about, he hath utterly deserted the interpretations given of them by himself in his book De Satisfactione, and directly taken up that which he did oppose.

The apologist binds me, in the first place, to that of Isa. 53, which is ushered in by 1 Pet. 2:24.

"From 1 Pet. 2:24," says the apologist, "Grotius informs us 'that Christ so bare our sins that he freed us from them, so that we are healed by his stripes.' "

This, thus crudely proposed,—Socinus himself would grant it,—is little more than barely repeating the words. Grotius goes farther, and contends that ἀνήνεγκεν, the word there used by the apostle, is to be interpreted "tulit sursum eundo, portavit;" and tells us that Socinus would render this word "abstulit," and so take away the force of the argument from this place. To disprove that insinuation, he urges sundry other places in the New Testament where some words of the same importance are used and are no way capable of such a signification. And whereas Socinus urges to the contrary Heb. 9:28, where he says ἀνενεγκεῖν ἁμαρτίας signifies nothing but "auferre peccata," Grotius disproves that instance, and manifests that in that place also it is to be rendered by "tulit," and to relates to the death of Christ.

That we may put this instance, given us by the apologist to vindicate the Annotations from the crime charged on them, to an issue, I shall give the reader the words of his Annotations on that place. They are as follow:—

Ὁς τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν αὐτὸς ἀνήνεγκεν, etc. "Ἀνήνεγκεν hic est abstulit, quod sequentia ostendunt, quomodo idem verbum sumi notavimus, Heb. 9:28, eodem sensu; ἄιρει ἁμαρτίαν Johan. 1:29; et נָשָׂא et סָבַל, Esa. 53:4, ubi Græci φέρει. Vitia nostra ita interfecit, sicut qui cruci affiguntur interfici solent. Simile loquendi genus, Col. 2:14; vide Rom. 6:6, Gal. 2:20, 5:24. Est autem hic μετάληψις. Non enim proprie Christus cum crucifigeretur vitia nostra abstulit, sed causas dedit per quas auferrentur. Nam crux Christi fundamentum est prædicationis; prædicatio vero pœnitentiæ: pœnitentia vero aufert vitia."

How well the annotator abides here by his former interpretation of this place the apologist may easily discover. 1. There he contends that ἀνήνεγκε is as much as "tulit" or "sursum tulit," and objects out of Socinus that it must be "abstulit," which quite alters the sense of the testimony; here he contends, with him, that it must be "abstulit." 2. There, Heb. 9:28 is of the same importance with this 1 Pet. 2:24, as there interpreted; here, "as here,"—that is in a quite contrary sense, altogether inconsistent with the other. 3. For company, סָבַל, used Isa. 53:4, is called into the same signification, which in the book De Satisfactione he contends is never used in that sense, and that most truly. 4. Upon this exposition of the words he gives the very sense contended for by the Socinians: "Non enim proprie Christus cum crucifigeretur vitia nostra abstulit, sed causas dedit per quas auferrentur." What are these causes? He adds them immediately: "Nam crux Christi fundamentum est prædicationis; prædicatio vero pœnitentiæ: pœnitentia vero aufert vitia." He that sees not the whole Socinian poison wrapped up and proposed in this interpretation is ignorant of the state of the difference as to that head between them and Christians. 5. To make it a little more evident how constant the annotator was to his first principles, which he insisted on in the management of his disputes with Socinus about the sense of this place, I shall add the words of Socinus himself, which then he did oppose:—"Verum animadvertere oportet primum in Græco, verbum, quod interpretes verterunt pertulit, est ἀνενεγκεῖν, quod non pertulit sed abstulit vertendum erat, non secus ac factum fuerit in epistola ad Hebræos, cap. ix. 28, ubi idem legendi modus habetur, unde constat ἀνενεγκεῖν ἀμαρτίας non perferre peccata, sed peccata tollere, sive auferre, significare," Socin. de Jes. Christ. Serv. lib. ii. cap. vi.

What difference there is between the design of the annotator and that of Socinus, what compliance in the quotation of the parallel place of the Hebrews, what direct opposition and head is made in the Annotations against that book De Satisfactione, and how clearly the cause contended for in the one is given away in the other, need no farther to be demonstrated. But if this instance make not good the apologist's assertion, it may be supposed that that which follows, which is ushered in by this, will do it to the purpose. Let, then, that come into consideration.

This is that of Isa. 53. Somewhat of the sense which Grotius in his book De Satisfactione contends for in this place is given us by the apologist:—

The 11th verse of the chapter, which he first considers (in my book, p. 14), he thus proposes and expounds:—"Justificabit servus meus, justus multos et iniquitates ipsorum bajulabit, in Heb. est, וַעֲוֹנֹתָם הוּא יִסְבֹּל. Vox autem עָוֹן iniquitatem significat, atque etiam iniquitatis pœnam, 2 Reg. vii. 9; vox autem סָבַל est sustinere, bajulare, quoties autem bajulare ponitur cum nomine peccati aut iniquitatis, id in omni lingua et maxime in Hebraismo significat pœnas ferre;" with much more to this purpose. The whole design of the main dispute in that place is from that discourse of the prophet to prove that Jesus Christ "properly underwent the punishment due to our sins, and thereby made satisfaction to God for them."

To manifest his constancy to this doctrine, in his Annotations he gives such an exposition of that whole chapter of Isaiah as is manifestly and universally inconsistent with any such design in the words as that which he intends to prove from them in his book De Satisfactione. In particular (to give one instance of this assertion) he contends here that סָבַל is as much as "bajulare, portare," and that joined with "iniquity" (in all languages, especially in the Hebrew), that phrase of "bearing iniquity" signifies to undergo the punishment due to it. In his Annotations on the place, as also in those on 1 Pet. 2:24, he tells you the word signifies "auferre," which with all his strength he had contended against. Not to draw out this particular instance into any greater length, I make bold to tell the apologist (what I suppose he knows not) that there is no one verse of the whole chapter so interpreted in his Annotations as that the sense given by him is consistent with, nay, is not repugnant to, that which from the same verse he pleads for in his book De Satisfactione Christi. If, notwithstanding this information, the apologist be not satisfied, let him, if he please, consider what I have already animadverted on those Annotations, and undertake their vindication. These loose discourses are not at all to the purpose in hand nor to the question between us, which is solely whether Grotius, in his Annotations, have not perverted the sense of those texts of Scripture which are commonly and most righteously pleaded as testimonies given to the satisfaction of Christ. But as to this particular place of Isaiah, the apologist hath a farther plea, the sum whereof (not to trouble the reader with the repetition of a discourse so little to the purpose) comes to this head, that Grotius, in his book De Satisfactione Christi, gives the mystical sense of the chapter, under which consideration it belongs to Christ and his sufferings; in his Annotations, the literal, which had its immediate completion in Jeremiah; which was not so easily discoverable or vulgarly taken notice of. This is the sum of his first observation on this place, to acquit the annotator of the crime charged upon him. Whether he approve the application of the prophecy to Jeremiah or no, I know not. He says, "Grotius so conceived." The design of the discourse seems to give approbation to that conception. How the literal sense of a place should come to be less easily discovered than the mystical, well I know not. Nor shall I speak of the thing itself, concerning the literal and mystical sense supposed to be in the same place and words of Scripture, with the application of the distinction to those prophecies which have a double accomplishment, in the type and thing or person typified (which yet hath no soundness in it): but, to keep to the matter now in hand, I shall make bold, for the removal of this engine applied by the apologist, and for the preventing all possible mistake or controversy about the annotator's after-change in this matter, to tell him that the perverting of the first, literal sense of the chapter, or giving it a completion in any person whatsoever, in a first, second, or third sense, but the Son of God himself, is no less than blasphemy; which the annotator is no otherwise freed from but by his conceiving a sense to be in the words contrary to their literal importance, and utterly exclusive of the concernment of Jesus Christ in them. If the apologist be otherwise minded, I shall not invite him again to the consideration of what I have already written in the vindication of the whole prophecy from the wretched, corrupt interpretation of the annotator (not hoping that he will be able to break through that discouragement he hath from looking into that treatise by the prospect he hath taken of the whole by the epistle), but do express my earnest desire, that, by an exposition of the severals of that chapter, and their application to any other (not by loose discourses foreign to the question in hand), he would endeavour to evince the contrary. If, on second thoughts, he find either his judgment or ability not ready or competent for such an attempt, I heartily wish he would be careful hereafter of ingenerating apprehensions of that nature in the minds of others by any such discourses as this.

I cannot but suppose that I am already absolved from a necessity of any farther procedure as to the justifying of my charge against the Annotations, having sufficiently foiled the instance produced by the apologist for the weakening of it. But yet, lest any should think that the present issue of this debate is built upon some unhappiness of the apologist in the choice of the particulars insisted on, which might have been prevented, or may yet be removed, by the production of other instances, I shall, for their farther satisfaction, present them with sundry other the most important testimonies given to the satisfaction of Christ, wherein the annotator hath openly prevaricated, and doth embrace and propose those very interpretations and that very sense which in his book De Satisfactione Christi he had strenuously opposed.

Page 8 of his book De Satisfactione, he pleads the satisfaction of Christ from Gal. 2:21, laying weight on this, that the word δωρεάν signifies the want of an antecedent cause, on the supposition there made. In his Annotations he deserts this assertion, and takes up the sense of the place given by Socinus, De Servatore, lib. ii. cap. xxiv. His departure into the tents of Socinus on Gal. 3:13 is much more pernicious. Pages 25–27, urging that place and vindicating it from the exceptions of Socinus, he concludes that the apostle said Christ was made a curse: "Quasi dixerit Christum factum esse τῷ Θεῷ ἐπικατάρατον, hoc est pœnæ a Deo irrogatæ, et quidem ignominiosissimæ obnoxium." To make good this, in his Annotations he thus expounds the words: "Duplex hic figura; nam et κατάρα pro κατάρατος, quomodo circumcisio pro circumcisis, et subauditur ὡς: nam Christus ita cruciatus est, quasi esset Deo κατάρατος. Nihil homini pessimo in hac vita pejus evenire poterat;" which is the very interpretation of the words given by Socinus which he opposed, and the same that Crellius insists upon in his vindication of Socinus against him. So uniform was the judgment of the annotator with that of the author of the book De Satisfactione Christi!

Pages 32, 33, etc., are spent in the exposition and vindication of Rom. 3:25, 26. That expression, εἰς ἔνδειξιν τῆς δικαιοσύνης αὐτοῦ, manifesting the end of the suffering of Christ, is by him chiefly insisted on. That by δικαιοσύνη is there intended that justice of God whereby he punisheth sin, he contends and proves from the nature of the thing itself, and by comparing the expression with other parallel texts of Scripture. Socinus had interpreted this of the righteousness of Christ's fidelity and veracity, De Servatore, lib. ii. cap. ii. ("Ut ostenderet se veracem et fidelem esse"); but Crellius, in his vindication of him, places it rather on the goodness and liberality of God, "which is," saith he, "the righteousness there intended." To make good his ground, the annotator thus expounds the meaning of the words: "Vocem δικαιοσύνης malim hic de bonitate interpretari, quam de fide in promissis prœstandis, quia quæ sequuntur non ad Judæos solos pertinent, sed etiam ad gentes, quibus promissio nulla facta erat." He rather, he tells you, embraces the interpretation of Crellius than of Socinus; but for that which himself had contended for, it is quite shut out of doors, as I have elsewhere manifested at large.

The same course he takes with Rom. 5:10, which he insists on p. 26, and 2 Cor. 5:18–21; concerning which he openly deserts his own former interpretation, and closes expressly with that which he had opposed, as he doth in reference to all other places where any mention is made of reconciliation, the substance of his annotations on those places seeming to be taken out of Socinus, Crellius, and some others of that party.

That signal place of Heb. 2:17 in this kind deserves particularly to be taken notice of. Cap. vii. p. 141, of his book De Satisfactione, he pleads the sense of that expression, Εἰς τὸ ἱλάσκεσθαι τὰς ἁμαρτίας τοῦ λαοῦ, to be Ἱλάσκεσθαι Θεὸν περὶ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν, and adds, "Significat ergo ibi expiationem quæ fit placando." But Crellius' defence of Socinus had so possessed the man's mind before he came to write his Annotations, that on that place he gives us directly his sense, and almost his words, in a full opposition to what he had before asserted: "Ἱλάσκεσθαι ἁμαρτίας. Hoc quidem loco, ut ex sequentibus apparet, est auferre peccata, sive purgare a peccato, id est, efficere ne peccetur, vires suppeditando pro modo tentationum." So the annotator on that place, endeavouring farther to prove his interpretation! From Rom. 4:25, cap. i. p. 47 of his book De Satisfactione, he clearly proves the satisfaction of Christ, and evinces that to be the sense of that expression, "Traditus propter peccata nostra;" which he thus comments on in his Annotations: "Poterat dicere qui et mortuus est et resurrexit ut nos a peccatis justificaret, id est, liberaret. Sed amans ἀντίθετα morti conjunxit peccata, quæ sunt mors animi, resurrectioni autem adeptionem justitiœ, quæ est animi resuscitatio. Mirè nos et a peccatis retrahit et ad justitiam ducit, quod videmus Christum mortem non formidasse pro doctrinæ suæ peccatis contrariæ et ad justitiam nos vocantis testimonio; et a Deo suscitatum, ut eidem doctrinæ summa conciliaretur auctoritas." He that sees not, not only that he directly closes in with what before he had opposed, but also that he hath here couched the whole doctrine of the Socinians about the mediation of Christ and our justification thereby, is utterly ignorant of the state of the controversy between them and Christians.

I suppose it will not be thought necessary for me to proceed with the comparison instituted. The several books are in the hands of most students, and that the case is generally the same in the other places pleaded for the satisfaction of Christ, they may easily satisfy themselves. Only, because the apologist seems to put some difference between his Annotations on the Revelation, as having "received their lineaments and colours from his own pencil," and those on the Epistles, which he had not so completed; as I have already manifested that in his annotations on that book he hath treacherously tampered with and corrupted the testimonies given to the deity of our blessed Saviour, so shall I give one instance from them also of his dealing do less unworthily with those that concern his satisfaction.

Socinus, in his second book against Covet, second part, and chap. xvii, gives us this account of these words of the Holy Ghost, Rev. 1:5, "Who loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood:" "Johannes in Apocalyp. cap. 1:5, alia metaphora seu translatione (quæ nihil aliud est quam compendiosa quædam comparatio) utens, dixit de Christo et ejus morte, 'Qui dilexit nos et lavit nos a peccatis in sanguine suo,' nam quemadmodum aqua abluuntur sordes corporis, sic sanguine Christi peccata, quæ sordes animi sunt, absterguntur. Absterguntur, inquam, quia animus noster ab ipsis mundatur," etc. This interpretation is opposed and exploded by Grotius, De Satisfactione, cap. x. p. 208, 209; the substance of it being that Christ washed us from our sins by his death, in that he confirmed his doctrine of repentance and newness of life thereby, by which we are turned from our sins, as he manifests in the close of his discourse. "Hoc sæpius urgendum est," saith Socinus, "Jesum Christum ea ratione peccata nostra abstulisse, quod effecerit, ut a peccando desistamus." This interpretation of Socinus being re-enforced by Crellius, the place falls again under the consideration of Grotius in those Annotations on the Revelation; which, as the apologist tells us, "received their very lineaments and colours from his own pencil." There, then, he gives us this account thereof: "Καὶ λούσαντι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν ἐν τῷ αἵματι αὑτοῦ. Sanguine suo, id est, morte tolerata, certos nos reddidit veritatis eorum quæ docuerat, quæ talia sunt, ut nihil sit aptius ad purgandos a vitiis animos. Humidæ naturæ, sub qua est et sanguis, proprium est lavare. Id vero per egregiam ἀλληγορίαν ad animam transfertur. Dicitur autem Christus suo sanguine nos lavasse, quia et ipse omnia præstitit quæ ad id requirebantur et apparet secutum in plurimis effectum." I desire the apologist to tell me what he thinks of this piece, thus perfected, with all its lineaments and colours, by the pencil of that skilful man, and what beautiful aspect he supposeth it to have. Let the reader, to prevent farther trouble in perusing transcriptions of this kind, consider Rev. 13:8, p. 114; Heb. 9:25 to the end, which he calls "au illustrious place," in the same page and forward; 1 John 2:2, p. 140; Rom. 5:10, 11, p. 142, 143; Eph. 2:16, p. 148, 149; Col. 1:20–22, Tit. 2:14, p. 156; Heb. 9:14, 15, p. 157, 158; Acts 20:28, and many others, and compare them with the annotations on those places, and he will be farther enabled to judge of the defence made of the one by the instance of the other. I shall only desire that he who undertakes to give his judgment of this whole matter be somewhat acquainted with the state of the difference about this point of the doctrine of the gospel between the Socinians and us; that he do not take "auferre peccata" to be "ferre peccata;" "nostri causa" to be "nostra vice" and "nostro loco;" causa προηγουμένη to be προκαταρκτική; "liberatio a jugo peccati" to be "redemptio a reatu peccati;" "subire pœnas simpliciter" to be "subire pœnas nobis debitas;" to be λύτρον," and אָשָׁם, in respect of the event, to be so as to the proper nature of the thing; "offerre seipsum in cœlo," to be as much as "offerre seipsum in cruce," as to the work itself; that so he be not mistaken to think that when the first are granted the latter are so also. For a close of the discourse relating to this head, a brief account may be added why I said not positively that he had wrested all the places of Scripture giving testimony to the satisfaction of Christ to another sense, but that he had either done so or else concealed or obscured that sense in them.

Though I might give instances from one or two places in his Annotations on the Gospels giving occasion to this assertion, yet I shall insist only on some taken from the Epistle to the Hebrews, where is the great and eminent seat of the doctrine of Christ's satisfaction. Although in his annotations on that epistle he doth openly corrupt the most clear testimonies given to this truth, yet there are some passages in them wherein he seems to dissent from the Socinians. In his annotations on chap. 5:5 he hath these words: "Jesus sacerdotale quidem munus suum aliquo modo erat auspicatus; cum semet patri victimam offerret." That Christ was a priest when he was on the earth was wholly denied by Socinus, both in his book De Servatore, and in his epistle to Niemojevius, as I have showed elsewhere. Smalcius seems to be of the same judgment in the Racovian Catechism. Grotius says, "Sacerdotale munus erat aliquo modo auspicatus;" yet herein he goes not beyond Crellius, who tells us, "Mortem Christus subiit duplici ratione, partim quidem ut fœderis mediator seu sponsor, partim quidem ut sacerdos Deo ipsum oblaturus," De Caus. Mort. Christi, p. 6. And so Volkelius fully to the same purpose. "Partes," saith he, "muneris sacerdotis, hæc sunt potissimum; mactatio victimæ, in tabernaculum ad oblationem peragendam ingressio, et ex eodem egressio: ac mactatio quidem mortem Christi, violentam sanguinis profusionem continet," De Relig. lib. iii. cap. xlvii. p. 145. And again: "Hinc colligitur solam Christi mortem nequaquam illam perfectam absolutamque ipsius oblationem (de qua in Epistola ad Hebræos agitur) fuisse, sed principium et præparationem quandam ipsius sacerdotii in cœlo demum administrandi extitisse," ibid. So that nothing is obtained by Grotius' "Munus sacerdotale aliquo modo erat auspicatus," but what is granted by Crellius and Volkelius. But in the next words, "Cum semet offerret patri victimam," he seems to leave them: but he seems only so to do; for Volkelius acknowledgeth that he did slay the sacrifice in his death, though that was not his complete and perfect oblation, which is also afterward affirmed by Grotius, and Crellius expressly affirms the same. Nor doth he seem to intend a proper expiatory and satisfactory sacrifice in that expression; for if he had, he would not have been guilty of such an ἀκυρολογία as to say, "Semet obtulit patri." Besides, though he doth acknowledge elsewhere that this "victima" was אָשָׁם, and ὑπὲρ ἁμαρτιῶν, yet he says in another place (on verse 3), "Sequitur Christum quoque obtulisse pro se ὑπὲρ ἁμαρτιῶν:" giving thereby such a sense to that expression as is utterly inconsistent with a proper expiatory sacrifice for sin. And, which is yet worse, on chap. 9:14 he gives us such an account why expiation is ascribed to the blood of Christ, as is a key to his whole interpretation of that epistle. "Sanguini," saith he, "purgatio ista tribuitur, quia per sanguinem, id est, mortem Christi, secutâ ejus excitatione et evectione, gignitur in nobis fides, quæ deinde fides corda purgat." And, therefore, where Christ is said to offer himself by the eternal Spirit, he tells us, "Oblatio Christi hîe intelligitur illa, quæ oblationi legali in adyto factæ respondet, ea autem est, non oblatio in altari crucis facta, sed facta in adyto cœlesti." So that the purgation of sin is an effect of Christ's presenting himself in heaven only; which how well it agrees with what the apostle says, chap. 1:3, the reader will easily judge. And to manifest that this was his constant sense, on these words, verse 26, Εἰς ἀθέτησιν ἁμαρτίας, διὰ τῆς θυσίας αὑτοῦ, he thus comments: "Εἰς ἀθέτησιν ἁμαρτίας. Ut peccatum in nobis extingueretur; fit autem hoc per passionem Christi, quæ fidem nobis ingenerat, quæ corda purificat." Christ confirming his doctrine by his death, begets faith in us, which doth the work. Of the 28th verse of the same chapter I have spoken before. The same he affirms again more expressly on chap. 10:3; and verses 9, 12, he interprets the oblation of Christ, whereby he took away sin, to be the oblation or offering of himself in heaven, whereby sin is taken away by sanctification, as also in sundry other places where the expiatory sacrifice of Christ on earth, and the taking away of the guilt of sin by satisfaction, are evidently intended. So that notwithstanding the concession mentioned, I cannot see the least reason to alter my thoughts of the Annotations as to this business on hand.

Not farther to abound in causa facili, in all the differences we have with the Socinians about Christ's dying for us, concerning the nature of redemption, reconciliation, mediation, sacrifice, the meaning of all the phrases and expressions in which these things are delivered to us, the annotator is generally on the apostate side throughout his Annotations; and the truth is, I know no reason why our students should with so much diligence and charge labour to get into their hands the books of Socinus, Crellius, Smalcius, and the rest of that crew, seeing these Annotations, as to the most important heads of Christian religion, about the deity, sacrifice, priesthood, and satisfaction of Christ, original sin, free will, justification, etc., afford them the substance and marrow of what is spoken by them; so that as to these heads, upon the matter, there is nothing peculiar to the annotator but the secular learning which in his interpretations he hath curiously and gallantly interweaved. Plautus makes sport, in his Amphitryo, with several persons, some real, some assumed, of such likeness one to another that they could not discern themselves by any outward appearance; which caused various contests and mistakes between them. The poet's fancy raised not a greater similitude between Mercury and Sosia, being supposed to be different persons, than there is a dissimilitude between the author of the book De Satisfactione Christi and of the Annotations concerning which we have been discoursing, being one and the same. Nor was the contest of those different persons, so like one another, so irreconcilable as are these of this single person, so unlike himself in the several treatises mentioned. And I cannot but think it strange that the apologist could imagine no surer measure to be taken of Grotius' meaning in his Annotations than his treatise of the Satisfaction of Christ doth afford, there being no two treatises that I know, of any different persons whatever, about one and the same subject, that are more at variance. Whether now any will be persuaded by the apologist to believe that Grotius was constant in his Annotations to the doctrine delivered in that other treatise I am not solicitous.

For the re-enforced plea of the apologist, that these Annotations were not finished by him, but only collections, that he might after dispose of, I am not concerned in it, having to deal with that book of Annotations that goes under his name. If they are none of his, it is neither on the one hand nor other of any concernment unto me. I say not this as though the apologist had in the least made good his former plea by his new exceptions to my evidence against it, from the printer's preface to the volume of Annotations on the Epistles. He says, "What was the opus integrum that was commended to the care of ὁ δεῖνα?" and answers himself, "Not that last part or volume of Annotations, but opus integrum, the whole volume or volumes that contained his ἀνέκδοτα adversaria on the New Testament." For how ill this agrees with the intention and words of the prefacer, a slight inspection will suffice to manifest. He tells us that Grotius had himself published his Annotations on the Gospels five years before; that at his departure from Paris, he left a great part of this volume (that is this on the Acts and Epistles) with a friend; that the reason why ho left not opus integrum, that is, the whole volume, with him was because the residue of it was not so written as that an amanuensis could well understand it; that, therefore, in his going towards Sweden, he wrote that part again with his own hand, and sent it back to the same person (that had the former part of the volume committed to him) from Hamburg. If the apologist read this preface, he ought, as I suppose, to have desisted from the plea insisted on. If he did not, he thought assuredly he had much reason to despise them with whom he had to do. But, as I said, herein am I not concerned.

The consideration of the charge on the Annotations relating to their tampering with the testimonies given in the Scripture to THE DEITY OF CHRIST, being another head of the whole, may now have place.

The sum of what is to this purpose by me affirmed is, that in the Annotations on the Old and New Testament, Grotius hath left but one place giving testimony clearly to the deity of Christ. To this assertion I added both a limitation and also an enlargement in several respects;—a limitation, that I could not perceive he had spoken of himself clearly on that one place. On supposition that he did so, I granted that perhaps one or two places more might accordingly be interpreted. That this one place is John 1:1, I expressly affirmed; that is the one place wherein, as I say, he spake not home to the business. The defence of the apologist in the behalf of Grotius consists of sundry discourses:—First, To disprove that he hath [not] left more than that one of John free from the corruption charged, he instances in that one of John 1:1, wherein, as he saith, he expressly asserts the deity of Christ; but yet wisely foreseeing that this instance would not evade the charge, having been expressly excepted (as to the present inquiry) and reserved to farther debate, he adds the places quoted by Grotius in the exposition of that place, as Prov. 8:21–27, Isa. 45:12, 48:13, 2 Pet. 3:5, Col. 1:16: from all which he concludes that the Annotations have left more testimonies to the deity of Christ untampered withal and unperverted than my assertion will allow, reckoning them all up again, section the 10th, and concluding himself a successful advocate in this case, or at least under a despair of over being so in any if he acquit not himself clearly in this. If his failure herein be evinced by the course of his late writings, himself will appear to be most concerned. I suppose, then, that on the view of this defence, men must needs suppose that in the annotations on the places repeated, and mustered a second time by the apologist, Grotius does give their sense as bearing witness to the deity of Christ. Others may be pleased to take it for granted without farther consideration; for my part, being a little concerned to inquire, I shall take the pains to turn to the places, and give the reader a brief account of them.

For Prov. 8, his first note on the wisdom there spoken of is, "Hæc de ea sapientia quæ in Lege apparet exponunt Hebræi: et sane ei, si non soli, at præcipue hæc attributa conveniunt." Now, if the attributes here mentioned agree either solely or principally to the wisdom that shines in the law, how they can be the attributes of the person of the eternal Son of God I see not. He adds no more to that purpose until he comes to the 22d verse, the verse of old contested about with the Arians. His words on that are, "Græcum Aquilæ est, ἐκτήσατό με, ut et Symmachi et Theodotionis, respondetque bene Hebræo קָנָנִי. At Chaldæus habet בְּרָא, et LXX. ἔκτισε, sensu non malo, si creare sumas pro facere ut appareat. Viœ Dei sunt operationes ipsius. Sensum hujus loci et sequentium non male exprimas cum Philone de Coloniis: Ὁ λόγος ὁ πρεσζύτερος τῶν γένεσιν εἰληφότων, οὗ καθάπερ οἴακος ἐνειλημένος ὁ τῶν ὅλων κυζερνήτης πηδαλιουχεῖ τὰ σὐμπαντα, καὶ ὅτε ἐκοσμοπλάστει χρησάμενος ὀργάνῳ τούτῳ πρὸς τὴν ἀνυπαίτιον τῶν ἀνυπαίτιον τῶν ἀποτελουμένων σὐστασιν." On verse 27 he adds, "Aderam, id est, ἦν πρὸς τὸν Θεόν, ut infra Johan. Evang. i. 1."

What clear and evident testimony, by this exposition, is left in this place to the deity of Christ, I profess myself as ignorant as I was before I received this direction by the apologist. He tells us that קָנָנִי is rendered not amiss by the Chaldee בְּרָא, and the LXX. ἔκτισε, though he knew that sense was pleaded by the Arians, and exploded by the ancient doctors of the church. To relieve this concession, he tells us that "creare" may be taken for "facere ut appareat," though there be no evidence of such a use of the word in Scripture, nor can he give any instance thereof. The whole interpretation runs on that wisdom that is a property of God, which he manifested in the works of creation. Of the Son of God, the essential Wisdom of God, subsisting with the father, we have not one word. Nor doth that quotation out of Philo relieve us in this business at all; we know in what sense he used the word ὁ λόγος. How far he and the Platonics, with whom in this expression he consented, were from understanding the only-begotten Son of God, is known. If this of Philo has any aspect towards the opinion of any professing themselves Christians, it is towards that of the Arians, which seems to be expressed therein. And this is the place chosen by the apologist to disprove the assertion of none being left, under the sense given them by the Annotations, bearing clear testimony to the deity of Christ! His comparing שָׁם אָנִי, "ibi ego," which the Vulgar renders "aderam," with ἦν πρὸς τὸν Θεόν, seems rather to cast a suspicion on his intention in the expression of that place of the evangelist than in the least to give testimony to the deity of Christ in this. If any one be farther desirous to be satisfied how many clear, unquestionable evidences of the deity of Christ are slighted by these annotations on this chapter, let him consult my vindication of the place in my late "Vindiciæ Evangelicæ," where he will find something tendered to him to that purpose. What the apologist intended by adding these two places of Isaiah, chap. 45:12 and chap. 48:13 (when in his annotations on these places Grotius not once mentions the deity of Christ, nor any thing of him, nor hath occasion so to do, nor doth produce them in this place to any such end or purpose, but only to show that the Chaldee paraphrase doth sundry times, when things are said to be done by God, render it that they were done by the word of God), as instances to the prejudice of my assertion, I cannot imagine.

On that of Peter, 2 Epist. 3:5, Τῷ τοῦ Θεοῦ λόγῳ, he adds, indeed, "Vide quæ diximus ad initium Evangelii Johannis;" but neither doth that place intend the natural Son of God, nor is it so interpreted by Grotius.

To these he adds, in the close, Col. 1:16, in the exposition whereof in his Annotations he expressly prevaricates, and goes off to the interpretation insisted on by Socinus and his companions; which the apologist well knew.

Without farther search upon what hath been spoken, the apologist gives in his verdict concerning the falseness of my assertion before mentioned, of the annotator's speaking clear and home to the deity of Christ but in one, if in one, place of his Annotations. But,—

1. What one other place hath he produced whereby the contrary to what I assert is evinced? Any man may make apologies at this rate as fast as he pleases.

2. As to his not speaking clearly in that one, notwithstanding the improvement made of his expressions by the apologist, I am still of the same mind as formerly; for although he ascribes an eternity τῷ λόγῳ, and affirms all things to be made thereby, yet, considering how careful he is of ascribing an ὑπόστασις τῷ λόγῳ, how many Platonic interpretations of that expression he interweaves in his expositions, how he hath darkened the whole counsel of God in that place about the subsistence of the Word, his omnipotency and incarnation, so clearly asserted by the Holy Ghost therein, I see no reason to retract the assertion opposed. But yet as to the thing itself, about this place I will not contend: only, it may not be amiss to observe, that not only the Arians, but even Photinus himself, acknowledged that the world was made τῷ Θεοῦ λόγῳ, [so] that how little is obtained towards the confirmation of the deity of Christ by that concession may be discerned.

I shall offer also only at present, that ὁ λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ is threefold,—λόγος ὑποστατικός, ἐνδιάθετος, and προφορικός. The λόγος ὑποστατικός or οὐσιώδης is Christ, mentioned John 1:1, his personal and eternal subsistence, with his omnipotency, being there asserted. Whether Christ be so called anywhere else in the New Testament may be disputed; Luke 1:2 compared with 1 John 1:1, 2 Pet. 1:19, Acts 20:32, Heb. 4:12, are the most likely to give us that use of the word. Why Christ is so termed I have showed elsewhere. That he is called דָּבָר, Ps. 33:6, is to me also evident. מִלָּה is better rendered ῥῆμα or λέξις than λόγος. Where that word is used, it denotes not Christ, though 2 Sam. 23:2, where that word is, is urged by some to that purpose. He is also called דָּבָר, Hag. 2:5; so perhaps in other places. Our present Quakers would have that expression of the "word of God," used nowhere in any other sense; so that destroying that, as they do, in the issue they may freely despise the Scripture, as that which they say is not the word of God, nor anywhere so called. Λόγος ἐνδιάθετος amongst men is that which Aristotle calls τὸν ἔσω λόγον. Λόγος ἐν νῷ λαμζανόμενος, says Hesychius. Λόγος ἐνδιάθετος is that which we speak in our hearts, says Damascen. De Orthod. Fid. lib. i. cap. xviii.: so Ps. 14:1, אָמַר נָבָל בְּלִבּוֹ. This, as spoken in respect of God, is that egress of his power whereby, according to the eternal conception of his mind, he worketh any thing: so Gen. 1:2, "God said, Let there be light; and there was light" Of this word of God the psalmist treats, Ps. 147:18, "He sendeth out דְּבָרוֹ, and melteth the ice;" and Ps. 148:8 the same word is used;—in both which places the LXX. render it by ὁ λόγος. This is that which is called ῥῆμα τῆς δυνάμεως, Heb. 1:3, 11:3, where the apostle says, "The heavens were made ῥήματι Θεοῦ:" which is directly parallel to that place of 2 Pet. 3:5, where it is expressed τῷ τοῦ Θεοῦ λόγῳ; for though ῥῆμα more properly denotes λόγον προφορικόν, yet in these places it signifies plainly that egress of God's power for the production and preservation of things, being a pursuit of the eternal conception of his mind, which is λόγος ἐνδιάθετος. Now, this infinitely wise and eternal conception of the mind of God exerting itself in power, wherein God is said to speak ("He said, Let there be light"), is that which the Platonics, and Philo with them, harped on, never once dreaming of a co-essential and hypostatical Word of God, though the word ὑπόστασις occurs amongst them. This they thought was unto God, as in us, λόγος ἐνδιάθετος or ὁ ἔσω, πρὸς νοῦν: and, particularly, it is termed by Philo, φωνὴ τῆς διανοίας εὐρυνομένη, De Agric. That this was his ὁ λόγος is most evident. Hence he tells us, Οὐδὲν ἂν ἕτερον εἴποι τὸν νοητὸν εἶναι κόσμον ἤ Θεοῦ λόγον ἤδη κοσμοποιοῦντος, οὐδε γὰρ ἡ νοητὴ πόλις ἕτερόν τι ἐστὶν, ἤ ὁ τοῦ ἀρχιτέκτονος λογισμὸς, ἤδη τὴν νοητὴν πόλιν κτίζειν διανουμένου. Μωσέως γὰρ τὸ δόγμα τοῦτο, οὐκ ἐμόν, De Mund. Opific. And a little after, Τὸν δὲ ἀόρατον καὶ νοητὸν θεῖον λόγον, εἰκόνα λέγει Θεοῦ· καὶ ταύτης εἰκόνα τὸν νοητὸν φῶς ἐκεῖνο, ὅ θεὶου λόγοῦ γέγονεν εἰκὼν τοῦ διερμηνεύσαντος τὴν γένεσιν αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἔστιν ὑπερουράνιος ἀστήρ. The whole tendency of his discourse is, that the word of God, in his mind, in the creation of the world, was the image of himself, and that the idea or image of the things to be made, but especially of light. And whereas (if I remember aright, for I cannot now find the place) I have said somewhere that Christ was λόγος ἐνδιάθετος, though therein I have the consent of very many learned divines, and used it merely in opposition τῷ προφορικῶ, yet I desire to recall it; nor do I think there is any propriety in that expression of ἔμφυτος used of Christ, but only in those of ὑποστατικός and οὐσιώδης, which the Scripture (though not in the very terms) will make good. In this second acceptation, τοῦ λόγου, Photinus himself granted that the world was made by the word of God. Now, if it be thought necessary that I should give an account of my fear that nothing but ὁ λόγος in this sense, decked with many Platonical encomiums, was intended in the Annotations on John 1 (though I confess much, from some quotations there used, may be said against it), I shall readily undertake the task; but at present, in this running course, I shall add no more.

But now, as if all the matter in hand were fully despatched, we have this triumphant close attending the former discourse and observations:—

"If one text acknowledged to assert Christ's eternal divinity" (which one was granted to do it, though not clearly) "will not suffice to conclude him no Socinian" (which I said not he was, yea, expressly waived the management of any such charge); "if six verses in the Proverbs, two in Isaiah, one in St Peter, one in St Paul, added to many in the beginning of St John" (in his annotations on all which he speaks not one word to the purpose), "will not yet amount to above one text; or, lastly, if that one may be doubted of also which is by him interpreted to affirm Christ's eternal subsistence with God before the creation of the world" (which he doth not so interpret as to a personal subsistence), "and that the whole world was created by him,—I shall despair of ever being a successful advocate for any man:" from which condition I hope some little time will recover the apologist.

This is the sum of what is pleaded in chief for the defence of the Annotations; wherein what small cause he hath to acquiesce who hath been put to the labour and trouble of vindicating near forty texts of Scripture, in the Old Testament and New, giving express testimony to the deity of Christ, from the annotator's perverse interpretations, let the reader judge. In the 13th section of the apologist's discourse, he adds some other considerations to confirm his former vindication of the Annotations.

He tells us that he "professeth not to divine what places of the Old Testament, wherein the deity of Christ is evidently testified unto, are corrupted by the learned man; nor will he, upon the discouragement already received, make any inquiry into my treatise." But what need of divination! The apologist cannot but remember at all times some of the texts of the Old Testament that are pleaded to that purpose; and he hath at least as many encouragements to look into the Annotations as discouragements from casting an eye upon that volume, as he calls it, wherein they are called to an account. And if he suppose he can make a just defence for the several places be wrested and perverted without once consulting them, I know not how by me he might possibly be engaged into such an inquiry; and therefore I shall not name them again, having done somewhat more than name them already.

But he hath two suppletory considerations that will render any such inquiry or inspection needless. Of these the first is,—

"That the word of God being all and every part of it of equal truth, that doctrine which is founded on five places of divine writ must by all Christians be acknowledged to be as irrefragably confirmed as a hundred express places would be conceived to confirm it"

Ans. It is confessed that not only five, but any one express text of Scripture, is sufficient for the confirmation of any divine truth; but that five places have been produced out of the Annotations by the apologist, for the confirmation of the great truth pleaded about, is but pretended,—indeed there is no such thing. The charge on Grotius was, that he had depraved all but one. If that be no crime, the defence was at hand; if it be, though that one should be acknowledged to be clear to that purpose, here is no defence against that which was charged, but a strife about that which was not. Let the places be consulted: if the assertion prove true by an induction of instances, the crime is to be confessed, or else the charge denied to contain a crime. But, secondly, he says,—

"That this charge, upon inquiry, will be found in some degree, if not equally, chargeable on the learnedest and most valuable of the first reformers, particularly upon Mr Calvin himself, who hath been as bitterly and unjustly accused and reviled upon this account (witness the book intitled 'Calvino Turcismus') as ever Erasmus was by Bellarmine and Beza, or as probably Grotius may be."

Though this, at the best, be but a diversion of the charge, and no defence, yet, not containing that truth which is needful to countenance it for the end for which it is proposed, I could not pass it by. It is denied (which in this case, until farther proof, must suffice) that any of the learnedst of the first reformers, and particularly Mr Calvin, are equally chargeable, or in any degree of proportion, with Grotius, as to the crime insisted on. Calvin being the man instanced in, I desire the apologist to prove that he hath, in all his commentaries on the Scripture, corrupted the sense of any text of the Old Testament or New giving express testimony to the deity of Christ, and commonly pleaded to that end and purpose; although I deny not but that he differs from the common judgment of most in the interpretation of some few prophetical passages judged by them to relate to Christ. I know what Genebrard and some others of that faction raved against him; but it was chiefly from some expressions in his Institutes about the Trinity (wherein yet he is acquitted by the most learned of themselves), and not from his expositions of Scripture, from which they raised their clamours. For the book called "Calvino Turcismus," written by Reynolds and Giffard, the apologist has forgotten the design of it. Calvin is no more concerned in it than others of the first reformers; nor is it from any doctrine about the deity of Christ in particular, but from the whole of the reformed religion, with the apostasies of some of that profession, that they compare it with Turcism. Something, indeed, in a chapter or two, they speak about the Trinity, from some expressions of Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, and others; but as to Calvin's expositions of Scripture, they insist not on them. Possibly the apologist may have seen Paræus' "Calvinus Orthodoxus," in answer to Hunnius' "Calvinus Judaizans;" if not, he may at any time have there an account of this calumny.

Having passed through the consideration of the two considerable heads of this discourse, in the method called for by the apologist (having only taken liberty to transpose them as to first and last), I must profess myself as yet unsatisfied as to the necessity or suitableness of this kind of defence. The sum of that which I affirmed (which alone gives occasion to the defensative now under consideration) is, that, to my observation, Grotius in his Annotations had not left above one text of Scripture, if one, giving clear evidence to the deity of Christ, Of his satisfaction I said in sum the same thing. Had the apologist been pleased to have produced instances of any evidence for the disprovement of my assertion, I should very gladly and readily have acknowledged my mistake and oversight. I am still, also, in the same resolution as to the latitude of the expression, though I have already, by an induction of particulars, manifested his corrupting and perverting of so many, both in respect of the one head and of the other, with his express compliance with the Socinians in his so doing, as that I cannot have the least thought of letting fall my charge, which, with the limitation expressed (of my own observation), contains the truth in this matter, and nothing but that which is so.

It was, indeed, in my thoughts to have done somewhat more in reference to those Annotations than thus occasionally to have animadverted on their corruption in general,—namely, to have proceeded in the vindication of the truths of the gospel from their captivity under the false glosses put upon them by the interpretations of places of Scripture wherein they are delivered. But this work being fallen on an abler hand, namely, that of our learned professor of divinity, my desire is satisfied, and the necessity of my endeavour for that end removed.

There are sundry other particulars insisted on by the apologist, and a great deal of rhetoric is laid out about them; which certainly deserve not the reader's trouble in the perusal of any other debate about them. If they did, it were an easy matter to discover his mistakes in them all along. The foundation of most of them lies in that which he affirms, sect. 4, where he says that "I thus state the jealousies about H. G. as far as it is owned by me, namely, that being in doctrine a Socinian, he yet closed in many things with the Roman interest:" to which he replies, that "this does not so much as pretend that he was a Papist;" as though I undertake to prove Grotius to be a Papist, or did not expressly disown the management of the jealousy stated as above, or that I did at all own it, all which are otherwise.

Yet I shall now say, whether he was in doctrine a Socinian or no let his Annotations before insisted on determine; and whether he closed with the Roman interest or no, besides what hath been observed by others, I desire the apologist to consider his observation on Rev. 12:5, that book (himself being judge) having received his last hand. But my business is not to accuse Grotius, or to charge his memory with any thing but his prevarication in his Annotations on the Scripture.

And as I shall not cease to press the general aphorism, as it is called, That no drunkard, etc., nor any person whatever not born of God, or united to Christ, the head, by the same Spirit that is in him, and in the sense thereof perfecting holiness in the fear of God, shall ever see his face in glory, so I fear not what conclusion can regularly, in reference to any person living or dead, be thence deduced.

It is the Annotations whereof I have spoken, which I have my liberty to do, and I presume shall still continue, whilst I live in the same thoughts of them, though I should see,—a third defence of the learned Hugo Grotius!

————

The Epistles of Grotius to Crellius mentioned by the apologist in his first defence of him, giving some light to what hath been insisted on, I thought it not unfit to communicate them to the reader as they came to my hand, having not as yet been printed, that I know of:—

Reverendo summœque eruditionis ac pietatis viro, Domino Johanni Crellio, pastori

Racov. H. G. S.

Libro tuo quo ad eum quem ego quondam scripseram (eruditissime Crelli) respondisti, adeo offensus non fui, ut etiam gratias tunc intra animum meum egerim, nunc et hisce agam literis. Primo, quod non tantum humanè, sed et valde officiosè mecum egeris, ita ut queri nihil possim, nisi quod in me prædicando, modum interdum excedis, deinde vero, quod multa me docueris, partim utilia, partim jucunda scitu, meque exemplo tuo incitaveris ad penitius expendendum sensus sacrorum librorum. Bene autem in epistola tua quæ mihi longe gratissima advenit, de me judicas, non esse me eorum in numero qui ob sententias salva pietate dissidentes alieno a quoquam sim animo, aut boni alicujus amicitiam repudiem. Equidem in libro "De Vera Religione," quem jam percurri, relecturus et posthac, multa invenio summo cum judicio observata. Illud vero sæculo gratulor, repertos homines qui neutiquam in controversiis subtilibus tantum ponunt quantum in vera vitæ emendatione, et quotidiano ad sanctitatem profectu. Utinam et mea scripta aliquid ad hoc studium in animis hominum excitandum inflammandumque conferre possint: tunc enim non frustra me vixisse hactenus existimem. Liber "De Veritate Religionis Christianæ" magis ut nobis esset solatio, quam ut aliis documento scriptus, non video quid post tot aliorum labores utilitatis afferre possit, nisi ipsa forte brevitate. Siquid tamen in eo est, quod tibi tuique similibus placeat, mihi supra evenit. Libris "De Jure Belli et Pacis" mihi præcipue propositum habui, ut feritatem illam, non Christianis tantum, sed et hominibus indignam, ad bella pro libitu suscipienda, pro libitu gerenda, quam gliscere tot populorum malo quotidie video, quantum in me est, sedarem. Gaudeo ad principum quorundam manus eos libros venisse, qui utinam partem eorum meliorem in suum animum admitterent. Nullus enim mihi ex eo labore suavior fructus contingere possit. To vero quod attinet, credas, rogo, si quid unquam facere possim tui, aut eorum quos singulariter amas, causa, experturum te, quantum te tuo merito faciam. Nunc quum aliud possim nihil, Dominum Jesum supplice animo veneror, ut tibi aliisque, pietatem promoventibus propitius adsit.

Tui nominis studiosissimus,

x. Maii. M.DC.XXVI.

H. G.

———

Tam pro epistola (vir clarissime) quam pro transmisso libro, gratias ago maximas. Constitui et legere et relegere diligenter quæcunque a te proficiscuntur, expertus quo cum fructu id antehac fecerim. Eo ipso tempore quo literas tuas accepi, versabar in lectione tuæ interpretationis in Epistolam ad Galatas. Quantum judicare possum et scripti occasionem et propositum, et totam seriem dictionis, ut magna cum cura indagasti, ita feliciter admodum es assequutus. Quare Deum precor, ut et tibi et tui similibus vitam det, et quæ alia ad istiusmodi labores necessaria. Mihi ad juvandam communem Christianismi causam, utinam tam adessent vires, quam promptus est animus: quippe me, a prima ætate, per varia disciplinarum genera jactatum. Nulla res magis delectavit quam rerum sacrarum meditatio. Id in rebus prosperis moderamen, id in adversis solamen sensi. Pacis consilia et amavi semper et amo nunc quoque; eoque doleo, quum video, tam pertinacibus iris committi inter se eos, qui Christi se esse dicunt. Si recte rem putamus, quantillis de causis—!

Januarii. M.DC.XXXII. Amstelodam i.

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MONERGISM BOOKS

The Mystery of the Gospel Vindicated, by John Owen, Copyright © 2022

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Table of Contents

PREFATORY NOTE BY THE EDITOR

Dedication

Epistle Dedicatory

Preface to the Reader

Mr Biddle's Preface to his Catechism

Mr Biddle's Preface briefly examined

I.—Mr Biddle's first chapter examined—Of the Scriptures

II.—Of the nature of God

III.—Of the shape and bodily visible figure of God

IV.—Of the attribution of passions and affections, anger, fear, repentance, unto God—In what sense i

V.—Of God's prescience or foreknowledge

VI.—Of the creation, and condition of man before and after the fall

VII.—Of the person of Jesus Christ, and on what account he is the Son of God

VIII.—An entrance into the examination of the Racovian Catechism in the business of the deity of Chr

IX.—The pre-eternity of Christ farther evinced—Sundry texts of Scripture vindicated

X.—Of the names of God given unto Christ

XI.—Of the work of creation assigned to Jesus Christ, etc.—The confirmation of his eternal deity fro

XII.—All-ruling and disposing providence assigned unto Christ, and his eternal Godhead thence farthe

XIII.—Of the incarnation of Christ, and his pre-existence thereunto

XIV.—Sundry other testimonies given to the deity of Christ vindicated

XV.—Of the Holy Ghost, his deity, graces, and operations

XVI.—Of salvation by Christ

XVII.—Of the mediation of Christ

XVIII.—Of Christ's prophetical office

XIX.—Of the kingly office of Jesus Christ, and of the worship that is ascribed and due to him

XX.—Of the priestly office of Christ

XXI.—Of the death of Christ, the causes, ends, and fruits thereof, with an entrance into the doctrin

XXII.—The several considerations of the death of Christ as to the expiation of our sins thereby, and

XXIII.—Of the death of Christ as it was a punishment, and the satisfaction made thereby

XXIV.—Some particular testimonies evincing the death of Christ to be a punishment, properly so calle

XXV.—A digression concerning the 53d chapter of Isaiah, and the vindication of it from the perverse

XXVI.—Of the matter of the punishment that Christ underwent, or what he suffered

XXVII.—Of the covenant between the Father and the Son, the ground and foundation of this dispensatio

XXVIII.—Of redemption by the death of Christ as it was a price or ransom

XXIX.—Of reconciliation by the death of Christ as it is a sacrifice

XXX.—The satisfaction of Christ, on the consideration of his death being a punishment, farther evinc

XXXI.—Of election and universal grace—Of the resurrection of Christ from the dead

XXXII.—Of justification and faith

XXXIII.—Of keeping the commandments of God, and of perfection of obedience—How attainable in this li

XXXIV.—Of prayer; and whether Christ prescribed a form of prayer to be used by believers; and of pra

XXXV.—Of the resurrection of the dead and the state of the wicked at the last day

Of the Death of Christ, and of Justification

A REVIEW OF THE ANNOTATIONS OF HUGO GROTIUS

A Second Consideration of the Annotations of Hugo Grotius

Epistles of Grotius to Crellius