raign Authority, and Soveraign Goodness of God. An infinitely wife and just and good Being cannot be moved by meer Entreaties, nor by the bare Intereft and Favour of the Advocate, for this is weakness in men, and therefore cannot be incident to the Divine Nature: Now if you fet afide Entreaties and Importunities and Favour, there can be no other Advocate with the Father, but his own Eternal Wisdom. It is his own Wisdom that muft Atone him, that must reconcile him to finners, that must obtain Pardon and all other Bleffings for them; for if this cannot be done wifely,God cannot do it; and therefore his own Wisdom must do all this; for no created Wisdom can. But God loves his own Wisdom, his only be-. gotten Son, and therefore Wisdom is a powerful Ad-.. vocate, and must prevail with the Father. So that the Son's Interceffion with the Father is fo far from being incongruous, or inconfiftent with his being God, that the Divine Nature can admit of no other Advocate or Interceffor, properly fo called. To interceed with a never-failing Effect and Success, is an Act of Power and Authority, and for God to make a Creature-Advocate and Mediator, is to give a Creature Authority over himself, which cannot be; for it is a debasement of the Divine Nature, and a reproach to the Divine Wisdom, as if God did notbetter know, how to difpofe of his Grace and Mercy, than any Creature does. For Creatures to pray to God for themselves or others, as humble Suppli-.. cants, is part of the Worship which Creatures owe to God; but to interceed with the Authority of a Mediator, is above the Nature and Order of Creatures; and God can no more give this to any Creature, than he can commit his own Soveraign Power and Autho Page 12. Page 13. rity to them: But his own Eternal Wisdom can interceed with Authority; for Original Mind and Wifdom muft yield to the Interceffions of his own Eternal Wisdom which is not to fubmit to any Foreign Authority, but to his own. To proceed; : : 7. His next Argument to prove that Chrift is not God, is this; That Jefus Chrift is in holy Scripture always spoken of, as a diftinct and different Perfon from God; and defcribed to be the Son of God, and the Image of God. This we own, and he has no need to prove it and this is a wonderful Argument to convince those who acknowledge Three distinct Persons in the Godhead, to prove that Chrift is not God, because he is a diftinct Person from the Father; for fo according to the Language of Scripture, God fignifies God the Father, when he is diftinguished from the Son and the Holy Spirit, as all men grant: and to fay, 'Tis as impoffible that the Son or Image of the One true God fhould himself be that One true God, as that the Son fhould be the Father, and the Image that very thing whofe Image it is, is meer Sophiftry; for if the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost be the One true God, they are the fame One true God, and yet the Father is not the Son, nor the Son the Father. 8. His next Argument is, from many Texts, which exprefly declare that only the Father is God. Now this I confefs, would be a demonstration, could he produce any one Text, which afferts the Father only to be God, in oppofition to the Son, and to the Holy Ghoft; for then the Father muft fignifie the Person of the Father, in oppofition to the Perfon of the Son, and to the Person of the Holy Ghoft; but when the Father Father is called the Only true God, only in oppofition to all the falfe Gods, which the World then worfhipped, there Father does not fignifie perfonally, but that One Godhead or Divinity of which the Father is the Source and Fountain and Original; he being that Eternal and Original Mind, which begets his own Image or Eternal Son, and from whom and the Son the Holy Spirit proceeds in the Unity of the fame Godhead. When the Father is faid to be the only true God,and 17 John 3. the One God, that the Son and the Holy Ghoft are not I Cor. 8. 6. hereby excluded from the Unity of the fame Godhead, is evident from thofe other Texts of Scripture, which plainly teach the Divinity of the Son and Holy Ghoft; for if the Scripture teaches, that the Son is God, and the Holy Ghoft God, it can never separate the Father from his only begotten Son and Eternal Spirit; and therefore the Dispute will iffue here, Whether the Scripture does teach the Divinity of the Son and the Holy Spirit. When the Father is called the only true God, it must be in oppofition, to all those who were at that time worshipped for Gods in the World, but were not true Gods, and therefore when Chrift calls his Father the only true God, it could not be in contradiftinction to himlelf and the Holy Spirit, for they were not then diftinctly worthipped. And when St. Paul calls the Father the One God, he exprefly oppofes it to the many Gods of the Heathens. For though 1.com 8.5.6. there be that are called Gods, whether in Heaven (the Sun and Moon and Planets, and Deified men) or in the Earth (the feveral Elements, Birds, Beasts, &c.) (as there be Gods many and Lords many) but to us, there is but one God the Father, of whom are all things, Bb and and we in him; and One Lord Jefus Christ by whom are all things, and we by him; where the One God and One Lord and Mediator is opposed to the many Gods and many Lords or Mediators, which were worhipped by the Heathens. Thefe Texts indeed do plainly diftinguish between the Father, and Chrift: This is Life eternal to know thee the only true God, and Jefus Christ whom thou haft fent. And to us there is but One God the Father, and One Lord Jefus Chrift; which is no more than what St. Paul teaches; There is one God, and One Mediator between God and Men, the Man Chrift Jefus. The One God and the One Mediator ought to be diftinguifhed; for the whole Chriftian Religion, and the falvation of finners, depends upon this diftinction; but this does not exclude Chrift from being One God with the Father, though he have a diftinct additional Glory of a Mediatory Kingdom. I confider farther, when the Father is called the One God, and the only true God, it can be understood only of thofe, who are diftinct and feparated Gods from the Father, and are not One God with him; but it cannot exclude thofe, who are united in the Unity of the fame Godhead; for they are but One God with the Father. And this is plainly fignified in the Title of the Father, and the Father of our Lord Jefus,which is God's peculiar Name under the Gospel, as the Maker of Heaven and Earth was before for the Title of the Father does not exclude, but includes the Son; and therefore if it appears from Scripture, that this Son is true and real God, begotten of his Father from Eternity, the Son at least must be included in this Character of the only true God. His other Texts which he cites under this Head, prove no more but I Cor.15.24. that the Father of Chrift is God, not that Chrift is not One God with the Father. 3 James 9. 15 Rom. 6. 9. He adds; If Chrift were indeed God, as well as page 14"Man, or (as Trinitarians Speak) God the Son incarnate in an Human Nature, it had been altogether fuperfluous to give the Holy Spirit to his faid Human Nature as a Director and Guide; for what other help could that Nature need, which was One Perfon with (as they · Speak) God the Son, and in which God the Son did perJonally dwell. Now the Account of this is plain and fhort; for the whole Trinity is but One Energy and Power, and the Divine Perfons cannot act separately ad extra; what the Father does, that the Son does, and that the Holy Ghoft does by one individual Act, as I have shown at large; but the fanctification of all Creatures (andfuch the Human Nature of Chrift is) is peculiarly attributed to the Holy Spirit; and he might as well have asked, Why the fanctification of the Church is afcribed to the Holy Spirit; for, the Church is the Body of Chrift, and Chrift the Head from whence all Influences of Grace are derived into the Body;and though this be not a perfonal Union, it is next degree to it, for we are Flesh of his Flesh, and Bone of his Bone and a Perfonal Union makes no difference in the manner of Operation, though it does in the Measures and Degrees: the Divine Word acts by and in conjunction with the Holy Spirit, and therefore fanctifies his own Human Nature,as he does his myftical Body the Church by the Operations and Influences of the Holy Ghost. |