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these things, I should much admire their happiness, did I not so much as I do pity them in their pride and distemper, keeping them from an acquaintance with their own miserable condition.

CHAP. VII.

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

MR. BIDDLE'S FOURTH CHAPTER EXAMINED.

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

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'Q. How was Jesus Christ born?

'A. Matt. i. 18. Luke i. 30-35.

'Q. How came Jesus Christ to be Lord, according to the opinion of the apostle Paul?

'A. Rom. xiv. 9.

'Q. What saith the apostle Peter also, concerning the time and manner of his being made Lord?

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'A. Acts ii. 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 ii. 22. x. 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 v. 19, 20. 30. xiv. 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?

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'A. John viii. 28, 29. xv. 9, 10.

Q. Doth the Scripture avouch 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 i. 30-32. 34, 35. John x. 36. Acts xiii. 32, 33.. Rev. i. 5. Col. i. 18. Heb. i. 4, 5. v. 5. Rom. viii. 29.

'Q. What saith the Son himself concerning the prerogative of God the Father above him?

'A. John xiv. 28. Mark. xiii. 32. Matt. xxiv. 36.

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Q. What saith the apostle Paul?

A. 1 Cor. xv. 24. 28. xi. 3. iii. 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 xx. 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 xx. 17. Rev. iii. 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?

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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 chapters 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, is 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.

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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 acía 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 Scriptures 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 insi

2 Τὴν ὑποταγὴν τῆς δουλικῆς μορφῆς ἀνειληφώς, ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ὑποτάσσεται τῷ ἑαυτοῦ πατρὶ, οὐ φύσει θέδητος, ἀλλὰ ἑνώσει μορφῆς δουλικῆς ἦν ἔλαβε. Athanas. dial. 1. contra Maced.

nuations 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. iv. 5. "One Lord.'

That of these two words there is not one that looks towards the confirmation of what Mr. Biddle 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 witness in heaven, of which he is one; but in respect of essence and nature, He and his Father are one." Farther, unless he were one God with his Father, it is utterly impossible he should be the one Lord of Christians. That he cannot be our Lord in the sense intended, whom we ought to invocate and worship, unless also he were our God, shall be 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. xii. 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 xiii. 13. Acts vii. 59. Rev. xxii. 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.

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His second question is an inquiry after this Lord, who he is, in these words; 'Who is this Lord? And the answer is from 1 Cor. viii. 6. Jesus Christ, by whom are all things.'

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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. iii. 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's gloss upon the place, who interprets the rà πávra, referred to the Father, of all things simply, but the rà Távra, 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.

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, into personal subsistence with himself, I shall let pass with annexing unto it the observation before-mentioned; viz. That what is affirmed of the human nature of Christ, doth not at all prejudice that nature of his, in respect whereof he is said to be 'in the beginning with God, and to be God,' and with reference whereunto himself said, before Abraham

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b Groti. Annot. in 1 Cor. viii. 6.

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Enjedin. explicat. loc. vet. et nov. Testam. in locum.

d Luke i. 35.

e John i. 1, 2. viii. 57. Prov. viii. 22. &c.

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