else his soul can never be saved : how can such a person venture his soul, his all, upon one that is but a mere creature ? Certainly, a mere man is no rock, no city of refuge, and no sure foundation for a man to build his faith and hope upon. Woe to that man, that ever he was born, that has no Jesus, but a Socinian's Jesus to rest upon ! Oh, it is sad trusting to one, who is man, but not Grod ; flesh, but not spirit. As you love the eternal safety of your precious souls, and would be happy for ever ; as you would escape hell, and get to heaven, lean on none, rest on none, but that Jesus who is God-man, who is very God and very man. Apollinaris held that Christ took not the whole nature of man, but a human body only, without a soul, and that the Godhead was instead of a soul to the manhood. Also Eutyches, who confounded the two natures of Christ, and their properties, &c. Also Apelles and the Manichees, who denied the true human body, and held him to have an aerial or imaginary body. Though the popular sort deified Alex- ander the Great ; i yet, having got a clap with an arrow, he said, ye style me Jupiter's son, as if immortal ; sed hoc vulnus clamat esse liominem ; this blood that issues from the wound proves me in the issue a man : this is ai^ia tov avOpwirov, the blood of man, not of God, and snielling the stench of his own flesh, he asked his flatterers if the gods yielded such a scent. So may it be said of Jesus Christ our Saviour, though myriads of angels and saints acclaim he is a God, ergo, immortal ; and a crew of heretics disclaim him to be man, as the Marcionites averred that he had a fantastical body, and Apelles who conceived that he had a sidereal substance, yet the streams of blood following the arrow of death that struck him, makes it good that he was perfect man ; of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. And as this truth looks sourly upon the above-mentioned persons, so it looks sourly upon the papists, who, by their doctrine of the real pre- sence of Christ's body in the sacrament, do overthrow one of the pro- perties of his human nature, which is to be but in one place present at once. This truth also looks sourly upon the Lutherans or Ubiqiii- taries, who teach that Christ's human nature is in all places by virtue of their personal union, &c. I wonder that of all the old errors, swept down into this latter age, as into a sink of time, this of the Socinians and Arians should be held forth among the rest. 0 sirs, beware of their doctrines, shun their meetings, and persons that come to you with the denial of the divinity of Christ in their mouths. This was John's doctrine and practice. Irenfeus saith, that after he was returned from his banishment, and came to Ephesus, he came to bathe himself, and in the bath he found Cerinthus, that said, Christ had no being till he received it from the Virgin Mary ; upon the sight of whom, John skipped out of the bath, and called his companions from thence ; say- ing, let us go from this place, lest the bath should fall down upon us, because Cerinthus is in it, that is so great an enemy to God.^ Ye see his doctrine, see his words too : 2 John 10, 11, 'If any come to you, having not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed : for he that biddeth him God speed, is partaker of his evil deeds.' What that doctrine was, if you cast your eye upon the scripture, you shall find it to be the doctrine of the divinity of Christ.
^ Plutarch, in vita. * As before. — G.
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Shew no love where you owe nothing but hatred : ' I hate every false way,' saith David, Ps. cxix. 118. And I shall look upon Auxentius as upon a devil, so long as he is an Arian, said Hilarius. We must shew no countenance, nor give no encouragement to such as deny either the divinity or humanity of Christ.
I have been the longer upon the divinity and humanity of Christ, 1. Because the times we live in require it. 2. That poor, weak, stag- gering Christians may be strengthened, established, and settled in the truth, as it is in Jesus. 3. That I may give in my testimony and witness against all those who are poisoned and corrupted with Socinian and Arian principles, which destroy the souls of men. 4. That those in whose hands this book may fall may be the better furnished to make head against men of corrupt minds ; who, ' by sleight-of-hand and cunning craftiness, lie in wait to deceive,' Eph. iv. 14.
[6.] Sixthly, As he that did feel and suffer the very torments of hell, though not after a hellish manner, was God-man, so the punishments that Christ did sustain for us must he referred only to the substance, and not unto the circumstances of punishment. The punishment which Christ endured, if it be considered in its substance, kind, or nature, so it was the same with what the sinner himself should have undergone. Now the punishment due to the sinner was death, the curse of the law, &c. Now this Christ underwent, for ' he was made a curse for us,' Gal. iii. 13. But if you consider the punishment which Christ endured, with respect to certain circumstances, adjuncts, and accidents, as the eternity of it, desperation going along with it, &c., then, I say, it was not the same, but equivalent.! And the reason is, because, though the enduring of the punishments, as to the substance of them, could, and did agree with him as a surety, yet the circumstances of those punishments could not have befallen him unless he had been a sinner ; and therefore every inordination in suffering was far from Christ, and a perpetual duration of suffering could not befall him, for the first of these had been contrary to the holiness and dignity of his person, and the other had made void the end of his suretyship and mediatorship, which was so to suffer, as yet to conquer and to deliver, and therefore, though he did suffer death for us in the substance of it, yet he neither did nor could suffer death in the circum- stances of it, so as for ever to be held by death ; for then, in suffering death , he should not have conquered death, nor delivered us from death. Nei- ther was it necessary to Christ's substitution that he should undergo in every respect the same punishment which the offender himself was liable unto ; but if he underwent so much punishment as did satisfy the law, and vindicate the lawgiver in his holiness, truth, justice, and righteous- ness, that was enough. ' Now that was unquestionably done by Christ, as the Scriptures do abundantly testify. It must be readily granted that Christ was to suffer the whole punishment due unto sin, so far as it became the dignity of his person and the necessity of the work ; but if he had suffered eternally, the work of redemption could never have been accomplished ; and besides, he should have suffered that which