Heb. i. throughout.
Chap. iii. 4, " For eveiy house is builded by some man ; but he that built all things is God."
1 Pet. i. 11, " Searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ Avhich was in them did signify."
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386 THE DOCTRINE OF THE
Chap, iil 18-20, " For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by tlie Spirit: by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah."
1 John iii. 16, " Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us."
Cliap. V. 20, " And we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life."
Rev. i. 8, " I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and Avhich is to come, tlie Almighty."
Verses 11-13, "I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book. .... And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And, being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man."
Verse 17, " And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me. Fear not; I am the first and the last."
Chap. ii. 23, " I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works."
These are some of the places wherein the truth under consideration is revealed and declared, — some of the divine testimonies whereby it is confirmed and established, which I have not at present inquired after, but suddenly repeated as they came to mind. Many more of the like nature and importance may be added unto them, and shall be so as occasion doth require.
Let, now, any one who owns the Scripture to be the word of God, — to contain an infallible revelation of the things proposed in it to be believed, — and who hath any conscience exercised towards God for the receiving and submitting unto what he declares and reveals, take a view of these testimonies, and consider whether they do not suffi- ciently propose this object of our faith. Shall a few poor trifling soph- isms, whose terms are scarcely understood by the most that amongst us make use of them, according as they have found them framed by others, be thought meet to be set up in opposition unto these multi- plied testimonies of the Holy Ghost, and to cast the tnith confirmed by them down from its credit and reputation in the consciences of men ? For my part, I do not see in any thing, but that the testi- monies given to the Godhead of Christ, the eternal Son of God, are every way as clear and unquestionable as those are which testify to the being of God, or that there is any God at all. Were men ac- quainted with the Scriptures as they ougiit to be, and as the most,
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considering the means and advantages they have had, might have been ; did they ponder and beheve on what they read, or had they any tenderness in their consciences as to that reverence, obedience, and subjection of soul which God requires unto his word ; it were utterly impossible that their faith in this matter should ever in tlie least be shaken by a few lewd sophisms or loud clamours of men destitute of the truth, and of the sphit of it.
That we may now improve these testimonies unto the end under design, as the nature of this brief discourse will bear, I shall first remove the general answers which the Socinians give unto them, and then manifest farther how uncontrollable they are, by giAdng an in- stance in the frivolous exceptions of the same persons to one of them in particular. And we are ready, God assisting, to maintain that there is not any one of them which doth not give a sufficient ground for faith to rest on in this matter concerning the Deity of Christ, and that against all the Socinians in the world.
They say, therefore, commonly, that we prove not by these testi- monies what is by them denied. For they acknowledge Christ to he God, and that because he is exalted unto that glory and authority that all creatures are put into subjection unto him, and all, both men and angels, are commanded to worship and adore him. So that he is God by office, though he be not God by nature. He is God, but he is not the most high God. And this last expression they have almost continually in then- mouths, " He is not the most high God." And commonly, with great contempt and scorn, they are ready to reproach them who have solidly confirmed the doctrine of the Deity of Christ as ignorant of the state of the controversy, in that they have not proved him to be the most high God, in subordination unto whom they acknowledge Christ to be God, and that he ought to be worshipped with divine and religious worship.