made it; being God hath not only written himself in the lively characters of his creatures, but hath also made frequent patefactions of his Deity by most infallible predictions and 26 supernatural operations: therefore I fully assent unto, freely acknowledge, and clearly profess, this truth, that there is a God. Again, being a prime and independent Being supposeth all other to depend, and consequently no other to be God; being the entire fountain of all perfections is incapable of a double head, and the most perfect government of the universe speaks the supreme dominion of one absolute Lord; hence do I acknowledge that God to be but one, and in this unity, or rather singularity of the Godhead, excluding all actual or possible multiplication of a Deity, I BELIEVE IN GOD. I BELIEVE IN GOD THE FATHER. AFTER the confession of a Deity, and assertion of the divine unity, the next consideration is concerning God's paternity; for that one God is Father of all, and to us there is Eph. iv. 6. but one God, the Father. 1 Now, although the Christian notion of the divine paternity be some way peculiar to the evangelical patefaction; yet 1 wheresoever God hath been acknowledged, he hath been understood and worshipped as a Father: the very heathen poets so describe their gods, and their vulgar names did carry father3 in them, as the most popular and universal notion. 1 Cor. viii. 6. This name of Father is a relative; and the proper founda-f tion of paternity, as of a relation, is generation. As therefore As therefore fun 1 'Omnem Deum qui ab homine colitur, necesse est inter solemnes ritus et precationes Patrem nuncupari; non tantum honoris gratia, verum etiam rationis, quod et antiquior est homine, et quod vitam, salutem, victum præstat, ut pater. Itaque et Jupiter a precantibus Pater vocatur, et Saturnus, et Janus, et Liber, et cæteri deinceps.' Lactan. de ver. Sap. [Div. Inst.] 1. iv. c. 3. That so frequent in Homer, πατὴρ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε ‘eundem appellans dicit [Ennius]: Divumque hominumque pater rex.' Var. de L. L. 1. v. c. 10, p. 71. As Servius observes of Virgil: 'A poeta pene omnibus Diis nomen Paternum ad- 'Ut nemo sit nostrum, quin pater optimu' Ut Neptunu' Pater, Liber, Saturnu' Pater, Janu', Quirinu' Pater nomen dicatur ad unum.' 3 As Jupiter, which is Jovis Pater, Gen. li. 4. 28. the phrase of generating is diversely attributed unto several acts of the same nature with generation properly taken, or by consequence attending on it; so the title of Father is given unto divers persons or things, and for several reasons unto the same God. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth, when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, saith Moses. So that the creation or production of any thing by which it is, and before was not, is a kind of generation, and consequently the Job xxxviii. creator or producer of it a kind of Father. Hath the rain a father? Or who hath begotten the drops of dew? by which words Job signifies, that as there is no other cause assignable of the rain but God, so may he as the cause be called the Father of it, though not in the most proper sense', as he is the Father of his Son: and so the philosophers of old, who thought that God did make the world, called him expressly, as 1 Cor. viii. 6. the Maker, so the Father of it. And thus to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things; to which the words following in the CREED may seem to have relation, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. But in this mass of creatures and body of the universe, some works of the creation more properly call him Father, as being more rightly sons: such are all the rational and intellectual offspring of the Deity. Of merely natural beings and irrational agents 27 he is the creator; of rational, as so, the Father also they 3 1 Ἑτέρως γάρ τις ἱεροῦ πατέρα Θεὸν ἀκούει, καὶ ἑτέρως υἱοῦ. Severus, Cat. Patr. in Job. c. 26. p. 551. 2 Plutarch of Plato, calling God πατέρα τῶν πάντων καὶ ποιητήν, says: τῇ μεταφορᾷ χρώμενος, ὥσπερ εἴωθε, τὸν αἴτιον πατέρα τοῦ κόσμου κέκληκεν. Platon. Quæst. ii. § 1. [Vol. v. p. 1000, F.] And Alcimus: Taτηρ dé ἐστι τῷ αἴτιος εἶναι πάντων. χόντα τὸ σπέρμα, καίπερ ἐκ τοῦ υπέρματος γεγονότος. Non enim agri pater, si Chrysippo credimus, is dicitur qui eum consevit, quanquam e semine deinde fruges nascantur: as the Latin translation most absurdly. Ibid. For there is neither corn, nor field, nor any seed belonging to them, in the words of Plutarch, But χόριον (not χωρίον) is the secunda *, the coat (or rather coats in the acceptation of Chrysippus, and the language of those times) in which the fœtus is involved in the mother's womb. Though therefore both the secunda and the fœtus be made of the seed of the male in the philosophy of Chrysippus, yet he is not called the father of the after-birth, but of * So it is given in Wyttenbach's edition. 3 So Plutarch answers the question, why Plato terms God the Maker and Father of all things; "Η τῶν μὲν Θεῶν τῶν γεννητῶν καὶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων πατήρ ἐστιν—ποιητὴς δὲ τῶν ἀλόγων καὶ ἀψύχων; Father of gods and men, Maker of all things inanimate and irrational. Οὐ γὰρ χορίου, φησὶ Χρύσ σιππος, πατέρα καλεῖσθαι τὸν παρασ‐ Hence he is styled the 7. are his creatures, these his sons. Unto this act of creation is annexed that of conservation, Luke iii. 38. by which God doth uphold and preserve in being that which von un at first he made, and to which he gave its being. As therefore it is the duty of the parent to educate and preserve the child as that which had its being from him; so this paternal education doth give the name of Father1 unto man, and conservation gives the same to God. 6. Again, redemption from a state of misery, by which a peoples by us hath become worse than nothing, unto a happy condition, is a kind of generation, which joined with love, care, and indulgence in the Redeemer, is sufficient to found a new paternity, and give him another title of a Father. Well might Moses tell the people of Israel, now brought out of the land of Egypt from their brick and straw, unto their quails and manna, unto their milk and honey, Is not he thy Father that hath bought Deut. xxxii. thee? hath he not made thee, and established thee? Well might God speak unto the same people as to his son, even his Exod. iv, 22. first-born. Thus saith the Lord thy Redeemer, and he that Isai. xliv. 24; formed thee from the womb, Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, which are borne by me from the belly, which are carried from the womb. And just is the acknowledgment made by that people instructed by the prophet, Doubtless thou art our Father, Isal Ixiii. 16. though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not; thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer, from everlasting is thy name. And thus another kind of pater the child; the one being endued with life and reason, and the other not. 1 So Eustathius observes out of PEARSON. an ingenious etymologist: Πατὴρ Θεὸς xlvi. 3. James i. 17, 18. 1 John v.1. nal relation of God unto the sons of men is founded on a restitution or temporal redemption. Besides, if to be born causeth relation to a father, then to be born again maketh an addition of another: and if to generate foundeth, then to regenerate addeth a paternity. Now though we cannot enter the second time into our mother's womb, nor pass through the same door into the scene of life John iii. 4. 3. again; yet we believe and are persuaded that except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. A double birth there is, and the world' consists of two, the first and the second man. And though the incorruptible seed be the word of God, and the dispensers of it in some sense may say, as St 1 Cor. iv. 15. Paul spake unto the Corinthians, I have begotten you through the Gospel: yet he is the true Father, whose word it is, and that is God, even the Father of lights, who of his own will begat us with the word of truth. Thus whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God; which regeneration is as it were a second creation: for we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. And he alone who did create us out of nothing, can beget us again, and make us 28 Gen. xxx. 1, of the new creation. When Rachel called to Jacob, Give me children, or else I die; he answered her sufficiently with this question, Am I in God's stead? And if he only openeth the womb, who else can make the soul' to bear? Hence hath he the name of Father, and they of sons who are born of him; and so from that internal act of spiritual regeneration another title of paternity redoundeth unto the Divinity. Eph. ii. 10 2. Nor is this the only second birth or sole regeneration in a Christian sense; the soul, which after its natural being requires a birth into the life of grace, is also after that born again into Matt. xix. 28. a life of glory. Our Saviour puts us in mind of the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory. The resurrection of our bodies is a kind of coming out of the womb of the earth, and entering upon immortality, a Luke xx. 35, nativity into another life. For they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, 36. 1 Totum genus humanum quodammodo sunt homines duo, primus et secundus.' Prosp. lib. Sententiar. ex August. sent. 301. al. 299. 2 Οὐ γὰρ ἀντὶ Θεοῦ ἐγώ εἰμι, τοῦ μόνου δυναμένου τὰς ψυχῶν μήτρας ἀνοιγνύναι, καὶ σπείρειν ἐν αὐταῖς ἀρε τάς, καὶ ποιεῖν ἐγκύμονας καὶ τικτούσας Tà Kaλá. Philo de Alleg. [1. iii. c. 63. Vol. I. p. 123.] Heb. ix. 15. Col. iii. 24. 1 John iii. 2. etion. are the sons of God, being the sons of the resurrection, and Neither is there only a natural, but also a voluntary and civil foundation of paternity; for the laws have found a way by which a man may become a father without procreation: and this imitation of nature3 is called adoption, taken in the general signification*. Although, therefore, many ways God be a Father; yet, lest any way might seem to exclude us from being his sons, he hath made us so also by adoption. Sons és Others are wont to fly to this, as to a comfort of their solitary condition, when either nature hath denied them, or death bereft them of their offspring. 1 Καὶ οὔπω ἐφανερώθη. 2 [If he appear, èàv pavepwły, in the 3rd Edition.] 3 'Adoptio naturæ similitudo est, ut aliquis filium habere possit, quem non generaverit.' Caii Epit. Inst. 1. tit. 5. § 1. [lib. 1. tit. 7.] Tí čotiv υἱοθεσία ; νομίμη πρᾶξις μιμουμένη τὴν φύσιν πρὸς ἀπαίδων παραμυθίαν ἐπινεvonuévn. Theoph. Inst. 1. t. 11. [Vol. 1. p. 109.] 4 Η υἱοθεσία Ρωμαϊκῇ φωνῇ λέγεται ἀδοπτίων· αὕτη οὖσα γενικὸν ὄνομα εἰς δύω διαιρεῖται, εἰς ἀδρογατίονα, καὶ τὴν ὁμώνυμον ἀδοπτίονα. Theoph. ibid. 5 'Spadones autem qui generare non possunt, adoptare possunt; et, licet filios generare non possint, quos adoptaverunt filios habere possunt.' Whereas God doth it not for Caii Epit. Inst. 1. tit. 5. § 4. [lib. 1. 24. |