DISCOURSE III. 633 Arian will tell us, that these things seem to be too mean and low condescensions for the great God of heaven and earth to practise ; and thence they infer, that the person to whom these things are ascribed cannot be true God. Behold then this glorious Spirit, the Son of God, the soul of Jesus Christ, the man personally united to the divine nature appearing to perform these actions, to sustain these inferior characters, and to solve all this difficulty; and yet he is rightly called God, Lord, Jehovah, and has the perfections and honours of godhead ascribed to him ; for he is God as well as man, though his human nature is the immediate agent in these inferior transactions. VI. As this doctrine casts abeauty upon various passages of scripture, and upon the whole scheme of the christian faith, so " there is not one scripture, nor one point or article of our faith that can receive any evil influence from it, no dangerous conse- quences, that I know of, can possibly attend it. Some of the most zealous and learned defenders of the sacred Trinity have acknowledged to me, that they could see no danger of heresy in it, nor any injury to sacred truth, though they themselves had not seen this doctrine yet in a convincing light. And as there is no article of the christian faith that is endan- gered by it, so " neither does it alter any of the particular schemes of doctrine which divines of various parties have es- poused." You may still follow the sentiments of John Calvin, or Arminius, or the intermediate schemes of Monsieur Amyraid and Mr. Baxter ; for this doctrine makes no innovation in all the peculiar matters of dispute between these great men, but sets the 'whole contrivance of our salvation according to any of their schemes in a better light, and throws perhaps an impartial bright- ness upon the gospel, though it should be explained in any of their particular methods. " Nor does it in the least interfere with any particular schemes which men have invented to solve the difficulties of the blessed Doctrine of the Trinity." If this sentiment of pre-exis- tence be allowed,. the godhead of the sacred persons may still be explained, 'either according to the ancient athanasian scheme, which Bishop Pearson, and Bishop Bull have defended; or ac- cording tothe modernor scholastic athanasianism, whichDr. Chey- Bell, Dr. Owen, Dr. South, Bishop Stillingfleet, and others have well displayed ; or according to the hypothesis of Dr. Fowler, the late Bishop of Gloucester; or that of the late learned Mr. John Howe ; or according to the sentiments of the great and learned Dr. John Wallis, an eminent member of the assembly of divines. This sentiment of the pre-existent soul of Christ has a friendly aspect upon any scheme that maintains the godhead of the sacredThree; and may be easily assumed arid ingrafted into any one of them ? But the Socinian and Arian errors are inconsistent with it, as I have explained it.
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