Isaiah calls him The Everlasting FATHER. And again it is written They are the CHILDREN of GOD, being the Children of the RESURRECTION': But, says Christ I am the RESURRECTION:

therefore he is God, and hath us for his Children. If this be the case, the word Father cannot always be a name that distinguishes God from another person of God; but is often to be understood as a term of relation between God and Man: or as a modern Divine of our Church has well expressed it “A word

not intended for God the Father only, the "First person of the Trinity; but as it is re"ferred unto the Creature, made and con"served by God; in which sense it appertains "to the whole Trinity.”

XXXV.

John XIV.28. MY FATHER IS GREATER than I.

The two preceding Articles will sufficiently justify what the Church has asserted with a

• IX. 6.

Luke XX. 36.

с

• John XI. 25.

view to this passage

That Christ is "in

"ferior to the Father as touching his Man

hood." And the stream of the whole Scripture is against that use the Arians generally make of it; who stand in need to be reminded at every turn, that in the person of Christ, there is an human soul and body, the nature of a man; which as it cannot lay claim to what is spoken of Christ in unity with the Father, so must it receive to its own account whatever seems to degrade and disjoin him from the Father. It is indeed hard to say which of the two heresies is the most unreasonable and unscriptural; that of the Socinians, which never considers Christ as any thing but a mere man; or that of the Arians, who never look upon him as any thing but a supposititious God. Between these two gross errors, lies the true Catholic Faith; which as it allows him to be perfect God and perfect man, is never offended, or put to its shifts, by any thing the Scripture may have said about him in either capacity.

XXXVI.

† 1 Cor. XI. 3. The HEAD of Christ is

GOD.

D 4

The

The name Christ does here stand, as in other places out of number, for the man Christ; otherwise it must follow, that as Christ is God, God is the head of himself; which is a contradiction; or that one God is the head of another God; which also is a contradiction.

This Text is capable of a good illustration from Genes. III. 15. where we read, that the heel of the promised seed should be bruised: by which, the church has always understood the sufferings of his human nature, metaphorically represented by the inferior part in man. So in this place, his Divinity or superior nature is as aptly signified by the head or superior part of the human body.

XXXVII.

† Mark XIII. 32. But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no not the Angels which are in heaven, neither THE SON, but THE FATHER.

It is declared of Christ in another place, that he increased in wisdom: why should it

a Luke II. 52.

be

be incredible then, that during the whole term of his humiliation in the flesh, some

thing should still be left, which as man upon earth he did not know; if you suppose him to be ignorant of this matter as God, how is it that St. Peter confesses him to be omniscient, without receiving any rebuke for it, or being reminded of any particular exception ? LORD, thou knowest ALL

THINGS.

XXXVIII.

John I. 18. No man hath SEEN GOD at any time.

Ibid. XIV. 8, 9. Philip saith unto him, Lord, SHEW US THE FATHER hast thou not SEEN ME, Philip? he that hath seen ME, hath seen THE FATHER.

66

"These words (says Dr. Clarke) do not signify, that he who hath seen the Person

of Christ hath seen the person of the Fa"ther." No surely; but that he who hath seen all that was visible of Christ, hath seen

a John XXI. 17.

the

the person to whom was joined that invisible and divine Nature, which the Scripture has called by the Name of the Father. And to shew that Christ, (though he was God manifest in the flesh) is yet no other than the same invisible God, whom no man hath or can see and live, we are told, that "when he shall appear (glorified, not with any secondary divinity, but with the FATHER'S OWN"SELF',) we shall be like him (fashioned "like unto his own glorious body, and conformed to his Image) for we shall SEE "him AS HE IS; which no man ever yet hath done."

XXXIX.

+ 1 Cor. XV. 27. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that HE IS EXCEPTED (EXTOS TE υποταξαντος) which did put all things under him. And when all things shall be SUBDUED (UTOTαyn) UNTO

HIM

a 1 Tim. III. 16.

b John XVII. 5.
Rom. VIII. 29.

c Phil. III. 21.