The real Christian, or, A treatise of effectual calling wherein the work of God…

being now risen, but raised by God, not by himself, and ascended into glory. A goodly business, an excellent gift to set out the love of God by; had his Power, Wisdom, and Goodness in the Creation been no more than this, the invisible things of him, the eternal power and Godhead, Rom 1.20. had never been seen to convince a Heathen by the light of Nature. His miraculous Conception, what is in this? Adam's forming out of the earth was infinitely more miraculous: But this Son had no sin; no more had Adam when God made him; and though he did live without sin, that is little, the Angels do as much. That he died: so have many Martyrs more, as bad deaths and worse, to bear testimony to the Doctrine of God, and God will raise them also. So that if the gift of God be no more than the Socinians Jesus, we will never wonder at this love of God: the Text may well leave out the so loved, for this is not love, to set out a God by; our understandings can easily grasp this, being a pitiful small gift: this is not as he said, a gift like a thing: I must give like a King. But now for God to send his only begotten Son (therefore of the same essence with the Father, as Children are of the Father, else no Son) the wonderful, the mighty God, Isai. 9.6. 1 Tim. 3.16. to take on him (then he must have a praeexistence, for non ens cannot take) the seed of Abraham. Heb. 2.16. to redeem the seed of Abraham; that he must be made of a Woman, made under the Law, that he might redeem them that are under the Law, being made himself a curse, Gal. 4.4, 5. Gal. 3.13. This is a gift indeed; this argues love like a God indeed. The Creation doth not more demonstrate his power and wisdom to be infinite, than this gift demonstrates his love to be infinite; he may well put so to this love: this confounds, swallows up the understanding, sets it in amazement, and there leaves it, as do the other Attributes of God; this love bears a full proportion with his other Attributes. The Socinians Jesus debase God, and make his Attributes of love unbecoming ⟨p. 159⟩God. The Socinians make great use of