Christs eternal existence, and the dignity of his person asserted and proved in opposition…

2. To whom truly and properly the Names and Titles of things do belong, to him that which is signified by those Names, and Titles doth belong also: For otherwise this would destroy all certainty of speech, you cannot speak or write, unless words signify what in vulgar use they are applied unto: there could be no reasoning a signo ad rem significatum, from the sign to the thing signified. If I should call a brute a Man, or a creature God, how can we understand what is spoken or written: the argument is the more cogent, because a ⟨p. 200⟩name is an implicit contracted definition, as a definition is a name explained and dilated, As when I say a man is a reasonable creature, so a God is one that hath power over all blessed for ever.

2. To whom truly and properly the Names and Titles of things do belong, to him that which is signified by those Names, and Titles doth belong also: For otherwise this would destroy all certainty of speech, you cannot speak or write, unless words signifie what in vulgar use they are applyed unto: there could be no reasoning a signo ad rem significatum, from the sign to the thing signified. If I should call a brute a Man, or a creature God, how can we understand what is spoken or written: the argument is the more cogent, because a ⟨p. 200⟩name is an implicite contracted definition, as a definition is a name explained and dilated, As when I say a man is a reasonable creature, so a God is one that hath power over all blessed for ever.

3. The greater any person is, the more danger there is of giving him titles that do not belong to him; for that is to place him in an honour to which he hath greater pretensions then others: but no right, especially doth this hold good in Religion, it is true in Civils. (To give one next the King, the Title of King, would awaken the jealousy of Princes, and breed much inconvenience) but especially doth this hold good in Religion, where God is so jealous of giving his glory to another, Isa. 42.80. Therefore the greater the dignity of Christ was above all other creatures, the more caution was necessary, that the name of God might not be ascribed to him, if he were only mere Man, and it did not properly agree to him: for the more dangerous the error the more cautiously should we abstain from it.