A brief declaration and vindication of the doctrine of the Trinity as also of…

The Jews in the time of our Saviours converse on the earth, being fallen greatly from the Faith and Worship of their forefathers, and ready to sink into their last and utmost Apostasy from God, seem amongst many other truths, to have much lost that of the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and of the Person of the Messiah. It was indeed suited in the dispensation of God, unto the work that the Lord Jesus had to fulfil in the world, that before his Passion and Resurrection, the knowledge of his Divine Nature as unto his individual person, should be concealed from the most of men. For this cause, although he was in the form of ⟨p. 12⟩God, and thought it no robbery to be equal with God, yet he made himself of no reputation, by taking on him the form of a servant, and made in the likeness of men, that being found in the fashion of a man, he might be obedient unto death, Phil. 2. 7, 8, 9. whereby his Divine Glory was veiled for a season, until he was declared to be the Son of God with power, according unto the Spirit of Holiness, by the resurrection from the dead, Rom. 1. 4. And then was glorified with that glory which he had with the Father before the world was, John 17. 3. And as this dispensation was needful unto the accomplishment of the whole work which as our Mediator he had undertaken, so in particular, he who was in himself the Lord of Hosts, a Sanctuary to them that feared him, became hereby, a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence to both the Houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Isa. 8. 13, 14. See Luke 2. 34. Rom. 9. 33. 1 Pet. 2. 8. ⟨p. 13⟩Isa. 28. 26. But yet notwithstanding, as occasions required, suitably unto his own holy ends and designs, he forbore not to give plain and open testimony to his own Divine Nature and eternal pre-existence unto his Incarnation. And this was it, which of all other things most provoked the carnal Jews with whom he had to do. For having, as was said, lost the Doctrine of the Trinity and Person of the Messiah in a great measure, when ever he asserted his Deity, they were immediately enraged and endeavoured to destroy him. So was it plainly,