N00342:71
The mystery of Christ opened and applied. In several sermons, concerning the person, office,…The mystery of Christ opened and applyed. In several sermons, concerning the person, office,…
The mystery of Christ opened and applied. In several sermons, concerning the person, office, and glory of Jesus Christ. / By Increase Mather, teacher of a church at Boston in N. England. ; [Twelve lines of quotations]The mystery of Christ opened and applyed. In several sermons, concerning the person, office, and glory of Jesus Christ. / By Increase Mather, teacher of a church at Boston in N. England. ; [Twelve lines of quotations]
Boston: printed by Richard Pierce for Joseph Browning, 1686
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
And therefore is He (as but now was intimated) said to be equal with God, Phil. 2. 6. He thought it not Robbery to be equal with God. If Christ had not been God's own Son, for Him to have given out that He was equal with God would have been the greatest Robbery and Sacrilege that ever was. If He were only the adopted son of God, that would not prove His Equality with the Father. But an own son (though he may be inferior, or it may be superior to his father in respect of Office, or o• other accounts) in respect of Nature he is Equal with his father: A son is not of an inferior Nature to his Father. Christ (then) is God's Son as to Nature, therefore his Son in Respect of Generation.
And therefore is He (as but now was intimated) said to be equal with God, Phil. 2. 6. He thought it not Robbery to be equal with God. If Christ had not been God's own Son, for Him to have given out that He was equal with God would have been the greatest Robbery and Sacriledge that ever was. If He were only the adopted son of God, that would not prove His Equality with the Father. But an own son (though he may be inferior, or it may be superior to his father in respect of Office, or o• other accounts) in respect of Nature he is Equal with his father: A son is not of an inferior Nature to his Father. Christ (then) is God's Son as to Nature, therefore his Son in Respect of Generation.
Propos. 3. The Generation of the Son of God is Eternal. They err fundamentally who imagine that the Son of God had no Existence before his Incarnation. The world was created about four Thousand years before the Son of God came into it, nevertheless He made the world, Joh. 1. 3, 10. Therefore He did exist before He became a man. God had many adopted sons in the days of the Old Testament, therefore He had an own Son for whose sake they were adopted. The Hebrews do sometimes call the Messiah by that Name of [Jinnon] which signifieth a Son, and is the word used