if he had said there have been thirty Opinions in this Matter But tho' this be inartificial enough if no more yet that which is more grievously suspicious is that he calls the Catholick Faith but a meer Opinion and Perswasion of a Party * P. 31. The third Opinion saith his Lordship is that the Godhead by the Eternal Word the Second in the blessed Three dwelt in and was so inwardly united to the Humane Nature of Jesus Christ that by Virtue of it God and Man were truly one Person as our Soul and Body make one Man And that the Eternal Word was truly God and as such is worshipped and adored as the proper Object of Divine Adoration By those of this Perswasion the Term Person became applied to the Three which the Scripture only calls by the Name of Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost on design to discover those who thought that these Three were only different Names of the same Thing But by Person is not meant such a Being as we commonly understand by that Word a complete intelligent Being but only that every one of that Blessed Three has a peculiar distinction in himself by which he is truly different from the other two So again †P. 32 33. This in general is the Sump of the received Doctrine That as there is but One God so in that undivided Essence there are Three that are really different from one another and are more than three Names or three outward Oeconomies * P. 42. or Modes and that the Second of these was in a most intimate and unconceivable manner united to a perfect Man so that from the Humane and Divine Nature thus united there did result the Person of Christ § 3. And now perhaps some may wonder what Exceptions lie against this but there are indeed several and those of great Importance First That he calls it an Opinion only like that of the Socinian and Arian while yet he intimates it to be the Doctrine of the Church The truth is as his Lordship has stated it it has many meer Opinions in it but they are such as are not in the Faith and so ought not to have been represented as the Doctrine of the Church But if his Lordship had taken it for the Christian Faith either as it is or ought to have been stated by him he ought not to have set it out as a meer Opinion or Perswasion of a third Party For a meer partial Opinion cannot be a Divine or Catholick Faith whether we take Opinion for the Act or Object of Opinion For the Act is meer Humane Conjecture without certain grounds and objectively Opinions are Propositions that have no certain but only probable appearance which therefore no Man is bound in Conscience to assert or stand by for want of certain Evidence and Authority But Catholick Faith objectively taken consists of certain Principles made certainly evident by Divine Revelation to the Holy Catholick Church and thereupon to be relied on and asserted against all temptations in hopes of Life Eternal Now these Principles thus received were the Faith of the Universal Church not the Opinion of any Party in the beginning and therefore the contrary Parties and Opinions arising since of what Cut or Size soever pertain not to this Holy Body in which the Faith of the Trinity truly stated is as essential as the Faith of the Unity and as fundamental in the Christian Professions Now would it not be very Theological to say That all the Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles the whole Synagogue of the Jews and Church of Christ were ever of this Opinion That there is one God only the Creator and Governour of all things That the Apostles and all Christians are of Opinion that Jesus is the Christ That it is our Opinion That he came down and dwelt among us died rose again and ascended into Heaven and shall come to Judgment at the general Resurrection Just so absurd it is to call the Catholick Faith of God's Church the Opinion or Perswasion of a Party 'T is true indeed his Lordship sometimes calls it Doctrine but this term is equivocal and agrees as usually to the Opinions of the Philosophers But what I require is that the Catholick Doctrine be asserted as a Rule of Faith which the Church is bound to adhere to on the certain Authority of Divine Revelation this Revelation appearing real not only to particular Men's private Opinions but originally committed to the Charge and Custody of the whole Church by the Apostles and so preserved by their Successors throughout the whole diffusive Body Whereas his Lordship only lays down this Notion or form of Faith †P. 26. See Discour 3. That we believe points of Doctrine because we are perswaded that they are revealed to us in Scripture which is so languid and unsafe a Rule that it will resolve Faith into every Man's private fancies and contradictory Opinions since each Man's Faith is his Perswasion that what he believes for a Doctrine is revealed in Scripture Whereas the Act of a Christian Faith believes such Doctrine to be true and fundamental in Christianity from the certain Evidence thereof in the Scriptures acknowledged by all Churches not led by casual Perswasions but by a primitive perpetual universal and unanimous Conviction and Tradition The deviation from which Rule and Notion to private Opinions and Perswasions is the cause of all Heresies and by its consequent Divisions naturally tends to the ruine of the true Christian and Catholick Faith I will not however at present descend into that thicket of Controversie What Rules private Persons are bound to in the learning and professing the Christian Faith but whosoever will arrive to a maturity of Judgment and Knowledge herein must betake him †P. 63. to the exploded Rule of Vincentius Eirineâ—â— and take that for fundamental Doctrine which hath been received for such in all Ages Places and Churches A Rule very practicable and easie since there are sufficient Memorials of the Primitive Antiquity delivering unto us their Creeds and Summaries of the then Catholick Faith which from them has uniformly descended to all Churches of the later Ages 'T is true indeed every single Man can believe no otherwise than he is privately perswaded but he that is not to be perswaded to receive the common and established Systems of the Faith of the Church Catholick upon the Authority on which it hath ever stood and yet stands or shall wantonly coin out other Articles for fundamental upon his own private Opinion belongs not to the Communion of the Church of Christ though he fansies his conceptions revealed in the Scriptures § 4. Secondly His Lordship is not clear in the point of Incarnation for he tells us that this third Opinion is that by the Vnion of the Eternal Word with Christ's Humanity God and Man truly became one Person Now here first we are not taught whether there were three or any one Person in the
very often found yet there being no Shechinah in his Land of Vz the Author or Translator could not use the term Jehovah concerning God appearing in the Shechinah of the Children of Israel for Job was an Alien and of the Line of Esau In those infinite Places where the Creation and all other Divine Works without the Land of Canaan are attributed to Jehovah there the name has no respect to the Shechinah Wheresoever he is mentioned by this name in Affairs among the Ten Tribes after their separation by Jeroboam from the Worship at Jerusalem there is no respect to the Shechinah for he had no such among the Ten Tribes When Ezekiel in Captivity before the destruction of the Temple mentions the Oracles of Jehovah or God by this name in the Land of the Chaldeans he has no respect to a Shechinah When the Temple was destroyed there was never any Shechinah restored to that Temple any more yet the inspired Pen-men after this call him by the name Jehovah for which I referr his Lordship to the Bible or the Concordances And to conclude the Eternal Wisdom of the Father speaking by Solomon calls him Jehovah with respect to such a time as was before all possibility of a Shechinah Prov. 8.22 Jehovah possessed me in the beginning of his way before his works of old And truly if Jehovah were the name of God only as in the Shechinah then as it did not belong to him before the Shechinah so it ceases to appertain to him since the extinction thereof in the dissolution of the first Temple except his Lordship will have it revive again by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Habitation of God in Christ's Humane Nature But then as often as it was used by the High Priest if not others under the second Temple and after the cessation of other Prophets till Christ came by his Lordship's Criticism it must be improper and the Prophets that called God Jehovah after the Destruction of the Temple did misname him But after all to keep up an old custom his Lordship adds another contradiction for he says * P. 38. Jehovah is a federal name of God Now if so then was it properly used of God all the while the Jews were in the Old Covenant with God which was till the Death of Christ surely and consequently all that tract of time in which there was no Shechinah from the ruin of the first Temple was this name most proper § 13. From the Jewish Shechinah come we to Christ of whom his Lordship thus teaches * P. 40. that Christ was God by vertue of the Indwelling of the Eternal Word in him †P. 35. that the Jehovah dwelt so immediately and bodily in Christ Jesus that by that Indwelling he was truly Jehovah * P. 37. that he was the true Jehovah by a more perfect Indwelling of the Deity in him than that had been which was in the Cloud Now this must be grounded upon a Principle or Maxim That whatsoever the Delty immediately inhabits as it did the Cloud and the Humanity of Christ that thing becomes God and the true Johovah by virtue of that Inhabitation and therefore the Cloud and the Humanity of Christ were the true Jehovah by this Residence and if so the Cloud and Christ are substantially the same thing though yet the Cloud hath ceased to be for many Ages And by the same Doctrine the inner Sanctuary of the Tabernacle and the Temple and much more the Temples of our Bodies and Souls in which Christ as God dwells immediately by his Holy Spirit are the true Jehovah also by virtue of this Inhabitation And besides all these absurdities his Lordship's terms exclusively diversifie the whole Christ who is inhabited from the Eternal Word which does inhabit in him and so according to his Lordship he becomes if not a Socinian yet a sactitious God one way or other § 14. Ay But does not the Apostle justifie his Lordship's form of speaking when he saith * Col. 2.9 that in Christ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily which his Lordship †P. 40. cites for his Authority These are indeed the Apostle's Words and his Lordship cunningly referrs to them though never intended to his Lordship's Consequences and Imagnations For the Apostle seems to oppose the Gnostick Pleromata excluding Christ from the Supreme Pleroma and Divinity Now things are inexistent in others either as things contained in things containing or as parts in the whole or one part in another The first Mode cannot belong to the inexistence of the Deity in our nature the second or third form of inexistence may be conveniently asserted here For first the whole Christ being a Compositum of the Word and Manhood the God-head of the Word may be said to be in Christ as part in the whole But if you take Christ here Synecdochically for that part of him which is distinct from the God-head which is often done sometimes expresly as the Man Christ Jesus sometimes implicitly from the necessary sense of the Texts then this Text will be thus interpretable In Christ i.e. the Man Christ or his Manhood dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead as the superior in the inferior part of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and as the Soul in a Body But neither of these Senses inferr that all that in which the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily as a Soul in a Body is thereby really God and the true Jehovah for this would inferr an Eutychian confusion of Natures and Attributes To illustrute this his Lordship may observe that we say an excellent Soul is found in this Man either as part in the whole or strictly as the whole Man is put only for the Body yet no Man will hence inferr that all that in which the excellent Soul dwells thereby becomes a true Soul for this would confound the two Natures into one And truly as the formal Structure of his Lordship's words is heretical so his Arguments for it from the Jewish Shechinah are Idolatrous and will justifie Idolatry i.e. Creature-Worship both in Jews and Christians 'T is true indeed the Fathers generally teach a gracious adoptive and metaphorical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of our nature in Christ and of all Saints by him but not so as to make that Nature or these Saints the true Jehovah notwithstanding their mutual coinhabitation to all Eternity § 15. It must be allowed and I allow it freely that the Argument brought from the perpetual rendring of Jehovah by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the signal appropriation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the New Testament to our Lord while both Testaments establish only one and the same Lord is in it self exceeding good and urged generally by most learned Men to this purpose but however it is almost marred by his Lordship's conjuring up an Objection which he had not skill enough to lay The great Objection * P. 37. says he that ariseth
necessary that they should be but two Modes of thinking This being premised our cogitations and reasonings are acts of a free Principle but our animal Operations are necessary But what is this to the Theory of the Divine Nature For these contrarieties of Operations proceed from the composition of contrary Substances Soul and Body whereas the Deity is most simple and uncompounded and consequently cannot be represented by any compositum whatsoever especially a compound of contraries Well! but necessary Operations of the animal Life seem to be from some Emanations from our Souls Very well and do these seeming Emanations represent an Idea of the Emanations of the second and third Person I doubt not for those in the Deity are but two but these of our Souls on our Bodies if they were Emanations as they are not are very manifold But if they be representative Emanations why then his Lordship here goes beyond due bounds in being pleased with the Notions and Similes of Emanations or else these Notions are regular and then why are the Fathers taxed for exorbitancy in them But if these Emanations of the animal life are not representative why are they brought in here under the term of Emanations to make us believe them representative of the Divine Emanations So much then for a Dyad representative Now a Kingdom for a third Well then we have in acts of Memory Imagination and Discourse a mixture of both Principles i. e. free and necessary or a third that results out of them As for his mixtures I leave them purely to himself but for his third resulting Principle I am to seek For it must be a Principle that is neither free nor necessary and such a one is hard to be got for love or money but however that a Principle neither free nor necessary should result from two whereof one is free and the other necessary will I doubt bring his Lordship of mere necessity to the terms of a contradiction how uncontradicted soever he affects to be § 19. Advance we now from the old Similes of the Fathers to the Theology it self represented by them Now it is not a novel Observation or Fancy as his Lordship snearingly suggests but the ancient internal Catholick and substantial Wisdom of the Faith that the * Iren. l. 2. c 47. Deus enim cum sit totus Mens totus Ratio totus Spiritus operans c. Octav. ap Minuc Foelic Quid aliud à nobis Deus quam Mens Ratio Spiritus praedicatur Greg. Naz. ad Patr. cum Eccl. Naz. ipsi permisit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 scil lablorum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad Graec. Inlid Ser. 2. de Principio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 three adorable Persons in the Godhead are an Eternal and Substantial Mind Reason and Holy Spirit Now to avoid all cavil and equivocation it is not unnecessary that I state the exactest Notions of the Fathers in these Terms of their Theology For that the words being of very various and involved significations in common use will be liable to easie mistakes in this profound and critical Theory especially when Readers shall discover sometimes the same terms to be promiscuously used for different Persons § 20. I begin therefore with that of Mind This most properly and primitively signifies the noetick or intellectual Principle in all rational Beings the Spring the Fountain the Original of those intellectual Graces and Perfections that are found in such Spiritual Natures But by an easie Trope it is also very commonly used in all sorts of Writings for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Conceptions Counsels Sentiments Propensions and Resolves of the Mind as were it necessary might be shewn in infinite instances But thirdly there hath been a Philosophick and Artificial Sense of the word of a more late invention setting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Minds for single Spirits Now the exact Notion of Mind as the first Principle in the Deity is the first of these the proper and the Primitive as it is the Original of God's Essential Reason and Holy Spirit Now according to this exact and canonical Notation the term Mind is not only an Essential but a Paternal and Producent Character so that speaking with canonick accuracy we cannot say that there are three Minds for this is directly to assert three Fathers and by consequence three Sons or Logoi and so likewise three Holy Spirits since every such Mind must have its Reason and Spirit of which it is and must be a natural and necessary original To assert three Minds in the sense of Spirits is directly to assert three Gods it being the same thing and as irregular to say there are in the Deity three Spirits as three Gods But if we will take the term equivocally in different Senses then we find some Fathers calling not only * Athenag Leg. p. 38. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at prius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 scil quod dixerat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sic forte intelligendum illud p. 110. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theoph. ad Autolyc p. 129. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Logon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pater 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Alex. Protrep 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at Strom. l. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de codem Logo the Father the Mind in distinction from the Logos but the Logos also tropically by the name of Mind as being the essential 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Reason of the Father of the same Essence and therefore in respect of that Essence loosly called by the same name according perhaps to the Pattern and Language of Plato the Philosophick Ancients using this homonymy according to the tast of the Platonick Philosophers which were of so great credit among the Greeks whom our Worthies cited as of Authority with the Gentiles in their Apologeticks in order to their more easie conversion And yet neither in this laxer acception or comprehensiveness have I ever read among our Ancients the assertion of three Minds For using the term mind in an essential Notion only not a paternal the assertion of three Minds would have looked like three Essences § 21. But though we have sufficiently proved our Doctrine not to be a novel whimsie but a Primitive and Catholick Tradition yet will I prove its foundations to be really Divine For the Son of God is so called with relation to a Father from whom he derives his proper Subsistence and Character And this Son of God the Father is he whom St. John calls the Logos according to the old Jewish Theology God of God the internal substantial Reason of God the Father in whom or who is the Image of his Father by whom the Father made and governs all things And from hence this hath ever been the avowed Faith of all the * Iren. l. 1 c. 1. l. 2. c. 55. l. 3. c. 18. l. 4. c. 14. c. 28. c. 37. c. 75. l. 5. c. 6 Just Martyr Apol. 2. Dial.