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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52608	Considerations on the explications of the doctrine of the Trinity by Dr. Wallis, Dr. Sherlock, Dr. S-th, Dr. Cudworth, and Mr. Hooker as also on the account given by those that say the Trinity is an unconceivable and inexplicable mystery / written to a person of quality.	Nye, Stephen, 1648?-1719.; Wallis, John, 1616-1703.; Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1693 (1693)	Wing N1505B; ESTC R32239	45,913	35

CONSIDERATIONS ON THE EXPLICATIONS OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY By Dr. Wallis Dr. Sherlock Dr. S th Dr. Cudworth and Mr. Hooker as also on the Account given by those that say the Trinity is an Unconceivable and Inexplicable Mystery Written to a Person of Quality Printed in the Year MDCXCIII CONSIDERATIONS on the Explication of the Doctrine of the Trinity c. SIR 't is the principal Design of both Testaments by Confession of all Parties to estabish the Worship and Belief of one only God 't was for this that all the Books of the Old Testament were written and delivered to the Jews and for this the New was bestowed on the Gentiles Of Jews and Gentiles as the Apostle observes There were none that understood none that sought after the true God They were all gone out of the way they became vain in their Imaginations and their foolish Heart was darkened Professing to be wise they became Fools and changed the Truth of God into a Lie by worshipping the Creature and doing Service to them who were not by Nature Gods This was the Condition of both Jews and Gentiles when first the Law and then the Light of the glorious Gospel of Christ who is the Image of God shone out upon them In the Law the Jews were charged Ye shall have no other Gods but ME and again Thou shalt know no other God but ME. In the Gospel the Gentiles are taught There is one God and there is none other but He There is no other God but one God is one Exod. 20. 3. Hosea 13. 4. Mark 12. 32. 1 Cor. 8. 5. Gal. 3. 20. These and an hundred more such like clear and express Declarations of holy Scripture have been the occasion that the Unity of God or that there is but one God is the first Article of Faith both with Jews and true Christians From the Christians and Jews it hath been learned and embraced by all the Mahometans and is now the general Belief even of the Pagan and Idolatrous Nations for tho these last own and worship many Gods yet they commonly own but one who is Supream Infinite Almighty and Pre-eternal they make the other Deities to be but the Ministers of his Providence and Will and their Mediators with Him But that there is an Almighty and All-wise Mind the Maker of Heaven and Earth and of all the Creatures and Kinds in them we discern plainly by the Order Beauty and Stability of Things and more especially by the admirable Designs in the Whole and in all the Parts of the Creation But as this Divine Beauty and Order and those numberless and most useful Designs Aims and Ends seen in the Creation do evince that there is a Thinking Designing and All-powerful Mind whom we call GOD so they no way intimate to us that there is more than one Creating and Governing Mind or GOD. They demonstrate to us beyond exception that one such Mind there is but not that there is more than one therefore we may say that we can own and worship but one such Mind or but one God because we know of no more Of one we are certain by the Order and Design of the Parts in the World of more than one we have no manner of Proof therefore we cannot own or worship or but talk or even think of more But the Revelation made to us in holy Scripture is Categorical Apodictical Express and Direct there we are told plainly and in terms There is no other God but one there is one God and there is none other but He the Lord thy God the Lord is one God is one As this Doctrine is so clearly delivered in Scripture so good Christians have been always very jealous that neither directly nor indirectly neither in express Words nor in Consequence any thing should be said or held contrary thereto They have considered that Polytheism and Atheism are much the same thing as 't is much one to acknowledg and contend for more Kings of England others besides King William and to renounce or deny him to be King of England Both the Covenants the Old as well as the New are between Us on the one part and the one true God on the other part he covenants to be our God and our exceeding great Reward we covenant to be his People and his only this Covenant is manifestly dissolved and the Premium or Promise of Eternal Life annexed to our Faithfulness to this Covenant is utterly forfeited if we take to our selves any other besides Him with whom we are in covenant and who alone is true God The Guilt of Polytheism or of affirming more than one God being so very great and the Forfeiture thereby made so unspeakable and the Unity of God being so often and so expresly delivered in holy Scripture 't is an amazing Circumstance that Polytheism is not only found among Christians but is also the more general and prevailing Belief of Christian States and Kingdoms It is true we all agree in the words There is one God and there is none other but He but when we come to explain our selves on these words the incomparable Majority of Modern Christians are found to affirm three Gods and not one only One would have thought that these words Thou shalt have no other Gods but ME the Lord thy God is one Lord thou shalt know no other God but ME there is none other God but one God is one I say one would have thought these Declarations to be so plain and so uncontestable that a Question could never have arose concerning their meaning But so it is that there are a great many Senses given of these Words which Senses are contrary to and destructive of one another The Doctrine of the Unitarians concerning God THe first of these Senses is the Unitarian For the Unitarians say there is none other God but one God is one the plain obvious and indubitable meaning of these words is this there is but One who is God or a God One God say they is to be understood in the same natural sincere and unsophisticated Sense as when we say one Sun one Earth one World When the Scriptures say they speak to us of so high an Object as God when they tell us there is one God and there is none other but He when they declare this Faith to be the very first of all God's Charges or Commandments to Men without doubt they speak without Artifice or Querk they have no double or deceitful meaning they don't lay Snares for us by intending such a meaning as is contrary to the usual the grammatical and proper Sense of the Words There is but one God say the Holy Scriptures where can be the Ambiguity of such usual and plain Words the meaning of the Terms One and God is perfectly known to all Men Why do we study Subtilties and Finenesses with which to deceive our selves into Polytheism and to destroy the Simplicity of the Faith When God says in the

first Commandment Thou shalt have no other God but Me he speaks to all Men to the illiterate to the sincere and even to Children as well as to those who are practised in the Arts of deceiving and being deceived by a Disguise of Words and by captious Forms of speaking If his meaning therefore was there is an Almighty Father who is God he hath an Almighty Son who also is a God and besides these there is an Almighty Spirit distinct from the other two and a God no less than either of them if I say this was his meaning would he have couched it in such words as these There is none other God but one or in these There is one God and there is none other but He or would he have said Thou shalt have none other God but ME Could the Wisdom of God it self find no other words but these which are so directly contrary to such a meaning by which to express himself and that too to those who were utterly uncapable of apprehending such a Sense in them These are the words which God spake upon Mount Sinai with Thunders that shook the Earth and Heavens I am the Lord thy God thou shalt have no other God but ME. They tell us his meaning was there are three Almighty All-knowing and Most good Persons each of them singly and by himself God and all of them jointly Creators of all things Now who would have thought it that this should be the meaning of no other God but ME Without doubt the Texts and the meaning are as far from one another as any the most contradictory Propositions can be and till they can remove this first Commandment out of the way it will be impossible for Men of Sense to be of the Trinitarian Perswasion I mean if they be also sincere if they suffer not themselves to be blinded by the Interests or awed by the vain Terrors of the present false World Our Opposers themselves grant that when the Israelites first heard this Commandment they understood it and could then no otherways understand it as the Unitarians now do namely thus Thou shalt never own any other Person as God but only Me who now speak to thee God Almighty suffered this Sense of his Words to pass current for upwards of 1500 Years But then say they he sent our Saviour and his Apostles to give another Sense of them nay a contrary Sense The Apostles and our Saviour had it in Charge to tell us that no other God but Me was as much as to say God the Father and God his Son and God the Holy Ghost three Divine Persons each of them Almighty each of them All-knowing and most Good and each of them God But I verily think had the Apostles indeed pretended this to be the Interpretation of the first Commandment they would not have found a single Person who would have believed or received them For these good Men had not nor desired Penal Laws Prisons Confiscations Deprivations Exclusions from the common Privileges of the Society by which to awe Mens Minds to profess and even to believe that black is white and white is black It would have been told them by all their Hearers that the Sense of Words is unalterable and that even the greatest Miracles cannot authorize an Interpretation evidently contrary to the Text. If the Speaker had been only a Man yet the Sense of his Words when actually spoken can never be changed by any Authority whatsoever If Heaven and Earth were miraculously destroyed to confirm an Interpretation that disagrees with the Natural and Grammatical Sense of the Words it will for all that ever remain a false Interpretation Cardinal Bellarmine is extreamly puzled with this Difficulty he saw plainly that the first Commandment and other Texts of the Law is conceived in such words that the Israelites could not think there were three Divine Persons but only one Divine Person But the Reason saith he of this was because the Israelites having lived long in a Nation where they owned and worshipp'd many Gods if they had been told of three Divine-Persons or of God the Father God his Son and God the Holy Ghost they would most certainly have apprehended them to be three Gods This saith the Cardinal is the Reason why the Doctrine of the Trinity was reserved to the Times of the New Testament Bellarm. de Christo l. 2. c. 6. Notandum est Deum in vetteri Testamento noluisse proponere Mysterium Triuitatis expresse quia Judaei incapaces erant quia recens exierant de Egypto ubi colebantur multi Dii intraturi erant in terram Chanaan ubi etiam multi babebantur Dii ne videlicet putarent sibi tres Deos proponi colendos● voluisse tamen Deum adumbrare hoc Mysterium ut cum in Novo Testamento praedicaretur non videretur omnino Novum q. d. The Doctrine of the Trinity was not propounded expresly to the Jews in the Old Testament they were uncapable of it because coming out of Egypt where many Gods were worshipped and entering into Canaan where also many Gods were acknowledged the Jews would have thought that three Gods had been propounded to them to be worshipped Nevertheless it was hinted or shadowed to them lest when it came to be preached in the New Testament it should seem altogether a new thing In reading the Works of this Cardinal I have often had this Thought That provided his Works were but bulky and learned he never cared what other Property they wanted no one can deny that his five Books against the Unitarians intituled by him De Christo are the most learned of any that have been written against us but they have no Wit and are throughout most injudicious What can be more unthought or silly for instance than this vain Elusion God speaks to the Jews saith he as if he were but one Person because they living among People who acknowledged many Gods would have mistaken three Divine Persons to be three Gods How came it to be more safe or seasonable or less liable to Misinterpretation to instruct Christians in the Belief of three Divine Persons than it would have been to teach the same Belief to the Jews The Jews saith the Cardinal would have mistaken they would have thought the Trinity an Almighty Father an Almighty Son and an Almighty Spirit to be three Almighties and three Gods so this Mystery was not preached to them What a Narrowness of Thought and Consideration is implied in this Answer for was not the whole Christian Church taken from among such Nations who all worshipped and owned many Gods The Reason alledged by the Cardinal if it were good for any thing must also have prevented the Revelation of that pretended Mystery to any of the Christian Nations and Churches I might also ask the Cardinal why he hath so much better Thoughts of Athanasius than of Moses and the Prophets Athanasius knew how to compose a Trinitarian Creed in the most express and particular

or Essence of God diversified by three Modes of Subsistence But above all I would not have Dr. S th please himself overmuch in this that he hath cited some Passages of the Fathers which describe the Personalities of the Father Son and Spirit by Modes Justin and Irenaeus have called them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Modes of subsisting others call them Properties but by Modes Properties Characters and such like the Fathers meant quite another thing than Dr. S th and the Moderns do they meant what Dr. Sherlock and Dr. Cudworth mean By a Mode and Property they meant that discriminating Character by which the Individuals of any Specifick Nature are distinguished or differenced from all the Individuals of the same Species or Nature For Example the Individuals of the Specifick Nature of Humanity are particular Men and all these Individuals or particular Men are discriminated characterized differenced or modified each by his particular Properties Peter from John Peter and John from James by particular Properties Characters or Modes both of Body and Mind one for instance is bigger taller wiser or some other the like than the other This was what they meant when they described Personalities by Modes and when they said there were three Properties Modes or Characters in God they meant not in the least to deny that each Person is a particular Substance Essence or Nature different in Number from all other Substances Essences or Natures or to deny that each Person is a particular Being they meant only that each Individual or each Person besides the common Specifick Nature that is besides the meer Human Angelical or Divine Nature has also some particular Properties or Characters which ultimately distinguish him from all the Individuals or Persons of the same Species Specifick Nature or Kind It is not true therefore what Dr. S th pretends that by Modes of Subsistence the Antients meant no more than certain such Habitudes or Affections as Mutability Presence Absence Posture or such like they meant real discretive and characterizing Properties or Qualifications and by Person they meant a particular individual intelligent Substance or Essence and so modefied or characterized They were far from dreaming that the three Divine Persons an Almighty Son an Almighty Father and an Almighty Spirit distinct in Number from both were only one individual Substance distinguished or diversified by only three such lank and meagre Affections as Absence Posture Adherence or any other that are no more in a Spiritual Substance than those three are in Bodies to which they add no Perfection and from which they are every Moment separable But the Socinians are not concerned what becomes of the Dispute about Persons and Personalities in God whether they are adequately the same yea or no and again whether the Moderns who follow the Schools agree with the Antients in their Notion of them for I will put to Dr. S th a plain Question to which if he is disposed to give a clear and Categorical Answer it will appear to all Men that either he falls in with Dr. Sherlock or with the Unitarians that is to say he is either a Tritheist or what I doubt he will as much abhor a Socinian He saith there is one only Divine Substance Essence or Nature and thus far we agree with him but he adds this one Substance is so diversified by three Modes Affections or Habitudes or something like to them that we must say under pain of Heresy and Damnation that this one Substance is three Divine Persons a Father his Son and a Spirit distinct from both Therefore I ask have the three pretended Divine Persons each his own proper peculiar and personal Understanding Will and Energy so that there are in the Divine Substance or in God three distinct All-knowing Almighty Understandings Wills and Energies as there are three distinct Persons as Dr. Sherlock has affirmed Or have the three Persons but one only self-same Understanding Will and Energy in Number as there is but one self-same Substance in Number If he saith the former he joins Hands with Dr. Sherlock and is guilty of Tritheism no less than he for three Omniscient and Omnipotent Understandings Wills and Energies without doubt are three Gods If there be three Omnisciencies and Omnipotencies of necessity there must be three Omniscients and Omnipotents but that is Tritheism even in the Judgment of Athanasius himself who expresly denies three Almighties or three All-knowings And indeed I do not think Dr. S th will say that each Person hath his own proper and personal Understanding Will or Energy so that there are three distinct Understandings Wills and Energies in what his Party call the Godhead I see his Book is written with more Judgment and Precaution than Dr. Sherlock's or even than any that I have seen that have been written in Defence of the Trinitarian Cause But if he denies that there are three All-knowing Almighty Understandings Wills and Energies he is a Socinian he has granted to us the Point in Controversy he grants the whole that we contend for They will allow him to say there are three Persons or three thousand Persons in the Godhead so long as he grants but one Omnipotent Energy and Will and but one All-knowing Understanding or Wisdom If this be granted to us 't is plain to every one who gives but never so little heed that the Question about three Persons is a meer Strife of Words and the Authors of the Brief History and Brief Notes are tho not in their Words yet in their Senses as Orthodox as Dr. S th and the Schools I will affirm we have no need of our Brief Histories or Brief Notes we need not make an operose Proof of our Doctrine of the Unity of God from the Holy Scriptures or from Reason the whole Controversy with the Church is ended in the Resolution of this short and plain Question Is there more than one All-knowing Almighty Understanding Will and Energy If you say there is but one such Understanding Will and Energy in one self-same Divine Substance you may talk of as many Persons Fathers Sons Spirits Modes Properties Respects Nothings as you please we will only peaceably advise you that these are meer empty Words that have nothing to answer them in the thing under Consideration When you have granted to us that there is but one Divine Substance and but one Omniscient Omnipotent Understanding and Energy what you add more of Persons Properties Thingams and call them a Trinity 't is an Addition only of Words and Names not of Realities or Persons that are properly so called These things being so and so very evident I cannot wonder that so discerning a Philosopher as Dr. Cudworth never speaks of the Trinity of the Schools maintained by Dr. S th without calling it a Nominal Trinity a Trinity of Names and Words only a disguised Sabellianism which is to say Unitarianism or Socinianism drest up in the absurd Cant of the Schools But whereas the

of the Party I say now 1. That their Quotations out of Socinus and the rest are for a great pa●● of them as false and disingenious as those ●● Dr. Wallis were as any one will see who shall take the Pains to consult the Authors themselves 2. They make it to be a great Heresy in some Socinians that they deny there is a certain Fore-knowledg of contingent Events they say 't is a Denial of God's Omniscience And yet all Men know that very many of the most Learned Trinitarians have been of the same Opinion Antients as well as Moderns Protestants as well as Catholicks Nor have these Doctors so much as offered at an Answer to the Reasons of Socinus and Crellius concerning a conditional Knowledg in God 3. That God is Omnipresent not in his Essence or Person but by his Knowledg and Power is also held by divers Learned Trinitarians and it must needs have been the Opinion of those Fathers who either were Anthropomorphites or held that God is a Body not a Spirit 4. These Doctors have written against the Socinians by occasion of the English Books that have been lately published by those of that Perswasion they should therefore have attacked the Doctrine of those Books they should have described our Opinions out of our own Writings not from the Books of Foreigners The English Socinians sincerely believe that God is truly Omniscient that he foreseeth all Events how contingent soever they may be to us They believe the real Omnipresence of God or that he is present in his Essence or Person in all Places and not only by his Power Knowledg or Ministers They honour or if we must use that word they worship the Lord Christ neither with the same sort nor with the same degree of Worship which is due to God they worship or honour him with their Minds only as one who is highly exalted by God above all Principality and Power and every Name that is named and to whom God hath given to be Head over all things to the Church In a word they neither pay a higher Worship nor impute a greater Power or Knowledg to the Lord Christ than the most Learned and the far greater Number of Trinitarians impute and pay to the Human Nature the meer Human Nature of Jesus Christ in his present State of Exaltation We have said these things so often in our late Books we have defended them so earnestly that none but Persons of little Honesty or great Inconsideration would object to us such Opinions as these before-mentioned But these Gentlemen had a longing Mind to be Authors and who should they signalize themselves upon so popularly as upon the Socinians if they have got Reputation by their Books that is by weak Arguments and strong Calumnies it is with so very few that I do not think they will reap an Advantage by it But one of them urgeth that Socinus was in this dangerous Heresy that the Soul of Man after the Death of his Body is in a State of Inactivity and Unperception in a word neither perceives nor lives till the Resurrection of the Body at which time it receiveth Immortality by the meer Grace or Gift of God but is not of its own Nature immortal I do acknowledg that this seems to be the Opinion of F. Socinus but I believe of very few Unitarians besides But this Error was common to him with some of the Fathers the Learned Monsieur Du Pin has noted that Justin Martyr Irenaeus Minutius Foelix and Arnobius were in this Sentiment There was no Reason therefore to object this to Socinus as if it were a peculiar Opinion of his much less to the English Unitarians who never defended it nor that I know of do any of them hold it As to Mr. Basset there are two things very remarkable in his Answer to the Brief History of the Unitarians the meanness and dulness of the Book it self it being written with no Vivacity Wit or Elevation of Thought and the undecent Insolence of the Author His Book being such as it is if the Brief History cannot shift for it self against that Reply to it the Historian is resolved it shall take its Fortune he is perswaded that when a discerning Man has read Mr. Basset's Answer if he again looks over the Brief History he will at least as much approve of it as at first Mr. Basset has said nothing that can in the least shake the Reputation of the Brief History unless his Reader will believe him when he charges the Historian with false Quotations of Authors To this the Historian answers that he hath not made one false or mistaken Citation but Mr. Basset sometimes not understanding the Authors that are quoted for they are Greek and Latin and sometimes mistaking the Sense of the Historian which he doth very frequently it hath happened hereupon that he hath charged the Historian with his own either Ignorances or Inadvertences But I am not at leisure to write a Vindication every time that negligent and ignorant Scriblers mistake my meaning or the Sense or the Authors by me alledged I reckon it to be his Insolence that a Person who had nothing to offer on these Questions but what was very trivial and vulgar should yet give disrespectful Language without any the least Provocation given by the Historian He saith for instance that indeed the Foreign Socinians have been learned and subtile Men but he cannot say so concerning the English but for the Epistler so he calls the Writer of the Brief History because 't is written in four Letters he saith Poor Wretch ought to have imploy'd his small Talent to honester Purposes and not have sought for Reputation only by his Nonsense his Follies and his Impieties This was a Mortification indeed c●ming as it does from so great and worthy a Hand but the Comfort is we are apt to be more advised and better'd also by our Humiliations And yet I am still of Opinion that as Mr. Basset thought it requisite to answer the Brief History after the great Victory gained over it by Dr. Sherlock so there will not want many others who will judg it no less than necessary to give other Answers to it after this Triumph of Mr. Basset But however that be I answer to Mr. Basset as Moses did to Pharaoh Glory over me I am resolved Mr. Basset shall have the Self-satisfaction that he hath mauled the Epistler for ever For I will not catch Flies nor spend my Artillery upon Mud-Walls when I happen on some such Second as Dr. Sherlock found up against the Jesuits Mr. Basset may hear from me and not before I will not ask Pardon Sir for the length of this Letter for you see to how many it was necessary to make some Answer but I ought not to forget to give you my Thanks and Respects for the Liberalities and Favours which you have done to your Humble Servant A LETTER to the Publisher from another Hand SIR I Heartily thank you