be ruled and judged by and constituteth the Essentials of Christianity § 18. This Covenant did constitute Christianity many years supposâ—d eight before any part of the New Testament was written as now extant and near seventy years before it was all written § 19. As Man hath an Intellect a Will and an Executive power and the Gospel is to work on all so the Creed is the Summary of our Belief the Lords Prayer of our Desire and the Christian Decalogue and Institutions of our practice as expounding what Baptism generally expresseth § 20. Though to the Iews that were bred up under the use of the Old Testament and that expected the Messiah the Apostles staid not long instructing them before they baptized them when they professed Repentance and Faith in Christ yet it cannot be conceived but that with the ignorant Gentile Christians all Teachers took pains to make them understand first what they were to profess and promise for ignorant doing they know not what pleaseth not God And therefore that the Faith contained in the three Baptismal Articles was certainly explained in more words and accordingly professed which must be in substance that called the Apostles Creed which the Churches preservation and use with the Custom of long instructing Catecumens giveth us notice of as well as the reason of the thing § 21. When we find Christ commanding his Apostles to disciple the Nations and baptize them in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost and teach them all his Commandments and when we daily see after people have learned to say They believe in the Father Son and Holy Ghost how long it is ere they understand the meaning of those three Articles and when we know that it is not bare words without the sence that constituteth the Christian Faith no sober Man will doubt whether the persons to be baptized were taught the sence as well as the words which must be done by more words And it is certain that those Words were not to alter Christ's Baptismal Covenant nor the Nature and Terms of Christianity but to expound them And it is certain that multitudes were so weak that had those Words been very long and many they would rather have burdened them than become their own profession as understood and remembred And it is certain that the changing of words doth easily turn to a change of the sense and that even then Heresies quickly multiplied which made it necessary to the Church to be careful to preserve sound Doctrine From all which it clearly followeth that a Creed that is a Summary Profession of Belief explaining the Baptismal Articles was in common use in all the Churches many years before the writing of the New Testament And it is not likely that in the Apostles days the Churches did receive it from any but themselves § 22. Yet it is not probable that they composed exactly such a Form of Words as might not at all be altered and used still the very same terms for the Creeds recited by Irenaeus Tertullian Marcellus in Epiphanius and others do all differ in some words from one another and some Articles have been added since the rest of which see Usher and Vossius de Symbolis But except those few Additions they all agree in Sence which may perswade us that the ancient Churches kept still to Words which signified the same matter of the Articles of our common Creed and admitted no variation of the Words but such as was small and endangered not the Doctrine § 23. Though Baptism explained by the Symbol of Faith Lords Prayer and Decalogue contain at least the Constitutive Essentials of Christianity yet the Integrals are much larger and all that Christ commanded was to be taught the Church And though this was done by Voice many years by the Apostles before they wrote any part of the New Testament yet the Memory of men from Generation to Generation would have been a very unsafe and treacherous Preserver of so many things had they been committed to Memory alone Therefore it pleased the Wisdom and Love of God to inspire the Apostles prophetically and infallibly to commit the Sum of the History of Christ's Life Sufferings and Death c. with all the Integrals of his Word to those durable and sacred Records which we call the Holy Scriptures for the easier and fuller Propagation and Preservation of the Christian Faith and all its Integrals especially his Example and sacred Precepts yea and the necessary Accidentals or Appurtenances § 24. Because the Scriptures contain both in Words and Sence much more than the Essentials of Christianity and so more than is of absolute necessity to Salvation many a million may be saved that understand not all that is in the Scriptures nay no man on Earth understandeth it perfectly And he that understandeth and receiveth the Essentials shall be saved though he were ignorant of a thousand particular Texts § 25. Therefore it is that the Church hath ever selected the great and most necessary Truths and taught Children and Catechised Persons these before the rest by way of Catechism of which the foresaid Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue are the Sum and the Sacramental Covenant is that Sum yet more contracted And it hath not been the Churches way to teach Children or Converts the Bible over in order indifferently without selecting first the Marrow out of the whole which the Ignorant cannot do for themselves § 26. Besides the Method or Order of the Scripture books there is specially to be studied by those that will be more perfect than the rudeâ— for t the true Method of the Body of Doctrine contained in all the Scriptures For all the parts of that Doctrine have that Place Order and Respect each to other as maketh up the Beauty and Harmony which is in the whole And even in the Covenants the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue there is a most excellent Order and Method above all that is found in Aristotle or any humane Writers though alas too few perceive it § 27. Therefore they that gather true Systems of Theology do not add to the Scripture nor feign it to have a Method which it hath not no more than Catechisms do but only gather out that Doctrine which is there and deliver it in the true Scripture-method not as it lieth in the order of Words but in the order of Relation that one Truth hath to another And to despise this real Method because every dull and slothful Wit doth not see it in the Scriptures is indeed to despise the Matter and Design of the Scripture and to despise all true and clear Knowledge of things Divine For to see Truths placed in their proper Order doth differ from a knowing of some confused parcels as knowing the parts of a Man a Picture a Clock a House a Ship c. duly compaginated and seeing all the parts cast confusedly on a heap But to draw up a true Method is the Work of a skilful hand and
An END of Doctrinal CONTROVERSIES Which have Lately Troubled the Churches BY Reconciling Explication WITHOUT MUCH DISPUTING Written by RICHARD BAXTER Psal. 120. 6 7. My Soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth Peace I am for Peace but when I speak they are for War Luke 9. 46 49 50 54 55. There arose a reasoning among them which of them should be greatest c. LONDON Printed for Iohn Salusbury at the Rising SUN in Cornhil M. DC XCI THE PREFACE WARS are most dreaded and hated by the Country where they are but not so much by the Souldiers who by them seek their Prey and Glory as by the suffering Inhabitants that lose thereby their Prosperity and Peace who yet are forced or drawn to be siders lest they suffer for Neutrality Religious irreligious Wars are of no less dismal Consequence being about God himself his Will and Word and that which more nearly toucheth our Souls and everlasting state than our Houses and worldly Welfare does And yet because Men are more sensible of their corporal than their spiritual Concerns these Dogmatical Wars are far less feared and too commonly made the Study and Delight not only of the Military Clergy but also of the seduced and sequacious Laity Though those that have the Wisdom from above which is pure and peaceable condole the Church's Calamity hereby knowing that Envy and Strife the earthly sensual and devilish Wisdom causeth Confusion and every evil Work And it is a heinous Aggravation that the Militants being Men consecrated to Love and Peace profanely father their Mischiefs upon God and do all as for Religion and Church Having these four and forty Years at least been deeply sensible of this Sin Danger and Misery of Christians I have preach'd much and written more against it To confute those Extreams which cause Divisions and to reconcile those that think they differ where they do not sometime also using importunate Petitions and Pleas for Peace to those that have power to give it or promote it and that use either Word or Sword against it And with the Sons of Peace it hath not been in vain But with those that are engaged in Faction and malicious strife I am proclaimed to be the militant Enemy of Concord for perswading them to Concord and writing many Books for Peace and Love is taken for writing them against these Controversies I have written of but only to end them and not to make them And who can reconcile them that never mentioneth them or arbitrate in a Cause unheard and not opened But Readers I must tell you that my title An End of Doctrinal Controversies is â—ot intended as prognostick but as dedâ—ctical â—nd directive I am far from expecting an end â—f Controversies while consecrated Ignorance is â—y worldly Interest Faction and Malice mixâ—d with Pride sublimated to an envious Zeael Jam. 3. 15 16. and hath set up a Trade of slandering all those that are true Peace-ma 〈…〉 ers and concur not with them to destroy it on â—retence of defending it by their impossible perâ—icious terms He that will now be taken for a Peace-maker must be content to be so called by a few even by the Sect that he chuseth to please and be contrarily judged of by all the rest And this satisfieth some because their Faction seemeth better than others be they never so few and others because their Faction is great or rich or uppermost how noxious and unpeaceable soever For vespae habent favos saith Tertullian Marcionitae Ecclesias We could wish the Bees seldom used their stings for it is their Death but those of Wasps and Hornets that make no Honey are less sufferable It is partly for unprejudiced Students that I write and partly for the times to come when the Fruits of malignant Faction and Wars have disgraced them and made the world a weary of them I am blamed by Dissenters as coming too near by Conciliatory Explications to some things which they call dangerous Points of Popery Arminianism and Prelacy but whether it be by Truth or by Error I leave to trial Sure our English Universities and Canonists are not like to receive any hurt by it who will not read a Book that they see my Name to though the Doctrine would never so much gratifie them And others at home and Foreigners are satisfied by Knowledge and Prepossession against such seeming Danger The great blemish of this and other of my Writings is That I say oft the same thing which I have said before Much of this Book is in my Catholick Theology and my Meth. Theol. and my Treatise of Iustifying Righteousness But 1. Forgetfulness in Old Men that have written so much is no wonder 2. But it sheweth that I have not forgotten the Matter nor take it up suddenly and superficially which I so oft repeat 3. And there may be great use for such Repetitions when it is for clearer Method or for epitomizing larger Writings which many cannot or will not read but those that can may have the benefit of more Explicatory Copiousness If it profit the Reader I am not sollicitous for the Reputation of the Writer You will find here one Chapter answering Exceptions about Futurity concerning which you must know that my Catholick Theology was so bold and large an attempt to reconcile the Calvinist and Lutheran or Arminian and the Dominican and Jesuit c. that I lookt to have been sharply assaulted for it by many But after many Years expectation I have heard of nothing written or spoken against it save one MS. Paper of Objections about the Cause of Futurity and Physical Predetermination to sin by Mr. Polhill a Councellor a Man of extraordinary Knowledge and Godliness now enjoying the Fruit of it with Christ O Blessed England if its Rulers Senators and Lawyers yea or Bishops and Teachers were all such men having many Years past sent him my Answer and having no Reply as to the question I refused to answer the second having said so much to it in my Methodus Theol. and lest the quality of the Subject should make my Reply seem sharp to so good a man And I thought it meet to publish this because it is an unusual Dispute and as no one else hath called me to it so I know not where the Reader that differeth from me will find so much for him nor whither to refer him for an Answer I publish not Mr. Polhill's Paper because I recite so much of it as may tell the Reader what it was and I must not swell the Book too much The Glorious Light will soon end all our Controversies and reconcile those that by unfeigned Faith and Love are united in the Prince of Peace our Head by love dwelling in God and God in them But falsehearted malignant carnal Worldlings that live in the fire of wrath and strife will find so dying the woful maturity of their Enmity to holy Unity Love and Peace and the causeless shutting the true Servants of Christ
out of their Churches which should be the Porch of Heaven is the way to be shut out themselves of the heavenly Jerusalem If those that have long reproached me as unfit to be in their Church and said ex uno disce omnes with their Leader find any unsound or unprofitable Doctrine here I shall take it for a great favour to be confuted even for the good of others excluded with me when I am dead Jan. 21. 1691. Richard Baxter THE CONTENTS Chap. 1. HOW to conceive of GOD. Pag. i. Chap. 2. How to conceive of the Trinity in Unity p. vii Chap. 3. How to conceive of the Hypostatical Union and Incarnation p. xxiii Chap. 4. How to conceive of the Diversity of God's Transient Operations p. xxx Chap. 5. Whether any point of Faith be above 〈◊〉 contrary to Reason p. xxxii Chap. I. Prefatory Who must be the Iudge of Controversies The true Causes of the Divisions of Christians about Religion p. 1◠Chap. 2. The Doctrines enumerated about which they chiefly disagree p. 22 Chap. III. Of God's Will and Decrees in general Th. Terms and several Cases opened p. 2◠Chap. IV. Of God's Knowledge and the Differenc◠about it p. 4◠Chap. V. Of Election and the Order of Intentio◠and Execution p. 3◠Chap. VI. Of Reprobation or the Decree of Damnation the Objects and their Order p. 4◠An Answer to Mr. Polhill of Futurition p. 4◠Chap. VII Of God's Providence and predetermining Premotion Of Durandus's way p. 7◠Chap. VIII Of the Cause of Sin What God doth and doth not about it p. 82 Chap. IX Of Natural Power and Free-will p. 89 Chap. X. Of Original Sin as from Adam and nearer Parents p. 94 Chap. XI Of our Redemption by Christ what it doth how necessary p. 89 Chap. XII Of the several Laws and Covenants of God p. 99 Sect. 1. Of the Law or Covenant of Innocency made to Adam Divers Cases p. 113 Sect. 2. Of the Law of Mediation or Covenant with Christ When and what it was p. 121 Sect. 3. Of the Law or Covenant of Grace in the first edition What it was p. 126 Sect. 4. Of the same Law with Abraham's Covenant of Peculiarity and the Mosaical Iewish Law of Works p. 132 Sect. 5. Of the Law or Covenant of Grace in the last edition the Gospel Divers Cases about it opened p. 138 Chap. XIII Of the universality and sufficiency of Grace What Grace is How far universal and sufficient p. 154 Chap. XIV Of Man's Power and Free-will since the Fall Adrian's Saying That an unjustified man may love or chuse God's Being before his own What to ascribe to Grace and what to Free-will in good p. 173 Chap. XV. Of Effectual Grace and how God giveth it Doubts resolved p. 181 Chap. XVI Of the state of Heathens and such others as have not the Gospel What Law the Heathen World is under and to be judged by Whether any of them are justified or saved The Heathens were the Corrupters of the old Religion and the Jews of the Reformed Church Mal. 1. 14 15. and Sodom's Case c. considered p. 188 Chap. XVII Of the necessity of Holiness and of Moral Virtue p. 203 Chap. XVIII Of the necessity of Faith in Christ where the Gospel is made known p. 212 Chap. XIX Of the state of Infants as to Salvation and Church-membership p. 216 Chap. XX. Of the nature of Saving-Faith its Description and Causes p. 226 Chap. XXI Of justifying Righteousness Iustification and Pardon The several sences of the words and several sorts of them Our common Agreement about them p. 238 Chap. XXII Of the Imputation of Righteousness Christ's righteousness in what sence ours and imputed and in what sence not p. 256 Chap. XXIII How Faith justifieth and how it is imputed for Righteousness Several questions about it Repentance c. resolved p. 267 Chap. XXIV Of Assurance of our Iustification and of Hope What Assurance is desirable What attainable What Assurance we actually have Who have it The nature and grounds of it Whether it be Divine Faith p. 279 Chap. XXV Of Good works and Merit And whether we may trust to any thing of our own 1. What are Good Works 2. Whether they are necessary to our Iustification or Salvation 3. Whether they are rewardable or meritorious 4. What is their place use and necessity 5. Whether to be trusted to p. 282 Chap. XXVI Of Confirmation Perseverance and danger of falling away 1. Whether all Grace given by Christ be such as is never lost 2. Whether that degree be ever lost which to Infants or Adult giveth but the posse credere 3. Whether any lose actual justifying Faith 4. Or the Habit of Divine Love and Holiness 5. Whether some degree of this may be lost 6. If Holiness be not actually lost is the loss possible 7. Whether there be a state of Confirmation above the lowest Holiness which secureth Perseverance 8. Or doth Perseverance depend only on Election and God's Will 9. Whether all most or many Christians are themselves certain of their Perseverance 10. I◠such Certainty fit for all the justified 11. Is it unfit for all and doubting a more safe condition 12. Doth the Comfort of most Christians rest upon the Doctrine of Certainty to persevere 13. Doth the Doctrine of eventual Apostasie inferr Mutability in God 14. Why God hath left the point so dark 15. What was the Iudgment of the ancient Churches herein 16. Is it of such weight as to be necessary to our Church-Communion Love and Concord p. 300 Chap. XXVII Of Repentance late Repentance the time of Grace and the unpardonable sin p. 314 BOOKS Printed for and Sold by Iohn Salusbury at the Rising Sun in Cornhil A Rational Defence of Nonconformity wherein the Practice of Nonconformists is vindicated from promoting Popery and ruining the Church imputed to them by Dr. Stillingfleet Bishop of Worcester in his Unreasonableness of Separation Also his Arguments from the Principles and Way of the Reformers and first Dissenters are answered And the case of the present Separation truly stated and the blame of it laid where it ought to be and the way to Union among Protestants is pointed at By Gilbert Rule D. D. The Christian Laver Being two Sermons on John 13. 8. opening the nature of Participation with and demonstrating the necessity of Purification by Christ. By T. Cruso Six Sermons on various occasions By T. Cruso in 4◠The Conformists Sayings or the Opinion and Arguments of Kings Bishops and several Divines assembled in Convocation A new Survey of the Book of Common-Prayer An END of Doctrinal Controversies c. CHAP. 1. How we may and must conceive of GOD. § 1. A True Knowledge of God is necessary to the Being of Religion and to Holiness and Glory No man can love obey trust or hope beyond his knowledge Nothing is so certainly known as God and yet nothing so defectively known Like our Knowledge of the Sun of which no man doubteth
Similitudes in our Thoughts of God while we exclude all the Imperfections of such Similitudes § 15. But after all till the Love of God be shed abroad on our Hearts by the Holy Ghost and God as LOVE look on us with his attracting and exhilarating Aspect or Communication all these notions will be dull and barren and will leave the Soul under fears and despondency It is Love by vital Influence warming the Affections that must give us a sweet taste of what we know and overcome the fear of Death and Wrath and give us comfortable Boldness and Courage in all the Dangers that we must go through And seeing Christ telleth Philip If thou hast seen or known me thou hast known the Father we must by Faith see the Father in the Son incarnate who came into our Nature to be a Mediator of our Thoughts and Conceptions of God and especially as he is LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE and I think in his GLORY will in Heaven be the Mediator of our LIFE INTUITION and FRUITION Come Lord Jesus Amen CHAP. 2. Of Trinity in Unity § 1. WHen I wrote the foregoing Treatise I found the generality of Christians Protestants and Papists agreed about the Trinity but Heresie and Debauchery encreasing together the Case seemeth partly altered And the ambitious rich and worldly sort being from their Childhood bred up in fleshly pleasure and in ignorance and contempt of serious Christianity having really no true Religion but a Name and Image of it at last by their Tongues declare what is in their Hearts and living in a Land where Atheists and Sadducees are in splendid Dwellings whilst fear of sinning maketh Confiscations Jails and Ruine the Lot of multitudes who are zealous Protestants they take the advantage decrying what they never had But before they disown all true Religion and declare themselves Sadducees or Brutes they begin as Disputers at the points where they think Difficulty will excuse them and especially at the Trinity and the Godhead of Christ and Socinian Errors § 2. I have perhaps over-tediously and prolixly handled the Doctrine of the sacred Trinity in my Latin Methodus Theologiae opening the various Opinions about it reciting the words of the Fathers School-Doctors and Protestants who handle it And through the whole Book I have shewed That the Image of Trinity in Unity is imprinted by God on the whole known frame of Nature and Government or Morality and that Doctrine of the Trinity which to the ignorant is a Stumbling-block greatly helpeth to confirm my Belief of the truth of the Gospel and Christianity while I find it so congruous to the foresaid Impress and attested so much by all God's Works especially on Man § 3. It is a truth unquestionable that without some knowledge of God there can be no true Religion no Love to God no Trust no Hope no Obedience no true Worship of him Prayer or Praise § 4. And it is as certain that no man can have an adequate knowledge of God that is adequate which comprehendeth the whole Object knowing it perfectly and leaving nothing of it unknown And with such an adequate Knowledge we know nothing not a pile of Grass nor a Worm or a Hair Much less God With such a proper Knowledge nihil scitur is true and yet aliquid rerum is known of all § 5. Yea it is certain that of God who is incomprehensible we have here no partial Conception that reacheth so high as to be strictly FORMAL but only such as are called analogical aequivocal metaphorical or by similitude Neither Substantia Vita Perfectio Potentia Actus Intellectus Voluntas Love Truth Goodness Mercy c. are formally and univocally the same in God and in the Creature Scotus excepteth only ENS Which is true as ENS is only a Logical term signifying no more than EST or Quoddity and not QUID est or Quiddity § 6. Yet this Knowledge by similitude is not â—ull or vain but the greatest advancement of Man's Understanding All that which is formally excellent in the Creature is EMINENTLY and transcendently in God Though he have not that which we call Knowledge Will Love c. he hath that which is infinitely more excellent which these in Man have some likeness to whereby we know him § 7. Man's Knowledge beginneth at our selves and not at God We do not first know God But first we perceive our own Souls Acts and thereby we know our Power and our Substance and thereby we know what all is that is such as we and so what a Spirit is and so what GOD is As by seeing hearing feeling we perceive that we see hear feel c. every Sense having essentially a self-perception So by thinking knowing willing â—illing loving joying we perceive that we do it essentially yet though the famosius significatum be our own Act as to formality and priority it is God's as to Eminency and Perfection § 8. It is certain that as all God's Works bear some notifying Impress of his own Perfection so Man is especially made in his Image and therefore our Knowledge of God must there begin seeing we have no immediate and formal knowledge of him § 9. As God is the God of Nature Grace and Glory so he hath made on Man the Image of these three 1. The natural Faculties of his Soul are his natural Image on Man as Man For which it is said Gen. 9. that blood shall be punished with blood because Man is made in the Image of God 2. His moral gracious Image is Holiness of Intellect Will and executive Power 3. The Image of his Majesty Glory and Greatness is 1. in all men the Dominion over the lower Creatures 2. And in Governours a Power over Subjects or Inferiours § 10. To begin where our Perception beginneth 1. It is certain that the mental Nature in Man hath three distinct Faculties in one undivided Substance That is 1. Vital Active Power Intellect and Will The Vital Power being considerable first as exciting Intellection and Will and after as Executive The same Essence or Substance is this vital Activity Intellect and Will But the Active Power is not the Intellect nor the Intellect the Will nor the Will the Intellect c. And as Melanchton told his Hearers to the admiration of George Prince of Anhalt and the Duke of Saxony That the Concrete and Abstract were here differently to be used we may say that the Intellect may be said to be willing but not to be the Will the Will to be Intellectual but not to be the Intellect c. § 11. I have fully proved in Methodo Theol. parte 1. in a peculiar Disputation that these three Faculties are not Accidents of the Soul but its essential form in a triple inadequate Conception and fully confuted all that Zubarel saith to the contrary who epitomizeth all the Thomists Arguments and vindicated Scotus and added many Arguments of my own and therefore must thither referr the doubtful § 12. Not
so one man may have the relative Person of a King a Husband a Father a Captain General a Physician an Astronomer c. And though I hold not this Relative Personality is all that we are to acknowledge in the Trinity yet I see no reason but in the second place it is included that is 1. The Relations which the Divine Vitality Intellect and Will have to the substantiality and to each other 2. And the Relation which they have ad extra to Effects And whereas it may be objected that so God hath thousands of Relations to thousands of his Works I answer But he hath three grand Relations which comprehend all the rest as he is the God of Nature Grace and Clory Creator Redeemer and Perfecter As he hath the three grand Attributes which comprehend the rest But undoubtedly this Trinity of essential Attributes which are said to be related to the substantiality and to each other is here in the prime Conceptus § 25. He that placeth Personality in the Trinity in SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS leaveth us to enquire of him Q. 1. Whether it be by him presupposed or not that there are the three foresaid Attributes called Essentialities or Formalities in one Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we commonly call Substance or Spirit Q. 2. Whether Conscire being scire is not the proper Act of an Intellect and not of a Will or executive Power as such Q. 3. Self-perception indeed is a first and essential Act of every sensible Agent But doth not that among men only prove sensible Life which is in many Faculties and is as numerous as the Acts and not prove many persons seeing he must be first a Person who shall thus act By seeing I perceive that I see and by hearing that I hear and by tasting smelling touching that I taste smell and touch I know these by Intellection but I perceive them first by essential Sensation and so by understanding I immediately perceive that I understand and think And by willing I immediately not know but by a sort of eminent Sensation perceive that I will And by vital Action I perceive that I act Yet these are not distinct Persons but the acts of one Person Perception is essential to Vitality or Sense but not constitutive of Personality Q. 4. Is it knowing ones self or knowing another or another's knowing me that constituteth Personality I know not my self to be what I am in priâ—◠〈◊〉 I first perceive my acts and by the Acts I know that I have an active Power and by that I know that I am a Substance c. Which of these maketh me a Person 2. God knoweth the Acts of every Creature better than each knoweth his own yet that is not God's Personality as distinct from his Life And that the Creature doth not equally know God can be no privation of Personality to God whatever it be to the Creature And God's Personality was before there was any Creature Q. 5. To say That they are three Minds or Spirits or Substances that do invicem conscire is to say That they are three Gods And because every mental Substance hath its own active Power Intellect and Will it supposeth three Trinities instead of one Q. Though God be said to be purus Actus it is Actus entitâ—tivus including potentiam seâ— virtutem agendi and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Substantiality is a necessary prior fundamental Conception for it doth superare captum humanum to conceive of an Act that is not alicujus actus He that causeth all substantiality and existence is eminently existent Substance Many have made it a Dispute Whether the Creature have any Entity or be a Shadow but none whether God be so Obj. To be self-conscious proveth Personality and to be conscious of the act of another proveth one the same Person with the other Ans. To be self-perceptive is a good proof of a Vital Act and to be self-conscious is a proof of an Intellect Indeed in GOD the Substance and Act and so the Personality and Self-perception are not two things but the same But yet inadequate Conceptions must be orderly and so the act conceived as the act of a Power and of a Person And as is said every act or faculty that hath self-perception is not a Person 2. And God's consciousness of the acts of Iudas Herod Nero proveth him not to be the same person with each of them though he be infinitely more § 26. GOD being essential Life in â—ure Act without any passive Power meant by the word PERSON by the Orthodox may be better spoken of his Essential Acts the active Virtue included than of Mans. If it be the Essence why may not the proved Trinity of objective Conceptions as formal be called Persons or Hypostases Though many wise Men wish that a Name less liable to mistake had been used § 27. But though I am past doubt that in God is this Trinity of essential formal inadequate Conceptions or Primalities and that the impress of them is on the Soul of Man which is his image and on the whole frame of Nature and Grace yet far be it from me to say That nothing else is meant by the Trinity of Persons thus much we are sure of There may be more to constitute that personality than is to us comprehensible and I doubt not but there is more because thus much is so intelligible seeing the Divine Nature is so infinitely far above the Comprehension of us poor Worms But what we know not we cannot describe or notifie to others § 28. There are of late some of great Wit and Learning who have adventured upon another sort of Description of the Trinity Men whose parts I greatly value Peter Sterry Dr. H. More Mr. John Turner of St. Thomas Hospital and before them some in Germany went some such way They say that from the prime Being emaneth say some or is created say others the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the second Hypostasis or person and Matter which is the third and this caused Life and Matter the Son and Holy Ghost are one indivisible though distinguishable Being there being no Spirit saith Dr. M. save God that is not a Soul to some Body Some of them tell us not whether this first produced LIFE and MATTER be the Universal Matter of the World animated by an universal Soul or whether they mean only some prime Soul and Matter that was made or caused before the rest But others let us know that it is the universal that they mean And if so they must needs hold the World as to all its Spirit and Matter to be eternal though in Particles alterable and to be God himself The prime Entity the Life and the Matter being the Father Son and Spirit But they that hold not this universal Life and Matter do think that God by a most eminent Life and Spirit that was eternal did create all the rest as inferiour to them Dr. More 's Book of
Transubstantiation and Mr. Tho. Beverley's drew me to write some Animadversions on this Doctrine as moderating between Extreams but on further consideration I am very Ioth to be so venturous in a Case of such tremendous Mystery as to meddle for or against them left etiam vera dicere de Deo si incerta sit periculosum Though I doubt not but their exposition of Ioh. 6. is unsound while they make the Flesh and Blood of Christ which is Transubstantiated and eaten and drunk to be the eternal Flesh and Blood of Christ a Man from Eternity § 29. The difficulty of the Controversie which this leadeth to Whether the World be an eternal Effect of an eternal Cause or God from all Eternity till the forming of this lower World and Adam had no Being but Himself Doth deterr me from meddling with it lest I be blinded by presuming too nearly to gaze on the Light that should guide me and God that is Love should for my boldness be to me a Consuming Fire Things revealed only as for our search § 30. But the Conclusion which all this prepareth for is this That whatever else besides the Trinity of Primalities before described doth constitute the Trinity of Persons it is rendred altogether credible to an implicit Faith by the full Evidence and Certainty of the aforesaid Trinity of Faculties or Primalities which are God's Image on Man's Soul and the like imprinted on the whole Creation which certainly is not done in vain § 31. I pass by the rest because I have so largely handled it in Method Theolog. And among the numerous Authors there cited I desire the Reader especially to peruse the words of Guitmundus A. B. Aversanus Edmund Cantuariensis Richardi ad Bernard Pothonis Prumensis with whose words I will conclude cited pag. 103. There are three invisibles of God Power Wisdom and Benignity of which all things proceed in which all things subsist by which all things are ruled The Father is Power the Son is Wisdom the Holy Ghost is Benignity Power createth Wisdom governeth Benignity conserveth Power by Benignity wisely createth Wisdom by Power benignly governeth Benignity by Wisdom powerfully conserveth As the Image is seen in the Glass so in the state of the Soul by Humane Nature c. To this Similitude of God against Man approacheth nearly to whom God's Power giveth Power to Good and his Wisdom to Know and his Benignity â—iveth to Will This is the threefold Force of the Rational Soul posse scire velle to be able to know to will which co-operate to Faith Hope and Love or Charity § 32. Among all the Attempts that are published for our Conceptions of the Deity and Trinity I know of none that give us their Notions with greater Confidence and Pretence of Revelation than I. P. M. D. Dr. Pordage and his Leader Iacob Behmen Many other of the German Prophets going near the same way as C. Beckman describeth them I. P. his Mystica Theologia pretendeth to far greater discovery of the Deity and Trinity and the World than ever Christ Prophets or Apostles gave us First In his Globe of Eternity or the Divine Essential World pictured by 1. An Eye the Father 2. A Heart the Son 3. And the Effluvia or breathed Beams the Holy Ghost with the innumerable Progeny of such Eyes flowing from that pregnant Essence differing from it only as lesser from greater each an Individual yet making no Composition but Unity in the Deity Secondly In his Abyssal Nothing or World of Potentialities Thirdly In his Eternal Nature and the septenary included Worlds c. But 1. I consess there are many things in him and in Peter Sterry which Reason left to its conjectures would think plausible but short of Aristotle and Plato 2. And he is so high in his Description and Defence of Trine-Unity that even where I consent not I dare not call him therein unsound 3. But many Passages in his Description of Eternal Nature are apparently the effects of Ignorance and erroneous 4. And he goeth further in his making this Nature eternal and a World that is the Body of God than I dare do 5. And though I would not be too forward to contemn men that pretend to know such Mysteries by Vision and Revelation yet I resolve to take Christ for my sufficient and infallible Teacher and to pretend to know no more of the Deity and unseen World than he hath thought meet to reveal For no man hath seen the Father at any time but the only begotten Son nor doth any else know him but he and those to whom he revealeth him And what Christ hath not revealed of God I think it is because it is fittest for us to be yet ignorant of it as a necessary difference between our present and our future state To search for more will but confound and lose us and resting practically in what Christ hath revealed and for the rest trusting our selves fully in his Knowing for us his Love to us and his Promise for us may safely and sufficiently quiet the Mind that can be well quieted no other way CHAP. 3. Of the Incarnation and Hypostatical Union § 1. NO wonder that it seemeth hard to Man to understand how the Divine Nature assumeth the Humane into Union when it is so far beyond our reach to conceive how God is near to all his Works and how he operateth on every man Christ hath told us That we know not how a man is born of the Spirit no more than we know whence the Wind cometh and whither it goeth And can we easilier know how God became Man § 2. It is certain that God being infinite is as near to us as is possible our Souls can be no nearer to our Bodies nor perhaps to themselves And though Philosophers dispute Whether Spirits be in loco and whether God be in us or we in him and whether he be quasi locus spatium to the World yet it is past question that he is omnipresent and intimately proximus to all things § 3. It is not therefore his meer Presence or Proximity of being that is this Hypostatical Union else it would extend to all the World It is harder therefore to prove that God is not as nearly united to all than to prove that he is not so united to the Humane Nature of Christ. Which caused Peter Sterry and such others to hold That Christ hath three Natures that is That the Divine Nature first produced the prime superangelical emanant Nature by which he seemeth to mean an universal Soul to the Matter of the World and that this superangelical Nature did unite it self to all but eminently to the humane Nature of Christ which he calleth One top-Branch in the Tree of Beings Some say the superangelical Nature being Christ's only Soul assuming but a Body others that it assumed a Body and Soul § 4. The grand difficulty about God's Unity with the World and the World with God is how to