was still constant to his Doctrine he persevered in his former I am sure that I am in the right Shortly after came forth the judgment of a disinterested Person concerning the Controversy between Dr. S TH and Dr. SHERLOCK This Author states the Doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation or Divinity of our Saviour as they have been for many Ages held in the Catholic Church and proves his explication of them by a great number of incontestable Authorities especially of General Councils He evinces by divers clear both Theological and Philosophical Reasons that three infinite spiritual Substances three eternal all-perfect Beings Minds or Spirits are most certainly three Gods He concludes that Dr. S th and the Oxford Heads are undoubtedly in the right in censuring the Doctrine of three infinite all-perfect spiritual Substances Spirits Minds or Beings as Tritheism yet that Dr. Sherlock had no ill meaning for he only proposed to himself to defend the received Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation tho he unhappily mistook in the explication of those Doctrines One may say this Book is perfectly well written the Catholic Doctrine is truly stated and asserted by the very Authorities and Reasons on which it has been so long and so generally received and tho the Author is constrained by the evidence of the proofs which he alledges to assent to the Oxford-Heads and to Dr. S th yet he always speaks of Dr. Sherlock not only with much tenderness but with a great deal of respect and deference Dr. Sherlock on the contrary answers with so much virulence as if the Author had done to him some personal irreparable or even mortal Injury and with so much self-conceit and confidence as if himself had obtained the monopolies of Learning and good sense He intitles his answer to the disinterested The Doctrine of a real Trinity vindicated in answer to a Socinian Pamphlet As if it were Socinianism to oppose Tritheism He begins his Book with these words This Author calls himself a Presbyter of the Church of England I pray God to preserve the Church from such Presbyters who eat her Bread and betray her Faith His other Sippets are Socinian Heretic bantering Socinian and such like Sweets with which this Doctor 's dishes are always enchaced But to let those matters pass in this Answer he recites the Authorities and Reasons urged by the disinterested and in a Paragraph or two bestowed on each of them he triumphs at last gloriously over all of them But what is very surprizing tho he confutes all the Reasons and baffles all the Authorities in the whole Book yet 't is in this very Answer that he begins to bethink him and retracts all his Heterodoxies nay becomes altogether of the same mind with the Author against whom he writes Let us hear what he says Pag. 12. The Nominals i. e. Dr. S th and the Oxford Heads and the Socinians differ in some forms of Speech but there is no considerable difference in their Faith P. 6. These Phrases three Minds three Spirits three Substances ought to be used very cautiously and not without great necessity P. 14. They are Expressions liable to a very heretical sense to Arianism and Tritheism P. 30. In the common acceptation of the word the Divine Persons are not three Substances but one Substance actually and really subsisting thrice He meant to say three manner of ways subsisting thrice is nonsense P. 35. The Trinity is one supream Being this is the Doctrine of St. Austin the Schools and Fathers Can any one say Dr. Sherlock hath not given satisfaction to the Oxford-Heads and Dr. S th Were F. Socinus Smalcius Crellius and Ruarus to judg of this Doctrine they would be content it should be inserted into their Racovian Catechism they would embrace the Author as an absolute Unitarian P. 36. Father Son and Spirit are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one and the same Substance they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the unity of Sameness or Identity This is true Catholick Doctrine and the Language of the Nicene Fathers And of all the Socinians from F. Sacinus to Mr. T. F. But we shall hear by and by he will confess that also P. 61. Three infinite Persons each of which is Mind and Spirit are but one and the same infinite and eternal Spirit Catholick again and Unitarian all over For when the Church says each Divine Person is Mind and Spirit the meaning is the Divine Persons are internal relative Properties of the same infinite Mind and Spirit and being so each of them indeed is Mind and Spirit but not a Mind or a Spirit Had Dr. Sherlock but known this in time he had never wrote against the Unitarians nor fallen under the Oxford-Censure P. 65. The Socinians will grant that one Divinity is but one God and the reason why they assert that one God is but one Person is because they think it impossible the same undivided Divinity should subsist distinctly in three Persons But then before they had charged the Faith of the Trinity with Tritheism they should have remembred that the Persons of the Trinity are not three such Persons as their one Person is whom they call one God and therefore tho three such Persons three such Minds Spirits and Substances as their one Person and one Spirit is who is the whole Divinity confined to one single Person would indeed be three Gods yet three such Persons as the Catholic Church owns who are all the same One Substance are not three Gods The short of this is the Church doth not mean by three Persons what the Socinians mean if she did they would rightly accuse her of Tritheism three such Persons as the Socinians oppose are indeed three Gods He repeats the same thing p. 67 in these words The three Divine Persons as we have now explained them are not three such Persons as the Socinians must confess three Persons must be who are three Gods Right for you have now acknowledged that what you call three Persons is indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one self-same spiritual Substance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Vnity of Indentity one supream Being one and the same infinite and eternal Spirit which in all your former Books was Nonsense and Heresy and not greater Nonsense than Heresy as they who please may see in the places I have quoted and in above forty other places of your Writings I shall tell you not only the Oxford-Heads or Dr. S th but F. Socinus or T. F. would never have required you to say more than you now say it was not the Trinity held by the Catholic Church that Socinus or T. F. rejected but only a Trinity of such Divine Persons as are distinct Substances Spirits and Minds which at length you also expresly disown but which too many in the Church misled by the dangerous unscriptural terms now so much contended for did and do hold There can never be a sincere Peace till those terms are discarded For tho after eight
Testaments and the reason that they were given by God was to regain Mankind to the belief and acknowledgment of but one God to destroy Polytheism of all sorts Mr. Firmin intended to recommend it to the Unitarian Congregations as the very reason of their distinct assembling to be particularly mindful of and zealous for the Article of the Unity to cause it to be so explained in their Assemblies Catechisms and Books without denying or so much as suppressing the Catholick Doctrine of the Trinity that all men might easily and readily know in what sense the Vnity of God is to be believed and the Mystery of a Trinity of Divine Persons each of them God is to be interpreted Mr. Firmin feared that without such Assemblies the continual use of terms which in their ordinary signification are confessed by all to imply three Gods would paganize in some time the whole Christian Church which is Heathen already in the majority of its Members by occasion of those terms and that no sufficient care is taken to interpret them to the people I though to have ended here but the Dean of St. Pauls having published a large Book in Quarto to which he gives the title of the present state of the Socinian Controversy I think my self obliged to take notice of it and make a fit Answer to it In order whereunto it will be even necessary to consider also briefly his former Books indeed my Answer will be little more than a comparing the Doctrine of these Books with this last in which as to his Notions tho propos'd commonly in somewhat improper unconvenient and dangerous expressions he has given satisfaction to Dr. S th and the Oxford Heads in other words he is become truly Catholic and perfectly Unitarian Mr. Firmin had caused to be written a brief History of the Vnitarians and brief Notes on the Creed of Athanasius in the years 1689 and 1690. Dr. Sherlock was then more at leisure than he desired so he answered in a wrathful Book entituled A Vindication of the Doctrine of the H. Trinity In this Vindication he lays about him for that sort of Trinity that had been oppos'd in the aforesaid History and Notes a Trinity of Infinite Eternal All-perfect Minds Beings and Spirits The Doctrine of his Book may be summ'd into this following short Abstract The H. Trinity is three such Persons as are substantially distinct or are three distinct Spiritual Substances Being distinct Persons they must needs be distinct Substances Persons and intelligent Substances being reciprocal terms or signifying the same thing The Divine Persons are three Beings three Spirits three Minds as distinct as three human Persons as distinct as Peter James and John Each of these Minds or Spirits has a distinct Vnderstanding Wisdom and Will of his own a distinct absolutely-perfect Wisdom Goodness and Power for these perfections may be and are in more than one And as each of them is an all-perfect Spirit each of them also is a God Yet are they not three Gods because being internally conscious to each others thoughts and actions by means of this mutual consciousness tho they are three all-perfect Spirits and each of them a God they are but one God If we will say truth Dr. Sherlock was no more overseen in this explication of the Trinity than the principal Divines and Preachers at London and both Universities To my knowledg they upbraided Mr. Firmin with this Book of Dr. Sherlock's and some of them told him If Dr. Sherlock's Book did not reclame him from his Heresy it would rise up in Judgment against him It came forth cum licentiâ superiorum and shortly after the Doctor was restored to all his Preferments which he had forfeited by refusing the Oaths to the Government with the addition of the Deanary of St. Pauls But neither the Canonical License nor the new and great Preferment nor the approbations and applauses from so many and so considerable Fautors could prevent a most terrible after-clap For to say nothing of the Answer first by the Socinians and then by Dr. S th the Heads of Colleges at Oxford Nov. 25. 1695 made and ordered the publication of this Censure and Decree These words there are three distinct Minds and Substances in the Trinity and these words the three Persons in the Trinity are three distinct infinite Minds or Spirits and three individual Substances are Erroneous Heretical and Impious And we require all persons who are committed to our institution or care that they affirm no such Doctrine either by preaching or otherwise When this Decree came abroad Dr. Sherlock's former Abettors deserted him in whole troops and now they said Universities speak but seldom and by way of Authority without giving the reasons of their Decrees but as they interpose but rarely and in important Cases 't is always with certainty In short from this time Doctor Sherlock was left almost alone That I know of the same Doctors Dignitaries Deans Bishops who had boasted of his Book not only as orthodox but as unanswerable now tackt about and as much approved the Oxford-Decree The most now said it was even necessary to make and publish the Decree Tritheism being so much worse than Sabellianism or Socinianism as Paganism or Heathenism is worse than mere Judaism there is no body but will prefer the faith of the Jews tho' so unperfect before the many Gods of the Heathens Dr. Sherlock was often told of these murmurs and that they were grown general his answer was that he was sure that he was in the right And accordingly he shortly published his Examination of the Oxford Decree In this Examination he often repeats his former doctrine He says for instance P. 46. These Decreeing and Heresy-making Heads of Colleges have condemned the true Catholic Faith the Nicene Faith and the Faith of the Church of England He adds in the same page Three Divine Persons who are not three distinct Minds and Substances is not greater Heresy than 't is Nonsense P. 31. The present dispute is about three distinct infinite Minds and Substances in the Trinity whether this be Catholic doctrine and Catholic language If it appears that they the Fathers owned three distinct Substances both name and thing there can be no dispute about three Minds P. 23. If God begets no substance he begets nothing that is real And then neither is God a real Father nor the Son a real Son P. 22. If a Divine Person as a Person and as a distinct Person from the other two Persons be not an infinite Mind there is an end of the Christian Trinity P. 18. The three Persons must be as distinct Minds Spirits and Substances as they are distinct Persons Every body disliked this Answer to the Oxford Heads it was owned to be Heresy in excelsis Dr. Sherlock's more warm Opposers call'd out for the sitting of a Convocation to censure such a manifest subversion of the Catholic Faith in the first and chief Article of it The Doctor however
thought the Articles of that Creed are affirmed I have examined some of his principal References and can say of 'em they are either Perversions or downright Falsifications of what the Authors referred to did intend Dr. Wallis whose dishonest Quotations out of the Socinians have been detested by every body is hardly more blamable in that kind than Mr. Edwards saving that the Doctor being as one rightly tells him somewhat more than a Socinian did but foul his own Nest by his Forgeries but we cannot certainly say what is the opinion of Mr. Edwards in the great Article in question among us But come we to the Creed which he says is ours as I promis'd I will answer to every Article of it sincerely and directly I. I believe concerning the Scriptures that there are Errors Mistakes and Contradictions in some places of it That the Authority of some whole books of it is questionable yea that the whole Bible has been tamper'd with and may be suspected to be corrupted That there are Errors Mistakes and Contradictions in the H. Bible was never said by any person pretending to be a Christian if by the Bible you mean the Bible as it came out of the hands of the inspired Authors of it As on the other side that there are Errors Mistakes or Contradictions in the vulgar Copies of the Bible used by the Church of Rome for instance or the English Church was never questioned by any learned Man of whatsoever Sect or way and least of all can Mr. Edwards question it He has published a book concerning the Excellence and Perfection of H. Scripture in which book he finds great fault with our English Bible He saith in the Title of his 13th chapter It is faulty and defective in many places of the Old and New Testaments and I offer all along in this chapter particular Emendations in order to render it more exact and compleat As to the Hebrew and Greek copies of the Bible 't is well known some are more perfect and some less They differ very much for in the Old Testament the Hebrew Critics have noted 800 various readings in the New there are many more Mr. Gregory of Oxford so much esteemed and even venerated for his admirable Learning says hereupon and says it cum Licentiâ Superiorum There is no book in the World that has suffer'd so much by the hand of Time as the Bible Pref. p. 4. He judged and judged truly that tho' the first Authors of the Bible were Divinely Instructed Men yet the Copiers Printers and Publishers in following Ages were all of them Fallible Men and some of them ill-designing Men. He knew that all the Church Historians and Critics have confessed or rather have warned us that some copies of the Bible have been very much vitiated by the hands as well of the Orthodox as of Heretics and that 't is matter of great difficulty at this distance of time from the Apostolic Age to assertain the true reading of H. Scripture in all places of it Yet we do not say hereupon as Mr. Edwards charges us that the Bible much less the whole Bible is corrupted For as to the faulty readings in the common Bibles of some Churches and in some Manuscript Copies the Providence of God has so watched over this sacred Book that we know what by information of the antient Church-Historians and the writings of the Fathers what by the early Translations of the Bible into Greek Latin and Syriac and the concurrent Testimony of the more antient Manuscript copies both who they were that introduced the corrupt readings and what is the true Reading in all Texts of weight and consequence In short as to this matter we agree with the Critics of other Sects and Denominations that tho' ill Men have often attempted they could never effect the corruption of H. Scripture the antient Manuscripts the first Translations the Fathers and Historians of the Church are sufficient directors concerning the authentic and genuine Reading of doubtful places of H. Scripture Farther whereas Mr. Edwards would intimate that we reject divers Books of H. Scripture On the contrary we receive into our Canon all those Books of Scripture that are received or owned by the Church of England and we reject the Books rejected by the Church of England We know well that some Books and parts of Books reckoned to be wrote by the Apostles or Apostolical Men were questioned nay were refused by some of the Antients but we concur with the opinion of the present Catholic Church concerning them for the reasons given by the Catholic Church and which I mention in the Reply to my Lord the Bp. of Chichester If Mr. Edwards would have truly represented the opinion of the Socinians concerning the Scriptures he knew where to find it and so expressed as would have satisfied every body He knows that in the Brief Notes on the Creed of Athanasius they have declared what is their sense in very unexceptionable words The Holy Scriptures say they are a divine an infallible and compleat Rule both of Faith and Manners Br. Notes p. 1. The Church neither requires nor desires that they should say more II. I believe concerning God That he is not a Spirit properly speaking but a sort of Body such as Air or Aether is That he is not immense infinite or every where present but confined to certain places That he hath no knowledg of such future Events as depend on the Free Will of Man and That it is impossible such things should be foreseen by him That there is a Succession in God's eternal duration as well as in time which is the measure of the duration that belong to finite Beings That Almighty God is Incorporeal Omnipresent and Omniscient has not only been confessed but proved by the Unitarians of this Nation in divers of their late Prints As to the other that all Duration that of God as well as of Creatures consists in a Succession is affirmed by some Learned Men of all Perswasions and Ways as well as by the Unitarians It should seem Mr. Edwards holds that God possesses eternal Lite all at once that to God Eternity is one standing permanent Moment St. John is of another mind for he describes the duration of God by a Succession by was is and is to come Grace be to you and Peace says he from him which is was and is to come Rev. 1.4 'T is undeniable by any but affected Wranglers that here the duration of God his continuance in being is distinguished by the threefold Succession was is and shall be which is common to all Beings Eternal life possessed all at once is one of the monstrous Paradoxes which our Opposers maintain for all that I can see meerly from a spirit of contradiction for it has no manner of ground either in Reason or Holy Scripture I desire to know of 'em how the duration of God is the less perfect because 't is said to consist in a Succession
only by nature In good truth they are better and stronger by nature than I ever hope to be in this Life by the superadded Grace of God But here again he did not strike home he intended more than he durst say and he durst not say it lest we should ask him whether he believes the just contrary That There is no need of the Spirit to repent to believe or to obey the Gospel and perform religious Acts. 'T is a serious point We answer with St. Paul the Spirit HELPETH our Infirmities Rom. 8.26 But we judg for all that the Holy Scripture gives no occasion to any to turn Enthusiasts and to resolve the whole duty we owe and must perform to God and to our Neighbor into preternatural Impulses as if we were Machines and not men or Puppets moved by invisible Wires not Men that act by their own Reason and Choice That Men are righteous before God not by the merit of Christ but by their own good works We answer with all but Antinomians and the more rigid Calvinists the Merit of Christ is not reckoned to us without Faith and good Works of our own But I am not certain that the Calvinists or the Antinomists would not assent to that Proposition or not allow it to be orthodox I incline to think those People have no real difference with the Church nor the Church with them but that they mistake one anothers meaning V. Another branch of our Creed according to Mr. Edwards runs thus I believe concerning a future State That the Souls of the Deceased have no knowledg or perception of any thing they are not sensible of any Rewards or Pains and that their very Nature is absorpt That at death the Soul as well as Body sleeps was an error of some of the most ancient Fathers as well as of some Unitarians But neither of 'em said as Mr. Edwards pretends that in death the very Nature of the Soul is absorpt which is to say extinct they both of them held that there is a Resurrection of the Soul as well as Body But why dos Mr. Edwards impute that opinion to us when he has read for he quotes the book in the first Part of the Considerations on the Explications of the Trinity what is our sense of that matter The words at p. 33. are these This Error was common to Socinus and some of the Fathers The Learned Mr. Du Pinn in his Abridgment of the Fathers has noted that Justin Martyr Irenaeus Minutius Faelix and Arnobius were in this Sentiment There was no reason 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 'em hold it VI. He says next I believe we shall not rise with the same Bodies but that another Matter or Substance shall be substituted in their place I see most of our Opposers have affected to mistake our meaning concerning the resurrection of the Body We hold nothing that is singular in the case we differ not from the Catholick Church about it We say with St. Paul 1 Cor. 15.35 How are the dead raised and with what Bodies do they come Thou sowest not the body that shall be The Body that is raised is not in all respects the same that was committed to the earth in divers perhaps in the most it is We rise not Infants or decrepit old Men or lame or deaf or any way distorted tho' many so lived and so died Nay as to the Passions resulting from the present complexion of the body and therefore to be reckon'd the Modifications and as it were parts of the body we rise not with them it is not the same Body in respect of those Passions that it here lived For instance some are by complexion very cowardly or pensive or choleric or jealous the Body that shall be will not be such It will be conformed to the likeness of the glorious Body of our Lord Christ that is be freed from all both external and internal Imperfections Farthermore our present body Physicians and Philosophers say is in a continual Flux all the parts of it internal as well as external continually decay and are continually also renewed They decay by the Perspiration that is continually caused by the internal heat and are continually renewed by the Nourishment taken in and converted into Blood Spirits Flesh and Bones 'T is said by the Learned in these matters that no man's body is the very same as to the matter and substance of it this present year that it was the last year and will be the next year 'T is wholly new by the nourishment of the present year We say therefore there shall be a Resurrection of the Body and as some of the Antient Creeds spoke of the same Body as truly and as properly as N.N. is the same Man this year that he was one or seven or twenty years ago If Mr. Edwards requires us to say more he exacts more than the Church believes For by the Resurrection of the same Body the Church intends only that 't is as truly the same as a Man notwithstanding the Flux of his parts is now the same N. N. or J. B. that he was seven or ten years past Yet not altogether the same because inconceivably better That is without any external or internal Deformities or Weaknesses VII I believe that at the Day of Judgment Men shall not be required to give an account of their Actions the most flagitious Sinners shall not be examined concerning any thing of their past Life Only they shall be punished and their Punishment is this to utterly cease or perish for ever The unquenchable Fire is nothing but Annihilation I do not know that the Scriptures or the Catholic Church do require any to believe that Sinners shall be examined concerning their past Life at the day of the general Judgment To what purpose I pray doth the All-knowing Judg need to be informed concerning the particulars of their Guiâ—â—â— If every person is to be severally exâ—â—â—â—ed concerning the particulars of his â—â—ansacted Life the Day of Judgment will extend it self to many Millions of Ages more and farther than the whole duration of the World from its beginning to its consummation It should seem Mr. Edwards thinks that because the Scriptures speak of the great Judgment by God in the language of Men and of Human Judicatures such as Trumpets the Throne of the Judg a formal Sentence the Pleadings of the Guilty the Answers of the Judg that therefore in very deed we are to expect such a Scene at the Judgment by God as at a common Assize I conceive on the contrary that all such expressions and words wherever they are found in Scripture are not intended as real Descriptions but as Comparisons or Resemblances by which the capacities of the Vulgar may he assisted and their affections wrought upon All that is intended by such expressions is
years Disputation a Doctor of Divinity and a Dean has been hardly perswaded out of the Heresy of three Spirits Minds or Substances yet the continuance of these unscriptural Terms without an exact Explication of them in Sermons and Catechisms heathenizes all the common People nay and great numbers of not unlearned persons 'T is evident now I suppose to every body that the Disinterested was not concerned to reply to such an Answer as this Dr. Sherlock indeed confuted most plainly all his Reasons and trampled upon his Authorities but kindly granted him the Doctrine for which he contended I was in hope therefore all the dust and noise had been at an end but Dr. Sherlock who has no mercy on a conquer'd Enemy thought fit to make a new Onset He publisht a Sermon concerning the danger of corrupting the Faith by Philosophy in which with a great deal of bitterness and many Invectives against the Unitarians he declares that The Unitarian and all other Heresies have their rise and strength from Philosophy and Reason He pretends that Religion must be learned and taught only from Holy Scripture not indeed from the meer Letter or Phrase of Holy Scripture without allowance for Metaphors and such like Schemes of Speech but from the obvious and natural senfe of the words of Scripture without presuming to mollify or change in the least what seems to be the proper sense of the words on the account of any Opposition thereto by Reason or Philosophy He takes occasion here to declame against Reason and Philosophy as most dangerous Deceits and Impostures the true Originals and Causes of all Heresies and Errors in Religion His topicks of Argument for these things are the same that have been always advanced by the maintainers of Transubstantiation other such like Doctrines which have been rejected by the Protestant Churches on the account that they are flatly contrary to Reason and Philosophy This Sermon had been out but a little time when Mr. Firmin publisht Remarks on it The Author of the Remarks first makes an Abstract or Summary of the Sermon and then examins part by part the said Summary or Abstract He proves that the use of Philosophy and Reason is even necessary for the right understanding of Holy Scripture or of any other Book or Speech whatsoever and that 't is by Reason which is no other thing but common sense and by Philosophy which is nothing but experimental Knowledg that we can judg when a Book confest on all hands to be true and certain speaks figuratively and popularly and when strictly grammatically and literally In a word 't is by Reason and Philosophy chiefly that the true meaning and intention of any Book which Book or Writing is granted to be certainly true can be found The Remarks are so written that Dr. Sherlock thinks fit to deny that his Sermon is truly represented he says in his Vindication of the Sermon The Author of the Remarks gives the sense of my Sermon in his own words and directly contrary to my meaning I who made the Sermon knew nothing of it but by mere guess as it lays in his Abstract Vind. p. 4. He adds again at p. 28. The Author of the Remarks has not opposed the Doctrine of my Sermon but his own Chimeras and Follies In short the Doctor complains that his whole Sermon is misreported by the Author of the Remarks and that it was not at all his Intention in the Sermon to speak against Philosophy or Reason but only against what some men call Philosophy and Reason and against vain pretences to Reason and Philosophy Vind. p. 5. He quotes two or three mincing passages of his Sermon which speak not of philosophy and Reason but of Pretenders and Pretences to Reason and Philosophy and these two or three Passages he offers as the true and whole intention of his Sermon But It is certain himself had other thoughts of the intention of his Sermon when he publish'd it and before he law it confuted for he gives it this Title The danger of corrupting Religion by Philosophy not by Pretender or Pretences to Philosophy 'T is certain also that the Arguments he alledges are directed against Philosophy it self and Reason it self as every one sees in the Sermon and in the Vindication of it He has for instance this passage laugh'd at by so many If a. Contradiction to fallible Sense be not a good objection against the truth of any thing how comes a Contradiction to much more fallible Reason to be an unanswerable objection Vind. p. 14. Farther when he is explaining his Text he says Beware lest any spoil you thro' Philosophy and vain Deceit that is thro' the vain deceit of Philosophy Philosophy cheats men with a flattering but false appearance It may unsettle weak minds but cannot lay a sure or solid foundation for Faith it may cheat men out of their Faith but when that is done can give nothing in the room of it Serm. p. 2. He has divers such passages addressed directly against Reason and Philosophy but after the Remarks on those passages came abroad he thought it should seem that seeing what he had so hastily said could no ways be defended his best way would be to deny that ever he said or intended it He thought perhaps it would be a less loss of Reputation if two or three prying malicious Fellows will read the Sermon again and thereby discover either that the Doctor had forgot himself or would venture in a streight on an apparent falsity than to make himself contemptible to learned and discerning Men by pertinacy in Opinions that had been so clearly refuted I leave it to others to judg whether this were an exact Computation But I think I had not mentioned this Sermon or its Vindication but that here again the Doctor calls in his Heterodoxies concerning the Trinity He disowns here the expression three infinite Minds and Spirits as very inconvenient and liable to an heretical Interpretation it ought not to be used he saith in the absolute but only in a qualified and restrained Sense His words are I freely acknowledg that three infinite Minds and Spirits is liable to a very Heretical and Tritheistic Sense if understood absolutely Serm. p. 3. But this was never acknowledged till the Judgment by the Disinterested and the Remarks had extorted it from him I come now to his third and last book of Retractations his present state of the Socinian Controversy which as 't is much larger than any of the rest so 't is more express and direct against the Heresy of three infinite eternal Minds Spirits Beings or Substances 'T is also written so much more calmly than any former piece by the same hand that I could scarce believe it was Doctor Sherlock's Abating a little grumbling of the gizard against Dr. S th and the Oxford Heads for former harshness and irreverence and a small aking of the teeth against the unpardonable Socinians the Causers or however the Occasioners of
and relative sense That is meaning thereby the one real Divine Substance considered in its distinct Relations or Properties for hereby the Substance tho 't is not multiply'd yet 't is thrice numbred and in that respect it should seem may be called three relative Substances This is a very slight Reasoning and never misled any body but St. Hilary For men never say THREE on the account that a thing is considered three manner of ways with three Modes three Properties or three Relations Why therefore should we introduce such an improper as well as dangerous form of speaking concerning God a form of speaking that in its natural and immediate sense destroys the divine Unity and introduces by their own confession three Gods Notwithstanding Dr. Sherlock is pleased to approve of that form he saith P. 379. We must not say three Substances in the Trinity for fear of saying three Gods Yet we must own that each Divine Person is true and perfect substance and three in substance are three Substances not indeed three absolute but three relative Substances In the Trinity there is one absolute and three relative Substances P. 287. An absolute Substance is one entire perfect individual Whole Relative Substances are internal subsisting Relations in the same one whole individual substance The meaning is Orthodox the words Heterodox and Phantastical He grants that to affirm three Divine Substances is to affirm three Gods but then meaning by Substances what no body means the same one absolute individual Substance numbred three times or numbred with its three Properties or Relations we may affirm three Divine relative Substances Again Those that grant it must not be said in any sense whatsoever that there are three Divine Substances yet they make it a question Whether the one only Divine Substance is one numerical Substance and one singular Substance They own the Divine Substance is really but one identically one 't is one self-same Substance not two or three in whatsoever sense For all that they are not willing to say the substance of God is numerically one is one numerical or one solitary or singular Substance their wise Reason is this Tho' the Divine Substance is one in Nature and in the thing numbred as the School-Doctors speak yet being thrice numbred for it is numbred distinctly to or with its three Properties or Relations therefore we deny it to be numerically one tho 't is really naturally and identically one Now we grant to these Anti-Grammarians that the thing they intend is true but they should not deny propositions that are true in their Grammatical and immediate Sense because they are not true in a sense that no man ever was so wild as to impose it upon them 'T is something worse than trifling to deny orthodox and necessary Propositions on a pretence that mad men may take them in a sense contrary to their direct immediate and constant meaning When we say the divine or any other Substance is numerically one or is one numerical one singular one solitary Substance every body knows that the words solitary singular and numerical are used only in opposition to plural more or many so that one solitary singular or numerically one Substance is intended only as a denial of this heretical Proposition three Substances If the reason given by Dr. Sherlock and some few others why they will not say one singular or solitary or numerically one Substance were good they must never say one numerical one solitary or singular Earth or Sun or other body or thing whatsoever Nay they must not dare to say numerically one GOD one singular or solitary GOD which yet are forms that I presume they will own as orthodox nay as necessary There is no thing or being whatsoever but must be at least thrice numbred namely to the three Properties of every Being Verum bonum unum therefore if we must not say one numerical or one singular or solitary Divine Substance because this Substance is thrice numbred viz. with or to its three Relations or Properties neither may we say one numerical or one solitary or singular Earth or Sun because they are thrice numbred are distinctly numbred to the three Properties of Verum bonum unum But this impertinent niceness Dr. Sherlock every where takes up and contends for it as an important truth unless we exclude the terms solitary singular and numerical he is positive that we shall lose the three Divine Persons P. 195. The singularity of the Divine Substance is a Sabellian Notion and destroys the faith of a real Trinity P. 213. An individual Substance but not one solitary or singular Substance P. 246. The Unity of the Divine Substance or Nature is not an unity of number but of sameness and identity P. 249. 'T is not a singular Nature or Substance with the singularity of solitude but of identity or sameness I imagine Dr. Sherlock's best Friends will not deny 't is an odd melancholy humour of his to espouse and affect Terms and Phrases that have been rejected by all Learned Men as improper dangerous and tending to Tritheism merely that he may amuse Novices in these Questions and may afterward explain his Riddles to the admiration of the weak or unlearned and the sleight of the learned and discerning He concludes his Book with an Address to the Unitarians to this effect They were not best to concern themselves with him or against his Book for if they do they shall certainly be called to account for it in this World as well as in the World to come I take this to be another melancholy Fit for the Orthodox will but laugh at the threatnings of a Man under publick Censure for the very worst Heterodoxy What! three relative substances call to account honest orthodox one absolute Substance Believe me Doctor they despise the menace They send you word Physitian heal thy self Mr. Informer purge your own Books even this last of the many Heterodoxies in it As Page 191. The Son is nothing else but the whole entire immediate participation of the Father's Substance and therefore is as perfectly one with the Father as the Father is one 'T is Sabellian The Son is not so one with the Father as the Father is one for the Father is numerically one as all confess but Father and Son are numerically two with all but Sabellians P. 198. Each of them Father Son and Spirit is perfect God and therefore an infinite Mind and an infinite Spirit 'T is Tritheism For if each of the Divine Persons is an infinite Mind or an infinite Spirit then there are three infinite Minds and Spirits which is the Heresy you have been retracting throughout this whole Book I supoose however he meant to say each Divine Person is infinite Mind and Spirit which is Catholic and Unitarian P. 247. To have asserted one singular Divine Substance which is but one in number had given up the cause to the Sabellians One singular Divine Substance and one in number is the Language of the Catholic Church and is refused by none but Arians and Tritheists P 369. The name God doth not originally absolutely and immediately belong to the Son or Spirit but only relatively P. 373. Only the Father is absolutely and simply God 'T is absolute Heresy Taking Father Son and Spirit in the personal senfe the Son and Spirit are no less absolutely and simply GOD than the Father is When the Unitarians say only the Father is God in the absolute sense they do not take the word Father personally but by Father they mean the Deity Father Son and Spirit as Persons of the Deity taking Persons in the Ecclesiastical sense or sense of the Church are equally God neither is afore or after other neither greater or less than the other as Athanasius rightly teaches In short this perpetual Litigant understands not well either the Doctrine of the Church or the Party he opposes these are not Questions in which he might concern himself they require an attention and subtilty of thought which either he seems not to have had or to have lost He has concerned himself in the supposed Controversy between the Church and the Socinians with like prudence dexterity and success as the present Archbishop of Paris has intermedled between the Jansenists and Molinists The Archbishop published an Ordinance against a Book entituled An Exposition of the Catholic Faith touching Grace and Predestination Father Quesnel a Priest of the Oratory and Mr du Guè a Learned Person but who has laid aside the habit have severally written upon this Ordinance They agree that what is proposed as Catholic Doctrine in the second Part of the Archbishop's Ordinance is really the same with what is censured in the first Part as the Heresy of the Jansenists but in another point these two Criticks differ For Mr. du Guè thinks the Archbishop may be pardoned the Errors in the first Part in consideration of his second Part but Father Quesnel doth not approve this Indulgence of Mr. du Guè he maintains that the Archbishop cannot make satisfaction but only by a Recantation 'T is well for Dr. Sherlock that he dos not write among or to the Wits of France for his Books concerning these Questions in truth are nothing but heaps of Contradictions A Person well versed in the Controversy may spell out his meaning and find what is the Writer's aim but he must pardon a thousand Improprieties and Blunders and as many Contradictions some of them in the very stress turn or as they speak nicety of the Controversy FINIS