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
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
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