afraid you cannot resolve them The first is this If you are neither for a Real nor a Nominal Trinity then you are for no Trinity at all For there is no medium between them The second is that in what sense soever you hold a Trinity I cannot believe it A Trinity of Persons of which every one is God and yet but one God is to me the most absurd notion in the World I have study'd the matter with as much application as I can But to me it still appears to be a perpetual affront to Reason and good sense Orthod Give me leave to tell you that the first is no difficulty at all The Church believes a Real Trinity Not in that sense of Real which your Friends have made so much noise about and so unjustly imputed to us which infers three Gods But in that sense which in the asserting three Divine Persons preserves still the Unity of the Divine Nature To speak plainly and prevent that wrangling to which obscurity generally leads Men what the Church proposes to our belief consists in this The Unity of God is so clearly prov'd both by Reason and the Authority of the Sacred Writings that there is not in the World a truer or a plainer assertion than this God is one and can be but one But the same Sacred Writings speaking of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit and giving those Characters of them by which they appear incommunicably distinct from one another It makes this second assertion The Father is not the Son or the Holy Spirit Nor the Son the Father or the Holy Spirit Nor the Holy Spirit Father or Son But the Scripture being express and positive in giving to every one of these Persons the Name Nature Attributes and Operations of God there arises a third assertion The Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God But the first of these propositions standing unmoveable and God ceasing to be if he ceases to be one All at last are resolv'd into this Fourth That in that ONE adorable and Divine Nature are Father Son and Holy Spirit every one God and yet but ONE God This is the Real Trinity which the Church believes which the Apostles have taught For which the Martyrs dy'd and notwithstanding all the oppositions of Hereticks has obtain'd and will obtain to the end of the World I cannot read the Ecclesiastical History but I adore the veracity of Christ and see in that very particular the fullfilling of his promise to the Church that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against Her Your second difficulty is as easily resolv'd as the first For how can that be an affront to Reason and good Sense which God has commanded us to believe Socin There must be a great deal more in it than what you have laid down Vast many Books have been written on this Subject You are not ignorant how from the first and intermediate ages of Christianity to this time it has been the ground of irreconcilable disputes I do not speak only when the Emperours espous'd the Cause and this or that Opinion prevail'd because it was the Religion of the Court But I speak of the retirements of the Schools where the dispute was furious and the Doctors more set one against another than Marius and Sylla Caesar and Pompey This grand and Mysterious Contradiction has given birth to infinite Contradictions which like the Hydra's head multiply daily without number The Socinians in that Print of theirs call'd A Letter of Resolution concerning the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation pag. 10. have charg'd this home upon you The Author tells you roundly that there is no fewer than fifteen divisions amongst you each division consisting of two Parties at the least some of them of four or five So that they are in all about forty Parties of them A strong Argument by the way against the pretended Vnity of the Church Orthod What I have propos'd to you is the simplicity of the Revelation God has reveal'd so much and in that there is enough to satisfy our selves The disingenuity of the Author of that Letter appears in this that he talks of divisions and Parties and pretends to enumerate them whereas there never was any about this Socin Can you think that a Learned Person as this Author is durst have the confidence to assure such a thing if he had not very good grounds for it Orthod Call it what you please I dare to averr that he has none at all But to make this clear I must needs tell you that in a Revelation two things are to be consider'd The one is the thing reveal'd as in this case the Father is God the Son God and the Holy Spirit God and yet not three but one God The other is the manner how these things are which are reveal'd How the Father is a Father how the Son is a Son how the Holy Spirit proceeds from Father and Son How every one of these is God and yet but one God I dare say that there has not been nor can never be a more universal agreement than there has been in the first Had we been contented to adore and believe there had never been any Schisms or Divisions in that particular But Man will be curious pretend to unfold Mysteries and clearly see into his Nature who has made darkness his Pavilion round about him He must of course receive the punishment due to his Presumption and instead of that noble pleasure which results from knowing meet with all the sad consequences of a confident ignorance Any one moderately acquainted with Ecclesiastical Learning will see that this has been the conduct of the Church to stick to that first part as certain and undoubted and not at all to meddle with the other as full of danger This is visible in all the confessions of Faith of the Primitive Councils which are full in asserting the Vnity of God and the Trinity of Persons and all upon the certainty of the Divine Revelation But pretend to no kind of explication of the HOW or manner of it I confess that private Doctors have done it and that with heats not becoming the matter in dispute The Schools have given way to a World of impertinent questions and have been as impertinent in their resolutions as impertinence can be They have commented upon one another and still the Commentary has been obscurer than the Text. But when all is done they have stuck firmly to the doctrine reveal'd and unanimously agreed in this though they disagreed in there explications about it I should look upon it as the greatest Miracle that ever was done if they had explain'd that which is inexplicable Is there no such thing as the Heavens because some Philosophers have maintain'd that they were Fluid and others that they were Solid bodies Is there no such thing as the Earth because that sort of Men have wrangl'd about its figure and motion The same may be ask'd of
A Conference Between an Orthodox Christian AND A SOCINIAN IN FOUR DIALOGUES Wherein The late distinction of a Real and Nominal Trinitarian is Considered By H. DE LVZANCY B. D. Vic. of Dovere and Harwich LONDON Printed by Tho. Warren for Thomas Bennet at the Half-Moon in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1698. THE PREFACE IT is hard to determine which is the greatest misfortune either to give an easy assent to whatever Doctrine is propos'd to us or value our selves upon pretended difficulties and deny incontestable Articles because they are not altogether free from them It seems to me as dangerous an errour to disbelieve as to believe every thing The one being the effect of a prodigious weakness and the other of an incredible presumption both equally inconsistent with Reason which cannot but be sensible that as there are things visibly false to the meanest Capacity so there are those which the greatest penetration cannot reach and yet are certainly true This carries so much evidence along with it that it is granted in all our Moral and Philosophical inquiries We are witnesses of innumerable events the causes of which we guess at but can give no clear account of The springs of most transactions in the World are hid from Mankind and lie in an unfathomable obscurity plain to none but him to whom Darkness is as light as the Day The same must be said of our search about natural objects Nature so obvious every where has yet secret recesses which all our sagacity cannot penetrate We are agreed concerning its operations but as for their principles they have been disputed of from the beginning and will be to the end of the World The Men of thoughts and reflexion concluding daily that there are on all sides mighty difficulties and never to be overcome But it is strange that this should be granted with so much equity and freedom in that sort of Matters and deny'd of Religion which being of a higher and more abstruse Nature and of a far greater Authority than all the Dictates of Men should by its own weight silence all Objections and put positive Mortals in mind that a transcendent Object ceases not to be because we cannot take an exact view of it and that a Divine Proposition loses not the Character of Truth because we form difficulties against it And yet this is the ease of Socinianism The Gentlemen who have suffer'd themselves to be led into it deny the Mysteries of Christianity insisting on their unreasonableness pretending that they are not oblig'd to believe that of which they have not a clear Notion and with a sort of assurance which becomes no Man and them least of all charging the Sacred Doctrine with the scandalous imputations of contradiction and nonsence This is the design of their last Collection of Prints the perpetual descant in conversation and a contrivance to keep the dispute alive till that being ruin'd they must of necessity set up something else But indeed either we argue to give life to a party or else we act sincerely conscientiously and with a design to find out and establish the Truth If the first God is greater than our Hearts and knows all things He will punish so mean and so sordid an end which does not vindicate but prostitute Religion But if the last I must beg leave to say that there is neither Truth Piety or Modesty in all that noise Is it come to that that I must call a Doctrine unreasonable because my Reason is weak and cannot understand every part of it Do I own my doubtfulness and ignorance in all other things and am only secure and clear-sighted in this Or admit Mysteries in most of Nature's Operations and exclude them only from Religion Happy Man who can tye the Hands of his Creatour and force him to impose nothing on his belief but what is plain and intelligible What high strain of good manners is this to call that Non-sence and Contradiction which the Church of God from the very beginning of Christianity to this time and in all the parts of the World where it is receiv'd has so highly reverenc'd As if our guides in Spiritual Matters had been no more than a company of Mad-men who have fill'd our Heads with crude impertinent and contradictory Notions This is so much the worse in these Gentlemen because they cannot but be acquainted that Philosophy was never and is not to be appeal'd to in these disputes The certainty of our belief depending on a nobler and more infallible Principle even the Authority of God speaking in the Sacred Scriptures The Fathers never doubted but that Difficulties would ever be rais'd in the treating of our Mysteries but thought this sufficiently over-rul'd by the very consideration of God's own determination in that Revelation which he has made of himself Whether these Gentlemen will or no this must be the last resolution of this great Controversy Let them think of it in earnest and they will agree with me that it cannot be otherwise This method I follow'd and urg'd again and again to a Friend for whose sake I writ and publish'd the Four Letters They seem'd to me to have made some impression on him and as he is a Person of Candor he own'd that it was beyond his Ability to Answer but would expect what the Socinian writers had to say to them After some time an Answer came out But as I must do them the justice to acknowledge that they have us'd me in it with a great deal of civility and show'd that deep studies had not spoil'd in them good breeding a fault too too common in Learned Men So I am forc'd to complain that they have not so much as touch'd any one part of my Book But taking no care either of vindicating the unwary Assertions of their Authors or answering those substantial Arguments which were laid before them they serv'd me as they had done others before contenting themselves with a handsome declamation about their new and chimerical distinction of Real and Nominal Trinitarians insisting on the incomprehensibility and contradiction of the Christian Doctrine and what is pleasant enough arguing against its unreasonableness without so much as examining any one of the plain Reasons given for it My Friend then was arm'd with two n w Topicks He would call upon me and ask me whether I was a Real or a Nominal Trinitarian He would maintain that his Reason could not yield to what is unreasonable or be bound to assent to what is Contradictory or at best Incomprehensible I thought then my self oblig'd for his sake in particular and in general for the good of the Christian Cause to which we are all debtors to take a view of these two Engines of the Socinian make This is the occasion of the following Papers in which this distinction is examin'd the dispute between them and us brought back to the true state of the question viz. the Authority of the Sacred Writings The nature of Faith and
both Men of Learning and I suppose method too without which Learning is of no use and becomes only a large heap of rich Materials without beauty or strength because without order or disposition Socin All that I could perceive of both sides was very little reason or Argument But a World of heat and clamor Perpetual reflections either on the Church or the Socinians rude expressions and an insufferable shifting and running from one thing to another Orthod Truly this is the misery of disputes which for want of good and sincere management become a fatigue and a labour not to be overcome Books come as much short of it as Conversation The Writers and the Readers are equally unfortunate in this the one not giving that which they promise and the other being disappointed of that which they look for and that is Information Socin For this very reason I have almost vow'd to dispute no more I will hate the very Name of Controversy and no Book of that Nature shall find Room in my Library Time may be spent much better than in endeavoring to understand an Author who does not understand himself An infinite Stock of Patience is necessary to bear with a dull flat and insipid Writer Nor was I ever made to be a Witness to all their heats and follies who load their Adversary with ill Language because he is not of their Opinion Orthod I am not of your mind That which is good cannot cease to be such because it is abus'd Inquiry after Truth is the Noblest endeavour as well as the most Natural inclination of Mankind And disputing is the way which leads to it It is by comparing Argument with Argument and Reason with Reason that at last it does appear In the State of Weakness that we are in Thinking and Reflection are the only helps we have and it is from striking the steal and the flint together that the blessed fire breaks out which improv'd removes our darkness We have very few Self-Evident Principles and from them we do not always draw true and exact consequences The Mine must be open'd and digg'd with a great deal of Labour till we come to the precious Ore But once found it yields an inestimable treasure In a word it is by the opposition and difference of Men in their opinions that we come to examine reflect inquire and at last find out the Truth Socin I grant all this But when disputing is so wholly perverted as to become a sanctuary to Error When two contending Parties are so obstinate as not to yield the least Point and it is no more whether what I say is true but what I say must be true When Books are fill'd up and grow to large volumes and yet nothing to the purpose When all degenerates into heat and passion I think it time to have done keep my sense of things to my self and meddle no more with disputes Orthod What you say is too true We have a large experience that several have Writ of subjects which they never understood and others have pretended to answer objections which they have wholly mistaken Like those Translators Who have assassinated several Authors and disfigur'd many admirable and Original Pieces for want of understanding both the Language out of which they translated and their own which they translated into It is also evident that Divine Matters have been treated with very little piety As if God was not to be consulted when Man presumes to speak of him and the heart as well as the mind was not to guide the hand of the Writer But yet for all this there are Books of this kind which cannot be sufficiently admir'd so clear they are and yet so concise so eloquent and yet so grave so Candid and yet so home that it is hard to say whether they are more commended by the present Age or shall be more admir'd by posterity Socin Pray where are those Phoenix's to be found For they are so rare that they really deserve that name Orthod Not so very rare neither What Curious Writings did the Reign of Charles the Second produce in Defence of the Unity and Peace of the Church How was Popery treated in that of James the Second With what solidity and clearness did our Divines argue with the Emissaries of Rome never starting from the state of the question or the main stress of the difficulty propos'd And in this of William the Third when the Socinian Controversy which had slept some years began to awake again and to promise it self some increase from the looseness of Men's principles and from some other unhappy Circumstances unknown but to very few How did the Church rowse up and with what Zeal what Learning what success did they oppose the growing Heresy Socin I own that some good Books have been written against the Nonconformists and many excellent ones against the Church of Rome But for your success against Socinianism it is indeed much to be admir'd Is it not notorious that all your Writings have not brought one over to a Recantation and that though the Sect does not thrive much in the Country where Conversation is more rare yet it visibly gets ground in the Town There is scarce a Wit but what is a Socinian If Socinianism is a rank Poison I can assure you that the young Gentlemen swallow it with greediness One whisper'd me not long since that it is got even amongst some eminent Lawyers Many of your Clergy themselves are not free from the aspersion Socinianism is publickly disown'd and hated but privately much made of and caress'd I am afraid if your Universities were search'd it would be found that the sinful Weed grows there too Orthod What you say is that which we now exclaim'd against and that is Reflecting But when all is done the trick is stale and not like to take There never was yet so despicable a Sect in the World but what was willing to insinuate that their numbers were far greater than what really they appear'd A piece of Vanity laugh'd at every where by Men of Sence But in this the Socinians are unhappy For they are a Sect and no Sect a Body and no Body Some particular Persons have been Intoxicated with reading Socinus Crellius c. They have corrected and improv'd many of their Notions These they have put into several short and truly Elegant Writings and having had the happiness to be answer'd by Men every way Great it gave a general curiosity to read what these Authors had said which should arm so many famous Pens against them This has perswaded them into a belief that they have a croud of followers And as formerly the Arrians in the disputes against Arrianism so in these against Socinianism they fansie that the whole World is become Socinian But I will presume to say that it is nothing but fancy Men do not so easily part with the Faith in which they were baptiz'd and in which the hope of their Eternal Salvation consists
and National Synods We have her Mind in her publick Confessions of Faith She is so far from espousing any sort of explication that she ever thought that that great Mystery could not be explain'd The Church suffers Men to write concerning these matters St. Austin has given several considerable reasons for it in his Books on this very Subject and in that de utilit credend The opposing of Heresy the improvement of Piety the study of the Holy Scriptures of which this makes so considerable a part are the principal But to think that the Church will stand by all the Opinions of private Writers and own their errours and mistakes is a prodigious inadvertency What Church in the World can be safe if made to answer for all the Authors of her Communion What becomes then of the objection It is all overthrown in this one word The Church has nothing to do with those explications which the Socinians fansie they have so much expos'd And as for the explications themselves I believe that if the Judicious Hooker and the Learned Cudworth were alive you durst not so much as name them The rest are Men of great abilities who can arm in their defence no better Pens than their own Socin But do you put Bishops and eminent Bishops too in the rank of private Persons Who can best speak the sence of the Church but those who are call'd by the Fathers the Husbands of their Churches the Keepers of the Canons and the Successors of the Apostles Some seem to be Tritheists and others seem to be Sabellians Orthod Truly you have us'd the Bishops in your Writings as if they had been no more than private Persons the reflections on their Lordships having been so sharp and so many His Grace the late Arch-Bishop whom by your own confession you ought to have reverenc'd was not free from your aspersions My Lord of Glocester has had his share In the latest answer to my Lord of Sarum you forget the large Encomiums given him before The Bishop of Worcester for whom the Learned World has so just a value met in the answer to his late Book with the same way of Entertainment But laying all this aside and answering your meaning A Bishop with all the respect due to the Sacred Dignity is still a private Doctor Nor can the Church be favourable to his explications if they are contrary to her Doctrine But what of all this Our Bishops are all Orthodox Socin I do not know what you mean by Orthodox There is no Orthodoxy but Truth They who teach Three Gods cannot be Orthodox and this is done by the Real Trinitarians The Socinians believe and adore but one and this is done by the Nominals The greatest part of the Church goes I confess that way and therefore it is Orthodox because Socinian In short we may talk till Doom's day and never be the Wiser The question at last must be this are you a Real or a Nominal Trinitarian If a Real then we shall never be reconcil'd If a Nominal then we are certainly agreed Orthod What I have said already seems to me to be satisfactory But since you are not contented with it let us examine the several parts of your distinction What is the meaning of Real Trinitarians But let me beg of you to answer plainly and directly Socin I will answer in the very words of the Author of the Discourse concerning them He says pag. 7. The Realists are denominated from their believing Three distinct Divine Spirits or Minds who are so many Real subsisting Persons Again p. 19. They are every day Challeng'd and impeach'd of Tritheism And again p. 25. Themselves do sometimes almost openly and explicitely own and profess their Tritheism Their doctrine of the Trinity manifestly implies Three Gods Orthod What is the meaning of Nominal Trinitarians Socin They are they who maintain a Trinity which Consists only in the several Names Offices Relations and Modes of Existence of the Divine Nature This was first taught by Noëtus and Sabellius embrac'd afterwards by the assertors of the Homoousios and receiv'd by the Schools and Divinity Chairs ever since This is the substance of what he says of the Nominals in the first part of the Discourse Orthod And this you make the Foundation of that difference which you imagine to be in the Church and has of late fill'd up all your Prints Socin Yes indeed and with a great deal of Reason You are all afraid of the distinction It is of your side so notorious a giving up of the Cause that we have parted with all our Old Arguments and retrench'd our selves there as in a place from whence we cannot be driven Orthod Then pray set your heart at rest and suffer your selves to be forc'd from it For I presume positively to averr that there is no such thing in nature as these Trinitarians of your own making You pretended already to a God of your own making You wish'd for a Scripture of your own making To make a Trinity too is a little too hard I say then and pray forgive the sharpness of the words that all this is a mistake a slander and a calumny upon the Church Socin How much must you abate of your assurance when I shew you in several late Writings that the Three Persons of the Trinity are Three distinct Infinite Minds Spirits and Substances I appeal to your self whether this is not manifest Tritheism For what is God but an Infinite Mind Spirit or Substance Orthod I have told you already and tell you again that such expressions are wholly unknown to the Church and therefore cannot with any candor be fastn'd upon it Oblige me so far as to shew me a Church in the World this day or formerly which uses them or else be pleas'd to own that you are guilty of a great deal of disingenuity But though such a denial is sufficient because it is of a thing which you cannot and dare not undertake to prove yet it will be much clearer if you give your self the trouble to consider that such a notion in the Christian Church is impossible and has not the least ground or appearance of truth You are acquainted with the Sacred Writings of the New Testament and no doubt have inform'd your self of the Confessions of Faith of the Ancient Councils the assertions of the generality of the Fathers the doctrine of the Schoolmen the sense of the Greek and Latin Church even since the fatal separation and in the division of so many Kingdoms from the last in these two Ages you know perfectly all the Articles which the Famous Societies of Protestants have declar'd to be the points of their belief This suppos'd I lay before you these plain and easy but Substantial Observations First That the Church of God has always asserted the Vnity of the Divine Nature as the Foundation of all Religion It has been its great and distinguishing Character You will tell me that the Philosophers did so
pardonable Origen and other Ante-Nicenes make out the Unity of God in a Ternary of Persons though they did not believe the Equality Says the Author of the Answer to Dr. Bull pag. 22. unjust in this to Origen and the rest I have some Remarks on that Answer which I design to make publick What the Author has said concerning the Epistle of St. Barnabas and those of the Holy Martyr Ignatius is far from invalidating their Authority We must have more than suspicions and bare denials to illegitimate a Book They are certainly works of great Antiquity and acknowledg'd to be such by the succeeding Ages But what must we say of a Person of his great erudition who pretending to answer a Book full of all the Testimonies which those early times could afford quarrels only with two or three Authors against whom he says nothing substantial and is wholly silent to Justin Martyr St. Irenaeus Clemens Alexandrinus Tatianus Miltiades Melito Dionysius of Alexandria Tertullian Lactantius c. Is it enough to confute the Ante-Nicene Fathers to say as this Author pag. 7. That all their Glory is wholly due to the vanity of Modern Learned Men who quote these Books not because they value them but because being ancient monuments known to few and understood by fewer he seems to be a great Learned Man who can drop sentences out of these antique Books But this is mild and obliging if compar'd with pag. 63. Where this Author having said that Trinitarianism is not so much a Religion as the Law of the Byzantine or Constantinopolitan Emperours stiles the then Doctors of the Church THE PARASITES OF THESE TIMES whom now in regard of their antiquity we call Fathers You are not insensible how this might be taken up and expos'd If Hosius Spiridio Paphnutius If the Gregories the Basils the Cyrils the Theodorets the Chrysostoms the Hieroms the Hilaries the Ambroses the Austins were the Parasites of their times where shall we find any Vertue Piety or Learning in this World But I am willing to over-look those excesses and tell you that it is a folly to wrangle with this or that passage sometimes to inveigh against Platonicism and sometimes to complain that those Writings are lost which might have inform'd us better To be plain we have enough left and from what remains of the times before the Council of Nice it appears that the Vnity of God and the belief of a Trinity of Persons in that one God Father Son and Holy Spirit was the belief of the Christian Church The Arrians indeed might challenge some of the then Fathers who spoke more obscurely and were easier Misinterpreted But Socinianism has not the least pretence to any He must have forfeited all modesty who asserts it Socin But what have you to say to the Apostolical Creed Is it not an evidence beyond all other evidences Orthod Of what Socin Of the Vnity of the Great God Orthod And so are all our Creeds from the first to the last Socin But it is an Evidence against your Trinity Orthod Against that Trinity which you have falsly imputed to us and that is A Trinity of Gods But not against a Trinity of Persons in one God What is the first assertion of that Creed I believe in One God For you affirm that it was anciently thus read Ans to Doctor Bull pag. 16. What is the second but an Explication of the first This One God is the Father Almighty His only begotten Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit Three Persons in One God Socin This is so dragg'd in so strain'd so unnatural that to any unprejudic'd Person it will visibly appear not to be the Doctrine design'd to be taught in the Creed Orthod I am apt to think that I can substantially prove that it is I believe the Creed to be truly Apostolical notwithstanding what some learned Men have said against it Not because it was made by the Apostles themselves though nothing appears to the contrary but by reason of its great Antiquity Now when you and I dispute about the sence and design of that Creed we have but one way to take and that is First to see what the Scripture teaches concerning its Articles which indeed are no more than an Epitome or Collection of the Principal Truths deliver'd by Christ and his Apostles Secondly To examine the Doctrine of the Fathers who liv'd before the Church thought it fit and necessary to make a larger Explanation of the Faith Thirdly To satisfy our selves of the sence which the immediately following Councils gave to that Creed in their Decrees All this is Highly reasonable For if the Scripture which has taught so expresly God to be one has also expresly taught the Father to be God the Son God and the Holy Spirit God then it is plain that the sence of the Creed is such and no other The Authority of that Creed or of any Creed whatever is from the Scripture It cannot therefore be contrary to it and that excellent Rule must be brought to that Primitive Rule from whence it is deriv'd And alas has not this been prov'd to you so often and so fully that after a World of wrangling you have been driven from your new and unnatural Criticisms and forc'd to shelter your selves under the weak defence of your Philosophical disceptations But if this Creed has no other sence but that which you put upon it The Father only God The Son only Man and the Holy Spirit only an Energy or Operation How come the Fathers of that time so openly to contradict it I will not do again what has been so excellently done by the Learned Dr. Bull who has oblig'd the Christian Church with two Books which indeed you may speak or discourse against but can never substantially Answer Has he not undeniably prov'd out of their Writings that those Fathers believ'd the two Natures in Jesus Christ The Divine and the Human That they have asserted his Pre-existence and if his Pre-existence then his Eternity and if his Eternity then his Consubstantiality with the Father If the second part of the Creed is to be understood of Christ only Man How comes Irenaeus lib. 1. advers Haeres c. 2. in delivering the Belief of the Catholick Church or as he speaks of the Church all the World over to call him Our Lord Our God Our Saviour Our King to whom every Knee ought to bow c. How comes Tertullian who has deliver'd this very rule of Faith to talk as we do of the Blessed Trinity designedly and positively against Praxeas and say that he is warranted by the Apostle to speak of Christ as of him who is God blessed over all for ever If he believ'd the Holy Spirit to be only an Energy How comes he to stile him Tertium Numen Deitatis tertium Nomen Majestatis The Third Person of the Deity The Third Name of Majesty and Power Certainly Novatianus was acquainted with this Creed and yet Lib. de Trin.
c. 13. he tells you that the Scriptures deliver so Manifestly Christ to be God that several Hereticks Divinitatis ipsius magnitudine veritate commoti mov'd by the great sence and truth of his Divinity have confounded him with the Father But if we had no such proofs as these there is still one which according to your late Principles you cannot oppose I say your late Principles for you change every day Socin No! You do us wrong we are still the same Orthod I may at some time or other have an occasion to prove the defection of the Outlandish Socinians from Socinus of you from the Outlandish Socinians and of your selves from your selves in your first and latest Prints But let us not digress from the thing in dispute The proof which I speak of is the great Council of Nice Socin What That Council which has publish'd Establish'd and infected the World with its infidelity As the Answer to Dr. Bull judiciously observes pag. 25. Orthod That first Oecumenical Council which could not be ignorant both of the sense of the Apostolical Creed and of the Fathers whom they immediately succeeded A Council so venerable for its Antiquity so reverenc'd for the number of Holy and Learned Men who voted in it so highily honour'd by the following Ages to this day Did they know the Apostolical Creed or did they not If you say they did not you overthrow all that you can pretend from it A Creed can neither be Apostolical or Universal which the Nicene Fathers were not acquainted with And if they did then your sense of it is not that of these Primitive times For they are so far from interpreting as you do Jesus Christ to be only Man and the Holy Spirit to be only an Energy or operation that you know how positively how earnestly they assert them to be Consubstantial to the Father I may be mistaken but if this way of reasoning is not plain I don't know what can be plain Socin But what have we to do with the Council of Nice or indeed with any Council whatsoever We have innumerable objections against that and the following Councils Orthod I confess you speak as a Socinian of the first edition Thus Socinus and his first Disciples answer'd to those great Authorities Thus did your selves Write in your first Prints The World indeed star'd at you But however it had an air if not of reason at least of sincerity But a Socinian of the second edition runs another way I told you that you change every day Pray open the Discourse concerning the Real and Nominal Trinitarians Socin What then Orthod There you may sind your Condemnation in that particular out of your own mouth Pag. 4. The Author speaking of the Great Lateran Council observes that a doctrine is not Heresy because rejected by a great number of Learned Men or by a National Council But only when censur'd by a General Council The Catholick Church is never understood to speak but by a General Council pag. 5. Is not a General Council the Highest Court of the Church Her Canons declare the Faith her Anathema's Heresy And pag. 16. A General Council is the last Tribunal on earth from which there lies no appeal pag. 4. He call this an Incontestable Argument Now pray deal sincerely and apply this to the Nicene Council No body ever yet disputed its universality It was assembl'd under and by the first Christian Emperor It represented the whole Church The Creed then of that Council determin'd the sense of any preceeding Creed Whatever you can say to the contrary is insignificant because such a determination comes from the highest Tribunal on earth from which there lies no appeal Upon the whole the Church ever asserted a Trinity consistent with the Vnity of God and an Unity inseparable from a Trinity of Persons in one adorable and Divine Nature Where is then again the first part of your Distinction You charge us with teaching a Trinity which infers Three Gods We say this is false this is impossible not only from the Nature of the thing but also from an Authority which you dare not reject because you own your selves that it is the highest Tribunal on earth from which there can lie no appeal Socin This seems home indeed But yet not without exception For the Vnity asserted by the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers was only an Vnity of Monarchy An Vnity of love and agreement An Vnity of subordination and subjection to him who is the first God Such an Vnity as is that of the Individuals of the same Species This the Author of the Answer to Dr. Bull is positive in pag. 75. He charges the Fathers with this all over his Writing and the greatest part of it is spent in the confutation of such strange Hypotheses Orthod Pray learn to mistrust your Books For I may say without breaking the Cartel of honour and civility agreed upon amongst Writers as this Author speaks both Pleasantly and Elegantly pag. 77. that not one word of this is true and that such an account of the Vnity of God never came from the Church but owes its birth to the School of Arrius This Author though a Person of great erudition has suffer'd himself to be strangely mistaken as any one may who will take all the expressions illustrations resemblances us'd by the Fathers in treating of the Blessed Trinity for an exact account of their Doctrine For there is a great difference between speaking at large and endeavouring to give some kind of a Notion of a Mystery and writing dogmatically concerning it I have a plain reason which I humbly conceive is sufficient to overthrow all this And that is that the Fathers in explaining how the Three Persons are one God never confin'd themselves to the Terms of Numerical or specifick Vnity This last is meerly Notional and is no more than an act of the Mind comparing and abstracting from several Individuals It does not really exist The first though never so expressive still comes short of the incomprehensible dignity and simplicity of the Subject Socin What Vnity then did they assert Orthod An Vnity which no Nature but the Divine is capable of which transcends all expressions or imaginations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says the Council of Ephesus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Justin Martyr Hoc solum ex ea comprehendimus quod comprehendi non potest says St. Ambrose Thus speak Basil the Great Nazianzen Gregory Nyssen and the generality of the Fathers And yet this Author has spent 13 pages to tell us that they believ'd a specifick Vnity and Vnity of Monarchy and order an Vnity of love and agreement a Consubstantiality like that of several pieces of Gold and of a Star to another Star As if these trifles deserv'd the name of Incomprehensible and if we could say of any of them as Eulogius Patriarch of Alexandria 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not bringing those things which are so far above our thoughts to the
of Creator Preserver c. But that this leaves an Internal incommunicable Character essentially inseparable from the Deity That it may be said that God might never have been a Creator But that it cannot be said that he might never have been a Father the former being only an effect of his will but this latter the necessary result of his Nature This you have pag. 243. But that which sinks for ever this miserable imputation of Sabellianism or Nominalism call it which you please is the noble Principle which this Learned and worthy Man has laid down Animadv p. 245. in which as in the rest he has truly spoke the sence of the Church Upon the whole matter in discoursing of the Trinity two things are absolutely necessary to be held and insisted upon One that each and every Person of the Blessed Trinity entirely contains and includes in himself the whole Divine Nature The other that each Person is incommunicably different and distinct from one another I thought you look'd dissatisfy'd when speaking of this famous distinction of Realists and Nominals I us'd the words of slander calumny disingenuity Let me now beg of you to give it a name Socin Truly I must be forc'd to tell you that I saw this distinction urg'd so often our late Prints so full of it and honest Mr. E. valuing himself so highly upon it that I thought it was more solid than really it is I will take time to consider of what you have said to it When I have next the happiness to see you you shall have my Thoughts of it In the mean time .... Orthod No I cannot leave you yet I must before we part complain of another injustice which your Friends have done us Socin What is that Orthod That which My Lord Bishop of Sarum calls in his Pastoral Letter the heaviest of all imputations that they submit to his Lordship's whole doctrine which differs in nothing from what the Vnitarians profess'd in all their Writings That is to say in plain English that he is a Socinian A cruel and barbarous sort of a compliment to a Catholick and an English Bishop They do the same in effect to My Lord of Worcester in their last Answer to his Lordships Book pag. 62. To the University of Oxford to Dr. South whom they call in derision Brother South as they had done Dr. Wallis Father Wallis In the Answer to My Lord of Chichester they speak very plain pag. 27. It is say they by this Declaration of our meaning that all our Books Past or to come are to be interpreted We never intend to oppose any Body in the Article of the Trinity but the Tritheists or Realists who are Hereticks to the Church as well as to us nor in the Article of the Divinity of our Saviour but the Eutychians who make the Communication of Idioms to be Real and not only Verbal which is an Heterodoxy condemn'd in divers General Councils That word General Councils which they esteem'd so little before is now of great value They tell this very Bishop that they do not in the least suspect that he will disown the Catholick Doctrine and be of a Party of Hereticks who have been Condemn'd by so many General Councils Socin Well and where lies the injustice of all this If the Socinians are become Orthodox and embrace the Doctrine of the Church is it not an honour to these Great Men to have reason'd them into this Submission I remember that in some of our Prints we have call'd the Bishop of Sarum the Eusebius of the Age. As the Famous Eusebius brought over many Bishops to the subscribing the Homoousion Is it the heaviest of all imputations to his Lordship that he has perswaded the Socinians out of their Errors Must you your self take it ill that Persons of whom I have heard you often give a great Character should return to the Faith and Obedience of the Church All that I dislike in those Complements is the Books past or to come For the Books past speak no such thing and I fear the Books to come will not much mend the matter Orthod I did not expect that you would not be serious in so mighty a concern as this I confess that it would be to me and to all good Men an incredible satisfaction to see an end of this Controversy But I tell you there is no sincerity in all this They are no more return'd to the Sence and Faith of the Church than you are They build still upon that foolish distinction of Realists or Tritheïsts and Nominals or Sabellians The first is a Monster of their own making 〈◊〉 other is a shelter to their Heterodoxy 〈◊〉 they maintain a Trinity which is no Trinity 〈◊〉 strive to advance error under her 〈…〉 the Pillar of Truth In short If the Trinity believ'd and taught by the Church is Sabelliaâ—â—sm they are your humble servants It is that that they would cover Socinianism by But how can they believe as the Church when the doctrine which they pretend to return to is that to which the Church is irreconcilable Socin How must they do then to convince you that they sincerely desire a peace and are come over to you Orthod By writing with that respect which is due to Bishops of whom in the Answer to Mr. Edwards pag. 13. they own the institution to be of Divine right Let them receive the Catholick Creeds that of the Great Athanasius the Doxology and the Articles of the Church of Englang Then and not before I will believe that they are sincere Socin These are large strides I am not for running so fast Suffer me to take my leave of you I will think on what we have discours'd and then you shall hear from me Adieu The Second DIALOGUE Orthod I had promis'd my self the happiness of seeing you before this Socin Truly I design'd it but was resolv'd not to do it till I had been as good as my word that is till I had consider'd what we discours'd of some days since For whatever you may think of me I have a sense of Religion I am fully convinc'd that there is a God to whom I owe all my service and a future state of happiness and misery on which I cannot reflect without a mighty concern I am not so much an enemy to my own interest as to cheat my self of the one and willfully to fall into the other Orthod What is the result then of your consideration Socin To speak sincerely my Thoughts I am come off from the distinction of Real and Nominal Trinitarians and do you the justice to own that it appears to me to be ill grounded Though I believe at the same time that he who first invented it did it bona fide and had the occasion given him by the inadvertency of your own Writers But there are still two difficulties in my way which I cannot overcome I would not be thought to suspect your Learning or Candor But I am
above our Reason That we ought to rely upon the Divine Revelation and not pretend to give an account of things Incomprehensible This you have thought to be an evasion of all your pretended contradictions you have derided it and call'd it a Trinity of the Mob of ignorant and lazy Doctors Whereas if you weigh the Principles laid before you it will appear very firm and solid For to state contradictions in an object Reveal'd when that object is above all our Perceptions when all that we know is that it is and that too because it is Reveal'd but are altogether ignorant what it is Reason then soars above its nature and what you call contradictions are only the stumblings of Reason which striving to climb up an inaccessible rock is shamefully flung on its back and overthrown Socin But then you make Faith the obscurest thing in the World and what advantage is it to us if our darkness is remov'd by a greater even a darkness that may be felt If what you say is true I know little by the help of Reason and much less by that of Revelation Orthod I make Faith what God has made it The things which he proposes exist and are certain He is pleas'd to cast a veil over them and we ought not to presume to take it off It is he that has made us and not we our selves and in vain we strive to start out of the limits to which he has confin'd us Nor is the homage and submission of our understandings consistent with clear Perceptions of things It would no more be Faith but Knowledge We should not be in via as the Fathers speak in the way which leads to Heaven which is a state of obscurity labour humility and the fear of God But in Patria in Heaven it self a place of intuition tranquility glory and perfect love But let me tell you that Faith has that mighty advantage that if it is not the clearest evidence it is at least the greatest certainty in the World All our assurance in other things is humane The very Principles of Geometry are no more But Faith has a Divine Foundation and that is the Authority of God St. Chrysostom was so perswaded of the truth of this that Homil 21. in Epist ad Heb. he did not doubt to affirm that he had no Faith who believ'd not more firmly the things reveal'd than those which are daily the object of sense You know the Famous saying of St. Ambrose de sacram l. 1. cap. 5. Tolle argumenta ubi Fides quaeritur Away with all your Reasons where Faith is the question Socin If you get amongst the Fathers we shall have a Sea of Authorities which you know we have no very great esteem for I wish you would lay them all aside But if you will not what think you of Lactantius who Instit l. 2. cap. 7. speaks thus Oportet in ea re maxime c. Every Man is oblig'd particularly in that wherein his own being is concern'd to trust to himself and it is much better to endeavour with the best judgment and sense that we can to find out the truth than to suffer our selves to be deceiv'd by other People's errors as if we were wholly Strangers to Reason God having given all Men such a share of Wisdom as to be able to search into those things which are unknown to us and to examine those that are not The same Principle Minutius Foelix makes use of against Caecilius And this is the very Argument of Theodoret in his first Discourse de curand graec affect It may be said of Lactantius his assertion that nothing can be truer and better It does justice to God who is the Author and Giver of every good and perfect gift and to Man by owning his great and distinguishing Privilege You have spoke of Faith very well and accurately But for all that do you know what it is to blaspheme Reason It is to wound Mankind in the most sensible part and to put us out of a capacity of ever acting like Men. Reason is a light which comes down from the Father of lights As the natural light discovers it self and all other objects so Reason the light of the Soul discovers its native excellency and is the tryal of all other things It s eagerness in the pursuit of Truth is a proof that it is made for it and capable of it It looks much like Priest-craft to desire me to shut my Eyes and trust my self to another guide whilst I can see my way as perfectly as any other I had once a great respect for St. Austin but I have lost it since I read a passage of his wherein he strangely abuses humane nature It is lib. 2. c. 15. de serm dom in monte Hominis anima rationalis lumine veritatis vel tenuiter pro sui capacitate illustratur ut verum aliquid in ratiacinando sentiat The rational Soul of Man receives as â—â—ding to its capacity small illustrations and glances of light that by Reasoning it may feel something of Truth Thus the Doctors of the Church run down Reason and perceive not that they run down Mankind at the same time Orthod You are in the right to lay the Fathers aside for they are all against you I should be glad to be rid of a witness who I am sure will swear home against me The Author of Christianity not Mysterious has invalidated their evidence to some purpose He will not allow above five or six to have been Men of sence and to shew how contemptible they are he flatters himself that some ages hence he will be look'd on as a Father I hope he is no Prophet and does not see so much extravagance in the succeeding times Lactantius every way an admirable Author argues against Idolatry He says very well that no Religion is to be taken upon trust and that in so great a concern every one ought to judge for himself Idolatry is so unreasonable a thing that whosoever admits it must be a stranger to Reason God having given every Man such a measure of Wisdom as to reject that which is so openly bad and look for somewhat better But he never pretended that amongst Christians who so unanimously submit to the Revelation which God has made of himself in the Holy Scriptures Man was to dispute against God and Reason to struggle with Faith Read the first Chapter of the first and the greatest part of the third Book and you will see that from the contradictions of Philosophers he proves Reason to be insufficient to find out the truth and that it is only to be met with in that Religion where it is divinely Reveal'd Minutius Foelix argues after the same manner Caecilius pleaded a Tradition of Idolatry in which he thought himself secure Minutius answers that he ought to appeal to his own Reason which will evidently shew him the folly and impiety of Polytheism And all that Theodoret insists on is that the
a light which God has given us to know him and our selves But that light suffers frequent Eclipses It shines dim and is often put out We are not wise all the hours of the day Sometimes our thoughts rise as the Sea when it overflows the neighbouring Shoars and sometimes again they sink into a small and contemptible Channel We own and disown admit and reject are pleas'd this minute with a conclusion and the next lay it aside look upon those things as Errors which we formerly embrac'd as Truths and take those for Truths which we once rejected as Errors Secondly You must grant me that Reason is not the same in all Men I mean as to its vigor and efficacy In some a happy Nature with the addition of a careful Education Reading Conversation and Experience makes it quick and active It is admirable to see how some Men will like lightning run through a mass of propositions and understand a thing as soon as it is offer'd But in others it is heavy and dull oppress'd by the matter in which it is inclos'd almost sunk and as the Physicians say of Blood incapable of circulating through the abundance of viscous humours by which it is detain'd The far greater part of Mankind is of this sort Of the common Saylors Souldiers Labourers Women it may be said that the Body is truly the gaol of the Soul from which it seldom breaks out to exert any acts answerable to the dignity of its nature Thirdly I beg also that you would not deny that though there is so visible a difference in the exercise of Reason and some Men do almost as far exceed others as these exceed irrational Creatures yet there is some universal Principle fitted to every one's capacity and in which all Mankind agree Such is the search after Happiness The grossest and most illiterate of the Sons of ADAM are as much convinc'd of this as your self whose erudition is certainly great This is not learned from Books or taken up upon the credit of Authors but is an invincible inclination which every one finds in his own Heart Socin I grant all this but your compliment to me Orthod All this granted I proceed and presume to be positive that Reason can never shew to Man the way to Happiness For though it concludes very well from the Works of Creation that there is a God who is the Author and giver of that happiness and that the service of God is the way to obtain it yet what we ought to believe of that God how he is willing to be serv'd and which way we can appease his anger and secure his favour to us is altogether above the reach of Reason Rom. 11.13 His ways are past finding out The Doctrine of a Covenant of Grace of a Redeemer in whom we are pardon'd and accepted and who by the Sacrifice of himself should reconcile us to God are Mysterious depths to which Reason the most clear sighted Reason has not the least access It was necessary then that Authority should supply that want and God reveal what it was impossible Man should acquaint himself with Revelation is that which informs our understandings cures our ignorance rectifies our mistakes and by a short and infallible way leads us to happiness This the Philosophers aim'd at by the strength of Natural Reason but very unsuccessfully You know what Socrates and Plato what the School of Epicurus what Zeno and the Porticus said to it Their Systems were vain foolish flat and unpracticable This important discovery was to be the work of him who had the words of Eternal Life And the wisest and best Definition that ever was given of it is Joh. 17.3 And this is Life Eternal that they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent I call this a short and an infallible way It is infallible because propos'd by him who can neither deceive nor be deceiv'd It is short because it cuts off all the Ambages and uncertainties which Reason is intangl'd in and rests upon a rock and that is the Authority of God You make Faith so difficult a thing and exclaim loud when we endeavour to bring you over to it But for my part when I take a view of those Principles which Mankind rely upon I find it much easier to believe than to reason Can I be safer than when God himself is my Guide Shall I find more truth any where than in what God proposes Or are the Mazes or Labyrinths of humane Argumentations easier to run through than the Asseverations of Scriptures This has made St. Austin to say de Trin. l. 14. c. 1. that many of the Faithful have Faith in a very high degree though they have little or no Learning Socin That is it is easier to swallow any thing than to inquire whether it is true or no Orthod No For if you Consider this Principle of the Authority of the Divine Revelation you will find that it prevents all sorts of mistakes and makes us give over reasoning and disputing not because we design to avoid the labour and trouble of it but because we are satisfy'd that here lies the Truth and that it is impossible to find it any where else That whatsoever God is pleas'd to reveal is true is a proposition to which all Mortals in any capacity whatever give a most ready assent There is none of us but what has in some measure or other Notions of God agreeable to that Divine Being In some they are more ripe and refin'd than in others in Christians most of all But all agree that as he is Wise and Holy so he is True and that what he delivers to us has an indelible Character of Truth This has not only been taught by us but by the Heathens themselves Homer and Hesiod have acknowledg'd it Euripides owns in Helen v. 1164. seq that he has found nothing certain amongst Men but this that the words of the Gods are true And I think it is Porphyrius a Man of mighty prejudice against Christianity who comparing the ways of the Greeks and of the Jews towards the attainment of the Truth says that the latter who sought after it by Faith that is by the means of a Divine Revelation were much more in the right than the former who made use only of Reason to attain it This once admitted which indeed cannot be deny'd I hope to let you see that I am not unjust to Reason You will give me leave to consider it before in and after the admitting of the Revelation Socin Consider it which way you will Orthod Faith then pre-supposes Reason They must be Rational Creatures whom it is infus'd into and without the one we are not capable of the other Though the Almighty has an absolute power over us yet he is pleas'd not to force our assent but proposes the Faith and perswades us to it It comes by hearing says St. Paul Rom. 10.17 that is it is