possibly admit to be interpreted otherwise than they usually were by such as alledged them for the Trinity or the disputed Deity of the Son or Sipirit or that the cause must be lost upon his deserting it or that he was still to be reckoned of the opposite party as this Author calls it and that such texts as we most rely'd upon were therefore given up by some of our own And it is really a great assuming when a man shall adventure to pronounce so peremptorily against the so common judgment of the Christian Church without any colour of proof that our copies are false copies our translations our explications false and the generality of the wisest the most inquisitive most pious and most judicious assertors of the Christian cause for so many continued ages fools or cheats for owning and avowing them for no other imaginanable reason but only because they make against him How will he prove any Copies we rely upon to be false Is it because he is pleased to suspect them And is an interpretation false because the words can possibly be tortur'd unto some other sense Let him name me the Text wherein any Doctrine is supposed to be delivered that is of meerly supernatural revelation of which it is not possible to to devise some other meaning not more remote alien or unimaginable than theirs of most of the disputed Texts Nor indeed do we need to except that natural sentiment it self that there is but one God which this Author takes such Pains to prove as if he thought or would make other men think we deny'd it For tho' it is so generally acknowledged doth he not know it is not so generally understood in the same sense Against whom doth he write Doth he not know they understand this Oneness in one sense he in another They in such a sense as admits a Trinity he in a sense that excludes it But for such things as did need a superadded verbal revelation how easie is it to an inventive pervicacious Wit to wrest words this way or that XXVI The Scriptures were writ for the instruction of sober learners not for the pastime of contentious wits that affect only to play tricks upon them At their rate of interpreting among whom he ranks himself 't is impossible any Doctrine can with certainty be founded upon them Take the first Chapter of St. John's Gospel for instance and what Doctrine can be asserted in plainer words than the Deity of Christ in the three first Verses of that Chapter Set any man of an ordinary unprepossest understanding to read them and when he finds that by the Word is meant Jesus Christ which themselves admit see if he will not judge it plainly taught that Jesus Christ is God in the most eminent known sense Especially when he shall take notice of so many other Texts that according to their most obvious appearance carry the same sense But it is first thorough meer shortness of discourse taken for granted and rashly concluded on that it is absolutely impossible if the Father be God the Son can be God too or the Holy Ghost upon a presumption that we can know every thing that belongs to the Divine Nature and what is possible to be in it and what not and next there is hereupon not only a license imagined but an obligation and necessity to shake Heaven and Earth or tear that divine Word that is more stable into a thousand pieces or expound it to nothing to make it comply with that forelaid presumptuous determination Whereas if we could but bend our Minds so far to comply with the plain ducture of that revelation God hath made unto us of himself as to apprehend that in the most only Godhead there may be distinctions which we particularly understand not sufficient to found the Doctrine of a Trinity therein and very consistent with the unity of it we should save the divine Word and our own Minds from unjust torture both at once And our task herein will be the easier that we are neither concerned nor allowed to determine that things are precisely so or so but only to suppose it possible that so they may be for ought that we know Which will I am certain not be so hard nor so bold an undertaking as his who shall take upon him to prove that any thing here supposed is impossible Indeed if any one would run the discourse into the abyss of Infinity he may soon create such difficulties to himself as it ought not to be thought strange if they be greater than any humane understanding can expedite But not greater than any man will be intangled in that shall set himself to consider Infinity upon other accounts which yet he will find it impos'd upon him unavoidably to admit whether he will or no. Not greater than this Author will be equally concern'd in upon his doing that right to Truth in opposition to the former leaders of his own Party as to acknowledge the Omnipresence of the Divine essence p. 32. which he will find let him try it when he will Nor yet so great nor accompanyed with so gross so palpable and horrid absurdities as he will soon be encountred with should he retract his grant or entertain the monstrously maimed and most deformed impious conceit of a finite or limited Deity XXVII Yet also in this present case the impossibility to our narrow Minds of comprehending Infinity is most rationally improveable to our very just advantage It ought to be upbraided to none as a pretext or a cover to sloth or dulness 'T is no reproach to us that we are creatures and have not infinite capacities And it ought to quiet our minds that they may so certainly know they have limits within which we are to content our selves with such notions about indemonstrable and unrevealed things as they can with greatest ease to themselves find room for I can reflect upon nothing in what is here proposed but what is intelligible without much toil or much Metaphysicks As matters of so common concernment ought to our uttermost to be represented in such a way that they may be so We need not be concern'd in Scholastick Disquisitions about Union or by what peculiar Name to call that which is here supposed It 's enough for us to know there may be a real natural vital and very intimate union of things that shall notwithstanding it continue distinct and that shall by it be truly one Nor do we need to be anxiously curious in stating the Notions of Person and Personality of suppositum and suppositality tho' I think not the term Person disallowable in the present Case Nor will say what that noted Man so noted that I need not Name him and who was as much acquainted with Metaphysicks as most in his Age published to the World above twenty Years ago that he counted the Notion of the Schools about Suppositum a Foolery For I do well know the thing it self which our Christian Metaphysicians
such nor to be more adventurous or confident in determining of things hid not only in so profound but in most sacred darkness than I have all along exprest my self I ought indeed to be the more cautious of offending in this kind that being the thing I blame the positive asserting this or that to be impossible or not possibly competent to the nature of God which by his own Word or the manifest reason of things doth not plainly appear to be so Much more which his Word doth as plainly as it is possible any thing can be exprest by words ascribe to him The only thing I assert is that a Trinity in the Godhead may be possible for ought we know in the way that I have proposed At least it is so for any thing that I do as yet know And so confident I am of the truth and true meaning of his Word revealing a Trinity in his eternal Godhead that I strongly hope if ever it shall be proved to be impossible upon these terms that I have here set down by the same or by equal Light the possibility of it some other way will appear too i. e. That not only a Trinity in the Unity of the Godhead is a possible thing but that it is also possible that the Father Son and Holy Ghost may be sufficiently distinguished to answer the frame and design of Christianity And that will equally serve my purpose For so however will the Scandal be removed that may seem to ly upon our Holy Religion through the industrious misrepresentation which is made of it by Scepticks Deists or Atheists as if it were made up of inconsistencies and absurdities and were fitter to be entertained with laughter than faith And being effectually vindicated it will be the more successfully propagated and more chearfully practised which is all that is coveted and sought by SIR Your very Respectfully Humble Servant c. Postscript HAving the Copies of some Letters by me which I wrote to Dr. Wallis between two and three Years ago upon this Subject I think Sir it is not improper and perhaps it may be some way usefull to let them accompany this to your self And here I shall freely tell you my principal inducement taking notice in some of the Doctor 's printed Letters of others to him contained in them to send him incognito one also but with that reason against printing it which you find towards the end of the first Letter It was really the apprehension which had long remained with me that the simplicity which if the Notion of it were stretch'd too far not the Scriptures but the Schools have taught us to ascribe to the Being of God was that alone which hath given us difficulty in conceiving a Trinity in the onely One God It is not the Unity or Oneliness of the Godhead but the Simplicity of it as the School-men have stated it that hath created the matter of dispute Unity you know denies more of the same simplicity denies more in it Concerning the former that there could be no more Gods than One we are at a point the reason of the thing it self and the Holy Scriptures so expresly asserting it leave it out of dispute All the doubt is about the latter Not whether such a thing belong to the Nature of God but concerning the just explication of it As it is a real excellency not a blemish and not meerly a moxal but a natural excellency there can be no doubt of its belonging to the Divine Nature but if you understand it as exclusive of all Varietie therein you find not any express mention of such an Attribute of God in the Scriptures They are silent in the matter It hath no authority but of the Schools That and the Reason that can be brought for it must give it its whole and only support It is the only thing that must open and give way to admit the Doctrine of the Trinity and it is the only thing that needs to do so For we none of us assert a Trinity of Gods but a Trinity in the Godhead It is the only thing that can to the Adversaries of the Trinity with any colourable pretence seem opposite to it And which therefore I thought the only thing that remained to be sifted and examined if they will state it in an opposition thereto What so mighty and invincible strength of reason it had whence alone either to shock the Authority or pervert the plain meaning of the Holy Scriptures discompose the whole frame of Christian Religion disturb the Peace of the Church perplex very thinking minds subvertt the Faith of some and turn it into ridicule with too many I reckon'd the Dr. as I still do notwithstanding the Contempt this Author hath of him a Person of a very clear unmuddied Understanding I found him by what he express'd in his first Letter of the Trinity not apt to be awed by the Authority of the Schools nor any Bigot to them as having declined their Notion of a Person and fixing upon another less answering as I apprehended the Scheme and Design of Christianity I thought it easie and reputable enough to him to add what might be requisite in this matter without contradicting directly or discernibly any thing he had said I gave him the opportunity of doing it as from himself without seeming to have the least thing to that purpose suggested to him by any other I had my self I think seen and considered the main strength of the School-mens reasonings concerning that simplicity which they will have to be divine and for ought I do yet know have competently occurr'd to it in this foregoing Letter and partly in what you will now find I wrote to him But what there is of real infirmity or impertinencie to this case as it is and ought to be represented in their arguings I reckon'd he would both see and evince more clearly than I. Therefore I greatly desired to have engaged him upon this Point but I could not prevail And am therefore willing that what I writ then with design of the greatest privacy should now become publick Not that I think it hath so great value in it self but that perhaps it may furrher serve to excite some others more able and more at leasure to search and enquire into this matter and either to improve or disprove what I have essayed And which of the two it is 't is all one to me For I have no Interest or Design but that of Truth and the service of the Christian Cause I was so little apprehensive of any such future use to be made of these Letters that I kept no account of the dates except that one of the two latter which both only refer to the first I find by the Copy I have in my hands to have been sent Decemb. 19th 1691. I remember it was a long time and guess it might be 6 or 8 weeks e're I heard any thing of the first after I had sent it
please you by doing a thing in it self so inept and so insignificant to you I shall better do both if I shall offer any thing to you concerning this mentioned Subject your further consideration whereof may prove a further benefit to the World In what you have already said concerning it you have used that great Caution and so well guarded your self as not so far as I can apprehend to give an adversary in this single point the least advantage That which I would in the general humbly offer is whether you have said so much as with safety might be said and as the Case may require for the gaining of a just advantage to the common Christian Cause We design in fight not only to keep our selves safe but to overcome and not in praelio only but in bello In Wars indeed of this sort both our own safety and victory are less to be valued than truth Which being of a piece can be injured in no part without some dammage to the whole frame of congenerous Truth And as it is very possible while an Enemy is withstood attacking some one Fort a greater loss may not be provided against elsewhere it may so fall out in Affairs of this kind too that the Care of defending some one Truth may be accompany'd with a present not attending to the jeopardy of divers others The nearer we approach an Adversary within just limits in these rational decertations the less he can have to say against us But being well resolved our selves about the main point of disagreement we then take Care not to come so near as to fall in with him pass into his Tents and give away our main Cause I am worthiest Sir far from assuming so much to my self or detracting so much from you as to give a judgment that this really is done in your Discourses about the Trinity I only submit it to your own most penetrating judgment what may be further requisite and possible in this matter to take away any appearances hereof and prevent ill consequences that may too easily ensue I have for my own part long impos'd it upon my self to abstain from any positive Conceptions concerning the Godhead beyond what I find expresly contain'd in the divine revelation or what the reason of things either antecedently thereto or consequentially thereupon doth most evidently perswade and require and do greatly approve the same caution which I cannot but observe with you But desire it may be weigh'd whether such measures may not and must not lead us further As for the word person you prudently profess not to be fond of it the thing being agreed thô you also truly judge it a good word and sufficiently warranted For the Notion signify'd by it you all along seem to decline that of the Schools or the Metaphysical one which you know makes it to be a rational or intelligent suppositum and to take up with what I think I may wanting a fitter i. e. a more comprehensive word call the Civil Notion of it which will allow the same man to be capable of sustaining three or more persons supposing his circumstances or qualifications to be such or such as to that purpose you speak both in your Letters and Sermons Now whereas you have also told us Letter 1. that by personality you mean that distinction whatever it be by which the three persons are distinguished each from other that which with great submission and most profound respect to you I propose to your further Consideration will be capable of being resolved into these two Enquiries 1. Whether only such a distinction of the Divine Persons as this amounts to will be sufficient to found the several attributions which the Holy Scriptures give distinctly and severally to them and to preserve the Scheme of Christian Religion entire which is wont to be deduced from these Sacred Writings 2. Whether some further distinction may not be admitted as possible consistently with the salved unity of the Godhead As to the former 1. Whereas you think the word Person to be a good word and sufficiently warranted by Scripture Heb. 1. 3. where the Son is called the express Image of his Father's Person alledging that so we render the word Hypostasis which is there used and do mean by it what you think to be there meant I desire you would please to consider whether the word Hypostasis according to the common use of it will admit to be so taken as you explain your self to mean by the word Person For thô the Latine word persona as you say according to the true and ancient sense may well enough admit to be so taken as that the same Man might sustain three persons I offer it to your re-consideration whether ever you have observ'd the word Hypostasis in any sort of Authors when it signifies any Person at all for I know that it frequently signifies somewhat else than a Person to be taken in that sense And whether one Hypostasis so taken as it uses to be when it signifies a Person may not be capable of sustaining three of those Persons which you here describe And whether according to this sense you mean not God to be only one such Hypostasis 2. Be pleas'd further hereupon to consider how well it agrees with this supposition of God's Being but one Hypostasis or intelligent suppositum so frequently to speak as the Holy Scriptures do of the Father Son or Word the Spirit or Holy Ghost as three distinct I's or He 's The Lord possessed me as the Divine Word or Wisdom is brought in speaking in the beginning of his way I was set up from everlasting Prov. 8. 22 23. When he prepared the Heavens I was there vers 27. Then was I by him vers 30 c. The Word was with God Joh. 1. 1. He was in the World vers 10. We beheld his glory vers 14. And of the Spirit He dwelleth with you Joh. 14. 17. The Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name He shall teach you all things vers 26. And whom I will send you from the Father he shall testifie of me Chap. 15. 26. And when he is come he will reprove the World Ch. 16. 8. And the observation seems to me as weighty as it is usual that in some of the mentioned Chapters the somewhat hard Synthesis of construing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not the nearer Suppositum but in one place a very remote one and one would think too remote to be referr'd to ch vers 13 14. is rather chosen to be used than that the Spirit should not be spoken of as a distinct he or rather than he should be called it which could not so fitly notifie a Person If the same man were a King a General and a Father I doubt whether that would give sufficient ground to his being called He and He and He. 2. But the distinct Predicates spoken
will be repugnant to what is overtur'd in that Letter And I the rather desir'd more room might be gained in this matter apprehending the Unitarians as they more lately affect to call themselves might upon the whole think you more theirs than ours and while they agree with you concerning the possibility of such a Trinity as you assert may judge their advantage against the other mentioned Doctrines no less than it was My desiring that letter of mine might not be printed was most agreeable to what I intended in writing it that was only to suggest to you somewhat very loosly that I reckon'd you more capable than any man I knew to cultivate and improve to the great service of the common Christian Cause And that you might seem to say what you might upon your own search find safe and fit to be said as meerly from your self without taking notice that occasion was given you by any such Letter at all Had I design'd it for publick view it should have been writ with more Care and with more expressed Respect to you But if upon the whole you judge there is nothing in it considerable to the purposes it mentions my further request is you will please rather to suppress that part of your Letter which concerns it for which I suppose there is yet opportunity and take no notice any such letter came to your hands I am Reverend SIR Your most Respectful Humble Servant Anonym Decemb. 19. 91. Summary Propositions collected out of the foregoing Discourses more briefly offering to view the substance of what is contained in them 1. Of the Unity of the Godhead there can be no doubt it being in reason demonstrable and most expresly often asserted in Scripture 2. That there is a Trinity in the Godhead of Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost is the plain obvious sense of so many Scriptures that it apparently tends to frustrate the design of the whole Scripture-revelation and to make it useless not to admit this Trinity or otherwise to understand such Scriptures 3. That therefore the devising any other sense of such Scriptures ought by no means to be attempted unless this Trinity in the Godhead can be evidently demonstrated to be impossible 4. That the impossibility of it can never be demonstrated from the meer Unity of the Godhead which may be such as to admit these distinctions in it for ought we know 5. Nothing is more appropriate to the Godhead than to be a necessarily existent intelligent Being since all Creatures whether intelligent or unintelligent are contingent depending upon the Will of the necessary intelligent Being 6. If therefore the Father Son and Holy Ghost do coexist in the Godhead necessarily they cannot but be God 7. And if the first be conceived as the Fountain the second as by natural necessary not voluntary promanation from the first the third by natural necessary not voluntary spiration so as that neither of these latter could have been otherwise This aptly agrees with the Notions of Father Son and Spirit distinctly put upon them and infinitely distinguishes the two latter from all Creatures that depend upon will and pleasure 8. Whatever distinction there be of these three among themselves yet the first being the Original the second being by that promanation necessarily and eternally united with the first the third by such spiration united necessarily and eternally with both the other inasmuch as eternity and necessity of existence admit no change this union must be inviolable and everlasting and thereupon the Godhead which they constitute can be but One. 9. We have among the creatures and even in our selves instances of very different Natures continuing distinct but so united as to be one thing and it were more easily supposeable of congenerous Natures 10. If such Union with distinction be impossible in the Godhead it must not be from any repugnancy in the thing it self since very intimate Union with continuing distinction is in it self no impossible thing but from somewhat peculiar to the Divine Being 11. That peculiarity since it cannot be Unity which because it may admit distinctions in one and the same thing we are not sure it cannot be so in the Godhead must be that simplicity commonly wont to be ascribed to the divine Nature 12. Such simplicity as shall exclude that distinction which shall appear necessary in the present case is not by express Scripture any where ascribed to God and therefore must be rationally demonstrated of him if it shall be judg'd to belong at all to him 13. Absolute Simplicity is not a Perfection nor is by any ascribed to God Not by the Socinians themselves who ascribe to him the several intellectual and moral excellencies that are attributed to him in the Scriptures of which they give very different definitions as may be seen in their own Volkelius at large which should signifie them not to be counted in all respects the same thing 14. That is not a just consequence which is the most plausible one that seems capable of being alledg'd for such absolute simplicity that otherwise there would be a composition admitted in the Divine Nature which would import an imperfection inconsistent with Deity For the several excellencies that concur in it howsoever distinguished being never put together nor having ever existed apart but in eternal necessary union tho' they may make some sort of variety import no proper composition and carry with them more apparent Perfection than absolute omnimodous simplicity can be conceived to do 15. Such a supposed possible variety even of individual Natures in the Deity some way differing from each other infers not an unbounded Liberty of conceiving what pluralities therein we please or can imagine The divine revelation which could only justify doth also limit us herein mentioning three distinct I's or He 's and no more 16. The several Attributes which are common to these three do to our apprehension and way of conceiving things require less distinction no more for ought we know than may arise from their being variously modify'd according to the distinction of Objects or other extrinsecal things to which they may be referr'd We that so little know how our own Souls and the Powers and Principles that belong to them do differ from one another and from them must be supposed more ignorant and should be less curious in this FINIS Books printed for and sold by Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns at the lower end of Cheapside near Mercers Chappel A Body of practical divinity consisting of above 176 Sermons on the Lesser Catechisme compos'd by the Reverend Assembly of Divines at Westminster With a Supplement of some Sermons on several Texts of Scripture By Thomas Watson formerly Minister of St. Stephens Walbrook London Theological Dicourses in two Volumes The First Containing eight Letters and three Sermons concerning the Blessed Trinity The Second containing 13 Sermons on several Occasions By John Wallis D. D. Professor of Geometry in Oxon. An Account of the Blessed Trinity argued from the nature and perfection of the Supream Spirit coincident with the Scripture Doctrine in all the Articles of the Catholick Creeds together with its Mystical Federal Practical uses in the Christian Religion By William Burrough Rector of Cheynis in Bucks The confirming Work of Religion or its great things made Plain by their primary Evidences and Demonstrations whereby the meanest in the Church may soon be made able to render an account of their Faith By R. Fleming Author of the Fulfilling of the Seriptures Now Published by Daniel Burgess The Rod or the Sword the present Dilemma of the Nations of England Scotland and Ireland considered argued and improved c. A Family Altar erected to the Honour of the Eternal God or a Solemn Essay to promote the Worship of God in private Houses together with the best Entail or dying Parents living Hopes for their surviving Children grounded upon the Covenant of Gods Grace with Believers and their Seed By Oliver Heywood Minister of the Gospel 1 Joh. 5. Joh. 10. 1 Cor. 2. 11. Joh. 17. 3. P. 17. of these Considerations Prov. 8. Gen. 1. Prov. 8. Isa. 9. Mic. 5. Joh. 1. Joh. 3. Joh. 10. Joh. 21. Rom. 9. Phil. 2. Col. 1. 1 Joh. 5. Rev. 1. Chap. 2. Chap. 3. God 1 Cor. 2. Acts 5. 1 Joh. 5.