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A36211
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The Doctrine of the Catholick Church and of the Church of England concerning the blessed Trinity explained and asserted against the dangerous heterodoxes in a sermon by Dr. William Sherlock before my Lord Mayor and the court of aldermen.
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1697
(1697)
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Wing D1774; ESTC R1156
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21,435
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32
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saith are Philosophy and Reason I am of opinion they must be beaten at their own Weapons or they will never be beaten Yield but to them Philosophy and Reason the Advantage I fear will be judged to be on their side I wonder how this Doctor who is for excluding Reason and Philosophy as Enemies to Divine Truth would deal with the Atheists and Infidels But it may be he would buy him a massy Quarto-Bible with Clasps and Bosses and knock 'em down with it And it troubles him sadly too that Philosophy and Reason are the Weapons of Hereticks of Arians and Socinians and Pelagians as well as of Atheists and Infidels And from hence he infers as before that it was this same scurvy Philosophy and Reason that made 'em Hereticks Without doubt this was intended at the Oxford Heads Those morose old Gentlemen that could not let a Man alone in a small slip but must be decreeing and censuring as soon as ever 't is said or printed that there are three Eternal and Infinite Spirits 't is but fit they should be told their own that 't is they with their Philosophy and their Logicks or Art of Reasoning that make all the Hereticks And yet 't is thought by some odd Fellows on the other hand that Philosophy and Reason never caused that Mischeif that our Preacher pretends and they offer to confirm what they say by the Example of the Arch Heretick Socinus Who never understood Philosophy nor so much as Logicks or the Art of Reasoning till the latter part of his Life Toward the latter part of his Life he got some Skill in the Sophismatical part of Logick and wrote a little Treatise about it Howe're it be I find 't is like to go hard with Philosophy whatever becomes of Reason For Dr. Sherlock warns in effect my Lord Mayor and the Court of Aldermen that they take care that their Children may never see Oxford or Cambridg for there they will catch the Infection of Rhilosophy and after that 't is certain they will be Hereticks Arians or Socinians or Pelagians The Hereticks on the other side many of them are no less bitter against this same damnable Philosophy they protest especially in their Latin Works that 't is Philosophy that corrupted and debauch'd Divinity I wish in my heart these Gentlemen the Doctor and the Hereticks do not play booty into one anothers hands for as angry as they would seem against one another 't is plain they join Stocks against Philosophy As for poor Reason and the Hurt she does in seducing Men from the true Faith I will consider what may be said in the case in another part a more opportune place of this Answer and content my self to make here this one Reflection 'T is very surprizing to me that this Doctor should turn Heretick-taker when he himself stands censured of Heresy and in the very point of the Trinity by Decree of the most famous University in the World Not only so but some Learned and Orthodox Writers as great Anti-pelagians as himself pretend to a Discovery that he and his Party of Realists are Socinians and start just from the same place from whence L. Socinus Ochinus Blandrata and other Founders of Socinianism first set forth They prove this Charge by two things First that the Doctrine of Dean Sherlock concerning the Divine Persons is exactly the same with the Heresy of Laelius Socinus B. Ochinus G. Blandrata V. Gentilis and other Founders of Socinianism they all teach alike three Divine Essences Substances and Spirits And whereas against this everry one would be ready to object that three infinite Spirituall Essences three Eternal all-perfect Spirits must needs be three Gods against which the Scripture is positive asserting every where that there is but one God They answer'd there is but one God the Father is that one God the true God the most High God and God of the other two Divine Persons The reason is the Father only is unoriginated the Son and Spirit are originated from the Father as their Fountain and Cause this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Pre-eminence of the Father doth intitle him to the name of the God by way of Excellence the one God the true God the most High God nay and of God of the Son according to that of our Saviour himself I ascent to my God and to your God Dr. Sherlock dissolveth the objected Difficulty after the same manner For when he hath said three Infinite Essences three Eternal Spirits he saith also but one God and interprets those words I ascend to my Father and your Father to my God and your God as L. Socinus and that Junto did namely thus in these very words There is no Inconvenience in owning that the Father is the Head and the God of the Son as the Son is a Divine Person for the Father is the Fountain of the Deity The Son being only God of God that is God originated from God namely from God the Father therefore the Father may be called his God Vindic. of the Trin. p. 154. The other Proof of the Charge of Socinianism against the Dean and of a design to introduce it is that the Doctrine of three Essences and three Spirits doth lead by necessary and unavoidable Consequences to the Socinianism that is now so called For tho Laelius Socinus Blandrata and the rest did abide a while in it that three Essences and Spirits are one God because only the first of them is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unoriginated as to his Being and Godhead the other two derive Being and Godhead from him yet after some time it was perceived by 'em that three Infinite Essences three all-perfect Spirits are not the less three Gods because the second and third are originated from the first for it can be only said in the case that the first God generated two other Gods Originated or not originated is not what maketh a God but Omnimodous Perfection therefore if the second and third Spirits are each of them All-perfect he is not lefs a God than the first is This Reflection gave birth to the modern Socinianism or the Socinianism that now is for Laelius Socinus soon dying his Nephew Faustus Socinus convinced Blandrata and the others that they must no longer say three Essences and Spirits but one Essence one Spirit and also but one Pers Faustus Socinus took Person and intellectual Essence or intellectual Substance to signify the same thing he thought them equivalent terms therefore because he plainly saw that three Infinite All-perfect Essences or Spirits are certainly three Gods he contended being neither a Critick nor a Metaphysician that as there is but one Divine Essence or Spirit we ought also to say there is but one Divine Person In short the Dean's more warm Opposers say his Doctrine of a Trinity of Essences and Spirits is the same that was affirmed by Laelinus Socinus and other Founders of Socinianism and that in its Consquences it leads to the modern
desperate Cause requires when he so carefully adds As to Contradictions and Impossibilities there will be many whenever we will be reasoning about such things as we understand not I shall tell him not if there be many as he says but if there be any Contradictions or Impossibilities the thing proposed becomes thereby incredible But if we will be reasoning he says about what we do not understand there will be many Contradictions and Impossibilities in our Guesses concerning such things I answer if those Guesses do imply Contradictions or Impossibilities they are such Guesses as none but Fools would make for an Impossibility or a Contradiction is an obvious thing of which none but Philosophers of Gotham will be guilty If we are reasoning about things that we do not understand and there is no occasion that I know of to reason about any thing else Why must we needs be overseen as far as Contradictions and Impossibilities are there no Mistakes to be made but those gross ones Impossibilities and Contradictions It has been ever held by the soberest Divines that Contradictions cannot be verified by the Divine Omnipotence or Omniscience it self and that when we say all things are possible to God we ought to mean it of possible things for as for Impossibilities they are not the Objects of Omnipotence God can no more do impossible things than he can know false things to be true things which most certainly is not knowable A Sermon therefore on behalf of Contradictions and Impossibilities cannot be more absurd than 't is Heterodox and universally condemned by Divines of all Perswasions But this Dean has outfaced a Decree of the University of Oxford in a matter in which if they had mistaken all the Universities of Christendom had been obliged to declare against them and would have declared therefore we need not to wonder that now in a Sermon he as little scruples to contravene the known and agreed Sense and Judgment of all the several Denominations or Sects of Christians I shall confess I am for an ingenuous Liberty and that too in Questions of the greatest Importance but every body knows how bitterly Dr. Sherlock has always opposed and still opposes all Dissenters either from the Doctrine or Discipline of the Church therefore tho I should not object it to another yet to him 't is but his due to tell him of the unparallel'd Immodesty of his Dissent and Separation from the Catholick Church That he has advanced a Heresy concerning the Blessed Trinity condemned by General Councils Decrees of Universities and Consent of Writers and he maintains it by Pleas against Philosophy and Reason and for Contradictions and Impossibilities no less generally reprobated on all hands than his Heresy it self is On his Answer to the first Objection AFter such a Defence of his Heterodoxies as never was before heard he proceeds to answer to two Objections that never were made or however by none but himself And tho it is a very injudicious and needless Confession of a conscience to a Man 's own Insufficience to pass over known and very dangerous Objections and answer only to Chimeras and Follies never suggested or thought of by any Yet Dr. Sherlock is overseen much farther and worse than that for he not only overlooks the Objections of the Socinians and replies to some Weaknesses that no body would have thought of but the Answerer but his Answers are not to those Objections but to something else The Reader shall not again rely upon me if I do not satisfy him and without the trouble of an intent Application that this Maintainer of Paradoxes had forgot his Objection when he came to his Answer He objects first It seems very unnatural that God having made us reasonable Creatures and thereby made Reason to be to us the Measure of Truth and Falshood we should be required to believe without Reason And if we must believe with our Understandings how can we believe what we do not understand I do not believe as I said any Sect of Religious ever made this or the like Objection For 't is very obvious to be seen and understood that tho we are made reasonable Creatures and do believe or assent with out Understandings yet because we cannot but be aware that our Reasons and Understandings are finite and imperfect often short-sighted and as often overseeing things and the Wisdom and Power of God seen in the Contrivance and Structure of the World most perfect therefore he may reveal many things to us to be believed by us tho we understand them not nor have any other Cause of our believing them but only God's Revelation of them We ought to believe God as Children do their Parents or as we our selves believe sage and sober Persons in Matters belonging to their particular Art or Craft that is to say believe them on their Word and for the just Opinion we have of their superiour Knowledg in such Matters To dispute against this is such a degree of Folly that tho I dare not answer for every particular Man yet I know well and any reasonable body will suppose there never was any Party of Men or Sect of Religious that could be so overseen I grant indeed as 't is in the Objection that Reason is the measure of Truth and Falshood but not the frail fallible Reason of Men but the infallible Wisdom of God And in this all Sects agree The Objection therefore is Chimerical and was never made by any sort of Opposers 't is only a loose Thought of this Preacher and advanced to help sill up a crude Sermon Well but what is the wise Answer to a silly Objection Why this When an Objection is made against any thing that it is as we apprehend without Reason or against and contrary to Reason the Objection is of no value if such thing is not the proper Object of Reason Such as the Natures and Essences of things their essential Reasons Vnions Operations and Properties which no Man can pretend are the Objects of Reason or that any Man living can know any thing of them And this he adds farther is all the Incomprehensibility or Contradiction that any can charge on the Trinity or Incarnation By the Trinity meaning his Trinity of Spirits As I said in the name of Goodness what is this Answer to that Objection The Objection is why should reasonable Creatures be obliged to believe things without Reason The Answer is an Objection is of no value if the Matter under dispute is not the Object of Reason Plainly this Answer is not to that Objection but concerning quite another thing namely that we must argue by Reason only for or against such things as are the Objects of Reason But that this wild Answer might look life somewhat he adds the Substances Essences Reasons Properties Vnions and Operations of things are not Objects of Reason and no Man living can know any thing of them Then there is nothing that is the Object of Reason and no