Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
christian_n	apostle_n	church_n	creed_n	1,331	5	10.2664	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61548	A discourse in vindication of the doctrine of the Trinity with an answer to the late Socinian objections against it from Scripture, antiquity and reason, and a preface concerning the different explications of the Trinity, and the tendency of the present Socinian controversie / by the Right Reverend Father in God Edward, Lord Bishop of Worcester.	Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.	1697 (1697)	Wing S5585; ESTC R14244	164,643	376

is no improbable Opinion of Erasmus and Vossius two learned Criticks indeed That the most ancient Creed went no further than the Form of Baptism viz. to Believe in the Father Son and Holy Ghost and the other Articles were added as Heresies gave occasion S. Ierom saith That in the Traditional Creed which they received from the Apostles the main Article was the Confession of the Trinity to which he joyns the Vnity of the Church and Resurrection of the Flesh and then adds that herein is contained Omne Christiani Dogmatis Sacramentum the whole Faith into which Christians were baptized And he saith It was the Custom among them to instruct those who were to be Baptized for forty days in the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity So that there was then no Question but the Form of Baptism had a particular Respect to ●t and therefore so much weight is laid upon the use of it as well by the Ante-Nicene Fathers as others For Tertullian saith That the Form of Baptism was prescribed by our Saviour himself as a Law to his Church S. Cyprian to the same purpose That he commanded it to be used S. Augustin calls them the Words of the Gospel without which there is no Baptism The Reason given by S. Ambrose is because the Faith of the Trinity is in this Form But how if any one Person were left out He thinks that if the rest be not denied the Baptism is good but otherwise vacuum est omne Mysterium the whole Baptism is void So that the Faith of the Trinity was that which was required in order to true Baptism more than the bare Form of Words If there were no reason to question the former S. Ambrose seems of Opinion that the Baptism was good although every Person were not named and therein he was followed by Beda Hugo de Sancto Victore Peter Lombard and others And S Basil in the Greek Church asserted that Baptism in the name of the Holy Ghost was sufficient because he is hereby owned to be of equal Dignity with the Father and Son but it is still supposing that the whole and undivided Trinity be not denied And he elsewhere saith That Baptizing in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost is a most solemn Profession of the Trinity in Vnity because they are all joyned together in this publick Act of Devotion But others thought that the Baptism was not good unless every Person were named which Opinion generally obtained both in the Greek and Latin Church And the late Editors of S. Ambrose observe that in other places he makes the whole Form of Words necessary as well as the Faith in the Holy Trinity The Baptism of the Eunomians was rejected because they alter'd the Form and the Faith too saying That the Father was uncreate the Son created by the Father and the Holy Ghost created by the Son The Baptism of the Samosatenians was rejected by the Council of Nice S. Augustin thinks it was because they had not the right Form but the true Reason was they rejected the Doctrine of the Trinity And so the Council of Arles I. doth in express Words refuse their Baptism who refused to own that Doctrine That Council was held A. D. 314. and therefore Bellarmin and others after him are very much mistaken when they interpret this Canon of the Arians concerning whose Baptism there could be no Dispute till many years after But this Canon is de Afris among whom the Custom of Baptizing prevailed but this Council propounds an expedient as most agreeable to the general Sense of the Christian Church viz. That if any relinquished their Heresie and came back to the Church they should ask them the Creed and if they found that they were baptized in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost they should have only imposition of hands but if they did not confess the Trinity their Baptism was declared void Now this I look on as an impregnable Testimony of the Sense of the Ante-Nicene Fathers viz. That they did not allow that Baptism which was not in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost or which they understood to be the same in the confession of the Faith of the Trinity How then can our Vnitarians pretend That the Ante-Nicene Fathers did not alledge the Form of Baptism to prove the Trinity For the words are If they do n●t answer to this Trinity let them be baptized saith this plenary Cou●cil as S. Augustin often calls it What Trinity do they mean Of mere Names or Cyphers or of one God and two Creatures joyned in the same Form of words as our Vnitarians understand it But they affirm That the Ancients of 400 years do not insist on this Text of S. Matthew to prove the Divinity or Personality of the Son or Spirit Therefore to give a clear account of this matter I shall prove that the Ante-Nicene Fathers did understand these words so as not to be taken either for mere Names or for Creatures joyned with God but that they did maintain the Divinity of the Son and Holy Ghost from the general Sense in which these words were taken among them And this I shall do from these Arguments 1. That those who took them in another Sense were opposed and condemned by the Christian Church 2. That the Christian Church did own this Sense in publick Acts of divine Worship as well as private 3. That it was owned and defended by those who appeared for the Christian Faith against Infidels And I do not know any better means than these to prove such a matter of Fact as this 1. The Sense of the Christian Church may be known by its behaviour towards those who took these words only for different Names or Appearances of One Person And of this we have full Evidence as to Praxeas Noëtus and Sabellius all long before the Council of Nice Praxeas was the first at least in the Western Church who made Father Son and Holy Ghost to be only several Names of the same Person and he was with great Warmth and Vigor opposed by Tertullian who charges him with introducing a new opinion into the Church as will presently appear And his testimony is the more considerable because our Vnitarians confess That he lived 120 years before the Nicene Council and that he particularly insists upon the Form of Baptism against Praxeas But to what purpose Was not his whole design in that Book to prove three distinct Persons of Father Son and Holy Ghost and yet but One God Doth he not say expresly That Christ commanded that his Disciples should baptize into the Father Son and Holy Ghost not into One of them ad singula nomina in Personas singulas tingimur In Baptism we are dipped once at every Name to shew that we are baptized into three Persons It is certain then that Tertullian could not mistake the Sense of the Church

to go about to prove them But to shew what use we are to make of them we must consider that it cannot be denied that the Doctrine of the Trinity did meet with opposition very early in the Christian Church especially among the Iewish Christians I mean those who strictly adhered to the Law of Moses after the Apostles had declared the freedom of Christians from the obligation of it These as I shall shew by and by soon after the dispersion of the Church of Ierusalem gathered into a body by themselves distinct from that which consisted of Iews and Gentiles and was therefore called the Catholick Christian Church And this separate body whether called Ebionites Nazarens or Mineans did not only differ from the Catholick Christian Church as to the necessity of observing the Law of Moses but likewise as to the Divinity of our Saviour which they denied although they professed to believe him as the Christ or promised Messias Theodoret hath with very good judgment placed the Heresies of the first ages of the Ch●istian Church under two distinct heads which others reckon up confusedly and those are such as relate to the Humanity of Christ as Simon Magus and all the Sets of those who are called Gnosticks which are recited in his first Book In his second he begins with those which relate to the Divinity of Christ and these are of two kinds 1. The Iewish Christians who denied it Of these he reckons up the Ebionites Cerinthians the Nazarens and Elcesaitae whom he distinguished from the other Ebionites because of a Book of Revelation which one Elxai brought among them but Epiphanius saith he joyned with the Ebionites and Nazarens 2. Those of the Gentile Christians who were look'd on as broaching a new Doctri●e among them of these he reckons Artemon as the first then Theodotus whom others make the first Publisher of it as Tertullian and the old Writer in Eusebius supposed to be Caius who lived near the time and of whom a considerable Fragment is preserved in Eusebius which gives light to these matters The next is another Theodotus who framed a new Sect of such as set up Mel●hisedeck above Christ. Then follow Paulus Samosatenus and Sabellius who made but one Person as well as one God and so overthrew the Trinity with whom Marcellus agreed in substance and last of all Photinus But Theodoret concludes that Book with this passage viz. That all these Heresies against our Saviour's Divinity were then wholly extinct so that there were not so much as any small Remainders of them What would he have said if he had lived in our age wherein they are not only revived but are pretended to have been the true Doctrine of the Apostolical Churches Had all men lost their Senses in Theodoret's time And yet there were as many learned and able Men in the Christian Church then as ever were in any time CHAP. III. The Socinian Plea for the Antiquity of their Doctrine examined BUT this is not the age our Vnitarians will stand or fall by They are for going backward and they speak with great comfort about the old Ebionites and Nazarens as entirely theirs And that they had considerable men among them as Theodotion and Symmachus two Translators of the Hebrew Bible And among the Gentile Christians they value themselves upon three Men Paulus Samosatenus Lucianus the most learned Person they say of his age and Photinus Bishop of Sirmium As to the Vnitarians at Rome whom they improperly call Nazarens they pretended that their Doctrine was Apostolical and the general Doctrine of the Church till the times of Victor and Zepherin This is the substance of their Plea which must now be examin'd I begin with those Primitive Vnitarians the Ebionites concerning whom I observe these things 1. That they were a distinct separate body of men from the Christian Church For all the ancient Writers who speak of them do mention them as Hereticks and wholly divided from it as appears by Irenaeus Tertullian Epiphanius Theodoret S. Augustin and others Eusebius saith of them That although the Devil could not make them renounce Christianity yet finding their weakness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he made them his own He would never have said this of any whom he look'd on as Members of the Christian Church But wherein is it that Eusebius blames them He tells it in the very next words that it was for the mean opinion they entertained of Christ for they look'd on him as a meer Man but very just And although there were two sorts of them some owning the miraculous Conception and others not yet saith he They at last agreed in the same Impiety which was That they would not own Christ to have had any Pre-existence before his Birth nor that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God the Word It 's true he finds fault with them afterwards for keeping to the Law of Moses but the first Impiety he charges them with is the other That which I inferr from hence is that Eusebius himself to whom they profess to shew greater respect than to most of the ancient Writers for his exactness and diligence in Church-History doth affirm the Doctrine which overthrows the Pre-existence and Divinity of Christ to be an Impiety And therefore when he affirms the first fifteen Bishops of the Church of Ierusalem who were of the Circumcision viz. to the Siege of it by Hadrian did hold the genuine Doctrine of Christ it must be understood of his Pre-existence and Divinity for the other we see he accounted an Impiety And he tells us the Church of Ierusalem then consisted of believing Iews and so it had done from the Apostles times to that of Hadrian 's Banishment of the Iews Which is a considerable Testimony to two purposes 1. To shew that the Primitive Church of Ierusalem did hold the Doctrine of Christ's Pre-existence and Divinity But say our Vnitarians this doth not follow For what reason When it is plain that Eusebius accounted that the only genuine Doctrine No say they he meant only the miraculous Conception and that they held that in opposition to those Ebionites who said that he was born as other men are This is very strange when Eusebius had distinguished the two sorts of Ebionites about this matter and had blamed both of them even those that held him born of a Virgin for falling into the same Impiety What can satisfie such men who are content with such an answer But say they Eusebius only spake his own sense Not so neither For he saith in that place that he had searched the most ancient Records of the Church of Ierusalem Yes say they for the Succession of the first Bishops but as to their Doctrine he had it from Hegesippus and he was an Ebionite himself Then Eusebius must not be the man they take him for For if Hegesippus were himself an Ebionite and told Eusebius in his Commentaries that the Primitive

words 1. They say That there is a Note of distinction and Superiority For Christ owns that his Power was given to him by the Father There is no question but that the Person who suffer'd on the Cross had Power given to him after his Resurrection but the true Question is whether his Sonship were then given to him He was then declared to be the Son of God with Power and had a Name or Authority given him above every Name being exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour to give Repentance and Remission of Sins in order to which he now appointed his Apostles to teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost He doth not say in the name of Iesus who suffer'd on the Cross nor in the name of Iesus the Christ now exalted but in the name of Father Son and Holy Ghost and although there were a double Gift with respect to the Son and Holy Ghost the one as to his Royal Authority over the Church the other as to his extraordinary Effusion on the Apostles yet neither of these are so much as intimated but the Office of Baptism is required to be performed in the Name of these three as distinct and yet equal without any Relation to any Gift either as to the Son or Holy Ghost But if the ancient Iews were in the Right as we think they were then we have a plain account how these came to be thus mention'd in the Form of Baptism viz. that these three distinct Subsistences in the Divine Essence were not now to be kept up as a secret Mystery from the World but that the Christian Church was to be formed upon the Belief of it 2. They bring several places of Scripture where God and his Creatures are joyned without any Note of distinction or Superiority as The people feared the Lord and Samuel 1 Sam. 12.18 They worshipped the Lord and the King 1 Chron. 29.20 I charge thee before God the Lord Iesus Christ and his elect Angels 1 Tim. 5.21 The Spirit and the Bride say come Revel 22.17 But can any Man of Sense imagine these places contain a Parallel with a Form of Words wherein men are entred into the Profession of a new Religion and by which they were to be distinguished from all other Religions in the former places the Circumstances were so notorious as to God and the Civil Magistrate that it shews no more than that the same external Acts may be used to both but with such a different Intention as all men understood it What if S. Paul name the elect Angels in a solemn Obtestation to Timothy together with God and the Lord Iesus Christ What can this prove but that we may call God and his Creatures to be Witnesses together of the same thing And so Heaven and Earth are called to bear Witness against obstinate Sinners May men therefore be baptized in the name of God and his Creatures The Spirit and Bride may say come without any Incongruity but it would have been strange indeed if they had said Come be baptized in the Name of the Spirit and the Bride So that these Instances are very remote from the purpose But they say farther That the ancients of the first Four hundred years do not insist on this place to prove the Divinity or Personality of the Son or Spirit As to the first Three hundred years I have given an account already and as to the Fourth Century I could not have thought that they would have mention'd it since there is scarce a Father of the Church in that time who had occasion to do it but makes use of the Argument from this place to prove the Divinity and Personality of the Son and Spirit Athanasius saith That Christ founded his Church on the Doctrine of the Trinity contained in these Words and if the Holy Ghost had been of a different Nature from the Father and Son he would never have been joyned with them in a Form of Baptism no more than an Angel or any other Creature For the Trinity must be Eternal and Indivisible which it could not be if any created Being were in it and therefore he disputes against the Arian Baptism although performed with the same Words because they joyned God and a Creature together in Baptism To the same purpose argue Didymus Gregory Nazianzen S. Basil and others within the Compass of four hundred years whose Testimonies are produced by Petavius to whom I refer the Reader if he hath a mind to be satisfied in so clear a Point that I cannot but think our Vnitarians never intended to take in the Fathers after the Council of Nice who are so expressly against them and therefore I pass it over as a slip 4. They object That the Form of Baptism implies no more than being admitted into that Religion which proceeds from God the Father and deliver'd by his Son and confirmed by the Testimony of the Holy Ghost So much we grant is implied but the Question still remains whether the Son and Holy Ghost are here to be consider'd only in order to their Operations or whether the Persons of the Son and Holy Ghost from whom those Effects came are not here chiefly intended For if no more had been meant but these Effects then the right Form of Admission had not been into the Name of Father Son and Holy Ghost but in the Name of the Father alone as Revealing himself by his Son and Confirming it by the miraculous Works of the Holy Ghost For these are only subservient Acts to the design of God the Father as the only subsisting Person 5. They tell us That it is in vain not to say ridiculously pretended that a Person or Thing is God because we are baptized into it for some were baptized into Moses and others into John's Baptism and so Moses and John Baptist would be Gods and to be baptized into a Person or Persons and in the name of such a Person is the same thing Grant this yet there is a great difference between being baptized in the name of a Minister of Baptism and of the Author of a Religion into which they are baptized The Israelites were baptized unto Moses but how The Syriac and Arabic Versions render it per Mosen and so S. Augustin reads it And this seems to be the most natural sense of the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being put for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is Act. 7.53 compared with Gal. 3.19 And the force of the Apostle's Argument doth not lie in the Parallel between being baptized into Moses and into Christ but in the Privileges they had under the Ministery of Moses with those which Christians enjoyed The other place implies no more than being enter'd into that Profession which John baptized his Disciples into But doth any one imagine that because Iohn Baptist did enter his Disciples by Baptism therefore they must believe him to be God