Guide but his Reason intangles himself in inextricable Difficulties Of this sort were Paul of Samosatum Patriarch of Antioch Photinus Bishop of Syrmium Praxeas Noëtus Sabellius Arrius Apollinaris Nestorius Eutyches and in this very Age Socinus the Reviver of the Samosatenian and Photinian Heresie These have been the Incendiaries of the Church and the great Disturbers of its Peace The Men who have made it necessary to enlarge the Form of sound Words and were the occasion of the Creeds made in the Councils of which they bear the Names Sabellius own'd the Unity of the Divine Nature but struck with the Evidence of those Texts which speak the Son and the Holy Spirit to be God could not deny a Trinity but made it only to consist of meer Names or Denominations as St. Basil expresses it Hom. 27. pag. 602. Or as St. Athanasius has it one only Person the Father acting under different Names A Notion which the present Socinians seem too too willing to embrace Arrius own'd a Trinity of Persons and not of Names He saw that the poor shift of Sabellius was irreconcilable with that Oeconomy which so clearly appears in the Scriptures But by admitting three Principles he destroy'd the Unity of God and was the first Author of the chymerical distinction of a God made and a God unmade of a Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the like but not of the same Substance Apollinaris own'd the Incarnation The Word was made Flesh was an Authority of that Weight and Clearness as gave not the least ground to Primitive Ages for Allegories and little Criticisms so much us'd in this But he destroy'd the Union of the two Natures by denying that Christ had a Soul and leaving the Divinity to inform his Body Nestorius Patriarch of Constantinople own'd the two Natures but deny'd their Union in one Person He would have two Persons as well as two Natures The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Man The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but not the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eutyches acknowledged the Incarnation but maintain'd a Singularity of Nature with that of a Person He would have the Humanity to be absorp'd and the God to have annihilated the Man All these the Church of God condemn'd by the Form of sound Words contain'd in the several Creeds The sober Church of England sensible that even in point of Reformation we are apt to out-run the Mark and under pretence of forsaking old Errors really fall into new ones has strenuously aim'd at this not to recede a Jot from the Form of sound Words and stick close not only to the Sence but even to the ways of speaking of the Primitive Church It has made the Apostolical and Catholick Creeds a part of its Liturgy and its very Articles concerning the Blessed Trinity Incarnation and Satisfaction of Jesus Christ are nothing else but a repetition of the Dogms of the Ancient Councils But before I conclude this Particular I must say something of that which tho' no part of the Form of sound Words has yet a very near relation to it and that is the Expressions us'd by the Fathers in their Debates about these Sacred Doctrines 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. and since adopted by all the Divines and become the Language of the Church Concerning which I must presume to aver 1 st that whosoever will be conversant in those Disputes cannot without these Terms understand any part of them 2 dly That they are proof against all the Subterfuges and Equivocations of Hereticks 3 dly That tho' it is much safer to keep to the Simplicity of the Form and pretend to no Explication of that which we own to be incomprehensible yet if any can be pretended to it is that and that only which results from these Terms But I shall no longer insist on this and come to the second part of this Discourse How dangerous it is to depart from the Form of sound Words I am apt to think that it will give a great Light to what I have to say on this head if I endeavour to shew before-hand which ways we depart from it I conceive that it can be only these two 1 st By rejecting the Article it self which is propos'd to our Belief 2 dly By admitting the Article but using other Words than the Church to express or explain it by The one is absolutely to depart from the sound Words themselves The other from the Form in which they are put The first has been done by the Hereticks already mention'd The unfortunate Attempt has been renew'd by Socinus and his Followers but by none so wholly as by a sort of pretended witty People who asham'd of the inhumane and irrational Profession of unmanly Atheism have under the Name of Deists endeavour'd to explode all reveal'd Religion To these Socinus has lent most of their Arguments From that side who have oppos'd a part of the Revelation these have learn'd to reject the whole And tho' I should think it unjust and uncharitable to think that the present Socinians are Deists or give the Deists any design'd Encouragement yet I will beg leave to assert that taking an exact view of the Deistical and Socinian System there will appear no very vast difference Deism being nothing else but Socinianism improv'd and Socinianism nothing else but Deism contracted The second that is to keep to the Article but put it in other Words has been done by some amongst our selves Whether this has been the Effect of a too much indulg'd Curiosity or of an imprudent Zeal Whether the Heat of the Dispute and the pressing Efforts of the Enemy has driven them from their Anchors Whether they have been too fond of the Offspring of their own Brains or whether a mixture of all these together has been the occasion of it is difficult to judge But it is certain that the Press has groan'd under the burthen of new Discoveries brought forth a swarm of Answers and Replies fuller of Heat than Light and made it necessary for the Peace of the Church that a Curtain should be drawn over abundance of Writings where Learning Modesty and Candor should have had a greater share than really they can pretend to Of the first of these it is easie to shew how dangerous it is to depart from the Form of sound Words For what greater danger can we fall into than to make Shipwrack concerning the Faith A State so much the more dangerous because it destroys the very ground of our hopes For he that believes shall be sav'd He that does not believe is condemn'd already To differ from an Orthodox Church of which we are Members tho in point of Ceremony is very sinful if the difference is carry'd so far as to make a Schism Toleration tho' it secures us from the Laws of Men not acquitting us at all in the sight of God But how much deeper is that Guilt which lays the Ax to the Root
Fidei nostrae Sacramentum That which the Fathers understood by the answer of a good Conscience towards God that is a solemn Profession Declaration of what Religion obliges us to believe and from which we ought not to depart This is the first Shield of Faith which the Church oppos'd to the early Attempts of those Hereticks who thought to have stifl'd her in her Infancy This Confession of God the Father of his only begotten Son Jesus Christ our Lord and of the Holy Spirit which is the Substance of that Creed made unsuccessful the Endeavours of Simon Cerinthus Basilides Menander Carpocrates and the swarm of impure Gnosticks By this every Christian was initiated to Religion gave a reason of the Hope that was in him and became a Member of that Society here on Earth which after perseverance in well doing is to be rewarded in Heaven I know that a Critick of this Age a Person of the first rank in the Common-wealth of Learning has disputed both the Antiquity and Universality of this Creed A Notion too unadvisedly taken up by several Authors who thought that the Socinians took too great an Advantage from the Simplicity of its Articles He made it to be only a Creed of the Latin or Western Church which the Catechumens were taught before their Admission to Baptism He produces two of St. Irenoeus three of Tertullian one of St. Cyril of Jerusalem three of Ruffinus and insists on some difference even between the Fathers who have been the Expositors of this Creed St. Austin Chrysologus Maximus and others But notwithstanding all this whosoever will look into the Creeds of St. Irenoeus and Tertullian for that of St. Cyril was after the Nicene Council and those which Ruffinus has compar'd that is the Roman the Aquileian and the Oriental Creeds will find so mighty an agreement and the variations so minute and inconsiderable as to make impossible any substantial difference And it is certainly a strange Fancy that the Socinians should take an advantage from the Simplicity of these Articles which being but a Compendium of the New Testament are at last resolv'd into it For the Sence of that Creed must be that of the Scriptures of which it is an Epitome And how can they argue against the Divinity of Christ and of the Holy Spirit from their not being call'd God in the Creed when the Scriptures are so full in asserting the Unity of God and the Trinity of Persons in that one Adorable and Divine Nature Are we not baptiz'd in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit Are there not Three that bear Record in Heaven the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit and are not these three one Is not Christ declar'd to be God blessed over all for ever and God manifested in the Flesh Are we not told that the Spirit searches all things even the deep things of God and that to lye to the Holy Spirit is to lye to God This Objection is of that Clearness and Evidence is so far from giving them any Advantage and they have found themselves so press'd by it that they have been forc'd to split on another Rock and say that the Form of Baptism is no part of Scripture and is only an addition to St Matthew That the Place of St. John is another and that the Word God is not to be found in the cited Scriptures Shifts unbecoming learned Men Which even Praxeas and Sabellius would have blush'd at The former oppos'd by Tertullian who tells him that this Rule of Faith is come down to us from the beginning of the Gospel The latter by Dionysius of Alexandria who tells him apud Euseb l. 7. c. 6. That the Persons of the Father Son and Holy spirit are indivisibly united in the same Divine Nature 2 dly The Forms agreed upon in the Primitive Councils at Nice Antioch Sardis Ephesus Constantinople Chalcedon c. are no Additions to but only Explications of the first Form They are still the Form of sound Words It is not in the Power of the Church to make new Forms new Articles of Faith And in this the Church of Rome is inexcusable and guilty of a Schism which she has charg'd others with But to declare and explain the Faith is an essential part of its Power The growing Heresies were the occasion of the Apostolical Creed the first Remedy apply'd to that raging Disease The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the vain and noisie Oppositions of a pretended Knowledge oblig'd them to deliver the sacred System of Divine Verities But when the old Hereticks were worn out leaving to the World a sad remembrance of their gross Follies and Immoralities and a new sort sprung up who did attempt to overthrow the Faith once deliver'd to the Saints by Blasphemous Heterodoxies It was high time for the Church to make the Creed more comprehensive than it was at first give a greater extent to its Articles and leave safe to future Ages the Depositum which they had receiv'd And indeed it would have been very happy for the Church if Men keeping to the Plainness and Simplicity of the Revelation had not presum'd to go farther Oh that an humble Faith had stifl'd Curiosity in its first Attempts to inquire into Divine Mysteries with weak Ratiocinations and Philosophy never assum'd to bring Divinity to be try'd at the Bar of humane Reason Then Mercy and Truth would have kiss'd each other and God even our God would have given us his Blessing But Man forgot that scrutator Majestatis opprimetur à Gloria That the bold and daring Searcher into the Majesty of God will be oppress'd and sink under the weight of his Glory He launch'd into a Sea in which the Rocks and Sands on all sides threatn'd a sad and inevitable Ruine God has reveal'd to us his Existence and the Unity of his Nature He has told us that in that one indivisible and inseparable Nature are Father Son and Holy Spirit He has asserted the Father to be God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God He has taught us that the Father is not the Son nor the Son the Father nor the Holy Ghost Father or Son He has inform'd us that in the Fulness of times he sent his only Son to take our Nature That the Word was made Flesh and offer'd himself a Sacrifice for us In such plain Propositions as these has he commanded us to acquiesce Faith is the Duty of this Intuition and Knowledge the Privilege of another Life The Perceptions of our present State have no proportion with so incomprehensible an Object Had we stay'd there the Church would have been a City at Vnity within it self But Man not contented with this strives to understand that which God has not been pleas'd to reveal that is the Nexus or manner of in being of the Three Persons The How these three can be one The Way of the Union of the two Natures in one adorable Person Christ Jesus and having no other
of the Tree and having corrupted our Minds makes us reprobate concerning the Faith An Enormity which the best and earliest Ages shew'd their detestation of by their frequent Anathema's against it But of the second it does not seem so easie to pronounce For if Men in the Fundamental Articles of our Holy Religion keep really and unfeignedly to the truth of what is propos'd as in the Trinity and Incarnation shall we quarrel with them for using such Words as are either unknown to Antiquity or rejected by the Doctors of the present Church May not God reveal to us what the Fathers of Nice or Chalcedon were ignorant of And as long as we own the Substance of the Article as strictly as our strictest Opposers can any Fault be found with any Explication Yet this will prove a wretched piece of Sophistry if the following Inconveniencies are seriously consider'd 1 st That to depart from the Form which the Church has us'd herself to is against her Vnity and Peace 2dly That it is the way to unsettle pious Minds 3dly That it can never be done without giving the Adversaries a mighty Advantage First It is against the Vnity and Peace of the Church Words are the Interpreters of our Thoughts and the only way we have to know one anothers Minds A Communication which Nature has taught Experience improv'd and the mutual Commerce of Mankind rais'd to an absolute necessity But if this is true in relation to the Affairs of this World and is the Foundation of all Arts and Sciences how much more will it hold in respect to Religious Matters where every Error is dangerous and draws along with it so many fatal Consequences Religion the grand Duty of Man is convey'd into the Soul by hearing and comes short of its Energy if the Terms which it is exprest by are unusual and do not in a great measure answer both its Nature and the end which it proposes And Christianity being to be disseminated and the Gospel to sound to the Ends of the World a Happiness to be offer'd to the Jew and Gentile to the Groecian and Barbarians to all Nations Ages Sexes and Capacities it was highly wise to deliver it in as short a compass and in as settled a manner of Expression as the Nature of the thing could bear and the difference of Men's Understandings agree with The Apostles having left us the Form of sound Words it became the Care of the Bishops their Successors to preserve it entire But they saw an utter Impossibility of doing it and a door open to all manner of Schisms if Men were not confin'd to such and such Words as well as such and such a sence And I dare presume to say that this sunk so deeply into these holy and learned Men's Minds that what we call in this Age Heats and Animosities or the Platonick and Aristotelian Philosophy brought into the Church was nothing else but an indefatigable Care and Industry to declare the Faith after such a manner as should in after-Ages be kept inviolate So afraid were the Fathers of new Words new Lights new Expressions new Explications as that which naturally brings in a new Sence that they ever look'd on them with a kind of Jealousie and would never admit them till they were clearly understood and authoriz'd by the common Consent of the Christian World There is an eminent Instance of this in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which tho' the most expressive Words that could be the one in relation to the Unity of the Divine Nature the other in relation to the Subsistencies of the Divine Persons yet met with a vast opposition the one in the Greek the other in the Latin Church till a long canvassing and at last the determination of the Sacred Councils had fix'd both their Use and their Sence Innovation brings in Heresie and Heresie shelters Innovation The Apostle concludes the first to Timothy by charging him pathetically to keep that which is committed to his Trust and to avoid profane and vain Babblings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vain and empty Sounds The Latin Interpreter reads more agreeably to the old Copies profanas vocum novitates I say more agreeably to the ancient Copies For St. Basil and St. Chrysostom read not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 new Sounds new Words which shews that it was so in the Exemplaries us'd by those Fathers Expressions which by being new are both suspicious and dangerous The Fathers of the third Council of Constantinople which is the sixth General and in which Pope Honorius and the Monothelites were condemn'd were so sensible of the Evils occasion'd by this that they concluded their last Action by subjecting to deprivation if they were Bishops or Clerks or to Excommunication if they were Laicks whosoever did bring in any 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 new Words and new Explications It being the Infirmity of Humane Nature to be strangely affected with Novelty and an Argument seldom wanting them who take the glittering for the solid and weighty part of it But when an Innovator who has catch'd a bright Cloud instead of the Sun comes to be encounter'd by the Orthodox whose Zeal is so much the warmer because it is inflam'd by the Sence of an old Truth then what Devastations what Tragedies what Schisms what Contentions are seen in the Church Secondly It unsettles pious Minds New Explications are like Meteors which set Men on gazing and always portend Ruine to Religion When by an humble and settled Reverence for what God has propos'd to us by the Ministery of his Church we have us'd our selves to a Form of Doctrine whatsoever is foreign to it offers our Minds an incredible Violence Pious Ears are offended at it and they who know better how to feel the Power of Religion than to talk of it are horribly scandaliz'd They have us'd themselves to an awful Belief and Adoration of Mysteries They have acquiesc'd in the receiv'd Expressions of the Universal Church more secure in their rest on the Breasts of their Mother than if all the Guards in the World were plac'd round about them and consequently strangely astonish'd when an Innovator strives to tear them out of their Sanctuary No Answer can be made to this but a pretence of Necessity that the Socinians have made it unavoidable in their Disputes against the blessed Trinity and Incarnation to run on a new Method and that St. Austin has taught us and before him St. Cyprian and of their Words a Canon has been made That Melius est ut scandalum oriatur quam Veritas relinquatur It is more tolerable to give an occasion of scandal than that Truth should be left undefended But where does the Necessity appear Are we not sensible that the Arguments against our Mysteries are neither new nor invincible Were not the Arrians much better Disputants than the Scholars of Socinus who are forc'd to give Socinianism the Face of Arrianism or
else it is unreasonable to the utmost degree Has the old way of answering been yet worsted Have not the decisions of the Councils been like a Rock on which indeed these proud Waves have beat but have been forc'd back broken and dispers'd I humbly beg leave to ask whether the receiv'd way of debating these sacred Doctrines can support it self or no If it can where is the necessity of any new one And if it cannot how comes that to be now so unsuccessful which the Church has been victorious by in all Ages and Places of the Christian World It fills learned Men with Grief and Indignation to see some of our late Authors strive to entangle an Elephant in a Spider's Web and expect the lamentable Issue of their Proceeding who as Gregory the Great expresses it lib. 6. mor. c. 17. Wanting Humility to be Disciples of the Truth become at last the Patrons of Error The Ecclesiastical History observes that the Great Basil of Seleucia and Gregory of Nazianzum before they offer'd to exercise their Episcopal Function did give themselves for thirteen years together in the Retirement of a private Life to the Study of the Holy Scriptures Illarum sententiam non ex proprio ingenio sed ex majorum ratione authoritate interpretantes Not interpreting them as they pleas'd says the Historian but conforming their Interpretations to the Sence and Authority of the Ancients A safe and an excellent Rule to us and a noble Proof by the way of the Sence of the Ante-nicene Fathers These two eminent Bishops having been so zealous of the Nicene Faith which they had learn'd from the Reasons and Authority of the Ancients in their Interpretations of Scripture Thirdly It cannot be done without giving the Adversaries a mighty Advantage By Adversaries I mean all the Opposers of the sacred Truths But most particularly the Socinians of whom it must be acknowledged that in their first Prints they manag'd this Controversie in a dull and languishing sort of a way and were really at a loss till the unwary manner of writing of some amongst us set them again on a full Cry and made them more eager and vehement Till then their Objections were stale and their Answers to ours strain'd and unnatural But some must pretend to explain things inexplicable and understand things incomprehensible The Socinians sensible of the Advantage remove all their Batteries and place them against that weak side and what work they were like to have made if more accurate Writers had not stept in learned Men see and grieve Only disingenuous in this that when they have expos'd a Writer they think to have overcome the Church as if the Church did warrant all their Inadvertencies who pretend to write in her Defence or espouse private Notions which she never knew nor ever will own This eminently appears in one of their latest Prints call'd A Discourse concerning the Real and Nominal Trinitarians This they take to be the lucky hit If you believe them the Church is made up either of Tritheists who really assert three Gods or of Sabellians who mean no more by three Persons than three meer Modes or Denominations and this Notion they have carry'd so far and so throughly perswaded themselves of the Truth and Strength of it that it has swallow'd up all their other Topicks Whereas there never was perhaps a more unjust way of arguing in the World For the Church is so far from being divided into such Real and Nominal Trinitarians as they are pleas'd to represent us that there is no such thing in Nature There is no Church or part of the Church which believes any more than one Infinite and Eternal God There is no Church or part of the Church which ever plac'd the Trinity of Persons in meer Modes Relations Names or Offices There is no Church or part of the Church but what has admitted a Real Unity in Trinity and a Real Trinity in Unity but has declar'd the Modus or manner to be altogether incomprehensible But where then have the Socinians met with a ground for this bold Assertion Truly from some unhappy Expressions of Men who have not been judicious and exact enough to see all the Consequences which flow from their Principles and have not perceiv'd that an Adversary could not be oblig'd to be so equitable as not to carry those Consequences further than ever they were intended The Socinians did hear some talk of Three Infinite Minds and Spirits an Expression indeed harsh and new And an Infinite Mind or Spirit being the definition of God they have concluded that they asserted Three Gods But they have not had the Justice to consider that they who asserted Three Infinite Minds and Spirits asserted them in one altogether indivisible and inseparable that is in a Numerical Nature On the other side they have heard that the Three Persons were the several Modes and Relations of the Divine Nature They presently run upon the Notion of Modes in created Beings which are only the several Affections of Substances and concluded that such a sort of a Trinity is only of Modes and Denominations But they have not had the Justice to consider that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Modes of Subsistence are quite of another Nature That whatsoever is in God is God That the Subsistences and Relations are all substantial and that the Church never pretended nor these Authors themselves that they could give any adequate representation of an Object incomprehensible In the mean time they have made a diversion heated several great and learned Men one against another and by equally misrepresenting both have given us a sad Instance how dangerous it is to depart from the Form of sound Words I draw now to a Conclusion and come to shew how we ought to behave our selves in relation to them who have departed from it Our behaviour must be limited by so many several Rules as there are Persons who have done it First Those without who have departed from the Article it self Secondly Those within who have departed from the Terms which the Church expresses it by The only Adversaries of the Sacred Doctrine in this Age are the Socinians I humbly conceive that that part of the Injunctions which concerns the Angels of the Church the most Reverend the Archbishops and Bishops is no part of our business We must not presume to prescribe to them from whom we ought to receive Laws They are the Principle of Order and Unity in the Church They are Stars of the first Magnitude and in that Elevation of Zeal and Knowledge that as they see farther and move in a far larger extent than we do so they cannot be wanting to themselves when grievous Wolves enter in amongst us not sparing the Flock I confine my self to us who by the Trust committed to our Care may come to be engag'd in these Disputes Of the Socinians several are Persons of Learning and Conscience acquainted with all the fine sort of