Fathers the true Christian justifying Faith CHAP. IV. Credulity not an excess of Divine Faith What deference is to be paid to General Councils That they cannot err à piè Credibile They are the best expedients of Vnity CHAP. V. The belief of Christ's Divinity one of the difficulties in the planting the Gospel The belief of this frequently incouraged by our Saviour The belief of Christ's Divinity useful to Religion 1. By gaining Authority to his Laws 2. By improving our love and gratitude 3. By assuring us of pardon CHAP. VI. Our Saviour's Titles not Hyperbolical Not called the Son of God as a great Mountain is called the Mountain of God c. He is not the Son of God as Angels are The splendor of his Nature no bar to our being certain of his Divinity CHAP. VII The Authour's Testimony of Constantine concerning the Doctrine of Christ's Divinity examined Constantine ' s judgment of Arianism The supposition of a plurality of Worlds no Argument that the Eternal Son of God should not dy for the sins of this No Argument against the Trinity because it is not said expresly in Scripture that every one to be baptized must believe in it The Ancient Christians before Baptism always instructed in this Doctrine A Testimony out of Justin Martyr examined A Testimony of Leonas in Socrates examined CHAP. VIII Another Testimony of Constantine examined In what sense our Saviour's Original is unknown How Melchizedeck is a Type of Christ. The Authour 's saying that the Evangelists do confound the Genealogies on purpose to puzzle us considered A Vindication of Bishop Alexander's contest with Arius A Citation out of Socrates concerning the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 examined Athanasius's explication of the Trinity defended Not absurd to believe a mystery Account of the proceedings of the Council of Syrmium No necessity that Christ having two Natures should have two Persons His being but one Person does not make him have but one Nature An account of the Condemnation of Eutyches An account of the Heretical Council at Ephesus that restored him The wickedness of the Eutychians in that Council The reason of the honour done to Leo in the Council of Chalcedon The favour granted to the Eutychians by Basiliscus no Argument against the Orthodox Doctrine Monothelitism not owing to the Doctrine of the Trinity An Account of the rise of it CHAP. IX To assert our Saviour's Divinity does not dishonour him by making him comprehensible An Account of the saying of the Council of Antioch which the Authour alledges The Arians were never the less such for all their subscriptions to the Council of Nice A Vindication of Athanasius's flying to Julius the Roman Bishop and of Julius An account of the Council of Sardica Athanasius purged from his pretended Crimes A Schism between the two Churches did not arise from the disagreement of the Arians with the Orthodox at Sardica The troubles in the Church not imputable to the Orthodox Doctrine The prevailing of the Orthodox Doctrine did not proceed from the greatness of the Bishop of Rome Nor from the ignorance of the Ancient Roman Church A Vindication of Theodosius's Decree for the establishing the Orthodox Doctrine Of Charity to Hereticks from the example of Alexander The ill consequences of Heresies though not foreseen yet imputable to it Arian and Socinian Expositions of Scripture unreasonable to make the greater compellations of Christ stoop to the smaller CHAP. X. Of the Authour's Reflection on Dr. Hammond's Treatise of Fundamentals The Doctrine of the Trinity agrees with the Authour's first qualification of matter of Faith viz. To be sufficiently understood by the meanest capacity His second qualification considered that it must be the express word of God The Trinity proved by Scripture His third qualification considered Eternal Life promised to the belief of our Saviour's Divinity The use and necessity of Creeds in the Church The promise of eternal Life not only made to the belief of the Resurrection Why this promise was made so expresly to that CHAP. XI The necessity of Mens rising with the same numerical Bodies evinced from Reason Scripture and Antiquity The Authour 's first Argument answered His second His third His fourth ENQUIRY II. The Orthodox extend Faith no further than the Scripture does They do not exalt Faith above holiness Taking hold on Christ by Faith imputed righteousness c. not phrases purely Calvinistical but used by the Ancients We do not advance Faith above Charity How far our Charity to Hereticks is to extend The behaviour of the Ancient Christians to Hereticks We do not advance Faith above Reason The use of the word mystery in prophane Authours in Scripture and Fathers We use the word in the same sense it is used in Scripture ENQUIRY III. The unfairness of the Authour in laying his charge against the Orthodox and making it out against the Papists The Doctrine of the Trinity not prejudicial to our Lord's honour in hindring the progress of the Gospel Not prejudicial to the Tranquillity of Christians Minds nor to the peace of the Church Conclusion That the Church of England does recommend the three Creeds to our Belief The Authour's Arguments to the contrary answered His reflection on the late Convocation considered CONTENTS OF THE REFLECTIONS ON THE New Edition THE Authour's excuses for his first Book considered His new Explication of the Trinity The Council of Alexandria did not condemn the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Substantia proper words to explain what is meant by them and the Latins did understand by one what the Greeks did by the other The same shewn of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Persona None but the Hereticks refused these words The Doctor 's Explication of the Trinity downright Sabellianism How Sabellius Explained the Trinity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not explained by the Ancients by being the Wisdom of the Father Nor the Holy Ghost by being an Energy Neither St. Austin nor Dr. Sherlock of our Author's Opinion AN ANSWER TO THE PREFACE THE Authour in this by as much as can be gather'd from him goes upon two Arguments to overturn the Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity the first is Because as he pretends the Disputes about this have been the decaying of Christianity and the prevailing of Mahometanism in the East the second is Because as he says this Doctrine is contrary to the great Simplicity in which the Gospel was deliver'd and which it does recommend In the proof of the first of these he spends half his Preface and indeed has got through four of his long Columns before he comes to any thing that looks like a Conclusion from his Premises Soon he is admiring the swift Progress of Christianity through the World notwithstanding the Power and Malice of its Adversaries and the Meanness of its Propagators and soon again he is as humble an Admirer of the good fortune of Mahomet's Religion and withal makes this most
condemned by a Provincial Council and restored by a General one which is false The Council indeed at Constantinople which condemned Eutyches was but Provincial convened by Flavianus Bishop of that place but it did consist of Orthodox Members and their Determinations were very free wherein Eutyches had a fair hearing to answer every thing he would that was objected against him by Eusebius Bishop of Dorylaeum his Accuser who before the meeting of this Council did kindly endeavour to reclaim him but when nothing would do he impeaches him in a Letter to Flavianus who cites him to the Council but he resolutely at first there avows his Heresie That Christ had but one Nature after the Union and at last when he began something to abate of his Stiffness he would by no means recant his Opinion therefore the Council who after several Sessions could get nothing from him but shuffling Nemine contradicente condemn him to which Condemnation not only the present Bishops subscribe but 23 of the Archimandrian Clergy that were there But this so General a Council as the Authour calls it which restored Eutyches was that which for its goodnes has been all along entituled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Thievish Council or the Synod of Robbers that packt Conventicle at Ephesus which was obtained by this means Eutyches vext at his Condemnation by the Council flies to Dioscorus Bishop of Alexandria and of Eutyches's Opinion and persuades him to espouse his Quarrel He readily complies and forthwith procures him an Interest in the Eunuch Chrysaphius President of the Palace that was a late Proselyte to the Eutychian Heresie and was very angry with Flavianus for his procedure in the late Council at Constantinople so he by his own and the Interest of the Empress Eudocia obtains of the Emperour Theodosius that there might be a Council held at Ephesus upon pretence to give Eutyches a fairer Tryal but in reality to be revenged on Flavianus and to establish Eutychianism Dioscorus gets to be President of this Council and brings with him a great number of Egyptian Bishops of his Opinion and obtains an order from the Emperour That none that were Judges of Eutyches before should be so now in this Council that though they were present yet they should not vote as Judges but only expect the Suffrages of the other Fathers because this was to be a Judgment passed upon what they had judged before What followed after this practising may easily be imagined the Faith of Eutyches is approved and Eusebius and Flavianus are condemned But yet it was not easy neither to get the Subscriptions of the Bishops to this till they were frightened to it by the Arms and Threats of the Souldiers and after all they set their names only to blank Paper to which the Abdication of those Bishops was afterwards affixed For thus some of the Bishops complain afterwards in the Council of Chalcedon We subscribed only to the pure paper with compulsion and violence having suffered many ill treatments we did unwillingly and forced by power set our hands They kept us even till night shut up in the Church and being sick they would not suffer us to rest nor would grant us any refreshments but the Souldiers with Swords and Staves stood over us and made us subscribe The Authour indeed grants that Dioscorus was accused in the Council of Chalcedon of some Uncanonical Proceedings and in truth they were Uncanonical with a Vengeance For besides all this underhand dealing and tumultuous proceeding in the Synod he was accused of no less than the Murder of Flavianus to whom he gave a kick in the Synod upon which he died three days after that he had contrived the Death of Theodorus and used several other illegal proceedings against him only because he was the Friend of Cyril his Predecessour of no less than notorious Incontinency of keeping Company with one Pansophia an infamous Woman and according to the information of Sophronius of downright Adultery of Blasphemy against the Trinity of being an Origenist of usurping the Imperial Authority and if all these Crimes can be wiped off with so soft a word as Uncanonical Proceedings I know not what things in the World those are which Men call Lewdness and Villaniny unless Hereticks by a special Title can claim an immunity from these names where they are guilty of the Crimes This Council in which these things were made out against Dioscorus the Authour says was procured by Leo because his Letters were slighted in the last though Zonoras tells us that Leo and Anatolius Bishop of Constantinople intreated this Council of the Emperour least the blasphemous Opinions of Eutyches should be left uncondemned This Council the Authour does endeavour to render vain and tumultuous by crying out This is the Faith of the Fathers Apostles c. Leo believes so Cyril believes so Now I think it a very laudable occasion for Christian Mens exultation when their Faith is defended against the poison of Hereticks for to be still and unconcerned upon such an occasion would shew they had little love or regard for the Faith they profess But the reason why they used Leo and Cyril's name so expresly was because of their excellent Explications of Faith which were publickly read in the Council and universally approved and such Defenders of Orthodoxy do in all Ages deserve as great commendation But the Authour would pretend the Council did not understand their own meaning when they propounded the Question whether they would agree with Dioscours who said Christ consisted of two or with Leo who said there were two Natures in Christ which Question the Authour says is a Mystery and was designed only to advance the dignity of the Roman See But yet this is no very great Mystery to any one that considers Dioscorus or Eutyches's Doctrine who held indeed but one nature in Christ but yet in compliance with the Orthodox would say Christ consisted of two natures They would allow Christ at first to be compounded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of two natures but then upon the Union or Composition they ceased to be two but the Orthodox held There were two distinct natures after Union which did both retain their distinct properties without confusion So that there is a great deal of difference between saying Christ does consist of two natures and There are two natures in Christ for the first does suppose them two only before Union the latter two before and after But the reason why Leo is put in opposition to Dioscorus is to confront that Heretick with a sound Orthodox Believer and to do an Honour to Leo for taking such pains to defend the true Faith which Dioscorus had used so much Artifice to destroy Well but the Emperour Basiliscus did not own this Council but sent Circulatory Letters to burn its Decrees This is very true and several other Eutychians as well as Basiliscus had as little kindness for it But
so that of all the Arians in the Council there was none but did subscribe to the Confession then made and but Five that did refuse to subscribe to the Condemnation of Arius So that their Subscriptions to that Council did not make them the less Arians because 't is plain they were as zealous for Arianism afterwards as before this did not make them to act what they did to vindicate the Emperour's Honour but only to get a fair Riddance of such an excellent Defender of the Orthodox Doctrine as Athanasius was And to find here Eusebius Bishop of Caesarea and the other of Nicomedia Theognis of Nice Maris of Chalcedon Patrophilus of Scythopolis c. will never make one think them ever the more equitable Judges to Athanasius for their subscribing to the Nicene Council when their Practices both afterwards and before did so manifestly contradict it Next the Authour proceeds to give a farther Account of the Suffering of Athanasius all which I shall not trouble the Reader to animadvert upon only what he says concerning Athanasius's flying to the Bishop of Rome deserves a little Reflection The Matter in short was this When Athanasius was frightned away the second time from Alexandria by the Threats of the Emperour upon the feigued Story of obstructing the coming of the emperour's Fleet he flies to his Friend Julius Bishop of Rome as any one would to a Friend that would receive him in distress especially being so kindly invited by him Julius then writes a second Letter to the Bishops of Antioch in favour of him accuses them That they had in a clancular manner innovated in the Nicene Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that contrary to the Laws of the Church they had not called him to the Council there being an Ecclesiastical Canon that pronounces void those things which are done without the Consent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Bishop of Rome In this he reprehends them for the Calumnies they had cast upon Athanasius without good Proof This is the Substance of Julius's Letter in favour of Athanasius and Paulus this second time which the Historians give and in this there is not a word of any Threatning which the Authour would have though there was indeed in his 〈◊〉 which the Authour confounds with this where he cites some of them in the Name of the rest to give an Account of the Justice of their Proceedings and for the rest he threatens he shall not abstain from them unless they leave off their Innovation But here is not one word neither of his threatning Deprivation which he talks of Now when Julius saw that this second Letter prevailed no more with the Greek Bishops than the other he had sent before which they answered only as the Historian speaks by a Letter full of Ironies he relates the whole matter to the Emperour Constans who writes to his Brother Constantius that he might send some Bishops to Rome to answer for the Abdication of Athanasius and Paulus And to this end Three are sent Narcissus Bishop of Irenopolis Theodorus of Heraclea and Marcus of Arethusa But these being found shuffling in giving an account of their Faith and to have delivered in a Form of Belief contrary to the Nicene Constans easily perceived that they had persecuted Athanasius and Paulus not for any Fault but only for the matter of their Belief and therefore sends them back as they came Notwithstanding all the Intreaties of Constans to his Brother Athanasius and Paulus could not yet recover their Sees and therefore they desire of the Emperour Constans that a Council may be called and accordingly there is one called to meet at Sardica in Illyrium The Western Bishops meet as appointed at Sardica but the Greeks meet at Philopopolis in Thrace and from thence write to the Western Bishops that they drive the Excommunicates Athanasius and Paulus from the Council or otherwise they will not come thither But at last to Sardica they come but then they resolutely protest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they will not enter into the Church in which those Persons they had excommunicated were To this the Western Bishops answer by Letter That they never avoided Communion with them neither would they do it especially since Julius the Roman Bishop had diligently inspected their Cause and had not condemned them and besides That they came thither to justifie themselves and to answer the Accusations brought against them So at length nothing coming of this Epistolatory Dispute the Eastern Bishops being chiefly Arian will not associate with the Western on these terms and therefore are resolved to act separately These Bishops being in all but Seventy six according to Sozomen put on a Conciliar Authority and the First thing they do is to excommunicate the Bishop of Rome and Hosius c. for communicating with the Abdicates They are nevertheless invited to the Council by a Letter wrote by Hosius but they still refuse to come therefore the Fathers in the Council without them proceed to the Examination of the Crimes objected against Athanasius which having considered they pronounce him innocent and send their Letters into Egypt Alexandria and Libya that Athanasius and his Friends were wholly innocent and that their Accusers were ill men Sycophants and any thing rather than Christians Now the Bishops that subscribed to this Absolution of Athanasius were as appears 284. After these so contrary Proceedings of the Bishops the Historian indeed makes this Remark That the Bishops of the East and West did not use that Familiarity with one another as before and from hence the state of the Church as in all probability it would was disturbed by Dissentions and lay under Calumnies But here did not from hence arise an immortal Schism in the Church as the Authour would pretend for the Orthodox held a good Correspondence still with their Brethren in the West however averse to their Friendship Communion the Arians might be and we may see in many Councils after this their mutual Friendship and Agreement But what though there did arise some Troubles in the Church upon this dispute of our Saviour's Divinity are the Orthodox to blame that asserted it or the Hereticks that denied it Certainly these Troubles are owing to those only whose Blasphemous Assertions denied so important a Truth and not to those that defended it though their Defence might accidentally occasion some Troubles to ensue For the Person that does the Wrong is answerable for all the accidental Damages that follow upon it or otherwise the honest Possessor may be blameable for the defending his own goods to the damage of the unjust Aggressour And in good truth Thieves may with as good a Face charge honest Men with the Tumults they may accidentally raise in defending themselves or their goods as the Hereticks to charge the Orthodox with making Distractions in the Church by defending their Faith which was thus Heretically opposed The Authour next gives two
Saviour upon so pressing an occasion as their endeavouring to stone him did not assert his right of Divinity but contented himself with this Answer Is it not written in your Law I have said ye are Gods If he called them Gods to whom the word of God came and the Scripture cannot be broken say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the World thou blasphemest because I said I am the Son of God Let the Authour make out of this place what he can for his Opinion I am sure this place is as pregnant a proof of our Lord's Divinity as most places in the Bible are and whatever the Authour thinks he does exactly Answer to the Jews Question and tells them plainly he is what they expected the Messias to be the Son of God and very God For First in this place he tells them I and my Father are one v. 30. We two Persons are the same God and 't is plain That the Jews understood that to be his Meaning by their great rage which followed and their Answer to his Question why they should so barbarously use him after so many of his kind and saving Miracles For a good work we stone thee not but for Blasphemy and because that thou being a Man makest thy self God And Secondly he gives them a reason why he might claim the title of God without Blasphemy whereas Rulers to whom the word of God came or who had their Power and Authority from him are called Gods in Scripture Psal 2. 1 6. Why has not he whom the Father has sanctified c. a better claim to this Title But besides he farther tells them That he was God in a more peculiar manner than they and in a proper and not metaphorical sense by a personal Union with the Father that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me and I in him This cannot be as the Socinians pretend by the Power of God co-operating in Christ for though 't is true that then God would be in him yet he could not be in God And besides to say he is in the Father and the Father in him denotes an Equality in each and his being in the Father in the same manner that the Father is in him And thus much to shew That our Saviour did assert his Divinity and prove it too upon this occasion and so consequently did not only require them to believe in his Word but in his Person also CHAP. VII Of Belief with meer respect to the Person of Christ Inquisitiveness concerning his Incarnation censured First Because Impertinent THE First Argument which the Authour uses to prove the Belief of Christ's Divinity to be impertinent is drawn from the Testimony of the Emperour Constantine in his Letter to Alexander and Arius I shall not now dispute whether this Letter in Eusebius be exactly the same which Constantine sent by Hosius into Alexandria though 't is certain many of these things were feigned or interpolated and though the same Letter be in Socrates yet probably he might have it only out of Eusebius and so it still may rely upon his sole Authority who was too great a Friend to the Arian cause to suffer any very favourable opinion to be passed upon its Adversaries But after all the Emperour does not here condemn the Belief of the Orthodox as impertinent but writes chiefly to temper the Hearts of Bishop Alexander and Arius who might be both perhaps something too warm and therefore exhorts them so affectionately to mutual Peace and Reconciliation because of the Quarrels and Schisms and other Evils which this hot and pertinacious Disputing was like to bring into the Church Indeed the Emperour calls the Controversie Arius had raised a little part of a Question and a Question not very necessary for truly the shuffling of Arius and the ambiguous terms he used made the Emperour think 't was only a Controversie about Words But however the Emperour looked upon Arius to be in the wrong as appears by what he says in his Letter to him And you Arius have inconsiderately asserted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what you ought not so much as to have thought of at first or when you had thought of it you should have passed it over in silence But what after all though the Emperour thought 't was no matter who was in the right Arius or Alexander and though he was of our Authour's Opinion That a right Belief of our Saviour's Divinity signified nothing Yet this is but the single opinion of one who was but a Novice in Christianity and 't is most reasonable to think that Alexander and the other Learned Bishops better understood the Importance of that Question than the Emperour whose Arms and other business of the Empire drew his Thoughts another way But besides afterwards when Constantine was better informed of the mischievous Consequences of the Arian Tenets he quickly alter'd his Sentiments of their Cause and did not then treat them with such soft and favourable Expressions After the conclusion of the Nicene Council in his Epistle to the Church of Alexandria he triumphs mightily that Truth has at last prevailed and blesses himself at the Thoughts of the Arian Blasphemies ‖ How great says he and how execrable Contumelies Good God! be thou propitious and merciful to us do they irreligiously and wickedly cast upon our venerable Saviour our Hope and our Life and have not only impudently asserted things contrary to the divinely inspired Scriptures and our holy Faith but have openly professed That they believe them too In this Epistle he calls Arius impudent Minister of the Devil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in his other Letter to the Bishops and People he says it seems to him requisite that Arius and his Followers should be called Porphyrians that they may be known by their Name whose Manners they follow And there orders if any Book be found of Arius's that it be immediately burned That not only his Execrable Doctrine may be throughly rooted up but that there may be no Monument left to Posterity And now let the Authour make the best he can of Constantine's Judgment and if his other Arguments will support him no better than this his Cause I am afraid will soon come to the ground His next Argument is drawn from the similitude of the Sun That 't is not necessary the Traveller should understand the Dimensions of that Body when he goes by its Light so it is not at all necessary to know what our Saviour is to practise his Commands But this Argument I have already answered in the Fifth Chapter when I shewed what Influence the Belief of our Saviour's Divinity had upon Men's Lives But his Argument which follows is very fine and Philosophical That when he considers the great disproportion between our Earth and so many Worlds which he fansies to be from the innumerable Stars we discover with and without the Telescope each Star being the Sun or
he does one thing with as great ease as another because the greatest thing he does is as far from setting his Omnipotent Power as the smallest his Power to act is infinitely greater than any Power to resist and though one thing may seem more difficult than another to us because we find their resistibility to be so much greater or less than our limited Power of acting yet God's Power is infinitely greater than the most difficult of them and therefore can do one as easily as the other It seems to us indeed that have a finite narrow understanding that can attend to and discern only a few things that are just before us very difficult to find out so many scatter'd Atoms that lie it may be in so many Millions of different places because we cannot discern different things lying in different places and therefore all such disorder confounds our understandings but God who is Omniscient and knows exactly all things every where nothing can lie disorderly to him he knows where every such Atom lies as well as when it possessed its place in the Organized Body and can with as great ease make them return to their former station as to make the new separated Soul go back to the Body that lies yet entire Nay 't is not so great an act of God's Power to range all this scattered matter together as to create another Body for the Soul to be united to for 't is possible that all this matter might be gathered together from never so many different places by a finite Power only and 't is not improbable to think God may do this by the Ministry of his holy Angels but 't is God alone that can create another Body and therefore this would be rather in our Authour's phrase to make God unaccountably exercise his Omnipotency because it would put God to the expence of a new Creation to make a Body to be united to the Soul when the old one would do as well His fourth Argument is against those that make it some advancement of the joys at the Resurrection that we shall be united to our old Bodies which will be like the joyful meeting and embracing of old Friends which he says will not be of old Friends but of old Enemies because of the War between the Flesh and the Spirit Rom. 7. and therefore the Soul cannot rejoice at her being united to her former Body 'T is true indeed that several Ancient and Modern Writers have made use of this as a Rhetorical Argument to set forth in some part the joy of that happy day and truly I think not without some reason For we find the Soul has a great love to the Body both by reason of its being so loth to part with it and because it is found to hanker after the Body after its separation which is the account which some give of Spectrums But besides we find in Men a secret love and esteem for every thing that has any relation to themselves they love their Relations as being born of the same stock they have an esteem for every thing belonging to their native Country they have an extraordinary kindness for their nutriculi Lares the House in which they were born and bred and this Love seems always greater after a considerable time of absence from them Now when a Mans Body is the most nighly related to him as being an essential part of himself he cannot but be more joyed to be united again to that which is so near to him than to see his native Country or the House he was born in after a long time of absence from him As for the enmity between the Flesh and the Spirit he mentions that is only an Enmity Metaphorically so called because all proper Enmity is between two rational beings which are endowed with free wills which the Soul and the Body are not nay that reluctancy of the sensual nature to the dictates of the understanding which is Metaphorically expressed by War or Enmity between the Flesh and Spirit that is very well appeased in the regenerate Man so that he has no reason to hate his Body for that especially now he has master'd it for these inward strugglings of the Flesh have made his Vertue greater to overcome them and therefore he may reasonably expect for this a greater Reward in proportion to his Vertue ENQUIRY II. What Changes or Additions latter Ages have made in Matters of Faith OUR Authour has been hitherto giving us a Hodge-podge of Arianism and Socinianism and some Heresie of his own which wants a Name and this he calls giving us an account What was the Gospel our Lord and his Apostles preached as necessary to Salvation which was the first Enquiry And now when he enters upon his second What Additions latter Ages have made in Matters of Faith one would expect that according to the Tenour of his Book he should give an account how the Doctrine of the Trinity came into the World what Platonick Notions gave rise to the Opinion of our Saviour's Divinity that Plato's Doctrine of the Logos came from the Greeks to the Hellenistical Jews and so from them to the Christians one would I say have expected something of this matter which is used to fill up the Books of the late Socinians and Atheists when they have a mind to blaspheme the ever Blessed Trinity But our Authour I find either wants Courage or Reading or something else to set upon this Enterprize and therefore contents himself only with a little nibbling at this Doctrine but turns the whole Current of his Argument against the Papists and their Innovations Indeed his Charge of Innovations seems to lie against the Orthodox in general but when he comes to make good his Challenge he shams us off with an Instance or two against the Popish Errours But let us consider what these Innovations are he so boldly charges us with 1. He says We extend the Empire of Faith as far as possible and this he proves very strenuously by that vast Army of new Doctrines of Faith which the School-men have got by the Bishop of Rome's setting up for an Oracle to declare that Matter of Faith which was before Matter of Curiosity by implicit Faith in the Church c. But what does all this stuff signifie to us of the Church of England or who else does he mean by this We If he means We Papists and so reckons himself one of that number his Brethren will give him little thanks for thus exclaiming against their Corruptions If he means We Protestants or Church of England here is not one Tittle of Proof of the Charge against us we abhorr all these Romish Corruptions as much as the Authour possibly can do We extend Faith no farther than the Holy Scripture does what that tells us we ought to believe that we readily do believe but do not take into our Belief anything but what the Scripture does expresly assert or but what may by manifest
very well convinced of but I never heard of her Hypocrisy before or at least to have it commended too And truly if what our Authour would make us believe be true that she entertains the Athanasian and Nicene Creeds only in complaisance to the Papists when in reality she disbelieves them she is guilty of the most abominable Hypocrisy in the World 'T is true indeed she uses the Apostles Creed only in those Offices he speaks of because they are the most ancient and the shortest and therefore the fittest for these occasions but yet by the words of the Apostles she understands the substance of what is contained in the other which she looks upon as Comments upon this But however to be sure her use of it in those Offices does not shew her to disbelieve the other Creeds any more than the use of the Athanasian or Nicene in the other Offices of the Prayer-Book shews that she disbelieves the Apostles One would have thought that her using all three did shew her belief of all three for that I am sure is the more natural consequence and not that her using one in one place does shew that she does not believe the other two she uses in other places Well but this may be in compliance with the Papists that she uses them But how does he prove that Has he any 〈◊〉 that the Compilers of the Common-Prayer designed any such thing Do the Rubricks Canons Articles or any other Publick Authority of the Church say any thing like it Till the Authour could have found some such grounds to have gone upon he had better have kept his foolish surmise to himself and not so senslesly have taxed the best Church in the World with such a wicked compliance But what more ample satisfaction could our Church have given to the World of her believing these two Creeds and the Injunction of the same to all her Members than by what she has done She recommends all the three Creeds in her Articles and tells us they ought throughly to be believed for they may be proved by most certain warrants from holy Scripture In her Rubricks she has ordered the Athanasian Creed to be used upon all the great Festivals of the year instead of the Apostles by which it is plain she looks upon it at least an Equivalent to it And this is to be said by the Minister not as something Declaratory to the People but as something they do assent to and in his words do they openly profess as appears by the Rubricks ordering the People to stand at this Creed as at the Apostles which is a token of their assenting to and of their making an open profession of what is then read Now can we suppose that the Church should exact so solemn a profession of the Faith contained in this Creed upon these great days if she did not expect they should believe what they so solemnly profess If the Authour can believe this he should never tax the Orthodox again with the Absurdity of their Faith The Nicene Creed is ordered to be said every Sunday and Holiday and in the Communion Service just before the receiving the Blessed Sacrament if a Sermon does not intervene in the same manner the other Creeds are recited And can we suppose that the Church should oblige her Members to make such an Hypocritical Confession at a time when she supposes them to have the best thoughts and the most pious Resolutions and to seal this their Hypocrisy with no less than immediate Perjury If she did do this instead of being the best she would be the most wicked Church in the World this one Injunction would serve to set against forty Romish corruptions but in truth the Romanists had never Forehead enough to object this against her so that it seems the Hereticks upon occasion can outdo the Jesuits in this qualification for this Authour by this one Calumny against the Church has said enough to silence all the lying Slanders of the Jesuits down from Sanders and Parsons to the little Scriblers in the late Reign As to his saying speaking of the Convocation last year that it will be a great disappointment to his Majesty and his good People if such an opportunity prove fruitless I cannot so well understand what he means if he means fruitless towards the incouraging his Opinions or for the taking away of these Creeds I believe it was more than his Majesty or any of his good People ever thought of or would have been satisfied with if it had been done nor could any but the Authour be so simple to imagine that when the State so lately by an Act of Parliament had excluded the Anti-Trinitarians even from the Benefit of Toleration that they should be let into the Church by an Act of Convocation THE END SOME REFLECTIONS UPON THE Naked Gospel As it is last Published and Owned By D r BVRY SInce these Papers were in the Licensers hands the Bookseller told me it would be expected I should say something to the Book Dr. Bury has since Published under his name so much altered from what it was before I do not think this is absolutely necessary to do in point of justice to the Authour for I have not concerned my self at all who was the Authour of that Book I only took care to Answer the False and Heretical Doctrines I found there which were like to do any mischief in the World which might still do harm enough for all its Authour's retractation It is his first Book that requires an Answer and not this last for that is such a poor Toothless Adder the poison of which is so much drained out that we may venture it any where without an Antidote Indeed 't is easy still to discern here the Tracts of the Heresy in his former Book but now they appear so thin and discoloured that the Reader whose gust lies the Socinian way will throw aside this insipid Heterodoxy for something of the same kind that is more substantial Here is still for the most part the old Heretical Body with here and there an Orthodox Limb so that his Book looks now like one of our old Saxon Idols half Man and half Monster Now whatever of his Erroneous Opinions he has altered or retracted in this last Book I shall not concern my self with them at all and truly I am glad he is come to own them to be such I shall only make a transient Remark or two upon those places in this Edition where instead of recanting he has multiplied his Heterodoxies But by the way it will be worth while a little to consider the Apology the Doctor makes for his first Book in his Preface to this He says this was drawn up against the sitting of the late Convocation at a time he had not patience to be silent in to enlarge some of their minds with a more comprehensive Charity with an intention to communicate what he had wrote to the members of that
that inclined his Eternal Wisdom to command them It no ways follows that he is a humoursome or capricious Being because we do not understand the Reason of his Commands because he may have reasons that lie far beyond the fathom of our finite understandings A wise Statesman or a Mathematician is not therefore capricious and humoursome because he does several things which the ignorant Spectator can give no account of And certainly God may have commanded us several things for our belief which we cannot imagine how they should any ways conduce to our good and happiness ye he himself may know it as his Providence does several things for our benefit by means to us seemingly contrary But besides we have proved that the Doctrine of our Saviour's Divinity is an admirable motive to our Piety and it were as easy to do the same if it were not too long here as to the Divinity of the holy Spirit So that it is so far from Capriciousness that it shews the inexpressible Wisdom of the Deity that every person of the Blessed Trinity should be particularly concerned in the Salvation of Mens Souls in our Creation Redemption and Sanctification and each of them should lay the strictest obligation upon us to Piety 2. Neither does the Doctrine of the Trinity hinder the progress of the Gospel though the Romish Doctrines may The Idolatry of that Church is an Eternal Bar to Jews and Mahometans but the Doctrine of the Trinity is not such We worship one God as well as they and acknowledge only in that unity of essence a Trinity of Persons which was a truth the Ancient Jews had something of a notion of in their Doctrine of the Logos or Word as appears from their Rabbins and other Writers nor can we suppose that the Mahometans should so stand out against this Truth unless they had been prejudiced against it by their false Prophet whose Interest it was to have it denied But when ever it shall please God to call home the Jews and to bring in the fullness of the Gentiles this Truth will be no obstacle to it this Divine Mystery shall be believed in and adored when all the Romish Hay and Stubble shall be burnt up 2. He makes the Damages which have proceeded from Innovations pernicious to private Christians First By hindring Godliness Secondly Inward Joy and Tranquillity of Mind Now we have proved often enough that the Orthodox Doctrine is so far from hindering Piety that it does extraordinarily improve it If there happen what the Authour mentions too much eager disputing about it then the fault is not in the Doctrine but in the undue managing of it if Men have taken more care to contend for the Faith than against their Lusts and endeavoured more to confound Hereticks than to obey God's Commands they are to answer for that themselves but their faults are not to be charged upon this Doctrine So secondly If the Joy and Tranquillity of the Church has been disturbed by the defending of this Doctrine that is a thing purely accidental to it it does not make it less true because it has cost the Orthodox so much pains to vindicate its Truth against the Fraud and Violence of so many Hereticks Whatever damages good Men have suffered in this Controversy that is to be charged upon those wicked Hereticks that have denied this Doctrine and not upon the Doctrine it self or the Defenders of it Thirdly He makes these Innovations prejudicial to the Church of Christ in its general Capacity But in the proof of this he only tells us some stories of the Slaughter of the Albigenses and Waldenses and the Cruelty of the Duke D' Alva c. which have no relation at all to the Doctrine of the Trinity He cannot say that the Orthodox in the Primitive Times butchered the Hereticks as the Papists have done the Protestants and therefore the Orthodox Doctrine has nothing to answer for upon this Account II. He then proceeds to shew the Advantages which have accrued by the Changes which latter Ages have made in the Gospel But here is nothing offered as to the Doctrine of the Trinity nor which can any ways conclude against this and therefore I shall spare my self and my Reader the trouble of saying much to this Paragraph He tells us here a great deal of the Pope's Merchandise and by the honour and power which he has got by pretending to be Christ's Vicar and brings some sayings from the Papists that the Pope is as much better than the Emperour as the Sun than the Moon that a Priest is as much better than a King as a Man than a Beast that Catholick Kings are Asses with Bells c. with some other proofs of the Roman Clergies aggrandizing themselves by their Doctrines which would have done well enough in a Controversy in the late Reign but are something impertinent in a Book designed against the Trinity But what though the Popish Doctrines of Pardons and Indulgences Merits c. have for so many years kept up the Apostolick Chamber though the Doctrine of Purgatory has gained them so many stately Monasteries tho' the pretended Supremacy and Infallibility of the Pope has raised his Authority so high though Transubstantiation and the being able as they sometimes blasphemously call it to make a God has raised the esteem of their Priests among the People yet the Doctrine of the ever Blessed Trinity never brought any advantage to the Clergy and therefore this can never be justly censured upon this Account as a humane Invention and the product of Priestcraft as those others justly are The Conclusion AND here the Authours says the end of all what he has been saying I suppose he means is to determine between Faith and Love to give unto Faith the things that are Faiths and unto Love the things that are Loves But I wish he had made his words good throughout his Book for that had saved me all this trouble and the World all the mischief that his Book has done As to Love he has not said much to that but as for Faith he has given so little to that that granting his Principles it would be hard to find such a Christian Vertue in the World For all that belongs to Faith he has given to Reason and what would not go down with his Reason he is resolved shall neither belong to Faith nor Reason but shall pass for downright contradiction But now at last for a parting blow to shew how little Faith is to be esteemed especially in respect of Love he brings the Opinion of our own Church that in her Offices of Baptism and Visitation of the sick declareth that our Faith is not to extend beyond the simplest of the Creeds and therefore if she says any thing elsewhere that seems to contradict this it is her Charity in becoming a Papist to the Papist that by all means she might gain some of the Papists Of the admirable Charity of our Church I am