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A52613
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A letter of resolution concerning the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation
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Nye, Stephen, 1648?-1719.
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1691
(1691)
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Wing N1507B; ESTC R217844
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25,852
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of the Father or that he or the Holy Ghost are GOD. It saith no higher thing of them than it saith of the Holy Catholick Church I believe in the Holy Ghost I believe in the Holy Catholick Church for so all know this Creed is read in the Original Greek and by all the Fathers Is it now Sir conceivable that these Doctrines should be as Trinitarians pretend a Tradition constantly preserved when their own Criticks reject the Works of those first Fathers as certainly spurious or forged that speak any what directly or explicitly of the Trinity and other depending Points and Questions and when besides their common and only Creed is undeniably Socinian I deny not Sir that the Fathers of the first 300 Years whose Writings have been suffered to come down to Posterity began to corrupt the true Doctrine concerning the Person of our Saviour making him to be much greater than he was From about the Year 150 some of them were got into the Opinions that were afterwards called Arianism or the Arian Trinity But this I affirm and all the Criticks among the Trinitarians do own it that those Fathers spoke not of the Trinity and of the Points and Questions thereon depending as the Church now doth they so held a kind of Trinity as not to destroy the Unity of GOD or that only the Father is truly and properly GOD. But this was a Digression I proceed to our fifth Reason against these Doctrines They have been partly the direct and necessary Causes partly the unhappy Occasions of divers scandalous and hurtful Errors and Heresies particularly of those which compose the gross Body of Popery 'T is well observed by some that one Absurdity or Error being introduced 't is always the Ground and Occasion of many more This Aphorism was never more sadly verified than in the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation For no sooner were these Doctrines by the Countenance of sanguinary and arbitrary Edicts of the Bizantine Emperours become the more general and current Belief of the Churches but there immediarely broke in after them that Swarm of absurd and heretical Doctrines which have no less than subverted the true and primitive Christianity 1. The first-born of the Trinity was the Supremacy of the Pope A few Bishops not a fifth Part of the Bishops of the Catholick Church having presumed in the Council of Nice Anno 325 to determine for the whole Catholick Church so great a Point as this that there is more than one Divine and Eternal Person they sent the new Creed and Acts of that Council to the Churches and Bishops who had not been present at it to be by them subscribed Hereupon the Bishops of Asia assembling themselves in about 30 provincial Councils rejected the Word Consubstantial or of the same Substance with the Father in which the whole Mystery of Trinitarianism and the Stress of the Nicene Creed does lie they would by no means admit of this Word So faith Marcus Ephesin the most Learned of the Greeks Concil Florent Sess 5. The Bishops of Germany and of Belgium now the Low-Countries and of Gaul now France and of the three Provinces of Great Britain would not receive the Creed of Nice giving this Reason that the Word Consubstantial is unscriptural So saith St. Hilary that great Adversary of the Arians and other Unitarians towards the beginning of his Book de Synod The Bishops of Africa seem not so much as to have taken into their Archives or Registries the Acts Canons or Creed of Nice For in the Year 418 in a Contest between them and the Bishop of Rome they sent to Constantinople and Alexandria for Copies of the Acts of the Nicene Council Concil Carthag 6. Anno 418. The Nicene Council being thus refused and despised by all the considerable Nations professing Christianity the Nicene Faction of Bishops began to consult of a way how to settle their beloved Doctrine by political Arts and at length they resolved upon this Expedient Anno 347 having got on their side the Emperor Constans and finding that the Bishops and Church of Rome were thorowly in their Interests they assembled in Council at Sardica and there made those famous Canons on which all learned Men know the Authority and Supremacy of the Bishops of Rome is wholly grounded and which those Bishops have ever since exercised They designed by these Canons to secure the Bishops and other Ecclesiasticks of the Nicene Party now called Trinitarians in their Bishopricks and other Church-Dignities and to eject from time to time all Vnitarians But these Politicians were quite out in hoping for such an Effect they were so far from governing the Catholick Church by those Canons that they served to no other purpose but the inslaving the Makers of them and their Successors to the Popes of Rome But for a fuller Account Sir of this Sardican Council or rather Conventicle I refer you to the Acts of Athanasius lately published in which the History of these Betrayers of the Catholick Church is fully related 2. In the Year 431 it was concluded and determined by the Trinitarian Faction assembled in Council at Ephesus that GOD the Son was truly and properly incarnate in the Womb of the Virgin Mary and was born of her so that Mary was not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mother of Christ but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mother of God This blasphemons and contradictory Conclusion being once made immediately they fell to worshipping and praying to her If GOD the Son is to be worshipp'd and invovated shall we turn our Backs on the Mother of God Shall not she be able to help us at least by way of Intercession to whom the Angel said Thou art highly honoured of GOD and who was as it were Wife to GOD the Father and in very Deed Mother to GOD the Son Father Simon in the 3d Chapter of the Critical History of the Religions of the East saith It is chiefly since the Birth of Nestorianism that is since the Council of Ephesus that so much respect hath been shown to the Virgin Mary He means she was not so much worshipp'd and invocated till that Council had determined against Nestorius that she is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mother of GOD. But Father Simon will never be able to show that Holy Mary was at all worshipp'd or prayed unto till the Ephesin Council had decreed that she is to be deem'd the Mother of GOD. I do challenge him or any for him to produce any Testimony of the Ancients for the Worship and Invocation of Mary that is so ancient as the Ephesin Council This Father should therefore have dealt as ingenuously and freely in this Case as is his manner in most others or should have said nothing at all of this matter but have chose some other Instance to confirm what he had to say He should have owned what he knows to be the Truth that as the Doctrine of the Incarnation produced this impious and sensless Conclusion that
are of a Mind And the Dissent among them is so bitter and unreconcilable that the Anathema's fly as thick and fast at one another as at the Unitarians As many Parties as they are each Party is heretical and in a State of Damnation in the Opinion of all the rest Their Divisions do respect some of them the Doctrine of the Trinity and some the Incarnation I will reckon them up as they shall occur to my Mind without regarding that Method which might be given to Error 1. The first Difference is about the Filiâ—que or whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father only or from the Father and the Son This Quarrel divides them into two great and almost equal Parties into the Church of the East and the Church of the West The Eastern Church that is to say all Asia and Africa Greece and the Islands of the Archipelago all Muscovy and the Provinces of Illyricum a good Part of Poland and some Part of Hungary all these maintain that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father only But the Western Church that is all the Roman Catholick Nations and all the Reformed or Protestants contend that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son There is no Trinitarian but is in one of these Parties and consequently none of them but who is an heretick and in a State of Damnation in the Judgment and Opinion of the one Moyety or half of his Fellow-Trinitarians But because this damning of one another upon this Difference between them has been of late so confidently denied by Dr. Wallis and Dr. Sherlock I am obliged to take notice of the publick Declarations of these two Churches against one another The whole Western Church in the first Canon of the second general Council of Lions saith Damnamus reprobamiss c. i. e. We damn and reprobate all such as presume to deny that the Holy Spirit doth eternally proceed from the Father and from the Son On the other Hand the Eastern Church excommunicates as Scismaticks and Hereticks all the Latins so they call the Western Churches which hold the Filioque or that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son on every Holy Thursday and all other principal Holy-days F. Simon Crit. Hist of the Religions of the East p. 16 17. 2. These two mighty Parties are again subdivided into a great many factious Differences Into those for instance who teach that but one Person of their supposed Trinity was incarnate and those who contend that the whole Trinity was incarnate 3. Into those who say all the Persons in the Trinity are equal and those who on the contrary ascribe to the Father a Prerogative and Superiority above the other two Persons a Superiority not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Order and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Dignity but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Power 4. Into those who say the Son is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. hath underived Godhead or is GOD of himself and those that hold he is GOD of GOD that is deriveth from the Father Being Life and Godhead 5. Into those who say the Son is so the Wisdom of the Father that he is the Wisdom by which the Father is wise and into those who deny this as little better than Blasphemy because 't is as much as to say that the Father without the Son is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 irrational and unwise 6. In what Sense the three Persons are consubstantial that is have the same Substance or Essence or Nature doth unreconcilably divide them the Ancients from the Moderns and the Moderns from one another One Party saith Father Son and Spirit are generically or if you will specifically consubstantial that is as three Men are consubstantial to one another because all of them partake of the same specifick Nature even the humane or as three Guineas are consubstantial being all of them Gold The contrary Party saith the Divine Persons are numerically consubstantial i. e. do all subsist in the self-same Substance or Essence as Understanding Will and Memory subsist in one and the same Soul 7. They dispute whether upon the Incarnation of the Son the Lord Christ became two Persons or was only one Person whom they call by a compound and monstrous Name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or GOD-MAN If the latter of these the Virgin Mary was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mother of God if the other she was only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mother of Christ 8. Besides the Dispute about the Persons there is a great Controversy among them about the Natures in the Lord Christ The Eutychian Trinitarians say the Lord Christ hath but one Nature the rest of them called Melchites affirm two distinct Natures an humane as well as a divine 9. 'T is controverted among them whether in Consequence of the Incarnation of the Son or WORD there followed two Wills and two Actions in the Lord Christ or only one Action and one Will Also 10. Whether by Virtue of the Incarnation the Body of the Lord Christ became incorruptible and exempt from humane Affections and Passions or not Farther 11. Whether the humane Nature of Christ being personally united to the Son or WORD were not by Virtue of that Union Omniscient knowing even when the Day of Judgment shall be 12. Whether this Proposition be Orthodox or on the contrary the Seed of the Devil one Person of the Blessed Trinity hath suffered for us 13. Whether the Son and Spirit have been once generated and breathed and that from all Eternity or whether they are continually and always begotten and breathed 14. They all agree that there are three Divine Persons but to make this no Agreement they are divided in explaining what is to be understood by the Word Persons Some say the three Persons are three Properties of the Divine Nature But these agree not some making them to be Properties in the same numerical Nature Others take them to be discretive Properties in the specifick Nature Others say the three Persons are three Modes of Subsistence or three Relations or three Respects of GOD towards his Creatures or three Operations Others affirm the three Persons to be so many several or distinct intellectual Beings and Spirits as distinct from one another as three humane Persons or three Men are 15. To add now no more They require us to believe that three Almighty Persons are but one God but in what Sense or Manner three such Persons make one GOD is not only disputed among them but they are here also Apostates and Hereticks to one another Some resolve this Mystery as they call it by an Unity or Oneness of Affection Will and Design between the three Persons as St. Paul speaking of himself and Apollos saith He that planteth and he that watereth are one 1 Cor. 3.8 Others say the Son and Spirit are one GOD with the Father by their most perfect Subordination or Subjection to him All