c. 13. he tells you that the Scriptures deliver so Manifestly Christ to be God that several Hereticks Divinitatis ipsius magnitudine veritate commoti mov'd by the great sence and truth of his Divinity have confounded him with the Father But if we had no such proofs as these there is still one which according to your late Principles you cannot oppose I say your late Principles for you change every day Socin No! You do us wrong we are still the same Orthod I may at some time or other have an occasion to prove the defection of the Outlandish Socinians from Socinus of you from the Outlandish Socinians and of your selves from your selves in your first and latest Prints But let us not digress from the thing in dispute The proof which I speak of is the great Council of Nice Socin What That Council which has publish'd Establish'd and infected the World with its infidelity As the Answer to Dr. Bull judiciously observes pag. 25. Orthod That first Oecumenical Council which could not be ignorant both of the sense of the Apostolical Creed and of the Fathers whom they immediately succeeded A Council so venerable for its Antiquity so reverenc'd for the number of Holy and Learned Men who voted in it so highily honour'd by the following Ages to this day Did they know the Apostolical Creed or did they not If you say they did not you overthrow all that you can pretend from it A Creed can neither be Apostolical or Universal which the Nicene Fathers were not acquainted with And if they did then your sense of it is not that of these Primitive times For they are so far from interpreting as you do Jesus Christ to be only Man and the Holy Spirit to be only an Energy or operation that you know how positively how earnestly they assert them to be Consubstantial to the Father I may be mistaken but if this way of reasoning is not plain I don't know what can be plain Socin But what have we to do with the Council of Nice or indeed with any Council whatsoever We have innumerable objections against that and the following Councils Orthod I confess you speak as a Socinian of the first edition Thus Socinus and his first Disciples answer'd to those great Authorities Thus did your selves Write in your first Prints The World indeed star'd at you But however it had an air if not of reason at least of sincerity But a Socinian of the second edition runs another way I told you that you change every day Pray open the Discourse concerning the Real and Nominal Trinitarians Socin What then Orthod There you may sind your Condemnation in that particular out of your own mouth Pag. 4. The Author speaking of the Great Lateran Council observes that a doctrine is not Heresy because rejected by a great number of Learned Men or by a National Council But only when censur'd by a General Council The Catholick Church is never understood to speak but by a General Council pag. 5. Is not a General Council the Highest Court of the Church Her Canons declare the Faith her Anathema's Heresy And pag. 16. A General Council is the last Tribunal on earth from which there lies no appeal pag. 4. He call this an Incontestable Argument Now pray deal sincerely and apply this to the Nicene Council No body ever yet disputed its universality It was assembl'd under and by the first Christian Emperor It represented the whole Church The Creed then of that Council determin'd the sense of any preceeding Creed Whatever you can say to the contrary is insignificant because such a determination comes from the highest Tribunal on earth from which there lies no appeal Upon the whole the Church ever asserted a Trinity consistent with the Vnity of God and an Unity inseparable from a Trinity of Persons in one adorable and Divine Nature Where is then again the first part of your Distinction You charge us with teaching a Trinity which infers Three Gods We say this is false this is impossible not only from the Nature of the thing but also from an Authority which you dare not reject because you own your selves that it is the highest Tribunal on earth from which there can lie no appeal Socin This seems home indeed But yet not without exception For the Vnity asserted by the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers was only an Vnity of Monarchy An Vnity of love and agreement An Vnity of subordination and subjection to him who is the first God Such an Vnity as is that of the Individuals of the same Species This the Author of the Answer to Dr. Bull is positive in pag. 75. He charges the Fathers with this all over his Writing and the greatest part of it is spent in the confutation of such strange Hypotheses Orthod Pray learn to mistrust your Books For I may say without breaking the Cartel of honour and civility agreed upon amongst Writers as this Author speaks both Pleasantly and Elegantly pag. 77. that not one word of this is true and that such an account of the Vnity of God never came from the Church but owes its birth to the School of Arrius This Author though a Person of great erudition has suffer'd himself to be strangely mistaken as any one may who will take all the expressions illustrations resemblances us'd by the Fathers in treating of the Blessed Trinity for an exact account of their Doctrine For there is a great difference between speaking at large and endeavouring to give some kind of a Notion of a Mystery and writing dogmatically concerning it I have a plain reason which I humbly conceive is sufficient to overthrow all this And that is that the Fathers in explaining how the Three Persons are one God never confin'd themselves to the Terms of Numerical or specifick Vnity This last is meerly Notional and is no more than an act of the Mind comparing and abstracting from several Individuals It does not really exist The first though never so expressive still comes short of the incomprehensible dignity and simplicity of the Subject Socin What Vnity then did they assert Orthod An Vnity which no Nature but the Divine is capable of which transcends all expressions or imaginations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says the Council of Ephesus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Justin Martyr Hoc solum ex ea comprehendimus quod comprehendi non potest says St. Ambrose Thus speak Basil the Great Nazianzen Gregory Nyssen and the generality of the Fathers And yet this Author has spent 13 pages to tell us that they believ'd a specifick Vnity and Vnity of Monarchy and order an Vnity of love and agreement a Consubstantiality like that of several pieces of Gold and of a Star to another Star As if these trifles deserv'd the name of Incomprehensible and if we could say of any of them as Eulogius Patriarch of Alexandria 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not bringing those things which are so far above our thoughts to the
They may give some sway to curiosity and the Gay Novelty may take for a while But Conscience returns and will not suffer them to shake off at once all the Principles of our Holy Religion That the young Gentlemen greedily swallow the Poison is a real mistake I confess and it is much to be lamented that several amongst them are much debauch'd in their Morals and that the rage of Lust and that of Wine have strangely obscur'd their understandings But believe me profane and dissolute Persons are no Honour to any Profession whatsoever If you are fond of such an Addition take them and call them Socinians I promise not to be angry at it Socin What you say is true in a great measure but give me leave Orthod But give me leave your self to make an end of speaking to what you said of the Wits of the Town I ever had a Notion of Wit different from that of the Wits themselves They are careful to distinguish Wit from Sence And with this poor Notion the Poets have courted or anger'd the Pit these twenty years in their Prologues and Epilogues As if he could be a Man of Wit who is not a Man of Sence For Wit and Sence are inseparable An Effervescency of imagination breaking out into some sine Expressions is not Wit but a sort of lucky Madness He that thinks and speaks well is exact and coherent grave or florid according to his Subject but always modest and inoffensive is to me the Man of Wit Pray tell me how many of these are Socinians But for the Men of Sallies and unbounded Thoughts who value themselves upon Writing a few Verses and perhaps a small Pamphlet who think as they live and live as they think that is most irregularly I abandon them to you They shall be Socinians if you please I promise once more not to be angry at it What sort of Wit is that conscientious Spark who writ lately an Apology for self-murder What think you of the Author of Christianity not Mysterious Or of the Writer of one of the two Epistles to Mr. Gailhard I mean the second which is as wild and ill written as the first is modest and fine Put these also into the Catalogue and then boast of your Conquests Socin I hope you are not of this Mr. Gailhard's mind who is for sanguinary Laws to be enacted against us and would have us meet at Smithfield with the fate of Servetus at Geneva and Valentinus Gentilis at Berne Orthod I never heard of Mr. Gailhard or of his design against you till I read your Letters against him But if there were such Laws you would still be safe For I dare say neither you nor your Friends will ever be the Martyrs of Socinianism But to speak seriously my thoughts that Gentleman does not know what Spirit he is of It is against that Religion of which Christ is the Author to thirst after the Blood of any Man The Church of Rome is admirably well acquainted with these methods of reclaiming People Ours is a stranger to it and takes a way much more agreeable both to the nature of the Gospel and the condition of a Rational Creature and that is to deliver the Truth which God hath trusted her with adding to it all suitable Arguments of persuasion and leaving the rest to the Mercy and Providence of God In a word if exhorting disputing arguing persuading will not do I know no other way except excommunication It being highly just that the Church should cut off an infected Member which by an obstinate opposition to her Doctrine is like to spread the contagion through the other parts of the Body Socin It is not because I am a Socinian that I acknowledge this to be a truly Christian temper For it is the very Voice of Religion But I hope you will not take it ill if I tell you that if you have no other way to assert and propagate your Doctrine than exhorting persuading disputing I am afraid this design of yours though good and honest will at last prove unsuccessful Orthod Why it should be so I cannot imagine For with a Rational Agent what can prevail more than Reason And with Learned Men what more than Learning What can you prescribe besides disputing to bring them to the acknowledgment of their Errours Socin But you have disputed so long and yet to so little purpose that it shews a deficiency in your very Method Not only your ordinary Divines have been concern'd in the quarrel but even Men of vast esteem amongst you and yet what have they done When I read their Books and compare them with the Socinian Answers or the Socinian Books with your Vindications and Apologies Good God! How clearly do I see the strength of our reasons You keep always in a Cloud afraid of being seen Whereas all is clear and safe about us Orthod It is so far from that that with People of Ordinary equity the quite contrary will appear The Socinian Controversy is certainly the greatest of all those which ever exerciz'd the Church of God The modern disputes you are perfectly acquainted with and cannot but be sensible that though many and large volumes have been written about them yet they lie within a very narrow compass Rob the controverted Points between us and the Church of Rome of the Trappings of Discourse Digressions and Clamors of their Authors they are brought to a very plain and short issue Transubstantiation worship of Images Purgatory praying to the Saints the Divine right of the Pope's supremacy and his pretended infallibility are doctrines easily made to appear to be not only false but even new in the Church of Rome it self As the subject is absolutely within our reach so are the Arguments for and against them The same you must own of the unhappy differences between us and the Nonconformists and though much has been written on both sides yet at last whether the exceptions against the Publick Liturgy are solid Whether a Schism may be grounded upon the imposition of a few innocent Ceremonies Whether disobedience to Episcopal Government can be justify'd for which without inquiring whether the institution is Divine or not there appears so Ancient so Universal and so uncontested a Tradition Are questions of so easy a resolution that if there was nothing but Religion at the bottom that War would quickly be at an End Read also the Catalogue of Ancient Heresies as they have been left us by Ecclesiastical Writers supposing them all to be Heresies though indeed many are only Foolish and Simple Opinions There is scarce one of any importance but as it relates some way or other to this great Controversy The rest are trifles and dreams which we now wonder how they could ever fall into and busy Rational Men's heads as Posterity will be amaz'd when they come to examine the poor and silly differences of this quarrelling Age. Socin But what of all this Orthod This is to shew you
and National Synods We have her Mind in her publick Confessions of Faith She is so far from espousing any sort of explication that she ever thought that that great Mystery could not be explain'd The Church suffers Men to write concerning these matters St. Austin has given several considerable reasons for it in his Books on this very Subject and in that de utilit credend The opposing of Heresy the improvement of Piety the study of the Holy Scriptures of which this makes so considerable a part are the principal But to think that the Church will stand by all the Opinions of private Writers and own their errours and mistakes is a prodigious inadvertency What Church in the World can be safe if made to answer for all the Authors of her Communion What becomes then of the objection It is all overthrown in this one word The Church has nothing to do with those explications which the Socinians fansie they have so much expos'd And as for the explications themselves I believe that if the Judicious Hooker and the Learned Cudworth were alive you durst not so much as name them The rest are Men of great abilities who can arm in their defence no better Pens than their own Socin But do you put Bishops and eminent Bishops too in the rank of private Persons Who can best speak the sence of the Church but those who are call'd by the Fathers the Husbands of their Churches the Keepers of the Canons and the Successors of the Apostles Some seem to be Tritheists and others seem to be Sabellians Orthod Truly you have us'd the Bishops in your Writings as if they had been no more than private Persons the reflections on their Lordships having been so sharp and so many His Grace the late Arch-Bishop whom by your own confession you ought to have reverenc'd was not free from your aspersions My Lord of Glocester has had his share In the latest answer to my Lord of Sarum you forget the large Encomiums given him before The Bishop of Worcester for whom the Learned World has so just a value met in the answer to his late Book with the same way of Entertainment But laying all this aside and answering your meaning A Bishop with all the respect due to the Sacred Dignity is still a private Doctor Nor can the Church be favourable to his explications if they are contrary to her Doctrine But what of all this Our Bishops are all Orthodox Socin I do not know what you mean by Orthodox There is no Orthodoxy but Truth They who teach Three Gods cannot be Orthodox and this is done by the Real Trinitarians The Socinians believe and adore but one and this is done by the Nominals The greatest part of the Church goes I confess that way and therefore it is Orthodox because Socinian In short we may talk till Doom's day and never be the Wiser The question at last must be this are you a Real or a Nominal Trinitarian If a Real then we shall never be reconcil'd If a Nominal then we are certainly agreed Orthod What I have said already seems to me to be satisfactory But since you are not contented with it let us examine the several parts of your distinction What is the meaning of Real Trinitarians But let me beg of you to answer plainly and directly Socin I will answer in the very words of the Author of the Discourse concerning them He says pag. 7. The Realists are denominated from their believing Three distinct Divine Spirits or Minds who are so many Real subsisting Persons Again p. 19. They are every day Challeng'd and impeach'd of Tritheism And again p. 25. Themselves do sometimes almost openly and explicitely own and profess their Tritheism Their doctrine of the Trinity manifestly implies Three Gods Orthod What is the meaning of Nominal Trinitarians Socin They are they who maintain a Trinity which Consists only in the several Names Offices Relations and Modes of Existence of the Divine Nature This was first taught by Noëtus and Sabellius embrac'd afterwards by the assertors of the Homoousios and receiv'd by the Schools and Divinity Chairs ever since This is the substance of what he says of the Nominals in the first part of the Discourse Orthod And this you make the Foundation of that difference which you imagine to be in the Church and has of late fill'd up all your Prints Socin Yes indeed and with a great deal of Reason You are all afraid of the distinction It is of your side so notorious a giving up of the Cause that we have parted with all our Old Arguments and retrench'd our selves there as in a place from whence we cannot be driven Orthod Then pray set your heart at rest and suffer your selves to be forc'd from it For I presume positively to averr that there is no such thing in nature as these Trinitarians of your own making You pretended already to a God of your own making You wish'd for a Scripture of your own making To make a Trinity too is a little too hard I say then and pray forgive the sharpness of the words that all this is a mistake a slander and a calumny upon the Church Socin How much must you abate of your assurance when I shew you in several late Writings that the Three Persons of the Trinity are Three distinct Infinite Minds Spirits and Substances I appeal to your self whether this is not manifest Tritheism For what is God but an Infinite Mind Spirit or Substance Orthod I have told you already and tell you again that such expressions are wholly unknown to the Church and therefore cannot with any candor be fastn'd upon it Oblige me so far as to shew me a Church in the World this day or formerly which uses them or else be pleas'd to own that you are guilty of a great deal of disingenuity But though such a denial is sufficient because it is of a thing which you cannot and dare not undertake to prove yet it will be much clearer if you give your self the trouble to consider that such a notion in the Christian Church is impossible and has not the least ground or appearance of truth You are acquainted with the Sacred Writings of the New Testament and no doubt have inform'd your self of the Confessions of Faith of the Ancient Councils the assertions of the generality of the Fathers the doctrine of the Schoolmen the sense of the Greek and Latin Church even since the fatal separation and in the division of so many Kingdoms from the last in these two Ages you know perfectly all the Articles which the Famous Societies of Protestants have declar'd to be the points of their belief This suppos'd I lay before you these plain and easy but Substantial Observations First That the Church of God has always asserted the Vnity of the Divine Nature as the Foundation of all Religion It has been its great and distinguishing Character You will tell me that the Philosophers did so
too and that the Jews were witnesses to all the World of this Sacred Truth I grant it The Unity of God was the Fundamental Article of the Mosaical dispensation Pythagoras Socrates Plato Aristotle the Academicks have spoke admirably well to it But I say that Christianity has been as far superior to them in this point as they themselves exceeded the rest of Mortals For the Jews kept this to themselves without propagating it to others and the wise Heathen confuting their doctrine by their practice openly embrac'd Polytheism None treated of God and his Divine Attributes of which the Vnity is the Center as the Holy Jesus and his disciples have done This the Apostles spread through the World This the Fathers taught indefatigably One God One Divine Nature Spirit Mind substance has been the constant Voice of the Church He is not a Christian who believes not that God is one and can be but one If it were not too tedious I would produce some of their Authorities Socin It is altogether needless This is our very Doctrine I am fully perswaded of this and infinitely pleas'd to hear you speak so home to it Orthod I am afraid you will not be so well pleas'd with my second observation and it is this That the same Church of God which so Zealously asserted his Vnity never did it without asserting at the same time a Trinity of Persons in that One Divine Nature No matter of fact which depends from Testimony can be made to appear more incontestably true than this You have a large Collection of Books at home Let us step to your Library and I dare engage to convince you of this by the most exact induction of particulars which can ever be made from the very Apostolical Creed to this time I say once more and presume to be positive in it that the Church in delivering the Faith ever taught the Existence of God to be necessary and Eternal and his Vnity so perfect and entire that it transcends what notion soever we have of Unity even that which we call Numerical coming much short of it But at the same time she taught and profess'd to believe and adore in that Vnity of Nature a Trinity of Hypostases or Persons the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit Thus run the Apostolical the Nicene Ephesine and Constantinopolitan Creeds Thus speak the Ante-Nicene Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Thus all the Learning of the Schools and all the now Churches in the World express themselves Thirdly But least the belief of a Trinity of Persons whose Coeternity and Coequality is asserted should affect the Vnity of the Divine Nature the Church has stated it in one and the same indivisible and inseparable simple and uncompounded Essence They are Coeternal and Coequal because Coessential And they are Coessential because Subsisting in that Nature which cannot be multiply'd It is true to say of each Person that he is God and yet it is false to say that they are Three Gods The Trinity multiplying the Persons but the Vnity remaining the same that is the greatest and most unconceivable Vnity in the World And therefore the Sacred Councils and the Fathers have been carefull to the utmost to distinguish the Personality from the Nature as afraid of multiplying the one as of confounding the other You see then that the first member of your distinction is worth nothing The charge laid against the Church in that particular is not only false but impossible You have attempted to divide the Church of God into two Parties The first you have accus'd of Tritheism or of teaching the belief and Worship of Three Gods Unfortunate in this that the very exposition of the Doctrine of the Church the very reading of any one Creed is an open confutation of what you have pretended to make us guilty of Socin I hope you will not take it ill If I make some remarks as well as you First I confess that the Nicene and following Councils spoke as you do and that many of the Post-Nicene Fathers the Schoolmen and the present Churches agree with you in this but I deny it of the Apostolical Creed which ought to have been the Form of all the rest Where can you find there a Trinity in Vnity Where can you see Coeternity Coequality Coessentiality and all those Famous Terms which the Church perserv'd ever since For my part I can perceive no such thing To this Creed we stand as to a rule left us by the Apostles themselves Suffer us to keep but that and take you all the rest Secondly I challenge the Ante-Nicene Fathers we say they are strangers to your Doctrine The Answer to Dr. Bull has made it invincibly appear Have you taken notice how the Learned Author of that answer has discover'd the impostures of Pseudo-Hermas and the pretended Epistles of Barnabas and Ignatius What clear account he has given of the Nazarens Mineans and Alogi And what a plain proof he has brought against your Trinity and the Divinity of Jesus Christ out of the Epistle of Clemens of Rome to the Church of Corinth Thirdly Admitting all your allegations to be true A Trinity in Vnity Three Gods in one God is a thing wholly unaccountable Orthod The question between you and me is not whether it is unaccountable or not The question is whether those whom you call Real Trinitarians have departed from the doctrine of the Unity of God and have actually and manifestly as you speak own'd their Tritheism The matter of Fact and not the Reasonableness or Unreasonableness of the thing is the Point in dispute Your mistake is Palpable For the Trinity in Vnity is not Three Gods in one God a Language which the Church ever abhorr'd but Three Persons in one God Three Subsistences in one Divine Nature Pray name me one Man in the Church even of those who have most abounded in their own sense and spoke most loosly in the explication of our Mysteries who was not as Zealous a defender of the Unity of God as yourself can be This is then the most unpardonable want of Candor imaginable You call me a Tritheist I deny it You prove it because I believe the Blessed Trinity I own I do Then you exclaim I believe Three Gods The Father the Son and the Holy Spirit I say No! For though the Father is God the Son is God and the Holy Ghost God yet they are but one God For God can be but one The Divine Nature is incapable of Multiplication Division or Augmentation You may and will urge again that this is very unreasonable I hope to shew you one day that it is highly Rational But in the mean time I gain the point and complain that you do me wrong and are inexcusable in charging me with destroying the Unity of God 2ly You are positive that the Ante-Nicene Fathers asserted the Vnity but not the Trinity I suppose you mean in our sence of a Trinity or else the mistake is not
pardonable Origen and other Ante-Nicenes make out the Unity of God in a Ternary of Persons though they did not believe the Equality Says the Author of the Answer to Dr. Bull pag. 22. unjust in this to Origen and the rest I have some Remarks on that Answer which I design to make publick What the Author has said concerning the Epistle of St. Barnabas and those of the Holy Martyr Ignatius is far from invalidating their Authority We must have more than suspicions and bare denials to illegitimate a Book They are certainly works of great Antiquity and acknowledg'd to be such by the succeeding Ages But what must we say of a Person of his great erudition who pretending to answer a Book full of all the Testimonies which those early times could afford quarrels only with two or three Authors against whom he says nothing substantial and is wholly silent to Justin Martyr St. Irenaeus Clemens Alexandrinus Tatianus Miltiades Melito Dionysius of Alexandria Tertullian Lactantius c. Is it enough to confute the Ante-Nicene Fathers to say as this Author pag. 7. That all their Glory is wholly due to the vanity of Modern Learned Men who quote these Books not because they value them but because being ancient monuments known to few and understood by fewer he seems to be a great Learned Man who can drop sentences out of these antique Books But this is mild and obliging if compar'd with pag. 63. Where this Author having said that Trinitarianism is not so much a Religion as the Law of the Byzantine or Constantinopolitan Emperours stiles the then Doctors of the Church THE PARASITES OF THESE TIMES whom now in regard of their antiquity we call Fathers You are not insensible how this might be taken up and expos'd If Hosius Spiridio Paphnutius If the Gregories the Basils the Cyrils the Theodorets the Chrysostoms the Hieroms the Hilaries the Ambroses the Austins were the Parasites of their times where shall we find any Vertue Piety or Learning in this World But I am willing to over-look those excesses and tell you that it is a folly to wrangle with this or that passage sometimes to inveigh against Platonicism and sometimes to complain that those Writings are lost which might have inform'd us better To be plain we have enough left and from what remains of the times before the Council of Nice it appears that the Vnity of God and the belief of a Trinity of Persons in that one God Father Son and Holy Spirit was the belief of the Christian Church The Arrians indeed might challenge some of the then Fathers who spoke more obscurely and were easier Misinterpreted But Socinianism has not the least pretence to any He must have forfeited all modesty who asserts it Socin But what have you to say to the Apostolical Creed Is it not an evidence beyond all other evidences Orthod Of what Socin Of the Vnity of the Great God Orthod And so are all our Creeds from the first to the last Socin But it is an Evidence against your Trinity Orthod Against that Trinity which you have falsly imputed to us and that is A Trinity of Gods But not against a Trinity of Persons in one God What is the first assertion of that Creed I believe in One God For you affirm that it was anciently thus read Ans to Doctor Bull pag. 16. What is the second but an Explication of the first This One God is the Father Almighty His only begotten Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit Three Persons in One God Socin This is so dragg'd in so strain'd so unnatural that to any unprejudic'd Person it will visibly appear not to be the Doctrine design'd to be taught in the Creed Orthod I am apt to think that I can substantially prove that it is I believe the Creed to be truly Apostolical notwithstanding what some learned Men have said against it Not because it was made by the Apostles themselves though nothing appears to the contrary but by reason of its great Antiquity Now when you and I dispute about the sence and design of that Creed we have but one way to take and that is First to see what the Scripture teaches concerning its Articles which indeed are no more than an Epitome or Collection of the Principal Truths deliver'd by Christ and his Apostles Secondly To examine the Doctrine of the Fathers who liv'd before the Church thought it fit and necessary to make a larger Explanation of the Faith Thirdly To satisfy our selves of the sence which the immediately following Councils gave to that Creed in their Decrees All this is Highly reasonable For if the Scripture which has taught so expresly God to be one has also expresly taught the Father to be God the Son God and the Holy Spirit God then it is plain that the sence of the Creed is such and no other The Authority of that Creed or of any Creed whatever is from the Scripture It cannot therefore be contrary to it and that excellent Rule must be brought to that Primitive Rule from whence it is deriv'd And alas has not this been prov'd to you so often and so fully that after a World of wrangling you have been driven from your new and unnatural Criticisms and forc'd to shelter your selves under the weak defence of your Philosophical disceptations But if this Creed has no other sence but that which you put upon it The Father only God The Son only Man and the Holy Spirit only an Energy or Operation How come the Fathers of that time so openly to contradict it I will not do again what has been so excellently done by the Learned Dr. Bull who has oblig'd the Christian Church with two Books which indeed you may speak or discourse against but can never substantially Answer Has he not undeniably prov'd out of their Writings that those Fathers believ'd the two Natures in Jesus Christ The Divine and the Human That they have asserted his Pre-existence and if his Pre-existence then his Eternity and if his Eternity then his Consubstantiality with the Father If the second part of the Creed is to be understood of Christ only Man How comes Irenaeus lib. 1. advers Haeres c. 2. in delivering the Belief of the Catholick Church or as he speaks of the Church all the World over to call him Our Lord Our God Our Saviour Our King to whom every Knee ought to bow c. How comes Tertullian who has deliver'd this very rule of Faith to talk as we do of the Blessed Trinity designedly and positively against Praxeas and say that he is warranted by the Apostle to speak of Christ as of him who is God blessed over all for ever If he believ'd the Holy Spirit to be only an Energy How comes he to stile him Tertium Numen Deitatis tertium Nomen Majestatis The Third Person of the Deity The Third Name of Majesty and Power Certainly Novatianus was acquainted with this Creed and yet Lib. de Trin.
of Creator Preserver c. But that this leaves an Internal incommunicable Character essentially inseparable from the Deity That it may be said that God might never have been a Creator But that it cannot be said that he might never have been a Father the former being only an effect of his will but this latter the necessary result of his Nature This you have pag. 243. But that which sinks for ever this miserable imputation of Sabellianism or Nominalism call it which you please is the noble Principle which this Learned and worthy Man has laid down Animadv p. 245. in which as in the rest he has truly spoke the sence of the Church Upon the whole matter in discoursing of the Trinity two things are absolutely necessary to be held and insisted upon One that each and every Person of the Blessed Trinity entirely contains and includes in himself the whole Divine Nature The other that each Person is incommunicably different and distinct from one another I thought you look'd dissatisfy'd when speaking of this famous distinction of Realists and Nominals I us'd the words of slander calumny disingenuity Let me now beg of you to give it a name Socin Truly I must be forc'd to tell you that I saw this distinction urg'd so often our late Prints so full of it and honest Mr. E. valuing himself so highly upon it that I thought it was more solid than really it is I will take time to consider of what you have said to it When I have next the happiness to see you you shall have my Thoughts of it In the mean time .... Orthod No I cannot leave you yet I must before we part complain of another injustice which your Friends have done us Socin What is that Orthod That which My Lord Bishop of Sarum calls in his Pastoral Letter the heaviest of all imputations that they submit to his Lordship's whole doctrine which differs in nothing from what the Vnitarians profess'd in all their Writings That is to say in plain English that he is a Socinian A cruel and barbarous sort of a compliment to a Catholick and an English Bishop They do the same in effect to My Lord of Worcester in their last Answer to his Lordships Book pag. 62. To the University of Oxford to Dr. South whom they call in derision Brother South as they had done Dr. Wallis Father Wallis In the Answer to My Lord of Chichester they speak very plain pag. 27. It is say they by this Declaration of our meaning that all our Books Past or to come are to be interpreted We never intend to oppose any Body in the Article of the Trinity but the Tritheists or Realists who are Hereticks to the Church as well as to us nor in the Article of the Divinity of our Saviour but the Eutychians who make the Communication of Idioms to be Real and not only Verbal which is an Heterodoxy condemn'd in divers General Councils That word General Councils which they esteem'd so little before is now of great value They tell this very Bishop that they do not in the least suspect that he will disown the Catholick Doctrine and be of a Party of Hereticks who have been Condemn'd by so many General Councils Socin Well and where lies the injustice of all this If the Socinians are become Orthodox and embrace the Doctrine of the Church is it not an honour to these Great Men to have reason'd them into this Submission I remember that in some of our Prints we have call'd the Bishop of Sarum the Eusebius of the Age. As the Famous Eusebius brought over many Bishops to the subscribing the Homoousion Is it the heaviest of all imputations to his Lordship that he has perswaded the Socinians out of their Errors Must you your self take it ill that Persons of whom I have heard you often give a great Character should return to the Faith and Obedience of the Church All that I dislike in those Complements is the Books past or to come For the Books past speak no such thing and I fear the Books to come will not much mend the matter Orthod I did not expect that you would not be serious in so mighty a concern as this I confess that it would be to me and to all good Men an incredible satisfaction to see an end of this Controversy But I tell you there is no sincerity in all this They are no more return'd to the Sence and Faith of the Church than you are They build still upon that foolish distinction of Realists or Tritheïsts and Nominals or Sabellians The first is a Monster of their own making 〈◊〉 other is a shelter to their Heterodoxy 〈◊〉 they maintain a Trinity which is no Trinity 〈◊〉 strive to advance error under her 〈…〉 the Pillar of Truth In short If the Trinity believ'd and taught by the Church is Sabelliaâ—â—sm they are your humble servants It is that that they would cover Socinianism by But how can they believe as the Church when the doctrine which they pretend to return to is that to which the Church is irreconcilable Socin How must they do then to convince you that they sincerely desire a peace and are come over to you Orthod By writing with that respect which is due to Bishops of whom in the Answer to Mr. Edwards pag. 13. they own the institution to be of Divine right Let them receive the Catholick Creeds that of the Great Athanasius the Doxology and the Articles of the Church of Englang Then and not before I will believe that they are sincere Socin These are large strides I am not for running so fast Suffer me to take my leave of you I will think on what we have discours'd and then you shall hear from me Adieu The Second DIALOGUE Orthod I had promis'd my self the happiness of seeing you before this Socin Truly I design'd it but was resolv'd not to do it till I had been as good as my word that is till I had consider'd what we discours'd of some days since For whatever you may think of me I have a sense of Religion I am fully convinc'd that there is a God to whom I owe all my service and a future state of happiness and misery on which I cannot reflect without a mighty concern I am not so much an enemy to my own interest as to cheat my self of the one and willfully to fall into the other Orthod What is the result then of your consideration Socin To speak sincerely my Thoughts I am come off from the distinction of Real and Nominal Trinitarians and do you the justice to own that it appears to me to be ill grounded Though I believe at the same time that he who first invented it did it bona fide and had the occasion given him by the inadvertency of your own Writers But there are still two difficulties in my way which I cannot overcome I would not be thought to suspect your Learning or Candor But I am
that in our debates with the Socinians as the dispute is so are the Arguments of another nature than those in that sort of Controversies which we have been speaking of The matter is abstruse and mysterious We are not willing to speak more of God than he himself has taught us This you call obscurity and want of satisfaction and because the Socinians are perpetually reasoning of an Increated and Incomprehensible Substance as they do of Finite and Created Beings and are never weary of applying their notions of what they understand to what they understand not at all and has no sort of proportion to it Then you say that their writings are clear I appeal to your self whether you are not highly unjust to us Nay whether any one Controversy in the World was ever manag'd with so little Candor as this is by you Socin But pray how have you manag'd it Forgive me if I tell you that the Church never shew'd so much Weakness in any thing as in this very particular You are angry with us for Reasoning too much and you have Reason'd your selves out of doors You pretended to assert a Trinity and cannot tell us what that Trinity is You are Trinitarians indeed but at the same time the sad Assertors of a Trinity which is too much or too little Degenerates into Tritheism or Sabellianism and if receiv'd according to some explications is Real and Blasphemous and if according to others is Nominal and signify's nothing Orthod Truly I wonder this was not yet come out For you cannot now speak to a Socinian but he brings in this right or wrong The Author of the considerations of the several explications of the Trinity made the best of it and perswaded himself that he had given us the mortal wound The Writer of the discourse concerning the Real and Nominal Trinitarians promises himself no less than the ruine of the Church if the fatal distinction is carry'd on and improv'd as it ought to be He that dawbs with untemper'd mortar and calls himself a Prebyter of the Church of England is of the same mind The whole Church say they Condemns the Real Trinitarians and the Nominals being rank Sabellians must of course be condemn'd too Blessed discovery which when truly examin'd is the greatest piece of unsincerity imaginable Socin I must beg leave to interrupt you and blame you for denying that which is clearer than the Sun Where lies then the unsincerity Is it in affirming that you will not tell us what your Trinity is Or is it in distributing you into Real and Nominal Trinitarians Orthod 'T is in every part of the Allegation Can any thing be more unsincere than for you to tell us that we oblige you to believe a Trinity and are not willing to tell you what that Trinity is Pray were you ever Baptiz'd Have you ever paid your Duty to God in the solemn use of our excellent Liturgy Did you ever join in the Doxology by which the Church in the Primitive Ages down to ours put in the mouth of her Children a confutation of the Samosatenian Sabellian Arrian Nestorian and Macedonian Heresies Did you ever make a profession of that Faith which you embrac'd in your Baptism by reciting the Apostolical and Catholick Creeds Did you ever read the Articles of the Church of England or of any other Church in the World For I positively averr that they do all and every one of them speak and assert the same thing Socin True They tell us of a Trinity but do not tell us what that Trinity is Orthod Do they not tell you that God is one That in that one adorable and Divine Nature are Father Son and Holy Spirit That the Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God and yet not three Gods but one God This is to tell you that there is a Blessed Trinity and what that Trinity is Socin True again But they do not tell us how God can be One and Three How that Trinity and Unity are reconcil'd How every Person is God and yet but one God and if they do not say this in effect they say nothing Orthod This is the arrantest Sophism that ever was or can be us'd in a dispute The Church asserts the thing because God has asserted it He has not been pleas'd to reveal the manner and therefore the Church says nothing to it All is built upon the Divine Revelation Must we not believe that a thing is when God has affirm'd that it is because he has not thought fit to make clear to us how it is Should I tell you that the Sun is a luminous Body which by dispersing its Beams over all the Creation gives Light and Colour to every thing and that the earth is impregnated by certain qualities which with an admirable luxuriancy cover it with Fruits and Flowers Would you deny this because I do not acquaint you how that Body is luminous how the impressions of light mix with all things and shew what they are Would you deny the fruitfulness of the Earth because I cannot explain those qualities by which it is impregnated Socin This reaches not at all the difficulty For these are things of sense which I am satisfy'd to be and to exist Besides I am capable of Philosophical inquiries by which if I do not certainly know the How I come at least very near it Orthod But this not only reaches the difficulty but wholly resolves it For your Philosophical inquiries are but inquiries things for the most part uncertain But that wherein the stress of the difficulty lies is the degree of certainty by which we are assur'd that such a thing is And I say that the Divine Revelation is infinitely more certain than the fullest testimony of Sense and that if I am satisfy'd that God has reveal'd a Trinity I am more assur'd that there are Three Persons in the Divine Nature than I am assur'd that the Sun is a luminous and the Earth a fruitful Body though I could understand how the one shines and how the other is actuated into so many several forms Socin Then now the Church of Rome will give you thanks For this is the very Topick us'd in the famous case of Transubstantiation Orthod This is one of the Socinian Common Places But not to spend time about so little an objection which will carry the digression too far let me tell you that a Topick may be good but yet ill and falsly apply'd In that dispute between them and us we deny the Divine Revelation We say God has not reveal'd it But to return You make a mighty noise with your distinction of Real and Nominal Trinitarians and pretend that it is the natural result of several explications of the Trinity To overthrow this at once it is enough to say that the Church owns no particular explication of this Divine Mystery nor concerns herself with what private Authors have said of it The Church has spoke in general Councils