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A64025
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Two letters touching the Trinity and Incarnation the first urging the belief of the Athanasian Creed, the second, an answer thereto.
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1690
(1690)
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Wing T3483; ESTC R1592
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21,226
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16
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Two Letters touching the Trinity and Incarnation The First urging the Belief of the Athanasian Creed The Second an Answer thereto The First LETTER Loving Cousin IT 'S no small Trouble to me to hear you are fallen into the horrid Heresy of the Socinians and Arians viz. to deny the Holy Trinity and Incarnation of our Saviour For you commend a printed Sheet that is dispersed under the Title of Brief Notes on the Creed of St. Athanasius and are not afraid of the Damnation which is there pronounced against all such as do not firmly believe the Doctrines contained therein which have been always and are at this Day held to be the Great Fundamentals of Christianity And I take them to be so clearly revealed in Holy Scripture that no Man well acquainted with Scripture as you are can disbelieve them without some Wantonness and Pride of Vnderstanding a great Conceit and Confidence of their own Knowledg and such unpardonable Immodesty as admits of no Excuse And though such Persons may be otherwise pious and useful Men yet there 's no Reason why they should not be damned as well as devout and vertuous Jews and Heathens I always took you for a modest Man and one that had a great Reverence for what is revealed in Holy Scripture But if you now resolve never to allow that to be the Sense of the Revelation however plain and evident the Words are which is not agreable to your Reason but will put another Sense upon them though never so forc'd and violent as in this Controversy you do I can no longer account you modest but that you now betray the Pride and Conceitedness which before lay hid and that if you persist in the Denial of the supream Divinity of the Son of God and of the Holy Ghost you are to be rejected of all good Christians as an Heretick one that is subverted and sinneth being condemned of himself For that it is not consistent with any Man but him that has long indulged in himself that Arrogance and Singularity which stops his Ears to sober Truth and shuts out of his Heart the Fear and Awe of God or at least never sets himself seriously before the Divine Tribunal in the Consideration of these Matters as I am perswaded befals some heady and hot Controvertists to shut his Eyes against the Meridian Light of these necessary Doctrines the Foundation of Christian Religion as it is Christian For the Mystery of the Trinity runs through it and gives it all the Strokes of Life and Greatness as it is a positive Religion different from natural I beseech you therefore Cousin retire your self into your own Heart and set our Lord Jesus upon his Throne before your Eyes and consider what you will answer to him whom you have denied to be your God and say he is but a made Lord and that as a Mediator he is not God-Man but Man only and concerning the Holy Ghost in whose Name you are baptized as well as in the Father and the Son you yet deny him to be another Divine and Almighty Person Consider I pray that the Doctrine of the Trinity is not a speculative Point but that the whole Frame of Christianity is built upon it and that it is necessary to support both our Christian Worship and our Christian Hope and Comfort Consider also that all Heresies are Works of the Flesh which notwithstanding many great Bishops and some great Councils have been guilty of even in this Point denying of three equal Persons in God And we know that for many Ages the Church of Rome has maintained the gross Heresies of Transubstantiation and Idolatrous Worship of the Host with many other Superstitions all which shew that our corrupted Wills and Passions are as inclinable to Heresy and Superstition as to other Vices and Immoralities Faith is a Christian Vertue and a Man shall be punished for the Faults of his Vnderstanding as well as any others We must be as careful then to bring our Reason to whatever is divinely inspired as our Will to whatever is divinely commanded I beseech you therefore again and again examine your Conscience seriously and the Holy Scripture sincerely Do not impose upon your self to your own Destruction by uncouth nice unintelligible and trifling Distinctions for God will not be mocked Sincerity is necessary to every good Christian and they that want it shall have their Portion with Hypocrites and Sinners As you hearken to this altogether necessary Advice you shall have me Your Condoling or Congratulating Kinsman The ANSWER Dear Cousin AS I was meditating on the little or no care Christians take of their own Salvation that unhappy Carelesness afforded me the true Reason of their being so little concerned for the Salvation of their Neighbours I am glad to hear you are not of that Number and I don't question but you will be pleased that I am none of them neither and that following your Example I desire your Salvation with as much Earnestness as you do mine Most of those whom the Church has set up for the Conduct of Souls are much more earnest to get Preferments and defend the Party wherein they are ingaged by subtil Disputes and violent Persecutions than sincerely to examine the Doctrines which they teach and feed their Flocks with those pure and solid Truths which free from Sin and Error Nor do they think that thereby they become accountable before God's Tribunal for all the Wandrings of their Disciples And lastly that both the blind Guide and the Blind whom he guides shall fall into the Ditch Do but separate from their Study whatever is profane and belongs not to the Character of a Pastor and the Treasure of their Minds will soon be exhausted therefore imitate them not in such a Disorder For my part though I am a Lay-man I think I am bound earnestly to exhort my Brethren and you particularly to restore the Principle of our Reformation which is almost degenerated into Popery and to make use of our own Light that we may be able to keep the Way set before us in the Scripture This is the Protestants Right we are in Possession thereof and we must not suffer our selves to be deprived of it I beseech you dear Cousin in the Name of God to consider that when we were first delivered from the Roman Tyranny we inveighed against the absurd Doctrines that were imposed upon our Faith we cried down the Word of Men and recommended only the Word of God the Bible the Bible the Bible only says Chillingworth But we no sooner got out of our former Slavery by the help of so clear a Light but we are fallen into a new one by a most unequal Conduct The Question is no more concerning the pure Word of God it is say they too equivocal and uncertain and it is no hard Matter for Hereticks to make it agree with their particular Opinions What then we hear of nothing but Fathers Tradition Councils Creeds and new-coined
to demonstrate to you that it hath no ground in the Scripture For forasmuch as Christ as you say is God only upon the Account of his being begotten of God or being the Son of God we have nothing to do but to consult the same Scripture to see upon what grounds the Title of Son of God bestowed upon Christ is founded therein And if among those Reasons alledged by it that of an eternal Generation is not to be found it will necessarily follow that such a Generation is the Invention of your Teachers Let us pass by if you will that famous Place wherein the Angel grounds the Title of Son of God upon the miraculous Conception of our Saviour in the Womb of a Virgin by the Power of the Holy Ghost The Holy Ghost says he to the Virgin shall come upon thee and the Power of the Highest shall overshadow thee therefore that holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God Again let us omit that remarkable Passage wherein Christ derives his Title of Son of God from his Unction and Heavenly Commission Say ye that I blaspheme whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the World because I said I am the Son of God It seems to me impossible to find two Causes or two Reasons of Christ's being the Son of God more clear and express than these two because he was conceived by the Holy Ghost in the Womb of a Virgin and because the Father hath sanctified him and sent him into the World However I will not insist upon them to stay the longer upon those in which the Word to beget is expresly set down I know but three Texts belonging to this Subject The first is in Acts 13.33 where it is said that God hath begotten his Son by raising him from the dead God says the Apostle hath fulfilled the Promise unto us in that he hath raised up Jesus again as it is also written in the second Psalm Thou art my Son this Day have I begotten thee The second Heb. 5.5 where it is expresly set down that God hath begotten his Son by making him his High-Priest Christ says the Apostle glorified not himself to be made an High-Priest but he that said unto him Thou art my Son to Day have I begotten thee The third is in the same Epistle chap. 1.5 where the same Apostle tells us that God hath begotten his Son by exalting him above the Angels For unto which of the Angels said he at any time Thou art my Son this Day have I begotten thee In all these Texts there is no other Generation mentioned but what is grounded upon the high Glory which God hath conferred upon his Messias by raising him from the dead and making him Lord and Christ And this Generation is so far from being eternal that it is expresly said it was performed to day viz. the Day of his Resurrection and Ascension Your Teachers have been often challenged to produce one single Text of Scripture wherein the eternal Generation is expresly contained and is the true Ground of Christ's being called the Son of God If there is any you will do me a Kindness to let me know it Till this be done I ought to acknowledg no other Generation but what the Scripture teaches in those clear and express Texts which I have cited Hereupon I will acquaint you with an Observation for which I am beholden to a learned Man viz. That there is a vast Difference between the manner of the Father's speaking of Christ's Divinity and that of the Apostles The first setch'd his Original from I know not what Generation which was made in the Beginning of the World it is almost the only Generation spoken of by them and their Platonick Stile always runs that way On the contrary the last shew the Source of it in his miraculous Birth especially in his Resurrection and Exaltation Hence it is that though Christ never called himself God whilst he had but a Glimpse of his future Glory yet the Apostles made no Scruple to honour him with that glorious Title when they saw him crowned with his highest Glory Honour Now that Difference in treating of the same Doctrine which is to be seen between the sacred Writers and your Teachers is a material one and ought to convince you that they had not both the same Principles as your Church pretends This general Observation concerning the Fathers is sufficient to make me refuse their Testimony and look upon them as no good Interpreters of the Scripture and unfaithful Guardians of Tradition I come now to the Incarnation or the Union of two Natures You must confess dear Cousin that if we can from any Place learn the Distinction of two Natures in Christ it is undoubtedly from Rom. 1.3 where he is called the Son of David according to the Flesh and the Son of God according to the Spirit of Holiness by the Resurrection from the Dead Here is the Son of David and the Son of God the Flesh and the Spirit or the Word Yet this Text is so far from proving two Natures in Christ such as you understand that it is the strongest Argument that can be brought against you to confute that foolish and absurd Distinction and the clearest Commentary we have to explain the other Passages which speak of Christ as a Man and a God To be convinced of the Truth of this Assertion you need only compare together the 23d 28th and 29th Verses of the 4th to the Galatians The Apostle says that Ismael was born according to the Flesh or that he was the Son of Abraham according to the Flesh that is according to the ordinary Course of Nature but that Isaac was born according to the Spirit or by a miraculous Birth that is he was not so much the Son of Abraham as the Son and Heir of the Divine Promise This is granted by all Now according to St. Paul's Stile it is plain that Christ is the Son of David according to the Flesh that is according to his natural Birth because he was born of a Woman and Son of God according to the Spirit viz. according to his supernatural Birth because he was born of a Virgin by the Operation of the Holy Spirit and because he was raised from the dead according to the Spirit of Holiness as the Apostle speaks In which Sense he is not so much the Son and Heir of David as the Son and Heir of God or the Son of that great Promise which God had made to the Patriarchs According to the Spirit can therefore signify only by the Divine Power by his miraculous Birth and Resurrection Which plainly shews that the Distinction of two Natures in the Sense you take them is a mere Fancy because the eternal Generation is not at all mentioned by the Apostle in his Opposition between the Son of David and the Son of God the Flesh and the Spirit the Humanity and the Divinity of Christ and