of pains to lay his matter in order though I believe it will make little to his purpose For we will grant all that he has been here saying is true if he lets the matter lie as the Apostle left it against the Gnosticks Nay but perhaps the Trinitarians will not so easily get off here And truly any one that understands the design of the Authour's Book would expect from these Propositions some wonderful confutation of the Trinitarian Doctrines But our Authour very cunningly lets that alone and by a Hocus-Pocus trick claps before our Eyes some Romish corruptions which were occasioned he tells us by people that heaped to themselves Teachers having itching Ears and those Teachers heaped to themselves Doctrines to scratch that itch and so the Monks by scratching and clawing one another scratched themselves into all the errours of the School-Divinity Therefore he concludes that there being such errours that destroy the Gospel simplicity and we being not to be saved by the greatest humane authority he means general Councils or to put our Souls in a Lottery we must therefore see what those Doctrines are which destroy the Gospel simplicity which cannot better be managed he tells us than by the three enquiries of his Book Now though for all the Authour has said to this point the Doctrine of the Trinity is very safe yet because he would slily insinuate that this Doctrine is one of those Romish Errours that destroy the simplicity of Christianity I think fit to make him this Answer First That the belief of the blessed Trinity is very consistent with the simplicity of the Christian Religion For if there be nothing in that Doctrine but what a Man of ordinary capacity may understand as much at least as is requisite for his belief and as far as his judgment tells him 't is reasonable to suppose such a thing should be understood I cannot see why this Doctrine should derogate from the simplicity of Christianity Now First in this doctrine there is nothing but what a Man of mean parts may understand as far as is requisite for his belief for 't is not requisite that such a Man or indeed any Man should fully understand all that he does believe for that would not be belief but science 't is enough for belief that a Man has undoubted Testimony that such a thing is so whether he understands the manner or perhaps the possibility of its being so or not We are wont to take many things upon Trust from the Mouths of Men learned in their respective Sciences the reasons of which we are far from understanding and Mathematicians can demonstrate many Truths and which Men unlearned in their Science take upon their words though to them they seem otherways impossible Now if it be reasonable that a plain unlearned Man should believe many things which he does not understand from the testimony of wiser and more knowing Men I think it a less imposition upon the understandings of plain Men to require them to believe a revealed Truth from the Testimony of the All-wise and All-knowing God Secondly A plain Man understands as much in this Doctrine as his judgment tells him it is reasonable he should understand in a matter of that nature and 't is highly unreasonable for any Man to expect more If any one indeed how wise soever should tell the plain Man that Bread is Flesh the plain Man would think this unreasonable to believe because he knows the difference between Bread and Flesh as well as any one can tell him and because then he is required to disbelieve his Senses in a matter of which they are the properest Judges But if this plain Man be informed by an undoubted Testimony of something which indeed he does not understand concerning God whose nature and essence his reason tells him is not to be understood or any one else though of the greatest learning or reason this he is with an humble submission ready to believe and when he has full assurance of the undoubtedness of the Testimony which confirms this his belief does not in the least boggle at what ' is so delivered For a Person of the ordinariest reason that believes a God and his Attributes must be sure that in that infinite being there are infinite mysteries that is Truths which are not to be understood by finite capacities and if it has pleased God's Wisdom to reveal the Esse of one of these mysteries to us that there are Father Son and Holy-Ghost three Persons and one God though the Modus of this Truth does surpass our understandings yet he acknowledges that this belief is reasonable because 't is irrational for him to think his finite understanding should comprehend all the mysterious Truths in an infinite Deity Secondly 'T is not requisite that every plain simple Man of whom the belief of the Trinity is required as being a divine Truth revealed in Scripture that he should understand all the Questions which are controverted by learned Men about this Doctrine All the disputes about Hypostasis's and Personalities Generations and Processions for there were thousands of good Christians went to Heaven before these Controversies were started in the World or before these terms were ever heard of So that 't is a great mistake of the Adversaries of this Doctrine to think that we impose it as necessary to every ordinary Man's Salvation to understand and to give an express assent to all the determinations of these Questions 't is enough for him to believe the Doctrine in general as he finds it revealed in Scripture and to leave the more particular disquisition of it to more learned Men. And besides 't is not the fault of the Orthodox in the Church that ever these Disputes happened or that ever these names were coined we may thank the Hereticks for all this for they began first to oppugn the received Faith by new Doctrines and strange glosses upon Scripture and then the true Christians in their own defence were forced to vindicate the Orthodox Faith and so because by reasoning upon supernatural Truths which never came into so strict disquisition before they had occasion to invent new words to express these Truths by to prevent long ambages and circumlocutions in discourse or otherwise the World had never been troubled to this day with Hypostasis's Homoousios's or Consubstantiality But after all this clamour against the Orthodox the Socinians themselves not to mention the Arians build their points of Faith upon greater niceties or else how come they to bring in their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into Divinity that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should signify the supream God but not with it which is a false as well as a foolish Criticism Or else how come they to make use of that pretty distinction of a God by Nature and a God by Office Then follow his three Queries in which he promises to act no less sincerely than courageously but I am afraid he has
failed in the former for if I mistake not his Confidence has generally the transcendent of his Sincerity which is the common fate of all Hereticks His Queries are these 1. What was that Gospel which our Lord and his Apostles preached as necessary to be believed 2. What alterations or additions have after Ages made in it 3. What Advantage or Damage hath thereupon ensued Now as to these Queries I am willing to follow him in the search of them and I pray God to give him grace to be better resolved in them hereafter than he was or at least would be thought to be when he was writing this Book And so I shall take my leave of his Preface AN ANSWER TO THE Naked Gospel CHAP. I. What was the Gospel our Lord and his Apostles preached as necessary to Salvation HERE the Authour shews a little Sophistry whilst in his Query at first he says necessary to be believed but in his transcribing it in the Front of this Chapter he says necessary to Salvation The first expression he uses as the more soft to make his Queries as they lie together seem more reasonable the second he makes use of as the more harsh thereby to insinuate the uncharitableness of the Orthodox who make a right Belief of the Trinity necessary to Salvation Now though we will not quarrel with the Authour about this change of his Terms which is never to be allowed in fair Disputes especially in the Question it self which is to be discussed yet we must allow a great deal of Difference between a thing 's being necessary to be believed and being necessary to Salvation A thing may be necessary to be believed when it is a certain Truth plainly revealed in Scripture so that a man cannot in all points believe aright without the belief of that too and the belief of that Point is necessarily required to make him a full compleat Orthodox Believer but then a thing is necessary for Salvation when it is so of the very Fundamentals of Religion that the Scripture does not allow of Salvation without the belief of this but whether the Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity be of this necessity is another dispute only from hence it appears That necessity of believing and necessity in order to Salvation are not equivalent Expressions and which I am persuaded the Authour did not use without design The Authour in the beginning of this Chapter gives an account of the excellence of the Christian Religion and that it was propagated by our Saviour to deliver us from the discipline of the Ceremonial Law and to exalt natural Religion to its utmost perfection and so far right Then he goes farther to tell us that its Doctrines were the same which were so legibly imprinted in the most ignorant minds that every one without any Instructer might read and understand And so with this notion of the Christian Religion in his head and this Test as he calls it in his hand very champion-like as he safely may 〈…〉 1. What was the Gospel which our Saviour and his Apostles preached And here our Authour to make short work at first dash reduces the Doctrines to Two Faith and Repentance and then to Faith and no Repentance and then again to Repentance and no Faith he might as well have rung the changes once more and have reduced it to no Faith and no Repentance and then he had cut the Gospel short enough Now from all this he would make us believe That the Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity which the Orthodox require to be believed of good Christians is contrary to what our Saviour required of his Followers Now here are Three things which lack a little animadversion First His saying that the Doctrines of Christianity were so legibly imprinted in the most ignorant Men's minds that every one without any â—â—structor might read and understand them Secondly That the Doctrine of the Trinity is contrary to this Plainness Thirdly That this Doctrine is contrary to the sewness of the Christian Precepts As to his First assertion I will readily acquit our Authour of Socinianism as to this point for the Gentlemen of that persuasion are generally so civil to our Saviour notwithstanding their depriving him of his Divinity as to allow him to be a distinct Legislator from Moses not only to have rectified and improved the old Law but to have given new precepts and to have advanced Morality to that height and perfection which it could never have come up to without such Revelation But our Authour here would have our Blessed Saviour who himself tells us that he came 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to fill up the Law and to compleat it and of whose Doctrines the Apostles give the great Eulogiums of a spiritual Law and a perfect Law only to have told the World something which they knew well enough before and which any Ignorant Man in our Author's phrase could understand without an Instructor Who the Authour calls ignorant Men I know not I am sure some Men of the greatest natural Knowledge have not been able by the light of Nature to come up to the Knowledge of some of those Laws which our Saviour does recommend in his Sermon upon the Mount The Jews who one would think should be most knowing in these Truths as having the assistance of so many particular Revelations yet they lived in opinions contrary to them all as appears by the whole tenor of that Discourse of our Saviour and even the most Learned of the Heathen were far from embracing the generality of them 'T would be too long here to shew the great defect of the Heathen Philosophy in respect of this admirable Lecture of our Saviour But to let our Authour know how far ignorant Men are from coming up by the pure light of reason to the Knowledge of these Laws let him consider how much Aristotle and Cicera two Men of the greatest strength of natural Reason perhaps that ever were in the world how much I say these great men were mistaken in the Rules of Charity which our Blessed Saviour does deliver He commands us to love our enemies to do good to them that hate us Matth. 5. 44. But Aristotle tells us that That man is void of all sense and pain that though he does forbear to be angry does not seek revenge But 't is the part of a Slave being contumeliously used to bear it So Cicero among the rights of Nature places Revenge by which says he we propel an Injury or an Affront And again in one of his Epistles to Atticus he shews his Prectice as well as his Opinion I hate the man and I will hate him and I wish I could be revenged of him Now I suppose Cicero and Aristotle were none of the most ignorant men and if they could not search out these Truths without an Instructor I cannot imagine how our Authour 's ignorant Men should So that in short this opinion of our Authour 's is
not Socinianism but 't is Socinianism revers'd 't is a Heterodoxy of his own coining 't is such an odd piece of stupid Heresie as not only his beloved Rationalists but even his ignorant Christians will be ashamed of Secondly As to what he would inferr That the Doctrine of the Trinity is contrary to the plainness of the Gospel I have given an Answer already to that when I considered his Preface I shall only add That the Doctrine of our Saviour's Divinity should I think give greater Credit and Authority to his Laws and ordinary Christians should sooner believe and practise them upon account of their having so admirable and divine an Authour Thirdly As to the Doctrine of the Trinity its being contrary to the fewness of the Christian Doctrines which our Authour would have but Two at most Faith and Repentance I answer 'T is true Faith and Repentance in a large acceptation are the Summ of the Christian Religion and 't is as true That the Doctrine of the Trinity is neither Faith nor Repentance by way of Identical Predication but I hope it may be contained under one of them as a species under its Genus Faith and Repentance in a large sense do take in all Christianity under one are contained the Credenda and under the other the Agenda of our Religion But then what is this to our Authour's purpose If it be any thing it must be this Our Saviour has reduced all his Religion to Faith and Repentance nay sometimes to each of them Ergo the Doctrine of the Trinity ought not to be believed or those that teach that Doctrine preach another Gospel Now how glorious a piece of Logick is this Would not this be as good a Conclusion to all intents and purposes Aristotle tells us That all things in the world are Substance or Accident nay he has reduced both these to Ens therefore there is no such thing as Homo or Brutum or therefore he that says so teaches another Philosophy than Aristotle Certainly every one that understands any thing of his Religion must know That Faith in this general acceptation must take in a firm Belief of all things necessary to Salvation a stedfast Trust and Reliance upon God and an undoubted Hope in all his Promises and an express Assent to all Truths he has revealed in his word c. and that Repentance does contain not only a bare turning from Sin but a constant Practice of all Christian Vertues So that our Authour by this Argument might have as well proved Hope and Charity to be no Christian Graces that there is no such Vertue under the Gospel as Temperance or Chastity because our Saviour has only preached Faith and Repentance CHAP. II. Of Faith in what Sense it justifies OUR Authour in the beginning of this Chapter is of a sudden turned pretty Orthodox and falls a-disputing very shrewdly against the Gnosticks and Antinomians and then he applauds himself mightily in his bringing an Illustration out of Act. 27. 18. of St. Paul's saying to the Centurion Except the Mariners stay in the ship we cannot be saved when he had told them before that there should not be the loss of any Man's life now by this Instance he illustrates the Necessity of good works to Justification and tells us that by this all the Questions about Justification may be solved though he knows not of any one before him which has honoured it with a mention I shall not go about to disturb him in his dispute against the Antinomians though I think 't is a little unseasonable in this Place nor shall I go to rob him of the honour of his Instance nor that place of Scripture of the honour of his Mention for I don't remember I have read it used in this Controversie before though I am sure it has been urged with greater Advantage against the Patrons of absolute Predestination And now one would think the Authour had a mind to have a little Controversie with Luther or Calvin or Bellarmine or to state the Question of Justification among the Moderns but truly he leaves it just as he finds it and runs off to a long Indictment he has drawn up against Faith by which I suppose he would prove its Ineffectualness to Justification Which in short he brings to this Dilemma Either by Faith we believe what is reasonable and so we can't help it and then we have no pretence to a Reward or else we believe without Reason and then we are Fools Ergo We are not justified by Faith One may be apt to wonder to what purpose the Authour should bring in this Question into his Book for one would think at first sight that the decision of it for Works would make more for the Papists than the Anti-trinitarians But yet upon second thoughts one may easily find that the Authour was aware that the usual Solution of this Question by the merits of Christ who is our Righteousness would too far advance his Satisfaction and consequently his Divinity and that for a true Justification by Faith there would be required a full Orthodox Belief in all Fundamentals and therefore this Chapter was I suppose to obviate these Objections Though for ought I can see there is nothing proved against any but the Anti-nomians unless he would have all such that are not Socinians But because the Authour does here endeavour to destroy the Effectualness of this divine Grace the express Attestation of God's word the constant Suffrage of the Church and the Satisfaction too of our Saviour's sufferings I shall give him an Answer by shewing these three things which I suppose will be a compleat Answer to this whole Chapter First That we are justified by Faith alone Secondly That this Faith must be Orthodox in all Fundamentals Thirdly To give a Reason why Faith is so pleasing to God as to justifie men by it First We are justified by Faith alone There cannot be any thing more expresly asserted in Scripture than that we are justified by Faith onely The righteousness of God which is by Faith in Jesus Christ is revealed unto all and upon all that believe Rom. 3. 22. And â— 24. Being justified freely by his Grace And v. 30. It is one God that justifieth the circumcision by Faith and the uncircumcision by Faith And so chap. 5. v. 1. Being justified by Faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ And so Eph. 4. 8. By grace ye are saved through Faith and not of your selves it is the gift of God and not of works least any one should boast And our Church informs us That to be justified by Faith onely is a wholsome Doctrine and full of Comfort Besides this has been the constant Doctrine of Learned Men in the most uncorrupted Ages From which 't is plain That 't is Faith alone that does Justifie and not works yet not Faith exclusive of good Works for a true justifying Faith cannot be without them they do as
pretty reasons why the Latin Bishops were more easily lead by the Bishop of Rome than the Greeks were he supposing their Zeal for the Orthodox Doctrine to be only in compliance with that Bishop which are First by reason of the Greatness of his City and Secondly the Smallness of their Understandings I believe he brought in this Great and Small rather for a Witticism than a Reason But why should they be lead by the Greatness of his City Men are wont to be jealous of every over-grown Power and are sooner apt to oppose than assist it But why should not the Bishop of Constantinople by the same rule have as many always at his command And why should not poor Athanasius Bishop of Alexandria a mighty City too draw as many of his Neighbours of his side But the Authour is afraid that this Argument from the Greatness of the City wo'n't do much and therefore he don't much insist upon it but that from the Smallness of the Latin Bishops Understandings he thinks is a good one and this he endeavours to back with some proof viz with a Story of the Latin Bishops not apprehending a captious Question which was put in the Council of Ariminum Now every one knows how easie it is for designing Knavery to impose upon well-meaning Honesty A little Subtilty with a great deal of Dishonesty will over-reach a great number of wise and honest Men. Several of these tricks all that have read this History know were used in this very Council The Question was put whether they believed in Homo-ousium or in Christ If the Orthodox had said they believed in Homo-ousium the Arians would have scoffed at them for believing only in a word And when they said they believed in Christ and not in Homo-ousium they pretended they had given up their cause by discharging the Homo-ousium Now 't is but too frequent to find in many great Assemblies that the Espousers of the true side are cheated out of their Voices by the fraudulent putting of the Question and that possibly might be the case here But besides there was another reason for their then refusing the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because the Hereticks had gotten a sense of the word which favoured their Heresy so that the Fathers did not reject the word but only their sense of it This long and mischievous Controversy as he calls it he says was at last setled by Theodosius which according to his compute in his last Paragraph was as he expresses it after a hundred and fifty years strugling But I am afraid he is a little out of his Chronology again for he is mistaken but the odd hundred years or thereabouts For set the contest of Arius with Alexander the highest in the year 315 from that time to this Edict of Theodosius in the year 379 are but 64 years which are much short of his 150. But to pass over this what though this Controversy was setled by Theodosius Oh! the Authour has an abundance to say to that in his reflections at last upon his whole relation That this Doctrine now established i. e. the Doctrine of our Saviour's Divinity was advanced by gross partiality of the most guilty kind and at last imposed by a Novice Emperour upon implicit Faith in two Bishops c. and so on with a long ranting period of some twenty lines But to consider this a little A Novice in Christianity it is true this Emperour was because he received Baptism that year or the year before he published this Edict and yet the Edict might be never the worse for all that but to be sure he sufficiently understood the Christian Religion before he was admitted to Baptism and generally persons that come into the Church at those riper years do take better care to inform themselves before Baptism than others do after it But why must this be an implicit Faith in two Bishops He draws his Consequence from what Sezomen says when he gives an account of this Edict that the Emperour wills that all his subjects should embrace that Religion which Peter the Prince of the Apostles had from the beginning deliver'd to the Romans and which Damasus Bishop of Rome and Peter Bishop of Alexandria held If here be an implicit Faith here is one in three Bishops for Peter the Apostle was as good a Bishop as the other two and the same Faith is said to be of all three But how can he draw from these words that he had an implicit Faith in the other One certainly may use anothers Summary of Faith having found it conformable to God's word without believing implicitly as that other does as well as I can use another Mans Form of Devotion without praying implicitly with him Now the reason why these two names are used by the Emperour is because these Bishops were eminent Professours of the Orthodox Faith amidst the many Heretical Doctrines then in the World and were particular Defenders of it against Arianism If any Man should say he is for believing as the Ancient Fathers believed for continuing in that Faith in which the Athanasius's Cyrils Chrysostoms Nazianzens did that Faith which is still embraced and defended by the great and learned Men of our Church and not for believing as the little heedless Authour of the Naked Gospel does This would not be to believe implicitly on these great Men right or wrong but only to shew 't is more probable that their Faith is better grounded than that of every little trifling Heretick 'T is not worth while to examine all the Declamatory stuff he has brought towards the end of this Chapter for 't is a sure sign that Men want reason when they begin to declaim in such subjects but in truth the Authour has no very good hand at this neither for his strokes will raise no Mens Passions unless their Anger to see their Religion abused by such impudent and withal witless scurrility And indeed 't is enough to raise a Christians Zeal to an unusual Temper to hear him at the end of his false and patch'd relation of this Controversy to plume himself and vaunt as if he had struck the Orthodox Cause for ever dead Behold now the ground says he on which one of our fundamental Articles of Faith is built Behold the justice of that Plea which from such a possession would prescribe to our belief This and what after he says that the Athanasian are to be numbred with the Roman Doctrines is but common-place talk and what may be said upon any thing a Man has a mind to vilify though it be never so sacred The Authour in the close of this Chapter has hooked in some Arguments to make us have a favourable Opinion of the Arians and their Tenets though 't is nothing at all as far as I can see to his design in this Chapter The first is a very good one If Alexander himself the head of the Party could tolerate the Arians we can ill pretend
deduction be drawn from it And when the Authour shall offer any proof that we do he shall not want an Answer But I hope he does not take this for proof to lay down Propositions against the Orthodox in general and make his proof only against the Papists 2. His second Charge of Innovation is That we exalt Faith above Holiness and against it too But here he lets the Papists alone and turns his Pen chiefly against the maintainers of Justification by Faith alone and those that hope to be justified by the Application of Christ's Merits to themselves And is very angry with some modern Authours for using the Expressions of application of Christ to our selves the Hand of Faith imputed Righteousness c. There is no intimation says he of any such Doctrine as this in the Scriptures but it was invented by false Apostles This is a bold Charge in good truth and if the Authour's Arguments were as good as his Confidence he would make something of it But instead of Argument he gives us nothing but a simple Parable about a Physician and his Nostrum which as it proves nothing so 't is not worth reciting As to Justification by Faith alone I hope I have made that Point good in Answer to the second Chapter and there too we shewed how the Doctrine of our relying on Christ's Merits for our Justification was founded on Scripture I know not how some Men may abuse this Doctrine by talking so much of and infusing such Notions of Christ's imputed Righteousness into their Disciples as to exclude all good Works of their own and to make them take little Care what Wickedness they do themselves if they have but Confidence enough to think they shall be saved by Christ's Righteousness This is a wretched Abuse of a good and comfortable Doctrine but after all 't is by Faith and not by Works we are justified 't is Christ's Infinite Merits that God does accept as the true meritorious Cause of our Justification and 't is Faith only can apply these Merits to our selves I say apply these Merits to our selves for these terms of applying and taking hold of Christ's Merits are not only to be met with in Calvin and Amesius c. but in several of the greatest Men of Antiquity But to consider a little who those Persons are which the Authour thus entitles with the Name of false Prophets And truly these false Prophets are no less Persons than St. Chrysostom St. Basil Theophylact Oecumenius with several others of the Latin Church St. Chrysostom in his second Homily upon the Romans on these words of St. Paul I thank my God c. He does not say I thank God but I thank my God who as the Prophets makes that proper to himself which is common to all And so on the words of St. Paul who hath loved me c. he thus comments What say you O blessed Paul You said just before who spared not his own Son now you say who loved me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and apply to your self or make your own the common benefit Id. Hom. 34. in Gen. St. Basil says 'T is the Son of God that is Righteousness and that we are righteous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by change of his Righteousness for ours If you desire to attain Righteousness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lay but hold upon Christ by Faith and you shall have all Now if these great Men must be branded with the Name of false Prophets for asserting that we are justified by applying God's Promises to our selves by Faith by taking hold on Christ for Righteousness that we are justified by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of his Righteousness I know not who in God's Church were true Pastours for I think very few if any have bore a greater Character than these His third Charge is That we advance Faith above Charity If he means by this we the Church of England he has answered himself a page or two further where he says She is the best constituted Church in the World because in her departure from the Church of Rome she departed not from Charity But besides we extend our Charity as far as we can with our Duty we make the Terms of Salvation as large as the Gospel allows them but we must not with our Charity make other Terms of Salvation than what our Saviour has done We may hope and have a charitable Opinion that a Man does perform these Conditions of Salvation but we can never hope that a Man can be saved without them We hope that such a one has repented and is therefore saved but 't is unreasonable to hope he can be saved without Repentance Now Faith is as much necessary to Salvation as Repentance and therefore we cannot hope that any one can be saved without such a Faith as the Gospel does require What God may do by dispensing with his own Laws is nothing to us but 't is his revealed Will that is to govern our Thoughts and Actions and not his hidden and unrevealed one which we know nothing at all of And thus much I have to say as to the Charity of our Thoughts to Hereticks As to the Charity of our Actions we are to allow them all the courteous treatment that the Laws of the Church and Realm will allow and to converse with them if occasion require so far as to avoid Scandal and Contagion We ought not to be sure to make a bosom-Friend of a Heretick when St. Paul bids us to reject him we are to do him any good turn we can but he has no Right to our ordinary Conversation as other good Christians have till he returns again to the Catholick Faith The Ancient Writers tell us That St. John the Evangelist when he entered into a Bath where the Heretick Corinthus was he hastened out again and desired his Friends to do the like least the Bath should fall upon them whilst such a wicked Heretick was there The Apostolick Canons prohibit all Communion with them and the Council of Laodicea forbids to pray with them or to contract Marriage with them and certainly Heresie in this Age is not grown more Innocent than it was then to deserve our Charity so much the more As to the punishing of Hereticks which the Authour makes another Breach of Charity against them whatever the Romanists do our Church contents her self with Punishment purely Spiritual and leaves all the other to the Secular Power Or to speak in the words of Photius We are taught to cut off Hereticks from the Body of Christians but otherwise to punish them we have not learned but when they grow incorrigible we deliver them over to the Civil Power that sentence may be passed on them by the Magistrates Neither is our Secular Power in the least to be taxed with Severity now the Act de Haeretico comburendo to the Authour's comfort has now for some time been repealed or else
Convocation and therefore he penned it with less caution than was necessary for what was to be exposed to every vulgar Eye Now is not this a pretty excuse after so long hammering out The Doctor writes a Socinian Book wherein he condemns the belief of nineteen parts in twenty of all the Christians in the World only to enlarge the minds of the Convocation with a more comprehensive Charity This would have been a pretty piece of comprehensive Charity indeed to have damned all the Members of the Catholick Church for so many Ages for worshipping a Creature for God out of pure tenderness to Socinian Consciences Well but he penned it with less caution than if it had been to be exposed to every vulgar Eye Now I should have thought it had been requisite to be more exact in composing what was to be viewed by the more judicious and that it had been a little too presuming to offer a parcel of uncorrected stuff to so learned an Assembly I am sure 't is but a course Complement of the Authour 's to those learned Gentlemen to write what was to be read by them at that rate as he would not care should be view'd by every vulgar Eye But though we should let this Excuse pass for some of his uncouth Expressions or little slips in his Quotations and Chronologies c. I am afraid it will never bear him out for all the premeditated Heresy of his Book Though he be ready to own that there are some scattering Sphalmata in that Treatise yet I believe he would be loth to have it thought one Total and Uniform Erratum Are all his Chapters about the Socinian Notions of Faith nothing but slips in the penning Are so many Arguments against our Saviour's eternal Generation nothing else Are all his scandalous Reflections upon the Doctrine of the Trinity and the Assertors of it his malicious Censures upon so many good and holy Counsels only owing to the want of a little caution in the writing If this be so 't is impossible to know any Author's mistakes from his general Design for if it was not the Doctor 's design to invalidate the Truth of Christ's Divinity he designed nothing at all for there is not one Chapter in his whole Book but some how or other tends that way But he designed he says only to communicate his Book to the Members of the Convocation this is a very fine excuse indeed to make that venerable Body whose business it was to detect and condemn all Heresies to become Patrons to his but however this is but an usual piece of Socinian Confidence not unlike that of the Editor of the Racovian Catechism who dared to dedicate so Heretical a piece to so Orthodox a Member of the Church as King James the First But why this to the Convocation Whom of his stamp did he find there that he could dare to communicate such a Book to This is such an infamous scandal to those great Representatives of our Church that he can never atone for to presume that ever they would steer their Actions by the direction of such an Heretical Treatise as that What would a Foreigner upon reading this Plea be apt to think of the Members of that August Assembly that the Doctor should design that Book for their use which the University as soon as detected condemned to the Fire But after all What constat is there that he designed this to be handed only to those Members Which by the way can be no excuse neither for such a private handing to all the Members of such a publick Body gathered from all the different parts of the Nation is as effectual a spreading of his Heresy as any publication whatsoever But I say What constat is there that he designed only this Why truly none at all but only his saying so and how far his word will go in this matter I cannot tell 'T is plain the Copies of his Book were not essayed to be spread till the Lent after the Convocation was broke up The Gentlemen in Oxford to whom he delivered Copies were not all Members of that Body and the 500 which Litchfield in his Deposition said he printed were more far than the number of which the Convocation did consist Those Copies which were sent to the Bookseller and afterwards upon the dislike of the Book recalled were not I presume all designed to be sold to Convocation Men. Nay if the good Providence of God and the watchful Care of some of our excellent Governours in the University had not interposed we might have had every yound Lad in the University to have gotten one of these wicked Books into his Study So that 't is ridiculous evasion for the Author to say in the Title page of this Edition that the Book is now first published by him for he published it as much as he could before he put the Copies of it into the Publishers hands which was all he could do for his part and that they were stopped there was owing to the Intervention of other Authority And so much for the Doctor 's excuses to pass by his saucy Treating of the late Convocation by the reproachful names of Uncharitable Stubborn Stiff c. which is such Billingsgate stuff as is like calling Whore first to fasten those ill names upon them to avoid if he can the deserved one of Heretick upon himself I now come to speak a word or two to the Errors of this New Edition And those I think mostly lie within his Chapter of the Trinity which is the only New one in his Book for all his others are but the old Heresy pared away and something better varnished over than before And indeed in this Chapter there is something New for there is such an explication of the Trinity as no mortal ever heard before Here is a mixture of Platonism Hobbism and Sabellianism with some other peculiar Notions of the Doctor 's own jumbled together Quantum mutatus ab illo Is this the Author that has been declaiming so much against Mysteries and the explaining of Mysteries and has at last stuffed us out a Chapter with so much mystical Jargon But after all this second Notion of the Doctor 's is no farther distant from Socinianism than a Trinominal Deity is different from him that is personally one without such nominal Distinction or just so much as the Doctrine of Sabellius differed from that of Samosetanus or Photinus Now the first thing that the Doctor does to advance this Notion is to be angry with the terms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Substance and Person He says it was proposed in the Council of Alexandria That all Persons should forbear those Terms tho' I do not find any such thing was proposed there There were indeed some Rules given for caution in using them because they said the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was not used in Scripture and the Apostle used the word 〈◊〉
AN ANSWER TO AN Heretical Book Called the Naked Gospel Which was condemned and ordered to be publickly burnt by the Convocation of the University of Oxford Aug. 19. 1690. With some Reflections on Dr. Bury's New Edition of that BOOK To which is added a short HISTORY of Socinianism By William Nicholls M. A. Fellow of Merton College in Oxford and Chaplain to the Right Honourable Ralph Earl of Mountague 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greg. Nazianz. Orat. 25. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phot. Nomoc. Tit. 12. c. 2. LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1691. TO THE Right Honourable RALPH EARL of MOUNTAGUE c. My Lord I Am induced to lay these Papers at your Lordship's Feet both from the Relation I bear to your Lordship which does exact all my Labours as a Tribute and Acknowledgment of my Duty and Obligation as also from the Knowledge of the great Affection and Zeal You have always continued to shew for the True Religion assuring my self that whatsoever shall be offered in Defence of that especially against the now growing Heresie of the Times will find no small Acceptance in your Lordship's Favour It is sufficiently known my Lord what a signal Example of True Christian Piety and Courage against the Anti-trinitarian Heterodoxes was shewn by the excellent Sir Ralph Winwood your Lordship's Grandfather when he was Embassadour in Holland for King James I. in so strenuously opposing Vorstius the Socinian's Accession to the Professorship of Leyden whose Advice if the States had then been so prudent as to have taken the Socinian Heresies had not made the Progress in the World as now they have from the Lectures of him and his Successours in that Chair And therefore my Lord I am encouraged to think that your Lordship who does possess all the Noble Endowments of that great and good Statesman your Ancestor will favourably look upon that which is designed against those Heretical Tenets the Seeds of which have been mostly sown in this Nation by the Books of Vorstius and his Successours though often under Colour of Opinions of a more specious Name May it therefore please your Lordship to accept these my poor Endeavours in Defence of the True Faith which I have here presumed to entitle to your Lordship's Protection and be pleased to look on them as a small Token of the Duty and Service which shall be always owing to your Lordship from My Lord Your Lordship 's Most Dutiful Chaplain and most Obedient Servant W. Nicholls THE PREFACE THE occasion of writing this Treatise was to hinder the mischief that the Book it is designed to Answer was like to do which having lain so many Months without an Answer I did reasonably presume there was none design'd and therefore I thought such a one as I could supply would be better than none at all I should never have troubled the World with this if I had had the least Item of Mr. Long 's design but that was perfectly unknown to me till these Papers were wrote out fair for the Press As to the Method I have taken in the answering this Book I have followed the Authour in his own and have given his Titles to each of the Chapters In those Chapters in which he most impugns our Saviour's Divinity I have traced him step by step and given an Answer to every Shadow of an Argument that he brings In other Chapters where there are only oblique stroaks against the Doctrine of the Trinity or which are only Introductory to his main Design I have only summed up the Substance of them and so given an Answer to them in general or at least to so much of them as seemed to make against the Truth of this Doctrine or any other important Truth of our Religion Now it may by some perhaps be thought unfair when I use these Expressions The Authour would insinuate would pretend c. when he does not in express Terms assert that thing in his Book But it must be considered That it was the Authour's design not to let his Book appear with too Heretical a Face but to lay his Premises so that the Reader should often draw his Consequences for him without his setting them down in express Words This is a Subtilty which is common to all such sort of Writers that dare not speak out their full Minds though by the way I think this Authour has as little minced the matter as any But however I have carefully endeavoured not to pervert his Sense but to take his words in that meaning which any indifferent Reader would think the Author designed they should be understood in If I have any where mist his Meaning 't is thro' Mistake and not thro' Wilfulness And in truth I am not absolutely sure after the greatest Diligence that I have always hit his Sense for he has a peculiar way of Writing different from all the Writers of the age his Periods are long and uneven filled with odd sort of Similes and affected Phrases broken with unnatural Parentheses and almost constant Hyperbatons which to be sure will occasion Obscurity in his Book so that if I have mistaken his Meaning upon this account he is to charge that upon himself and not upon his Answerer In short I have performed this Task with all the fairness I could with a design not to triumph over my Adversary but to evince the Truth to vindicate the Honour of my Blessed Saviour which was here so highly calumniated and to assert the Doctrine of the Holy undivided Trinity into the belief of which I was baptized and in which I hope by God's grace to die THE CONTENTS OF THE ANSWER to the PREFACE THE Doctrine of the Trinity could give no incouragement to Mahometanism The true Reasons of the great prevailing of Mahomet's Religion Animadversion upon the Authour's mistake about the establishment of Image-worship Vpon his saying Mahomet professed all the Doctrines of the Christian Faith The Heterodox greater furtherers of Mahometanism than the Orthodox That the belief of the Trinity is very consistent with the simplicity of the Christian Religion That the requiring a belief of this Doctrine does not suppose unlearned Men to understand all the disputes about it The Socinian Doctrines much fuller of niceties than the Orthodox CHAP. I. Necessary to be believed and necessary to Salvation not the same The chief Rules of Christianity not easily discernible by the light of nature by instance of Tully and Aristotle Doctrine of the Trinity not contrary to the fewness of Christian Precepts How all the Gospel is Faith and Repentance CHAP. II. That we are justified by Faith alone proved by Scripture Antiquity c. This Faith ought to be Orthodox in all fundamentals The reason why Faith is so pleasing to God as to justify Men by it CHAP. III. What natural Faith is Faith under the Gospel is an inspired habit or grace proved by Scripture Antiquity c. The Faith of Abraham and the
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
Christian conclusion That the wonderful Progress of the Gospel was not a more powerful evidence of its Divine Authority than the Progress of Mahometanism was for that of the Alchoran But then again upon second thoughts he is a little for recalling himself and gives the Advantage somewhat on the Gospel side from the power of Arms which the Arabian Doctor used and something from the imparity of his Doctrines themselves and the life of their Authour whom he calls a lewd brain-sick Scoundrel with much more good manners and reverence than he termed our Saviour just before a crucified Vagabond And then a little after he is so just to Christianity again as to grant that Mahometanism had not the advantage against her in truth of Doctrine but only by permission of Divine Providence which had predicted the removal of the Candlestick out of its place but the great occasions of this removal he tells us were the great Innovations made in Christianity and the hot Disputes especially concerning the First and Second Persons of the Trinity which had so changed the Gospel that were an Apostle to return into the world he would be so far from owning that he would not be able to understand it and so leaves it as a moot Point whether Mahomet or the Christian Doctors have more corrupted the Gospel Though at last he seems to determine it against the Doctors and for Mahomet because he allows him to have professed all the Doctrines of the Christian Faith which the Doctors it seems had destroyed and because their Doctrines of the Trinity had provoked our Lord to divorce himself from his Churches and so did incourage and impower the false Prophet to seduce and ruin them This is the substance of half his Preface the parts of which hang so loose without any connection and are so odly jumbled together that I dare say hardly ever any Man of Letters before our Author drew a Conclusion from premises so loosely laid and I am afraid his Friends the Socinians are too great Lovers of Reason to hope for much credit or advantage to their Cause from one that is so little a Master of ordinary Logick For in all this â—â—ddle of words here is not one tittle of proof of the thing he would be at and what is worse 't is somewhat difficult to know what that is all that one can guess from what he has been saying is That the determinations of the Councils and the Writings and Disputes of the Fathers concerning the blessed Trinity against the Hereticks were the chief causes of the prevailing of the Mahometan Religion He mentions indeed with these the Doctrine of Image-worship but that is only to shew the Doctrine of the Trinity in bad Company for 't is plain by the tenour of his Book that his design was not against the worship of Images I shall therefore shew First That the Doctrine of the Trinity could give no occasion to the progress of Mahometanism Secondly What were the occasion of the prevailing of it and this I presume will be a full Answer to the first half of his Preface First That the Doctrine of the Trinity could give no occasion to the progress of Mahometanism As for the Doctrine it self I cannot see how that should gain Mahomet Proselytes any more than any other Doctrine of Christianity the Impostor himself disliked it 't is true because as long as this Doctrine was believed his pretended Revelations would never be received for 't would be in vain for him to offer to the World his Doctrines which were contrary to those that were before delivered by the Eternal Son of God He pretended to be no more than a meer Prophet and therefore could never presume to undo what was believed to be setled personally by God himself Besides the silliness of his arguing against the Generation of the Son shewed that he little understood the merits of that Cause one of whose Arguments is what Servetus the Reviver of this Authour's Heresy borrowed from him because God forsooth has no Wife So that there is the same reason why this Deceiver should condemn this Doctrine of our Lord's Divinity which obstructed his Ambition as he did that of Christian Mortification and Self-denial which obstructed his Lust And the Author with the same reason might arraign all the admirable Lectures the holy Scripture gives us of Abstinence and Chastity for false Doctrine too only because they were condemned by this Impostor But as for the disputes about this Doctrine at the time of Mahomet's appearing they were well-nigh laid asleep the Arian Doctrines were almost forgot by the eager disputes in the Apollinarian Nestorian and Eutychian Controversies and the Council of Chalcedon had fully determined the last Controversy nigh 200 years before the World heard any thing of Mahomet The number of the Arians at this time was very small and they were chiefly at that time according to Sandius himself in Spain and their Disputes there could not give any great scandal to the Saracens on the other side the World The greatest Controversies now on foot were in the East the Monothelites or the Assertors of one Will in Christ in the West was still remaining the Controversy about the Celebration of Easter And these the Impostor takes no notice of unless he includes them in the general amongst the Divisions which he did condemn amongst the Christians 2. Now secondly As to the certain reasons why Mahometanism should with such a violent inundation of a sudden over-run the Eastern World they can be known only to God himself the great Disposer of all Events whose Judgments are unsearchable and his ways past finding out But if we turn our Eyes upon second Causes we may find several at this time which either of themselves helped the spreading of this false Prophet's Impostures or at least provoked God to permit this contagion to prevail Which were first The Calamitous Estate of Christendom at that time nay the whole World was under that commotion which it never felt before and by God's Grace never may again The Goths and Hunns the Avares Lumbards and Bulgarians were ravaging all the Western Empire the Saxons not long before had over-run Britain and the Persians were making as great devastations in the East so that the Christians were not in a Capacity of resisting their other Enemies much less of hindering the Incursions of the Saracens Secondly The Negligence of the Popes and Patriarchs who lay wrangling in the defence of their Errours and in gaining Privileges and Precedencies to their Sees and did not lend any assistance towards the securing their Flocks from this Wolf till 't was past all recovery and even the holy Wars which the Popes were so zealous for afterwards seem'd designed more to keep the hands of active Princes a-work least they should attempt any thing against their See or out of an odd Superstition to the Holy Land and our Saviour's Sepulcher than out of any
Trinity And though all that is recorded of the belief of this Eunuch is that he believed that Jesus Christ is the Son of God yet it is to be supposed that he believed in God the Father too or else Philip would not have baptized him and 't is also very reasonable to think that he that was so inquisitive about the sense of the Prophecies would not be less exact in endeavouring to understand the meaning of this strange form of his Baptism a Ceremony which was of so grand import But we find in latter times when History and Relations are more distinct that persons to be baptized were to recite their Creed into which they were throughly instructed before by a full explanation of all its Articles and if in case of extream danger they were like to die before they were sufficiently instructed though they were then baptized yet they were obliged to be sufficiently instructed afterwards if they recovered They were also particularly obliged to give their assent in Baptism to each single person of the Trinity upon each of the three immersions Now this trine immersion in token of the Faith in the Trinity St. Jerom says was observed by ancient Tradition in the Church and that they were thrice immerged that there might appear one Sacrament of the three Persons Nay the same Father tells us farther in another place that 't was a Custom in the Church for the forty days before Baptism that in the days of Lent they being baptized at Easter the Persons to be baptized should be throughly instructed in the Doctrine of the Trinity So that whereas it was the use of the Church in the most early times to instruct Persons to be baptized in the Doctrine of the Trinity and this Custom was deliver'd down to them by Tradition and it being not to be supposed but that Men of sense would enquire of their own accord into the meaning of the form of their Baptism which would lead them into the knowledge of this Doctrine for to be baptized into the name of any one is to be baptized into the belief and worship of him so that this does necessarily inform them of three Persons to be believed in and worshipped which three Persons they are sure can be but one God therefore these primitive Proselytes were instructed in the Mystery of the Trinity The next Argument the Authour urges is from a place in Justin Martyr in whose days the Authour acknowledges the Doctrine of our Saviours Divinity to be the Doctrine most received but because Justin says in a very soft expression there are some my Friends among us who profess him to be Christ and affirm him to be Man born of Men therefore they that did believe so were reckoned true Believers I know not but that the Authour was helped to this Argument by Faustus Socinus who brings this Authority of Justin to prove that many in that Age held Christ only to be meer Man But however if by Unbelievers the Authour means perfect Infidels that did not own the Doctrine of Jesus Christ or that he was sent of God but looked on him as a downright Imposter I do not think that those persons Justin speaks of were such or were reputed such in the Church at that time yet though they were not reckoned Unbelievers in that sense they were reckoned false Believers or Heterodox they were probably Ebionites or some such Hereticks that looked upon Christ as meer Man or else an Angel incarnate or something of that nature and though they were reputed Christians it was never as Orthodox ones though they might be thought to be in a state of Salvation yet they were always lookt upon to be in very gross Errours But it does not follow that their Opinions were harmless because Justin calls them Friends he undoubtedly had Friends among the Heathens as well as the Hereticks and I suppose our Authour would take it very ill if all Orthodox Christians should commence Enemies to him for his Opinions in this Book So that the good nature and charitableness of this good Man could no more palliate the guilt of these Mens wicked Heresies than their Blasphemies could lessen his Vertues The Authour afterwards begins to be very gay and florid and says that the Orthodox belief of our Saviour's Divinity which he pretends to be contrary to that of the Ancients is like Diamonds costly hard and useless that our Saviours being brought into Questions of this nature is like Gold being made into a Pin which is only to debase his dignity and to employ it at Boys-play But who ever said that our Lord's name being in any Proposition gave truth or dignity to it purely as such Our Authour may be as merry with his Push-pin simile as he pleases but I think there is as little sense in this Declamatory stuff as there is to use his expression of that noble Metal in the point of his Pin. But though the Question of our Saviour's Divinity does not receive its importance by having our Saviour's name in it yet it may from the Command of God who has obliged us to believe aright in this point it may from the conducibleness of such a belief to a good Life as we have proved before and then all these fine simile's are not to much purpose But our Authour as he began this Chapter with the Testimony of an Emperour he ends it with one of a Lord though perhaps he had plaid the Orator better if he had given out his least Testimony first and have begun with the Lord and ended with the Emperour Though this Testimony I believe will stand him in no more stead than the former as upon examination will appear Now this Testimony is of one Leonas a Courtier in Constantius's Court who was sent by that Emperour to preside in the Council of Seleucia who seeing the Bishops fierce and endless he says at this push-pin Doctrine of our Lord's Divinity dismissed them with this reprimand Go and play the Fools at home The Authour quotes Socrates for this though these words are not in him there are indeed these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Get you gone and play the Fool again in the Church or in Church matters But I cannot imagine why the Author should translate it as he does unless perhaps he has met with some latin translation of Socrates or some latin Authour that quoted this place out of him which led him into this errour And this in all probability is the true case He finds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 translated by abite domum or ite domum and so thinks the word domum belongs to the latter part of the Sentence not to abite but to nugas agite the translation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so renders it into English play the Fool at home But whether this be the case or no it is no great matter the Testimony is not very considerable and besides it does not make any
what disgrace is it to this Council to be Condemned by an Heretick and an Usurper as Basiliscus was both For he had drove his Master the Emperour Zeno from his Throne and had embraced Eutychianism by the Instigation of his Wife Zenodia But the Authour need not lay any great stress upon Basiliscus's Circulatory Letters for within a little time after his Usurpation continuing but two years after which Zeno was restored he sends other Circulatory Letters to Countermand the former and to condemn Eutyches and his Followers and what 's most pleasant is he entitles them in the front the contrary Circulatory Letters of Basiliscus Now this fickle temper of the Usurper the Heretical Clergy that had subscribed his first Circulatory Letters were much afraid of which made them desire him to send no other contrary to them for fear the World should be over-run by Sedition the Council of Chalcedon having occasioned infinte blood-shed which expression the Authour would make advantage of against the Council though it comes to nothing at all For what can we suppose those Men to say or do which out of base compliance to a wicked Emperour had denied their Faith To be sure they would do all they could to keep up his present resolution for if he should alter it and encourage again the Orthodox they knew very well what a condition they would then be in after so scandalous a condescention To hear these Men rail against the Council of Chalcedon would signify as much as to hear one of our Clergy that had read the Declaration in the late Reign to exclaim against the Sanguinary Laws of the Nation and the Spirit of Persecution in the Church which no one to be sure would believe any thing the more for their saying so because every one must expect they would have something to say to justify so infamous a compliance As to what the Authour mentions farther about the dispute of the two Wills in Christ this was in no ways owing to the Orthodox Doctrine of the Trinity but altogether to the Innovations of the Hereticks The Authour gives us some short account of the rise of this Heresy but neither so fair nor so clear as he ought for as for the name Catholicus he mentions I cannot imagine whom he should mean unless Athanasius the Patriarch of the Jacobites who is the Person I suppose he must aim at though I cannot find he was ever called by that name indeed he pretended to be a Catholick and Baronius in the Margin of his Annals when he relates something of this matter writes in large Letters Athanasius simulat se Catholicum and perhaps this might lead him into this Errour But in short the rise of Monethelitism which was only a Spawn of the Eutychian Heresie was this as Paulus Diaconus informs us When the Emperour that is Heraclius was at Hierapolis Athanasius the Authour 's Catholicus Patriarch of the Jacobites a subtil Man and of a shrewd Wit coming to the Emperour and talking of Religious Matters Heraclius perceiving his Parts promises him he should be Patriarch of Antioch if he would subscribe to the Council of Chalcedon That there were two Natures in Christ He greedy of the Prey pretends to subscribe but then to beguile the Emperour he subtilly subjoins But what think you of the Wills and Operation in Christ are there Two Wills and Two kinds of Operations or but One The Emperour no understanding these Subtilties sends to Sergius Bishop of Constantinople and Cyrus Bishop of Phaselis who as they were of a corrupt Judgment that is Eutychians answer That he had but one Will. In this manner the Emperour being entangled he desires to draw others into his Opinion This was the Rise of Monothelitism which is no ways owing to the Doctrine of the Orthodox it being only a Corollary of the Eutychian Heresie and was propagated only by those that were poisoned with Eutyches's Tenets What the Opinions of these Hereticks particularly were is no great matter or what was determined for them in some little by-Synods of their own packing it is enough to know that the Catholick Church condemned this Heresie as soon as it began to gain Footing in the World by a General Council the Second of Constantinople CHAP. IX It is dangerous AND when the Authour comes to shew this he is for a home charge at first onset and makes this danger we incur by the Orthodox Belief of our Saviour's Divinity to be no less than that of Blasphemy This is a hard Accusation but the best on 't is 't is difficult to prove and the Author is so civil as far as I can see not to attempt it He has in this Paragraph a Quotation out of Socrates not much to the purpose and a little talk about Precipices and Children's walking upon the top of high and narrow Walls but not a tittle of the Blasphemy business unless this be something when he says That this Doctrine makes us have so mean an opinion of our Lord's Person as to think it comprehensible But by the Authour's Favour who ever of the Orthodox said our Lord's Person was comprehensible or ever pretended to comprehend it He was just now charging us for flying to the word Mystery as an impregnable Fort in this Doctrine and now he is angry because he fansies we don't think it enough mysterious This is a pleasant way of arguing the Authour has got to talk thus backwards and forwards and within a Page or two so that I am sure if the Authour cannot believe he can write Mysteries But why must every explication of the Possibility of the existence of a thing make it comprehensible Indeed every thing that is explained is so far comprehensible as it is explained and so may any thing that is infinite be so far comprehensible I can comprehend the possibility of an infinite division of Quantity but yet I cannot comprehend the modus of such a Division farther than the numbers guide me which I have a perfect notion of I can comprehend the necessity of God's being eternal tho' 't is impossible I should have an adequate Idea of his particular duration or of that infinite time he has already been or is to be That our Saviour is God is all the Orthodox pretend to comprehend but not the manner of his being God They endeavour to make this Truth as intelligible as they can which the Hereticks would make both false and unintelligible 2. The Second Danger of this our Belief he would have to be because he says We have no firm ground to go upon As for Scripture he says the Arians capt Texts with the Orthodox Antiquity they claim'd with equal Confidence and Councils determined sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other according as Emperours influenc'd them so that the only Advantage of the Catholicks is long Prescription and that after Sentence Now this is all bold Assertion without one word of Proof and I hope the
to Charity if we allow them no title to God's Favour or the Churches Communion What Alexander's thoughts were of the Arians as to God's favour I believe our Authour can't tell nor any one else at this distance and therefore he can be no rule to us as to this matter That he did Excommunicate some of these Hereticks Arius himself and some others mentioned by the Historians are sufficient Instances that he did not more was owing to their numbers and not to his Opinion of their not deserving it But as to his saying we allow them no title to God's Favour I suppose few will prescribe rules to that any further than they find them prescribed by God himself God Almighty may save for ought as we know thousands of Hereticks and Schismaticks but he has not in any ways let us know so much in his holy word we find but one Faith there that we can be saved by but one Church to communicate in and to both which the promises of the Gospel are made whatsoever God may do more is unknown to us 't is possible that he may do it but he has no where declared he will If he does afford Salvation to such Persons 't is not by the ordinary Methods of the Gospel and what his extraordinary Methods are God himself only knows The ordinary way he has marked out to us there is the rule for us to judge by and those that do not walk by this we may with Charity say they are out of the common way of Salvation The next excuse the Authour makes for them is because they may not see the ill consequences of their Doctrines for he says if this make them Hereticks it is only in Logick As for the Arian Doctrine that was not Heresy by consequence but a downright denial of our Lord's Divinity and that was plain enough by Arius's disputes at first though his Followers afterwards began to mince the matter and to spin their Heresy a little siner when it became too odious to the vulgar after the Nicene Determinations But however Heresy by deduction is still Heresy as the Conclusion is vertually contained in the Premises and the Corollaries in a Proposition The Heretical Consequence is not less Heresy because it is a little further removed than ordinary for whatsoever is true after a thousand deductions is true still and 't is the same in all manner of falsities Nay there is a guilt contracted from this reductive Heresy as well as from the other though such Heretical Person may not observe himself these Heretical or other wicked consequences For as in matter of practice if a Man does a thing unlawful though he may not apprehend all the ill consequences that may attend such an Action he is answerable for these consequences when they come to pass because he has entred upon an ill Action at first and therefore must bear himself off afterwards as well as he can thus it is in Heresy though the Heretick denies a Truth in God's Word the denial of which at first sight does not seem to have so much of Impiety yet for this first fault he is chargeable with the other impious Consequences which are drawn from it Thus when the Arians said there was a time when Christ was not though they did not expresly deny his Divinity yet they are guilty of this too though they pretend to abhor Idolatry yet they are guilty of this if they believe Christ to be a Created Being and yet do worship him A third excuse for the Arians is upon account of their expounding Scripture because he says they reconcile places seemingly contrary by the fairest Methods and so because 't is not the Custom of Writers ever to diminish but generally to advance the Character of the Person they write of therefore 't is reasonable that those places which make Christ equal to the Father should stoop to those that make him inferiour This would be very true if the Persons here spoke of had but one nature If a Poet or Oratour should call Achilles or Alexander a God and in other places a Man 't would be but reasonable for the Reader to take the latter compellation to be the truest and the other title of God to be only an Hyperbolical expression because these persons according to their Characters could not be Gods and Men too because they had only one humane nature but were only stiled Gods from some great and godlike qualities which were inherent in them But our Saviour having two Natures the Divine and the Humane united into one Person both compellations in a Grammatical sense might agree to him without any Figure or Hyperbole But besides our Saviour does not claim the name of the Son of God as a great magnificent Title to aggrandize his Office as Princes use to emblazon their dignity by great swelling Characters he came with another design into the World than to make a fine glaring shew here he came to preach up Meekness and Humility and was the most perfect Instance of them that ever was in the World Therefore if Christ was not God really and essentially and should withal take upon him this Title of God which is the greatest of all Titles on purpose only to raise him an esteem in the World as all Hyperbolical Titles are assumed for he would be then far from maintaining his Character of being a Person of the greatest Humility as he most certainly is if being by Nature really God he has condescended to take upon him our Flesh So that here is no need of running to a Figure to interpret these places we may understand them easily enough in their bare Grammatical sense for there is a thousand times more to be said for this than for any of the Socinians Figurative Constructions And so I think I have spoke to every thing material in this Chapter CHAP. X. Of the Word or Matter which is the Object of Faith THE Authour begins this Chapter with a Discourse about Fundamentals of Belief and by the way casts an odd sort of censure upon the Excellent Treatise of Dr. Hammond on that subject which he says is like an Advertisement in a Gazette which however cannot secure one from mistake if he meets the Man described I am sure that is an Excellent Treatise whatever the Authour thinks of it and I am sure too that admirable Man has handled this subject a thousand times more learnedly and honestly than the Authour has done it in this Chapter 'T is certain that the Authour's Heresy will not stand with the Doctor 's Enumeration of Fundamentals and that 's the reason in all probability that he speaks so slightingly of it and moreover to say the Doctor 's Enumeration every one will not receive for adequate for I believe he is one of that number but certainly it is no defect in that Discourse that it cannot secure every one from mistake that will blind his own Eyes for the Fundamental Doctrines of Religion are
either can from hence conclude that God is in some manner he does not understand three and yet one which is all the notion any one can have of the Trinity Here is no such remote distance between the word and the consequence but any one of the meanest Capacity may find out for Men in their ordinary business every day make conclusions at a wider distance from their premises than this or else I am sure they are not fit to live or deal in the World As to what he instances in the consequence which the Papists draw from Christ's bidding Peter seed his Lambs the Papists when they think fit may answer that for themselves 3. The Third Qualification he gives for Matter of Faith is That it be expresly honoured in Scripture with the promise of Eternal Life Now 't is a little arbitrary methinks in the Authour to lay down a Rule here as he does and give no reason for it especially such a one as he might reasonably expect would be contested and 〈◊〉 one should make bold to deny it he would I believe have a difficult Task of it to prove That every particular Article of only the Apostles Creed had the Promise of Eternal Life expresly annexed to it in Scripture He first tells us a wonderful thing That every thing in Scripture though it be equally true yet it is not equally Gospel and for the Proof of this he brings in the business of Paul's Cloak which he left behind him But I hope the Doctrine of our Saviour's Divinity is of something more Importance to those that believe it especially than the Relation of Paul's Cloak And if we should ask any Socinian in the World whether supposing it true it was not of greater Importance than this I believe the Vnitarian himself would give such an Answer as would make the Authour ashamed of such an impudent and saucy Comparison And now one would think that the Man that would be so bold as to make this Comparison would bring something to prove That the Belief of Christ's Divinity had not Eternal Life promised to it or that all other Doctrines which were required to be believed had But instead of this he brings one Text of Scripture which makes perfectly against the Doctrine he designs to establish and that is Mark 16. 15. Go ye into all the World and preach the Gospel to every Creature He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned Now if the Doctrine of our Saviour's Divinity be revealed in the Gospel as we have shewn it is and the Belief of the Gospel have Eternal Life promised to it then the Belief of Christ's Divinity has a Title to this Promise as well as the Belief of the Resurrection or any other Christian Doctrine because it is revealed in the Gospel as well as that From this Rule thus firmly established he draws four Corollaries First There is no need of an Interpreter of Scripture or Determiner of Doubts in Matter of Faith Secondly The Scriptures cannot be denyed to be sufficient Thirdly We need not ought not to be uncharitable to any who differ from us in other Doctrines to the Belief whereof the Promise is not appropriated Fourthly There is no need of a Catalogue of Fundamentals How well these Corollaries follow from his Proposition I shall not now dispute though upon examination I believe the Consequence would not be so genuine and there might be some occasion for one of the Authour's Heralds to derive it but as for the Two first of them they make nothing at all against the Orthodox Doctrine of the Trinity which the Authour knows well enough we do not ground upon Infallibility and pure Tradition but only he has a Mind to give us a Cast of his Heretical Malice by blackening this Doctrine as much as he could and by making it look something more of a Romanish Complexion As to his Third Corollary First That is grounded upon Supposition That the Belief of Christ's Divinity has not the Promise of Eternal Life annexed to it Now I wonder with what Confidence the Authour can go about to invalidate a Truth which is so firmly established even upon his own Principles How often in one Chapter of St. John's Gospel Joh. 3. is Eternal Life promised to Belief in the Son God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life Joh. 3. 16. He that believeth on him is not condemned v. 18. He that believeth on the Son hath eternal Life By all which believing is meant a believing in Christ's Divinity and not a believing the Truth of his Doctrine for believing in is only attributable to God as implying an unlimited Trust and Relyance in him which it is Idolatry to afford to any Creature For there is a great deal of difference between credere Deo believing God and credere in Deum believing in him which is a Distinction which is made great use of by some of the Latin Fathers and the School-men they allowing bare believing to be applicable to a Creature but that none is to be believed in but Almighty God But besides there are other Texts of Scripture which do promise Eternal Life namely and expresly to the Belief of Christ's Divinity This is life eternal that they may know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent Joh. 17. 3. Now what can be meant by knowing Jesus Christ but knowing or believing his Divinity That he was Man they could not chuse but know that he was a Prophet his Miracles shew'd so that they could know him no other way truly but only by knowing his Divinity And this was the Purport of our Saviour's Prayer just before That God would glorifie him that is would make his Divinity conspicuous to the World v. 1. which he puts out of all doubt by his explaining his meaning v. 5. And now O Father glorifie thou me with thy own self with the glory which I had with thee before the World was Now that Glory which he had before the World could be only the Glory of his Divinity therefore the Promise of Eternal Life was made to the knowing or believing Christ's Divinity The same thing is as plainly expressed 1 Joh. 5. 20. And hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true and we are in him that is true even in his Son Jesus Christ This is the true God even eternal life Where he that is the true God is said to be Jesus Christ and the knowing him to be the true God i. e. believing him to be such is promised to be rewarded with Eternal Life Secondly As to his saying we ought not to be uncharitable to those that differ from us in Points which have not this Promise this depends upon the Truth of his Assertion that those Truths he means have not such a Promise in Scripture
which we have proved the Doctrine of our Saviour's Divinity to have So that upon our Authour 's own Principles we may reason thus If Eternal Life be promised to those and to those only that believe Christ's Divinity then those that do dis-believe it have no Title to Eternal Life But we have proved that Christ has promised it to those and to those only that believe his Divinity therefore c. For Christ's promising Eternal Life to those that should believe his Divinity supposes the Promise is to them only for if it were to be given to others it were no kind of Invitation and Encouragement to them for to believe it seeing then they might attain it without it If the Consequence which is naturally drawn from this be uncharitable 't is what results from the Author 's own Principles which he himself has laid down and then he may thank himself for that As to his Fourth Corollary That then there is no need of a Catalogue of Fundamentals this is a stroke too of his usual Confidence by which he taxes no less Men than the very Apostles themselves of a foolish uncessary labour For if there was no need of a Catalogue of Fundamentals why should the Apostle exhort Timothy so earnestly to hold fast the form of sound words which was undoubtedly in our Authour's Phrase a Catalogue of Fundamentals or some brief Summary of Faith probably that Creed which we have now under the Apostles Names Why should the Apostles or some other Apostolical Men set themselves to collect together the Chief Heads of our Christian Faith for the Instruction of their new Converts if it were nothing but a needless Work The Apostles hands were then too full of business to do any thing but what was absolutely necessary and the Holy Spirit which was to guide them into all Truth would certainly keep them from writing what was unnecessary as well as what was false for Impertinence though it is not a Contradiction to yet is a Hindrance of Truth as well as Falshood I shall not insist here how he reflects by this upon the Actions of so many Venerable Councils for 't is the usage of this Gentleman's Tribe to be saucy with those Sacred Assemblies but methinks he should be more civil to his beloved Friends the Arians and Socinians Will he allow that Arius and Euzoius and Eusebius of Caesarea c. were only playing the Fools whilst they were drawing up their Creeds Will he own his celebrated Arian Councils of Antioch Ariminum Seleucia c. to be only at his Push-pin whilst they were contriving their Heterodox Forms of Faith And had the Socinian Brethren nothing to do when they wrote their Summaries of Religion which are Catalogues of their Fundamentals I am afraid this is something more than upon second Thoughts he will readily grant But for all our Authour's Positiveness a Creed is no such unnecessary Work as he may think What though the Scripture be a compleat Rule of Faith a Creed may not be a needless one for all that Though the Scripture contains every thing necessary to Salvation yet Comments upon Scripture and Sermons and Catechisms I hope are not wholly impertinent All the necessary Points of Faith 't is true are found somewhere or other dispersed through the Bible but 't is too difficult for Children and Novices and many others who have not so much leisure to search them out there therefore 't is very necessary for these to have a brief Summary of Faith to be drawn up out of them for their use which they may quickly read over and easily remember Besides Creeds are of great advantage in the Church to shew us the Belief of the Primitive Ages which as they were nigher to the Apostolick times so they could know better the Apostolick Faith than others that were at a remoter distance and therefore by these we have a better Knowledge of the Primitive Faith than if we had the Assistance of the Scripture only Though the Scripture it self is a good and sufficient Rule yet these Ancient Creeds are useful Explanations of it though the Scripture be the great primary Rule of Faith yet the Creeds of the Ancient Church may be secondary ones as being formed by the first and more adapted to some particular Capacities and some peculiar Circumstances The Authour next I find is afraid that he has not laid his first Proposition firm enough upon which he has been building all these Corollaries and therefore he is for butteressing it afterwards as well as he can But instead of this he has unluckily made his Foundation weaker than it was before for whereas at first he allowed some Truths to be honoured with the Promise of Eternal Life here he will allow but one in all the Bible to be so and that is the Belief of our Saviour's Resurrection And now having brought the Q. of the 10th of the Romans v. 9. to prove this If thou shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised Jesus from the dead thou shalt be saved he very triumphantly asks the Question Do we in the whole New Testament find any other Doctrine so honoured Yes we have proved the Doctrine of our Saviour's Divinity to be so honoured and I wonder what the Authour thinks of the Doctrine of Repentance whether any Man can be saved without that or whether Eternal Life be not promised to it Whether it is not promised to the Belief of the true God This is life eternal to know thee the onely true God c. Joh. 17. 3. In short Eternal Life is promised either expresly or vertually to every Article of the Christian Belief and to the Practice of every Christian Precept but not to one singly without the other The Apostle tells us Rom. 8. 24. We are saved by hope and yet undoubtedly he requires the Exercises of other Vertues with it and though Salvation is promised to the Belief of Christ's Resurrection yet to be sure God expects our Assent likewise to all other Articles of the Christian Faith Bare Hope will as well save a Man without Faith and Charity as a bare Belief of our Saviour's Resurrection without a Belief of his Divinity for one is revealed in Scripture as well as the other and each of them have the same Promises of Eternal Life annexed to them But suppose one of them lacked this Promise expresly made to it it were not less to be believed for all that any more than we do not think our selves at liberty to neglect the Practice of Charity because we are not in Scripture said to be saved by it as we are by Hope The Reason why the Scripture particularly the Epistles of the Apostles does often back the Belief of the Doctrine of the Resurrection with this Promise is because this Point of all others in the Christian Religion was the most difficult to go down with the Heathens which the Apostles had to do withal it was so contrary to the received
perhaps taedâ luceret in illâ Quâ stant arden◠and might as deservedly it may be have followed his Friends Gentilis and Servet out of the World the same way Nor can it reasonably be thought that any Sanctions can be too severe to maintain such important Points of our Faith against the Blasphemy of Hereticks and it would shew our State to have too little regard for Religion to punish the defacing of our Coin with Death and to have no Punishment for those that shall presume to adulterate our Faith Fourthly His next charge of Innovations upon us is That we advance Faith above Reason and against it But here is not a word of the Proof of this He tells us indeed that we must not believe God's word any further than we have reason to believe it is God's word and that it is unreasonable to believe a Mystery and that is all he says to this Point 1. Now as to the Believing in God's word we never say but that our Belief is grounded upon better Reason than that of the Anti-trinitarians is for all their great pretence to it and I am sure our Arguments from Scripture are a thousand times more rationally deduced than our Adversaries are and as to Antiquity they have not the least pretence to that Indeed we do not pretend to understand all that our Reason tells us we ought to believe and I think it is more reasonable to think we should not understand God's Nature than that we should 2. As to our believing a Mystery that is not less to be believed upon that account if we are sure it is true for we do not believe it because it is a Mystery but because it is a Truth Well but he says this word Mystery has not the same sense in the Scripture and other ancient Authours as we put upon it As to the use of this word among prophane Authours they understand by it a Truth which is known only to some few Men and is not further to be divulged And so principally the Rites of Ceres and Proserpine were called Mysteries because they were esteemed to be of so great Sacredness as in no ways to be revealed And therefore Suidas derives the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from shutting the Mouth But then by Analogy all other things that were kept secret were called Mysteries So Tully speaking of his Letters says which have so much of Mysteries in them that I ought not to trust them to my Amanuenses And in the holy Scripture there are other senses of the word than what the Authour mentions for every thing that is called a Mystery there is not a spiritual Truth wrapped up in a sensible nor yet only a Truth hidden from some Ages which two senses only the Authour will allow For sometimes a thing altogether incomprehensible as the Trinity is is called a Mystery 1 Tim. 3. 16. Without controversie great is the Mystery of Godliness God manifest in the flesh c. Where the incomprehensible Truth of Christ's Incarnation is called a great Mystery And therefore says an ancient Father admirably well Great is the Mystery of Godliness not that it is unknown but because it is incomprehensible for it exceeds all power both of Expression and of Vnderstanding This perhaps the Apostle calls a great Mystery in allusion to the Ceremonies of those Deities that were called Great far inconsiderable Mysteries in respect of this Thus Diana who was worshipped with these Mysterious Rites is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 19. 27. and Proserpine and Ceres that were worshipped with the Eleusinian Mysteries were stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and their Rites 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athen. Now whereas these Mysteries and Deities were great only by their not being discovered this Mystery of our Saviour in a more peculiar manner is great by its being incomprehensible Now the definition which St. Chrysostom gives of a Mystery takes in all these notions of the Word A Mystery is that which is unknown and secret and has also a great deal wonderful in it and a great deal incomprehensible But the Authour says 't is more than a hidden Mystery that is in his phrase a plain contradiction that the same thing should be hid and open to the same Persons and who denies it if he mean in the same respect But a thing may be hid in one respect and open in another 'T is open and reveal'd to us That our Saviour's Divinity is de facto united to his Humanity but the express modus how this Union is performed is hid to us That Father Son and Holy-Ghost are one God is revealed or open to us but the manner of their Hypostatical Union is altogether hid That these things are so is plain and open to us but how they are so is altogether unintelligible And this I think is no Contradiction ENQUIRY III. What Damages or Advantages have ensued upon the Changes and Additions which latter Ages have made in the Gospel THere need little be said to this Chapter because I hope I have made it in some measure appear That the Doctrine of the Trinity and particularly of the Divinity of our Saviour is no Addition made to the Gospel but is that which was first delivered by our Saviour and his Apostles and therefore this Supposition of the Authour 's being false whatever Conclusions he draws from it without any more ado will fall of themselves But because he has before reckoned the Doctrine of the Trinity among the Papal Corruptions or as he speaks the Athanasian among the Romish Doctrines and by the Tenour of his whole Book has been proving this Doctrine an Innovation though he do not particularly mention it here but only Innovations in general I shall therefore follow him in his Method and shew That this Doctrine has in no ways occasioned those Damages and Corruptions in the Church which he would seem to lay to its charge and which 't is apparent those Papal Doctrines he mentions have He tells us there have ensued upon these Changes and Additions I. Damages II. Advantages The Damages which have ensued he says are 1. To our Lord's honour 2. To private Christians 3. To the Christian Church in general The Damages which he would have to proceed from these Innovations to our Lord's honour First Because they make him Capricious and humoursome by commanding things to be believed without reason Secondly Because they hinder the progress of the Gospel Now how far the Romish Corruptions deserve this censure I shall not examine but I am afraid the Authour will have a difficult task to prove this upon the Orthodox Doctrine of the Trinity or the Divinity of our blessed Saviour I have before shewn how unreasonable it is to expect we should be able to give an account of the true Reason of all God's positive Laws and how impudent it is for Men to refuse their Obedience to them because they do not understand those motives
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
each other not by any particular modality but by a true and real subsistence But when the Doctor makes the Son to be only Reason he can only make him an accident or at best but a Modality of the Father For if he only be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or what answers to it the internal Conception of the Father's Mind he would be only an Accident or Attribute or Mode or what else you 'll please to call it but would be far enough from that which the Church has all along called a Person And therefore the learned Fathers in the Church have been always careful to distinguish between this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 between the prolative or enunciative word and the essential and substantial one For the Son is not therefore called the word because he is the Reason of the Divine Mind or the Father but because he is generated of the Father without Passion For they explained this Generation by the production of a thought or word which was not produced by division or separation of parts which implies Passion but in a certain manner incommunicable to all Corporeal Beings So when the Doctor makes the Holy Ghost to be only the Power or Energy or Action of God what is this more than what the Socinians contend for and the Samosetanians and Followers of Simon Magus were Condemned for Nazianzen says that the Simonians thought the Holy Spirit was only an Energy and Leontius tells us that Paulus Samosetanus held the like Besides if the Holy Ghost be only an action with what propriety of speech can he be said to act or do With what tolerable sense can an action be said to speak and the Spirit said unto Peter Act. 10. 20. The Holy Ghost said uno them at Antioch Act. 13. How can an action or energy be said to search all things to make intercession for us to divide to every man severally as he will to reprove the World to guide us into all truth 'T is the nature of an Action to be acted but it can in no propriety be said it self to act But the Doctor says this Doctrine is stated by the Fathers as he has done it I hope by his Fathers he does not mean such as the Ministers of Alba Julia call so the famous Fathers Berillus Samosetanus Photinus c. and indeed some of these we have shewn to have explained the Trinity something at this rate but none of the Orthodox ones that I know of say any thing like it But he says St. Austin the Oracle of the Schoolmen states it thus whom Dr. Sherlock follows in his Book of the Trinity I know St. Austin in his Books de Trinitate if he means those has a great many strange Platonick Notions which I confess I do not understand and which perhaps St. Austin himself had no clear conceptions of when he wrote them but however there is enough in those Books to shew that St. Austin never designed such a nominal distinction in the Trinity as this Authour does What Dr. Sherlock says on this matter I have not time now to consult though when I read his Book I don't remember he gave any Countenance to this Opinion nay on the contrary some have been displeased with that Learned Doctor for making too great a distinction between the Persons of the Trinity not for making them three Names or Modus's as our Doctor does but for making them three distinct Minds or Spirits which are one by mutual Consciousness But what though these great Men should speak more nicely than ordinary of these Mysteries though they should wade deeper into them than other men The great Genius's of these admirable Persons and the strength of their natural reason will help to bear them out but I would advise our Authour to a little more cautiousness he poor Gentleman may be out of his depth before he is aware and therefore I am sure 't is his best way to keep within the ordinary Compass FINIS A Short HISTORY OF SOCINIANISM THE Heretical Persuasion of our Blessed Saviour's being only mere Man and the consequent Doctrines which ensue thereupon have of late Years been called Socinianism from the two Socinus's the most famous Inventors and Propagators of this Doctrine in the last Age for though the Heresie it self as to some parts of it was much older yet it had been altogether unknown for many Ages till by the Books of Servet the Socinus's and some other Hereticks in the last Age it was revived The first that set up this damnable Doctrine was the Heretick Cerinthus who lived in the Apostlick times and was Contemporary with St. John the Evangelist He asserted That Jesus was mere Man as others were and that he did not excell the rest in Justice or Wisdom or Prudence The Confutation of this Heresie was a special motive to St. John to write his Gospel or at least to be more express than the rest of the Evangelists in asserting our Lord's Divinity Ebion the Scholar of Cerinthus followed after his Master in this Heresie and propagated his Doctrines in Asia Cyprus Rome and elsewhere he asserted That Christ was but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pure Man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only common and mere Man This Heresie in the Second Age was propagated by one Theodotus Scytes or the Currier who taught likewise That Christ was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mere Man and was excommunicated by Victor Bishop of Rome for this Blasphemy Artemon followed Theodotus who said That Christ was mere Man only more excellent in Vertue or Power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 than the Prophets Against this Artemon there was a famous Book wrote which Eusebius mentions in which it was proved That the Ancient Christians did not believe his Doctrine as he pretended and in which the Authorities of Justin Martyr Miltiades Tatian Clemens are brought to confute him Sixty years after his Death in the Third Age about the Year 270 Paulus Samosetanus disseminated this Doctrine and asserted That Christ had only the common Nature of Man He was condemned in the Council at Antioch 272. Much about this time or somewhat before Sabellius broached his Heresie not much unlike the rest of these he held That there was but One Person in the Deity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 under Three Names which does in effect as St. Basil says upon this account deny Christ's Divinity Arius who followed after and made such a noise in the World with his Heresie whatever his thoughts might be yet he did not expressly assert Christ to be mere Man but only to be a Creature produced in time yet one that had a Being long before his conception in the Womb of the Virgin and therefore he cannot so properly come into the List of these Hereticks But soon after the Nicene Determinations against Arius Photinus one of the
commonly been attributed to Castellio though 't is apparent it is not Castellio's by the Reflection that is made upon his Translation of the Scripture He wrote likewise a Treatise of the Sacraments and a Book de Resurrectione Corporum published by Crucellaeus Whatever other Designs he had projected and whatever Books he wrote fell into his Nephew Faustus's hands who made all the possible haste he could to Zurick to secure his Books and Papers fearing least it should fare with Laelius as it had done before with David George Faustus Socinus the Nephew of Laelius was the Son of Alexander Socinus and of Agnes the Daughter of Burgesius Petruccius Prince of Siena by which he was related to Three Popes Pius II. and III. and Paul V. He was born December 5. 1539. at Siena being but Fourteen Years younger than his Uncle and he being now dead and Faustus having gotten his Books and Papers into his hands he returns into Italy being now at the Age of Twenty Three Years and spends Twelve Years in the Court of the Duke of Florence And now whilst Faustus kept close in Italy the Vnitarian Cause was carried on by others and not a little by Castellio by publishing to the World Ochinus's Dialogues of which Faustus Socinus says His sense of our Saviour Christ was plainly expressed and inculcated though Castellio in his defence said he only published them as a Translator being wont to get his Livelihood by translating Books Neither were the Vnitarians themselves wanting to carry on their design for in the Year 1566 there was a Book printed at Alba Julia with this Title Demonstratio falsitatis Docrina Pauli Melii reliquorum Sophistarum per Antitheses unà cum refutatione Veri Turcici Christi And afterwards another entitled De falsâ verâ unius Dei Pat. Fil. Sp. Sanct. Cognitione supposed to be wrote by Laelius Socinus though Sandius denies it from the difference of the style c. And about the same time Jacobus Acontius published his Book call'd Satane Stratagemata which did considerable Service to the Vnitarians In the Year 1568 there came out a Book set out by the Ministers and Seniors of the consenting Churches in Transylvania De Mediatoris Jesus Christi hominis divinitate aequalitatéque in which speaking of the Trinity they say The Three-One God of Antichrist is buried and say It was wickedly done of the Roman Church to condemn those famous Fathers Berillus Samosetanus Arius Donatus Helvidius Artemon c. And in the Year 1569 They publish another of the Kingdom of Christ and Anti-christ with a Treatise of Paedo Baptism and Circumcision the Conclusion of which Book is this Whosoever does truly believe that the Pope is Anti-christ does truly believe that the Trinity and Infant Baptism and the other Sacraments of the Papists are the Doctrines of Devils The next Year being the Year 1570 Faustus Socinus published his first Book of the Authority of the holy Scripture in Italian afterwards turned by himself into Latin and set out under the Name of Dominicus Lopez at Sevil 1588. and again set out by Vorstius at Steinfort 1611. in which Book says a Learned Man instead of making good the Scripture's Authority against Atheists he weakens it among Christians In the Year 1574 he leave the Duke's Court and comes to live at Basil where he spends three Years in furbishing up that Model of Divinity which was left him by his Uncle Laelius for he himself by his own Confession was able then to add but little to them For in his Answer to the defence of Puccius he says he understood not much of Greek and but little or nothing of Hebrew And indeed Forterus's Lexicon was his whole Treasure of Hebrew Knowledge which he was forced to recur to upon all Occasions His Knowledge in Logick was but small at best and he had wrote several of his Books before he had any Knowledge at all of it In the Year 1577. He published his Disputation de Jesu Christo Servatore which he had with Jacocâ—bus Covetus Pastor of the French Church at Basil And in the Year 1578. he published another Disputation of the state of the First Man before the Fall against Francisus Puccius In his Book de Christo Servatore he revived first of the modern Vnitarians Abelardus's Heresie of the Redemption and Satisfaction of Christ making the Merits of Christ to be purely exemplary In the Year 1578. he sets out Castellio's Dialogues of Predestination Election Free-will and Faith and writes a Preface to them under the feigned name of Faelix Turpio Vrbevetanus His Explication of the first of St. John was wrote about the Year 1562. as he himself says though not published till afterwards In the Year 158â— he sets out his Synopsis of Justification from which the Remonstrants since have borrowed so much But in this Year there happened the great Schism among the Vnitarians concerning the Adoration of Christ especially between Blandrata and Franciscus Davidis the Ministers of Alba Julia siding with the one and those of Claudiopolis or Clausburg with the other Upon this Blandrata invites Socinus into Poland to be Moderator in this difference and gets Socinus to lodge in the same house with Fr. Davidis Blandrat during his stay bearing all his Expences So that within a few Months afterwards followed that famous Conference held at Clausburgh concerning the Invocation of Christ which was afterwards Printed in the Year 1594. After the end of which Conference Franciscus Davidis being very stiff in his Opinion and his Antagonists exaggerating the Wickedness of it he was forthwith imprisoned by Order of the Prince of Transylvania and afterwards in a few Months was either made away there or died From hence was raised a great Clamour by the Anti-Adoration Party against Socinus and Blandrata that they had been the Authours of this Persecution which was so much credited that they lost their Esteem with many This forced Socinus to write an Apology to the Transylvanians the Followers of Franciscus Davidis to shew that Franciscus drew this Calamity upon himself That contrary to his Promise given to him and Blandrat he had procured several things in the Synod of Thord to be decreed against the Invocation of Christ and once when he preached in the great Church he expresly asserted That it was the same thing to pray to Christ as to pray to the Virgin Mary or any other of the dead Saints After the Death of Franciscus Davidis the Anti-Invocation Party in Transylvania were not quiet but did resolutely maintain That as Christ by Nature was not God so without Idolatry he could not be worshipped and for this side of the Controversie there appeared strenuously Franciscus Davidis's Son Palaeologus Glirius Sommerus and others who in their Books and Discourses did grievously accuse Socinus and Blandrata Socinus not being easie under all these Contradictions and Accusations forthwith leaves Transylvania and being now 40