of the Father or that he or the Holy Ghost are GOD. It saith no higher thing of them than it saith of the Holy Catholick Church I believe in the Holy Ghost I believe in the Holy Catholick Church for so all know this Creed is read in the Original Greek and by all the Fathers Is it now Sir conceivable that these Doctrines should be as Trinitarians pretend a Tradition constantly preserved when their own Criticks reject the Works of those first Fathers as certainly spurious or forged that speak any what directly or explicitly of the Trinity and other depending Points and Questions and when besides their common and only Creed is undeniably Socinian I deny not Sir that the Fathers of the first 300 Years whose Writings have been suffered to come down to Posterity began to corrupt the true Doctrine concerning the Person of our Saviour making him to be much greater than he was From about the Year 150 some of them were got into the Opinions that were afterwards called Arianism or the Arian Trinity But this I affirm and all the Criticks among the Trinitarians do own it that those Fathers spoke not of the Trinity and of the Points and Questions thereon depending as the Church now doth they so held a kind of Trinity as not to destroy the Unity of GOD or that only the Father is truly and properly GOD. But this was a Digression I proceed to our fifth Reason against these Doctrines They have been partly the direct and necessary Causes partly the unhappy Occasions of divers scandalous and hurtful Errors and Heresies particularly of those which compose the gross Body of Popery 'T is well observed by some that one Absurdity or Error being introduced 't is always the Ground and Occasion of many more This Aphorism was never more sadly verified than in the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation For no sooner were these Doctrines by the Countenance of sanguinary and arbitrary Edicts of the Bizantine Emperours become the more general and current Belief of the Churches but there immediarely broke in after them that Swarm of absurd and heretical Doctrines which have no less than subverted the true and primitive Christianity 1. The first-born of the Trinity was the Supremacy of the Pope A few Bishops not a fifth Part of the Bishops of the Catholick Church having presumed in the Council of Nice Anno 325 to determine for the whole Catholick Church so great a Point as this that there is more than one Divine and Eternal Person they sent the new Creed and Acts of that Council to the Churches and Bishops who had not been present at it to be by them subscribed Hereupon the Bishops of Asia assembling themselves in about 30 provincial Councils rejected the Word Consubstantial or of the same Substance with the Father in which the whole Mystery of Trinitarianism and the Stress of the Nicene Creed does lie they would by no means admit of this Word So faith Marcus Ephesin the most Learned of the Greeks Concil Florent Sess 5. The Bishops of Germany and of Belgium now the Low-Countries and of Gaul now France and of the three Provinces of Great Britain would not receive the Creed of Nice giving this Reason that the Word Consubstantial is unscriptural So saith St. Hilary that great Adversary of the Arians and other Unitarians towards the beginning of his Book de Synod The Bishops of Africa seem not so much as to have taken into their Archives or Registries the Acts Canons or Creed of Nice For in the Year 418 in a Contest between them and the Bishop of Rome they sent to Constantinople and Alexandria for Copies of the Acts of the Nicene Council Concil Carthag 6. Anno 418. The Nicene Council being thus refused and despised by all the considerable Nations professing Christianity the Nicene Faction of Bishops began to consult of a way how to settle their beloved Doctrine by political Arts and at length they resolved upon this Expedient Anno 347 having got on their side the Emperor Constans and finding that the Bishops and Church of Rome were thorowly in their Interests they assembled in Council at Sardica and there made those famous Canons on which all learned Men know the Authority and Supremacy of the Bishops of Rome is wholly grounded and which those Bishops have ever since exercised They designed by these Canons to secure the Bishops and other Ecclesiasticks of the Nicene Party now called Trinitarians in their Bishopricks and other Church-Dignities and to eject from time to time all Vnitarians But these Politicians were quite out in hoping for such an Effect they were so far from governing the Catholick Church by those Canons that they served to no other purpose but the inslaving the Makers of them and their Successors to the Popes of Rome But for a fuller Account Sir of this Sardican Council or rather Conventicle I refer you to the Acts of Athanasius lately published in which the History of these Betrayers of the Catholick Church is fully related 2. In the Year 431 it was concluded and determined by the Trinitarian Faction assembled in Council at Ephesus that GOD the Son was truly and properly incarnate in the Womb of the Virgin Mary and was born of her so that Mary was not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mother of Christ but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mother of God This blasphemons and contradictory Conclusion being once made immediately they fell to worshipping and praying to her If GOD the Son is to be worshipp'd and invovated shall we turn our Backs on the Mother of God Shall not she be able to help us at least by way of Intercession to whom the Angel said Thou art highly honoured of GOD and who was as it were Wife to GOD the Father and in very Deed Mother to GOD the Son Father Simon in the 3d Chapter of the Critical History of the Religions of the East saith It is chiefly since the Birth of Nestorianism that is since the Council of Ephesus that so much respect hath been shown to the Virgin Mary He means she was not so much worshipp'd and invocated till that Council had determined against Nestorius that she is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mother of GOD. But Father Simon will never be able to show that Holy Mary was at all worshipp'd or prayed unto till the Ephesin Council had decreed that she is to be deem'd the Mother of GOD. I do challenge him or any for him to produce any Testimony of the Ancients for the Worship and Invocation of Mary that is so ancient as the Ephesin Council This Father should therefore have dealt as ingenuously and freely in this Case as is his manner in most others or should have said nothing at all of this matter but have chose some other Instance to confirm what he had to say He should have owned what he knows to be the Truth that as the Doctrine of the Incarnation produced this impious and sensless Conclusion that
A Letter of Resolution concerning the Doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation YOU are pleased Sir to demand of me the general Reasons why the Vnitarians or as others now call us the Socinians have departed from the Catholick Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation in which all other Sects and Denominations of Christians do agree and contend also for them as Fundamental Doctrines 'T is true Sir that we are alone in our Belief or Opinion of but one GOD or what is the same but one who is GOD even the GOD and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ And as we are alone so we are a little Flock If our Reasons were no more considerable than our Number we should be very contemptible to our Opposers The Case was once otherwise there is no Ecclesiastical Historian but has noted the time when All the World was against Athanasius and Athanasius against all the World But it avails very little that we can say Fuimus Trees suit Ilium And that which you have demanded of me is What are our Reasons not how it has come to pass or by what Persecutions we have been reduced to so small a Number I answer therefore Our first Reason is The Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation have no solid or good Foundation in Revelation or Holy Scripture A Stranger in this Controversy who hears the Sermons or reads the Books of some of our Opposers would think that the Question between us and the Trinitarians is on their side as clear in Revelation as 't is confess'd to be on ours in Point of Reason for this is the Fault with which they continually charge us that we exalt Reason above Revelation and that we pretend that a Force how great soever is to be put upon the Words of Revelation rather than we will admit of any Doctrine which is contrary to Reason Now First 'T is not true that we prefer our Reason before Revelation On the contrary Revelation being what GOD himself hath said either immediately or by inspired Persons 't is to be preferred before the clearest Demonstration of our Reason But because we cannot suppose without Disrespect and Injury to GOD to his Goodness and Veracity that he has so made us that our Faculties should be deceived in what they clearly and distinctly perceive and because GOD hath in Revelation frequently appealed to our Faculties to our Understanding and Reason therefore we conclude that what is clearly and distinctly discerned by Reason as true or false is so And from thence we infer that what is false in Reason can never be true in Revelation or by Revelation So that whatsoever in Revelation doth seem to contradict Reason can be nothing but our Blunder our unskilful injudicious and too close Adherence to the mere Letter and Words of Revelation 'T is so true that we ought to interpret the most clear Revelation so as not to contradict evident Reason that if we neglect this Rule we shall oft times make Revelation contrary to and inconsistent with it self as well as to or with Reason We shall be forced for Instance to say the Lord Christ is a Rock a Way a true Vine a Door and twenty more such different and contrary things because Revelation has clearly and expresly called him all these I desire therefore to know Why our Opposers take care not to make themselves contemptible by maintaining 'tis a Scripture-Doctrine that the Lord Christ is a Rock a Way a true Vine a Door on the Account that such a Doctrine though founded on the express Words of Holy Scripture is contrary to Reason and yet have no regard to avoid the Imputation of Folly Incogitance and Inadvertence by contending this is a Scripture-Doctrine which is no less contrary to Reason and natural Light even this that there are three Almighty and Infinite Persons and yet but one GOD. No Man ever had by Nature or Reason nor can have any other Notion of Three Gods but only this Three Infinite and Almighty Persons Is it supposable that GOD should give forth contrary Manifestations of himself that he should teach us by Nature and Reason to apprehend one GOD as but one Almighty and Infinite Person and yet command us by Revelation to believe one GOD is Three such Persons Or can we our selves obey contrary Commands or believe contrary Manifestations concerning the same thing at the same time This Foundation being laid we say Three Divine Persons an Almighty Father an Almighty Son and an Almighty Spirit distinct from both being in Reason and common Sense but the Periphrasis and Circumlocution for Three Gods so that we can have no other Conception of Three Gods but only Three such Persons that Revelation which by Confession of all Parties obliges me to believe but one GOD can never be supposed to require me to believe Three Almighty Persons So also Reason assuring me that the Disproportion between Infinite and Finite is such that they can never be commensurate or made one and the same That Revelation or Holy Scripture which tells me GOD is infinite that the Heaven of Heavens contains him not cannot be interpreted or understood as bidding me believe that a Person who is GOD or an Infinite Person and such they say every Person of the Trinity is can be Whole and All Incarnate that is united and commensurate to a finite Man We abide Sir by this Argument here we fix our Foot never to be removed that the Inconsistence of the Trinity and the Incarnation with Reason and natural Knowledg being undeniably evident therefore those Doctrines can have no real Foundation in Divine Revelation that is to say in Holy Scripture But Secondly As we consider that though Revelation is to be preferred before Reason and always interpreted by Reason for the Causes already given so we cannot but profess our selves surprized that any should have the Confidence to pretend that there is clear and express Revelation on behalf of the Trinity and Incarnation In the Name of Wonder what do these Gentlemen mean by express and clear Revelation do they mean that they have found out some Texts which directly and expresly say There is a Trinity of Divine Persons who are but one GOD or which say The Son or second Person of the Trinity was incarnate If they have any such Texts to produce we shall grant them they have an express Revelation for those Doctrines But in very Deed they mean no such thing but by clear and express Revelation they mean what was never meant by any but themselves nor by themselves in any other Case or Question but this of the Trinity They mean the Trinity and Incarnation are provable by certain most remote and strained Consequences from some such Texts of Revelation or Scripture as either are of suspected Authority and Credit in the Original among the Learned of their own Party or are denied by the Learnedest of their own side to be truly translated or finally are interpreted by their own
three making but one Menarchy are therefore said to be but one GOD. Again some say the three Persons are one GOD by their Emperichoresis or In-being in one another But others by Emperichoresis or being in one another understand only this that the Relation of Father supposeth and includeth that of Son and vice versa and not that by an impossible real In-being the three Divine Persons are as it were mingled and so confounded We have been told by others that the three Persons are three distinct Minds and Spirits and that the only possible Union of Spirits is mutual Consciousness So that in short the three Divine Persons are one GOD as or because they are intimately conscious to one anothers Thoughts and Actions Finally Some say the three Persons are one GOD by their all having the same numerical Essence or Substance There are Sir you see no fewer than fifteen Divisions among our Opposers each Division consisting of two Parties at the least some of them of four or five So there are in all about forty Parties of them of which incomparably the greater Number are Hereticks and damned to all the other Parties among them Give me leave to make two Observations hereupon 1. The great and common Boast of Trinitarians even their Number on the Account of which they presume to call themselves the Catholick or Vniversal Church is merely a Boast It may be not untruly said They are the least of Parties that ever professed a Religion To comprehend this Sir you need only suppose a Person resolving to join himself to their universal Church and in order thereto determining upon all the forementioned Heads of Controversy among them For by that time he has so done that is has chosen his side in all the aforesaid Questions It will be no less than a Miracle if he finds himself Orthodox and Catholick in the Opinion of ten Persons besides himself it may be the universal Church will dwindle into his single Person For these forty Parties of Trinitarians are not all of them so many visible and associated Sects or Churches but divers of them are Divisions and Heresies in one and the same associated Church the Members of the same Church are in these Points divided and heretick to one another And the Number Forty affords so many Changes that as I said perhaps it will be impossible to find ten Trinitarians who are intirely of a Mind in all the abovesaid Points and Questions This evidently reduces the pretended Catholick Church or Vniversal Church to a much more contemptible Paucity than are the Worshippers of one only GOD or as our Opposers by way of Jest sometimes call us the little Flock to which however their Father hath promised to give them a Kingdom 2. Whereas Trinitarians generally pretend and that as an Argument which ought to end all further Dispute about these Matters that the Trinity and Incarnation are Traditions derived down to our times thrô all the intermediate Ages and by all the Churches professing Christianity these Divisions among them plainly demonstrate the contrary For if the Trinity and Incarnation are Traditions how comes it to pass that Trinitarians are in such contrary Tales about them how is it that not ten of them perhaps not two of them are in the same Story concerning them They agree in nothing but the Words Trinity and Incarnation and are forced to acknowledg that those very Words are not only unscriptural but not very ancient Tertullian among the Latins and Clemens Alexandr among the Greeks were the first of Christians who used the word Trinity and for Incarnation I do not remember it to be so ancient But I have often wondred at this Pretence of most Trinitarians that these Doctrines are Traditions from the first Ages of Christianity On another Account it is this All the Criticks without excepting one who have made a Judgment of the Writings of the Fathers of the first 300 Years and particularly which of those Writings are genuine and uncorrupted which wholly feigned or otherways corrupted I say all the Criticks constantly make this a Note of Forgery or Corruption if those Writings speak any what expresly or evidently of these Doctrines namely the Trinity and Incarnation and the Questions on them depending If these Doctrines were Traditions from the first Ages the higher we ascend in Time the more express and clear would the Tradition about them be And in confessing that 't is quite contrary the Criticks that is the more Learned of the Trinitarians have given up the Pretence of Tradition and Antiquity and make it probable I may say unavoidable that these Doctrines are not Traditions from the Ancients but Novelties and Corruptions and Depravations of genuine Christianity Whereas some have indeavour'd to evade this by saying Those Fathers have made no distinct Mention of or Determination in these Points because they were not controverted in their times but afterwards began to be disputed and denied by Men affecting Novelty and Singularity I answer Nothing can be more frivolous or false than this Pretext For 1. 't is notoriously false that these Doctrines were not denied in the times of those Fathers The Nazarens and Theodotians are more ancient than any of the Fathers and yet 't is well known nay confess'd by all that those Sects held the very Doctrines that are now called Socinianism 2. Admitting there was as yet none or very little Controversy about these Points yet because they are pretended to be the Essentials and Fundamentals of Christianity so that he that denies them is an Heretick and he that knows them not is no Christian what can we rationally infer but this that the Fathers who have not delivered these Doctrines in any of their Writings neither believed nor knew them and that they are a part of the gradual Corruptions which have so unhappily deformed the Church 3. Admitting once more that there was as yet no Controversy about these Questions which is the thing for which these learned Men contend and their only Excuse on the behalf of those first Fathers yet this makes wholly for the Unitarians For besides this Defect the Fathers and first Ages have spoken in their Creed altogether as the Socinian Unitarians now do The Creed called the Apostles because it contains the true Apostolick Doctrine and Tradition was the only Creed of those Fathers and Ages it was as one of them speaks of it their Regula Fidei immobilis irreformabilis i. e. the unchangable unaltetable Rule of their Faith But this Creed expresses the very Doctrine of the present Socinians and not of the Church as our Opposers themselves are constrained to own It attributeth the Appellation GOD and the Creation of Heaven and Earth to only the Almighty Father It describeth the Son as only a Man declaring his Conception by the Holy Ghost in the Womb of the Virgin Mary his Birth Death Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven without the least Intimation of an eternal Generation from the Essence
whom they are derived or by whom they were invented He that is generally and indeed deservedly confess'd to have written the most learnedly on this Subject is D. Cudworth in the Intellectual System The Sum of what he saith up and down in that large Book in behalf of the Trinity is this The Christian Trinity is the very same with the Trinity of the Platonick Philosophers Yet we are not to think that the Platonists were the first Authors or Devisers of the Trinity Plato learned it of Parmenides Parmenides of the Pythagoreans Pythagoras from Orpheus and the Books of Egyptian Hermes and other Hermaic Books which Books contained the Arcane Theology of the Egyptians The Magisk or Chalday Oracles and the Mithraick Mysteries both of them derived from Zoroaster a most ancient and sage King of the Bactrians and Persians express also the Mystery of the Trinity The Romans had their Capitoline Trinity which they derived from the Phrygians they from the Samothracians This Consent of Philosophers and Nations makes it more than probable and no less than certain that the Trinity was no humane Invention for how should so many jump in the same groundless Conceit but a Theology of Divine Original even a Part of the Cabala Tradition or oral Law of the Jews which they had from Moses and he from GOD which also is the Opinion of Eusebius and Theodoret the ablest Historians and Antiquaries of the Primitive Church To make up weight I will fling into the Scale three Authorities altogether as considerable and authentick as any of these alledged by Dr. Cudworth Let them take the Grecian Trinity which is much older than the Roman Phrygian or Samothracian Let them take the Books of Hystaspes another most ancient and sage King of the Medes which Books are celebrated by Lactantius and other Fathers We will also give them the Sybillin Oracles or Verses which speak so expresly of the Father Son and Spirit and even of the Incarnation that no Trinitarian or Arian can deliver himself more explicitly or evidently He saith How should so many Philosophers and Nations jump in the same groundless Conceit Therefore the Trinity is a part of the Jewish Cabala or Oral Law and was from them borrowed by other Nations and by the Philosophers I omit that the Nations and Philosophers by him mentioned are but few But all Men know there was an incomparably greater Consent of Nations and Philosophers in Polytheism or the Acknowledgment and Worship of many distinct Gods And that Consideration should have made this learned Author aware that a surprizing Consent of many is not always the Effect of a divine Tradition but too often of a diabolical Suggestion or other Causes Again supposing the aforesaid Consent of Philosophers and Nations yet 't is very odly father'd by a Protestant Divine on a Cabala Tradition or Oral Law of the Jews 'T is one of the Principles of us Protestants to disclaim all pretended Cabala's and Traditions whether of Jews or Christians and to believe there never was any other Divine Tradition but only the Books of the Old and New Testaments I am ready to dispute this Point at large with any of our Opposers whenever they shall think fit again to insist on it In the mean time I take notice that indeed the Pharisees having devised of their own Heads divers Doctrines and Rites to give them the greater Authority they called them Traditions and pretended they were a Cabala or Oral Law delivered originally by Moses But the sounder part of the Jews themselves even all the Karaits disown any such Tradition or Law And our Saviour whose Authority I hope may be equivalent to Eusebius or Theodorets calls these Traditions and this pretended Law not a Theology of divine Original but Doctrines and Commandments of Men Matth. 15.6 9. Nor is there any mention or least Intimation of such a Cabala or Law in any of the Books of the Old Testament And it seems incredible that among so many of the Holy Writers there should be no where found so much as any Allusion to their Cabala if indeed they had acknowledged or known of any such thing Why did not Esdras when he collected into one the scattered and dispersed Canon of Scripture without omitting the Proverbs of Solomon and others or his Book of Love why did he not at the same time commit to Writing and publish the Divine Cabala of so much more Authority and Concernment than divers Pieces by him published and added to the Law Furthermore admitting the pretended aforesaid Consent of some Philosophers and Nations and also a Tradition Cabala or oral Law of the Jews yet 't is certain the Trinity is no part of that Cabala For all the World knows that the Jews though they strictly adhere to their Cabala yet are so far from acknowledging a Trinity that this Doctrine is the very Stumbling-block which hinders their entring into the Church That whole Nation and all the Sects of them hold the Christians to be Polytheists and Idolaters on the Account of the Doctrine of the Trinity They pronounce Christianity to be a much worse Idolatry than Jeroboam's Calves Which were not two fictitious Gods added to the true one but only Images of the Cherubims as the Cherubims were Hieroglyfick Resemblances of the one true GOD. So that though the ten Tribes were guilty of a kind of Idolatry by their worshipping the true GOD under forbidden Resemblances for though the Cherubims themselves were set up by GOD's Order yet not for Worship or to common Sight they were not Polytheists they owned with all the rest of the Jews but one Divine Person I doubt not Sir but that you perceive that the whole Force of Dr. Cudworth's Argument from the supposed Consent of some Nations and Philosophers is enervated and that such pretended Consent notwithstanding the Trinity is not as he says a Theology of Divine Tradition but merely and solely of Paganick and Heathen Extraction and brought into the Christian Church by the Platonick Philosophers when they came over to Christianity I could now tell you Sir that whereas Dr. Cudworth brings in his Philosophers Oracles Kings and Nations as believing and asserting the Trinity even in the dark times of Heathenism this is all mere Flourish and Rhodomontade For first as to the Books of Hermes Zoroaster and Hystaspes as also the Sybillin and Chalday or Magick Oracles they are all of them Forgeries partly of the Jews a little before the Nativity of our Saviour partly of the Christians of the second and third Centuries And this is so generally agreed and so clearly demonstrated by the Criticks that I was extreamly surprized to see such Authorities alledged in a Book written by Dr. Cudworth a Man if any other of true and real Learning But so it is that in the Defect of genuine and solid Proofs the most Learned must have recourse to such as their Cause will afford Next as to the Nations and Philosophers by him mentioned the