Monster is that Faith that is made up of contradictory Parts of Propositions that destroy one another of such Inconsistencies that in saying and affirming one you either expresly or implicitly deny the other In their Doctrine of the Incarnation they tell us an infinite Person is whole and all united to a finite Man Is not this a contradictory Faith doth it not confound Infinite with Finite and make them to be all one doth it not destroy all the Demonstrations of Geometry and thereby contradict both our rational Faculties and our Senses Their Doctrine of the Trinity is in short this There are three Infinite Almighty All-wise Persons three eternal Beings three absolutely-perfect Spirits and yet but one GOD. Is not this a contradictory Faith Doth it not destroy our natural Ideas our congenit Notions For what are three Gods but three such Persons and what is the Idea Notion or Conception of but one God which is natural and congenit to every Man but one Infinite Almighty All-wise Person one eternal Being one absolutely perfect Spirit As to the late Attempts of some to satisfy in part these Difficulties you know Sir how vain and fruitless they have been Dr. Wallis saith the three Divine Persons are only three Modes that is three Qualifications or three Respects of GOD towards his Creatures and they make one GOD as Vnderstanding Will and Memory make one Soul But this saith Dr. Sherlock is both Non-sense and Heresy How doth Dr. Sherlock mend the matter Why he hath advanced an Explication of the Trinity which Dr. Wallis and other Orthodox Men have in Print condemned as Tritheism that is as introducing three Gods a far worse Heresy than Socinianism And thereupon they tell Dr. Sherlock in Print also That though he hath not been counted a Fool yet it may become a wise Man to change his Opinion In a Word they have in civil Language invited him to a Recantation 4. How is DEVOTION another principal Instance of Piety disturbed by such a strange and unaccountable Object of it Devotion is senseless and irrational if the Object to be adored and worshipped be not conceived by it But such of Necessity must be the Worship and Devotion of Trinitarians if in their Prayers they keep to their Belief For they may talk of a Trinity but themselves will not pretend that they can think it they can have no Conception of it no more than of Words without Sense We have seen very lately that those who have indeavoured to make Sense of this as they call it Mystery or to represent it as a possible and intelligible thing not only accuse one another of Heresy and demand a Recantation but are generally disclaimed by their own Party The Party it self if you mean thereby the general Body of Trinitarians are for a Trinity which no Man understands or ought to pretend to give other Account of it than that 't is an incomprehensible Mystery and this Trinity they call their GOD. And thus by their own Confession that Blame and Reprimand which our Saviour gives to the Samaritans is equally applicable to them and what he saith of himself and the Jews is verified in the Unitarians Ye worship ye know not what we know what we worship John 4.22 5. As to Obedience the last part of our Piety towards GOD and the most necessary the Obligation to it and all occasion for it is wholly taken away by the Doctrine of the Incarnation and the Superstruction which Trinitarians build thereon They say GOD the Son being incarnate in our Nature did by his active Righteousness fulfil for us all Obedience By his Sufferings in this Life his Death and Descent into Hell which things they call his Passive Righteousness He more than exhausted all that Punishment that is or can be due to Sin Whatsoever he did was they say for us and his Righteousness was meritorious of Heaven for never so many Sinners and what he suffered was in our stead also and one Drop of his Blood was sufficient to ransom and thousand Worlds from the Demerit of their Sins that is from Hell and all other Punishments The manifest Consequences of these Doctrines are these 1. Gospel-Obedience good Works or a good Life are in us unnecessary and superfluous some of them have said hurtful and dangerous to Justification and Salvation 2. Heaven is so much every Sinner's just Due and Debt from GOD without any Amendment or Newness of Life on their Parts that GOD would be unjust in giving them no more if more could be given 3. GOD should be unrighteous if he punish'd Men for Sin though unrepented of because we have in Christ our Representative both fulfilled all Righteousness and suffered and paid a more than sufficient Price of Redemption The notorious Decay of Christian Piety in all Places and Ages since these Doctrines have prevailed plainly shows That these are not speculative Consequences only but such real Consequences as do much influence the Practice of most Men. One may know and be assured that 't is these Consequences and this Belief which bolsters Men up in their wicked Courses because these are the things that comfort and support such at their Deaths The greatest of Sinners go away with Peace of Mind on the Reflection and Consideration of the infinite Merits and Satisfaction of GOD their Redeemer They have not nor can out-sin his Satisfaction and Deserts and applying both to themselves by believing in him that is by believing he merited and suffered for them in particular therefore they depart assuredly expecting of GOD the Rewards that are appointed to only Innocence and Well-doing I pray Sir desire your Friends who find Fault with us for reviving as they say unnecessary Questions to take it into serious and impartial Consideration Whether Doctrines that have these Consequences and also are such Hindrances of the other Branches of Piety ought not to be again and again examined whether they are or can be true The Fourth Reason against them is this They have crumbled the Christian Church into innumerable and unreconcilable Factions and Parries so that there is no possible way of restoring Peace but by returning to the Belief and Profession of the Unity of God Next to Godliness or Piety the Peace of the Christian Churches should be the Wish and Indeavour of every Christian Man But the Doctrines under Consideration have so divided the Churches called after the Name of Christ that there is no Agreement but among those Professors who believe there is but one GOD or but one who is God The Orthodox as they call themselves are so multifariously divided that they are not perhaps ten of them in a Party The whole Mobile indeed of them go under the common Name of Trinitarians and the Trinity and Incarnation are the general Tests of Orthodoxy among them but this is an Orthodoxy only of Names and Words for in interpreting those Words and Names I doubt very much whether there are ten of them that
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
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
Mary is the Mother of GOD so that Conclusion was the Cause of the idololatrical Worship and Invocation of her by the far greater part of Christians even by all Catholicks so called and by the whole Eastern Church 3. After Mary was worshipp'd and prayed to it soon became the Custom to pray also to the Apostles and Martyrs and afterwards to other Saints and reputed Saints For if Mary who confessedly was but a Woman and a Saint though she was Mother of GOD can help us by her Intercession Why may not others who were perhaps as great Saints as she 4. The Practice of worshipping Holy Mary and other Saints had been but a little while received in the Churches but it occasioned the Worship of their Images and Pictures For if the Saints are to be worshipp'd then so too are their Images and Pictures with a relative Worship that is for the sake of those whom they represent and so that the Worship ultimately terminates not in the Image but in the Saint Even as the Royal Chair or Throne is worshipp'd for the King's sake though he be absent 5. The Question about the Worship of Images was long contested in the Church Those that stood for that Worship thought it a very heinous Disrespect to our Saviour that no Honour should be shown to his Picture or Image no more than if it were the Image or Picture of an Heathen God And this was a very common Argument and Allegation against the Opposers of Image-Worship In answer to this the Fathers of the 7th General Council anno 754 said There is but one Image or Representation of the Lord Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Bread given to us in the Sacrament This Council consisted of 380 Fathers But the contrary Party at length prevailed and it was concluded both for the having and worshipping of Images and by way of Support thereto that the Sacrament is not the Sign Image or Representation of Christ but true and very Christ the Bread and Wine after the Words of the Consecration though they agree not which are the Words of Consecration being turned into the the real Body and Blood of Christ 'T is true the Greeks used not the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Transubstantiation till within this 300 Years but they used equivalent words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and such like If any Wonder that such absurd and contradictory Doctrines as the Transubstantiation and the real Presence met with so little Opposition in the Greek and Latin Churches such an one may make these two Reflections First that those Churches were led as it were by the Hand to those Doctrines by certain Consequences from the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation thus There is a Trinity of Divine Persons one of these was incarnate in the Womb of the Virgin she is thereupon the Mother of GOD if the Son of GOD is undoubtedly to be worshipp'd then so too is the Mother of GOD if Holy Mary then others who were as much Saints as she if Christ and the Saints then for their Sakes their Images also which are Signs of them But Christ hath appointed the Sacramental Elements as the only Signs of his Body This is a Difficulty indeed Therefore to defend Image-Worship we will say the Sacrament is not the Sign but the very Body of Christ GOD-MAN Secondly it may be farther considered that these Churches having already swallowed so many palpable Contradictions to Reason Scripture and first Antiquity in the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation they now stuck at nothing It became now the Note and Mark of an Heretick to talk of Absurdities and Contradictions in any Doctrine whatsoever and the Character of a Catholick or Orthodox Person if one had no regard at all to such things but only to help forward the Humour and Current of Superstition that is to believe incredible Tales about the Saints and monstrous Opinions concerning GOD and the Sacraments of the Church 6. That the Holy Scriptures are not a a compleat Rule not sufficient to direct our Faith and Practice without the Aid and Help of the Churches Tradition all know is one of the Errors of the Roman Catholicks and which they could never yet be perswaded to give up Ask them what ground they have for such an Opinion They answer as one Man 'T is notorious and undeniable that the principal Articles of the Christian Faith the Trinity and Incarnation cannot be proved by only Scripture They profess openly and ingenuously that the Vnitarians have certainly beaten all their Opposers at those two Weapons mere Scripture and Reason 7. Another Birth of the Trinitarian Doctrines is the Papal Indulgences with all that Merchandize of Souls that has followed upon them First and by way of Foundation it is supposed that the Lord Christ is GOD as well as Man and that he being GOD incarnate in our Nature his Righteousness and Sufferings must needs be of infinite Value Next it is held that the Sufferings of Christ who is GOD-MAN and of the Saints are the Treasure which he hath given to the Church which Treasure is to be dispensed by his Vicar even the Pope or Bishop of Rome The Dispensations of this Treasure to particular Persons by the Pope himself or those who are by him authorized are called Indulgences and have been bought at mighty Rates by those who thought they had need of them either for themselves or their dead Friends 8. The last of their Paradoxes which I shall now mention and which is common to all Trinitarians and is by their own Confession a necessary Consequence of the Incarnation is their Doctrine of the Satisfaction The Holy Scriptures say Almighty God of his Grace and Goodness doth pardon our Sins on the Conditions of Faith and Repentance on our Parts The Scriptures are so express in ascribing our Pardon and Deliverance from Hell and Damnation to the Mercy and Grace of GOD forgiving us that Trinitarians dare not directly deny it so to be but then because they pretend that GOD was incarnate and suffered in our stead they are forced to this Conclusion That God hath freely pardoned and yet was infinitely overpaid for all our Transgressions and Sins That of his mere Grace the Abundance and Riches of his Grace he will pardon and save the Penitent because he hath received for them a Price of Redemption able to redeem as many Worlds as he is pleased to pardon or save particular Sinners These are the Branches growing upon the Trinitarian Stock these the Fruits of that Tree But such as the Fruits or Consequences of these Doctrines have been such also was their Original and Extraction as we shall see in the next which is our sixth Reason or Exception against them They are of Paganick or Heathen Descent and Original and were introduced into the Church by the Platonick Philosophers when they came over to Christianity One of our Disputes with the Trinitarians is concerning the Original of these Doctrines from
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
Authors that knew those Nations and Writers better than at this Distance of time we now can particularly the most learned Plutarch and Laertius these Authors say that those Philosophers and Nations did not hold a Trinity but a Duality of Principles or Gods that is a good and a bad GOD. And by what they say of those Gods or Principles they seem to mean no more than what we are taught in Holy Scripture concerning GOD and that malign but subordinate Spirit called the Devil and Satan But you will say the Platonists held a Trinity of Divine Persons Yes some of them did I say some of them for the more learned Platonists such as Jamblichus Proclus and Plato himself did not think their imagin'd Trinity to be the supream GOD but that over their Trinity there is one most simple Monadick or solitary Being who is GOD of Gods and the first Author of all things If you ask How the vulgar Platonists came to stumble upon a Trinity I answer They finding that the first Philosophers had called GOD Hen and Tagathon or the One and the Good as also Logos Nous and Sophia or the Reason or WORD the Mind and Wisdom And finally Psyche the Soul because he pervades and governs the World as the Soul does the Body They being the most fanciful and Enthusiastical of all Men exceeding the Quakers in Enthusiasm and the Behmenists in Fancifulness and Affectation of Mystery mistook the aforementioned Properties of the Divine Nature for Persons or wilfully and affectedly allegoriz'd them into Persons Hen and Tagathon the One and the Good they made to be the same even the Father and Fountain of the Deity because all Number proceeds from One or Vnity and because Goodness as these Philosophers often speak is better than Reason or Wisdom Nous Logos and Sophia that is Mind Reason and Wisdom being but equivalent Words of these they made the second Person or as some of them call him the Son Psyche or the Mundane Soul was the third because Reason or Wisdom is better than and superiour to all things but Tagathon or Goodness There is Sir a certain Fate always attending on Error by which she is first or last betrayed and exposed even by those who seek to maintain and defend her Therefore though Dr. Cudworth hath spent so ma-many Sheets in discovering a Trinity among several Philosophers and Nations more ancient than the Platonists yet he hath somewhere unsaid all again and confess'd that the Platonick Trinity was nothing but an Affectation or Blunder of those Philosophers and as I just now said either their Mistake or their Exchange of the Properties of the Divine Nature for so many Divine Persons His own Words at p. 206 of the Intel. System are these We have proposed the three principal Properties or Attributes of the Deity The first whereof is infinite GOODNESS with Fecundity the second infinite WISDOM or Knowledg the third infinite active and perceptive POWER From which three Divine Attributes and Properties the Pythagorians and Platonists seem to have framed their Trinity So at legnth this learned Person hath given it up to us after so great Endeavours to prove the contrary that the Trinity is of mere Paganick and Heathen Original the Device or the Mistake of the Platonists Our last Exception or Reason is this As the Trinity when first brought into the Church by the Platonists did by its natural Absurdity and Impossibility give a Check and Stop to the Progress of the Gospel so ever since it has served to propagate Deism and Atheism and to hinder the Conversion of the Jews and Mahometans and the Heathen Nations not yet turned to Christianity You cannot Sir expect in a single Letter a large and ample Proof of this Assertion of mine but however I will say hereupon enough to convince you or any other unprejudic'd Person that I am able to make such a Proof of it whenever it shall be denied by our Opposers as will very much surprize the Idolaters of these Doctrines For the first Part of this Assertion I will now content my self with the plain Acknowledgment of Lactantius Instit l. 4. c. 29. This learned and eloquent Father disputing concerning these very Doctrines says Fortasse quaerathìc aliquis c. Here some one may perhaps ask How though Christians profess to worship but one GOD yet we seem to believe and hold two Gods GOD the Father and GOD the Son This Doctrine hath been a great Stumbling-block to many who confess that in other Points of the Christian Doctrine we speak what is probable and fit to be imbraced but in this they think we sumble that we hold a second GOD and him also a mortal one or one who could die You may please Sir here to take notice that the Reason why Lactantius mentions only two Gods the Father and the Son was because the Divinity of the Holy Spirit was not yet believed or I think so much as mentioned by any The Council of Nice it self durst not say the Holy Ghost is GOD no nor the Council of Constantinople in express Terms For as Petavius has noted the Party of the Pneumatomacht i. e. those who denied the Divinity of the Spirit were yet the more powerful Party in the Church D. Petav. de Trin. l. 1. c. 14. s 14 and 21. See also Huetius Origenian l. 2. c. 2. q. 2. sect 10. As to Deism and Atheism Some other-ways discerning Men have not Judgment enough to distinguish between the corrupted and the sincere Parts of Religion but they consider the whole of Religion together and judg it to be all of it false or all true From these two sorts of Men proceed all the Deists and most if not all Atheists The Atheist reiects all Religion whatsoever for the sake of some unaccountable and absurd things which vulgarly pass for the principal Articles of Religion The Deist far more judicious rejects hereupon only all positive or revealed Religion and takes up with natural Religion i. e. with the Belief of a GOD whose Power and Wisdom he plainly sees in the Structure and Contrivance of the World and with the Dictates of Reason and our congenit and natural Notions concerning moral and immoral or good and evil This Sir is not a Place to argue either against the Deist or Atheist I had here only to observe that from the absurd Corruptions of true Religion by injudicious or fanciful Men have and do arise all the Deism and most part of the Atheism with which our Age is infested There is so much the more Reason for our utmost Indeavours to withstand the farther Progress of those two Deism and that Pest of Atheism by purging Religion of all the contradictory and impossible Doctrines which give occasion to those Mistakes because Christianity has already lost so much ground to Mahometism or Turcism Mahomet is affirmed by divers Historians to have had no other Design in pretending himself to be a Prophet but to
restore the Belief of the Vnity of GOD which at that time was extirpated among the Eastern Christians by the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation They will have it that Mahomet meant not his Religion should be esteemed a new Religion but only the Restitution of the true Intent of the Christian Religion They affirm moreover that the Mahometan learned Men call themselves the true Disciples of the Messias or Christ intimated thereby that Christians are Apostates from the most essential Parts of the Doctrine of the Messias such as the Unity of GOD and that he is to be worshipp'd without Images or Pictures in Spirit and in Truth But whatsoever the Design of Mahomet was 't is certain Mahometism has prevailed over greater Numbers and more Nations than at this Day profess Christianity Nay it has worn Christianity out of great part of Europe most of Asia and all Roman Africa not by Force and the Sword for the Mahometans grant Liberty of Religion to all the conquered Provinces of Christians but by that one Truth in the Alchoran the Unity of GOD. The Naturalness of their Belief of the Unity of God and the unreconcilable Inconsistence of the Trinity with that Belief make it impossible ever to reconcile the Mahometans whether Turks Moors or Persians to Christianity This is that by which both they and the Jews are perpetually and without Hope of regaining them alienated from us that they suppose the Trinity to be the Doctrine of all Christians and from thence conclude that modern Christianity is no better nor other than a sort of Paganism and Heathenism The Nations also who are yet Pagans reject Christianity for the sake of the corrupt Doctrines against which we are arguing Of this there has been a calamitous Instance in the Tartars This warlike People who have made themselves so terrible by their Cavalry to the great Kingdoms of Poland and Muscovy and even to Germany it self were lost to Christianity by Occasion of the Doctrines of the Trinity c. In the Year 1246 Pope Innocent IV sent an Ambassage to Bati Cham of Tartary inviting him to the Christian Religion Bati received the Ambassage civilly but when he heard from the Religious sent to instruct him what were the chief Points of the Christian Faith the Trinity the Incarnation the Transubstantiation c. He thank'd the Pope for his Kindness and promised to make no Incursions into the Christian Countries for five Years next insuing but withal declared himself not satisfied with the Christian Religion as represented to him Immediately after the Saracens sent a like Ambassage to Bati recommending to him saith the Historian Mahometis sectam tanquà m plausibiliorem i. e. The more plausible Sect of Mahomet And these prevailed Bati and the whole Nation of the Tartars submitting to Mahometism in which they continue to this Day and are both the Shield and Sword of that way of acknowledging and worshipping GOD. L. Surius Comment rerum in Orbe Gest These Sir are the Damages sustained by Christianity by occasion of these Doctrines I believe by that time you have well considered them you will conclude these Doctrines will never repair half the Wastes they have already made in our Holy Religion and that they are honest Men who are jealous of and desirous to inquire very strictly into the Grounds of such Paradoxical Perswasions as have already given such deep Wounds to our common Cause of Christianity I will conclude Sir for this time with only telling you that the Reasons I have given might all of them have been much amplified and illustrated and some of them greatly exaggerated But that is a Design hardly practicable in a Letter the Brevity of a Letter even constrained me to lay before you what I had to say in few Words and in a plain and sincere Discourse without the Arts or Pomp of Rhetorick Nor am I offended at it for our Cause needs not those Helps Till our Opposers can extinguish Reason and common Sense in Men while there are any left who are not wholly Priest-ridden who have not abandoned the Conduct and Guidance of Reason and natural Knowledg for that of a Confessor that is to say a Divine Light for an Ignis fatuâ—â—s or Will-a-wisp So long I think we need not be very sollicitous whether our Discourses or Writings concerning these Doctrines be altogether so laboured and artificial as our Opposers must take Care that theirs are SIR I am your most Obliged and Assured FINIS