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A36731 Remarks on several late writings publish'd in English by the Socinians wherein is show'd the insufficiency and weakness of their answers to the texts brought against them by the orthodox : in four letters, written at the request of a Socinian gentleman / by H. de Luzancy ... De Luzancy, H. C. (Hippolyte du Chastelet), d. 1713. 1696 (1696) Wing D2420; ESTC R14044 134,077 200

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REMARKS On Several Late Writings Publish'd in English by the SOCINIANS Wherein Is show'd the insufficiency and weakness of their Answers to the Texts brought against them by the Orthodox IN FOUR LETTERS Written at the Request of a Socinian Gentleman By H. DE LVZANCY B. D. Vic. of Doverc and Harwich LONDON Printed by Tho. Warren for Thomas Bennet at the Half-Moon in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1696. THE PREFACE THE design of the following Letters was to instruct a private Gentleman who by reading Socinian Books had got a mighty prejudice against the Sacred Doctrines of the Holy Trinity and Incarnation He desir'd that he might have the liberty to communicate my Papers to some of his Friends of that perswasion But this being lyable to many inconveniences it was thought much fitter at once to expose them to publick view Whether he will be convinc'd by these Writings must be left to God who best knows the ways of working upon the minds of men Whether there is matter enough to convince him is left to the judgment of the World The general means to clear a Controversy are Reason and Authority I humbly conceive that the first has nothing to do in this dispute For how can we argue from the Principles of natural reason in a point wholly Divine and Supernatural and how can the Philosopher of this World conclude with any certainty in that which is above all the inquiries and decisions of Philosophy I ever thought the Socinians extreamly in the wrong with their pretended contradictions in the belief of our Holy Mysteries and the Letter to both the Vniversities much the worst of all their Writings It being certainly neither just nor candid to use Topicks though never so ingeniously turn'd altogether foreign to the matter in dispute and to give an air of probability to that which when truly stated and consider'd is of another nature than the thing propos'd to us I take it for granted even by these Gentlemen themselves that Faith and Reason are two different things and consequently that that which is the object of Faith cannot be the object of Reason Of what use then can those Arguments be which are call'd Demonstrations against the Doctrines of the Holy Trinity and Incarnation Those perpetual descants upon the impossibility of Three being One and One Three of the same substance unbegotten begotten and proceeding of a part of God being incarnate and another not incarnate All this and ten thousand Objections more are a fallacy and an imposition on Mankind The case here being of another nature not tryable at the Bar of our corrupt Reason but call'd to another and a more infallible Tribunal On the other side though it looks much like Charity and Condescension yet it is certainly an Inadvertency to have pretended to answer these Gentlemen in their own way and to run with them upon the same false scent of reasoning on those things which we ought only to believe and adore The Socinians may write till Doomsday to prove the Vnr●asonableness and their charitable and learned Answerers may do the same to prove the Reasonableness of our Christian Doctrine I mean keeping still within the compass of natural reason and yet this great truth will never be clear'd because indeed neither of them embrace the true Method to clear it The way then of Authority is both the plainest and the safest It has that advantage that the other is even resolv'd into it For there is nothing so highly rational as a submission of our Reason to an Authority which all sides own to be infallible We all agree that the Divine Scriptures are the rule of our Faith We all acknowledge them to be the word of God and this very name commands naturally and of it self a veneration which no human Writings though of never so much strength and clearness can force from us It is then from thence and only from thence that we ought to reason and conclude in this Sacred Controversy The consent of the whole Christian World must be a strong inducement to a modest Socinian to mistrust all his Arguments To oppose all that has been and is Great and Good in the Church of God in a point of Faith is too much for the most presuming Disputant But when the Authority of God speaking in those Scriptures which we all contend to be the Revelation which he has made of himself to us is superadded to the universal consent of the Church all the reasons which we can pretend to oppose to this ought to be no more to men of sence than talk and noise The Church asserts the Vnity of the Divine Nature in which three distinct and equally adorable Persons subsist The Father The Son and the Holy Ghost of which the second was Incarnate and in the fullness of time became Man To say that this is false because incomprehensible is a lamentable consequence Nor is it sufferable to reject the belief of these Mysteries because our poor narrow and corrupt Reason is pleas'd to state contradictions in a subject so far above our capacity and to say as those Gentlemen urge vehemently that we cannot believe that of which we can have no notion or Idea is much worse since besides that we have little or no knowledge at all of the ways operations and manner of Existence of an Infinite Being to suppose a notion or an Idea of the thing propos'd is to destroy Faith which Heb. 11.1 is the evidence of things not seen that is an assurance and certainty of that which is imperceptible to us because above the reach of our understanding supplying by the Authority of the Revelation that notion or Idea of which these Gentlemen argue an absolute necessity The only way then to satisfy our selves is to hear what the Scripture teaches concerning this For if the Church speaks the language of the Scripture it speaks as God has taught us and to speak after God is the most certain and excellent way of speaking in the World The Challenge of the great Athanasius to the Arrians and of St. Austin to the Hereticks of his time was the most reasonable Proposition in nature to a people who own'd Christianity and that is that laying aside human reasoning and relying upon the veracity of the Divine Oracles they should inquire not what man propos'd but what God has say'd in the matter If the Scripture is positive that God is one and yet asserts the Father to be God the Son to be God and the Holy Ghost to be God If it says that the Son has taken our nature upon him The Church speaks as the Scripture has taught and the Doctrine of the Trinity and Incarnation is the Doctrine of the Church because it is first that of the Scripture Being perswaded then that the dispute must at last be put upon that Issue and sensible that any thing else that is propos'd of both sides though it shews the great parts and abilities of the Disputants can yet give
true and genuine If I may be allow'd a digression I would willingly know where these Gentlemen found that Constantine dy'd an Unitarian If by an Unitarian they mean that he own'd the Unity of the Godhead I hope we shall all dye in that faith But if by it they mean a Socinian a denyer of the Divinity of Christ It is a gross and a palpable untruth I would also be satisfi'd whether Eusebius of Caesarea whom they so truly call'd the Admirable did not subscribe the Nicene faith To return In an answer to a loving Cosen pag. 3. We hear of nothing but Fathers Tradition Councils c. pag. 8. This general Observation concerning the Fathers is sufficient to make me refuse their testimony and look upon them as no good Interpreters of Scripture and unfaithfull Guardians of Tradition We are then in a very sad case Our Translations are dishonest and the Holy Fathers are no good Interpreters of Scripture and unfaithfull Guardians of Tradition Our Translations and the Fathers should have spoke as these Gentlemen and then all had been right Where will of necessity such wild notions lead Men and when will the dispute end if they are admitted For my part I am of Mr. Chillingworth's mind and think that it is both the safety and honour of the Protestant Religion to cry out The Bible The Bible a place of that eminent Man so often and so justly commended by these Gentlemen I am perswaded that the word of God ought to be the rule But then I am satisfi'd that no Scripture is of private interpretation That this Bible must be well understood and that Tradition is the greatest human Authority in the World I take this point to be so clear particularly to Men of learning that if any Society of Christians could produce for what they have to say for themselves such a Tradition as Vine ●ius Li●inensis has establisht and is the true notion of Tradition we must all come over to it This is so just in it self that these very Gentlemen cannot forbear expressing their joy when what they produce is not altogether their own and has some great names to introduce it They speak then with a certain sort of assurance which they have not at other times I do not know whether I am as other Men or wheit is a singularity in me but if I have never so pretty a notion and find it contradicted by the concurrent testimonies of Men who have united a profound Piety to an admirable Learning such as are the Basil's The Chrysostom's The Theodoret's The two Gregorie's The Eusebius's The Cyrill's The Jerom's The Austin's and many more If I sind primitive and General Councils exclaiming against me If I meet in my way almost all that has been valuable in the last and this present Age in the Common-wealth of learning Though I might perhaps maintain the notion and spin it into a Letter or a small Book not perhaps without some Admirers yet I presently strike and think it both most honourable and conscientious to call the pretty thing in 5ly I have a just value for Criticks though whether a Critick is Master of any one sort of Learning is a great Question to me But to make Criticks the Judges and Criticisms the Touchstone of Faith is insufferable Like Anatomists they dissect till they leave neither Form nor Figure A Criticism is much different from a good reason Allowing one to be good a hundred amount generally to no more than a probability They are a sort of Arrows shot at random which sometimes hit the mark and generally go above or below it I insist the more on this because it is the Palladium of these Gentlemen When a Text is plain and stares in the face then comes out the Criticism This is the dissecting Instrument which runs through the Text till wrangling arises about a Particle or a Punctuation and makes the substantial part of the dispute to vanish When Reason is oppos'd to Reason and Argument to Argument the stander by may in a very short time feel the impressions of truth But when a plain Authority is evaded by a Criticism and this Criticism perhaps answer'd by another For these Gentlemen are great but not the only Criticks There is jarring and clashing and not one step made towards the truth In the Letter of Resolut concern the Doctr. of the Trin. and Incar p. 10. the Author says and he is very much in the right that we pretend That the Trinity and Incarnation are Traditions deriv'd down to our times through all the intermediate Ages and by all the Churches professing Christianity The rational way to prove the vanity of the pretence is to shew that there was a time and some Church or other where these Doctrines were not believ'd Instead of this he spends three pages to prove how we have differ'd and do differ amongst our selves in the explication of these Doctrines which rather supports then weakens the Argument It does evince that we agree in the thing though not in the manner of explaining it which is that that I insist on with the rest of my Brethren the Divines of the mob as these Gentlemen call us But this is only to criticise at large All the Criticks says this same Author in the same Letter without excepting one who have made a judgment of the writings of the Fathers for the first 300 Years and particularly which of those writings are genuine and uncorrupted which wholly feign'd or otherwise corrupted I say All the Criticks constantly make this a Note of forgery or corruption if those writings speak any what expressly or evidently of these Doctrines If the Criticks mean that the writings of the Primitive Fathers which speak of those Mysteries in the Terms us'd by the Schools long since the Nicene Council are supposs'd They are in the right But this Criticism is against those Gentlemen themselves It regards only the manner of the expression not the thing express'd But if the Criticks mean that the Trinity or Incarnation were unknown to and were not the Doctrine of the Fathers before the Council of Nice which is that which these Gentlemen must make the Criticks to say or else they say nothing I beg leave of these Gentlemen and of all the Criticks not one excepted to tell them that they are invincibly mistaken I have no criticism to offer here nor will I sill this small writing with citations of these Fathers it being the thing in question Though I conceive with submission to the high and mighty Criticks that most of these citations may be prov'd genuine I have only two plain Reasons to offer 1st With what equity and assurance did the Nicene Fathers declare their decrees to be according to the Doctrine taught by the Fathers who had preceeded them if the Trinity and Incarnation was not the Doctrine of those Fathers The Council was an August Meeting of the most learned and Religious Persons in the World even by