just exception is a social duty and which any Man that speaks truth and has not justly lost his reputation may claim from us as Fellow Creatures But when the matter related is incredible or which my Reason tells me is not enough probable or when the Relater is sufficiently exceptionable or if any thing else accompany the Relation which will give sufficient suspition of falsity to a prudent Man then if I believe such a Relation I am truly said to be Credulous because there I make my Belief exceed its just bounds I give more credit to the Relater than he ought to have whereas my Faith in this case ought to stop at the confines of probability I let it pass over them and believe things improbable But there can be no such thing in a divine Faith for taking that in our Authour's sense to be only a piece of justice to God there can be no excess in believing what he reveals or relates to us 't is impossible there should lie any exception against him as a Relater for he is most true and cannot deceive us as to whatever difficulty there lies in the matter related he is most powerful and can make good what he promises his Wisdom is infinite and knows exactly the express Modus of those Truths he had revealed to us which our finite understandings cannot comprehend It is impossible for us to believe too much what God affirms unless we could suppose that our Belief could be greater than God's Veracity or that God could say something was so which we knew impossible to be so So that to make Credulity an excess of Faith is to prescribe bounds how far Men should believe God and to give them caution that they should not credit him any farther than they saw reason for it but when his Relations began to them to seem unreasonable that then they should choose whether they would believe him or no that then they should stand upon their own guard for fear of being censur'd for easy Men and being thought the worst of all Fools the Credulous So that in short whatever Credulity is 't is not an excess of divine Faith unless we could believe God too true or that God could tell us something was true which was manifestly false Secondly That an acquiescence in the determinations of General Councils though in matters of Faith is not Credulity I would not have our Authour think that we ground our Faith in the Blessed Trinity upon the determinations only of general Councils which he means by his greatest humane Authority as if we had nothing in Scripture to urge for it we have Arguments enough from thence to confound all the force and subtilties of our Heretical Adversaries and several learned Men in the beginning of this Age have brought so much from thence as perfectly silenced this Heresy for a time and has baffled their Cause for ever I am sure at least against all such espousers of it as this Authour seems to be And as for Councils when we rely upon their determinations in asserting and explaining the Ancient Faith I do not think we are so much credulous as these fort of Gentlemen are saucy to say no worse when they bespatter these August Assemblies with so much Contumely and Buffoonry as they use to do There are none of our Church that look upon the determinations of general Councils to be the infallible Oracles of God they are as our Authour speaks humane Authorities but then they are the greatest humane Authority upon Earth they are the Representatives of the Church Universal and if our judgments are apt to be inclined by the Authority of single Doctors they ought to be much more so by the Authority of such a number of good and learned Men convened from all the parts of the Christian World We do not run up the Authority of Councils so high as to give them power to constitute new Articles of Faith as the Papists do but then we look upon them to be the best Judges in the World of old ones and of what was the true ancient and Catholick Faith to declare what Doctrines according to Lirinensis's Rule have Universality Consent Antiquity when they come to be contested by Hereticks For the Members of these Councils being Bishops drawn from all parts of the World are able to give an account of the Belief of the Faithful in their Districts and of the uncorrupted Writings and Traditions of their Fore-fathers Neither yet do we allow them if they shall oppose their Opinions or Traditions against the express word of God but only when they declare the truth of their Doctrine as Theodoret speaks of the Nicene Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of Scripture words piously understood of which there is no oâ—e but must allow them to be the most excellent and the most authentick Expositors And yet though we cannot grant it to be an Article of our Christian Faith That general Councils cannot err because there is no such proposition found in Scripture nor by any necessary consequence to be deduced from thence but most good Men look upon it as a Theological Verity for which there are some probable Arguments out of Scripture alledged as Mat. 18. 20. When two or three are gathered together in my name I will be in the midst of them and Joh. 16. 3. When the spirit of Truth is come he will guide you into all Truth and the most good and learned Men in all times have generally thought that the inerrability of a general Council that was fairly called and duly celebrated was one of the piè credibilia which a good Man though he is not necessitated is yet well disposed to believe For if we consider the great love which God does bear to his Church and the peculiar Providence he does exercise over it if we consider the promises that he has made to it that it is his desire that all Men should be saved and should come to the knowledge of all necessary Truth there is no good Man but will be inclined to believe that God out of his infinite love and goodness which he has declared to bear to his Church will not suffer the Representatives of it in these sacred Assemblies to err in any important matter of Faith that he will not permit any deadly poison thus to sink into the bowels of his Church when they use all the fair and honest means they can to avoid it but that he will give his holy Spirit to direct them in settling the true Faith as may be best for the edification of his Church But though general Councils have not a divine inerrable Authority yet they have in matters of Religion the greatest humane and coercive one especially when owned and confirmed by the secular Power therefore though we were certain that they had determined something erroneously and which our own reason and judgment told us was so yet we ought to keep this reason to our selves and
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
very well convinced of but I never heard of her Hypocrisy before or at least to have it commended too And truly if what our Authour would make us believe be true that she entertains the Athanasian and Nicene Creeds only in complaisance to the Papists when in reality she disbelieves them she is guilty of the most abominable Hypocrisy in the World 'T is true indeed she uses the Apostles Creed only in those Offices he speaks of because they are the most ancient and the shortest and therefore the fittest for these occasions but yet by the words of the Apostles she understands the substance of what is contained in the other which she looks upon as Comments upon this But however to be sure her use of it in those Offices does not shew her to disbelieve the other Creeds any more than the use of the Athanasian or Nicene in the other Offices of the Prayer-Book shews that she disbelieves the Apostles One would have thought that her using all three did shew her belief of all three for that I am sure is the more natural consequence and not that her using one in one place does shew that she does not believe the other two she uses in other places Well but this may be in compliance with the Papists that she uses them But how does he prove that Has he any 〈◊〉 that the Compilers of the Common-Prayer designed any such thing Do the Rubricks Canons Articles or any other Publick Authority of the Church say any thing like it Till the Authour could have found some such grounds to have gone upon he had better have kept his foolish surmise to himself and not so senslesly have taxed the best Church in the World with such a wicked compliance But what more ample satisfaction could our Church have given to the World of her believing these two Creeds and the Injunction of the same to all her Members than by what she has done She recommends all the three Creeds in her Articles and tells us they ought throughly to be believed for they may be proved by most certain warrants from holy Scripture In her Rubricks she has ordered the Athanasian Creed to be used upon all the great Festivals of the year instead of the Apostles by which it is plain she looks upon it at least an Equivalent to it And this is to be said by the Minister not as something Declaratory to the People but as something they do assent to and in his words do they openly profess as appears by the Rubricks ordering the People to stand at this Creed as at the Apostles which is a token of their assenting to and of their making an open profession of what is then read Now can we suppose that the Church should exact so solemn a profession of the Faith contained in this Creed upon these great days if she did not expect they should believe what they so solemnly profess If the Authour can believe this he should never tax the Orthodox again with the Absurdity of their Faith The Nicene Creed is ordered to be said every Sunday and Holiday and in the Communion Service just before the receiving the Blessed Sacrament if a Sermon does not intervene in the same manner the other Creeds are recited And can we suppose that the Church should oblige her Members to make such an Hypocritical Confession at a time when she supposes them to have the best thoughts and the most pious Resolutions and to seal this their Hypocrisy with no less than immediate Perjury If she did do this instead of being the best she would be the most wicked Church in the World this one Injunction would serve to set against forty Romish corruptions but in truth the Romanists had never Forehead enough to object this against her so that it seems the Hereticks upon occasion can outdo the Jesuits in this qualification for this Authour by this one Calumny against the Church has said enough to silence all the lying Slanders of the Jesuits down from Sanders and Parsons to the little Scriblers in the late Reign As to his saying speaking of the Convocation last year that it will be a great disappointment to his Majesty and his good People if such an opportunity prove fruitless I cannot so well understand what he means if he means fruitless towards the incouraging his Opinions or for the taking away of these Creeds I believe it was more than his Majesty or any of his good People ever thought of or would have been satisfied with if it had been done nor could any but the Authour be so simple to imagine that when the State so lately by an Act of Parliament had excluded the Anti-Trinitarians even from the Benefit of Toleration that they should be let into the Church by an Act of Convocation THE END SOME REFLECTIONS UPON THE Naked Gospel As it is last Published and Owned By D r BVRY SInce these Papers were in the Licensers hands the Bookseller told me it would be expected I should say something to the Book Dr. Bury has since Published under his name so much altered from what it was before I do not think this is absolutely necessary to do in point of justice to the Authour for I have not concerned my self at all who was the Authour of that Book I only took care to Answer the False and Heretical Doctrines I found there which were like to do any mischief in the World which might still do harm enough for all its Authour's retractation It is his first Book that requires an Answer and not this last for that is such a poor Toothless Adder the poison of which is so much drained out that we may venture it any where without an Antidote Indeed 't is easy still to discern here the Tracts of the Heresy in his former Book but now they appear so thin and discoloured that the Reader whose gust lies the Socinian way will throw aside this insipid Heterodoxy for something of the same kind that is more substantial Here is still for the most part the old Heretical Body with here and there an Orthodox Limb so that his Book looks now like one of our old Saxon Idols half Man and half Monster Now whatever of his Erroneous Opinions he has altered or retracted in this last Book I shall not concern my self with them at all and truly I am glad he is come to own them to be such I shall only make a transient Remark or two upon those places in this Edition where instead of recanting he has multiplied his Heterodoxies But by the way it will be worth while a little to consider the Apology the Doctor makes for his first Book in his Preface to this He says this was drawn up against the sitting of the late Convocation at a time he had not patience to be silent in to enlarge some of their minds with a more comprehensive Charity with an intention to communicate what he had wrote to the members of that
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
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
our Church speaks spring out necessarily of a true and lively Faith in so much that a true and lively Faith may be known by them as a Tree is discerned by its Fruit. But still it is Faith not works that do justifie for they having no intrinsick value of their own cannot conferr it on any but Faith alone which takes hold as some speak of the all-sufficient merits of our Blessed Saviour Or as our Church speaks sends us directly to Christ for the remission of our Sins and by which we embrace the Promise of God's Mercy and of the remission of our Sins which thing none other of our Vertues or Works properly doth therefore the Scripture useth to say That Faith without Works doth justifie Not that even Faith it self is a proper and necessary cause of Justification but that it has pleased God to accept it as a cause or means by embracing or taking hold of the merits of Christ which are the true proper meritorious cause of Justification Which justification or righteousness which we so receive of God's mercy and Christ's merits embraced by Faith is taken accepted and allowed of by God as our perfect and full Justification And this is the reason that the Gentlemen of the Authour's persuasion are so unwilling to have Faith onely to justifie Secondly This ought to be an Orthodox Faith in all Fundamentals at least All the admirable Effects which the Scripture does attribute to Faith must be understood of a true Faith such as is agreeable to God's word which is to be the rule of our Faith and not of a false or Heterodox Faith which any one takes up from a Party of Men or from his own Imagination A Heterodox Faith is no more Faith than a dead man or a painted man is a Man they agree in one common equivocal Name 't is true and in nothing else So that an Heterodox Faith can no more pretend to those supernatural Effects which a true Faith by God's grace does produce than a dead Man can pretend to all the Properties and Operations of a live one There is but one Faith as well as one Baptism so that to hope to be justified by a false or another Faith is as unreasonable as to expect to come into the Church by another Baptism So that they that teach a Justification by works or any other Faith than an Orthodox one do themselves for ought as I see teach another Gospel Thirdly The reason why Faith is so pleasing to God as that he should make this the great Means of Justification And here I hope to give an Answer to the Authour's Dilemma and to shew that our Faith in Christ is not irrational and then we are no Fools and as for our merit by Faith we are far from pretending to it we acknowledge it as an infinite mercy of our gracious God that he will accept our Faith in Christ's blood for our Justification and do not go about to argue the worth of it which is none And as for the grounds of our Faith in Christ for Justification I know not what can be more reasonable than to expect only to have our weak Performances accepted for the sake of his all-sufficient Merits And of all our Actions that we can perform I know not what can be more pleasing and acceptable in the sight of God than for an humble and desponding Christian considering his own unworthiness and the insufficiency of his Repentance it self and all other Vertues to incline God to mercy so far as for their sakes to accept him for just and innocent he as the last refuge he hath quitteth all worth and merit in himself and fleeth with a full and undoubting Faith in all God's revelations and a firm confidence in all his promises unto the free grace of God revealed in Christ Jesus and hopes for the sake of his Righteousness alone that he will justifie his imperfect Performances This certainly when we have done the utmost of our Endeavours is more pleasing to God than any action we can do more For if we could be justified by our works it would tempt us to reflect with Pride upon our vertuous Actions but this teaches us a pious despondency in our selves and to cast all our hopes upon our blessed Saviour And this is the summ of the Apostles Arguments Eph. 2. 8. For by Grace ye are saved through Faith not of your selves nor of works least any one should boast And the learned Cassander though a Papist says thus much in favour of this Doctrine of the Protestants that in this Question by the word Faith they mean only the grace of God which is correspondent to faith quae fidei ex adverso respondet and to be justified by faith alone signifies the same as by grace alone in opposition to all kind of works CHAP. III. What figure Faith made in natural Religion OUR Authour in the beginning of this Chapter lays down Faith as a duty in natural Religion that it is a branch of Justice by which we pay to God what is due to his Veracity that this was before all positive Law and that upon this the Gospel is built because the Faith of Abraham which is recommended for our pattern Rom. 4. was nothing else but this Justice that the lack of this Faith was reproved by the Angel in Sarah and was punished in Lot's Wife Gen. 18. and in the incredulous Lord 2 King 7. And that this is the Faith lastly which is commended in the Worthies mentioned Heb. 11. And last of all he endeavours to shew the excellency of Abraham's Faith to consist in believing God against so many difficulties from this natural notion of his Veracity Any one that understands the nature of the Authour's Book will easily see into his design here which is to bring down all Faith to be a meer Creature of Reason to be no longer that which the Schools call an infused Habit or the inspiration of God but only a bare rational belief upon divine Testimony Now as to his notion of Faith its being a branch of Justice and that by the light of nature we are taught to believe God upon his Testimony this is in some measure most certainly true as appears by the practice of the Heathens themselves who had nothing but the light of nature to walk by in their believing their Oracles Auguries Prophesies c. and in suiting their actions according to them So that 't is plain that natural Religion tells us God is to be believed upon his Testimony so that when a Man under natural Religion does believe any thing upon God's Testimony our Authour may if he pleases call this Faith But Theological Faith or Faith under the Gospel is quite of another kind this is not only an assent of the understanding but a divine Grace or Habit infused though our Authour would have them the same by saying the Gospel is built upon this and moreover That Faith in Abraham
which the Scripture does recommend for our Pattern was not this bare rational assent but an inspired Vertue that was founded and excited in him by the preventing and co-operating Grace of God 1. For first Faith under the Gospel is a spiritual Grace or an inspired Habit 't is a true and stedfast belief in and reliance upon God through the merits of Jesus Christ and the sanctification of the holy Spirit not by the bare assent only of our reason but by the co-operating Grace of God I know not for my part any truth in all our Religion more expresly revealed than that Faith is a Grace inspired by God It is said to be the gift of God Eph. 2. 8. And again for unto you is given in the behalf of Christ not only to believe on him but to suffer for him Eph. 1. 29. Upon Peter's confessing our Saviour's Divinity Christ tells him flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee but my Father which is in Heaven Matth. 16. 17. We are not sufficient of our selves to think any thing as of our selves but our sufficiency is of God 2 Cor. 3. 5. It is God that worketh in us both to will and to do Phil. 2. 13. No man can come unto me except the Father which sent me draw him Joh. 6. 4. And so Gal. 5. 22. Faith is reckoned among the gifts of the Spirit And the Father of the Demoniack Mark 9. 24. cries out Lord I believe help my unbelief Now if all our Vertues and good thoughts are the effects of God's Grace most certainly this eminent Vertue of Faith must if the Inspiration of God be requisite even for St. Peter's Faith it must surely likewise be so for ours if we are to be drawn to the belief of the Gospel by God we cannot come then upon our own pure accord if the belief of one that was an Eye-witness of our Saviour's Miracles did lack help and improvement from God ours likewise cannot stand in need of less I do not say that God inspires this belief into us without any concurrence of our own judgments that he moves our Assents as if we were meer Machines but his preventing Grace does first excite our belief and his assisting Grace does still further it by giving a blessing and effectualness to the word and without this divine assistance according to the present measures of God's dispensations it is impossible we should ever attain it For the certainty of this divine truth we have Scripture Councils Fathers and Learned Men in all Ages the Doctrine of our own Church and all sober Christians but only a few Socinians and Remonstrants that are for levelling all Scripture and Revelations to their own sense and humour Nay I am apt to think that this Doctrine will be look'd upon as too Calvinistical by some since the Systems of the Remonstrants which condemn this Doctrine are so admired in the world but 't is not Systems but God's word we are to be governed by and from hence we have proof enough to maintain this Doctrine against all the Remonstrants and Socinians in the World 2. Now as to his making the Faith of Abraham by which he is said in Scripture to be justified to be only a natural Faith I answer First Though we should not allow this Faith of Abraham to be the true Christian Justifying Faith or a Faith in Christ Jesus yet we cannot allow it to be only a plain moral Act or Habit for if it were only a bare credence out of Justice to God's Veracity that too must be allowed to come from God because without him we are not able to think a good thought much less to do a good action Though by the light of Natural Religion a man might be covinced that it was his duty to believe God in all his promises yet when these promises by their difficulties seem strangely incredible Flesh and Blood will be apt to shrink and give way and rather to fall a disputing the possibility of them than readily upon God's Authority to believe unless their Faith be strengthned by the assisting Grace of of God's holy Spirit And so Philo the Jew says in this case of Abraham That 't is not so easie a matter to believe in God alone by reason of that cognation we have with that Mortal part we are yoked to which is the cause that we trust in Money and Glory in Honours and Friends and the like but to be purged from all these and to distrust all created things which are unfaithful in themselves and to trust in God alone who is always faithful 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the work of a great and heavenly Mind that is an inspired one Secondly But besides this Faith of Abraham was a formal Christian justifying Faith or a Faith in Christ Jesus It was the opinion of the Ancients That all the Patriarchs and all other Good Men both before and under the Law were saved by an express Faith in Christ Eusebius tell us That all the Fathers before Abraham were Christians though not in Name yet in reality and that they followed the Faith of him whom we now follow And St. Hierom That the Saints that were of old were justified by Faith in Christ And St. Gregory That as we are saved by Faith in the past Passion of our Saviour so the ancient Fathers by Faith in his Passion which was then to come Nay Cyril goes farther and makes Abraham from the seeing of the three Angels to have believed in the Consubstantial Trinity And if we look into Scripture we shall find that these great Men had reasons enough to ground them in this Opinion for our Saviour tells the Jews Joh. 8. 56. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and was glad Now what should all this gladness and rejoicing be for but that from the Promise which God had made him Gen. 11. 35. that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed he was fully persuaded That God in his good time would send such a Person as Christ into the world that should save the People from their Sins that should die for the Sins of the whole world to reconcile them to God now the consideration of this was matter of the greatest Joy to him then as it is now to all good Christians so that as St. Gregory says there is little difference in this between his Faith and ours but that ours is after and his before Christ's Passion So likewise St. Peter tells the Jews Act. 4. 12. Neither is there Salvation in any other but Christ for there is no other Name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved Now whereas 't is certain by Scripture that these good Patriarchs were saved as appears by God's declaring himself to be their God and by making a lying down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob to be an expression for Everlasting Happiness
it from hence follows That they must be saved by a Faith in Christ or else they would be saved by Faith in another Name I say They must be saved by Faith in his name for that is the onely Means of Salvation God has proposed That was one of the express terms of Reconciliation agreed upon with the Father to be performed on Man's part so that they could reap no benefit from this Covenant without performing that condition As to his other Instances to prove Faith in the old Testament to be only a natural Faith as of Enoch Moses Josuah Rahab c. I answer First 'T is very certain that the word Faith in Scripture is taken in very diverse acceptations sometimes for the Profession of the Gospel sometimes for a belief of Christ's being able to cure Diseases sometimes for a trust and reliance upon God's promises in general which are all distinguished from the particular reliance upon God's mercy and Promises through the Merits of Jesus Christ which is the only true justifying Faith Now 't is true the Apostle in the eleventh of the Hebrews where he reckons up all those eminent examples of Faith does not understand by Faith here strictly the justifying Faith but only a firm reliance upon God's promises that he will in his good time deliver his Servants and therefore he urges these precedents of Faith and trusting in God to encourage the Christians to a chearful undergoing of their Sufferings and a perseverance in their Belief that God will shortly deliver them by destroying the Jews which were their bitterest Enemies for in the Verses immediately preceding this Chapter he comforts his fainting Converts in these words Yet a little while and he that shall come will come and will not tarry Now the just shall live by Faith but if any Man draw back my Soul shall have no pleasure in him By which it is plain That the Examples that are afterwards brought to comfirm those wavering Christians in this sort of Faith or Perseverance in their Sufferings must be famous for their Perseverance in Afflictions upon account of this Faith or reliance upon God's promises to deliver them and that this sort of Faith is that which is chiefly recommended here But then Secondly It no ways follows that these good men whose examples are here proposed had no other Faith but this These and all other good men under the old Testament had a formal Faith in the Messias or Christ Jesus which is the true justifying Faith Moses wrote of Christ Act. 3. 2 to the end as our Saviour tells the Jews that they might believe on him Joh. 5. 46. And many Prophets and righteous men have desired to see the things which they saw Matt. 13. 17. and that many Kings have desired it Luk. 10. 24. Jacob when he was dying said that he had waited for the Salvation of the Lord Gen. 49. 18. Anna the Prophetess spake of Christ to all them that looked for redemption at Jerusalem Luk. 2. 38. Philip said that he had found him of whom Moses in the Law and the Prophets did write Joh. 1. 45. The Samaritan Woman knew that Christ cometh Joh. 4. 25. St. Paul speaks in his Oration to Agrippa of the Promise made unto the Father unto which the Twelve Tribes instantly serving God day and night hope to come Act. 26. 6. From all which it is plain That all these good Servants of God did believe in Christ the Saviour of the World and that this Faith of theirs was imputed unto them for Righteousness And so now what is become of our Authour 's natural Faith which he makes to be the Mother of the Evangelical The Faith of these good Men was the gift of God as well as ours they were justified by Faith and so are we Gal. 3. 8. they live by Faith in Christ Jesus as well as we they disclaimed all righteousness in works as well as we so that if theirs be a natural Faith ours must be so too And so now by our Authour 's natural Faith and other Mens moral grace we are in a fair way to have all Christianity dwindled into downright Paganism CHAP. IV. That Credulity is not Faith but an opposite Vice OUR Authour being resolved to carry on his notion of natural Faith and to make it a compleat Heathen Virtue has resolved to bring it to the test of the Heathen Philosophy and to make it to suit the better with the Aristotelian Vertues has gotten it two extream Vices to surround it Infidelity in the defect and Credulity in the excess But 't is Credulity is the Vice that our Authour has the pique against and therefore spends all this Chapter to prove that Credulity is not Faith And this we could readily have granted him without all his pains of proving it Now one would think that this was easy enough to prove and yet he has unluckily failed in the attempt For instead of proving that Credulity is not Faith which is easy enough of all Conscience to do he first goes to prove that Credulity is an excess of Faith as Fool-hardiness is of Valour or Prodigality of Bounty And secondly That they that believe contrary to reason are guilty of Credulity Now one would think that when our Authour had before laid down that Faith was only Justice to God he would make Credulity which he would have the excess of this Justice to be summum jus and so consequently to be summa injuria towards him and this he should do if he kept up to his own Rules and the analogy of these moral Vertues But he very fairly lets that alone and falls again to proving that which no body will deny That Men must not believe in contradiction to their reason in compliance with any humane Authority Now for ought that the Authour has gained of his point in this Chapter he might as well have proved that a Bear was not a Man or a Man was not a Mouse all that ever he could propose to himself was to insinuate into his unwary Readers that our Faith in the Blessed Trinity is not Faith but Credulity and that we are therefore Credulous because he would suppose we ground that Faith only upon humane Authority by which 〈◊〉 means chiefly the Authority of ancient Councils Therefore what 〈◊〉 shall say to this Chapter I shall reduce to two heads and shew First That Credulity is not excess of divine Faith Secondly That an acquiescence in the determinations of General Councils in matter of Faith is not Credulity First That Credulity is not an excess of divine Faith Credulity is a Vice by which we easily give our assent to the relation of another without just reasons and motives for it Now this Vice in its ordinary notion is only opposite to that just humane belief that is owing to one another as we are Men. For humane Faith or Belief of what another Man says when neither the matter it self nor the Relater is liable to any
not to oppose the concurring judgments of so many great and holy Men with our private sentiments 't is more probable that we should be deceived than they and though God might pardon our mistakes when we take care they should go no farther than our selves yet we cannot be so sure of that when we endeavour to bring others likewise into our errours A good Man though he could not be convinced of the truth oft heir determinations yet out of duty and respect to so great an Authority would not go openly to condemn them for though he looked upon their determinations not as inerrable Declarations of Faith yet he would take them for the best expedients of Unity so that if he happened to be mistaken in his Sentiments which are contrary to their Declarations and should withal endeavour to corrupt others by diffusing them this would be to make breaches in the Church which would be more prejudicial to him than his own errour this might make him guilty at the same time of Heresy and Schism too So that I take an acquiescence in the determinations of general Councils or any such like humane Authority to be so far from Credulousness that 't is a great part of prudent Caution and Wariness and that we should be far the more credulous and conceited Fools if we could believe that our private opinion was sufficient to weigh down theirs or that God would suffer the establishments of these great and holy Men to be pulled down and destroyed by the propagation of our conceptions CHAP. V. Why Faith made a greater Figure under the Gospel than it did under the Law THE Authour spends this long Chapter in shewing what a greater necessity there was in the Primitive Times of Christianity of a strong Faith than there is now which made our Saviour to recommend it then so much to his Disciples Which he illustrates by the instance of Loyalty which is but mean and inconsiderable in peaceable times and not worth a reward from the Prince but in time of danger when a Man ventures his Life to serve him 't is then a Virtue of a larger extent and ought to be encouraged by the greatest rewards He proceeds to shew the particular necessity of Faith at that time First From the difficulties which hindred the believing of the Gospel to the Gentiles who despised the meanness of the Gospel to the Jews who were prejudiced by the fond opinion they had of their own Law and by the expectation of a pompous Messias Secondly From the danger which the Gospel brought in exposing its Professors to Persecutions c. Thirdly Upon account of the Methods of the Gospel which was to be Preached to the whole Heathen World These are the extraordinary means he says why Faith was so much recommended at that time the ordinary were the serviceableness of this Vertue to Religion and Holiness which do continue still so that God does not load his Servants with more Faith than is absolutely necessary to Salvation for if he should do this he says he must do it with reason or without reason if without reason that would contradict his Wisdom if with reason that can be no other but in order to the piety and happiness of Man And this is the sum of this Chapter Now any one may see what the design of all this is to make the belief of our Saviour's Divinity and the Doctrine of the Trinity to be no part of the Faith delivered to the Saints and that those great exhortations to Faith the Scripture gives had no relation to the Faith of our Saviour's Divinity and that they were not urged to strengthen them against any difficulties they might conceive in this Doctrine but only to confirm them against those other difficulties and dangers which he there mentions Now though 't is very true that these difficulties which the Author mentions were such as did deter many from espousing Christianity so that there was need of a greater Faith than ordinary at that time to conquer them yet he does not enumerate all the difficulties their Faith was to superate but leaves out that principal end of Faith which was to give life to all the rest that Jesus Christ was the eternal Son of God This Doctrine was so strange and wonderful both to Jews and Gentiles that it frighted many Proselites away from Christianity so that how much soever the fondness of the Jews to their own Law and the meanness of our Saviour's appearance might hinder them from complying with his Religion yet this Doctrine of his being the Eternal Son of God and equal with his rather was such a hard saying a truth so difficult to mens natural reason at first appearance that they ought to have had as great incouragement to confirm their Faith in this point as to support them against any of those difficulties which our Authour mentions And this we find to be the great scandal all along to the Jews For Joh. 5. when our Saviour declares to them his original his being the Son of God and his co-operating with the Father My Father worketh hitherto and I work therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him because he not only had broken the Sabbath but said also that God was his Father making himself equal with God And so Joh 6. 58. when our Saviour declares himself to be the Bread which came down from Heaven many of his Disciples when they heard this said This is a hard saying who can bear it And so likewise v. 52. What if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before It follows that from that time many of his Disciples went back and walked no more with him And again Joh. 8. upon our Saviour's declaring to the Jews that he was the Son of God they are all so enraged as to tell him that he is a Samaritan and hath a Devil Joh. 8. 15. And so likewise v. 58. upon his saying before Abraham was I am they took up stones to cast at him The like offence they took at his forgiving sins Mat. 9. 11. or at any other word or action of his which did any ways seem to infer his Divinity So that there was a great deal of need of a very strong and vigorous Faith to believe in the Divinity of Christ at that time especially when they had so many prejudices to deterr them from it And besides we find that our Saviour does greatly incourage and commend those that did heartily believe and make a ready profession of it Thus Mat. 16. when Peter made that eminent confession of our Saviour's Divinity Thou art the Son of the living God he immediately gives him his blessing and entails that great Promise upon him Thou art Peter and upon this Rock will I build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Joh. 16. 18. And so Joh. 20. 28. when Thomas made that most express confession of our Lord's Divinity upon occasion
of his being certified of the Resurrection My Lord and my God our Saviour gives his blessing not only to him but to all those that shall believe this without being Eye-witnesses of his Resurrection to confirm them in it Blessed are they which have not seen and yet have believed And thus we find our Saviour did many of his miraculous Cures in requital of their Faith and their ready confession of his Divinity as on the blind Man Mat. 20. that cryed out so vehemently have mercy on me O Lord thou Son of David and Luke 17. when the blind Man cries out Jesus thou Son of David have mercy on me our Saviour tells him upon his Cure thy faith hath saved thee v. 4. Where by the Son of David is meant the Messias who according to the Jewish Doctors was to be God So that this Confession of his being the Son of David was a Confession of his Divinity which was a great means to incline our Saviour to work their Cure and to tell one of them that his Faith had saved him And thus we have let our Author know there was some other use of Faith at the beginning of the Gospel than what he mentions and that there was not only a need of Faith to strengthen them against the dangers c. which the Gospel brought on them but to make them believe in Christ's Divinity and to profess that most important Article of our Christian Faith 2. The next thing which the Authour in this Chapter would have is That Faith in the Gospel has no relation to Christ's Divinity because he says God like a good Prince would not load his good subjects with unnecessary burdens but only such as there was reason for and which were necessary to Piety and a good Life Now I hope that our Authour and his Friends for all their pretence to reason will not be so bold with God Almighty as to give the Rationale of all his Commands and exactly to shew the motives that inclined his Eternal Will whose Judgments are unsearchable and his ways past finding out I confess I have always lookt upon it as a very daring piece of Confidence in these sort of Authours to say in case of a positive Command That God has not Commanded such a thing or This Command must not be understood in this manner because there is no reason that he should thus command us or as our Authour says 'T is to dishonour God to believe him to require Faith for any other reason than because it is necessary for our incouragement to Holiness or as he says afterwards For its serviceableness to the Divine Life For though we could see no reason for such a Command yet God may and 't is but reasonable as well as modest to think that God understands the reason of his own Laws best and that he that gave us these Precepts best understood the ends for which he designed them But because the Authour should not triumph too much over us poor dull Trinitarians or think there is no reason to be given why Faith in the persons of the Blessed Trinity should be commanded us or in particular that the Belief of the Divinity of our Saviour which it is our Authour 's chief design to impugn as appears by his following Chapters least I say he should think this Belief does contribute nothing to Religion and Piety let him be pleased to take with him these considerations First That to believe the Divinity of our Saviour is necessary to Religion because by it there is gained a greater Authority to his Laws For we find that Men are more and more inclined to respect Rules and Laws from the dignity of the person that gives them The Rules and Injunctions of ordinary persons are usually contemned and slighted though if the same came from a great and magnificent Person they would be embraced with a great deal of eagerness and veneration Therefore in compassion to this infirmity of Mankind it has pleased the infinite Wisdom and Goodness of God to let a Person of the Divine Nature the Son of his Bosom to take our nature upon him to be himself the propounder of these Heavenly Rules of his holy Gospel to be himself the Promiser of all those glorious Rewards which he vouchsafes to propose to those that shall obey his Precepts Now such a Person as this could be liable to no exceptions though a Prophet might be mistaken in his Revelation might outgo or misapply his Credentials yet when God himself undertakes the Embassage malice it self can except nothing here so that this will be proof against the utmost Infidelity Secondly This Belief does further Religion because it improves our Love and Gratitude to God upon consideration of so immense a benefit Indeed it had been a great token of God's love to Mankind any ways to have contrived our Redemption to have rescued us from that forlorn miserable Estate into which we were fallen and to have placed us in a Capacity of attaining Everlasting Happiness But then his love is far greater to us when he hath sent his only begotten Son to die for our sins and to purchase our Redemption by such an unvaluable price And we may take notice that the Apostles do place the choisest mark of God's love in chusing such extraordinary means to work Mens Salvation by as the Incarnation and Death of his own Son God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son Joh. 3. 16. God spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all Rom. 8. 32. Herein is love not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins 1 Joh. 4. 10. And truly this consideration that a Person of the glorious Trinity one that is God blessed for ever should for the sake of us wretched Sinners undergo such an exinanition as to take our nature upon him to live a miserable Life and to die a shameful Death to reconcile us unto God this consideration I say is of all most apt to work upon generous Minds to hinder them from offending so good and gracious a God after such an unparallel'd Mercy and nothing can be so effectual to make Men ashamed of the ingratitude of their Sins if they have any the least spark of Generosity or Vertue when they reflect upon this so inexpressible goodness Thirdly Because this Belief does secure us of the remission of our sins by an assurance we now have of the compleat satisfaction which Christ has made for the sins of all Men. We know our Saviour came into the World that Repentance and Remission of Sins should be Preached in his Name Now we are certain that it is not possible for the blood of Bulls and Goats to take away sin Heb. 10. 4. and we are as certain that the blood of meer Man would be as far from doing it as the other so that we could have no assurance of our Redemption
at all unless we were redeemed by the blood of God Act. 10. 28. For because our sins had received an infinite aggravation by being against a God of infinite Dignity as all offences are increased proportionably as the person offended is of greater worth and therefore these sins had entailed upon them an infinite punishment it was impossible that any satisfaction could be made by any thing less than an infinite Person because none but such an one could pay the infinite price that was due and he might do it because the temporary punishment in the infinite dignity of his Person was a full equivalent to the infinity of punishment which was due to us So that this belief of our Saviour's Divinity is necessary to the believing the remission of our sins and so to be sure is necessary to Piety CHAP. VI. Of Faith in Christ as the Saviour of the World THE Authour here divides the Faith of Christ into two objects of Belief I. The Person in whom we believe II. The Word in which we believe upon the credit of the Person In treating of the first of these he declares First What kind of Person our Lord requires us to believe him to be Secondly What is meant by believing in him And when he comes to shew what kind of Person our Saviour declares himself to be he makes a fine Company of Socinian glosses upon Scripture which it will be worth our while a little to consider For whereas he is mightily afraid that the titles of the Son of God c. would be a pregnant proof of our Saviour's Divinity he is resolved to distinguish them of by a few Polish Criticisms For first he says that God in Scripture is used to express something which is indefinite and which implies more than we can readily express From whence he would inferr that the Title of Son of God is no Argument for Christ's Divinity but only that he is some extraordinary remarkable Person But let us a little examine the Instances he brings The first is God do so to me and more also Now can any mortal Man conclude from hence that the word God is used to signify something indefinite The word more does signify something indefinite indeed but the word God signifies no more than it does in other places and the Authour might as well have transcribed all the Texts in the Bible in which he found the word God as this and they would have been as much to his purpose I know not what particular Text the Authour does refer to for this expression for 't is in many and as far as can be collected 't was a form of Cursing in use among the Jews about the time of Samuel and some time after for 't is found only in the Historical Writers of those times 1 Sam. 3. 17. and 4. 44. and 25. 22. 2 Sam. 3. 9. and 35. 2 Sam. 19. 3. 1 Kings 2. 23. 2 King 6. 13. Sometimes by way of adjuration to another as of old Eli to Samuel God do so to thee and more also if thou hide any thing from me of all the things that he said unto thee 1 Sam. 3. 17. that is I charge thee to tell me all the threatnings which God tells thee or else may all and more than he threatens light on thee Other times by way of imprecation of mischief on ones self as in the case of Solomon 1 King 2. 23. God do so to me and more also if Adonijah have not spoken this against his own life i. e. I will for this Crime take away Adonijah's Life or else may God take away mine or punish me worse than I intend to punish him And so in the other places where the word God has not an indefinite Sense but there is only a wishing of some Evil or Punishment which is indefinite greater than the Evil there pointed at but not expressed of how large a Degree of Greatness His Second Instance is out of Joel 4. 12. Because I will do this unto thee prepare to meet thy God O Israel Now I don't see what more indefinite signification there is in the word God here than in other places Indeed there is the severest denunciation of God's Judgments upon an irreclaimable People after Famine Pestilence Sword and Fire so that God tells them seeing they are proof against all these scourges he will try what they can do against him when he personally becomes their Adversary and see if they are able to cope with him too Prepare then to meet thy God O Israel 'T is not the word God here that does signifie any indefinite number of Evils but that God does Sarcastically upbraid their Obstinacy after all his Judgments having been ineffectual upon them by proposing his infinite Power as a Match for them if nothing else can be Prepare c. A bitter Sarcasm says the excellent Dean of Paul's as if a man could be a match for God and a poor weak creature be in any wise able to encounter him to whom Power belongs Another Notion the Authour has got Why Christ should be called the Son of God is because he is a considerable Person one of great Note and Eminence it being the Scripture Idiom to advance things by entitling them to God as the Mountains of God and the Rivers of God were those that were most eminent in their kind It is true That this sort of Expression is usual in Scripture to denote something that is great as the Mountain of God the Cedar of God Nimrod was a mighty Hunter before the Lord or a Hunter of God With great Wrestlings have I wrestled with my Sister says Rachel or with the Wrestlings of God Baptholi Elohim Luctationibus Dei But it does not follow from hence That our Saviour was called the Son of God because he was a great Person By this way of speaking he might well enough be stiled the Man of God or the Prophet of God to denote him a great Man or a great Prophet but in no propriety of speech the Son of God for the word Son does not denote the Person but Relation so that the Son of God is one to whom God does bear the relation of a Father Therefore 't is not his Greatness that entitles him thus to God but his Filiation for if it was only his Greatness that entituled him to this Character the mighty Nimrod or the great Mountain might upon this account be called the Sons of God as well as he because they were great in their kind as well as he Well but says the Authour Daniel makes the Son of God be a Character of one of great Beauty and Majesty by calling the Fourth Person in Nebuchadnezzar's Furnace by that name There is no reason to assert That this Fourth Person here was the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity for as the Authour says we can't suppose Nebuchadnezzar to have seen the Son of God before and upon that account to have known him All that
Nebuchadnezzar or Daniel who relates this matter understood by the Son of God was an Angel who from their nigh Conversation with God from the great Portion of Happiness and Glory he communicates to them and their so resembling him by their Purity and the Spiritualness of their Nature and from their living in Heaven with him like Children under the wing of their Parent from these and the like circumstances they were and not improperly called the Sons of God as we find in many places of Scripture as Psal 82. I said ye were Angels or the Children of the Most High So Job 1. 6. There was a day when the Sons of God or Angels presented themselves before the Lord. And the LXX translate this very place in Daniel by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the form of the Fourth was like the Angel of God So that we must grant That the Son of God here mentioned was an Angel of God But our Blessed Saviour was the Son of God in another manner than his for his Sonship is not founded upon any such Analogy as theirs is but upon the eternal generation of the Father for he being made so much better than the Angels as he hath by Inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they Heb. 1. 4. In short 't is impossible that our Saviour's Sonship should be such a Sonship as that of the Angels because the Apostle spends this whole Chapter to prove him a Person distinct from and above the nature of Angels and does besides set the Son of God in direct opposition to the Angels of God And of the Angels he saith c. v. 7. But unto the Son he saith c. v 8. When he bringeth in his first begotten into the world he saith Let all the Angels of God worship him v. 6. So that Christ's Sonship must be of another kind than that of the Angels or else there would be no ground for their contradistinction unless he was in a peculiar manner the Son of God in a supereminent extraordinary way not at all common to them The Authour having made these Remarks upon this Title of our Saviour The Son of God he proceeds to reckon up some others as the Messias or Christ Onely begotten Son of God which Characters he allows to speak a Person of unmeasurable Greatness a Person like his Emblem the Light so glorious that by our most intent view we cannot discover any thing of it but this That we cannot discover Now for all our Authour's haste one would imagine that something was discoverable in our Saviour by these Eulogies that God did design to manifest or discover something to us of him by these Revelations and not to make Revelations of things that were not revealable 'T is not to be expected indeed that by the help of Revelation we should dive into the Nature of our Saviour's eternal Essence for we are so far from a possibility of doing that that we are ignorant of the Essential Constitutions of the most inconsiderable Being we are conversant with But though we are ignorant of this yet we can tell when 't is revealed to us by God what kind of Nature our Saviour's is whether finite or infinite whether divine or humane The Gloriousness of his Nature does not so dazzle our Eyes as to make us confound distinct and express Idea's I have a certain though not an adequate Idea or Notion of God as a Being infinite incorporeal c. And when I am informed by Revelation tâ—at such a Person is that infinite incorporeal Being or that he has in such Revelation those Characters ascribed to him as are inseparable from the Divine Nature I must conclude That such a one is a Person of the Divine Nature such an infinite incorporeal c. Being which is my Notion of God Indeed the gloriousness of this Being keeps Men from discovering its Essence and from prying into its Nature but yet we may observe such Marks and Properties in it so as to have a distinct Conception of it from all other Beings in the World The Sun is a glorious Body and the more we strive to pry into its Constitution by gazing on it the more we are blinded and what then don 't we know the Sun when we see it for all this because our Eyes are so weak that we cannot stare into the Furnace of the Sun must we therefore take it for a Candle The Person of our Saviour is glorious and if it were a thousand times less glorious than it is I might not understand its Nature but when I am told that this Person is God that he is one of the Persons of the Divine Nature my Understanding tells me very clearly That all the marks and properties I have in my Mind of the Divine Nature must be attributed to this Person and though I understand nothing of his Essence or the precise modus of his Hypostasis yet I am sure he is that Being which I have a certain Idea of and which I call God So that 't is a great Fallacy in the Authour to say we don't know what our Saviour is because we cannot dive into his Essence for our discriminative Knowledge of one thing from another is not by discovering the Essences or internal Constitutions of them but by regarding their outward marks and properties and these every one has a Knowledge of for a Child knows a Rose from a Stone as well as a Philosopher though it knows not the Qualities and internal Constitutions of either Therefore when I am infallibly informed that such a Person is God I am infallibly assured he is that kind of Being I have the fore-mentioned Idea of though I am infinitely short of understanding its Nature II. Our Authour now comes to shew what is meant by believing in his Person which he branches into Two Parts First Believing in him with respect to his word Second In respect to his Person The First of which onely he speaks to in this Chapter and says that Christ is to his Followers as the Sun to Travellers 'T is no matter what they think of its magnitude or whether they think it be no bigger than a Bushel it guides them all alike and thus it is he says with the Sun of Righteousness 't is no matter what we believe him to be if we have but a Practical Faith which is all our Saviour he says requires And this he attempts to prove out of Joh. 10. a place than which one would have thought he should rather have chosen any Text in the New Testament besides How long dost thou make us to doubt if thou be the Christ tell us plainly Jesus said I told you by calling God my Father and ye believe me not Joh. 10. 24 25. And presently after he tell them I and my Father are one v. 30. at which they took up stones to stone him saying thou being a man makest thy self God Now what can the Authour draw from this Why he says our
is and bring as a proof of this that Text of Isai 53. Who shall declare his generation But then upon second thoughts least the People should laugh at their Inconstancy they themselves revoke this second Creed and strive to get in all the Copies of it and procure an Edict from the Emperour which threatens all those that shall detain them Now indeed we may see here a very foolish inconstancy in these Hereticks and that they had a very ill hand at making Creeds to oblige all the World under the pain of an Anathema to believe such a thing at one time and the next day to disbelieve it themselves but this is nothing to the Orthodox Faith which stood always firm and unchangeable After the Authour has been spitting his Venom against the union of the three Persons he now begins to do the same against the union of Christ's Divinity with his humanity For he would have that upon supposition there are three persons in the same Individual nature that either the Nestorian or the Eutychian Doctrine was the true For says he there are but two ways imaginable in reason either Christ must be two Persons because he has two such different natures or he must have but one nature because he is but one Person But for all our Authours hast why can't we imagine a third way that he should be two Natures and but one Person This is as easy to imagine and I am sure as reasonable too For first It does not follow that because he has two Natures he must be two Persons for Nature and Personality are not reciprocal terms for there may be two or three or more Natures where there is but one Person The Athanasian Creed most excellently expresses this As the reasonable Soul and flesh is one Man so God and Man is one Christ There is the sensitive nature in Man as well as the rational there is the rational Soul one distinct substance united to the Body another distinct substance and yet these two so distinct Natures are but one Person Now what more contradiction does it imply that there should be a Personal Union between Divinity and Humanity than there does between Rationality and Sensibility If there be any more difficulty in one than the other it is this That in the former the union of the Divinity with the Humanity there is an union of two reasonable Natures which are distinct Persons of themselves as all rational Individuals are and therefore they must be as distinct Persons after the union as before But why so If they are united they are not distinct for all union is a negation of distinction or division Two single pieces or pounds of Gold are two distinct Substances or Bodies but if these be united by melting down into one they are still two pounds but yet they are but one Individual Body And so it is in the Union of all other Bodies Well but what is this to the Union of Spirits or rational Beings Yet it is something for if Spirits be united they must follow the Laws of Union as well as other Beings If they be united they must be one in something for to be one in nothing is no Union at all Now in the Union of the Divinity with the humanity wherein possibly can their Oneness consist but only in their personality Their Natures are most certainly distinct for Gods is one Nature and Mans is another and therefore if they be one in any thing it must be in their Personality Upon this Union they acquire an Oneness which they had not before and as the two distinct pounds of Gold upon their melting become one Individual piece which is the Oneness they gain so the Divinity and Humanity upon their Union gain one Individual Personality which is the Oneness they acquire Well but here are two rational Natures united which must have two Reasons and two Wills and therefore must be two Persons It does not therefore follow that because there are two Reasons and two Wills there must therefore be two Persons any more than it follows that a Man is three living Creatures from the Union of the Vegetative the Sensitive and the Rational Soul in his nature For as the Subordination of these Souls one to another make him but one Vivens so the Subordination of these rational Natures one to the other make them but one Person or rational Suppositum The Divine Nature is indeed the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or governing Principle in the Union of the Godhead with the Humanity as the rational Soul is in the Union with the two other Souls and therefore though there are two Reasons and two Wills yet those of the Inferiour Nature are subordinate to the Superiour and therefore are determined by the operations of that Nor Secondly is it necessary that if he be one Person he should be but one Nature because Nature and Person are not reciprocal terms and because as we have already shewn that more Natures may be united into one Person for 't was the Person of the Godhead that took upon him the Humanity so that he has no other Personality than what he had from all eternity but yet he has another Nature than what he had from all eternity because he likewise took upon him our Nature which he had not from eternity but took it upon him at that time when he was conceived in the Womb of the Blessed Virgin Though he still continued one Person yet he had two Natures the Nature of God which he had from all eternity and the Nature of Man which he assumed at that particular time and this without any change but only in the manner of his subsisting which was before in the pure Glory of the Son of God and afterwards in the habit of our Flesh All the Properties of each Nature are as distinguishable now as before the Properties of the Humanity are incommunicable to the Divinity and those of the Divinity to the Humanity 'T is proper only to the Divinity to be the cause of all things to be immense eternal omnipresent c. and 't is proper only to the Humanity to have a beginning to be circumscribed in place to be passible c. If therefore they have these distinct and incommunicable Propertie they must have distinct Natures from which these Properties flow though they be united into one Person And thus I think I have answered every thing that is material in this Chapter and I could very willingly have done with it but only because it may be expected I should say something to those invidious Remarks he makes upon some of the first holy Councils for the Determinations they made in matters of Faith and the condemnation of Hereticks As to what he says about the Heresie of Nestorius 't is not worth considering but he has a little too grosly represented the matter of Eutyches which I must not pass over without a little Reflection He would insinuate that Eutyches was first
condemned by a Provincial Council and restored by a General one which is false The Council indeed at Constantinople which condemned Eutyches was but Provincial convened by Flavianus Bishop of that place but it did consist of Orthodox Members and their Determinations were very free wherein Eutyches had a fair hearing to answer every thing he would that was objected against him by Eusebius Bishop of Dorylaeum his Accuser who before the meeting of this Council did kindly endeavour to reclaim him but when nothing would do he impeaches him in a Letter to Flavianus who cites him to the Council but he resolutely at first there avows his Heresie That Christ had but one Nature after the Union and at last when he began something to abate of his Stiffness he would by no means recant his Opinion therefore the Council who after several Sessions could get nothing from him but shuffling Nemine contradicente condemn him to which Condemnation not only the present Bishops subscribe but 23 of the Archimandrian Clergy that were there But this so General a Council as the Authour calls it which restored Eutyches was that which for its goodnes has been all along entituled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Thievish Council or the Synod of Robbers that packt Conventicle at Ephesus which was obtained by this means Eutyches vext at his Condemnation by the Council flies to Dioscorus Bishop of Alexandria and of Eutyches's Opinion and persuades him to espouse his Quarrel He readily complies and forthwith procures him an Interest in the Eunuch Chrysaphius President of the Palace that was a late Proselyte to the Eutychian Heresie and was very angry with Flavianus for his procedure in the late Council at Constantinople so he by his own and the Interest of the Empress Eudocia obtains of the Emperour Theodosius that there might be a Council held at Ephesus upon pretence to give Eutyches a fairer Tryal but in reality to be revenged on Flavianus and to establish Eutychianism Dioscorus gets to be President of this Council and brings with him a great number of Egyptian Bishops of his Opinion and obtains an order from the Emperour That none that were Judges of Eutyches before should be so now in this Council that though they were present yet they should not vote as Judges but only expect the Suffrages of the other Fathers because this was to be a Judgment passed upon what they had judged before What followed after this practising may easily be imagined the Faith of Eutyches is approved and Eusebius and Flavianus are condemned But yet it was not easy neither to get the Subscriptions of the Bishops to this till they were frightened to it by the Arms and Threats of the Souldiers and after all they set their names only to blank Paper to which the Abdication of those Bishops was afterwards affixed For thus some of the Bishops complain afterwards in the Council of Chalcedon We subscribed only to the pure paper with compulsion and violence having suffered many ill treatments we did unwillingly and forced by power set our hands They kept us even till night shut up in the Church and being sick they would not suffer us to rest nor would grant us any refreshments but the Souldiers with Swords and Staves stood over us and made us subscribe The Authour indeed grants that Dioscorus was accused in the Council of Chalcedon of some Uncanonical Proceedings and in truth they were Uncanonical with a Vengeance For besides all this underhand dealing and tumultuous proceeding in the Synod he was accused of no less than the Murder of Flavianus to whom he gave a kick in the Synod upon which he died three days after that he had contrived the Death of Theodorus and used several other illegal proceedings against him only because he was the Friend of Cyril his Predecessour of no less than notorious Incontinency of keeping Company with one Pansophia an infamous Woman and according to the information of Sophronius of downright Adultery of Blasphemy against the Trinity of being an Origenist of usurping the Imperial Authority and if all these Crimes can be wiped off with so soft a word as Uncanonical Proceedings I know not what things in the World those are which Men call Lewdness and Villaniny unless Hereticks by a special Title can claim an immunity from these names where they are guilty of the Crimes This Council in which these things were made out against Dioscorus the Authour says was procured by Leo because his Letters were slighted in the last though Zonoras tells us that Leo and Anatolius Bishop of Constantinople intreated this Council of the Emperour least the blasphemous Opinions of Eutyches should be left uncondemned This Council the Authour does endeavour to render vain and tumultuous by crying out This is the Faith of the Fathers Apostles c. Leo believes so Cyril believes so Now I think it a very laudable occasion for Christian Mens exultation when their Faith is defended against the poison of Hereticks for to be still and unconcerned upon such an occasion would shew they had little love or regard for the Faith they profess But the reason why they used Leo and Cyril's name so expresly was because of their excellent Explications of Faith which were publickly read in the Council and universally approved and such Defenders of Orthodoxy do in all Ages deserve as great commendation But the Authour would pretend the Council did not understand their own meaning when they propounded the Question whether they would agree with Dioscours who said Christ consisted of two or with Leo who said there were two Natures in Christ which Question the Authour says is a Mystery and was designed only to advance the dignity of the Roman See But yet this is no very great Mystery to any one that considers Dioscorus or Eutyches's Doctrine who held indeed but one nature in Christ but yet in compliance with the Orthodox would say Christ consisted of two natures They would allow Christ at first to be compounded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of two natures but then upon the Union or Composition they ceased to be two but the Orthodox held There were two distinct natures after Union which did both retain their distinct properties without confusion So that there is a great deal of difference between saying Christ does consist of two natures and There are two natures in Christ for the first does suppose them two only before Union the latter two before and after But the reason why Leo is put in opposition to Dioscorus is to confront that Heretick with a sound Orthodox Believer and to do an Honour to Leo for taking such pains to defend the true Faith which Dioscorus had used so much Artifice to destroy Well but the Emperour Basiliscus did not own this Council but sent Circulatory Letters to burn its Decrees This is very true and several other Eutychians as well as Basiliscus had as little kindness for it But
plainly enough described there but if the Authour wo'n't see them the Doctor can't find him Eyes and description too But let us see how the Authour has mended the matter in his handling the point But instead of giving us an enumeration of the particulars he has given us only some marks and qualifications of things to be believed which too if he had done it fairly enough would have been pretty well 1. And now the first qualification he makes for matters of Faith is That they be easily understood by the meanest capacity I hope the Authour does not mean that Men must understand every thing as far as they believe them and to believe nothing but what they have a perfect knowledge of for this would be to exclude all Faith out of the World and to make Men Scepticks in every thing but of which they had demonstrative Science If he means that there are no Fundamental Truths to be believed but what the meanest capacity can adequately comprehend the express modus of them this I am sure is more than ever he will be able to make out however he may attempt it As for what he brings of the poor having the Gospel preached unto them and that the light of the Gospel cannot be hid but to those whose eyes are blinded and of the simplicity which is in Christ these Texts the Authour has foisted in to no purpose and contrary to their intent and meaning for they are spoke only to shew that the Christian Religion did not consist in Pharisaical Glosses or deep Philosophical niceties knowable only by a few learned Men but in plain truths which any one of a mean capacity might perceive as far as was requisite for his Salvation And one of these I have shewn the Doctrine of the holy Trinity to be as to the belief of its existence in the Answer to the Preface But the Authour will have the Apostle St. Paul Rom. 10. 9. to judge it a great defect of Faith if there were any difficulty in it For my part I see nothing like such a judgment in this place of the Apostle that it argues a defect of Faith to have the matter of it difficult to believe Nay the reasoning of the Apostle there seems to be grounded upon the contrary to this If thou shalt believe in thine heart that God raised Christ from the dead thou shalt be saved That is if thou shalt believe such a wonderful thing as Christ's Resurrection which is so strange and difficult to be believed by all carnal Men thou shalt be saved But why should difficulty make a defect of Faith it has been generally looked upon as a great increase and exaltation of Faith when the matter has been hard to believe as in Abraham who believed against hope and whose Faith for this very reason the Authour did extraordinarily celebrate a Chapter or two before however he may have forgot himself now The calling of the Gentiles indeed he allows to be something of a Mystery and difficult to believe under the Gospel but he is very positive that in no other word of Scripture we meet the least intimation that Faith hath any hard task for the understanding to perform But I thought there might have been some difficulty in the belief of the Gospel it self by reason of our Saviour's calling his Religion a Yoke wherein Mens Carnal Reasons were to be subjugated as well as their Affections by his being set for the fall of many by reason that the Gospel was a stumbling block to the Jews and to the Greeks foolishness c. all which plainly shews there is at least some intimation of a difficulty for Faith under the Gospel 2. His second Qualification is That matter of Faith must be the express word of God This rule of the Authour holds well enough yea so well that I am afraid he will never stand by it when it comes to the Issue For if the Socinians or other Opposers of Christ's Divinity would once come to be determined by express Texts of Scripture that controversy would quickly be at an end For there are so many express Texts against them that we cannot desire more and these they will own are express as to the word and letter but then are forced to put false and strained Interpretations upon them to make them look another way For our Saviour is expresly called God Joh. 1. 1. The word was God Of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came who is God over all blessed for ever Rom. 9. 5. Thomas calls him my Lord and my God So Heb. 1. 8. Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever So the Divine Attributes are ascribed to him Omnipresence Joh. 14. 23. Matth. 28. 20. and 18. 20. Omnipotence Phil. 3. 21. Rev. 1. 8. Immutability Heb. 1. 11 12. Omniscience Joh. 21. 17. Joh. 11. 25. Rev. 11. 23. So likewise the Holy Ghost is called expresly God Act. 5. 4. Why hath Satan filled thy heart to lie unto the Holy Ghost thou hast not lied unto men but unto God v. 4. So are the Divine Attributes ascribed unto him As Omnipresence Psal 139. 7. 1 Cor. 3. 16. 6. 19. Eternity 1 Cor. 11. 10. Joh. 15. 26. Omniscience 1 Cor. 11. Omnipotence Luk. 11. 20. Luk. 1. 35. 1 Cor. 1. 11. These are not the tenth part of the places in Scriture which may be alledged for the proof of the Trinity besides that express one to prove a Trinity in Unity 1 John 5. 7. though without that there is enough to establish this Doctrine in the minds of all unprejudiced Men. And to see what work the Socinians make to invalidate these proofs what jejune and foolish interpretations they pass upon them so contrary oftentimes to the whole design and tenour of the Authours this would make any one think that they had taken up a Paradox to defend and were resolved to say any thing to maintain it rather than to be perfectly silent Well! but what if the relation between the written word and the rational consequence be so remote that none but a skilful Herald can drive its Pedigree Why this is not the case of the Doctrine of the Trinity for all the Authour's hast For first this is plainly asserted in that famous place of St. John 1 Joh. 5. 7. And the Authority of this Text is good for all our Adversaries appeal to some Manuscripts to the contrary and we have St. Cyprian to vouch for it who is older than any Manuscripts they can pretend to But secondly supposing this Text was wanting in Scripture the Doctrine of the Trinity is plain enough for all that We have express assertion there that each of the three Persons are God by the places for instance we just now alledged and we are likewise assured as well from natural reason as from Scripture that God is but one Hear O Israel thy God is but one God Deut. 6. 9. Now any Man without any great skill in Heraldry or Logick
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 〈◊〉