THE PRESENT STATE OF THE Socinian Controversy AND THE Doctrine of the Catholick Fathers Concerning A TRINITY in UNITY By WILLIAM SHERLOCK D. D. Dean of St. Paul's Master of the Temple and Chaplain in Ordinary to His MAJESTY LONDON Printed for William Rogers at the Sun against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleetstreet MDCXC VIII THE PREFACE I Have little to say to the Reader having sufficiently Explained the Design of this Treatise in the First Section Those who remember how this Controversy has been of late managed may possibly expect what they will not find some sharp Resentments of the Ill Usage I have met with and as sharp Returns but I write not to Revenge my self but to Explain and Vindicate the Truly Ancient Catholick and Apostolick Faith of a Trinity in Unity which requires a Composed and Sedate Mind both in the Writer and Reader For this Reason I have thus long delayed the Publication of this Treatise the greatest part of which was Printed Two Years since that those who will ever grow Cool might have time to recover their Temper And did I not hope that the Publication of it at this time would tend more to quiet Mens Minds to stop the Mouths of Hereticks and to secure the Catholick Faith than a Passive Silence it should never see the Light how much soever my own Reputation might suffer by it But I persuade my self That the Authority of the Catholick Church and of the Catholick Fathers is not at so low an Ebb even in this Age as to be easily despised and therefore their Explications their Arguments their Answers to the Objections of Hereticks will have their due weight and I have not gone one step further I appeal to the Catholick Fathers and am contented to stand or fall by their Sentence I have not wilfully misrepresented their Sense in any thing and have taken all possible care not to mistake it and as far as Human Authority is concerned here I must leave the matter for I know of no further Appeal The CONTENTS CHAP. I. SECT I. THE Present State of the Socinian Controversy and how to reduce the Dispute to the Original Question Page 1. SECT II. How to reduce this Dispute concerning the Trinity to Scripture-Terms 4 The Form of Baptism the Rule and Standard of Faith ibid. That these Names Father Son and Holy Ghost are more easily understood and give us a truer Idea of a Trinity in Vnity than any Artificial Terms 5 c. SECT III. That the Title of God attributed in Scripture distinctly to Father Son and Holy Ghost gives us the best Account of their Nature and must determine the signification of Ecclesiastical Words 12 This particularly Explained with respect to those Terms Nature Essence Substance Hypostasis Existence Subsistence Person c. 13 c. SECT IV. These Names Father Son and Holy Ghost prove the real distinction of Persons in the Trinity 20 c. SECT V. These Names Father Son and Holy Ghost prove the Vnity Sameness Identity of Nature and Godhead explained at large 24 SECT VI. Concerning the Vnity of God 33 In what sense the Catholick Church believed in One God ibid. Tritheism an old Sabellian and Arian Objection against the Trinity 34 How answered by the Catholick Fathers 37 c. CHAP. II. AN Examination of some Considerations concerning the Trinity SECT I. Concerning the Ways of managing this Controversy 51 What Ways the Considerer dislikes 52 c. What way he took viz. consulting Scripture and Natural Sentiments 56 SECT II. Concerning the Traditionary Faith of the Church with respect to the Doctrine of the Trinity 60 What the Catholick Church is from whence we must receive this Traditionary Faith ibid. What Evidence we have for this Tradition from the Ancient Heresies condemned by the Catholick Church 64 Of what Authority the Traditionary Faith of the Catholick Church ought to be in expounding Scripture 77 SECT III. What is sufficient to be believed concerning the Trinity 80 His Requisites to make it possible for us to believe a thing 81 SECT IV. Concerning his state of the Question That One and the same God is Three different Persons 84 His Examination of these Terms God Unity Identity Distinction Number and Person And 1. Of the Notion of God 86 SECT V. His Notions and Ideas of Unity Distinction Person His Sabellian Notion of a Person that there is but One single Person in the Trinity as Person signifies properly a particular Intelligent Being 88 This he proves from his Notions of Vnity and Distinction the Vnity and Distinction of Ideas of Principle and of Position 91 What he means by an obscure confused Knowledge and a general confused Faith of the Trinity 101 SECT VI. What the Scripture requires us to believe concerning the Trinity 103 His Sabellian Notion of One God to be adored under Three different Titles and Characters Ibid. His Scripture-proof of this Examin'd 104 c. His attempt to reconcile this with God's being One and Three 108 c. And with the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity 113 His Account of the Vnion of God and Man 115 What end the belief of the Trinity and Incarnation serve not as a Matter of Faith and Speculation but as an artificial representation of God's love to man 120 CHAP. III. AN Account of the Sabellian Heresy and by what Arguments the Catholick Fathers opposed it 124 The several kinds of Sabellianism 1. Those who made Father Son and Holy Ghost to be only Three names appearances and offices of the same Person And here the question was not whether the Son was a Person and the Holy Ghost a Person but whether they were distinct Persons from the Father 125 By what Arguments the Catholick Fathers opposed this Heresy 127 2. That the Son is distinguished from the Father only as a man's word is distinguished from himself 133 And by what Arguments the Catholick Fathers opposed this Heresy 134 3. Some made God a compound Being and Father Son and Holy Ghost the Three Parts of this one God 143 By what Arguments the Fathers opposed it Ibid. CHAP. IV. COncerning the Homoousion or One Substance of Father Son and Holy Ghost 150 SECT I. The true sense of the Homoousion from those misrepresentations which were made of it and the Answers which were given by the Nicene Fathers to such Objections 152 SECT II. Some Rules for Expounding the Homoousion 158 SECT III. What the Nicene Fathers meant by the Homoousion 163 SECT IV. A more particular Inquiry into the full signification of the Homoousion with respect to the specifick Vnity of the Divine Nature 170 SECT V. That by the Homoousion the Nicene Fathers did not meerly understand a specifick but a natural Vnity and Sameness of Substance between Father and Son 180 Damascen's distinction between one in Notion and one in reality Ibid. This appears from their Notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 181 And the Catholick Fathers lay the
be but One God but yet requires us to believe his Eternal Son to be true and perfect God and his Eternal Spirit to be true and perfect God it is certain that the Divinity of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is very reconcilable with the Unity of God For as far as Revelation must decide this Dispute we are as much obliged to believe That the Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God as we are to believe That there is but One God Those who will not acquiesce in this must appeal from Scripture to Natural Reason which is a very absurd and impudent Appeal for the plain sense of it is this That they will believe their own Reason before the Scriptures in matters relating to the Divine Nature and Unity which all wise men acknowledge to be so much above human comprehension That is That they know the Unity of God better than God himself does or which is the same thing That they will never believe any Revelation to come from God or any thing how express soever the words are to be the meaning of the Revelation any farther than their own Reason approves it Of which more elsewhere And yet I dare appeal to any man of a free and unbiass'd Reason in this Cause What is that Natural Notion we have of One God Is it any thing more than that there is and can be but One Eternal Self-originated Being who is the Principle or Cause of all other Beings And does not the Scripture do not all Trinitarians with the whole Catholick Church own this Do not all the Christian Creeds teach us to profess our Faith in One God the Father from whom the Son and the Holy Spirit receive their Godhead Thus far then Scripture and Reason and the Catholick Faith agree Does Reason then deny that God can beget of himself an Eternal Son his own perfect Image and Likeness If it does then indeed Scripture and Reason contradict each other But I believe these men will not pretend to prove from Reason That God could not beget an Eternal Son and if this cannot be proved by Reason as I am certain it never can then Reason does not contradict Scripture which teaches us that God has an only begotten Son And if God have an only begotten Son Reason will teach us that the Son of God must be True and Perfect God and yet not another God because he has one and the same Nature with his Father This is all that any Christian need to believe concerning this matter and all this every Christian may understand and all this every one who sincerely believes the Faith of the Holy Trinity does and must agree in Those who do not I will at any time undertake to prove to be secret Hereticks and Enemies to the Christian Faith and as for those who do I will never dispute with them about some Terms of Art and the Propriety of Words in a matter which is so much above all words and forms of speech And here I leave this matter upon a sure Bottom and here we are ready to join Issue with our Socinian Adversaries Our only Controversy as to the Doctrine of the Trinity with them is Whether the Son and the Holy Spirit each of them be True and Perfect God If we can prove this which has been the Faith of the Catholick Church in all Ages we need dispute no other matters with them nor can any Disputes among our selves give any Support to their Cause A Dispute about Words may look like a difference in Faith when both contending Parties may mean the same thing as those must do who sincerely own and believe That the Son is True and Perfect God and the Holy Ghost is True and Perfect God and that neither of them are the Father nor each other And therefore those different Explications of the Doctrine of the Trinity which the Socinians of late have so much triumphed in and made more and greater than really they are and more sensless too by their false Representations can do them no real service among Wise Men tho it may help to amuse the Ignorant If any men have subtilly distinguished away the Catholick Faith they may take them to themselves and increase their Party by them But if this were the Case as I hope it is not it is no Objection against the Catholick Faith that some men openly oppose it and others at least in some mens opinions do secretly undermine it There is reason to guard the Christian Faith against all inconvenient or dangerous Explications which seem to approach near Heresy if this be done with due Christian Temper and Moderation but I hope the Disputes of the Trinitarians are not so irreconcilable but that they will all unite against a Pestilent and Insolent Heresy which now promises it self glorious Successes only from their private Quarrels CHAP. II. An Examination of Some Considerations concerning the Trinity SECT I. Concerning the Ways of managing this Controversy BEfore I put an end to this Discourse it will contribute very much to the better understanding of what I have said and give a clearer Notion of the Use of it to apply these Principles to the Examination of a late Treatise entituled Some Considerations concerning the Trinity The Author I know not he writes with Temper and though he takes the liberty to find fault he does it Civilly and therefore he ought to meet with Civil Usage and so he shall from me as far as the bare Censure of his Principles will admit I was I confess startled at the first entrance to find him own the Vncertainty of our Faith in these Points concerning the Trinity for if after the most perfect Revelation of the Gospel that we must ever expect and the Universal Tradition of the Catholick Church for above Sixteen Hundred years this Faith is still uncertain it is time to leave off all Enquiries about it As for the many absurd and blasphemous Expositions that have been made of this Doctrine if by them he means the Ancient Heresies which infested the Church they are so far from rendring our Faith uncertain that as I shall shew him anon the very Condemnation of those Heresies by the Catholick Church gives us a more certain account what the true Catholick Faith was I agree with him that the warm and indiscreet Management of contrary Parties has been to the Prejudice of Religion among unthinking people who hence conclude the uncertainty of our Faith and it concerns good men to remove this Prejudice by distinguishing the Catholick Faith from the Disputes about Ecclesiastical Words and the Catholick Sense of them and I hope I have made it appear this may be done and then the Faith is secure notwithstanding these Disputes and as for any other Offence or Scandal let those look to it who either give or take it This Considerer dislikes all the Ways and Methods which have hitherto been taken to compose these Disputes 1. He
Socinians and I was glad to find them censured and rejected but wonder'd how they came to be numbred among those men who have laboured in this good design of explaining the Trinity and reconciling the Disputes about it Well All these Methods have proved ineffectual let us then to omit other matters enquire what Course our Considerer took to make himself a fit and competent Judge of this Controversy Take the account of it in his own words I have endeavoured to deliver my self from Prejudice and Confusion of Terms and to speak justly and intelligibly And not being yet prepossess'd in favour of any particular Explication the better to preserve my freedom of examining the Subject in hand I have purposely forborn to search the Fathers Schoolmen or Fratres Poloni or read over any later Treatises concerning this Controversy while I was composing the present Essay resolving to consult nothing but Scripture and my own Natural Sentiments and draw all my Reflections from thence taking only such which easily and without constraint offered themselves Thus Des Cartes made a New Philosophy and this is the best way that can be thought of to make a New Faith This has an appearance of great Indifferency and Impartiality but it is a great mistake when men boast in this as a virtue and attainment and an excellent disposition of mind for the Examination of Matters of Faith I never in my life yet saw any one example to the contrary but that when men who had been educated in the Christian Faith and tolerably instructed in the meaning and the reasons of it could persuade themselves to be thus perfectly indifferent whether it were true or false but this indifference was owing to a secret byass and inclination to Infidelity or Heresy It is in vain to pretend such an absolute freedom of Judgment without being perfectly indifferent which side is true or false For if we wish and desire to find one side of the question true and the other false this is a Byass and our Judgment is not equally poiz'd And certainly in matters of such vast consequence as the Christian Faith and especially that great Fundamental Article of the Holy Trinity such an Indifferency as this is can never recommend either an Author or his Writings to sober Christians Will this Considerer then own that it was indifferent to him when he undertook this design whether the Doctrine of the Trinity should upon Examination appear true or false If it were not the Socinians will tell him that he had not preserved a Freedom of Judgment and then he did well in not consulting the Fratres Poloni for he had condemn'd them without hearing or if he were persuaded concerning the Doctrine of the Trinity Was it indifferent to him whether the Sabellian or Arian or True Catholick Notion of a Trinity contained in the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds were the True Faith That is Was it indifferent to him whether the Ancient Heresies condemn'd by the Catholick Church or that Faith which the Catholick Church has always own'd and professed be the True Faith For my part I confess I am not thus indifferent I will never shut my eyes against plain Conviction which is all the Freedom of judging which is allowable but my Prejudices are and I hope always will be on the side of the Catholick Faith No wise man can be thus indifferent And we shall find this Considerer was not so very indifferent for the main Principles he reasons on are some Popular Mistakes and Prejudices which he seems to have espoused without due Consideration But let us allow him to be as free and unprejudic'd as he pleases I cannot think that he took a good method to understand this Sacred Mystery He laid aside Fathers Schoolmen and other later Treatises concerning this Controversy and consulted nothing but Scripture and his own natural Sentiments To consult Scripture is indeed a very good way and absolutely necessary in matters of pure Revelation which can be certainly known no other way but the Fathers at least are very good Guides and have very great Authority in expounding Scripture and our Natural Sentiments otherwise called Natural Reason is a very bad a very dangerous Expositor of Scripture in such Supernatural Mysteries and has no Authority in these mattters and how our Considerer has been misled by his Natural Sentiments will soon appear A few words might serve for an Answer to the Considerer but since this is the great Pretence of Socinians and other Hereticks to set up Scripture and Natural Reason against Scripture and the Traditionary Faith of the Catholick Church and our Considerer and some other unwary Writers chime in with them it will be very necessary to shew how this betrays the Catholick Faith and makes Reason and Criticism the Supreme Judge of Controversy and then men may dispute on without end and believe at last as they please The Considerer tells us I take it for granted in a Protestant Countrey that Scripture is the only Standard of all necessâ—ry Revealed Truths Neither in the present Case is there any room for a Traditionary Faith For besides that all the Fathers and Ancient Writers ground their Exposition of the Trinity wholly upon Scripture I cannot conceive that the Subject is capable of a plainer Revelation as I shall endeavour to shew more fully in the following Discourse What this last Clause means we shall understand better hereafter but his denying a Traditionary Faith is very extraordinary for if we can prove from the most Authentick Records what the constant belief of the Catholick Chuâ—ch has been especially in the first and purest Ages of it This I take to be a Traditionary Faith nor is it the less Traditionary because the Fathers and Ancient Writers sound their Expositions of the Trinity wholly upon Scripture For if this be true then we have a Traditionary Faith of the Trinity and a Traditionary Exposition of the Scripture for the Reason and Proof of that Faith both in one which I take to be a greater Authority and safer Guide than mere Scripture and our Natural Sentiments And though Protestants allow Scripture to be the only Standard of Faith yet he might have remembred that the Church of England requires us to expound Scripture as the Ancient Fathers expound it But this Wholly is a Mistake for the Primitive Fathers pleaded Tradition as well as Scripture against the Ancient Hereticks as two distinct but agreeing Testimonies as this Author might have known would he have been pleased to have consulted Irenaeus and Tertullian de praescriptionibus with divers others What he means by a plainer Revelation I cannot tell it makes it somewhat plainer to know what the Catholick Faith has always been and what the Catholick Interpretation of Scripture has always been which is the plainest and strongest Answer to Wit and Criticism and Natural Sentiments when they contradict this Traditionary Faith But to discourse this matter more particularly I shall
enquire 1. What that Catholick Church is from whence we must receive this Traditionary Faith 2. What Evidence we have of this Tradition concerning the Trinity in the Catholick Church 3. Of what Authority this ought reasonably to be in expounding Scripture SECT II. Concerning the Traditionary Faith of the Church with respect to the Doctrine of the Trinity FIrst then Let us consider what that Catholick Church is from whence we must receive this Traditionary Faith Now since Christ gave the Supreme Authority of preaching the Gospel and planting Churches to his Apostles those only must be reckoned the true Apostolick Churches from which we must receive the true Christian Faith which were planted by the Apostles or by Apostolick men and lived in Communion with them It is not sufficient to prove any Doctrine to be the true Primitive Faith That it was preached in the Apostles days but that it was the Faith of the Apostolick Churches which were planted by the Apostles and received their Faith from them for that Only is the Primitive and Apostolick Faith And therefore though Arians and Socinians could prove their Heresies to be as Ancient as the Apostolick Age as we grant something like them was this does not prove theirs to be the true Christian Faith if it were not the Faith of the Apostolick Churches And this was very visible in those days what these Churches were which were planted by the Apostles and lived in Communion with them and is very visible still in the most Authentick Records of the Church For the Hereticks which sprang up in that Age separated themselves from the Apostles and thereby made a visible distinction between the True Apostolick Churches and Heretical Conventicles And in after-Ages they either separated themselves or were cast out of the Communion of the Church This St. Iohn accounted a great advantage to the Christian Church and an Infallible Proof of False Doctrine and Heresy as it certainly was at that time for if the Apostles taught the True Faith those who separated from the Apostles and preached another Gospel which they never learnt from them must be Hereticks 1 Ioh. 2.18 19. Little Children it is the last time and as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come even now there are many Antichrists whereby we know that it is the last time They went out from us but they were not of us for if they had been of us they no doubt would have continued with us but they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us The Separation of Hereticks in that Age was a visible renouncing the Apostolick Faith and Communion and therefore how many Heresies soever started up it was still visible where the Apostolick Faith and Tradition was preserved and this was of admirable use to preserve the Faith of the Church sincere and uncorrupt For had these Hereticks continued in Communion with the Apostles and Apostolick Churches and secretly propagated their Heresies and infected great numbers of Christians without dividing into distinct and opposite Communions it would have been a great dispute in the next Age which had been the true Apostolick Faith when the Members of the same Churches which all their time lived in Communion with the Apostles should preach contrary Doctrines and pretend with equal confidence Apostolick Tradition which the greatest Hereticks might very plausibly have done had they always lived in Communion with the Apostles But they went out from us says St. Iohn that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us that the world might know how to distinguish between Catholick Christians and Hereticks and between the True Catholick Faith and the Corrupt Innovations of Perverse men And this I take to be a good reason to this day why we should keep the Communion of the Church sincere and uncorrupt and not set our doors open for Arians and Socinians and all sorts of Hereticks to mix with us For though since the Câ—mmunion of the Church has bâ—en so broken and divided by Schisms and Factions and Hâ—resies it is no proof of the True Apostolick Faith merely that it is the Faith of such a Church though the Church of Rome still vainly pretends to such Authority yet it would soon ruin the Christian Church and the Christian Faith to have no distinction preserved between true Apostolick Churches and the Apostolick Faith and the Conventicles of Hereticks the impure Off-spring of Cerinthus and Ebion of Photinus or Arius And therefore I cannot but abhor that Accommodating-Design which some men have expressed so warm a Zeal for to Comprehend away the Faith of the Holy Trinity in some loose general Expressions without any particular determined Sense and to purge our Liturgies of every thing that savours of the Worship of the Blessed Trinity that Arians and Socinians may join in Communion with us Which is a plausible Pretence under the Notion of Christian Charity and Communion to betray the Christian Faith Not expresly to renounce it but to bury it in silence as a Useless and Church-dividing Dispute I am satisfied this Holy Faith can never be Confuted but could these men prevail it might soon be Lost. But to return This is a sure Foundation for our Enquiries into the Faith of the Primitive Church To know what the Primitive Church is for otherwise we may mistake Old Heresies for the Primitive Faith But those Churches which were planted by the Apostles or Apostolical men and received their Faith from them and lived in Communion with them are the true Primitive and Apostolick Churches and their Faith is the true Primitive Apostolick Faith and what that was Iustin Martyr and Irenaeus assure us The Faith and Worship of Father Son and Holy Ghost And what their Faith was as to all these Three Divine Persons is evident from the Writings of those Ancient Fathers who preserved the Succession and Communion of these Apostolick Churches But this is not what I intend at present but from hence it appears That those Ancient Heresies which were rejected and condemned by the Apostolick Churches as soon as they appeared could not be the Apostolick Faith These Hereticks separated from the Apostles and Apostolick Churches and therefore could not receive their Faith from them nor did they pretend to this while the Apostles lived though they forged new Gospels and Acts and Revelations for them when they were dead And thus all the Heresies of Simon Magus Menander Cerinthus Ebion Valentinus and all those other Divisions and Subdivisions of Hereticks who denied or corrupted the Doctrine of the Divinity of our Saviour or his Incarnation are all rejected from the Apostolical Faith for these Hereticks did not receive their Doctrines from the Apostles and Apostolick Churches as they themselves owned by their Separation from the Apostolick Churches and these Churches gave Testimony against their Corruptions as soon as they were known and there is no need of any other Confutation of them if we allow the Doctrine of
the Son to be a distinct Substantial Person this Dispute we hear nothing of but the only Dispute was concerning the Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father and that proves that they did own the Son to be a Substantial Person for were he not in a true proper sense a Person and a Substantial Person he could not be Consubstantial with the Father Nay St Austin expresly tells us That Arius agreed with the Catholicks against the Sabellians in making the Son a distinct Person from the Father and if so the Catholicks taught That the Son was as distinct a Person as Arius did though not a Separate and Created Person as he did Now when Arius would have reduced Christ into the number of Creatures though he made him the first and most excellent Creature created before the World and God's Minister in making the World as like to God as a Creature can possibly be but not of the same Nature with God the Catholick Church would not bear this but in a most Venerable Synod collected from most parts of the Christian World condemn this as contrary to the Faith always received and owned in their several Churches Thus far at least the Tradition of the Church was Sacred and Venerable and the concurrent Testimony of all these several Churches was a more certain Proof of the Apostolick Faith than all the Wit and Subtilty of Arius For Wit may patronize New Errors but cannot prove That to be the Ancient Apostolick Faith which the Church had never received from the Apostles nor ever heard of before This I take to be a very sensible Proof what the Faith of the Christian Church was from the Times of the Apostles till the Council of Nice and consequently what that Faith was which the Church received from the Apostles And this abundantly satisfies me That whatever loose Expressions we may meet with in some of the Fathers before the Arian Controversy was started and managed with great Art and Subtilty though I know of none but what are capable of a very Orthodox Sense it is certain that they were not Arians nor intended any such thing in what they said For had Arianism been the Traditionary Faith of the Church it must have been known to be so and then how came the Church to be so strangely alarm'd at the first news of it Or what shall we think of those Venerable Fathers and Confessors in that Great Council who either did not know the Faith of the Church or did so horribly prevaricate in the Condemnation of Arius when they had no other apparent Interest or Temptation to do so but a Warm and Hearty Zeal for the Truly Ancient and Apostolick Faith It is certain Arius never pretended Catholick Tradition for his Opinion but undertook to reform the Catholick Faith by the Principles of Philosophy and to reconcile it to Scripture by new-coin'd Interpretations though in this he fail'd and found the Great Athanasius an over-match for him It is not with Faith as it is with Arts and Sciences of Human Invention which may be improved in every Age by greater Wits or new Observations but Faith depends upon Revelation not Invention and we can no more make a New Catholick Faith by the power of Wit and Reason than we can write a True History of what the Apostles did and taught out of our own Invention without the Authority of any Ancient Records Men may do such things if they please but one will be Heresy and the other a Romance And yet this is the bold and brave Attempt of Secinus and his Disciples They are so modest indeed as not to pretend Antiquity to be on their side they can find no other Antiquity for themselves but in Cerinthus and Ebion who separated from the Catholick Church and were rejected by them and it does not seem very modest to set up such men as these against the Universal Consent of the first and purest Ages of the Church The Socinians who know very well what the Charge of Novelty signifies in matters of Religion That a New Faith is but another Name for New Heresies Though they reject the Doctrine of the Fathers and the Catholick Tradition of the Faith from the Apostolick Age yet they appeal to Scripture and Natural Sentiments as the greatest and best Antiquity in opposition to Apostolick Tradition This is our Considerer's way which he prefers before a Traditionary Faith and by the same reason the Socinians may oppose it to a Traditionary Faith And if we must always expound Scripture by our Natural Sentiments this Author had best consider whether he can prove a Trinity by Natural Reason or fairly reconcile the Natural Notion of One God with the Catholick Faith of the Trinity or of Three each of whom is True and Pâ—rfect God from the mere Principles of Natural Reason for if he can't he must not in his way find a Trinity in Scripture But of this more hereafter 3. Let us now in opposition to this pretence consider of what Authority the Traditionary Faith of the Catholick Church ought to be in expounding Scripture The Holy Scripture at least in pretence is allowed on all hands to be a Compleat and Authentick Rule of Faith but the question is since men differ so much in expounding Scripture What is the safest Rule to expound Scripture by whether the Traditionary Faith of the Church or our Natural Sentiments or Natural Reason I do not mean that we must learn the Critical Sense of every Text from Catholick Tradition for we have not in all points such a Traditionary Exposition of Scripture though even in this respect we shall find that the Catholick Fathers have unanimously agreed in the Interpretation of the most material Texts relating to the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity and the Divinity and Incarnation of Christ. They sometimes indeed alledge such Texts especially out of the Old Testament as our Modern Criticks will not allow to be proper and apposite but even this shews what their Faith was and yet these very Expositions which have been so anciently and unanimously received though they may appear at this distance of time too forc'd and mystical have too Sacred and Venerable an Authority to be wantonly rejected We may learn from Christ and his Apostles what mysterious and hidden Senses were contain'd in the Writings of the Old Testament such as it is very probable we should never have found in them had not Christ and his Apostles explained their meaning And the nearer any Writers were to the Apostolick Age the more they were addicted to these Mystical Interpretations which is a good reason to believe that they learnt it from the Apostles themselves But this is not what I now intend my present Argument reaches no farther than this That if we can learn what the Doctrine of the Catholick Church concerning the Holy Trinity and the Divinity and Incarnation of Christ has always been Then 1. It is very reasonable to conclude That they
received this Doctrine from the Apostles it being the Faith of those Churches which were planted by the Apostles received their Faith from them and always lived in Communion with them 2. This makes it reasonable to believe that this very Faith is contained in the Writings of the New Testament for I suppose no man questions but that the Apostles taught the same Faith by Writing which they did by Preaching and then this is a Demonstration against all such Interpretations of Scripture as contradict the Catholick Faith whatever fine Colours Wit and Criticism may give them Nay 3. It is a certain Proof That these Primitive Christians who received these Inspired Writings from the Apostles which now make up the Canon of the New Testament did believe that the same Faith which the Apostles and Apostolical men had taught them by Word of Mouth was contained in their Writings for they could not possibly have believed both what the Apostles taught and what they writ if their Preaching and Writings had contradicted each other We know what the Faith of the Primitive Church was and we know they received these Apostolical Writings with the profoundest Veneration as an Inspired Rule of Faith and had we no other presumption of it but this we might safely conclude That they found the same Faith in these Writings which the Apostles had before taught them by Word of Mouth But besides this we find that all the Catholick Writers appeal to the Scriptures and prove their Faith from them and the Authority of such men who were so near the Fountain of Apostolick Tradition must be very Venerable 4. I shall only add this That since we know what the Catholick Faith was and how the Catholick Fathers expounded Scripture if the Words of Scripture will naturally and easily admit that Sense much more if they will not admit any other Sense without great force and violence let any man judge which is most safe and reasonable to expound Scripture as the Catholick Faith and Catholick Fathers expound it and as the Scripture most easily and naturally expounds it self or to force New Senses and Old Heresies upon Scripture which the Catholick Church has always rejected and condemned This I hope may satisfy our Considerer that he did very ill in rejecting a Traditionary Faith and venturing to expound Scripture by his Natural Sentiments which is a very Unsafe Rule in Matters of Pure Revelation of which mere Natural Reason is no competent Judge SECT III. What is sufficient to be believed concerning the Trinity THus far I fear our Considerer has been a little unfortunate or if it do not prove a Misfortune to him in forming his Notion of a Trinity his Luck is better than his Choice Let us proceed to his next Enquiry What is sufficient for Christians to believe concerning the Trinity or which is all one in this case what is necessary to be believed What the meaning of this Question is I can't well tell nor why he makes sufficient and necessary all one for at least they are not always so That is sufficient which is enough for any man to believe that is strictly necessary which every man must believe But let him take his own way he quits the Term sufficient and enquires what is necessary to be believed whereas in many cases that which is absolutely necessary for all may not be sufficient for some I should much rather have enquired how much may be known concerning this Glorious Mystery than how little will serve the turn which argues no great Zeal for it Well What is necessary to be believed concerning the Trinity He answers Nothing but 1. What 's possible to be believed And 2. What 's plainly revealed Here we begin to see what the effect is of consulting nothing but Scripture and Natural Sentiments I hope he meant honestly in this but if he did he expressed himself very incautiously for these two Conditions are very ill put together when applied to matters of Revelation Plainly revealed had been enough in all reason unless he would insinuate that what is plainly revealed may be impossible to be believed and that how plain soever the Revelation be men must judge of the possibility of the thing by their own Natural Sentiments before they are bound to believe it which makes Natural Reason not Scripture the final Judge of Controversies But we must follow him where he leads us and thus he divides his whole Work 1. To consider how far it is possible to believe a Trinity 2. What the Scripture requires us to believe in this matter As for the first he tells us There are two requisites to make it possible for us to believe a thing 1. That we know the Terms of what we are to assent to 2. That it imply no Contradiction to our former Knowledge Such Knowledge I mean as is accompanied with Certainty and Evidence This in some sense may be true but as it is thus loosely and generally expressed it is very like the Socinian Cant and Sophistry By knowing the Terms he means having distinct Natural Ideas of what is signified by such Terms as he himself explains it I can believe it no farther than the Terms of which it is made up are known and understood and the Ideas signified by them consistent So that all Divine Mysteries must be examined by our Natural Ideas and what we have no Natural Ideas of we cannot we must not believe And this once for all condemns all Supernatural Faith or the belief of Supernatural Objects though never so plainly revealed for we have no Natural Ideas of Supernatural Objects And though Revelation may furnish us from the Resemblances and Analogies in Nature with some Artificial Ideas this will not serve the turn for though they know what such Terms signify when applied to Natural they know not what they signify when applied to Supernatural Objects nor have they any Ideas to answer them As for Instance We know what Father and Son signify when applied to Men but when we say God is not only Eternal himself but an Eternal Father who begot an Eternal Son these Terms of Father and Son begetting and being begotten must signify quite otherwise than they do among men something which we have no Idea of and therefore say the Socinians All this is unintelligible and impossible to be believed unless we can believe without understanding the Terms This Considerer asserts the Premises he had best consider again how he will avoid the Conclusion Another Socinian Topick is Contradiction and this our Considerer makes another requisite to the possibility of believing That the thing do not imply a Contradiction to our former knowledge that is to any Natural Ideas And here he learnedly disputes against believing Contradictions and that it is not consistent with the Wisdom Iustice and Goodness of God to require us to believe Contradictions But if instead of all this he had only said That God cannot reveal such plain and evident
Terms can belong for there is no such thing in created Nature and therefore we can have no Idea of it It is abundantly sufficient in this Case that we have a clear and distinct Notion of One Substance and Three Hypostases in the Essential Unity and Distinction of Father Son and Holy Ghost Three subsisting Relations in One Individual Essence and Substance though when we abstractedly consider these Terms of One Substance and Three Hypostases we can form no consistent Notion or Idea of it And now let our Socinian Adversaries who talk so loud of Absurdities Contradictions Nonsense false Counting and Tritheism try their skill to make good these Charges against the Divine subsisting Relations in the Unity of the same Individual Essence SECT IX A more particular Inquiry into the Difference between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Nature and Person with an Account of some Catholick Forms of Speech relating to the ever Blessed Trinity BUT since one Nature and Essence and Three Hypostases or Persons is the Catholick Language and necessary to guard the Faith from those Two Extremes of Sabellianism and Arianism it will be necessary to consider how to apply these Ecclesiastical Terms to the Three and One in the ever Blessed Trinity And here were I so disposed I might enter into a very large and perplext Dispute but my design as far as possibly I can attain it is only to explain what the Catholick Fathers meant by these Terms and to give a plain and sensible Notion of them And after what I have already so largely discoursed concerning Nature and Hypostasis I have little more to do than to compare them together and to shew in what the Catholick Fathers placed this Distinction And as nothing is of greater consequence than rightly to understand this matter so nothing requires greater Caution nor greater Application of Mind Whosoever is conversant in the Writings of the Ancient Fathers must acknowledge it not only reasonable but necessary to distinguish between their Faith and their Philosophy Their Faith which they received srom the Scriptures and the Universal Tradition of the Catholick Church is plain and simple and the same in all That there is but One God who has an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit that Father Son and Holy Ghost are each of them by himself True and Perfect God and all but One God which is a Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity that they are in a true and proper Sense Three and One This is the Catholick Faith wherein they all agree but then those Philosophical Terms which the importunities of Hereticks who corrupted either the Faith of the Unity or Trinity forced them to use in the Explication of this Mystery are of a different Consideration These have not always been the same nor have all agreed in them and the wisest Men have owned great Improprieties in them all when applied to this Sacred Mystery and indeed it is impossible to be otherwise for that infinite Difference and Diversity there is between the Divine and Humane Nature nay all created Nature can never admit of any Common Terms proper to express both The most perfect Creatures bear only some imperfect Analogy and Resemblance to what we conceive of God and therefore when we apply such Words and Terms to the Divine Naturâ— as are borrowed from Creatures and we have no other we must understand them only by way of Analogy and Accommodation and when we expound such Terms as are used by the Catholick Fathers in such an accommodated Sense we must apply them no further than that particular Matter they intended to represent by them I have already shâ—wn this in several particular Passages relating to the Homoousion but now I am more particularly to consider the difference between Essence and Hypostasis and I shall only shew how the matter of fact stands what has occasioned this difficulty what the true state of the Controversy is and how we may form some sensible notion of this Distinction and if I should mistake in so nice a Point as this I hope it will be a pardonable Mistake while I make no change in the Catholick Faith and intend it only as an Essay if it be possible to silence or qualify the Dispute about words The Greek Fathers attribute all the Heresies relating to the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation to this one Mistake that Essence and Hypostasis are the same for then if there be but One Essence in the Blessed Trinity there must consequently be but One Hypostasis which is Sabellianism or if there be Three Hypostases there must be Three Natures and Essences either in the Arian or Tritheistick Notion Thus with reference to the Incarnation two Natures must be two Persons or Hypostases as Nestorius taught or One Person must be but One mixt and compounded Nature too which was the Heresy of Eutyches This some Fathers thought a fundamental Error in Philosophy introduced by Aristotle who makes the first Substance which is the only true and proper Substance to be that which is predicated of no Subject nor is in any Subject that is what we call a Subsisting Individual as this Man or this Horse And therefore Theorianus observes That the Catholick Fathers understood Essence and Hypostasis in a very different sense from the Greek Philosophers that is by Essence and Substance they did not mean one singular Individuum or singular Nature and Substance as Aristotle did but a common Nature not a common Notion as Genus or Species which are Aristotle's second Substances but a common Subsisting Nature which is one and the same whole and perfect in every Individual of the same kind And what Aristotle call'd his first Substance a singular Subsisting Nature that they called Hypostasis a common Subsisting Nature with its individuating Characters and Properties It is evident some Ages past before these words Essence and Hypostasis were thus nicely distinguished or at least before this Distinction was so unanimously received for as I have already observed these Words were used very promiscuously which occasioned the Alexandrian Schism and it does not appear to me that this Distinction was setled by Athanasius and the Bishops with him in that Synod as some seem to think though soon after it generally prevailed as we may learn from St. Basil Gregory Nyssen St. Cyril of Alexandria Damascen Leontius Theorianus Theodorus Abucara Ignatius Sinaita and generally all the Catholick Writers of the Eutychian and Severian Age who universally agree in this That Essence and Hypostasis differ as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as that which is Universal differs from what is Proper and Singular Now so far these Fathers were certainly in the right That if they must apply Philosophical Terms to Divine Mysteries which the Cavilling Objections of Hereticks made necessary there was an absolute necessity for them to change their signification for as there is nothing common to
the Apostles to be the only Infallible Rule of Faith This is the Argument from Prescription which Tertullian insists so largely on and is frequently urged by Irenaeus and other Catholick Writers which is not as some mistake it an Argument merely from Antiquity for though the true Faith was ancienter than any Heresies yet some Heresies had Antiquity enough to make them venerable if that alone would do it but the Argument was from the Tradition of the Apostolick Churches which were planted by the Apostles and had preserved an uninterrupted Succession from them and all the world over taught the same Faith without any material change or variation Whereas none of these Heresies how Ancient soever they might be could pretend to such an Original were never taught by the Apostles or any Apostolical men nor were received or owned by any Churches planted by them And this is an unanswerable Argument as long as we can reasonably suppose the Tradition of the Catholick Faith and the Communion of the Church was preserved entire which it visibly was at least till the first Nicene Council and during all this Period had we no other ways to know it we might learn the Faith of the Catholick Church by its opposition to those Heresies which it condemned 2 dly And this is the only Evidence which I shall at present insist on for the Catholick Tradition of the Faith of the Holy and Ever blessed Trinity for we may see the plain Footsteps of the Ancient Catholick Tradition concerning Father Son and Holy Ghost in those Ancient Heresies Simon Magus was the first Heretick we read of and may be very justly accounted the Father of many of the Ancient Heresies having led the way and sown the Seeds and Principles of them Now if we believe that Account which Epiphanius gives of him this wicked Impostor pretended himself to be God both Father and Son and affirmed that his Lewd Woman who was called sometimes Helena sometimes Selene was the Holy Ghost These Names and Distinctions of Father Son and Holy Ghost he could not possibly learn from any persons but only from the Christian Church in which he was baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost And therefore we may observe that before his Baptism he only pretended to be some Great One and the deluded people thought him to be the great power of God 8. Acts 9 10. But when he was baptized and soon aâ—ter apostatized from the Christian Faith the Devil whose great Power he was set him up for the God of the Christians both Father and Son And though he blasphemously attributed these Titles of God the Father and Son to himself and wickedly corrupted this Faith by making the Father and Son but one Person under different appearances that he appeared to his Countreymen the Samaritans as God the Father and to the Iews as the Son yet there had been no pretence for this had not the Christian Church owned Jesus Christ the Son of God to be true and perfect God For had the Father been God and the Son a mere Man it is certain Father and Son could never be the same Person And besides the Wickedness and Impudence of the Impostor in pretending himself to be Father and Son it had been ridiculous to pretend this to Christians had he not known that the Catholick Faith taught the Son to be True and Real God as well as the Father and then if he could persuade them that he was God the Father he might with the same ease persuade them that he was God the Son too under a different appearance Thus when he pretends that his wicked Strumpet was the Holy Ghost by whom he created the Angels which created the World the very Prophanation of this Holy Mystery shews what the Faith of the Church in that Age was concerning the Divinity of the Holy Ghost for he could have no other Inducement to make his Woman whom he calls the Holy Ghost such a Divine Power but because he knew the Christian Church believed the Holy Ghost to be God and the Spirit of God as he made her to be his Divine Creating Intelligence Another Heresy concerning the Person of Christ attributed Divinity to him owned him to be the Son of God though not of the Maker of the world who they said was but an Inferior Angel but of the Unknown and Incomprehensible Father and that he appeared indeed in the world like a Man but was no true and real Man Now what should put such a wild Conceit as this into their heads had they not known this to be the Catholick Faith That Jesus Christ was the Son of God Their eyes could not see him to be God but they saw him to be a Man and yet they deny him to be a Man and teach that he was the Son of God in the form and apparition of a Man Which is a plain indication what the Catholick Faith was That Christ was both God and Man This they could not believe that the Son of God would so unite himself to Human Nature as to become true and real man and yet they thought it so evident that he was the Son of God or at least saw that this Faith was accounted so sacred that they would not venture to deny that and therefore chose to deny his Humanity and make a mere Apparition of him But then on the other hand Cerinthus and Ebion thought it too evident to be denied That he was a true and real Man and therefore they taught That Iesus was a Man and no more than a Man born as other Men are of Ioseph and Mary But then it is worth considering how they came to make this the distinguishing Doctrine of their Sect That Christ was but a mere Man if the Apostolick Churches whom they opposed and from whom they separated had not taught That he was more than a Man That he was God as well as Man Was there ever any Dispute either before or since concerning any other Man in the world who was owned to be a Man Whether he were a mere Man or not When one sort of Hereticks deny Christ to be a Man and another deny him to be God and both of them in contradiction to the Apostolick Faith it is a very strong presumption at least what the True Catholick Apostolick Faith was That Christ was both God and Man And yet Cerinthus himself though he makes Jesus to be a mere Man owns Christ to be a Divine Person and that this Christ descended on Jesus at his Baptism in the form of a Dove and rested on him or dwelt in him and wrought Miracles by him but left him at his Crucifixion and flew up again to Heaven So that according to Cerinthus from the time that Jesus was baptized till he was crucified the Divinity was very nearly and intimately united to him not that he was God and Man in one Person as the Catholick Faith teaches
but yet that Jesus Christ was a Divine and Human Person though Christ was one Person and Jesus another And therefore as the Nicene Creed which we find also in the Ancient Oriental Creeds teaches us to believe in One God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth and of all things visible and invisible not to exclude Christ from being the Maker of the World but in opposition to those Hereticks who would not allow the Supreme God who is the Father of Christ to be the Maker of the World but attributed the Creation of this World to one or more Inferior Angels So they add And in One Lord Iesus Christ the only begotten Son of God in opposition to those who made Christ and Jesus Two Persons And yet in this very Heresy we may see what the Ancient Catholick Faith was That Jesus Christ was God and Man as Cerinthus himself owned though he would not unite Christ and Jesus into One Person nor make the Union inseparable The Valentinian Heresy though dressed up after the mode of the Pagan Theology was a manifest Corruption of the Christian Faith under a Pretence of a more perfect knowledge of Divine Mysteries and we may still see the broken Remains of the Catholick Tradition of the Trinity among them Their Pleroma by which they seem to understand the Fulness of the Deity as St. Paul uses that Phrase 2 Col. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Christ bodily I say this Pleroma consisted of several Aeons or Divine Persons which were propagated from the Unknown and Incomprehensible Father in gradual Descents and all together made up the Compleat and Perfect Deity which were more or fewer according to the various Fancies of Hereticks Now from these wild Conceits we may in some measure learn what the Catholick Faith was That the Godhead was not confined to one Single and Solitary Person but that there is such a Foecundity in the Divine Nature as communicates it self to more Persons than one For had it been the known and received Faith of the Christian Church That there is but One Person in the Godhead as well as but One God there had been no pretence for these Hereticks who called themselves Christians and boasted of a more perfect knowledge of the Christian Faith to have invented such a number of Aeons which they included within their Pleroma as the several Emanations of their Deity And we may observe that most of the Names which they gave to their several Aeons are Scripture-Names and Titles which the Pagan Theology knew nothing of and which they could learn no where but from the Christian Church Basilides I think was one of the first who gave us any distinct account of these Aeons which was new modell'd by Valentinus and other succeeding Hereticks and his first and Supreme Aeon as Epiphanius tells us was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Unbegotten One who only is the Father of all and by others is called the Propater and the Unknown Invisible Incomprehensible Father Now though the Heathens very familiarly call their Supreme God the Father of Gods and Men with respect to his Creating Power yet as the Notion of Father is founded in a substantial Generation as these Hereticks plainly understood it so it is the peculiar Character of God under the Gospel who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ his only begotten Son It is certain the first Person in the Godhead was never called the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the One that is unbegotten but to distinguish him from One who is begotten the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the only begotten who is God also but God oâ— God And it is observable what Tertullian tells us of Heracleon That he made his first Aeâ—n to be illud quod pronunciat which some Criticks not understanding think to be a defect in the Copy but the sense is plain that his first Aeon is he that pronounceth or speaketh by which he represented the Eternal Generation of the Word So that his first Aeon is the Pronouncer or Speaker that is the Father of the Eternal Word which St. Iohn tells us was in the beginning was with God and was God Which shews that this is nothing else but a disguized Corruption of the Catholick Faith concerning the Eternal Generation of the Word from the Eternal Unbegotten Father To confirm this I observe farther That most of the Names which they give to their other Aeons are such Names Titles or Characters as the Scripture gives to Christ or the Holy Spirit which they have multiplied into so many distinct Persons or Aeons such as the Mind Word Prudence Power and Wisdom Truth Life Light the Only begotten the Paraclete and the like Valentinus indeed as Epiphanius observes did model his Thirty Aeons according to Hesiod's Genealogy and Number of Gods and with some manifest allusions to them but yet he retained as many Scripture-Names as he could the better to reconcile unwary people to his fabulous Genealogiâ—s as the hidden and mysterious sense of Scripture And it is impossible such Fables should ever have obtained any Credit had they not been grafted on the Catholick Faith and pretended to improve it with new degrees of Light and Knowledge When these Heresies were pretty well silenced up start Noetus and Sabellius who ran into the other Extreme The Valentinians had corrupted the Doctrine of the Trinity by multiplying Three Divine Persons into Thirty Aeons besides all their other Pagan and Fabulous Conceits about them This offended these men as downright Polytheism as indeed it was no better and to avoid this they reject a Trinity of Real and Substantial Persons for a Trinity of Names that Father Son and Holy Ghost are but Three Names of the same Person who is sometimes called the Father at other times the Son or the Holy Ghost with respect to his different Appearances or Operations Or they made the Son and Holy Ghost not Two Persons but Two Personal Attributes in God his Wisdom or Power Or they made the Trinity but Three Parts of One Compounded God as a Man consists of Body Soul and Spirit which of late have been revived among us under different Names After these men arose Arius and his Followers who out of great Zeal also for the Unity of God framed a New and more Subtile Heresy They were sensible that Father and Son were not Two Names but Two Real Distinct Persons and therefore they attributed the whole entire Divinity to the Father and made the Son not to be God by Nature but the most Perfect and Excellent Creature as Perfect an Image of God as any Creature can be but not Consubstantial with God nor Coequal and Coeternal with him All these Heresies were rejected and condemned by the Catholick Church in their several Ages as soon as they appeared and were taken notice of And this is one very good way to learn what the Catholick Faith was from its Opposition to
begotten of his Fathers Substance the Son of God who in his own proper Person is true and perfect God not a part of God but all that God is not One God as One Person with the Father but as having the true Divine Nature distinctly in his own Person This is a Demonstration that the Nicene Consubstantiality is the Consubstantiality of Two real substantial Persons who have the same Nature distinctly subsisting in each of them 2 Another Rule for expounding the Homoousion is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are equipollent terms that to be of one Substance and to be in all things alike to each other signify the same thing I know the Fathers condemned the Arian Homoiousion for they asserted That the Son was like the Father in opposition to his being of the same Nature with the Father and therefore this was an imperfect likeness and resemblance or indeed no likeness at all for a created and uncreated Nature are at such an infinite distance as to have no true and real likeness to each other to be sure not such a likeness as there must be between a Son and a Father Nay sometimes they would not allow that likeness can be properly applied to two individual Natures of the same species as to two individual human Natures which are not like to each other but are the same But yet whether it was proper or improper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be upon all accounts and every way perfectly alike was allowed to be very Orthodox and therefore St. Hilary in his Book de Synodis approves several Oriental Creeds as very Orthodox though they left out the Homoousion because they in the most express terms confessed the perfect likeness and similitude of Nature between Father and Son which they guarded with the utmost Caution against the perverse Interpretations both of the Sabellian and Arian Hereticks And he disputes at large That perfect similitude is a sameness and equality of Nature and calls God to witness that before he ever heard of those words Homoousion and Homoiousion he always thought that what is signified by both these words is the same that perfect likeness of Nature is the sameness of Nature for nothing can be perfectly alike which has not the same Nature And this he says he learnt from the Evangelists and Apostles before ever he heard of the Nicene Faith which he had not heard of till a little before he was banished for that Faith This observation is of great use as St. Hilary notes to confute Sabellianism and to fix the true sense of the Homoousion for if to be Consubstantial or of one Nature signifies a perfect likeness similitude and equality of Nature Consubstantiality must at least signify Two who are thus consubstantial as likeness similitude and equality does and these Two must have One and the same Nature not in the sense of Singularity and Sabellian Unity but of likeness and similitude that Father and Son are One Substance not as One Person is One with himself but as Two Persons are One by a perfect likeness and similitude of Nature which must be the true meaning of Consubstantial if Consubstantiality and likeness of Nature be the same 3. I observe farther That the Catholick Fathers did not make the Homoousion the Rule of Faith that whatever sense some critical Wits can put on it must therefore be owned for the Catholick Faith but they chose it as the most comprehensive word to comprize the true Catholick Faith and to detect the Frauds of Hereticks They taught no new Faith by this word but what the Catholick Church had always taught but secured the Faith by it against the shifts and evasions of Hâ—reticks This is the defence they made to the Arian Objection That it was an unscriptural word they confessed the word Homoousios was not to be found in Scripture but the Faith expressed by that word was Thus St. Austin answers Pascentius and tells us That Christ himself has taught us the Homoousion where he says I am in the Father and the Father in me and I and my Father are One and expounds this of the Unity Dignity and Equality of Nature And adds That it is not the word but the thing signified by that word which is so terrible to Hereticks and if they would dispute to purpose they must not reject the word but the doctrine it contains And thus Laurentius who presided in that Dispute gives judgment in this Controversy That the Homoousion was not the Name of the Christian Faith but signified the Equality of the Trinity and that though this word be not in Scripture yet the thing signified by it is true and we must believe honourably of the Unity lest we injure the Trinity We may find enough to this purpose in Athanasius De Decret Syn. Nic. and elsewhere of which more presently And therefore St. Hilary in his Book de Synodis which he wrote to some Catholick Bishops who were very Orthodox in the Faith and yet doubted of this word Homoousion tells them That they are to consider what the Synod intended by that word and not reject the word unless they rejected the Faith taught by it and would profess those Arian Doctrines which the Council condemned in it This is the constant language of the Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers when the Dispute is concerning the use of this word which gives us this certain Rule for expounding the Homoousion that we must understand it in no other sense than what the Nicene Fathers intended by it for if we do we may acknowledge the Homoousion and yet deny the Nicene Faith What they taught by this word that we must own and what they rejected by it we must reject And though we may fancy that this word signifies more than what the Nicene Fathers understood by it as we have heard what perverse Senses the Hereticks fixt on it yet it being not a Scriptural but an Ecclesiastical word it must be expounded to that Sense and no other which placed it in the Creed SECT III What the Nicene Fathers meant by the Homoousion AND this brings me to a more particular Account of the Homoousion and what the Nicene Fathers understood by it Eusebius Pamphili who at first doubted about the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Christ was of the substance of the Father and consubstantial or of One Substance with him gives an account to his Coesareans of the Reasons which moved him afterwards to subscribe to that Form of Faith as appears by his Letter to them recorded in Socrates his Ecclesiastical History He tells them That he did not admit these words without due examination but when he found there was nothing meant by them but what was truly Catholick and Orthodox he complied for Peace sake For by the Son 's being of his Father's Substance they meant no more than
23. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 165. l. 17. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 188. l. 16. marg r. ex iâ—demutabilis p. 208. l. 24. Identity p. 216. l. 5. â— Man's r. Man p. 225. l. 34. marg r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 230. l. 2. r. Identity p. 236. l. 14. marg 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 245. l. 10. r. an Angel p. 304. l. 2. marg 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 322. l. 12. de Trin. l. 2. marg l. 15. de Trin. l. 7. l. 32 videri p. 347. l. 14. r. his p. 349. l. 12 13. r. where-ever p 350 marg l. 8. r 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Curious Reader may observe â—ome other Mistakes which I hope will not disturb the Sense THE PRESENT STATE OF THE SOCINIAN Controversy CHAP. I. SECT I. The Present State of the Socinian Controversy the unreasonableness of it and how to reduce the Dispute to the Original Question THE Faith of the Holy Trinity is so fundamental to the Christian Religion that if Christianity be worth contending for That is For if God have not an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit the whole Mystery of our Redemption by Christ and of our Sanctification by the Spirit which in its Consequences is the whole of the Gospel and distinguishes it from all other Religions is utterly lost Those various Heresies relating to the Divinity Person and Offices of Christ and the Holy Spirit which began to appear even in the Apostolick Age and have ever since under several forms and disguises disturbed the Peace of the Church is proof enough how much the great Enemy of Mankind thinks himself concerned by all possible means to corrupt this Faith and that great unwearied unconquerable Zeal wherewith the Catholick Fathers have always defended this Faith shews of what importance they thought it and therefore it is no wonder and ought to give no scandal to Christians that these Disputes are again revived among us with as much fury and insolence as ever for there never was a more unhappy Season for the Enemy to sow his Tares But that which is most to be lamented is That the lukewarmness of some and the intemperate Zeal of others have given greater scandal to the World and more shaken the Faith of Christians than all the Opposition of our Adversaries could have done I need say no more the Case is too well known and the Evil Effects too visible among us I will make no new Quarrels if I can help it but sincerely endeavour to prevent the Mischiefs of what has already happened as far as is necâ—ssary to secure the Faith of Christians and to wrest those Weapons out of our Enemies hands which some professed Friends have unwarily furnished them with To do this I shall endeavour in the first place to restore this Controversie to its original state and take off those Vizards which make it appear very frightful to ordinary Christians This Dispute about the Holy and ever Blessed Trinity has of late been dressed up anew with some old School-Terms which how proper soever they may be to give Learned Men a more distinct Idea and Conception of that Adorable Mystery only amuse common Christians and confound them instead of teaching them better This as it was at first occasioned by Hereticks who denied or corrupted the Christian Faith which forced the Catholick Fathers to use some unscriptural Termâ— which by degrees improved into great Subtilties and disturbed the Church with very nice and wrangling Disputes so our Modern Socinians at this day place the main strength of their Cause in these Disputes and think it a sufficient Confutation of the Faith of the Ever Blessed Trinity that the Trinitarians themselves cannot agree about the Sense of Person Hypostasis Substance Nature Essence nor in what Sense God is One and Three but advance very different and as they think contrary Hypotheses to reconcile the Unity of God with the distinction of Three Persons in the Godhead As if there were no difference between what is fundamental in this Faith and such Metaphysical Speculations As if no man could believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost without determining all the Disputes of the Schools Learned men may dispute these matters and things may so happen as to make such Disputes necessary but the Faith of Christians may be secured and Heresies may be confuted without them The Faith is plain and certain even all that is necessary to the purposes of Religion but men may leap out of their depths where they can find no footing and when such Questions are asked as no man can certainly answer it is very likely that they will be answered very different ways and upon very different Hypotheses and there is no great hurt in this neither while these different Hypotheses are neither made new Articles of Faith nor new Heresies but serve only for Hypotheses to give a probable Answer to such Questions as ought never to have been asked and to stop the mouths of Hereticks when they charge the Catholick Faith with Nonsense and Contradiction To distinguish rightly between these two will set this Controversy upon its true ancient bottom which will spoil the Triumph of our Adversaries and possibly may rectify the Mistakes and allay and qualify the intemperate Heats and Animosities of those whom a common Faith ought to make Friends SECT II. How to reduce this Dispute concerning the Trinity to Scripture Terms THE Catholick Fathers have always appealed to the Form of Baptism as the Rule and Standard of Faith that as we are baptized so we must believe In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost This is a plain simple Faith which every Christian may understand and which every Christian must profess That there is an Eternal Father who has an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit of the same Nature and inseparably united to himself and that this Father Son and Holy Ghost are the joint Object of the Christian Faith and Worship This is the true Christian Faith and this is all that we are concerned to defend against our Adversaries and would men stick to this without engaging in Philosophical Disputes which we know little or nothing of and which the Scripture takes no notice of we should soon find how weak and impotent all the Attempts of Hereticks would prove Whatever Disputes there are about the signification of those words Nature Essence Substance Person Hypostasis Subsistences Relations c. there is no Dispute about the signification of Father Son and Holy Spirit we have natural Idea's belong to these words when applied to Creatures and when God is pleased in Scripture to represent himself to us under thâ—se Characters if we must understand any thing by them we can understand nothing else but what the words signify all the World over only allowing for that infinite distance there is between God and Creatures which requires us to abstract from all material and creature imperfections We
Whole must be the same Whole and in this Unity of Nature consists the Unity of the Godhead I grant a Whole of a Whole is very unconceivable to us and so is the Notion of an Eternal self-originated Being and of Creation to the full as unconceivable as the Eternal Generation of a Whole from a Whole But this is a difficulty in the Notion of an Eternal Generation not of a Trinity in Unity If God begets a Son as the Scripture assures us he has an only begotten Son he must communicate his own Nature to him and besides the Testimony of Scripture That all the Father has is the Son 's his whole Nature and Divinity Reason assures us that God being a pure simple Being without composition or parts if he communicate his Nature to his Son he must communicate it whole and entire without division or separation and if this be so it is certain that Father and Son he who begets and he who is begotten are Two and it is as certain that the same whole Divinity communicated by the Father to the Son is but the same One Divinity and One Divinity though actually subsisting in Three can be but One God not Three Gods It is certain this is the most perfect Unity that can be between Three who are truly and really the same and yet distinct for they can nâ—ver be more One than to be Three Same 's and Three Wholes for the Communication of a Whole may make a Number but cannot distinguish or multiply Nature SECT VI. Concerning the Unity of God BUT our Socinian Adversaries and some who would not be thought Socinians have espoused such a Notion of One God as makes the Faith of a Trinity absolutely irreconcilable with the Faith of One God By One God they mean One who is God but the Faith of the Trinity owns Three each of whom is by himself True and Perfect God and I grant it is as absolutely impossible to reconcile these two as it is to reconcile Contradictions for to say that there is but One who is God and to say that there are Three each of whom is God is a manifest Contradiction and yet without saying this last we must deny a Trinity It is in vain to think to solve this with Words without Sense If there is but One who is God we must either make Father Son and Holy Ghost Three Names or Modes or Manifestations of the same One Numerical Divine Person which was the ancient exploded anathematized Heresy of Noetus and Sabellius or we must make the Son and Holy Spirit to be mere Creatures if we allow any Personality to them as Arius Macedonius Paulus Samosatenus and such like Hereticks and our Modern Socinians do But we with the Scriptures and the Catholick Church reject this Notion of the Unity of God which is to assert the Unity but to deny a Trinity And because this seems to be so prevailing a Notion at this time I shall shelter my self as well as I can under the Authority of the Catholick Fathers and the Catholick Church That there is but One God was always the Faith of the Catholick Church as appears from all the Ancient Creeds but then they did not believe in One God as One God signifies One Divine Separate Person which is never expressed in any Christian Creed but in One God the Father who has an only begotten Son and an Eternal Spirit in the Unity of the same Godhead There is no Christian Creed which teaches the Belief of One God who is not a Father and if the One God be a Father he must have a Son of his own Nature and Substance and the Son of God consubstantial with God the Father must be God the Son This is what Tertullian tells us That there is One God with his Oeconomy that is with his only begotten Son and Eternal Spirit The Catholick Church so believed in One God as to acknowledge Three Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost each of which is truly and really God as they must necessarily do if they believed a Trinity And upon this account they were charged with Tritheism or with asserting Three Gods because they owned a Trinity of Divine Substantial Persons really distinct from each other each of which is truly and perfectly God So that this is no new Charge against the Asserters of a Real and Substantial Trinity and the Ancient Christians had no regard to it for Tritheism in this Objection signified no more than the Bâ—lief of the Trinity or of Three Divine Persons in the Unity of the Godhead which is the true Christian Faith As to shew this briefly In answer to this Objection against the belief of a Real Substantial Trinity from the Unity of God they tell us it is Judaism and Heresy to place the Unity of the Godhead in the Unity of a Person to teach that there is but One Divine Person as there is but One God We may find enough to this purpose in Tertullian against Praxeas and Athanasius against the Sabellians in St. Hilary St. Austin and many others Athanasius commends the Iews for opposing the Polytheism and Idolatry of the Gentiles But then he charges them with as great Impiety themselves in denying the Son of God by whom all things were made and in accusing those of Polytheism who worship the Father by the Son And he exhorts his Readers to separate themselves from those Iudaizers who corrupt Christianity with Iudaism who deny God of God and teach One God in the Iewish Notion of it In which he taxes the Sabellians who taught that the Word of God is like the Word and Wisdom of a Man within him in his Heart and Soul and therefore that God and his Word are but One Person St. Hilary frequently takes notice of this Corruption of the Evangelical Faith as he calls it under the Pious Profession of One God to deny the Only begotten God to deny Christ to be born God or to be True God but only a Powerful Creature thereby to preserve the Faith of One God which they think the Birth of God does overthrow In which he distinctly charges the Sabellians and Arians the first for making God but One Person for fear of introducing a Trinity of Gods with a Trinity of Persons the other for making Christ a mere Creature though the first and most powerful Creature for fear of making a Second God should they have owned him to be God of God of the same Substance with the Father In opposition to this he tells us what the true Faith is which they have learned from Divine Revelation Neither to preach Two Gods nor One Solitary Divine Person for so solus must signify in this place and undertakes to prove both from the Evangelists and Prophets That when we profess our Faith in God the Father and God the Son we must neither own God the Father and God the Son to be One Person as the
not only the Name and Title of God but the Divine Nature and Perfections to more Persons than One. And this is the only Answer that need be given and the best Answer that can be given to this Objection of Tritheism for God knows his own Nature and his own Unity best And it is enough for us to acknowledge God to be One as the Scripture teaches him to be One that is that there is but One God but that this One God has an Eternal only begotten Son and an Eternal Spirit in the Unity of the same Godhead This is the account Tertullian gives us of those Expressions when the Scripture asserts that there is but One God and that there is none besides him For without denying the Son we may truly affirm That there is but One only God whose Son he is For though he has a Son he does not lose his Name of the One and only God when he is named without his Sâ—n and so he is when what is said is appropriated to him as the first persâ—n for in the order of Nature aâ—â— of ouâ— Conceptions the Father is befoâ—â—â—he Son and therefore must be named bâ—â—ore him So that there is but One God the Father and besides him there is no other which does not deny the Son but another God which rejects the multitude of False Gods which the Heathens worshipped but the Son as being inseparably united to him is included in the Unity of the Father's Godhead though not named which as he well observes he could not be without making another God of him Had the Father said There is no other God besides me excepting my Son this had made the Son another God a new separate Divinity and would have been as improper as if the Sun should say There is no other Sun besides me excepting my Rays The Sum of which is this That the Title of the One and only God and besides him there is no other God does in a peculiar manner belong to the Father who is the One only God with his Son and Spirit but this does not exclude the Son or Spirit from being true and perfect God for they are not other Gods from the Father but have the same Divinity and are inseparably â—mited to the Father and therefore are included in the â—â—ity of the Godhead without being named whereas thâ—â—r being named would have excepted them out of the Unity of the Godhead and made other Gods of them And though the Son when he is named alâ—ne is called God this does not make Two Gods because he is God only by his Unity with his Father St. Hilary gives much the same account of it That when the Scripture teaches that there is One God and no other God besides him this does not exclude the Son of God from being true and perfect God because the Son is not another God He being of the same Substance with God the Father God of God and inseparably united to him Another God does not signify another Divine Person but another Divinity another separate and independent Principle and Fountain of Deity And besides this St. Hilary endeavours to prove at large from several Texts of the Old Testament that this very expression of one God and no other besides him is applied not only to the Father but to the Son and is very justly applicable to each of them because each of them have a Personal and Incommunicable Unity The Father is the One God and there is none besides him for he is the only Deus Innascibilis the only God who is God of himself without any Communication of the Divine Nature to him from any other Divine Person The Son is the One God and there is none besides him that is the Deus Vnigenitus the only begotten God and there is no other begotten God but he So that each of them is the One God For between One and One that is One of One there is no Second Nature of the Eternal Dâ—ity I shall not dispute these matters now which will be more proper in another place it is enough at present that we learn from them what Sense these Fathers had concerning the Unity of God viz. That it is not the Unity of a Sâ—ngle Person so as to exclude all other Persons from the Name and Nature of God but a Unity of Nature and Principle That there are not Two different Divinities nor Two Principles of Divinity which have no Communication with each other but that there is One Self-originated Being who communicates his own Nature without Division and Separation to his Eternal Son and by and with his Son to his Eternal Spirit Thus St. Hilary concludes this Dispute That to confess One God but not a solitary God that is not one single solitary Person is the Faith of the Church which confesses the Father in the Son But if out of ignorance of this Heavenly Mystery we pretend that One God signifies One single Divine Person we know not God as not owning the Faith of God in God This is plain sense which every Christian may understand and what every one must believe who wiâ—l be a Christian We must believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost that the Father is not the Son nor the Son the Father nor the Holy Ghost either Father or Son and that each of these Three is in himself as distinguished from the other Two true and perfect God but though they are Three and each of them true and perfect God yet they are not Three Gods because there is but One and the same Divinity in them The same individual numerical Divine Nature being whole perfect undivided in them all originally in the Father by Generation in the Son and by Procession in the Holy Ghost as I have already explained it which is the most perfect Unity we can conceive between Three Wholes or Three each of which have the same whole undivided Nature distinctly in themselves If this will not be allowed to be such a Unity as is included in the Notion of One God that the natural Notion of One God is of One only who is God which is contradictory to the belief of Three each of whom is in himself true and perfect God the answer the Catholick Fathers give to this as I have now shewn ought to satisfy all Christians that this is not the Scripture-notion of One God That there is but One who is God because the same Holy Scriptures which teach us that there is but One God do also teach us that there are Three in the Unity of the Godhead That not only the Father is God as an Infinite Eternal Self-originated Being and upon this account in a peculiar manner called the One and only true God but the Son also is true God and the Holy Ghost true God by the Communication of the same Divine Nature to them Now God knows his own Nature and Unity best and if he declares himself to
dislikes those who are for reverencing the Mystery of the Trinity without ever looking into it at all who think it proposed to us only as a Trial and Exercise of our Faith and the more implicit that is the fuller do we express our Trust and Reliance upon God Now if by not looking into it at all he means not enquiring what they are to believe concerning the Trinity nor why they believe it this I acknowledge is a very odd sort of Faith but I believe he cannot name any such men whose avowed Principle this is An Implicit Faith is only meritorious in the Church of Rome but then an Implicit Faith is to believe without knowing what or why but these Ignoramus or Mystery-Trinitarians as some late Socinian Considerers have insolently and reproachfully called them and whom our Author ought not to have imitated never teach such an Implicit Faith as this much less admire the Triumph and Merit of Faith in believing Contradictions and the more the better Under all the appearance of Modesty and Temper these are very severe and scandalous Reflections upon some of the Wisest and Greatest Men amongst us and which this Considerer had little reason for as will soon appear The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity is the most Fundamental Article of the whole Christian Faith and therefore an explicite Knowledge and Belief of it is essential to the Christian Profession and thus all Protestant Divines teach and whatever Voluminous Disputes there may be about it the true Christian Faith of the Trinity is comprized in a few words and the Proofs of it are plain and easy For the Scriptures plainly and expresly teach us that there is but One God and that the Father is God the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God that the Father is not the Son nor the Son the Father nor the Holy Ghost either Father or Son as I have already explained it This we all teach our people to believe upon the Authority of Scripture which is the only Authority we can have for matters of pure Revelation and expound those Texts to them which expresly contain this Faith and vindicate them from the Cavils and perverse Comments of Hereticks And this I think is not to reverence the Mystery without ever looking into it at all when we look as far as we can till Revelation bounds our prospect And this is to look into it as far as God would have us and as far as is necessary to all the purposes of Religion that is as far as the knowledge of this Mystery is of any use to us Now when this is done there are a great many wise men who think we ought to look into this Mystery no further and there seems to be a very good reason for it viz. because with all our looking we can see no further There are indeed some curious Questions started about reconciling the Unity of God with the belief of a Trinity in which there are Three each of whom is by himself True and Perfect God for if there be but One God how can there be Three each of whom is True God Now whatever Answer may be given to such kind of Objections and pretended Contradictions these Learned Men think there is no reason to clog the Christian Faith with them nor to disturb the minds of ordinary Christians with such Subtilties That the Authority of God who has revealed this and the acknowledged Incomprehensibility of the Divine Nature is a sufficient Answer to all Objections and as ridiculously as a Witty Man may represent this That is the truest Faith not which can believe Contradictions but which can despise the pretence of Contradictions when opposed to a Divine Revelation for that resolves Faith wholly into Divine Authority which is the true Notion of a Divine Faith To say that this will not suppress any of our Doubts or Disputes in Religion is a manifest mistake for such a profound Veneration for the Authority of God would silence them all And whatever is the Natural Propension of the Soul to the search of Truth Natural Reason will tell us that there are a thousand things which we can know nothing of and that it is in vain to search after them but that the Divine Wisdom is unsearchable and therefore God is to be believed beyond our own knowledge or comprehension and when we are agreed about the Truth and Certainty of the Revelation that will silence all our Disputes about what is revealed and set bounds to our Enquiries And I never knew before the danger of submitting our Reason to Faith of a blind resignation of judgment as he is pleased to call it to a Divine Revelation for that is the matter in debate Blasphemies and Contradictions may and have been imposed upon mens Faith under the Venerable Name of Mysteries but such Blasphemies and Contradictions were never revealed in Scripture and therefore belong not to the present Enquiry which only concerns believing what we allow to be revealed without looking any farther into it We allow all men to examine the Truth and Certainty of the Revelation and to examine what is revealed but here we must stop and not pretend to judge of what is revealed by the measures of human Reason which is so inadequate a Rule for Divine and Supernatural Truths This is all very plain and if he will allow the Truth of this he must confess that what he has said upon this first Head is nothing to the purpose It is a very popular thing to decry Mysteries and to cry up Reason but to be very cautiously imitated because it is generally found that such men are either no great Believers or no very deep Reasoners 2. In the next place he tells us of a very strange sort of men who call the Doctrine of the Trinity an Incomprehensible Mystery and yet are at a great deal of pains to bring it down to a level with Human Vnderstanding and are all very earnest to have their own particular Explications acknowledged as necessary Articles of Faith An Incomprehensible Mystery is what Human Reason cannot comprehend to bring an Incomprehensible Mystery down to the level of Human Vnderstandings is to make it comprehensible by Reason and those are notable men indeed who undertake to make that comprehensible by Reason which at the same time they acknowledge to be incomprehensible It is to be hoped this Considerer does a little mistake them Men may be-believe the Trinity to be an Incomprehensible Mystery and yet speak of it in words which may be understood which does not pretend to make the Mystery comprehensible but to deliver it from Nonsense Jargon and Heresy that is not to explain the Mystery which is and will be a Mystery still but to secure the true Christian Doctrine of the Trinity which they desire may continue an Article of the Christian Faith still There are he tells us a third sort of men who are for no Mystery that is the
those Heresies which the Catholick Church condemned and from the Corrupted Remains of the Ancient Faith which appeared in them For these Hereticks were originally Christians and professed themselves Christians and therefore did not wholly renounce the Christian Faith but grafted their Heresies on it As to confine my self to the Subjâ—ct of the present Dispute What we are to understand by Father Son and Holy Ghost Whether Three Distinct Real Substantial Persons or not each of whom is distinctly by himself True and Perfect God but in the Unity of the same Divine Nature and Godhead Now that this was the received Faith of the Catholick Church we may learn both from the Valentinians Sabellians and Arians Though the Valentinians as I observed before had corrupted the Doctrine of the Trinity either with the Platonick Philosophy as that it self had been corrupted by the Iunior Platonists or with the Pagan Theology yet the Propagation of their Aeons in different Degrees and Descents from the first Supreme Aeon the Unbegotten One and the Invisible and Incomprehensible Father as they stile him shews what they thought the Catholick Faith was concerning the Eternal Generation of the Son and Procession of the Holy Spirit which they took to be a Substantial Generation and Procession and accordingly in imitation of this Faith asserted a Substantial 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Emanation of one Aeon from another and which is more none of the Ancient Fathers who wrote against this Heresy as far as I have observed ever quarrel with them upon this account Nay Tertullian though he abominates these Heresies owns this Probole or Emanation in a true Catholick Sense and tells us that these Hereticks borrowed this word from the Catholick Faith though they fitted it to their Heresy And challenges any man to say whether the Divine Word be not produced by the Father and if it be Here says he is the Prolation or Emanation which the true Catholick Faith owns And adds That the fault of this Heresy was not their producing one Aeon from another but that besides the number of their fictitious Aeons they did separate these Emanations and Aeons from their Author that the Aeons knew not the Father nay desired to know him but could not know him and was e'en dissolved with Passion and Desire whereas in the Catholick Faith there is the most Inseparable Union of the Son with the Father and the most Intimate and Perfect Knowledge of him So that Tertullian allows of a Real and Substantial Production of the Person of the Son from the Person of the Father as the Valentinians pretended of their Aeons and asserts that these Hereticks learnt this from the Catholick Faith of the Trinity And that the Church must not reject this Probole Prolation or Emanation in an Orthodox Catholick Use of those words because Hereticks abuse them to countenance their own Heresies As for the Noetians and Sabellians for however they explain the Doctrine of the Trinity whether by Three Names or Three Powers or Three Parts while they Teach That the One God is but One Single Person the Heresy is the same it is impossible the Catholick Church should reject this Heresy without asserting Three Distinct Real Substantial Persons in the Unity of the Godhead each of whom is as True and Perfect God as each of Three Men Peter Iames and Iohn is a True Perfect Distinct Man though these Three Men are not uniâ—ed as the Three Divine Persons are The occasion of this Heresy was That they thought that Three Real Distinct Persons in the Godhead were Three Gods and therefore though being profess'd Christians and consequently baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost they durst not deny Father Son and Holy Ghost yet neither would they own Three Divine Persons but turned them into Three Names or Three Parts of One Person which has much more sense in it than Three Modes though Three Modes of the same Person let them call them Three Personalities if they please is the same Heresy if there be but One Suppositum as One Man may be the Subject of Three or Three and twenty Modes and be but One Human Person still Noetus and Sabellius did certainly apprehend that by Father Son and Holy Ghost the Catholick Church understood Three Distinct Substantial Divine Persons or else why should they charge them with Tritheism upon this account and turn Three Persons into Three Names or Three Parts of One and the same God to avoid the Imputation of Three Gods And if this had not been the belief of the Catholick Church what meant their Zeal against this Heresy For all the Wit of Man can't find a Medium between Sabellianism and Three Divine Substantial Persons A Trinity must be Three Somewhats as it has been lately called and then it must either be One Suppositum or Person under Three Names or Three Modes or compounded of Three Parts or be Three Distinct Suppositums and Persons Now if this had been the Catholick Faith That the Trinity is but One Suppositum or Person under Three Names or Modes c. I cannot imagine why the Catholick Church should have quarrell'd with these Hereticks or they with the Catholick Church unless they both mistook one another But if the Sabellians and Catholicks understood themselves and each other and did intend to contradict each other we certainly know what the Catholick Faith was For there is nothing contradicts a Noetian and Sabellian Trinity but a Trinity of Distinct Substantial Divine Persons And Novatianus well observes That these Hereticks did acknowledge the Divinity of Christ That whoever Christ was it was evident from those Characters given of him in Scripture That he was True and Perfect God And because the Father is True and Perfect God and Christ True and Perfect God for fear of owning Two Gods they make the Father and the Son to be but One and the same Person The Arians denied the Eternal Godhead of Christ and made a Creature of him though the most excellent Creature the Minister and Instrument of God in making the World and the reason of this Heresy was the same viz. for fear of a Plurality of Gods should they allow Christ to be True and Perfect God And this still is a plain evidence what they thought the Catholick Faith to be not only that Christ was True and Real God but that he was Truly and Really a Distinct Person from God the Father so distinct that if they should acknowledge him to be True God he would be a Second God which they thought contradicted the Faith of One God Well Though they would not own him to be True God yet they own him to be a distinct Person from the Father as distinct as God and a Creature are distinct Do the Catholicks now quarrel with the Arians that they have made a Substantial Person of the Son as in reason tâ—ey ought to have done had thâ—y not believed
Disputes amongst themselves which their common Adversaries are so apt to improve into Scepticism Infidelity or Heresy And therefore for a Conclusion I shall only take a brief Review of the Doctrine of the Fathers concerning this Article of a Trinity in Unity and apply it in a few words to our Socinian Adversaries The Faith of the Catholick Church taught by Christ and his Apostles is that there is but One God but this One God is a Father who has an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit in the Essential Unity of the same Undivided and Undiversified Godhead And this is the Faith which all the Catholick Fathers have owned and taught in their several Ages The whole Christian Church Baptizes as our Saviour commanded in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and this is the Rule of their Faith to believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost A plain simple Faith could Men have been contented to believe God concerning himself Let our Socinian Adversaries tell us what there is absurd impossible or contradictious in this Faith Will they venture to say That it is absurd or contradictious that God should have a Son No! in some sense they will allow this true they themselves believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost they acknowledge Jesus Christ to be the Son of God as he is frequently called in Scripture and that in a higher sense than any other Man is the Son of God but that he is but a Man after all though advanced by God to Divine Honours above all Principalities and Powers and made the Judge both of the Quick and of the Dead and this they affirm to be all that the Scripture means in calling Christ the Son of God But this is not the present Dispute They know that the Catholick Church believed otherwise that Christ is the Eternal Son of God begotten of his Father before all worlds God of God very God of very God and they know also that thus the Catholick Fathers expounded those Texts which concern the Sonship and Divinity of our Saviour and they cannot but confess That they are very capable of such an Exposition nay that it is very difficult to put any other sense upon many Texts and the only reason why they reject these Catholick Expositions is the pretended Absurdity and Contradiction of the Catholick Faith Here then we join issue with them and desire them to shew us what is impossible or contradictious in this Faith That there is something incomprehensible in this Mystery that is something which we have no Natural adequate Ideas of we readily acknowledge with the whole Catholick Church and some of our Adversaries grant That it is possible for a thing to be whereof we have no Idea and then it seems to me very unreasonable to add but we are no ways concerned nor can we Reason or Discourse about those things whereof we have no Ideas For the direct contrary seems to be the more natural consequence that if God thinks fit to reveal such things to us of which we have no Ideas we are concerned and obliged to believe them for if they may be true they are the proper Objects of Faith though they want the Evidence of Natural Ideas But I do not intend to dispute this now but refer them to the Bishop of Worcester ' s Answer to Mr. Lock ' s Second Letter and to a late Sermon and its Vindication Concerning the Danger of Corrupting the Faith by Philosophy What I have now to say is of another Nature viz. That we have an Idea of a Trinity in Unity and such an Idea as contains nothing absurd impossible or contradictious in it That very Idea which I have so largely explained One Absolute Divinity with Two Eternal Essential Processions in the Unity and Identity of Nature The Eternal Father Eternal Self-originated Mind with his Eternal Word his Eternal Son and the Eternal Spirit of Father and Son This is that Idea which the Scripture gives us of it and which the Catholick Church hath always taught Every Man may understand what is meant by it and therefore it is not Jargon and Nonsense and I think I have sufficiently vindicated it from Tritheism and Contradiction and have no more to say of that nature till I hear what they have to object against what is already said and when they come to consider this Matter again as Men that shall certainly be called to an Account for it in this World as well as in the next I hope they will see reason to grow out of conceit with their own Philosophy about Emanations and Processions a Priority of Time and Priority of Nature Self-Existence and Necessary Existence and such like Arian Objections which were made and answered many Ages since and which they may find sufficiently answered in this Treatise This brings back the Dispute to Scripture where the last Appeal must lie in all such Matters without appealing for the Sense of Scripture to Natural Ideas and Philosophy And if the Interpretations of the Catholick Fathers were of any Authority with these Men I have already shewn how they expounded Scripture which will always be a venerable Authority to modest Men and sober Christians how much soever it be despised by Hereticks But it is time to put an end to this Treatise we may consider their Expositions of Scripture some other time THE END DR Sherloc◠Dean of St. Paul's Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity Third Edition Quarto Apology for Writing against Socinians Quarto The Danger of Corrupting the Faith by Philosophy A Sermon Quarto A Vindication of the Sermon in Answer to some Socinian Remarks An Answer to the Animad versions on the Dean of St. Paul's Vindication of the Trinity By I. B. A. M. Quarto A Defence of the Dean of St. Paul's Apology for Writing against Socinians Quarto A Defence of Dr. Sherlock's Notion of a Trinity in Unity Quarto The Distinction between Real and Nominal Trinitarians examined in Answer to a Socinian Pamphlet Quarto All Printed for William Rogers Quâ nec dicuntur ut cogitantur nec cogitantur ut sunt Aug. de Trinit l. 5. c. 3. Cùm ergo quaeritur quid tria vel quid tres conferimus nos ad inventendum aliquod speciale vel generale nomen quo complectamur haec tria neque occurrit animo quia excedit supereminentia divinitatis usitati eloquii facultatem Aug. de Trin. l. 7. c. 3. Ad se quippe Pater dicitur Persona non ad Filium aut Spiritum Sanctum Aug. de Trin. l. 7. c. 6. Cur ergo non haec tria simul unam Personam dicimus sicut unam Essentiam Deum sed tres dicimus Personas cùm tres Deos aut tres essentias non dicamus nisi quia volumus vel unum aliquod vocabulum servire huic significationi quâ intelligitur Trinitas ne emnino taceremus interrogati quid tres cùm tres esse fateremur Ibid.