be a just and modest Reprehension of him and what I am sure the Man will meekly take But to make him black and odious by all Arts and to talk of reforming him out of the Church for his peaceable Desires and Well-meaning is imperious beyond Measure and what another would call Tyrannical nor will he name what Spirit it bespeaks especially when the great Argument or Foundation of all against what he has said is no better than a Petitio Principii or taking for granted the prime Matter in question namely that the Doctrine of the Trinity as Dr. Sherlock has stated and does defend it is a Fundamental of the Christian Faith This the Dean in his Apology has not offered one Word to prove but quitting his Adversaries and shutting both Eyes and Ears against all that has been said against his Novelties on this Subject violently falls upon exposing the peaceable Man which was indeed much the easier Project but whether either Christian or Honourable the World will judg The melancholy Stander-by had asserted in his 7th Page the Doctrine of the Trinity as duly stated to be one of the Fundamentals of Christian Religion And it is most plain by what he propounds as the Medium of Peace that the stating it according to Scripture and in Scripture-Language he esteems the most due stating it the Dean likes not this says it is a Proposal of old Hereticks and not only would have the Philosophical Terms now a long time usual in this Point received for Peace-sake but as Fundamental in Faith Nay and not content herewith he gives new Definitions of or affixes new Notions to these Terms and would have all pass upon us still under the Colour of Fundamentals The melancholy Stander-by to speak the whole Truth neither could nor can admit either of these namely either that Philosophical Terms never used by Scripture and besides of various Use or uncertain Signification should be made Fundamentals of Faith or that the Doctor 's new Explication of them should pass at all and his Reasons may perhaps appear anon But in what he writ he express'd not this his Dissent so as to contest either of these Points Only as he would not enter into the Controversy himself so he desired chiefly by reason of the Mischief he thought he saw arising from thence it might be at present forborn by all and he is still as willing as ever to decline engaging on either Point only in his own Defence against what the Dean has endeavoured to load him with he must now say that if any should join Issue with the Dean upon the first Article of the Nicene Creed I BELIEVE IN ONE GOD c. which is a Fundamental and the true Catholick and Apostolick Faith It will soon appear that Dr. Sherlock has in his Book contradicted and to his Power overthrown that Faith as much as ever Johannes Philoponus or Joachim the * So the Text of the Decretal stiles him Florentine Abbot or as others the Abbot of Floria or Flency the two greatest and most antient Leaders of the Tritheists ordinarily assigned ever did for according to the best Accounts of them neither of these expresly maintained more Gods than one nay they expresly disclaimed such Assertion only they so taught the Nature and Distinction of three Persons as that their Doctrine inferred three Gods from which Charge the Invention of mutual Consciousness will never clear Dr. Sherlock ' s Definition of a Person in the Godhead for such Consciousness whatever he says to the contrary can infer only an Vnity of Accord not of Substance and Nature whereas it is an Unity of Substance and Nature that the Council and Fathers have held but these things require more Words than the present Design admits To make the Sum of my Sentiments or what I would be at plainer §. 3. The holy Scripture states the Trinity under the Notion of Three bearing witness in Heaven for I have much more to say for that exagitated Text than to allow it wanting in any Copies on any other Reason but their Imperfection and affirms these three one but how they are one it determines not And Faith being a Belief of the Witness of God and Baptism a Seal or Badg of Faith when we are baptized we are baptized 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost as owning and assenting to or professing and vowing to acquiesce in their Witness touching all the whole Will of God and Method of Salvation published in the Gospel This is Scripture and here the melancholy Stander-by would stop as to Faith in this Point of the Trinity To the Incarnation there is yet no occasion to speak The Fathers in the Council of Nice did not as far as ever I could perceive by any genuine Monuments of theirs vote the Term three Persons the Incarnation of the Son of God or his Divinity though made Man was the Controversy before them rather than the Trinity and the great Product of that Council was the word Homoousion in Assertion of the Son 's being of the same Substance with the Father But the Greek Fathers of that Age did soon use the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in this Case is most aptly rendred Subsistence and contend for three 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Subsistences Now as to the common Definition of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in divinis that is to my best Memory pretended to be taken out of Justin Martyr by Damascen a Father of much latter Age I said to my best Memory for my Condition is such at present and has been such upward of four Years that I am without the Use of the best part of my Books and now near 150 English Miles distant from a Library Yet I thank God I am Master of Justin and Damascen more ways than one be it spoken without Affront to Dr. Sherlock in case of my having read other Books I had read them near two and thirty Years ago But to return to the Definition spoken of as now I take it out of my old perhaps too imperfect Notes runs thus In the Holy Trinity an Hypostasis is an unbegun or if the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Damasâ—en Dialectic cap. ult Word may be pardoned a beginningless manner of the eternal Existence of each that is of Father Son and Holy Ghost So that according to this Author it superadds nothing to the Divine Essence which is one and common to all the three save a bare manner of Existence or Subsistence Only by the way I must note as to the Authority of that Piece in the Works of Justin Martyr whence this Definition comes namely the Expositio rectae fidei it is sufficiently proved by Scultetus Rivet and others to be none of Justin's genuine Works The Latin Fathers which came soon upon the Heels of the Council and of the Greek Fathers above spoken of suspected this Word Hypostasis and St. Jerome particularly contended there
was Poison under the â—n Epistol ad Damas Tom. 2. Honey and boggled at it St. Austin acknowledges he understood not the Difference the Greeks designed between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is in our present Language between Essence and Subsistence But because says he according to our Custom of Speech Essence and Substance are all one â—e Trinitat â—b 5. in fine â—apitis 8 cap. 9. therefore we dare not say one Essence three Substances but one Essence or Substance and three Persons So that when they laid aside Hypostasis they introduced a Term equivalent and perhaps more ambiguous namely Persona and then said there were three Persons in one Essence Yet at the same time St. Austin acknowledgeth the Use of this Term improper and that it was Necessity drove them to it they used this Word for â—agna prorsus â—opia humaâ—â— laborat â—â—quium Dictum est tamen tres personae non ut illud diceretur sed ne taceretur Non enim rei â—â—bilis eminentia hoc vocabulo explicare valet Cap. 9. want of a better The Father saith he and the Son and the Holy Ghost are truly three But when it is demanded three what humane Speech is defective notwithstanding we have said three Persons not that strictly we mean or intend to say this but lest we should be silent and say nothing for the Transcendency of the ineffable Matter cannot be express'd by this Word And again more fully in his seventh Book proving the Father Son and Holy Ghost to be one because the Father is Wisdom the Son Wisdom and the Holy Ghost Wisdom and in God to be wise is the same as to be and to be the same as to be God Therefore says he for expressing what is inexpressible that we may speak in some measure what we cannot speak out the Itaque loquendi causâ de ineffabilibus ut fari aliquo modo possemus quod effari nullo modo possumus dictum est à nostris Graecis una Essentia tres Substantiae a Latinis autem una Essentia tres Personae Et ut intelligatur in aenigmate quod dicitur placuit ita dici ut aliquid diceretur Ut quaereretur quid tria sunt quid tres conferimus nos ad inveniendum aliquid speciale vel generale nomen quo complectamus haec tria neque occurrit animo quia excedit supereminentia divinitatis usitati eloquii facultatem Cap. 3 4. Grecian Christians have said one Essence three Substances that is Subsistences and the Latins one Essence three Persons And that what we say may be understood at least in a Riddle we thought it good thus it should be said that something might be said When it is required what these three are we apply our selves to find out some special or general Name whereby we may comprize all the three nor does there any occur to our Thoughts because the Transcendency of the Divinity exceeds the Faculty of usual Speech He goes on to the Effect following If we take these three Abraham and Isaac and Jacob we can find somewhat common which they all have and say they are three Men but touching Father Son and Holy Ghost we cannot say they are three Fathers or three Sons nor indeed three Gods what therefore are the three Three Persons By all which it is plain they used this word Persons not because it was proper but because the Speculation was run so fine that they knew not what else or what less improper to say And let this suffice in my present Penury of Books as to the Fathers who of old either first introduced or by their Use first authorized in divinis this Term three Persons or a Trinity of Persons As to the Sense of the School-Doctors touching the word Persona in this Controversy I must speak chiefly out of my Memory having besides the Master of the Sentences and some imperfect pieces of others only St. Thomas's Sum at hand in which Work he is somewhat brief on this Term Yet even therein when he concludes it convenient that the Name Person be used touching God he does it with this Limitation that it be Conveniens est ut hoc nomen persona de Deo dicitur non tamen eodem modo quo dicitur de Creaturis not used or which is the same understood after the same manner as it is of the Creatures But I do avow it and will be bound to produce Testimonies enough as soon as I can come at Books that it is both his Doctrine and the common Doctrine of his Followers that the word Person when used touching God and the Creatures is not taken in the same equal or univocal Sense but only by way of Proportion and as to the manner Persona de Deo Creaturis non dici univoce sed analogice of signifying and Imposition of the Name it first and more properly agrees to the Creatures As to Protestant Divines also for the Reasons above touched I must be sparing in their Numbers but I am sure the Systematists ordinarily assign either four or five Differences in the Use of the Word when attributed to God and to the Creature And I find by me in my Notes this Passage which I long since transcribed out of Zanchy a judicious and learned Calvinist In the Creatures one Person is not only Una Persona creata ex contextu precedente supplenda ab altera non tam distincta quam etiam disjuncta est at proinde diversae sunt inter se substantiae licet unius naturae In Deo una Persona ab altera distincta quidem est sed disjuncta esse non porest c. De tribus Elohim Parte 2da lib. 1. c. 3. distinct from the other but disjoined and separate so that the Substances are divers though the Nature one But in God one Person is indeed distinct from the other but cannot be disjoined and therefore the Divine Persons are not only of the same Nature for so are humane Persons but of the same Essence Nay they so subsist in the same Essence that they are indeed nothing else but that Essence Somewhat very near this the Doctor to do him Justice more than once or twice expresly says in his Book I mean in his Vindication of the Holy Trinity viz. p. 47 67 104 c. that they are distinct not separate but then he in effect unsays all again much oftner and that both by his Definition of a Person in divinis and in those other Passages of his produced by me in my Paper p. 14. and by many other Passages which I might transcribe from him For my own part I am not able to excuse him from contradicting himself over and over most plainly in the Space of a dozen Lines in one of the Pages now cited viz. 67. of his Vindication for first he acknowledges These three Divine Persons are not separate Minds as created Spirits
my Author last cited the Subject to be beyond Expression For saith he our Thoughts of God are commonly more true than our Expressions But God more truly is than we can think But to return again to History and Mr. Dean The Coessentiality or Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father was the Point determined against Arius in the Council of Nice which was indeed previous or preliminary to one Part of the Doctrine of the Trinity but the Controversy of the Trinity of Persons was not raised but by the Followers of Arius not by himself as Baronius both witnesses and proves and therefore could not be decided in the Council of Nice If therefore we were to stand only to the Decrees of the Council of Nice in the Matter of the Trinity our Faith herein would be comparatively very short For by that Council neither was there affirmed a Trinity of Persons nor Unity of the three It is not therein so much as determined what the Holy Ghost is Mr. Dean therefore did me wrong if he intended those Words The Council of Nice Pag. 13. on whose Authority we must rest namely in Point of the Trinity should be understood to be my Words He may be permitted to confound the learned and subtil Disputations of Athanasius in behalf of the Divinity of Christ which Point indeed was determined in the Council of Nice and the Controversy of the Trinity in Unity to which there was some considâ—â—â—â—â— Advance made in the Council of Constantinople he I say may be admitted to confound these two together and to rest for both upon the single Authority of the Council of Nice because in that Council he will find Athanasius and so may hope to hook in the Confession commonly called the Creed of St. Athanasius I use the Terms of our own Liturgy but I expresly avouched the Authority of the Nicene and first Constantinopolitan Councils in Conjunction as having betwixt them setled the Doctrine of the Trinity yet not in the hard Words which after-Ages used For in these two Councils though there be in effect three Persons declared yet is not the term three Persons used but both the Matter and the Language wherein the Decision is made looks much liker that of the Scripture than what we find in a certain later Creed when Men proceeded to draw Consectaries from these Councils Definitions and put such their Consectaries into hard artificial and intricate Terms and then imposed all for Faith with so much Nicety that it is at least as easy to mistake as to understand the Truth and sometimes really the Mistake is much the more obvious I cannot forbear an Instance or two out of the Creed just now mentioned usually ascribed to Athanasius but if Vossius be in the right compiled much after his Age by one Anastasius as he conjectures if my Memory fail not for I have not my Book by me that Creed then thus proceeds THE FATHER IS ETERNAL THE SON ETERNAL AND THE HOLY GHOST ETERNAL AND YET THEY ARE NOT THREE ETERNALS BVT ONE ETERNAL AS ALSO THERE ARE NOT THREE INCOMPREHENSIBLES NOR THREE VNCREATED BVT ONE VNCREATED AND ONE INCOMPREHENSIBLE Suppose now a Man should thus argue hence If there are three yet not three uncreated but one uncreated then two of the three must be created For the three must be either created or uncreated that is eternally existent But it is further also added that there are not three Eternals but one Eternal therefore supposing the Father to be uncreated and eternal as of the three most properly and essentially Uncreatedness and Eternity belongs to him insomuch as the Son is his Begotten and the Holy Ghost proceeds from him supposing I say the Father uncreated and eternal it seems hence unavoidably to follow the Son and the Holy Ghost are created and not eternal for there are not three Uncreated nor three Eternals The same may be said in like manner as to the other Attributes of Incomprehensible and Almighty And if any should profess the Son and Holy Ghost created or not eternal would not all cry out immediately Heresy Blasphemy It will not be sufficient here to say It is confessed before that the Son is uncreate and the Holy Ghost uncreate c. for that Confession is now contradicted by saying there is but one uncreate What shall we then do to extricate our selves from the Niceties of this Creed How few of the People have the Clew Verily not one in a thousand of the Laity that ' Hic ponuntur adjectivè istae dictiones viz. coaeterni c. ibi autem adjectivè Glossa ad verbum Coaeterni De summa Trinitate c. 1. Firmiter credimus say sing or receive this Creed and it may be not one in an hundred of the Clergy But to salve all behold a wholesom Distinction out of a known Gloss When we say the Father Son and Holy Ghost are all three uncreate we take Uncreate as an Adjective and then the Proposition is true When we say there are not three uncreate we take it as a Substantive For if we should say there are three uncreated taking it as a Substantive it were Heresy And so in the case of Eternal when we say the Father is eternal the Son eternal the Holy Ghost eternal and all three eternal we take Eternal as an Adjective But if we should take Eternal as a Substantive then we must deny that there are three Eternals surely then by the way must we also deny that there are three infinite Minds and that even according to Athanasius himself But to come again to the Gloss Can now any Man living give me a Reason why Uncreate or Eternal should be less an Adjective when understood of an uncrete Substance or Essence than it is when understood of an uncreate Person And yet taking it either substantively or adjectively if I should so use it as to deny there are three uncreated Persons I am as much a Heretick as if I should say there are three uncreated Essences There is therefore very happily a further Remedy in the said Gloss namely that Hic designat Personas ibi Essentiam Gl. ubi supra when we profess all three are uncreate and coeternal we must understand or supply the word Person When we say there is but one Uncreate and one Eternal we must understand Essence or Nature In fine then if we have not Metaphysicks enough and Grammar enough to find out when a Word is to denote the Essence and when the Person or perhaps when it is to be taken adjectively when substantively we shall be led by the very Letter of this Creed to profess Heresy and Blasphemy instead of the true Faith Were it not now better that this Creed were either made plainer or totally laid aside than urged and used as it is But indeed neither of the two Councils mentioned made any such Creed as this nor as I really believe did Athanasius himself He and others of the
are but only distinct each Person has a Self-consciousness of his own and knows and feels it self if I may so speak as distinct from the other Divine Persons The Father has a Self-consciousness of his own whereby he knows and feels himself to be the Father and not the Son nor Holy Ghost And the Son in like manner feels himself to be the Son and not the Father nor the Holy Ghost And the Holy Ghost feels himself to be the Holy Ghost and not the Father nor the Son as James feels himself to be James and not Peter nor John I say then if the Father hath a Self-consciousness of his own whereby he knows and feels himself to be the Father and not the Son nor the Holy Ghost as James feels himself to be James and not Peter c. then both is he separate from the Son and Holy Ghost and his Self-consciousness also separate from the Self-consciousness of each the other And again if the Father Son and Spirit feel himself to be himself and not the other as James feels himself to be James and not Peter nor John then must each feel himself separate from the other For 't is manifest to me that in knowing and feeling my self not to be Peter nor James I know and feel my self separate severed or several from them Nay it is by knowing and feeling my self separate that I know and feel my self distinct If therefore the Father knows and feels himself distinct from the Son and from the Holy Ghost as we Men know our selves distinct from one another he then must know and feel himself separate also unavoidably or else he does not know and feel himself distinct as we do He must therefore upon this Hypothesis be separate as well as distinct from the other Besides three infinite Minds as he there and p. 50. and so onwards most frequently and familiarly stiles the three Persons and one infinite Mind that is three sames and not three sames are to me an unavoidable Contradiction But it had been at least no Contradiction to have said one infinite Mind or a Substance may have three manners of Subsisting or three several Relations which was the old way of speaking and which if it had been kept to the melancholy Stander-by had forborn his Suit That ancient Notion of a Divine Person is more consistent and much less obnoxious though how far satisfactory it may be to all Men he disputes not however he does account it to be the common Orthodox Doctrine now many hundred Years received And here he would have our Divines to stop as a common Boundary for Peace and his Reason is because here our Articles which were as is said in the very Title of them agreed upon for the avoiding of Diversities of Opinions and for the establishing Consent touching Religion do stop expressing only or stating to us the Doctrine of three Persons in the Terms wherein from old Times it has been delivered down and therefore in all Likelihood designing only the old Sense This is but more clearly and explicitely what the Suit for Forbearance desired of Dr. Sherlock and other present Writers in this Controversy Wherefore upon the whole how just in this Case the Imputation of a disguised Heretick of a Man spiteful against the Cause and Persons who maintain it a Wolf in Sheeps clothing and like Characters fastned upon the Author of it are God will judg if the World do not Had I either disputed against the old Notion or assigned any new one or ventured at new and dangerous Explications as some have done Mr. Dean had had some Colour for thus treating me But sith I have not I must tax this Language also as downright Calumny But to come off from this querulous Parenthesis Dr. Sherlock would not or did not stop here as is apparent by what I have transcribed actually out of his Book however he tells the World I did not read it In which Imputation I will frankly acknowledg every tittle of Truth there is namely I had not when I writ read his Book all over for it was taken out of my Lodging without my Knowledg or Consent before I had done with it and perhaps the Doctor has no Reason to complain of that Mischance But I had looked over all and carefully read a great part taken Notes out of it as will appear by my Adversaria of that Month yea indeed transcribed much more than I alledged And I alledged not as the Dean to the end he might shuffle off a distinct Answer to me and the Vindication of his Novelties is pleased to stile them broken Passages out of Pag. 30. his Book but intire Definitions and Propositions which contained the Substance of this Hypothesis as he stiles it And I do affirm the Doctor in what I so cited p. 14 15. of my Paper has gone most plainly beyond and contrary to the Doctrine both of the Fathers Schools and Protestant Divines And in his Apology he seems to have gone beyond himself For he at least four times calls our Lord Jesus a God incarnate p. 4 26 27 31. Now if the Son be a God incarnate then the Father is a God not incarnate And the same ought to be said according to this way of speaking of the Holy Ghost Nay it is actually said by him in these Words This Confession proves the Holy Ghost a God Vind. p. 190. lin ult I say then if there be a God and a God and a God unavoidably there must be three Gods And this is the very Absurdity the Socinians would reduce their Adversaries to Therefore the Doctor so defends the Mystery of the Trinity or so confutes Heresy as to run into the very same Absurdity to which his Adversaries would reduce him which I hope we may say without Offence is most unreasonable most dangerous and at present most unseasonable the thing charged by the Melancholy Stander-by This the Doctor might have evaded had he been content to have taken up with the old Acceptation or Definition of a Person in divinis or to have spoken with Scripture Jesus Christ is God manifest in the Flesh or if that must not suffice as is usual God incarnate But the adding an individuating Particle a to the Name of that common Essence God and then predicating that Name so determined touching the three Persons as it reduces the Subjects touching which it is predicated into the Rank of common Individuals so it leaves the Essence when taken without that individuating Particle in the Rank of a common Species And so contrary to the constant Doctrine even of the Schools God shall be predicated of the Father Son and Holy Ghost as a Species of Individuals as Man is of Abraham Isaac and Jacob whom all acknowledg to have been three Men and as much must the Father Son and Holy Ghost be three Gods Which if it be not most grievous Heresy and particularly the Heresy of * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
the Church-Catechism has taught thereof out of the Creed to be sufficient to any Christian Practice which can be superstructed hereon Yet I must not thus conclude what I have to say for my Justification in my Reflection on the Master of the Sentences the learned Dean being so well versed in the School-men has certainly heard of a certain Censure or Caution to some Texts of the Masters in these Words Magister non tenetur And what is that in plain English but that on these Subjects the Master has writ so as that his very Scholars or Partizans are ashamed of him and not able with all their Subtilties to defend him One of the first Articles as I take it to which this Note is put is Charitas quâ diligimus Deum proximum est Spiritus sanctus Or Charitas quae est amor Dei proximi non est aliquia Creatura that is Charity whereby we love God and our Neighbour is no created being but the Holy Ghost This would afford admirable Consequents But to let them pass untouch'd being that the Assertion it self so intimately concerns the Holy Ghost as to pronounce in some measure touching his very Quiddity as I may so speak and being that the Holy Ghost is the third Person in the Trinity this must necessarily be acknowledged to be a very considerable Point in the Controversy of the Trinity And then neither have all the Papists been very Orthodox in the Disputes about As to the Orthodoxy of all the Papists in Point of the Trinity I would ask Mr. Dean if he never heard any thing of a Design some had of getting in or adding the Blessed Virgin to the Trinity and what a Trinity they would in such Case have made of it Or how Orthodox that Party was in their Conceptions either of the Deity or of that Trinity c. the Trinity as Mr. Dean says Apol. p. 23. for the Master himself advanced herein a gross heretical Proposition nor was the melancholy Stander-by unacquainted with the Master when he only with a light Touch censured what the Master had troubled the World with on this Controversy For my own part I would be unwilling to be put upon it to defend what yet the Master asserts and after his way endeavours to prove in another Place touching the Holy Ghost that saith he the Holy Ghost is an Act of Love so I render Dilectionem or the Love of Spiritum sanctum Dilectionem esse sive amorem Patris Filii quo scilicet Pater diligit Filium Filius Patrem Dist 10. F. the Father and of the Son namely wherewith the Father loveth the Son and the Son the Father Notwithstanding that that Distinction has no such Stricture that I have observed set upon it by the Scholastick Censors and notwithstanding too that Mr. Dean has more amply explicated and espoused it Vind. p. 130 c. The Father saith the Dean is original Mind and Wisdom The Son the Word and Wisdom of the Father that is the reflex Knowledg of himself which is the perfect Image of his own Wisdom and the Holy Ghost that Divine Love which the Father and Son have for each other These he calls three substantial Acts in God so distinct as that they can never be the same But whose will consider what Idea our Minds frame of Self-reflection and Love the Latin Term is Dilectio will rather stile these immanent Actions how permanent soever they may be supposed Now that an Action though immanent can be a living intelligent Substance an infinite eternal Mind is what I would be loth to be bound to the Proof of But says the Dean why did you not accuse the Fathers and Councils for the Master took most of what he has out of them Suppose that I had so much Reverence for the Fathers and Councils as to be willing their Names should not be blemish'd am I to be chastised for that He and all the World know I could not read the Master's Book but I must read therein the Names and oftentimes the Places of the Fathers whence he took most of what he says I could not therefore be ignorant that many of these things are to be found in the Fathers But I was desirous I say that their venerable Names should shine as bright as may be and that the rather for that this Rummager has after a sort weeded their Writings and very often taken only the worst things out of them The Father out of whom he has injudiciously amass'd together the most he has of the Trinity complains those his Books of the Trinity were almost ravish'd out of his Hands before he could amend or finish Aug. Retract lib. 2. cap. 15. them as he would have done and that he intended not to have published them but to have spoken what he thought of this Argument in another Work When therefore I find St. Austin produced proving the Son the Beginning a Principle or Original Principium the Word is and that not only in respect of the Creatures but even of the Holy Ghost from such a Testimony of Scripture as this is They said unto him Who art thou and he answered Even the same that I said unto you from the Beginning which the vulgar Latin and St. Austin as well as some other Fathers corruptly read The Beginning who also speak to you I let St. Austin pass who in effect did as good as ask Pardon for his Mistake or misapplying this Text and I tax him who taking no Notice of the Father's excusing his imperfect Work alledgeth even the most culpable Passages in it for legitimate Proofs Libellus Male cum recitas incipit esse tuus He by this Means makes the Fathers Over-sights his and is justly to be blamed for them But as to his Faithfulness in dealing with the Fathers hear what a great Man says His Books of the Sentences says Mornaeus he has made up out of Pieces of the Fathers here and there culled out and put together in a certain Order which Fathers he by changing omitting adding Words at pleasure has forced to serve his Plot and bowed to the corrupt Divinity of his Age. And however Orthodox any who affect Dispute and endless Speculation may judg him in the Doctrine of the Trinity and Incarnation Bellarmine himself after Recital of his Works adds this Account on him out of Matthew Paris That he was accused of Heresy in the Matter of the Incarnation and condemn'd at Paris nineteen Years after his Death Then as to the Point of the Trinity the Case wherein I taxed him L. Danaeus a Geneva Divine and no Socinian avows and proves that in every Part of his Disputation In quâlibet hujus Disputationis parte negligentia dolo malo aequiparatur Censura ad Dist 35. lib. 1. hereon his Fraud and Negligence are equal And whosoever will spend a few Hours in perusing the said Danaeus's Prolegomena to his Commentary on the first Book of
Sense your good Nature can yea should you take it even for Foolishness it self which none can think I intended the first Chapter of the first to the Corinthians would in a sort justify the Expression But by Simplicity I meant here as all who are not wilfully blind will understand me Plainness Vnmixedness Purity I would not have so much of Philosophy vamp'd into Faith And I am not of the Mind of that Cardinal that we should have been to seek for sundry Articles of our Faith had it not been for Aristotle and though I love him much better I will add for Plato either But here I must answer once for all as to my Displeasure with the §. 6. Pag. 4. School-Doctors Pray what Hurt have they done says Mr. Dean I could give a certain Reason for which I might say perhaps they have done him little But I will rather give him two other Answers one I hope he will not except against because it is his own They sometimes mistake the Fathers Sense whom they pretend to follow or clog it with some peculiar Niceties of their own by which Means this Mystery has been confounded Vind. p. 138. And again p. 139. Though I do not think it impossible to give a tolerable Account of the School-terms and Distinctions yet that is a Work of greater Difficulty â—â—an Vse This we must take for a fair Specimen of Mr. Dean's great Skill and Reading in the School-Doctors But my own Answer is the Writings of the School-men or rather that Vein of Study and Dispute which they have brought into the Church of God turning the whole Body of Christianity into nice and too curious many times idle Questions and resolving these in the difficultest Philosophical Terms and so running all to thin Metaphysical Distinctions has made Religion mostly a Business of Speculation and Wit The Endeavour of Subtilty has very much eaten out the Heart and Vitals of Christianity raised fruitless Contentions bitter Envyings endless Schisms and Parties in the Church destroyed in a great measure the Love of God and all good Affection and debauch'd Faith it self for the main into Opinion or Scepticism This is my Answer further I do aver the Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity is dishonoured and exposed by their Questions and Disputes of it And particularly as to the Master of the Sentences with whom the Dean will not allow me to be intimately acquainted I Pag. 17. say that had I used severer Language touching him than that what Stuff has he in his first Book made of this Doctrine by too much Subtilty and too nice Enquiries the Matter would justly have born it And for a Proof hereof If I should run through all I must transcribe in a manner his whole first Book Let it therefore suffice of such Stuff as I justly called it to give only a Taste Methinks these that follow are not seemly Questions to be put inquired into or disputed touching the infinite incomprehensible Majesty Creator and Lord of all I will not therefore turn them into English Vtrum Pater voluntate genuerit filium Distinct VI. an necessitate an volens vel nolens sit Deus And it is resolved that the Word of God is the Son of God by Nature and not by his Will Therefore it should seem without his Will and so the Father God and a Father unwillingly The Unsoundness of this Resolution see in Danaeâ—â—'s Censure on it The next Question is no more reverent An Pater potuerit Dist VII vel voluerit gignere filium Et an hoc sit aliqua potentia quae sit in filio And if the Father always had such Power and such Will he had a Power and a Will to do something which the Son had not and consequently the Son must not be of equal Power with the Father nor have like Will The Sum of the Resolution is Filius potuit gignere sed non oportuit Again An filius sit sapiens à seipso vel per seipsum And he resolves it Non est sapiens a se sed de Patre à Patre Dist 32. E. Again That may seem a little better touching the Procession of the Holy Ghost Vtrum Spiritus sanctus priùs vel pleniùs procedat à Patre quam à Filio Dist XII And An plenius vel magis processerit à Patre quam à Filio Now though he resolved it in the Negative yet ne te perturbaret lest this should offend any he tells us that the Holy Ghost proceeds principally from the Father but he is found also to proceed from the Son Sed hoc quâ—que illi Pater dedit non jam existenti nondam habenti Had I been Author of such a Saying as this last what should I have heard But who pleases may read more on the same Subject I will conclude all this as the Master does a certain Section in one of the cited Distinctions Sub silâ—ntio potiùs esset praetereundum nisi me super hoc aliquid loqui cogeret instantia quaerentium which I will be content to english I would not have discovered the Master's Shame could I have in the Judgment of some escaped otherwise without the Brand of an ignorant impudent and false Accuser But though I will add no more of these grating Places yet I will desire of Mr. Dean because he professes to be able to give a tolerable Account of these Mens Terms and Distinctions to shew if he pleases his Skill in any useful Explication of the following Passages Eadem est Potentia Dist VII G. Patris quâ potest esse Pater Filii quâ potest esse Filius Yet he doubts not to affirm Filii originem esse ab initio at non ipsum esse ab initio sed ab initiabili And touching the Trinity and the Holy Ghost In Trinitate Dist XXXII Ae. est Dilectio quae est Trinitas tamen Spiritus sanctus est Dilectio quae non est Trinitaâ— nec ideo duae sunt Dilectiones Take these Assertions either singly and apart by themselves as I designed them or imagine that being all from one Hand they ought to be consistent with one another and what pretty Employment will it be to make useful Divinity I had almost said even Sense of them I might add hundreds more either on this or other Subjects out of the same Author but I fear it should be said they are hard Shells without a Kernel and truly so I long thought them and a great deal more of other Mens Writings on this Controversy Nor can I forbear observing by the way that the learned pious holy and orthodox Dr. Hammond could not or did not find room so much as for one Section nay that I remember not one Question and Answer for this whole Controversy in his Practical Catechism which yet excellently instructs us in many other Controversies wherein Holiness and Christian Devotion is concerned But in all likelihood he judged what
a good Answer in the Fathers and shall the same be ill meerly because at another time in another Case it came from an Heretick The Hereticks proposing it you say renders it suspect St. Athanasius and St. Ambrose using it say I and relying upon it too gives it Authority The Hereticks used it not first but only retorted it on the Fathers Wherefore at least admit the Authority of the one to take off the Disadvantage it may sustain from the other and let the Project as you call it stand or fall according to its own naked Merit Only by the way give me leave to add that if what is just and reasonable must be rejected because it has been sometimes used by Hereticks we must oftentimes give over pleading from Scripture and quit a World of Texts therein I must acknowledg I am not able to see why Men should be so averse from the Language of the Holy Ghost either in their Prayers or Creeds The Sum of the Reason alledged is that it is the Sense of Scripture which Pag. 7. is the true Faith and not merely the Words And must we saith Mr. Dean very admirably believe the Words or Sense of the Scripture I may desire him if he can to believe this or that Sense as revealed by God for he cannot know this or that Sense or Proposition as revealed by God without the Words in which it was revealed I demand Do those Words express contain and convey to us this Sense of such or such Point of Faith or do they not If they do not then the Sense insisted on is not the Sense of the Scripture and consequently not Faith If they do why should we not keep those Words by which God hath thought fit to express this Sense Why should we separate what he has joined Are we wiser than he or can we express the Mind of God better than himself But when Hereticks have used their utmost Art to make the Words of Scripture signify what they please is it not necessary to fix their true Sense and to express that in such other Words as Hereticks cannot pervert Yes in the Name of God let us use our utmost Art to vindicate if possible all and every Scripture from Heretical Glosses or Distortions and with all the Light and Evidence we can discover and assert its genuine Sense The natural Explication of Scripture is our immediate Scope in most or in all the Arts and Sciences which as Divines we take in But what do all our Explications effect save a Proof or Discovery that this or that is the Sense contained under such Words of Scripture When therefore we have plainly proved that these Words of Scripture contain this Sense why should we change the Words If they were not plain the Explication supposing it to have done any thing to the purpose has made them plain When they are plain then why may they not be kept They may be undetermined said Mr. Dean and 't is necessary to fix their §. 10. true Sense But this is the Difficulty They may rationally at least probably admit more Senses than one and when you say you have fixed your own true Sense another shall deny the Sense you have fixed to be the true Sense at least assign another equally probable Sense And a third Person it may be a third For Instance the Apostle tells us 1 Cor. 2. 10 12. God hath revealed the Joys and Glories which he has prepared for those that love him unto us by his Spirit for the Spirit searcheth all things yea the deep things of God For what Man knoweth the things of Man save the Spirit of Man which is in him even so the things of God knoweth no Man but the Spirit of God Now we have received not the Spirit of the World but the Spirit which is of God that we might know the things which are freely given us of God This Text the learned Dr. Sherlock as well as others even Athanasius himself interpret not without Probability of the essential Spirit of God and the Doctor both in his Vindication and Apology endeavours thence to prove the Personality of the Holy Ghost and his mutual Consciousness with the Father and the Son Now I sacredly protest I remember not my self ever to have read any Socinian Author on this Text But I find some others by the word Spirit here understand the spiritual Illumination and inward Perswasion of Mind wrought in the Apostles and other faithful People And this we seem enforced from ver 12. to admit where we read the Apostles to have received the Spirit which cannot be well understood of the Person but of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost This agrees too with the Close of ver 10. The Spirit searcheth all things that is scrutari nos facit This Illumination in their Search leads all such who are endowed therewith into the knowledg and belief of all things necessary to their Salvation even the deepest Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven Further this spiritual Gift may be said to know i. e. we by this Illumination know and relish the things of God as feelingly as the Spirit of Man knows the things of a Man because this Gift is so true a Communication from God and as it were somewhat of the Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. imparted to us But that the Spirit of God here spoken of as knowing the things of God should be a Person distinct from God any more than the Spirit of a Man knowing the things of a Man is a Person distinct from the Man seems unreasonable And it is considerable that amongst others even Calvin and Beza allow by the Spirit here may be understood such Gift of Illumination as spoken of But Grotius referring us to what he had said on Mark 2. 8 c. with great Learning and Probability interprets the Spirit here of the Divine Nature of Christ and tells us it was by Christ as coming from the Bosom of his Father and knowing all his Secrets that these things were revealed to the Apostles and that the Sense here is the same as in John 1. 18. and ch 6. 46 c. and he produces many Authorities both from Scripture and Fathers touching the Divine Nature of our Lord being stiled the Spirit Now who shall determine which is the true and genuine Sense and if any of the two latter should be genuine then has not the Dean evinced hence what he conceived and particularly not the mutual Consciousness of the Holy Ghost with the Father and the Son for that the Person of the Holy Ghost is not here spoken of It were easy but that it would be tedious to give like Instances in many other Texts of Holy Scripture What shall we do then It were an admirable Expedient indeed could we determine infallibly this or that to be the true Sense of each controverted Text and then express that Sense in such Words as Hereticks cannot pervert But where shall we find
Fathers perhaps did dispute or opine to this or the like Effect but surely they never designed to impose such a Form of Belief under such damning Clauses as are contained herein This may the rather be concluded for that Gregory Nyssen penn'd the Constantinopolitan So Baronius Creed in that Council ten Years at least after Athanasius his Death And amongst other Fathers of that Council Gregory Nazianzen and Jerome cited here to little Purpose by Mr. Dean approved it as it is without the pretended Athanasian Criticisms and Severities nay without the very Filioque I had Reason therefore as to the Doctrine of the Trinity not to go beyond the Decisions of these Councils but to acquiesce in their Authorities What further Authority beyond that of the Church interposed in the Council of Nice I have no mind to speak I will also pass by here as small Faults some Blunders of Mr. Dean's which he is guilty of in his huddle of Fathers making St. Athanasius St. Hilary and St. Basil to write largely against these Heresies which former Councils had condemned whereas they all three died when there had but yet one Council sat and therein as far as with Certainty appears but one Heresy namely that of Arim condemned for I cannot allow the Quarto Decimani to have been Hereticks they could not therefore write against Heresies condemned by Councils But waving these and other Exceptions which I might justly make touching all these Fathers Writings on this Subject as being impertinently cited against me I say after all if the Worship of the Trinity might be left as these Fathers and particularly as St. Hilary in the End of his twelfth Book of the Trinity left it whose Words I produce not for a Reason any one may guess who pleases to consult them the Differences in this Controversy amongst Protestants would be nearer a Compromise And thus as to my Adhesion to the Authority of these Councils My next Charge is what I confess was great News to me that I am §. 16. Pag. 14. well vers'd in Mr. Hobbs's Divinity Truly though I neither have nor ever had any Esteem for Mr. Hobbs's Divinity yet I could wish my self better skilled in it for then I should better know it when I meet with it in other Mens Writings disguised now 't is said a certain great Person no Stranger to the Temple has lately espoused it under a very slighty Disguise and I should be able more perfectly to wipe off the Imputation of being a Disciple to it at present without any Consciousness to my self cast upon me I could here tell Mr. Dean a very true Secret that there were two Books which I was afraid to read when I was young lest they should corrupt me and Mr. Hobbs's Leviathan was one And having neglected it when my Curiosity was strongest I never read it since So that it would be very strange should I be well vers'd in a Man's Doctrine which I never read But the best of it is Mr. Dean shews here also his great Reading and cites Mr. Hobbs just as before he did the Fathers at random without giving us any Text out of him And I neither have by me nor in case I had have I leisure to search all Mr. Hobbs's Works to see whether he has any such Assertion as Mr. Dean alledges In answering Arguments from Testimony the Testimony it self ought first to be examined And this not appearing I must for that Reason wave any more particular Answer to this Charge Only as to what follows in the Apology I will renew my Request to Mr. Dean as being a Person of Learning for that small Favour that he will hereafter be consistent with and not contradict himself and particularly that he will no more affirm that Point made plain and easy which he confesses difficult and incomprehensible And to prevail with him for this Boon I will promise publickly to beg his Pardon for the Affront of making this my Request to him a second time if I do not immediately prove that in this Matter of the Trinity which here in his Apology he confesses to be an incomprehensible Mystery he does not say again and again in his Vindication thereof that he has made it plain and easy and so has contradicted himself in the Point objected First I say he confesses here the Divine Nature the Trinity of Divine Persons and the Unity of the Divine Essence to be incomprehensible Secondly He says in his Vindication of the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity p. 48. that he will not pretend to fathom such a Mystery as this Here he is for the Incomprehensibility of it Then in his Preface to his Vindication he tells us the writing that Book cost him many Thoughts and those who have a mind throughly to understand it must not think much if it cost them some notwithstanding all that he has done to explain the Mystery Here 's the Difficulty of it acknowledged still Yet a little before in the very self-same Preface he says he has given a very easy and intelligible Notion of a Trinity in Vnity And in his Vindication p. 66. that his Account thereof gives a plain and intelligible Solution of all the Difficulties and seeming Contradictions in the Doctrine of the Trinity And again p. 68. in a kind of an Epiphonema This is a very plain and intelligible Account of this great and venerable Mystery as plain and intelligible as the Notion of one God or of one Person in the Godhead Notions which are very easy and intelligible and whereof all the Difficulties and seeming Repugnancies or Contradictions have received a plain and easy Solution are certainly comprehensible and easy For what hinders them from being so Or what do we mean in our present State by comprehending any Notion or Doctrine but a clear understanding it without any Difficulty or Perplexity That which I said therefore of some Writers pretending to make this Controversy comprehensible and easy is verified in him though I did not name him and so is no spiteful and scandalous Imputation of mine to him as he in his good Nature and sweet Language is pleased to stile it but was justly and truly spoken with Humility and peaceable Design And he must one Day answer if he do not repent for this his second slandering me with Spite against him whom Pag. 11 15. God knows I both loved and honoured and at present wish him as well as my own Soul nor do I reprehend any thing in him which I would bear in my self But now I may set my Heart at Rest as to this Controversy if Mr. Dean will stand to the Profession he has made for he says all that any Man therefore that he pretends to in vindicating the Doctrine of the Trinity Pag. 16. is to prove that this Faith is taught in Scripture This is that which I would be at and have contended for that we may have nothing obtruded upon us for Faith in