and National Synods We have her Mind in her publick Confessions of Faith She is so far from espousing any sort of explication that she ever thought that that great Mystery could not be explain'd The Church suffers Men to write concerning these matters St. Austin has given several considerable reasons for it in his Books on this very Subject and in that de utilit credend The opposing of Heresy the improvement of Piety the study of the Holy Scriptures of which this makes so considerable a part are the principal But to think that the Church will stand by all the Opinions of private Writers and own their errours and mistakes is a prodigious inadvertency What Church in the World can be safe if made to answer for all the Authors of her Communion What becomes then of the objection It is all overthrown in this one word The Church has nothing to do with those explications which the Socinians fansie they have so much expos'd And as for the explications themselves I believe that if the Judicious Hooker and the Learned Cudworth were alive you durst not so much as name them The rest are Men of great abilities who can arm in their defence no better Pens than their own Socin But do you put Bishops and eminent Bishops too in the rank of private Persons Who can best speak the sence of the Church but those who are call'd by the Fathers the Husbands of their Churches the Keepers of the Canons and the Successors of the Apostles Some seem to be Tritheists and others seem to be Sabellians Orthod Truly you have us'd the Bishops in your Writings as if they had been no more than private Persons the reflections on their Lordships having been so sharp and so many His Grace the late Arch-Bishop whom by your own confession you ought to have reverenc'd was not free from your aspersions My Lord of Glocester has had his share In the latest answer to my Lord of Sarum you forget the large Encomiums given him before The Bishop of Worcester for whom the Learned World has so just a value met in the answer to his late Book with the same way of Entertainment But laying all this aside and answering your meaning A Bishop with all the respect due to the Sacred Dignity is still a private Doctor Nor can the Church be favourable to his explications if they are contrary to her Doctrine But what of all this Our Bishops are all Orthodox Socin I do not know what you mean by Orthodox There is no Orthodoxy but Truth They who teach Three Gods cannot be Orthodox and this is done by the Real Trinitarians The Socinians believe and adore but one and this is done by the Nominals The greatest part of the Church goes I confess that way and therefore it is Orthodox because Socinian In short we may talk till Doom's day and never be the Wiser The question at last must be this are you a Real or a Nominal Trinitarian If a Real then we shall never be reconcil'd If a Nominal then we are certainly agreed Orthod What I have said already seems to me to be satisfactory But since you are not contented with it let us examine the several parts of your distinction What is the meaning of Real Trinitarians But let me beg of you to answer plainly and directly Socin I will answer in the very words of the Author of the Discourse concerning them He says pag. 7. The Realists are denominated from their believing Three distinct Divine Spirits or Minds who are so many Real subsisting Persons Again p. 19. They are every day Challeng'd and impeach'd of Tritheism And again p. 25. Themselves do sometimes almost openly and explicitely own and profess their Tritheism Their doctrine of the Trinity manifestly implies Three Gods Orthod What is the meaning of Nominal Trinitarians Socin They are they who maintain a Trinity which Consists only in the several Names Offices Relations and Modes of Existence of the Divine Nature This was first taught by Noëtus and Sabellius embrac'd afterwards by the assertors of the Homoousios and receiv'd by the Schools and Divinity Chairs ever since This is the substance of what he says of the Nominals in the first part of the Discourse Orthod And this you make the Foundation of that difference which you imagine to be in the Church and has of late fill'd up all your Prints Socin Yes indeed and with a great deal of Reason You are all afraid of the distinction It is of your side so notorious a giving up of the Cause that we have parted with all our Old Arguments and retrench'd our selves there as in a place from whence we cannot be driven Orthod Then pray set your heart at rest and suffer your selves to be forc'd from it For I presume positively to averr that there is no such thing in nature as these Trinitarians of your own making You pretended already to a God of your own making You wish'd for a Scripture of your own making To make a Trinity too is a little too hard I say then and pray forgive the sharpness of the words that all this is a mistake a slander and a calumny upon the Church Socin How much must you abate of your assurance when I shew you in several late Writings that the Three Persons of the Trinity are Three distinct Infinite Minds Spirits and Substances I appeal to your self whether this is not manifest Tritheism For what is God but an Infinite Mind Spirit or Substance Orthod I have told you already and tell you again that such expressions are wholly unknown to the Church and therefore cannot with any candor be fastn'd upon it Oblige me so far as to shew me a Church in the World this day or formerly which uses them or else be pleas'd to own that you are guilty of a great deal of disingenuity But though such a denial is sufficient because it is of a thing which you cannot and dare not undertake to prove yet it will be much clearer if you give your self the trouble to consider that such a notion in the Christian Church is impossible and has not the least ground or appearance of truth You are acquainted with the Sacred Writings of the New Testament and no doubt have inform'd your self of the Confessions of Faith of the Ancient Councils the assertions of the generality of the Fathers the doctrine of the Schoolmen the sense of the Greek and Latin Church even since the fatal separation and in the division of so many Kingdoms from the last in these two Ages you know perfectly all the Articles which the Famous Societies of Protestants have declar'd to be the points of their belief This suppos'd I lay before you these plain and easy but Substantial Observations First That the Church of God has always asserted the Vnity of the Divine Nature as the Foundation of all Religion It has been its great and distinguishing Character You will tell me that the Philosophers did so
too and that the Jews were witnesses to all the World of this Sacred Truth I grant it The Unity of God was the Fundamental Article of the Mosaical dispensation Pythagoras Socrates Plato Aristotle the Academicks have spoke admirably well to it But I say that Christianity has been as far superior to them in this point as they themselves exceeded the rest of Mortals For the Jews kept this to themselves without propagating it to others and the wise Heathen confuting their doctrine by their practice openly embrac'd Polytheism None treated of God and his Divine Attributes of which the Vnity is the Center as the Holy Jesus and his disciples have done This the Apostles spread through the World This the Fathers taught indefatigably One God One Divine Nature Spirit Mind substance has been the constant Voice of the Church He is not a Christian who believes not that God is one and can be but one If it were not too tedious I would produce some of their Authorities Socin It is altogether needless This is our very Doctrine I am fully perswaded of this and infinitely pleas'd to hear you speak so home to it Orthod I am afraid you will not be so well pleas'd with my second observation and it is this That the same Church of God which so Zealously asserted his Vnity never did it without asserting at the same time a Trinity of Persons in that One Divine Nature No matter of fact which depends from Testimony can be made to appear more incontestably true than this You have a large Collection of Books at home Let us step to your Library and I dare engage to convince you of this by the most exact induction of particulars which can ever be made from the very Apostolical Creed to this time I say once more and presume to be positive in it that the Church in delivering the Faith ever taught the Existence of God to be necessary and Eternal and his Vnity so perfect and entire that it transcends what notion soever we have of Unity even that which we call Numerical coming much short of it But at the same time she taught and profess'd to believe and adore in that Vnity of Nature a Trinity of Hypostases or Persons the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit Thus run the Apostolical the Nicene Ephesine and Constantinopolitan Creeds Thus speak the Ante-Nicene Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Thus all the Learning of the Schools and all the now Churches in the World express themselves Thirdly But least the belief of a Trinity of Persons whose Coeternity and Coequality is asserted should affect the Vnity of the Divine Nature the Church has stated it in one and the same indivisible and inseparable simple and uncompounded Essence They are Coeternal and Coequal because Coessential And they are Coessential because Subsisting in that Nature which cannot be multiply'd It is true to say of each Person that he is God and yet it is false to say that they are Three Gods The Trinity multiplying the Persons but the Vnity remaining the same that is the greatest and most unconceivable Vnity in the World And therefore the Sacred Councils and the Fathers have been carefull to the utmost to distinguish the Personality from the Nature as afraid of multiplying the one as of confounding the other You see then that the first member of your distinction is worth nothing The charge laid against the Church in that particular is not only false but impossible You have attempted to divide the Church of God into two Parties The first you have accus'd of Tritheism or of teaching the belief and Worship of Three Gods Unfortunate in this that the very exposition of the Doctrine of the Church the very reading of any one Creed is an open confutation of what you have pretended to make us guilty of Socin I hope you will not take it ill If I make some remarks as well as you First I confess that the Nicene and following Councils spoke as you do and that many of the Post-Nicene Fathers the Schoolmen and the present Churches agree with you in this but I deny it of the Apostolical Creed which ought to have been the Form of all the rest Where can you find there a Trinity in Vnity Where can you see Coeternity Coequality Coessentiality and all those Famous Terms which the Church perserv'd ever since For my part I can perceive no such thing To this Creed we stand as to a rule left us by the Apostles themselves Suffer us to keep but that and take you all the rest Secondly I challenge the Ante-Nicene Fathers we say they are strangers to your Doctrine The Answer to Dr. Bull has made it invincibly appear Have you taken notice how the Learned Author of that answer has discover'd the impostures of Pseudo-Hermas and the pretended Epistles of Barnabas and Ignatius What clear account he has given of the Nazarens Mineans and Alogi And what a plain proof he has brought against your Trinity and the Divinity of Jesus Christ out of the Epistle of Clemens of Rome to the Church of Corinth Thirdly Admitting all your allegations to be true A Trinity in Vnity Three Gods in one God is a thing wholly unaccountable Orthod The question between you and me is not whether it is unaccountable or not The question is whether those whom you call Real Trinitarians have departed from the doctrine of the Unity of God and have actually and manifestly as you speak own'd their Tritheism The matter of Fact and not the Reasonableness or Unreasonableness of the thing is the Point in dispute Your mistake is Palpable For the Trinity in Vnity is not Three Gods in one God a Language which the Church ever abhorr'd but Three Persons in one God Three Subsistences in one Divine Nature Pray name me one Man in the Church even of those who have most abounded in their own sense and spoke most loosly in the explication of our Mysteries who was not as Zealous a defender of the Unity of God as yourself can be This is then the most unpardonable want of Candor imaginable You call me a Tritheist I deny it You prove it because I believe the Blessed Trinity I own I do Then you exclaim I believe Three Gods The Father the Son and the Holy Spirit I say No! For though the Father is God the Son is God and the Holy Ghost God yet they are but one God For God can be but one The Divine Nature is incapable of Multiplication Division or Augmentation You may and will urge again that this is very unreasonable I hope to shew you one day that it is highly Rational But in the mean time I gain the point and complain that you do me wrong and are inexcusable in charging me with destroying the Unity of God 2ly You are positive that the Ante-Nicene Fathers asserted the Vnity but not the Trinity I suppose you mean in our sence of a Trinity or else the mistake is not
c. 13. he tells you that the Scriptures deliver so Manifestly Christ to be God that several Hereticks Divinitatis ipsius magnitudine veritate commoti mov'd by the great sence and truth of his Divinity have confounded him with the Father But if we had no such proofs as these there is still one which according to your late Principles you cannot oppose I say your late Principles for you change every day Socin No! You do us wrong we are still the same Orthod I may at some time or other have an occasion to prove the defection of the Outlandish Socinians from Socinus of you from the Outlandish Socinians and of your selves from your selves in your first and latest Prints But let us not digress from the thing in dispute The proof which I speak of is the great Council of Nice Socin What That Council which has publish'd Establish'd and infected the World with its infidelity As the Answer to Dr. Bull judiciously observes pag. 25. Orthod That first Oecumenical Council which could not be ignorant both of the sense of the Apostolical Creed and of the Fathers whom they immediately succeeded A Council so venerable for its Antiquity so reverenc'd for the number of Holy and Learned Men who voted in it so highily honour'd by the following Ages to this day Did they know the Apostolical Creed or did they not If you say they did not you overthrow all that you can pretend from it A Creed can neither be Apostolical or Universal which the Nicene Fathers were not acquainted with And if they did then your sense of it is not that of these Primitive times For they are so far from interpreting as you do Jesus Christ to be only Man and the Holy Spirit to be only an Energy or operation that you know how positively how earnestly they assert them to be Consubstantial to the Father I may be mistaken but if this way of reasoning is not plain I don't know what can be plain Socin But what have we to do with the Council of Nice or indeed with any Council whatsoever We have innumerable objections against that and the following Councils Orthod I confess you speak as a Socinian of the first edition Thus Socinus and his first Disciples answer'd to those great Authorities Thus did your selves Write in your first Prints The World indeed star'd at you But however it had an air if not of reason at least of sincerity But a Socinian of the second edition runs another way I told you that you change every day Pray open the Discourse concerning the Real and Nominal Trinitarians Socin What then Orthod There you may sind your Condemnation in that particular out of your own mouth Pag. 4. The Author speaking of the Great Lateran Council observes that a doctrine is not Heresy because rejected by a great number of Learned Men or by a National Council But only when censur'd by a General Council The Catholick Church is never understood to speak but by a General Council pag. 5. Is not a General Council the Highest Court of the Church Her Canons declare the Faith her Anathema's Heresy And pag. 16. A General Council is the last Tribunal on earth from which there lies no appeal pag. 4. He call this an Incontestable Argument Now pray deal sincerely and apply this to the Nicene Council No body ever yet disputed its universality It was assembl'd under and by the first Christian Emperor It represented the whole Church The Creed then of that Council determin'd the sense of any preceeding Creed Whatever you can say to the contrary is insignificant because such a determination comes from the highest Tribunal on earth from which there lies no appeal Upon the whole the Church ever asserted a Trinity consistent with the Vnity of God and an Unity inseparable from a Trinity of Persons in one adorable and Divine Nature Where is then again the first part of your Distinction You charge us with teaching a Trinity which infers Three Gods We say this is false this is impossible not only from the Nature of the thing but also from an Authority which you dare not reject because you own your selves that it is the highest Tribunal on earth from which there can lie no appeal Socin This seems home indeed But yet not without exception For the Vnity asserted by the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers was only an Vnity of Monarchy An Vnity of love and agreement An Vnity of subordination and subjection to him who is the first God Such an Vnity as is that of the Individuals of the same Species This the Author of the Answer to Dr. Bull is positive in pag. 75. He charges the Fathers with this all over his Writing and the greatest part of it is spent in the confutation of such strange Hypotheses Orthod Pray learn to mistrust your Books For I may say without breaking the Cartel of honour and civility agreed upon amongst Writers as this Author speaks both Pleasantly and Elegantly pag. 77. that not one word of this is true and that such an account of the Vnity of God never came from the Church but owes its birth to the School of Arrius This Author though a Person of great erudition has suffer'd himself to be strangely mistaken as any one may who will take all the expressions illustrations resemblances us'd by the Fathers in treating of the Blessed Trinity for an exact account of their Doctrine For there is a great difference between speaking at large and endeavouring to give some kind of a Notion of a Mystery and writing dogmatically concerning it I have a plain reason which I humbly conceive is sufficient to overthrow all this And that is that the Fathers in explaining how the Three Persons are one God never confin'd themselves to the Terms of Numerical or specifick Vnity This last is meerly Notional and is no more than an act of the Mind comparing and abstracting from several Individuals It does not really exist The first though never so expressive still comes short of the incomprehensible dignity and simplicity of the Subject Socin What Vnity then did they assert Orthod An Vnity which no Nature but the Divine is capable of which transcends all expressions or imaginations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says the Council of Ephesus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Justin Martyr Hoc solum ex ea comprehendimus quod comprehendi non potest says St. Ambrose Thus speak Basil the Great Nazianzen Gregory Nyssen and the generality of the Fathers And yet this Author has spent 13 pages to tell us that they believ'd a specifick Vnity and Vnity of Monarchy and order an Vnity of love and agreement a Consubstantiality like that of several pieces of Gold and of a Star to another Star As if these trifles deserv'd the name of Incomprehensible and if we could say of any of them as Eulogius Patriarch of Alexandria 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not bringing those things which are so far above our thoughts to the