Cerinthus was a certain Divine and Impassible Spirit which descending on Jesus at his Baptism dwelt in him and forsook him not till the very moment of his Death when he cried out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Iren. Lib. 1. c. 25. I do not see how this Account contradicts any thing in St. John whose Gospel the Alogians said was written by Cerinthus But I will not dispute with his Lordship about this matter for as I said the Unitarians do receive that Gospel and the Revelation as St. John's as they receive the Epistle to the Hebrews the Epistle of St. James the Second of St. Peter the Second and Third of St. John all which were sometime doubted of nay rejected by divers Catholick Writers and Churches but have at length been owned by the whole Church Tho the Catholick Church now owns these Epistles and some Chapters and Sections in the Gospels as written by the Apostles whose Names they bear yet not with the degree of Assurance that she receives those Parts of Scripture that were never controverted The Assurance cannot be equal where the Grounds of Assent are unequal but the Grounds of Assent to the Writings of which we are speaking cannot be said to be equal because in Matters whether of Record or Fact what was always allowed and granted by all is more authentick and credible than what has been questioned and even rejected by divers of the Antients Writers and Churches who were Catholicks In short concerning all Books and Sections of Books of the New Testament sometime doubted of by some of the Antients the Unitarians acquiesce in the Judgment of the Catholick Church and for the Reasons given by the Church As first because tho they were questioned and even rejected by some Writers and Churches yet it appears they were approved by many more by so considerable a Majority that in a short time they were admitted by all We see in Epiphanius that even Paulus Samosatenus and Photinus received the Gospel of St. John Secondly because not only they contain nothing that is certainly contrary to the unquestioned Parts of Scripture but they are written with the same kind of Spirit that the undoubted Portions of Scripture are there is a Likeness in the Thoughts Expressions and whatsoever else recommends to us the other Books of Scripture as written by Apostles and Apostolical Men. These are sufficient Motives of Assent and ought to prevail with us tho there are some Difficulties not easy to be removed we submit to the weight of these Arguments tho we confess that what has been alledged by the Alogians and others is not despicable or ridiculous To conclude we receive with the Catholick Church the controverted Books without censuring in the mean time much less condemning those Antients or Moderns who were or are of another Mind What remains of his Lordship's first Section is a Scuffle with the Considerer on behalf of the Arch-Bishop's Explication of the first Verses of St. John's Gospel and of some other Texts alledged by his Grace to confirm his said Explication To all which I answer There is no Form of Words that were not conceived designedly to preclude all Exception but is liable to cavil nay our Lawyers scarce obtain their purpose when in Deeds and Conveyances they imploy the whole Art of Grammar to ascertain the Meaning and Intent of the Conveyance or Deed it is not therefore to be wondred at that Persons highly interested by their Education Honour and Parties can and with some colour interpret obscure or ambiguous Texts to a Sense not intended by the Original Author If People are not disposed to be ingenuous a little Wit some Learning and a long Practice in the Polemics will enable 'em to maintain a Squable till Doomsday about the Sense of any ordinary and familiar Context I do not think therefore that the Contention between the Unitarians and the Realists will ever be healed by that Pretence of either Party that theirs is the only Interpretation or Sense of which the litigated Texts are capable in the Court of Grammar and Criticism But towards a Coalition it will be necessary to agree in some common Principles confessed to be clearly asserted in Scripture by Consonancy to which Principles all otherwise doubtful Texts and Contexts of Scripture and their Interpretations shall be judged of This Rule of interpreting is very certain none can distrust it without supposing either that the Sacred Scripture contradicts it self or that the human Understanding is not capable of judging the Agreement or the Dissonance of Scripture with it self No Body I believe will say the former that the Scripture contradicts it self and if any say the other that we cannot judg of the Dissonance or Agreement of Scripture with it self or of particular Interpretations with Principles that are yielded to be found in Scripture all Disputation is at an end on both sides But if the Rule be allowed that some common agreed Principles are to be establisht by which all obscure that is all controverted Texts must be interpreted the Questions and Interpretations debated between us being thus brought before the Bar of Reason and common Sense will soon be judged of Is there but one only God Or if this be a Principle of too much Latitude and capable of more Senses Is there more than one numerical or self-same eternal and infinite Spirit meaning by one eternal and infinite Spirit one eternal and spiritual Substance with one only Vnderstanding Will and Power of Action If it be agreed as a Principle manifestly laid down in Scripture as well as certain in Reason that there is but one such Spirit either we shall all presently accord in interpreting this famous Context of St. John and other obscure and doubtful Passages of Scripture or our difference in interpreting it or them will no way affect any Article of our Creed so that there will be no real Controversy left The Unitarians are far from denying the Trinity of Divine Persons the Incarnation of God the Divinity or Satisfaction of our Saviour provided that those Doctrines be interpreted to a Consistency with this Principle of Holy Scripture and of the Catholick Church that there is but one infinite Spiritual Substance with one only infinite Understanding Will and Energy Or more briefly thus but one infinite and eternal Spirit Either his Lordship says there is but one such Spirit and therefore interprets the Term Persons and the Words Father Son and Holy Spirit not to be so many distinct Spirits but one Spirit distinguished by three Relative Properties in explaining the Nature of which the Church has always indulged some Variety and Latitude and if so we have no controversy with him nor he with us and he may for us interpret the first of St. John and the other Texts on which he insists as himself shall please Or he saith there are three eternal and infinite Spirits and that the Divine Persons are so many spiritual Substances Minds
his Lordship confesses that D. Petavius and H. Valesius the exactest Criticks we have in Church History disapprove the Conjecture and Reasons of Cardinal Baronius and give up Lucian to the Unitaries This is all that is considerable that his Lordship has offer'd from Antiquity I proceed to Scripture and Reason HIS 8th and 10th Chapters are imployed in opposing and as he thinks in exposing and ridiculing some Interpretations of a few Texts of Scripture by the Unitarians and in attacking a few Paragraphs in Mr. Toland's Book Christianity not mysterious I know not what it was to his Lordship's Purpose to fall upon Mr. Toland's Book But if he would needs attack the Book he should have dealt fairly he should have discussed the main Argument in it and not carpt only at a few Passages and those too so mangled and deformed by his Representation of them that I dare to affirm Mr. Toland does not know his own Book in the Bishop's Representation of it I do not perceive to speak truly but that the Book still stands in its full Strength if it hath not also acquired a farther Reputation by occasion of this so unsuccessful nibling at it But suppose the Bishop had disarmed the Gentleman what is that to us do we offer this Book against the Trinity of the Realists was it written with intention to serve us doth it contain any of our Allegations from Reason against the Trinity of Philaponus Joachim and Gentitis We desire him to answer to the Reasons in our Books against the Trinity of the Tritheists but to these he saith not a Word but only falls upon Mr. Toland's Book in which or for which we are not in the least concerned nor do I think the Learned and Ingenious Author will hold himself to be interested to defend that Christianity not mysterious which his Lordship presents us with As to his Exceptions against some Interpretations of Scripture which he finds in some Books of the Unitarians we should have enough to do if we went to the Press to vindicate what has been already so well establisht every time that an angry Litigant is in a humour to write against us His Lordship had a Mind to shew his superiour Learning and Wit and casting the Dice to determine what Subject he should choose up comes the Trinity and the Books of the Unitarians upon these he will gain immortal Honour We wish him Luck but not being at leisure to wipe off every small Soil that may happen to be scattered on our Books our Opposers may safely for us enjoy their Victories We care not for Proselytes that have no manner of Sense and for Persons that have any we dare trust them with whatsoever Vindications we have yet seen we only desire them to read our Arguments whether from Reason or Scripture as they stand in our own Books not as they are disguised in Vindications The Exempts of the Church who are discharged from the mean Drudgery of Preaching the Gospel and are concerned only in the noble Imployment of Commanding how easy is it for them to come out now and then with a magisterial Book seeing whether 't is home to the Purpose or not is solely at the Buyer's Peril In short if his Lordship has baffled the Interpretations of the Unitarians against which he has concerned himself in the Opinion of any Reader he shall for me enjoy his Success for my part I am enough perswaded without further arguing the Matter that he has spent his Breath against a Rock His Lordship's Explication of the Trinity AFter his Lordship has taken so much Pains to vindicate the Doctrine of the Trinity let us see what kind of Trinity he believes and contends for For Mr. Biddle also wrote a Book for the Trinity his Lordship's Title bears A Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity but Mr. Biddle far more speciously and zealously The Apostolical Opinion of the Holy Trinity asserted Ay but his Lordship's Trinity is the Athanasian Trinity he has a whole Chapter in Vindication and Explication of the Creed of Athanasius Well but Father Wallis too published a Book intituled An Explication and Vindication of the Creed of Athanasius They both of them interpret the Athanasian Creed and then believe it that is believe it according to their own Sense of it And so do we that is we believe it according to the Sense they make of it But his Lordship believes and contends for that Trinity which the Unitarians deny and oppose I 'll give thee my Cap then what Proof do you make of his believing that Trinity which we deny Why he has wrote two whole Books against you one concerning the Satisfaction the other concerning the Trinity But my Brother S th also wrote two bigger Books in both which he blames and quarrels the Unitarians as abominable Hereticks and yet we so little think that we have any real Difference with him that we intend him an eminent Place in the Company of Vnitarians at our next General Assembly His Lordship has a whole Chapter 't is that remarkable Chap. 6. beginning at pag. 68. and ending at p. 101. the longest or one of the longest in his Book to state the Notion of the Trinity and to vindicate it from Contradictions He begins with observing 1. We must distinguish between the Being of a thing and a thing in Being Or between Essence and Existence 2. Between the Unity of Nature or Essence and of Existence or Individuals of the same Nature 3. Between the Notion of Persons in a finite Substance and in a Being uncapable of Division or Separation After he has spoken first of the first he comes to say 2. We must now distinguish the Unity which belongs to the common Nature from that which belongs to Individuals in actual Being And farther the Unity of Existence may be consider'd 1. Either where the Essence and the Existence are the same as they are in God 2. Or where the Existence is contingent as in Creatures Moreover the Unity of Existence may be considered 1st Either as to it self and so it is Identity 2dly Or as to others that is as every one stands divided from every other Individual of the same kind altho they all partake of the same common Nature or Essence The clearing of this he adds is that main Point on which the whole Notion of these Matters depends so in order thereto we must consider 1. What that is whereby we perceive the Difference of Individuals 2. What that is which really makes two Beings of the same kind to be different from each other 1. As to the Reason of our Perception of the Difference between Individuals of the same kind it depends 1st On the Difference of outward Accidents Feature Age Meen Habit c. 2dly On the Difference of inward Qualities which we may perceive by Observation and which arise from Constitution Education Company acquired Habits c. 2. As to the true Ground of the real Difference between the
Existence of one Individual from the rest it depends on the separate Existence which it hath from all others For that which gives it a Being distinct from all others and divided by individual Properties is the true ground of the Difference between them and that can be no other but the Will of God But we are not yet come by a good way to the bottom of the Matter Truly I am sorry for it for I am half tired already and quite lost in this Labyrinth of 1 2 3 2 1. 2 1 2 1 2 2 but let 's go on since we needs must As to Individuals so he proceeds towards the bottom there are these things to be considered 1. Actual Existence in it self which hath a Mode belonging to it And otherwise the human Nature of Christ could not have been united to the Divine but it must have had also the personal Subsistence and consequently there must have been two Persons in Christ I suppose it may be Kabbala or Chaldee but Sense it is not 2. A separate and divided Existence from all others which arises from the actual Existence but may be distinguished from it As the human Nature of Christ altho it had the Existence proper to Being yet had not a separate Existence after the Hypostatical Union Be not abash'd Sir the Meaning only is some things exist separately others in Union or Composition But deep Men as his Lordship somewhere says of his Party must express themselves deeply to keep up the Reputation of what they falsly call Learning for were their Theorems deliver'd in plain English they would be thought to be childish Trifles 3. The peculiar manner of Subsistence which lies in such Properties as are incommunicable to any other and therein consists the proper Reason of Personality Which doth not consist in a mere intelligent Being but in that peculiar manner of Subsistence in that Being which can be in no other For when the common Nature doth subsist in Individuals there is not only a separate Existence but something so peculiar to it self that it can be communicated to no other The downright English is this Tom hath something so peculiar to himself that tho he is a Man yet he is not Will or Ned but only Tom. 4. There is a common Nature which must be joined with this manner of Subsistence to make a Person otherwise it would be a mere Mode but we never conceive a Person without the Essence in conjunction with it But here appears no manner of Contradiction in asserting several Persons in the same common Nature In English thus Tallness or Leanness or such like Modes do not alone make a Person there must be some Essence Nature or Substance added to the Mode of Tallness suppose or Leanness else mere Tallness will not be a Person And hence it is clear as the Sun that there is no manner of Contradiction in asserting several Persons such as Tallness Leanness Dulness when joined to some Essence or Substance in one and the same common Nature as suppose of Humanity We shall consider this poor Elusion by and by 5. The Individuals of the same kind are said to differ in Number from each other because of their different Accidents and separate Existence Or thus Tom and Ned are two Men not one Man because they are several Men and have several different Qualities I think the Critick might have left out the different Qualities for tho the Qualities of Tom and Ned were the same yet by only being several Men they would be two Men and not one 6. There must be a Separation in Nature where there is a Difference of Individuals of the same kind I do not say an actual Separation or Division as to Place but there is and must be in Nature where one common Nature subsists in several Individuals For all Individuals must divide the Species and the common Nature unites them Or Will is not Harry the human Nature is divided in these two Persons yet they are both of them Men they are not Camels nor yet Dromedaries for they are united in the human Nature not in the Camel or Dromedary-Nature 3. This 3dly comes but oddly after 6thly but let us hear what it is We are now to inquire how far these things will hold as to the Persons in the Trinity I shall answer in short they will not hold at all and that for this demonstrative Reason which the Builder of this intricate Labyrinth hath unhappily overlook'd These 1 2 3 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 3 are so many Boxes with each of 'em a Mystery in it but here is the Misfortune They speak of such Natures as have no Existence but only in our Conception mere abstracted Natures such as human Nature Camel-Nature Angelical Nature that have not a real Existence but only an imaginary for there is really no such existing thing as human Nature or Camel-Nature but they are Notions only of the Mind framed by our Understandings while they are imployed in considering wherein or in what Properties all Men do agree They all agree for instance in Rationality and Risibility and therefore these two have been named by Metaphysicians the human Nature As the Natures of which the aforesaid Boxes speak are only abstracted notional and imaginary Natures not really existing Natures so on the contrary the Persons in them are not mere Metaphysical Persons or such relative Properties that several of them do or can subsist in the same rational Being but they are such Persons as necessarily suppose distinct Substances as well as distinct Properties For instance the Properties that make the Personalities of Harry and Charles require distinct Substances to make the Persons of Harry and Charles those Properties if they existed only in a common Nature as the Humanity and had not also distinct Substances they would never make distinct Persons In short the Boxes speak of imaginary Natures or Essences and of Persons who are so many real Substances They will not therefore hold at all in the Question of the Trinity For the Blessed Trinity is of a just contrary Nature to the Mysteries in the Boxes In the Trinity the Nature is a really existing Nature 't is a spiritual Substance and indued with a great Number of Divine Attributes not an abstracted or mere notional imaginary Nature and the Persons are as unlike to the Persons in the Boxes for the Divine Persons are not distinct Substances or real Beings but Properties only in a real Being and in an infinite Substance To argue as his Lordship does from imaginary Natures to a real Nature and from Persons that are distinct Beings and distinct Substances to Persons which he dares not but say they are only relative Properties in the same intellectual Substance and Being I say to argue after that fashion is to shoot as wide of his Mark as the Natures and Persons of which he is to discourse are different which is no less than infinitely
The Pains therefore he has taken in this long sixth Chapter which was designed for the Strength of his whole Book are lost and he has all things to begin anew You will say Have we done then with our explaining and vindicating the Trinity No Sir When his Lordship had wrote his Book and upon a Review of it perceived that he had not sufficiently no nor tolerably explained his Notion of the Trinity nor yet what is meant either by Persons or Personalities which must be explained and distinguished or we shall dispute about we know not what and with we know not whom I say his Lordship perceiving his Oversight wrote a Preface of 62 Pages chiefly to declare himself upon and to clear these Matters I will lay together what he hath said up and down in his Preface which I may rightly call his Book upon second Thoughts The Trinity in Unity is one individual Substance under three different Modes of Subsistence p. 13. Or 't is three peculiar Properties in one and the same Divine Nature p. 14. But more particularly as to Personality and Person A Personality is no more but a different Mode of Subsistence in the same common Nature p. 14. In created Beings every Personality doth suppose a distinct Substance But not from the Nature of Personality but from the Condition of the Subject or Substance in which it is p. 15. But I do not advise him to explain too particularly the latter part of this Theorem lest the Realists should turn it into Ridicule 't is a very obnoxious Proposition But when we come to consider a Divine Essence there can be no way of Distinction conceived in it but by different Modes of Subsistence or what is the same relative Properties in the same Divine Essence p. 16. In short then a Personality is only a particular Mode of Subsistence and in the Divine Nature Essence or Substance 't is most properly called a relative Property For instance Paternity or active Generation Filiation or passive Generation or begotten So much for Madam PERSONALITY now for Sir PERSON The Notion of a Person besides the relative Property comprizes the Divine Nature together with it p. 17. And again in his Book at p. 119. They agreed in the name Persons to express their Meaning which was That there are three which have distinct Subsistences and incommunicable Properties but one and the same Divine Essence You are to wot here Sir that by the Divine Nature or Divine Essence they mean the Deity it self that is the Divine Substance with its several Attributes Omniscience Omnipotence infinite Justice and Goodness and the rest These namely the Divine Substance and Attributes are called the Divine Nature or Essence and because herein are three relative Properties unbegotten begotten a proceeding therefore each of these Properties when consider'd with the Divine Essence and Attributes is called a Person But here his Lordship is in bodily Fear lest this Explication of the Trinity or three Divine Persons should be taken for Sabellianism and therefore be understood to be an entire yielding the Cause to the Unitarians The Men from whom he fears this Imputation are the Realist Party chiefly Dr. Cudworth who saith of this Explication that it is the Philosophy of Gotham a nominal Trinity and three such Persons as cannot be in Nature But see now how dexterously his Lordship comes off It is not Sabellianism to teach that every Divine Person is a Person as he hath the Divine Nature Essence or Substance belonging to him For Sabellianism is the asserting such relative Persons as have no Essence at all p. 18 19. So that if the Unitarians do but confess that the three Properties unbegotten begotten and proceeding which are here called RELATIVE PERSONS subsist or are in the Divine Essence or Nature they are not Sabellians but Catholicks they should be Sabellians if they said these Properties are in no Essence at all But I think they must be called Fools as well as Sabellians if they asserted relative Properties or any Properties that were in no Essence I perceive his Lordship and we shall agree But let us hear also how he goes on Farthermore it is to be noted that there is a Communication of the Divine Essence to each Divine Person p. 19. For each Divine Person has an absolute Nature distinctly belonging to him tho not a distinct absolute Nature p. 9. The eternal Father is and subsists as a Father by having a Son and by communicating his Essence to another The Relation between Father and Son is founded on that eternal Act by which the Father communicates his Divine Nature Essence or Substance to the Son p. 10. Lastly he adds at p. 112. of his Book The Divine Persons are distinct as to personal Properties he means the Father is unbegotten the Son begotten the Holy Spirit neither begetting nor begotten but proceeding but they are not distinct as to essential Attributes i. e. they have not distinct Omnisciencies or Omnipotencies they have but one Intellect and one Energy You will say Sir this last is very sound that unbegotten begotten and proceeding are distinct Properties in the Divine Essence and that there is but one Omniscience and Omnipotence but one Omniscient and Omnipotent not three Omniscients or three Omnipotents But may there not be a Snake in the Grass in what is said that there is a Communication of the Divine Essence and that the Father by an immanent and eternal Act communicates his Divine Nature to the Son By no Means for you shall hear from the Bishop of Sarum and the Divines of the Schools nay for greater Surety and Caution from Dean Sherlock and the Fathers what that eternal Act is by which the Father communicates the Divine Essence to the Son and both of them to the Spirit as also what is meant by Father Son and Spirit nothing I assure you that any Unitarian ever questioned but what we believe as sincerely as Bishops and Deans do I pray Sir observe we are inquiring what is the eternal Act by which the Divine Essence is communicated to the Divine Persons and what those Persons are Let us first hear Dr. Sherlock who saith he hath all the Fathers of his side He affirms 1. It is essential to an eternal Mind to know it self and to love it self 2. Original Mind or Wisdom or Knowledg of it self and Love of it self and of its own Image are distinct Acts and can never be one Act. 3. These three Acts being so distinct that they can never be the same must be three substantial Acts in God that is the three Divine subsisting Persons 4. These then are the true and proper Characters of the distinct Persons in the Trinity the Father is Original Mind or Wisdom The Son is the reflex Knowledg of himself namely of Original Mind or the perfect Image of his own Wisdom that is of the Wisdom of Original Mind The Holy Spirit is that Divine Love which Father and Son have for
Article he makes us believe a great many things as that the first Man was not created in a State of Vprightness As if it were possible that Men in their right Senses should think the first Man was created a Sinner That by his Fall Adam did not lose Righteousness and Holiness which are part of the Image of God As who should say that by being a Sinner he did not sin or become unlike to God That Adam's Posterity have received no hurt or stain by his Apostacy As if you should say that neither his bad Example nor the Curse that made the Earth so much less fruitful was any hurt and that the Rebellion of an Ancestor no not against God is no blot in his Family I shall grow quite out of Conceit with these Unitarians if they say many more such weak things But in very deed I imagine Mr. Edwards had a mind to have charged 'em more home when he does we shall consider what to answer I am of opinion that in this part of the Article he is somewhat ashamed of his own Doctrine and that he feared to make himself and Party ridiculous by a clear and distinct Representation of their Opinion That Mankind notwithstanding Adam's Fall have by Nature an Ability to desire and imbrace all spiritual Good and to avoid all that is sinful or vitious They are bold Britans What imbrace all the Gospel-Precepts by mere Nature When 't is not possible so much as to know divers of them but by Revelation Divine And can they avoid too all that is vitious by only Nature In good truth they are better and stronger by Nature than ever I hope to be in this Life by the super-added Grace of the Gospel But here again he did not strike home he intended more than he durst say and he durst not say it lest we should ask him whether he believes the just contrary That there is no need of the Spirit to repent believe and perform religious Acts. 'T is a serious Point We answer with St. Paul the Spirit HELPETH our Infirmities Rom. 8.26 But we judg for all that the Holy Scripture giveth no occasion to any to turn Enthusiasts and to resolve the whole Duty we owe and must perform to God and to our Neighbour into praeternatural Impulses as if we were Machines and not Men. Or Puppets moved by invisible Wires not Men that act by their own Reason and Choice That Men are Righteous before God not by the Merit of Christ but by their own good Works We answer with all but Antinomians and the more rigid Calvinists the Merit of Christ is not reckoned to us without good Works of our own But I am not certain that the Calvinist or Antinomians would not assent to this Proposition or not allow it to be Orthodox V. Another Branch of our Creed according to Mr. Edwards runs thus I believe concerning a future State that the Souls of the Deceased have no Knowledg or Perception of any thing they are not sensible of any Rewards or Pains and their very Nature is absorpt That at Death the Soul as well as the Body sleeps was an Error of some of the most antient Fathers as well as of some Unitarians But neither of them said as Mr. Edwards pretends that in Death the very Nature of the Soul is absorpt they both held that there is a Resurrection of the Soul as well as Body But why does Mr. Edwards impute that Opinion to us when he had read for he quotes the Book in the first Part of the Considerations on the Explication of the Trinity what is our Sense of this Matter The Words there at p. 33. are these This Error was common to Socinus with some of the Fathers The learned Mr. Du. Pinn has noted in his Abridgment of the Fathers that Justin Martyr Irenaeus Minutius Foelix and Arnobius were in this Sentiment There was no Reason to object this to Socinus as if it were a peculiar Opinion of his much less to the English Unitarians who never defended it nor that I know of do any of them hold it VI. He says next I believe we shall not rise with the same Bodies that we now have but that another Matter or Substance shall be substituted in their Place I see most of our Opposers have affected to mistake our Meaning concerning the Resurrection of the Body We hold nothing that is singular in the case we differ not from the Catholick Church about it We say with St. Paul 1 Cor. 15.35 How are the Dead raised and with what Bodies do they come Thou sowest not the Body that shall be The Body that is raised is not in all respects the same that was committed to the Earth in divers perhaps in the most it is We rise not Infants or decrepit old Men or lame or deaf or any way distorted tho many so lived and so died Nay as to the Passions resulting from the Complexion of the present Body and therefore to be reckoned the Modifications and as it were Parts of our Body we rise not with them it is not the same Body in respect of those Passions that it here lived For instance some are by Complexion very cowardly or pensive or cholerick or jealous the Body that shall be will not be such it will be conformed to the Likeness of the glorious Body of the Lord Christ that is be freed from all both external and internal Imperfections Farthermore our present Body Physicians and Philosophers say is in a continual Flux all the Parts of it internal as well as external continually decay and are continually renewed They decay by the Perspiration that is continually caused by the internal Heat and are continually renewed by the Nourishment taken in and converted into Blood Spirits Flesh and Bones 'T is said by the Learned in these Matters that no Man's Body is the very same as to the Matter and Substance of it this present Year that it was the last Year and will be the next Year 't is wholly new-built by the Nourishment of the present Year We say therefore there shall be a Resurrection of the Body and as some of the antient Creeds spoke of the same Body as truly and as properly as N. N. is the same Man this Year that he was one or seven or twenty Years ago If Mr. Edwards requires us to say more he exacts more than the Church believes for by the Resurrection of the same Body the Church intends only that 't is as truly the same as a Man notwithstanding the Flux of his Parts is now the same N. N. that he was seven or ten Years past yet not altogether the same because inconceivably better that is without any external or internal Deformities or Weaknesses VII I believe that at the Day of Judgment Men shall not be required to give an Account of their Actions the most flagitious Sinners shall not be examined concerning any thing of their past Life only they shall be