without this must this presently be run down as Heresie when he asserts at the same time three Persons in the same undivided Essence But this is said to be a Contradiction so it was in the other case and not allow'd then and why should it be otherwise in this I speak not this to justifie such Explications but to shew that there is a difference between the Heresie of denying an Article and a mistake in the Explication of it Even the greatest Heresie-makers in the world distinguish between Heresies and erroneous Explications of Articles of Faith as any one may find that looks into them And even the Inquisitors of Heresie themselves allow the distinction between Heresie and an erroneous Proposition in Faith which amounts to the same with a mistaken Explication of it and they all grant that there may be Propositions that tend to Heresie or savour of it which cannot be condemned for Heretical And even Pegna condemns Melchior Canus for being too cruel in asserting it to be Heresie to contradict the general Sense of Divines because the Schools cannot make Heresies 2. It is frequently and solemnly affirmed by him That the Unity of the Godhead is the most real essential indivisible inseparable Unity that there is but one divine Nature which is originally in the Father and is substantially communicated by the Father to the Son as a distinct subsisting Person by an eternal ineffable Generation and to the Holy Ghost by an eternal and substantial Procession from Father and Son Do the others who maintain a Trinity deny this By no means For we have already seen that they assert the same thing So that they are fully agreed as to the main fundamental Article And even the Unitarians yield that from the beginning he asserted That the three divine Persons are in one undivided Substance Wherein then lies the foundation of this mighty Quarrel and those unreasonable Heats that Men have fallen into about it to the great scandal of our Church and Religion In short it is this that the same Author asserts 1. That it is gross Sabellianism to say That there are not three personal Minds or Spirits or Substances 2. That a distinct substantial Person must have a distinct Substance of his own proper and peculiar to his own Person But he owns that although there are three distinct Persons or Minds each of whom is distinctly and by himself God yet there are not three Gods but one God or one Divinity which he saith is intirely and indivisibly and inseparably in three distinct Persons or Minds That the same one divine Nature is wholly and entirely communicated by the eternal Father to the eternal Son and by the Father and Son to the eternal Spirit without any Division or Separation and so it remains one still This is the substance of this new Explication which hath raised such Flames that Injunctions from authority were thought necessary to suppress them But those can reach no farther than the restraint of Mens Tongues and Pens about these matters and unless something be found out to satisfie their Minds and to remove Misapprehensions the present Heat may be only cover'd over and kept in which when there is a vent given may break out into a more dangerous Flame Therefore I shall endeavour to state and clear this matter so as to prevent any future Eruption thereof which will be done by considering how far they are agreed and how far the remaining difference ought to be pursued 1. They are agreed That there are three distinct Persons and but one Godhead 2. That there are no separate and divided Substances in the Trinity but the divine Nature is wholly and entirely one and undivided 3. That the divine Essence is communicated from the Father to the Son and from both to the holy Spirit So that the charge of Sabellianism on those who reject this new Explication is without ground For no Sabellian did or could assert a Communication of the divine Essence Which being agreed on both sides the Dispute turns upon this single point whether a communicated Essence doth imply a distinct Substance or not On the one side it is said That there being but one God there can be but one divine Essence and if more Essences more Gods On the other side that since they own a communicated Essence necessary to make a distinction of Persons in the Son and Holy Ghost if the Essence be not distinct the foundation of distinct Personalities is taken away But how is this clear'd by the other Party They say That it is one peculiar Prerogative of the divine Nature and Substance founded in its infinite and therefore transcendent Perfection whereby it is capable of residing in more Persons than one and is accordingly communicated from the Father to the Son and Holy Ghost So that the Communication of the divine Nature is owned to the Persons of the Son and Holy Ghost But how then comes it not to make a distinct Essence as it makes distinct Persons by being communicated The answer we see is That it is a peculiar Prerogative founded on the infinite and therefore transcendent Perfection of the divine Nature But they further add That when the Son and Holy Ghost are said to have the same divine Nature from the Father as the Origin and Fountain of the Divinity not by the Production of a new divine Nature but by a Communication of his own which is one and the same in all three without Separation Difference or Distinction that this is indeed a great Mystery which hath been always look'd upon by the greatest and wisest Men in the Church to be above all Expressions and Description So that the greatest difficulty is at last resolved into the incomprehensible Perfection of the divine Nature and that neither Man nor Angels can give a satisfactory answer to Enquiries about the manner of them And the Author of the Animadversions saith That in the divine Persons of the Trinity the divine Nature and the personal Subsistence coalesce into one by an incomprehensible ineffable kind of Union and Conjunction But do those on the other side think that the asserting three distinct Substances in one and the same individual Substance tends to clear and explain the Notion of the Trinity and make it more easie and intelligible The Divinity they say is whole intire indivisible and inseparable in all three But can one whole entire indivisible Substance be actually divided into three Substances For if every Person must have a peculiar Substance of his own and there be three Persons there must be three peculiar Substances and how can there be three peculiar Substances and yet but one entire and indivisible Substance I do not say there must be three divided Substances in place or separate Substances but they must be divided as three Individuals of the same kind which must introduce a Specifick Divine Nature which I think very
Qualities and Dispositions which we perceive by observation and arise either from Constitution or Education or Company or acquired Habits 2. As to the true ground of the real Difference between the Existence of one Individual from the rest it depends upon 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 And no consequent Faculties or Acts of the Mind by Self-Reflection c. can be the reason of this difference because the difference must be supposed antecedent to them And nothing can be said to make that which must be supposed to be before it self for there must be a distinct Mind in Being from all other Minds before it can reflect upon it self But we are not yet come to the bottom of this matter For as to Individual Persons there are these things still to be consider'd 1. Actual Existence in it self which hath a Mode belonging to it or else the humane Nature of Christ could not have been united with the divine but it must have had the personal Subsistence and consequently there must have been two Persons in Christ. 2. A separate and divided Existence from all others which arises from the actual Existence but may be distinguished from it and so the humane Nature of Christ although it had the Subsistence proper to Being yet had not a separate Existence after the Hypostatical Vnion 3. The peculiar manner of Subsistence which lies in such properties as are incommunicable to any other and herein lies the proper reason of Personality Which doth not consist in a meer 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 And this is that which makes the distinction of Persons 4. There is a common Nature which must be joyned with this manner of Subsistence to make a Person otherwise it would be a meer 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 one and the same common Nature 5. The Individuals of the same kind are said to differ in number from each other because of their different Accidents and separate Existence For so they are capable of being numbred Whatever is compounded is capable of number as to its parts and may be said to be one by the Union of them whatever is separated from another is capable of number by distinction But where there can be no Accidents nor Division there must be perfect Unity 6. There must be a Separation in Nature where-ever there is a difference of Individuals under the same kind I do not say there must be an actual Separation and Division as to place but that there is and must be so in Nature where one common Nature subsists in several Individuals For all Individuals must divide the Species and the common Nature uâ—ites them And this Philoponus understood very well and therefore he never denied such a Division and Separation in the divine Persons as is implied in distinct Individuals which is the last thing to be consider'd here 3. We are now to enquire how far these things will hold as to the Persons in the Trinity and whether it be a Contradiction to assert three Persons in the Godhead and but one God We are very far from disputing the Vnity of the divine Essence which we assert to be so perfect and indivisible as not to be capable of such a difference of Persons as is among Men. Because there can be no difference of Accidents or Place or Qualities in the divine Nature and there can be no separate Existence because the Essence and Existence are the same in God and if necessary Existence be an inseparable Attribute of the divine Essence it is impossible there should be any separate Existence for what always was and must be can have no other Existence than what is implied in the very Essence But will not this overthrow the distinction of Persons and run us into Sabellianism By no means For our Vnitarians grant That the Noetians and Sabellians held that there is but one divine Substance Essence or Nature and but one Person And how can those who hold three Persons be Sabellians Yes say they the Sabellians held three relative Persons But did they mean three distinct Subsistences or only one Subsistence sustaining the Names or Appearances or Manifestations of three Persons The latter they cannot deny to have been the true sense of the Sabellians But say they these are three Persons in a classical critical Sense We meddle not at present with the Dispute which Valla hath against Boethius about the proper Latin Sense of a Person and Petavius saith Valla's Objections are mere Iests and Trifles but our Sense of a Person is plain that it signifies the Essence with a particular manner of Subsistence which the Greek Fathers called an Hypostasis taking it for that incommunicable Property which makes a Person But say our Vnitarians a Person is an intelligent Being and therefore three Persons must be three intelligent Beings I answer that this may be taken two ways 1. That there is no Person where there is no intelligent Nature to make it a Person and so we grant it 2. That a Person implies an intelligent Being separate and divided from other Individuals of the same kind as it is among men and so we deny it as to the Persons of the Trinity because the Divine Essence is not capable of such Division and Separation as the humane Nature is But say they again The Fathers did hold a specifical Divine Nature and the Persons to be as so many individuals This they repeat very often in their late Books and after all refer us to Curcellaeus for undeniable Proofs of it Let us for the present suppose it then I hope the Fathers are freed from holding Contradictions in the Doctrine of the Trinity for what Contradiction can it be to hold three individual Persons in the Godhead and One common Nature more than it is to hold that there are three humane Persons in One and the same common Nature of Man Will they make this a Contradiction too But some have so used themselves to the Language of Iargon Nonsense Contradiction Impossibility that it comes from them as some men swear when they do not know it But I am not willing to go off with this Answer for I do take the Fathers to have been men of too great Sense and Capacity to have maintained such an absurd Opinion as that of a Specifick Nature in God For either it is a mere Logical Notion and Act
Creed is not liable to their charges of Contradiction Impossibilities and pure Nonsense 2. That we own no other Doctrine than what hath been received by the Christian Church in the several Ages from the Apostles Times 3. And that there are no Objections in point of reason which ought to hinder our Assent to this great point of the Christian Faith But the chief Design of this Preface is to remove this Prejudice which lies in our way from the different manners of Explication and the warm Disputes which have been occasion'd by them It cannot be denied that our Adversaries have taken all possible advantage against us from these unhappy differences and in one of their latest Discourses they glory in it and think they have therein out-done the foreign Unitarians For say they We have shewed that their Faiths concerning this pretended Mystery are so many and so contrary that they are less one Party among themselves than the far more learned and greater number of them are one Party with us this is spoken of those they call Nominal Trinitarians and for the other whom they call Real they prove them guilty of manifest Heresie the one they call Sabellians which they say is the same with Unitarians and the other Polytheists or disguised Pagans and they borrow arguments from one side to prove the charge upon the other and they confidently affirm that all that speak out in this matter must be driven either to Sabellianism or Tritheism If they are Nominal Trinitarians they fall into the former if Real into the latter This is the whole Design of this late Discourse which I shall here examine that I may remove this stumbling Block before I enter upon the main business 1. As to those who are called Nominal Trinitarians Who are they And from whence comes such a Denomination They tell us That they are such who believe three Persons who are Persons in Name only indeed and in truth they are but one subsisting Person But where are these to be found Among all such say they as agree that there is but one only and self-same divine Essence and Substance But do these assert that there is but one subsisting Person and three only in Name Let any one be produced who hath written in defence of the Trinity for those who have been most charged have utterly deny'd it That learned Person who is more particularly reflected upon in this Charge is by them said to affirm That God is one divine intellectual Substance or really subsisting Person and distinguished and diversified by three relative Modes or relative Subsistences And Mr. Hooker is produc'd to the same purpose That there is but one Substance in God and three distinct relaâ—ive Properties which Substance being taken with its peculiar Property makes the distinction of Persons in the Godhead But say they These Modes and Properties do not make any real subsisting Persons but only in a Grammatical and Critical Sense and at most this is no more than one Man may be said to be three Persons on the account of different Relations as Solomon was Son of David Father of Rehoboam and proceeding from David and Bathsheba and yet was but one subsisting Pâ—rson This is the force of what they say But then in a triumphing manner they add That the Realists have so manifest an advantage against them that they have no way to deâ—end themselves but by Recrimination i. e. by shewing the like Absurdity in their Doctrine And thus they hope either side will baffle the other and in the mean time the Cause be lost between them But in so nice a matter as this we must not rely too much on an Adversaries Representation for the leaving out some expressions may make an opinion look with another Appearance than if all were taken together it would have We must therefore take notice of other passages which may help to give the true Sense of the learned Author who is chiefly aimed at 1. In the very same Page he asserts That each of the divine Persons has an absolute Nature distinctly belonging to him though not a distinct absolute Nature and to the same purpose in another place 2. That the eternal Father is and subsists as a Father by having a Son and communicating his Essence to another And elsewhere that the Relation between Father and Son is founded on that eternal Act by which the Father communicates his divine Nature to the Son 3. That the foundation of the Doctrine of the Trinity is this 1. That there can be but one God 2. That there is nothing in God but what is God 3. That there can be no Composition in the Deity with any such positive real Being distinct from the Deity it self But the Church finding in Scripture mention of three to whom distinctly the Godhead does belong expressed these three by the Name of Persons and stated their Personalities upon three distinct Modes of Subsistence allotted to one and the same Godhead and these also distinguished from one another by three distinct Relations What do these men mean to charge one who goes upon these grounds with Sabellianism Doth he make the three Persons to be mere Names as S. Basil in few words expresses the true nature of Sabellianism that it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One thing with different Denominations Can the communicating the divine Essence by the Father to the Son be called a Name or a Mode or a Respect only And these Men of wonderfull Subtilty have not learnt to distinguish between Persons and Personalities Where is the least Intimation given that he look'd on the divine Persons as Modes and Respects only That is impossible since he owns a Communication of the divine Essence and that each of the divine Persons hath the divine Nature belonging to him could it ever enter into any Man's head to think that he that owns this should own the other also But the Personality is a thing of another consideration For it is the reason of the distinction of Persons in the same undivided Nature That there is a distinction the Scripture assures us and withall that there is but one divine Essence How can this distinction be Not by essential Attributes for those must be in the divine Essence and in every Person alike otherwise he hath not the entire divine Nature not by accidents as Men are distinguished from each other for the divine Nature is not capable of these not by separate or divided Substances for that would be inconsistent with the perfect Vnity of the Godhead since therefore there can be no other way of distinction we must consider how the Scripture directs us iâ— this case and that acquaints us with the Father Son and Holy Ghost as having mutual Relation to each other and there is no Repugnancy therein to the divine Nature and therefore the distinction of the Persons hath been fixed on that as the most proper foundation for it
And these are called different Modes of Subsistence on which the distinct Personalities are founded which can be no other than relative But a Person is that which results from the divine Nature and Subsistence together and although a Person cannot be said to be a relative consider'd as such yet being joyned with the manner of Subsistence it doth imply a Relation and so a Person may be said to be a relative Being But say they If the three Persons have all the same individual Substance then they are truly and properly only three Modes and therefore aâ—though among Men Personalities are distinct from the Persons because the Persons are distinct intelligent Substances yet this cannot hold where there is but one individual Substance The question is Whether those they call Nominal Trinitarians are liable to the charge of Sabellianism the answer is That they cannot because they assert far more than three Names viz. That each Person hath the divine Nature distinctly belonging to him But say they These Persons are but mere Modes No say the other We do not say that the Person is only a Modus but that it is the divine Nature or Godhead subsisting under such a Modus so that the Godhead is still included in it joyned to it and distinguished by it Grant all this the Vnitarians reply yet where there is the same individual Substance the Person can be only a Modus To which it is answer'd That this individual Substance hath three distinct ways of subsisting according to which it subsists distinctly and differently in each of the three divine Persons So that here lies the main point whether it be Sabellianiâ—m to assert the same individual Substance under three such different Modes of Subsistence If it be the most learned and judicious of the Fathers did not know what Sabellianism meant as I have shewd at large in the following Discourse for they utterly disowned Sabellianism and yet asserted That the several Hypostases consisted of peculiar Properties in one and the same divine Substance But it is not the authority of Fathers which they regard for they serve them only as Stones in the Boys way when they quarrel viz. to throw them at our Heads Let us then examine this matter by reason without them Persons among Men say they are distinguished from Personalities because they have distinct Substances therefore where there is but one Substance the Person can be only a Mode and therefore the same with the Personality I answer that the true original Notion of Personality is no more than a different Mode of subsistence in the same common Nature For every such Nature is in it self one and indivisible and the more perfect it is the greater must its Vnity be For the first Being is the most One and all Division comes from Distance and Imperfection The first foundation of Distinction is Diversity for if there were no Diversity there would be nothing but entire and perfect Vnity All Diversity comes from two things Dissimilitudâ— and Dependence Those Philosophers called Megarici did not think much amiss who said That if all things were alike there would be but one Substance or Being in the World and what we now call different Substances would be only different Modes of Subsistence in the same individual Nature The difference of Substances in created Beings arises from those two things 1. A Dissimilitude of Accidents both internal and external 2. The Will and Power of God whereby he gives them distinct and separate Beings in the same common Nature As for instance the Nature or Essence of a Man consider'd in it self is but one and indivisible but God gives a separate Existence to every Individual whereby that common Nature subsists in so many distinct Substances as there are Individuals of that kind and every one of these Substances is distinguished from all others not only by a separate internal vital Principle and peculiar Properties but by such external Accidents as do very easily discriminate them from each other And the subject of all these Accidents is that peculiar Substance which God hath given to every Individual which in rational Beings is called a Person and so we grant that in all such created Beings the Personality doth suppose a distinct Substance not from the Nature of Personality but from the condition of the subject wherein it is The Personality in it self is but a different Mode of Subsistence in the same common Nature which is but One but this Personality being in such a subject as Man is it from thence follows that each Person hath a peculiar Substance of his own and not from the Nature of Personality But when we come to consider a divine Essence which is most perfectly one and is wholly uncapable of any separate Existence or Accidents there can be no other way of distinction conceived in it but by different Modes of Subsistence or relative Properties in the same divine Essence And herein we proceed as we do in our other Conceptions of the divine Nature i. e. we take away all Imperfection from God and attribute only that to him which is agreeable to his divine Perfections although the manner of it may be above our comprehension And if this be owning the Trinity of the Mob I am not ashamed to own my self to be one of them but it is not out of Lazyness or affected Ignorance but upon the greatest and most serious consideration They may call this a Trinity of Cyphers if they please but I think more modest and decent Language about these matters would become them as well as the things themselves much better And they must prove a little better than they have done that different Modes of Subsistence in the divine Nature or the relations of Father and Son are mere Cyphers which is so often mentioned in Scripture as a matter of very great consequence and that when we are baptized in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost we are baptized into a Trinity of Cyphers But our Unitarians proceed and say that the same Author affirms not only the Personalities but the Persons to be merely Relative For he saith That every Person as well as every Personality in the Trinity is wholly Relative But it is plain he speaks there not of the Person in himself but with respect to the manner of Subsistence or the relative Properties belonging to them But if the Notion of a Person doth besides the relative Property necessarily suppose the divine Nature together with it how can a Person then be imagined to be wholly Relative But they urge That which makes the first Person in the Trinity to be a Person makes him to be a Father and what makes him to be a Father makes him to be a Person And what follows from hence but that the relative Property is the Foundation of the Personality But by no means that the Person of the Father is nothing but the relative Property
The instance of Solomon is not at all to the purpose unless we asserted three Persons founded upon those different Relations in his individual Nature Who denies that one Person may have different Respects and yet be but one Person subsisting Where doth the Scripture say That the Son of David the Father of Rehoboam and he that proceeded from David and Bathsheba were three Persons distinguished by those relative Properties But here lies the foundation of what we believe as to the Trinity we are assured from Scripture that there are three to whom the divine Nature and Attributes are given and we are assured both from Scripture and Reason that there can be but one divine Essence and therefore every one of these must have the divine Nature and yet that can be but One But it is a most unreasonable thing to charge those with Sabellianism who assert That every Person hath the divine Nature distinctly belonging to him and that the divine Essence is communicated from the Father to the Son Did ever Nâ—etus or Sabellius or any of their Followers speak after this manner Is the divine Essence but a mere Name or a different respect only to Mankind For the asserting such relative Persons as have no Essence at all was the true Sabellian Doctrine as will be made appear in the following Discourse And so much is confess'd by our Unitarians themselves for they say That the Sabellians held that Father Son and Spirit are but only three Names oâ— God given to him in Scripture by occasion of so many several Dispensations towards the Creature and so he is but one subsisting Person and three relative Persons as he sustains the three Names of Father Son and Spirit which being the Relations of God towards things without him he is so many relative Persons or Persons in a Classical Critical Sense i. e. Persons without any Essence belonging to them as such But those who assert a Communication of the divine Essence to each Person can never be guilty of Sabellianism if this be it which themselves affirm And so those called Nominal Trinitarians are very unjustly so called because they do really hold a Trinity of Persons in the Unity of the Godhead 2. Let us now see what charge they lay upon those whom they call Real Trinitarians and they tell us That the Nominals will seem to be profound Philosophers deep Sages in comparison with them These are very obliging expressions to them in the beginning But how do they make out this gross Stupidity of theirs In short it is That they stand condemned and anathematized as Hereticks by a general Council and by all the Moderns and are every day challenged and impeached of Tritheism and cannot agree among themselves but charge one another with great Absurdities and in plain terms they charge them with Nonsense in the thing whereas the other lay only in words Because these assert three divine subsisting Persons three infinite Spirits Minds or Substances as distinct as so many Angels or Men each of them perfectly God and yet all of them are but one God To understand this matter rightly we must consider that when the Socinian Pamphlets first came abroad some years since a learned and worthy Person of our Church who had appear'd with great vigour and reason against our Adversaries of the Church of Rome in the late Reign which ought not to be forgotten undertook to defend the Doctrine of the Trinity against the History of the Unitarians and the Notes on the Athanasian Creed but in the warmth of disputing and out of a desire to make this matter more intelligible he suffer'd himself to be carried beyond the ancient Methods which the Church hath used to express her Sense by still retaining the same fundamental Article of three Persons in one undivided Essence but explaining it in such a manner as to make each Person to have a peculiar and proper Substance of his own This gave so great an advantage to the Author of those Treatises that in a little time he set forth his Notes with an Appendix in answer to this new Explication Wherein he charges him with Heresie Tritheism and Contradiction The very same charges which have been since improved and carried on by others I wish I could say without any unbecoming Heat or Reflections But I shall now examine how far these charges have any ground so as to affect the Doctrine of the Trinity which is the chief end our Adversaries aimed at in heaping these Reproaches upon one who appear'd so early and with so much zeal to defend it We are therefore to consider these things 1. That a Man may be very right in the Belief of the Article it self and yet may be mistaken in his Explication of it And this one of his keenest Adversaries freely acknowledges For he plainly distinguishes between the fundamental Article and the manner of explaining it and affirms That a Man may quit his Explication without parting with the Article it self And so he may retain the Article with his Explication But suppose a Man to assent to the fundamental Article it self and be mistaken in his Explication of it can he be charged with Heresie about this Article For Heresie must relate to the fundamental Article to which he declares his hearty and unfeigned Assent but here we suppose the mistake to lie only in the Explication As for instance Sabellianism is a condemned and exploded Heresie for it is contrary to the very Doctrine of the Trinity but suppose one who asserts the Doctrine of three Persons should make them to be three Modes must such a one presently be charged with Heresie before we see whether his Explication be consistent with the fundamental Article or not For this is liable to very obvious Objections that the Father begets a Mode instead of a Son that we pray to three Modes instead of three real Persons that Modes are mutable things in their own Nature c. but must we from hence conclude such a one guilty of Heresie when he declares that he withall supposed them not to be mere Modes but that the divine Essence is to be taken together with the Mode to make a Person Yea suppose some spitefull Adversary should say That it is a Contradiction to say That the same common Nature can make a Person with a Mode superadded to it unless that be individuated for a â—erson doth imply an individual Nature and not a mere relative Mode Is this sufficient to charge such a Person with the Sabellian Heresy which he utterly disowns Is not the like Equity to be shewâ—d in another though different Explication Suppose then a Person solemnly professes to own the fundamental Doctrine of the Trinity as much as any others but he thinks that three Persons must have distinct Substances to make them Persons but so as to make no Division or Separation in the Godhead and that he cannot conceive a Communication of the divine Essence
inconsistent with the divine Perfections but of this at large in the following Discourse I do not lay any force upon this argument that there can be no ground of the Distinction between the three Substances if there be but one Substance in the Godhead as some have done because the same Substance cannot both unite and distinguish them for the ground of the distinction is not the Substance but the Communication of it and where that is so freely asserted there is a reason distinct from the Substance it self which makes the Distinction of Persons But the difficulty still remains how each Person should have a Substance of his own and yet there be but one entire and indivisible Substance for every Person must have a proper Substance of his own or else according to this Hypothesis he can be no Person and this peculiar Substance must be really distinct from that Substance which is in the other two so that here must be three distinct Substances in the three Persons But how then can there be but one individual Essence in all three We may conceive one common Essence to be individuated in three Persons as it is in Men but it is impossible to conceive the same individual Essence to be in three Persons which have peculiar Substances of their own For the Substances belonging to the Persons are the same Essence individuated in those Persons and so there is no avoiding making three individual Essences and one specifick or common divine Nature And Maimonides his argument is considerable against more Gods than one If saith he there be two Gods there muâ—t be something wherein they agree and something wherein they differ that wherein they agree must be that which makes each of them God and that wherein they differ must make them two Gods Now wherein doth this differ from the present Hypothesis There is something wherein they differ and that is their proper Substance but Maimonides thought that wherein they differ'd sufficient to make them two Gods So that I fear it will be impossible to clear this Hypothesis as to the reconciling three individual Essences with one individual divine Essence which looks too like asserting that there are three Gods and yet but one And the Author of this Explicaâ—ion doth at last confess that three distinct whole inseparable Same 's are hard to conceive as to the manner of it Now to what purpose are new Explications started and Disputes raised and carried on so warmly about them if after all the main difficulty be confess'd to be above our Comprehension We had much better satisfie our selves with that Language which the Church hath receivâ—d and is express'd in the Creeds than go about by new Terms to raise new Ferments especially at a time when our united Forces are most necessary against our common Adversaries No wise and good Men can be fond of any new Inventions when the Peace of the Church is hazarded by them And on the other side it is as dangerous to make new Heresies as new Explications If any one denies the Doctrine contained in the Nicene Creed that is no new Heresie but how can such deny the Son to be consubstantial to the Father who assert one and the same indivisible Substance in the Father and the Son But they may contradict themselves That is not impossible on either side But doth it follow that they are guilty of Heresie Are not three Substances and but one a Contradiction No more say they than that a communicated Substance is not distinct from that which did communicate But this whole dispute we find is at last resolved into the infinite and unconceivable Perfections of the Godhead where it is most safely lodged and that there is no real Contradiction in the Doctrine it self is part of the design of the Discourse afterwards But here it will be necessary to take notice of what the Unitarians have objected against this new Explication viz. That it was condemned by the ancients in the Person of Philoponus in the middle Ages in the Person and Writings of Abhor Ioachim but more severely since the Reformation in the Person of Valentinus Gentilis who was condemned at Geneva and beheaded at Bern for this very Doctrine To these I shall give a distinct answer 1. As to Joh Philoponus I do freely own that in the Greek Church when in the sixth Century he broached his opinion That every Hypostasis must have the common Nature individuated in it this was look'd upon as a Doctrine of dangerous consequence both with respect to the Trinity and Incarnation The latter was the first occasion of it for as Leontius observes the dispute did not begin about the Trinity but about the Incarnation and Philoponus took part with those who asserted but one Nature in Christ after the Vnion and he went upon this ground That if there were two Natures there must be two Hypostases because Nature and Hypostasis were the same Then those on the Churches side saith Leontius objected That if they were the same there must be three distinct Natures in the Trinity as there were three Hypostases which Philoponus yielded and grounded himself on Aristotle's Doctrine that there was but one common Substance and several individual Substances and so held it was in the Trinity whence he was called the leader of the Heresie of the Tritheius This is the account given by Leontius who lived very â—ear his time A. D. 620. The same is affirmed of him by Nicephorus and that he wrote a Book on purpose about the Vnion of two Natures in Christ out of which he produces his own words concerning a common and individual Nature which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which can agree to none else And the main argument he went upon was this that unless we assert a singular Nature in the Hypostases we must say that the whole Trinity was incarnate as unless there be a singular humane Nature distinct from the common Christ must assume the whole Nature of Mankind And this argument from the Incarnation was that which made Roscelin in the beginning of the disputing Age A. D. 1093 to assert That the three Persons were three things distinct from each other as three Angels or three Men because otherwise the Incarnation of the second Person could not be understood as appears by Anselm's Epistles and his Book of the Incarnation written upon that occasion But as Aâ—selm shews at large if this argument hold it must prove the three Persons not only to be distinct but separate and divided Subâ—â—ances which is directly contrary to this new Explication and then there is no avoiding Tritheism But to return to Joh. Philoponus who saith Nicephorus divided the indivisible Nature of God into three Individuals as among Men Which saith he is repugnant to the Sense of the Christian Church and he produces the Testimony of Gregory Nazianzen against it and adds that Leontius and Georgius Pisides confuted
Philoponus But in that divided time there were some called Theodosiani who made but one Nature and one Hypostasis and so fell in with the Sabellians but others held That there was one immutable divine Essence but each Person had a distinct individual Nature which the rest charged with Tritheism Which consequence they utterly rejected because although they held three distinct Natures yet they said They were but one God because there was but one invariable Divinity in them Nicephorus saith that Conon's Followers rejected Philoponus but Photius mentions a conference between Conon and others aâ—out Philoponus wherein he defends him against other Severians Photius grants that Conon and his Followers held a consubstantial Trinity and the Unity of the Godhead and so far they were Orthodox but saith They were far from it when they asserted proper and peculiar Substances to each Person The difference between Conon and Philoponus about this point for Conon wrote against Philoponus about the Resurrection seems to have been partly in the Doctrine but chiefly in the consequence of it for these rejected all kind of Tritheism which Philoponus saw well enough must follow from his Doctrine but he denied any real Division or Separation in those Substances as to the Deity Isidore saith That the Tritheists owned three Gods as well as three Persons and that if God be said to be Triple there must follow a Plurality of Gods But there were others called Triformiani of whom S. Augustin speaks Who held the three Persons to be three distinct parts which being united made one God which saith he is repugnant to the divine Perfection But among these Severians there were three several opinions 1. Of Philoponus who held one common Nature and three Individual 2. Of those who said there was but one Nature and one Hypostasis 3. Of those who affirm'd there were three distinct Natures but withal that there was but one indivisible Godhead and these differ'd from Philoponus in the main ground of Tritheism which was that he held the common Nature in the Trinity to be only a specifick Nature and such as it is among Men. For Philoponus himself in the words which Nicephorus produces doth assert plainly that the common Nature is separated from the Individuals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by a mere act of the Mind so that he allow'd no individual Vnity in the divine Nature but what was in the several Persons as the common Nature of Man is a Notion of the Mind as it is abstracted from the several Individuals wherein alone it really subsists so that here is an apparent difference between the Doctrine of Joh. Philoponus and the new Explication for herein the most real essential and indivisible Unity of the divine Nature is asserted and it is said to be no Species because it is but one and so it could not be condemned in Joh. Philoponus 2. We now come to Abbat Joachim whose Doctrine seems to be as much mistaken as it is represented in the Decretal where the Condemnation of it by the Lateran Council is extant But here I cannot but observe what great Authority these Unitarians give to this Lateran Council as if they had a Mind to set up Transubstantiation by it which they so often parallel with the Trinity Thence in their late Discourse they speak of it as the most general Council that was ever called and that what was there defined it was made Heresie to oppose it But by their favour we neither own this to have been a general Council nor that it had Authority to make that Heresie which was not so before But that Council might assert the Doctrine of the Trinity truly as it had been receiv'd and condemn the opinion of Joachim justly But what it was they do not or would not seem to understand Joachim was a great Enthusiast but no deep Divine as Men of that Heat seldom are and he had many Disputes with Peter Lombard in his Life as the Vindicator of Joachim confesses After his Death a Book of his was found taxing Peter Lombard with some strange Doctrine about the Trinity wherein he called him Heretick and Madman this Book was complained of in the Lateran Council and upon Examination it was sound that instead of charging Peter Lombard justly he was fallen into Heresie himself which was denying the essential Vnity of the three Persons and making it to be Vnity of Consent He granted that they were one Essence one Nature one Substance but how Not by any true proper Unity but Similitudinary and Collective as they called it as many Men are one People and many Believers make one Church Whence Thomas Aquinas saith that Joachim fell into the Arian Heresie It is sufficient to my purpose that he denied the individual Vnity of the divine Essence which cannot be charged on the Author of the new Explication and so this comes not home to the purpose 3. But the last charge is the most terrible for it not only sets down the Heresie but the capital punishment which follow'd it Yet I shall make it appear notwithstanding the very warm Prosecution of it by another hand that there is a great difference between the Doctrine of Valentinus Gentilis and that which is asserted in this Explication 1. In the Sentence of his Condemnation it is expressed That he had been guilty of the vilest Scurrility and most horrid Blasphemies against the Son of God and the glorious Mystery of the Trinity But can any thing of this Nature be charged upon one who hath not only written in Defence of it but speaks of it with the highest Veneration 2. In the same Sentence it is said That he acknowledged the Father only to be that infinite God which we ought to worship which is plain Blasphemy against the Son But can any Men ever think to make this the same case with one who makes use of that as one of his chief arguments That the three Persons are to be worshipped with a distinct divine Worship 3. It is charged upon him That he called the Trinity a mere human Invention not so much as known to any Catholick Creed and directly contrary to the Word of God But the Author here charged hath made it his business to prove the Doctrine of the Trinity to be grounded on Scripture and to vindicate it from the Objections drawn from thence against it 4. One of the main Articles of his charge was That he made three Spirits of different Order and Degree that the Father is the one only God by which the Son and Holy Ghost are excluded manifestly from the Unity of the Godhead But the Person charged with his Heresie saith The Reason why we must not say three Gods is because there is but one and the same Divinity in them all and that entirely indivisibly inseparably But it is said that although there may be some differences yet they agree in asserting
That there are three distinct eternal Spirits or Minds in the Trinity and Genebrard is brought into the same Heresie with them But Genebrard with great indignation rejects the Doctrine of Valentinus Gentilis because he held an Inequality in the Persons and denied the individual Vnity of the Godhead in them but he saith he follow'd Damascen in asserting three real Hypostases and he utterly denies Tritheism and he brings a multitude of reasons why the charge of Tritheism doth not lie against his opinion although he owns the Hypostases to be three distinct individuals but then he adds That there is an indivisible and insepâ—rable Union of the divine Nature in all three Persons Now to deal as impartially in this matter as may be I do not think our understandings one jot helped in the Notion of the Trinity by this Hypothesis but that it is liable to as great difficulties as any other and therefore none ought to be fond of it or to set it against the general Sense of others and the current Expressions of Divines about these Mysteries nor to call the different opinions of others Heresie or Nonsense which are provoking Words and tend very much to inflame Mens Passions because their Faith and Vnderstanding are both call'd in question which are very tender things But on the other side a difference ought to be made between the Heresie and Blasphemy of Valentinus Gentilis and the opinion of such who maintain the individual and indivisible Unity of the Godhead but withal believe that every Person hath an individual Substance as a Person and that Sabellianism cannot be avoided otherwise Wherein I think they are mistaken and that the Fathers were of another opinion and that our Church owns but one Substance in the Godhead as the Western Church always did which made such difficulty about receiving three Hypostases because they took Hypostasis for a Substance but yet I see no reason why those who assert three Hypostases and mean three individual Substances should be charged with the Heresie of Valentinus Gentilis or so much as with that of Abbaâ— Joachim or Philoponus because they all rejected the individual Unity of the divine Nature which is constantly maintained by the Defenders of the other Hypothesis But it is said and urged with vehemency that these two things are inconsistent with each other that it is going forward and backward being Orthodox in one Breath and otherwise in the next that all this looks like shuffling and concealing the true meaning and acting the old Artifices under a different Form For the Samosatenians and Arians when they were pinched seem'd very Orthodox in their Expressions but retained their Heresies still in their Minds and there is reason to suspect the same Game is playing over again and we cannot be too cautious in a matter of such Consequence I grant very great caution is needfull but the mixture of some Charity with it will do no hurt Why should we suspect those to be inwardly false and to think otherwise than they speak who have shew'd no want of Courage and Zeal at a time when some thought it Prudence to say nothing and never call'd upon their Superiours then to own the cause of God and to do their Duties as they have now done and that in no very obliging manner And if the same Men can be cool and unconcerned at some times when there was so great reason to be otherwise and of a sudden grow very warm and even to boil over with Zeal the World is so ill natur'd as to be too apt to conclude there is some other cause of such an alteration than what openly appears But there is a kind of bitter Zeal which is so fierce and violent that it rather inflames than heals any Wounds that are made and is of so malignant a Nature that it spreads and eats like a Cancer and if a stop were not given to it it might endanger the whole Body I am very sensible how little a Man consults his own ease who offers to interpose in a dispute between Men of Heat and Animosity but this moves me very little when the interest of our Church and Religion is concerned which ought to prevail more than the fear of displeasing one or other Party or it may be both I do heartily wish that all who are equally concerned in the common Cause would lay aside Heats and Prejudices and hard Words and consider this matter impartially and I do not question but they will see cause to judge as I do that the difference is not so great as our Adversaries for their own advantage make it to be And since both sides yield that the matter they dispute about is above their reach the wisest course they can take is to assert and defend what is revealed and not to be too peremptory and quarrelsom about that which is acknowledged to be above our comprehension I mean as to the manner how the three Persons partake of the divine Nature It would be of the most fatal consequence to us if those Weapons which might be so usefully imploy'd against our common Adversaries should still be turned upon one another I know no manner of advantage they have against us but from thence and this is it which makes them write with such Insolence and Scorn towards those who are far their Superiours in Learning and Wit as well as in the Goodness of their cause And is it possible that some of our most skilfull Fencers should play Prizes before them who plainly animate them against each other for their own Diversion and Interest Sometimes one hath the better sometimes the other and one is cried up in Opposition to the other but taken alone is used with the greatest Contempt One Man's work is said to be learned and accurate and the more because it follows that he concerns not himself with the Socinians The wiser Man no doubt for that Reason At another time it is called the Birth of the Mountains and the Author parallel'd with no less a Man than Don Quixot and his elaborate Writings with his Adventures and they ridicule his Notion of Modes as if they were only so many Gambols and Postures And then for his Adversary they hearten and incourage him all they can they tell him He must not allow to the other the least Title of all he contends for least their sport should be spoiled and to comfort him they tell him that his Adversary is a Socinian at bottom and doth not know it that all his Thingums Modes Properties are only an Addition of Words and Names and not of Persons properly so called and that his whole Scheme is nothing but Socinianism drest up in the absurd Cant of the Schools That his Book hath much more Scurrility than Argument that his usage of him was barbarous and a greater Soloecism in manners than any he accuses him of in Grammar or Speech and in short That
there were two Persons in Christ one Divine and the other Humane and two Sons the one by Nature the Son of God who had a Pre existence and the other the Son of David who had no subsistence before This is the opinion which Dionysius sets himself against in that Epistle and which therefore â—ome may imagine was written after Nestorius his Heresie But that was no new Heresie as appears by the Cerinthians and it was that which Paulus Samosatenus fled to as more plausible which not only appears by this Epistle but by what Athanasius and Epiphanius have delivered concerning it Athanasius wrote a Book of the Incarnation against the followers of Paulus Samosatenus who held as he saith Two Persons in Christ viz. One born of the Virgin and a divine Person which descended upon him and dwelt in him Against which opinion he disputes from two places of Scripture viz. God was manifest in the Flesh and the Word was made Flesh and from the ancient Doctrine of the Christian Church and the Synod of Antioch against Paulus Samosatenus And in another place he saith that he held That the divine Word dwelt in Christ. And the words of Epiphanius are express to the same purpose That the Logos came and dwelt in the Man Iesus And the Clergy of Constantinople charged Nestorius with following the Heresie of Paulus Samosatenus And Photius in his Epistles saith That Nestorius tasted too much of the intoxicated Cups of Paulus Samosatenus and in the foregoing Epistle he saith That Paulus his followers asserted two Hypostases in Christ. But some think that Paulus Samosatenus did not hold any subsistence of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before but that the Word was in God before without any subsistence of its own and that God gave it a distinct subsistence when it inhabited in the Person of Christ and so Marius Mercator and Leontius understand him who say that he differ'd from Nestorius therein who asserted a Divine Word with its proper subsistence But according to them Paulus by the Word undersâ—ood that Divine Energy whereby Christ acted and which dwelt in him but Dionysius saith he made two Christs and two Sons of God But the Doctrine of the Christian Church he saith was that there was but one Christ and one Son who wâ—s the Eternal Word and was made Flesh. And it is observable that he brings the very same places we do now to prove this Doctrine as In the beginning was the Word c. and Before Abraham was I am It seems that some of the Bishops who had been upon the examination of his Opinions before the second Synod which deposed him sent him an account of their Faith and required his answer wherein they declare the Son not to be God according to God's Decree which he did not stick at but that he was so really and substantially and whosoever denied this they said was out of the Communion of the Church and all the Catholick Churches agreed with them in it And they declare that they received this Doctrine from the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament and bring the same places we do now as Thy Throne O God was for ever c. Who is over all God blessed for ever All things were made by him c. And we do not find that Paulus Samosatenus as subtle as he was ever imagin'd that these places belong'd to any other than Christ or that the making of all things was to be understood of the making of nothing but putting it into mens power to make themselves new Creatures These were discoveries only reserved for the Men of Sense and clear Ideas in these brighter Ages of the World But at last after all the arts and subterfuges which Paulus Samosatenus used there was a Man of Sense as it happen'd among the Clergy of Antioch called Malchion who was so well acquainted with his Sophistry that he drove him out of all and laid his Sense so open before the second Synod that he was solemnly deposed for denying the Divinity of the Son of God and his Descent from Heaven as appears by their Synodical Epistle It is pity we have it not entire but by the Fragments of it which are preserved by some ancient Writers we find that his Doctrine of the Divinity in him by Inhabitation was then condemned and the substantial Union of both Natures asserted I have only one thing more to observe concerning him which is that the Arian Party in their Decree at Sardica or rather Philippopolis do confess that Paulus Samosatenus his Doctrine was condemned by the whole Christian World For they say That which passed in the Eastern Synod was signed and approved by all And Alexander Bishop of Alexandria in his Epistle to Alexander of Constantinople affirms the same And now I hope I may desire our Men of Sense to reflect upon these Matters Here was no Fire nor Faggot threatned no Imperial Edicts to inforce this Doctrine nay the Queen of those parts under whose Jurisdiction they lived at that time openly espoused the cause of Paulus Samosatenus so that here could be nothing of interest to sway them to act in opposition to her And they found his interest so strong that he retained the Possession of his See till Aurelian had conquer'd Zenobia and by his authority he was ejected This Synod which deposed him did not sit in the time of Aurelian as is commonly thought but before his time while Zenobia had all the power in her hands in those Eastern parts which she enjoy'd five years till she was dispossess'd by Aurelian from whence Ant. Pagi concludes that Paulus kept his See three years after the Sentence against him but upon application to Aurelian he who afterwards began a Persecution against all Christians gave this rule That he with whom the Italian Bishops and those of Rome communicated should enjoy the See upon which Paulus was at last turned out By this we see a concurrence of all the Christian Bishops of that time against him that denied the Divinity of our Saviour and this without any force and against their interest and with a general consent of the Christian World For there were no mighty Awes and Draconic Sanctions to compell of which they sometimes speak as if they were the only powerfull methods to make this Doctrine go down And what greater argument can there be that it was then the general sense of the Christian Church And it would be very hard to condemn all his Opposers for men that wanted Sense and Reason because they so unanimously opposed him Not so unanimously neither say our Vnitarians because Lucian a Presbyter of the Church of Antioch and a very learned man joyned with him It would have been strange indeed if so great a Man as Paulus Samosatenus could prevail with none of his own Church to joyn with him especially one that came from the same place of Samosata as
as well as for his Skill in Philosophy and Christianity and he wrote a short but learned Discourse to clear this Matter The Catholick Doctrine of the Trinity saith he is this the Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost but they are not three Gods but one God And yet which our Vnitarians may wonder at this very man hath written a learned Book of Arithmetick But how doth he make this out How is it possible for Three to be but One First he shews That there can be but one Divine Essence for to make more than One must suppose a Diversity Principium enim Pluralitatis Alteritas est If you make a real difference in Nature as the Arians did then there must be as many Gods as there are different Natures Among men there are different individuals of the same kind but saith he it is the Diversity of Accidents which makes it and if you can abstract from all other Accidents yet they must have a different Place for two Bodies cannot be in the same place The Divine Essence is simple and immaterial and is what it is of it self but other things are what they are made and consist of Parts and therefore may be divided Now that which is of it self can be but One and therefore cannot be numbred And one God cannot differ from another either by Accidents or substantial Differences But saith he there is a twofold Number one by which we reckon and another in the things reckoned And the repeating of Units in the former makes a Plurality but not in the latter It may be said that this holds where there are only different Names for the same thing but here is a real Distinction of Father Son and Holy Ghost But then he shews That the difference of Relation can make no Alteration in the Essence and where there is no Diversity there can be but one Essence although the different Relation may make three Persons This is the substance of what he saith concerning this Difficulty which as he suggests arises from our Imaginations which are so filled with the Division and Multiplicity of compound and material things that it is a hard matter for them so to recollect themselves as to consider the first Principles and Grounds of Vnity and Diversity But if our Vnitarians have not throughly consider'd those foundations they must as they say to one of their Adversaries argue like novices in these questions For these are some of the most necessary Speculations for understanding these matters as what that Vnity is which belongs to a perfect Being what Diversity is required to multiply an infinite Essence which hath Vnity in its own Nature whether it be therefore possible that there should be more divine Essences than one since the same essential Attributes must be where ever there is the divine Essence Whether there can be more Individuals where there is no Dissimilitude and can be no Division or Separation Whether a specifick divine Nature be not inconsistent with the absolute Perfection and necessary Existence which belongs to it Whether the divine Nature can be individually the same and yet there be several individual Essences These and a great many other Questions it will be necessary for them to resolve before they can so peremptorily pronounce that the Doctrine of the Trinity doth imply a Contradiction on the account of the Numbers of Three and One. And so I come to the second Particular CHAP. VI. No Contradiction for three Persons to be in one common Nature II. THat it is no contradiction to assert three Persons in one common Nature I shall endeavour to make these matters as clear as I can for the greatest difficulties in most mens minds have risen from the want of clear and distinct apprehensiâ—ns of those fundamental Notions which are necessary in order to the right understanding of them 1. We are to distinguish between the Being of a thing and a thing in Being or between Essence and Existence 2. Between the Vnity of Nature or Essence and of Existence or Individuals of the same Nature 3. Between the Notion of Persons in a finite and limited Nature and in a Being uncapable of Division and Separation 1. Between the Being of a thing and a thing in Being By the former we mean the Nature and Essential Properties of a thing whereby it is distinguished from all other kinds of Beings So God and his Creatures are essentially distinguished from each other by such Attributes which are incommunicable and the Creatures of several kinds are distinguished by their Natures or Essences for the Essence of a Man and of a Brute are not barely distinguished by Individuals but by their kinds And that which doth constitute a distinct kind is One and Indivisible in it self for the Essence of Man is but one and can be no more for if there were more the kind would be alter'd so that there can be but one common Nature or Essence to all the Individuals of that kind But because these Individuals may be or may not be therefore we must distinguish them as they are in actual Being from what they are in their common Nature for that continues the same under all the Variety and Succession of Individuals 2. We must now distinguish the Vnity which belongs to the common Nature from that which belongs to the Individuals in actual Being And the Vnity of Essence is twofold 1. Where the Essence and Existence are the same i. e. where necessary Existence doth belong to the Essence as it is in God and in him alone it being an essential and incommunicable Perfection 2. Where the Existence is contingent and belongs to the Will of another and so it is in all Creatures Intellectual and Material whose actual being is dependent on the Will of God The Vnity of Existence may be consider'd two ways 1. As to it self and so it is called Identity or a thing continuing the same with it self the Foundation whereof in Man is that vital Principle which results from the Union of Soul and Body For as long as that continues notwithstanding the great variety of changes in the material Parts the Man continues entirely the same 2. The Vnity of Existence as to Individuals may be consider'd as to others i. e. as every one stands divided from every other Individual of the same kind although they do all partake of the same common Essence And the clearing of this is the main point on which the right Notion of these matters depends In order to that we must consider two things 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 on these things 1. Difference of outward Accidents as Features Age Bulk Meen Speech Habit and Place 2. Difference of inward
other places in him it may appear that he intended no Specifick Nature in God But saith Curcellaeus If the Fathers intended any more than a Specifick Nature why did they not use Words which would express it more fully As 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For that very Reason which he mentions from Epiphanius because they would seem to approach too near to Sabellianism S. Basil was a great Man notwithstanding the flout of our Vnitarians and apply'd his thoughts to this matter to clear the Doctrine of the Church from the Charge of Sabellianism and Tritheism As to the former he saith in many places That the Heresie lay in making but one Person as well as one God or one Substance with three several Names As to the latter no man asserts the individual Unity of the Divine Essence in more significant Words than he doth For he uses the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Cyril of Alexandria doth likewise and yet both these are produced by Curcellaeus for a Specifick Nature But saith Curcellaeus S. Basil in his Epistle to Gregory Nyssen doth assert the difrence between Substance and Hypostasis to consist in this That the one is taken for common Nature and the other for individual and so making three Hypostases he must make three Individuals and One common or Specifick Nature I answer That it is plain by the design of that Epistle that by three Hypostases he could not mean three individual Essences For he saith The design of his writing it was to clear the difference between Substance and Hypostasis For saith he From the want of this some assert but one Hypostasis as well as one Essence and others because there are three Hypostases suppose there are three distinct Essences For both went upon the same Ground that Hypostasis and Essence were the same Therefore saith he those who held three Hypostases did make 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Division of Substances From whence it follows that S. Basil did look upon the Notion of three distinct Substances as a mistake I say distinct Substances as Individuals are distinct for so the first Principles of Philosophy do own that Individuals make a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Division of the Species into several and distinct Individuals But doth not S. Basil go about to explain his Notion by the common Nature of man and the several Individuals under it and what can this signifie to his purpose unless he allows the same in the Godhead I grant he doth so but he saith the Substance is that which is common to the whole kind the Hypostasis is that which properly distinguisheth one Individual from another which he calls the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the peculiar incommunicable Property Which he describes by a Concourse of distinguishing Characters in every Individual But how doth he apply these things to the divine Nature For therein lies the whole difficulty Doth he own such a Community of Nature and Distinction of Individuals there He first confesses the divine Nature to be incomprehensible by us but yet we may have some distinct Notions about these things As for instance In the Father we conceive something common to him and to the Son and that is the divine Essence and the same as to the Holy Ghost But there must be some proper characters to distinguish these one from another or else there will be nothing but confusion which is Sabellianism Now the essential Attributes and divine Operations are common to them and therefore these cannot distinguish them from each other And those are the peculiar Properties of each Person as he shews at large But may not each Person have a distinct Essence belonging to him as we see it is among Men For this S. Basil answers 1. He utterly denies any possible Division in the divine Nature And he never question'd but the distinction of Individuals under the same Species was a sort of Division although there were no Separation And the followers of Ioh. Philoponus did hold an indissoluble Vnion between the three individual Essences in the divine Nature but they held a distinction of peculiar Essences besides the common Nature which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as appears by Photius who was very able to judge And it appears by one of themselves in Photius that the controversie was whether an Hyposiasis could be without an individual Essence belonging to it self or whether the peculiar Properties and Characters did make the Hypostasis But as to S. Basil's Notion we are to observe 2. That he makes the divine Essence to be uncapable of number by reason of its perfect Unity Here our Vnitarians tell us that when S. Basil saith That God is not one in number but in nature he means as the Nature of Man is one but there are many particular Men as Peter James and John c. so the Nature of God or the common Divinity is one but there are as truely more Gods in number or more particular Gods as there are more particular Men. but that this is a gross mistake or abuse of S. Basil's meaning I shall make it plain from hâ—mself For they say That he held that as to this question How many Gods it must be answered Three Gods in number or three Personal Gods and one in Nature or divine Properties whereas he is so far from giving such an answer that he absolutely denies that there can be more Gods than one in that very place He mentions it as an Objection that since he said That the Father is God the Son God the Holy Ghost God he must hold three Gods to which he answers We own but one God not in Number but in Nature Then say they He held but one God in Nature and more in Number That is so far from his meaning that I hardly think any that read the passage in S. Basil could so wilfully pervert his meaning For his intention was so far from asserting more Gods in Number that it was to prove so perfect a Unity in God that he was not capable of number or of being more than one For saith he That which is said to be one in Number is not really and simply one but is made up of many which by composition become one as we say the world is one which is made up of many things But God is a simple uncompounded Being and therefore cannot be said to be one in Number But the World is not one by Nature because it is made up of so many things but it is one by Number as those several parts make but one World Is not this fair dealing with such a Man as S. Basil to represent his Sense quite otherwise than it is As though he allow'd more Gods than one in Number Number saith he again belongs to Quantity and Quantity to Bodies but what relation
God that he saith The Consequence must be that the three Persons must be three Gods as three humane Persons are three Men. And in another place That the Father Son and Holy Ghost are One in the same individual Nature And what saith Curcellaeus to these places for he was aware of them To the latter he saith That by individual he means Specifick This is an extraordinary Answer indeed But what Reason doth he give for it Because they are not divided in Place or Time but they may have their proper Essences however But where doth S. Augustin give any such Account of it He often speaks upon this Subject but always gives another Reason viz. because they are but One and the same Substance The Three Persons are but One God because they are of One Substance and they have a perfect Vnity because there is no Diversity of Nature or of Will But it may be said That here he speaks of a Diversity of Nature In the next Words he explains himself that the three Persons are One God propter ineffabilem conjunctionem Deitatis but the Union of three Persons in one Specifick Nature is no ineffable Conjunction it being one of the commonest things in the World and in the same Chapter propter Individuam Deitatem unus Deus est propter uniuscujusque Proprietatem tres Personae sunt Here we find one Individual Nature and no difference but in the peculiar Properties of the Persons In the other place he is so express against a Specifick Vnity that Curcellaeus his best Answer is That in that Chapter he is too intricate and obscure i. e. He doth not to speak his Mind Thus much I thought fit to say in Answer to those undeniable Proofs of Curcellaeus which our Vnitarians boast so much of and whether they be so or not let the Reader examine and judge CHAP. VII The Athanasian Creed clear'd from Contradictions III. I Now come to the last thing I proposed viz. to shew That it is no contradiction to assert three Persons in the Trinity and but one God and for that purpose I shall examine the charge of Contradictions on the Athanasian Creed The summ of the first Articles say they is this The one true God is three distinct Persons and three distinct Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost are the one true God Which is plainly as if a Man should say Peter James and John being three Persons are one Man and one Man is these three distinct Persons Peter James and John Is it not now a ridiculous attempt as well as a barbarous Indignity to go about thus to make Asses of all Mankind under pretence of teaching them a Creed This is very freely spoken with respect not merely to our Church but the Christian World which owns this Creed to be a just and true Explication of the Doctrine of the Trinity But there are some Creatures as remarkable for their untoward kicking as for their Stupidity And is not this great skill in these Matters to make such a Parallel between three Persons in the Godhead and Peter Iames and Iohn Do they think there is no difference between an infinitely perfect Being and such finite limited Creatures as Individuals among Men are Do they suppose the divine Nature capable of such Division and Separation by Individuals as human Nature is No they may say but ye who hold three Persons must think so For what reason We do assert three Persons but it is on the account of divine Revelation and in such a manner as the divine Nature is capable of it For it is a good rule of Boethius Talia sunt praedicata qualia subjecta permiserint We must not say that there are Persons in the Trinity but in such a manner as is agreeable to the divine Nature and if that be not capable of Division and Separation then the Persons must be in the same undivided Essence The next Article is Neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance But how can we say they not confound the Persons that have as ye say but one numerical Substance And how can we but divide the Substance which we find in three distinct divided Persons I think the terms numerical Substance not very proper in this case and I had rather use the Language of the Fathers than of the Schools and some of the most judicious and learned Fathers would not allow the terms of one numerical Substance to be applied to the divine Essence For their Notion was That Number was only proper for compound Bâ—ings but God being a pure and simple Being was one by Nature and not by Number as S. Basil speaks as is before observed because he is not compounded nor hath any besides himself to be reckon'd with him But because there are different Hypostases therefore they allow'd the use of Number about them and so we may say the Hypostases or Persons are numerically different but we cannot say that the Essence is one Numerically But why must they confound the Persons if there be but one Essence The relative Properties cannot be confounded for the Father cannot be the Son nor the Son the Father and on these the difference of Persons is founded For there can be no difference as to essential Properties and therefore all the difference or rather distinction must be from those that are Relative A Person of it self imports no Relation but the Person of the Father or of the Son must and these Relations cannot be confounded with one another And if the Father cannot be the Son nor the Son the Father then they must be distinct from each other But how By dividing the Substance That is impossible in a Substance that is indivisible It may be said That the Essence of created Beings is indivisible and yet there are divided Persons I grant it but then a created Essence is capable of different accidents and qualities to divide one Person from another which cannot be supposed in the divine Nature and withall the same power which gives a Being to a created Essence gives it a separate and divided Existence from all others As when Peter Iames and Iohn received their several distinct Personalities from God at the same time he gave them their separate Beings from each other although the same Essence be in them all But how can we but divide the Substance which we see in three distinct divided Persons The question is whether the distinct Properties of the Persons do imply a Division of the Substance We deny that the Persons are divided as to the Substance because that is impossible to be divided but we say they are and must be distinguished as to those incommunicable Properties which make the Persons distinct The essential Properties are uncapable of being divided and the Relations cannot be confounded so that there must be one undivided Substance and yet three distinct Persons But every Person must have his own proper Substance and so the
Substance must be divided if there be three Persons That every Person must have a Substance to support his Subsistence is not denied but the question is Whether that Substance must be divided or not We say where the Substance will bear it as in created Beings a Person hath a separate substance i. e. the same Nature diversified by Accidents Qualities and a separate Existence but where these things cannot be there the same Essence must remain undivided but with such relative Properties as cannot be confounded But may not the same undivided Substance be communicated to three divided Persons so as that each Person may have his own proper Substance and yet the divine Essence be in it self undivided This is not the case before us For the question upon the Creed is Whether the Substance can be divided And here it is allow'd to remain undivided Yes in it self but it may be divided in the Persons The Substance we say is uncapable of being divided any way and to say that a Substance wholly undivided in it self is yet divided into as many proper and peculiar Substances as there are Persons doth not at all help our understanding in this matter but if no more be meant as is expresly declared than That the same one divine Nature is wholly and entirely communicated by the eternal Father to the eternal Son and by Father and Son to the eternal Spirit without any Division or Separation it is the same which all Trinitarians assert And it is a great pity that any new Phrases or Ways of Expression should cause unreasonable Heats among those who are really of the same Mind For those who oppose the expressions of three distinct Substances as new and dangerous yet grant That it is one peculiar Prerogative of the divine Nature and Substance founded in its infinite and therefore transcendent Perfection whereby it is capable of residing in more Persons than one and is accordingly communicated from the Father to the Son and Holy Ghost but this is done without any Division or Multiplication Now if both Parties mean what they say where lies the difference It is sufficient for my purpose that they are agrred that there can be no Division as to the divine Essence by the distinction of Persons And so this passage of the Athanasian Creed holds good Neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance The next Article as it is set down in the Notes on Athanasius his Creed is a contradiction to this For there it runs There is one Substance of the Father another of the Son another of the Holy Ghost They might well charge it with Contradictions at this rate But that is a plain mistake for Person for there is no other variety in the Copies but this that Baysius his Greek Copy hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that of Constantinople 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but all the Latin Copies Persona But what consequence do they draw from hence Then say they the Son is not the Father nor is the Father the Son nor the Holy Ghost either of them If they had put in Person as they ought to have done it is what we do own And what follows If the Father be not the Son and yet is the one true God then the Son is not the one true God because he is not the Father The one true God may be taken two ways 1. The one true God as having the true divine Nature in him and so the Father is the one true God but not exclusive of the Son if he have the same divine Nature 2. The one true God as having the divine Nature so wholly in himself as to make it incommunicable to the Son so we do not say that the Father is the one true God because this must exclude the Son from being God which the Scripture assures us that he is and therefore though the Son be not the Father nor the Father the Son yet the Son may be the one true God as well as the Father because they both partake of the same divine Nature so that there is no contradiction in this That there is but one true God and one of the Persons is not the other For that supposes it impossible that there should be three Persons in the same Nature but if the distinction of Nature and Persons be allow'd as it must be by all that understand any thing of these matters then it must be granted that although one Person cannot be another yet they may have the same common Essence As for instance let us take their own Peter Iames and Iohn What pleasant arguing would this be Peter is not Iames nor Iohn nor Iames nor Iohn are Peter but Peter hath the true Essence of a Man in him and the true Essence is but one and indivisible and therefore Iames and Iohn cannot be true Men because Peter hath the One and indivisible Essence of a Man in him But they will say We cannot say that Peter is the One true Man as we say That the Father is the One true God Yes we say the same in other Words for he can be said to be the One true God in no other Respect but as he hath the One true Divine Essence All the difference lies that a finite Nature is capapable of Division but an infinite is not It follows The Godhead of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is all one the Glory Equal the Majesty Co-eternal To this they say That this Article doth impugn and destroy it self How so For if the Glory and Majesty be the same in Number then it can be neither Equal nor Co-eternal Not Equal for it is the same which Equals never are nor Co-eternal for that intimates that they are distinct For nothing is Co eternal nor Co temporary with it self There is no appearance of Difficulty or Contradiction in this if the Distinction of Persons is allowed for the three Persons may be well said to be Co-equal and Co-eternal and if we Honour the Son as we Honour the Father we must give equal Glory to him But one great Point of Contradiction remains viz. So that the Father is God the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God and yet there are not three Gods but one God First they say This is as if a Man should say the Father is a Person the Son a Person and the Holy Ghost a Person yet there are not three Persons but one Person How is this possible if a Person doth suppose some peculiar Property which must distinguish him from all others And how can three Persons be one Person unless three incommunicable Properties may become one communicated Property to three Persons But they are aware of a Distinction in this Case viz. that the term God is used Personally when it is said God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost but when it is said There are not three Gods but one God the term God is used Essentially
and therefore comprehends the whole three Persons so that there is neither a Grammatical nor Arithmetical Contradiction And what say our Vnitarians to this Truly no less Than that the Remedy is worse if possible than the Disease Nay then we are in a very ill Case But how I pray doth this appear 1. Say they Three personal Gods and one Essential God make four Gods if the Essential God be not the same with the personal Gods and tho' he is the same yet since they are not the same with one another but distinct it follows that there are three Gods i. e. three personal Gods 2. It introduces two sorts of Gods three Personal and one Essential But the Christian Religion knows and owns but One true and most high God of any sort So far then we are agreed That there is but One true and most high God and that because of the perfect Vnity of the Divine Essence which can be no more than One and where there is but One Divine Essence there can be but One true God unless we can suppose a God without an Essence and that would be a strange sort of God He would be a personal God indeed in their critical Sense of a Person for a shape or appearance But may not the fame Essence be divided That I have already shew'd to be impossible Therefore we cannot make so many personal Gods because we assert one and the same Essence in the three Persons of Father Son and Holy Ghost But they are distinct and therefore must be distinct Gods since every one is distinct from the other They are distinct as to personal Properties but not as to Essential Attributes which are and must be the same in all So that here is but one Essential God and three Persons But after all why do we assert three Persons in the Godhead Not because we find them in the Athanasian Creed but because the Scripture hath revealed that there are Three Father Son and Holy Ghost to whom the Divine Nature and Attributes are given This we verily believe that the Scripture hath revealed and that there are a great many places of which we think no tolerable Sense can be given without it and therefore we assert this Doctrine on the same Grounds on which we believe the Scriptures And if there are three Persons which have the Divine Nature attributed to them what must we do in this Case Must we cast off the Vnity of the Divine Essence No that is too frequently and plainly asserted for us to call it into Question Must we reject those Scriptures which attribute Divinity to the Son and Holy Ghost as well as to the Father That we cannot do unless we cast off those Books of Scripture wherein those things are contained But why do we call them Persons when that Term is not found in Scripture and is of a doubtful Sense The true Account whereof I take to be this It is observed by Facundus Hermianensis that the Christian Church received the Doctrine of the Trinity before the Terms of three Persons were used But Sabellianism was the occasion of making use of the name of Persons It 's true That the Sabellians did not dislike our Sense of the Word Person which they knew was not the Churches Sense as it was taken for an Appearance or an external Quality which was consistent enough with their Hypothesis who allow'd but One real Person with different Manifestations That this was their true Opinion appears from the best account we have of their Doctrine from the first Rise of Sabellianism The Foundations of it were laid in the earliest and most dangerous Heresies in the Christian Church viz. that which is commonly called by the name of the Gnosticks and that of the Cerinthians and Ebionites For how much soever they differ'd from each other in other things yet they both agreed in this that there was no such thing as a Trinity consisting of Father Son and Holy Ghost but that all was but different Appearances and Manifestations of God to Mankâ—nd In consequence whereof the Gnosticks denied the very Humanity of Christ and the Cerinthians and Ebionites his Divinity But both these sorts were utterly rejected the Communion of the Christian Church and no such thing as Sabellianism was found within it Afterwards there arose some Persons who started the same Opinion within the Church the first we meet with of this sort are those mention'd by Theodoret Epigonus Cleomenes and Noëtus from whom they were called Noeâ—ians not long after Sabellius broached the same Doctrine in Pentapolis and the Parts thereabouts which made Dionysius of Alexandria appear so early and so warmly against it But he happening to let fall some Expressions as though he asserted an Inequality of Hypostases in the Godhead Complaint was made of it to Dionysius then Bishop of Rome who thereupon explained that which he took to be the true Sense of the Christian Church in this matter Which is still preserved in Athanasius Therein he disowns the Sabellian Doctrine which confounded the Father Son and Holy Ghost and made them to be the same and withal he rejected those who held three distinct and separate Hypostases as the Platonists and after them the Marcionists did Dionysius of Alexandria when he came to explain himself agreed with the others and asserted the Son to be of the same Substance with the Father as Athanasius hath proved at large but yet he said That if a distinction of Hypostases were not kept up the Doctrine of the Trinity would be lost as appears by an Epistle of his in S. Basil. Athanasius saith That the Heresie of Sabellius lay in making the Father and Son to be only different Names of the same Person so that in one Respect he is the Father and in another the Son Gregory Nazianzen in opposition to Sabellianism saith We must believe one God and three Hypostases and commends Athanasius for preserving the true Mean in asserting the Vnity of Nature and the Distinction of Properties S. Basil saith That the Sabellians made but one Person of the Father and Son that in Name they confessed the Son but in Reality they denied him In another place that the Sabellians asserted but one Hypostasis in the Divine Nature but that God took several Persons upon him as occasion required sometimes that of a Father at other times of a Son and so of the Holy Ghost And to the same purpose in other places he saith That there are distinct Hypostases with their peculiar Properties which being joyned with the Vnity of Nature make up the true Confession of Faith There were some who would have but One Hypostasis whom he opposes with great vehemency and the Reason he gives is That then they must make the Persons to be meer Names which is Sabellianisn And he saith That if our Notions of distinct Persons have no certain Foundation they are meer Names such as
But if we suppose a personal Union of the Word with the human Nature in Christ then we have a very reasonable Sense of the Words for then no more is imply'd but that Christ as consisting of both Natures should ascend thither where the Word was before when it is said that the Word was with God and so Grotius understands it 2. Grotius doth not make the Word in the beginning of S. John 's Gospel to be a mere Attribute of Wisdom and Power but the eternal Son of God This I shall prove from his own Words 1. He asserts in his Preface to S. Iohn's Gospel that the chief cause of his writing was universally agreed to have been to prevent the spreading of that Venom which had been then dispersed in the Church which he understands of the Heresies about Christ and the Word Now among these the Heresie of Cerinthus was this very opinion which they fasten upon Grotius viz. that the Word was the divine Wisdom and Power inhabiting in the Person of Iesus as I have shew'd before from themselves And besides Grotius saith That the other Evangelists had only intimated the divine Nature of Christ from his miraculous Conception Miracles knowing Mens Hearts perpetual Presence promise of the Spirit remission of Sins c. But S. John as the time required attributed the Name and Power of God to him from the beginning So that by the Name and Power of God he means the same which he called the divine Nature before 2. He saith that when it is said The Word was with God it ought to be understood as Ignatius explains it with the Father what can this mean unless he understood the Word to be the eternal Son of God And he quotes Tertullian saying that he is the Son of God and God ex unitate Substantiae and that there was a Prolation of the Word without Separation Now what Prolation can there be of a meer Attribute How can that be said to be the Son of God begotten of the Father without Division before all Worlds as he quotes it from Iustin Martyr And that he is the Word and God of God from Theophilus Antiochenus And in the next Verse when it is said The same was in the beginning with God it is repeated on purpose saith he That we might consider that God is so to be understood that a Distinction is to be made between God with whom he was and the Word who was with God so that the Word doth not comprehend all that is God But our Wise Interpreters put a ridiculous Sense upon it as though all that Grotius meant was That Gods Attributes are the same with himself which although true in it self is very impertinent to Grotius his purpose and that the Reason why he saith That the Word is not all that God is was because there were other Attributes of God besides But where doth Grotius say any thing like this Is this Wise interpreting or honest and fair dealing For Grotius immediately takes notice from thence of the Difference of Hypostases which he saith was taken from the Platonists but with a change of the Sense 3. When it is said v. 3. That all things were made by him Grotius understands it of the old Creation and of the Son of God For he quotes a passage of Barnabas where he saith The Sun is the Work of his hands and several passages of the Fathers to prove That the World and all things in it were created by him and he adds That nothing but God himself is excepted What say our Wise Interpreters to all this Nothing at all to the purpose but they cite the English Geneva Translation when they pretend to give Grotius his Sense and add That the Word now begins to be spoken of as a Person by the same Figure of Speech that Solomon saith Wisdom hath builded her house c. Doth Grotius say any thing like this And yet they say Let us hear Grotius interpreting this sublime Proeme of S. John 's Gospel But they leave out what he saith and put in what he doth not say is not this interpreting like Wise men 4. The VVord was made flesh v. 14. i. e. say the Vnitarians as from Grotius It did abode on and inhabit a humane Person the Person of Iesus Christ and so was in appearance made flesh or man But what saith Grotius himself The Word that he might bring us to God shew'd himself in the Weakness of humane Nature and he quotes the words of S. Paul for it 1 Tim. 3.16 God was manifest in the flesh and then produces several Passages of the Fathers to the same purpose Is not this a rare Specimen of Wise interpreting and Fair dealing with so considerable a Person and so well known as Grotius Who after all in a Letter to his intimate Friend Ger. I. Vossius declares that he owned the Doctrine of the Trinity both in his Poems and his Catechism after his reviewing them which Epistle is Printed before the last Edition of his Book about Christ's Satisfaction as an account to the World of his Faith as to the Trinity And in the last Edition of his Poems but little before his Death he gives a very different Account of the Son of God from what these Vnitarians fasten upon him And now let the World judge how wisely they have interpreted both S. Iohn and his Commentator Grotius IV. Is this to interpret Scripture like Wise men to make our Saviour's meaning to be expressly contrary to his Words For when he said Before Abraham was I am they make the Sense to be that really he was not but only in Gods Decree as any other man may be said to be This place the late Archbishop who was very far from being a Socinian however his Memory hath been very unworthily reproached in that as well as other Respects since his Death urged against the Socinians saying That the obvious Sense of the Words is that he had a real Existence before Abraham was actually in Being and that their Interpretation about the Decree is so very flat that he can hardly abstain from saying it is ridiculous And the wise Answer they give is That the words cannot be true in any other Sense being spoken of one who was a Son and Descendant of Abraham Which is as ridiculous as the Interpretation for it is to take it for granted he was no more than a Son of Abraham V. Is this to interpret Scripture like Wise men to say that when our Saviour said in his Conference with the Iews I am the Son of God his chief meaning was That he was the Son of God in such a Sense as all the faithful are called Gods Children Is not this doing great Honour to our Saviour Especially when they say That he never said of himself any higher thing than this which is true of every good man I am the Son of God And yet the Iews accused him of
Blasphemy for making himself the Son of God and the High Priest adjured him to tell Whether he were the Christ the Son of God Did they mean no more but as any Good man is But Mr. Selden saith that by the Son of God the Jews meant the Word of God as he is called in the Chaldee Paraâ—hrast which was all one as to profess himself God And our learned Dr. Pocock saith that according to the Sense of the ancient Iews the Son of God spoken of Psal. 2. was the eternal Son of God of the same Substance with the Father And by this we may understand S. Peter's Confession Thou art the Christ the Son of the living God and Nathanael's Thou art the Son of God But it is plain the Iews in the Conference thought he made himself God by saying I and my Father are One Not one God say our Wise Interpreters but as Friends are said to be One. And what must they think of our Saviour the mean time who knew the Iews understood him quite otherwise and would not undeceive them But they say The Jews put a malicious Construction upon his Words How doth that appear Do they think the Iews had not heard what passed before in some former Conferences when they thought he had made himself equal with God and that he said That all men should honour the Son even as they honoured the Father These Sayings no doubt stuck with them and therefore from them they had Reason to think that he meant something extraordinary by his saying I and my Father are One. And if they were so Wise in interpreting Scripture as they pretend they would have considered that if these things did not imply his being really the Son of God according to the old Jewish Notion he would have severely checked any such Mis-constructions of his meaning and have plainly told them he was but the Son of Man But S. Paul's Character of him doth plainly shew that he was far from any thing like Vanity or Ostentation Although he was in the form of God and thought it no Robbery to be equal with God which must imply that he was very far from assuming any thing to himself which he must do in a very high measure if he were not really the Son of God so as to be equal with God The meaning whereof say our Wise Interpreters is he did not rob God of his Honour by arrogating to himself to be God or equal with God But what then do they think of these passages in his Conferences with the Iews Was he not bound to undeceive them when he knew they did so grossly mis-understand him if he knew himself to be a meer Man at the same time This can never go down with me for they must either Charge him with affecting Divine Honour which is the highest Degree of Pride and Vanity or they must own him to be as he was The eternal Son of God VI. Is this interpreting Scripture like Wise men to deny Divine Worship to be given to our Saviour when the Scripture so plainly requires it When I had urged them in my Sermon with the Argument from Divine Worship being given to Christ they do utterly deny it and say I may as well charge them with the blackest Crimes This I was not a little surprized at knowing how warmly Socinus had disputed for it But that I might not misunderstand them I look'd into other places in their late Books and from them I gather these things 1. They make no Question but some Worship is due to the Lord Christ but the Question is concerning the kind or sort of Worship 2. They distinguish three sorts of Worship 1. Civil Worship from Men to one another 2. Religious Worship given on the account of a Persons Holiness or Relation to God which is more or less according to their Sanctity or nearer Relation to God 3. Divine Worship which belongs only to God which consists in a Resignation of our Vnderstandings Wills and Affections and some peculiar Acts of Reverence and Love towards him The two former may be given to Christ they say but not the last From whence it follows that they cannot according to their own Principles resign their Vnderstandings Wills and Affections to Christ because this is proper Divine Worship Are not these very good Christians the mean while How can they believe sincerely and heartily what he hath revealed unless they resign their Vnderstandings to him How can they Love and Esteem him and place their Happiness in him if they cannot resign their Wills and Affections to him I think never any who pretended to be Christians durst venture to say such things before and all for fear they should be thought to give Divine Worship to Christ. But they confess That they are divided among themselves about the Invocation of Christ. Those who are for it say That he may be the object of Prayer without making him God or a Person of God and without ascribing to him the Properties of the Divine Nature Omnipresence Omniscience or Omnipotence Those who deny it they say do only refuse it because they suppose he hath forbidden it which makes it a meer Error And in the New Testament they say The Charge is frequently renewed that they are to Worship God only And as great Writers as they have been these last seven years they affirm that They have wrote no Book in that time in which they have not been careful to profess to all the World that a like Honour or VVorship much less the same is not to be given to Christ as to God And now I hope we understand their opinion right as to this matter The question is Whether this be interpreting those Scriptures which speak of the Honour and Worship due to Christ like wise Men And for that I shall consider 1. That herein they are gone off from the opinion of Socinus and his Followers as to the Sense of Scripture in those places 2. That they have done it in such a way as will justifie the Pagan and Popish Idolatry and therefore have not interpreted Scripture like wise Men. 1. That they are gone off from the opinion of Socinus and his followers who did allow divine Worship to Christ. This appears by the disputes he had with Franciscus Davidis and Christianus Francken about it The former was about the Sense of Scripture Socinus produced all those places which mention the Invocation of Christ and all those wherein S. Paul saith The Grace of our Lord Iesus Christ be with you all and the Lord Iesus Christ direct our way c. and all those wherein a divine Power and Authority is given to Christ as head of the Church for the support of the Faith and Hope of all those who believe in him in order to Salvation And this Socinus truly judged to be proper divine Worship Georg. Blandrata was unsatisfied that Socinus did not say
thought he could not honestly conceal so fundamental a Point of the Christian Faith and which related to their being entred into the Christian Church For if the Profession of this Faith had not been look'd on as a necessary condition of being a Member of the Church of Christ it is hard to imagine that Iustin Martyr should so much insist upon it not only here but in his other Treatises Of which an Account hath been given by others Athenagoras had been a Philosopher as well as Iustin Martyr before he professed himself a Christian and therefore must be supposed to understand his Religion before he embraced it And in his Defence he asserts That the Christians do believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost in God the Father God the Son and the Holy Ghost And he mentions both the Vnity and Order which is among them Which can signifie nothing unless they be owned to be distinct Persons in the same Divine Nature And in the next Page he looks on it as thing which all Christians aspire after in another Life That they shall then know the Vnion of the Father and the Communication of the Father to the Son what the Holy Ghost is and what the Vnion and Distinction there is between the Holy Ghost the Son and the Father No man who had ever had the name of a Philosopher would have said such things unless he had believed the Doctrine of the Trinity aâ— we do i. e. that there are three distinct Persons in the same Divine Nature but that the manner of the Union and Distinction between them is above our reach and comprehension But our Vnitarians have an Answer ready for these men viz. That they came out of Plato 's School with the Tincture of his three Principles and they sadly complain that Platonism had very early corrupted the Christian Faith as to these matters In answer to which Exception I have only one Postulatum to make which is that these were honest Men and knew their own Minds beâ—t and I shall make it appear that none can more positively declare than they do that they did not take up these Notions from Plato but from the Holy Scriptures Iustin Martyr saith he took the Foundation of his Faith from thence and that he could find no certainty as to God and Religion any where else that he thinks Plato took his three Principles from Moses and in his Dialogue with Trypho he at large proves the Eternity of the Son of God from the Scriptures and said He would use no other Arguments for he pretended to no Skill but in the Scriptures which God had enabled him to understand Athenagoras declares That where the Philosophers agreed with them their Faith did not depend on them but on the Testimony of the Prophets who were inspired by the Holy Ghost To the same purpose speaks Theophilus Bishop of Antioch who asserts the Coeternity of the Son with the Father from the beginning of S. John's Gospel and saith their Faith is built on the Scriptures Clemens Alexandrinus owns not only the Essential Attributes of God to belong to the Son but that there is one Father of all and one Word over all and one Holy Ghost who is every where And he thinks Plato borrowed his three Principles from Moses that his second was the Son and his third the Holy Spirit Even Origen himsâ—lâ— highly commends Moses above Plato in his most undoubted Writings and saith That Numenâ—us went beyond Plato and that he borrowed out of the Scriptures and so he saith Plato did in other places but he adds That the Doctrines were better deliver'd in Scripture than in his Artificial Dialogues Can any one that hath the least reverence for Writers of such Authority and Zâ—al for the Christian Doctrine imagine that they wilfully corrupted it in one of the chief Articles of it and brought in new Speculations against the Sense of those Books which at the same time they professed to be the only Rule of their Faith Even where they speak most favourably of the Platonick Trinity they suppose it to be borrowed from Moses And therefore Numenius said That Moses and Plato did not differ about the first Principles and Theodoret mentions Numenius as one of those who said Plato understood the Hebrew Doctrine in Egypt and during his Thirteen years â—ay there it is hardly possible to suppose he should be ignorant of the Hebrew Doctrine about the first Principles which he was so inquisitive after especially among Nations who pretended to Antiquity And the Platonick Notion of the Divine Essence inlarging it self to three Hypostases is considerable on these Accounts 1. That it is deliver'd with so much assurance by the Opposers of Christianity such as Plotinus Porphyrius Proclus and others were known to be and they speak with no manner of doubt concerning it as may be seen in the passage of Porphyrie preserved by S. Cyril and others 2. That they took it up from no Revelation but as a Notion in it self agreeable enough as appears by the passages in Plato and others concerning it They never suspected it to be liable to the Charge of Non-Sense and Contradictions as our modern Vnitarians charge the Trinity with although their Notion as represented by Porphyrie be as liable to it How came these Men of Wit and Sense to hit upon and be so fond of such absurd Principles which lead to the Belief of Mysterious Non-Sense and Impossibilities if these Men may be trusted 3. That the Nations most renowned for Antiquity and deep Speculations did light upon the same Doctrine about a Trinity of Hypostases in the Divine Essence To prove this I shall not refer to the Trismegistick Books or the Chaldee Oracles or any doubtful Authorities but Plutarch asserts the three Hypostases to have been receivâ—d among the Persians and Porphyry and Iamblicus say the same of the Egyptians 4. That this Hypostasis did maintain its Reputation so long in the World For we find it continued to the time of Macrobius who mentâ—ons it as a reasonable Notion viz. of one supreme Being Father of all and a Mind proceeding from it and soul from Mind Some have thought that the Platonists made two created Beings to be two of the Divine Hypostases but this is contrary to what Plotinus and Porphyry affirm concerning it and it is hard to give an Account how they should then be Essentially different from Creatures and be Hypostases in the Divine Essence But this is no part of my business being concerned no farther than to clear the Sense of the Christian Church as to the Form of Baptism in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost which according to the Sense of the Ante-Nicene Fathers I have proved doth manifest the Doctrine of the Trinity to have been generally receiv'd in the Christian Church 2. Let us now see what our Vnitarians object againâ—t the Proof of the Trinity from these
which makes them so Is it the attributing a general Name to them No certainly but that the true and Real Essence of a Man is in every one of them And we must be as certain of this as we are that they are Men they take their Denomination of being Men from that common Nature or Essence which is in them 4. That the general Idea is not made from the simple Ideas by the meer Act of the Mind abstracting from Circumstances but from Reason and Consideration of the true Nature of Things For when we see so many Individuals that have the same Powers and Properties we thence infer that there must be something common to all which makes them of one kind and if the difference of Kinds be real that which makes them of one kind and not of another must not be a Nominal but Real Essence And this difference doth not depend upon the complex Ideas of Substance whereby Men arbitrarily joyn Modes together in their Minds for let them mistake in the Complication of their Ideas either in leaving out or putting in what doth not belong to them and let their Ideas be what they please the Real Essence of a Man and a Horse and a Tree are just what they were and let their Nominal Essences differ never so much the Real common Essence or Nature of the several Kinds are not at all alter'd by them And these Real Essences are unchangeable For however there may happen some variety in Individuals by particular Accidents yet the Essences of Men and Horses and Trees remain always the same because they do not depend on the Ideas of Men but on the Will of the Creator who hath made several sorts of Beings 2. Let us now come to the Idea of a Person For although the common Nature in mankind be the same yet we see a difference in the several Individuals from one another So that Peter and Iames and Iohn are all of the same kind yet Peter is not Iames and Iames is not Iohn But what is this Distinction founded upon They may be distinguished from each other by our Senses as to difference of Features distance of Place c. but that is not all for supposing there were no such external difference yet there is a difference between them as several Individuals in the same common Nature And here lies the true Idea of a Person which arises from that manner of Subsistence which is in one Individual and is not Communicable to another An Individual intelligent Substance is rather supposed to the making of a Person than the proper Definition of it for a Person relates to something which doth distinguish it from another Intelligent Substance in the same Nature and therefore the Foundation of it lies in the peculiar manner of Subsistence which agrees to one and to none else of the Kind and this is it which is called Personality But how do our simple Ideas help us out in this Matter Can we learn from them the difference of Nature and Person We may understand the difference between abstracted Ideas and particular Beings by the Impressions of outward Objects and we may find an Intelligent Substance in our selves by inward Perception â—ut whether that make a Person or not must be understood some other Way for if the meer Intelligent Substance makes a Person then there cannot be the Union of two Natures but there must be two Persons Therefore a Person is a compleat Intelligent Substance with a peculiar manner of Subsistence so that if it be a part of another Substance it is no Person and on this account the Soul is no Person because it makes up an entire Being by its Union with the Body But when we speak of Finite Substances and Persons we are certain that distinct Persons do imply distinct Substances because they have a distinct and separate Existence but this will not hold in an infinite Substance where necessary Existence doth belong to the Idea of it And although the Argument from the Idea of God may not be sufficient of it self to prove his Being yet it will hold as to the excluding any thing from him which is inconsistent with necessary Existence therefore if we suppose a Distinction of Persons in the same Divine Nature it must be in a way agreeable to the infinite Perfections of it And no objection can be taken from the Idea of God to overthrow a Trinity of Co-existing Persons in the same Divine Essence For necessary Existence doth imply a Co-existence of the Divine Persons and the Unity of the Divine Essence that there cannot be such a difference of individual Substances as there is among mankind But these things are said to be above our Reason if not contrary to it and even such are said to be repugnant to our Religion 2. That therefore is the next thing to be carefully Examin'd whether Mysteries of Faith or Matters of Revelation above our Reason are to be rejected by us And a Thing is said to be above our Reason when we can have no clear and distinct Idea of it in our Minds And that if we have no Ideas of a thing it is certainly but lost labour for us to trouble our selves about it and that if such Doctrines be proposed which we cannot understand we must have new Powers and Organs for the Perception of them We are far from defending Contradictions to our natural Notions of which I have spoken already but that which we are now upon is whether any Doctrine may be rejected when it is offer'd as a Matter of Faith upon this account that it is above our Comprehension or that we can have no clear Idea of it in our Minds And this late Author hath undertaken to prove That there is nothing so Mysterious or above Reason in the Gospel To be above Reason he saith may be understood two ways 1. For a thing Intelligible in it self but cover'd with figurative and mystical Words 2. For a thing in its own Nature unconceivable and not to be judged of by our Faculties tho' it be never so clearly revealed This in either Sense is the same with Mystery And from thence he takes occasion to shew his Learning about the Gentile Mysteries and Ecclesiastical Mysteries which might have been spared in this Debate but only for the Parallel aimed at between them as to Priest-craft and Mysteries without which a Work of this nature would want its due relish with his good Christian Readers Others we see have their Mysteries too but the Comfort is that they are so easily understood and seen through as when the Heathen Mysteries are said to have been instituted at first in Commemoration of some remarkable Accidents or to the Honour of some great Persons that obliged the World by their Vertues and useful Inventions to pay them such Acknowledgments He must be very dull that doth not understand the meaning of this and yet this Man pretends to vindicate Christianity from being
World So that there is no way of dealing with them but by shewing the falsness weakness of the grounds they go upon and that they have no advantage of us as to Scripture Antiquity or Reason which is the Design of this Vndertaking Worcester Sept. 30. 1696. E. W. THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. THE Occasion and Design of the Discourse Pag. 1. CHAP. II. The Doctrine of the Trinity not receiv'd in the Christian Church by Force or Interest p. 10. CHAP. III. The Socinian Plea for the Antiquity of their Doctrine Examined p. 15. CHAP. IV. Of the Considerable Men they pretend to have been of their Opinion in the Primitive Church p. 29. CHAP. V. Of their Charge of Contradiction in the Doctrine of the Trinity p. 54. CHAP. VI. No Contradiction for Three Persons to be in One common Nature p. 68. CHAP. VII The Athanasian Creed clear'd from Contradictions p. 101. CHAP. VIII The Socinian Sense of Scripture Examined p. 121. CHAP. IX The General Sense of the Christian Church proved from the Form of Baptism as it was understood in the first Ages p. 177. CHAP. X. The Objections against the Trinity in point of Reason Answer'd p. 230. ERRATA PAg. 113. l. 12. for our r. one p. 122. l. 12. r. Heb. 1.5 for unto which p. 124. l. 7. add N. 11. p. 126. l. 29. for Damascenus r. Damascius p. 129. l. 21. for appointed r. appropriated p. 181. l. 22. after them put in not p. 192. l. 19 for we r. were p. 211. l. 1. dele that p. 217. l. 6. for Hypostasis r. Hypothesis p. 234. l. 6. for Intermission r. Intromission p. 283. l. 21. r. as well as A DISCOURSE In VINDICATION of the Doctrine of the Trinity WITH An ANSWER TO THE Late SOCINIAN Objections CHAP. I. The Occasion and Design of this Discourse IT is now above twenty years since I first published a Discourse about the reasons of the Sufferings of Christ lately reprinted in answer to some Socinian Objections at that time But I know not how it came to pass that the Socinian controversy seemed to be laid asleep among us for many years after and so it had continued to this day if some mens busie and indiscreet zeal for their own particular Opinions or rather Heresies had not been more prevalent over them than their care and concernment for the common interest of Christianity among us For it is that which really suffers by these unhappy and very unseasonable Disputes about the Mysteries of the Christian Faith which could never have been started and carried on with more fatal consequence to all revealed Religion than in an age too much inclined to Scepticism and Infidelity For all who are but well-wishers to that do greedily catch at any thing which tends to unsettle mens minds as to matters of Faith and to expose them to the scorn and contempt of Infidels And this is all the advantage which they have above others in their writings For upon my carefull Perusal of them which was occasion'd by reâ—rinting that Discourse I found nothing extraordinary as to depth of Judgment or closeness of Reasoning or strength of Argument or skill in Scripture or Antiquity but the old stuff set out with a new dress and too much suited to the Genius of the age we live in viz. brisk and airy but withal too light and superficial But although such a sort of Raillery be very much unbecoming the weight and dignity of the subject yet that is not the worst part of the character of them for they seem to be written not with a design to convince others or to justifie themselves but to ridicule the great Mysteries of our Faith calling them Iargon Cant Nonsense Impossibilities Contradictions Samaritanism and what not any thing but Mahometism and Deism And at the same time they know that we have not framed these Doctrines our selves but have received them by as universal a Tradition and Consent of the Christian Church as that whereby we receive the Books of the new Testament and as founded upon their authority So that as far as I can see the truth of these Doctrines and authority of those Books must stand and fall together For from the time of the writing and publishing of them all persons who were admitted into the Christian Church by the Form of Baptism prescribed by our Saviour were understood to â—e received Members upon profession of â—â—e Faith of the Holy Trinity the Hymns and Doxologies of the Primitive Church were to Father Son and Holy Ghost and those who openly opposed that Doctrine were cast out of the Communion of it which to me seem plain and demonstrative argâ—ments that this was the Doctrine of the Christian Church from the beginning as will appear in the progress of this Discourse The chief design whereof is to vindicate the Doctrine of the Trinity as it hath been generally received in the Christian Church and is expressed in the Athanasian Creed from those horrible Imputations of Nonsense Contradiction and Impossibility with which it is charged by our Vnitarians as they call themselves and that in the answer to the Sermon lately reprinted about the Mysteries of the Christian Faith which I first preached and published some years since upon the breaking out of this controversie among us by the Notes on Athanasius his Creed and other mischievous Pamphlets one upon another I was in hopes to have given some check to their insolent way of writing about matters so much above our reach by shewing how reasonable it was for us to submit to divine Revelation in such things since we must acknowledge our selves so much to seek as to the nature of Substances which are continually before our Eyes and therefore if there were such difficulties about a Mystery which depended upon Revelation we had no cause to wonder at it but our business was chiefly to be satisfied whether this Doctrine were any part of that Revelation As to which I proposed several things which I thought very reasonable to the finding out the true sense of the Scripture about these matters After a considerable time they thought fit to publish something which was to pass for an answer to it but in it they wholly pass over that part which relates to the sense of Scripture and run into their common place about Mysteries of Faith in which they were sure to have as many Friends as our Faith had Enemies and yet they managed it in so trifling a manner that I did not then think it deserved an Answer But a worthy and judicious Friend was willing to take that task upon himself which he hath very well discharged so that I am not concerned to meddle with all those particulars which are fully answer'd already but the general charge as to the Christian Church about the Doctrine of the Trinity I think my self oblig'd to give an answer to upon this occasion But before I come to that since they so confidently charge the Christian Church for
Nestorius were agreed and that he did not deny the Word to be Conâ—substantial with God but that he was not the Son of God till Christ was born in whom he dwelt By which we see how little reason our Vnitarians have to boast of Photinus as their Predecessor As to the boast of the first Unitarians at Rome that theirs was the general Doctrine before the time of Victor it is so fully confuted by the ancient Writer in Eusebius who mentions it from the Scriptures and the first Christian Writers named by him that it doth not deserve to be taken notice of especially since he makes it appear that it was not heard of among them at Rome till it was first broached there by Theodotus as not only he but Tertullian affirms as I have already observed Thus I have clearly proved that the Doctrine of the Trinity was so far from being embraced only on the account of force and fear that I have shewed there was in the first Ages of the Christian Church a free and general Consent in it even when they were under Persecution and after the Arian Controversie broke out yet those who denied the Pre-existence and Co-eternity of the Son of God were universally condemned even the Arian Party concurring in the Synods mention'd by Hilary But our Vnitarians are such great Pretenders to Reason that this Argument from the Authority of the whole Christian Church signifies little or nothing to them Therefore they would conclude still that they have the better of us in point of Reason because they tell us that they have clear and distinct Perceptions that what we call Mysteries of Faith are Contradictions Impossibilities and pure Nonsense and that they do not reject them because they do not comprehend them but because they do comprehend them to be so This is a very bold Charge and not very becoming the Modesty and Decency of such who know at the same time that they oppose the Religion publickly established and in such things which we look on as some of the principal Articles of the Christian Faith CHAP. V. Of their Charge of Contradiction in the Doctrine of the Trinity BUT I shall not take any Advantages from thence but immediately proceed to the next thing I undertook in this Discourse viz. To consider what Grounds they have for such a Charge as this of Contradiction and Impossibility In my Sermon which gave occasion to these Expressions as is before intimated I had undertaken to prove that considering the infinite Perfections of the Divine Nature which are so far above our reach God may justly oblige us to believe those things concerning himself which we are not able to comprehend and I instanced in some Essential Attributes of God as his Eternity Omniscience Spirituality c. And therefore if there be such Divine Perfections which we have all the Reason to believe but no Faculties sufficient to comprehend there can be no ground from Reason to reject such a Doctrine which God hath revealed because the manner of it may be incomprehensible by us And what Answer do they give to this They do not deny it in general that God may oblige us to believe things above our Comprehension but he never obliges us to believe Contradictions and that they Charge the Doctrine of the Trinity with and for this they only referr me to their Books where they say it is made out But I must say that I have read and consider'd those Tracts and am very far from being convinced that there is any such Contradiction in this Doctrine as it is generally received in the Christian Church or as it is explained in the Athanasian Creed And I shall shew the unreasonableness of this Charge from these things 1. That there is a Difference between a Contradiction in Numbers and in the Nature of things 2. That it is no Contradiction to assert three Persons in One Common Nature 3. That it is no Contradiction to say that there are three distinct Persons in the Trinity and not three Gods If I can make out these things I hope I may abate something of that strange and unreasonable confidence wherewith these men charge the Doctrine of the Trinity with Contradictions 1. I begin with the first of them And I shall draw up the Charge in their own words In one of their late Books they have these Words Theirs they say is an Accountable and Reasonable Faith but that of the Trinitarians is absurd and contrary both to Reason and to it self and therefore not only false but impossible But wherein lies this Impossibility That they soon tell us Because we affirm that there are Three Persons who are severally and each of them true God and yet there is but one true God Now say they this is an Error in counting or numbring which when stood in is of all others the most brutal and inexcusable and not to discern it is not to be a Man What must these men think the Christian Church hath been made up of all this while What were there no Men among them but the Vnitarians none that had common sense and could tell the difference between One and Three But this is too choice a Notion to be deliver'd but once we have it over and over from them In another place they say We cannot be mistaken in the Notion of One and Three we are most certain that One is not Three and Three are not One. This it is to be Men But the whole Christian World besides are in Brutal and Inexcusable Errors about One and Three This is not enough for they love to charge home for one of their terrible Objections against the Athanasian Creed is That here is an Arithmetical as well as Grammatical Contradiction For in saying God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost yet not three Gods but one God a Man first distinctly numbers three Gods and then in summing them up brutishly says not three Gods but one God Brutishly still Have the Brutes and Trinitarians learnt Arithmetick together Methinks such Expressions do not become such whom the Christian Church hath so long since condemned for Heresies But it may be with the same Civility they will say It was brutishly done of them But can these Men of Sense and Reason think that the Point in Controversie ever was whether in Numbers One could be Three or Three One If they think so I wonder they do not think of another thing which is the begging all Trinitarians for Fools because they cannot count One Two and Three and an Vnitarian Jury would certainly cast them One would think such Writers had never gone beyond Shop-books for they take it for granted that all depends upon Counting But these terrible Charges were some of the most common and trite Objections of Infidels St. Augustin mentions it as such when he saith the Infidels sometimes ask us what do you call the Father We answer God What the Son
we answer God What the Holy Ghost we answer God So that here the Infidels make the same Objection and draw the very same Inference Then say they the Father Son and H. Ghost are three Gods But what saith S. Augustin to this Had he no more skill in Arithmetick than to say there are Three and yet but One He saith plainly that there are not three Gods The Infidels are troubled because they are not Inlightend their heart is shut up because they are without Faith By which it is plain he look'd on these as the proper Objections of Infidels and not of Christians But may not Christians have such doubts in their minds He doth not deny it but then he saith Where the true foundation of Faith is laid in the heart which helps the Vnderstanding we are to embrace with it all that it can reach to and where we can go no farther we must believe without doubting which is a wise resolution of this matter For there are some things revealed which we can entertain the notion of in our minds as we do of any other matters and yet there may be some things belonging to them which we cannot distinctly conceive We believe God to have been from all Eternity and that because God hath revealed it but here is something we can conceive viz. that he was so and here is something we cannot conceive viz. How he was so This Instance I had produced in my Sermon to shew that we might be obliged to believe such things concerning God of which we cannot have a clear and distinct Notion as that God was from all Eternity although we cannot conceive in our minds how he could be from himself Now what saith the Vnitarian to this who pretended to Answer me He saith If God must be from himself then an Eternal God is a Contradiction for that implies that he was before he was and so charges me with espousing the cause of Atheists I wish our Vnitarians were as free from this Charge as I am But this is malicious cavilling For my design was only to shew that we could have no distinct conception of something which we are bound to believe For upon all accounts we are bound to believe an Eternal God and yet we cannot form a distinct and clear Idea of the manner of it Whether being from himself be taken positively or negatively the matter is not cleared the one is Absurd and the other Unconceivable by us But still I say it is a thing that we are bound to believe stedfastly although it is above our comprehension But instead of Answering to this he runs out into an Examination of one notion of Eternity and as he thinks shews some Absurdities in that which are already answer'd But that was not my meaning but to shew that we could have no clear and distinct Notion of Eternity And if his Arguments were good they prove what I aimed at at least as to that Part and himself produces my own Words to shew that there were such Difficulties every way which we could not master and yet are bound to believe that necessary Existence is an inseparable Attribute of God So that here we have a clear instance of what S. Augustin saith That we may believe something upon full Conviction as that God is eternal and yet there may remain something which we cannot reach to by our understanding viz. the manner how Eternity is to be conceived by us which goes a great way towards clearing the Point of the Trinity notwithstanding the Difficulty in our conceiving the manner how Three should be one and One three But S. Augustin doth not give it over so Let us keep stedfast saith he to the Foundation of our Faith that we may arrive to the top of Perfection the Father is God the Son is God the Holy Ghost is God the Father is not the Son nor the Son the Father nor the Holy Ghost either Father or Son And he goes on The Trinity is one God one Eternity one Power one Majesty Three Persons one God So it is in Erasmus his Edition but the late Editors say that the word Personae was not in their Manuscript And it is not material in this Place since elsewhere he approves the use of the word Persons as the fittest to express our meaning in this Case For since some Word must be agreed upon to declare our Sense by he saith those who understood the Propriety of the Latin tongue could not pitch upon any more proper than that to signifie that they did not mean three distinct Essences but the same Essence with a different Hypostasis founded in the Relation of one to the other as Father and Son have the same Divine Essence but the Relations being so different that one cannot be confounded with the other that which results from the Relation being joyned with the Essence was it which was called a Person But saith S. Augustin The Caviller will ask if there be Three what Three are they He answers Father Son and Holy Ghost But then he distinguishes between what they are in themselves and what they are to each other The Father as to himself is God but as to the Son he is Father the Son as to himself is God but as to the Father he is the Son But how is it possible to understand this Why saith he Take two men Father and Son the one as to himself is a Man but as to the Son a Father the Son as to himself is a Man but as to the Father he is a Son but these two have the same common Nature But saith he Will it not hence follow that as these are two Men so the Father and Son in the Divine Essence must be two Gods No there lies the difference between the humane and Divine Nature That one cannot be multiplied and divided as the other is And therein lies the true Solution of the Difficulty as will appear afterwards When you begin to count saith he you go on One two and Three But when you have reckon'd them what is it you have been Counting The Father is the Father the Son the Son and the Holy Ghost the Holy Ghost What are these Three Are they not three Gods No Are they not three Almighties No They are capable of Number as to their Relation to each other but not as to their Essence which is but One. The substance of the Answer lies here the Divine Essence is that alone which makes God that can be but One and therefore there can be no more Gods than one But because the same Scripture which assures us of the Unity of the Divine Essence doth likewise joyn the Son and Holy Ghost in the same Attributes Operations and Worship therefore as to the mutual Relations we may reckon Three but as to the Divine Essence that can be no more than One. Boëthius was a great Man in all respects for his Quality
of the Mind without any real Existence belonging to it as such which is contrary to the very Notion of God which implies a necessary Existence or it must imply a Divine Nature which is neither Father Son nor Holy Ghost Which is so repugnant to the Doctrine of the Fathers that no one that is any ways conversant in their Writings on this Argument can imagine they should hold such an Opinion And I am so far from being convinced by Curcellaeus his undeniable Proofs that I think it no hard matter to bring undeniable Proofs that he hath mistaken their meaning Of which I shall give an Account in this Place because I fear his Authority hath had too much sway with some as to this matter I shall not insist upon his gross mistake in the very entrance of that Discourse where he saith That the Bishops of Gaul and Germany disliked the Homoousion and gave three Reasons against it whereas Hilary speaks of the Eastern Bishops whom he goes about to vindicate to the Western Bishops who were offended with them for that reason as any one that reads Hilary de Synodis may see But I come to the main Point His great Argument is from the use of the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which may extend to Individuals of the same kind Who denies it But the Question is whether the Fathers used it in that sense so as to imply a difference of Individuals in the same common Essence There were two things aimed at by them in their Dispute with the Arians 1. To shew That the Son was of the same Substance with the Father which they denied and made him of an inferior created Substance of another kind Now the Fathers thought this term very proper to express their Sense against them But then this Word being capable of a larger Sense than they intended they took care 2. To assert a perfect Unity and Indivisibility of the Divine Essence For the Arians were very ready to charge them with one of these two things 1. That they must fall into Sabellianism if they held a perfect Unity of Essence or 2. When they clear'd themselves of this that they must hold Three Gods and both these they constantly denied To make this clear I shall produce the Testimonies of some of the chief both of the Greek and Latin Fathers and answer Curcellaeus his Objections Athanasius takes notice of both these Charges upon their Doctrine of the Trinity As to Sabellianism he declared That he abhorred it equally with Arianism and he saith it lay in making Father and Son to be only different Names of the same Person and so they asserted but one Person in the Godhead As to the other Charge of Polytheism he observes That in the Scripture Language all mankind was reckon'd as one because they have the same Essence and if it be so as to Men who have such a difference of Features of Strength of Vnderstanding of Language how much more may God be said to be One in whom is an undivided Dignity Power Counsel and Operation Doth this prove such a difference as is among Individuals of the same kind among men No man doth more frequently assert the indivisible Vnity of the Divine Nature than he He expresly denies such divided Hypostases as are among men and saith That in the Trinity there is a Conjunction without confusion and a distinction without Division that in the Trinity there is so perfect an Vnion and that it is so undivided and united in it self that where-ever the Father is there is the Son and the Holy Ghost and so the rest because there is but one Godhead and one God who is over all and through all and in all But saith Curcellaeus The contrary rather follows from this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or mutual Inexistence for that could not be without distinct Substance as in Water and Wine But this is a very gross mistake of the Fathers Notion who did not understand by it a Local In-existence as of Bodies but such an indivisible Vnity that one cannot be without the other as even Petavius hath made it appear from Athanasius and others Athanasius upon all Occasions asserts the Unity of the Divine Nature to be perfect and indivisible God saith he is the Father of his Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without any Division of the Substance And in other places that the Substance of the Father and Son admit of no Division and he affirms this to have been the sense of the Council of Nice so that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must be understood of the same indivisible Substance Curcellaeus answers That Athanasius by this indivisible Vnity meant only a close and indissoluble Vnion But he excluded any kind of Division and that of a Specifick Nature into several individuals as a real Division in Nature for no man whoever treated of those matters denied that a Specifick Nature was divided when there were several individuals under it But what is it which makes the Vnion indissoluble Is it the Vnity of the Essence or not If it be is it the same individual Essence or not If the same individual Essence makes the inseparable Union what is it which makes the difference of individuals If it be said The incommunicable Properties of the Persons I must still ask how such Properties in the same individual Essence can make different individuals If it be said to be the same Specifick Nature then how comes that which is in it self capable of Division to make an indissoluble Vnion But saith Curcellaeus Athanasius makes Christ to be of the same Substance as Adam and Seth and Abraham and Isaac are said to be Con-substantial with each other And what follows That the Father and Son are divided from each other as they were This is not possible to be his Sense considering what he saith of the Indivisibility of the Divine Nature And Athanasius himself hath given sufficient warning against such a Mis-construction of his Words and still urges that our Conceptions ought to be suitable to the Divine Nature not taken from what we see among men And it is observable that when Paulus Samosatenus had urged this as the best Argument against the term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That it made such a difference of Substances as is among men for that Reason saith Athanasius his Iudges were content to let it alone for the Son of God is not in such a sense Con-substantial but afterwards the Nicene Fathers finding out the Art of Paulus and the significancy of the Word to discriminate the Arians made use of it and only thought it necessary to declare that when it is applied to God it is not to be understood as among individual Men. As to the Dialogues under Athanasius his Name on which Curcellaeus insists so much it is now very well known that they belong not to him but to Maximus and by comparing them with
have these to God but as he is the Maker of them Number belongs to material and circumscribed Beings but saith he the most perfect Vnity is to be conceived in the most simple and incomprehensible Essence Where it is observable that he uses those Words which are allow'd to express the most perfect and singular Unity Which Petavius himself confesseth that they can never be understood of a specifick Nature and Curcellaeus cannot deny That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being added to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth restrain the Sense more to a numerical Vnity as he calls it How then is it possible to understand S. Basil of more Gods than one in number And in the very same Page he mentions the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sameness of the divine Nature by which the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is better understood But Curcellaeus will have no more than a specifick Vnity understood Before he said that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 would have signified more but now he finds it used the case is alter'd So that the Fathers could not mean any other than a specifick Vnity let them use what expressions they pleas'd But these I think are plain enough to any one that will not shut his Eyes In an other place S. Basil makes the same Objection and gives the same answer One God the Father and one God the Son how can this be and yet not two Gods Because saith he the Son hath the very same Essence with the Father Not two Essences divided out of one as two Brothers but as Father and Son the Son subsisting as from the Father but in the same individual Essence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But Curcellaeus hath one fetch yet viz. That S. Basil denied God to be one in Number and made him to be one in Nature because he look'd on a specifick Vnity or Vnity of Nature as more exact than numerical S. Basil look'd on the divine Nature as such to have the most perfect Vnity because of its Simplicity and not in the least speaking of it as a specifick Vnity but Curcellaeus himself calls this an Vnity by a mere Fiction of the Mind and can he imagine this to have been more accurate than a real Unity These are hard shifts in a desperate cause After all our Vnitarians tell us That S. Basil doth against Eunomius allow a distinction in Number with respect to the Deity But how As to the Essence By no means For he asserts the perfect Vnity thereof in the same place even the Vnity of the Substance But as to the characteristical Properties of the Persons he allows of Number and no farther But say they This is to make one God as to essential Properties and three as to Personal How can that be when he saith so often there can be but one God because there can be but one divine Essence and therefore those properties can only make distinct Hypostases but not distinct Essences And is this indeed the great Secret which this bold Man as they call him hath discover'd I think those are much more bold I will not say impudent who upon such slight grounds charge him with asserting more Gods than one in Number But Gregory Nyssen saith Curcellaeus speaks more plainly in his Epistle to Ablabius for saith he To avoid the difficulty of making three Gods as three Individuals among Men are three Men he answers that truly they are not three Men because they have but one common Essence which is exactly one and indivisible in it self however it be dispersed in Individuals the same he saith is to be understood of God And this Petavius had charged him with before as appears by Curcellaeus his Appendix This seems the hardest passage in Antiquity for this purpose to which I hope to give a satisfactory answer from Gregory Nyssen himself 1. It cannot be denied that he asserts the Vnity of Essence to be Indivisible in it self and to be the true ground of the Denomination of Individuals as Peter hath the name of a Man not from his individual Properties whereby he is distinguished from Iames and Iohn but from that one indivisible Essence which is common to them all but yet receives no Addition or Diminution in any of them 2. He grants a Division of Hypostases among Men notwithstanding this Indivisibility of one common Essence For saith he among Men although the Essence remain one and the same in all without any Division yet the several Hypostases are divided from each other according to the individual Properties belonging to them So that here is a double consideration of the Essence as in it self so it is one and indivisible as it subsists in Individuals and so it is actually divided according to the Subjects For although the Essence of a Man be the same in it self in Peter Iames and Iohn yet taking it as in the Individuals so the particular Essence in each of them is divided from the rest And so Philoponus took Hypostasis for an Essence individuated by peculiar Properties and therefore asserted that where-ever there was an Hypostasis there must be a distinct Essence and from hence he held the three Persons to have three distinct Essences 3. We are now to consider how far Gregory Nyssen carried this whether he thought it held equally as to the divine Hypostasis and that he did not appears to me from these arguments 1. He utterly denies any kind of Division in the divine Nature for in the conclusion of that Discourse he saith it is not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Word often used by the Greek Fathers on this occasion from whence Athanasius against Macedonius inferr'd an Identity and Caesarius joyns 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so S. Basil uses it but he adds another Word which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Indivisible Yes as all Essences are indivisible in themselves but they may be divided in their Subjects as Gregory Nyssen allows it to be in Men. I grant it but then he owns a Division of some kind which he here absolutely denies as to the divine Nature for his words are that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in any consideration whatsoever Then he must destroy the Hypostases Not so neither for he allows that there is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as to the Hypostases however For he proposes the Objection himself That by allowing no difference in the divine Nature the Hypostases would be confounded To which he answers That he did not deny their difference which was founded in the relation they had to one another which he there explains and that therein only consists the difference of the Persons Which is a very considerable testimony to shew that both Petavius and Curcellaeus mistook Gregory Nyssen's meaning But there are other arguments to prove it 2. He asserts such a difference between the divine and human Persons as is unanswerable viz. the Vnity of Operation For saith he
among Men if several go about the same Work yet every particular Person works by himself and therefore they may well be called many because every one is circumscribed but in the divine Persons he proves that it is quite otherwise for they all concurr in the Action towards us as he there shews at large Petavius was aware of this and therefore he saith he quitted it and returned to the other whereas he only saith If his Adversaries be displeased with it he thinks the other sufficient Which in short is that Essence in it self is one and indivisible but among Men it is divided according to the Subjects that the divine Nature is capable of no Division at all and therefore the difference of Hypostases must be from the different Relations and Manner of Subsistence 3. He expresses his meaning fully in another place For in his Catechetical Oration he saith he looks on the Doctrine of the Trinity as a profound Mystery which three individual Persons in one specifick Nature is far from But wherein lies it Chiefly in this That there should be Number and no Number different View and yet but One a distinction of Hypostases and yet no Division in the Subjects For so his words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is contrary to what he said of human Hypostases Now what is the Subject in this case According to Curcellaeus his Notion it must be an Individual But since he asserts there can be no Division in the Subjects then he must overthrow any such Individuals as are among Men. These are the chief Testimonies out of the Greek Fathers whose authority Curcellaeus and others rely most upon as to this matter which I have therefore more particularly examin'd But S. Ierom saith Curcellaeus in his Epistle to Damasus thought three Hypostases implied three distinct Substances and therefore when the Campenses would have him own them he refused it and asked his Advice Then it is plain S. Ierom would not own three distinct Substances and so could not be of Curcellaeus his mind But saith he S. Ierom meant by three Substances three Gods different in kind as the Arians did But how doth that appear Doth he not say the Arian Bishop and the Campenses put him upon it But who was this Arian Bishop and these Campenses No other than the Meletian Party for Meletius was brought in by the Arians but he joyned against them with S. Basil and others who asserted three Hypostases and the Campenses were his People who met without the Gates as the Historians tell us But it is evident by S. Ierom that the Latin Church understood Hypostasis to be the same then with Substance and the reason why they would not allow three Hypostases was because they would not assert three Substances So that Curcellaeus his Hypothesis hath very little colour for it among the Latin Fathers since S. Ierom there saith it would be Sacrilege to hold three Substances and he freely bestows an Anathema upon any one that asserted more than one But Hilary saith Curcellaeus owns a specifick Vnity for in his Book de Synodis he shews That by one Substance they did not mean one individual Substance but such as was in Adam and Seth that is of the same kind No man asserts the Vnity and Indiscrimination of the divine Substance more fully and frequently than he doth and that without any Difference or Variation as to the Father and the Son And although against the Arians he may use that for an Illustration of Adam and Seth yet when he comes to explain himself he declares it must be understood in a way agreeable to the divine Nature And he denies any Division of the Substance between Father and Son but he asserts one and the same Substance to be in both and although the Person of the Son remains distinct from the Person of the Father yet he subsists in that Substance of which he was begotten and nothing is taken off from the substance of the Father by his being begotten of it But doth he not say That he hath a Legitimate and proper Substance of his own begotten Nature from God the Father And what is this but to own two distinct Substances How can the Substance be distinct if it be the very same and the Son subsist in that Substance of which he was begotten And that Hilary besides a multitude of passages to the same purpose in him cannot be understood of two distinct Substances will appear by this Evidence The Arians in their Confession of Faith before the Council of Nice set down among the several Heresies which they condemned that of Hieracas who said the Father and Son were like two Lamps shining out of one common Vessel of Oil. Hilary was sensible that under this that Expression was struck at God of God Light of Light which the Church owned His Answer is Luminis Naturae Vnitas est non ex connexione porrectio i e. they are not two divided Lights from one common Stock but the same Light remaining after it was kindled that it was before As appears by his Words Light of Light saith he implies That it gives to another that which it continues to have it self And Petavius saith that the Opinion of Hieracas was That the substance of the Father and Son differ'd Numerically as one Lamp from another And Hilary calls it an Error of humane Understanding which would judge of God by what they find in one another Doth not S. Ambrose say as Curcellaeus quotes him That the Father and Son are not two Gods because all men are said to be of one Substance But S Ambrose is directly against him For he saith The Arians objected that if they made the Son true God and Con-substantial with the Father they must make two Gods as there are two men or two Sheep of the same Essence but a Man and a Sheep are not said to be Men or two sheep Which they said to excuse themselves because they made the Son of a different kind and substance from the Father And what Answer doth S. Ambrose give to this 1. He saith Plurality according to the Scriptures rather falls on those of different kinds and therefore when they make them of several kinds they must make several Gods 2. That we who hold but One Substance cannot make more Gods than One. 3. To his instance of Men he answers That although they are of the same Nature by Birth yet the◠differ in Age and Thought and Work and Place from one another and where there is such Diversity there cannot be Vnity but in God there is no difference of Nature Will or Operation and therefore there can be but one God The last I shall mention is S. Augustin whom Curcellaeus produces to as little purpose for although he doth mention the same instance of several Men being of the same kind yet he speaks so expresly against a Specifick Vnity in
Sabellius called Persons But by this Foundation he doth not mean any distinct Essences but the incommunicable Properties belonging to them as Father Son and Holy Ghost It is plain from hence that the necessity of asserting three Hypostases came from thence that otherwise they could not so well distinguish themselves from the Sabellians whose Doctrine they utterly disowned as well as Arianism and Iudaism and it appears by the Testimonies of Athanasius Gregory Nazianzen and S. Basil that they look'd on one as bad as the other and they commonly joyn Iudaism and Sabellianism together But yet there arose Difficulties whether they were to hold one Hypostasis or three The former insisted on the generally received Sense of Hypostasis for Substance or Essence and therefore they could not hold three Hypostases without three distinct Essences as the Platonists and Marcionists held Upon this a Synod was called at Alexandria to adjust this matter where both Parties were desired to explain themselves Those who held three Hypostases were asked Whether they maintained three Hypostases as the Arians did of different Substances and separate Subsistences as Mankind and other Creatures are Or as other Hereticks three Principles or three Gods All which they stedfastly denied Then they were asked Why they used those terms They answered Because they believed the Holy Trinity to be more than mere Names and that the Father and Son and Holy Ghost had a real Subsistence belonging to them but still they held but one Godhead one Principle and the Son of the same Substance with the Father and the Holy Ghost not to be a Creature but to bear the same proper and inseparable Essence with the Father and the Son Then the other side were asked When they asserted but one Hypostasis whether they held with Sabellius or not and that the Son and Holy Ghost had no Essence or Subsistence which they utterly denied but said that their meaning was That Hypostasis was the same with Substance and by one Hypostasis they intended no more but that the Father Son and Holy Ghost were of the same individual Substance for the Words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so they held but one Godhead and one divine Nature and upon these terms they agreed From whence it follows that the Notion of three Hypostases as it was received in the Christian Church was to be underâ—â—ood so as to be consistent with the Individual Vnity of the divine Essence And the great rule of the Christian Church was to keep in the middle between the Doctrines of Sabellius and Arius and so by degrees the Notion of three Hypostases and one Essence was look'd on in the Eastern Church as the most proper Discrimination of the Orthodox from the Sabellians and Arians But the Latin Church was not so easily brought to the use of three Hypostases because they knew no other Sense of it but for Substance or Essence and they all denied that there was any more than one divine Substance and therefore they rather embraced the Word Persona and did agree in the Name of Persons as most proper to signifie their meaning which was That there were three which had distinct Subsistences and incommunicable Properties and one and the same divine Essence And since the Notion of it is so well understood to signifie such a peculiar Sense I see no reason why any should scruple the use of it As to it s not being used in Scripture Socinus himself despises it and allows it to be no good reason For when Franciscus Davides objected That the terms of Essence and Person were not in Scripture Socinus tells him That they exposed their cause who went upon such grounds and that if the sense of them were in Scripture it was no matter whether the terms were or not Hâ—ving thus clear'd the Notion of three Persons I return to the Sense of Scripture about these matters And our Vnitarians tell us that we ought to interpret Scripture otherwise How doth that appear They give us very little encouragement to follow their Interpretations which are so new so forced so different from the general Sense of the Christian World and which I may say reflect so highly on the Honour of Christ and his Apostles i. e. by making use of such Expressions which if they do not mean what to honest and sincere Minds they appear to do must be intended according to them to set up Christ a meer Man to be a God And if such a thought as this could enter into the Mind of a thinking Man it would tempt him to suspect much more as to those Writings than there is the least colour or reason for Therefore these bold inconsiderate Writers ought to reflect on the consequence of such sort of Arguments and if they have any regard to Christianity not to trifle with Scripture as they do But say they The question only is Whether we ought to interpret Scripture when it speaks of God according to reason or not that is like Fools or like wise Men Like wise Men no doubt if they can hit upon it but they go about it as untowardly as ever Men did For is this to interpret Scripture like wise Men to take up some novel Interpretations against the general Sense of the Christian Church from the Apostles times Is this to act like wise Men to raise Objections against the Authority of the Books they cannot answer and to cry out of false Copies and Translations without reason and to render all places suspicious which make against them Is this to interpret Scripture like wise Men to make our Saviour affect to be thought a God when he knew himself to be a mere Man and by their own Confession had not his divine Authority and Power conferr'd upon him And to make his Apostles set up the Worship of a Creature when their design was to take away the Worship of all such who by Nature are not Gods Is this like wise Men to tell the World that these were only such Gods whom they had set up and God had not appointed as though there were no Real Idolatry but in giving Divine Worship without God's Command CHAP. VIII The Socinian Sense of Scripture examined BUT they must not think to escape so easily for such a groundless and presumptuous saying that they interpret the Scripture not like Fools but like Wise Men because the true sense of Scripture is really the main point between us and therefore I shall more carefully examine the Wise Sense they give of the chief places which relate to the matter in hand 1. Is this to interpret Scripture like Wise Men to make the Author to the Hebrews in one Chapter and that but a short one to bring no less than four places out of the Old Testament and according to their Sense not one of them proves that which he aimed at viz. that Christ was superiour to Angels Heb. 1.5 as will appear by the Sense they give of
account of it That there was a Concurrence of others with him in it and that this Doctrine was look'd on as an Innovation in the Faith For his Opinion was that our Saviour had no proper Subsistence of his own before the Incarnation and that the Deity of the Father alone was in him He did not mean that the Son had no separate Divinity from the Father but that the Deity of the Father only appeared in the Son so that he was not really God but only one in whom the Deity of the Father was made manifest Which was one of the oldest Heresies in the Church and the most early condemned and opposed by it But those Heresies which before had differenced Persons from the Church were now spread by some at first within the Communion of it as it was not only in the Case of Noetus and Beryllus but of Sabellius himself who made the greatest noise about this Doctrine and his Disciples Epiphanius tells us spread very much both in the Eastern and Western parts in Mesopotamia and at Rome Their Doctrine he saith was that Father Son and Holy Ghost were but one Hypostasis with three different Denominations They compared God to the Sun the Father to the Substance the Son to the Light and the Holy Ghost to the Heat which comes from it and these two latter were only distinct Operations of the same Substance Epiphanius thinks that Sabellius therein differ'd from Noetus because he denied that the Father suffer'd but S. Augustin can find no difference between them All that can be conceived is that a different Denomination did arise from the different appearance and Operation which our Vnitarians call three Relative Persons and one Subsisting Person Sabellius did spread his Heresie most in his own Country which was in Pentapolis of the Cyrenaick Province being born in Ptolemais one of the five Cities there Of this Dionysius Bishop of Alexandria gives an account in his Epistle to Xystus then Bishop of Rome wherein he takes notice of the wicked and blasphemous Heresie lately broached there against the Persons of the Father Son and Holy Ghost Letters on both sides were brought to him on which occasion he wrote several Epistles among which there was one to Ammonius Bishop of Bernice another of the Cities of Pentapolis In this he disputed with great warmth against this Doctrine of Sabellius insomuch that he was afterwards accused to Dionysius of Rome that he had gone too far the other way and lessen'd the Divinity of the Son by his Similitudes of which he clear'd himself as appears by what remains of his Defence in Athanasius But as to his Zeal against Sabellianism it was never question'd Dionysius of Rome declares his Sense at large in this matter against both Extremes viz. of those who asserted three separate and independent Principles and of those who confounded the Divine Persons and he charges the Doctrine of Sabellius too with Blasphemy as well as those who set up three different Principles and so made three Gods But he declares the Christian Doctrine to be that there were Father Son and Holy Ghost but that there is an indivisible Vnion in One and the same Godhead It seems Dionysius of Alexandria was accused for dividing and separating the Persons to which he answers that it was impossible he should do it because they are indivisible from each other and the name of each Person did imply the inseparable Relation to the other as the Father to the Son and the Son to the Father and the Holy Ghost to both And this Judgment of these two great Men in the Church concerning Sabellianism was universally receiv'd in the Christian Church And this happen'd long before the Nicene Council 2. Another argument of the general Sense of the Christian Church is from the Hymns and Doxologies publickly received which were in the most solemn Acts of religious Worship made to Father Son and Holy Ghost The force of this argument appears hereby that divine Worship cannot be given to mere Names and an Equality of Worship doth imply an Equality of Dignity in the object of Worship and therefore if the same Acts of Adoration be performed to Father Son and Holy Ghost it is plain that the Christian Church did esteem them to have the same divine Nature although they were distinct Persons And if they were not so there could not be distinct Acts of divine Worship performed to them S. Basil mentions this Doxology of Africanus that ancient Writer of the Christian Church in the fifth Book of his Chronicon We render thanks to him who gave our Lord Iesus Christ to be a Saviour to whom with the Holy Ghost be Glory and Majesty for ever And another of Dionysius Alexandrinus in his 2d Epistle to Dionysius of Rome To God the Father and his Son our Lord Iesus Christ with the Holy Ghost be Glory and Power for ever and ever Amen And this is the more considerable because he saith he did herein follow the ancient Custom and Rule of the Church and he joyned with it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Praising God in the same voice with those who have gone before us which shews how early these Doxologies to Father Son and Holy Ghost had been used in the Christian Church But to let us the better understand the true Sense of them S. Basil hath preserved some passages of Dionysius Alexandrinus which do explain it viz. That either the Sabellians must allow three distinct Hypostases or they must wholly take away the Trinity By which it is evident that by Father Son and Holy Ghost he did understand three distinct Hypostases but not divided for that appears to have been the Sabellians Argument That if there were three they must be divided No saith Dionysius they are three whether the Sabellians will or not or else there is no Trinity which he look'd on as a great absurdity to take away 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Divine Trinity Of what Of mere Names or Energies That is no Trinity for there is but one subsisting Person of separate and divided Substances That the Sabellians thought must follow but both the Dionysius's denied it And in another Passage there mention'd Dionysius of Alexandria asserts the Trinity in Vnity But before Dionysius he quotes a passage of Clemens Romanus concerning Father Son and Holy Ghost which attributes Life distinctly to them Now Life cannot belong to a Name or Energy and therefore must imply a Person But that which is most material to our purpose is the Publick Doxology in the Church of Neo-Caesarea brought in by Gregory Thaumaturgus S. Basil gives a very high Character of him as of a Person of extraordinary Piety and Exactness of Life and a great promoter of Christianity in those Parts and by him the Form of Doxology was introduced into that Church being chiefly formed by him there being but Seventeen Christians when he was first made Bishop there which was
That they do not speak of distinct Persons but they confess that Philo speaks home and therefore they make him a Christian But Philo had the same Notion with the Paraphrasts and their best way will be to declare that they look upon them all as Christians and they might as well affirm it of Onkelos as they do of Philo but I doubt the World will not take their Word for either But to proceed with the Christian Doxologies Nâ—â—hing saith S. Basil shall make me forsake the Doctrine I received in my Baptism when I was first entred into the Christian Church and I advise all others to keep firm to that Profession of the Holy Trinity which they made in their Baptism that is of the indivisible Vnion of Father Son and Holy Ghost And as he saith afterwards by the Order of the Words in Baptism it appears that as the Son is to the Father so the Holy Ghost is to the Son For they are all put without any Distinction or Number whâ—ch he observes agrees only to a multitude For by their Properties they are one and one yet by the Community of Essence the two are but one and he makes it his business to prove the Holy Ghost to be a proper Object of Adoration as well as the Father and Son and therefore there was no reason to find fault with the Doxology used in that Church and that Firmilian Meletius and the Eastern Christians agreed with them in the use of it and so did all the Western Churches from Illyricum to the Worlds end and this he saith was by an immemorial Custom of all Churches and of the greatest men in them Nay more he saith It had been continued in the Churches from the time the Gospel had been receive'd among them And nothing can be fuller than the Authority of his Testimony if S. Basil may be believed To these I shall add the Doxology of Polycarp at this Martyrdom mentioned by Eusebius which is very full to our Purpose I Glorifie thee by our Eternal High-Priest Iesus Christ thy beloved Son by whom be Glory to thee with him in the Holy Ghost What can we imagine Polycarp meant by this but to render the same Glory to Father Son and Holy Ghost but with such a difference as to the Particles which S. Basil at large proves come to the same thing And to the same purpose not only the Church of Smyrna but Pionius the Martyr who transcribed the Acts speaking of Iesus Christ with whom be Glory to God the Father and the Holy Ghost These suffer'd Martyrdom for Christianity and owned the same Divine Honour to the Father Son and Holy Ghost What could they mean if they did not believe them to have the same Divine Nature Can we suppose them Guilty of such stupidity to lose their Lives for not giving Divine Honour to Creatures and at the same time to do it themselves So that if the Father Son and Holy Ghost were not then believed to be three Persons and one God the Christian Church was mightily deceived and the Martyrs acted inconsistently with their own Principles Which no good Christian will dare to affirm But some have adventured to say that Polycarp did not mean the same Divine Honour to Father Son and Holy Ghost But if he had so meant it how could he have expressed it otherwise It was certainly a Worship distinct from what he gave to Creatures as appears by the Church of Smyrna's disowning any Worship but of Love and Repect to their fellow Creatures and own the giving Adoration to the Son of God with whom they joyn both Father and Holy Ghost Which it is impossible to conceive that in their Circumstances they should have done unless they had believed the same Divine Honour to belong to them S. Basil's Testimony makes it out of Dispute that the Doxology to Father Son and Holy Ghost was universally receiv'd in the publick Offices of the Church and that from the time of greatest Antiquity So that we have no need of the Teâ—timonies from the Apostolical Constitutions as they are called to prove it But I avoid all disputable Authorities And I shall only add that it appears from S. Basil that this Doxology had been long used not only in publick Offices but in Occasional Ejaculations as at the bringing in of Light in the Evening the People he saith were wont to say Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost c. This he saith had been an ancient Custom among the People and none can tell who brought it in But Prudentius shews that it was continued to his Time as appeaâ—s by his Hymn on that occasion which concludes with this Doxology and S. Hilary ends his Hymn written to his Daughter in the same manner 3. I come therefore to the last Proof which I shall produce of the Sense of the Christian Church which is from the Testimony of those who wrote in Defence of our Religion against Infidels In which I shall be the shorter since the particular Testimonies of the Fathers have been so fully produced and defended by others especially by Dr. Bull. Iustin Martyr in his Apology for the Christians gives an Account of the Form of Baptism as it was administred among Christians which he saith was in the Name of God the Father of all and of our Saviour Iesus Christ and of the Holy Ghost And that he spake of them as of distinct Persons as appears by his words afterwards They who take the Son to be the Father neither know the Father nor the Son who being the Word and first begotten is God And when he speaks of the Eucharist he saith That it is offer'd to the Father of all by the Name of the Son and the Holy Ghost and of other solemn Acts of Devotion he saith That in all of them they praise God the Father of all by his Son Iesus Christ and the Holy Ghost And in other places he mentions the Worship they give to Father Son and Holy Ghost Indeed he mentions a difference of Order between them but makes no Difference as to the Worship given to them And all this in no long Apology for the Christian Faith What can be the meaning of this if he did not take it for granted that the Christian Church embraced the Doctrine of the Trinity in Baptism Iustin Martyr was no such weak Man to go about to expose the Christian Religion instead of defending it and he must have done so if he did not believe this not only to be a true but a necessary part of the Christian Faith For why did he at all mention such a Mysterious and dark Point Why did he not conceal it as some would have done and only represent to the Emperours the fair and plausible part of Christianity No he was a Man of great Sincerity and a through Christian himself and therefore
Mysterious But there are some he saith that being strongly inclined out of Ignorance or Passion to maintain what was first introduced by the Craft or Superstition of their Forefathers will have some Christian Doctrines to be still Mysteries in the second Sense of the Word that is unconceiveable in themselves however clearly revealed I hope there are still some who are so throughly perswaded of the Christian Doctrine that they dare own and defend it notwithstanding all the Flouts and Taunts of a sort of Men whose Learning and Reason lies most in exposing Priest-craft and Mysteries Suppose there are such still in the world who own their Assent to some Doctrines of Faith which they confess to be above their Comprehension what mighty Reason and invincible Demonstration is brought against them He pretends to Demonstrate but what I pray The Point in hand No. But he will Demonstrate something instead of it What is that Why truly That in the New Testament Mystery is always used in the first Sense of the Word And what then Doth it therefore follow that there are no Doctrines in the Gospel above the reach and comprehension of our Reason But how doth it appear that the Word Mystery is always used in that Sense When S. Paul saith in his first Epistle to Timothy Chap. 3. v. 9. That the Deacons must hold the Mystery of Faith in a pure Conscience doth he not mean thereby the same with the Form of sound Words which Timothy had heard of him 2 Tim. 1.13 And are not all the main Articles of the Christian Faith comprehended under it Especially that whereinto they were Baptized in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost and if the Doctrine of the Trinity were understood by this Form as I have already proved then this must be a part of the Mystery of Faith And in the same Chapter v. 16. He makes God manifest in the Flesh the first part of the Mystery of Godliness If it extends to all the other things doth it exclude this which is the first mention'd And that our Copies are true is already made to appear There is no Reason therefore to quarrel with our Use of the Word Mystery in this Sense but the Debate doth not depend upon the Word but upon the Sense of it And therefore I pass over all that relates to the bare use of the Word as not coming up to the main Point which is Whether any Point of Doctrine which contains in it something above our Comprehension can be made a Matter of Faith For our Author concludes from his Observations That Faith is so far from being an implicit Assent to any thing above Reason that this Notion directly contradicts the end of Religion the Nature of Man and the Goodness and Wisdom of God But we must not be frighted with this bold Conclusion till we have Examin'd his Premises and then we shall find that some who are not great Readers are no deep Reasoners The first thing he premises is That nothing can be said to be a Mystery because we have not an adequate Idea of it or a distinct View of all its Properties at once for then every thing would be a Mystery What is the meaning of this but that we cannot have an adequate Idea of any thing And yet all our Reason depends upon our Ideas according to him and our clear and distinct Ideas are by him made the sole Foundation of Reason All our simple Ideas are said to be adequate because they are said to be only the Effects of Powers in things which produce Sensations in us But this doth not prove them adequate as to the things but only as to our Perceptions But as to Substances we are told That all our Ideas of them are inadequate So that the short of this is that we have no true Knowledge or Comprehension of any thing but we may understand Matters of Faith as well as we understand any thing else for in Truth we understand nothing Is not this a method of true Reasoning to make us reject Doctrines of Faith because we do not comprehend them and at the same time to say we comprehend nothing For I appeal to the common Sense of mankind whether we can be said to Comprehend that which we can have no adequate Idea of But he appeals to the Learned for he saith That to comprehend in all correct Authors is nothing else but to know But what is to know Is it not to have adequate Ideas of the things we know How then can we know that of which we can have no adequate Idea For if our Knowledge be limited to our Ideas our Knowledge must be imperfect and inadequate where our Ideas are so But let us lay these things together Whatever we can have no adequate Idea of is above our Knowledge and consequently above our Reason and so all Substances are above our Reason and yet he saith with great Confidence That to Assent to any thing above Reason destroys Religion and the Nature of man and the Wisdom and Goodness of God How is it possible for the same man to say this and to say wâ—thal that it is very consistent with that Nature of man and the Goodness and Wisdom of God to leave us without adequate Ideas of any Substance How come the Mysteries of Faith to require more Knowledge than the Nature of Man is capable of In natural things we can have no adequate Ideas but the things are confessed to be above our Reason but in Divine and Spiritual things to Assent to things above our Reason is against the Nature of man How can these things consist But these are not Mysteries Yes whatever is of that Nature that we can have no Idea of it is certainly a Mystery to us For what is more unknown than it is known is a Mystery The true Notion of a Mystery being something that is hidden from our Knowledge Of which there may be several Kinds For a Mystery may be taken for 1. Something kept secret but fully understood as soon as it is discover'd thus Tully in his Epistles speaks of Mysteries which he had to tell his Friend but he would not let his Amanuensis know no doubt such things might be very well understood as soon as discover'd 2. Something kept from common Knowledge although there might be great Difficulties about them when discover'd Thus Tully speaks of Mysteries among the Philosophers particularly among the Academicks who kept up their Doctrine of the Criterion as a Secret which when it was known had many Difficulties about it 3. Something that Persons were not admitted to know but with great Preparation for it Such were the Athenian Mysteries which Tully mentions with Respect although they deserved it not but because they were not Communicated to any but with Difficulty they were called Mysteries And this is so obvious a piece of Learning that no great Reading or deep Reasoning is required about it Only
it may be observed that the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is opposed to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so the Mysteries related to those who were initiated and not made Epoptoe i. e. to those who did not throughly understand them although they had more knowledge of them than such as were not initiated Olympiodorus in reckoning up the Degrees of Admissions mentions the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that they were properly Mysteries to such who knew something though there were other things farther to be discover'd but they did not yet know what they were as the Epoptoe did From hence the ancient Christian Writers did not only call the Sacraments but more abstruse Points of Faith by the name of Mysteries so S. Chrysostom calls the Resurrection a great and ineffable Mystery And Isidore Pelusiota in his Epistle to Lampetius saith That S. Paul when he speaks of the great Mystery of Godliness doth not mean that it is wholly unknown to us but that it is impossible to Comprehend it Theophylact saith it is therefore called the great Mystery of Godliness because although it be now revealed to all yet the manner of it is hidden from us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for this Reason it is called a Mystery But this is in the way of Reading let us now come to deep Reasoning and see how strongly he argues against this Sense of the Word Mysteries his Words are these They trifle then exceedingly and discover a mighty Scarcity of better Arguments who defend their Mysteries by this pitiful shift of drawing Inferences from what is unknown to what is known or of insisting upon adequate Ideas except they will agree as some do to call every Spire of Grass sitting and standing fish and flesh to be Mysteries And if out of a pertinacious or worse humour they will be still fooling and call these things Mysteries I 'm willing to admit as many as they please in Religion if they will allow me likewise to make mine as intelligible to others as these are to me It is easie to guess whom these kind Words were intended for And are not these very modest and civil Expressions Trifling Fooling out of a pertinacious or worse Humour but why Fooling about Mysteries to call such things by that Name which are in some measure known but in a greater measure unknown to us and if these are real Mysteries in Nature why may not the same term be used for Matters of Faith And I think in so plain a Case no great store of Arguments need to be used But in these natural things he saith we have distinct Ideas of the Properties which make the Nominal Essence but we are absolutely ignorant of the Real Essence or intrinsick Constitution of a thing which is the ground or support of all its Properties Are not then without Trifling and Fooling these Real Essences Mysteries to them They know there are such by the Ideas of their Properties but know nothing of their Real Essence and yet they will not allow them to be Mysteries If they do understand them why do they say They do not nor cannot And if this be true let them call them what they please they must be inexplicable Mysteries to them So that all this is mere quarrelling about a Word which they would fain be rid of if they knew how but they involve and perplex themselves more by their own deep Reasonings against the Trifling and Fooling of others But he saith That some would have the most palpable Absurdities and gross Contradictions to go down or words that signifie nothing because men cannot comprehend the Essence of their own Souls nor the Essence of God and other Spiritual Substances We utterly deny that any Article of our Faith contains in it any palpable Absurdities or gross Contradictions as I hope hath been proved already as to the Doctrine of the Trinity which is chiefly struck at but surely your deep Reasoners may find a difference between gross Contradictions to our Reason and barely being above it or not having any distinct Conception of the Nature of it And that is all that we assert and which they grant as to all Substances If this be their Way of arguing they may even return to Transubstantiation again without any great lessening of their Understandings But none are so bold in attacking the Mysteries of the Christian Faith as the Smatterers in Ideas and new Terms of Philosophy without any true Understanding of them For these Ideas are become but another sort of Canting with such men and they would reason as well upon Genus and Species or upon Occult Qualities and Substantial Forms but only that they are Terms out of Fashion But we find that the change of Terms doth neither improve nor alter mens Understandings but only their Ways of speaking and ill Gamesters will not manage their Game one jot the better for having new Cards in their hands However we must see what Work they make of it Although we do not know the Nature of the Soul yet we know as much of it as we do of any thing else if not more i. e. we really know nothing by any adequate Idea of it but we must believe nothing but what we have a clear distinct Idea of Is not this a rare way of fixing the Boundaries of Faith and Reason As to God and his Attributes it is said That they are not Mysteries to us for want of an adequate Idea no not Eternity And in another place As to God we comprehend nothing better than his Attributes Let us try this by the Attribute pitched on by himself viz. Eternity We see he pretends to comprehend nothing better than the Divine Attributes and Eternity as well as any which I am very apt to believe but how doth he Comprehend Eternity Even by finding That it cannot be Comprehended Is not this Subtle and deep Reasoning But Reason he saith performs its part in finding out the true Nature of Things and if such be the Nature of the thing that it cannot be Comprehended then Reason can do no more and so it is not above Reason Was there ever such Trifling that pretended to Reason and that about the highest Matters and twith Scorn and Contempt of others whom he calls Mysterious Wits The Question is whether any thing ought to be rejected as an Article of Faith because we cannot comprehend it or have a clear and distinct Perception of it He concludes it must be so or else we overthrow Religion and the Nature of Man and the Wisdom and Goodness of God Here is an Essential Attribute of God viz. his Eternity Am I bound to believe it or not Yes doubtless But how can I comprehend this Attribute of Eternity Very easily How so Do not you comprehend that it is incomprehensible What then Doth this reach the Nature of the thing or only the manner of our Conception If the Nature
of the thing be that it cannot be comprehended then you rightly understand the Nature of the thing and so it is not above your Reason Let the Case be now put as to the Trinity do you believe the Doctrine of it as of Divine Revelation No God hath given me the Nature and Faculties of a Man and I can believe nothing which I cannot have a distinct and clear Idea of otherwise I must have new Faculties Will you hold to this Principle Then you must believe nothing which you cannot have a clear and distinct Idea of Very true But can you have a clear and distinct Idea of what you cannot comprehend A clear Idea is that whereof the mind hath a full and evident Perception A distinct Idea is that whereby the mind perceives the difference of it from all others Is this right Yes But can you have a full and evident Perception of a thing so as to difference it from all others when you grant it to be Incomprehensible If you have a full Perception of it you comprehend its Nature and especially if you can difference it from all other things but when you say its Nature is Incomprehensible and yet believe it you must deny it to be necessary to Faith to have a clear and distinct Idea of the thing proposed And if it be repugnant to your Faculties to reject the Trinity because you cannot have a clear and distinct Idea of it for the same Reason you must unavoidably reject his Eternity and all other Attributes which have Infinity joyned with them But we must stop here because this admirable Undertaker hath said That he despairs not of rendring Eternity and Infinity as little Mysterious as that three and two make five And till then I take my leave of him And so I return to our professed Vnitarians who in answer to my Sermon fell upon the same Subject and it is necessary that I consider so much as tends to the clearing of it In my Sermon I had urged this Argument to prove that we may be bound to believe some things that are Incomprehensible to us because the Divine Nature and Attributes are acknowledged to be so and I had said 1. That there is no greater Difficulty in the Conception of the Trinity and Incarnation than there is of Eternity Not but that there is great Reason to believe it but from hence it appears that our Reason may oblige us to believe some things which it is not possible for us to comprehend And what say our Vnitarians to this They Charge my Notion of Eternity as they call it with a Contradiction The best way of proceeding will be to set down my own Words which are these We know that either God must have been for ever or it is impossible he ever should be for if he should come into being when he was not he must have some Cause of his Being and that which was the first Cause would be God But if he was for ever he must be from himself and what Notion or Conception can we have in our Minds concerning it To this say they To say a Person or Thing is from it self is a Contradiction it implies this Contradiction it was before it was And they are sorry an Eternal God must be a Contradiction What a false and spiteful Inference is this But it had look'd like very deep Reasoning if I had said That God was the cause of himself For that would have implied the Contradiction he had charged it with but I had expressly excluded his being from any Cause and the thing I urged was only the Impossibility of our having a clear and distinct Conception of Eternity For if he could have no Cause what could we think of his being Eternal If to be from himself as a Cause be unconceivable as I grant it is then it proves what I designed that we cannot have any distinct Idea of Eternity But to be from himself in the Sense generally understood is a meer Negative Expression for no Men were such Fools to imagine any thing could be before it self and in this Sense only Learned Men have told us that it is to be understood by those ancient and modern Writers who have used that Expression As when S. Ierom saith That God is self Originated and S. Augustin that God is the Cause of his own Wisdom and Lactantius that God made himself all these and such like Expressions are only to be Negatively understood But I confess I aimed at shewing that it was impossible for us to have any clear and distinct Idea of Eternity and therefore I took in all possible ways of conceiing it either by Gods being from himself or his Co-existing with all differences of Time without any Succession in his own Being or his having a successive Duration From all which I argued the Impossibility of a clear Notion of Eternity And now what do these Men do They dispute against one of these Notions and very triumphantly expose as they think the Absurdities of it And what then Why then this Notion will not do But I say none will do I prove there can be no successive Duration in a Being of necessary Existence and that it is not to be conceived how without Succession God should be present with the Being and not Being the Promise and Performance of the same thing and yet one of these ways we must make use of From whence I concluded That all we can attain to is a full Satisfaction of our Reason concerning God's Eternity although we can form no distinct Conception of it in our Minds But when these Men instead of answering the Argument from all the Notions of Eternity only dispute against one Notion of it they apparently shew the weakness of their Cause if it will bear no other Defences but such as this For I take it that the main Debate in point of Reason depends upon this whether we can be certain of the Being of a Thing of which we can have no clear and distinct Idea If we may then it can be no Objection in point of Revelation that we can have no clear and distinct Idea of the Matter revealed since there can be no Reason to tie us up stricter in Point of Revelation than we are without it If we can be certain in Reason of many things we can have no such Ideas of what imaginable Reason can there be that a Point of Faith should be rejected on that account 2. I urged another Attribute of God viz. his Spirituality for the same Reason viz. that we are satisfied in point of Reason that God must be a Spirit and yet we cannot have a clear distinct positive Notion of a Spirit And what answer do they give to this As wise as the former Why truly I had no cause to object this against them because they own the Spirituality of God's Nature and none since Biddle have denied it Very well but doth my argument proceed
upon that or upon the not having a distinct and clear Idea of a Spirit It was hardly possible for men so to mistake my meaning unless they did it because they had no other answer to give 3. I argued from God's Prescience which I do expresly assert and prove that they cannot have a distinct Notion of it nay that Socinus denied it because he could not understand it 〈…〉 they tell me I cannot defend our 〈…〉 against theirs without finding Contraâ—â—â—tions in Godâ—s Eternity and Foreknowledge If this be the Ingenuity and Justice and Charity of the Vnitarians commend me to the honest-hearted Deists if there be any such as they assure us there are One had better be charged with Trifling and Fooling with Mysteries than with undermining the main foundations of Religion by charging them with Contradictions But nothing could be farther from my Thoughts than any thing tending that way And such a base Calumny is too much honoured with a Confutation But do they offer to clear the difficulty and give us a clear and distinct Idea of Godâ—s fore-knowing future Events without a certain Cause to make them future Nothing like it For the question is not Whether a thing be necessary because God foresees it as certain as they suppose But how of a thing merely possible it comes to be certain without a certain Cause and how a thing which hath no certain Cause can be certainly foreknown and what clear and distinct Notion we can have of this in our Minds If they had answer'd this they had said something to the purpose To resolve all into God's infinite Wisdom is a good answer from us but not from them For we think it our Duty to satisfie our selves with what God hath revealed without prying into the manner of things above our Comprehension but these Men who will receive nothing but what they have clear and distinct Ideas of ought to shew the manner of this or else we must be excused on the same reason if we allow the manner of the divine Subsistences in the same Essence to be above our Comprehension 4. I shew'd how unreasonable their demands were when the Nature of God is owned to be incomprehensible and his Perfections infinite And now of a sudden they are quite turned about for before they were only for fencing and warding off Blows but at last they come to the point and own the being of God to be comprehensible by them and that they have clear and distinct Ideas of God's infinite Attributes This is indeed to the purpose if they can make these things out But Fencers have many tricks and I wish we find none here I had said That in consequence to the Assertion that nothing is to be believ'd but what may be comprehended the very Being of God must be rejected too because his Being is incomprehensible and so they must reject one God as well three Persons To this they reply That to comprehend the Being or Existence of God is only this to comprehend that God is and if we cannot comprehend that all Religion ceases Is not this a fine turn What I said of God as to the Perfections of his Nature they will have it understood of his bare Existence which I do not mention When God is said to be an incomprehensible Being who before them did understand the meaning to be That we cannot comprehend that there is a God This is not mere trifling for it looks like something worse and yet they presently after say That to comprehend a thing is to have a clear adequate Conception of it And will they pretend to have such a one of the divine Essence when they confess but a little before That we converse every day with very many things none of which we comprehend and that I might have spared my pains in proving it But what can be the meaning of these sayings They cannot comprehend the common Natures of things nor have a clear and distinct Idea of them but they can comprehend an infinite Being whom all Mankind own to be incomprehensible But as to divine Attributes they say They have clear distinct and adequate Conceptions of them and instance in Eternity Power Wisdom and Iustice. We do not deny that in such Attributes which we apply to God because we find them to be Perfections in us we have a distinct and clear Perception of them as they are consider'd in themselves for that is the reason why we attribute them to God But for such as peculiarly belong to God as Eternity doth and for the degrees of other Attributes as they belong to him as they are infinite so they are above our Comprehension 1. As to Eternity say they it is a clear and distinct Notion of Eternity to say it is a duration without beginning and without end But we can have no clear and distinct Notion of Duration when applied to a Being that hath necessary Existence For Duration they say consists in a Succession And what Succession can there be in a Being which always is the same if there were no difference of times i. e. God was the same Being before time was and is the very same Being under all the differences of times he hath not any other Duration now than he had before and what Succession could there be where there was no time But we make use of Duration with respect to things done in time and for the help of our undâ—â—standings apply the measure of time to divine Acts. But in a necessary Existence there can be no past present or to come and in a successive Duration there must be conceived a longer continuance from time to time which is repugnant to the Notion of a Being which always is So that if we cannot conceive Eternity wiâ—hout Duration nor Duration without Succession nor can apply Succession to a Being which hath necessary Existence then we can have no clear and distinct Notion of God's Eternity 2. As to the Infiniteness of God's Perfections they say That although the Mind be in it self finite yet it hath an infinite Comprehension for what is finite with respect to its Extension of parts may be infinite in other respects and with respect to some of its Powers But how doth it appear that we have any Power to comprehend what is infinite All the Power we have extends only to adding and enlarging our Ideas without bounds i. e. we can put no stop to our apprehensions but still they may go farther than we can possibly think but is this an infinite Comprehension So far from it that this shews our Capacities to be finite because our Ideas cannot go so far as our Reason For our Reason tells us we can never go so far but we may still go farther but it is impossible for our understanding to have distinct Ideas of the infinite moments in an eternal Succession of the utmost Bounds of Immensity or of the extent of infinite Power and Knowledge since
making mention of his descent from Heaven The Sense which these wise Interpreters put upon them is that Christ was rapt up into Heaven before he entred upon his Preaching But where is this said What Proof what Evidence what credible Witnesses of it as there were of his Transfiguration Resurrection and Ascension Nothing like any Proof is offer'd for it but it is a wise Way they think of avoiding a pressing difficulty But they have a farther reach in it viz. to shew how Christ being a mere Man should be qualified for so great an undertaking as the founding the Christian Church and therefore they say That before our Lord entred upon his Office of the Messias he was taken up to Heaven to be instructed in the Mind and Will of God as Moses was into the Mount Exod. 24.1 2 12. and from thence descended to execute his Office and declare the said Will of God In another place That when it is said the Word was with God that is the Lord Christ was taken up into Heaven to be instructed in all points relating to his Ambassage or Ministry In a third they say That our Saviour before he entred upon his Ministry ascended into Heaven as Moses did into the Mount to be instructed in all things belonging to the Gospel Doctrine and Polity which he was to establish and administer Now considering what sort of Person they make Christ to have been viz. a mere Man this was not ill thought of by them to suppose him taken up into Heaven and there instructed in what he was to teach and to do as Moses was into the Mount before he gave the Law But here lies a mighty difference when Moses was called up into the Mount the People had publick notice given of it and he took Aaron and his Sons and Seventy Elders of Israel with him who saw the Glory of God v. 10. And all Israel beheld the Glory of the Lord as a devouring Fire on the Top of the Mount v. 17. and after the 40 days were over it is said That Moses came down from the Mount and the Children of Israel saw him with his Face shining Exod. 34.40 Now if Christ were taken up into Heaven as Moses was into the Mount why was it not made publick at that time why no Witnesses why no Appearance of the Glory to satisfie Mankind of the truth of it And yet we find that when he was transfigured on the holy Mount he took Peter and James and John with him which circumstance is carefully mention'd by the Evangelists And Peter who was one of the Witnesses then present lays great weight upon this being done in the presence of Witnesses For we have not follow'd cunningly devised Fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Iesus Christ but were Eye-witnesses of his Majesty For he received from God the Father Honour and Glory when there came such a voice to him from the excellent Glory And this voice which came from Heaven we heard when we were with him in the holy Mount Now let any one compare this with the account which they give of Christ's Ascension into Heaven The Transfiguration was intended only for a particular Testimony of God's Favour before his suffering but even in that he took care there should be very credible Witnesses of it And is it then possible to believe there should be such an Ascension of Christ into Heaven for no less a purpose than to be instructed in his Ambassage and to understand the Mind and Will of God as to his Office and yet not one of the Evangelists give any account of the circumstances of it They are very particular as to his Birth Fasting Baptism Preaching Miracles Sufferings Resurrection and Ascension but not one Word among them all as to the circumstances of this being taken up into Heaven for so great a purpose If it were necessary to be believed why is it not more plainly revealed Why not the time and place mention'd in Scripture as well as of his Fasting and Temptation Who can imagine it consistent with that Sincerity and Faithfulness of the Writers of the New Testament to conceal so material a part of Christ's Instructions and Qualifications and to wrap it up in such doubtfull Expressions that none ever found out this meaning till the days of Socinus Enjedinus mentions it only as a possible Sense bâ—t he confesses That the New Testament saith nothing at all of it but saith he neither doth it mention other things before he entred upon his Office But this is a very weak Evasion for this was of greatest importance with respect to his Office more than his Baptism Fasting and Temptation yet these are very fully set down And after all our Vnitarians themselves seem to mistrust their own Interpretations for in their answer to my Sermon they say it is not the Doctrine of all the Unitarians and refer me to another account given of these Texts in the History of the Unitarians There indeed I find Grotius his Interpretation as they call it preferâ—d before that of Socinus But they say Grotius was Socinian all over and that his Annotations are a compleat System of Socinianism and his Notes on the first of S. John are written artificially but the Sense at the bottom is theirs In short That the Word according to Grotius is not an eternal Son of God but the Power aâ—d Wisdom of God which abiding without measure on the Lord Christ is therefore spoken of as a Person and as one with Christ and he with that And this Notion of the Word leads a man through all the difficulties of this Chapter with far more ease than any hitherto offer'd But these wise Interpreters have as much misinterpreted Grotius as they have done the Scriptures as I shall make it appear 1. Grotius on Iohn 6.62 interprets Christ's Ascension into Heaven of his corporal Ascent thither after his Resurrection where the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Word was before of whom it is said That the Word was with God But how comes Christ to assume that to himself which belong'd to the Word He answers Why not since we call Body and Soul by the Name of the Man But if no more were meant by the Word but a divine Attribute of Wisdom and Power what colour could there be for the Son of Man taking that to himself which belonged to an Attribute of God What strange way of arguing would this have been What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascending where he was before For according to this Sense how comes a divine Attribute to be called the Son of Man How could the Son of Man be said to ascend thither where a divine Attribute was before The words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must relate to him spoken of before and how could the Power and Wisdom of God be ever said to be the Son of Man
enough to prove the necessity of the Invocation of Christ which he said he could do from his Priesthood and his Power from the Examples of the Apostles and the very Nature of Adoration And Blandrata was a Man of great authority among the Vnitarians and he thought Socinus ought to assert the necessity of it or else he would do injury both to Christ and to his Cause In the dispute with Francken Socinus went upon this ground that divine Authority was a sufficient ground for divine Worship although there were not those essential Attributes of Omnisciency and Omnipotency But I observe that Socinus did not look on this as a matter of Liberty as our Vnitarians now seem to do for in the Preface to the former Dispute he calls the Error of denying the Invocation of Christ not as they now do a simple Error or a mere mistake but a most filthy and pernicious Error an Error that leads to Iudaism and is in effect the denying of Christ and in the latter Dispute he saith That it tends to Epicurism and Atheism And Smalcius saith That they are no Christians who refuse giving divine Worship to Christ. 2. Is it like wise Men to go upon such grounds as will justifie both Pagan and Popish Idolatry This they have been charged with and we shall see what wise Men they are by the Defences they make for themselves 1. As to Pagan Idolatry they say 1. They had no divine command for such a Worship This was well thought of when they confess that some among themselves deny that there is any command for invocating Christ and therefore they must charge all those who do it with Idolatry But this is no very wise Notion of Idolatry which depends upon the Nature of the Worship and not the meer positive Will of God 2. They set up the Creatures more than the Creator as S. Paul saith S. Paul doth not think them such Fools that they took the Creatures to be above the Creator which was impossible while they owned one to be the Creator and the other the Creatures but that they gâ—ve such acts of Worship to them as belonged only to the Creator and exceeded in the Worship of them those bounds which ought to be between them 3. They set up an infinite Number of Gods who had been mere Men. This is as if the question were only whether one or a great many were to have such Worship given them as if it were a dispute about a Monarchy or a Common-wealth of Gods But if it be lawfull to give divine Worship to one Creature it is to a hundred 4. Their Worship was terminated on them and so they made true Gods of Men. Suppose they asserted one supreme God and made the rest subordinate to him and appointed by him to be the immediate Directors of humane Affairs I desire to know Whether the Adoration of such were Idolatry or not If it were they cannot be excused who give Adoration to Christ while they esteem him a mere Creature if not all the wiser Pagans must be excused 2. As to the Papists the difference they make is not like wise Interpreters of Scripture for they say 1. They have no Text of Scripture which commands them to worship S. Peter S. Paul and S. Francis So some among them say there is none for the Invocation of Christ and with them the case is Parallel But if Socinus his Principle be true that communicated Excellency is a sufficient Foundation for Worship because it is relative to the Giver then the Papists must be justified in all their relative Acts of Worship without any Text to command it 2. They exceed the Bounds of Honour and Respect due to glorified Saints But who is to set these Bounds but themselves in all Acts of relative Worship because they depend upon the intention of the Persons And they hold the very same things concerning communicated Knowledge and Power from God which our Vnitarians make use of to justifie their Notion of the Invocation of Christ. VII Is this interpreting Scripture like wise Men to turn S. Paul's words Of whom as concerning the Flesh Christ came who is over all God blessed for ever into a Thanksgiving to God for the Exaltation of Christ i. e. God who is over all be blessed for ever But what reason do they give for such a forced and unusual Sense besides the avoiding the difficulty of having the Name of God given here to Christ A very substantial one If the words had been intended of Christ it would have been in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which they have taken up from Erasmus and Curcellaeus But Beza who understood Greek as well as either and Curcellaeus owned him for his Master in that Tongue saith He could not sufficiently wonder at this Criticism of Erasmus and thinks it a violent and far-fetched Interpretation and not agreeable to the Greek Idiom and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the same there with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And which may signifie more to our Vnitarians one of the learnedst Men they have had among them utterly disowns this Interpretation and saith That the whole Verse belongs to Christ. But if that will not do they have another fetch in the case viz. That it is very probable that the word God was not originally in the Text. How doth this appear to be very probable Of that we have this account Grotius observes that the Greek Copies used by the Author of the Syriac had not the word God and that Erasmus had noted that the Copies of S. Cyprian S. Hilary and S. Chrysostom had only blessed over all or above all without the word God upon which he charges his Adversary with no less than Impiety in concealing this and calls it cheating his Reader But how if all this prove a gross Mistake in him unless it be only that Grotius and Erasmus come in for their shares It 's true that Grotius saith That the word God was left out in the Syriac Version But F. Simon whose authority they sometimes magnifie as to critical Learning saith plainly That Grotius was mistaken and that the word God is in all the old Copies and in all the old Versions And upon his bringing Erasmus to prove that it was not in S. Cyprian S. Hilary and S. Chrysostome he cries out Where is Sincerity Erasmus had met with one faulty Edition which had it not but he saith all the rest of the MSS. have it And the learned Oxford Annotators both on S. Cyprian and the Greek Testament compar'd with MSS. which excellent Work we hope will shortly appear more publickly declare that they found it in all the MSS. they could meet with and even Erasmus himself saith That the Omission in S. Hilary might be only by the negligence of the Transcribers and so it appears by the late Edition out of the best MSS. where