to ascribe to him a Nature very near and like to that of God for so Eusebius arianizing upon the Nature of the pre-existent Word calls him Hist Eccles lib. 1. cap. 2. The Prince of the Heavenly Host the Angel of great Counsel the Minister of the Will of God the second Cause of all things a God and a King who received the Government from the Father with his Divinity Ask him from whence he took all these fine Titles of the Word he 'll tell you from the Mystical Theology of the Scriptures The current Theology of the Scriptures says nothing of this 't is no matter for that some know how to feign and suppose a mystic Theology which does But 't was not an easy thing to make a God begotten before Ages of a Man born at Bethlehem There 's something that answers all difficulties and that 's another Expedient they have thought on which is to distinguish the two Natures in Jesus Christ the Divine Nature which they call Theology and the Human which they call Oeconomy and to frame hereupon a new Word which signifies nothing because it carries to the Mind at the same time two Ideas that destroy each other viz. Man-God or a God-Man They have left to the Man the History and Facts of the Gospel but for the God they have found out a nobler Gospel in the World of Ideas 'T is somewhat entertaining to observe what the Author of the 2d Homil. in diversos ascribed to Origen says to this purpose Having compar'd St. John to a Spiritual Eagle who soars with a swift Flight into the sublimest Regions of Theology and the greatest heights of Contemplation he afterwards draws a Parallel between him and St. Peter and distinguishes between Faith and Science between Practice which is common to all Christians and Contemplation which is a Gospel for Seraphic Souls He makes St. Peter the Type of Faith and Practice in his good Confession Thou art the Christ the Son of the living God But he makes St. John to be as it were the Model of Science and Contemplation with respect to the admirable Exordium of his Gospel In the beginning was the Word c. St. John says he resting himself alone upon the Bosom of Christ this Privilege or Favour was to him the Sign and Sacrament or Seal of Contemplation This John says he who was not a mere Man but more than a Man since by the Penetration of his Mind and his Wisdom he enter'd into the Secrets of one Essence and three Substances or of three Substances in one Essence This John who deified himself could not by his Penetration reach God himself till he had first made himself a God This is very loftily spoke the Fathers were not content to make a God of the Word they went farther and make a God of St. John too because he spoke so divinely 'T was a Transport of their Zeal and Affection to the Word when they deified the Apostle who had before in their Opinion so well deified the Word This Zeal of theirs extends it self even to the Divine Plato to whom they thought themselves no less obliged for they have done him the Honour to say that when Jesus Christ descended into Hell Plato was the first who came before the Eternal Word of whom he had spoken with that Magnificence in his Writings By virtue of the same true Platonic Zeal Eusebius de Vita Constant lib. 3. cap. 55. calls Constantine an Eagle and honours him with the same Elogy that was given St. John for how great must the Obligation be to this new Apostle for discovering the profound Mystery of Consubstantiality for which the Church was indebted to him 'T is for the same reason that he has the Character bestow'd upon him of being a profound Divine an Expounder of Mysteries the Bird of Paradise c. by the counterfeit Dionysius who has found Books stuffed with the most refined Platonism He who knew so much of the Secrets of the Celestial Court and has told us such News of the Hierarchy of the Angels might as well instruct us in the Nature the Number and the Order of the Divine Persons These mystical Eagles know how when they please to soar beyond the bounds of Revelation and to penetrate into the profound Secrets of the Deity I would say of the Vnity in Trinity and the Trinity in Vnity And what Prasses are due to them for such fine Discoveries Certainly the Author I am speaking of deserves himself the Character of an Eagle for observe how far he advances his Philosophy He will have the Scriptures ' to be an intelligible World made up of four Elements The Historical Part he calls the Earth the Moral Part the Water that Part which is the object of natural Science is the Air and lastly that which is the Object of the most exalted Contemplation is the fourth Element or Fire And 't is this Contemplation says he that the Greeks call Theology Whence he takes occasion to call St. John a great Theologue or Divine Because says he he raises himself far above the Historical the Moral and the natural Objects Thus Dionysius the Areopagite speaking of the same Gospel of St. John calls it supernatural and transcendental Theology In short Mons Daille de Libris suppos Dionys c. c. 16. tells you That one finds in the three other Gospels nothing but the Oeconomy of Jesus Christ but one sees in the Gospel of St. John the Theology of Jesus Christ Hence it appears that the Antients did not call by the Name of Theology that Science which treats of God in a plain obvious manner but such refined contemplative Discourses which speak of him in the abstract way so that their Theology was in a manner the same with what we call Metaphysicks that is the Philosophy of curious abstracted Minds How great an Abuse of the Word was this As if true Theology was not that which had for its Object a sensible Revelation and a plain Gospel suted to the Capacities of the common People which these Gontlemen are pleas'd to call a Gospel that is gross and corporeal How The Chimeras and the crude Imaginations of the Mind of Man shall be compared to the most noble Elements and the first Facts of the Gospel with the Precepts of a good Life that is History and the Moral upon which as upon two firm Pillars are founded our Faith and Practice shall in their account be no more than the terrestrial and grosser Element Is not that to reduce the Science of the Persect to carnal Rudiments I might as well like Homer's Theology who at the same time as he deified Men debas'd the Gods Agreeable to the Model of this noble Theology Eusebius Demonst Evang. lib. 4. and Origen Tom. 2. in Joan. have fancied a certain Son of God whom they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The theological Son or the Son who is theologized that is without doubt a Son in Idea the Object of
whether it be by an Angel or by an immediate Virtue is the Holy Spirit And all this is call'd the Oeconomy or as Irenaeus saith they are mysterious and extraordinary Dispensations of the Divinity which environ his Majesty to temper its great Splendor and adapt it to our Curiosity For to imagine that this is a second Person of this Divinity as invisible and as infinite as the first would make all the Reasonings of the antient Fathers not only useless but also absurd for they all unanimously declare not only that the Father never makes himself visible but also that he cannot do so It is impossible saith Eusebius Demonstr Evang. lib. 5. cap. 20. That the Eyes of Mortals should ever see the Supreme God to wit him who is above all things and whose Essence is unbegotten and immutable It is absurd and against all reason saith the same Author Hist Eccl. lib. 1. c. 2. that the unbegotten and immutable Nature of Almighty God should take the Form of a Man and that the Scripture should forge such like Falsities God forbid saith Novatian de Trinit cap. 26. that we should say that God the Father is an Angel lest he should be subjected to him whose Angel he were Et ibid. cap. 31. If the Son saith he were as incomprehensible as the Father the Objection of the Hereticks would have some ground that then there are two Gods It is an Impiety say the Fathers of the Council of Antioch Epist adv Paulum Samosat to fancy that that God who is above all things can be called an Angel Lastly otherwise I must transcribe all the Fathers Justin Martyr explains himself on this wise in his Dialogue with Tryphon No body saith he unless he be out of his Wits will dare to advance that the Father and Author of all things did quit the Heavens to cause himself to be seen in a small part of the Earth I thought to have finished but that I can by no means pass by that excellent Passage of Tertullian against Praxeas cap. 16. That he would not believe that the Sovereign God descended into the Womb of a Woman tho even the Scripture it self should say it This Father being persuaded by Reason and Philosophy that the supreme God is immense immutable and invisible demands how it could come to pass that the Almighty God whose Throne is the Heaven and the Earth his Footstool that this most high God should walk in the terrestrial Paradise should converse with Abraham should call to Moses out of a Bush c. and what is yet worse that he should descend according to Praxeas into the Womb of Mary that he should be impeached before Pilate and be shut up in the Sepulcher of Joseph He goes on Really one would not believe this concerning the Son if the Scripture did not speak it and perhaps would not believe it of the Father tho even the Scripture should say it How so would he mistrust the Scripture No he means only that he should mistrust the literal sense and search there for an Allegory Consequently then all these Fathers own that the Word by which the Father makes himself visible is not of a Nature incapable of causing it self to be seen but something sensible which represents God to us It matters not whether they conceive by it an Hypostasis a Spirit an intelligent Being or any other kind of Representation in a bright Cloud animated with a Voice This will always remain true that they did not understand the Word to be a Spirit equal to the Father as invisible by its Nature as the Father but only a certain Emanation where God produceth himself outwardly and discovers himself in a sensible manner And tho they might have sometimes spoken of the Word as of something invisible they meant not by this that it was invisible by its Nature but only that it was not visible to Men out of the time of its Oeconomy retiring it self from their Presence and becoming as it were hid in God Sometimes they would denote by it even the Energy and the Power of God wherewith his Manifestation is always accompanied but never a second Hypostasis in the Divine Nature For we must observe here sincerely once for all that the Word if you consider it only in its Energy is no other thing but God himself but when it is consider'd as it is a Mark of the Divine Presence then it is something sensible a Voice a Light or some external Form such like as was seen in Angels or in the Man J. C. our Lord. CHAP. II. The Antients believed that the Word was Corporeal WHerefore the Antients attributed a Body to the Word as Servetus very well observed Apolog. ad Philip Melanct. and so Tertullian speaks in his Book of the Flesh of Jesus Christ against Praxeas chap. 7. where he proves at large that when God uttered his Word he gave it a Body indeed not a Body of Flesh but an Hypostasis that is Solidity and Substance which is the true Signification of the Word That 's probably what he means when in chap. 6. of the Book of the Flesh of Christ he assures that Jesus Christ appeared to Abraham with Flesh which was not yet born non nata adhuc that is to say not indeed with such Flesh as ours but with a solid Body which had more than appearance A Body I say which he in the 8th Chapter calls the Seed of God from which as from a Heavenly Seed the Messiah was to be born and this Seed is the Holy Ghost or the Substance of the Word which insinuated it self into it Thence the antient Docetes and all the other Hereticks who held the pre-existence of the Word suppos'd that the Word did not take true Flesh of Mary but that he contented himself with the Celestial and Etherial Body which he formerly bore in the Apparitions of the Old Testament which had no more than the Appearance and Figure of a Man which the Scripture calls the Face of God Mons le Moyne did not understand the thing otherwise in his Varia sacra p. 415. The Docetes says he compared the Apparitions of Jesus Christ to the Apparitions of the Old Testament which having been in Etherial Bodies for certain times vanished into the Air as soon as the Dispensation was finish'd imagining that the Body of Jesus Christ was not of any other Nature And it is in the same sense that Cerinthus and Ebion suppos'd that Jesus Christ had not taken true Flesh as St. Jerom assures in the Preface to his Commentary on St. Matthew As Cerinthus held Iren l. 1. c. 25. Epiph. Haeres 28. That the World had been created by a Power he also maintain'd that Jesus who was begotten of the Seed of Joseph and Mary was the Son of the Creator As to the Christ or the Word he made him the Son of another Power superiour to the Creator and attributed to him a Celestial Body which he had always kept without
mixing it with the Flesh of Jesus For we cannot think he suppos'd that Jesus the Son of Mary had not Flesh like ours He meant nothing more than that the Word or the Christ as he is pleas'd to call him had not appear'd to Men but with a Body wholly celestial and impassible so separating Jesus from the Christ and making two Natures of them as St. Irenaeus informs us It is with reason wonder'd that so grave Authors have said and so often repeated that Cerinthus's Heresy consisted in denying the Divine Nature of Jesus Christ when he is the first who brings the two Natures of Jesus Christ into the Christian Religion the Divine Nature which he believed to be impassible and which he makes to descend from Heaven and the Humane which he believed to be begotten by Joseph and Mary But there is yet greater reason to wonder that Irenaeus has been quoted for it who says nothing less than what Controvertists make him say All that that Father says concerning the Error which St. John oppos'd in Cerinthus is that the World had been created by an inferiour God or by an Angel but that there was another superiour God who had sent his Word or the Holy Ghost in the shape of a Dove into the Son of Mary That the inferiour Christ who was called Jesus was indeed the Son of the Creator but that the superiour Christ who descended into the other was the Son of the most high and unknown God who after having render'd Jesus capable of working Miracles and of manifesting the unknown God withdrew himself into his Pleroma when Jesus was to suffer Iren. l. 3. c. 11. This Opinion was not so much Plato's as Philo the Jew 's who believed that God had never done any thing but by Angels Some Hereticks added that besides the God of the Jews who was one of those Angels and Creator of the Universe there was another God who had never manifested himself until he made himself known by the Coming of the Christ Indeed it seems that this is the only Error which St. John opposes in his Gospel First he shews therein following the Psalmist St. Paul and St. Peter that the World was not made by any other than by the Word or by the Power of God that this Word was not an Efficacy or Power distinct or separate from the most High God that is an Angel or self-subsisting Hypostasis but that it was in God the Creator as his Efficacy or to say better that it was the Creator himself Then he shews that the Word the Spirit or the superior Christ who descended into Jesus who dwelt in him and who had wrought so many Miracles was not an Hypostasis or an emanated Efficacy of another God than he who had created the World but the proper Efficacy of God the Creator the same Word which having created the World was united to Jesus Christ and manifested in him The Word by which all things were made says he was made Flesh or manifested in the Flesh Which shews that Christ was the Son of the Creator and not of another God superiour to him and that the World was not made by an Angel but by the most high God Mons le Moyne among others believes that St. John aim'd at opposing this Error St. John assures says he Varia sacra p. 407. that the Word was made Flesh in opposition to the Doctrine of the phantastick Body of Christ He has no other Design in his first Epistle where he teaches that Christ is come in the Flesh and protests that he preaches and insists on no other Word of Life than that which he had seen heard and touched that is according to him that Christ came no otherwise than in a real Body and no way in an etherial one If we inclin'd to believe that St. John aim'd at Cerinthus in writing his Gospel we might add that it is very remarkable that as often as this Evangelish relates Jesus Christ's saying that he descended from Heaven he always makes him speak as if he directly oppos'd that Heretick For whereas Cerinthus said that the Christ or a Spiritual Nature descended from Heaven Jesus Christ assures on the contrary that 't is the Son of Man that 't is his own Flesh which descended from thence Man as you see and not a Nature distinct from Man Flesh and not a Spirit 'T is pity that Heretick did not live in the time of our Lord one might have the Pleasure of forming a curious System on that Subject which would not be less well contrived than that which has been built on the Word of St. John with respect to that Heretick But if we cannot positively assert that Jesus Christ or his Disciple did attack Cerinthus we may at least affirm that 't was against him or his like that St. Irenaeus disputed They hold says that Father l. 3. c. 17 18 19 20. that indeed Jesus is born of Mary but that as to Christ he descended from above so dividing the Lord by saying that he is composed of two Substances c. With their Mouths they confess but one Christ but in reality they have two one passible and the other descending from Heaven invisible and impassible not knowing that the Word which was united to and mix'd with his Work and which was made Flesh is it self that Jesus who suffer'd for us But if one suffer'd while the other remain'd impassible it is not one Christ but two Now every Spirit which divides Jesus Christ qui solvit Jesum Vulg. is not of God What hinder'd the Apostles from saying that Christ descended into Jesus or the Saviour who is above the Oeconomy into him who is of the Oeconomy But the Apostles neither knew nor said any thing like it What there was of it they said to wit that the Spirit descended on him like a Dove It appears by this Passage and by the whole Work of St. Irenaeus that his Opinion was that the Word was made Flesh not only in communicating it self to the Flesh which the Hereticks believ'd but also in mixing it self with the Flesh And therefore in the 21st Chapter of the same Book he twice calls him the Word mix'd and blended commixtum Verbum The same Theology is found in Novatian de Trinitate c. 11 19. In one place he maintains that Jesus is not only a Man but that he is likewise God according to the Scripture because the Divinity of the Word enter'd into the Composition and mix'd it self with the Flesh Divinitate Sermonis in ipsa concretione permixta In another place like unto this he takes upon himself to demonstrate that the Word having by its Vnion and by its Mixture with the Flesh associated to it self the Son of Man made him what he was not to wit the Son of God Origen says as much of it in his third Book against Celsus The Humanity of Christ says he rais'd it self to such a degree of Divinity not only by
the Communication of the Word but also by its Vnion and by its Mixture therewith permixtione that it is become a God Tertullian carrys the matter yet farther in his Book of the Flesh of Jesus Christ Ch. 16. For he supposes that As the Clay whereof Adam was formed was converted into true Flesh so the Word of God is converted into the Substance of the same Flesh Whence I infer that these antient Doctors believ'd the Word to be corporeal and capable of being compounded with the Flesh so that as the Flesh has by this mixture been in a manner deify'd the incorporated and incarnated Word has likewise been render'd passible I say passible taking the Word according to its literal Signification and not by the Figure of the communication of Idioms as we are used to speak For otherwise they would have owned two Natures in Jesus Christ the one passible and the other impassible which is the very Opinion they oppos'd It is plain that according to Irenaeus the Hereticks said that the Christ had been made two Substances or as he speaks Substance and Substance altera altera Substantia Now what difference would there be between two Substances and two Natures Let us then say that they could not be any otherwise refuted than by supposing that the Word with the Flesh made but one Nature or but one Christ who from impassible as he was made himself passible for our sakes If there be any other Substance distinct from the Christ which descended on him Irenaeus teaches us that 't is no other than the Holy Ghost as the Evangelists assure us The Valentinians held that Christ descended into Jesus thence Irenaeus infers that they made two Christs Now if the Orthodox had held that the Son of God descended into the Son of Mary 't was natural thence to draw the same consequence that then they made two Sons of God The Gnosticks did not deny that the Son of Mary had true Flesh and that he really suffer'd They only taught that Christ who descended into him contenting himself with his Celestial and Etherial Body did not so unite himself to the Flesh of the Son of Mary as to have truly suffer'd with him and therein they divided Christ Irenaeus would no less have divided Christ into two if he had believed that the Word always remain'd impassible while the Man whereunto it was united did suffer He could not therefore refute them but by supposing that this Word so united it self to the Flesh that from being impassible as it had been before it became passible almost as our Soul is so join'd to our Body that it suffers with it If the Trinitarians now hold that the Divine Nature did not suffer they are in the same Opinion with those Hereticks and if by reason of the Union of the two Natures they can say that the Son of God or the Word suffer'd because one of the two Natures did suffer the Hereticks might also have said that Christ did not suffer because one of the two Substances had not suffer'd And that the rather because 't was the Substance which had the Personality whereto the Actions and Passions do belong For who doubts but that they were provided with many distinctions What Irenaeus said in Chap. 21. of the same Book may be objected to the Opinion which I ascribe to him viz. that the Word suspended his efficacy that Jesus Christ might die But that does not signify that the Word did not suffer but that he would not make use of his Power to hinder himself from suffering as appears by the following opposite Proposition That the Man was absorb'd that Christ might rise again Which does not exclude the Man from Resurrection but means only that his Infirmities and his Nothingness brought no obstacle thereto having been surmounted by the Power which rais'd him from the Dead We might support this Hypothesis with many Passages of the Epistles of Ignatius but that Discussion would carry us too far It is to be remember'd that we give only an Essay and not a compleat Dissertation on the Word of St. John CHAP. III. What the Spirit of God is where the Word is again consider'd The Cause of that Error AFter having spoken of the outward Manifestation of God I come to the manner whereby he communicates himself inwardly God is a rich Spring which hath always been diffusing it self which he hath done either by insinuating himself into all his Works into which he hath inspired Soul and Life so that there is not any part of the Universe which bears not some strokes and Rays of his Divinity or by shedding his extraordinary Favours into those of his intelligent Creatures whom he has often chose to be the Interpreters of his Will With respect to the former his Communication is call'd the Spirit or the Breath of God The Spirit mov'd upon the Deep to stir the confused Mass of the World and prepare Matter for the Word of God who framed the several Parts of it Therefore the Author of Pimander did not conjecture amiss when he thinks that what Moses said of the Spirit of God which moved upon the Deep is to be understood of the Word of God It 's the same Spirit but in a more noble degree which insinuated it self as the Breath of God into the Body of Adam to inspire into him Knowledg and Reason God's Hands made him the Spirit of God gave him Life Two Powers which always accompany each other in the Work of the Creation A double Power which David expresses by saying in Psal 33. That by the Word of the Lord the Heavens were made and their Strength cometh from the Breath of his Mouth There is a like Expression in the Book of Judith ch 16.17 Thou saidst the Word and the Heavens were made thou didst send thy Spirit and he built them All which well expresses God's Command outwardly his Energy and Efficacy inwardly which Philo somewhere calls two Powers accompanying God and a Doctor of the Church Irenaeus the Creator's two Hands To express God 's not needing any other than himself his Omnipotent Will his single Command his Strength only and having no occasion for Instruments and Machines a Learned Bishop Mons de Meaux Disc on Vniv Hist p. 138. says God is represented to us as he who does all and who does all by his Word as well because he does all by Reason as because he does all without Labour and that the doing so great Works costs him but one single Word that is it costs him no more than the willing it The Jewish Lawgiver says Longin Tract de Sublim who was not an ordinary Man well conceiving the Greatness and Power of God express'd it in its full Dignity at the beginning of his Laws by these Words God said Let there be Light and there was Light All that God does says Rabbi Maimon More Nevochim Par. 1. c. 23. is attributed to his Word as in Psal 33. The Heavens were
created by the Word of God c. by a Comparison taken from the Kings of the Earth whose Word is the only Instrument they imploy to execute their Wills Indeed God has no need of any Instrument whereby to act he does all by the sole Act of his Will And Ibid. c. 65. The Word of God says he signifies no other than his Will But because Men cannot presently apprehend how a thing can be made by the Will only thinking it necessary that he who will make any thing must either do it himself or cause it to be done by others the Scripture says that God commands that a thing be when he will have it to be not only by comparison to our manner of acting but also because those Expressions do also signify the Will So as often as in the Work of the Creation we meet with the words God said it is the same as God willed And these that the Heavens were created by the Word of God is the same thing as by the Spirit of his Mouth For as his Mouth and his Spirit are Metaphorical Expressions so his Speech and his Word are also Metaphorical the meaning whereof is that things exist by his Will only And lastly in Cap. 66. mentioning these Words of Psal 8. The Heavens are the Works of thy Hands or of thy Fingers he says that the Finger of God is the same thing with the Word of God and the Word of God the same thing with the Will of God Grotius makes almost the same Observation on John 1.1 Because says he Moses wrote God said Let there be Light the Hebrews have thence call'd Devar the Word that Power or Divine Emanation by which God brought things out of Nothing and worketh all that is uncommon and extraordinary Psal 33.6 148.8 That which we read of Isaiah My Hand hath laid the Foundations of the Earth is in the Chaldee I have laid the Foundations of the Earth by my Word St. Peter uses the same Expression 2 Ep. 3.5 And that Paraphrast uses it so when treating of Miracles Prophecy or God's extraordinary Assistance and particularly when the Hebrew says the Eyes the Hand or the Face of God Whence it appears that in Scripture saying that the Hands of God laid the Foundations of the Earth or that he laid the Foundations of it by his Word or by his Spirit are equivalent Expressions and consequently that there is no Mystery in this Term Word or Speech Otherwise we must seek it also in Hand Finger Mouth c. and make of 'em so many Persons of the Trinity 'T would be much more proper to say with the Bishop of Meaux as above noted that thereby is signify'd nothing more with respect to God than that the doing great Works costs him but one single Word In truth this literal Sense is much more reasonable than the suppos'd Mystery But I said in the second place that there is another more excellent Communication when God fills with his extraordinary Gifts and if I may so speak overflows with his Favours those of Mankind whom he appoints to execute his Decrees as his Prophets and other Messengers and particularly the Messiah whom he sent into the World with all the Characters of an extraordinary Consecration This latter kind of Communication is called the Holy Ghost And here again we see on the one hand the Word and the Commission of God address'd to his Minister and on the other the Holy Ghost confirming God's Order to the Minister and conferring on him Power to discharge all the Duties of his Office So true it is that the Word and the Spirit are two united Powers which ordinarily work 〈…〉 I say ordinarily because Cases 〈…〉 een seen where the Communication 〈…〉 ut any Manifestation and on 〈…〉 trary others where God manifested himself by meer Apparitions which do not imply any Union of the Godhead with the Person who was honour'd with them But here it must be observ'd with respect to Prophetical Communication that there are two kinds of it whereof each hath its specifick Character The first which was when God spake by the Prophets was only for particular Dispensations for certain Times and Ministrys The other which was demonstrated in Jesus Christ to whom the Divine Nature was communicated in a much more perfect manner was inseparable and perpetual The first is called the Holy Ghost the second is not only called the Holy Ghost but also the Word because Jesus Christ was not only a Prophet by reason of the Gifts received from the Holy Ghost but also because he was begotten a Prophet and born a Prophet a distinction which raises him infinitely above all other Prophets This is the Truth which St. John design'd to teach us in writing the Preface or Prologue to his Evangelical History viz. that the same Jesus who was born of a Woman was born the Christ or is the Christ in right and by the advantage of his Birth And the reason which he gives for it is that the Holy Ghost or the Word for that 's the same thing did not only make his Flesh but also insinuating himself into it as the antient Doctors speak did there sow the Principles of his Prophetical Operations in the same manner as our bodily Fathers do not only give us Birth but often transmit to us the Seeds of their Inclinations and Vertues Now that which had never been seen in any other Prophet obliged the Evangelist to call Jesus Christ the Word to distinguish him from all other Prophets and Interpreters of God and to express himself in so forcible a manner on the Birth of this great Prophet in saying that the Word was made Flesh The old Translation was Verbum Domini factum est ad Prophetam The new has something more emphatical Verbum Domini factum est caro the Word insinuated it self into the Flesh and prepared it for Prophecy Marius Victorinus to give an Idea of this twofold Divine Dispensation Manifestation and Communication says in his 3d Book against Arius That there is a double Energy or Operation of the Word the one in a manifest way Christ in Flesh the other in a secret way the Holy Ghost Whereupon he calls the Father a Voice in silence the Son the Voice and the Holy Ghost the Voice of the Voice Which shews that the Holy Ghost is the Word of the Son as the Son is the Word of the Father And it is in this manner that St. Basil speaks 5 advers Eunom The Son is the Word of the Father and the Holy Ghost is the Word of the Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now we see by what means Error was introduc'd God having reveal'd himself to his Creature by way of outward Manifestation and by way of inward Communication out of those two Dispensations have been made so many Divine Persons distinct from God the Father that is a second Person was made of the Manifestation and of the Communication was made a third It
is however but one and the same God one and the same Divine Person one God manifesting himself one God communicating himself In a word one God who in communicating himself and in manifesting himself varys his Character according to the diversity of his Oeconomies He changes Oeconomy but as we speak without changing Person for I take this Word here according to the Philosophical Ideas which are the same with those of the common People and not in the sense of Classical Authors according to which it is certain God changes Person as often as he changes Character and Dispensation And indeed whether God clothe himself with a Body of most pure Light an Oeconomy proper for Angels or shew himself to the Patriarchs under transitory Forms an Oeconomy proper for particular Circumstances or make his fix'd abode among us in the Person of his Son an Oeconomy proper for the calling of all Nations it is still the same God one God manifesting himself Again whether God give his Creature Life and Motion or kindle in Man the Light of Reason or inspire Prophets or shed forth an immense Influence upon the Messiah whom he sends to us 't is yet always the same God one God communicating himself 'T is the same who appears every where the same who makes himself to be known by Angels thro the brightness which encompasseth him the same who by his powerful Voice commands all things to come out of nothing and they obey him the same who shews himself to the Patriarchs in momentaneous Apparitions of Angels the same who discovers himself somewhat more plainly when he declares his Counsels to us by the Mouths of his Prophets In fine the same who dwelling in Jesus Christ shews us his Majesty openly in all its fulness if I may so express my self after St. Paul In Jesus Christ says that Apostle dwells the fulness of the Godhead bodily in him greater than the Angels better authorized than Moses and more enlighten'd than the Prophets This is a Mystery of Love and Condescension by which that Supreme and ineffable Being who dwells in Light inaccessible comes and dwells among us and accommodating himself to our weak Apprehension makes himself be heard by our Ears seen by our Eyes and even felt by our Hands CHAP. IV. God reveals himself only by corporeal Representations suted to the Narrowness of our Vnderstanding THIS Oeconomy is general It runs throout the whole Scripture where God with the Goodness of a Father explains his Perfections to us by Representations tending to help our Weakness 1. Because we cannot apprehend his Eternity and how he is necessarily Self-existent He speaks of it as a Man telling us that he was before the Mountains were born before the Heavens were stretched out and the Stars lighted Which by the way overthrows the Objection taken from God's necessary Existence to shew that if we deny the Trinity because it is incomprehensible we should for the same reason also deny this necessary Existence as being no less so I say this Objection does not reach us since the same God who in condescension to us declares his Eternity and Existence by Ideas proportion'd to our Capacitys would not have deliver'd this supposed Trinity to us by Ideas not only incomprehensible but even destructive of his Unity and of the Revelation which he has made of it 2. Because 't is impossible for us to apprehend his Immensity he only makes us conceive it by the Idea of a great King whose Throne is the Heavens and the Earth his Footstool And 3. Because we are incapable of framing any true Idea of his Power and of his other Perfections he speaks of himself as of a Man having Eyes Hands Ears Bowels c. to signify to us his Knowledg Power Mercy Wisdom c. St. Augustin so well understood this Stile of the Scripture that he places among the false Ideas which Men have of the Godhead De Trinit l. 1. c. 1. that which is used to express its Perfections in Terms merely Metaphysical and which are not borrowed from any of the things in being The Scripture says he never used any other than corporeal Similitudes to express the Nature of God to us by not that the thing is so but to shew us that it is necessary to speak so As to things which are not He means which are not in the Creature but are presumptuously supposed to be in God or which have no other Being than only in Philosophical Contemplations which are called Ideas or Entia Rationis the Scripture does not from them take any manner of speaking to mark out the Figures of them to us or to make Enigma's that is Mysteries of them for us Nothing is more dangerous than to imagine that in God which is neither in himself nor in any Creature But the Paraphrase of Mr. Du Pin will be less suspected than my Translation Hist of Eccl. Auth. Tom. 3. p. 467. Par. Edit Thus some says he to form an Idea of God which may have nothing in common with the Creature conceive him in a Chimerical manner The Holy Scripture is accommodated to Mens Weakness in sometimes attributing to God such Expressions as properly sure only to Bodys or to imperfect Spirits and has rarely made use of such Names which are agreeing to God only because it is in this Life very difficult to know the Substance and Essence of the Divine Nature To this Paraphrase I will add a few Words of the same Father ib. c. 12. There is not says he in the Scriptures any manner of speaking but what is us'd among Men because 't is indeed to Men to whom it speaks Minutius Felix discourses almost in the same manner on the Knowledg which we can have of that immense and infinite Nature For after having said that God as he is in himself is known by none by himself He add I will say what I think He who believes he knows God's Greatness diminishes it and he who fears diminishing it does not know it Could he more plainly tell us that we cannot have a right Idea of God but in diminishing his Perfections and contenting our selves to compare them to the highest Idea of Greatness which we can frame of them ourselves Conceiving otherwise of him with Eternity which has neither past nor future with Immensity which fills no space with Trine-unity c. is conceiving chimerically of him Let it then be undisputable That God makes himself known to us only by Characters which are common to him with his Creatures or extremely well proportion'd to our Ideas We have hitherto said that 't is a kind of Figure which represents God to us according to the manner of Men But perhaps it has not been observed that this Stile is grounded on the Angel of God's appearing in his Name and by his Authority who was called his Face his Glory his Habitation and his Presence that is to say who was his Word and his Oracle this Angel I say appearing
said And indeed on the least Application in considering the Existence of this Universe it s well contriv'd Disposal its Parts so exactly adjusted to each other its admirable Order its regular Motion its Vastness Form Laws and Proportions its Corruptions and Productions its Duration Stability and Variety and in a word all the Wonders wherewith it is filled one must necessarily conclude the Meditation in confessing that immense Goodness gave Birth to the Design of it that profound Wisdom fram'd its Model and Figure that Infinite Power executed so great a Project and that these three Properties together preserve it and give Motion to all its Springs This Philosophy was not unknown to Caelius Rhodoginus as he expresses himself clearly enough on it in his Preface to his 1st Book Lection antiq The Heavens says he relate God's Glory c. It is certainly so the Greatness of so exquisite a Work its Strength and Motion do well shew the astonishing Power of its Maker Its Oeconomy and so well contriv'd Disposal publish his Wisdom and we discover Infinite Goodness in its Usefulness and Advantages Wherefore the Divine Platonistâ— rever'd this Universe as the most August Representation of the most High God Thâ—sius in his Notes on Lactanius de Opific c. â— did also penetrate to the prime source of this good Philosophy consisting in a Trinity of Principles God says he created this beautful World and has adorn'd it with a thousand Wonders to the end that the Mind of Man contemplating so amazing a Work might admit the Wisdom Goodness and Power of the great Maker of it So Minutius Felix reasons in his Octavius Observe says he all things which have Being God makes them to be by his Word disposes them by his Reason and brings them to their Perfection by his Power Good Philosophy went directly to a Trinity which may be known by the Light of Nature Some difference will be seen in the manner of expressing but in the main 't is always the same Truth Plato saw this great Truth Some others had seen it before him tho not so distinctly However they all saw it not only by way of the Cabala and Tradition as is now pretended but as a natural Thing and as a Truth which was owing to their diligent Search and Enquiry A modern Author hath with much Reason acknowledged Graverol in his Moses vindicatus p. 89. That all that is said of the Origin of Philosophy among the Egyptians Chaldeans and Grecians is a most uncertain Tradition and his Opinion is that 't was the Fruit of their Study and Experience What he says of Philosophy in general is yet in particular more true of this part of it which treats of the three Principles whereof we have been speaking It is by their long Searches into the Origin of the World and not by Tradition at least by a very uncertain and confus'd Tradition that they attain'd to the Knowledg of these three Principles Goodness Wisdom and Power CHAP. VI. A Digression concerning Socrates's Genius THose are the invisible Excellencies which are discover'd in the visible Works of the Creation and a natural Philosophy which does not depend on Tradition but on Contemplation and Study Socrates did not take any other Method to find the Truth as Apuleus relates after Plato de Deo Socratis Socrates says he being inspir'd by his Genius has assur'd us that he heard a Celestial Voice These Words rightly understood prove what I have been asserting For I don't think this Celestial Voice can signify either the Chaldeans Cabal or any particular Revelation He must be little skill'd in the Allegorical Philosophy of those Times who does not see that by these Words Genius Demon Celestial Voice was meant nothing more than that Socrates by the force of his own Genius and Reason which he always consulted had apprehended this Divine Language of Nature which declares a Creator to us Reason duly consulted and Nature well understood are the Oracle of wise Men Reason says Heraclides Ponticus explaining Homer's Allegories Reason is a Demon which God hath planted in the superiour part of the Body to inspire us with truly Celestial Inclinations The Author who gives us the Life of Socrates in French having mention'd the several Opinions of those who literally believ'd that Socrates had a familiar Demon adds That some others suppos'd that this Genius was only his natural Judgment or his Soul that 't was that which he called his Demon according to the manner of speaking us'd by Philosophers who sometimes gave that Name to that Divine Part of Man which guides and governs him This Doubt adds he is also propos'd by Plutarch in the first Question concerning Plato where speaking of Socrates he says Did he not give the Name of God to his own Nature Thereon quoting the Opinions of Menander Heraclitus and Xenocrates who say that every ones Soul is his God or a Demon. A Friend of Socrates having gone down to Trophonius his Cave on purpose to know from the Oracle what the Demon of Socrates was brought no other Answer thence than that the superiour Part of our Soul which is not overpower'd by our Passions is by the vulgar call'd Vnderstanding but that those who speak better call it a Demon. Another Oracle answer'd Socrates's Father That he should let his Son do whatever came into his Mind without thwarting his natural Inclination because he had in him a Guide and Director more worth than ten thousand Masters As to the Voice which he heard 't is a manner of speaking like the Phrase we daily use my Mind tells me because there is nothing more natural than ascribing Speech and a Voice to that secret Motion of the Soul from which as from a faithful Voice we receive so many Counsels and Informations Whereto add his Prudence solid Judgment and great Experience in the things of the World For why might not such a piercing Mind as his exercis'd by long Study in Philosophy and by attentive Observation of the Manners and Affairs of Men which might have requir'd an extraordinary Facility of Reasoning on all sorts of Circumstances Why I say might he not have seen clearer than others and have discover'd things which are most commonly hid from vulgar Understandings By this Discourse of Monsieur Charpentier it appears that Philosophers have a Mysterious and Theological Language distinct from that of the Vulgar and that we must not suffer our selves to be so deceiv'd by their pompous Words as to make a venerable Mystery of a mere Allegory It is what Father Simon did not omit observing Crit. Hist of the New Testament p. 95. The Platonists says he who have often express'd themselves more like Divines than Philosophers meant nothing more by the Demon or God of Socrates than Reason The Author of the Critical Moral and Historical Reflections is also of this Opinion p. 66. Socrates says he was so wise that foreseeing all things it was believed that he had a familiar Demon
yet he distinguisheth carefully We ought then to say that this last Sense if we would distinguish it well from the other two must be the Sense of the Oeconomy That is to say that they are indeed three Angels but that the first of them bears the Name of Jehova and represents his Person It is for this reason he assures that this Sense is agreeable to the Scriptures account because it is the ordinary Stile of the Scripture to give the Name of Jehova to that Angel in whom God hath put his Name That Sense is not the literal one which owns but three Angels only as to their Nature nor the sublime Sense that finds there God himself with his sundry Relations of a Creator and King But it is an Oeconomical Sense which makes the first who is but an Angel by his Nature to be Jehova in respect to his Office because he bears the Name of Jehova and speaks by his Authority Whereas the other two Angels are not consider'd here but as two Powers of the Supreme God that is to say as Ministers of him who represents Jehova And as such they are sent to destroy Sodom this Execution being beneath the Majesty of the first We need consult only Philo himself to know what he understands by these Divine Powers and to be convinc'd that he intends no Nicety whilst he makes them to be two or three but follows the Text herein which speaks here of three Angels Elsewhere he reckons a greater Number of 'em For in two other Books of his de Opificio de Profugis he gives us clearly to understand that by the Powers wherewith God is accompanied he means only Angels seeing he makes them share the Creation of Man with the Supreme God for this reason because the Supreme God would not be the Author of what is evil in Man He therefore left to the Angels the care of making the mortal part of his Soul which is subject to Passions reserving to himself alone the superior part where Reason hath Dominion It was in this sense according to him that God spake in the Plural Let Vs make Man according to our Image You according to the Image of the Creature in making him capable of Evil but I according to the Image of the Deity in making him capable of Good And for the same reason he attributes sometimes the Creation of the World to this first Angel whom he calls the Word or the Son of God supposing always that this Work how excellent soever in it self yet was beneath the Divine Majesty and that God could not put his hand to it without injuring his Greatness Could so able a Philosopher as Philo be capable of giving a Task which he thought unworthy of God to Powers which he thought to be equal to and of the same Nature with him Now to return to the Text we examine let us say that they are three Angels in the literal Sense and that in the two other Senses it is he who is with his two Powers But we must take heed of a double meaning in the second Sense viz. that of the Allegory he who is with his two Powers denotes God himself with his sundry Operations whereas in the third Sense which is the Occonomical one the same-Terms signify only him who bears the Name of God with two other Angels that serve him as Ministers Thus you see the three Interpretations of Philo explain'd the which it seems Mr. Le Clerc understood not The first hath nothing that is Platonical but is purely an Historical Sense viz. that three Angels in a Human Shape presented themselves to Abraham The third hath nothing of Platonism neither it is a Theological Sense to wit the Sense of all the Jews and of all the Christians who understand the antient Dispensation The 2d that remains is not Platonical neither if you take it with Philo allegorically that is in an arbitrary Sense wherein the Letter of the Scripture is rais'd to Speculations and Ideas that have no Foundation or any reality in the Text. This last Interpretation of Philo would be truly Platonical if he understood by the Three he speaks of either three Hypostases or three distinct Persons whereas he understands there but one only Person under three different respects to wit God consider'd either in himself he who is or in relation to us inasmuch as he is our Creator and our King This is what Philo calls the Jehova with his two Powers One might indeed call this a Platonical Sense provided Plato be understood as he ought who under the Allegory of three Hypostases design'd to inform us of nothing else but only an All-good All-wise and All-powerful God both in the Creation and the Government of the World But then the Authority of Plato and Philo who are quoted as having spoken of three Distinctions in the Deity will become useless to the Trinitarians CHAP. XI That all those commonly call'd Hereticks did believe a pre-existent Word and in what sense I Told you that the Vnitarians quarrel not at all with the allegorical Sense of Philo who doth not suppose three Hypostases but only three Divine Relations or God with his two Powers Ruarus in his Epistles Part 1. p. 296. owns a pre-existent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which created the World and dwelt in J. C. The Fathers saith he who liv'd before the Council of Nice held a pre-existent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but notwithstanding they believ'd not that this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was the Supreme God and Creator of the World but a Spirit flowing from him when he went about to create the World and which subsisted in him till then We differ not much from this Opinion for we willingly own that an extraordinary Spirit of God did inseparably unite it self to J. C. from the very moment of his Conception and was as it were incorporated with him A Spirit say I which existed in God before his Conception and even from Eternity Nay if any one will have it by any means that this Spirit by whom J.C. perform'd the Work of the New Creation is the same that created this Universe we shall not contest his Opinion He is in the right For where is that Unitarian I pray you who owns not an internal Word and an eternal Reason which always subsisted in God and which is God himself as Mr. Le Clerc expresseth it in his Paraphrase which also dwelt in J. C I shall not except even the Alogi so call'd because they rejected the Platonick Word subsisting out of God himself and having an Hypostasis distinct from that of the Father But they never denied that in the Hypostasis of the Father there was not a Reason a Word or Operation that created the World and which insinuated it self into the Flesh J. C. It was indeed said of them that they absolutely rejected the Word but it was with the same Justice and Candor as some Moderns assert that the Divine Grace is
read The Lord saith I am the Jehova and then the Expression will become so natural as not at all to be mysterious CHAP. XVI Where it is demonstrated that the Chaldee Paraphrasts meant by the Word nothing else but an Angel BEsides the Moralist Jews the Chaldee Paraphrasts are also quoted as if they had known the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Plato The greatest part of these Paraphrases are stuff'd with Fables and Impieties not to say that they are of a late date and unknown to the Antients who had any Skill in the Oriental Tongues This is own'd by some of the modern Learned as Ribera Isaac Vossius Father Simon and others However an able Man hath already demonstrated with the utmost evidence Gul. Vorstius Discept de Verbo Dei that these Paraphrasts never gave the Name of the Word to the Messiah when they spake of him expresly but always call'd him the King Messiah and the Messiah of the Lord or the Messiah of Israel c. So that St. John could not follow a Paraphrase then not extant and which never gave the Title of the Word to the Messiah of Israel But lest you should reply that it is sufficient for this Apostle to have follow'd the Opinion of all the Jews of that time you need but consider the Words of Trypho to Justin to be assur'd of the contrary We wait saith he speaking in the Name of his Nation for a Christ a Man born of Men. It is true that this Expression the Word is very frequent in all these Paraphrases but it is always attributed to God in the same sense with the Latin Numen Jovis Numen Junonis for Jupiter and Juno themselves Somewhat like our giving a King the Title of His Majesty as his Majesty hath resolv'd order'd his Majesty said or did instead of The King hath resolv'd order'd hath said or done In the like manner when these Paraphrasts say the Word did commanded or declar'd any thing 't is the same with God did commanded or declar'd it I do not say these are absolutely the same Expressions however these Examples shew that there are in all Tongues some particular Modes of speaking from the which no such consequence is to be drawn as if every strange Word contain'd a great Mystery We deceive our selves this Mountain brings forth but a Mouse Would you have me speak plainly These Paraphrasts by the Word design'd only the Angel who bare the Name of God and who spake in his stead this Term being particularly appropriated to Messengers and Interpreters We likewise see that the Author of the Book of Wisdom did thus call Chap. 18. 15. the destroying Angel sent to kill the First-born of Egypt because he was intrusted with the Command of God therein and the Execution of it Thine Almighty Word saith he leapt down from Heaven c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. This Word saith Maldonat in Joan. 1.1 cannot at all be J. C. of whom it cannot be said that he was sent to perform the Office of an Executioner Thus those of Lystra call'd St. Paul Mercury or the Interpreter of Barnabas whom they look'd upon as their Jupiter and this because he Paul was the chief Speaker viz. was the Word of Barnabas Hermes which is the Name the Greeks give to Mercury signifies an Interpreter and they explain it often by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Word Hermes saith the Author of the Life of Homer that is to say the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phurnutus calls him an Angel or Messenger Heraclides Ponticus gives the Name of Angel to Iris and the Name of Word to Mercury Sometimes he joins the Term Word with that of an Interpreter calling Mercury the Word Interpreter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He also observes that Iris was thus call'd because she brings word as it were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that Hermes was call'd so because he is the Interpreter of the Gods as it were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 At last he gives the reason why Wings are ascrib'd to him because saith he there is nothing so swift as Speech which made Homer say that Words had Wings Hence it comes no doubt that we give Wings to Angels as well as to Mercury because they are the Messengers and the Interpreters of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Seeing then the Heathens talk'd thus of the Messengers of their Gods and call'd them Interpreters and Words I cannot discern any greater Mystery in the Jewish Paraphrasts nor why they should not give the same Names to Angels or other Messengers that spake to them on the behalf of God Maldonat in Joan. 1.1 did really observe well that the Paraphrasts made use of this Term when God was treated of as conversing with and speaking to us or coming to aid and succour us This cannot be understood but of a Divine Manifestation by the Ministry of an Angel neither would it have been surprizing if what they said of the Angels they had said also of the Messiah I mean in respect to his Commission but not at all in relation to an inviable Nature And then if you would have it that St. John did imitate the Jews as to the use of this Term I shall agree with you provided it be in the sense we have given which is both plain and agreeable to the Scripture We have observ'd already p. 17 18. that the Paraphrasts we speak of do not make use of this Term Word but only in those places where the Hebrew speaking of the Actions and Affections of God expresseth them by the Terms of Face Eyes Feet Hands c. which are corporeal Parts and belonging only to Man We observ'd at the same time that these ways of speaking which the Hebrew Text makes use of were grounded upon this that the Angel of God who appear'd in God's Name and had his Authority did most commonly appear in the shape of a Man The consequence I would draw from these two Remarks is evident and for this reason the Paraphrasts us'd this Term Word only to denote the Divine Manifestation by Angels under sensible Representations but particularly those of a Human Voice and Shape Their Testimony then is so far from favouring the Idea of a Metaphysical Word that it serves on the contrary to confirm our Hypothesis which is that we ought to understand by the Word a sensible Manifestation of God either in a bright Cloud or by a Heavenly Voice or by a Human Shape It is true that some Controvertists object to us that Passage of the Paraphrase upon the Psalms which is the worst of all viz. that upon Psalm 110. The Lord said to his Word I know not where they had it for in the Original it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Latin Interpreter translates it very well in Verbo suo by or in his Word which is a mere Hebraism instead of God hath said The Jews spake on this wise saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in or
Men because if I may say so these Dispensations were the Figures of the great Oeconomy of J. C. or rather of God the Father manifesting himself in the Flesh of his Son Therefore Irenaeus calls it the Dispensation which was from the Beginning You may see what Vossius saith in his Notes concerning these Allegories of Barnabas and the other Fathers It is known by all saith he how these first Christians interpreted the Scriptures after a mystic and superstitious manner I was like to say childish and foolish Cotelier saith almost the same and shews their Absurdities But take this along with you that these dull Allegories did not by far so much Mischief as that Christianity in Masquerade which some other Fathers borrowed from Plato It is of these you may more justly say than of the Allegorists according to one of our Criticks that the Day these good Fathers were writing so many philosophic Visions they voided a Purge Purgamentum aliquod cacasse Let us now come to Hermas who is as well stored with Visions and Parables as Barnabas At least his Method is the same In his Parable or Similitude the 9th § 12. he saith That the Rock is the Son of God now the Rock is of old because the Son of God is more antient than any Creature inasmuch as he assisted in the Council of his Father in order to form the Creature All this is said in a mystic and an allegoric sense to explain that the Father did all in regard to his Son and the new Creation The Author having said as much in his first Vision § 4. concerning the Church for asking of the Angel Why the Church of God is an old Woman the Angel answers because she was the first thing that was created and that it was by reason of her the World was made It is likely in the Greek it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Translator rendered not per illam but propter illam You see then that this Father saith no more of J. C. than he doth of the Church and that these Words antiquior omni Creatura mean the same thing with anus prima omnium creata which are true only in a mystic sense but false in the Letter Consequently then J. C. is from the Beginning in the same sense that the Church is so I mean in the Decree and Design of God which the Author expresseth by his being in the Council of the Father which he borrowed manifestly from the Author of the Book of Wisdom I shall now produce a remarkable Instance of the Alteration that ensued as to the Tenent it self notwithstanding the Terms remained the same You see that Hermas saith here the Son of God is more antient than any Creature and that he speaks so allegorically Let us get over one Age or two and you shall see Origen making use of the same Expression but in an Arian sense The Holy Scriptures saith he Lib. 5. contra Cels discover the Son of God to us as the most antient of all the Creatures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He means that he was created a little before the World but let us return to our Subject Justin Martyr who first taught the Pre-existence of the Word imitating the Notion of Hermas did teach the Pre-existence of Christians no less than that of Christ himself whilst Apol. 2. he saith That all those who were Partakers of the Word or Reason as well Greeks as Barbarians were Christians and consequently Christians did not commence yesterday or to day but were always and every where a principio saith he from the beginning attributing to them the very Prerogative of the Word it self These good Men turn'd themselves every way to ward off the Reâ—roach of Novelty wherewith Christianity was charged In like manner Eusehius endeavouring to prove that the Christian Religion was not new maintains that the Patriarchs profest it and that it was instituted from the beginning Hist Eccles Lib. c. 4. Thus much he cannot advance but in a mystic sense as he observes it himself because all those who acted justly and served that God who is above all were Christians Consequently then Christ could not converse otherwise with them but in the same manner as they professed Christianity which cannot be true but by way of Analogy and Accommodation Christ then pre-existed as the Christian Religion and Christians did pre-exist Let us return to Hermas It is manifest that he allegoriz'd even by his entituling his third Book where he speaks of the Pre-existence of J. C. Similitudes or Parables which carry on throughout spiritual and mystic senses as is evident by Similitude 5. where he explains the Parable of the Father of a Family in a theological manner in relation to the Father the Holy Ghost and the Son The Father in the Plan of his Allegory is the Landlord the Holy Spirit is the Son of the Houshold and he who out of Allegory is called the Son is but a Servant in the Allegory The Landlord saith he is the same who created all things the Son is the Holy Ghost and the Son of God is the Servant He goes on and adds a little after The Holy Ghost insinuated himself into the Body wherein God was to dwell and this Body whereinto the Holy Ghost did insinuate himself having served the Holy Ghost and having been faithful to him always did obtain the Approbation of God by his Labours and Obedience By the Holy Ghost cannot be meant here the second Person which is called the Divine Nature of J. C. as Dr. Bull pretends for who sees not that Hermas speaks here of that Spirit of Sanctification which prepared the Body of J. C. for Prophecy and consecrated it for a Temple for God to dwell in And seeing this Idea of the Holy Spirit 's being infus'd into the Body of J. C. is so conformable to what the Holy Scriptures deliver concerning it you must be very extravagant if you think that Hermas differed from it Besides what could he mean if his sense were the same with that Dr. Bull attributes to him Would he introduce two Sons of God so opposite one to the other The one who serves and obeys and the other who is served and obeyed and what is yet more strange two Sons of God in the self-same Person of J. C. our Lord. The Son saith Hermas is the Holy Spirit and the Son of God is the Servant Now if the Divine Nature of J. C. be denoted by the Spirit and that the Servant signifies the Human Nature you will have two Sons according to the very Letter Thus the Orthodox embroil all things to fish for Mysteries in Troubled Water whereas nothing is more clear than the meaning of Hermas He allegorizeth and would say By him whom the Parable calls the Son I mean nothing else but the Holy Spirit and by him whom the Parable calls a Servant I mean J. C. our Lord who out of the Parable is the proper Son of
incarnate And what can this Reason be which it merited and which was united to it When the Veil of Allegory is taken off it can be no other than that high Contemplation whereof the Soul of Jesus Christ had by its pre-existent Obedience render'd it self capable or than that degree of Prophecy and that Spirit without measure wherewith God had honoured it and which made it Partaker of the Divine Nature or lastly the very Office of Word or of Interpreter of God whereof God had judged it worthy as the most perfect and noblest of the Spirits which he had decreed to declare his Mind Celsus says he ibid. lib. 7. will not own that he who suffer'd Death can be worthy of the second Honours next to the Supreme God as well because of the Powers he had acquir'd in Heaven as because of those he had acquir'd on Earth Supposing as you see that Jesus Christ had merited in Heaven before he came to merit on our Earth he was very far from believing him to be the most High God Wherefore Origen having said of the Word that it was in God that it came from God that it was made Flesh and affirming the same of the Soul of J. C. this Conformity yields just reason to suspect that the Doctrine of the Word is nothing but the Soul of Jesus Christ theologiz'd whereon they discours'd Allegorically That 's in a manner prov'd by the Hypothesis of the Arians who believ'd that the Word was to Jesus Christ instead of a Soul and consequently by the Word understood only the Soul of Jesus Christ created before all Ages An Hypothesis renew'd in our time by John Turner who has given it a new turn for he maintains That the Word is nothing else but the Soul of Jesus Christ created indeed but eternally united to the Substance of God and by that Union participating all his Perfections A Discourse concerning the Messiah Ep. Dedic p. 154. The same is infer'd from the Use which has been made of some Texts of Scripture as for example these I came from the Father O Father glorify me with the Glory which I had with thee c. Who being in the Form of God c. Our Divines interpret them of the Pre-existence of the Word but Origen and Dr. Rust in his Book intitul'd Origen and his chief Opinions interpret them of the Pre-existence of the Soul of Jesus Christ Whence comes this Confusion of Ideas The reason of it is easily given The former of these Interpretations is mysterious and allegorical and the latter literal So we may conclude that the Fathers allegoriz'd on the pre-existent Soul of Jesus Christ loving our Nature and becoming incarnate for our Salvation which they in their allegorical Stile call'd the Word or the Son of God And consequently those who take this last Allegory in the literal Sense and understand it of a Divine Person united to our Flesh are not less ridioulous than they who stumbling at the Letter of the first Allegory really believ'd that Angels had mix'd themselves with mortal Women The Text for the first Hypothesis that the Sons of God were married to the Daughters of Men serves as well as that for the second I have begotten thee before the Morning This Pre-existence of Souls and particularly of that of Jesus Christ has been very antient in the Church We find it plainly enough express'd in the second letter attributed to Clemens Romanus C. 10. These are his Words As you have been call'd dwelling in the Flesh so you will come in the Flesh Jesus Christ the Lord who sav'd us being the first Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was made Flesh and so called us 〈◊〉 likewise we shall receive the Recompence in the Flesh This Passage supposes the Pre-existence of our Souls as well as that of the Soul of Jesus Christ For he compares our Spirits existing in the Flesh to that first Spirit which was made Flesh to call us He calls Jesus Christ the first of all Spirits whether Souls or Angels because God begat him first a little before he undertook the Creation of the World and afterwards imploy'd him to create the other Spirits according to the Doctrine of Lactantius Instit lib. 4. c. 6. who further teaches us ibid. c. 1.2 That this Holy Spirit descending from Heaven chose the Womb of a Virgin to enter into And the better to carry on the Comparison which he makes of that Spirit to all incarnate Spirits he shews that he was rais'd to the Recompence only by his faithful Obedience and Vertue ibid. cap. 14. His Words are remarkable God says he having sent his Son to Men He hath shewn his Faithfulness in teaching that there is but one God and that he only is to be worship'd and he never call'd himself God because he would have violated his Truth if being sent to take away from the World the Plurality of Gods and to establish the Unity of God he had introduc'd more than one God That had not been preaching One God nor working for the Interest of him who sent him but for his own and it would have been dividing himself from the Father whom he came to glorify Then by his having been thus faithful and in the Design of discharging his Commission not attributing any thing to himself he has receiv'd the Dignity of everlasting High Priest the Honour of Supreme King the Power of Judg and the Name of God By the way these Words of this Father are a curious Paraphrase on those of St. Paul Phil. 2.6 c. Who being in the Form of God did not attribute to himself c. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and hath given him a Name which is above every Name c. Let us here remember a distinction of the Fathers which has been mention'd already and wherein the Footsteps of antient Allegory visibly appear The Fathers distinguish'd two kinds of Generation of the Word the one eternal and internal and the other external which began with the World and the only one which they properly call Generation Dr. Bull acknowledgeth this distinction only he pretends but without reason that 〈◊〉 the latter which is metaphorical Granting him his desire 't is the same thing with respect to the Question now treated of For it remains nevertheless true that they allegoriz'd on one of the Generations of the Word be it which it will and that 's all I need Let them as long as they please say that the Fathers spake of a Generation of the Word which was proper and literal I shall answer Yes and that 's what I call gross Platonism which has made them philosophize so absurdly But by their own confession the same Fathers have spoken of another Generation of the Word which is metaphorical and allegorical and that 's what I call their refin'd Platonism the fair Remains of sound Philosophy which betrays them and manifestly discovers the absurdity of the other part of their System whereon they
and Oeconomical Mystery of the antient Fathers The Reason of Prudence ceasing since we have now no more Platonists to gain nor Gnosticks to outbrave the Oeconomy of the Logos ought to cease at the same time Yet we do in this as in every thing else we never reform and it often happens that the Religion of Posterity is nothing else but the mere Policy or Oeconomy of their Ancestors I have but one Reflection more to shew the Source of this Allegory Cerinthus was the Man who first brought in this usage of Platonizing As he is the first Author of a Logos or an invisible Christ he is also the first who began to make use of the Oeconomy in the Christian Religion 'T is he who turns the Resurrection into Allegory explaining it by the Evangelical Regeneration or rather by the State of Quietude wherein the Contemplative are when they quit this World to raise themselves to the Speculation of Mysteries and the Knowledg of Ideas The Quietists have not fail'd to frame an Ideal and Allegorical Word or Logos even as they have also taught an Allegorical and Ideal Resurrection Without question they allegoriz'd when they said Christ descended into Jesus meaning that Jesus was anointed and made the Christ when the Holy Ghost descended upon him at his Baptism See Grotius on 1 Cor. 15.1 They did no less allegorize when upon the same ground they added that the Christ which descended on Jesus ascended into Heaven and left him at the moment of his Passion By which they meant as St. Paul says that Jesus humbl'd himself that he laid by the Power and the Spirit with which he was endu'd and left himself to be crucified as a Man feeble and without Power or rather as a Slave Tertul. contra Prax. cap. 30. St. Hilary and St. Ambrose did not understand so much fineness since they made bold to say bluntly and without figure that the Word was divorc'd from the Flesh that the God was separated from the Man and left him to himself In short that which I am saying of the use of this Allegory amounts to this 'T is well known that the Pagans invented three sorts of Allegory the Physical the Moral and the Theological which never fail'd 'em at a pinch to cover the absurdity of their Fables and of the History of their Gods 'T is after this way they defended themselves as we see in St. Clemens his Recognitions lib. 10. cap. 30. saying that the literal Sense of their Fables was contriv'd in condescension to the Vulgar but that they had besides an allegorical and elevated Sense for the Learned That in this last Sense they said for example that Jupiter from his own Brain begat the Goddess Minerva that is Wisdom to shew that 't is by his Wisdom that the Father of all things created the World One may truly say the Christians have in a manner follow'd the same Method For not to mention their many Moral Allegories which they invented to conceal that which seemed to 'em too low and mean for the Majesty of the H. Scriptures 't is sufficient to observe here that all they have told us of an eternal and invisible Son of his incomprehensible Generation and other Speculations of the like nature is nothing else but a theological Allegory by which they varnish'd whatever appear'd too mean in the eyes of Philosophers in the History of Jesus Christ The Pagans and the Christians have hereby equally quitted themselves of a difficulty that expos'd 'em to mutual Reproaches The Pagans were asham'd of their ridiculous Fables and the Christians were of the Cross of Christ and both of 'em surmounted those Inconveniences by a dextrous use of what we call the Wonderful which is to be met with in their Allegory CHAP. XXI An Account of what the Father 's called Theology WHAT the Father 's called Theology is another sort of Machine they acted withal to represent to us a contemplative Gospel formed after the Ideas of Plato which theologizes that is speaks of any Person in the same Stile as one usually speaks of God as if the Person had a miraculous Birth to say he came down from Heaven if he reform'd Mankind to say he created the World if God rais'd him to any extraordinary Dignity to say that he was begotten of God All this so far agrees with the Scriptures but especially with the Stile of St. John who affects throughout his Writings to theologize all the Subjects he treats on I will give you but this one Instance John 3.13 No Man says he has ascended into Heaven c. The foregoing Words do shew that he theologized in this Passage he had said to the Jews How will you believe if I tell you of Heavenly things For no Man has ascended into Heaven c. that is to say plainly that no Man can acquaint you with Heavenly Things but he who came down from Heaven or who drew his Origin from Heaven The sense therefore is this The Son of Man who was born from Heaven by the Holy Ghost and on this account may be said in the theological way to have come down from Heaven The same Son of Man was raised to the Knowledg of all the Secrets of Heaven by the Gifts he received from the same Spirit and on that account it may be further said in the theological Stile That be ascended into Heaven No Man then was rais'd to the Knowledg of the Secrets of Heaven but he who was originally from Heaven that is the Son of Man who was wholly from Heaven After this manner the Jews did theologize when they said that their Law was before the Creation of the World The Mahometans do the same when they speak so magnificently of the Gospel as to say it fell down from Heaven sometimes speaking the same thing of the Alcoran which they call the Word of God which was not made but came down from Heaven Barthol Edessen Confut. Agar They give also the same Honour to Jesus Christ who because he was born without a human Father after an extraordinary manner is in their oriental and theological Stile the Eternal Word the Word of God by way of Excellence that is he is the Word 1. Because he had no other Father than that Word and that Commandment had which made the World from nothing 2. Because he with the assistance of that very Word has distinguish'd himself by a great number of Miracles Hortinger Hist Orient lib. 1. cap. 3. pag. 105. Simon Voyage du Mont. Liban p. 262. Again nothing is more reasonable than that manner of Theologizing things great and extraordinary provided all these pompous Expressions be taken in a metaphorical sense But the Misfortune is that the grosser Platonism has impos'd upon the Fathers who have spoken in this manner of J.C. in the very Letter So that to theologize with them is to ascribe to Jesus Christ the Divine Nature and Substance with all its Attributes or at least
this matter before he was well aware 'T is Bp Pearson I mean in his Vindication of Ignat. Epist Part. 2. cap. 1. where he tells you Ignatius was one of those Primitive Fathers qui Christum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is who deify'd Jesus Christ or gave him the Title of a God which was also done by the Catholick Doctors and Christians of his time who as Pliny reports it sang Hymns to Jesus Christ as to a God and who as one of the Antients tells us in Euseb Eccl. Hist lib. 5. c. 28. did celebrate the Praises of Jesus Christ the Word of God by ascribing to him Divinity But after the Philosophy of Plato was received in the Church the Writers of the second and third Century are not wont to speak of Jesus Christ with so much simplicity as barely to call him God This manner of speaking of Jesus Christ has the relish of St. Ignatius his time who simply or barely call'd him God Photius reproaches Clemens Romanus for not giving the Title of God to Jesus Christ which so well became him Hence it appears that this able Critick thought the Practice of giving Christ the Title of a God was peculiar to this first Age of the Church But the Title God so often given to Christ by Ignatius tho not with the restriction with which 't is done by the succeeding Fathers but simply and by it self is indeed a mark of the Antiquity of St. Clemens his Writings He imitates throughout the Epistles of St. Paul which had been received from the beginning in all Churches but he rarely cites the Gospels which had been more lately received He has nothing in his Epistles of human Learning nothing that does not become the Simplicity of an Apostolick Man and the Purity of the Gospel They who wrote after him usually borrow from the Pagans and sometimes blend their Opinions with the Christian Religion which every one did according to the Principles of that Philosophy they had imbib'd before they embrac'd Christianity Ignatius had for a long time been a Bishop and became a Christian at a time when very few of the Learned Gentiles turn'd Christians but we find him to be purely the Christian not form'd in the Schools or nurs'd up in Librarys and without the Sentiments of the Academy or the Portico Bp Pearson acquaints us in this fine Passage that the Antients did theologize that is attribute Divinity to Jesus Christ and spoke of him as a God This taken in a good Sense very well explains what they understood by the title of a God when they gave it to Jesus Christ They meant nothing else by it but this that they look'd upon him as a Divine and extraordinary Man and that they honour'd him as such In short it would not be proper to say that the Antients sang Hymns to the Father as to a God quasi Deo that they celebrated the Praises of the Father by ascribing Divinity to him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 deifying him this would be ridiculous Language We don't use to speak thus of the Supreme God These Expressions cannot sute any other Object but one who has not Divinity in an absolute Sense but in certain respects only And 't is upon the following accounts that Jesus Christ was spoken of as a God either with regard to his Nature being the Son of God form'd by the Operation of his Spirit or with regard to his Dignity since that the Father by making him Lord and Christ had made him God as St. Ambrose reads this Passage Lib. 1. de fide ad Grat. Aug. Cap. 7. 'T is true this Term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in another sense is sometimes us'd with respect to God the Father but then it signifies nothing else but to speak with reverence of the Deity to celebrate his Praises and not to deify or ascribe Divinity to him Vide Euseb Hist Eccles lib. 10. cap. 3. In the first of the Senses abovementioned the term may be well applied to Jesus Christ to express the Divine Honours they gave him For if he was Man because a Woman was his Mother it might also be said that he was a God and a God by Nature for being born of a Virgin he had none other Father but God Natura a nascendo But he deserves this high Character yet further forasmuch as the Father has highly exalted him and given him a Name above every Name By this Name says Novatian de Trinit cap. 17. we understand nothing else but the Name of God Because he was faithful says Lactantius Institut lib. 4. cap. 14. and had exactly done the Will of his Father he received the Name or Title of God 'T is in this sense that the Author of the second Epistle ascrib'd to Clemens Romanus exhorts us to think of Christ as of a God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and he explains that by subjoining as of the Judg of Quick and Dead Shewing us thereby that he gave him not that Name but with regard to the Power the Father bestowed upon him for his Obedience This is the very Theology of St. Paul Heb. 1. who tells us that God made Christ more excellent than the Angels when he said to him thou art my Son that is plainly that then he made him a God For 't is of his Exaltation the Apostle speaks as appears by his Citation out of the Psalms O God thy God has anointed thee for so I read it as the Trinitarians do Now a God anointed and consecrated is nothing but a King and consequently Jesus Christ is God with regard to the Dominion he has received from the Father over the New Creation But with respect to God the Father he is nothing but the Minister of his Will If he be called Lord that 's no more than a Term of Inferiority in the New Testament which signifies one whom the Father hath appointed his Vicegerent and it cannot be understood otherwise because 't is said the Father has made him Lord. St. Paul exactly follows this Sense for in all the Symbols he mentions he takes care to ascribe the Name of God only to the Father excluding the Son and saying the Father is the One God and the Son the One Lord which St. Paul does always when he speaks of Father and Son together And this is an Observation I had from Tertullian who speaks thus in his Dispute against Praxeas I will not say two Gods and two Lords but I will follow the Apostle St. Paul and if the Father and the Son are to be nam'd together I 'll call the Father God and Jesus Christ Lord. But if Jesus Christ be named alone then I may call him God as the Apostle himself does when he says Of whom is Christ who is God over all things blessed for ever But in my opinion Novation expresses the thing more clearly in his Discourse de Trinitate cap. ult God the Father says he is without contradiction the God of all and the very
Constitutions I place Ignatius who in his Epistle to those of Tarsus calls those Hereticks Ministers of Satan who held these two extremes the one that J. C. is God over all the other that he was but a mere Man In his Epistle to the Philippians he explains wherein Orthodoxy truly consists viz. in believing Christ born of God by a Virgin for not only they who believed him a mere Man denied this Truth but Ignatius farther insinuates that this Truth was denied no less even by such who believed him to be God over all How says he to them do you not believe that J. C. was born of a Virgin but that he is God over all I would say him who can do all things Tell me then I pray who is he that sent him To whose Will is he subject And whose Law did he fulfil How dare you maintain that the Christ was by no means generated that the Lawgiver is unbegotten and that he who is without beginning was nail'd to a Cross This Passage is the clearest Proof The Generation of J. C. by the Power of the Holy Ghost was the true Theology concerning his Person and those who held him to be the Supreme God contested this miraculous Generation pretending that he was unbegotten For this reason Ignatius adds a little after This is not he who is God over all but the Son meaning thereby one who was begotten Daille exclaims upon the Passage aforesaid saying Ignatius distinguishes the Son from that God who is over all which is Blasphemy And he has reason to speak in the Orthodox way because the Character of a God over all is not properly of the Person but an Attribute of the Substance So that it cannot be taken from J. C. without robbing him of the Divine Nature and Substance It will be said perhaps that the Constitutions are not Clement's and that the two Epistles under the Name of Ignatius are falsly ascribed to him But this is trifling as to our Question for be it as it will my Citations are from Authors of great Antiquity and who pass for Trinitarians they are Witnesses of the Faith in that Age wherein they lived and whose Testimony consequently ought not to be suspected by us Moderns So much the rather because the same is confirmed by a Doctor of great Name and Reputation For is it not well known that Origen attacked the same Error in his 32 Tom. on St. John and in his eighth Book against Celsus Mons Huet in his Quaestiones Origen 2. is much scandalized that Origen should say Some maintained that Christ was God over all This Proposition saith Huet is true and Orthodox with respect to the Divine not the Human Nature Origen on the contrary denies our Saviour to be God over all and proves him to be inferiour to the Father by this Reason because the Father is God over all He takes away then from the Divine Nature of J. C. the Character of supreme Divinity and ascribes it to the Father But let us hear Origen himself I mean says he that there are some among the great Number of Believers who widely differing from the Opinion of others rashly maintain that our Saviour is God over all for our parts we have no regard for that Opinion believing these Words of our Saviour himself viz. The Father why sent me is greater than I. 'T is trifling to answer here that Origen meant some Hereticks who held that J. C. was the Father This takes not off from the Force of the Argument for Origen maintains that the Son is not the Father for this reason because he is not as the Father God over all and because Christ himself confesses that the Father is greater than himself supposing that it was the Father alone who had this supreme Prerogative To conclude Dr. Bull in his Judicium Eccles Cath. and his Defender in his Fathers vindicated citing the famous Passage of Justin when that Father consents to a Toleration of the Josephites who believed Jesus to be the Son of Joseph yet nevertheless believed him to be Christ These Authors I say insist much upon the opposition which Justin Martyr makes between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the small number of Josephites and the many who oppos'd ' em Now we have our Turn to boast in this Passage of Origen and may take the same Advantage they who believed J. C. to be God over all were but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or some Persons and by consequence they were the Hereticks because the few are always such But for those who opposed this Error they beyond contradictions were the Orthodox because they were the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the Multitude CHAP IV. General Remarks upon the forecited Authorities of the Fathers IT remains that I make two Remarks upon these Passages in general one is that since 't was Heresy in these first times of Christianity to affirm that J. C. is the supreme God it follows that Orthodoxy was either the Opinion of Arius which will not be granted or that of the Socinians which ought to be admitted since 't is taken from the Scriptures by the Confession of the Trinitarians The other Remark is since such Fathers condemn this Expression as heretical viz. that the Lord Jesus is God over all without taking any notice of the Objection now drawn from that Passage in Rom. 9.5 which one wou'd think was very natural for them to have solv'd it follows that in their time either they gave those Words another sense or that they read it otherwise than we do at this day Supposing then as I am about to demonstrate that to ascribe to J. C. the Prerogative of the Father viz. of being God over all was Heresy in the first Ages of the Church One sees clearly in what sense a Remark of Sulpitius Severus may be true which was this that almost all Christians in Palestine in the time of Adrian believed Jesus Christ to be a God Not the supreme God as Sulpitius pretends nor a God begotten a little before the Creation as Eusebius would have us believe by perverting some Passages of the Antients and by making them to serve his own Prejudices Not I say once more the supreme God this would have been a damnable Error What then Why a God because he was received or owned not only as a Just Man and a Prophet but as the Christ of God whom he made Lord giving him a Name above every Name the Name of God Note here the manner of Christ's Deification In short one cannot believe without Heresy according to these Primitive Doctors that he was a mere Man having no more Authority than other Holy Persons One cannot therefore better state the Orthodoxy of those venerable Doctors than in avoiding these two Extremes And we find it to be so in the most famous and most antient Monument of the Christian Church I mean the Apostles Creed which says I believe in
and of Spirit begotten and unbegotten made a God in the Flesh the true Life in Death born of Mary and of God This Father arguing against the Josephites does not oppose to their Error the eternal Generation of the Son of God but his Birth of a Virgin by the Holy Spirit I would say he does not speak of a God incarnate but of a Man who was made God in the Flesh that is to say who was born a God or made a God by his Birth because he was born of God and of the Virgin Mary In this Sense Ignatius assures us that our Physician is partly Flesh and partly Spirit since by his wonderful Conception he partook equally of the fleshly or Human and of the Spiritual and Divine Nature He adds this Physician is begotten and unbegotten since he was begotten of a Woman like other Men and at the same time unbegotten having no Man for his Father Lastly he says that this Physician was born of the Virgin Mary and of God which explains all the rest for 't is as much as to say that he was born of the Virgin Mary by the Power of the Spirit of God and not by her Intercourse with Joseph This word God as you may see being there manifestly oppos'd to Man or to Joseph Jesus Christ our God as Ignatius further says in the same Epistle was conceived of the Virgin Mary according to the Divine Dispensation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being in truth of the Seed of David but by the intervention of the Holy Spirit Where one sees the same Antithesis continued which we observ'd in the foregoing Passage that is between God and Mary and between the Seed of David and the Power of the Spirit The true Oeconomy according to Ignatius is not the Incarnation of the Supreme God but the miraculous Conception of the Messiah who is both God and Man by his Birth of a Woman by the Power of God This is a Physician who was made God in the Flesh being born of the Virgin Mary and of God of David and of the Holy Spirit This is the true Divine Dispensation this is the great Mystery of the Christians The same Author in his Epistle to the Church of Smirna presents us with another Passage sutable to this occasion For thus he speaks of Jesus Christ That he was truly of the Race of David or the Son of David according to the Flesh but the Son of God according to the Will and Power of God in that he was truly born of a Virgin Monsieur Daillé having mark'd out this Passage of Ignatius as Heretical since he makes the Generation of the Son to depend on the Will and Power of the Father Bp Pearson gives this account of it in his Vindic. Ignat. Par. 2. c. 9. That 't is clear this Father does not speak of the Eternal Generation of the Son but of his Incarnation which as the World owns was by the Will and Power of God For which reason adds Pearson the Interpolator having a mind to pervert these Words by applying 'em to the Divine Nature he was forc'd to change their Order 'T is sufficient that this Learned Person affirms that in this Passage there 's nothing of an eternal Generation and that Ignatius speaks not but of Jesus Christ in allusion to the Words of the Angel The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee c. Wherefore that which c. shall be called the Son of God 'T is enough that he owns this Conception was so wonderful as to intitle Jesus Christ to the Name and Dignity of the Son of God As for the word Incarnation which Ignatius does not use we 'll excuse it in Pearson 't is a Term of art unknown to the good Father and signifies in the Platonizing Divinity that the Supreme God was made Man And if it be certain that Ignatius did not speak in this Passage but of the miraculous Conception of Jesus Christ can it be doubted whether he discours'd upon that same Subject and by no means on the eternal Generation in the two other Passages I am about to cite and which are very like to this here In the mean time Dr. Bull has the rashness to produce them for a Proof of that which he calls the two Natures of our Saviour that is that of a Supreme God and that of a Man like one of us in his Judic Eccles p. 5 seq Who would not wonder at the Artifice of Divines who have the Skill to pervert these Passages to serve their Notion of the Eternal-Generation We can furthermore shew you the Footsteps of this plain antient Divinity in other of the Fathers who Platonize more than Ignatius as in Justin and Irenaeus But we shall have another opportunity of examining the Theology of those two Fathers at present the Passage in Ignatius will suffice whereby to judg of the rest The only Reflection that remains is that Ignatius having so often distinguish'd between the Son born of God and of Mary and the Son born of David and the Holy Spirit 't is upon this Foundation that the distinction of the two Natures in Christ is founded in the true sense of it or if you please his twofold Filiation the one Divine the other Human. He is the Son of God says the Author of the Questions and Answers to the Orthodox Quest 66. in that he was born of the Holy Spirit and the Son of Joseph in that he was born of Joseph's Wife 'T is in this the Mystery consists He was born of Joseph's Wife this is but a legal Filiation with regard to Joseph and he was born of the Spirit of God this is a proper and natural Filiation with respect to God So that in this last respect it may be said that he is truly Light of Light and God of God I have already said it and I 'll repeat it again The Fathers thought that the Holy Spirit which overshadowed the Virgin Mary in some sort united it self to the Flesh of Jesus Christ so as never to be separated from it and 't is upon this perpetual Inhabitation that they have philosophized in their manner upon the two Natures of our Saviour Grotius aim'd at this Theology in one of his Notes upon Colos 1.19 The Plenitude of Divine Vertues says he dwelt in Jesus Christ that is to say 't was perpetually and inseparably united and not by intervals as in the Prophets This is what 's called the Hypostatick Vnion This in effect is the personal Union of the Divine with the Human Nature even this Shekinah or this perpetual Inhabitation of the Spirit of God in Jesus Christ To go farther in quest of other Mysteries betrays a Vanity of Mind The Fathers compriz'd all in what I have said and upon it they built those profound Speculations with which their Books are fill'd If at some times they went farther and spoke of the Word in a manner not agreeable with the ground I have laid down 't is
twofold Operation the one manifest which is Jesus Christ in the Flesh the other secret or hidden which is the Holy Spirit the one by way of Manifestation the other by way of Communication But after all 't is but a twofold Operation of one and the same Power I forbear to take notice of divers other Testimonies of Tertullian of the like kind as for instance at the beginning of his Book concerning Prayer in his Dispute against Marcion lib. 3. cap. 6 16. and in his Discourse of the Flesh of Jesus Christ cap. 19. the Reader may consult 'em if he pleases To the foremention'd Authoritys from Tertullian I will subjoin that of Novatian de Trinitate cap. 19. That which chiefly constituted the Son of God says he was the Incarnation of the Word of God which was formed by means of that Spirit of whom the Angel said the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee c. For this is the true Son of God who is of God who uniting himself to the Son of Man makes him by that Union the Son of God which he was not before So that the main reason of this Title the Son of God arises from that Spirit of the Lord which descended How the Word of God incarnate by means of that Spirit which descended on Mary Is the second Person incarnate by means of the third Very good Divinity Is it not rather this Divine Operation that bears the Name of the Word which manifested it self in the Flesh of Jesus Christ by means of the Holy Spirit which insinuated it self into that Flesh That is to say that which is called the Spirit on account of its Substance is at the same time called the Word on account of its Manifestation and its Operation For this reason Novatian places not the chief ground of the Filiation of Jesus Christ in a Word which was a different Hypostasis from the Spirit but in the Word which is the Operation of that Spirit of whom the Scripture speaks saying the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee c. And it would not be understood what the Fathers mean when they confound the Word with the Spirit that over-shadowed the Virgin or when they distinguish these two Powers if it be not laid down for a Rule that by the Spirit they understand the very Nature of the Spirit the Principle or Source whence Prophecy comes and by the Word a certain and particular Operation of that Spirit as for instance the miraculous Conception of our Saviour I have yet an antient Doctor to alledg and he not of the meanest Rank I mean St. Cyprian who does not make any distinction between the Word the Spirit the Son of God the Wisdom c. This Father having cited the second Psalm de Mont. Sina Zion adv Jud. cap. 2. where he speaks of the King whom God had anointed on Mount Sion 'T is upon this Mountain says he that the Holy Spirit the Son of God was establish'd King to proclaim the Will and the Empire of God his Father and in the fourth Chapter of the same Discourse the Flesh of Adam says he which J. C. bore in a Figure that Term has a Tang of Marcion's Heresy this Flesh was call'd by his Father the Holy Spirit which came down from Heaven the Christ the anointed of the Living God a Spirit united to Flesh The same Father elsewhere in his Discourse de Idolor vanit cap. 6. expresses himself thus The Word and the Son of God is sent whom the Prophets had forespoken of as the Instructor of Mankind He is the Power of God his Reason his Wisdom and his Glory the Holy Spirit hath put on Flesh God is mingled or united with Man The Holy Spirit is the Son of God and at the same time the Word is the Son of God and which is more the Flesh of J.C. is called the Holy Spirit which came down from Heaven which could not be true but of its Celestial Origin and as it was formed by the Holy Spirit So that Cyprian seems to intimate thereby that 't is because of this Celestial Origin that the Scriptures say the Flesh of J. C. came down from Heaven that the Son of Man came down from Heaven for it may be very well said that J.C. came down from Heaven since his Origin was from Heaven in his Birth by the Holy Ghost And what is the Holy Spirit but the Word according to this Father The Word is the Holy Spirit which united it self to Man the Word is the Holy Spirit which put on Flesh In short 't is the Holy Spirit which is the Christ of God You 'll say what hinders but the second Person in the Trinity may have also the Name of the third That 's pure Fancy Why should one shut ones eyes when one sees as clear as the day that St. Cyprian alludes to the miraculous Conception of our Saviour and that these sublime Expressions of that Father have no other Foundation but that Mystery As for what Lactantius affords us I hope his Authority will not be contested with me in the decision of a Point wherein he does no more than confirm a Tradition elsewhere well supported and followed This pious Person having said in his Institutions lib. 4. c. 6. That God begat a Holy Spirit which he call'd his Son he resumes this Discourse in the 12th chap. of the same Book thus This Spirit of God says he coming down from Heaven made choice of a pure and holy Virgin into whose Womb he insinuated himself and this Virgin conceived being full of the Holy Spirit which embrac'd her That which Lactantius expresses by these Words descended on a Virgin can it be any other than that which St. Luke expresses in these The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee But the Holy Ghost of whom the Angel speaks is the same according to Lactantius with that Holy Ghost which God begat and which he called his Son Dr. Bull tells us the Fathers understood by the Holy Ghost the Divine Nature of J. C. Very well but why so If not for this Cause that J. C. had no other Divinity than that Spirit of Power and Holiness which form'd his Body in the Womb of a Virgin For in short the Fathers speak after this manner when they explain these words The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee c. or allude to them and always with regard to his Birth of a Virgin But the Holy Spirit in this Passage Luke 1. 35. signifies most certainly that Power which we Trinitarians call the third Person And if the Fathers had a mind to find the second there as is said there 's no knowing what the Words signify for it must be affirmed that they have strangely mistaken the Scriptures and in so unaccountable manner as I may say that there is no longer any certainty to be met with in their Writinâ—â—â—â—ll's in Confusion as in the antient Chaos There 's nothing whereby to discover the Names of the
Divine Persons nor by consequence the Persons themselves Be it as it will the Doctor will find it hard enough to apply his Solution to all the Arguments I am about to mention And if he can do it 't will be no more difficult for him to find the Divinity of J. C. in all the Passages of the Gospel where mention is made of the Holy Ghost I hope also that at last he 'l say that when J. C. promis'd his Holy Spirit to his Apostles he promis'd them his Divine Nature But I must beg my Reader 's Patience a little longer to see what Answer the Doctor will make against the last Authority I am going to alledg And that 's a Letter of the Council of Sardis in the second Book of Theodoret's Hist Eccles The Fathers there drew a Creed in three very distinct Articles the first concerning the Father the second the Son and third Article the Holy Ghost In the last which is so expresly distinguished from that of the Son they speak thus of the Incarnation by the Holy Ghost We believe also there is a Holy Spirit or Paraclet which the Lord promis'd and sent He did not suffer but the Man whom he assumed or took from the Virgin Mary he suffer'd because he was capable of it whereas God is immortal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Is passus non est Where one sees the Pronoun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 agrees with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is a Neuter Now of this Spirit the Fathers say he cannot suffer but 't was Man whom he put on and took from the Virgin that did suffer This they speak I say of the Paraclet whom they confess after the Father and the Son and not of the Divine Nature of J. C. A Passage express and formal which clearly proves these Doctors understood nothing else by the Holy Ghost but that Power of God whereof the Word is the Manifestation and the Operation confounding the Spirit with the Word and very distinctly assuring us that the Paraclet was incarnate Is the Paraclet the Divine Nature of J. C. or the second Person of the Trinity Here we 'll wait the Doctor 's Answer Valesius not bearing with this Incongruity in the Council had the Boldness to corrupt this Passage in his Version by foisting in the word Christ for thus he has translated it He did not suffer but the Man whom Christ put on The Word Christ is not in the Text which intirely relates to the Holy Ghost or Paraclet In short that Word ruines the whole sense of the Period and strangely confounds all this third Article which belongs only to the Holy Ghost and is distinct from that concerning J. C. Both Translators and Copists are guilty of Falsification in this particular Give me leave to affirm one thing and that is that the Antients have often distinguished the Holy Spirit from the Power of the Highest whereof he is speaking in the same Text calling the latter the Word of God the Son of God and saying only of the former that he overshadowed the Virgin Now even this shews that by the Word they understood nothing but the Power and the Operation of the Holy Spirit which is the same thing with the Power and Operation of the Highest The Holy Spirit signifying the Substance and the Power of the Highest signifying the Operation it follows that the Word which is the Power of the Highest according to the Fathers is not otherwise distinguished from the Holy Spirit than as the Operation is distinguished from its Subject We may conclude therefore from Proofs so very evident that the Antients who have deified J. C. had no other ground for their Theology but the Birth of J. C. of a Virgin by the Holy Ghost that by the Word and the Son of God they always understood this miraculous Operation and that they never advanced any higher in their Discourses towards that which is called an eternal Generation CHAP. XII An Account of the Foundation of the Allegorical Theology of the Fathers concerning the Word and the Holy Spirit I Dare assure my Reader that I can shew him the very Foundation of this Allegorical Theology 'T is known that the Fathers imitated the Gnosticks in many things and particularly in the way of Allegory and Contemplation But 't was Mark the Valentinian as we are inform'd by Irenaeus lib. 1. cap. 12. who was the Author of the Allegorical Exposition on the Birth of J. C. that is the first who elevated it to a sense of Contemplation and Mystery He makes a Quaternity of the Man and the Church which are the first Pair and of the Word and Life which are the second Pair But what sort of Theology does he couch under this Enigma or Allegory Why nothing less than the wonderful Conception of J. C. The Man says he is the Power of the Highest because that acted instead of the Man The Church is the Holy Virgin because she held the place of the Church The Angel Gabriel was instead of the Word and the Holy Spirit instead of Life Nothing can better convince us of the Allegory us'd by the Valentinians than this Passage in which the Angel is the Word and the Spirit is the Life the Power of the Highest is instead of the Man and the Virgin is instead of the Church I might also have produc'd this Passage for a Proof when I was arguing this Point but I have reserv'd it on purpose for this place to shew that the whole Mystery of the Word reduces it self to the miraculous Conception of our Saviour upon which both the Hereticks and the Orthodox have equally allegorized each taking his Flight as his Contemplation led him on And this is that famous Theology so much extolled by the Fathers I know most of them being entangled with their Platonism have mightily embroiled the first and antient Ideas of this matter But I know also that before they came to make two Hypostases of the Word and the Holy Spirit they were terribly perplexed about the latter and could not tell what to do Hence it was without doubt that they so long delayed the deifying of the Holy Ghost The Council of Nice has not at all touched upon its Divinity So far were they from it and the Holy Ghost made so small a Figure at that time that some Fathers of the Council made no difficulty to give its place to the Blessed Virgin by making her the third Person in the Trinity Of which we are informed by Elmacinus and Patricides in Hotting Orient Hist lib. 2. p. 227. The Council of Constantinople durst not speak openly upon the point And in S. Basil's time there was a little Shiness in calling the Holy Ghost directly and formally God 'T is worth our regard what Petavius de Trinit lib. 2. c. 7. § 2. says hereupon The Catholic Church says he accommodating it self for prudential Reasons to human Frailty came not to the full Profession of some