Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n
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A52616
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The Trinitarian scheme of religion, concerning almighty God and mankind considered both before and after the (pretended) fall : with notes thereoupon, which notes contain also the unitarian scheme.
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Nye, Stephen, 1648?-1719.
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1692
(1692)
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Wing N1509A; ESTC R41717
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32,447
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30
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THE Trinitarian Scheme OF RELIGION CONCERNING Almighty God And MANKIND Considered both before and after the pretended Fall With NOTES thereupon which Notes contain also the Vnitarian Scheme London Printed in the Year 1692. The Trinitarian Scheme of Religion concerning Almighty God and Mankind considered both before and after the pretended Fall with Notes thereupon which Notes contain also the Vnitarian Scheme Of the Blessed Trinity THERE are Three Divine Persons an Almighty Father an Almighty Son an Almighty Spirit distinct from both who are jointly Creators of all other both Persons and Things They are so many distinct Minds and Spirits indued each of them with his own Proper and Personal Understanding Will and Power of Action Each of them is an absolutely Perfect and All-sufficient Being and singly and by himself a God Yet all of them together are but one God The Notes There is a most Holy most Wise most Good and Almighty Person who is over all from everlasting to everlasting the Maker of the Universe the Fountain of Good to all other Beings every where present Who with respect to the Creation of the World and his Adoption of all Good Men is pleased to permit himself to be called the Father But with respect to his Soveraign Dominion and Power above all He is usually designed by the Name or Word GOD. There neither is nor can be more than one such Person Because He is All-sufficient for himself and for whatsoever He shall please to make He had thereby within himself a most Determining and Certain Cause why he should neither beget nor make another or others equal to Himself but only Subordinate and Dependent Beings for Objects and Exercises of his Goodness More such Persons or Beings as Himself He knew must be as needless and useless as himself is absolutely and indispensably necessary For if He is truly All-sufficient they must for that reason be altogether superfluous both to him and to his Creatures Nor can we suppose more than one such Person without supposing an Infinity of them For whatsoever either Rational Motive or Natural and Necessary Cause may be feigned why the Universal Father should beget or make another or others equal to Himself the same whether Motive or Cause must also dispose that other or those other Persons to beget or make their Equal or Equals and so onwards till there were an Infinity of Divine Persons The Nature therefore of the thing demonstratively shows that a stop is necessarily made at one Divine that is one Infinite and All-sufficient Person Of the Eternity of the Trinity AS to the Duration Eternity or Life of the Blessed Trinity the Trinity possesses Eternal Life all at once To all other Beings Time is a Flux or Succession that of it which was now is not and that which now is shall immediately give place to what is coming It was once true of all other Beings but the Trinity that they were are and shall be but to the Trinity there is neither past nor to come but whole Time or all Eternity is now To the Trinity from everlasting to everlasting is but one undivided Instant or Moment for the Trinity is we may not say it was or it shall be The Notes This Divinity is wholly borrowed from the Platonists from whom the Modern Doctrines of the Trinity and of the Mystical Properties and Attributes thereof have been learned by those who among themselves go by the Names of Orthodox and Catholick The Trinity or God say they possesses Eternal Life all at once He is we may not say He was or He shall be In direct opposition to this whimsical Paradox St. John has defined God to be Him which WAS which IS and which SHALL BE or is to come Rev. 1.4 We say therefore 't is one of the Divine Perfections not an Imperfection that God IS WAS and SHALL BE. He hath carried and shall carry all Perfections into all the Successions and Periods of Time when He WAS he was no less perfect than now that he IS nor is He now less perfect than he shall be when he SHALL BE. They tell us we must not say God WAS that is to please them we must turn Atheists by saying he WAS NOT for of necessity we must say one of the two either that He was or that He was not there being no middle between these two no more than there is between He is and He is not Of the Omnipresence and Infinity of the Trinity NOR are we to conceive of the Infinity Immensity or Omnipresence of the Trinity after a vulgar manner For tho the Trinity is truly Infinite and Omnipresent yet 't is whole and all in any the least Point of Space The Trinity has no Extension and yet it comprehends all Distances The Trinity is three such Persons as that each of them reaches over and through all the the World and yet all Three are laxly and largely accommodated on the Point of a Needle Not only so but the right Faith is the Trinity is no where and yet 't is every-where The Notes This is another Article of the new Platonick Divinity God or the Trinity say they is whole and all in the least point of Space and tho he is no where yet he is every-where We say on the contrary with St. Austin what is no where is nothing therefore to speak as they do of God is in words to affirm him and in sense to deny him That God is every-where we are ready to demonstrate to them from the Order and Conservation of his Works and from the Effects of his Providence and from an hundred Passages of Holy Scripture That he is no where is incumbent on them to prove which we are sure they can do by no Reason nor by any Authority but that of their Masters the Platonists Every-where and no-where are contradictory Terms therefore if God is every-where it must needs be false that he is no-where else we cannot distinguish between Affirming and Denying that is between express Contradictions Of the Simplicity of the Trinity THere is no less Mystery in the other Properties and Attributes of the Trinity For God is one most simple uncompounded Being yet He consists or is made up of Three really distinct Minds Beings or Spirits so really distinct and diverse that one of them is not the other nay one is the Father another his Son the third a Spirit as distinct from both as they are from each other The Notes There is no Mystery at all in any of the Properties or Attributes of God They are no less clear in themselves than they are evidently deduced from the Excellence of his Works and the Methods of his Providence The Mystery never lies in the Attribute or Property but in the Addition made to it by fanciful Men. As to that vulgar Aphorism that God is a most simple and uncompounded Being from whence they have hammered the Property or Attribute of God's Simplicity as they affect to speak
Infinite Punishment of all Mankind no nor of one Man 4. But if it were admitted that one Man was so dignified by the Inhabitation of God in him as to be an Equivalent for all Men admitting also that the three days Temporal Death of such a Man amounts to as much as the Deaths Temporal and Spiritual and the Eternal Damnation of all Mankind What will follow hereupon It will follow that God is obliged in Equity to release all Mankind from all the three Deaths Temporal Spiritual and Eternal else He hath received an Equivalent on behalf of Mankind without discharging those for whom He received it which is contrary to Equity nay to Justice For in Equity an Equivalent ought to discharge the Person whether he be Offender or Debtor but if the Equivalent be not only tendred but accepted also on behalf of the Debtor or Offender the Offender hath Wrong done him if he is not immediately discharged of his Punishment and the Debtor of his Debt But do Trinitarians pretend or dare they that God doth discharge Mankind from the three Deaths on the Oblation and Sacrifice of himself made by the Lord Christ on their behalf By no means they own we are not at all discharged from Death Temporal but in some part from Death Spiritual and only a few Persons from Death Eternal It follows that the Sufferings and Death of our Saviour were not in deed an Equivalent to the three Deaths of Mankind 5. To add now no more The Unitarian Doctrine is consistent nay is the very same with what the Scriptures every-where say namely that Almighty God of his Grace the Riches and Abundance of his Grace and Love has pardoned Offenders for Christ's sake on the Conditions on their part of Faith Repentance and Newness of Life But the Trinitarian Doctrine which saith the Punishment laid on the Lord Christ was truly equivalent to the Punishment due to all Mankind doth deprive God our Maker and Father of the Glory of his Pardoning Grace and Mercy Nay it saith in effect that we are not beholden to God our Father on that account It saith he hath been harsh nay hath been apparently unjust in that he hath received more than an Equivalent for our discharge from the three Deaths and yet he hath not wholly releas'd any and but very few are at all released I will only add Whereas Trinitarians call the Sufferings of the Lord Christ a Punishment and will have that Punishment to be equivalent to the Infinite Punishment due they say to Mankind for Sin Original and Actual and whereas they call this Doctrine the Doctrine of the SATISFACTION by the Lord Christ they have mistaken in the Name as well as in the Thing 'T is the Unitarians who in proper speaking hold that the Lord Christ made Satisfaction to God for Sin not Trinitarians We say that the Sufferings of the Lord Christ not being equivalent in the exact Scales of Justice for what all Mankind have deserved yet God was satisfied with them that is was graciously pleased to accept them as an Intercession on our behalf and this is the proper Notion of a Satisfaction But Trinitarians in saying the Sufferings of Christ were equivalent to the Demerit of our Sins were a full Payment to the Justice of God for them do not hold a Satisfaction but a Reparation or Plenary Amends The more elegant Latinists call Confession Deprecation and such like imperfect and partial Reparations and Payments by the Name of Satisfactions Of the Incarnation BEcause no other but a Person of Infinite Merit and Dignity could satisfy the Divine Justice for Adam's Transgression therefore the second Person of the Blessed Trinity called the Son offered himself to undergo the Equivalent to that Punishment or threefold Death which belonged to Adam and his Descendents and this Offer was accepted by the other two Persons of the Trinity It was agreed that the Son should become incarnate in an Human Nature should be Whole and All united to a Finite Man even the Man Christ Jesus and be one Person with him By this means the Man Christ Jesus became of that unspeakable Merit and Dignity that one drop of his Blood was an Equivalent to the Eternal Punishment of all Mankind in Hell-Fire and his Holiness and the Merit thereof was infinitely more than enough for himself it was meritorious of Heaven for never so many Sinners The Son was so incarnate in a particular Human Nature as to be personally thereto united in the very Womb of the Virgin Mary so that Mary as General Councils of the Orthodox have rightly defined was not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Mother of Christ but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mother of God This Incarnation of the Son in the Man Christ Jesus begets also such a Communication of Idioms that is of Properties and Attributes between the Divinity and the Humanity of the Lord Christ that we must say on the one hand God was born God suffered God died as we must say also on the other hand the Man Christ Jesus is Eternal Omnipotent Omnipresent Creator of Heaven and Earth As all Learned Divines acknowledg and Cardinal Bellarmine in particular has largely proved from Fathers and Councils of the Orthodox Bellar. de Christo l. 3. c. 9. The Notes The Doctrine of the Incarnation claims the place of all the Trinitarian Doctrines even of the Trinity it self in regard of its Seniority For while our Opposers were only Homo-ousians that is believed and professed only two Eternal and Consubstantial Persons not having yet dreamt that the Holy Spirit is God in the days of the first Nicene Council even then they held the Incarnation of the second of those Persons Neither does this Doctrine come behind any of their Doctrines either in the Number or the Rarity and Strangeness of its Wonders and Mysteries but of these three are more remarkable than the rest I will make a short Reflection on each of them The first Wonder is that an Infinite Person is whole and all incarnate in a Finite Nature Which amounts to this That Infinite is less than Finite for else how should Infinite be incarnate that is cased in the Finite But make the greatest Allowances possible yet the Infinite which is whole and all incarnate in the Finite can at most but be commensurate to the Finite that is but equal to it Now these are two such Paradoxes that till our Opposers can separate them from their Doctrine of the Incarnation they will never perswade that Doctrine to any who make use of their Reason and Consideration The second great Mystery or Wonder of this Doctrine is that the particular Human Nature in which a Person of the Trinity vouchsafed to be incarnate became thereby of Infinite Dignity and Merit for 't was an Equivalent for an Infinite number of Men and for the Infinite Punishment due to them and yet still remained and continued a meer and bare Human Nature Which is to say a