too and that the Jews were witnesses to all the World of this Sacred Truth I grant it The Unity of God was the Fundamental Article of the Mosaical dispensation Pythagoras Socrates Plato Aristotle the Academicks have spoke admirably well to it But I say that Christianity has been as far superior to them in this point as they themselves exceeded the rest of Mortals For the Jews kept this to themselves without propagating it to others and the wise Heathen confuting their doctrine by their practice openly embrac'd Polytheism None treated of God and his Divine Attributes of which the Vnity is the Center as the Holy Jesus and his disciples have done This the Apostles spread through the World This the Fathers taught indefatigably One God One Divine Nature Spirit Mind substance has been the constant Voice of the Church He is not a Christian who believes not that God is one and can be but one If it were not too tedious I would produce some of their Authorities Socin It is altogether needless This is our very Doctrine I am fully perswaded of this and infinitely pleas'd to hear you speak so home to it Orthod I am afraid you will not be so well pleas'd with my second observation and it is this That the same Church of God which so Zealously asserted his Vnity never did it without asserting at the same time a Trinity of Persons in that One Divine Nature No matter of fact which depends from Testimony can be made to appear more incontestably true than this You have a large Collection of Books at home Let us step to your Library and I dare engage to convince you of this by the most exact induction of particulars which can ever be made from the very Apostolical Creed to this time I say once more and presume to be positive in it that the Church in delivering the Faith ever taught the Existence of God to be necessary and Eternal and his Vnity so perfect and entire that it transcends what notion soever we have of Unity even that which we call Numerical coming much short of it But at the same time she taught and profess'd to believe and adore in that Vnity of Nature a Trinity of Hypostases or Persons the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit Thus run the Apostolical the Nicene Ephesine and Constantinopolitan Creeds Thus speak the Ante-Nicene Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Thus all the Learning of the Schools and all the now Churches in the World express themselves Thirdly But least the belief of a Trinity of Persons whose Coeternity and Coequality is asserted should affect the Vnity of the Divine Nature the Church has stated it in one and the same indivisible and inseparable simple and uncompounded Essence They are Coeternal and Coequal because Coessential And they are Coessential because Subsisting in that Nature which cannot be multiply'd It is true to say of each Person that he is God and yet it is false to say that they are Three Gods The Trinity multiplying the Persons but the Vnity remaining the same that is the greatest and most unconceivable Vnity in the World And therefore the Sacred Councils and the Fathers have been carefull to the utmost to distinguish the Personality from the Nature as afraid of multiplying the one as of confounding the other You see then that the first member of your distinction is worth nothing The charge laid against the Church in that particular is not only false but impossible You have attempted to divide the Church of God into two Parties The first you have accus'd of Tritheism or of teaching the belief and Worship of Three Gods Unfortunate in this that the very exposition of the Doctrine of the Church the very reading of any one Creed is an open confutation of what you have pretended to make us guilty of Socin I hope you will not take it ill If I make some remarks as well as you First I confess that the Nicene and following Councils spoke as you do and that many of the Post-Nicene Fathers the Schoolmen and the present Churches agree with you in this but I deny it of the Apostolical Creed which ought to have been the Form of all the rest Where can you find there a Trinity in Vnity Where can you see Coeternity Coequality Coessentiality and all those Famous Terms which the Church perserv'd ever since For my part I can perceive no such thing To this Creed we stand as to a rule left us by the Apostles themselves Suffer us to keep but that and take you all the rest Secondly I challenge the Ante-Nicene Fathers we say they are strangers to your Doctrine The Answer to Dr. Bull has made it invincibly appear Have you taken notice how the Learned Author of that answer has discover'd the impostures of Pseudo-Hermas and the pretended Epistles of Barnabas and Ignatius What clear account he has given of the Nazarens Mineans and Alogi And what a plain proof he has brought against your Trinity and the Divinity of Jesus Christ out of the Epistle of Clemens of Rome to the Church of Corinth Thirdly Admitting all your allegations to be true A Trinity in Vnity Three Gods in one God is a thing wholly unaccountable Orthod The question between you and me is not whether it is unaccountable or not The question is whether those whom you call Real Trinitarians have departed from the doctrine of the Unity of God and have actually and manifestly as you speak own'd their Tritheism The matter of Fact and not the Reasonableness or Unreasonableness of the thing is the Point in dispute Your mistake is Palpable For the Trinity in Vnity is not Three Gods in one God a Language which the Church ever abhorr'd but Three Persons in one God Three Subsistences in one Divine Nature Pray name me one Man in the Church even of those who have most abounded in their own sense and spoke most loosly in the explication of our Mysteries who was not as Zealous a defender of the Unity of God as yourself can be This is then the most unpardonable want of Candor imaginable You call me a Tritheist I deny it You prove it because I believe the Blessed Trinity I own I do Then you exclaim I believe Three Gods The Father the Son and the Holy Spirit I say No! For though the Father is God the Son is God and the Holy Ghost God yet they are but one God For God can be but one The Divine Nature is incapable of Multiplication Division or Augmentation You may and will urge again that this is very unreasonable I hope to shew you one day that it is highly Rational But in the mean time I gain the point and complain that you do me wrong and are inexcusable in charging me with destroying the Unity of God 2ly You are positive that the Ante-Nicene Fathers asserted the Vnity but not the Trinity I suppose you mean in our sence of a Trinity or else the mistake is not
scrutiny of human Reasonings Do all these Vnities transcend the capacity of Human Nature Are they above the reach of an inquisitive Philosopher or a profound Divine Socin I confess that you startle me and I begin to have no great opinion of the first part of the distinction I see you are no Tritheists but then you must of course fall into Nominalism or Sabellianism and that is as bad I am afraid that part of the charge will stick cruelly against you Orthod The notion of Nominal Trinitarians is if possible more extravagant than the other Can you think in good earnest that the Ancient or modern Church if such an expression may be us'd for the Church is always the same Can you think I say that the Church in the first and in these last Ages oppos'd Sabellianism with so much Zeal and Vigor that is that very impiety which you fasten on her and condemn'd it with so unanimous a consent and yet would make it the foundation of her Faith The vast labours of the Fathers and of all the Doctors who succeeded them aim'd at this to assert a Real distinction of Persons against Sabellius and their Consubstantiality Coequality and Coeternity against Arrius And you come resolutely to tell us that for all that the Church is Sabellian and teaches Sabellianism How heartily would you laugh at a Man who should come to tell you that he has attentively read all the Socinian Prints and finds at last that they believe the Holy Trinity and the Divinity of our Saviour Socin Had they said so much for these two Articles as you have for Sabellianism in all your Books I protest I could not laugh at it Orthod Let us see then what is Sabellianism and if found in the Church I promise to give up the cause But if not I expect that you will have the justice to own that to charge us with it is a crying unsincerity We cannot have the sense of Sabellius better than from Dionysius of Alexandria the other Dionysius of Rome Athanasius St. Basil Nazianzen Ruffinus c. You will Learn from them that Sabellius own'd the Divine Nature but confounded the Hypostases or Persons and maintain'd one only Person or Hypostasis the Father And that when they objected to him the different operations of the Son and Holy Spirit he answer'd that they were only denominations of the Father resulting from his several appearances or offices to us If you mistrust this account take what the Author of the discourse says pag. 16. In a word says he the Noëtians and Sabellians held that God is but one subsisting Person yet that with respect to things without him he may be call'd as the modern Nominals now speak three Relative Persons The one subsisting Person of God sustains the three names of Father Son and Spirit which being the Relations of God towards things without him he is so many Relative Persons in a Classical Critical sense Now I will do more for you than you can expect I will not confine you to our English Authors But I dare you to produce any one Man in the Church of God who ever understood those matters and spoke at this rate But if you do not as I am positive that you cannot what becomes of your distinction and with what face can it be us'd any more Socin I will not go out of the Kingdom no not out of London for it Dr. South shall be the Man You will not deny that he understands the sense of the Church He says himself animadvers ch 8. pa. 242. And this I affirm to be the current doctrine both of the Fathers and the Schools concerning the Persons of the Blessed Trinity and the constantly receiv'd account given by them of a Divine Person so far as they pretend to explain what such a Person is Pag. 240. He tells you That the commonly receiv'd Doctrine of the Schools concerning the Blessed Trinity is this That the Christian Faith has laid this sure foundation that there is but one God That there is no positive real Being strictly and properly so call'd in God but what is God That there can be no composition in the Deity with any such positive real Being distinct from the Deity it self And yet that the Church finding in Scripture mention of Three to whom distinctly the Godhead does belong has by warrant of the same Scripture Heb. 1.3 express'd these Three by the names of Persons and stated their Personalities upon three distinct Modes of Subsistence alloted to one and the same Godhead and these also distinguish'd by three distinct Relations Then pag. 241. To explain these modes of Subsistence and these Relations he tells you That they are neither substance nor accident That they are not a Being but only the affection of a Being and that they add no entity to it such as are dependance mutability presence absence c. And that they have no Existence of their own after a separation or division from the things or beings to which they do belong Having thus in general explain'd what a mode is he applys it pag. 242. And says that the Personalities by which the Deity stands Diversify'd into three distinct Persons are call'd and accounted Modes .... That every Person is properly the Godhead as subsisting with and under such a certain Mode or Relation Now put all this together and see whether this is not the very Doctrine of Sabellius Did not Sabellius say that God is one even the Father acting under several Names sustaining several Relations by which he sometimes is the Father and sometimes the Son What does Dr. South say more He must be very clear sighted who can perceive any difference between these two Hypotheses Orthod There is as much difference as between affirming and denying between Light and Darkness Sabellius admits only one Person in the Divine Nature Dr. South Three When Sabellius by the great evidence of Scripture is forc'd to own Three Persons and confess the Relations He will have them to be Persons only in a Classical Critical sence having no other but a Metaphorical being He confounds the Persons and makes the Son and the Holy Spirit to be the Father Dr. South affirms them to be Persons in a Real Sence by an Eternal Communication of the Divine Nature and so really distinct that the Son cannot be the Father or the Holy Spirit Father or Son or the Father Son or Holy Spirit Sabellius makes the Relations to be wholly extrinsecal as he sustains the Three Names of Father Son and Spirit which being the Relations of God towards things without him he is so many Relative Persons Dr. South affirms pag. 242. the Relations to be Intrinsecal founded upon those Internal Acts by which one Person produces another or proceeds from another He tells you that God may sustain an extrinsecal Relation founded upon some external act issuing from him as Creation Preservation c. Which adds to the Deity only an extrinsecal denomination as
afraid you cannot resolve them The first is this If you are neither for a Real nor a Nominal Trinity then you are for no Trinity at all For there is no medium between them The second is that in what sense soever you hold a Trinity I cannot believe it A Trinity of Persons of which every one is God and yet but one God is to me the most absurd notion in the World I have study'd the matter with as much application as I can But to me it still appears to be a perpetual affront to Reason and good sense Orthod Give me leave to tell you that the first is no difficulty at all The Church believes a Real Trinity Not in that sense of Real which your Friends have made so much noise about and so unjustly imputed to us which infers three Gods But in that sense which in the asserting three Divine Persons preserves still the Unity of the Divine Nature To speak plainly and prevent that wrangling to which obscurity generally leads Men what the Church proposes to our belief consists in this The Unity of God is so clearly prov'd both by Reason and the Authority of the Sacred Writings that there is not in the World a truer or a plainer assertion than this God is one and can be but one But the same Sacred Writings speaking of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit and giving those Characters of them by which they appear incommunicably distinct from one another It makes this second assertion The Father is not the Son or the Holy Spirit Nor the Son the Father or the Holy Spirit Nor the Holy Spirit Father or Son But the Scripture being express and positive in giving to every one of these Persons the Name Nature Attributes and Operations of God there arises a third assertion The Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God But the first of these propositions standing unmoveable and God ceasing to be if he ceases to be one All at last are resolv'd into this Fourth That in that ONE adorable and Divine Nature are Father Son and Holy Spirit every one God and yet but ONE God This is the Real Trinity which the Church believes which the Apostles have taught For which the Martyrs dy'd and notwithstanding all the oppositions of Hereticks has obtain'd and will obtain to the end of the World I cannot read the Ecclesiastical History but I adore the veracity of Christ and see in that very particular the fullfilling of his promise to the Church that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against Her Your second difficulty is as easily resolv'd as the first For how can that be an affront to Reason and good Sense which God has commanded us to believe Socin There must be a great deal more in it than what you have laid down Vast many Books have been written on this Subject You are not ignorant how from the first and intermediate ages of Christianity to this time it has been the ground of irreconcilable disputes I do not speak only when the Emperours espous'd the Cause and this or that Opinion prevail'd because it was the Religion of the Court But I speak of the retirements of the Schools where the dispute was furious and the Doctors more set one against another than Marius and Sylla Caesar and Pompey This grand and Mysterious Contradiction has given birth to infinite Contradictions which like the Hydra's head multiply daily without number The Socinians in that Print of theirs call'd A Letter of Resolution concerning the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation pag. 10. have charg'd this home upon you The Author tells you roundly that there is no fewer than fifteen divisions amongst you each division consisting of two Parties at the least some of them of four or five So that they are in all about forty Parties of them A strong Argument by the way against the pretended Vnity of the Church Orthod What I have propos'd to you is the simplicity of the Revelation God has reveal'd so much and in that there is enough to satisfy our selves The disingenuity of the Author of that Letter appears in this that he talks of divisions and Parties and pretends to enumerate them whereas there never was any about this Socin Can you think that a Learned Person as this Author is durst have the confidence to assure such a thing if he had not very good grounds for it Orthod Call it what you please I dare to averr that he has none at all But to make this clear I must needs tell you that in a Revelation two things are to be consider'd The one is the thing reveal'd as in this case the Father is God the Son God and the Holy Spirit God and yet not three but one God The other is the manner how these things are which are reveal'd How the Father is a Father how the Son is a Son how the Holy Spirit proceeds from Father and Son How every one of these is God and yet but one God I dare say that there has not been nor can never be a more universal agreement than there has been in the first Had we been contented to adore and believe there had never been any Schisms or Divisions in that particular But Man will be curious pretend to unfold Mysteries and clearly see into his Nature who has made darkness his Pavilion round about him He must of course receive the punishment due to his Presumption and instead of that noble pleasure which results from knowing meet with all the sad consequences of a confident ignorance Any one moderately acquainted with Ecclesiastical Learning will see that this has been the conduct of the Church to stick to that first part as certain and undoubted and not at all to meddle with the other as full of danger This is visible in all the confessions of Faith of the Primitive Councils which are full in asserting the Vnity of God and the Trinity of Persons and all upon the certainty of the Divine Revelation But pretend to no kind of explication of the HOW or manner of it I confess that private Doctors have done it and that with heats not becoming the matter in dispute The Schools have given way to a World of impertinent questions and have been as impertinent in their resolutions as impertinence can be They have commented upon one another and still the Commentary has been obscurer than the Text. But when all is done they have stuck firmly to the doctrine reveal'd and unanimously agreed in this though they disagreed in there explications about it I should look upon it as the greatest Miracle that ever was done if they had explain'd that which is inexplicable Is there no such thing as the Heavens because some Philosophers have maintain'd that they were Fluid and others that they were Solid bodies Is there no such thing as the Earth because that sort of Men have wrangl'd about its figure and motion The same may be ask'd of
pardonable Origen and other Ante-Nicenes make out the Unity of God in a Ternary of Persons though they did not believe the Equality Says the Author of the Answer to Dr. Bull pag. 22. unjust in this to Origen and the rest I have some Remarks on that Answer which I design to make publick What the Author has said concerning the Epistle of St. Barnabas and those of the Holy Martyr Ignatius is far from invalidating their Authority We must have more than suspicions and bare denials to illegitimate a Book They are certainly works of great Antiquity and acknowledg'd to be such by the succeeding Ages But what must we say of a Person of his great erudition who pretending to answer a Book full of all the Testimonies which those early times could afford quarrels only with two or three Authors against whom he says nothing substantial and is wholly silent to Justin Martyr St. Irenaeus Clemens Alexandrinus Tatianus Miltiades Melito Dionysius of Alexandria Tertullian Lactantius c. Is it enough to confute the Ante-Nicene Fathers to say as this Author pag. 7. That all their Glory is wholly due to the vanity of Modern Learned Men who quote these Books not because they value them but because being ancient monuments known to few and understood by fewer he seems to be a great Learned Man who can drop sentences out of these antique Books But this is mild and obliging if compar'd with pag. 63. Where this Author having said that Trinitarianism is not so much a Religion as the Law of the Byzantine or Constantinopolitan Emperours stiles the then Doctors of the Church THE PARASITES OF THESE TIMES whom now in regard of their antiquity we call Fathers You are not insensible how this might be taken up and expos'd If Hosius Spiridio Paphnutius If the Gregories the Basils the Cyrils the Theodorets the Chrysostoms the Hieroms the Hilaries the Ambroses the Austins were the Parasites of their times where shall we find any Vertue Piety or Learning in this World But I am willing to over-look those excesses and tell you that it is a folly to wrangle with this or that passage sometimes to inveigh against Platonicism and sometimes to complain that those Writings are lost which might have inform'd us better To be plain we have enough left and from what remains of the times before the Council of Nice it appears that the Vnity of God and the belief of a Trinity of Persons in that one God Father Son and Holy Spirit was the belief of the Christian Church The Arrians indeed might challenge some of the then Fathers who spoke more obscurely and were easier Misinterpreted But Socinianism has not the least pretence to any He must have forfeited all modesty who asserts it Socin But what have you to say to the Apostolical Creed Is it not an evidence beyond all other evidences Orthod Of what Socin Of the Vnity of the Great God Orthod And so are all our Creeds from the first to the last Socin But it is an Evidence against your Trinity Orthod Against that Trinity which you have falsly imputed to us and that is A Trinity of Gods But not against a Trinity of Persons in one God What is the first assertion of that Creed I believe in One God For you affirm that it was anciently thus read Ans to Doctor Bull pag. 16. What is the second but an Explication of the first This One God is the Father Almighty His only begotten Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit Three Persons in One God Socin This is so dragg'd in so strain'd so unnatural that to any unprejudic'd Person it will visibly appear not to be the Doctrine design'd to be taught in the Creed Orthod I am apt to think that I can substantially prove that it is I believe the Creed to be truly Apostolical notwithstanding what some learned Men have said against it Not because it was made by the Apostles themselves though nothing appears to the contrary but by reason of its great Antiquity Now when you and I dispute about the sence and design of that Creed we have but one way to take and that is First to see what the Scripture teaches concerning its Articles which indeed are no more than an Epitome or Collection of the Principal Truths deliver'd by Christ and his Apostles Secondly To examine the Doctrine of the Fathers who liv'd before the Church thought it fit and necessary to make a larger Explanation of the Faith Thirdly To satisfy our selves of the sence which the immediately following Councils gave to that Creed in their Decrees All this is Highly reasonable For if the Scripture which has taught so expresly God to be one has also expresly taught the Father to be God the Son God and the Holy Spirit God then it is plain that the sence of the Creed is such and no other The Authority of that Creed or of any Creed whatever is from the Scripture It cannot therefore be contrary to it and that excellent Rule must be brought to that Primitive Rule from whence it is deriv'd And alas has not this been prov'd to you so often and so fully that after a World of wrangling you have been driven from your new and unnatural Criticisms and forc'd to shelter your selves under the weak defence of your Philosophical disceptations But if this Creed has no other sence but that which you put upon it The Father only God The Son only Man and the Holy Spirit only an Energy or Operation How come the Fathers of that time so openly to contradict it I will not do again what has been so excellently done by the Learned Dr. Bull who has oblig'd the Christian Church with two Books which indeed you may speak or discourse against but can never substantially Answer Has he not undeniably prov'd out of their Writings that those Fathers believ'd the two Natures in Jesus Christ The Divine and the Human That they have asserted his Pre-existence and if his Pre-existence then his Eternity and if his Eternity then his Consubstantiality with the Father If the second part of the Creed is to be understood of Christ only Man How comes Irenaeus lib. 1. advers Haeres c. 2. in delivering the Belief of the Catholick Church or as he speaks of the Church all the World over to call him Our Lord Our God Our Saviour Our King to whom every Knee ought to bow c. How comes Tertullian who has deliver'd this very rule of Faith to talk as we do of the Blessed Trinity designedly and positively against Praxeas and say that he is warranted by the Apostle to speak of Christ as of him who is God blessed over all for ever If he believ'd the Holy Spirit to be only an Energy How comes he to stile him Tertium Numen Deitatis tertium Nomen Majestatis The Third Person of the Deity The Third Name of Majesty and Power Certainly Novatianus was acquainted with this Creed and yet Lib. de Trin.
of Creator Preserver c. But that this leaves an Internal incommunicable Character essentially inseparable from the Deity That it may be said that God might never have been a Creator But that it cannot be said that he might never have been a Father the former being only an effect of his will but this latter the necessary result of his Nature This you have pag. 243. But that which sinks for ever this miserable imputation of Sabellianism or Nominalism call it which you please is the noble Principle which this Learned and worthy Man has laid down Animadv p. 245. in which as in the rest he has truly spoke the sence of the Church Upon the whole matter in discoursing of the Trinity two things are absolutely necessary to be held and insisted upon One that each and every Person of the Blessed Trinity entirely contains and includes in himself the whole Divine Nature The other that each Person is incommunicably different and distinct from one another I thought you look'd dissatisfy'd when speaking of this famous distinction of Realists and Nominals I us'd the words of slander calumny disingenuity Let me now beg of you to give it a name Socin Truly I must be forc'd to tell you that I saw this distinction urg'd so often our late Prints so full of it and honest Mr. E. valuing himself so highly upon it that I thought it was more solid than really it is I will take time to consider of what you have said to it When I have next the happiness to see you you shall have my Thoughts of it In the mean time .... Orthod No I cannot leave you yet I must before we part complain of another injustice which your Friends have done us Socin What is that Orthod That which My Lord Bishop of Sarum calls in his Pastoral Letter the heaviest of all imputations that they submit to his Lordship's whole doctrine which differs in nothing from what the Vnitarians profess'd in all their Writings That is to say in plain English that he is a Socinian A cruel and barbarous sort of a compliment to a Catholick and an English Bishop They do the same in effect to My Lord of Worcester in their last Answer to his Lordships Book pag. 62. To the University of Oxford to Dr. South whom they call in derision Brother South as they had done Dr. Wallis Father Wallis In the Answer to My Lord of Chichester they speak very plain pag. 27. It is say they by this Declaration of our meaning that all our Books Past or to come are to be interpreted We never intend to oppose any Body in the Article of the Trinity but the Tritheists or Realists who are Hereticks to the Church as well as to us nor in the Article of the Divinity of our Saviour but the Eutychians who make the Communication of Idioms to be Real and not only Verbal which is an Heterodoxy condemn'd in divers General Councils That word General Councils which they esteem'd so little before is now of great value They tell this very Bishop that they do not in the least suspect that he will disown the Catholick Doctrine and be of a Party of Hereticks who have been Condemn'd by so many General Councils Socin Well and where lies the injustice of all this If the Socinians are become Orthodox and embrace the Doctrine of the Church is it not an honour to these Great Men to have reason'd them into this Submission I remember that in some of our Prints we have call'd the Bishop of Sarum the Eusebius of the Age. As the Famous Eusebius brought over many Bishops to the subscribing the Homoousion Is it the heaviest of all imputations to his Lordship that he has perswaded the Socinians out of their Errors Must you your self take it ill that Persons of whom I have heard you often give a great Character should return to the Faith and Obedience of the Church All that I dislike in those Complements is the Books past or to come For the Books past speak no such thing and I fear the Books to come will not much mend the matter Orthod I did not expect that you would not be serious in so mighty a concern as this I confess that it would be to me and to all good Men an incredible satisfaction to see an end of this Controversy But I tell you there is no sincerity in all this They are no more return'd to the Sence and Faith of the Church than you are They build still upon that foolish distinction of Realists or Tritheïsts and Nominals or Sabellians The first is a Monster of their own making 〈◊〉 other is a shelter to their Heterodoxy 〈◊〉 they maintain a Trinity which is no Trinity 〈◊〉 strive to advance error under her 〈…〉 the Pillar of Truth In short If the Trinity believ'd and taught by the Church is Sabelliaâ—â—sm they are your humble servants It is that that they would cover Socinianism by But how can they believe as the Church when the doctrine which they pretend to return to is that to which the Church is irreconcilable Socin How must they do then to convince you that they sincerely desire a peace and are come over to you Orthod By writing with that respect which is due to Bishops of whom in the Answer to Mr. Edwards pag. 13. they own the institution to be of Divine right Let them receive the Catholick Creeds that of the Great Athanasius the Doxology and the Articles of the Church of Englang Then and not before I will believe that they are sincere Socin These are large strides I am not for running so fast Suffer me to take my leave of you I will think on what we have discours'd and then you shall hear from me Adieu The Second DIALOGUE Orthod I had promis'd my self the happiness of seeing you before this Socin Truly I design'd it but was resolv'd not to do it till I had been as good as my word that is till I had consider'd what we discours'd of some days since For whatever you may think of me I have a sense of Religion I am fully convinc'd that there is a God to whom I owe all my service and a future state of happiness and misery on which I cannot reflect without a mighty concern I am not so much an enemy to my own interest as to cheat my self of the one and willfully to fall into the other Orthod What is the result then of your consideration Socin To speak sincerely my Thoughts I am come off from the distinction of Real and Nominal Trinitarians and do you the justice to own that it appears to me to be ill grounded Though I believe at the same time that he who first invented it did it bona fide and had the occasion given him by the inadvertency of your own Writers But there are still two difficulties in my way which I cannot overcome I would not be thought to suspect your Learning or Candor But I am
Form and Matter and indeed of all the Phaenomena's of Nature concerning which Authors have given us some good and solid Reasons others nothing but fansies and dreams This is the great weakness of Socinianism The Gentlemen of that perswasion reject a most important Truth in which all Christians but themselves agree because they cannot understand the manner of it We cannot tell say they how it is therefore it is not And they pretend to argue strongly when they affirm that there are divisions and subdivisions amongst us about it Whereas there is really none but in the explication our assent to the truth of the thing being firm and unmoveable We said something of this Nature the other Day but you have taken no notice of it Socin This sine Discourse is all a grand mistake We do not reject the Trinity because we understand it not but because we understand it We let the HOW or manner alone 'T is the thing it self which we exclaim against You worship you know not what Did you give your selves leisure to think and not thwart the very first impressions of a Rational Soul this very grand contradiction would stare you in the Face Three that are but one What need is there here of Reasoning Three Persons every one God and all but one God! May not I tell you what Tertullian says in another case Advoco te O Anima naturaliter philosophantem non qualis erudita es in Philosophorum Scholis c. I appeal to thee O Soul not such as thou hast been taught in the Schools of Philosophers but with those impressions which Nature has given thee Are one and one and one Three or is it but one Orthod Your citing of Tertullian puts me in mind of a passage of Boëtius brought in by the Bishop of Worcester in his vindication of this very doctrine pag. 65. The Catholick Doctrine of the Trinity is this says Boëtius the Father is God the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God but they are not Three Gods but one God And yet the Bishop pleasantly observes that the Socinians may wonder at it this very Man having written a Learned Book of Arithmetick And so for all this eloquent exclamation of Tertullian that Father was a Zealous assertor of the Trinity that is of one and one and one not being three but one So were a World of Learned Men in those days who though cultivated by a Philosophical institution had not yet for all that taken their leave of the first impressions of Nature But to come to the point If the difference between us were of numbers or of any created substance I would cry out contradiction as loud as your self I would call the first Man that I see in the street and pray him only to tell But this is quite of another Nature It has no foundation on any thing that we know The question is of the Nature of God between whom and us there is an infinite disproportion We cannot Reason of him from any thing which we find in our selves or in our fellow Creatures God is so far above our small and weak perceptions that except he is pleas'd to acquaint us himself what he is We must remain in our ignorance If God then tells us that he is one and Three If what we say of him is that which he has said of himself Must we presume to talk or so much as to imagine any contradiction in it Socin I admire your prudence but I cannot commend your sincerity You are sensible on what rocks they split who pretended to prove the Trinity not contrary to Reason I think that the B. of G. Dr. S. Mr. H. and others have sufficiently smarted for it I will engage for them that they will return no more to such kind of ratiocinations You take another way and resolve all into God's Authority I grant that what God says must be true Nothing is true but according to that conformity which it has to the mind of God But God has said no such thing of himself that he is one and Three Trinus unus I deny that he has Orthod King Agrippa believ'st thou the Prophets May not I ask you do you believe the Scriptures It is in that Sacred Book that God speaks to us It is there that he asserts it Socin I believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God and as we have said in the brief Notes on the Athanasian Creed a Divine an infallible and compleat rule both of Faith and manners But I deny that there is any such thing in the Scripture Orthod I am glad to hear you speak so justly and so reverently of the Sacred Writings which part will you have me to prove The Unity of the Godhead or the Trinity of Persons in that one Divine Nature Socin You may spare your trouble in proving the first We are the great Assertors of it It is from thence that we take the name of Vnitarians Though you are obstinately bent to call us Socinians Orthod Your assuming that name is an invasion of the rights of all Christians Nay it is an affront to all the wise and sober part of Mankind You call your selves Vnitarians just as the Donatists in a poor little corner of Africa call'd themselves the Catholick Church Will you then have me to prove that in the Scripture the Father is call'd God the Son God and the Holy Spirit God Socin You may spare your self that trouble too I know all the places that you can alledge You have repeated them a hundred and a hundred times If you call this a proof any thing in the World may be a proof Orthod Pray let me lay them before you and let us fairly see what exceptions you have against them It is not Candid no it is not civil to tell an Adversary that you know all that he has to say to you Socin I may take the Liberty to be positive in that particular I have an answer ready which I am sure you cannot take ill I am sensible that you will produce several Texts but as it has been urg'd again and again by us and in particular against Mr. Luzancy in the Answer to his four Letters pag. 42. They are Texts clogg'd with abundance of uncertainties 'T is deny'd with great vehemence by the ablest Criticks of the Trinitarian Perswasion that some of these Texts were originally so read as they are now Publish'd in our common Bibles Nay some of them were not read at all in any Bible till five or six hundred years after the Decease of the Apostles and other Sacred Penmen But whether anciently read or thus read yea or no there is none of them but is more fairly capable of a sence consistent with the Vnity of God as 't is taught by the Vnitarians and Nominals and is actually so interpreted by divers of the most allow'd and celebrated Interpreters of the Church Who sees not here that to introduce and believe Monstrosities on
it I confess that when that which is propos'd is obscure intricate and capable of several sences the conclusions may be different and I cannot without injustice deny that you should examine the consistency or contradiction of my deductions But I maintain that most of the propositions by which our Holy Faith is establish'd are of such plainness that no equitable Man can fix any other sence upon them than what they offer themselves That I may not give you any occasion of mistaking me for your Friends are admirable at this and if they can but lay hold on it they presently expatiate and lose the question I mean no more than as to the existence of the Revelation that is that there is such a thing reveal'd though not as to the manner of the thing the HOW it is in it self Not to multiply instances take the places already cited Rom. 9.5 Whose are the Fathers and of whom as concerning the Flesh CHRIST came who is over all God blessed for ever What is that which the proposition offers That CHRIST is a Man descended from the Fathers and that he is God over all God blessed for ever It is a plain and as plain a proposition as can be But when I go further and say Then there are two Natures in Christ Jesus for as a Man he cannot be God and as God he cannot be Man He is Man because concerning the Flesh he came from the Father He is God because the Apostle says he is over all God blessed for ever I confess that this is an Inference but it is an inference which results so plainly and so fully from the Nature of the proposition that it is as clear and as undeniable as the proposition it self Again Phil. 2.6 Who being in the Form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God There is a plain proposition that CHRIST is equal with God and the inference is of the same nature and clearness as the proposition Therefore he must be God For none but God can be equal with God 1 Cor. 2.10 The Spirit searches all things even the deep things of God The Spirit knows all that God is his Nature his Perfections even those depths unfathomable to any created Being You will not quarrel with the proposition and can you quarrel with the inference which in effect is the same with the proposition and that is that he is God since none but God perfectly knows himself Pray what inference is there in Act. 5.3 4. when Peter in his Apostolical Zeal asks Ananias why Satan has fill'd his Heart to lye to the Holy Ghost Thou hast not ly'd unto Men but unto God If the Holy Ghost is not God how could he lye unto God You see the inference is drawn by St. Peter himself and lies in the very Heart of the Proposition How unreasonable is this noise about inferences will appear if you take notice of the beginning of St. John's Gospel Is Verse the 14th an Inference The Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his Glory the Glory as of the only begotten Son of the Father full of Grace and Truth Are the 1 2 3. Verses an Inference The Word was with God The Word was God The same was in the beginning with God All things were made by Him and without Him there was not any thing made that was made Is Joh. 20.28 an Inference And Thomas answer'd and said unto him my Lord and my God! Let us deal candidly if you call the Incarnation and the Union of the two Natures in CHRIST JESVS an Inference Is it not the plainest result of the plainest Propositions that ever were in the World Socin You are launch'd into a vast Sea of Discourse Orthod Oblige me so far as to suffer me to insist somewhat longer on this and I will repay your Patience with a serious attention to what you have to say to it Read 1 Joh. 5.7 There are Three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these Three are One. When we talk of a Trinity of Persons consistent with the Unity of the Divine Nature is it an Inference or is it not Is not the Trinity of Persons and the Unity of the God head clearly express'd in the Proposition You have made such a wonder at the word Trinity and been so rude as to call Trinity in Unity Jargon Contradiction Nonsence How can you reconcile all this with this noble Passage Is not this a Trinity in Unity not by way of Inference but by a full and plain Assertion But why should I be so earnest to prove this against the Socinians when they themselves cannot deny it For if our Doctrine consists in nothing but inferences and conclusions which we draw as we please What has made them so earnest to dispute these very texts and with poor and little Criticisms to endeavour to elude their force If these Texts had not star'd them in the face with an incontestable evidence what should make them so indefatigable in granting and denying adding Comma's changing or putting in particles as if Truth wanted such mean helps It short there are two sorts of inferences the one near and immediate such as I have given you some instances of which naturally flow from the thing propos'd and are of equal clearness with it The other remote and not appearing so easily at first but wanting the help of further inquiries and deductions Concerning the first I may challenge your Reason of error I may safely and truly say you offer violence to Reason I may appeal to all Mankind in the case But for the other I must not so freely affirm it nor say that my Reason is more infallible than yours When I am oblig'd to run through a long course of deductions I may mistake as much as you do The Church never pretended to any inferences but of the first kind If the Scripture proposes a Trinity of Persons in the Unity of the Godhead If it represents these Persons incommunicably distinct from one another Their Consubstantiality Coequality Coeternity is a natural and a necessary consequence If it teaches me that CHRIST is God and Man the Union of the two Natures in one adorable Person is an inference of the same sort If there is a Father from ever and a Son from ever and if a Spirit proceeds from ever Eternal Generation and Eternal Procession are necessary deductions from those great truths and in a manner the same with the truths themselves I tell you once more you must either admit our doctrine or reject the Holy Scriptures Socin I confess that what you have said is well put together and has a very good face But still I am far from being satisfy'd There is nothing can make me believe a contradiction Let it be found in Sacred or humane Writings it is still a contradiction A contradiction is that to which all the World cannot reconcile me You say Revelation and a
Reason Seeing must not be restrain'd to sense but extended to whatsoever God proposes Doctrines as well as Matters of Fact rely upon the Divine Authority But let us see how CHRIST the Light of the World has done in the delivery of his Heavenly Doctrine Has he courted our Minds to an assent by explaining the Nature of the Mysteries which he offers Or after the manner of the then Philosophers by disputing and endeavouring to remove the prejudices of Reason Not at all but first he establishes his own Authority and then commands our belief This grand point once settled He tells us Mark 16.16 He that believes shall be sav'd he that believes not shall be damn'd Once more CHRIST gives the Jews no liberty of examining his doctrine or as you Gentlemen of the Socinian perswasion are us'd to do to admit or reject it as you think it agreeable or disagreeable to your Reason He proves what he is by two undeniable Principles The First is the Prophecies accomplish'd in him Act. 10.43 To him give all the Prophets witness The Second is the Miracles which he does Joh. 10.37 38. If I do not the works of my Father believe me not but if I do though you believe not me believe the works that you may know and believe that the Father is in me and I in him And before v. 25. the works that I do in my Father's name they bear witness of me He had reveal'd to them a great Mystery viz. his Unity with the Father an Unity of Nature and Essence v. 30. I and my Father are one The Reason of the Jews stumbles at this and even to that degree that they take up stones to stone him He uses no other Arguments but will have them to obey and submit and this upon the account of the greatest and most convincing demonstration that can be even the miraculous works of God To deal sincerely can any thing be objected against this Socin Yes truly You know that we deny this to be an Unity of Nature and appeal to v. 36. But not to insist on this which we have often objected and you pretend to have as often answer'd and not start from the main question I say that he proves nothing who proves too much You strain the point too high You not only debase but totally extinguish Reason You leave it bare naked destitute and like the Idols Psam 115.5 Which have Eyes and see not Mouths and speak not Have a care of v. 8. They that make them are like unto them Is it to be imagin'd that we can renounce Reason The will indeed is free and may embrace and reject But the Mind is not capable of choice It must necessarily assent or dissent It can never be brought to believe a contradiction For my part I openly declare that against what part soever of my self I practise self denial it shall never be against my Reason Orthod How often have we said and how often must we say it again That nothing in Religion is contrary to the Principles of true Reason That what you call Contradictions are not real because God can reveal no contradiction and that Reason over-rules all its reluctancies by that most Rational Principle that we owe our assent to what God has reveal'd This is not then to renounce your Reason but only its irregularities and excesses to divest it of its pride and folly and bring it to all the purity and strength of which it is capable on this side the grave But how can one hear without horror that you will not practise self denial against your Reason that is you are resolv'd not to be a Christian For he that is so must as we have said already bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ There is a poverty of Spirit to which CHRIST has annex'd a blessing The living contentedly under the hard circumstances of want and a willingness to part with our riches to become poor for CHRIST's sake is but one part of it The other consists in robbing the mind of oppositions of science falsly so call'd which puffs us up and through the vain additions of Philosophy gives us a high opinion of our selves The various notions which we have of things are the riches of our mind which we must be ready to part with when ever CHRIST commands it Learning without Piety looks upon this as an injury to Reason unwilling to stoop and be overcome But Piety with Learning puts the Servant of God in that humble frame of submission to what he reveals Socin This is perfect Enthusiasm and Fanaticism all over This the Priest perswades the people to that he may command their Faith That point gain'd he will quickly dispose of the rest Orthod If this is Enthusiasm and Fanaticism then all the World but the Socinians have been Enthusiasts and Fanaticks The first Men of the World liv'd altogether by Faith The Apostle gives the same Character to the Patriarchs and Prophets Whatsoever they did was the Work of Faith Reason then was in subjection to it But when Man substracted himself from the Service of God and suffer'd himself to be guided by his own notions then Reason grew proud shook off the easy yoak and gave birth to the opinions of Philosophers whom Tertullian calls elegantly Haereticorum Patriarchas the Patriarchs of Hereticks Some of the wise Heathens themselves were not insensible how many errors this pretence of Reason threw them into Tully lib. 3. de nat Deor. makes Cotta to speak smartly to this purpose against Balbus the Stoick I omit Socrates and Plato Philostratus de vit Apollon lib. 5. c. 14. asserts that Philosophy is good to lead us into the Knowledge of Natural but not at all of Divine Truths And Jamblichus is positive that Man by the strength of Reason cannot understand Sacred and Religious matters To increase the number of those Enthusiasts I dare to say that this has been the Unanimous sence of the Fathers Hence that saying of St. Austin Epist 3. so highly Reverenc'd by the succeeding Ages Tota Ratio facti est potentia facientis All the Reason which we can give of any thing that is done is his power who does it And the great Arch-Bishop of Milan in Epist ad Rom. Magni meriti est apud Deum qui contra scientiam suam Deo credidit non dubitans posse illum utpote Deum quod secundum mundi rationem fieri non possit He is very dear to God who believes God against all the Principles of his Reason not doubting but that he can as God do that which cannot be done according to the Course and Reason of the World You stare at this as very strange and unaccountable But yet this is the Language of the Masters of the Church Thus spoke these Primitive Bishops and if we have any Zeal for Primitive Truths and Primitive Manners we ought to speak so too Nay this Notion is so Universal that of all them who