mention also that the Devil who long time universally tyrannized is yet never said to be poured out upon all Flesh But now the aforesaid Attributes given to the Prince of Devils manifestly set forth his Supremacy in the Kingdom of Darkness and therefore in the Kingdom of God the like Phrases of the Holy Spirit of God must denote his Supremacy therein and by consequence his Deity since God alone is the one Supreme King of that Kingdom and thus our Faith is established firmly against the Macedonians also § 32. Now of what hath been said thus much I believe would be granted by all the Anti-personists that there is in God the Father an essential Reason and Spirit of Sanctity though not personally subsistent For a Person being with them a complete suppositum rationale and intellectual Subject or Being separate and standing single from all others they hold it a contradiction to hold three Persons in one individual Deity § 33. To this I hope to give so just and candid an answer as may embolden his Lordship to joyn in the Litany heartier and to speak clearer next time in his Theological Essays The name Person or whatsoever answers thereto in the learned Languages first of all signifies a Man's Face natural and artificial and thence the whole single Man hence after were the Gods in profane and intellectual Spirits in sacred Writings represented personally and so now the Term Person agrees to all single intelligent Beings by common and inartificial use But we that have no natural Idea of the Modes of Subsistence peculiar to Father Son and Holy Spirit without Divine Revelation cannot without it conceive the form of their Personality So for this we must rest wholly on Divine Revelation And accordingly I would describe a Person for a Theological Term thus whatsoever hath Personal Titles and Characters properly attributed to it by God's Word the same is a Person though we cannot frame an Idea of the form of its Personality And then I can add but the Divine Mind Reason and Holy Spirit have three properly distinguishing Personal Characteristick Titles Father Son and Paraclete to be owned in our avowed Faith and Baptism therefore these three are three distinct Persons though we cannot form a natural Idea of the Mode of their Personality * Aug. de Tempor Ser 189 Ego Personas in Patre Filio Spiritu Sancto non dico quasi personas hominum Personam Patris dico quod Pater est Filii quod Filius est Spiritus Sancti quod Spiritus Sanctus est dividuntur enim proprietatibus sed naturâ sociantur and though yet we are sure they are not separate and disjoyned like three Humane Persons In this mystery therefore the sense of this term is not vulgar nor of common Notion but peculiarly and necessarily Technical For since God hath revealed that in the Unity of his Nature there is one first Principle with two other co-eternally emanant or descendent from him and subsisting individually in him by which he created and governs all things and this under the Personal and Distinctive Characters of Father Son and Holy Spirit the Paraclete and many other Personal Attributes distinctive of their proper Subsistences in the Essential Unity of the Godhead the Term Person fell unavoidably into Canonical use though under a strict care against the vulgar notion of Humane or such like separate Persons and restrained only to the revealed Theories of the Mystery And under this regular limitation I challenge the Art of the World to sind out any one Characteristick Term so fit proper and congruous to denote their formal Personalities ascribed to them in the Scripture as this of Person in which the whole Catholick Church of old unanimously agreed antecedently to any Conciliar Definitions and is therefore of greater Antiquity and Authority than the Greek Hypostasis which though well founded in * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 1. 3. yet was a while of ambiguous use and interpretation till it was by the help of Athanasius and others canonically adjusted and fixed according to the sense of our Term Person And yet supposing a sensible defect in these Terms Person and Subsistence what modest Man would upbraid the whole Church of God for such an insuperable impotency in Humane Nature which all wise Men perceive and own in their speaking of God after its utmost endeavours cares and consultations upon cogent necessities to fix the terms of our Faith and Doctrine in the best manner possible while yet the Revilers can produce nothing better or equal 'T is certainly an intollerable indecency against the Gravity Duty Care and Right ' of Men that are in Authority of proscribing Doctrines in any Profession what soever for to such certainly it belongs to fit Terms of Art to their Theories as reason shall require as well as they can without the merit or hazard of malevolence and detraction § 34. But because I would fill the thirsty and candid Soul with a satisfying Theory herein I will dig deeper into the grounds of these Personal Characters in the Scriptures and the Traditional Term of Person thence Canonically used First then Personality is a Character only of what is substantial and intellectual as are the Father Son and Holy Spirit the Paraclete who therefore have a good ground of bearing those Personal Titles But tho' these peculiar Titles have this common Basis yet have they their peculiar and formal reasons of Distinction The first Principle of all being called Father from his Eternal generation of the Logos which is called Son from being so eternally generated of the Father's Substance without division or partition thereof And * Con. Arian Orat. 2. here the Father being ever Father never Son and the Logos ever Son never Father St. Athanasius justly as well as sagaciously appropriates these Titles to these Persons in a primary Right and peculiar Excellency above all others since earthly Persons change their Character being one while Sons other while Fathers and Sons other while Fathers only and other while neither The Personal Distinctives of the Holy Spirit are taken from his connatural Operations and Offices which are Personal and the Titles therefore apposite Now that the essential Reason and Spirit of God the Father should each be as equally Personal as the Socinians themselves confess the Father to be will hence appear rational for that they are consubstantial with him and as substantially Divine as that Eternal Mind from and in which they are and live without any inequality in their Nature Perfection or essential Dignity And therefore if one be distinctly Personal so must the others also And therefore the Pronoun He first belonging to God original i. e. the Father as the first Person is properly also communicable to the other Persons each of them deriving their Deity and Personal subsistence from him with peculiar reasons of their proper Personal Characters and Distinctions And hence it was necessary to a just
yet it seems ill-luck would have it that these subordinating Fathers in the very career of their exorbitant Subordination fell into such Notions of the Homoousion which overturn their own dear Subordination †P. 31. So that by the same Substance or Essence they do in many places express themselves as if they only meant the same being in a general sense as all Humane Souls are of the same Substance that is the same Order or sort of Beings and they seemed to entitle them to different Operations not only in an Oeconomical way but thought that the one did that which the other did not Now supposing this had been true how could they at the same time have fallen into the subordinating Heresie For this Heresie is at least Arian grounding the Subordination of Dignity on Inequality of Essence but all Humane Souls are essentially equal as are all individuals of the same Species however entitled to different Operations But in truth his Lordship falfly charges them with a mere specifick Homoousion in the Trinity I own they bring it for illustration so far that as separate individuals of the same kind are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and thereby is implied an equality of Essence * Dionys Alexand. ap Athan. de Syn. Nsc con Arian Decret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athan. de commun Essent Pat. Fil. Spir. Sti. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against his Lordships different Operations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the same word used in the Godhead of the Father and the Son excludes that essential inequality of the Arians which his Lordship would yet trump upon these very Fathers But then the Fathers teach a proper originary Homoousion by which the Father communicates his own Substance to the Son and thereupon the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the essential inseparability of these Persons in the Godhead which a mere specifick Homoousion will not reach to But thus the argument runs strongly against the Hereticks If Fathers Sons and Kinsmen be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as being of the same nature and descended from the same loins if more loosely all things of the same kind are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though separate and much differing in shape humors and actions one from another how much more are the Father and the Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Divine Nature that are in all respects undivided and without any dissimilitude or inequality But though this be the strongest way of arguing against Hereticks from the specifick Homoousion to the individual by shewing that the term in general admits different Modes or Degrees of coessentiality or connaturality of which the individual is the greatest and exactest in the Trinity yet even simply the term it self in its utmost generality and without restriction will by consequence inferr a co-eternity in the Persons Let the Term therefore open to the loosest Importance let it be fansied that the Father Son and Holy Spirit are Three Persons of one common Kind diversly acting in themselves yet even this Notion will hold them to be equally of an Eternal and Divine Essence which was strong against Arians Photinians and Macedonians but it not being so clear against Tritheism therefore all the Fathers asserted the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the origination of the Son and Holy Spirit inseparably in the Father on purpose to disclaim and silence those charges of Tritheism which yet his Lordship does not blush to fix on them in words to be considered immediately notwithstanding their express remonstrances and demonstrations to the contrary And yet after all supposing that the cavils of the Hereticks had forced the Fathers into such forms of argumentation as might then appear expedient and good ad hominem which now in an Age of other apprehensions seem not so these are not to be stretched by us to reproachful and unintended Consequences of which the Church in those Ages knew them to be innocent and therefore gloried in their Piety But as to the diversity of Operations with which his Lordship twits them whatsoever forms may drop from them in popular or homiletical discourses in which no Men take so much care to be critical as affective I believe his Lordship can produce no Divine Operations ad extra so applied to one Person as positively to exclude all concurrence in the others For I wot not that they oppose St. Paul's * 1 Cor. 12.6 Doctrine that there are diversities of Operations but the same God which worketh all in all § 12. And yet we find his Lordship †P. 42. falling into that very guilt with which he upbraids the Fathers by framing worse Similes as shall appear in due place and from them framing a Theological conceit that in the Divine Essence which is the simplest and perfect est Vnity there may be Three that may have a diversity of Operations as well as Oeconomies Here his Lordship did not much remember St. Paul above-cited nor himself in his 31. page on which we now are But whether this may be so or not so God knows it follows not from the Simile of a compounded Nature operating diversly from Principles Parts and Virtues specifically and naturally opposite which in his Lordship's expression may be brought to the Terms of a Contradiction of which I suppose there is no capacity in the most simple Nature of the Deity § 13. But let us see the foul aspect of the Homoousion in the Writings of these Fathers and what Reformation followed thereupon This was saith his Lordship * P. 31. more easily apprehended but it seemed so directly to assert three Gods which was very contrary to many most express declarations both in the Old and New Testament in which the Vnity of the Deity is so often held forth that therefore others took another way of explaining this making it their foundation that the Deity was one numerical Being In this Reflexion here are two things which in his Lordship's judgment and he says the judgment of the after Ancients seem directly to assert three Gods viz. their Arguments from a specisick Homoousion and their ascribing divers Operations The Jews and Greeks of old charged us * Athan. con Arian Orat. 4. with Polytheism on the account of our Trinity and his Lordship here seems to justifie and second the Infidels in that Charge against all the Fathers who argued from the specifick Homoousion and distinct Operations which I think were well nigh all the Greek Fathers after the Nicene Council even Athanasius who thus * Ubi sup argues and yet dissolves the Crime of Polytheism which his Lordship with Jews and Heathens lays upon them but from which I have clear'd them also § 11. But if divers Operations as well as the Arguments from a specifick Homousion seem directly to assert three Gods how came his Lordship to
grant such a conception allowable that there may be three that may have a diversity of Operations as well as Oeconomies For if he be no Tritheist in allowing this Conception why does he reflect on it as Tritheite in the Fathers And yet his Lordship diversifies the Operations much more exclusively each of other Person than any Fathers do and in such a manner as inferrs a Tetrad in the Deity in which according to his Lordship the Father must be a second Principle For his words run thus †P. 42. In the Divine Essence which is the simplest and perfectest Vnity there may be three that may have a diversity of Operations as well as Oeconomies By the first God may be supposed to have made and to govern all things by the second to have actuated and been most perfectly united to the Humanity of Christ and by the third to have inspired the Penmen of the Scriptures and the Workers of Miracles and still to renew and purifie all good Minds all which notwithstanding we firmly believe there is but one God Now whatsoever acts by another is distinct from that other by which it acts and prior in the Agency by the order of Reason If then God acts by the first which is the Father that God is in Nature and Subsistence antecedent to the Father and the first hath a former and if God who acts by three be distinct from those three by which he acts there are then four Distincts and Distinctions in the Deity or else the three are not essential in the Deity but only operant and unsubstantial Powers and Qualities Yet is it against Faith to say that God acts or creates by the Father because it makes him secondary by an unallowable conception the Canonical Faith herein being that God original or God the Father acts by his Son and Holy Spirit But whether we make the Father primary or secundary if we attribute the Creation to him exclusively of the Logos and Holy Spirit and the Inspirations to the Spirit exclusively of the Father and the Son and the Divine Operations in the Union of our Nature with the Logos to the Logos only exclusively of the Father and Holy Spirit according to his Lordship's scheme of conceptions we rove from truth from Scripture from Catholick Tradition which ascribes these to the single Persons by a peculiar respect of Oeconomick Order but not by an exclusive propriety of Operation And yet though his Lordship recommends this conception of such a separate Agency in his three Divine Anonymities yet can he find no such incongruities in the received Doctrines of those his despised Fathers But 't is time to take breath and consider what reformation following extinguished this Tritheism in the Catholick Church and Faith Why Others therefore laid another foundation in one numerical Deity or Being Now what is this but to insinuate nay openly to assert that the former Fathers that believed Emanations and Foecundity and argued from the specifick Homoousion with the respective Operations did not fundamentally own one individual Deity And yet how could they that stuck to the Nicene Creed deny the fundamental Article of one God which yet all the taxed Fathers defended as the Faith of all the former Fathers who made the Monarchy a fundamental Principle against Gentilism and were herein exactly and professedly followed by all their Successors Nay the feature of his Lordship's reflexion seems to attaint all Antiquity of Tritheism till after the Doctors of the specifick Homoousion and distinct Operations ceased as not holding the Unity of the Godhead for his conjunction therefore makes this Unity a post-nate Principle taken up upon the apprehension that the former Doctrines of the Church were Tritheite according to his Lordship's general Imputation § 14. And now it seems high time to observe upon what fancies for they are represented as such these Tritheite Principles were reformed by these over seri patrum nepotes * They then observed †P. 32. that the Sun besides its own Globe had an Emanation of Light and another of Heat which had different Operations and all from the same Essence And that the Soul of Man had both Intallection and Love which flowed from its Essence So they conceived that the Primary Act of the Divine Essence was its Wisdom by which it saw all things and in which as in an Eternal Word it designed all things This they thought might be called the Son as being the generation of the Eternal Mind while from the fountain Principle together with the inward Word there did arise a Love that was to issue forth and that was to be the Soul of the Creation and was more particularly to animate the Church and in this Love all things were to have life and favour This was rested on and was afterwards dressed up with a great deal of dark nicety by the Schools and grew to be the universally received explanation So that it seems these conceptions these reforming conceptions are very novel and the Doctrine derived from them became not universal but by the Definitions of the Schools § 15. But before we come to justifie their due Antiquity let us consider whether as his Lordship represents them the Tritheism of the former Fathers were really amended by them For in this Simile here are two Emanations from the Globe of the Sun Light and Heat which have different Operations which if they represent different Operations of the different Persons in the Deity this reduces that Tritheism which the Simile was designed to avoid So unhappy were these Theological Tinkers in mending the former Theories § 16. But however let us see whether these Theories had not really a more early Original and Reception in the Universal Church I begin with the Simile of the Sun †Apolog c. 21. sup citat §. 7. Vide. Now Tertullian the most ancient of all our Latin Writers used this Simile and says that in respect thereof the Logos was ever backward celebrated under this Title as the Ray of God So * Instit l. 4. c. 29. ille tanquam Sol hic quasi radius à Sole porrectus Lactantius had learned the same Simile from Tertullian or his Church So †In Evan. Joh. c. 5. Tract 20. Si separas candorem Solis à Sole separa Verbum à Patre St. Austin an African likewise had from his Fathers derived the same Example of the Sun The Greek Fathers that lived in and just after the Nicene Council so often so uniformly and canonically use it who yet argued from the specifick Sense of the Homoousion that the citations of them would fill a Volume so this Fancy is not later than these Tritheit Homooufiasts And to let his Lordship see that it was an Ante-Nicene Simile not only the Scripture term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may convince but the express production of it * Theognost ap Athan de Syn. Nic. con Arian Decret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Principium commonly denote And I call them so only in respect of the creatures not absolutely in respect of their own subsistence as if they were three unprincipiated Principles for so there is but one viz. God the Father So I agree with the Doctrine of the Fathers as they deny three Principles nonprinoipiate for otherwise three such Principles would be three Gods Principles and so are not really distinct from them or simply describe the whole Divine Essence and so no single one of these Principles or else are merely negative and so signifie no positive Principle or Hypostasis in the Deity or else are extrinsecal and relative only to exteriour productions and so touch nothing Eternal or Inessential to the Divine Nature that I mention not how that Eternal Generation and Procession can be conceived of no Attributes distinct from the Trinity the Father Logos and Holy Spirit There is therefore in the Deity no positive distinct intelligible Power Virtue or Principle but Father Son and Holy Spirit Mind Reason and the Holy Spirit of Love by the Revelation of whose Nature Subsistence Personality Counsels and Operations the Christian Theology and Religion is most pure desecate sublime full and absolute as became the last revelations by the Son of God but had not been so had it wanted any of these received Articles and Theories concerning the adorable and ever blessed Trinity § 38. But whereas there are who professing the Catholick Faith themselves would yet open the Church Doors to contrary Opinions by making the Gospel Fathers and Religious Councils naked unto shame and contriving to abrogate the Sanctions of our Faith I pathetically beg them to consider deeply what I have said hereupon especially in the four last Sections and further remark that since by the Grace of the Holy Spirit and the Mediation of the Son we have an access unto union with God the Father the first Parent and Principle of all that dwells in Light otherwise altogether inaccessible it was necessary that our Rule of Faith if justly perfect should shew us the way of this ascent and particularly what that Logos and Holy Spirit properly and essentially are by whom we arise into this Communion with the Father Else such a defect had remained in these necessary Notices as had rendred our Faith and Theology blind and uncertain to the inevitable danger of a fundamental Impiety For Men hearing of the Son and Holy Spirit must have been curious for a Notion of them and must have taken them for create or uncreate Now if being uncreate Men had taken them for created as we see many will against express Revelation and universal Tradition to the contrary Men would have prosaned them and their Deity the sault whereof had been imputable to God had he not yielded us the necessary Revelation of their Order and Godhead And so likewise had they been created God would not have left us without sufficient notice thereof lest we mistaking should have adored them for Divine as the whole Church hath done and does But certainly he could not so much so fully so often so perpetually have asserted their Godhead and Personality had they been merely created or impersonal To have revealed nothing of them had been to have shewed no way to Communion and Knowledgge of God the Father and to have said somewhat of them but not enough to fix a Faith and Notion of their Essence and Character had been a Snare But since what is now taught is both necessary and perfect I think it a damnable Sin not to keep such a Divine Depositum perfect whole and undefiled as it was delivered unto us but by false indulgences of Latitude to betray it up to profanation corruption contempt and infidelity § 39. And here having made a sufficient Apology for those Theories of the Fathers against his Lordship's charge of Novelty and Humane Fancy I could heartily have begg'd a Nunc Dimittis and have ended in these pleasing Contemplations But our Life is a Warfare and his Lordship 's further process requires my further attendance But many saith his Lordship have thought that the Term Son did not at all belong to the * He means to any one of them blessed Three but only to our Saviour as he was the Messias the Jews having had this Notion of the Messias that as he was to be the King of Israel so he was to be the Son of God We find Nathanael addressed himself thus to him and when the High Priest adjured our Saviour he knits these two together art thou the Christ the Son of the most High God Which shews that they did esteem those two as one and the same thing This account of the Jews notion his Lordship seems to have taken out of Dr. Hammond's Annotation on Psal 2. v. 7. Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee For these are that great and good Doctor 's words the learned Jews themselves resolved that he was to be the Son of God and that in an eminent manner So the High Priest Matth. 26.63 Tell us whether thou art the Christ the Son of God and Joh. 1.49 Rabbi thou art the Son of God thou art the King of Israel c. Which Text therefore the Doctor prophetically interprets of his resurrection and exaltation according to good New Testament Authorities But he that said this never taught his Lordship that the term Son did not at all belong to any of the blessed Three but expresly in the same Annotation proves from Rom. 1.4 that he was declared to be the Eternal Son of God the second of the blessed three by his Resurrection from the dead And it is not fair play in his Lordship to cite a place and conceal the Author that so God's truth and his doubling might not be discerned But since we are upon a critical disquisition of these terms Messias and Son of God we will consider first what the real truth is and secondly the opinion of the Jews First then it is certain that God's constitution of any Person in a State of favour gives the favourite the Title of a Son by virtue thereof Thus God calls the People of Israel his Son and his First Born Exod. 4. 22. and so literally Hosea 11.1 and many other places set God as their Father because God had admitted them as the seed of Abraham into his especial Covenant as we are also Sons of God by the adoption of the New Covenant And hence exaltation by God to an high Authority has founded a title of Gods and Sons of God unto Men and Angels And consequently the various signal Exaltations of Christ in his Humane Nature above all others make him in those respects justly to be styled the Son of God If then he had been only exalted into the heavenly Throne without any antecedent Death or Resurrection this alone would have founded a Filial Title much more when in Order thereto he was born again our of a
Virgin Sepulcher whereby he became the first Born or first Begotten from the Dead So his Transfiguration on Mount Tabor and his Unction by the Holy Ghost at his Baptism in both which the Bath-Col the voice from Heaven pronounced him God's beloved Son were fair grounds for the same Character His Conception by the Holy Ghost in the Virgin 's Womb was a foundation thereof * Luk. 1.35 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shed's that this was not the first ground of his Filiation before all these though not the primary By the †Heb. 1.2 Son God made the Worlds and thereby the Son became Heir of all things And hereupon it was by many Ancients preached as Good Theology that herein also he was the Son of God and the * Col. 1.15 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first Born and Heir of the whole Creation they setting it off as a kind of Nativity and Production of the Logos into Light and the World And those many Texts of Scripture besides the Catholick Tradition of Creeds that teach him to be in the form of God and equal with God the true God God above all blessed for ever and that he hath received his being from the Father have established the Faith of an Eternal Paternity and Coeternal Filiation So that if we take the Humane Nature into the Conception and Character of the Christ as his Lordship does here are several grounds for the Character of Son before our Lord actually was a Man or could be on his Lordships Notions the Messias And so Son of God and Messias cannot really in the true intention of the Scriptures be altogether synonymous equaeval or equipollent though belonging to the same Person Now if Nathanael made a good and full Confession when he told our Lord * John 1.50 Thou art the Son of God thou art the King of Israel then he owned all the truth of the Filial Character but if his Faith were defective then it is no ground for his Lordship's Criticks to stay so low in it and not advance to the Highest revealed Excellency of the Character which I believe the true Israelite reached as well as †Matth. 16.16 Joh. 6.69 St. Peter and others since the Gospels set this for a good memorial of their and the Catholick Faith But however let us see what the Faith of the Jews contributes to our Edification By the Testimony of the Fathers from after Josephus's days it appears an established or received Doctrine among the Jews as also other Hereticks herein so judaizing that the Messias was to be a mere Man and so no wonder if all Rabbins since that own him to be the Son of God take him only for a positive or adoptive Son by mere advancement Now if his Lordship thinks this to have been their Faith also in our Lord's days then those some Criticks of his Lordship's cannot found the Filiation of the Theanthropus in this Jewish Faith But if these Jews did believe their expected Messias to be a real Immanuel according to their Prophet and this Immanuel to be the Son of God how can his Lordship's Criticks prove that in the Immanuel's Filiation * P. 32. in which the Humane Nature being the first Conception †the first Conception of the Sonship was in his Humanity For if there were another Conception of Sonship in the Divine Nature how can they or his Lordship prove it to be posterior to that in the Humanity To be Son of God is a Character at least of Dignity and if there be any thing in the Deity that bears it it cannot derive it from any Creature and so in order of Conception it ought not to be posterior to the Title in a Creature His Lordship had best have a eare lest he and his Critick's * Vid. Euseb con Marcell call in upon Marcellus in this rode of Conceptions and father the Heresie upon the Jews But if there be no real Son in the God head there will be no Father neither before the Creation and consequently the Humane Nature being originally filia◠being united to God who by the Creation thereof only is its Father i. e. natural Parent will convey the Title of Son to its own Father by this Union which since it can be only a nominal dispensation here comes in a beloved Sabellianism But if there be a Sonship in the Godhead since it cannot be derivative it must be Primitive to the Character given to the united Humanity because of that Union and if so how can its Conception be first lodged in the Humanity to which it is socially communicated in the entire Suppositum of the Theanthropus but not singly distributed by any dividing Conception except we will put up with Nestorius But to look a little further into this matter I think it manifest that the Jews believed the Son of God to be a Person not Humane but equal to the Father and so had no first Conceptions of it in Humane Nature The Personal Title of Son with others that Philo gives the Logos which he did not believe to have been incarnate is a full proof of this first point that he was called Son by the Jews without any respects to Humanity since he taught this as the Theology of Moses and the Tradition of the Elders and that this Filial Logos was by them believed equal to God the Father * Joh. ch 5.17 c. vid. ch 10. St. John proves for that the Jews would have killed Jesus for saying that God was his Father making himself thereby equal with God and so God which our Saviour refuses not but defends And even Josephus after the Destruction of Jerusalem owning our Jesus to be Christ doubts whether it were lawful to call him a Man because the old Notion that God was and was to be the King of Israel was not yet worn out They looked on the Kingdom of the Messias as the Kingdom of God and they looked for the Son of God whom Agur of old knew under that Character to come and set up his Reign among them and to subdue all Nations thereunto And therefore St. John shews him and the Devils confess him the Son of God also as well as his Disciples nay the Conturion at his Crucifixion owned him to be the Son of God who never saw him to have been nor ever hoped to see him hereafter to be the King of the Jews according to their Notions of his Royalty For though they looked on their King to come to be God the Son of the Father yet they took his Kingdom to be secular And he that considers that in the Gospels the terms of Father Son and Holy Spirit are spoken of to and by the Jews familiarly without any of our Lord's correction of the Jewish Notion or Institution of any other either in common among the multitudes or privately among his Disciples must resolve
as silly as it is false and debasing For Irenaeus the great mawl of Valentinianism defends our very Faith and Theology against that and all other Gnostick Heresies Nay and St. John one would think was a Preacher of our Doctrine And can any one be brought to believe that St. John and St. Irenaeus were tainted or drunk with the Lees of Aeonism Let Sandius therefore and his Lordship make what advantages they please against our Theories by their Valentinian Character there is no great danger The Lion's Hide covers a very tractable Animal For after all Sandius his Disguises his Father Arius his Thalea which he swaggered as descending from Men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from Grandsire Kalentine and his Symmystae Well to go along with his Lordship how came the poor old doating Fathers to nod thus His Lordship tells us 't was because 't was long before these Theories were well stated and settled And here I had been at a sad loss for an Epocha of this settlement if I had not by good fortune met with Dr. Burnet's Letter of Remarks upon the two strong Box Papers where he tells us thus It seems plain that the Fathers before the Council of Nice believed the Divinity of the Son of God to be in some sort inferiour to that of the Father and for some Ages after the Council of Nice they believed them indeed both equal but they considered these as two different beings and only one in Essence as three Men have the same Humane Nature in common among them and that as one Candle lights another so one flowed from another and after the fifth Century the Doctrine of one Individual Essence was received If you will be further informed concerning this Father Petau will satisfie you as to the first Period before the Council of Nice and the Learned Dr. Cudworth as to the second So then the Primitive Faith till the Nicene Council was That there were two Divinities or Deities one of the Father and another of the Son and that of the Son somewhat inferiour to that of the Father From the Council of Nice to the sixth Century they believed two or three different * What is this but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 essences or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Beings and these equal and no otherwise of one Essence than three Men that are of one common Nature But in the beginning of the sixth Century then their Eyes and Faith opened into one individual Essence and then I suppose the matter was settled Be this so for once what will it amount to That all the Fathers till the sixth Century were Polytheists and Idolaters not excepting the Nicene When a Man thinks upon this he must needs confess it not †Discours 3. p. 65. It were perhaps too invidious to send Men to Petavius to find in him how much the Tradition of the several Ages has varied in the greatest Articles of the Christian Faith only perhaps but for certain invidious to send Men to the Jesuit for a Calumny against the Primitives and were so to Dr. Cudworth to make his History of such Consequence But as for Petavius and his Admirers I think them all refuted by Dr. Bull beyond all possibility of a reply and as for the Arguments upon a Specifick Homoousion cited by Dr. Cudworth and others I have above accounted for their innocency § 11. and proved that though they argued from a specifick Homoousion through the Arian Cavils especially to avoid the Charge of Sabellianism yet they did not assert this alone as his Lordship charges them But now to come upon my Lord 's blind side In his Letter he says the Post Nicene Fathers were for an equality and used for their Theory the Simile of Candles In the Discourse we are upon he says the Simile of Candles gave rise to the Nicene form Light of Light and therefore must be used by the Ante-Nicene Fathers whom he asserts to be for an inequality In his Letter the specifick Homoousiasts are equalizers but in his Discourse the same are Subordinators But here again I would sain see the Simile of Candles produced among the Post-Nicene Homoousiasts to whom in his Letter my Lord assigns it Again in his Discourse the Theory of the Divine Wisdom and Love is said to be consequent or concomitant to the Doctrine of one individual Essence In the Letter this Doctrine commences with the sixth Century But all the Fathers that I have above-cited for the Theory of the Wisdom and Love of the Divine Mind especially § 21. § 23. lived long before his Lordship 's Epocha even in the fourth Century the very lowest and latest But since his Lordship is become a Father no wonder if he falls into contradictions too against himself and truth too for it seems 't is of ancient prescription with Men of that Character But in short I thought all these traduced Theories to have been ever settled and that settlement not begun but continued and defended only by the Councils and Fathers in several Ages according as seemed then most seasonable in respect of the Heresies and Sentiments then fermenting which occasions a seeming variety in forms of expression but no real difference in the Substance of their Faith that so Men herein might charge them with mutual or self-contradictions And yet that which we stand for is not every notion of every Father but what they all agree in and such are those Theories which his Lordship hath exposed as Exorbitant Let his Lordship prove their express contradictions each to other in these established and received Theories and then indeed he may more creditably expose his Father's Nakedness though that practice is but of ill and execrable prescription But as his Lordship has upbraided the Primitive Tradition of the Faith and the Scriptures in these Discourses and the forementioned Letter and loaded the Traditors with so much reproach he has done what in him lies to discourage Students from reading or regarding them and not only so but he has put such a Dagger into the hands of Deists and the open Enemies of all Revealed Religion as he himself will never be able to extort for who will believe the Church that she received the New Testament from Men divinely inspired when for Five Hundred Years after Christ her Principles were Polytheist and Idolatrous and she knew not the very first Rudiments of a true Faith and when she at last did so yet fell into divers silly conceits and Similes about it since scorned and rejected by the Critick Tribe § 42. And now I am resolved to end though his Divinity affords much more corrigible matter At the horrour whereof I leave him to God's Mercy and the Churches Prayers but his Writings of this stamp either to his own ingenuous Recantation or Canonical Censure FINIS
God-head before the Incarnation For this account will admit the Personality of Christ to be founded first †P. 32. in the Humane Nature according to some of his Lordship's Criticks which he dares not contradict who place the foundation of the Sonship in the lower Nature Yea this Description will admit the Patripassian Heresie of but one Person in the Deity For if the Eternal Word were no Person distinct from the Father the Union thereof with the Humanity constitutes the Father an incarnate Person or otherwise by this State of his Lordships Doctrine the Father Son and Holy Ghost may be conceived as one incarnate Person Whereas his Lordship well knows our Faith to be clear That the Eternal Word is personally distinct or a distinct Person from the Father and alone assumed the Humanity into a Personal Union with himself and so alone was the Person of Christ exceptively of the Father and the Holy Ghost from this Personality and Character § 5. Now if a Man would enquire into the Motives of this affected obscurity in his Lordship that leaves open a gap to so many Heresies his Lordship's Words would lead one to a conclusion or at least a fair jealousie that his Lordship does not believe any Distinction really Personal between the Father Word and Holy Spirit but that the true and real Personality of Christ is proper to the Humane Nature For he teacheth us that those whom the Church calleth Persons the Scripture only calls by the Names of Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost Where that artificial Word only derogates from the propriety and fitness of the term Person as if the Scripture terms did not come up to it nor justifie it And if his Lordship will stand by the †P. 45. plain intention of his Words elsewhere he places Christ's Personality only in his Manhood in these words That Divine Person in whom dwelt the Eternal Word So that the Word must be different from the Person in whom it dwelt which must be the Heresie of Sabellius Maâ—… or Nestorius In short while he 〈◊〉 the Canonical term of Person to contain some notion in it not imported in the Scripture terms he seems for that cause to censure it for that the Scripture does not come up so far as to teach three Persons but only Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost But when he says this third Opinion is than by the Incarnation God and Man truly became one Person I would fain know whether the term Person be proper for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or no If not the Doctrine is to be blamed that teaches him to be truly one Person since the truth of a Character is the greatest propriety and if it be not true the Doctrine that teaches it is to be cashiered But if to avoid this it be true then I would fain be instructed whether the Church does not use the term Person in the same formal intention concerning the Father Son and Holy Spirit when She calls them three Persons as She does when She calls Christ or the Son of God incarnate a Person For if She uses the term in the same formal intention then if the Christ be a proper Person so are the Father and Holy Spirit two other Persons properly and truly distinct in the sense of the Church but if the Church has one intention in the Term when applied to Christ 〈◊〉 God-man and another when applied to the Eternal Trinity let this be made out by just Authority and I have done § 6. But the Order of his Lordship's Discourse obliges me to break off a little from this Disquisition till the next Section where we must resume it For he tells us if we will believe him that the term Person by those of our Perswasion came to be applied to the three to discover those who thought that these three were different names of the same thing which were for the most part and were generally called Patripassians and were expelled as Hereticks from the Church Now wherein lay their Heresie Why in this That the Father Son and Holy Ghost were not three co-essential Persons really distinct which was the Catholick Faith instead of which they coined this pretence That those Names had not three distinct subjects of which they were predicates or denominations but only were three titles of God the Father who became incarnate and suffered for us Now hence it appears that their Heresie consisted in the denial of what was ever before received in the Church That the Father Son and Holy Ghost were three Persons And if so then is his Lordship's insinuation false and injurious that the term Person had its rise and occasion from Patripassianism and consequently is of a later Date that by this fraudulent Hypochronism the term and the sense of it may be taken for not Primitive and Traditional but a mere later and artificial invention Now to prove what I say to be true I am to produce authentick Testimonies Now in the Latin World the first I ever have read of that taught Patripassianism was Praxeas against whose Heresie herein Tertullian wrote and charged in for denying the Eternal Word to be a * Tert. ad Praxeam Non vis enim eum substantiâ—um habere in re per substantiae proprietatem ut res persona quaedam videri possit substantial and real Person which Tertullian though then a Montanist then asserted with the Church though his †Tert. ibid. Itaque Sophiam quoque exaudi ut secundam Personam conditam Sic Filius in suâ personâ profitetur Patrem in nomine Sophiae Novatian de Trinit secundam Personam efficiens terms and senses were sometimes very singularly odd concerning the production of the second Person In the Eastern Church several lapsed into the like Error the most famous of which was Sabellius from whom the Heresie was entitled Sabellianism which denied what that Church also had ever asserted That the Father Son and Holy Spirit were three Persons instead whereof they asserted them to be but one Person For the truth hereof I shall recite the Words †Athan. con Sabell Greg. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of St. Athanasius as beyond all Exception valid From whence it appears that the Sabellians asserted but one Person against that Plurality of Persons fore-acknowledged in the Church And now I leave it to his Lordship to explain how the denial of three Persons could be Apostasie as this Father calls it had not the Faith of them been before expresly avowed and received For Heresie is an opposition of true received Faith and Apostasie must be from an antecedent Profession So that the Doctrine of a Personal Trinity was not later than Patripassianism but the Original Faith Nor does his Lordship seem candid in concealing this which was the substance of that Heresie while he mentions only their teaching three Names of one thing or Person which was a Conâ—ectary or at least a Colour added to
but only in the Humanity if one could see his inside since he * 45. That Divine Person in whom dwelt the Eternal Word c. makes the Manhood it self a Person distinct from the Eternal Word that dwelt therein and instead of confuting †P. 32. helps those Criticks that place their first Conceptions of the Sonship in the Humanity and as to the Union he is so ambiguous that he tells us not whether the Father and the Holy Spirit came into this resulting Personality or no only saying without any peculiar restriction that God and Man became one Person thus leaving a latitude for various Heresies in this Mystery § 11. So much then for the Personality Advance we next to the Deity of the Messias * P. 40. We believe saith he that Christ was God by vertue of the Indwelling of the Eternal Word in him The Jews could make no Objection to this who knew that their Fathers had worshipped the Cloud of Glory because of God's resting upon it And this he lays as a foundation on which he may properly Deifie Christ's Humane Nature But this Jewish Doctrine is absolutely false and is but either an heedless or willfull Depravation of the Learned Dr. Whithy's chast and accurate * Tractat. de ver Jes Christ Deitat p. Theories herein To make which appear in its proper visage let us consider what Worship is in the sense of his Lordship with whom it imports †Lord of Sarum P. 38. not only Incurvation of Body which may be paid to Creatures but Acts of Faith and Trust Prayers and Praises c. Now will his Lordship stare me or any Man in the face and say that the Jews did thus Worship the Cloud of Glory This I think will be routed by one Syllogism whatsoever the Jews worshipped according to the Law was God The Cloud of Glory was not God Ergo the Jews did not Worship the Gloud of Glory I take it for granted that this Syllogism is impenetrable and let his Lordship try his skill upon it if he please It is indeed agrecable to truth and learned Men teach that Isreal worshipped God in the Cloud over the Ark in the Temple as in all the Symbols and Places of his especial Presence but the Symbols or Places themselves were not the Objects of the Jewish Adoration though Papists bend this to the Adoration of the Host And as simple as the Fathers are they can inform his Lordship †Just Mart. Dial. cum Tryph. ad ista Psalm 24. Quis est Rex Gloriae Dominus Exercitumm c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that every Man whatsoever will own that in Psalm 24. neither Solomon nor the Tabernacle or Ark of the Testimony was the King of Glory which they adored Yet that his Lordship's Concelts may have fair usage I am content to lay together all that he has said to this purpose to try whether they are in truth sound or adulterated or whether they can bear a fair Tryal He therefore teaches †P. 36. that 't is evident from several forms of expressing that Cloud of Glory that a constant and immediate visible Indwelling of the Jehovah was according to Scripture Phrase said to be Jehova which was applied to nothing else This the Greek render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Term the Apostles universally applying to our Saviour could mean no other but that he was the true Jehovah by a more perfect dwelling of the Deity in him c. Now here are two great Absurdities first that the visible Indwelling of the Jehovah is in Scripture phrase called Jehova and secondly that this Name was applied to nothing else For first 't is he that dwelt between the Cherubims in a symbol of Glory over the Ark first in the Tabernacle after in the Temple is called Jehovah not his very Habitation 'T is the Title of the Resident not the Residence and so his Lordship himself applies it also in contradiction either to himself or the Scripture if he expounds it rightly That which perhaps led his Lordship into this fancy is that Shechinah Grammatically signifies Habitation and is thence taken by the Rabbins in a sense peculiarly sacred for the Majestick Presence of God between the Cherubims c. and that he takes to be called Jehova But his Lordship was not at leisure to apprehend that the Rahbinick use has turned the Grammatical notation of Habitation that is but an accident and made it to import that substantial Light and Glory the Symbol of the Divine Presence the Scripture word Glory and the Rabbinick Term Shechinah being equivalent For the Rabbins by Shechinah mean not mere presence but that Lucid Glory by which God presentiated himself But if his Lordship will excuse this unacouracy and say That This Glory is called Jehova in the Scripture yet this is also false and will not serve his turn For this Shechinah is called * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Glory of Jehovah and God is called †Psal 24. the King and * Act. 7.2 God of Glory with relation to the Shechinah yet no Man will change the terms Glory of Jehovah thus The Jehovah of Jehovah or the God or King of Glory into this form The God or King of Jehovah which yet might be done if Jehova were the name of that Glory When Moses asked Jehovah to see a greater and more Majestatick Glory of the Divine Presence and that Jehovah made his Glory to pass by Exod. 33.18 21 22. The Glory is plainly distinguished from the Jehovah For Moses would not pray thus O Jehovah shew me thy Jehovah nor would the Jehovah say my Jehovah shall pass by Jehovah therefore was not the mere Shechinah either God's Habitation or the Cloud of Glory but he that presentlated himself therein And hence the ritual Worship of Israel though performed toward that Cloud was yet performed not to it but to him whose Majesty so appeared in or by it Nor does this Symbol adequately come up to the Mystery of the personal Union for God's inhabiting in a Cloud of Glory did not make a personal Union between God and the Cloud as the in habitation of God in Christ Humane Nature being of an higher and more intimate and unitive Connexion did which yet however doth not really turn our Nature in Christ into Deity except we will go over to Eutychianism and a confusion of Substance nor do we adore his Humanity as so Deified but we Worship the Eternal Son of God united to and mediating for us in our Nature § 12. But whereas his Lordship has out-pitched all Mortals in saying That in Scripture Phrase Jehova never imports any thing else but a constant and visible immediate Inhabitation which has been sufficiently baffled in the precedent Section I will adventure to advance and say that in the Scripture the word Jehovah is used for God without any imaginable respect to such a Shechinah In the Book of Job it is
very often found yet there being no Shechinah in his Land of Vz the Author or Translator could not use the term Jehovah concerning God appearing in the Shechinah of the Children of Israel for Job was an Alien and of the Line of Esau In those infinite Places where the Creation and all other Divine Works without the Land of Canaan are attributed to Jehovah there the name has no respect to the Shechinah Wheresoever he is mentioned by this name in Affairs among the Ten Tribes after their separation by Jeroboam from the Worship at Jerusalem there is no respect to the Shechinah for he had no such among the Ten Tribes When Ezekiel in Captivity before the destruction of the Temple mentions the Oracles of Jehovah or God by this name in the Land of the Chaldeans he has no respect to a Shechinah When the Temple was destroyed there was never any Shechinah restored to that Temple any more yet the inspired Pen-men after this call him by the name Jehovah for which I referr his Lordship to the Bible or the Concordances And to conclude the Eternal Wisdom of the Father speaking by Solomon calls him Jehovah with respect to such a time as was before all possibility of a Shechinah Prov. 8.22 Jehovah possessed me in the beginning of his way before his works of old And truly if Jehovah were the name of God only as in the Shechinah then as it did not belong to him before the Shechinah so it ceases to appertain to him since the extinction thereof in the dissolution of the first Temple except his Lordship will have it revive again by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Habitation of God in Christ's Humane Nature But then as often as it was used by the High Priest if not others under the second Temple and after the cessation of other Prophets till Christ came by his Lordship's Criticism it must be improper and the Prophets that called God Jehovah after the Destruction of the Temple did misname him But after all to keep up an old custom his Lordship adds another contradiction for he says * P. 38. Jehovah is a federal name of God Now if so then was it properly used of God all the while the Jews were in the Old Covenant with God which was till the Death of Christ surely and consequently all that tract of time in which there was no Shechinah from the ruin of the first Temple was this name most proper § 13. From the Jewish Shechinah come we to Christ of whom his Lordship thus teaches * P. 40. that Christ was God by vertue of the Indwelling of the Eternal Word in him †P. 35. that the Jehovah dwelt so immediately and bodily in Christ Jesus that by that Indwelling he was truly Jehovah * P. 37. that he was the true Jehovah by a more perfect Indwelling of the Deity in him than that had been which was in the Cloud Now this must be grounded upon a Principle or Maxim That whatsoever the Delty immediately inhabits as it did the Cloud and the Humanity of Christ that thing becomes God and the true Johovah by virtue of that Inhabitation and therefore the Cloud and the Humanity of Christ were the true Jehovah by this Residence and if so the Cloud and Christ are substantially the same thing though yet the Cloud hath ceased to be for many Ages And by the same Doctrine the inner Sanctuary of the Tabernacle and the Temple and much more the Temples of our Bodies and Souls in which Christ as God dwells immediately by his Holy Spirit are the true Jehovah also by virtue of this Inhabitation And besides all these absurdities his Lordship's terms exclusively diversifie the whole Christ who is inhabited from the Eternal Word which does inhabit in him and so according to his Lordship he becomes if not a Socinian yet a sactitious God one way or other § 14. Ay But does not the Apostle justifie his Lordship's form of speaking when he saith * Col. 2.9 that in Christ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily which his Lordship †P. 40. cites for his Authority These are indeed the Apostle's Words and his Lordship cunningly referrs to them though never intended to his Lordship's Consequences and Imagnations For the Apostle seems to oppose the Gnostick Pleromata excluding Christ from the Supreme Pleroma and Divinity Now things are inexistent in others either as things contained in things containing or as parts in the whole or one part in another The first Mode cannot belong to the inexistence of the Deity in our nature the second or third form of inexistence may be conveniently asserted here For first the whole Christ being a Compositum of the Word and Manhood the God-head of the Word may be said to be in Christ as part in the whole But if you take Christ here Synecdochically for that part of him which is distinct from the God-head which is often done sometimes expresly as the Man Christ Jesus sometimes implicitly from the necessary sense of the Texts then this Text will be thus interpretable In Christ i.e. the Man Christ or his Manhood dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead as the superior in the inferior part of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and as the Soul in a Body But neither of these Senses inferr that all that in which the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily as a Soul in a Body is thereby really God and the true Jehovah for this would inferr an Eutychian confusion of Natures and Attributes To illustrute this his Lordship may observe that we say an excellent Soul is found in this Man either as part in the whole or strictly as the whole Man is put only for the Body yet no Man will hence inferr that all that in which the excellent Soul dwells thereby becomes a true Soul for this would confound the two Natures into one And truly as the formal Structure of his Lordship's words is heretical so his Arguments for it from the Jewish Shechinah are Idolatrous and will justifie Idolatry i.e. Creature-Worship both in Jews and Christians 'T is true indeed the Fathers generally teach a gracious adoptive and metaphorical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of our nature in Christ and of all Saints by him but not so as to make that Nature or these Saints the true Jehovah notwithstanding their mutual coinhabitation to all Eternity § 15. It must be allowed and I allow it freely that the Argument brought from the perpetual rendring of Jehovah by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the signal appropriation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the New Testament to our Lord while both Testaments establish only one and the same Lord is in it self exceeding good and urged generally by most learned Men to this purpose but however it is almost marred by his Lordship's conjuring up an Objection which he had not skill enough to lay The great Objection * P. 37. says he that ariseth
the highest to the lowest had been taught the mystery of the Trinity in Unity and to these St. Paul's words are as intelligible in their truth as the Apostles Creed or any other which an uninitiated Heathen might easily misunderstand either to conclude our Lord not to be God as being not called God in the Apostles Creed which Hereticks and Latitudinarians lay hold of to their evil Ends or another God because in other formularies he is called God of God But this fundamental Institution that we have no other God nor Lord than the Jews had and that Lord of the Jews being only one God Almighty we cannot err in understanding this Creed of St. Paul or any other to believe that Christ is a Lord in nature different from God the Father Almighty To exhibit this more clearly I will set these words of St. Paul and those of the Nicene Creed that are most apposite to them and liable to an Heathen misconstruction St. Paul's Creed To us there is one God the Father of whom are all things and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things The Nicene Creed We believe in one God the Father Almighty Maker of all things visible and invisible and in one Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God very God of very God by whom all things were made Now to shew the most designed intention of St. Paul's words and that they do not at all give any colour to the Socinian notion of one advanced to Divine Honour but make him with God the Father Creator of all things I shall digest them into a due Paraphrase thus For though the Heathen Worshippers of Idols have many celestial and terrestrial Gods as they call them which they Worship by their Idols their Superstition to their falsly so called Gods arising from this truth that God hath set Presidential and Tutelary Powers over us who are therefore by Office though not by Nature Gods and Lords as the Angelical Princes of Greece and Persia and here on Earth the Kings and Rulers of the World yet we Christians have but one Almighty God the Father from whom all things originally are and we are in him or for him and one only Tutelar Lord next God the Father Jesus Christ by whom we were created and by whom we subsist for the Object of our Adoration By this Paraphrase it appears that the Father is called God and Christ Lord but the Creation attributed to both in this form of distinction that all things are of or from God the Father as the first Original and by the Lord Christ because by him the Father created all things and hence it follows that the Lord Christ in that nature which created all things is uncreated and if uncreated then of the same Deity of the Father who by him created all things and hence adorable with the Father whereas the Heathen Gods and all other Gods by deputation or advancement are not adorable as not being Authors of our Creation and Being nor uncreated in themselves Whatsoever Hebrew word therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this place may be referred to yet our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Lord Jesus being as our Lord and Creator the Object of our Adoration is vindicated from the reproach of a Creature advanced to the Honour of Divine Adoration by the very context it self And to this sense the words were fully clear to the Christian Church who knew St. Paul both as a Jew and Christian an utter Adversary to all Creature-worship But however I note here that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spoken of Christ answers not to the Hebrew Jehovah for being set opposite to the many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it must answer to a word in Hebrew that is capable of a plural number which Jehovah is not for there cannot be a plurality of Jehovahs But what shall be done to convince an Arian who will confess our Lord a Sub-Creator of all things beside under the Father and so their Lord on the Title of that Creation though himself was created by God the Father Why this place must be interpreted by others such as that he is God the true God God over all blessed for ever that he was ever in the form of God and equal with God the Father and one with him all which will bear weight while the federal whimsie vanishes into soft air And therefore after all his critical trisling he wisely †P. 38.40 comes to this way of interpretation and says a great many Good and Orthodox truths on this Article so far as that that Christ was God who manifested himself in our flesh which being so dissonant to all his former Modes of expression and avowed Notions seem to have dropp'd from him either unawares or for a colour of defence against a foreseen charge of Heresie or perhaps the singular Providence of God might so over-rule the madness of the Prophet to make him speak that for the Christian Faith which he had no mind to that his manifest inconsistencies might render him of no Authority for the use of Hereticks either in present or suture Ages § 16. His Lordship's last Argument for the Deity of Christ is †P. 39 40. that the Jews and Apostates from Christianity never charged the Apostles nor the Church with Idolatry or Creature-Worship which they would certainly have done had the Christian Principles been Arian or Socinian And had there been any such Objection we should have had the Apologies of the Apostles against it For so we find them vindicating themselves against the Charge of the Jews for quitting the Mosaical Ordinances and calling the Gentiles things of less prejudice than the worshipping and Deifying a Creature Now for my part I believe it was the common opprobrium both of Jews and Gentiles and perfect Apostates that the Christians adored a mere Malefactor and that surely is an imputation of Creature Worship and though we find it not in the Acts or Epistles of the Apostles expresly charged yet many passages asserting his Deity seem directly set in opposition to such calumnies In the Acts of the Apostles the recorded disputes with the Jews are whether our Jesus was the true Messias for on concession of this all the other Doctrines of Christianity were to have been admitted without scruple and so the questions of his Deity and Adoration came not into course with the Jews while they denied this Truth that was first to be proved in order to their conviction that he was the Christ And all that is written against Judaism in the Epistles is against Judaizing Christians or Semi-Christian Judaizers that adhered to the Levitical Institutes as necessary to all Christians Now these not making Christ an Idol or a mere Creature there was no need of a Vindication of us with them against an Idolatry that they charged us not with but against those Hereticks that made Jesus a mere Man and consequently would impeach us for the Worship of
a Creature St. John's Gospel and first Epistle were expresly written and these were a sort of Un-Christian Judaizers of several Characters from their proper Authors So that his Lordship's Observation though never so well intended is however partly false and partly impertinent And yet allowing this Argument as much force as can be designedly granted it it will amount to no more than this That the Enemies of our Religion could not upbraid us with a professed Worship of a professed Creature because he whom the Christians worshipp'd in our flesh was by them owned to be the Eternal God Yet no doubt the Jews ever did and do at this Day charge us with the Worship of a vile Creature who really as they think had no Deity in him else had they also thought him to be God they had been ipso facto converted to us the want of this Faith being the only Bar to their Conversion and the cause why they execrate both our Lord and us for this very Doctrine So unlucky is his Lordship even in the fairest part of this Discourse as if God had laid this Curse on him that he that had sophistically handled the Christian Faith in most part of it should not have the Glory or Comfort of having served it in any one particular A Vindication of the Primitive Fathers against the Imputations of Gilbert Lord Bishop of Sarum c. PART II. § 1. I Have now I think performed my first undertaking that his Lordship hath ill stated the Doctrines of our Faith A truth so evident to his own Clergy even those that would throw a friendly skirt over these Nudities that they ascribe all or seem willing so to do to haste inconsideration and want of judgment not to any heretical Designs or Contrivances Whether his Lordship will be thankful for these kinds of Excuse I cannot tell but at the best they are but Fig-leaves For can any Candour excuse an heedless or injudicious Lecture in a Bishop or Divinity Professor first uttered to a learned Body and after exposed to the Censure of the World in a matter most fundamental in Christianity most liable to prejudices and this after the most accurate determinations of the Church Universal especially since he so openly upbraids the Fathers and Patrons of this Faith with their unaccuracies and impertinencies and this not in their particular and private conceptions which the Church hath not authorized but in their most Catholick and established Theories Surely such a Cenfor ought to have been accurate above all Men and not to have needed the Candor of a Reader § 2. This dealing with the Fathers is such an indecent sort of immorality that 't is not to be endured in one of his Lordship's Character The Fathers it is true were Men and they have their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those slips here and there incident to the infirmities of Humane Nature and if his Lordship had reverently touched upon any of these not with a design to blacken their memory but only to caution his Clergy against such forms or notions he had dealt very commendably But it falls out quite otherwise For he Taxes them for no real obliquities but their Catholick Principles fixes on them such Theories as they never dreamed of and such as are destructive of their own avowed Faith and this without quoting so much as one passage out of them he gives them not so much as one good word but finally presents them to us as a parcel of impertinent and self contradicting Bablers which how it conduces to the encouraging Deism and Heresie I humbly leave to the Censure of my Holy Mother the Church of England Sure I am as this ill office was utterly needless to his Exposition of the Faith so modesty ought to have repressed it if for no other consideration yet for this one reason That they may receive him into their Society with joy at the day when he shall be gathered unto his Fathers § 3. The Business then of this second part is to discuss the truth and justice of his Lordship's Imputations cast upon these Holy Worthies which he introduces thus by telling his Clergy that †P. 31. he will not pretend to inform them how this Mystery is to be understood and in what respect these Persons which he calls so according to custom not his own sense are believed to be one and in what respects they are Three By explaining a Mystery can only be meant the shewing how it is laid down and revealed in Scripture for to pretend to give any other Account of it is to take away its mysteriousness when the manner how it is in it self is offered to be made intelligible Now what doth this prima facie intimate but that it is not laid down in the Scripture in what respect the Persons are one nor in what respect they are Three But first in the Doctrine of Unity I think the Scriptures do sufficiently teach that the Father Son and Holy Spirit are one in respect of Essence notwithstanding all the wriggles of Hereticks not only in that passage of St. John 1 Ep. 5.7 which his Lordship has exposed * Letter I from Zurich for doubted but in many others And if his Lordship dares deny this respect of Essence to be taught by the Scriptures concerning the Unity I will adventure the proof of it But if his Lordship be not so hardy then let him recant this Impeachment of the Scriptures that they have not taught us in what respect the Persons are One I am however content that Men of Candour take this only for an heedless slip not a designed Artifice Let it be so yet is it a dangerous one and used by the Men of the broad way that leadeth to destruction to the service of heretical Comprehensions The Antapologist to Dr. Sherlock owns the forequoted Text of St. John for undoubted There are Three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Spirit and these Three are One. This saith he is Scripture * Antap. p. 5. but how they are one the Scripture teacheth not What is this fetch for but that we may not press the Heretick's to own an essential Unity but whatsoever else will serve their several Turns and deliver them from the Canon of the Faith But secondly his Lordship ought to have instructed his Clergy in what respects they are Three according to the Scriptures which do instruct us herein with certain notions and respects by which they are distinguished from each other in the Unity of Essence For are not Father and Son Personal Characters and founded on a substantial generation the Father being the Person Generant as such and the Son the Person generated as such And is not the Logos the substantial Issue of the Eternal Mind and as such distinguished from its Parent The Holy Spirit is of the Father and the Son and does the personal Offices of a Paraclete by mission from the Father and
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Theognostus who still maintains the Old Jewish and Primitive Simile against all Sadducean and Sabellian perversions of it such as we above saw practised by the Adversaries of this truth in the days of Justin Martyr See above § 8. § 17. Secondly the Antiquity of the Simile taken from our Minds admits so large a Vindication that to quote †Arm. Alex. Protrep Tertull. adv Prax. Theoph. ad Autolyo Orig. con Cels l. 7. de Princip l. 1. c. 2. Euseb con Marcell l 2. c. 17. Athan. Syn. Nic. con Hoer Arian Decret con Arian Orat. 2. Orat. 3. Orat. 4. con Gent. Greg. Nyss de hom Opific c. 5. Greg. Naz. Irenic 2. Ambros de dignit human condit Aug. in Evan. Joh. Tract c. 1. sayings at large would make a little compendious Library of the Fathers and therefore to avoid a bulk I must referr to a few Authors and Authorities in the Margin that are confessedly of a much greater antiquity than his Lordship assigns to the invention or use of this Simile who yet resemble the Theology of the Trinity by the image thereof in our Minds which the Scriptures affirming to be created after the Image and in the Likeness of God recommended to those Fathers and us to learn Theories of God by those glances of his Divinity with which he has both adorned and enlightened our intellectual Powers from those inspired strains of Theology that so expresly suit with that Idea we have of our own internal Principles § 18. But now let us further try whether his Lordship * P. 32. that flouts the Fathers for their many impertinent Similes does not pretend to supply us with others in our own Nature which really are much more impertinent to â—e conception of the Trinity We do plâ—â—â—ly perceive †P. 41 42. saith he iâ—â—â—ur selves two if not three Principles of Operation that do not only differ 〈◊〉 Vnderstanding and Will which are only different Modes of thinking but differ in their Character and way of Operation All our cogitations and reasonings are a sort of Acts in which we can reflect on the way how we operate We perceive that we act freely in them and that we turn our Minds to such objects and thoughts as we please But by another Principle of which we perceive nothing and can reflect upon no part of it we live in our Bodies we animate and actuate them we receive sensations from them and give motions to them we live and dye and do not know how all this is done It seems to be from some Emanation from our Souls in which we do not feel that we have any liberty and so we must conclude that this Principle in us is natural and necessary In acts of Memory Imagination and Discourse there seems to be a mixture of both Principles or a third that results out of them For we feel a freedom in one respect but as for those marks that are in our brain that set things in our memory or furnish us with words we are necessary Agents they come in our way but we do not know how We cannot call up a figure of things or words at pleasure some disorder in our Mechanism hides or flattens them which when it goes off they start up and serve us but not by any act of our Vnderstanding and Will Thus we see that in this single undivided Essence of ours there are different Principles of Operation so different as liberty and necessity are from one another I am far from thinking that this is a proper explanation or resemblance of this mystery and here I indeed jump in judgment with his Lordship yet it may be called in some sort an illustration of it since it shews us from our own Composition that in one Essence there may be such different Principles which in their proper Character may be brought to the terms of a contradiction of being free and not free So in the Divine Essence which is the simplest and perfectest Vnity there may be three that may have a diversity of Operations c. Tenderden Steeple and Goodwyn Sands This is a worthy Simile indeed to supplant that scouted one of the Ancients in which is no representation of the Logos and its Parent Principle nor of the Spirit of Holiness that is in the Father and the Son none of their co-essentiality co-eternity or order all which are resembled in that Simile which this undermines But however let us try the stuff first generally and then particularly In the general view here are two Principles of necessity and freedom The necessity consists in our being and its Physical Operations of Life and Death the liberty in the Elective faculty of our Minds Now what can this resemble in God but the natural necessity of the Divine Life and the Operations if we may so speak by which the Son is generated from the Father and the Holy Spirit derived from both and the liberty of all God's other acts But this cannot amount to a Trinity nor resemble contrary or different Principles since God's liberty of acting differs not really from his necessary existence And both that necessity and liberty equally agree to every Person in the Trinity and so cannot resemble their distinction But now we will be more particular and trace these Philosophick dictates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that so we may see the depths of them First then his Lordship cannot tell whether there be in us two or three Principles of Operation only if there be not three be sure there are two so then we are sure of a Figure for two but not for three Principles or rather Persons in the Deity This at first setting out is like to be a sweet illustration of the Trinity I doubt 't is crack'd through some disorder in its Mechanism But whether two or three they differ not like Vnderstanding and Will that are but different Modes of thinking Now if we take Understanding and Will for the Principles of actual intellection and volition as his Lordship's comparison of Principles to them seems to do then I deny them to be Modes of thinking since Principles are not the Modes of their Principiates but give them to their Principiates If his Lordship means not the Principles but only the acts of intellection and volition then I deny volition to be a Mode of thinking And whether you conceive the acts of intellection and will mixt or pure yet according to the true abstract distinctions of them they are not divers Modes of the same specifick Act but Acts whose formal reason is specifically different Now as trifling as all this is and seems to be yet his Lordship seems to have had a great feteh in it against the Canonical Similitude of our Minds lest Understanding and Will being near the same with Understanding and Love and flowing from our Mind as its Parent should be thought a fair Simile for the Trinity for this cause it was
cum Tryph. Clem. Alex. Protrep Tertull Praesc adv Jud. con Marcion l. 2. con Prax. Novatian de Trinit Euseb Praep. Ev. l. 7. c. 15. con Marcell l. 2.17 Eccl. Hist l. 1. c. 2. Panegyrista Paulini ap Eus Eccl. Hist l. 10. Constant ad Sanctor Caetum ap Euseb c. 9. Pastor Hermae l. 3. Similit 9. Athenag Legat. Theoph. ad Autolyc Orig. con Cels l. 1. l. 2. l. 3. l. 4. l. 5. l. 6. l. 7. de Princip l. c. 2. Cypr. de Idol Vanit Basil con Eunom l. 5. Serm. in Princip Naz. de sacr Pasch Prudent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de Roman Martyr in Apotheof Greg. Thaumat ad Origen Athan. ubique Pseudo-Ambros de fide con Arian Aug. con 5. Haeres in Evan. Joh. c. 1. Tract 1 2. de Tempor Ser. 190. infinities plura reperies ejusdem generis apud omnes Primitive as well as suceeding Ages to be sealed with their Blood and Sufferings and was not a mere upstart project to supply the former Tritheism taught in the more ancient Church Now if according to the common and universal Senses and Notions of all Men the Mind is the Parent and Original of all actual Reason in it then if the Divine Reason be the truest and most Essential Reason the Parent Principle thereof must be the truest and most Essential Mind which Principle of this Reason the Scripture having owned Paternal it follows that God the Father is an Eternal Mind having a coessential Reason for its coessential Issue the perfect Image and Character of its Parent § 22. In the next place let us see whether the Character of the Holy Spirit agrees well to the Substantial Love of God according to the Doctrine of the traduced Ancients Let it then be noted that that Mind in which a vital and consubstantial reason perfectly subsists doth by that reason in one clear intuitive luminous and Archetypal Idea discern all possible Forms Essences Habitudes Powers and Reasons of things and therefore very particularly all the distinctive forms and differences of good and evil From whence there must proceed in such a Mind and Reason a vital and essential Spirit which we in our Language would perhaps call a Principle of Holiness to wit an essential Love of all the Forms and Reasons of Good and therein an essential aversation of all the kinds and degrees of Evil this being but one and the same Spirit having different aspects on different objects Now without such a Spirit of Love and Holiness no being can be perfectly good or happy since perfect goodness as well as happiness consists essentially in love and purity Now the goodness of things must be the proper object of such Love and must be discerned by that actual Reason that contains in it the Idea's of all things possible Whence this Love is as essential to the Deity as Reason and thereupon the Apostle faith †1 Joh. 4.8 that God is Love the suum of which truth is nobly celebrated * Const ad Sanct. Caet ap Eus c. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the great Constantine as the Doctrine which he had been taught by the Christian Fathers herein according with the perpetual Theology of God's People who ever acknowledge this Holiness of the Divine Wisdom and Spirit from its constant indication For * Sap. Sal. 1 3 4 5. froward thoughts separate from God and into a malicious Soul Wisdom will not enter nor dwell in the Body that is subject unto sin For the Holy Spirit of Discipline will fly deceit and remove from thoughts that are without understanding and will not abide when unrighteousness cometh in for Wisdom is a loving Spirit c. § 23. But here again a fresh difficulty arises from the homonymy of terms For St. Paul calling our Lord †1 Cor. 1.24 the Wisdom of God the generality and the exactest of the Fathers follow him in that style and make the Wisdom and Logos to be the same subsistence distinct from the Holy Spirit Some of the Ancients as great as any speaking distinctly * Iren. Theoph. Antiochen p. 81. c. 108.114 distinguish the Logos from the Sophia and make the Sophia the Person of the Holy Spirit and yet again at other times †Theoph. Antioch p. 81. confound the Logos and Sophia for the same second Person the Son * Theoph. p. 81. Tertull whom also they call the Spirit of God the Father Wherefore 't is necessary to our Theory that we remove this Cloud And here we are to distinguish Wisdom into speculative and practical for which distinction there is apparent authority in the Scripture and ground in our own inner Experience Now the Reason of any Spiritual Nature is its formal proper speculative Wisdom but an Holy Spirit and temper of Mind is the practical In this latter sense the forequoted place out of the Apochryphal Wisdom calls the loving Spirit of God or his Spirit of Discipline Wisdom but †Sap. Sal. 7.22 c. elsewhere the same Author Preaches that in Wisdom which is the Artificer of all things there is a Spirit which among other attributes is Holy and loves the thing that is good and is Almighty where the in-existence of the Holy Spirit of Love in that Wisdom the Artificer of all things puts a distinction between this Spirit and Wisdom and so hereby Wisdom in this place as well as by its Character must be the Archetypal Logos or Architectonick Reason of God the Father And hence these ambiguous Fathers seem to have copied their Theories and Language sometimes calling the Logos Wisdom to wit the intuitive sometime the Holy Spirit as the practical Wisdom of God the Father And so there are learned Men that ground the alledged homonymy of the Word Spirit in some forms of Scripture But I that think the Scripture as a Rule for Canonick Theology thinking it unsafe to fix any exorbitant Senses on the Terms expressive of the Trinity without absolute necessity am apt to think those Fathers called the Logos the Spirit of God sometimes through some Scriptures by them so mistaken or appearing in that sense to them under a loose and general Notion that whatsoever issues from the Essence of God the Father so issues by a Spiritual Efflux or else is of a Spiritual Substance as the Father is and so as Tertullian calls the Logos Spirit of Spirit and God of God But since all these Fathers expresly own a Trinity of Persons the third of which is signally characterized by the appropriate Title of Holy Spirit there can be no doubt of the consonancy of their Faith to the Catholick Doctrine and to this Theory of it in the Holy Spirit which to serve his Lordship I am here to illustrate § 24. These Bars being thus removed we shall proceed to examine on what ground this Substantial Love of God is called by the name of Spirit Now this