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
if he had said there have been thirty Opinions in this Matter But tho' this be inartificial enough if no more yet that which is more grievously suspicious is that he calls the Catholick Faith but a meer Opinion and Perswasion of a Party * P. 31. The third Opinion saith his Lordship is that the Godhead by the Eternal Word the Second in the blessed Three dwelt in and was so inwardly united to the Humane Nature of Jesus Christ that by Virtue of it God and Man were truly one Person as our Soul and Body make one Man And that the Eternal Word was truly God and as such is worshipped and adored as the proper Object of Divine Adoration By those of this Perswasion the Term Person became applied to the Three which the Scripture only calls by the Name of Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost on design to discover those who thought that these Three were only different Names of the same Thing But by Person is not meant such a Being as we commonly understand by that Word a complete intelligent Being but only that every one of that Blessed Three has a peculiar distinction in himself by which he is truly different from the other two So again †P. 32 33. This in general is the Sump of the received Doctrine That as there is but One God so in that undivided Essence there are Three that are really different from one another and are more than three Names or three outward Oeconomies * P. 42. or Modes and that the Second of these was in a most intimate and unconceivable manner united to a perfect Man so that from the Humane and Divine Nature thus united there did result the Person of Christ § 3. And now perhaps some may wonder what Exceptions lie against this but there are indeed several and those of great Importance First That he calls it an Opinion only like that of the Socinian and Arian while yet he intimates it to be the Doctrine of the Church The truth is as his Lordship has stated it it has many meer Opinions in it but they are such as are not in the Faith and so ought not to have been represented as the Doctrine of the Church But if his Lordship had taken it for the Christian Faith either as it is or ought to have been stated by him he ought not to have set it out as a meer Opinion or Perswasion of a third Party For a meer partial Opinion cannot be a Divine or Catholick Faith whether we take Opinion for the Act or Object of Opinion For the Act is meer Humane Conjecture without certain grounds and objectively Opinions are Propositions that have no certain but only probable appearance which therefore no Man is bound in Conscience to assert or stand by for want of certain Evidence and Authority But Catholick Faith objectively taken consists of certain Principles made certainly evident by Divine Revelation to the Holy Catholick Church and thereupon to be relied on and asserted against all temptations in hopes of Life Eternal Now these Principles thus received were the Faith of the Universal Church not the Opinion of any Party in the beginning and therefore the contrary Parties and Opinions arising since of what Cut or Size soever pertain not to this Holy Body in which the Faith of the Trinity truly stated is as essential as the Faith of the Unity and as fundamental in the Christian Professions Now would it not be very Theological to say That all the Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles the whole Synagogue of the Jews and Church of Christ were ever of this Opinion That there is one God only the Creator and Governour of all things That the Apostles and all Christians are of Opinion that Jesus is the Christ That it is our Opinion That he came down and dwelt among us died rose again and ascended into Heaven and shall come to Judgment at the general Resurrection Just so absurd it is to call the Catholick Faith of God's Church the Opinion or Perswasion of a Party 'T is true indeed his Lordship sometimes calls it Doctrine but this term is equivocal and agrees as usually to the Opinions of the Philosophers But what I require is that the Catholick Doctrine be asserted as a Rule of Faith which the Church is bound to adhere to on the certain Authority of Divine Revelation this Revelation appearing real not only to particular Men's private Opinions but originally committed to the Charge and Custody of the whole Church by the Apostles and so preserved by their Successors throughout the whole diffusive Body Whereas his Lordship only lays down this Notion or form of Faith †P. 26. See Discour 3. That we believe points of Doctrine because we are perswaded that they are revealed to us in Scripture which is so languid and unsafe a Rule that it will resolve Faith into every Man's private fancies and contradictory Opinions since each Man's Faith is his Perswasion that what he believes for a Doctrine is revealed in Scripture Whereas the Act of a Christian Faith believes such Doctrine to be true and fundamental in Christianity from the certain Evidence thereof in the Scriptures acknowledged by all Churches not led by casual Perswasions but by a primitive perpetual universal and unanimous Conviction and Tradition The deviation from which Rule and Notion to private Opinions and Perswasions is the cause of all Heresies and by its consequent Divisions naturally tends to the ruine of the true Christian and Catholick Faith I will not however at present descend into that thicket of Controversie What Rules private Persons are bound to in the learning and professing the Christian Faith but whosoever will arrive to a maturity of Judgment and Knowledge herein must betake him †P. 63. to the exploded Rule of Vincentius Eirineâ—â— and take that for fundamental Doctrine which hath been received for such in all Ages Places and Churches A Rule very practicable and easie since there are sufficient Memorials of the Primitive Antiquity delivering unto us their Creeds and Summaries of the then Catholick Faith which from them has uniformly descended to all Churches of the later Ages 'T is true indeed every single Man can believe no otherwise than he is privately perswaded but he that is not to be perswaded to receive the common and established Systems of the Faith of the Church Catholick upon the Authority on which it hath ever stood and yet stands or shall wantonly coin out other Articles for fundamental upon his own private Opinion belongs not to the Communion of the Church of Christ though he fansies his conceptions revealed in the Scriptures § 4. Secondly His Lordship is not clear in the point of Incarnation for he tells us that this third Opinion is that by the Vnion of the Eternal Word with Christ's Humanity God and Man truly became one Person Now here first we are not taught whether there were three or any one Person in the
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
of Faith must be taught every Proselyte before Baptism let us see what efficacy his Lordship's formula will have when put into a Catechism Catechumen My Lord I am an Heathen Philosopher and willing to be instructed in the Principles of the Christian Faith I pray what are they Bish First our received Doctrine is That in the single Essence of God there are Three Catech. Three what my Lord Bish Three really distinct from one another more than three Names Modes or Oeconomies Catech. My Lord you tell me what they are not but I would fain know or have some notion what they are And when you tell me there are Three the Rules of Logick Grammar and Catechism require a Substantive to determine the Sense I pray my Lord has your Catholick Church or your Church of England given them no Characteristick Name Bish Yes after Patripassianism arose she called them Persons as a Test to discover them Catech. But why then had you not thus stated the sum of your received Doctrine that in God's Unity of Essence there are Three Persons for if this were received before or since Patripassianism 't is received into your Christian Confessions Perhaps the Catholick Church may not really mean that they really are what she calls them that is Persons and hence your Lordship thought fit to omit it I pray my Lord deal openly with me is it so or how is it Bish Truly Sir the Church only means that one is not the other that is all that is intended in the Term Person Catech. This looks very Catachrestical and Inartificial but do not your Scriptures teach them to be Persons Bish No they only call them by the Names of Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost Catech. But do not your Scriptures and your Churches teach that the first of these is really a Father and the second really his Son Bish This is one of the three Opinions that the Scriptures do so teach Catech. And is this the Opinion your Lordship will explain to me Bish Yes Sir Catech. Are Father and Son then Personal Titles Bish Yes Sir among Men. Catech. But are they not so in the Deity Bish Sir they are not called Persons in Scripture but only Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost but we mean no more by Persons but that one is not the other there are three Sir that you may depend on but I pray Sir do not press me against liberty of Conscience to call them Persons for I cannot tell what they are nor what to call them Catech. But I pray my Lord why did your Apostle blame the Athenian Inscription to the unknown God and promised to declare him unto them if he taught no more notions of him than that there are Three I know-not-whats in the God-head I am in hope I shall find better information from your Fathers I pray my Lord what is your Opinion of them herein Bish Perhaps Sir they have gone beyond due bounds contradicted each other and themselves they use many impertinent Simile's run out into much length and confusion while they talk of things to others which they understand not themselves Catech. My Lord if you can teach me nothing of your Faith in God if you will reject the terms of your Church to which you have sworn your unfeigned assent if you dissolve the Sense of your Scripture Terms into nothing and renounce the Wisdom of your Primitive Fathers you force me to retreat from my hopes and to devote my Soul to the Society of the Philosophers This must be the Issue of such a dry sensless insipid State of the Faith if offered to the Wise of the Heathen Whereas the true Theory of the Faith is a most noble and seraphick Theology accounting for Creation and Providence and all other Mysteries of Nature and Grace in so clear and heavenly a Light that all the Idolatrous Notions and Fables of the Heathens and all the celebrated Wisdom of the Philosophers like Dagon fell before it § 10. Come we next to his Lordship's account of the Incarnation †P. 32 33. The second of this Blessed Three was united to a perfect Man so that from the Humane and Divine Nature thus united there did result the Person of the Messias who was both God and Man Now here it is to be noted that this Exposition of our Faith is his Lordship 's own after his Censure of the Primitive Doctrines herein so that we must take this as most correct and exact He then that hitherto omitted in his own accounts the Term Person in his Doctrine of the Trinity admits it here concerning the Messias and consequently leaves us to conclude that he judges it improper to be applied to the Trinity but proper to the Messias or God Incarnate And secondly it is notorious that he denies the Personality of Christ to be Eternal since he asserts it to result from the Union of two Natures 'T is true indeed the Royal or Sacred Character of Christ is Personal that is it must suppose Personality in the Subject so entitled and it is certain also that it was the Title of an Office of a Person to be incarnate but this does not inferr that the Personality of the Messias commenced or resulted from his Incarnation For an Eternal Person assumed our Nature so to become our threefold Messias So that though the Character and Offices of Christ resulted from the Incarnation yet not the Person or Personality for to this the Humane Nature was assumed or pre-existent but added or contributed nothing thereunto Wherefore upon this news of a resulting Personality I ask whether the Son of God was a Person antecedently to his Incarnation or no If not this is down-right Sabellianism if he was then that antecedent Personality did not result from the Incarnation but if you add another from the assumption of the Humanity then this is Nestorianism if you confound them into a compound it is I think Eutychianism since the two Personalities cannot be confounded without confusion of Natures and Substances But if in the Conjunction of Natures one Personality excludes or destroys the other nothing can result from that which is destroyed but that Personality simply remains as it was before that destroyed the other And further the Personality that destroys must be superior to the destroyed and if so it 's ten to one but the Divine and Eternal Personality of the Word is superior to that of the Humane Nature and so destroys it in the Union and consequently there results no Personality from the Humane Nature but the Eternal Personality of the Word only remains simply as it ever was and thus at last truth will come upon us whether we will or no for I do not suppose his Lordship will be so hardy as to teach that a created Personality will destroy an uncreated by the conjunction of a created Nature with the Divine Yet after all I believe his Lordship fixes the Personality not in the whole Theanthrôpus
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
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