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
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
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
the Logos likewise Not that otherwise Justin would have waved the Simile of the Sun and his Rays which had its Authority in the Scriptures to satisfie therefore the perverters of a Simile otherwise good did Justin wave it and chose that of Fires And yet what is it that Justin illustrates thereby Not the manner how the Logos eternally issues from and subsists in his Father no nor the manner of this prosiliency to the Creation but only the non-diminution of the Father by this prosiliency or non-separation of substance therein and the substantial permanency of the Logos in the World after this prosiliency without revocation out of it back again Whereas his Lordship fixes his Figures of Candles on the conceits of the Fathers concerning the foecundity in the Divine Essence and the essential Eductions of the two last from the first So then these places give no colour to that Opprobrium But though this be a full answer yet will I ex abundanti adventure further to consider the Antiquity of the Simile of the Sun Rays and how it came to be perverted by Justin's Adversaries and therefore waved by him It is evident therefore that though Justin greatly admired the Platonick Philosophy before he turned Christian yet after that he admired the Theology taught in the Church by Theories received from the Scriptures in which also the better part of the Jews agreed Now it is certain that * Prov. 8.22 c. Solomon's Proverbs and the †Sap. Sal. c. 7. c. 8. c. 9. c. 11. c. 12. Theories thereupon in the Apocryphal Books of the Wisdom of Solomon †Eccl. c. 1. c. 24. and Ecclesiasticus teach the Deity Consubstantiality Generation and this Progression of the Divine Wisdom And by the Jewish Author of the Wisdom of Solomon * Ch. 7.26 he is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Ray of the everlasting Light and according to that Hebrew Notion the Divine Author †Hebr. 1.3 to the Hebrews calls Christ the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Father's Glory So then it seems hence that the Ancient pious Jews looked on the Wisdom of God as a Personal Companion with God issuing from him as a Ray from the glorious Luminary the Sun This Wisdom as by it God spake and commanded the Creation of all things or as being that Archetypal Reason whence the World was formed was called by the Hellenist Jews Logos and was looked on as a Son a Personal Minister and Angel of God in the Creation Providence and Revelations This being then their celebrated and traditional Theology the next Curiosity was to enquire into his generation and descent And here no wonder if that of Esaias 53.8 most agreeably quadrated to the Jewish ignorance Who shall declare his generation Yet for this they go back to their great Master Moses who declared that God spake the Fiat of all things and therein therefore they conceive a certain Production and Genesis of their Logos his internal conception being the geniture and its emission into its effects its nativity after the manner that our Notions are conceived and offered in our voice And this I believe is that which * Philo de Mund. Opific 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an'ea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Philo meant that God did voluntarily prefigure in himself the Archetypal World which is his Logas after the manner of all Artificers that propose Schemes to themselves according to which they perform their external works For as Philo does not say that God made or created but only prefigured in himself the archetypal World so by that he only means that of all the Ideas in the Divine Mind of which consists the Eternal Reason and Wisdom of God God chose that of this World to be the pattern of what he would create by it and according to it For one cannot think that so great a Man as Philo should think that ever there was any imaginable point or time when God's essential reason was not or was without the Idea's of all things possible I take it therefore that the Eternal Reason which with all other possible Idea's eternally had in it the Idea of such a World as ours is possible is by Philo conceived to be in this Idea designed by God for an actual pattern and principle also of this future World and so in this Respect the Logos and first begotten Son of God And from this Jewish fountain proceed the like Notions in the Platonick Theology Now hereupon Justin disputing with Jews does in the first citation above made argue with them upon the Theology of their Fathers * Philo. de Confus Dialect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad verb. Zach. 6.12 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vid. Euseb Praep. Evan. l. 11. c. 15. declared by Philo to whose very words he seems to have had an especial respect if you but compare them But now the Sadduces that had not Religion enough to believe any Angels or noetick Beings denied all this and to evade the force of Moses his Testimonies whose Books only they admitted they grant indeed †Calv. Instit l. 1. c. 14. S. 9. that the Power of God appeared to the Fathers and was called Angel as delivering God's Will but not as really a subsistent Spirit but only an agitated Virtue And I indeed am of opinion that after Christianity and our Doctrines of Christ as the Divine Logos increased the Jews quitted their former Theology of the Logos so far as herein to admit Sadducism and to deny his Sonship Personality and Angelical Ministration to his Father And as Trypho himself looks on the pre-existence of the Messias as the Divine Logos to be an incredible Paradox so those others that Justin says were willing to pre-occupate him with those Answers which he there recites and refutes seem to be perfect Sadduces in this Point of the Logos and all Angels and those some of Trypho's Company But whether they were Jewish Sadduces or some Hereticks of a pretended Christian Character it is plain they used the old Traditional Simile of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or light of the Sun on purpose to destroy the Traditions of Angels and consequently the Personality and Office of the Logos Thus say they our Tradition represents the Powers apparent as mere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mere impersonal unsubsistent rays that abide no longer than their Office but return again to their original presently after as the light goes off when the Sun sets So all this put together proves that the Simile of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was used in the old Traditional Theology of the Jews and continued among Christians but was perverted by Sadduces especially since Christianity to oppose our other Theological Theories and therefore Justin waved it to avoid the wrangles of those Jews he then dealt with And hence notwithstanding all such Jews or Sadduceans the Christian Church still ever kept this