THE AGREEMENT OF THE Unitarians WITH THE Catholick Church BEING ALSO A full Answer to the Infamations of Mr. Edwards and the needless Exceptions of my Lords the Bishops of Chichester Worcester and Sarum and of Monsieur De Luzancy PART I. In Answer to Mr. Edwards and my Lord the Bishop of Chichester Printed in the Year MDCXCVII In Answer to Mr. Edwards MR. Edwards after having written some trifling Books some indifferent ones divers good ones and one excellent Book his Demonstration of the Existence and Providence of God found an Inclination in himself that he could not resist of contriving a New Religion or rather Impiety and of imputing it to the Socinians By whom he means it appears the Unitarians Those in England who call themselves Unitarians never were in the Sentiments of Socinus or the Socinians Notwithstanding as our Opposers have pleased themselves in calling us Socinians we have not always declined the Name because in interpreting many Texts of Scripture we cannot but approve and follow the Judgment of those Writers who are confessed by all to be excellent Criticks and very judicious As particularly and chiefly H. Grotius who it must be granted was Socinian all over and D. Erasmus who tho he lived considerably before Socinus commonly interprets that way and therefore is charged by Cardinal Bellarmine as a downright Arian Non poterat says the Cardinal Arianam causam manifestius propugnare Erasmus could not more openly espouse the Arian side than he has done in his Notes on the Fathers and the principal Texts of Scripture Pref. ad Libros 5. de Christo But tho as I said we are not Socinians nor yet Arians seeing Mr. Edwards has contrived a Creed for us under the Name of Socinians I will answer both directly and sincerely concerning the several Articles of the Creed which he pretends to be ours As to the References unto places in particular Authors where Mr. Edwards would have it thought the Articles of that Creed are affirmed I have examined some of his principal References and can say of 'em they are either Perversions or downright Falsifications of what the Authors referred to did intend Dr. Wallis whose dishonest Quotations out of the Socinians have been detested by every Body is hardly more blamable in that kind than Mr. Edwards saving that the Doctor being as one rightly tells him somewhat more than a Socinian did but foul his own Nest by his Forgeries but we cannot certainly say what is the Opinion of Mr. Edwards in the great Article in question among us But come we to the Creed which he says is ours As I promised I will answer to every Article of it sincerely and directly I. I Believe concerning the Scripture that there are Errors Mistakes and Contradictions in some places of it That the Authority of some Books of it is questionable yea that the Whole Bible has been tampered with and may be suspected to be corrupted That there are Errors Mistakes and Contradictions in the Bible was never said by any that pretended to be a Christian if by the Bible you mean the Bible as it came out of the hands of the inspired Authors of it As on the other hand that there are Errors Mistakes or Contradictions in the vulgar Copies of the Bible used by the Church of Rome for instance or the English Church was never questioned by any Learned Man of whatsoever Sect or Way and least of all can Mr. Edwards say it He has published a Book concerning the Excellency and Perfection of Scripture in which Book he finds great Fault with our English Bible he saith of it in the Title of his 13th Chapter It is Faulty and Defective in many places of the Old and New Testaments and I offer all along in this Chapter particular Emendations in order to render it more exact and compleat As to the Hebrew and Greek Copies of the Bible 't is well known some are more perfect and some less they differ very much for in the Old Testament the Hebrew Criticks have noted 800 various Readings in the New there are many more Mr. Gregory of Oxford so much esteemed and even venerated for his admirable Learning says hereupon and says it cum Licentia Superiorum There is no Book in the World that hath suffered so much by the hand of time as the Bible Preface p. 4. He judged and judged truly that tho the first Authors of the Bible were divinely instructed Men yet the Copiers Printers and Publishers in following Ages were all of them Fallible Men and some of them ill-designing Men. He knew that all the Church-Historians and Criticks have confessed or rather have warned us that some Copies of the Bible have been very much Vitiated by the hands as well of the Orthodox as of Hereticks and that 't is matter of great Difficulty at this distance of time from the Apostolick Age to ascertain the true Reading of Holy Scripture in all places of it Yet we do not say hereupon as Mr. Edwards charges us that the Bible much less as he imputes to us the Whole Bible is corrupted For as to the faulty Readings in the common Bibles of some Churches and in some Manuscript Copies the Providence of God has so watched over this Sacred Book that we know what by Information of the antient Church-Historians and the Writings of the Fathers what by the early Translations of the Bible into Greek Syriac and Latin and the concurrent Testimony of the more Antient Manuscript Copies both who they were that introduced the corrupt Readings and what is the true Reading in all Texts of weight and consequence In short as to this matter we agree with the Criticks of other Sects and Denominations that tho ill Men have often attempted they could never effect the Corruption of Holy Scripture the antient Manuscripts the first Translations the Fathers and Historians of the Church are sufficient Directors concerning the authentick and genuine Reading of doubtful Places of Holy Scripture Farther whereas Mr. Edwards would intimate that we reject divers Books of Scripture On the contrary we receive into our Canon all those Books of Scripture that are received or owned by the Church of England and we reject the Books rejected by the Church of England We know well that some Books and Parts of Books reckoned to be wrote by the Apostles or Apostolical Men were questioned nay were refused by some of the Antients but we concur with the Opinion of the present Catholick Church concerning them for the Reasons given by the Catholick Church and which I shall mention by and by in the Reply to my Lord of Chichester If Mr. Edwards would have truly represented the Opinion of the Socinians concerning the Scriptures he knew where to find it and so expressed as would have satisfied every body He knows that in their brief Notes on the Creed of Athanasius they have declared what is their Sense in very unexceptionable Words viz. The Holy Scriptures are a
whose Doctrine perfectly agrees with his own Saving that with the Oxford-Heads we believe it to be Heresy to profess the Faith of more than one infinite Being which is a compleat Being distinct from all other Beings but his Lordship holds it to be indifferent whether we affirm or deny three infinite Beings and Spirits His Lordship proposed to write with that Caution and Guard that no Body should be able to attack him and by Trimming between the Nominals and Realists to set up for a Healer of the Breaches a Mediator of Peace But the Event wholly fails him He utterly disobliges the Realists by denying in Terms what the Archbishop with all other Realists had affirmed in Terms and the whole Realist Party look upon as a Fundamental Article The Nominals are as much displeased with him because he sets no Value on the Catholick Faith but represents it as a very indifferent Truth that may be as orthodoxly denied as affirmed The Unitarians complain of him as having pretended to Principles of Latitude and a true Catholick Charity but using neither but perhaps as the turns of Popularity and Rules of secular Policy ingage him But this was a Digression Let us take up our Point again that the Unitarians hold the Faith of the Catholick Church or Nominal Party that is they believe but one eternal and infinite Spirit and as to three Divine Persons they admit the Church's Doctrine viz. that they are relative Subsistences Properties of the Divine Substance concerning them They agree that there are three Distinctions in God which may be fitly called Original Mind Reflex Wisdom and Divine Love the first unbegotten and Generating and therefore named the Father the other Generated and therefore in the Language of Men called the Son the third a Spiration and therefore stiled the Holy Spirit Whether you call these Properties Modes Relations Persons relative Subsistences or ought the like we will not contend with the Church for it being agreed that they are not distinct Beings divers Spirits and Minds several Substances but one infinite Substance Mind Spirit and Being with one only Understanding Will and Energy it is plain that the Unity of God is preserved and that the Terms used are only obsolete and odd but imply no Falshood nor any real Innovation in Religion And I say hereupon that unless my Lord of Chichester will profess three Divine Beings Spirits Substances and Minds contrary to the Decisions of divers General Councils the Consent of Writers since the Determination in the Council of Lateran Anno 1215. and the late Decree of the University of Oxford I say if he will not contravene all these neither ought he to have defended the Archbishop's Sermons nor could he oppose the Considerations that were not for all that I see written against the Doctrine of the Church but the Error of the Realists As we accord with the Catholick Church in the Article of the Trinity so also in that of the Incarnation or the Divinity of our Saviour For when the Church says the Lord Christ is God when she worships him invocates him imputes to him the Creation of all things and for all this alledges Authorities and Examples out of Holy Scripture nothing of all this is intended of his Humanity or to his Humanity but to the indwelling Divinity In short she means that as the Cloud of Glory in the Times of the Old Testament was called God and was worshipped because God dwelt in it after an especial manner so and much more may we call the Lord Christ God and Creator and the rest because of the Godhead dwelling in him after an ineffable unexplicable manner and without measure but whatsoever of Divine is said of him is said merely in respect of the inhabiting Divinity and not of the Humanity The Communication of Idioms as Divines speak is merely verbal not real Christ is God and the Creator is worshipped and invocated because of the Deity in him for tho these things are said of the Man Christ Jesus they are said only in respect of the Divinity and are intended only of that If any say no Indwelling or as the Church speaks Incarnation in what soever manner or measure can give to such Person the Name of God much less of Creator So indeed Nestorius thought and therefore refused to call our Saviour God or to ascribe to him either the Works or Attributes of God and many learned Men have contended that Nestorius was as rashly condemned as he was afterwards barbarously used Yet upon serious weighing the matter it appears not necessary to litigate about Terms and Words on which the Authority that imposes them puts an honest Sense and Meaning The Church would never have obliged Nestorius to call the Man Christ Jesus God and Creator but declaring at the same time that tho it is the Man that is called God he is so called only in respect of the Indwelling of God in him which Indwelling is after a manner so extraordinary so abundant or rather so ineffable that Christians may with greater Right call him God than the Cloud of Glory is so named because of the Angel in it who represented God or than any other Appearance of God whatsoever or in what manner soever mentioned in the Old Testament The Brightness of the Cloud of Glory was only from the Power of the inhabiting Angel yet because the Angel represented God the bright Appearance between the Cherubims was named Jehovah and God How much more may the Lord Christ be so called in whom the Divinity it self did dwell not as a Man in his House but as the Soul in the Body that is to say constantly illuminating conducting and actuating him nay and exerting in him the most glorious Effects of Omniscience and Omnipotence the principal Attributes of the Divinity 2 Kings 19.15 Hezekiah prayed and said O Lord God of Israel which dwellest between the Cherubims thou art God even thou alone 1 Chron. 13.6 David went up and all Israel to Baalah to fetch thence the Ark of GOD JEHOVAH that dwelleth between the Cherubims whose Name is called on it It cannot I think be denied that here the bright Appearance between the Cherubims because God was in it tho only by his Angel not by the Exertion of any miraculous Acts by no Acts of Omniscience or other Divine Attribute is named Jehovah God and only God or alone God The Church never required of Nestorius to say the Lord Christ is Creator or God without this Explication in respect of God in him which seeing Nestorius owned and having the Precedent of the Jewish Church and Writers of the Old Testament who called the Appearance between the Cherubims by all the Names and Titles of God he needed not to have contended but should have consulted the Churches Peace for no words are to be refused when the Authority that imposes 'em interprets 'em to a sound Sense This is what the Unitarians believe concerning the Trinity and concerning the Divinity
Cerinthus was a certain Divine and Impassible Spirit which descending on Jesus at his Baptism dwelt in him and forsook him not till the very moment of his Death when he cried out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Iren. Lib. 1. c. 25. I do not see how this Account contradicts any thing in St. John whose Gospel the Alogians said was written by Cerinthus But I will not dispute with his Lordship about this matter for as I said the Unitarians do receive that Gospel and the Revelation as St. John's as they receive the Epistle to the Hebrews the Epistle of St. James the Second of St. Peter the Second and Third of St. John all which were sometime doubted of nay rejected by divers Catholick Writers and Churches but have at length been owned by the whole Church Tho the Catholick Church now owns these Epistles and some Chapters and Sections in the Gospels as written by the Apostles whose Names they bear yet not with the degree of Assurance that she receives those Parts of Scripture that were never controverted The Assurance cannot be equal where the Grounds of Assent are unequal but the Grounds of Assent to the Writings of which we are speaking cannot be said to be equal because in Matters whether of Record or Fact what was always allowed and granted by all is more authentick and credible than what has been questioned and even rejected by divers of the Antients Writers and Churches who were Catholicks In short concerning all Books and Sections of Books of the New Testament sometime doubted of by some of the Antients the Unitarians acquiesce in the Judgment of the Catholick Church and for the Reasons given by the Church As first because tho they were questioned and even rejected by some Writers and Churches yet it appears they were approved by many more by so considerable a Majority that in a short time they were admitted by all We see in Epiphanius that even Paulus Samosatenus and Photinus received the Gospel of St. John Secondly because not only they contain nothing that is certainly contrary to the unquestioned Parts of Scripture but they are written with the same kind of Spirit that the undoubted Portions of Scripture are there is a Likeness in the Thoughts Expressions and whatsoever else recommends to us the other Books of Scripture as written by Apostles and Apostolical Men. These are sufficient Motives of Assent and ought to prevail with us tho there are some Difficulties not easy to be removed we submit to the weight of these Arguments tho we confess that what has been alledged by the Alogians and others is not despicable or ridiculous To conclude we receive with the Catholick Church the controverted Books without censuring in the mean time much less condemning those Antients or Moderns who were or are of another Mind What remains of his Lordship's first Section is a Scuffle with the Considerer on behalf of the Arch-Bishop's Explication of the first Verses of St. John's Gospel and of some other Texts alledged by his Grace to confirm his said Explication To all which I answer There is no Form of Words that were not conceived designedly to preclude all Exception but is liable to cavil nay our Lawyers scarce obtain their purpose when in Deeds and Conveyances they imploy the whole Art of Grammar to ascertain the Meaning and Intent of the Conveyance or Deed it is not therefore to be wondred at that Persons highly interested by their Education Honour and Parties can and with some colour interpret obscure or ambiguous Texts to a Sense not intended by the Original Author If People are not disposed to be ingenuous a little Wit some Learning and a long Practice in the Polemics will enable 'em to maintain a Squable till Doomsday about the Sense of any ordinary and familiar Context I do not think therefore that the Contention between the Unitarians and the Realists will ever be healed by that Pretence of either Party that theirs is the only Interpretation or Sense of which the litigated Texts are capable in the Court of Grammar and Criticism But towards a Coalition it will be necessary to agree in some common Principles confessed to be clearly asserted in Scripture by Consonancy to which Principles all otherwise doubtful Texts and Contexts of Scripture and their Interpretations shall be judged of This Rule of interpreting is very certain none can distrust it without supposing either that the Sacred Scripture contradicts it self or that the human Understanding is not capable of judging the Agreement or the Dissonance of Scripture with it self No Body I believe will say the former that the Scripture contradicts it self and if any say the other that we cannot judg of the Dissonance or Agreement of Scripture with it self or of particular Interpretations with Principles that are yielded to be found in Scripture all Disputation is at an end on both sides But if the Rule be allowed that some common agreed Principles are to be establisht by which all obscure that is all controverted Texts must be interpreted the Questions and Interpretations debated between us being thus brought before the Bar of Reason and common Sense will soon be judged of Is there but one only God Or if this be a Principle of too much Latitude and capable of more Senses Is there more than one numerical or self-same eternal and infinite Spirit meaning by one eternal and infinite Spirit one eternal and spiritual Substance with one only Vnderstanding Will and Power of Action If it be agreed as a Principle manifestly laid down in Scripture as well as certain in Reason that there is but one such Spirit either we shall all presently accord in interpreting this famous Context of St. John and other obscure and doubtful Passages of Scripture or our difference in interpreting it or them will no way affect any Article of our Creed so that there will be no real Controversy left The Unitarians are far from denying the Trinity of Divine Persons the Incarnation of God the Divinity or Satisfaction of our Saviour provided that those Doctrines be interpreted to a Consistency with this Principle of Holy Scripture and of the Catholick Church that there is but one infinite Spiritual Substance with one only infinite Understanding Will and Energy Or more briefly thus but one infinite and eternal Spirit Either his Lordship says there is but one such Spirit and therefore interprets the Term Persons and the Words Father Son and Holy Spirit not to be so many distinct Spirits but one Spirit distinguished by three Relative Properties in explaining the Nature of which the Church has always indulged some Variety and Latitude and if so we have no controversy with him nor he with us and he may for us interpret the first of St. John and the other Texts on which he insists as himself shall please Or he saith there are three eternal and infinite Spirits and that the Divine Persons are so many spiritual Substances Minds
hand the Books whether they be Answers or Attacks of the Men of superiour Learning and Wit as his Lordship compliments himself and Friends at p. 45. of his Preface bless me how like old German Monastries or Inquisition-Prisons do they look such is the Intricacy of the Subject How dusky dim and dark are the Rooms and Passages Between Obscurity and Ruggedness a Man cannot forbear to hug himself so soon as he is got out and while he is within he can discern nothing or however not with ease to himself or Satisfaction in the thing I cannot but complain that his Lordship's Vindication is somewhat of this Nature for tho it has much of that same superiour Learning and Wit yet when he argues or answers but especially when he explains I do not take his meaning under two or three Readings And when I have strained my Jaws and hazarded my Teeth to break the Shell most commonly it proves nothing but a Shell that I am tempted to renounce Nuts for ever As to the Contents of his Book he shows that neither Antiquity nor Reason nor Scripture is at all for us they are all against us He has up and down some Offers at an Explication of the Trinity the which we throughly approve We judg him to be as Catholick and Orthodox in that matter as any of our own number Tho he has called us as many Names and imputed as many bad things to us as Dr. Wallis himself whether in his Letters or Vindication did he is for all that no more our Enemy in Doctrine than Father Wallis himself is or than our Brother S th Farther he takes up the Quarrel between Dr. S th and Dean Sherlock he shows that they are both of 'em good Catholicks the one in Intention the other in Reality and sober Sadness 'T is a very reconcilable Difference according to his Lordship whether it be said namely in words only while the Intent is Orthodox and Catholick that there are three Divine Persons who are three eternal Spirits three All-perfect Minds three infinite Substances with so many distinct Understandings Wills and Omnipotencies which is the Doctrine of Dean Sherlock or whether it be said there are three Divine Persons in the Metaphysical and Critical Sense of the Term Persons that is which are but one infinite All-perfect Spirit with one only Understanding Will and Omnipotence one self-same infinite Substance or Essence with the three Properties to be of none to be begotten and to proceed I will go over these parts of the Vindication in the order I have proposed them Of Antiquity OF Antiquity we claim in the first place the vast Period from Adam to our Saviour being a Tract of 4000 Years That is two parts in three of all Time The Patriarchs are ours the Prophets ours Adam Seth Enoch Noah Sem Abraham Moses David ours so ours that they are yielded to us on all hands 't is not so much as pretended that these believed otherwise than the Unitarians do concerning God 'T is an Argument of our Opposers themselves that if Adam or the Antediluvian Patriarchs bad believed or known the Trinity understand here of the Realists namely three Almighty Eternal Spirits it would have descended to Noah to Sem and from Sem to Abraham from Abraham to Isaac and Jacob and their Posterity the Jewish Church especially to Moses But it appears clearly by Scripture that Moses or the Church of the Jews knew it not therefore neither did the afore-mentioned Patriarchs whether Antediluvians or Postdiluvians But Dr. Bull and the Bp. of Worcester fearing that such an Advantage as the whole Old Testament-time on the side of the Vnitarians should furnish them with unanswerable Arguments and Considerations for the Doctrine they maintain answer That tho the Trinity does not appear to have been known to the Patriarchs or the Jews by any of the Books of the Old Testament it is to be remembred that the Jews had also a Kabbala or Oral Tradition derived to them from Moses and from God and the Trinity was a part of this Kabbala Where is Conscience or is Religion nothing but a Name Do the Bp. and Dr. Bull believe the Kabbala that 't is derived from Moses and from God No more than they believe the Alchoran that it was given by Angels as the Impostor the Author of it pretends They contend for the Trinity and the Kabbala 't is certain that they believe not the latter how then will they now perswade any Man that they believe inwardly the former They dare to set up a Fiction of the Pharisees and which one cannot imagine but they believe to be a Fiction as of Divine Original and as the unwritten Word of God after such a Prevarication who shall take their Words for what they pretend to believe or not to believe I scorn to argue with 'em about the Truth of the Kabbala for which they have nothing to alledg and the Credit of which is eternally overthrown by the Author of the Answer to Dr. Bull I shall only mind 'em that if they are Jews or rather if they are Pharisees for the sounder part of the Jews the Karaites disclaim the Kabbala they disown their being Protestants for 't is a Fundamental Article of Protestantism that there is no other Word of God but only his written Word Well but supposing the Kabbala doth it say any thing of a Trinity or an eternal Son of God Not the least Word Why then is it alledged Because the Chaldee Paraphrases speak of the WORD as God and how should those Paraphrases come to know the WORD or speak of him as God but out of the Kabbala But if the Kabbala has nothing of the Trinity or the WORD how should the Paraphrases take what they say of the WORD from the Kabbala But after all what is it that the Paraphrases say of the WORD do they call him God or speak of him as a Person Of the Places produced by the Bp. at p. 128 129. not one of them does so much as seem to the purpose but only the first They speak either of the Ten Commandments or of the Law or of the Command or Order of God to Moses or of the Power of God which in the Books of the Old Testament is expressed by the Word or Mandate of God because God effects whatsoever he wills by only willing commanding or saying that it shall be But the first Text alledged by his Lordship I know not what to say of it for he quotes Gen. 20.21 when there are but 18 Verses in that whole Chapter nor is there any thing in the whole Chapter that bears the least Resemblance to what he quotes out of it Therefore so much for Chaldee and Kabbala despised by all Learned Men Jews as well as Christians and never used but when the People are to be gull'd with noisy Nothings The next is the important Period from our Saviour's beginning to preach to the taking of Jerusalem by the
his Lordship confesses that D. Petavius and H. Valesius the exactest Criticks we have in Church History disapprove the Conjecture and Reasons of Cardinal Baronius and give up Lucian to the Unitaries This is all that is considerable that his Lordship has offer'd from Antiquity I proceed to Scripture and Reason HIS 8th and 10th Chapters are imployed in opposing and as he thinks in exposing and ridiculing some Interpretations of a few Texts of Scripture by the Unitarians and in attacking a few Paragraphs in Mr. Toland's Book Christianity not mysterious I know not what it was to his Lordship's Purpose to fall upon Mr. Toland's Book But if he would needs attack the Book he should have dealt fairly he should have discussed the main Argument in it and not carpt only at a few Passages and those too so mangled and deformed by his Representation of them that I dare to affirm Mr. Toland does not know his own Book in the Bishop's Representation of it I do not perceive to speak truly but that the Book still stands in its full Strength if it hath not also acquired a farther Reputation by occasion of this so unsuccessful nibling at it But suppose the Bishop had disarmed the Gentleman what is that to us do we offer this Book against the Trinity of the Realists was it written with intention to serve us doth it contain any of our Allegations from Reason against the Trinity of Philaponus Joachim and Gentitis We desire him to answer to the Reasons in our Books against the Trinity of the Tritheists but to these he saith not a Word but only falls upon Mr. Toland's Book in which or for which we are not in the least concerned nor do I think the Learned and Ingenious Author will hold himself to be interested to defend that Christianity not mysterious which his Lordship presents us with As to his Exceptions against some Interpretations of Scripture which he finds in some Books of the Unitarians we should have enough to do if we went to the Press to vindicate what has been already so well establisht every time that an angry Litigant is in a humour to write against us His Lordship had a Mind to shew his superiour Learning and Wit and casting the Dice to determine what Subject he should choose up comes the Trinity and the Books of the Unitarians upon these he will gain immortal Honour We wish him Luck but not being at leisure to wipe off every small Soil that may happen to be scattered on our Books our Opposers may safely for us enjoy their Victories We care not for Proselytes that have no manner of Sense and for Persons that have any we dare trust them with whatsoever Vindications we have yet seen we only desire them to read our Arguments whether from Reason or Scripture as they stand in our own Books not as they are disguised in Vindications The Exempts of the Church who are discharged from the mean Drudgery of Preaching the Gospel and are concerned only in the noble Imployment of Commanding how easy is it for them to come out now and then with a magisterial Book seeing whether 't is home to the Purpose or not is solely at the Buyer's Peril In short if his Lordship has baffled the Interpretations of the Unitarians against which he has concerned himself in the Opinion of any Reader he shall for me enjoy his Success for my part I am enough perswaded without further arguing the Matter that he has spent his Breath against a Rock His Lordship's Explication of the Trinity AFter his Lordship has taken so much Pains to vindicate the Doctrine of the Trinity let us see what kind of Trinity he believes and contends for For Mr. Biddle also wrote a Book for the Trinity his Lordship's Title bears A Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity but Mr. Biddle far more speciously and zealously The Apostolical Opinion of the Holy Trinity asserted Ay but his Lordship's Trinity is the Athanasian Trinity he has a whole Chapter in Vindication and Explication of the Creed of Athanasius Well but Father Wallis too published a Book intituled An Explication and Vindication of the Creed of Athanasius They both of them interpret the Athanasian Creed and then believe it that is believe it according to their own Sense of it And so do we that is we believe it according to the Sense they make of it But his Lordship believes and contends for that Trinity which the Unitarians deny and oppose I 'll give thee my Cap then what Proof do you make of his believing that Trinity which we deny Why he has wrote two whole Books against you one concerning the Satisfaction the other concerning the Trinity But my Brother S th also wrote two bigger Books in both which he blames and quarrels the Unitarians as abominable Hereticks and yet we so little think that we have any real Difference with him that we intend him an eminent Place in the Company of Vnitarians at our next General Assembly His Lordship has a whole Chapter 't is that remarkable Chap. 6. beginning at pag. 68. and ending at p. 101. the longest or one of the longest in his Book to state the Notion of the Trinity and to vindicate it from Contradictions He begins with observing 1. We must distinguish between the Being of a thing and a thing in Being Or between Essence and Existence 2. Between the Unity of Nature or Essence and of Existence or Individuals of the same Nature 3. Between the Notion of Persons in a finite Substance and in a Being uncapable of Division or Separation After he has spoken first of the first he comes to say 2. We must now distinguish the Unity which belongs to the common Nature from that which belongs to Individuals in actual Being And farther the Unity of Existence may be consider'd 1. Either where the Essence and the Existence are the same as they are in God 2. Or where the Existence is contingent as in Creatures Moreover the Unity of Existence may be considered 1st Either as to it self and so it is Identity 2dly Or as to others that is as every one stands divided from every other Individual of the same kind altho they all partake of the same common Nature or Essence The clearing of this he adds is that main Point on which the whole Notion of these Matters depends so in order thereto we must consider 1. What that is whereby we perceive the Difference of Individuals 2. What that is which really makes two Beings of the same kind to be different from each other 1. As to the Reason of our Perception of the Difference between Individuals of the same kind it depends 1st On the Difference of outward Accidents Feature Age Meen Habit c. 2dly On the Difference of inward Qualities which we may perceive by Observation and which arise from Constitution Education Company acquired Habits c. 2. As to the true Ground of the real Difference between the
Divine an Infallible and Compleat Rule both of Faith and Manners Br. Notes p. 1. The Church neither requires nor desires that they should say more II. I believe concerning God that he is not a Spirit properly speaking but a sort of Body such as Air or Aether is That he is not Immense Infinite or every where present but confined to certain Places That he hath no Knowledg of such future Events as depend on the Free Will of Man and that it is impossible such things should be foreseen by him That there is a Succession in God's eternal Duration as well as in Time which is the measure of that Duration which belongs to finite Beings That Almighty God is Incorporeal Omni-present and Omni-scient has not only been confessed but proved by the Unitarians of this Nation in divers of their late Prints As to the other that all Duration that of God as well as of Creatures consists in a Succession is affirmed by some learned Men of all Perswasions and Ways as well as by the Unitarians It should seem Mr. Edwards holds that God possesses eternal Life all at once that Eternity is to God one standing permanent Moment St. John is of another Mind for he describes the Duration of God by a Succession by was is and is to come Grace be to you and Peace says he from him who is was and is to come Rev. 1.4 'T is undeniable by any but affected Wranglers that here the Duration of God his Continuance in Being is distinguished by the threefold Succession was is and shall be which is common to all other Beings Eternal Life possessed all at once is one of the monstrous Paradoxes which our Opposers maintain for all that I see merely from a Spirit of Contradiction for it has no manner of ground either in Reason or Holy Scripture I desire to know of 'em how the Duration of God is the less perfect because 't is said to consist in a Succession or what is the same to be distinguished by was is and shall be seeing 't is confessed on all hands that he carrieth all Perfections into every Succession of his Duration But is it not a Scandal that some Unitarians of foreign Parts have denied the Spirituality or Incorporeity of God his Omnipresence and Omniscience saying and contending for it that he is a Body with such Configuration of Parts as Men have consequently that he is in Heaven inspecting indeed and governing all things but by the Ministry of the several Orders of Angels and that he doth not foresee contingent Events but only such Events as are necessarily not arbitrarily produced by their Causes Doubtless but no more a Scandal to the Unitarians than to their Opposers for they are Errors which some of the Fathers even the most Antient Learned and Pious of them have defended as Truths Nay it should seem they were sometime the prevailing Opinions in some Places namely when the Anthropomorphite Doctrine was so zealously espoused that the Hermits and Caenobites could not indure their Bishops if they but suspected 'em of Origen's Doctrine that God is a Spirit without Parts or Passions And in denying the Spirituality and Omni-presence of God they must needs be understood not to believe his certain and absolute Prescience of contingent Events About the Year 400 when almost every body concerned themselves in condemning and departing as far as possible from the Opinions of Origen the Anthropomorphite Doctrine and its Consequences were the Standard-Orthodoxy of many Places and were Heresy no where Even St. John Chrysostom at Constantinople hardly defended the Fratres longi from the Prosecutions of Theophilus Archbishop and Patriarch of Alexandria who was a profest Anthropomorphite and had expelled the Fratres longi for adhering to Origen's Doctrine of the Spirituality and Omni-presence of God But as I said we not only dislike but utterly reject the dangerous Doctrine that God hath a Body is like to Man together with its Consequences that he is neither Omni-present nor Omni-scient It may as well be said he is not at all nay this latter tho the Anthropomorphites see it not seems to be implied and included in the former But we condemn not the Schechinah or glorious Appearance of God in Heaven which learned Men hold neither the spiritual Body of Christ III. I believe farther concerning God that there is no Distinction of Persons or Subsistencies in God And that the Son and Holy Ghost are not God the former of them being only a Man the latter no other than the Power or Operation of God That there was nothing of Merit in what Christ did or suffered that therefore he could not make Satisfaction for the Sins of the World But Mr. Edwards too much mistakes The Question is not at all concerning three Persons or three Subsistencies in God but whether there are three Infinite Substances three eternal Minds and Spirits We deny the latter with the whole Catholick Church against the Realists We never questioned the former Persons or Subsistencies but only as Persons and Subsistencies are taken for Spirits Minds and Beings Whoever denies this to be the true Faith is himself a Heretick and out of the Catholick Church But of this more hereafter in my Reply to the Bishop of Chichester and to the Bishop of Worcester But we say Christ is only a Man and the Holy Spirit only the Power of God No we say the Lord Christ is God and Man He is Man in respect of his reasonable Soul and human Body God in respect of God in him Or more scholastically in respect of the Hypostatical or Personal Union of the Humanity of Christ with the Divinity By which the Catholick Church means and we mean the Divinity was not only occasionally assisting unto but was and is always in Christ illuminating conducting and actuating him More than this is the Heresy of Eutyches and less we never held tho we confess that careless or less accurate Expressions may have been used by both Parties of which neither ought to take Advantage against the other when it appears there is no Heterodox Intention That by the Spirit of God is sometimes meant in Holy Scripture the Power of God cannot be denied but concerning the three Divine Persons we believe as the Catholick Church believes that they are relative Subsistencies internal Relations of the Deity to it self Or as the Schools explain this Original unbegotten Wisdom or Mind reflex or begotten Wisdom and the eternal Spiration of Divine Love But we do not think these Terms fit to express that Sense But do you not say There was no Merit in what Christ did or suffered and that he could not make Satisfaction for our Sins He may for our Parts be Anathema that teaches or believes that Doctrine We believe that the Lord Christ by what he did and what he suffered was by the gracious Acceptance of God a true and perfect Propitiation for Sinners that repent and turn to the good ways IV. In the next