to the Holy Scriptures and the Catholick Faith received and inviolably preserved by all Orthodox Christians in all the World in all Ages from the beginning of the Church to this present time and as repugnant to the Decrees of Councils especially that of Nice the most Solemn of all that are extant and most worthy of our Faith and Acceptation And lastly as contrary to the Writings of the Fathers especially of St. Athanasius whole Faith and Patience in Defence of the Cause of Christ was great beyond Example will be memorably celebrated wheresoever the Gospel shall be preached II. Moreover We injoyn under the Penalty of the Law all Students not to read the said infamous Libel or any of that kind which do re-call as from Hell those anciently condemn'd Heresies commanding and firmly enjoyning all and every the Praelectors Tutors Catechists and others to whom the Institution of Accademical Youth is intrusted that they diligently instruct and establish those that are committed to their Charge in that chief and necessary Article of our Faith upon which as on a Foundation all the rest do depend by which we are taught to believe and profess That there is One Living and True God and in the Unity of this Nature there are Three Persons of the same Essence Power and Eternity Father Son and Holy Ghost III. We Decree the above-named Infamous Libel to be Burnt by an Infamous Hand in the Area of our Schools The Propositions referr'd to in the Decree Pref. That Mahomet profest all the Articles of the Christian Faith Whether Mahomet or Christian Doctors have more corrupted the Gospel is not so plain by the light of Scripture as it is by that of Experience that the later gave occasion encouragement and advantage to the former For when by nice and hot Disputes especially concerning the Second and Third Persons of the Trinity the minds of the whole People had been long confounded and by the then late Establishment of Image-Worship the Scandal was encreased so that to vulgar Understandings the Doctrine of the Trinity appeared no less guilty of Polytheism then that of Image-Worship did of Idolatry Then was there a tempting Opportunity offered to the Impostor and he laid hold on it to set up himself for a Reformer of such Corruptions as were both too gross to be justified and too visible to be denyed Cap. 7. pag. 40. The great Question concerning the Godhead of Christ is 1. Impertinent to our Lords design 2. Fruitless to the Contemplators own purpose 3. Dangerous Cap. 8. pag. 46. Two Evangelists trace our Lord's Genealogy but as they derive it not from his real but supposed Father so do they take two several ways not to satisfie but to amuse us What is this but to admonish us against Curiosity The Pedigree of his Flesh might easily have been either cleared or unmentioned Had the Evangelists been wholly silent concerning it we had less wondred but that they should profess to instruct us yet doubly disappoint us first by deriving it from a wrong Father and then by distracting us between two ways What is this but to verify the Prophets description Who shall declare his Generation And what doth this so careful Concealment of his Generation according to the Humane Nature signify more plainly than a warning against searching after his Eternal Generation of his Divinity If it were needless and therefore left impossible to prove him derived from David which was one of his most revealed Characters how can it be otherwise to understand that Generation of his which must needs be so much the more above our Understanding as the Nature of God is above our own Pag. 48. And might not a Heathen at this rate justify Polytheism provided his Gods disagreed not among themselves The Schoolmen therefore will not stand to this State of the Question but distinguish between Person and suppositum rationale which yet they cannot so do as to satisfy themselves and therefore shelter themselves in their impregnable Fort Mystery and thence thunder upon the Adversaries both of this and of another no less beloved Mystery For they make this their Cock argument for Transubstantiation That since the Scripture is no less express for the One than the Other and the Contradictions no less gross in the One than in the Other therefore we must embrace the one as well as the other To this Objection of the Romanists and to others of the Unitarians we have found an Answer That we must not infer from our Own Nature to God's for that Ours is finite and God's is infinite Three Persons among Us are Three Men because they agree in one Common Nature but the Divine Nature is not a Common One but a Singular and therefore Three Persons do not make Three Gods If you understand not this you must not wonder or at least you must not Gainsay it for it is a Mystery which Reason may not pretend to fathom Pag. 51. Thus have we pointed and only pointed at some of the many intangling Questions which puzzeled and divided the subtilest Wits of seveal Ages and were at last decided by no other Evidence but of Imperial and Papal Authority sufficient to silence Disputes but not stablish Truth And who is he that is not discouraged from giving a confident Assent to what is this way obtruded upon his Belief Cap. 9. pag. 53. I. There is danger of Blasphemy in examining the Silly Question as he calls it concerning the Eternity of the Godhead of Christ This is a second danger That we have no firm ground to go upon Pag. 54. The only advantage of the Catholicks is long Possession and that after Sentence They have indeed so handled Matters as to hide much and varnish all yet even so we may pick out enough to justify an Appeal by observing how that Possession was first obtained then continued and at last setled The Sentence which first determined the Controversy in the Council of Nice was not by the Merit of the Cause but Interest of the Parties Pag. 56. This long and mischeivous Controversy was at last setled by Theodosius who having received his Instructions and Baptism from a Consubstantialist required all his Subjects to conform to that Religion which Peter the Prince of the Apostles from the beginning had delivered to the Romans and which at that time Damasus Bishop of Rome and Peter Bishop of Alexandria held and that Church only should be esteemed Catholick which worshipped the Divine Trinity with equal Honour and those which held the other should be called Hereticks made infamous and punished This therefore we may call setling the Controversy because thenceforth all succeeding Emperors and Bishops wrote after this Copy and both the Parties have ever worn these Titles which the Emperor by his Imperial Power as the unquestionable Fountain of Honor was pleased to bestow upon them Behold now the Ground upon which one of our Fundamental Articles of Faith is Built behold the Justice of that Plea
call me Ishi my Husband for v. 19. I will betroth thee to me for ever c. 1 Kings 8.39 and 2 Cron. 6.30 compared with Revel 2.23 The words are Thou only knowest the hearts of the sons of men All the Churches shall know that I am he that searcheth the Hearts and Reins to give to every Man according to his works The Argument is this The God of Israel only knows the hearts of Men Christ knows the hearts of Men therefore Christ is the God of Israel Both these Propositions are express Scriptures therefore the Consequence is undeniable Isa 63.1 compared with Revel 19.13 c. The words are Who is this that cometh from Edom with dyed garments I that spake in righteousness mighty to save St. John speaking of Christ says He was clothed with a vesture dipt in bloud and his name is called the Word of God Now the Prophet speaks of the God of Israel and St. John applys it to Christ as by the Context in both doth appear therefore Christ is the God of Israel These among many others may suffice concerning the Harmony of both Testaments to which I may add those express Testimonies concerning the whole Trinity in the New Testament The first that I shall mention is such of which I may say as the Doctor doth of his Fundamentals p. 43. c. 1. That if all the rest of the Scripture were lost this alone would be sufficient to confute the Socinians viz. Mat. 28.19 Go ye and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost where we have three distinct Persons of equal Dignity and Power to whom under the same Name we dedicate ourselves and promise Worship and Obedience The Socinians are not ashamed to say That this place is added by Athanasius or some of his Perswasion though not only the practice of the Apostles and the Primitive Fathers may evince the contrary but it is read in all the Greek Copies the Syriack and Aethiopick and Ignatius Tertullian and other Fathers have quoted and expounded this Text and the Socinians retain it in their German Edition of that Gospel An. 1630. 2ly They object That to be baptized in the Name of any doth not conclude him to be God seeing the Israelites were baptized into Moses and some Disciples into the Baptism of John Acts 19.3 Ans To be baptized into Moses was to be baptized by the Ministry or Hand of Moses as the Syriack Version reads and hence St. Paul says That none of the Corinthians were baptized in his name 1 Cor. 1.14 15. lest any should infer that he expected Obedience from them And it is one thing to be baptized in the Name of John and another to be baptized by the Administration of St. John's Baptism the import of Baptism is to believe as we have been baptized and to Worship as we believe i. e. The Father Son and Holy Ghost There are many other Scriptures that confirm the Doctrine of the Trinity in the Judgment of our Divines as Joh. 15.26 When the Comforter is come whom I will send from the Father where we have the Father from whom the Son by whom and the Person of the Holy Ghost that is sent So also 2 Cor. 13.13 in that Benediction The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Ghost we have a plain distinction of three Persons the Authors of the same Grace So also 1 Cor. 12.5 6. And there are diversities of gifts but the same spirit and diversities of administrations but the same Lord and there are diversities of operations but the same God where we have three Persons and but one God It is evident from these and many other Scriptures that by Concession of the Arians our Saviour had the Divine Attributes of Omnipotence and Omniscience communicated to him and if these were imparted to him by his Father it is not against reason that that other Attribute of Eternity might be also for to be Omnipotent and Omniscient implies an Infinity as the properties of the Eternal God nor can our Saviour be thought less than Infinite when we believe that he hears the Prayers searcheth the Hearts and knows the Thoughts of all Men and shall come to be the Judge of all without which Attributes he could not judge rightly The Creation and Conservation of all things do prove the same for he that made all things is God And so doth his being the only Law-giver and the only Judge and to qualifie him for these Offices he must be God to bind our Consciences to his Laws and to judge righteous Judgment And shall not the Judge of all the Earth judge righteously which none can do but the Omniscient and Omnipotent God Estius one of the best School-men asserts That no Creature can be so highly elevated by a supernatural power as to co-operate by way of a Physical Instrument in the Creation because it is a property that belongs to such an Instrument to have something of its own whereby to week dispositive for the effecting of the Creation Whence he says no Creature can be assumed to the power of Creation as a Physical Instrument the nature of that Instrument still remaining And nothing can be the cause of Creation which hath not an infinite Power because by how much the Form to be produced is removed from the Power of Production by so much a greater power is required in the Agent so that for the production of something out of nothing there is required an infinite Power because the distance between something and nothing is infinite so that our Saviour being as the Scripture affirms the Creator of the World he is also God over all blessed for ever Hence Origen against Celsus proves That God neither did nor could make the World by any thing without himself as the Angels of which it was discoursed were and hence he concludes That Christ by whom the World was made was God See also Ireneus l. 2.55 and l. 4. c. 37. St. Peter in Epistle 2.2.1 speaking of false Prophets that privily should bring in damnable Heresies even denying the Lord that bought them says That they should bring upon themselves swift destruction And v. 3. Their judgment lingreth not and their damnation slumbreth not It may therefore be a good argument with many a person not yet infected with such Heresies to give a short Account of the manifest Judgments of God upon the chief Founders and Patrons of the Arian and Socinian Doctrines for for such Opinions of the Doctrines of the Gnosticks Cerinthus and Ebion c. which had infected the Asian Churches and for the wicked Lives of such as entertained those Heretical Doctrines it was that they had their Candle-stick removed and were left in Darkness and under the Dominion of Mahomet to this day Olimpius an ancient Arian Bishop publickly blasphemed our Saviour in a Bath and suddenly felt as it were three
of the Church of England where this Christian Religion is established Every good Protestant will readily answer these Queries And notwithstanding the Protestation of the Doctor in the close of his Epistle to the Reader That he is not conscious of having contradicted any of the Church's Articles in any one word The impartial Reader will perceive by what hath been discovered to be the design of the Naked Gospel in the foregoing Exercitations that it was mainly intended against the most important of those Articles I only recommend to the Doctor 's serious Consideration that as it is an unaccountable Phrensie for any that abhors Popery and Slavery to grow weary of the present Government and to desire the return of the late King by a French Power so it is the highest degree of impiety for a Person that hath been long educated and instructed in the Doctrine of the Church of England which teacheth to adore the blessed Jesus as King of Kings and Lord of Lords not only to dethrone but debase him as a meer Creature and esteem no otherwise of him than as a King de Facto made and advanced by Imperial and Papal Edicts and Decrees not so ancient as Constantine but by Theodosius and Damasus bishop of Rome See p. 38. of the Edition in two Colums From what Point the Wind blew that hath caused the Doctor to steer a course contrary to what he intended at his first setting out is not so intelligible as to guess at what Harbor he intends to lay up he doth seemingly at least recant many of those Heretical Opinions which he had asserted in the first Edition of the Naked Gospel but so inconsistently that the New Piece which he hath patcht on upon the Old Garment will make the Rent worse But this is no other artifice than what hath been practised by the Arians and Socinians heretofore whose feigned Confessions and Recantations they on occasion recanted again and their later Deeds have been worse than the former Chap. 7. of the Holy Trinity The D.'s first care is to give us a right notion of the usual words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Substance and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Person which he would translate beingness and propriety The word Substance he says p. 45. is so much applied to matter that some with great confidence deride it as a contradiction to say that a Substance can be immaterial of this Opinion were Vorstius and Hobs and how much the Doctor differs from them that which follows may evidence The more we attend to our own Senses says the Doctor or Aristotle's Predicaments the more strongly are our Minds possest that Substance must be material c. As to the word Person p. 46. he says Could we be as sensible that the word Person in its metaphysical height is no less improperly applied to the second Distinction in the Trinity than the word Begotten is in its Physical baseness and could we cast away that improper word and use the warier word Subsistence and Propriety we should more easily satisfie our selves and others Wherefore taking the word Substance for Subsistence and Person for Propriety he proceeds to give us a new Notion of the Trinity such as agrees with the Doctrine of Paulus Samosatenus and Sabellius That the one high God is both Father Son and Holy Ghost His Positions are these 1. That God is a Being absolutely perfect 2. That Mind is the most perfect Being The same with Plato's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Original being derived from none but Author of all and therefore properly stiled the Father As Mind is the most perfect Being so the most perfect Being must be a perfect Mind but an unthinking Mind cannot be a perfect one God therefore was never unthinking and since thought is the first and proper Issue of a thinking Mind therefore may it most properly be stiled The first begotten Son and co-eternal with the Father because the Father was never before him p. 48. A thought is no less than a word conceived and a word is no more than a thought brought forth The Mind or its Wisdom cannot be absolutely perfect if they do not or cannot perform or want Power to act there must therefore be a third Person which the Scripture calls the Holy Ghost which is constantly described by Power and Action This is the Doctor 's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which he thinks he hath obliged all Mankind displayed the Mystery of the Trinity which hath been the trouble of all Ages and in which he hath not advanced one Proposition without warrant from the Scripture the Church of England the Fathers of the Church and the best Champions for that Doctrine and that which is his greatest hope is that the Unitarians will not dissent from one of them if taken in that sence which their terms freely offer p. 51. And I fear it is to serve their Hypothesis that the Doctor hath conceived and published this Notion It is not a little surprising that the Doctrine which was so lately ridicul'd under the term Mystery and which must remain so still a point of Push-pin Divinity The Athanasian Doctrine fit to be numbred with the Roman and would be fairly dealt with if left on the same level with the Arian equally unworthy not onely of our Faith but our Study see The Naked Gospel printed in two Columns p. 38. A long and mischievous Controversie and Behold now the ground on which one of our Fundamental Articles is built should now deserve another Ecce to behold p. 49. of the Doctor 's Edition how the very Light of Nature demonstrates St. John's Mystery There are three that bear witness in heaven c. And p. 53. How our Platonizing Doctor confutes the Atheists who accuse this Mystery as contrary to Reason which he now saith reason in Plato discovereth the Doctor having adapted a Natural Trinity for his Natural Religion But the Doctor is conscious of another Error viz. That he hath Sabellionized with Sabellius for mentioning St. Augustine's Opinion concerning the Trinity p. 50. says that it favors more of Sabellianism than his as above explained As the Doctor 's Opinion is by him explained it may serve as the Center wherein all the Opinions of the Ancient and Modern Hereticks may meet and acquiesce Vm. Lirinensis asks Quis ante sceleratum Sabellium Unitatis Trinitatem consundere Ausus est Whoever so confounded the Doctrine of the Trinity as the impious Sabellius Of whom Sandius says Sabelliani tribuendo patri essentiam filio scientiam sancto vitam videntur negasse subsistentiam filii sancti Sandius p. 120. Consonant to this our Doctor says The Mind is Beingness or the Father the Son is Wisdom the Holy Ghost is Power and Activity Again Sandius p. 111. Sabellius taught the one God in Essence and Substance to be the Father Son and Holy Ghost which three he called three Vertues or Proprieties three Names three Persons and for proof of this Opinion
set forth at Antioch a third by Narcissus and some Bishops with him the fourth by Eudoxius three others at Sirmium one of which was read at Ariminum the eighth was that of Acacius published at Selucia which was the same that was published at Constantinople with an Appendix forbidding the use of the words Substance and Hypostasis Now all these were conceived and brought forth in a few Years together under Constantius and by the influence of that Arian Emperour who made it his business to advance and propagate that Heresie But what are these scuffles for Interest and Promotion which though favoured by an Arian Emperour were not only strenuously opposed but generally defeated to the constant and unanimous Decrees of the four first General Councils and many others of the Eastern Churches and by all the Western or Latin Churches who constantly asserted the Doctrine of the Trinity I cannot better compare these Alterations in Matters of Faith which were made after the Nicene Council than to the various Revolutions that hapned in this Kingdom after the Dethroning of King Charles I. of blessed Memory wherein the several Factions as they got into Power strove not so much for Religion which was always made the pretence as for Interest and Advantage to the overthrow both of a well-establish'd Government and Religion which now through the Blessing of God are returned to their ancient Channels and may they ever bear down all opposition and run on without interruption to make glad the City of God I cannot omit one Remark more in this place namely how partial the Doctor is in relating the History of Athanasius and Arius He summs up in few words whatever Philostorgus and Sandius the Arians had suggested against Athanasius How he was banished by the Council at Tyre Antioch Sirmium and Ariminum but is ashamed to mention those Sham-Plots that were contrived against him and retorted upon his adversaries to their perpetual Infamy as Dr. Cave and Dr. Sherlock have discovered nor have we a word how at the Council of Millan where the Catholicks were forced to condemn Athanasius Constantius drawing his Sword and telling them That he himself accused Athanasius and ought to be believed and banished such as would not consent to it But as for Arius he pleads for him as if he had been as much a Messenger sent from God as our Saviour in his opinion was as much doth he speak in defence of Arius That he was justified by such as had condemned him by the Emperor and a Council at Jerusalem p. 37. c. 2. And Athasius threatned to be deposed if he did not receive him into communion though the Doctor confesseth he would not admit the word Consubstantial into his Creed That the Eastern Bishops but such as the Doctor says p. 38. c. 2. were generally Arians took Arius his part against Athanasius and condemn'd him in the Council of Sardica But all this trouble was not occasioned upon the account of Athanasius his Faith but the Arian perfidy who falsly accused and maliciously condemned him Wherefore it will be seasonable in this place to give you a short Account of what the most Authentick Historians have related which you shall have presently In the third Proposition he says That the Evangelists in setting down our Lord's Genealogy do not satisfie but amuse us and professing to instruct us do doubly disappoint us first by deriving it from a wrong Father and then by destracting us two several ways which he says is a warning against searching after the Eternal Generation As supposing it to be needless and therefore impossible to prove him derived from David though the Scripture calls him both David's Son and David's Lord he concludes it to be impossible to understand his Eternal Generation And thus the knowledge both of the Generation of our Saviour as Man as well as that as God are both concluded to be impossible to be known because they are above our Understandings So that he first raiseth a doubt of our Saviour's Descent from David according to the Flesh that he may make that a ground of his Eternal Generation by the Father In the fourth Proposition he intimates That a Heathen might justifie Polytheism at the same rate as the Athanasian Fathers have done the Doctrine of the Trinity and that the Papists may justifie their no-less-beloved Mystery of Transubstantiation as he calls it and affirms with them That the Scripture is no less express for the one than the other and the Contradictions no less gross in the one than the other And then ridicules that learned and ingenuous Tract which was lately Printed to shew what better grounds the Doctrine of the Trinity hath in the Scripture than that of Transubstantiation for want of Argument to confute it As if we could as easily apprehend the Nature of Things immaterial and removed above our Reason as well as our Sence as we can of those corporeal Beings such as the consecrated Hosts which contradict both Reason and Sence In the Fifth Proposition he affirms That the Questions concerning the Trinity were decided by no other Evidence but of Imperial and Papal Authority The Pope would be much more obliged and grateful to him than the Church of England if he could prove the Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome over all the Churches and that in Matters of Faith as ancient as Constantine In the Sixth That there is danger of Blasphemy in examining the silly Question concerning the Eternity of the Godhead of Christ and that we have no firm ground to go upon But is not that Rule of Vincent Lirinensis a good ground Quod semper quod ubique quod ab omnibus But in this he joyns with Smalcius to call us Blasphemers and Antichristians In the Seventh That the only advantage of the Catholicks is long possession That they have so handled matters as to hide much and varnish all That the Sentence which determined the Controversie in the Council of Nice was not by the Merit of the Cause but the Interest of Parties Answ Long possession of such Truths as have a good Foundation in the Scripture is a Title beyond any that pretends against it when the Universal Church hath in all Ages except only a short interruption under one or two Arian Princes judged the Doctrine against the Deity of our Saviour as a destructive Herosie If we may thank the Doctor for any thing it is for granting us this long possession even ever since the Gospel was first published In the Eighth Proposition he says This long and mischievous Controversie was at last decided by Theodosius who receiving his Instructions and Baptism from a Consubstantialist required all his Subjects to conform to that Religion which Peter the Prince of the Apostles from the beginning delivered to the Romans and which at that time Damasus Bishop of Rome and Peter of Alexandria held and that Church only should be esteemed Catholick which worshipped the Divine Trinity with equal Honour and those
more c. 11. speaking of the Divine and Humane Nature of Christ he says That as Nature teacheth that he that is born of Man is Man so it teacheth that he that is born of God is God Theognostus of Alexandria as Athanasius quotes him taught the same Doctrine That the Son was begotten of the Substance of the Father as is Beams from the Sun and as the Sun is not lessened by the effusion of its Beams so neither is the Substance of the Father diminished by begetting the Son the Image of himself Dionisius Romanus wrote an Epistle against the Sabellians wherein he says It is necessary that the Word of God be united to the God of all and that the holy Spirit remains in God and so the holy Trinity doth unite in One as in a certain Head viz. the Omnipotent God of the Universe And he confutes those who hold the Son of God to be made as other Creatures as being contrary to the Scripture Lastly That the Trinity is not to be divided into three Gods nor the Dignity of it to be lessened by the name of a Creature but we are to believe in God the Father Almighty and in Jesus Christ his Son and in the Holy Spirit And that the Son is united to the Father he proves from the words of our Saviour I and the Father are one for thus the Divine Trinity and the preaching of that Holy Monarchy is preserved Dionisius of Alexandria whom the Arians boasted to be of their Party wrote against them in his own defence an Epistle which he calls a Resutation wherein he declares That he never was of the Opinion of Arius but that he alway thought our Lord to be the Word and Wisdom undivided from the Father For saith he under the name of the Father I imply that he hath a Son and when I mention the Son I understand also that he hath a Father and so I joyn them together for from whom should the Son come but from the Father But the Arians will not understand that the Son cannot be separated from the Father the names implying a communion between them and the Holy Ghost is in both and cannot be separated from him that sends him How then can you suspect me who use those Names to have thought that they may be divided or separated wherefore you accuse me falsly as if I had denied that Christ is Consubstantial with God Thus I said that the Plant proceeds from the Seed or Root and is another thing from that from whence it proceeds yet is it of the same nature with that whence it proceeds the River which flows from the Fountain hath another name for we do not call the River the Fountain nor the Fountain the River yet both do exist and the Fountain is as a Father but the River is Water flowing from the Fountain Greg. Thaumaturgus Bishop of Neocesaria hath left us this Confession of his Faith recorded by Eusebius Eccl. Hist l. 7. c. 28. There is one God the Father of the Living Word the Subsisting Wisdom the Eternal Power and Character the perfect Father of him that is perfect the Father of the only Begotten There is one Lord alone from him that is alone God of God the Character and Image of the Deity the efficacious Word the Wisdom comprehending the constitution of all things and the effective Power of all things the true Son of the true Father invisible of him that is invisible incorruptible from him that is incorruptible immortal and eternal And there is one Holy Spirit that hath its existence of God who by the Son hath appeared unto Men the perfect Image of the perfect Son the Life and Cause of the Living the Holy Fountain Sanctity and Giver of Sanctification in whom God the Father is manifest who is above all and in all and God the Son which is in all The perfect Trinity which is not divided nor separated in Glory Eternity Kingdom and Power so that there is nothing in the Trinity that is created or servile nothing added or superinducted which was not before The Son was never wanting to the Father nor the Spirit to the Son but the Trinity alway remained the same immutable and invariable In the Life-time of this Greg. Thaumaturgus a Synod of Bishops met at Antioch to Censure the Heresie of Paulus Samosatenus who denied the Deity of Christ These Bishops denounced an Anathema against him having first admonished him of his Heresie and in that Epistle they say That they declare the Faith which they received from the beginning and alway held in the Catholick Church from the Apostles to that day even from those that had seen with their eyes and were made Ministers of the Word and which was preached in the Law and Prophets and in the New Testament And the Faith concerning Christ they say is this That he is the Word the Wisdom and Power of God that was before all Ages God the Son of God in substance and subsistance Pierius a Presbyter of Alexandria was of the same Opinion as Photius relates Cod. 119. That the Father and the Son were of one Substance and Equality St. Lucian a Presbyter of Antioch published the same Faith which is to be seen in Socrates l. 2. c. 10. We believe in one God the Father Almighty Maker of all things and in one Lord Jesus Christ his only begotten Son by whom all things were made begotten of the Father before all Ages God of God Whole of Whole Sole of Sole Perfect of Perfect King of King Lord of Lord the Living Word Wisdom Life the true Light Way and Truth the Resurrection Pastor and Gate not obnoxious to Change or Alteration every way the express Image of the Father's Deity Substance Power Counsel and Glory the first Begotten of every Creature who was with God in the beginning God the Word as is said in the Scripture who in the last times came down from Heaven and was born of a Virgin according to the Scripture and in the Holy Ghost which is given to Believers to comfort sanctifie and consummate them as our Lord Christ commanded his Disciples go teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost who are three in Person but agree in One. Arnobius gives the like Testimony That Christ without any Instrument Help or Rule but by the power of his own Nature made all things and as it was worthy of God nothing that was hurtful but all beneficial and this is the property of the true God to deny his bounty to none Lastly Lactantius whom the Arians claim to be of their Opinion says thus When we say God the Father and God the Son we do not speak of what is diverse or separated because neither the Father can be so called without the Son nor the Son be begotten without the Father seeing therefore the Father makes the Son and the Son makes him a Father there is in both one Mind one Spirit and
one Substance the one as a Fountain the other as a Stream flowing from him or as the Beams from the Sun which are not separated These many and plain Evidences of the Belief of the Ancient Fathers before the Council of Nice do evidently declare what sure footing they had for their Faith viz. the unanimous Consent of Apostolical Men Martyrs and Confessors who maintained that the Son of God was of the same Divine Nature and Substance with his Father consonant to the Doctrine of the Holy Scripture and consequently they also shew how rashly and inconsiderately the Doctor says p. 37. c. 1. That we have no firm ground to go upon that this Doctrine was first advanced by a Novice Emperor upon implicite Faith in two Bishops P. 38. c. 2. That it hath no foundation in Scripture Antiquity or Councils and that the Athanasian may be numbred among the Popish and Arian Doctrines which we know to be contradictory in the case of the Trinity And if in the mouth of two or three Witnesses every truth should be established how much more should this Truth be received as unquestionable being confirmed by the Harmony of the Old and New Testament by the Notions of the Apostolical Writers in the Primitive Times and by their Successors home to the Nicene Council who all delivered it not as their own Faith but as the Faith of their Predecessors home to the Apostles days And as for Councils the Synods that were before the Council of Nice and all since except a few under some Emperors deluded by the Sophistry of the Arians and circumvented by their Hypocrisie and Falshood have been constantly of the same Judgment with that of Nice Concerning the Eternal Generation of Christ there is a plain sence of the Anti-Nicene Fathers that will answer all the Objections made by the Arians against that Eternal Generation of Christ and their Opinions that he was only the first begotten of the Creatures being himself made in order to the making of the World for they assert That the Word did alway exist with his Father but there was a prolation emission or application of the Son ad exteriora the Father in order to the Creation and this is by some metaphorically called a Generation not as if he then had a beginning for God as Athenagoras says who is an Eternal Mind had in himself his Eternal Word from Eternity though the Energy or Operation of that Word appeard first in the Creation in which sence be calls the Word the first begotten But such says he as was not made but by whom all things were made This one Distinction of the Word or Son of God being Co-eternal with the Father and his Emission 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Progression for the manifestation of his Father and himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Creation of the World if duly considered as delivered by the Fathers before the Nicene Council will confute all the Councils of the Arians and Socinians against those parallel places of Scripture and particularly against such as speak of the Primogeniture of our Saviour as if he were a Deus Factus or a Creature Having shewed the Authority of Scripture and the Fathers to be against the Arian and Socinian Doctrines there is no necessity of urging that of Councils which they peremptorily decline so Sandius in his Preface to the Reader Ask for the old Paths saith he not of Synods nor of Councils nor the Books of Creeds which later Ages have set forth He was conscious that these would be generally against him except a few that were manged by Arian Emperors so that we have their consent to let these be silent for fear of their Anathema's It is observed that in all Lands where any venemous Creatures are bred there may be found some others that serve as an Antidote to that Venome and sometimes in that very Creature where the Poyson is lodged there is a Medicine to expel it as in the Viper the same Divine Providence hath in all Ages so ordered it that whatever Heresies have been conceived by erroneous Persons have been stifled in their birth by such as God hath raised up for the suppression of them An instance whereof we have in this Heretical Treatise which as it was brought to light by a Rector of Exeter-Colledge so by another Rector of the same Colledge it was provided long before to condemn it to perpetual Darkness and I may truly say it was Damnata prius quam nata condemned to dye before it was born And if the Antidote prepared by the One be duly applied the Dose of Poyson is not of so quick an operation but by the Blessing of God the ill effects of it may be prevented I have therefore for the benefit of ignorant and wavering Persons translated that Learned Lecture of the Reverend Dr. Prideaux the King's Professor of Divinity in Oxford and Rector of Exeter Colledge in the Year 1633. which begins p. 276. of his Lectures in Folio the Text which he chose to insist on is Matth. xvi v. 16. Simon Peter answered and said Thou art Christ the Son of the living GOD. THis celebrated Testimony concerning our Saviour is recommended to us by these four Particulars First That it was not Sudden but Deliberate Secondly It was not Private but spoken in the Name of all the Apostles Thirdly That it was not casually uttered but after a double Demand of Christ To which add Fourthly The Approbation of Christ and the Reward of St. Peter that published this Testimony Now the Scripture is not wont to propose trivial things with so great solemnity there is therefore something more in the matter than at first appears in the words of this Answer from whence both the Ancient and Moderns with clear and often confirmed assent have believed and asserted not only the Humanity of Christ which he took of the Seed of Abraham but also the Divinity of the Son of the Living God by ineffable Generation communicated to him by the Father from Eternity But that which St. Peter foretold That false Teachers shall be among you which will bring in damnable Heresies denying the Lord that bought them 1 Pet. 2.8 Rom. 9.17 Rom. 9.22 to which they were afore ordain'd saith St. Peter raised up saith St. Paul fitted and prepared that same the nauseousness of these times have vomited into the bosom of the Church Faction doth cherish Industry defends Sagacity promotes Wit urgeth Hypocrisie publisheth under the Veil of Sincerity So that unless such as Timothy carefully take heed to themselves and their depositum and such as St. Jude contend for the Faith once delivered there is great danger lest the Unclean Spirit that was cast forth by the Reformation return to the House that is swept and cleansed with a more numerous Train and the last State of the Church become worse than the former 2 S. Now among those Seven unclean Spirits that create trouble to the Church swept and garnished
granted and all sort of Heresies were impunely permitted and Orthodox Doctrines discountenanced there are so few persons infected with Heresie and so many learned persons left us to vindicate the Truths of the Gospel yet are there some Thousands infected with Anabaptism and Quakerism among whom the Pelagian and Socinian Doctrines have got the Ascendent They talked formerly of being Godded with God and Christed with Christ and now they deny the Godhead of Christ and Man it with Man what number of such Hereticks are now among us the Author of the NAKED GOSPEL may know better than others doubtless he presumes of a large Muster otherwise he would not appear as a Leader to head them but that he should appear under the Notion of a Son of the Church of England is the greatest Affront that could be done it for as Plutarch says he had rather Men should say there was never such a Man as Plutarch than that they should say he was a Vicious Person So is it a less reproach for the Papists to say there never was such a Church as the Church of England than to say it is a Church professing Pelagian and Socinian Doctrines The Fathers and Sons of our Church have not and by the Grace of God will not be wanting in their Duty to Assert her Doctrines and to Silence all her Adversaries The University of Oxford have manifested their Abhorrence of it in Condemning the Book to the Fire And the Right Reverend the Bishop of Exeter Visitor of that Colledge whereof the Author was Rector hath as the Statutes of the Colledge directed him in Case of Heresie very seasonably repremanded him whereby it is hoped the Gangreen of his Heresies will be mortified and cut off from infecting the Members of that Famous Colledge Nor do I doubt but all that have any Authority in Causes Ecclesiastical will shew the like Detestation of that Damnable Heresie that denieth the Lord that bought them The Ancient Fathers were very severe against such Ignatius mentioning that passage in Jer. 17. Cursed is the man that trusteth in man saith that they are under the Curse that affirm Christ to be a meer man Origen on Job l. 1. c. 4. Whatever men shall do without Faith in the Holy Trinity they do in vain and shall have no reward Fulgentius de fide p. 9. saith he cannot be a Christian that shall not confess the Lord Christ to be his God The Fathers have said as much concerning the Arians that they were Antichristians rather than Christians Yea they say the like of Arius as of Julian That they were both guilty of the Sin against the Holy Ghost and if to the rest of our National Sins we should add this to suffer the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity to be thus publickly derided and made the Subject of profane Pamphlets that the Writers should confidently own them and falsely profess themselves Sons of the Church of England that there should be a Secret Press still in Labour to be delivered of such Monsters that there should be a Club to Father them and such Hectors to defend and support them and so many to applaud them and such Books as were long since written in Latin are taught to speak English and French and our English Books in requital are taught to speak Latin and French Arrianism is one of the great Provocations for which the Lord's hand is not withdrawn but is still stretched out to be avenged on us Luther on his Death bed was wont to exhort those who came to visit him Oremus pro Domino nostro ejus Evangelio Let us pray for our Lord and for his Gospel The Gospel was then reviving and gaining its liberty it is now imprisoned in all Countries where Popery doth prevail and it is like to be stript Naked at home if some charitable Hand doth not seasonably prevent it to which that Doom which our Saviour hath denounced Mat. 25.43 Go ye cursed for I was naked and ye cloathed me not should excite every good Christian otherwise we may justly fear that for all the Affronts and Indignities which the Prophane on the one hand and the Hereticks and Blasphemers on the other hand between whom our blessed Saviour is crucified afresh and put to open shame he deal with us as he did with the Church of Ephesus Rev. 2.5 I will come unto thee quickly and remove thy Candlestick except thou repent And the great haste which so many do make to banish the true knowledge of God out of the Land is a fearful Prognostick that our Saviour will come quickly to be avenged on such a People My present Undertaking is only to do the Office of a Watch-man or Sentinel to discover the approach of an Adversary and to sound an Alarme to such as are better furnished with Arms and Abilities to vanquish them of which by the Blessing of God our Church is provided with many thousands who I doubt not will fight it out Usque ad Triarios If I have for the sake of my Country-men collected a few Arguments against the Socinian Tenets it is what the Discourse of the Author led me to my intent was to discover the dangerous Design of the Naked Gospel which the Author pretends was for the enlarging of Charity and for condemning of Impositions in Matters of Faith under which Notion he industriously condemns those Doctrines of the Nicene Fathers and of Athanasius which have been received in the Church of England not only from them but from the most Primitive Times But the Doctor says We have no firm ground to go upon not from Scripture because the Arrians capt Scripture with the Orthodox nor from Antiquity which they claimed with the same confidence nor from Councils which determined sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other p. 37. c. 1. Yet he grants that the Catholicks have the advantage of long possession and that after Sentence and at last leaves both the Arrian and Athanasian Doctrines on the same level with Roman Impositions equally unworthy of our Faith or Study By this and what I shall further urge from the Naked Gospel it will evidently appear that if the Doctor be of any Religion that names the Name of Christ he must be a Socinian As to the Author's design he pretends it to be 1. For the enlarging of Charity i. e. for a Toleration of his Opinions 2. To prevent Impositions in Matters of Faith to both which I have replyed and shewn that the real design is to ridicule the Athanasian Creed and the Council of Nice and to prefer a Natural Religion above that which is taught by them which he accounts among his unreasonable Impositions as having 1. No footing in Scripture in answer whereto I have shewn the Harmony of the Old and New Testament in Confirmation of those Doctrines 2. Whereas he says they have no Foundation in the Fathers I have produced their Authorities And thirdly as for the Councils Because the Socinians decline
baptized shall be saved And this Covenant Dat quod Jubet it assists us in willing and doing what is required Heb. 8.6 'T is a better Covenant established on better Promises And Heb. 8.10 and Rom. 16. This is my Covenant I will put my Law into their hearts and write them in their minds and I will be to them a God and they shall be to me a People and I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more But he commends especially the Character of the Gospel as a Message and so makes our Saviour only an eminent Prophet that came to advance the Natural Religion a little higher than other Prophets had done his design being no other than to advance Natural Religion to a higher perfection by nobler Precepts and richer Promises as he says This is no more than what the Turks will grant in Honour of our Saviour But there is another Notion of the Gospel more common than the other two though purposely omitted by the Doctor which is as we render it the New Testament of our Saviour who was not only as Socinus saith a Witness of that Testament but the Testator himself that Testament whereby Christ makes us Heirs of all that he hath purchased for us that Testament which was sealed by his Blood and took effect by his Death and Resurrection for the Salvation of all that believe in him and obey his Commandments Grotius on the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 makes it parallel with the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he says is derived from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying to kill or cut down But as he observes the Gospel is not called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Covenant in a strict sence wherein two Parties do mutually Covenant but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the Will or Testament of a Superiour who adds Rewards to the performance of his Will and it is called the New Testament being a Covenant of Grace not of Debt upon our Works but Mercy upon our Faith So that Grotius concludes the most proper Notion of the Gospel is that of a Testament by which the Heir is obliged under certain Conditions and by way of a Trust reposed in him and he defines it to be the Will of Christ confirmed to us by his Death whereby we have a Right to all his Promises on performance of his Commandments But the Doctor carefully avoids any word that might imply the Doctrine of Christ's Satisfaction and therefore as he wholly suppresseth that of a Testament which hath its effect from the Death of the Testator as our Saviour often calls it the New Testament in his Blood Luke 22.20 1 Cor. 11.25 so he slights that of a Covenant as being wont to be confirmed by the Death of the Sacrifice for in all Languages Hebrew Greek and Latin as well as in English to strike a Covenant imported the Sanction of it by shedding of Blood and prefers the Notion of a Message as if Christ had done no more for us than Moses or any of the Prophets i. e. only declared the Precepts of God which is pure Socinianism Chap. 1. p. 1. Col. 2. he says The design of the Gospel is no other than the advancement of Primitive Natural Religion to a higher perfection for which he alledgeth those words of St. John 1 Joh. 1.3 These things we write unto you that you may have fellowship with us c. The Patriarchs knew only the Father but our Fellowship is with the Father and the Son as therefore in the face of Jesus Christ we see more of the Father's goodness so are we thereby obliged to higher strains of love to him and one another which is the sum of Natural Religion And again p. 2. Col. 1. The design of the Gospel is to exalt us to the highest perfection of the Natural Law by making us perfect as our Father which is in heaven is perfect This is the Authentick General Test says he whereby every Doctrine must be tried that claimeth our entertainment as a Gospel truth And thus he equalleth Moral Vertue with Cristian Faith and teacheth Pelagianism which makes the strength of Natural Endeavours sufficient to Salvation without the special Grace of Christ as if that were not necessary to humble us in the sense of our Sins to mortifie our Lusts inlighten our Minds subdue our perverse Wills and purifie our Hearts they may be good Moral Men that conform to the Rules of Reason but no good Christians unless they are assisted by the Grace of the Holy Spirit they may have a form of Godliness but not the power thereof He greatly extols Natural Religion affirming That the Faith which the Gospel requires had its Foundation in Natural Religion Natural Faith as he says is proposed as the Mother of Evangelical p. 14. c. 2. p. 14. Col. 2. I have proved saith he that Faith in God is a Duty of Natural Religion a Moral Vertue a participation of the Divine Nature in one of God's Attributes his Justice to be valued as self-good c. P. 1. Col. 2. He makes the Law of Nature the Foundation on which the New Covenant so leaneth as to be kept firm in its place I fear that the Reason of his thus extolling Natural Religion is because that in its highest perfection it can attain only to the knowledge of the Unity of the Godhead though in the depraved State of Nature Men generally worshipped many False instead of the One true God but this Natural Religion suits better with the design of Arius than of the Gospel and therefore the Author espouseth and magnifies it He adds That as Abraham is proposed as the Father of the faithful Natural Faith is also proposed as the Mother of Evangelical Here therefore we must enquire whether the Faith of Abraham were meerly a Natural Faith and he had no Revelations that begat and strengthened his Faith The Arians grant that as our Saviour says Before Abraham was I am that Christ was before the Creation of the World the Lamb slain from the beginning that by him the World was made yet the Doctor declareth his opinion that the Patriarchs had the knowledge of God the Father only but it is like that of Abailardus contrary to the opinion of all other Doctors of the Church and the tenor of the Scriptures for how then is it said that Abraham rejoyced to see my day and saw it the day of his Incarnation in Isaac's wonderful Conception his Death and Resurrection in Abraham's readiness to sacrifice him and God's delivering him from death from whence Abraham received him in a Figure or Type of Christ Hebr. 11.19 Tertullian thus expounds that place That as Christ being a man was after Abraham so as God he was before Abraham and as being a man he was the son of David but as God he was David 's Lord as man he was born into the world as God he made the world Tertul. de
reason than as it is necessary for our encouragement to Holiness in order to Happiness we dishonour him because no other reason is worthy of his Majesty or Goodness This indeed is one great end viz. our Salvation in which the Glory of God and our Saviour are also concern'd that as we believe in God we should also believe in Christ John 5. and that all Men should honour the Son as they honour the Father and the honour of the Son tends to the honour of the Father therefore we need Faith in the Merits of Christ and his Intercession and Mediation to present our Prayers to God and that we may come boldly to the Throne of Grace Nor doth this derogate from the Glory due to God for all tends to the Glory of God the Father And he that honoreth not the Son 〈…〉 honoreth not the Father We cannot honour the Father more than by believing that he so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son to die for us for the greater the Gift is the greater is our Obligation to Gratitude and Obedience So that what the Doctor urgeth to the disparagement of Faith That the Precepts requiring Faith and the Promises encouraging it were calculated for those Primitive Times and are now ceased is to recommend Infidelity and not Faith and plain it is that his chief design is to exalt Natural Religion on the Ruins of Christian Faith which will also take off the Motives and Encouragements to Obedience and Thankfulness Chap. 6. In this Chapter he enquires what are those saving Truths to the belief whereof Eternal Life is promised These truths he says concern the Person in whom or the Word which we believe on credit of the Person Here he enquires first what kind of Person our Saviour requires us to believe him to be this Person he describes from 7 Dan. 13. To be one to whom was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all nations and kingdoms should serve him The Title there given him is the Son of Man which in the Jewish Idiom imports the eminence of the Subject spoken of that is a Man of some singular note but a Man still Another Idiom of the Jews for advancing a thing or Person was to intitle it to God as Rivers of God and Mountains of God so Man of God and Son of God by Daniel are made a Character of the greatest Beauty and Majesty but a Creature still He mentioneth also that Character which Christ assumed The only begotten Son of God these Characters speak him a Person of super-eminent and unmeasurable Greatness like his Emblem the Light and that is but a Creature which whatever the Traveller believes it to be still it is his faithful Guide But have we no other benefit from the Sun but its light only Doth it not also warm comfort and enliven us Yet the Scriptures gives more noble operations to Faith it is as much the life of the Soul as the Soul is of the Body it gives spirit and motion to every faculty of the Soul so the Apostle Gal. 2.20 I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me But our Doctor frustrates this Grace of God for if Righteousness come by the Law then Christ is dead in vain what good can the Light do to a Traveller that wants legs and life or that is blind from his birth As to his two Idioms I only ask the Doctor Why when that Scripture calls Christ the Son of Man it means a Man of Eminence and Perfection So when it calls him the Son of God doth it not mean a perfect and supreme God The Doctor objects from John 10.36 that our Saviour spake nothing what he had been from Eternity when if ever he ought to have done it but only what he was in relation to other Messengers of God Smalcius confesseth that in this Scripture John 10.36 Christ affirmed himself to be God yet in his Answer to Smaglâ—cius he minceth the matter and says Christ did neither affirm nor deny himself to be God for he doth not say v. 30. Say ye that I blaspheme because I said I am God but say ye that I blaspheme because I said I am the Son of God But Smalcius says as the Doctor does That if Christ had been the very God he ought to have expresly affirmed it See Cloppenburgh's Anti-Smalcius p. 309. This of St. John being one of the best pieces of Armor wherein the Socinians put their trust to defend themselves against all the Arguments for our Saviour's Deity we must trie what Mettle it is made of P. 28. Col. 1. he thus infers That it seemeth plain as by other Evidence so by Christ's own words that a practical Faith is all that our Saviour requires for when the Jews came about him and said How long dost thou make us to doubt if thou be the Christ tell us plainly And he in answer thereto called God his Father They took up Stones to stone him because said they thou being a Man makest thyself God He did not on so urgent occasion assert his Right but abating so much as exceeded their comprehension satisfied himself that he might satisfy them with what might be sufficient for their Conviction to Salvation Is it not written in your Law I have said you are God's c. He speaketh nothing of what he had been from Eternity in himself but what he was in relation to the World and in comparison with all other Messengers of God To them says he God sent his Word by their betters but it is not sent to me by my betters but by me to my inferiors They were sent into the World the common way and were afterward sanctified by receiving God's word N. B. but I was first sanctified and afterward sent and if they who were less extraordinary were honoured with a higher Title can it be Blasphemy in me who am their Superior if I take a meaner Title This Scripture is made the Corner-stone of all the Socinian Babel which they endeavour with all their Art and Might to establish and raise as a Tower of Defence against the Power of Heaven and Earth The late Author of Thoughts on Dr. Sherlock 's Vindication of the Trinity makes it the Subject of his Letter he says p. 3. c. 1. That Christ brought in a sence of Unction and Sanctification instead of a sence of Nature i. e. a Socinian sence instead of an Orthodox And c. 2. That the Orthodox as they call themselves can no way escape because if Christ made use of the reason taken from his Sanctification he has at the same time given away the former from the eternal Generation P. 4. c. 1. he says That the other Passages which Dr. Sherlock alledgeth for Confirmation viz. of the eternal Generation as that the Word was with God he
was prevailed with to subscribe but returning home to Spain Athanasius says that Hosius on his Death-bed repented complaining of the Violences which were offered him and anathematized the Arians charging all the People to avoid that Heresie Athanasius gives him an excellent Character and in allusion to his Name says He was truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. a Holy Man Another Synod was made up by some of these Men at Sirmium where they condemned as well the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as being not Scriptural words and 't is observed that in their address to the Emperour among other Titles which they gave him they termed him Eternal which they denied to grant to the Son of God whom they affirmed to be a Creature This Synod was held Anno Dom. 359. But there needed yet a farther Confirmation of the Arian Doctrine and therefore the Emperour is perswaded to send to the Bishop of Rome to summon all the Bishops of the Latine as the Emperour undertook for the Bishops of the Greek Church and there was like to be so great a concourse that one place was not thought capable to entertain them wherefore Ariminum in Italy was appointed for the Western and Selucia for the Eastern Bishops Here Valens finding the Nicene Faith likely to be confirmed read a Creed very like to that of the Nicene one only expression being subtily inserted viz. That Christ was not a Creature like unto other Creatures and all the rest being agreeable to the Nicene Faith they were unwarily prevailed with to sign that Creed which implied our Saviour to be a Creature the same after much Controversie was confirm'd at Selucia by the means of Leonas whom the Emperour sent there for that purpose Some of the Eastern Bishops in their Return stayed at a place called Nice in Thracia where they confirmed the same Faith thinking to recommend it to the common People under the name of the Nicene Faith These were headed by Ursacius And at Antioch some others met Anno. 360. and condemned the use of the word Substance whence they were called Anomaeans and Exoucontians But about this time Constantius dies viz. Anno 361 whose great business was to establish the Arian Faith imploying the Bishops in one Synod after another and influencing them all by his own Presence or his Deputies and his Threatning Letters But on his Death-bed it is said he repented of these three things 1. That he had caused the Death of so many of his Kindred 2ly That he had named Julian to be his Successor in the Empire And 3ly That he had occasioned so many Troubles and Innovations in the Church and Faith See Theoderet l. 3. c. 1. p. 125. But Athanasius survived him many Years and died in a good old Age having established the Foundation of the Christian Faith and thereupon raised a perpetual Monument of his Learning and Piety which shall be happily remembred in all Places where the Gospel is preached Chap. 9. He says The Dispute is dangerous and the Danger is twofold 1. Of Blasphemy 2. Contention 1. Concerning Blasphemy They who held the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were thought to blaspheme as denying that the Son had any substance of his own The others were accused as Heathen that brought in the Worship of many Gods And thus he says either Party charged the other with Blasphemy As for the Arians it may well be thought that they had their superior and inferior Gods in that they worshipped a Created God but the Consubstantialists worshipped one God only i. e. the Trinity in Unity There is no doubt a Blasphemy against the Son of God when as the Pharisees that would have stoned him because he said he was the Son of God thinking that he acted by the help of Belzeebub the Prince of Devils and if they had only denied him to have wrought his Miracles by the Spirit of God this had been a Blaspemy An ancient Divine of our Church Mr. Porter writing of the Incarnation of our Saviour gives his sence of Matth. 12.31 32. which I only repeat and leave the Reader to judge of it being alien from the common Interpretation Christ having cast out a Devil by his Divine Spirit the Pharisees knowing it must be done by some supernatural Power would not grant it to be by the Power of God but of the Devil our Saviour convinceth them that it was done by the Spirit of God tho' they would not acknowledge it but against the Evidence of a Divine Power blasphemed the Spirit by which our Saviour had done that Miracle They had reproached him as a Man before calling him a gluttonous Person a Wine-bibber a friend of Publicans and Sinners This was remissius ventire de felio hominis But when they blaspheme the Spirit of God by which he had cast out a Devil as if by consent of Devils he had cast them out this he denounceth an unpardonable Sin the Sin against the Holy Ghost i. e. saith he Against the spirit of God in Christ not taken personally for the Holy Ghost but essentially for the Godhead of Christ for which he quotes St. Basil saying Spiritus appellatio est Communis tribus personis And Tertul. Jesus Christus est Spiritus dei St. August also Quia deus Spiritus est potest dici Pater est Spiritus filius est spiritus c. 2. He says the Pharisees had not heard of the Person of the Holy Ghost of which some of the Disciples were not fully instructed The Question was Whether Christ acted by the Spirit and Power of God or the Devil And Christ proves he did it by the Spirit i. e. by the Power of the Godhead The sence then of our Saviour's Answer to make it pertinent to the Objection is this What I have now done I have proved to be done by the Spirit of God and though what you have spoken against me as the Son of Man may be forgiven yet what you or any other shall speak against me as the Son of God shall never be forgiven Therefore he concludes that to deny the Deity of Christ is that Blasphemy for to rob Christ of his Godhead which is the foundation of the Remission of Sins is to exclude ourselves from that benefit Qui negat deum in Christo caret omni Misericordia He that denies Christ to be God cannot obtain mercy Hence the Fathers affirm Arius and Julian who denyed the Deity of Christ to be guilty of the Sin against the Holy Ghost 2 St. John 4.3 Every spirit or doctrine Qui soluit Jesum So St. Heirom Prosp c. read that Text That divides the Deity of Christ from his Humanity is Antichrist St. Ambrose de Fide And he is Antichrist that denyeth the Father and the Son 1 Joh. 2.22 He adds It is dangerous because we have no firm footing from Scripture Antiquity or Councils Which because he only affirms without shew of proof it will be sufficient to
deny And though this Position were rash enough yet what he adds is much worse viz. That the Athanasian may be numbered among the Roman Doctrines and to be leveled with the Arian equally unworthy of not only our Faith but our Study Now the Athanasian Doctrine is not only agreeable to the Nicene but they are both retained in the Doctrine of the Church of England and how can he affirm himself a Son of the Church of England who bids such an open Defiance to the Doctrine of that Church The Nicene Council grounded their Decrees on the Scripture as they had been understood by the Primitive and Apostolical Fathers before there was either Imperial or Papal Power in the Christian Church and it is very strange if this be not a more firm Foundation than his corrupt Reason when it is contrary both to Scripture Antiquity and Councils and the sence of the Catholick Church in all Ages as much as to the Faith of the Church of England In this Chapter the Doctor tells us of the Council of Ariminum which was many Years after that of Nice and was the greatest for number that ever was but one of the worst for the major part were Arians the Doctor confessing p. 38. col 2. That the Arians had all the Eastern Churches except that of Hierusalem that in this Council the Latine Church were circumvented by the Greeks who when it was proposed by the Greeks Whether they would worship Christ or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they cried they believed not in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but in Christ Before I answer this Objection I shall add another which the Doctor urgeth p. 14. c. 1. speaking of the Consubstantiality he says It was a Mystery to those very Councils which determined it and as it appears says he by those contrary Determinations of several Councils and by the wavering of the same Council for that of Sermium framed two or three one whereof they would have reneg'd and laboured to recal its Copies Answ This Variety of Councils was occasioned partly by the influence of Arian Emperors under whom at that time St. Hierome observed the whole World became Arians but more especially by subtilty of those Greeks of whom he speaks who pleaded the Cause of the Arians in that Council of Ariminum against the Latine Church for those sort of Greeks were possest of the Eastern Churches as our Doctor observes But the Latine Church adhered to the Athanasian and Nicene Creeds and as Ignorant as the Doctor accounts them they discovered and baffled the Sophistry of his subtile Greeks even in that Declaration of theirs That they believed not in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but in Christ i. e. not in such a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as some of those subtile Greeks would have imposed on them contrary to the Opinion they had of Christ Now this piece of Sophistry will thus appear Athanasius speaking of some Hereticks who used the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says That Paulus Samos used it in a sence that might confirm his Error and destroy the true Notion of the Word The Council of Nice agreed the meaning of it to be That the Son had a proper Personality which made him the second Person in the Trinity but was of the Substance with the Father And Socrates l. 1. c. 8. says They held the Son to be of the Father but not as a part of his Substance which was the Error of Paulus Samos Sabellius c. declaring the Divine Essence to be undivided contrary to the Opinion of those Hereticks that held the Divine Substance to be divided between the Father and the Son And in this sence they used the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Council of Nice accounted Heretical this was known to the Latine Church and when they proposed that word in a sence opposite to the Nicene Faith they did as they had just cause reject it and answered that subtile Question with a plain renouncing of the Error of those Hereticks that thought to impose their sence on them We will not worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but Christ In this sence it was that the Fathers in that Council renounced the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eustathius had this distinction from Marcellus his Master whom St. Hilary and St. Basil call an Heretick See Socrates l. 1. c. 23. and Sozomon l. 2. c. 11. I shall here once for all give my Reader a short Account of the Controversy between St. Athanasius and Arius Alexander Bishop of Alexandria having heard of the Blasphemy of Arius a Priest under his Jurisdiction called a Synod of his Province to enquire into his Opinions and censure him Arius appeared and maintained That there was a time when Christ was not that he was Deus Factus made a God and so a Creature For these and other Heretical Opinions he was Excommunicated together with some others whom he had drawn to his Opinion and by their means the People were also divided denying to hold Communion with each other The Emperor being informed how far the Dissention spread and what Tumults had been already occasioned by the Controversy between the Catholicks and Arians though not fully informed of the truth of the Question made it his business to apply a seasonable Remedy to so great an Evil and first he sent Letters by Hosius Bishop of Corduba both to Alexander and Arius enjoyning them to Peace and Brotherly Communion I find saith the Emperor that the rise of the Controversy between you is this That when you Alexander required of your Presbyters what they thought of a certain place in the Law or rather of a needless Question and you Arius did imprudently reply what you neither ought to think nor being thought you ought to have supprest by silence the Discord between you caused a breach in your Communion whereby the People also were divided from the Unity of the Church wherefore I Exhort that each of you pardoning each other do embrace what I your Fellow-Servant most justly require for it was neither fit to move such a Question at first nor being moved to return such an Answer to it for such Questions which no necessity of the Law doth prescribe ought to be kept in our own Breasts and not to be unadvisedly committed to the Ears of the Vulgar lest we for the infirmity of our Nature not being able to explain what is proposed and the People through their dulness being not able to apprehend it they necessarily fall into Blasphemy or Schism for the Contention is not about any great Command of the Law nor is there any new Opinion started concerning the Worship of God but you both retain one and the same Opinion so it seems the Emperour was informed and therefore may well live in the same Communion as the various Sect of Philosophers do Let us duly consider how unequal it is that by your Contention about light and vain words the People that lived as Brethren should
things above Reason though to a carnal Apprehension they seem contrary to Reason Why else doth our Saviour pronounce them blessed that have not seen and yet believed viz. as St. Thomas did that Christ is their Lord and their God This is another great Fortress of the Socinians from which they tell us in the Doctor 's Language That Articles of Faith above the apprehension of Reason are like the Ravings in Bedlam p. 56. c. 1. A cast of Tertullian's Montanism Credo quia impossibile and that excess of Confidence he means our Christian Faith in defect of Reason is a certain symptom of Madness To this Fortress as their Frontier Garison all the Socinians resort nothing can be believed which cannot be understood and comprehended by Reason So Schlinchtingius against Meisner It implies a Contradiction that what exceeds the reach of Reason should be made an Article of Faith As if when the God of Heaven revealing his Will doth injoyn any Commandment or requires the belief of any Proposition upon his Authority which the reason of his Creatures is not able to comprehend or demonstrate to itself he did enjoyn the belief of Contradictions As in our Author's instance when Abraham believed against Hope and against his Reason he believed on the Authority of God that required him to offer up his only Son Isaac And why may we not as well believe that God sent his Eternal Son to be Incarnate and come down from Heaven for our Redemption tho' we cannot comprehend it we ought to believe the thing tho' we cannot comprehend the manner Natural Faith relieth upon natural Reason but Divine Faith upon Revelation which may be above but not against Reason If you require any other Testimony it is not Faith Vides saith St. Augustine non est fides what thou assentest to because thou seest a reason for it is not Faith Faith is the evidence of things not seen Heb. 11.1 That properly is Faith which gives up its assent to a Proposition on the Testimony of him that propounds it and in this case we say with the Doctor Let God be true and Humane Reason a Lyar. Humane Reason hath the judgment of Discretion the judgment of Decision belongs to the Scriptures to the Scriptures I say not as understood by any private Interpretation but as interpreted by the Analogy of Faith by the Harmony of the Old and New Testament and by the general Consent of the best Teachers in all Ages and to this we shall Appeal for the Decision of this great Truth That our Saviour is the Eternal Son of God There are certainly more plain Contradictions in the Arian Doctrines in this viz. That there should be an Omnipotent and Omniscient God that created all things and knows the secrets of all hearts and that this should be a created God for the Arians grant Christ to be the Creator of the World That God should be reconciled to Man that by Transgression is his Enemy hating and hateful to God without any satisfaction to his Justice this is to reconcile Light and Darkness Heaven and Hell or that a Finite Creature as a Created God must be could satisfy an infinitely offended Justice Nor is there any Article of our Christian Faith that seems so contrary to Reason as is their measuring of an Infinite Essence by Finite Reason that which measureth should be able to contain the thing that is measured Again To give Divine Worship to a Creature by what Name soever it be dignified or distinguished which is due only to the Almighty God our Creator is contrary both to sound Reason and Scripture which the Socinians some of them at least do and on their own Principles are guilty of Idolatry The Difference among the Socinians concerning giving Divine Worship to Christ will save us the labour of proving them to be Idolaters if Christ be not the Eternal Son of God Socinus would not hold him for a Christian that would not worship Christ with Divine Worship But Christianus Frankin Francis David and some others who agreed with Socinus that Christ was but a Man urge this Argument to prove Socinus and his Followers to be Idolaters because they worshipped him whom they believed to be but a Creature The Argument is thus formed As great as is the distance between a Creator and a Creature so great ought the difference be of the Honour that is given to the Creator from that which is given to the Creature but the distance between the Creator and Creature is the greatest distance therefore there ought to be the greatest difference in the Honour that is given to the Creator from that which is given to a Creature Hence they conclude Socinus and his Followers who worshipped Christ with Divine Worship were Idolaters But to this they answer That if it be the pleasure of God to have it so so it must be and for this they quote St. John 5.23 That all men should honour the Son as they honour the Father To this Franken replys That by Socinu 's own Doctrine the Scripture he says must not be believed because it is contrary to Reason and therefore there is some other hidden sence in that Scripture which must be searched out N. B. and Franken urgeth Deut. 6.13 repeated Matth. 4.10 Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve And it is farther urged that Crellius saith the word only in John 17.3 where Christ says This is life eternal to know thee the only true God that by it Christ excludes himself from being the true God And by the same word say his Adversaries Christ excludes himself from being the Object of Divine Worship This Franken confirms farther against Socinus from Isa 42.8 My glory will I not give to another Isai 48.11 and observe who speaks I am Jehovah that is my name and my glory c. What Glory is that Gloria Jehovitatis mea as Calomus's Phrase is that is The Glory of my Godhead So in Jer. 3.18 That men may know that thou whose name alone is Jehovah art the most High Jehovah then is the Name of the most high God and his alone so that it cannot be given to any other who is not the most high God but this name Jehovah is given to Christ in the Scripture therefore he is the most high God This Argument shall be confirmed hereafter In the mean time we have gained this Point viz. That if Christ be the Object of Divine Worship as the Socinians grant then must he be the Eternal Son of God of the same Essence with his Father and as St. Paul speaks God over all blessed for ever Now if the word only in St. John exclude Christ from being the true God then the same word in Deut. and St. Matthew exclude him from Divine Worship wherefore if his being the true God be against the Reason of Socinians though never so plain in Scripture we must search out some other hidden sence as Socinus says
and what other or better sence can we find than what the Catholick Church alway affirmed viz. That Christ with his Father and the Holy Ghost is the only true God And thus St. Augustine as hath been said renders it This is Life eternal to know thee and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent to be the only true God Cont. Arium Tom. 6. n. 17. P. 54. Against Christ's Righteousness imputed to us he tells a Story of a Land that was wasted with a raging Plague to whom came a great Physitian declaring he had a Nostrum which never failed to cure those that trusted it that it cost him dear but he would freely communicate it to all that needed and desir'd it and exhorted all to come to him which many did and were cured but some said there needed no more but to trust to the Medicine The Physitian was infinitely skilful in his Art and faithful in his Promises wherefore by confidence in him they should have all his health imputed to them and that should cure them as perfectly as if they received real health by the use of his Prescriptions This is a Fiction of his own to serve his Hypothesis which I shall answer by a more probable Story out of the Midras Tehillim or the Exposition of the Psalms where on those words Kiss the Son we have this Parable This is as when a certain King was displeased with the Inhabitants of a great City the Citizens went and made Supplication to the King's Son to appease his Father's displeasure The Son went and effectually prevailed with his Father to forgive them and take them into his Favour which the King's Son having signified to the Citizens they addressed their Thanks to the King The King bid them go and give Thanks to his Son for had it not been for his Mediation their City had been destroyed This is that which is said Kiss the Son and it may be well for the Doctor if he would go and do likewise It is not good to make sport of holy Things and droll on the Mysteries of our Salvation comparing them to Fables and this in Scripture Phrase ridiculing the Peace of God as passing all understanding and the Meritorious Death of our Saviour to the Prescriptions or Juggles of a Quack as if Faith in the Power and Merits of our Saviour were as vain as the Opinions of the Mobile concerning an Empyrick yet we read of great Miracles wrought by Faith in the Person of Christ P. 41. Thus the Leaper by his Faith Lord if thou wilt thou canst make me clean And the Centurian's Faith prevailed for his Servant Matth. 8. And as many as touched the hem of his garment were healed by their faith in his almighty power There could not therefore be a more odious Comparison he says of the Mystery which the Apostle spake of to the Ephesians That though it were hard to be believed yet it was easie to be understood for it signified only That the Gentiles were Fellow-Heirs with the Jews But was not this a Mystery hid from that Nation until Christ and his Apostles revealed it wiser Men than the Doctor do rightly admire some Secrets in Nature which when their Causes and Natures are discovered very ignorant Men may apprehend this the Doctor says to shew That it is so far from being an honour that it is rather a defect As if there were no difficulty in Matters of Faith and the Mystery of Godliness mentioned by St. Paul in Timothy viz. God manifested in the flesh were no harder to be understood than that Mystery which had been so clearly revealed The admission of the Gentiles to a fellowship with the Jews This is to serve another Hypothesis of his That we are not bound to believe what we cannot understand by our Reason and so to invalidate our belief of the Union of the Divine and Humane Nature in Christ for saith the Doctor p. 32. col 1. If we will needs enquire into the Mysteries of Christ's Divinity and Incarnation we shall find our Understandings no less confounded by the brightness of the Mystery than our Eyes are by the Sun and of this the Holy Ghost warns us not only by a careful silence concerning our Lord's Genealogy but by express Types and Prophesies concerning its inscrutability So that by the Doctor 's Propositions neither our Knowledge nor our Faith have any thing to do about the Divinity he will not call it the Deity of our Saviour or his Incarnation it matters not whether we know or believe any thing concerning either I shall not charge the Dr. with any thing that he hath not expresly said and therefore do acknowledge that what he speaks of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation falls not under our debate but I know that the Socinians say that there is no firmer footing for the Doctrine of the Trinity in the holy Scripture than for Transubstantiation and the Socinians at Alba Julia in a Treatise printed 1568. say thus Whoever believes the Pope to be Antichrist doth truly believe the Popish Trinity Infant Baptism and other Popish Sacraments to be the Doctrines of Devils And when I consider that the Naked Gospel is bereaved of this Doctrine and intended not so much against the Doctrine and Sacraments retained in that Church as against what is maintained in the Church of England I submit it to the Judgment of others whether these following expressions of the Authors do not reflect on the Doctrine of our Church when he speaks of a pack of impertinent Mysteries p. 58. col 2. And that Mahomet among all his Whimsies hath nothing comparable to it p. 59. col 1. And that the Athanasian Doctrine may be numbred with the Papal and of the Contradictions which are in the one as well as in the other P. 41. c. 1. P. 21. c. 1. P. 56. c. 2. The Doctor seems much offended at the word Mystery thô he knows thereis nothing reserved from the youngest Catecheumen in the Church of England who is diligently instructed in the Principles of Religion by order of the Church yet he must grant that there were many things in the Scripture which continued to be so until they were revealed such were those Mysteries mentioned by St. Paul 1 Tim. 3.16 Without question great is the mystery of godliness God was manifest in the flesh justified in the spirit seen of angels believed on in the world received up into glory And such were those Parables which our Saviour proposed to his Disciples which exceeded their apprehensions until they were expounded to them by our Saviour And such was that Mystery which the Apostle speaks of Ephes 1.10 and Ephes 3.6 which was not made known to the Sons of Men in other Ages as it was revealed to the Apostles and Prophets by the Spirit viz. That the Gentiles should be Fellow heirs and of the same Body and partakers of his Promise in Christ by the Gospel But when the Gentiles were taken in to be
Fellow heirs with the believing Jews then it ceased to be a Mystery and surely there is another Mystery in v. 9. of that 3d Chapter which our Doctor cannot yet apprehend thô plainly revealed viz. That God created all things by Jesus Christ See Crellius Heb. 1. v. 10. which though frequently asserted in the Scripture as Col. 1. Heb. 1. c. yet the Socinians utterly deny nor can they apprehend what is that Righteousness which is by Faith as opposed to that which is by the Law or to our Doctor 's Natural Faith but the Doctor tells us of another Mystery little less than a Contradiction as p. 1. c. 2. viz. The Patriarchs knew only the Fathers yet Abraham had the knowledge of Christ and our Saviour says that Moses spake of him and the Doctor affirms the same That Moses spake of Christ Deut. 30.12 for the Doctor saith p. 41. c. 1. that the Apostle applied that place to Christ If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved It was not so much in dislike of the Popish Mysteries that the Doctor so often rejects whatever is above human Reason under that Notion as in dislike of the Doctrine of the Trinity and the Eternal Generation of our Saviour of which he speaking p. 34. c. 1. says If you understand not this you must not wonder at least not gain-say it for it is a Mystery which Reason cannot fathom and therefore must be rejected as one of the Packs of Impertinent Mysteries p. 58. c. 2. The Doctor that writes so mystically himself should not be so much displeased if he meet with some Mysteries in other Writings especially in the Scripture wherein as St. Peter observes of St. Paul's Epistles There are some things hard to be understood and will not be fully explained till Elias come And indeed as Naked as his Gospel is it is darkned with so many obscure mists and subtle insinuations that it will appear to some of his most diligent Readers to be one continued Mystery of Iniquity It is a sorry shift which Sandius and others that write against the Trinity make to excuse themselves for thus Sandius pleads see his Appendix p. 107. That he wrote his Book on behalf of the Protestants against the Papists to convince them that the Scripture is the only Rule of Faith because they could not prove the chiefest Articles of their Faith viz. the Trinity Consubstantiality and Coequality from the Tradition of the Fathers of the three first Ages In this our Doctor follows Sandius and would perswade us to renounce the Doctrine of the Trinity because it is a Popish Doctrine See more of this in another Epistle of Sandius p. 261. I have proved saith he that the whole World in the fourth Age was Arian and the Arians enjoyed Temporal Felicity and wrought Miracles to shew against the Papists that these are not marks of the true Church I reckoned diverse Councils of the Arians who condemned the Catholick Faith to shew that we ought not to depend on their Determinations in Matters of Faith but on Scripture only I have shewn that the Church of Rome hath honoured many Arians that were of very evil lives as Saints to shew you what manner of Saints the Papists do Invocate by the Authority of the Infallible Church of Rome c. All this is right but when the whole design of his Book is to shew that the Doctrine of Arius denying the Godhead of Christ and making him a Creature is more consonant to Scripture and Antiquity than that of the Trinity in the Church of Rome is to condemn all other Churches that maintain the same Doctrine for to this purpose tends that which remains in the Third Enquiry concerning the Papists who do impose new Articles of Faith and set their Traditions and Decrees in an equal rank with the Scriptures and sometimes above them with a Nonobstante to Christ's own Institutions as the Socinians do by their Reason let them therefore dispute the Case with each other and let Baal plead for himself He cannot wound the Church of England through their sides unless he can prove the Doctrine of the Trinity to be a Popish Tradition which he doth more than intimate and herein he would do them more service than any of their Champions by proving Popery to be more ancient than the Council of Nice I am now come to the Conclusion of the Author who shuts up his Naked Gospel as generally the Socinians do with a Plea for Toleration to all that confess the Lord Jesus and believe that God raised him from the Dead though they leave him as Naked a Lord as the Doctor hath left the Gospel robbing him of his Eternity and Deity and that Honour and Worship which on those considerations are due to him our Faith in his Name Obedience to his Commands a devout use of his Holy Sacraments and so turn Turks Jews o◠as some English Socinians have done Quakers and live above Ordinances satisfying themselves with a Christ within them and a Natural or Naked Gospel as Mr. Pen in a Socinian Tract hath done This he calls giving Faith its due Bounds by imprisoning it and dismembring it separating Obedience and Love which are inseparable from Evangelical Faith And as for Love saith he we must give it its due boundlesness even to them that love not but deny and bid open defiance to the Godhead of Christ to whom the Apostle denounceth Anathema I wish heartily the Doctor had shewn more Charity to the Church of Christ in general than to think and speak of them as guilty of Idolatry in all Ages for so are they that give Divine Worship to a Creature and that he who stiles himself a Son of the Church of England would not defame her as tainted with Popish because she holds the Athanasian Doctrine for he calls that and the Nicene their Creeds and our Litany their Litany and so becoming a Papist to the Papists and it 's much better to be an Athanasian Papist than an Arian or Socinian Heretick The Doctor tells us in the Vindication p. 7. of his intention to have presented his Naked Gospel to the Convocation that they might be induced to enlarge their Charity at a time when all the Christian World expected it from them And was all the Christian World once more become Arians that they should become Disciples to his Naked Gospel I cannot conceive what compliance the Doctor could presume of from that Convocation he well knows their Prolocutor was the same that agreed shortly after to the burning of it in the Convocation at Oxford and doubtless both he and the several Members would have had the same Resentment of it at Westminster as the Oxford Convocation had When therefore we see a Viper rising out of the Fires of Oxford and hissing p. 5. That the Heresie lay not in the Book but in the
Scripturis facere pronunciant qui absque necessitate a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 discedunt They do but make sport of the Scripture Joh. 1. Col. 1.16 Heb. 1. that depart from the Letter of it when therefore the Scriptures do declare our Blessed Saviour to be the Creator of all things visible and invisible Which must be understood not of the new Creation only as the Socinians affirm to evade the Testimony of St. John ch 1. but of the whole Creation for the Angels which kept their purity and station needed not a new Creation when he is declared to be God over all blessed for ever 1 Joh. 5.20 when he is called the true God and Col. 2.9 In whom dwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily that is really and fully That Christ says of himsef Joh. 8.58 Joh. 17.5 1 Tim. Acts 20 2◠1 Joh. 3.16 Before Abraham was I am That he speaks of the Glory which he had with the Father before the World was That God was manifested in the flesh That God purchased the Church with his own blood And hereby we perceive the Love of God because he laid down his Life for us and we are still looking for the appearance of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ And being exegetical the words the Great God shewing his Essence and that of our Saviour his Office That all men should honour the Son as they honour the Father And to omit many others he that Christ says of himself I am Alpha and Omega the first and the last which none but God could say What is it but to Play with the Scriptures after all these express significations of his Eternal Deity to deny it And because the best Interpretation of the Scripture is to be found in the Harmony and Agreement or the Analogy of the Old and New Testament the best Confutation of the Socinian and consequently the best Confirmation of the received Opinion of the Eternal Deity of the Son of God may be demonstrated from those places in the Old Testament which speaking of our Saviour as the Messias and attributing to him the very Essence Names and Properties of the Supreme God are in the New Testament appropriated to our Blessed Saviour who therefore in divers places appeals to the Prophesies that went before concerning him in the Law of Moses in the Psalms and Prophets to them we will appeal and search the Scripture because they testify of him At the Transfiguration of our Saviour Matth. 17. it is said There appeared together with Peter James and John Moses and Elias Ut lex Prophetae cum Evangelio congruentes sempeternum Dei filium quem annunciaverant revelarent That the Law and the Prophets conspiring with Christ and his Evangelists might declare the Eternal Son of God whom they had foretold and were to preach to the World See St. Ambrose ad Gratian. 59. and St. Aug. ad Catechum c. 6. This the Author of the Naked Gospel might have observed from his own Quotation of Justin Martyr's words to Triphon the Jew P. 31. I shall not prove saith Just Mar. that Christ is God otherwise than by proving that this is the Christ and that it was foretold that he should be such The same course doth our Country-man Bradwardine take speaking of the Trinity c. p. 29. he confidently affirms That there is not one substantial Article of the Christian Faith which God had not solemnly foretold and revealed by his Prophets and that in so plain a manner that if any Philosopher as a Lover and Enquirer after Truth should duly consider what is written in the Old Testament he must become a Christian As he observes many of the Fathers who were such Philosophers were perswaded to be Such were Justine Martyr Clemens Alex. Tertull. Origen and many others who from the Schools of Plato and some Traditions which he had received from the ancient Jews were prepared upon reading of the Old Testament to imbrace the Doctrine of our Saviour and his Apostles because they agreed with the Gospel preached by our Saviour Hornbeck in his Sum of Controversies tells us That the Disciples of Mahomet do confess that if they believed St. Paul 's Epistles to be Canonical as we do they must believe the Divinity of Christ Therefore in their Disputes with Christians concerning the Deity of Christ they decline the Authority of St. Paul's Epistles saying They were adulterated by the Christians That Testimony which Pliny gives to Trajan concerning the Christians that they did carmen dicere Christo tanquam Deo sing Praises to Christ as their God coming from an Heathen is the more firm and it cannot be denied The Christians who suffered under the Heathen Persecutors suffered for their belief of the Eternal Deity of our Saviour for their demand of them was Nega Deum incende Testamentum Deny your God burn your Testaments which implys that they believed that Christ was God and that their Testaments bore witness to the same Yet their answer was Christianus sum Christum verum Deum agnosco adoro I am a Christian I acknowledge and worship Christ as the true God See the Tripartite History of the Persecution by the Vandals And now I shall compare those Testimonies in the Old and New Testament which do prove that our Saviour was the Eternal Son of God and only premise that if any one of those Scriptures which speak of the Eternal God in the Old Testament be rightly applied to our Saviour in the New that then he is that Eternal God To this therefore I apply myself desiring the Reader to bear in mind that whatever from the Old Testament is in the New Testament accommodated to Christ by himself or his Apostles is as true and to be believed as much as any other part of the Gospel The first Scripture that I shall compare is that of Moses Exod. 9.1 and Exod. 20.1 with Heb. 11.25 26. from which places it is thus argued He to whom the People of Israel were a peculiar People whom by the hands of Moses he brought out of Aegypt for whose sake Moses chose to suffer affliction with them rather than to enjoy the Crown of Pharoah He was the God of Israel but our Saviour Christ was he whose peculiar People they were therefore c. This is applyed to Christ Heb. 11.24 By Faith Moses refused to be called the Son of Pharoah's Daughter and chose rather to suffer affliction with the People of God than to enjoy the pleasures of Sin for a season esteeming the Reproach of Christ greater Riches than the Treasures of Aegypt Here the affliction of the People of God is called the reproach of Christ his therefore was that People and them he brought out of Aegypt and therefore he is that God The Apostle St. Jude v. 5. speaks to this purpose That the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in the vulgar Latine is rendred Jesus having saved the people out of Aegypt afterward destroyed
that place of this Author in his second Apology where he says The Christians are not Worshippers of many impure Gods but they worship the Father Son and Holy Ghost in reason and in truth Athenagoras a Philosopher and Christian in his Apology for the Christians to Antoninus saith Least any should think me ridiculous in saying that God hath a Son as the Poets who speak of Gods which were 〈◊〉 other than Men the Word or Reason of God is of the same Form and Efficacie with the Father for of him and by him all things were made and the Father and the Son are one the Father being in the Son and the Son in the Father for the Word of the Father is the Son of God united together in Power Vertue and Substance but distinguished in Subsistence and Personality Tatianus a Disciple of Justin Martyr in his Oration against the Greeks says That Christ was begotten not by any abscission but by participation or communication because that which is cut off is separated from the Original but that which is communicated doth not diminish that which doth communicate as the light of one Torch is not diminished by communicating light to another so the Word going forth from the Power of the Father did not leave the Father destitute of the Word Clement Bishop of Alexandria the Disciple of Pantenus a Martyr and Master of Origen saith That the Word was and is the Divine Principle of all things which Word hath now appeared unto Men who alone is both God and Man In his Admonition to the Gentiles speaking on Titus 2.13 of the Great God he applies it to Christ who saith He teacheth us to live well that he may as God bestow eternal Life on us hereafter And then he perswades the Gentiles Believe O Man in him that was God and Man believe him that suffered and is worshipped the living God believe in him all ye Men who alone is the God of all Men. And there he tells them That he is most manifestly the true God equal with the God of the Universe the Son in the Father and the Father in the Son And in his Pedoag l. 1. calls him The Holy God Jesus Tertullian in his Apology against the Gentiles c. 21. speaking of Christ saith We affirm'd him to be begotten of God and therefore to be the Son of God by unity of substance for both are one Spirit as when a Beam is extended from the Sun the Sun is in the Beam because it is a Beam of the Sun the substance being not seperated but extended thus he is God of God as is Light of Light for whatsoever thus proceeds from God is God Prolatum a patre non separatum dispositione alium non divisione as Grotius on John 1. quotes him In his Book against Praxeas he saith That God alone was before all things but he was alone because there was nothing without him yet was he not alone because he had his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Reason with him And Grotius on John 1. quotes Tatianus speaking to the same sence That Christ was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So Tertullian calls him God of God and Light of Light the Son not separate from the Father of one undivided Substance le cont a Proxeam c. 4. teneo unam substantium in tribus coherentibus That the whole Trinity is of one Dignity and Power In c. 17. he ascribes all the Attributes of God the Father to the Son and chap 2. against Praxeas he says The name of the Father is the Almighty God the most High the God of Israel all these agree to the Son and on Christ's words I and my Father are one he shews that they are two whom he makes equal and joyns in one Theophilus Antiochenus writing to Autolocus l. 2. says That which is begotten of God is God Which he speaks of the Word alway existing in the heart of God Ireneus l. 3. c. 6. says That neither our Lord nor the Holy Spirit nor the Apostles would so distinctly and absolutely have called Christ God unless he had been the true God and if at any time it gives the name to them that are not Gods it is with some addition and signification to manifest that they are not true Gods And from Christ's words to the Pharisees concerning the Resurrection I am the God of Abraham c. he concludes That Christ with his Father is the God of the Living who spake to Moses and was manifested to the Father And he applies that of the Apostle to the Rom. 9. v. 5. Whose were the Father's and of whom was Christ according to the flesh who is God over all blessed for ever which Scripture is so expounded by most of the Fathers He proves also the Deity of Christ he says That Christ is the measure of the Father because he comprehends him And this he appropriates to our Saviour who only comprehends the Father and he excludes the whole Creation from knowing or apprehending the Father according to his Greatness L. 2. c. 43. he says Thou O Man were created and didst not alway exist with God as doth his own Word And l. 3. c. 8. he says Nothing can be compared with the Word of God by whom all things were made Caius an ancient Presbyter of whom Photius makes mention in these words That he taught expresly of the Deity of Christ our God and of his Ineffable Generation by the Father Hyppolitus a Martyr about the Year 220 speaking of Christ says He was the infinite God and also a Man that had perfectly the perfect substance of both and that his Divinity was the same after his Incarnation as before infinite incomprehensible impassible unalterable and in brief a substantial subsistence Origen whose most mature and perfect Work being that of his Dispute with Celsus written when he was about sixty Years old confirms the same Doctrine speaking of the wise Men that presented their Gifts to our Saviour says That they offered them to him that was God and Man Gold as to a King Mirrh as to a Mortal Man and Frankinsence as to GOD. And that Christ had something that was Divine under the Humane Nature which was properly the Son of God God the Word the Power and Wisdom of God We do not separate says he the Son of God from Jesus for both the Soul and Body of Jesus were strictly united with the Word of God and of the Body of Christ he says It was the Temple of God the Word St. Cyprian another Latine Father a Bishop of Africa and an eminent Martyr writing to Quirinus against the Jews mentioneth divers Scriptures to prove Christ to be God as Isa 45. Psal 46. and proves That Christ being God and Man became Mediator between us and his Father In his Epistle to Cecilian speaking of Christ saith He is the Power Reason and Wisdom of God he descended into the Virgin and was God mixt with Man he is our God our Christ And to name no
in prejudice of the Text but for the help of reasoning from the Text. First It is agreed that there is a Trinity and in this Trinity there is a Priority of Origination acknowledged by all So Smalsius I deny not that there is Father Son and Holy Ghost and that this may be called a Trinity So the Nicene Fathers say of the Son that he is God of God Light of Light true God of true God which expressions imply at least a Prerogative of Order though not of Nature in which respect Eusebius Caesar scarce deserves to be accused of Arianism by the Papists for affirming the Co-eternity of the Son with the Father against the Arians only he is observed to hesitate at their Co-equality where if he only mean the Co-equality of Order not of Nature he may pass for a good Catholick Secondly It is agreed that Christ is truly and properly called the Son of the Living God seeing he took his Original not after Humane manner from mortal Seed but was conceived in the Virgin 's Womb by the Holy Spirit over-shaddowing her and the Power of the most High coming upon her and is therefore called the Son of God Luke 1.35 Thirdly It is agreed that Christ is expresly called God in respect of his Mission office and Dominion and therefore is exalted above all Creatures to be adored with Divine Worship together with the Father and to be invoked as the Searcher of Hearts and Omnipotent as Smalcius confesseth in his Book of the Divinity of Christ and Socinus in his Defence against Christianus Franken The Question then may be reduced to these Terms Whether Christ the Messias the Redeemer and Saviour of us all be God not by Donation only from the Father by Pre-eminence of Authority or Dominion but by Nature not as to Indetermination Continuation or Signification Eviternal but Eternal without beginning or end not of an inferior or another but of the same Essence with the Father and the Holy Ghost not of alike but the same Nature as the Ancients speak and as our second Article expresseth it Consubstantial here the Papists Lutherans the Greek Asian and African Church affirm as we do The Transilvanians some Polonians and some Apostate Hollanders as appears by their Writings which are in too many hands do deny The principal Arguments for Confirmation of our part are these Here we shall not heap up all the Arguments but choose such as time will permit to handle 1. From the Text Thou art Christ the Son of the living God whence I argue The Son is of the same Nature with the Father so Man begets Man c. but Christ is the Son of God the first begotten not the first created the only begotten his proper Son therefore he is of the same Essence with the Father and consequently as is exprest in the first Article of the same Power and Eternity Crellius endeavours to avoid the edge of this Answer by this sorry Evasion That the Son of God signifies no more than the Anointed of God so that he is called Son not by Nature but Unction and therefore the addition of The living God is omitted in St. Mark and Luke Ans This is to find fault with the Text rather than the Inference from it as if St. Matthew did intend to deceive and not inform us and were to be corrected by St. Mark and St. Luke as Crellius would have it 2. 'T is no contradiction to say less than had been said by another now in St. John we have the same Confession as herein Matthew Joh. 6.69 3. By Unction Kings and Priests are made but Sons by Generation and therefore the Word Son expresseth his Person as the word Christ his Office Christ and the Son of God signifies the same Person but not in the same respect Socinus objects That the same manner of expression is Isa 1.10 where the Israelites are called the Sons of the Living God not that they were Sons co-essential with God but that they were Sons of the Living God as opposed to Idols whence it appears this Epithet of God viz. Living shews of what sort of God Christ is Son not what sort of Son he is To which we answer That by the Adversary's confession this Epithet Living declares what sort of God the Father is therefore I infer that it shews also what sort of Son the Son is as the Maxim is Qualis pater talis filius i. e. In living Beings he that begets and he that is begotten is of the same sort 2. In Hosea Sons of the Living God are opposed to such as were not the People of God not as if they were natural Sons but adopted by calling not by being begotten as it is express They shall be called c. Rom. 9.26 So that here is no relation to Idols who neither beget nor are begotten 3. The Text shews the Son of the Living God is opposed to the Son of a Mortal Man as being of a more excellent kind for all saw him to be the Son of Man some said the Baptist others that Elias or Jeremiah were revived But this inspired Confession of St. Peter signifies something more sublime Q. P. we profess that thou art not meerly the Son of mortal Man as the Baptist and others of Humane Seed but that thou art the Son of that Eternal God which alway liveth As therefore he was of the same Nature with his Mother as the Son of Man so it is necessary that he be of the same Nature with the Father as the Son of the Living God Here Ostorodius objects That begetting of a Son implys the Mortality of the Parent for to what purpose are Sons begotten but to continue the succession of those that are mortal Ans This is very acute as if there were no difference between natural and temporal Generations and this which is eternal and ineffable Sons are adopted to supply succession and did the Ancient of days adopt the Son of Man for succession's sake See to what our Rationalists reduce the matter Socinus more distinctly explains the Mystery It is not to be denied that the Power of God did convey into or create in the Virgin 's womb some substance out of which conjoyn'd with that which was of the Virgin 's substance Christ became true Man who on that account had not only the Virgin for his Mother but God also for his Father considered as Man Ans Where doth the Scripture speak of this Socinian Mass Yes say they The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the Power of the most High over-shaddow thee True but doth it follow hence that he â—â—eated any such Substance as they feign this is Logick above our apprehension The Text speaks of a Vertue and Power not of any Substance now a Son is product from the Substance of the Father and in likeness of Nature whence he is called Son of the Virgin not of the Holy Ghost who communicated a power of Conception to her
in his Disputation against Socinus concerning the Adoration of Christ where be adds that Jesus signifieth a Saviour but who can so save us as the Father Socinus replys That the name Jesus here is the proper name of a Person not an Appellative of his Office for then it should be read O Lord of Jesus which though they do confute the trifling of Franken in the Interpretation of this place yet they do not answer it by shewing how Adoration may be given to Christ whom they account to be a Creature seeing that of Isa 42.8 saith expresly I am Jehovah that is my name and my glory will I not give to another This Knot Socinus could not untie with all his skill 5ly We might urge the Works of Christ 1. The Creation for by him all things were made Col. 1.16 2. Conservation He sustains all things by the word of his power Heb. 1.3 3. He wrought Miracles in his Name and Authority 4. He forgave Sins Mat. 9.5 He sent the Holy Ghost Acts 2. Which things do exalt him above the rank of Creatures but because the Adversaries do refer all these things to a delegated and derived Power and not to an innate Power which we have already proved this may suffice In the last place we shall shew some Absurdities which will follow on this Heterodoxy of our Adversaries for if Christ being of the same Nature with the Father were not the Supreme God it would follow that the Scriptures do exhibit to us great Uncertainties in the great business of Salvation 2ly That the Churches the Councils the Fathers of all sorts of all Ages in all places have recommended to Posterity Heretical Creeds and monstrous Comments 3ly That the Martyrs have sealed ridiculous things with their Bloud 4ly That we have given up our names in Baptism to a Creature as well as to a Creator and Worship and Invocate a Creature with the same Religious Worship And seeing it is acknowledged that Christ sent the Holy Ghost which received from Christ what he delivered John 16.14 It would follow 5ly That a Creature did contribute something to the Eternal Power and made use of his Service 6ly From hence it may be concluded that our Mediator was insufficient for so great an Office seeing all that he did perform was due Debt every Creature being so subject to the Creator that it can merit nothing from him Whence it followeth lastly That the publication of the Law was in vain and the punishment threatned to Offenders frustrate because it was impossible that a Finite Creature could satisfie Infinite Justice Therefore if our Saviour be not only the Son of Man but also the Eternal Son of the Living God that Lord God the Α and Ω which is which was and is to come the Almighty if he were in the beginning with God if he is God over all blessed for ever if he thought it no Robbery to be equal with God and the essential Attributes of Jehova are every-where attributed to him if he did by his own Power do such Works as no Creature could do then those Blasphemies which follow on the Opinions of the Adversaries are intolerable and we may truly and confidently conclude Jesus Christ our Saviour to be of the same Essence and Power with the Father and Holy Spirit which was to be demonstrated An Answer to the Objections of the Adversaries Jo. Crellius in his two Books of One God the Father urgeth sixty two Objections which we will reduce to seven Heads under which the rest will be easily considered and confuted First He argues from exclusive Particles that the Father only is the Supreme God So Joh. 17.3 This is life eternal to know thee only the true God There is one God the Father of all who is above all Eph. 4.6 To us there is one God the Father of whom are all things 1 Cor. 8.6 And Rom. 16.27 To God only wise be glory Hence he concludes that Christ is not the Supreme God 1. Answer in general These Particles do exclude only the Creatures and Idols not the Persons of the Son or Holy Ghost and the Particle only in S. John doth not limit the word thee but God and it may be referred to the word know as if it had been said This is sufficient to eternal Life if they only know him that did send and him that was sent or as St. Chrysostom reads This is life eternal to know thee and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent to be the only true God otherwise nothing is to be known concerning Christ but that he is sent To that in the Corinth as it is attributed to the Father that he is the One God so Christ is called the One Lord now if because the Father is called the One God the Son be excluded from the Deity by the same reason because the Son is called the One Lord the Father may be excluded from being our Lord. The same Answer serves to that in Ephes 4. and Jude 4. as to that of Rom. 16. it expresly includes Christ the Wisdom of God as the name God also includes the Trinity where there is not a distinct mention of Persons 2ly They urge our Saviours own Confession Of that day and hour knoweth none neither the Angels in heaven nor the Son and as St. Mark adds But the Father only Therefore the Son is not Omniscient and by consequence he is not the Supreme God Ans No one knows i. e. no Creature for so Christ appeared and was accounted by them that questioned with him But this doth not exclude Christ as God nor the Holy Spirit which searcheth the deep things of God 1 Cor. 2.10 Thus when it is read No man knoweth who the Father is but the Son will you therefore conclude that the Father knoweth not himself or that the Holy Ghost knows him not Or when you read that none knows the things of God but the Spirit of God 1 Cor. 2.11 therefore the Son and the Father do not know the things of God Men of reason should be ashamed of such an Inference The word alone therefore doth not exclude all simply but such in a certain sort whom it concerned not to know and therefore ought to watch lest that day should come on them sleeping and unprepared 2ly Others add that the word knoweth doth not denote simply to know a thing but as in the Hebrew Conjugation Hephil to make others know which they confirm from 1 Cor. 2.2 I determined not to know any thing among you but Jesus Christ and him crucified i. e. it is my Office not to teach any other thing But I think this not so applicable for then neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit did so know as to teach or make others to know it But Christ as the Son of Man did not know it simply but as the Son of God the same God with the Father and the Holy Spirit 3ly They urge two Visions the first from Dan. 7.13 14. Where
produced these Scriptures He that hath seen me hath seen the Father also I and the Father are one And I in the Father and the Father in me Which Scripture were commonly used by the Noetians and Samosatenians Patris voluit esse substantiam solidam propriam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 filium autem sanctum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. as our Doctor renders it Wisdom and Power to act Sandius goes on Sabellius compared the Father to the Hyposi asis of the Sun the Son to the Light and Rays the Holy Ghost to its Calefaction he so taught the Father Son and Holy Ghost to be one that they were but one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whence his Followers as Sandius observes were called Patropassians as teaching God the Father by the assumption of Humane Nature to be called the Son and in that Nature the Father suffered because one and the same God was Father Son and Holy Ghost without distinction of Persons which as Lirinensis said was to confound the Trinity and as our Doctor doth make it to consist of one Substance and two Proprieties or Energies viz. to Think and to Act. The Doctor says that Thought is the first begotten Son of God that Thought is a Word brought forth and is the same in substance with the Mind whence it issueth but if it issueth from the Mind it becomes separate and cannot be any longer the same with the Mind And this Opinion is the same which Philastrius notes to be the Opinion of Paulus of Samosata That the Word was not the substantial Son of God co-eternal with the Father but the Verbum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the enunciative or prolative Word only an aery Sound not a living and sempeternal Person co-equal with the Father An Opinion somewhat like that of Mr. Hobbs concerning the Trinity which he makes God the Father speaking by Moses in the Old Testament and by Christ in the New Sandius observes the like of Cosmas who taught with Sabellius That the Word of God was naked and without any subsistence which his Followers called Verbum vocale enunciativum and sometime internal or mental p. 117. And he tells us that though the Modern Socinians detest the Error of Sabellius yet they are ignorantly guilty of it p. 120. Near of kin are the Doctor 's new Notions of the second Person in the Holy Trinity to the old Heresies so often condemned making the second Person a Thought the third a Power and he might have named as many more of the Divine Propriety viz. Holiness Love Justice c. as would have made a Denary of Persons The Doctor describes the third Person in the Trinity by Power and Action and this description he says is constantly used in the Holy Scripture Though we find the Attribute of Holy more frequently annexed to that of the Spirit as Eph. 4.30 Grieve not the holy Spirit Eph. 1.13 and the Holy Ghost in almost an hundred places We find also that of Power attributed to the second Person more eminently than to the third as 1 Cor. 1.24 Christ is called the power of God and the wisdom of God Matth. 28.18 All power is given to me in heaven and earth Hebr. 1.3 He upholds all things by the word of his power Matth. 9.6 The Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins And he that made and upholds and shall judge all Men may most properly be called the power of God How vain then is that boast of the Doctor 's p. 49. That this his way of tracing the Holy Trinity agrees to a syllable with the words of the Holy Scripture and the Church of England and is more plain to be understood and proved than that magisterial way vulgarly used wherein Reason is not permitted to speak p. 50. This is Platonis fastum Majore fastu to oppose his private Reason against both the Reason and Authority of that Church whereof he professeth himself a Son and impose on it an old Heresie in a new Dress Bellar. in Cronol says That Fr. David held the Son and Holy Spirit to be Virtutes Dei non distinctas a Patre persona relatione vel essentiae Chap. 8. p. 53. Treateth of the Incarnation The Doctor entituled Chap. 7. of the first Edition thus Of Belief with meer respect to the Person of Christ Inquisitiveness concerning his Incarnation censured first because Impertinent And he endeavours to prove it impertinent to our Lord's design viz. That we should enquire after the Dignity of his Person that he was the Eternal Son of God this he calls Boys play and Push-pin and quotes the Judgment of Constantine for it When the Game as he calls it was first set on foot Then p. 29. of the first Edition It was no more necessary to understand the Dignity of the Person of Christ than for a Traveller to understand the Features of the Sun Now p. 55. of the new Edition If we regard the Dignity of the Person it is plainly more honourable to believe him God the Creator than a Creature Deified Then p. 30. he says That part of Mankind which our Lord most favoureth are most unable to pay him such a belief Now p. 54. If we consider the thing it self it appears much more credible that the Eternal Son of God should descend to the Nature of Man than that a Man should be made God endued with a new Omniscience to hear and Omnipotence to grant the Prayers of all Supplicants Then it was fruitless to the Enquirer's satisfaction p. 31. Now p. 55. If we consider the fruits our thankfulness must be greater our love more inflamed our obedience more quickned our hatred to sin more sharpned and all the good ends of Faith much more promoted Then it was dangerous lest we should blaspheme p. 36. and because we have no firm ground to go upon Now p. 55. Upon all accounts were the Scriptures so doubtful as to leave us to our choice we ought rather to carry our biass toward our Lord 's eternal Divinity than against it In this and what other Disputes may arise for I have not leisure to enquire what other Additions or Alterations are made I doubt not but the Rector of Exeter-Colledge will sufficiently answer the private Opinions of Dr. A. B. In the mean time I am very glad to hear and heartily congratulate the Doctor for what he hath declared p. 53. That though there be in the Trinity a great Mystery yet now nothing is more plain than that of St. John The word became flesh and dwelt among us or those words of St. Paul Great is the Mystery of Godliness God was manifested in the flesh And that these and several other words of Scripture so plainly speak our Lord's Divinity that whoever otherwise interprets them will no less rob the words of their meaning than Christ of his honour And what is there in this wonderful Mystery that Reason cannot comprehend p. 54. And