the phrase Filioque that they are so ready to quarrel at this Creed rather than the Nicene but from some other reason and most likely because the Doctrine of the Trinity is here more fully expressed than in that at which the Socinian is most offended I observe also That these Personal Properties are expressed just by the Scripture words Beget Begotten Proceeding without affixing any sence of our own upon them but leaving them to be understood in such sence as in the Scripture they are to be understood Agreeable to that modest Caution which is proper in such Mysteries It follows So there is One Father not three Fathers One Son not three Sons One Holy Ghost not three Holy Ghosts And in this Trinity none is afore or after other That is not in Time though in Order None is greater or less than another But the whole three Persons are co-eternal together and co-equal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The three 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 truly persons or properly persons and co-eternal each with other and co-equal Having thus finished these particular Explications or Illustrations concerning the Trinity without any condemning Clause of those who think otherwise other than what is there included namely that if this be True the contrary must be an Errour He then resumes the General as after a long Parenthesis So that in all things as is aforesaid the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be Worshipped And to this General annexeth this Ratification He therefore that will he saved must thus think of the Trinity or thus ought to think of the Trinity or Let him thus think of the Trinity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And to this I suppose we do all agree who believe the Doctrine of the Trinity to be true For if the thing be true those who would be saved ought to believe it He then proceeds to the Doctrine of the Incarnation Which he declares in general as necessary to salvation Furthermore it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Iesus Christ. Which is no more than that of Iohn 3. 36. He that believeth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him And therefore we may safely say this also There being no other Name under Heaven whereby we must be saved neither is there Salvation in any other Acts 4. 12. After this as before he had done of the Doctrine of the Trinity he gives first a general Assertion of his being God and Man and then a particular Illustration of his Incarnation For the right Faith is that we believe and confess That our Lord Iesus Christ the Son of God is God and Man What follows is a further Explication of this General God of the substance of the Father begotten before the Worlds And Man of the substance of his Mother born in the World Perfect God and perfect Man of a reasonable Soul and humane Flesh subsisting Equal to the Father as touching his Godhead and Inferiour to the Father as touching his Manhood Who although he be God and Man yet he is not Two but One Christ. One not by conversion of the Godhead into Flesh but by taking of the Manhood into God One altogether not by Confusion of Substance but by Unity of Person For as the reasonable Soul and Flesh is one Man so God and Man is One Christ. And thus far as to the Description of Christ's Person and Natures The Particulars of which I take to be all true and therefore such as ought to be believed when understood But such many of them as persons of ordinary capacities and not acquainted with School Terms may not perhaps understand Nor was it I presume the meaning of the Pen-man of this Creed that it should be thought necessary to Salvation that every one should particularly understand all this but at most that when understood it should not be disbelieved That in the general being most material That Iesus Christ the Son of God is God and Man the rest being but Explicatory of this Which Explications though they be all true are not attended with any such clause as if without the explicite knowledge of all these a man could not be saved He then proceeds to what Christ hath done for our Salvation and what he is to do further at the last Judgment with the Consequents thereof Who Suffered for our Salvation Descended into Hell Rose again the third day from the Dead That Clause of descending into Hell or Hades 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we meet with here and in the Apostles Creed as it is now read is not in the Nicene Creed nor was it anciently as learned Men seem to be agreed in what we call the Apostles Creed When or how it first came in I cannot well tell Nor will I undertake here to determine the sence of it The Hebrew word Sheol and the Greek Hades which here we translate Hell by which word we now-a-days use to denote the Place of the Damned was anciently used to signifie sometime the Grave sometime the Place State or Condition of the Dead whether good or bad And when Iob prays Iob 14. 13. O that thou wouldst hide me in Sheol as in the Hebrew or in Hades as in the Greek Septuagint certainly he did not desire to be in what we now call Hell but rather as we there translate it in the Grave or the condition of those that are Dead But what it should signifie here is not well agreed among learned Men. The Papists generally because that is subservient to some of their beloved Tenents would have it here to signifie the Place of the Damned and would have it thought that the Soul of Christ during the time his Body lay in the Grave was amongst the Devils and Damned Souls in Hell Others do with more likelyhood take it for the Grave or condition of the Dead and take this of Christ's descending into Hades to be the same with his being Buried or lying in the Grave The rather because in the Nicene Creed where is mention of his being Buried there is no mention of his descent into Hell or Hades And here in the Athanasian Creed where mention is made of this there is no mention of his being Buried as if the same were meant by both phrases which therefore need not be repeated And though in the Apostles Creed there be now mention of both yet anciently it was not so that of his descent into Hell being not to be sound in ancient Copies of the Apostles Creed If it signifie any thing more than his being Buried it seems most likely to import his Continuance in the Grave or the State and Condition of the Dead for some time And the words which follow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 say nothing of his coming out of Hell but only of his rising from the Dead But the words here stand undetermined to any particular sence
he had a desire to be dissolved or depart hence and to be with Christ as being far better for him than to abide in the flesh Phil. 1. 23 24. And willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord 2 Cor. 5. 8. Now I do not understand the advantage of his being with Christ or being present with the Lord if he were then to be in a sensless condition not capable of pain or pleasure punishment or reward In Epist. 3. ad Dudithium we have these words Unusquisque sacrae Scripturae ex suo ipsius sensu Interpres eaque quae sibi sic Arrident pro veris admittere de bet ac tenere licet universus terrarum Orbis in alia omnia iret That is Every one is to interpret Scripture accerding to his own sence and what so seems Pleasing to him he is to imbrance and maintain though all the World be against it Socinus in his Tract de Ecclesia pag. 344. says thus Non attendendum quid homines doceant sentiantve vel antehac docuerint aut senserint quicunque illi tandem aut quotcunque sint aut fuerint Which is pretty plain I am not says he to regard what other men do teach or think or have before now taught or thought whosoever or how many soever they be or have been And if his whosoever are not here to be extended to the Sacred Writers he tells us of them elsewhere Ego quidem etiamsi non semel sed saepe id in sacris monimentis scriptum extaret non idcirco tamen ita rem prorsus se habere crederem Soc. de Jesu Christo servatore Par. 3. cap. 6. Operum Tom. 2. p. 204. As for me saith he though it were to be found written in the Sacred Moniments not once but many times I would not yet for all that believe it so to be And a little before in the same Chapter having before told us that he thought the thing Impossible he adds Cum ea quae fieri non posse aperte constat divinis etiam oraculis ea facta fuisse in speciem diserte attestantibus nequaquam admittantur idcirco sacra verba in alium sensum quam ipsa sonant per inusitatos etiam tropos quandoque explicantur That is When it doth plainly appear or when he thinks so whatever all the World think beside that the thing cannot be then though the Divine Oracles do seem expresly to attest it it must not be admitted and therefore the Sacred Words are even by unusual Tropes to be interpreted to another sence than what they speak Which Sayings are I think full as much as I had charged him with And if these Instances be not enough I could give him more of like nature But I shall conclude this with one of a later date at a Publick Disputation at Franeker Octob. 8. 1686. where amongst others this Thesis was maintained Scripturae divinitatem non aliunde quam ex Ratione adstrui posse Eosque Errare qui asserere sustinent Si Ratio aliud quid nobis dictaret quam Scriptura huic potius esse credendum And when Ulricus Huberus because it was not publickly censured as he thought it deserved to be did oppose it in Word and Writing the same was further asserted in Publick Disputations and in Print by two other Professors in Franeker in Vindication of that former Thesis that If Reason do dictate to us any thing otherwise than the Scripture doth It is an Error to say that in such case we are rather to believe the Scripture An account of the whole is to be seen at large in a Treatise entituled Ulrici Huberi Supremae Frisiorum Curiae ex-senatoris De concursu Rationis Scripturae Liber Franakerae apud Hen. Amama Zachar. Taedama 1687. And a Breviate of it in the Lipsick Transactions for the Month of August 1687. And after this I hope this Answerer will not think me too severe in charging such Notions on some of the Socinians while yet I said I was so charitable as to think divers of them were better minded But what should make him so angry at what I said of Guessing I cannot imagine That there is a Distinction between the Three we are sure this I had said before and the Answerer now says It is so But not such as to make three Gods this I had said also and the Answerer says so too That the Father is said to Beget the Son to be Begotten and the Holy Ghost to Proceed I had said also and I suppose he will not deny because thus the Scripture tells us And whatever else the Scripture tells us concerning it I readily accept But if it be further asked beyond what the Scripture teacheth as for instance What this Begetting is or How the Father doth Beget his only begotten Son This I say we do not know at least I do not because this I think the Scripture doth not tell us and of this therefore I hope this Gentleman will give me leave to be ignorant Certainly it is not so as when one Man begets another but How it is I cannot tell And if I should set my thoughts awork as some others have done and each according to his own imagination to Guess or Conjecture How perhaps it may be I would not be Positive That just so it is Because I can but Guess or Conjecture I cannot be sure of it For I think it is much the same as if a man born Blind and who had never seen should employ his Fancy to think What kind of thing is Light or Colour of which it would be hard for him to have a clear and certain Idea And if this Gentleman please to look over it again I suppose he will see that he had no cause to be so angry that I said We can but Guess herein at what the Scripture doth not teach us That the Socinians have set their Wits awork to find out other Subsidiary Arguments and Evasions against the Trinity beside that of its Inconsistence with Reason I do not deny But That is the Foundation and the rest are but Props And if they admit that there is in it no Inconsistence with Reason they would easily answer all the other Arguments themselves I thought not to meddle with any of the Texts on either side because it is beside the Scope which I proposed when I confined my Discourse to that single Point of it s not being Impossible or Inconsistent with Reason and did therefore set aside other Considerations as having been sufficiently argued by others for more than an Hundred Years last past But having already followed him in some of his Excursions I shall briefly consider the two signal places which he singles out as so mainly clear In the former of them Iohn 17. 3. This is life eternal that they might know thee the only true God and Iesus Christ whom thou hast sent he puts a Fallacy upon us which perhaps he did not see
both which are Individual from himself But when we say God is Omnipotent we do not say he is Omnivolent He wills indeed All things that Are else they could not be but he doth not will all things Possible And the like of other Attributes If therefore we do but allow as great a Distinction between the Persons as between the Attributes and certainly it is not less but somewhat more there is no incongruity in ascribing the Incarnation to One of the Persons and not to the rest 'T is asked further How I can accommodate this to my former Similitude of a Cube and its Three Dimensions representing a Possibility of Three Persons in one Deity I say Very easily For it is very possible for one Face of a Cube suppose the Base by which I there represented the Second Person as Generated of the Father to admit a Foil or Dark Colour while the Rest of the Cube is Transparent without destroying the Figure of the Cube or the Distinction of its Three Dimensions which Colour is adventitious to the Cube For the Cube was perfect without it and is not destroyed by it Which may some way represent Christ's Humiliation Who being Equal with God was made Like unto Us and took upon him the Form of a Servant Phil. 2. 6 7. So that upon the whole Matter there is no Impossibility in the Doctrine of the Incarnation any more than in that of the Trinity And supposing them to be not Impossible it is not denied but that they are both of them sufficiently Revealed and therefore to be Believed if we believe the Scripture And of the other Articles in the Athanasian Creed there is as little reason to doubt There is therefore no just Exception as to the Declarative part of the Athanasian Creed And as to the Damnatory part we have before shewed that it is no more severe than other passages in Scripture to the same purpose and to be understood with the like Mitigations as those are And consequently that whole Creed as hitherto may justly be received 'T is true there be some Expressions in it which if I were now to Pen a Creed I should perhaps chuse to leave out But being in they are to be understood according to such sence as we may reasonably suppose to be intended and according to the Language of those times When they did use to Anathematize great Errors which they apprehended to be Destructive of the Christian Faith as things of themselves Damnable if not Repented of And I suppose no more is here intended nor of any other Errors than such as are Destructive of Fundamentals Oxford Octob. 28. 1690. Yours Iohn Wallis POSTSCRIPT November 15. 1690. WHen this Third Letter was Printed and ready to come abroad I stopped it a little for this Postscript occasioned by a small Treatise which came to my hands with this Title Dr. Wallis ' s Letter touching the Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity answered by his Friend It seems I have more Friends abroad than I am aware of But Who this Friend is or whether he be a Friend I do not know It is to let me understand that a Neighbour of his reputed a Socinian is not convinced by it But names some Socinian Authors who endeavour to elude Scriptures alledged for the Trinity by putting some other sence upon them He might have named as many if he pleased who have to better purpose written against those Authors in vindication of the True sence And if he should Repeat what Those have said on the one side and I say over again what Those have said on the other side we should make a long work of it But he knows very well That was not the business of my Letter to discourse the whole Controversie at large either as to the Evidence or as to the Antiquity of the Doctrine For this I had set aside at first as done by others to whom I did refer and confined my Discourse to this single Point That there is no Impossibility which is the Socinians great Objection but that What in one consideration is Three may in another consideration be One. And if I have sufficiently evinced this as I think I have and I do not find that he denies it I have then done what I there undertook And in so doing have removed the great Objection which the Socinians would cast in our way and because of which they think themselves obliged to shuffle off other Arguments on this pretence Now whether he please to call this a Metaphysick or Mathematick Lecture certain it is that there are Three distinct Dimensions Length Breadth and Thickness in One Cube And if it be so in Corporeals there is no pretence of reason why in Spirituals 〈◊〉 should be thought Impossible that there be â—â—ree Somewhat 's which are but One God And these Somewhat 's till he can furnish us with a better name we are content to call Persons which is the Scripture word Heb. 1. 3. Which word we own to be but Metaphorical not signifying just the same here as when applied to men as also are the words Father Son Generate Begot c. when applied to God And more than this need not be said to justifie what there I undertook to defend Now 't is easie for him if he so please to burlesque this or turn it to ridicule as it is any the most Sacred things of God but not so safe Ludere cum Sacris The Sacred Trinity be it as it will should by us be used with more Reverence than to make Sport of it I might here end without saying more But because he is pleased to make some Excursions beside the Business which I undertook to prove and which he doth not deny I will follow him in some of them He finds fault with the Similitude I brought though very proper to prove what it was brought for as too high a Speculation for the poor Labourers in the Country and the Tankard-bearers in London And therefore having a mind to be pleasant he adviseth rather as a more familiar Parallel to put it thus I Mary take thee Peter James and John for my wedded Husband c. thinking this I suppose to be Witty And truly supposing Peter Iames and Iohn to be the same Man it is not much amiss But I could tell him with a little alteration if their Majesties will give me leave to make as bold with their Names as he doth with the Names of Christ's Mother and of his three Disciples which were with him in the Mount at his Transfiguration Matth. 17. 1. it were not absurd to say I Mary take thee Henry William Nassaw without making him to be three Men or three Husbands and without putting her upon any difficulty as is suggested How to dispose of her Conjugal Affection And when the Lords and Commons declared Him to be King of England France and Ireland they did not intend by alotting him three distinct Kingdoms to make him three Men. And
or wrong this is no fair play For hardly can any thing be so plain but that somebody may find a pretence to cavil at it It is enough for us therefore if it be thus meant without saying it is impossible to put a forced sence upon it But this would have spoiled his design in mustering up a great many forced sences not that he thinks them to be true for surely they be not all true and I think none of them are nor telling us which he will stick to but only that he may cast a mist and then tell us which is all that he concludes upon it the place is abscure he knows not what to make of it But when the Mist is blown off and we look upon the Words themselves they seem plain enough as to all the Points he mentions The Word which was with God and was God and by whom the World was made and which was made flesh and dwelt amongst us and we saw his glory and of whom Iohn bare witness must needs be a Person and can be no other than our Lord Iesus Christ who was born of the Virgin Mary And this Word which was in the beginning and by whom the World was made must needs have been pre-existent before he was so born And this Word which was with God the true God and was God and by whom the World was made and who is one with the Father Joh. 10. 30. and who is over all God blessed for ever Rom. 9. 5. is no other God than God Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth And this plain sence the words bear without any force put upon them Without any Incoherence Inconsistence or Contradiction sâ—â—e that they do not agree with the Socinian Doctrine And there is no other way to avoid it but what Socinus adviseth in another case Quantacunque Vis verbis adhibenda putting a Force upon the words no matter how great to make them not to signifie what they plainly do Or else to say which is his last refuge that St. Iohn writes Nonsence But let him then consider Whether this do savour of that respect which he would have us think they have for the Holy Scripture and whether we have not reason to suspâ—â—t the contrary of some of them And Whether we have not reason to complain of their putting a forced sence upon plain words to make them comply with their Doctrine And lastly Whether it be not manifest that the true Bottom of their aversion from the Trinity whatever other subsidiary Reasons they may alledge is because they think it Nonsence or not agreeable with their Reason For set this aside and all the rest is plain enough but because of this they scruple not to put the greatest force upon Scripture Nor is there any other pretence of Nonsence in the whole Discourse save that he thinks the Doctrine of the Trinity to be Nonsence So that the whole Controversie with him turns upon this single Point Whether there be such Impossibility or Inconsistence as is pretended That of 1 Iohn 5. 7. There be three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these Three are One is wanting he says in some Copies And it is so and so are some whole Epistles wanting in some Copies But we will not for that quit the place For we have great reason to think it genuine If this difference of Copies happened at first by chance upon an oversight in the Transcriber in some one Copy and thereupon in all that were transcribed from thence it is much more likely for a Transcriber to leave out a line or two which is in his Copy than to put in a line or two which is not And if it were upon design it is much more likely that the Arians should purposely leave it out in some of their Copies than the Orthodox foist it in Nor was there need of such falsification since 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concludes as strongly as to a Plurality of persons and of the Son in particular which was the chief controversie with the Arians as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth as to all the Three And I think it is cited by Cyprian in his Book De unitate Ecclesiae before the Arian Controversie was on foot And therefore if it were done designedly and not by chance it seems rather to be razed out by the Arians than thrust in by the Orthodox And the Language of this in the Epistle suits so well with that of the same Author in his Gospel that it is a strong presumption that they are both from the same Pen. The Word in 1 Iohn 5. 7. agrees so well with the Word in Iohn 1. and is peculiar to St. Iohn and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in 1 Iohn 5. 7. with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Iohn 10. 30. these three are One with I and the Father are One that I do not at all doubt its being genuine And that Evasion of his these three are one that is one in testimony will have no pretence in the other place where there is no discourse of Testimony at all but I and the Father are One unum sumus must be One Thing One in Being One in Essence For so Adjectives in the Neuter Gender put without a Substantive do usually signifie both in Greek and Latin and there must be some manifest reason to the contrary that should induce us to put another sence upon them The other place Matth. 28. 19. Baptizing them in or into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is not so slight an evidence as he would make it For whether 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be rendred in the Name and taken to denote the joint Authority of Father Son and Holy Ghost admitting the person baptized into the Christian Church Or into the Name which this Answerer seems to like better and taken to denote the Dedication of the person baptized to the joint Service or Worship of Father Son and Holy Ghost Baptism it self being also a part of Divine Worship They are all conjoined either as in joint Authority or as joint Objects of the same Religious Worship and for ought appears in the same Degree And Socinus himself doth allow the Son to be Worshipped with Religious Worship as Adoration and Invocation as Lawful at least if not Necessary Now when this Answerer tells us of the First Commandment Thou shalt have no other God but me the God of Israel He might as well have remembred that of Christ Matth. 4. 10. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve And therefore since Socinus and other of his followers do allow Christ to be Worshipped they must allow him to be God even the God of Israel And I am mistaken if he be not expresly called the Lord God of Israel Luke 1. 16. Many of the children of Israel shall he John the Baptist turn to