first Commandment Thou shalt have no other God but Me he speaks to all Men to the illiterate to the sincere and even to Children as well as to those who are practised in the Arts of deceiving and being deceived by a Disguise of Words and by captious Forms of speaking If his meaning therefore was there is an Almighty Father who is God he hath an Almighty Son who also is a God and besides these there is an Almighty Spirit distinct from the other two and a God no less than either of them if I say this was his meaning would he have couched it in such words as these There is none other God but one or in these There is one God and there is none other but He or would he have said Thou shalt have none other God but ME Could the Wisdom of God it self find no other words but these which are so directly contrary to such a meaning by which to express himself and that too to those who were utterly uncapable of apprehending such a Sense in them These are the words which God spake upon Mount Sinai with Thunders that shook the Earth and Heavens I am the Lord thy God thou shalt have no other God but ME. They tell us his meaning was there are three Almighty All-knowing and Most good Persons each of them singly and by himself God and all of them jointly Creators of all things Now who would have thought it that this should be the meaning of no other God but ME Without doubt the Texts and the meaning are as far from one another as any the most contradictory Propositions can be and till they can remove this first Commandment out of the way it will be impossible for Men of Sense to be of the Trinitarian Perswasion I mean if they be also sincere if they suffer not themselves to be blinded by the Interests or awed by the vain Terrors of the present false World Our Opposers themselves grant that when the Israelites first heard this Commandment they understood it and could then no otherways understand it as the Unitarians now do namely thus Thou shalt never own any other Person as God but only Me who now speak to thee God Almighty suffered this Sense of his Words to pass current for upwards of 1500 Years But then say they he sent our Saviour and his Apostles to give another Sense of them nay a contrary Sense The Apostles and our Saviour had it in Charge to tell us that no other God but Me was as much as to say God the Father and God his Son and God the Holy Ghost three Divine Persons each of them Almighty each of them All-knowing and most Good and each of them God But I verily think had the Apostles indeed pretended this to be the Interpretation of the first Commandment they would not have found a single Person who would have believed or received them For these good Men had not nor desired Penal Laws Prisons Confiscations Deprivations Exclusions from the common Privileges of the Society by which to awe Mens Minds to profess and even to believe that black is white and white is black It would have been told them by all their Hearers that the Sense of Words is unalterable and that even the greatest Miracles cannot authorize an Interpretation evidently contrary to the Text. If the Speaker had been only a Man yet the Sense of his Words when actually spoken can never be changed by any Authority whatsoever If Heaven and Earth were miraculously destroyed to confirm an Interpretation that disagrees with the Natural and Grammatical Sense of the Words it will for all that ever remain a false Interpretation Cardinal Bellarmine is extreamly puzled with this Difficulty he saw plainly that the first Commandment and other Texts of the Law is conceived in such words that the Israelites could not think there were three Divine Persons but only one Divine Person But the Reason saith he of this was because the Israelites having lived long in a Nation where they owned and worshipp'd many Gods if they had been told of three Divine-Persons or of God the Father God his Son and God the Holy Ghost they would most certainly have apprehended them to be three Gods This saith the Cardinal is the Reason why the Doctrine of the Trinity was reserved to the Times of the New Testament Bellarm. de Christo l. 2. c. 6. Notandum est Deum in vetteri Testamento noluisse proponere Mysterium Triuitatis expresse quia Judaei incapaces erant quia recens exierant de Egypto ubi colebantur multi Dii intraturi erant in terram Chanaan ubi etiam multi babebantur Dii ne videlicet putarent sibi tres Deos proponi colendosâ— voluisse tamen Deum adumbrare hoc Mysterium ut cum in Novo Testamento praedicaretur non videretur omnino Novum q. d. The Doctrine of the Trinity was not propounded expresly to the Jews in the Old Testament they were uncapable of it because coming out of Egypt where many Gods were worshipped and entering into Canaan where also many Gods were acknowledged the Jews would have thought that three Gods had been propounded to them to be worshipped Nevertheless it was hinted or shadowed to them lest when it came to be preached in the New Testament it should seem altogether a new thing In reading the Works of this Cardinal I have often had this Thought That provided his Works were but bulky and learned he never cared what other Property they wanted no one can deny that his five Books against the Unitarians intituled by him De Christo are the most learned of any that have been written against us but they have no Wit and are throughout most injudicious What can be more unthought or silly for instance than this vain Elusion God speaks to the Jews saith he as if he were but one Person because they living among People who acknowledged many Gods would have mistaken three Divine Persons to be three Gods How came it to be more safe or seasonable or less liable to Misinterpretation to instruct Christians in the Belief of three Divine Persons than it would have been to teach the same Belief to the Jews The Jews saith the Cardinal would have mistaken they would have thought the Trinity an Almighty Father an Almighty Son and an Almighty Spirit to be three Almighties and three Gods so this Mystery was not preached to them What a Narrowness of Thought and Consideration is implied in this Answer for was not the whole Christian Church taken from among such Nations who all worshipped and owned many Gods The Reason alledged by the Cardinal if it were good for any thing must also have prevented the Revelation of that pretended Mystery to any of the Christian Nations and Churches I might also ask the Cardinal why he hath so much better Thoughts of Athanasius than of Moses and the Prophets Athanasius knew how to compose a Trinitarian Creed in the most express and particular
to deny that the Fathers ever held more than one Divine Essence or Substance but I have shown before the Ground of that gross and I doubt not wilful Mistake of the Doctrine of the Fathers But Dr. Cudworth thought that he had found an Expedient how he might keep sincerely to the Fathers and yet not be guilty of Tritheism for saith he tho there are three distinct Divine Essences or Substances vulgarly called Persons yet the second and third Persons or Essences are derived from the first and they all concur to the same Actions under the same Head or Principal even the Father Therefore 2. To that the second and third Persons are derived from the Father as their Fountain and Cause therefore they may be reckned as one God with him Here begins the Controversy between the Socinians and the Doctor They grant that every distinct Person is a distinct and particular Essence or Substance but they deny that three distinct Divine Essences can be understood to be one God Unity of Original or that the second and third Persons are derived from the first will not help the Doctor no not in the least The three Divine Essences which are called Persons are one God saith this Doctor because the second and third are derived from the first Why doth he not say too that three Human Essences or Persons whereof the second and third derive themselves from the first are one Man He may as well say this and as soon perswade it as the former the Son and Grandson derive themselves from a first Human Essence or Person called the Grandfather two Brothers derive themselves from their common Father Doth this Unity of Original make them all to be but one Man If not neither can Unity of Original make the Son and Spirit one God with their Fountain and Cause even the Father It is a reasoning altogether unworthy of Dr. Cudworth the Son and Spirit are particular Substances or Essences derived from the Essence of the Father as their Principle or Cause therefore they are one God with the Father for then all Angels all Men nay and all Beasts shall be one God with the Father who is their Cause and Principle Unity of Original is so far from proving that they are one God with him that it even demonstrates the very contrary for if they are derived from the one true God they themselves cannot be that one true God no more than the Effect can be the Cause that very Cause whose Effect it is These Arguments are so clear and withal so very obvious that I wonder much that Dr. Cudworth foresaw them not but it may be he foresaw them but thought withal that even all these Consequences are better than to admit such a Monstrosity in Philosophy as three Persons having only one self-same Substance in Number All things how hard soever would go down with him but only that but that can never be agreed to by a Philosopher 3. His last Subterfuge was this the three Divine Essences called Persons are but one God because they concur to all the same Actions of Creation and Providence under one Head the Father who only is Almighty ad intra or really Almighty How many Rarities hath he boxed up in a very little compass 1. Here is one Almighty who together with two other Persons is one God I would know how two other Persons can contribute to make him a perfect God who without them is Almighty The Scale is already full if Almightiness be there we need no more Weight and least of all the Weight of two Impotents If the Son and Spirit are not Almighty ad intra or not really Almighty but only as the Father Omnipotently concurs with them they are Impotent for every Person and Thing that is not Almighty or cannot do all things is impotent to some things Dr. Cudworth being so accurate a Philosopher saw evidently that three Almighty Persons are of necessity three Gods therefore he will admit of but one Almighty Person even the Father But then he should have look'd a little further or closer and he would also have seen that when he had found one Almighty there was no need to add to him two Impotents to make him a compleat God or as he speaks to make up the Intireness of the Divinity 2. 'T is altogether as rare strange and surprizing that the Son and Spirit are one God with the Father because they are gathered under him as their Head and Principal Doth not the Doctor prevaricate doth he not say these things only to establish Unitarianism so much the more strongly For if you say first that the Father is the Head and Principal and the Son and Spirit are subjected to him and then therefore they are one God with the Father their Principal and Head this in a Man of so great Sense looks like meer Prevarication for 't is plain to all that he should have inferred the contrary namely therefore only the Father is God We shall see the Weakness of Dr. Cudworth's Reasoning so soon as ever we apply it to any other Instances The Son and Spirit are one God with the Father saith he because he is their Head and Principal therefore say I the Servants and their Master the Subjects and their Prince the Children and their Parent are all one Governour because the Subjects Servants and Children are gathered under their Prince their Master and Parent as their Principal and Head Will the Doctor allow of this last Consequence if not he vainly urges or insists on the other 3. But the Son and Spirit concur with the Father to all the same Actions both of Creation and Providence and therefore may be said to be one God with him If the Doctor could prove that the Son and Spirit concur to the same Acts of Providence and Creation with the Father he would thereby prove that there are three Gods not that the concurring Persons are one God Many Carpenters for instance concur to make a Ship under one Head or Principal the Master-Builder Many Colonels and Captains concur to the marshaling of an Army under one Principal and Head their General Are therefore all these Carpenters Colonels and Captains one Master-Builder and one General That there is but one Master-Builder and but one General we grant but the Captains and Carpenters concurring with their Master-Builder and General are not one with the General and Master-Builder I do not think it necessary to make any further Reflections on such impotent Reasonings I will leave it with you Sir to judg Whether Dr. Cudworth hath given any new Strength to the Trinitarian Cause by reviving an old forsaken Explication If we will give a Name to Dr. Cudworth's Explication of the Trinity we must call it Mollis Arianismus a moderate Arianism The Arians were divided into two Parties the high or rigid Arians and the Ariani Molles or the moderate Arians The former of these being the Eunomians and AEtians strictly followed Arius they
the Arian Trinity is but of Persons all of them Homogenial all of them Eternal Spiritual and Uncreated They that shall deny this to be the Doctrine of the Fathers will find themselves obliged to answer to two things which are indeed fairly and truly unanswerable The first is Why those Fathers who contend for the Homo-ousios consubstantial or of the same Substance do yet expresly reject the Tauto-ousios and Mono-ousios or of the self-same Substance and Essence in Number The Tauto-ousios and Mono-ousios or of the self-same Essence or Substance in Number is the very Doctrine of the Schools and Moderns but is denied by the Fathers as meer Sabellianism which invincibly proves that by one and the same Substance and Essence they meant not one and the self-same or one in Number but one for Kind Nature or Properties Secondly They must also satisfy the Citations of D. Petavius and S. Curcellaeus and these in the Intellectual System which do all of them severally and much more conjunctly clearly show what the Sense of the Fathers was about Homo-ousios and consubstantial It appears by this and abundance more the like that Dr. Cudworth had the same Apprehensions concerning the three Divine Persons with Dr. Sherlock they both apprehend the three Persons to be as distinct and different and as really three several Intelligent Beings and Substances as three Angels are or as Peter James and John are Dr. Sherlock saith they are however called one God because they are internally conscious to all one anothers Thoughts and Actions but I do not believe that Dr. Cudworth would have allowed so much to the Son and Spirit as to be internally conscious to all the Thoughts and Actions of the first Person he always speaketh of them as every way inferior to the Father he will not allow them to be Omnipotent in any other respect but only externally that is to say because the Father concurreth Omnipotently to all their external Actions whether of Creation or Providence Dr. Cudworth desires to distinguish his Explication from all others of the Moderns by this Mark that it alloweth not the three Persons to be in any respect but Duration Co-equal for saith he three distinct Intelligent Natures or Essences each of them Pre-eternal Self-existent and equally Omnipotent ad intra are of necessity three Gods nor can we have any other Notion of three Gods but if only the first Person be indeed internally Omnipotent and the other two subordinate in Authority and Power to him you leave then but one God only in three Divine Persons This is Dr. Cudworth's Explication Every one will readily make this Exception he thinketh either that there is one Great God and two Lesser Ones or else only the first is true God and the other two in Name only The Doctor foresaw without doubt this Objection therefore see how he hath endeavour'd to prevent it First he reports some Answers of the Fathers to this Difficulty which Answers he expresly rejecteth For some of them said that the three Persons are one God by their Unity of Will and Affection Others said they are one God as all Men or all Mankind are called Homo or MAN namely because they All have the same Specifick Nature or Essence or Substance even the Rational For as all Men have the same Specifick Essence or Nature which is the Rational so the Divine Persons also agree in one Nature namely the Eternal Spiritual and Self existent But Dr. Cudworth confesseth that an Union of Will and Affection is only a Moral Union not a Physical or real Unity and as three Human Persons would be three distinct Men notwithstanding the Moral Union in Affection and Will so also the three Divine Persons will be three distinct Gods notwithstanding such an Union in Will and Affection As to the other that the three Persons are but one God by their having the same Specifick Nature or Essence or as some call it Substance namely because they are all of them Spiritual Self-existent and Coeternal he calleth it an absurd Paradox contrary to common Sense and our common Notions of things for so all Men will be but one Man because they have the same Specifick Essence or Nature namely the Rational and all Epicurus his Extramundan Gods will be but one God Then he propoundeth divers other Explications which he neither approveth nor expresly rejecteth tho 't is plain that he disliked them for the Explication on which he insisteth and which appears to be his Sense of the matter is this that follows The three Divine Persons are one God because they are not three Principles but only one the Essence of the Father being the Root and Fountain of the Son and Spirit and because the three Persons are gathered together under one Head or Chief even the Father He adds here expresly that if the Persons were Co-ordinate i. e. equal in Authority Dignity or Power they should not be one but three Gods This is at large Dr. Cudworth's Opinion the short of it is that the three Persons are as really distinct Beings Essences or Substances as Dr. Sherlock hath imagined them to be And as their Substances or Natures are not one but three so also must their Understandings and other Personal Powers and Properties The Doctors differ only in this that Dr. Sherlock maketh the Unity of the three Persons in the Godhead to consist in the Mutual-Consciousness of the Persons But Dr. Cudworth in this that the Father is both the Principle Root or Fountain or Cause and also the Head of the other two Persons They neither of them believe one Numerical but one Collective God one God not who is really one God but is one God in certain Respects as of Mutual Consciousness or of being the Cause Principle and Head of all other Beings and of the second and third Persons Dr. Cudworth contends by a great number of very Pertinent and Home Quotations that his Explication I mean that part of it which makes the three Persons to be so many distinct Essences or Substances is the Doctrine of the Principal if not of all the Fathers as well as of the Platonists and I for my own part do grant it For I am perswaded that no Man hath read the Fathers with Judgment and Application but he must discern that tho they do not express themselves in the incautelous unwary and obnoxious Terms used by Dr. Sherlock as neither doth Dr. Cudworth yet the Fathers as much believed the three Persons are distinct Minds and Spirits as Dr. Sherlock doth all the Difference as I said is only this that they and Dr. Cudworth do not use his very Terms They do not say in express words three Minds or three Spirits but the Comparisons which they use and their Definitions or Descriptions of what they mean by Persons are such that it cannot be questioned by any that they apprehended the three Persons to be three distinct Spirits Minds and Beings having each of them his own
Schools deform the sincere and easy Notion of the Unity of God as 't is held by the Socinians and Sabellians by transforming it into a Fantastick Trinity of Nominal Persons or of Persons who are Persons only in Name not in Truth and Reality therefore Dr. Cudworth saith farther that this Trinity is Jargonry in Philosophy a Trinity that falls not under Human Conception and which cannot be in Nature Intellect System p. 605. Elsewhere he scruples not to name it the Philosophy of Gotham These are the just Characters which that great Philosopher and Divine gives of the Scholastick Trinity of Dr. S th he giveth his Reasons up and down in the Intellectual System but 't is not necessary for me to report them when every one may see them in the Author himself and besides they are too Philosophical to be put into a Discourse which I design for the Use of the less learned as well as of the learned I have done with Dr. S th's Explication for this time If he is angry with me for the Reflections I have made thereupon I protest 't is without just Cause I have used no disrespectful Language I have acknowledged and do acknowledg the Worth of the Man and all other Perfections in his Book but only this one that it maintains an unjustifiable Explication The Method or Structure of his Book is Natural Elegant and Judicious the Words Expression or Phrase is proper forcible clean and well chose it hath very many agreeable Turns of Wit which render it pleasant to an ingenious Reader As this Author hath a great deal of Wit so he hath known how to govern it in this respect that he is witty without Buffoonry This is a Conduct not very usual in those that have much Wit commonly they know not how to manage it and among other unjudicious Neglects they forget the Where and When and other such like Circumstances they are so taken with their Talent as to be always using it because they know not that everlasting fooling is true and meer fooling But I wish that Dr. S th in exercising his Wit had remembred the who which he hath utterly forgotten and that was utterly an oversight and a very great one He cannot excuse himself by pleading the many Contradictions in Dr. Sherlock's Book a candid Man would not impute them to the Author but to the extream Obscurity of the Subject when the Subject it self is contradictory there will be many Contradictions committed in defending it I doubt not that Dr. Sherlock will find many Contradictions in Dr. S-th's second Chapter Having done to Dr. S th this Right he ought not to be out of Humour that I as a Socinian have attacked his Explication as I have some other Learned Men I mean no Disrespect thereby to him or them I acknowledg their Personal Merit but cannot give up to them so sacred a Truth as the Unity of God or consent that it be disguised and deformed Of the Explication by Mr. Hooker Author of the Ecclesiastical Polity MR. Hooker tho he was none of the Fathers of the Catholick Church is not of less Authority in the particular Church of England than any one of the Fathers is and it must be confest he was not only a very good but a very learned and discerning Man But it is observed of him that in speaking of the Trinity he speaks somewhat incorrectly this was a Doctrine which he took for granted there was no Dispute in his time about it so he hath delivered himself not with his usual Precaution and Judgment He saith That the Substance of God with this Property to be of none doth make the Person of the the Father The very self-same Substance in Number with this Property to be of the Father maketh the Person of the Son The same Substance having added to it the Property of proceeding from the other two maketh the Person of the Holy Ghost So that in every Person there is implied both the Substance of God which is one and also that Property which causeth the same Person really and truly to differ from the other two I must observe in the first place hereupon that Mr. Hooker in this matter hath not spoken over critically and correctly nay hardly Orthodoxly I mean as Orthodoxy goes among the Learned of his own Parry He saith that the Substance of God with these Properties to be of none to be of the Father and to proceed from the other two make the Persons of the Father Son and Spirit now to be of none to be of the Father and to proceed from both are but other Words for this Sense to beget to be begotten and to proceed But that Father of Modern Orthodoxy Peter Lombard whom we have already twice mentioned denies that these before-mentioned are Properties in the Substance of God or that they can belong to it he saith Essentia Divina non est generaâ—â— nec generaâ—â— nec procedens i. e. the Substance of God neither begets nor is begotten nor proceeds 'T is impossible to make this consist with Mr. Hooker who expresly ascribeth those Properties to the Divine Substance or Essence and saith that being in the Divine Substance they make it to be three Persons What shall we do here Shall we say Reverend Hooker has mistaken and missed his Sons who are all the Church of England into an Error concerning the Trinity Hath he ascribed to the Divine Essence Properties which he calleth Persons that are not in it To give up Hooker is to dishonour the Church of England it self to part with Father Hooker is to endanger the very Surplice and even the Cross in Baptism nay that Book of Books the Common-Prayer If Mr. Hooker could err about the Trinity What will the Fanaticks and Trimmers say Will they not be apt to pretend too he may have erred in his profound Dissertations and Discourses for the Rites and Discipline of the Church I am afraid for all that we must keep close to Peter Lombard Master of the Sentences and of the Modern Divinity he hath been espoused by all the Popes since Innocent the Third by the Lateran Council which was General and by the tacit Approbation of the whole Church ever since I doubt it is not much more passible that Mr. Hooker saith that the Properties to be of none to be of the Father and to proceed do together with the Substance of God make the Persons of the Father Son and Spirit It is not true that those are the Properties which make the Persons he might say that they make the Persons to be Father Son and Spirit or to have that threefold Relation among themselves but they do not make the three Persons to be Persons or thus they do not make as he speaks the Persons To be of none maketh the Father but I deny that it maketh as Mr. Hooker affirms the Person of the Father the Character or Property which maketh the Person of the Father is quite another
is more honourable to own a clear and necessary Truth or to set one's self to darken and to obstruct it I confess the latter requires more Wit especially against an able and dexterous Defendant but 't is the other that deserves greater Praise especially before God because it argues Sincerity and Justice But I pass to the last sort of Trinity the Mystical Trinity Of the Mystical Trinity or the Trinity of the Mobile THE poor common People are first made to believe by the help of corrupted Copies and false Translations of the Bible that 't is a Scripture-Doctrine that there is a Trinity of Divine Persons an Almighty Father an Almighty Son and an Almighty Spirit distinct and different in Number from both Father and Son But because this at the very first sight appears contrary to Reason and common Sense therefore in the next place they are told that they must consider this Doctrine as a Mystery impossible indeed for us to understand yet necessary to be believed because God hath said it How many things say these Teachers are there in the Works of Nature which we understand not no more than we can understand the Trinity and yet we believe them to be as assuredly as if there were no Difficulty in conceiving how they should be As that there are Antipodes whose Feet are opposite to our Feet and who walk with their Heads downwards with respect to our Parts of the World Again that a Spirit can move a Body from place to place tho Reason first assures us that there can be no Motion without a Resistance and then that a pure Spirit can meet no Resistance from Matter or Bodies Also that the Parts of Matter or Bodies hold together tho no Cause can be assigned for it but what appears immediately to be unsufficient nay ridiculous All these are great Truths and we believe them even contrary to the Verdict of Reason how much more ought we to believe the Trinity which hath been propounded to us as an Article of Faith in the Word of God it self tho our fallible and frail Reason reclaims and kicks perhaps against it When the Socinians say these Gentlemen have accounted for all the Mysteries of Nature and Art let them begin to object to the Trinity that 't is a Mystery and that it hath sundry Contradictions to Reason but till they do the first 't is nothing else but a bold Impiety to insist on the other It must be confessed Sir that this is the most plausible Pretence the strongest Hold as well as the last Resort of our Opposers when we have drove them from all other Posts here they take Sanctuary I will therefore take care to remove this Occasion and Cover of Error I say 1. I might leave it wholly to Dr. S th to answer this Pretence of some of his Party At p. 2 and 3 c. of his Animadversions he shows at large what is a Mystery he saith that a Mistery is a Truth revealed by God above the reach of Human Reason to find out or to comprehend He vindicateth this Definition part by part he saith p. 3. first a Mystery is a Truth by which saith he I exclude every thing from being a Mystery which is absurd or contradictions Now we desire nothing else of our Oppoâ—â—â—â— but that they would abide by this Account of Mystery that 't is not something absurd or contradictory but only some Secret revealed by God because it was above Human Capacity to discover it and sometimes also even to comprehend how it can be For there is a vast Difference between my not being able to conceive how a thing should be and a clear Apprehension and Sight that it cannot be There are it may be Mysteries which we cannot comprehend how they should be but that three Divine Persons or three distinct Almighty and All-knowing Persons should be but one Almighty but one All-knowing or but one God a Man who considers but with never so little Intention and Sincerity clearly sees that it cannot be In short that 't is not a Mystery but as Dr. S th speaks an Absurdity and a Contradiction In a word we do not reject the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation because they are Mysteries but because they are plain Contradictions to Reason and common Sense and consequently Untruths for without doubt Reason and Truth are but two Names for the same thing and clear Reason is no other thing but clear Truth 2. I consider that what will equally serve to excuse all the Nonsense and impossible Doctrines that are to be found among Men we cannot admit of it as a Defence of the pretended Trinity and Incarnation especially in Opposition to such powerful Proofs both from Scripture and Reason as may be and actually are alledged against those Doctrines A Papist for Example does with equal colour alledg this Pretence for his Transubstantiation He says 'T is a Scripture-Doctrine delivered in these express words This is my Body and how many things are there in the Works of Nature which we comprehend not no more than we can comprehend the Miracle of the Transubstantiation and yet we believe them to be as assuredly as if there were no Difficulty in conceiving how they should be or that they can be Such as the Antipodes and that a pure Spirit can â—â—â—ve a Body in which it findeth no Resistance and that the Parts of Matter or Bodies are continuos or hold together and many the like Thus do the Papists argue and I deny that this Pretence can be wrested from them by any Trinitarian for 't is the same Defence that the Trinitarian makes for his Doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation Our Opposers will not vouchsafe so much as to hear Catholicks and Lutherans when they plead Mystery for the Transubstantiation or the Consubstantiation I desire of them therefore to give me but one Reason why that Plea is not as good in those Controversies as in these of the Trinity and Incarnation The Author of two Dialogues concerning the Trinity and the Transubstantiation finding himself pressed with this Difficulty answers to this effect that there are a great many more Texts of Holy Scripture for the Trinity than are pretended for the Transubstantiation But this is no Solution of the proposed Difficulty for 't is not at all the Question which Doctrine hath most Texts alledged for it but only whether the Pretence of Mystery be not a Plea as rational and allowable against all the Exceptions made against the Transubstantiation as an impossible inconceivable and contradictory Doctrine as 't is to the same Exceptions when urged by the Socinians against the Incarnation or Trinity But whereas that Author insists upon an Answer wholly foreign to this Difficulty and is so careful to bring together from Cardinal Bellarmine all the Texts alledged for the Trinity he is desired to name to us so much as one Text for either of those Doctrines that is not given up to the
for the perusal of this most learned and judicious Letter which I return you and I congratulate the worthy Author whom the Divine Wisdom has made an Instrument for the vindicating of his glorious and incommunicable Attribute of Unity which he has in several Tracts even demonstrated not only by clear and express Scriptures and obvious Reason but also now at length from the Confessions of the Trinitarians themselves the Infringers of it For whilst each one condemns the several Explications of the rest as either inconsistent with the Unity or the Trinity they do all in their turns bear Witness to the Unitarians that their Opposition to the Trinitarian Doctrine is well-grounded and reasonable and consequently their Doctrine of the Unity the Truth of God For if each one of their Explications does either introduce the Worship of three Gods or the Heresy of Sabellianism as they call it the turning the Son and Holy Ghost into Names and Operations without any real Distinction of Persons or Things answering those distinct Names as it plainly appears they do then it undeniably follows there is no such Trinity as they imagine but a Numerical Unity of Person and Essence in God as the Unitarians hold and as some Trinitarians contend in their Opposition one to another It remains then that the Trinitarian Worshippers especially the common People do seriously and in the Fear of the one most High God consider what Notions Conceptions or Idea's they have of an Infinite and Almighty Holy Ghost distinct from the Almighty Father and Producer of them For they cannot possibly escape the Condemnation of one of the highest Crimes even the Worship of three Infinite Real Gods or two Imaginary Ones or two Names without Notions that is they know not what as this Author expresses it Condemnation I say not only by the Unitarians who worship the Father only as God in the highest and strictest Sense of that Term but also by all the Trinitarians that hold not the same Opinion or have not the same Notion I know the Times of Ignorance God winketh at as well now as before the preaching of the Gospel but after he has made his Unity manifest and vindicated it from the Scholastick Subtilties and absurd Distinctions that have been invented to hide the Truth he then commands all Men to whom this Evidence comes to repent Inconsideration or Negligence will not now excuse Men must not say or think as they commonly do this Point is too high for me to determine for they have already determined it whilst they profess to believe in and to worship three equal ones a Father a Son and a Spirit Neither can they alledg the Universality of the Trinitarian Faith For besides as this Author observes the worshipping of many Gods was formerly and is now far more universal we see that this Opinion and Worship which soever it be is condemned by at least four to one of those that go under that common Name of Trinitarians The rise of these divers and contrary Explications has been this as is observed by the Author in that which now obtains that Learned Men looking narrowly into former Explications have found them inconsistent with the Oneness of God and therefore have devised somewhat either more obscure that would hide the Contradiction or somewhat more consistent with the Unity tho it destroyed the Trinity or more consistent with the Trinity tho it destroys the Unity as Dr. Sherlock has done And perhaps others like him may devise other Hypotheses taking it for granted from the Prejudices of early Education and customary thinking that the Trinity is a Fundamental of Christianity But we see here they labour in vain to reconcile manifest Contradictions and in believing the Son and Holy Spirit to be equally God with the Father they offend against express Scriptures and clear Reason upon the account of their own Reasonings upon obscure Texts and therein transgress the plain Principles both of Natural Light and Revelation which require 1. That nothing be held for Truth contrary to evident and Fundamental Truth And 2. That obscure Passages are to be interpreted by clear Passages and the Current of Scripture and not otherwise The Jews walking contrary to these Principles was the cause of rejecting Christ and Christianity and it is indeed the ground of all Error whatever In vain do Men press a great many Texts that have even in the Opinion of Learned Trinitarians another meaning to prove that the Son and Holy Ghost are God till they can reconcile that Inference to plain Scripture and evident Reason In vain does the Author of The Snare broken who could not overcome the Prejudices of his Education and Converse perswade Men to lay aside their Philosophy and wholly to betake themselves to a Scriptural Consideration of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which I understand they must take the words of Scripture without understanding them or reconciling them to other Scriptures or even the Current of Scripture or common Reason Do they think that Scripture is to be interpreted contrary to it self Or that Divine Wisdom has made the Belief of Contradictions necessary to Salvation It seems strange that Christians should be very zealous in the Punctilio's of the Worship of God Ceremonies of Posture Gesture or Apparel Forms of Addresses to God the wording of Faith to an Iota and yet go on in the Worship of one God the Father and of two distinct from him God as perfectly as he and in which their Worship terminates equally with him They can love God the Father with all their Hearts and Strengths and two Persons distinct from him with the same All they can give all to one and all to another and all to a third and never question the Possibility of it as if there were a Trinity in Unity in every Man that his own Heart were three Hearts to be bestowed all and entirely upon each of three Objects and yet be but one Heart still But whither am I carried This Author needs none of my Notes or Illustrations and indeed both he and all others that have labour'd in this Controversy may surcease their Pains henceforth and leave what they have already said to the Judgment and Conscience of all considerate and sincere Men. I am Sir yours c.