whether it be by an Angel or by an immediate Virtue is the Holy Spirit And all this is call'd the Oeconomy or as Irenaeus saith they are mysterious and extraordinary Dispensations of the Divinity which environ his Majesty to temper its great Splendor and adapt it to our Curiosity For to imagine that this is a second Person of this Divinity as invisible and as infinite as the first would make all the Reasonings of the antient Fathers not only useless but also absurd for they all unanimously declare not only that the Father never makes himself visible but also that he cannot do so It is impossible saith Eusebius Demonstr Evang. lib. 5. cap. 20. That the Eyes of Mortals should ever see the Supreme God to wit him who is above all things and whose Essence is unbegotten and immutable It is absurd and against all reason saith the same Author Hist Eccl. lib. 1. c. 2. that the unbegotten and immutable Nature of Almighty God should take the Form of a Man and that the Scripture should forge such like Falsities God forbid saith Novatian de Trinit cap. 26. that we should say that God the Father is an Angel lest he should be subjected to him whose Angel he were Et ibid. cap. 31. If the Son saith he were as incomprehensible as the Father the Objection of the Hereticks would have some ground that then there are two Gods It is an Impiety say the Fathers of the Council of Antioch Epist adv Paulum Samosat to fancy that that God who is above all things can be called an Angel Lastly otherwise I must transcribe all the Fathers Justin Martyr explains himself on this wise in his Dialogue with Tryphon No body saith he unless he be out of his Wits will dare to advance that the Father and Author of all things did quit the Heavens to cause himself to be seen in a small part of the Earth I thought to have finished but that I can by no means pass by that excellent Passage of Tertullian against Praxeas cap. 16. That he would not believe that the Sovereign God descended into the Womb of a Woman tho even the Scripture it self should say it This Father being persuaded by Reason and Philosophy that the supreme God is immense immutable and invisible demands how it could come to pass that the Almighty God whose Throne is the Heaven and the Earth his Footstool that this most high God should walk in the terrestrial Paradise should converse with Abraham should call to Moses out of a Bush c. and what is yet worse that he should descend according to Praxeas into the Womb of Mary that he should be impeached before Pilate and be shut up in the Sepulcher of Joseph He goes on Really one would not believe this concerning the Son if the Scripture did not speak it and perhaps would not believe it of the Father tho even the Scripture should say it How so would he mistrust the Scripture No he means only that he should mistrust the literal sense and search there for an Allegory Consequently then all these Fathers own that the Word by which the Father makes himself visible is not of a Nature incapable of causing it self to be seen but something sensible which represents God to us It matters not whether they conceive by it an Hypostasis a Spirit an intelligent Being or any other kind of Representation in a bright Cloud animated with a Voice This will always remain true that they did not understand the Word to be a Spirit equal to the Father as invisible by its Nature as the Father but only a certain Emanation where God produceth himself outwardly and discovers himself in a sensible manner And tho they might have sometimes spoken of the Word as of something invisible they meant not by this that it was invisible by its Nature but only that it was not visible to Men out of the time of its Oeconomy retiring it self from their Presence and becoming as it were hid in God Sometimes they would denote by it even the Energy and the Power of God wherewith his Manifestation is always accompanied but never a second Hypostasis in the Divine Nature For we must observe here sincerely once for all that the Word if you consider it only in its Energy is no other thing but God himself but when it is consider'd as it is a Mark of the Divine Presence then it is something sensible a Voice a Light or some external Form such like as was seen in Angels or in the Man J. C. our Lord. CHAP. II. The Antients believed that the Word was Corporeal WHerefore the Antients attributed a Body to the Word as Servetus very well observed Apolog. ad Philip Melanct. and so Tertullian speaks in his Book of the Flesh of Jesus Christ against Praxeas chap. 7. where he proves at large that when God uttered his Word he gave it a Body indeed not a Body of Flesh but an Hypostasis that is Solidity and Substance which is the true Signification of the Word That 's probably what he means when in chap. 6. of the Book of the Flesh of Christ he assures that Jesus Christ appeared to Abraham with Flesh which was not yet born non nata adhuc that is to say not indeed with such Flesh as ours but with a solid Body which had more than appearance A Body I say which he in the 8th Chapter calls the Seed of God from which as from a Heavenly Seed the Messiah was to be born and this Seed is the Holy Ghost or the Substance of the Word which insinuated it self into it Thence the antient Docetes and all the other Hereticks who held the pre-existence of the Word suppos'd that the Word did not take true Flesh of Mary but that he contented himself with the Celestial and Etherial Body which he formerly bore in the Apparitions of the Old Testament which had no more than the Appearance and Figure of a Man which the Scripture calls the Face of God Mons le Moyne did not understand the thing otherwise in his Varia sacra p. 415. The Docetes says he compared the Apparitions of Jesus Christ to the Apparitions of the Old Testament which having been in Etherial Bodies for certain times vanished into the Air as soon as the Dispensation was finish'd imagining that the Body of Jesus Christ was not of any other Nature And it is in the same sense that Cerinthus and Ebion suppos'd that Jesus Christ had not taken true Flesh as St. Jerom assures in the Preface to his Commentary on St. Matthew As Cerinthus held Iren l. 1. c. 25. Epiph. Haeres 28. That the World had been created by a Power he also maintain'd that Jesus who was begotten of the Seed of Joseph and Mary was the Son of the Creator As to the Christ or the Word he made him the Son of another Power superiour to the Creator and attributed to him a Celestial Body which he had always kept without
and upon the Cross of J.C. whereof he hath found a thousand Figures in the History of the People of old which he brings to his bent by Violence and Artifice he seeks particularly for a sublime Sense in the Name of Joshua or Jesus the Son of Nun. He saith That the Father hath shew'd us in Joshua every thing that may be said of his Son Jesus insomuch that it may be said according to him that J. C. brought the People of the Jews into the Land of Canaan because he had done it in Joshua his Figure or rather because he did the same in a spiritual Sense So that J. C. was Joshua by whom so many Miracles were wrought in the Land of Canaan and for the same reason J. C. was the Word by which all things were made I say the Word for altho Barnabas makes no mention of it in all his Epistle yet he makes an allusion thereto in these Words Let Vs make Man which he applies to J. C. Lastly Barnabas adds Behold here Jesus again not the Son of Man but the Son of God who appear'd in Flesh in his Figure Who sees not here that Jesus the Son not of a Man as Joshua was but the Son of God being born of a Virgin did manifest himself in Flesh in a typical and figurative manner in the Person of Joshua We may say likewise according to this way of interpreting the Scriptures that the same Jesus created the World in the Person of that Spirit or of that Word which spake and the Creature appear'd because that first Word was the Type of that other Word which insinuated it self into J. C. and which said for example Lazarus come forth and Lazarus came forth immediately out of his Tomb and from the Dead That gave Life and so did this You may in the same sense as most of the Fathers did say that J. C. appear'd to the Patriarchs because the appearing of the Angels in a Human Shape was the Type of his Manifestation in Flesh Hence comes it that Clement of Alexandria calls him the mystical Angel the Angel being J. C. in a Type and J. C. being the Angel in a Mystery Moreover Barnabas continuing his Allegory upon the Sabbath and the Temple whence he is continually drawing forth mystical Interpretations and having run over all the Figures of the Old Testament in the spiritual Application he makes of them to J. C. and his Church he calls this Parables and concludes You have here saith he all that regards the Glory of J. C. viz. how all things were made for him and by him Where by all things without doubt all those Dispensations of the old Oeconomy are to be understood which have any relation to him to his Birth Death or Resurrection the which he may be said to have done not literally but spiritually in the Person of the Prophets who were his Figures This is so clear by the sequel and coherence of his Discourse that I have been amaz'd at the Confidence of Dr. Bull who in his Defence of the Council of Nice p. 67. dares to quote these Words as if Barnabas had said them of the first Creation For it is so far from these Expressions being serviceable to his Hypothesis that they demonstrate on the contrary how these Words that all things were made by J. C. are to be understood that is because either he did them in his Types as Barnabas teaches us here or because he meant that the same Power or one like to that which created the old World and inspired the Prophets did dwell in J. C. Whoever knows the Character of Barnabas but a little must be very conceited if he gives any other Sense to his Words See here the Judgment of Mr. Du Pin concerning him Biblioth Tom. 1. at the Word Barnabas The Epistle of this Father saith he is full of forc'd Allegories on the Holy Scriptures and with extraordinary Explications deviating from good Sense But these Allegories these mystical Explications and Fables hinder not this Epistle from being his whose Name it bears You must have but a small insight into the Genius of the Jews and the first Christians brought up in the Synagogue if you believe that such kind of Thoughts could not be theirs On the contrary this was their very Character they learn'd of the Jews to turn the Scriptures into an Allegory We ought not then to wonder that St. Barnabas a Jew by Birth and writing to the Jews should explain allegorically many of the Passages of the Old Testament and apply them to the New Every body knows that the Books of the first Christians are full of this sort of Fables and Allegories Mr. Le Moine is of the same Judgment in his Notes on Barnabas To conclude the Term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is very familiar to this Author he means by it a sublime and profound Sense This appears by his infinitely extolling this Knowledg which he also names Science and Wisdom above the Vertues which accompany Faith This way of distinguishing Science from Faith was follow'd by Origen it seems that Gnosticism was brought in by this Allegorick Science of the Scriptures and afterwards degenerated into Poetical Speculations and an Heathenish Philosophy The first Method was Jewish the second Platonic All which seems to prove that the Author of this Epistle was a true Gnostic I mean one of the first of them who imitated the Jewish Cabala in their mystical Interpretations of the Old Testament which was accounted a sublime Science but not one of those Gnosticks who were afterwards decried for converting that Allegoric Science into a Philosophy merely Pagan For these last who were Gentile Proselytes imagining they had the same right with the Proselyte Jews to the use of these Allegoric Interpretations adapted presently the Theogony of their Poets and the Ideas of Plato to the Evangelical Truths The former sought for a mystical sense of the Law but the latter the sublime sense of Philosophy both of them in relation to Jesus Christ and his Holy Doctrine Those of the latter sort who passed the Bounds in this Method and made so wide a Pleroma were called Hereticks but those that used it with a greater Caution and Modesty and who carried the Pleroma no further than the three Aeons which seemed to have some ground in the Scriptures and kept a Decorum better in their Resemblances had the good fortune to pass for Orthodox even to Posterity I think it is better to argue thus about the Author of this Epistle than to say with Dr. Hammond that he opposeth Cabala to Cabala and that by the Term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he attacks the false Science of the Gnosticks For it doth not appear that he disputes with any body unless it be only against the Jews who would not receive his Allegories However it doth not appear that Gnosticism such as it was at that time confined to mere Allegory on the Scripture was then decried On the contrary
in the 33d and 45th Psalms which they made use of to prove that the term Word had no other Signification than that of Prolation properly so called For he supposes that these Words My Heart hath utter'd a good Word do not signify such a Prolation a proper and literal Generation but a metaphorical Prolation and that from this reason that the word Heart in this Text being figurative the term Word must also be figurative And that we may the better apprehend how far Origen carrys the Figure of this Word the other Text which he quotes from the Psalms so fully clears the matter as to leave no room for cavilling The Valentinians says he believe that these Words The Heavens were created by the Word of God and by the Spirit of his Mouth were said of our Saviour and of the Holy Ghost tho it be certain that one may give them this other Sense That the Heavens were establish'd by Divine Reason and Wisdom ratione Dei as we say that a House was built by that Skill which is the Art of building Houses I leave the Reader to judg whether an Vnitarian could more plainly remove all the Idea of Hypostasis from our Minds Therefore when the same Origen does elsewhere argue concerning the Word as if he himself believ'd it an Hypostasis his so speaking was according to the Principles of the Greek Philosophy For as Porphyry rightly observes Origen having continually apply'd himself to reading the Writings of the Platonists and the Pythagoreans and having therein learnt the allegorical way of those Philosophers expounding the Mysteries of the Greeks made use of it himself in his Interpretation of the Scriptures apud Euseb l. 6. c. 19. See likewise Bibl. univ T. 6. p. 50. That declared Enemy of the Christian Religion is not the only Person who has given that judgment of Origen Mr. Huet does not treat him more favourably in his Origeniana l. 2. c. 2. Origen says he was one of Plato's greatest Admirers insomuch that instead of suting the Platonick Tenents to the Christian Doctrine he regulated the Doctrine of Christianity by the Dogma of the Platonists And a little lower he adds That Origen had been carry'd to those Excesses by the example of his Preceptor Clemens Alexand. who us'd to embelish the Religion of Jesus Christ with the Academick Paint Can any one think that Justin did not discourse by the Principles of this Allegorical Philosophy when in his second Apology he calls the Reason which is in Man a Part and Seed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Divine Word The Divine Word is in his sense only that universal Reason that Source and Fulness of Wisdom-which resides in the Divine Understanding whereof ours is a Stream and a part Is our Reason an Hypostasis distinct from Man How shall we then imagine that this Father ever intended to say that Divine Reason is an Hypostasis distinct from God I may very well say that my Reason has taught me such a thing and that I consulted my Reason without supposing my Reason to be any other Person than my self Then why may we not say God made use of his Reason to create this Universe that his Reason was his Counsellor and his Minister without making a second Person of his Reason Certainly my Reason cannot be personalized any otherwise than by the Power of Allegory neither can that of God be any otherwise Nay it may be that Justin strain'd his Allegory yet farther and that he intended to say that Reason or the universal Seed is no other than the Gospel which is not a part of the Seed as the Precepts of Reason which enlighten'd the Philosophers are but the fulness of that incorruptible Seed which regenerates the Heart I will produce another Example of this allegorical way of interpreting the Scripture St. Cyprian explaining that famous Passage of St. John 1 Ep. 5.8 concerning the three Witnesses on Earth the Spirit the Water and the Blood has spoken of them as of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost which are the three Witnesses in Heaven now found in our Bibles but were not there in the days of that Father Some as Fulgentius having confounded St. Cyprian's Discourse with the Sacred Text did not doubt but that Holy Martyr had spoken literally and as words of the Scripture what he said only in Allegory not observing that what he asserted of the Father Son and Holy Ghost is a spiritual Sense which he had drawn from the Three Witnesses on Earth as if the Spirit were the Father the Blood the Son and the Water the Holy Ghost But Facundus did not suffer himself to be at all deceiv'd by it for he informs us Defens Trinit Capit. l. 1. c. 3. That St. Cyprian will have that to be understood of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost which St. John said of the Spirit Water and Blood which can be only an allegorical Interpretation And that Allegory was followed by St. Augustin contra Maxim lib. 3. c. 12. where he expresly says That the Spirit the Water and the Blood are the Sacrament of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost What 's the meaning of the Sacrament if it be not the Mystery and Allegory Now I pray who can warrant me that the Fathers who so strained the Allegory on the three Witnesses on Earth to find the Trinity therein have not also strained it on the Word of St. John to find in it their Favourite Doctrine Plato's second God If they misapplyed these Words My Heart hath uttered a Good Word and these I have begotten thee in my Bosom before Aurora how can I be assur'd that they have not deceived me or that their Infatuation for Plato has not deceived themselves when they Platonically interpret those other Places where it is said That the Word was God and that the Word was made Flesh However that be it must be granted me That the Fathers made no difficulty of seeking sublime senses in the Scriptures and of raising themselves up very high above its plain and natural meaning That appears by the use St. Cyprian and St. Augustin made of the Epistle General of St. John Now the same Fathers having expressed their Allegories in too absolute Terms without characterizing them by some Mark whereby they might be distinguished from a proper and literal sense it has in succeeding time happened that the literal sense of what they said has been followed We have seen it in the Example of St. Cyprian that Father expressing himself absolutely It is written says he of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost And these three are one Now that was written only of the Spirit the Water and the Blood Then the Allegorical Exposition has been taken for an express Text of Scripture I strongly suspect that the same thing has happen'd to that noted Text of St. Paul 1 Tim. c. 3. v. 16. The Mystery of Godliness is great God manifested in the Flesh
in such and such a manner since nothing is absolutely immutable but God himself he alone being that Father of Lights in whom there is no shadow of turning This is plain The Idea of a Triangle is nothing else but the very Essence of God modify'd in such a manner Again the Idea of an Owl is only this Divine Essence so modify'd the Idea of a Lobster is still but a Modification of this Divine Essence in a word the Idea of all Beings is nothing else than the very Essence of God modify'd in such or such a manner Jupiter est quodcunque vides quocunque moveris What do you call that It 's however on such fine Discoveries that these Gentlemen value themselves confidently and triumphingly saying So true it is that true Platonism is a good Preservative against Socinianism Yes say I but under a pretence of preserving us from Socinianism we are rudely robb'd of Christianity Let 's once more venture to speak as we think Athenagoras Tatian Theophilus of Antioch with many others of venerable Rank and Antiquity whom out of respect I do not name these Fathers whom our Moderns imitate with so much affectation consider'd the Christian Religion only as a new Sect of Philosophy which under low and popular Similitudes contain'd the most hidden Sense and profoundest Mysteries of all sorts of natural and divine Sciences whereon they gave themselves free scope and explain'd the Scriptures not as Interpreters but as sophistical Speculative Philosophers pretending to find Plato's Mysteries in certain Terms much as our Chymists pretend they find their Art in Genesis or in the History of the Creation Cabala every where I shall be exclaim'd against as abusing those Great Men but wrongfully All our Criticks say worse of them than that For not to mention Daille Huetius and Petavius who are not thought their Friends Dr. Bull will suffice as he is indisputably one of their greatest Admirers and if we may say it their pension'd Apologist his Testimony will be worth ten thousand others * Peruse his Defence of the Council of Nice He says of Origen That he sometimes spake too freely and like a Sceptick Of Tertullian That he little car'd how he spake of God provided he did but contradict his Adversary and that an Egg 's not more like an Egg than the Expressions of that Father resemble the extravagant Conceits of Valentin Of Lactantius That he was but a Rhetor ignorant in Theology Of St. Jerom That he was but a Joster and a Sophist Indeed there are scarce any of em whom he has not a fling at when he 's not pleased with their Theology Their Arian or Gnostical Expressions give him so much trouble that it puts him almost always out of humour What might we not say of their poor Interpretations of Scripture They went strangely to work on it if we may believe St. Jerom. Mons Le Clerc recites two Passages of him which will come in very properly here one of them is in Tom. X. p. 492. where that Father says in Apol. pro lib. cont Jovin p. 106. seq Ed. Gryph 'T is one thing to write in order to dispute and another to write for Instruction In the former Method Dispute is very extensive and the endeavour is only to answer the Adversary Now this is propos'd then that we speak in one manner and act in another c. In the latter an open and ingenuous Behaviour is necessary c. Origen Methodius Eusebius and Apollinarius have written much against Celsus and Porphyry Observe what Arguments and what doubtful Problems they make use of to overthrow the Writings compos'd by the Spirit of the Devil And that because they are necessitated to say not what they think but what the Dispute requires non quod sentiunt sed quod necesse est they contradict the Gentiles The other Passage may be found in the XII Tom. of the Bib. Vniv p. 146. and is taken out of St. Jerom's Letter to Nepotian p. 14. I was says he once desiring Gregory Nazianzen who was formerly my Master to explain to me what was meant by the * The English Testament hath it the Second Sabbath after the First Second-first Sabbath in St. Luke he pleasantly answered me I 'll inform you concerning that in the Church where when all the People are giving me their Acclamations you 'l be constrain'd to know what you do not know or if you alone are silent you 'l be accounted a Fool. To have yet more convincing Proofs of the pitiful manner of the Fathers explaining the Scriptures one need but see their Puerile Interpretations of these Words regnavit a ligno Deus which they apply to the Cross of Jesus Christ and on many other Texts whence they subtlely draw Plato's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They are no more than a Train of flat and forc'd Explications as that which they give of these Words ex utero te genui c. Again see how Tertullian makes what David said of the Palm-Tree sute to a Phaenix The Hebrew Word is not equivocal and it 's likely that Tertullian was deceiv'd by the double sense of the Greek Word No 't was designedly that he played upon it not seeking so much the sense of the Scripture as an opportunity of finding in the Scriptures one of the greatest Wonders Paganism ever spake of Neither were the Fathers so ignorant in the Scriptures but that a little good Judgment would have shewn them the natural Signification of these Words eructavit cor meum c. It is not God the Father but David who there speaks however they were willing upon occasion to find the sublimest Doctrine of Plato's School in this ordinary expression of Scripture or make the Heathens believe that there was nothing so great in their Philosophy which was not hidden in those Scripture-Expressions which to us seem plainest and least mysterious But Dr. Bull finds admirable Expedients to save the Reputation of the Fathers He distinguishes between the Witness of the Faith and the Interpreter of the Scriptures and always taking for granted that they are good Witnesses of the Faith he grants that they are sometimes bad Interpreters of Scripture which is respectfully stabbing them with a Dagger So in pag. 140. alledging for Proof of the Divinity of the Holy Ghost a Passage out of Irenaeus where that Father mistakenly quotes the Prophet Isaiah We do not trouble our selves says he with Irenaeus's bad Interpretation for we are not consulting that Father as an Interpreter always happy in explaining the Scripture but as an irreproachable Witness of Apostolical Tradition I confess bad Interpreters may be good Witnesses of the Faith of their Age. But it must at the same time be granted me that the Faith whereof they testify is a too much suspected Faith when it depends on the Evidence of so bad Interpreters I say bad for it is not only one or two Passages mistaken by these Doctors which we are speaking of but
denied when it is only their irresistible Grace that is rejected which they have been pleas'd to conceit as such Sandius who maintain'd a Word brought forth and stood for the Hypostases yet owns Nucl Hist Eccl. lib. 1. that Marcellus Photinus Sabellius Paul of Samosata and even Ebion who believ'd only an Hypostasis of the Father held notwithstanding that in that Hypostasis alone there were two Energies or Divine Operations to wit the Word and the Holy Spirit and that by these two Operations God created the World and manifested himself in J. C. Petavius acknowledges the same De Trinit lib. 1. c. 13. as to Paul of Samosata and Marcellus Dr. Pearson agrees with him That the last Vind. Ignat. Par. 2. c. 3. believ'd an existent Word in the Hypostasis of the Father and which came forth thence as a single Operation to create the Universe Dr. Bull Judic Eccles c. p. 67. recounting the Opinion of Paul of Samosata attributes to him constantly that he believ'd an efficacious Word descended from Heaven on J. C. And by the Word saith he Paul did not intend that Hypostasis which we call the Son of God but a Power and a Divine Virtue which form'd him in the Virgin and which was closely united to him to work the Miracles he did Neither can it be denied that this was the Opinion of Beryllus Those Expressions of Eusebius that have given so much trouble to the Learned are not difficult to be understood provided you supply them with some Particle and add a word or two as you must sometimes in all other Authors In my opinion Eusebius intends nothing else Lib. 6. c. 33. but that this Bishop maintain'd that the Man J. C. did not pre-exist in another Essence or another Nature that was proper to him before he liv'd among Men And consequently that the Deity which dwelt since he liv'd among Men was not an Hypostasis of his own but the Divinity and Virtue of the Father This is a right Notion the Word is nothing else but a Divine Power distinct from the Son and a Heavenly Wisdom descended on J. C. Beryilus Paul and Marcellus had it perhaps from Ignatius who calls J. C. Epist ad Magnes The Eternal Word that came not forth out of silence i. e. that he was not a Word brought forth and be otten with its proper Hypostasis but the Operation and the essential Virtue of God manifesting himself outwardly For I frankly agree that this Passage of Ignatius which hath given so much trouble to the Abettors of his Epistles is not intended against Valentine but I say it attacks those Platonick Doctors who asserted a Generation of the Word a little before the Beginning of the World and who believ'd that it was brought forth and consequently proceeded out of Silence This was the Opinion of Tertullian and many of the Fathers who preceded him that the Word that was brought forth which they believ'd to be the only that was begotten and the only one that might be call'd the Son did come forth in time of another mute Word which they call'd Reason or Wisdom eternal Tertullian teacheth us positively adv Prax. that before the Word that was brought forth came out of the Wisdom or the Divine Reason God had it in himself in his Thought as a silent Word habebat intra semetipsum tacitè cogitando You cannot express more clearly that the Word brought forth came out of Silence This Opinion no doubt began to glide in at the time of Ignatius who laughs at it and refutes it rejecting this Word brought forth and proceeding out of Silence which receiv'd its Hypostasis a little before the Creation as being a Word merely Flatonick and he admits no other Word to be real but that essential Virtue which was eternally in God which is God himself which created the World and was as it were incorporated in J. C. And this Ignatius's way of speaking that J. C. is the eternal Word is grounded on the Words of St. John that the Word was made Flesh that is to say that the same Virtue which created the World is become the proper Virtue of J. C. in such a manner that you may say rightly that J. C. made the Ages by his Power and consequently by himself for that which is done by my Power is done by my self When therefore the Apostles say that all things â—ere made by J. C. or by the Son their meaning is no other but that they were made by the immense Power of the Father which was in J.C. he becoming that Power that Spirit that Wisdom of the Father because all the Miracles effected by that Power are said to be done by J. C. in whom it resided In this sense Simon Magus call'd himself the great Power of God and boasted that he had made the Ages not that he believ'd himself as the Antients would have it to be a Divine Hypostasis sometimes the Father sometimes the Son and sometimes the Holy Ghost He was not so extravagant but only aping J. C design'd to say that the Divine Power which actuated him was the Power of the Father the Son and Holy Ghost the same Power that created the World J. C. is in the same sense call'd the Power of God 1 Cor. 1.24 We may enforce the Explication we have given of Ignatius his Words by the manner how Irenaeus disputes against the Valentinians Lib. 2. c. 47. seq It is true saith he that in regard to Man he is sometimes silent sometimes speaks sometimes he takes his rest and sometimes acts But it is not so with God who being all Understanding all Reason all Spirit is not liable to such like Changes Meaning that God is always a Reason an internal Word but never a Word brought faith as he explains himself afterwards saying That God being all Reason thinking in him is speaking and speaking nothing else but thinking For his Thought is his Speech and his Speech is his Vnderstanding and this Vnderstanding which comprehends all things is the Father himself Further to make us the better comprehend that he speaks thus against the Word brought forth or begotten he accosts the Valentinians with this smart Raillery The Valentinians saith he speak of the bringing forth and Generation of the Son as if they had assisted the Father at his Birth I shall leave you to consider whether this Raillery spares our Scholasticks He that would be at the pains about it needs only make a Parallel of their System concerning the Generation of the Son with that of the Valentinians and he might soon see whether those Hereticks only were ridiculous herein CHAP. XII Plato speaks but aenigmatically His Word is not that of St. John Several Systems of the Platonists explain'd I Could produce many more Platonists but to be brief I come now to Plato himself See then what Clement of Alexandria saith of him Strom. lib. 5. p. 592. of the Paris Edition When Plato saith that it
Resemblances tho it continued the same at the bottom But the second Method fix'd on the Number Three which were always reckoned in the same Order and had almost always the same Names given them could not be liable to the same Confusion especially among Christians who applied it constantly to the Father Son and Holy Ghost Besides they could explain themselves clearly in this last Method and speak of it distinctly whereas the other in its very rise was a politick Method prudentially invented and which was understood either ill or not at all because it kept secret and allegorical Furthermore the same distinction of gross and subtil Platonism ought to take place in reference to the other two Systems viz. in relation to the Creator Matter and Form and with respect to the Father the intelligible World and the sensible World If you distinguish not well between the Allegory and the Letter nothing will prove more intricate or unintelligible Lastly the principal Cause of this Confusion is these two Methods being so often intermix'd for if you mind it the Fathers sometime philosophizing according to the spurious Platonism insist rigidly on the sense of the three Hypostases and sometimes treading in the Footsteps of the true and antient Platonism do only allegorize and by their Emanations seem rather to mean the Powers of the supreme Being than Spirits subsisting Sometimes nothing will serve their turn but Subsistences Substances a true Generation and a real Procession At other times 't is a quite different thing they mean only the Powers and different Oeconomies of God manifesting himself in the Creation of the World to which they seem to give improperly the Name of a generated Son and Wisdom brought forth which doubtless is the Cause why so much Sabellianism overspreads their Writings We need not wonder henceâ—â—â—th if their Trinity is sometimes so inconsistent with the Vnity of God this proceeds from their gross Platonism Whereas in other Places their Three Principles suffer the Vnity to remain intire which proceeds from their refin'd Platonism CHAP. XIII The Christians have contriv'd a twofold Word grounded upon the two Words of Plato They meant only by Generation the Prolation of the second Word which happened a little before the Creation of the World SOCRATES reduc'd Philosophy to Morality his Disciple Plato advanced it further even to Theology by making three Persons or three Divine Hypostases of the three Divine Properties by whose concurrence the World was created or rather by conceiving a Creator infinitely Good with an Vnderstanding drawing the Plan of the World and an Energy that performs it These Theologic Philosophers allegorizing after their wonted manner changed the intelligible World into the Word and the sensible World into a Son The one is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the other the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Fathers in like manner distinguish'd the two Words whereof the one is internal the other brought forth and consider'd only the second as a Son because properly speaing they called Generation only that which was perform'd at the beginning of the World They say When God wil'ed to create the World he brought forth or generated the Word May you not easily perceive that such Modes of Speech owe their rise to the Mystic Philosophy which consider'd the whole World as the Son of God and as a Son generated by his Word or Command Yes these Turns of Expression owe their birth to some Poetical ones of the Heathens like those of Orpheus related by Justin in Protrep ad Gentil I swear saith the Poet by that Voice which the Heavenly Father uttered when he formed the whole Creation Then it was according to Justin that God generated his Word because he brought it forth in order to create the World All this is well meant and grounded upon the Words of Moses The only difference I remark in the System about these two Words is seeing Allegory is arbitrary some have fix'd it on the sensible World which they made to be the Son of God as many of the Philosophers we quoted have done because they consider'd it as the Production of the Divine Speech or Power but others fixed their Allegory upon the intelligible or Ideal World even on the Speech it self as thrust forth which they considered as a Production of the Divine Vnderstanding This last System was followed by the Christians when they personalized either the Word brought forth as the first Fathers and the Arians or the Internal and Mental Word as the Fathers of the Council of Nice and the Athanasians did Dr. Bull being forc'd to own this Truth pretends to clear the difficulty by distinguishing a twofold Generation of the Word the one Eternal and the other Temporal and maintaining that the Fathers consider'd the first as Real the second as Metaphorical but just the contrary hereof is true Theophilus of Antioch distinguisheth carefully the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the Thought of God from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the Word generated Athenagoras and Tatian tell us of a Son who was in God in Idea and potentially before he actually existed as a Person Tertullian saith There was a time when the Son was not a Son and that the Father was not always a Father that the Word which he distinguisheth from Reason was not from the beginning Novatian declares expresly chap. 31. that the Procession of the Son which was done when the Father willed it that is to say when he resolved to create the World That this Prolation say I made the Son a second Person Origen and Clement make a difference between the Word which was God and the Word which was made Flesh meaning that the former was the internal Word which is the Divine Vnderstanding and God himself and by the latter the Word brought forth which is only an Emanation from the former Prudentius calls J. C. Verbigena begotten of the Word where you may see manifestly the two Words the one generating and the other generated the one being the essential Wisdom of God the other is its Production And the first Word is so far from being the Son that Prudentius considers it as the Father Lastly not to be redicus Marius Victorinus makes to great a difference between the Word speaking and the Word silent that he calls the former the Son and the latter the Father All these Fathers generally tell us that before the Word was generated it was in the Heart of God in the Womb of his Vnderstanding in his Bowels whence it came forth as it were from its Seed and Bud. Either all these Terms mean nothing or they denote that the Son did not then exist otherwise than in the Design and Intent of the Father that he came forth thence when by the virtue of the Divine Prolation he did receive a real Existence Now it is not the first Existence but the second which the Fathers constantly and properly call the Generation of the Son or in other words
the Father because it is only a Breath an Emanation and a Ray. The Word is before all things because it was necessary that God should command before the Creature obeyed But all things are born together with it because God created the World by bringing forth and begetting the Word We should open our Eyes and see the Cabala of the Creation of the World through all these mysterious Generations So as Clement of Alexandria expounds it in brief Strom. lib. 5. The Word saith he coming out of God did cause the Creation that is to speak plainly God created the World by one single Word and seeing this great Maker made no use of any other Instrument hence it came to pass no doubt that this Word of his was called his Minister But let us return to immediate Generation As the Philosophers understood by Wisdom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing else but the Universal Idea of the World which they called the first-born Son of God because it is the Plan of this sensible World So the Fathers being enur'd to this way of philosophizing conceiv'd also the Idea of the Messiah to be the first Idea in the Spiritual World and an Universal One and to be the Source and Seed of all the other Ideas In this sense Tertullian against Hermogenes makes Wisdom to be more antient than the Word meaning that this Wisdom did thrust the Word it self out of the Heart of God and together all the various Forms of existing things Which is a mere Allegory the meaning of which is that the Word brought forth and all other things were made according to the Plan and Idea of the internal Word which is the immediate Production of the Divine Understanding Hence it comes that Justin in his second Apology distinguisheth the Universal Reason 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Primitive Seed which is nothing else but the Wisdom of God from Reason which is in every Man and which is only a Portion and Emanation of the Divine Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Philosophers consider'd these Seeds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. In God and then they differ not from Platonic Ideas which are not only the Forms of Creatures trac'd in the Divine Understanding but also are the Causes and the Origin of all Productions Marcus Antoninus made use of this Word in that sense lib. 4. § 10. 2. They considered these Seeds in things created designing to denote by them their Essences and Forms but especially that of Man who is as it were a Portion of the Wisdom of God This last is the sense of Justin But they distinguish'd among these Primitive Seeds the Idea of the Messiah as an immediate one and the first in the Divine Understanding for the sake of which God trac'd and form'd all the rest Hence arose that common Opinion that God created the World for the Messiah This Opinion whether true or false gave occasion to Mahomet to apply to himself this Prerogative of the Messiah that God would not have created the Heaven and the Earth had it not been for the Love he bare him apud Barthol Edessen in confut Agaren Furthermore if any will demand how it happened that so many of the Disciples of Plato both Christians and Pagans did so grosly follow the Letter of his three Principles made three Hypostases of them and changed his Cosmogony into a mere Theogony I answer as Mons Le Clerc doth concerning Idolatry on Exod. 20.4 It proceeded saith he from the Craft of Priests who in order to make Religion more August talk'd but very obscurely of its Mysteries whatever was clear was not convenient for them but every thing must be concealed under Symbols and Riddles and seeing that Symbolical Religion was purely arbitrary it came to pass that the true sense of those Symbols was effaced out of the Minds of Men nothing remaining for the Vulgar except what made an Impression upon their senses So that they believed at last that the Deity it self dwelt under those Figures At first they design'd to represent under the Symbolical Figure of an Ox only a King devoted to Husbandry but at last they came to believe that the Soul it self of that King deified did inhabit that Ox. No doubt but the Philosophers themselves were a part of the People The shrewder of them having found the Truth had some Reasons to cover it under Fictions thereby to disguise it to others Plato had his as we have seen already He having found the Father of the World to be the most good wise and powerful God and having found it dangerous to speak of him according to Truth he made three Hypostases and three Gods of the three Attributes which he conceived were in the Creator and spake of them Majestically under the Names of Good Reason and the Soul of the World or under some other Fictions that vary the Terms yet without altering the secret Doctrine contained in those Symbols This Symbolic Theology being arbitrary or rather a mere Fiction the Sense â—â—â—tained under that Shell dwindled away by little and little The Letter remaining alone they philosophized only on the indeterminate System of three Hypostases viz. of a First Second and Third God The Christians especially were not wanting to make a noise about this Mystery to render their Religion the more pompous But after all it was the gross Platonism that turned the Christian Doctrines into a mere Pag 〈…〉 Turns the best things degenerate but it was not so from the beginning CHAP XV. The Sentiment of the Moralists among the Jews concerning the Wisdom or the Word St. John hath imitated them I Know it is pretended that the Jews were not ignorant of the Mystery of the Platonic 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but in truth there is too much Weakness in what is alledged from the 8th of Proverbs and some other Places in their moral Books I am amazed to think that any body should not see this Chapter to be figurative and that Solomon speaks there of Wisdom in general such as it is in God or as he hath communicated it to Man but especially of that which shines forth and is to be admired in the Creation of the World as some of the Orthodox understood it in St. Jerom's time Hieron in cap. 2. Ephes Dr. Patrick now Bishop of Ely doth freely own in his Paraphrase on this Chapter that Solomon speaks here of nothing else but the wise Laws which God had given to the Israelites Arg. ver 21 22 c. This is expressed in such magnificent Language that tho Solomon I suppose thought of nothing but the wise Directions God had given them in his Word revealed to them by his Servant Moses and the Prophets yet the antient Christians thought his Words might be better applied to the Wisdom revealed unto us in the Gospel by the Son of God himself the Eternal Word and Wisdom of the Father Could he have expressed himself more clearly to give
us to understand that when the Platonic Fathers applied these losty Expressions of Solomon to their Eternal Word they did not or could not do it but by the way of an Accommodation or Allusion The same Bishop having related the Opinion of some Fathers a little lower who apply the same Expressions of Solomon to the Man Jesus Christ afterwards goes on thus pag. 63. But this saith he not being the sense of the Words which Solomon first intended I shall not build my Paraphrase upon it but take Wisdom here as it signifies in other Places of this Book and hath been hitherto described whom Solomon now celebrates for her most venerable Antiquity and introduces like a most beautiful Person no less than a Queen or rather some Divine Being infinitely to be preferred before that base Strumpet spoken of in the foregoing Chapter Indeed Solomon hath made her speak by introducing her as a Person and exborts young People to give ear to her She speaks of herself that God created her or that she comes to us from God that she was before the World was made because God who is the source of her and communicates her to Men did make use of her in framing this Universe Also that Kings reign by her because Prudence and good Counsels are the Soul of a good Government Notwithstanding this clear and natural sense Prejudice hath abused these Words to apply them to Jesus Christ but there are many other that cannot at all agree to him 'T is true that the Platonick Fathers are alledg'd here who understood this Chapter literally of a Personal Wisdom I own it but the same Fathers have also and that with no less Pomp quoted that Passage of the 45th Psalm My Heart is inditing a good Matter Word to prove the Eternal Generation of J. C. We justly laugh now adays at so ridiculous an Interpretation as well as of that Psal 110. From the Womb of the Morning thou hast the Dew of thy Youth Which the antient Interpreters did endeavour to make subservient to the same purpose Let us then I pray mistrust them as to this Text in the Proverbs they having so grosly deceiv'd us in those two of the Psalms which they made use of for the same ends as frequently and with as much Confidence But after all tho their Testimonies should be produc'd in shoals we can produce better Interpreters of Prov. 8. I mean the Books of the Old Testament it self the Wisdom and Ecclesisticus which tho they are Apocryphal yet are of greater Authority than the Writings of the Fathers who were the Disciples of Plato the Authors of these two having probably known better the Mind of Solomon and the Sentiments of the Jews The Author of the Wisdom having made use of the same Prosopopeia with him in the Proverbs calls Wisdom The Breath Spirit of the Power of God a pure Stream flowing from the Glory of the Almighty the Brightness of the everlasting Light the unspotted Mirrour of the Power of God the Image of his Goodness and that she sits on the Throne of God He goes on like the Author of the Proverbs that when God created the World Wisdom was with him knew his Works was present then knoweth and understandeth all things But to let you see that he speaks only of a Quality or Virtue he adds That he loved her sought her out from his Youth desired to have her for a Spouse was a Lover of her Beauty He desires of God in his ardent Prayers to give her to him to send her out of the Heavens to assist him to teach him that his Works might be acceptable For saith he we hardly guess aright at things that are upon the Earth but the things that are in Heaven who can search out unless God gives Wisdom and send his Holy Spirit from above See Chap. 7 8 9. The same Author speaking further of this Divine Perfection saith That God made all things by his Word form'd Man by his Wisdom Chap. 9. 1 2. taking the Word and Wisdom for one and the same thing viz. for that Power which created the World and whereof Wisdom is but an Emanation Can you imagine now this Author meant that God did create the World by his Son the second Person of the Trinity Can such a Thought enter into a rational Creature Let us come now to the Author of the Ecclesiasticus who expresseth better the Sense we ought to give to the Words of Solomon He introduceth Wisdom speaking thus of her self I came out of the Mouth of the most High he created me from the beginning before the World Hitherto he seems to speak of a Person but explains himself clearly Ch. 24. Ver. 23. where he declares that he meant by this nothing else but the Law of Moses which the Jews name Wisdom by way of Excellency For having spoken of Wisdom under other Figures than that of a Person I mean under the Figure of a Palm-tree an Olive-tree a Vine c he sums up what he had said in these words All these things are the Book of the Covenant of the most High even the Law which Moses gave Can the Law given by Moses be call'd more expresly not only an Olive-tree or a Vine but also the Word which came out of the Mouth of the most High and Wisdom which God created before the World Which are Expressions visibly figurative the which under the Fiction of a Person or the Figure of a Vine represent the Wisdom of God to us sometimes as revealing it self in the Creation of the World and again as replenishing Men with the Fruits of its Knowledg in the Dispensation of the Law This kind of Fictions was familiar to the Moralist Jews and to all the Oriental Philosophers You must be purblind if you discern not immediately the Genius of that People accustom'd to a figurative and parabolick Stile St. John imitates the Moralist Jews and according to the same Ideas hath at one view represented to us the Word or Wisdom of God manifesting himself to Men in two of the greatest of his Dispensations viz. in the Old and the New Creation The Method is the same absolutely you need only put the Gospel or the Author of the Gospel instead of Moses and the Law You may really see him join these two things together viz. The Wisdom of God residing in God himself and presiding at the Creation of the World and the same Wisdom descending upon J. C. in whom it was as it were incarnated and ordering the New World For if according to the Hebrews the Law was the Wisdom or the Word or Precept by way of Excellency much more doth this great Elogium belong to the Gospel namely to be the Word the Wisdom the Truth the Light and the Life by way of excellency An Elogium consequently belonging to J. C. who brought the Word and the Life and was the great Teacher of Truth Whatever the Scripture saith of the First Creation
it saith the same in the same words of the New All the Encomiums it gives to the Law are applied more truly to the Gospel and lastly it saith nothing of God the Father which it doth not accommodate to J. C. his Son who is the Vicarius of the Father as Tertullian calls him and who saith he makes us to hear the Father in his Words and makes us see him in his Actions By this Rule you get the Key to all the Passages that seem to give the Son the same Names Prerogatives and the same Properties that God the Father hath it is because J. C. being the Vicarius of God both the Words and Actions of the Father are attributed to him by the virtue and upon the account of the Reprejentation if I may thus express my self For it is not as I judg by a mere Accommodation but by a Subordination Whatever is said of the Father in an exact and rigid Sense may also be said of the Son as of a Minister and Ambassador that represents God or to speak better that executes in a visible manner what the Invisible Father had already promis'd should be done Now lest any one should wrangle about this Title of Ambassador I shall say more namely that there is more than a Subordination because we see in J. C. not only the Character of an Envoy but likewise an Abode and an immediate Presence of the Father's Person He that receives a Prophet receives him who sends the Prophet therefore when J. C. came vested with the Authority of the Father to accomplish what God had promis'd should be perform'd by the hands of the Messiah God himself came in his Person and we have receiv'd him in the Person of Christ Hence it comes to pass that J. C. is adorn'd with all the Characters of Glory and Power which God attributes to himself when he promiseth that signal Deliverance by the Prophets which he design'd to perform one day for the good of his Church For this reason J. C. is call'd Emmanuel God with us which is a Symbolical Name by which the Scripture denotes the extraordinary Presence of God in the Messiah and teaches us that it is not so much the Man but that it is the Sovereign and Inviable God that acts I speak not of my self I speak only the things my Father taught me I do nothing of my self but the Father that dwelleth in me he doth the Works These in one word are the constant Expressions of J. C. he refers all the Authority of his Doctrine and all the Glory of his Miracles to the Father dwelling in him This the Jews call'd Shekinah the Habitation of God Here is more than the Abode of God in the midst of his People of old this is a more sensible and magnificent Presence and to say all 't is God's dwelling in the Messiah for God was with him saith the Apostle You have need only of this Reflection to foil the strongest Objection of the Trinitarians They say that the New Testament attributes constantly the same Properties and the same Perfections to the Son and to the Holy Ghost which the whole Scripture attributes to God the Father Granted What follows then Necessarily one of these two things Either you prove by it that there are three Gods all which have the same Properties and equal Perfections which is contradictory and disown'd even by those that make this Objection or you must acknowledg with us that the Perfections of the Son are nothing else but the Perfections of the Father dwelling in him and communicating himself to him And the Holy Ghost is likewise only the Virtue and Power of God It is objected against this Doctrine I am now establishing that it is not customary to call the Ambassador by the Name of the King that sends him I will not enter now upon the Particulars of this Controversy nor even examine the History of the Centurion related by St. Matthew Chap. 8. and by St. Luke Chap. 7. which alone were sufficient to decide it It will be enough for me to remark at present that tho this Custom were not us'd by Men in their Transactions yet it is incontestably so in God's Method Drusius De Nomin Tetragram in Epist ad Conrad Vorstium grants that it may be said the King doth what the Ambassador transacts in his Name but he denies at the same time that you may give to the Envoy the Name of the King that sends him And thereupon he will not receive without some alloy that Rule of the Hebrews That the Angel bears the Name of God who sends him But with all the respect I owe this Great Man I affirm that this Rule of the Hebrews is well grounded it being taken from the Scripture it self where God declares that he will put his Name on the Angel whom he design'd to send It is no matter then whether this be the Custom of Kings or no seeing it is clear by this Place that it is the Custom of God to give his Name to his Envoys at least on some occasions and in extraordinary Cases And this Name that I may take notice of it by the by doth not denote only that they may call themselves the Lord the Jehova but indeed they have all the Glory the whole Authority and all the Power yet not absolutely but only in reference to that Commission they are then honoured withal that is to say they appear with as much Majesty they act with as much Authority and Power as God would in the like case were he pleas'd to act without a Medium and by himself alone And this is a great reason why God should act thus for seeing he could not manifest himself if the Angels by whom he was manifested had never taken his Name upon them it would have come to pass that the Jews having the knowledg only of Angels would have totally forgotten God whereas the Angels by taking the Name of God upon them on some extraordinary occasions put that People from time to time in mind of him by the Idea of his Presence After all seeing God is invisible by his Nature and cannot manifest himself by himself it follows then that every time he manifests himself by an Angel this Manifestation will not be regarded as an Appearance of an Angel but as that of God himself whom that Angel represents and consequently it is not so much the Angel that bears the Name of Jehova and is ador'd by Men but God himself that Angel being his Person and Presence This will be clear if you regard these three Rules 1. That according to the Oriental Idiom the Envoys make their Masters speak always directly as for example instead of saying The Lord saith he is the Jehova they speak thus The Lord saith I am the Jehova 2. They suppress often these Expressions The Lord saith and speak absolutely without making use of that Preface I am the Jehova 3. That you ought to supply those Words and
by his Word that is to say by the Command and Order of God See Grotius on Joh. 10 3◠What is become now of the Mystery Whence comes such a gross Mistake The Learned Hammond quoting this Paraphrase in Luke 1.2 doth read it indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to his Word which is just what these Gentlemen would be at but if I am not mistaken 't is without any Authority nor do I think that if such a Reading were sound in any Copy either in Manuscript or printed it ought to be prefer'd to the common Reading which is grounded as we have shewn on the Custom of the Hebrews Besides we may assert without any fear of being in the wrong that if there be any alteration in the original Term it was not done to favour the Hereticks we may presume the contrary It is true indeed that Dr. Bull in his Defence of the Council of Nice quotes a Paraphrase we have not to prove the false Reading But it is likely that those who say they have seen it saw but a Latin Translation which hath it Verbo suo in the Ablative as the Grammarians term it by his Word and it is the ambiguity of the Latin Construction that impos'd on those who saw not the Original So true it is that Error always begets a Mystery and that even a Grammatical Ambiguity is capable to furnish us with high-flown and gorgeous ones What makes me think so is this that I have observ'd the like ambiguity in the Author of the imperfect Work on St. Matthew in Mat. 8.8 This Evangelist brings in the Centurion speaking Lord speak the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And this Author allegorizing no doubt on the Term Word makes him deliver himself thus Lord you have need only to command one of your Messengers and Angel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and my Servant shall be healed whereas he meant only that our Saviour should speak the Word altho I would not condemn absolutely the Explication of this Author because it is somewhat plausible if we regard how the Centurion goes on For I am saith he a Man under Authority having Soldiers under me and I say unto this Man Go and he goeth and to another Come and he cometh and to my Servant Do this and he doth it These Expressions seem to insinuate indeed that he intended J. C. should command some one of his Servants as he commanded his own Speak to an Angel or to any one of your Disciples to go and heal my Servant and my Servant shall be healed And in this sense an Angel or an Apostle would have been the Word of J. C. even as J. C. himself was the Word of the Father If you take it thus I shall grant with all my heart that the Paraphrast in this place means the Messiah by that Term Word The Judgment of Father Simon upon these Paraphrases deserves your notice Hist critic du V. T. lib. 2. ch 18. It is true saith he that Galatine and many other Divines after him made use of these Paraphrases to establish some Articles of our Faith in opposition to the Jews principally those relating to the Messiah But altho these Proofs seem conclusive as to the Jews because they are taken out of their Books yet I do not think it advantageous to the Christian Religion to have recourse to Books stuff'd with Fables Besides the Passages we believe to favour our Religion consisting chiefly but in Allegories it will be easy for the Jews to evade them for we cannot prove the Truth of our Mysteries invincibly by Allegories But if notwithstanding all these Discoveries the Trinitarians will still insist upon these Paraphrasts to authorise their pretended Mystery we shall be alarm'd so little at the advantage they pretend to get by them that we shall over and above lend them this Passage of the Targum of Jerusalem extremely fit to prove the Pre-existence of their Word Glassius relates it Philol. p. 22. The Paraphrast expounding these Words Behold Adam is become as one of us brings in the Word speaking to his Father Papa behold Adam whom you have created who is your only Son on Earth as I am your only Son in Heaven It seems as if the Word was pleas'd that he had a Brother and a Compare on Shall we never be asham'd of these Rabbinick Frenzies or rather of these Platonick Impostures CHAP. XVII Concerning the Method of the Sacred Writers and some of their Disciples viz. Hermas Barnabas c. in the Interpretation of the Scriptures THE Writers of the New Testament being Jews by Birth did affect according to the Genius of that People an analogick Sense and Accommodations finding every where Relations between the Old and the New Testament Every body knows how they have adapted one History to another one Event to another Event and of what nature are their frequent Allusions and Allegories On this wise to omit other Examples what Moses saith of the Word of God producing the Creature out of nothing St. John accommodates to that Word of J. C. which forms Men anew and manifests the Power of God demonstrating by Miracles that all Creatures obey him J. C. being not so much the Interpreter of the Will of God as the Instrument of his Power You will find this Analogick Sense may be observ'd in most of the Passages of the Old Testament which the Apostles have applied to the New Beza on 2 Cor. 4.6 calls this Sense Anagogical that is to say Spiritual Sublime Mystical and exalted above the pitch of the Letter See Scult Exerc. Evangel lib. 1. cap. 62. where he speaks at large of the manner how the Sayings of the Prophets are accomplish'd analogically under the New Testament The Testimonies of the Old Testament saith he are not always alledg'd to confirm a thing but to illustrate it by an ingenious and well-contriv'd Accommodation which is very familiar to the Holy Ghost The Therapeutes or Jewish Philosophers of Alexandria retain'd this way of interpreting the more willingly because it was altogether conformable to the Method of the Platonists among whom they liv'd Eusebius relates Hist Eccl. lib. 2. c. 16. that they had the merely Allegorical Commentaries of the Antients and that in expounding the Scriptures they philosophiz'd after the manner of their Predecessors that is to say by the way of Figures and Allegories pretending that the Letter is but a Shell wherein many Mysteries are inclos'd The most antient Fathers of the Church viz. Hermas and Barnabas did follow this Method of the Jews searching for a Spiritual Meaning in the Facts and Rites of the Old Testament in order to adapt them to the New but yet not so as to bring in such Platonick Ideas as obtain'd some time after in the Christian Religion The following Fathers having not only carry'd their Allegories too far and exceeded the antient manner of affecting mystical Senses but also spoil'd this Method by joining gross Platonism with it which personaliz'd every thing
and turn'd the Anagogick into an Historical and Literal Sense Let us begin with Barnabas The Sacred Writers having said that J. C. was the Rock of the Desert the Passover Propitiation c. in like manner Barnabas accustom'd to the Method his Nation follow'd ever since the Captivity accommodates to J. C. many Passages of the Old Testament which had their mystick and spiritual Truth in him According to this way of interpreting the Rock was J. C. intelligibly David was J. C. anagogically The Antients tempted J. C. because they tempted Moses or the Angel who were the Types of the Messiah So that it might safely be said that Christ was an intelligible Moses an intelligible David or Rock and consequently an intelligible Word in the same sense that Hesychius calls the Blood of the Eucharist intelligible Blood that is to say a mystical Blood which is conceiv'd such only by our Thought and Mind not being really so and in the very Letter For who can so much as doubt that the Word is J. C. or that J. C. is the Word by the which God created the World in the same sense as he is the Passover or the Rock of the Desert That is to say there is found in him mystically that Divine Efficacy or that powerful Word which speaks which commands and the Creature immediately obeys its Orders God said Let there be Light and there was Light J. C. said Let this blind Man recover his Sight and there was Light the blind Man saw it◠he perform'd his Miracles by a Word only Can you accommodate better the Old Creation to the New And that so much the more because the same Word which created the World acted in the Flesh of J. C. the which it not only inhabited having descended on it in the shape of a Dove but into which it had likewise insinuated it self as the principle of his Conception and Birth But that you may not believe me upon my bare word I will prove my Hypothesis by Barnabas his own Epistle The most plausible Argument is drawn from Chap. 4. where the Greek is wanting Christ saith this Father is the Lord of the World to whom God said before the Foundation of the World Let us make Man c. But it appears by Chap. 5. whereof we have the Original that Barnabas takes these Words in an allegoric and spiritual Sense Reading alone takes away the difficulty God as he saith having renewed us by the Remission of our Sins hath made us as it were Children and restor'd to us a Form totally spiritual For the Scripture speaks thus of us introducing God as it were speaking to his Son Let us make Man according to our Image And the Lord beholding our new Nature hath said to us Increase c. Behold now how he hath spoken to his Son I will once more shew you how God hath given you a new Figure in these last Times The Lord saith Behold I make all things new It is as clear as the Sun that this Expression Let us make Man is applied to the New Creation to the second Form that God gives us and that when God hath thus reform'd us by the Spirit of his Son he hath as it were said to his Son Let us make Man You need not doubt then that the same allegorick Sense is to be look'd for in Chap. 4. which without any ground is taken literally Whatever God saith according to the Letter either speaking to the Angels or consulting himself may assuredly be said in a mystical Sense to have been spoken to his Son by whose means he hath made a new Man As if Barnabas should say What God saith at the time of the first Creation Let us make Man according to our Image is found true concerning the New but in a more sublime Sense having in this made use of his Son to form Man according to the Image of his Holiness and Justice And if Barnabas did explain allegorically this Saying Let us make Man according to our Image why might not the Fathers in like manner explain these He spake and the things were created Hidden and mystical Meanings were always sought for in the Old Testament This Ignatius did in his Episte to the Ephesians There is but one Teacher saith he that spake and the thing was done and all that he did in silence not only by teaching but also suffering is altogether worthy of his Father Where you see he applies to J. C. what was said of God the Father and to the New Creation what was said of the Old This is visible by the distinction he makes between the Speech and the Silence of J. C. between what he perform'd by his Preaching and what he did by his Obedience and Patience Let us go on with Barnabas In Chap. 5. whilst allegorizing on the Land of Promise which flow'd with Milk and Honey We are those saith he speaking of us Christians whom God hath brought into this blessed Land being nourish'd with the Faith of the Promise And carrying on his Allegory in Chap. 6. Enter into this Blessed Land c. to which he gives that spiritual Meaning Learn what Knowledg saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say the sublime Sense of this Passage Hope ye saith he in Jesus who is to be manifested to you in Flesh Could he have recommended better to us the Science of Allegories which he calls Gnosticism or Knowledg by way of Excellency In the same Chapter he adapts to J. C. what was said of the Sacrifices of old and particularly that of Isaac He finds there a Figure of the Church as also of J. C. and concludes thus This Calf this Victim is J. C. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Could he say that the Calf sacrific'd was J. C. and may he not by the same way of speaking be call'd the Word Because this was not only his Figure but also the Virtue that actuated him in the Formation of the New World In the 7th Chapter he allegorizeth strangely upon the Circumcision He finds there a certain Cabala in the number of the Persons whom Abraham caused to be circumcis'd and discovers there the Name of Jesus as also his Cross and what not This Science is pregnant with Inventions it can find J. C. every where in an Arithmetick Number 318 in the Plural Number of a Noun The Gods have created and in the Plural Number of a Verb Let Vs make Man See in Chap. 8. his Spiritual Meanings which he draws from the Prohibition of the Flesh of some Creatures and taking notice that Moses said this only in a Figure regarding the mystical Sense the Spirit and not the Letter Moses saith he spake thus in Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If then Moses did speak of J. C. when he said that the Word created the World he did speak of this also in Spirit and it is not true but in a spiritual Sense In the 9th Chapter besides the Allegory on the Water of Baptism
Mr. How Amongst the Nominal the Bishop of Salisbury is of one Opinion Dr. Wallis of another Dr. South differs from them both Range them by Hundreds there will not be one that will keep to the precise Point that forms this Chimerical Orthodoxy which is boasted of by every one but attained to by none for they treat one another as Hereticks Here is a large Field for you to scour about and raise a thousand nice Questions in which the most acute can't perceive and to find Heresies in those that have had the Misfortune to displease you Must an overgrown Bishop be depos'd whose See lies convenient for me or a Competitor stopt in his Career I have no more to do but only examine them about these two Points in question if they have not found the indivisible Point precisely and who can do it They are undone I will prove demonstratively that their Opinion is Heretical Impious and Blasphemous I shall call both the East and West to my Aid and what is more I shall have the Pleasure to see three or four hundred Bishops assembled in a General Council who shall unanimously vote for me for the accused is always in the wrong the Thunderbolts and Anathemas shall follow Thus the whole World will be in a Flame for a Trifle Alas the Memory of such a Number of vain Disputes between Nestorius and Eutyches cannot be renewed without making the Christian World to blush But whoever could give us the secret History of all the antient Councils like to that of the Council of Trent would certainly infinitely oblige the Christian World But lastly perhaps the Defender did not perceive my having answer'd his trifling Difficulty before hand let us then make him sensible of it Let us examine the Relish of the Antients and see what Books they have preserved for us what Character they bear and of what Stamp they are I told you already that they have not left us any Father of the Christians of the Circumcision but only some Gentiles brought up in the School of Plato We have indeed a Justin Athenagoras Theophilus Tatian Irenaeus Clement of Alexand Origen Tertullian Arnobius Lactantius and some others of the same sort Fathers indeed who breathe nothing but Platonism This is the precious Relick Antiquity has left us It is easy then to draw the consequence What Books hath it destroyed All those that shocked Plato that spake not as Plato We do the Defender Justice if from the Books that Antiquity chose we point out those it rejected He hath then lost his Cause for the Collection we have could not be such by Chance the Caprice of the Times or such like Accidents No it is too uniform Choice presided here at least as to the Character of these Books but Time and the Fate of Libraries may have had a share in the rest I return to my Subject and must observe here that if the Allegories of Barnabas are very evident because they are so frequent and characteriz'd by the Terms of Spirit and Figure which he makes use of to denote them to be so yet this happens not always The Fathers speak them out often so absolutely that it is only the Matter it self that can make us discern them Thus the Allegories of Origen have often deceived his Readers For this Father as Mr. Huet observes it Origen Quaest 14. passing often from the Explication of the Letter to a Spiritual Sense imperceptibly his Readers took his Allegories for Dogmatical Assertions What he hath said of Origen may be applied to all the rest of the Fathers Irenaeus for example Lib. 4. cap. 37. speaks out in downright Terms without any hint of a Figure an Allegory he made upon the Spies sent by Joshua to Jericho Rahab the Harlot saith he in receiving the Spies conceal'd in her House the Father Son and Holy Ghost Who would not believe if you take this literally as the Trinitarians are wont but that these Spies were actually the Father Son and Holy Ghost in a human Shape there being nothing in the Words here to hint the Adaptation and Allegory Really if Irenaeus had said as he might very well at this rate that Abraham receiving the Angels that went to destroy Sodom gave a Dinner to the Father Son and Holy Ghost a Mystery would certainly have been found in these Words pretending that Abraham did entertain these three Persons of the Deity who appeared to him in the Form of three Angels or three Men What difference is there I pray between this way of speaking we now suppose and what Irenaeus really made use of None and you must grant that if you think you have good ground from such like Expressions to make a supreme God in three Persons of the three Angels you may likewise conclude the Spies of Jericho to have been the Father Son and Holy Ghost really and literally so For whatever may be said to the contrary it is as impossible that Angels should be God as for the Spies to be so Surely the Repugnancy in the Nature of the things themselves which Authors compare mutually ought always to determine us to look for a figurative and allegoric sense there especially when it appears to us that these Allegories are agreeable to the Genius and Custom of those Authors or at least of their Predecessors and Masters it being certain that tho the Disciples often alter the Method of their Masters yet there will still remain some Footsteps of the antient Doctrine betraying and discovering their Innovations This is the Lot of the Platonic Fathers as we shall show hereafter For the present the Example of Irenaeus is sufficient to inform us that according to the same way of speaking which calls the Spies the Father Son and Holy Ghost we may also say that J. C. was the Word which created the World and the Angel that appeared to the Patriarchs See what Annotator Feuerdentius saith on this Passage of Irenaeus An old Copy adds the Word Three to the Spies which would agree very well with the three Divine Hypostases had not the Scripture assured us that there were but Two and not Three Justin hath also much the same Allegory in his Dialogue It is likely that Irenaeus carried on his Allegory but to the Father and Son in relation to the two Spies but for fear the Holy Ghost should be thereby excluded some Knave put him in too and then the Word Three must be added to the Spies that so all might be adjusted to the three Divine Persons Thus various Readings proceed from the Boldness of the Orthodox but howeven it be you see the Allegory either reject it in this Place or acknowledg it every where else where there is the like necessity for it As the Father Son and Holy Ghost were allegorically in the Spies of Jericho in like manner J. C. was allegorically in all the Dispensations of old in the Word that created the World in the Angels and the Prophets that spake to
Men because if I may say so these Dispensations were the Figures of the great Oeconomy of J. C. or rather of God the Father manifesting himself in the Flesh of his Son Therefore Irenaeus calls it the Dispensation which was from the Beginning You may see what Vossius saith in his Notes concerning these Allegories of Barnabas and the other Fathers It is known by all saith he how these first Christians interpreted the Scriptures after a mystic and superstitious manner I was like to say childish and foolish Cotelier saith almost the same and shews their Absurdities But take this along with you that these dull Allegories did not by far so much Mischief as that Christianity in Masquerade which some other Fathers borrowed from Plato It is of these you may more justly say than of the Allegorists according to one of our Criticks that the Day these good Fathers were writing so many philosophic Visions they voided a Purge Purgamentum aliquod cacasse Let us now come to Hermas who is as well stored with Visions and Parables as Barnabas At least his Method is the same In his Parable or Similitude the 9th § 12. he saith That the Rock is the Son of God now the Rock is of old because the Son of God is more antient than any Creature inasmuch as he assisted in the Council of his Father in order to form the Creature All this is said in a mystic and an allegoric sense to explain that the Father did all in regard to his Son and the new Creation The Author having said as much in his first Vision § 4. concerning the Church for asking of the Angel Why the Church of God is an old Woman the Angel answers because she was the first thing that was created and that it was by reason of her the World was made It is likely in the Greek it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Translator rendered not per illam but propter illam You see then that this Father saith no more of J. C. than he doth of the Church and that these Words antiquior omni Creatura mean the same thing with anus prima omnium creata which are true only in a mystic sense but false in the Letter Consequently then J. C. is from the Beginning in the same sense that the Church is so I mean in the Decree and Design of God which the Author expresseth by his being in the Council of the Father which he borrowed manifestly from the Author of the Book of Wisdom I shall now produce a remarkable Instance of the Alteration that ensued as to the Tenent it self notwithstanding the Terms remained the same You see that Hermas saith here the Son of God is more antient than any Creature and that he speaks so allegorically Let us get over one Age or two and you shall see Origen making use of the same Expression but in an Arian sense The Holy Scriptures saith he Lib. 5. contra Cels discover the Son of God to us as the most antient of all the Creatures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He means that he was created a little before the World but let us return to our Subject Justin Martyr who first taught the Pre-existence of the Word imitating the Notion of Hermas did teach the Pre-existence of Christians no less than that of Christ himself whilst Apol. 2. he saith That all those who were Partakers of the Word or Reason as well Greeks as Barbarians were Christians and consequently Christians did not commence yesterday or to day but were always and every where a principio saith he from the beginning attributing to them the very Prerogative of the Word it self These good Men turn'd themselves every way to ward off the Reâ—roach of Novelty wherewith Christianity was charged In like manner Eusehius endeavouring to prove that the Christian Religion was not new maintains that the Patriarchs profest it and that it was instituted from the beginning Hist Eccles Lib. c. 4. Thus much he cannot advance but in a mystic sense as he observes it himself because all those who acted justly and served that God who is above all were Christians Consequently then Christ could not converse otherwise with them but in the same manner as they professed Christianity which cannot be true but by way of Analogy and Accommodation Christ then pre-existed as the Christian Religion and Christians did pre-exist Let us return to Hermas It is manifest that he allegoriz'd even by his entituling his third Book where he speaks of the Pre-existence of J. C. Similitudes or Parables which carry on throughout spiritual and mystic senses as is evident by Similitude 5. where he explains the Parable of the Father of a Family in a theological manner in relation to the Father the Holy Ghost and the Son The Father in the Plan of his Allegory is the Landlord the Holy Spirit is the Son of the Houshold and he who out of Allegory is called the Son is but a Servant in the Allegory The Landlord saith he is the same who created all things the Son is the Holy Ghost and the Son of God is the Servant He goes on and adds a little after The Holy Ghost insinuated himself into the Body wherein God was to dwell and this Body whereinto the Holy Ghost did insinuate himself having served the Holy Ghost and having been faithful to him always did obtain the Approbation of God by his Labours and Obedience By the Holy Ghost cannot be meant here the second Person which is called the Divine Nature of J. C. as Dr. Bull pretends for who sees not that Hermas speaks here of that Spirit of Sanctification which prepared the Body of J. C. for Prophecy and consecrated it for a Temple for God to dwell in And seeing this Idea of the Holy Spirit 's being infus'd into the Body of J. C. is so conformable to what the Holy Scriptures deliver concerning it you must be very extravagant if you think that Hermas differed from it Besides what could he mean if his sense were the same with that Dr. Bull attributes to him Would he introduce two Sons of God so opposite one to the other The one who serves and obeys and the other who is served and obeyed and what is yet more strange two Sons of God in the self-same Person of J. C. our Lord. The Son saith Hermas is the Holy Spirit and the Son of God is the Servant Now if the Divine Nature of J. C. be denoted by the Spirit and that the Servant signifies the Human Nature you will have two Sons according to the very Letter Thus the Orthodox embroil all things to fish for Mysteries in Troubled Water whereas nothing is more clear than the meaning of Hermas He allegorizeth and would say By him whom the Parable calls the Son I mean nothing else but the Holy Spirit and by him whom the Parable calls a Servant I mean J. C. our Lord who out of the Parable is the proper Son of
God And behold here the ground of my Allegory viz. that the Holy Spirit who insinuated himself into J. C. becoming his Director and Master may justly be compar'd to the Son of the Family but J. C. himself having always obeyed the Holy Spirit must be compared to a Servant It is therefore in Allegory that J. C. is the Servant and so likewise in Allegory that the Holy Spirit is the Son of God It is in Allegory that the Church is the first of all the Creatures and consequently in Allegory that the Son of God is more antient than all the Creatures and that he assisted at the Council of God The whole is Allegory in Hermas the whole is Vision Similitude and Parable there The Faith in his Writings Simil. 9. § 13 and 15. and all the other Vertues are called Holy Spirits he ushers them in like Virgins well apparel'd kissing the Son of God who also lie with Hermas himself as with a Brother The Fiction of Persons is so familiar to this Author that if you would find a Person of the Trinity there you shall but catch at a shadow Let it then be acknowledged by all that we ought not to look for any thing but Allegories and Similitudes in this Book of his bearing the same Title Whereas in the second Book entituled the Commandments where the Doctrines are set forth more simply he speaks not from the very first Commandment but of one God the Creator which is the whole Idea he gives us of this supreme Being without any mention of three Persons of an eternal Generation or Incarnation Which demonstrates that he had a different Idea from that of a Consubstantial Trinity or of three equal Hypostases whatever he said elsewhere of the Father Son and Holy Ghost But as this Allegory of Hermas touching Christ misled the Platonic Fathers who took it literally being prejudiced by the Philosophy they were brought up in There is another in the sixth Commandment by which they were no less impos'd on There is saith he two Genius's in Man the one of Justice the other of Iniquity The Greek had it no doubt two Angels and so this Passage is read in the Translator of Origen Hom. 35. in Luc. duos Angelos Hereupon the Fathers have gravely handed down to us that there are two Angels the one of Good the other of Evil that attend a Man from his Birth Just as they have told us that the Angels fell in Love with the Daughters of Men having mistaken the Allegory of the Souls that delight to abide in our Bodies But let the Fathers talk on This being taken in a literal sense is ridiculous and contrary to Scripture especially the evil Angel Can it be doubted here that Hermas intended only to allegorize upon the twofold Inclination in Men towards Good and Evil It is certain that the Chaldeans Jews and Mahometans as also some Pagan Philosophers did affect such like Allegories and personalized these two Inclinations Every thing was an Angel to the Jews especially with the Pharisees when they disputed against the Sadduces who denied their Existence As to the Heathens we have shewn before that the Wisdom of Socrates was his Demon and Genius We have stumbled at this Oriental Philosophy which allegorized upon every thing spiritualized and personalized all It is by the like Mistake that gross Platonism took literally what the subtil Platonism said only in Allegory and made three Hypostases of the three Divine Powers concurring in the Creation of the World Now these Divines who turn'd these two Inclinations in Man into two Angelical Persons are the same that metamorphosed the Power of God which created the World into a Divine Person a Son begotten of God and consubstantial with his Father Will you trust 'em still and boast notwithstanding of the Acuteness and Penetration of our Age yet foolish enough to be besotted with all these Chimeras Shall we never comprehend that what Moses said in a literal sense that by the Word of God or his Command all things were created in the beginning the Apostles spake it in a mystic sense of J. C. who is the Word of the Father which created all things to wit in the new Creation having put all things into a new Form and Order as well the Angels in Heaven as the Men here on Earth It is evident by Clemens Romanus that the Antients made use of continual allusions to the first Creation wherein they sought for a mystic sense in reference to the second performed by J. C. In his second Ep. c. 1. he speaks thus of our Redemption When we were without Understanding and worshipped Stone and Wood God had pity on us for he call'd us when we were not in being and would have us to pass from no Being into a Being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Without doubt he speaks of the New Creation and that in Terms as strong as were used in reference to the First causing us to pass from no Being into a Being as if we were form'd out of nothing when we were reformed by the Gospel These Terms seem to be absolute but we ought not to be deceived by them and will do well if we seek here for a comparative sense considering that Authors neglect very often to use the Particles denoting this Figure which soften the Expression as for example As it were That we may say so If I may speak thus All may perceive that if Clement had said of J. C. as he might have done That he called us when we were not in Being and made us to exist out of Nothing these Words would have been stretched as if they attributed our Creation out of Nothing to J. C. It would have been said Behold here J. C. particularly described to be him that calls Things not in being as if they were Now by a stronger Inference this sense ought to be given them seeing they were spoken of the Father who is the Creator of Heaven and Earth yet we must agree however herein for the Scope of the Subject requires it that they intend only the New Creation and consequently must own that when the Sacred Authors and their Disciples seem to attribute the Creation of all Things to J. C. we have the same Reason to look on such like Expressions as Allegories which set before our Eyes the forming of the New Creature by Representations drawn from the old Creation The same Clement Ep. 1. c. 12. allegorizeth upon the Scarlet Rope of Rahab Good Criticks do not question this tho he speaks as if his Allegoric Sense were the only true one for he praiseth not only the Faith but also the Prophecy of this Woman declaring by it the future Redemption by the Blood of J. C. This Allegory of Clemens saith Cotelier in his Notes is approved of by many of great Note quoting the Fathers that followed him therein Note he calls it an Allegory altho in Clement it hath all the Air of a simple and natural Sense
learnt Theology of the Prophets perhaps of the Egyptian Prophets did often philosophize according to the hidden Sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Having made this general Observation I pass to somewhat more particular A great noise has been made in the World of the Opinion of Pythagoras concerning the Transmigration of Souls The literal Sense which has been given to this Opinion has been almost generally receiv'd and there have been but few Persons who perceiv'd that it only run on a mere Allegory thro want of duly reflecting on the Genius of antient Philosophy Coelius Secundus Curio was one of those who saw thro the Mystery of it Aranei p. 42 c. As to the Opinion of Pythagoras says he I can never persuade my self that that Learned Philosopher ever came to such a degree of Absurdity as to believe that the Souls of Men passed out of one Body into another Let us not doubt but that he thereby intended to signify the Change whereunto Matter is subject making it continually pass from one form to another a Metamorphosis which that Philosopher call'd Regeneration Palingenesiam or a Metempsychosis which according to him is nothing but the Transmigration of the Spirit infus'd in Matter and with it transmitted into all the several Forms which it puts on 'T was the misunderstanding of this Revolution of Souls which made some Hereticks say that Adam's Soul had pass'd into Jesus Christ in misapplying some Texts of Scripture where Christ is called the second Adam and which suppose a kind of Analogy between the one and the other 'T is by a like Mistake that some others held that the Soul of Elias had passed into the Body of John Baptist grounding themselves on these Words that John came in the Spirit and Power of Elias and not comprehending that those Words refer to the Conformity of Zeal and Courage between those two Prophets But when once the right understanding of a mere Figure in Speech comes to be lost and the literal Sense prevails into what Extravagances are we not capable of falling Witness the monstrous Doctrine of Transubstantiation which owes its birth to the Ignorance of an Allegory a little strain'd Again Have not some fallen into a prodigious Error by literally taking that Expression of the Apostle where he says that Melchisedec was without Father without Mother and without Descent Have not Men infer'd from those Words that Melchisedec was not of the Posterity of Adam as other Men are Some having suppos'd him a Celestial Man consubstantial with the eternal Son of God others that he was an Angel others the Holy Ghost others the Son of God himself and lastly others a Power superior to the Son of God from which the Son of God had receiv'd his everlasting High-Priesthood I am asham'd for Christians when I think with what Superstition they consecrate all their Fancies and make as many Mysteries of them In short I might venture to affirm that the Fable of Simon the Magician's flying in the Air carry'd by Devils and struck down by St. Peter is no more than a mere Allegory of St. Peter's Victory over Simon when disputing together concerning the Unity of God the Apostle put that Heretick to silence as the Author of the Constitutions speaks Lib. 6. c. 8. That pompous Description signifying nothing more than that the Evangelical Simplicity concerning the Unity of God prevail'd and triumph'd over the too swelling Philosophy of Simon who held divers Persons in one God But to proceed Another fam'd Doctrine of Antiquity is that of the Pre-existence of Souls Somebody explaining those Words of Moses that the Sons of God came in unto the Daughters of Men turn'd that Text into an Allegory and interpreted it of Souls delighting in being united to Human Bodies But because he expressing himself theologically called the Sons of God Angels that Word deceived many Platonist Fathers who took it literally And thence came that so absurd yet at the same time so generally receiv'd Opinion that the Angels had Commerce with Women and that from those monstrous Copulations proceeded Giants Origen in his 50th Book against Celsus teacheth us the Mystery of that Allegorical Copulation Some body says he meaning Philo de Gigant has apply'd that Text of Moses to incorporeal Souls which he metaphorically calls the Daughters of Men. It may be the other Fathers were nor ignorant of this spiritual Sense but they follow'd their manner of philosophizing which was to speak always in such terms as kept the Allegory conceal'd in order to give the more mysterious Air to what they said They always suppos'd that the Wits of the first rank for whom they wrote knew the Secret of it and as to the Vulgar their aim was to conceal it from them After what has been said how shall we know but that they affected the giving an appearance of a real and literal Doctrine to all they have deliver'd to us concerning the Word And whether they have not designedly conceal'd from us the Secret of the Allegory that they might by that majestick Out side draw the more admiration and respect from the common People who love what 's wondrous The Distinctions which Origen so often makes between intelligible and sensible between Contemplation and Faith between the Word-God which is the Object of seraphick Minds and the incarnate and crucified Word the Object of vulgar Minds I say these Distinctions and some others of like nature scarce leave room to doubt of it And indeed he may be confident of it who considers what the same Origen says ubi supra By the second God says he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we mean no other than a Power which comprehends all other Powers a Word or Reason which contains all other Reasons and we say that that Reason is particularly united to the Soul of Jesus Christ because that only is capable of receiving the Word it self Wisdom it self Justice it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. And elsewhere he teaches us That the Word was join'd to the Soul of Jesus Christ even before the Incarnation that Soul having merited to be join'd to it ib. l. 4. That so that Soul or that Word for he uses those two Words indifferently did for our sakes descend on Earth there to suffer Death for us Mortals Again Comment in Joan. Tom. 20. That this Soul which was before in God in its Perfection and Fulness was by God sent into the Womb of Mary there to take a Body other less perfect Souls not having had the same Honour If to this be added his affirming in the 1st and 2d Tome on the same Gospel That 't is only the uttered Word which according to him can be no other than the Soul of Jesus Christ That I say only this Word and not the Word-God was incarnate it cannot be doubted but that by this Soul sent descended and incarnate he means the same thing which he and others say when they speak of a Word sent descended and
incarnate And what can this Reason be which it merited and which was united to it When the Veil of Allegory is taken off it can be no other than that high Contemplation whereof the Soul of Jesus Christ had by its pre-existent Obedience render'd it self capable or than that degree of Prophecy and that Spirit without measure wherewith God had honoured it and which made it Partaker of the Divine Nature or lastly the very Office of Word or of Interpreter of God whereof God had judged it worthy as the most perfect and noblest of the Spirits which he had decreed to declare his Mind Celsus says he ibid. lib. 7. will not own that he who suffer'd Death can be worthy of the second Honours next to the Supreme God as well because of the Powers he had acquir'd in Heaven as because of those he had acquir'd on Earth Supposing as you see that Jesus Christ had merited in Heaven before he came to merit on our Earth he was very far from believing him to be the most High God Wherefore Origen having said of the Word that it was in God that it came from God that it was made Flesh and affirming the same of the Soul of J. C. this Conformity yields just reason to suspect that the Doctrine of the Word is nothing but the Soul of Jesus Christ theologiz'd whereon they discours'd Allegorically That 's in a manner prov'd by the Hypothesis of the Arians who believ'd that the Word was to Jesus Christ instead of a Soul and consequently by the Word understood only the Soul of Jesus Christ created before all Ages An Hypothesis renew'd in our time by John Turner who has given it a new turn for he maintains That the Word is nothing else but the Soul of Jesus Christ created indeed but eternally united to the Substance of God and by that Union participating all his Perfections A Discourse concerning the Messiah Ep. Dedic p. 154. The same is infer'd from the Use which has been made of some Texts of Scripture as for example these I came from the Father O Father glorify me with the Glory which I had with thee c. Who being in the Form of God c. Our Divines interpret them of the Pre-existence of the Word but Origen and Dr. Rust in his Book intitul'd Origen and his chief Opinions interpret them of the Pre-existence of the Soul of Jesus Christ Whence comes this Confusion of Ideas The reason of it is easily given The former of these Interpretations is mysterious and allegorical and the latter literal So we may conclude that the Fathers allegoriz'd on the pre-existent Soul of Jesus Christ loving our Nature and becoming incarnate for our Salvation which they in their allegorical Stile call'd the Word or the Son of God And consequently those who take this last Allegory in the literal Sense and understand it of a Divine Person united to our Flesh are not less ridioulous than they who stumbling at the Letter of the first Allegory really believ'd that Angels had mix'd themselves with mortal Women The Text for the first Hypothesis that the Sons of God were married to the Daughters of Men serves as well as that for the second I have begotten thee before the Morning This Pre-existence of Souls and particularly of that of Jesus Christ has been very antient in the Church We find it plainly enough express'd in the second letter attributed to Clemens Romanus C. 10. These are his Words As you have been call'd dwelling in the Flesh so you will come in the Flesh Jesus Christ the Lord who sav'd us being the first Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was made Flesh and so called us 〈◊〉 likewise we shall receive the Recompence in the Flesh This Passage supposes the Pre-existence of our Souls as well as that of the Soul of Jesus Christ For he compares our Spirits existing in the Flesh to that first Spirit which was made Flesh to call us He calls Jesus Christ the first of all Spirits whether Souls or Angels because God begat him first a little before he undertook the Creation of the World and afterwards imploy'd him to create the other Spirits according to the Doctrine of Lactantius Instit lib. 4. c. 6. who further teaches us ibid. c. 1.2 That this Holy Spirit descending from Heaven chose the Womb of a Virgin to enter into And the better to carry on the Comparison which he makes of that Spirit to all incarnate Spirits he shews that he was rais'd to the Recompence only by his faithful Obedience and Vertue ibid. cap. 14. His Words are remarkable God says he having sent his Son to Men He hath shewn his Faithfulness in teaching that there is but one God and that he only is to be worship'd and he never call'd himself God because he would have violated his Truth if being sent to take away from the World the Plurality of Gods and to establish the Unity of God he had introduc'd more than one God That had not been preaching One God nor working for the Interest of him who sent him but for his own and it would have been dividing himself from the Father whom he came to glorify Then by his having been thus faithful and in the Design of discharging his Commission not attributing any thing to himself he has receiv'd the Dignity of everlasting High Priest the Honour of Supreme King the Power of Judg and the Name of God By the way these Words of this Father are a curious Paraphrase on those of St. Paul Phil. 2.6 c. Who being in the Form of God did not attribute to himself c. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and hath given him a Name which is above every Name c. Let us here remember a distinction of the Fathers which has been mention'd already and wherein the Footsteps of antient Allegory visibly appear The Fathers distinguish'd two kinds of Generation of the Word the one eternal and internal and the other external which began with the World and the only one which they properly call Generation Dr. Bull acknowledgeth this distinction only he pretends but without reason that 〈◊〉 the latter which is metaphorical Granting him his desire 't is the same thing with respect to the Question now treated of For it remains nevertheless true that they allegoriz'd on one of the Generations of the Word be it which it will and that 's all I need Let them as long as they please say that the Fathers spake of a Generation of the Word which was proper and literal I shall answer Yes and that 's what I call gross Platonism which has made them philosophize so absurdly But by their own confession the same Fathers have spoken of another Generation of the Word which is metaphorical and allegorical and that 's what I call their refin'd Platonism the fair Remains of sound Philosophy which betrays them and manifestly discovers the absurdity of the other part of their System whereon they
have innovated He must know little of Plato who can believe that he could fall into so dull a Philosophy as that God did from all Eternity necessarily beget a Son a second God putting him forth out of himself with his proper Hypostasis which distinguisheth him from the Father and that he made use of him to create the World unless 't were perhaps to deceive the vulgar People But that God did voluntarily conceive a Design of creating the World that he did actually create it by his efficacious Word that that Word is his Son in an allegorical Sense because it was emanated from the Divine Understanding that it was in an allegorical sense the Creator because it was the Means and Instrument which the Wisdom of God made use of to give Life and Being to all things Then indeed I own literally Moses saying that God spake and the Creature obey'd then I shall own Plato's Allegory telling me the same thing with Moses but in the Stile of the Religion wherein he was born Then to conclude I own the good Divinity of Clemens Alexandrinus who assures me that the Word of the Father is not that which was begotten but supreme Goodness profound Wisdom and infinite Power manifesting it self in the Work of this Universe This is without doubt the true way of understanding Plato and we have a famous Platonist as our Warrant for it 't is Coelius Rhodoginus Lect. Antiq lib. 9. c. 12. For that Great Man very judiciously observes that one can never be a good Platonist if he do not reckon that Plato is to be understood allegorically Good Platonists like the Author of the Recognitions discover to us the Origin of this allegorical Philosophy by saying That from the first Will proceeded another Will and from this the World Lib. 1. c. 24. That is to say that from the first eternal and internally begotten Will proceeded at the beginning of all things a second Will externally begotten an express Command which spoken all things were made And this second Will is metaphorically the Son because proceeding from God himself and from the Invisibility which is proper to his Nature it is a kind of Generation producing his Image every Manifestation being the Image of God Irenaeus is also another of the good Platonists who allegoriz'd In many places of his Treatise against Heresies he supposes God not to have needed any more than his two Hands to create the World There 's no difficulty in perceiving his intention thro those Words Whereas the Hereticks maintain'd that all was made by Angels and that those Spirits had created the World Irenaeus in opposing that Doctrine flies into the opposite extreme viz. That God who had no need of Angels made use of no more than his two Hands his Word and his Spirit to do all things not that by those two Powers he understood two Hypostases but only personaliz'd them in opposition to the Aeons or to the Gnosticks Angels which were esteemed Persons And he meant nothing more than that God needed not any other than himself as he explains himself in the 19th Chapter of his first Book and in no wise any Power separate from him having an Hypostasis distinct from his This God says he is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ What do these words signify That God needed no other than himself if not that God had no need of any more than his Command and Power to operate what he will'd Now this Command and this Power are not two Hypostases separate and distinct from his which was the Opinion of those Hereticks but two Powers which he imploy'd as his two Hands Either let 's blind our selves or see Allegory in all this Again it 's by a common Figure that the Name the Qualities and even the Personality of the thing which ceaseth to be or which is rejected is given to that which takes its place tho it be of a different nature God rejecting Sacrifices gives the name of Sacrifice to the Obedience which he accepts There is nothing more natural says Dr. A. in his Manuscript concerning the Satisfaction than to give to a thing which supplies the place of another and which procures all the fruits of it the Name of that instead whereof it is substituted St. Paul observ'd this Rule in his Epistle to the Hebrews If he gave the Name of Sacrifice to the Obedience of Jesus Christ it was to sute his Expressions to the Ideas which prevail'd under the antient Dispensation wherein the principal Acts of Piety consisted in Sacrifices he applied those antient Sacrifices to the Death of Jesus Christ without intending any other Mystery in it Whereto may be added that Jesus Christ speaking of the Holy Ghost who was to teach the Truth by his Inspirations as he himself had taught it by Preaching speaks of him as of a Teacher as of a Person because he was to supply the absence of a Teacher and fill the place of a Person So as the Gnosticks spake of nothing but Angels who had created the World and govern'd the antient People and of Emanations and Generations from the Supreme Being Irenaeus answers The true Angels which created the World and taught the Prophets are the Word of God and his Spirit and that Word and Spirit are his true Emanations So making of a Manifestation and of a Communication God's Helpers his Coadjutors in the Creation his Ministers in the Government of the World making I say so many Hypostases of the Godhead of those Powers because he substitutes them in lieu of the Hypostases rejected by him It is by the fame method that Theophilus of Antioch made intirely allegorical Commentarys on the four Gospels Thus he allegorizes the first words of St. John The Beginning says he that is God The Word that is the Son of God Jesus Christ of whom the Voice of the Father saith in the Psalm My Heart hath uttered a good Word that is to say Christ by whom all things were made And without him nothing was made Nothing that is to say an Idol which as the Apostle saith is nothing in the World It is apparent by the Method of this Author who designs the explaining the Gospels allegorically and particularly by the allegorical Explanation he gives of the word Beginning and of that of Nothing that what he says of the Word is likewise allegorical The Word says he is the Son of God that is to say the Christ by whom all things were made Is not that saying that it is the Christ the Man whom God hath anointed who is the Son and the Word by whose Power all under the Gospel was made even the Idol which was made without him having been destroy'd and the World reform'd Let us deal plainly Christ is the Word only by virtue of an allegorical Sense which considers him as a second Word in as much as he is with respect to the spiritual World what the Word-God was with respect to the sensible World It
that the Church made no difficulty even of tolerating the Valentinians that is the Doctrine of them who held thirty Persons in the Deity and that she admitted them into her Communion She had more Indulgence than I should have The first Christians says Vossius did not presently cast Hereticks out of her Communion they came not to that Extremity but did it when the Hereticks went so far as expresly to contradict the Christian Faith As to others who did but alter the Truths of the Gospel by mixing with them the Gentile Fables they dealt not so rigorously with them but allow'd them some kind of Liberty He puts down Valentinian among these last whence it follows that if the thirty Aeons of that Heretick were tolerated there would have been no difficulty to admit of three Hypostases instead of three Attributes or three Modes These good Men thought it not amiss to accommodate the Truths of the Gospel with the Fables of the Pagan Philosophers and Poets but rather a Service to Religion Hence it was without doubt that Platonism which at first served her only for Ornament at length became under favour of this Toleration the very Support of her Mysteries This brings to my remembrance a Remark of Mons Le Clere in his Rules of Criticism Biblioth Vniv Tom. 10. p. 334. which very well deserves our Reflection It has so fallen out that tho there have been always in use among Christians some certain Terms yet they have insensibly departed widely from their Ideas which they who first used the Terms fixed to them and tho the Words remain the same yet the Sense of them has passed thro divers Revolutions The Phrases or Expressions being says he written in sensible Characters in a great many Books could not suffer any great Alteration but the Ideas first belonging to those Expressions being things not to be seen with ones Eyes and their Rise and Disappearance and their several Changes being all secret things within the Mind of every Man and invisible to every body else 't is hard to guess what has happened by the means of equivocal Sound One sees on a Theater the Actors come forth from behind the Curtains in certain Habits may one therefore conclude that always when one sees the same Habits they are the same Actors who have them on 'T is the same with Thoughts and the Words wherein they are dressed In these Words you have an account as it were of the Comedy our Trinitarians act at this day They put on all the Dresses of the Church and say with her Holy Blessed and Glorious Trinity three Persons and one God But does it follow therefore that under the same Words they conceive the same Ideas or that they are the same Actors always when seen in the same Habits Not at all Some are Sabellians others are Rigid and others are moderate Trinitarians and all together have Ideas so confus'd and so contrary to one another that it may be one should not be much mistaken if one said that this Expression three-Persons in their Mouths has as many senses as there are Divines who pronounce 〈◊〉 if it be true that they six any meaning to them and that they form any Ideas about them So that altho the Blatonists and the Christians have used these Terms yet it does not follow thereupon that they had the same Ideas nor that the Platonists had the same among themselves nor that all Christians among themselves in all Times and Places affix'd to the same Terms one constant uniform Signification The present Time sufficiently shews us what one ought to judg of the past The Terms have been always the same but they are only sensible Objects that are not ◠to change but the Meaning and the Ideas being things invisible which pass within the Mind they may be and are changed without being perceived To conclude I make this Reflection only with regard to metaphysical Terms whereof we have but unsteady and confus'd Ideas and by consequence they are liable to very great Alterations As these Ideas do not enter into our Minds without difficulty so they are not maintained there with a little Pains sooner or later they vanish and after all they cannot pass from the Master's Mouth to the Scholar's Ear without some Revolutions The Unity of God is one thing with a Jew and another with the Trinitarian The Term Consubstantial with the Samosatenians carrys a different Idea with it in the Mind from that of the Nicene Fathers Three Hypostases have one sense with the Platonists and another with the Athanasians one with the Followers of Arius and another among Vs And certainly the Fathers of the Council of Alexandria had reason to give this Advice to them at Antioch in the Letter they writ to them apud Athan. vid. Dupin Tom. 2. p. 138. That they should not differ among themselves about the Hypostases since they who owned three in the Trinity and they who allowed of no more than one are both of the same Opinion and differed only in the manner of their Expression We understand well enough what this means the metaphysical Terms are capable of the most contradictory sense one may make them as we make the Clock strike what we please If you own three Hypostases you are Orthodox if you acknowledg but one you are still so nevertheless This Term is a sort of Prote is that takes in all senses In some mens mouths it signifies the manner of subsisting and then 't is three with others it signifies Substance and then 't is but one You see here both are sound to be of the same mind before they are aware Alas I really think that I and the Church shall be of the same mind too if when she owns one Essence and three Persons I should say on the contrary one Person and three Essences we mean the same thing it may be We express our selves indeed differently but after all we shall agree at the bottom 't will always be three somewhats in one I know not what for that 's all that the Terms Essence and Persons signify in the Mouths of Tripitarians But Raillery apart who would nor pity St Jerom who takes so much pains Epist ad Damasum to enquire whether he should say one Hypostasis or three Hypostases What! Learned Doctor must the Pope be consulted about that Say what you please for you may with a very safe Conscience Sr. Austin much better understood the sense of his Party as to the Word Person de Trinit lib. 5. cap. 9. When says he 't is asked what the Three are human Langnage is scanty and affords not Terms to express it 't is therefore answer'd three Persons not as if that was some what to the purpose but something must be said and one must not be silent to the Question As for Terms which express things that fall under our Senses or Actions whereof we have a distinct and perfect Idea it falls out quite otherwise they may
also of their Divine Oeconomy which is inseparable from it And I must say of them that they made use of a pious Fraud to represent the Gospel under nobler Ideas and in a sense elevated to the relish of the Philosophers becoming all things to all that they might win them to Jesus Christ and this is that which is called their Oeconomy I do not say that all the Fathers particularly the latter were in the secret of this sort of Conduct Some of them have suffered themselves to be surprized with the very literal sense and at last this Mystery which was at first prudentially designed degenerated into real Opinions and Metaphysical Squabbles It 's enough then that I observe that this at first was the thing they chiefly aimed at who brought into the Church this way of philosophizing Hence came that famous Managery of Mystery so much talked of by the Antients and about which the Moderns at this time dispute tho 't is much alter'd indeed but it flows however from the same Spring 'T is known that the Pagans made use of this Method to keep up the Credit of their Religion that was filled with ridiculous Storys scandalous and injurious to their Gods They had so much address as to pretend that a mythological and mystical sense was hidden under the umbrage of those Symbols This one sees if one reads the Author of Horrâ—â—'s Life Heraclides Ponticus upon the Allegory of that Poet and all the Philosophers who have defended the Pagan Religion against the Attacks of Christian Writers The same may be said of the Jews their Law becoming publick by the Version of the LXX They were out of Countenance that a Law given ' cm from Heaven should amuse them with childish and mean Ceremonies and undertook to defend it from the Scoffs of the Profane by turning all into Allegory and extracting sublime Interpretations to render it the more venerable Philo among others has excelled in this way The Christians very much followed this Practice of the Jews particularly they of Alexandria who learn'd this Custom of the Therapeutes As the Pharisees were addicted to their Traditions the Essenes on the contrary were addicted to the way of Allegory being fond of extracting from the Scriptures quidlibet ex quolibet Philo imitates these latter and the Christians have followed him See Code 105 of Photiits and Fâ—ller's Miscellan lib. 2. c. 5. The Obscurity of our Saviour's Birth and the Scandal of his Death mightily perplexed the Catechists they could not conceal his Death from their Scholars as was wont to be done from those who were initiated in the Mysteries of Ceres Wherefore they bethought themselves of another Oeconomy which would lessen their discredit or balance it with the Honour of a pretended Pre existence by supposing in Jesus Christ another Nature which was immortal and this they represented very much like Plato's Logos pretending to discover an exact conformity between the Doctrine of St. John and that of the Philosopher This Argumentum ad hominem look'd incomparably more convincing to their Novices than that which they drew from Christ's Exaltation which seem'd somewhat dangerous in giving countenance to the Apotheosis of their false Gods Hence is it that they rarely make use of the latter and almost always of the former Was it not I pray by this Occonomy that Justin Martyr Clemens and Origen maintain'd that vertuous Pagans were in a manner Christians because they partly understood Reason or the Logos And by these evident Conformitys with 'em they flatter'd the Pagans and insinuated themselves very dextrously into their good opinion Justin Martyr amasses with great dexterity every thing that was proper in Apologue to colour and to justify the Mystery of the Nativity and the Birth of Christ Apol. 2. and takes as much pains to defend the Names and Titles that Christians have given him Since the Son of God says he to them would be but a Man like other Men he was worthy hevertheless of being stil'd the Son of God since all Writers give to God the Character of being the Father of Men and Gods If we say further that besides his Birth usually mention'd this Perion was begotten by God as his Word of Logos herein we should do no more than you have already done who call Mercury the Word the Messenger and the Interpreter of God With the same design Tertullian Apol. c. 21. makes a Parallel of the History of the Son of God with the Story of Jupiter's Children Receive this Apologue says he to the Pagans for it resembles yours This he spoke in the way of Occonomy or Accommodation And it was not only usual with these Fathers thus to accommodate themselves to the Prejudices of the Pagans but by the same method to answer their Objections For when they objected that the Adoration of the Christ a Man was no less Idolatry than that whereof the Christians accus'd them 't was for the Interest of the latter to betake themselves to their Oeconomy and to find out the second God of Plato in that Divine Power which dwelt in Jesus Christ which might be worship'd without Idolatry it having made Heaven and Earth To conclude 't is this Occonomy that gives Rules to the use of their Method of Allegory and that suted it to Occasions and Circumstances To explain this matter it must be noted that there are two sorts of Allegory One wherein the popular and familiar Ideas are used to accommodate things to the capacity of the Vulgar which is called Parable or Mythology and has been us'd by the moral Philosophers The other followed by Divines and speculative Philosophers who affected mysterious and profound Senses and did accommodate themselves to such as lov'd what we call the Wonderful Of this sort are those nice Allegories of the Fathers wherein under great and sublime Images they cover'd the Simplicity or Meanness of the Gospel But above all they endeavour'd to aggrandize the Person of our Saviour and the Sacraments of the New Covenant wherein one sees nothing but Bread and Wine and Water One must consider the turn they give those things when they speak as magnificently of 'em as they can and when they would in a manner make that which seems contemptible with the Philosophers appear by this artful d sguise to be the very Wisdom of those Philosophers But as it is of the nature of Parable to make use of vulgar and popular Images to adapt to the Capacities of the meaner sort their great and more sublime Mysteries Jesus Christ made use of these in preaching his Gospel to the Poor and in letting down his Doctrine to meaner Capacities But the Fathers who had other Occasions and were in other circumstances took quite another way and follow'd the Rules of their Oeconomy they advanc'd their Allegorys by the most noble and most magnificent Images to aggrandize the Simplicity of the Gospel and to make it acceptable at any rate to the great Men of the World
Sense of Contemplation 'T is moreover upon the same account that so many great Men are said to Judaize because they were for keeping the Scriptures in their natural and literal Sense such were Aquila Symmachus Theodotion and others 'T is evident that the Fathers who were for appearing Learned and would not be outdone by the Gnosticks have allegoriz'd after the very manner of those Hereticks but upon such things that had some sort of Foundation in the Scriptures and in the Philosophy of those Times embrac'd by the Jews or the Platonick Party As for instance about the Ideas and Decrees of God concerning the Messiah about the Soul of the Messiah about the Spirit that form'd and after sanctified him about the Angels that were the Preludia of his Mission or lastly about that Word of God which created the World to whom they ascrib'd Personality after the Platonick way The Word or Logos might signify all these things the Wisdom of God that dwelt in Jesus Christ his pre-existent Soul the Spirit that form'd him and the facility with which he wrought so many Miracles only as it were at the expence of a Word After this manner the Jews have allegoriz'd upon the seven things that they say were created before the World among which they count the Name or the Glory of the Messiah To say the truth the Oeconomy of the Fathers very often varys For at one time they are for concealing the sublimer part of their Mysteries that they mayn't give offence to some sturdy Minds that will not so readily give way to mystical Notions At other times they pass over the plainer part of Religion to gain upon their speculative Gentlemen who admire chiefly what we call the Wonderful But however they are always constant in pursuing this Design of their Oeconomy and Rule of Prudence in adapting themselves to the Genius and Relish of every body in making Mystery of every thing to beget in their Scholars a Veneration for their Opinions when they come to be acquainted with ' em And further they take care to distinguish between those Opinions which were transmitted to 'em by the Writings of the Apostles and others which came from the same Apostles by Tradition only and in Mystery as St. Basil speaks Lib. de Spir. S. ad Amphil. Cap. 27. that is by the way of secret Discipline and Instruction Clemens of Alexandria makes mention of these last Opinions Stromat 5. p. 576. and calls 'em The Lesson of the Perfect which consists in certain spiritual and sublime Senses which were deliver'd vivâ voce and by Tradition but the Apostles could not set 'em down in their Epistles This Expedient of setret Tradition open'd a wide Field for philosophizing according to their humour and is adapted to the purpose of introducing new Opinions into Religion We must be upon our guard when we are reading their Writings and take very little of them in the literal Sense where every thing almost is allegorical and they are throout pursuing what we call the Wonderful 'T is well known to the Protestants that the Declamations and Apostrophe's of the Fathers have given birth to some Errors and the Idolatry practis'd at this day They know well enough how to account for the hyperbolical Expositions of the Antients upon the Eucharist as that Jesus Christ was offer'd upon an Altar that he was slain strangl'd extended died carry'd bury'd c. And these ridiculous Apostrophe's O great and sacred Passover the Purgation of our Sins c. Greg. Naz. O Divine and sacred Mystery vouchsase to remove the Veil wherewith we are encompassed and manifest your self clearly to us by enlightning with your brightness the Eyes of our Mind See Counterseit Denis These Apostrophe's seem to deify the Sacrament and to make it a Person Why should we not acknowledg at the same time that the over-curious Platonism of the same Fathers has led 'em into those extravagant Descriptions whereby they have made a second God a Person of the Word or Logos a Son begotten before Ages and incarnate in time Mysteries no less strange than that of Transubstantiation Who does not see that they had a mind to speak magnificently of every thing They ascrib'd a Divine and extraordinary Virtue to the Oil and the Cream They say that the Holy Ghost has chang'd and transform'd 'em by a Divine Emcacy They have said no less of Baptism for they believ'd the Divinity and the Holy Ghost descending and insinuating it self into the Water us'd in that Sacrament imparts to it the Power and Virtue of regenerating They allow that the Eucharist shews a Divine and quickening Virtue emanating from the Body of the incarnate Word The Word according to them is an Emanation from the Substance of God The Body of Christ is hypostatically united to the Word The Bread is hypostatically united to that Divine Body and consequently hath the quickening Virtue of the Word They own a twofold Emanation the Word is the Emanation of God and the quickening Virtue of his Flesh is an Emanation of the Word And they hold a twofold Incarnation one of the Word in the Body of Jesus Christ and another of the quickening Virtue of the Body of Christ in the Bread of the Sacrament This was a System of Policy well contriv'd whereby these cunning Doctors brought nothing less than Divinity into every thing and spoke with advantage upon the meanest Subjects to make 'em look mysterious and venerable It may be said of them as has been observ'd of those who make Canons in Councils that they spake more than they meant so that many Ages after Mysteries are discover'd in their Expressions which they never dreamt of I have met with nothing so like that as these two Apostrophe's which the Church of Rome chants in her Liturgy One is address'd to the Trinity O Holy Blessed and Glorious Trinity Three Persons and One God have Mercy upon us miserable Sinners The other is address'd to the Cross of Christ O Cross my only Hope I salute thee at this time of the Passion increase the Righteousness of Good Men and pardon the Crimes of the Wicked Here you have two Saints which one and the same Superstition hath canoniz'd two Prayers cast in the same Mould for both one and t'other are the fruit of Idolatry and of false Eloquence Upon which I will make this Observation that it has fal'n out with the Oeconomy of these Primitive Fathers as it has with the Admirers of Episcopacy here in England who having retain'd a Liturgy and divers Ceremonies that they might bring over the more Papists to their Communion yet they still continue to look upon those things at this time in a sort necessary to Religion altho there 's now no more occasion for that Reason of Prudence and even as great a Reason of Charity and a second Reason of Prudence should oblige 'em to relax or lay 'em by to gain the Non-Conformists 'T is the same case with the Allegorical
their profound Speculations For to theologize according to them is not only to speak of God and his Attributes but of Angels too of Aeons of Ideas of Emanations and in a word of every thing that belongs to the intelligible World of the Platonists Theology being a Term affected by all the contemplative Gentlemen whether Orthodox or Gnosticks These sort of Folks did not regard the Facts of the Gospel which prove its Divine Authority any otherwise than as grosser Proofs proper for vulgar weaker Minds But for Contemplation the Case was quite otherwise this they thought a noble and powerful Medium by which Souls of the first Rank elevated themselves to the Knowledg of the noblest Truths Yet the Gospel is not founded upon any thing but Facts and the chief Objects of our Faith are certain Facts contained in the Apostles Creed Is it not therefore a putting the Gospel upon another Foot if we carry on our Contemplations to Abstractions and the Ideas of a crude chimerical Metaphysicks 'T is an extravagant System if instead of Facts well proved and rightly circumstanced there be nothing left but a mere Operation of the Understanding and an Ens Rationis which these Gentlemen are pleas'd to call the Word or the Son theologized That great Man Mons Jurieu whom God was pleased to favour with the knowledg of every thing did not fail to set aside this false Theology of the Fathers 7 Ler. Past de la 3. Année Besides the Faith of the Vulgar says he which was immediately founded upon the Sacred Writings the Doctors fram'd a Theology that is they undertook to expound the Mysteries in a sense beyond that wherein the Holy Scriptures themselves have delivered them And 't is in that they have disagreed and one must not wonder at it because the things they went about to explain were profound and it may be inexplicable and because they made use of a false Philosophy which they brought into their Theology And by so doing they have ruined Theology and at last Religion in all Ages The Faith of the Antients therefore must not be condemned as if it were changed altho they disagreed in their Theology And it must be noted that this Theology should not be admitted into the Faith that is Articles of Faith should not be formed out of Theological Expositions Is not this much for the Honour of the Theology of the Antients According to Mons Jurieu these good Doctors could not theologize the Son without hazarding the Faith and consequently one ought not to receive amongst the Articles of Faith their theological Explications concerning a Son begotten and not made an Internal Word and a Word brought forth c. Nevertheless it 's well known that the Fathers consider'd the theological Sense not only as true but as that which the Spirit of God had chiefly in its view So that they who would impose the Faith of the theological Sense of the Word because the Fathers urg'd it are themselves obliged to receive all the other theological Senses which the same Fathers have given to so many other Terms in Scripture and which they believe to be no less the Purport and Design of the Holy Ghost which yet is not done but they are looked upon even as ridiculous Why therefore is it not acknowledged bona Fide also that the Exposition of the Logos or Word is one of those wretched Allegories so much declaimed against at that day and an Article of that false Theology which is incompatible with the Christian Faith But let us pay as much respect to the Fathers as we can let us preserve their Theology be it so provided that the theological Sense be not said to be designed for any other than contemplative and seraphic Minds and that no more than the Faith or Belief of the plain natural sense be requir'd of Men as Men Origen was too fair to desire more than this he acquaints his Readers at the beginning of his Book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Sacred Writers did not concern themselves with abstruse Matters and speculative Subjects which few of them whom they called to the Christian Religion were capable of understanding but confined themselves to those few clear Articles which were necessary for the Reformation of the World to bring them into a State of Righteousness and give them hopes of Immortality Leaving the more refined Contemplations which were not contrary to prime Truths to the commendable Curiosity of those whom Nature and Education had qualify'd for such Enquiries Dr. Rust in his Discourse of Origen and the chief of his Opinions has observed also That there were necessary Truths which the Apostles had clearly taught and the Church received the contrary whereto cannot be received without retrenching an essential part of Religion But that there were besides some Contemplations about which the Scriptures had not determin'd any thing and that the Truth as to these matters was purposely concealed by the Holy Ghost as Origen thought to excite their Study and Industry who were Lovers of the Truth that the Discovery of so great a Treasure might be a Recompence for their pious Enquiries Without doubt all the other Fathers agreed in this very Principle with Origen that the contemplative Subjects were not necessary nor essential to Religion that they did not oblige ordinary Christians and that they were left to the commendable Enquiries of the Curious Servetus who constantly imitates the Fathers agrees in this tho he was in other respects a great Admirer of Platonism and Contemplation The Apostles says he de Trinit lib. 2. p. 50. did not rashly publish this great Mystery of the Incarnation of the Word 't was after several Essays and having fasted and prayed that St. John pronounced these Words In the beginning was the Word c. 'T was sufficient to Salvation to believe that Jesus was the Christ or the Messias the Son of God the Saviour of the World The common People were justified by this Faith alone altho they did not exactly know his Divinity You therefore pious Readers who are not able to comprehend the manner of his Generation nor the whole Fulness of his Divinity always believe that he is the Messias begotten of God and thy Saviour This is the only thing you should believe that you may live by him But let us hear Origen speak for himself 't is in his Preface to St. John that one shall find the famous distinction he makes between the intelligible and the sensible Gospel and how he there divides Christians into two Classes the one of those who are Children in the Faith and are led by the Rudiments of the Gospel and the other of those intelligent and elevated Minds who are capable of understanding the Divinity of the glorified God That Doctor or Teacher says he who is willing to profit all Persons cannot however make the secret and sublime Christianity known to such who can only understand the plain and the revealed Christianity Wherefore
this matter before he was well aware 'T is Bp Pearson I mean in his Vindication of Ignat. Epist Part. 2. cap. 1. where he tells you Ignatius was one of those Primitive Fathers qui Christum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is who deify'd Jesus Christ or gave him the Title of a God which was also done by the Catholick Doctors and Christians of his time who as Pliny reports it sang Hymns to Jesus Christ as to a God and who as one of the Antients tells us in Euseb Eccl. Hist lib. 5. c. 28. did celebrate the Praises of Jesus Christ the Word of God by ascribing to him Divinity But after the Philosophy of Plato was received in the Church the Writers of the second and third Century are not wont to speak of Jesus Christ with so much simplicity as barely to call him God This manner of speaking of Jesus Christ has the relish of St. Ignatius his time who simply or barely call'd him God Photius reproaches Clemens Romanus for not giving the Title of God to Jesus Christ which so well became him Hence it appears that this able Critick thought the Practice of giving Christ the Title of a God was peculiar to this first Age of the Church But the Title God so often given to Christ by Ignatius tho not with the restriction with which 't is done by the succeeding Fathers but simply and by it self is indeed a mark of the Antiquity of St. Clemens his Writings He imitates throughout the Epistles of St. Paul which had been received from the beginning in all Churches but he rarely cites the Gospels which had been more lately received He has nothing in his Epistles of human Learning nothing that does not become the Simplicity of an Apostolick Man and the Purity of the Gospel They who wrote after him usually borrow from the Pagans and sometimes blend their Opinions with the Christian Religion which every one did according to the Principles of that Philosophy they had imbib'd before they embrac'd Christianity Ignatius had for a long time been a Bishop and became a Christian at a time when very few of the Learned Gentiles turn'd Christians but we find him to be purely the Christian not form'd in the Schools or nurs'd up in Librarys and without the Sentiments of the Academy or the Portico Bp Pearson acquaints us in this fine Passage that the Antients did theologize that is attribute Divinity to Jesus Christ and spoke of him as a God This taken in a good Sense very well explains what they understood by the title of a God when they gave it to Jesus Christ They meant nothing else by it but this that they look'd upon him as a Divine and extraordinary Man and that they honour'd him as such In short it would not be proper to say that the Antients sang Hymns to the Father as to a God quasi Deo that they celebrated the Praises of the Father by ascribing Divinity to him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 deifying him this would be ridiculous Language We don't use to speak thus of the Supreme God These Expressions cannot sute any other Object but one who has not Divinity in an absolute Sense but in certain respects only And 't is upon the following accounts that Jesus Christ was spoken of as a God either with regard to his Nature being the Son of God form'd by the Operation of his Spirit or with regard to his Dignity since that the Father by making him Lord and Christ had made him God as St. Ambrose reads this Passage Lib. 1. de fide ad Grat. Aug. Cap. 7. 'T is true this Term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in another sense is sometimes us'd with respect to God the Father but then it signifies nothing else but to speak with reverence of the Deity to celebrate his Praises and not to deify or ascribe Divinity to him Vide Euseb Hist Eccles lib. 10. cap. 3. In the first of the Senses abovementioned the term may be well applied to Jesus Christ to express the Divine Honours they gave him For if he was Man because a Woman was his Mother it might also be said that he was a God and a God by Nature for being born of a Virgin he had none other Father but God Natura a nascendo But he deserves this high Character yet further forasmuch as the Father has highly exalted him and given him a Name above every Name By this Name says Novatian de Trinit cap. 17. we understand nothing else but the Name of God Because he was faithful says Lactantius Institut lib. 4. cap. 14. and had exactly done the Will of his Father he received the Name or Title of God 'T is in this sense that the Author of the second Epistle ascrib'd to Clemens Romanus exhorts us to think of Christ as of a God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and he explains that by subjoining as of the Judg of Quick and Dead Shewing us thereby that he gave him not that Name but with regard to the Power the Father bestowed upon him for his Obedience This is the very Theology of St. Paul Heb. 1. who tells us that God made Christ more excellent than the Angels when he said to him thou art my Son that is plainly that then he made him a God For 't is of his Exaltation the Apostle speaks as appears by his Citation out of the Psalms O God thy God has anointed thee for so I read it as the Trinitarians do Now a God anointed and consecrated is nothing but a King and consequently Jesus Christ is God with regard to the Dominion he has received from the Father over the New Creation But with respect to God the Father he is nothing but the Minister of his Will If he be called Lord that 's no more than a Term of Inferiority in the New Testament which signifies one whom the Father hath appointed his Vicegerent and it cannot be understood otherwise because 't is said the Father has made him Lord. St. Paul exactly follows this Sense for in all the Symbols he mentions he takes care to ascribe the Name of God only to the Father excluding the Son and saying the Father is the One God and the Son the One Lord which St. Paul does always when he speaks of Father and Son together And this is an Observation I had from Tertullian who speaks thus in his Dispute against Praxeas I will not say two Gods and two Lords but I will follow the Apostle St. Paul and if the Father and the Son are to be nam'd together I 'll call the Father God and Jesus Christ Lord. But if Jesus Christ be named alone then I may call him God as the Apostle himself does when he says Of whom is Christ who is God over all things blessed for ever But in my opinion Novation expresses the thing more clearly in his Discourse de Trinitate cap. ult God the Father says he is without contradiction the God of all and the very
Principle of his Son whom he has made Lord. But the Son is the God of all the Creatures because God the Father has set him at their Head when he made him Lord. Whence it follows that Jesus Christ may well be called God when you consider him at the head of the New Creation which God has subjected to his Dominion But this Title vanishes when the Apostle St. Paul is speaking of the Father and the Son together then the Son can have no other Character but what is fully signified and explain'd in the Notion of God's Minister and Embassador So true is it that before the only True and Supreme God every other Deity must fall down and disappear So that Bp Pearson had reason to say that Ignatius imitates St. Paul for he says in his Epistle to the Ephesians that Jesus Christ was made God in the Flesh which can signify no more than that a Man was raised to Divine Power or Dignity Moreover Ignatius gives Jesus Christ the Title of God without any of those Additions which the Fathers after him make use of He does not call Christ in the Platonick Stile God the Word a God begotten God of God But if it should be said Ignatius has not used the Restrictions of St. Paul and that he calls Christ God simply and absolutely this is not true for he calls him a God made or our God to shew that he is not so but with regard to the Power he received of his Father and exercises over us CHAP. II. The first Fathers did not theologize Jesus Christ i. e. ascribe Divinity to him in the Sense and Terms of the Platonic Fathers who lived in after Ages but merely on the account of his miraculous Birth and Exaltation THAT the most Primitive Fathers gave the Title of God to J. C. in the sense I am about to explain will appear for three Reasons which amount almost to Demonstration My first Reason is taken from the manner wherein Clem. Rom. and Polycarp speak of J. C. Photius says that Clement has given our Saviour the Stile of High Priest but reproaches him for not giving Christ the Characters of a God Is it possible that Clement has done J. C. so great an Injury as not to give him the Character he merits By no means Photius is mistaken and 't is contrary to all reason to imagine so considerable an Omission can be found in a Letter wherein the Church at Rome as Irenaeus tells us lib. 3. c. 2. delivers to the Church of Corinth the Tradition she had received from the Apostles It must be said therefore that this great Critick Photius did not take notice that in the Apostolic Stile of St. Clement the calling J. C. our High Priest and Pontif is the same thing as to call him our God agreeable to the Doctrine of St. Paul who teaches us that when God rais'd his Messias to the Honour of the High Priesthood 't was then he said unto him Thou art my Son this Day have I begotten thee So that there 's nothing in my Opinion more reasonable and just than the Remark of Grotius Epist 347. Par. 2. who proves the Antiquity of this Epistle of St. Clement for this very reason because it does not speak of J. C. in the Platonic Way and Manner as was done by others in after Ages but in a Simplicity or Plainness altogether as St. Paul had spoken As to St. Polycarp one finds in his Epistle the same Character of Simplicity and Plainness as in St. Clement aforesaid which Photius takes notice of in the place forecited And St. Irenaeus l. 3. c. 3. gives Polycarp's Epistle this fair Character That 't is a most compleat and very proper Instruction in the Faith and Doctrine of Truth Yet one meets with no Platonic Titles in this excellent Epistle In vain will you look for these Phrases the Eternal Word the Pre-existence of the Son of God the Generation from the Womb of the Father c. Nay you will not find in this Epistle so much as the Name of God applied to Christ Where then with respect to Christ are Polycarp's Characters of the true Faith and Doctrine Why they are in those Elogies which Polycarp often repeats as that Jesus Christ is the everlasting High Priest that he is the Son of God that the Father hath rais'd him from the Dead and made him to sit at his right Hand For pray observe St. Polycarp's Creed of the Divinity of the Father and the Son To pass over says he the Mistake and Babble of some Persons let us believe in him who rais'd our Lord Jesus Christ from the Dead and hath crowned him with Glory c. Let us keep our selves clear of the vain and false Doctrine of those Persons aforesaid and keep close to the antient Tradition and Word which was left us from the beginning In which Passage this Holy Person being willing to put the Philippians in mind of the vain Discourse of some and to guide 'em to the source of true Tradition which he makes to consist in believing J. C. was deified by his Father he meant no doubt to bring them off from the vain Philosophy of Plato's Second God and to engage them to that Divinity of J. C. which is founded on his Exaltation For 't is clear that Polycarp ealls here by the Name of true and antient Tradition this summary of the Faith expressed in these Terms Believe ye in him who hath raised Jesus Christ our Lord from the Dead c. This Symbol is agreeable to that of the Apostles and is directly opposite to that vain Doctrine he was about to condemn And this Symbol insisting upon nothing but the Glory J. C. acquired by his Sufferings it must necessarily follow that under the Name of Babble or vain Doctrine St. Polycarp censures that vain and false Glory which Platonizing Christians ascribed to Christ by their fancied Pre-existence In short instead of that unintelligible Babble of other Fathers and I know not what Jargon of a Son of God begotten before all Ages and emanated from the Divine Mind which is exactly the reverse of the Gospel Polycarp here speaks of none other Son of God but one who is an everlasting High Priest rais'd to a Sovereign Glory which is the real Gospel the Tradition of the Apostles and the antient Theology My second Proof is drawn from the Consession of the antient Martyrs there can be no doubt but that those faithful Witnesses of J. C. gave his Person the most illustrious and most honourable Testimony that they could and that they heighten'd their Theology as far as they could without the hezard of their Faith Let us hear therefore what as said of 'em in the Acts of those Marty 〈◊〉 St. Polycarp invokes a Trinity but what Trinity three Persons and one God as 't is expressed God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost God forbid He as Euseb tells us Hist lib. 4. c. 16.
Constitutions I place Ignatius who in his Epistle to those of Tarsus calls those Hereticks Ministers of Satan who held these two extremes the one that J. C. is God over all the other that he was but a mere Man In his Epistle to the Philippians he explains wherein Orthodoxy truly consists viz. in believing Christ born of God by a Virgin for not only they who believed him a mere Man denied this Truth but Ignatius farther insinuates that this Truth was denied no less even by such who believed him to be God over all How says he to them do you not believe that J. C. was born of a Virgin but that he is God over all I would say him who can do all things Tell me then I pray who is he that sent him To whose Will is he subject And whose Law did he fulfil How dare you maintain that the Christ was by no means generated that the Lawgiver is unbegotten and that he who is without beginning was nail'd to a Cross This Passage is the clearest Proof The Generation of J. C. by the Power of the Holy Ghost was the true Theology concerning his Person and those who held him to be the Supreme God contested this miraculous Generation pretending that he was unbegotten For this reason Ignatius adds a little after This is not he who is God over all but the Son meaning thereby one who was begotten Daille exclaims upon the Passage aforesaid saying Ignatius distinguishes the Son from that God who is over all which is Blasphemy And he has reason to speak in the Orthodox way because the Character of a God over all is not properly of the Person but an Attribute of the Substance So that it cannot be taken from J. C. without robbing him of the Divine Nature and Substance It will be said perhaps that the Constitutions are not Clement's and that the two Epistles under the Name of Ignatius are falsly ascribed to him But this is trifling as to our Question for be it as it will my Citations are from Authors of great Antiquity and who pass for Trinitarians they are Witnesses of the Faith in that Age wherein they lived and whose Testimony consequently ought not to be suspected by us Moderns So much the rather because the same is confirmed by a Doctor of great Name and Reputation For is it not well known that Origen attacked the same Error in his 32 Tom. on St. John and in his eighth Book against Celsus Mons Huet in his Quaestiones Origen 2. is much scandalized that Origen should say Some maintained that Christ was God over all This Proposition saith Huet is true and Orthodox with respect to the Divine not the Human Nature Origen on the contrary denies our Saviour to be God over all and proves him to be inferiour to the Father by this Reason because the Father is God over all He takes away then from the Divine Nature of J. C. the Character of supreme Divinity and ascribes it to the Father But let us hear Origen himself I mean says he that there are some among the great Number of Believers who widely differing from the Opinion of others rashly maintain that our Saviour is God over all for our parts we have no regard for that Opinion believing these Words of our Saviour himself viz. The Father why sent me is greater than I. 'T is trifling to answer here that Origen meant some Hereticks who held that J. C. was the Father This takes not off from the Force of the Argument for Origen maintains that the Son is not the Father for this reason because he is not as the Father God over all and because Christ himself confesses that the Father is greater than himself supposing that it was the Father alone who had this supreme Prerogative To conclude Dr. Bull in his Judicium Eccles Cath. and his Defender in his Fathers vindicated citing the famous Passage of Justin when that Father consents to a Toleration of the Josephites who believed Jesus to be the Son of Joseph yet nevertheless believed him to be Christ These Authors I say insist much upon the opposition which Justin Martyr makes between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the small number of Josephites and the many who oppos'd ' em Now we have our Turn to boast in this Passage of Origen and may take the same Advantage they who believed J. C. to be God over all were but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or some Persons and by consequence they were the Hereticks because the few are always such But for those who opposed this Error they beyond contradictions were the Orthodox because they were the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the Multitude CHAP IV. General Remarks upon the forecited Authorities of the Fathers IT remains that I make two Remarks upon these Passages in general one is that since 't was Heresy in these first times of Christianity to affirm that J. C. is the supreme God it follows that Orthodoxy was either the Opinion of Arius which will not be granted or that of the Socinians which ought to be admitted since 't is taken from the Scriptures by the Confession of the Trinitarians The other Remark is since such Fathers condemn this Expression as heretical viz. that the Lord Jesus is God over all without taking any notice of the Objection now drawn from that Passage in Rom. 9.5 which one wou'd think was very natural for them to have solv'd it follows that in their time either they gave those Words another sense or that they read it otherwise than we do at this day Supposing then as I am about to demonstrate that to ascribe to J. C. the Prerogative of the Father viz. of being God over all was Heresy in the first Ages of the Church One sees clearly in what sense a Remark of Sulpitius Severus may be true which was this that almost all Christians in Palestine in the time of Adrian believed Jesus Christ to be a God Not the supreme God as Sulpitius pretends nor a God begotten a little before the Creation as Eusebius would have us believe by perverting some Passages of the Antients and by making them to serve his own Prejudices Not I say once more the supreme God this would have been a damnable Error What then Why a God because he was received or owned not only as a Just Man and a Prophet but as the Christ of God whom he made Lord giving him a Name above every Name the Name of God Note here the manner of Christ's Deification In short one cannot believe without Heresy according to these Primitive Doctors that he was a mere Man having no more Authority than other Holy Persons One cannot therefore better state the Orthodoxy of those venerable Doctors than in avoiding these two Extremes And we find it to be so in the most famous and most antient Monument of the Christian Church I mean the Apostles Creed which says I believe in
because they have suffer'd themselves to be surpriz'd and their eyes to be dazled with cheir Platonick Philosophy The Wonderful and the Sublime are very tempting Schemes These Platonists are a sort of Philosophers or rather of Divines who have made a Voyage to the World of Ideas and some Christians are so weak as to swallow all their Visions for Mysteries But let us always remember for the honour of the Fathers that how far soever they wander'd in their large Field of Platonick Contemplation they never advanc'd so far as to equal the Divinity of the Word with that of his Father Origen who is one of them that went farthest never carried his Theology to that extreme Whatever lofty Idea he had of the Son he declares however in his 14th Tome on St. John That the Son was so much below the Father as he and the Holy Spirit were above the most noble Creatures Go we now after this and say that the Fathers held the necessity of believing that the Supreme God was incarnate and that Jesus Christ is that Supreme God Monsieur Huet had good reason to acknowledg upon this Passage of Origen that it could not be excus'd and to attempt to find an Orthodox Sense in it could not be consistent with Sincerity or Honesty CHAP. VII The same Proof continued together with an Examination of the Sense of Antient Creeds thereupon WE have no more to do but to consider the antient Creeds and to compare those which were form'd upon the Apostolick Theology with such as were fram'd according to the Platenick Scheme and we shall find in these latter that the Article of the Generation of the Word and of his Incarnation came in the room of that of the Conception of the Son of God which is found in the former Creeds The universal Church says Irenaeus lib. 1. cap. 2. hath received this Faith from the Holy Apostles which is to believe in one God the Father c. and in Jesus Christ his only Son incarnate for our Salvation c. There 's nothing in this Confession of the Faith of the Catholick Church which is not in the very Creed of the Apostles excepting the word Incarnate But 't is clear that it stands in the very place of those other words conceived by the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary which are wanting in this Creed of Irenaeus He would say that the Spirit of God united it self to real and not to celestial and aerial Flesh as some Hereticks imagin'd The turn is somewhat Platonizing but after all he did not intend to advance any thing but the antient Doctrine since he disputes against those men who held that Jesus Christ was pure Spirit clothed with celestial Flesh and he on the other hand supposed that Jesus Christ was a real Man true Flesh animated with a Divine Spirit a Man born of a Virgin truly born of the Substance of a Woman altho form'd by the Power of a Spirit Tertullian in one of his Tracts de veland Virg. in initio having given us this plain Rule of Faith which he calls the immutable and unchangeable Rule to this purpose That we must believe in one God alone c. and in his Son Jesus Christ born of the Virgin Mary c. in another Tract de Praescrip adv Haeres presents you with another Rule of the Platonizing Faith which is to believe that the same Word by which God created the World spoke to the Patriarchs and inspir'd the Prophets coming forth from the Spirit and the Power of the Father it lit upon the Virgin and was made Flesh and wrought in J.C. all sorts of Miracles Had he forgot that the Apostolick Faith is not to be changed or reformed No without doubt he does not pretend to change any thing but only gives the antient Opinion of the Conception of J. C. in Platonick Stile in Philosophick Jargon or to speak better he substitutes an Allegory manag'd with force and violence in the room of this Evangelical Expression born of a Virgin by the Power of the Holy Ghost which is plain and literal This Spirit as Tertullian says being an Emanation from the Spirit and the Power of the Father may be said in a mystick and sublime Sense to be the same Spirit who created the World and inspir'd the Prophets St. Cyril in his Catecheses explains a Creed purely Arian which Dr. Bull pretends to be the antient Creed of Jerusalem the Mother of all Churches I believe it says in One God the Father c. and in One Lord Jesus Christ the only Son of God begotten of the Father before Ages true God by whom all things were made incarnate and made Man c. I said this Creed is Arian for 't is expressed in the same Terms as all the Arian Confessions that are now extant And if the Doctor pretends that 't is Orthodox at the best hand it can pass for no more than the Creed of Constantinople as Monfieur Le Vassor has observed Traité de 〈◊〉 Examen ch 6. p. 226. This Creed of St. Cyril says he is almost the same with that of Constantinople especially in the Article concerning the Holy Spirit If it be true that the Catecheses we have are those which Cyril made in his Youth as St. Jerom reports it this Prelate reviewed and augmented 'em after the Council of Constantinople whose Creed he explains almost word for word In this case it will not be certain that the Article concerning the Church was in the Creed of Jerusalem Cyril might have added it to his Catecheses after the Synod If this Conjecture holds as to the Article of the Church much more will it do so as to the Platonick Word We can but say in this case it will not be certain that the Article concerning a Son begotten before Ages was in the Creed of Jerusalem Cyril might add to his Catecheses after the Synod of Constantinople Let 's join with this Learned Proselyte the famous Mons du Pin who in his second Tom. of his Bibliotheque p. 413. inunuates the Novelty of Cyril's Creed upon this account 1. That it has the Article of Life Everlasting which is not in all the antient Creeds And in his 1 Tom. Paris Edit p. 30. he says that Cyril in his Catecheses makes a particular Creed which the Church of Jerusalem us'd at the time that this Father wrote his Catecheses That those who have made Commentaries upon the Creed have omitted among others these Words Life everlasting And that St. Jerom observes in his Letter to Pammachius that the Creed ended with these Words The Resurrection of the Flesh These Words of du Pin are remarkable He says Cyril made a Creed which was peculiar to him and that it cannot be ascribed to the Church of Jerusalem till the time when this Father wrote For 't is certain that this is the sense of their Words in an Author that professes to believe that the Creed is not antient But however
Ghost as to their Nature and Person as we speak I say those three Articles whereupon we dispute are very antient 'T is true the antient Formulas of Faith contain'd scarce any thing besides these which are an Exposition of the Form of Baptism but then 't is of these only we are debating Yea the Liturgy ascribed to St. James and the Oriental Creed of Russinus give us these Articles in the proper Words of Scripture clean of all Platonism Is not such a piece of Antiquity more primitive and even antecedent to Cyril and all the Platonic Fathers But this Creed says Dr. Bull whatever Simplicity it has is to be understood in the Extent or Latitude the Platonizing Fathers took it in who made it always supposing as you see that it was not made till since the Church expounded in her larger Creeds her Platonic Faith I will turn this manner of reasoning upon him and say that supposing on the contrary the antient Liturgy had this Creed in the Simplicity wherein we have it at this time it cannot be understood but in the sense of the Nazarene Disciples of St. James who most certainly did not platonize as indeed we have prov'd Platonism owes not its Rise to the Jewish but to the Gentile Converts and such Gentiles too as were Followers of Plato True Orthodoxy at the very beginning of Christianity consisted in believing that J. C. was begotten of the Holy Ghost and consequently was of a celestial Race or Origin That he had a sort of Pre-existence in this H. Spirit of Power which was united to him and that upon these accounts he was really and in the Letter the proper and only Son of God A Doctrine which the Disciples of St. James maintained against the Cerinthians and Ebionites there being no other Controversy than concerning the Generation of the Son of God For which reason the Creed of Marcellus says barely that the only Son of God was begotten by the Holy Ghost of a Virgin and not begotten before Ages which might have been said with as much ease as t'other and must necessarily have been said if the meaning of the Author of the Creed had been that only Son signifies begotten from all Eternity But after all what will the Doctor say with his Interpretations and his Expositions of the antient Creed I have observed in divers Passages of his Writings that he requires too much to be granted him For instance he will have it in his Judic Eccles p. 141. that this Elogy of the Holy Ghost in the Creed of Constantinople The Living Lord proceeding from the Father who is to be worshiped and glorified with the Father and the Son That this magnificent Elogy was an Interpretation of the Word Paraclet in the Creed of Cyril Wonderful Paraphrase strange Interpretation that the Paraclet should signify all these fine things The Living Lord proceeding from the Father who is to be worshipped and glorified with the Father and the Son Well! after this do we think the Doctor does not desire to be believed when he assures us that the Son begotten before Ages the true God by whom all things were made is the true sense of these Words the only Son of God With the good Leave of this Commentary-Maker 't is more natural to believe in adhering to the Terms of the antient Creed that begotten by the Holy Ghost of a Virgin is the true Sense and the right Exposition In fine this pure simple Creed was not fram'd by a Cabal a Party as the Creeds of the Councils of Nice and Constantinople were c. 'T is not known if I may so speak whence it came 't is as it were fallen down from Heaven 't is the Suffrage of the Universal Church and 't is this Suffrage that has saved the Church from Shipwrack and gain'd her Reverence Ruffinus in his Expos Symb. makes no scruple to say that this Creed was establish'd to be a Mark of Distinction by which they might be known who preach'd J. C. truly according to Apostolic Rules But 't is proper I should here transcribe a fine Passage out of Dr. Hammond upon this Subject in his Discourse of fundamental Points chap. 8. Says he This Creed is the very Badge and Livery of the Apostles the Abridgment of that Faith which was received from the Apostles for altho in their Epistles written to such as were already Christians one finds no one complete Catalogue of these Articles which they taught every where because they suppos'd them sufficiently known yet however the most antient Writers of the Church assure us that in all places where the Apostles went to plant the Faith of Christ they publish'd there distinctly and left there all these Articles which serve for a Foundation to the Christian Life And 't is reasonable to believe that the Apostles Creed was the summary of these fâ—â—â—damental Articles 'T is certain that before the Nicene Creed was made all the Churches in the World us'd this formulary of Faith which they received from their Ancestors and they from the Apostles themselves See Irenaeus lib. 1. c. 2. lib. 3. c. 4. and there is not the least room to doubt but this is the very same with that we at this day call the Apostles Creed Marcellus gives us a Confession of his Faith which he says he received from his Predecessors which is found to be the same with our Apostles Creed See Epiphan Haer. 72. What I am saying may be confirmed by this Observation of St. Austin in his Discourse de Bapt. contr Donat. cap. 24. viz. that 't is reasonable to believe that what has generally been received in the Church and has always been held by it without being instituted by any Council comes to us from Apostolic Tradition also Tertullian de veland Virg. The Rule of Faith says he is one and immutable c. That this Abridgment of our Creed given us by Tertullian is one and immutable can be from no other Cause but from its Apostolic Origin which alone ought to pretend to that Privilege For this reason the same Father says elsewhere contr Prax. cap. 2. This Rule came down to us from the very first preaching of the Gospel 'T is true the Controversy that the Platonizing Christians had at first with the Christians of Judea made the Church when in power despise this Creed which favour'd its Adversaries so that it but rarely appears in its Simplicity but is for the most part clog'd and blended with Platonism But in the fourth Century the Dispute being only between the Athanasians and the Arians both good Platonists holding the Pre-existence this Creed was received for it oppos'd one no more than t'other and neither of these two Parties had then prevailed over one another The Church of Rome made it always her Creed for the Platonic Controversies were not so warm there as in the East But Dr. Bull will return to the Charge and tell us as he has done more than once that to
be begotten by the Holy Ghost of a Virgin is no such glorious Privilege for the Messias that it does not give him any Preheminence above some other Men who have been miraculously begotten and by the immediate Power of God That in a word it answers not that great Idea which those Words the only Son of God naturally raise in our Minds I have already answered this Objection with a Passage of Bartholomew of Edessa I could further say that according to this way of reasoning of the Doctor 's J.C. is no longer by his Hypothesis the only Son of God if we take those Words as he does in their strictest sense because he has a Brother begotten of God as well as himself I mean the Holy Ghost He will clear himself of this when he can shew me what the difference is between Generation and Procession that is to say between Emanation and Emanation I mean such a difference that makes the one a Son and the other not this is what we expect from him He knows very well that this knotty difficulty put St. Austin hard to it This Father in his 5th Book 9. ch de Trin. puts this Question Whence is it that the third Person is not the Image of God as well as the second Why not his Word Why not his begotten Son He protests that 't is hard to give a reason why the Father did not beget one as well as t'other since as the Intellect begat its Wisdom by knowing it self it seems likely it should beget its Love by loving it self And at last finding himself too weak to master this difficulty he betakes himself to his usual Sophistry and makes you a rare Medley of Discourse wherein he understands not what he says himself After so great a Master what may we expect from Dr. Bull or rather who will not be surprized to hear his Objections 'T is not enough says he that God begets a Son of the Substance of a Woman by his own Power without the Intervention of a Man 'T is not enough that this Generation is without Example This extraordinary Son if he be not the Supreme God he is not therefore the Son of God 'T is not enough that God has given us an extraordinary Man for the Messias If he be not the Supreme God he cannot be the Messias Wonderful What! if God had thought fit to send none other than such a Man a second Adam not a jot more the Son of God than the first Adam was shall this be no Messias And would this be done upon a Principle of Religion Should this Messias be thought unworthy of us because he does not answer the Idea and the Expectation of the Doctor I am astonish'd when I consider the extravagant Hypothesis of our Trinitarians God in their opinion will not make good his illustrious Promises his Word given to Abraham and his Seed and his Oath sworn to David that he would raise him up a Son to reign upon his Throne God I say will do nothing that will answer the Greatness of his Promise and the Expectation of the Patriarchs if the Blessed Seed if the King so often promis'd and so long expected if the Messias who is so glorious be not the supreme God himself Nothing is magnificent according to these Gentlemen if it be not extravagant God may do well in raising a miraculous Seed to Abraham from the Womb of a Virgin And he may do well in raising up to David a King and a Prophet drench'd with the Fulness of his Spirit and reigning at the Right Hand of his Majesty All this has nothing great in it this will not come up to their System of the Messias nor deserve place in their sublime Theology if the supreme God himself be not incarnate and suffers not himself to be crucified to merit by his Sufferings the same Glory he voluntarily abandon'd This is what they call a glorious Gospel not that plain simple Religion which presents you with a Man ascending into Heaven but that which without Machines or Hocus Pocus brings the supreme God down from Heaven Good God! What vain Imaginations are in the Heart of Man CHAP. IX The Theology of the Primitive Church went no farther than the miraculous Conception of the Messias c. IT is time to consider in the third place that the Theology of the Primitive Church went no farther than the miraculous Conception of the Messias Which appears from this that the Expression mere Man which she condemned as heretical was not oppos'd to an Eternal Generation but to Christ's being begotten by the Holy Ghost of a Virgin So that the Platonizing Christians themselves who have us'd it in this last sense have been as it were forced to do it thro Custom What remains of the antient Tradition obliging them to speak in that manner Yea the Force of the antient Tradition has made them to betray themselves as we are about to shew The Terms mere Man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bear at this day in our Minds a different Idea from that which was in the first Ages of the Church With us now it is supposed to exclude I know not what sort of a Generation of the Substance of God But with the Antients it was purely oppos'd to the miraculous Generation of the Substance of a Virgin We find at this day some Footsteps of the antient usage of these Words The Author of the Apostolic Constitutions lib. 6. c. 26. giving an account of the Opinion of the Ebionites says They hold J. C. to have been a mere Man by maintaining that he was not begotten any other way but by the conjugal Intercourse of Joseph and Mary There cannot be a better account than this of what the Antients meant by a mere Man A Man begotten by Joseph and not a Man who is not the supreme God Justin or the Author of the Questions and Answers to the Orthodox Quaest 66. expresses himself thus Who says he speaking of J. C. was begotten or conceived by the Holy Ghost the Son of God but being born of the Wife of Joseph was the Son of Joseph The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee c. Wherefore c. shall be called the Son of God It must be observed here 1. That Son of Joseph and Son of God are two Terms oppos'd J.C. is called the Son of Joseph as he was born of the Wife of Joseph and the Son of God as he was begotten by the Holy Ghost 2. That J. C. is called Son of God on the account of his being begotten by the Holy Ghost in a sense directly opposed to Son of Man that is to say in a sense of excellence which Dr. Bull is so bold as to deny 3. That the Text of St. Luke which Justin cites as a Proof demonstrates in some sort that the Antients did not at first ascribe any other Divinity to J. C. but that which was grounded upon his being conceived and born of a Virgin by the
Testimony Every one frames for himself an Idea of sound Doctrine according to his particular Judgment of things Supposing therefore that this antient Author believed as the Orthodox Doctrine of his time was that J. C. was not the Son of Joseph and Mary and supposing on the other side there was none other Theology of his Birth than this that he was the Son of God by the Virgin Mary Hegesippus might very well say the Nazarene Bishops were sound in their Doctrine of the Person of J. C. without any ground for concluding thence that they held the Platonic Faith and were of Eusebius his Judgment 'T is enough that they were not engaged in the Error of the Ebionites because they were Orthodox To explain this by an example let 's suppose that Eusebius had said of some Arian Eishop that his Faith was sound as to the Person of J.C. could the Doctor and his Friends thence conclude that this Bishop believed the Consubstantiality and Equality of the Father and the Son By no means All they could hence infer is that the Bishop believed the Platonic Pre-existence which was the true Faith according to Eusebius who believed neither the Consubstantiality nor the Equality c. We ought to reason in the same manner from the Words of Hegâ—sippus who held that for a sound Faith which Eusebius would have called impious if he had known it as the Doctor would that which Eusebius thought sound Who does not know that those very Persons who held the Orthodox Faith of the first Ages I mean that of the miraculous Birth of our Saviour were accounted impious in the time of Eusebius Because they would not receive the Notion of the Platonic Word and the modish Philosophy of an Eternal Generation that was rashly superinduced or brought in the room of a plain Doctrine of a Generation in time of Mary by the Holy Ghost that is of a Woman by the Power of God But from the beginning it was not so they had another Theology for the better Demonstration of which I shall shew in the following Chapter that CHAP. X. The Word and the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost according to the sense of the Antients were but one and the same thing I Shall lastly consider that the Word among the Antients and the Holy Ghost in the Evangelists are but one and the same thing and that the Platonizing Writers themselves led by an antient Tradition the Footsteps whereof remain'd a long time have confounded these two Terms having often used 'em in one and the same Signification An evident Proof that the Philosophy of the Platonic Word owes its Birth to Allegories made upon that Divine Power which overshadowed the Blessed Virgin which Power may be indifferently call'd the Holy Ghost or the Word But as the latter Term is more agreeable to the Doctrine of Plato so 't is more frequently used So that at last this Conformity of Terms brought the Platonic Fathers to a conformity in Doctrine with Plato that is to say they fell into two Errors directly opposite to the Doctrine of the Gospel One in that they have made of a Power or a mere Operation an Hypostasis the other in that they have made two Hypostases of the Word and the Holy Ghost which at the bottom are but two diverse Operations Where therefore they made two Hypostases of these two Operations they follow'd their own Philosophy but when they confounded these Operations they built without question upon this Passage of David which says The Heavens were made by the Word of the Lord and by the Breath of his Mouth where the Word and Breath of the Lord are put together as things inseparable which differ not in effect only in this that the Breath is the Substance of the Word and the Word is the Operation of the Spirit to use the Words of Tertullian adv Prax. I shall pass over Hermas who in his 5th 9th Similitudes says That the Holy Ghost is the Son of God I have already shewn that he speaks thus but in parable for which reason his Testimony would be of no use but to serve for an Illusion And I shall say nothing more of Ignatius who salutes the Church at Smyrna in the Inscription of his Epistle with these Words The Holy Spirit which is the Word of God as if he had said by or thro him who is the Holy Ghost or the Word of God This Passage is not very exact or clear so as to perceive the meaning of the Author and to be able to draw from it a convincing Proof Les us begin therefore with Justin Martyr He in his 2d Apol. p. 74 c. having stil'd Jesus Christ the first and principal Power the Son and the Word who had not his Birth from Man but by the Power of God he comes afterwards to examine the Passage in St. Luke The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the Power of the Highest shall over shadow thee c. By the Holy Ghost or Spirit says he and the Power which came from God we ought to understand nothing but the Word which is the first-born of God And for the better understanding what Word he is speaking of he adds all in one Breath That 't is the Spirit which inspir'd the Prophets and which spake in the Person of a Prophet or in the Person of the Father or in the Person of Christ or in the Person of the People Here 's no difficulty either he has said nothing or he has formally said that the Holy Ghost which inspir'd the Prophets and the Power of the most High of which St. Luke speaks and the Word in St. John are all but one and the same thing After a Testimony so express I have no need to heap up other Passages out of the Writings of this Father wherein we may in part discover the same truth As when in his Dialogue with Trypho P. 327. he makes an Opposition between the Word of the Serpent by which Eve conceived and the Word of God by which the Blessed Virgin did conceive These are rather flights of Fancy and starts of Wit in a Preacher than an Exposition of the Christian Faith Only I would have it observ'd how in his 5th Book P. 284. he collects all the Qualities and all the Names which were usually given to the Word and to the Spirit that he may apply 'em to Jesus Christ First says â—he God â—eâ—â—t before all the Creatures a 〈◊〉 â—â—sonable Power which is sometimes called the Spirit the Glory of the Lord sometimes the Son sometimes the Wisdom sometimes an Angel sometimes God sometimes the Lord and the Word For all these Names are given to him either because he is the Minister of the Designs or Purposes of the Father or because he was begotten by his Will All this has much of the air of a theological Allegory by which one would express that Spirit and that Power of God which he imploy'd to execute his Counsels and
Ghost and in this Sense they called him the Son of God and not only so but they confess'd this Son of God to be the Christ For 't is thus the Words of St. Austin must be understood de Haeres c. 9. and not as Dr. Bull expounds 'em Judic Eccles p. 47. by a Hysteron Proteron in this manner that the Christ was the Son of God that is according to him a Son begotten before all Ages Danaus a better Critick than he made no blunder in his Exposition of St. Austin's Words The Nazarens says he believ'd that Jesus the Son of Mary was the Christ and 't is certain the Words ought to be taken in this Sense Dei filium consitentur Nazaraei esse Christum says the Father In short they did not oblige the Gentiles to observe the Law which they thought themselves ought to keep as being Jews by birth but they afterward abandon'd it too as an Obligation that ceas'd as soon as they were driven out of Judea by the Emperor Adrian There is a great confusion among Ecclesiastical Writers in their Judgment of these Nazarens Some look upon 'em as Hereticks with others they pass for Orthodox The latter Fathers as Epiphaenius St. Austin and Theodoret place 'em in their Lists of Hereticks but the more antient Fathers as Irenaeus and Tertullian have not set 'em down in that Catalogue 'T is easy to conjecture whence this Disagreement comes Sometimes they pass'd for Orthodox 1st Because their Opinion that Jesus Christ was born of a Virgin by the Holy Ghost c. being originally the Orthodox Faith some Remains of that Tradition maintain'd their Honour for a time 2ly Because Eusebius after Hegesippus had given 'em this Testimony that their Faith was sound as we have before shewn Now this Historian who gave his Opinion of 'em according to his own Prejudices mistaking their true Sentiments has drawn other Platonizing Christians after him into the same Mistake 3ly The Nazarens believ'd that by virtue of the miraculous Conception of our Saviour God was truly his Father and for this reason they give him the Title of the Son of God and it may be of God too sometimes The Platonizing Christians suffered themselves to be amused with big Words having their Minds pre-ingaged in Ideas they had put upon 'em beforehand so that they were so far from treating the Nazarens as Hereticks that they have often made 'em speak in the Platonick manner always supposing thro prejudice that whoever said these Words Son of God meant by 'em a Son begotten before all Ages But sometimes also they reckened 'em Hereticks either because they confounded 'em with the Ebionites or because their Opinion rightly understood was look'd upon as Heretical after Platonism prevail'd When all those in short who went for the Divinity of Christ no farther than his Generation from God and the Virgin Mary and who refus'd to subscribe or assent to the Platonick Generation before all Ages all such I say were no better treated than the Ebionites who believed Christ to be the Son of Joseph they were all anathematiz'd without hopes of absolution 'T is from this confusion of Ideas that we meet with so much obscurity in the History of the Nazarens Dr. Bull who knew not how to clear up this Perplexity runs himself into greater Difficulties He teazes and fatigues himself to maintain his own Sentiments under the Expressions of the Nazarens and to reconcile the irreconcilable Censures of the Platonizing Fathers about ' em But what signifies all this ado The truth is nothing of his Platonism was in the least known to the Nazarens All his Citations are grounded upon the equivocal Sense of these Words the Son of God True it is they went beyond the Ebionites and believ'd Jesus Christ was more than a mere Man because they believ'd him to be born of a Virgin by the Holy Ghost Yet the Nazarens must be Hereticks say the Doctor what he will if they are to be try'd by his Platonick Faith But they are also Orthodox say others what they please if they are examin'd by the Rule of Orthodoxy that prevail'd in the first Age of the Church the Footsteps whereof have been preserv'd by some Writers in succeeding Ages as I have already proved FINIS
change or vary and the things we make them to signify may not vary at all in our Minds or suffer the least Alteration The Facts for instance mention'd in the Apostles Creed are things of that nature the Ideas whereof are preserv'd without any Change As its Articles are plain few in Number without any Speculations and contain only the Primitive Doctrines of Christianity it was easy therefore to preserve the sense and to have always a true Knowledg of them 'T is a Faith as I may say that 's born with us that offers it self to our Understandings from the Moment we enter into the Church that is in the Mouth and Heart or every Christian and there is no need of ascending into Heaven of consulting Councils nor of descending into the Deeps to know it and employing Missions of Dragoons to impose the Lelief of it Wherefore Cyril in Catech. 5. Ruffinus in Expos Symbol Jerom in Epist 61. ad Pâ—mmach c. 9. Hilarius de Synod had good reason to say That the Creed was not only written upon Paper but upon the Tables of the Heart and in the Mind of Man Expressions that Jeremy and St. Paul make use of about the Precepts of the Gospel to signify that there 's no need of a Teacher to learn them because Reason is capable of suggesting them and Memory of retaining them The Passage of St. Hilary is the more remarkable because he makes an express Opposition between this Faith graven upon the Heart and that which is only in the Letter and the Writings of Men For he congratulates the Western Bishops for their maintaining the Apostolic Faith for the Spirit wherewith they were animated and that they knew not the Forms of Faith which were written by Mens Hands The Spirit here does not signify the Holy Ghost as Mons Du Pin supposes but the Spiritual Sense in opposition to the Literal Which shews that there was no need of writing down the Apostles Creed in the first Ages of the Church Every one had the sense of it in his Mind As it was short and plain and consisting only of the principal Facts and Primitive Truths which constitute the very Essence and Spirit of the Christian Religion it was easy for the most illiterate to keep it in mind as to the Substance of it for the rest every one expressed himself as he pleased Hence it was that 't was very late before any Formula was drawn up and that too with some difference in the Terms and Number of Articles particularly in those which seem to explain one another It ought not to be wonâ—red at after this if it be not found among the antient Doctors to be just as we have it at this day They received it only by Tradition and worded it upon occasion every one in his own way The Christians says Dupin Tom. 1. p. 30. had this Faith so ready in their Minds that they did not stick to any certain Form hence came the difference in point of Form of the Creeds mentioned by the Fathers Moreover it must not be supposed that when some particular Christians came at length to enlarge the Apostles Creed by their Platonic Speculations the People entered into those Notions and Philosophical Ideas They always kept themselves to that Simplicity of Faith which the general Spirit of Religion had imprinted upon their Minds The Christian Religion says Mons Le Vassor Traite de l'Examen ch 2. p. 69. was at no great distance from its first and primitive Simplicity till the Council of Nice If Origen and some others before that attempted to adjust it to the Principles of Pagan Philosophy their novel Speculations were not generally received In short Origen shews us that nothing but the Word revealed was preached to the People that is to say Jesus Christ crucified but the Word-God glorified was reserved for Persons of the higher Class that is for Favourite Souls who had spiritualized themselves in Plato's School Wherefore History tell us that to bring in this Platonizing Faith into the Church and to make Entrance for it into the Minds of ordinary Christians there was â—eed of no less than the Anthority of Emperors the Cabals of Councils and the Violence of Penal Laws Monsieur Jurieu speaks to the very same effect Says he all the vain empty Speculations of the Doctors of that time the Fathers of the three first Ages did no harm to the pure Faith of the Church that is the People Tabl. du Socin 1 part Let. 6. p. 269. The Speculations had not yet reached the People they continued in the Simplicity For the rest it was for the Speculative Divines and Philosophers bred in Plato's School such as the Justin Martyrs the Tatians and the Athanagoras's were and other Platonizing Doctors of that sort Then Jurieu concludes saying There 's no body but knows that Theological Explications are not matters of Faith 'T is true we must do this Justice to Jurieu as to own that he made room for the Mystery of God in three Persons in this Simplicity of the Primitive Faith But it would really be a wrong done to his Judgment and good Sense to believe that he spoke it seriously For in short if he would not affirm that the Belief of three Persons which are but one God was one of those Platonizing Speculations against which he so much declaims at least he ought to own that 't is an Explication that has nothing of Simplicity in it and which by consequence cannot be a matter of Faith I desire him to remember a Remark he has made in his seventh Pastoral Letter That when Learning was scarce among Christians two or three Learned Men drew the People into their Opinions He could have informed us better that two or three Platonizing Fathers for they were the Learned Men of the Age were able to mislead the People from the Simplicity of their Faith to the Theology of Plato If it be true that the People knew this profound Theology Mons Jurieu has spoken more truly than he thought For we find at the bottom of the Letter that two Learned Platonists Origen who had his Admirers in the East and St. Austin who had his in the West have not only led the People into their Opinions but likewise all the Learned Men that came after them who have only copied from them And consequently this Theology whether it be to be found only among the Learned or with the People too was none other than a strange Faith which the Learned brought into the Church and after drew the People into it It amounts to the same thing either the People understood it not or if they did 't was by surprize that the Learned impos'd their Mysteries and made the common People receive a Pagan Notion for the Doctrine of J. C. CHAP. XX. Of the Divine Polity or Oeconomy taught by the Fathers HAving given some account of the way of Allegories us'd by the Fathers I must not forget to say something