Archbishop of Canterbury the Bishop of Glocester Dr. Sherlock Mr. How and others imbrace this Notion of the Trinity 'T is not unlikely that by degrees it will exclude the Sabellian Nominal Trinity of the Schools and not only exclude it but be the Occasion that it shall be declared Heretical 'T is true that more commonly in Universities they go the way of the Schools but the scholastick Trinity implies so many Follies and is so certainly nothing else but a disguised Sabellianism that the real Trinitarians may probably enough carry their Point against the Nominals if the Difference between them breaking out into a Contention shall fall into the Hands of able Managers We have seen how the Fathers understood the Trinity but the Difficulty is still behind how did they make out the Unity of God For if there are three spiritual intellectual Substances three infinite Spirits three eternal all-knowing and all-powerful Minds Three each of which is a perfect God do we not lose the Unity of God the principal Article of revealed Religion and the grand Design of both the Testaments while we believe and affirm three such Persons Dr. Bull here offers his Hand at a dead lift he tells us the Fathers easily came off from this Exception or Doubt by saying 1. The Son and Spirit had their Original their Being and Godhead from the Father therefore having proceeded from him as their Principle and Fountain they are not distinct Gods from him but one God with him The Fathers granted that were not the Son and Spirit originated from the Father the three Divine Persons being so many several Principles would also be so many Gods but because the Son and Spirit are not as the Father self-originated or unoriginated but from the Father therefore they are rightly said to be one God with him Every one sees that there lies this Exception against this Account of the Unity of God If to be originated from the Father will make the Persons so originated to be one God with him or one with him and with one another it follows that not only the Son and Holy Spirit but Angels also and Men nay the whole Creation the very vilest Parts of it shall be one God with the Father and with the pretended Trinity and one with one another because they are all originated from the Father Therefore the Fathers said 2. Bare Origination from the Father will not constitute the Persons so originated one God or one with him or with one another unless they have the same Substance with the Father that is as has been said the same for Kind and Properties And this Confideration they said excludes all Creatures from being one God or one with the Father or the blessed Trinity for created Substances are finite subject to Change and Accidents In a word they are wholly unlike to the Divine Substance They foresaw that it would be again objected here If to be originated from another who is of the same kind with the Persons so originated from him will make them all to be one for Instance will make the Son and Spirit to be truly one and one God with the Father from whom they are originated then two Sons or a Son and Grandson because they are originated from the same Father and are of the same kind with him shall also be one with him they shall not be three Men but one Man as Father Son and Holy Spirit are not three Gods but one God To wind themselves from this most certain and solid Reasoning the Fathers devised a third Elusion as wise as either of the two former they said that 3. Origination of two Persons from a first Person tho they are all of the same kind will not make them one or one God except as it most luckily happens between the three Divine Persons the originated Persons are propagated interiori productione that is are generated by an internal Production so that they are always and inseparably in the Person that produced them And this at length is the Fathers whole Explication of a Trinity in Unity They said in short three distinct Divine Persons Substances Spirits each of which is singly and by himself a perfect God are notwithstanding but one God because the second and third Persons are originated from the first and are of the same Kind and Properties with him and are generated or propagated by an internal Production so that they inseparably and always remain in the Father and he in them This in effect is to say that naturally properly and truly speaking there are three Gods or there are three Gods in Number but in regard that God the Son and God the Holy Ghost are of the same kind with God the Father are originated from him and are eternally and inseparably in him they may in a Catachrestical improper and respective Sense all be called one God I will examine very particularly the whole Hypothesis of these Fathers their Trinity of Substances Minds and Spirits and their Explication now laid down how three such Persons and Divine Minds can be but one God Only for preventing if it may be future Cavils I would first take notice that this Explication of the Unity of God or how three Persons can be but one God by the Fathers and Dr. Bull evidently supposes that they held the three Divine Persons are so many distinct Substances Minds and Spirits as well as distinct Persons I think 't is sufficient to prove that the Fathers held the three Persons are so many distinct Spirits and Minds in that they so certainly affirmed them to be distinct spiritual Substances if the three Divine Persons are three distinct Substances all Men the very nominal Trinitarians themselves will grant that they are distinct Minds and Spirits Dr. Bull hath incontestably proved by a great Number of Quotations and might have proved by a great many more that by consubstantial or of the same Substance the Fathers meant not the same Substance in Number but the same in Properties As Stars are consubstantial to Stars and the Bodies of Men to the Bodies of Beasts because they are Substances of the same kind that is corporeal and of the same Properties for all Stars are lucid and the Bodies of Men and Beasts are organized and subject to Alteration So are the three Divine Persons consubstantial being of the same kind that is to say spiritual and having the same Properties namely Eternity Immutability Omnipresence and the other Divine Attributes I will undertake for it that none of the Nominal Trinitarians as angry as some of them are will ever attempt to confute Dr. Bull 's first Chapter of his second Section where he gives this Account of the word Consubstantial out of the Fathers But if the Divine Persons are therefore Consubstantial because they are of like kind and have the same Properties their Substance is not the same in Number but only as Dr. Bull speaks the same in Nature And if this be true as
they propose such an Explication how three infinite Minds and Spirits are but one God as all Men of Consideration will take to be a Declaration and Assertion of three Gods for they will have three infinite Minds to be one God because they have three distinct Divine Substances qualified each of them with all distinct Divine Properties when these Substances and Properties are the very Marks and Notifications of their distinct Divinities or that they are distinct Gods But themselves also acknowledg that if Origination from the Father and to be specifically consubstantial with him were sufficient to make the Son and Spirit one God with the Father then James and John being originated from their Father Peter and consubstantial in all Respects with him it will follow that Peter James and John are not three Men but one Man or Peter James and John are one Man with Peter To get rid of this they advance a third Bull more ridiculous than either of the two former it is this 3. If the originated and consubstantial and Divine Persons are propagated from the first Person by an internal Production so that they are always and inseparably in the Person that produced them they are thereby most truly one God with him Here the Reader needs only to consider that we are arguing concerning three such Persons as are confess'd by these Opposers to be three distinct Substances Now to say of two of these Substances that they are propagated by an internal Production is a Bull to add that that they are inseparably in the Person that produced them is another but 't is worst of all to say that by their Inexistence in the Father the Son and Spirit are one God with him this I say is a worse Blunder a more inexcusable Oversight than internal Production or inseparable Substances Internal Production when said of Substances is a Contradiction both in the Sense and Terms 't is as much as to say a Production not produced a Generation not generated And a Substance being that which can exist separately or by it self and needeth not as an Accident to inexist in something else therefore an inseparable Substance is a Substance without being a Substance or a Substance and no Substance Dr. Bull will answer it may be the Substances of the Son and Spirit are always and inseparably in the Father not from a natural Inhability to subsist as they are Substances by themselves or separately but only because the Nature of the Divine Unity requires that the second and third Persons of the Godhead should always inexist in the first and he in them But if this be the Meaning of inseparably it is impertinently as well as falsly added Impertinently because the word always had been enough and only proper to be here used Falsly because things are not inseparable if only they are not actually separated but of their own Nature have an Hability to exist separately The Bull therefore remains against whatsoever Excuses but were that which the Doctor aims to say never so true we shall see presently it will not in the least avail his Cause For as I said the greatest Blunder and Inobservance of all is what Dr. Bull and the Fathers take to be the Strength of this Hypothesis namely this that the second and third Persons being always in the first are therefore one God with him For it is to be noted that these Gentlemen hold not only that the Son and Spirit are in the Father but he also in them it is the mutual Inexistence of all the three Persons and not only of the Son and Spirit in the Father that maketh them to be one God I ask hereupon whether this mutual Inexistence Immeation or Penetration of the three Persons be such that their Substances become continuous as the Parts for Instance of the same Piece of Gold are or only contiguous like more Pieces of Gold that are heaped or bagged together Are the Substances of the three Divine Persons I say continuous as to use another Instance the Parts of the same Angel or Soul are continuous and indiscerpible or are the only contiguous as God or the Divine Substance which pervades all things Spirits as well as Bodies is contiguous to the things which it pervades and immeates If Dr. Bull says that the Divine Persons Minds and Spirits or the three Divine Substances have such a mutual Inexistence that they become continuous as the assignable conceivable Parts of each Person 's own Substance are or as the Parts of an Angel or Soul are He says thereby and therein that the Substances and Persons are identified which is Heresy because as the Athanasian Creed speaks it confounds the Persons If the Substances are continuous and thereby identified the Properties also of the three Substances in Mr. Bull 's Hypothesis will be identified too for in this Hypothesis there cannot be distinct Understandings Wills and Energies if the Substances are not distinct but continuous and thereby identified But we need not to insist on this for Dr. Bull dares not say that the Substances of the Divine Persons are identified or continuous he must say and will say that they do so inexist in one another that they are only contiguous there is only a Contact of their Substances not an Identification or Continuity But if there be only a Contact of the three Substances they are as much three Gods and separate Substances in the Physical Sense of the word separate as three Men imbracing one another are three distinct Men not one Man or as God and the Creation are separate Substances tho he inexists in pervates or immeates the Works he hath made and they again exist in him The Fathers that were Philosophers when they said the three Divine Persons or Substances are in one another meant by their mutual Love and Agreement but those Fathers that were not learned or understood only the Platonick Philosophy which is wholly moral and metaphysical and never meddles with the natural Reasons of things I say the Fathers that were not natural Philosophers imagined such an Inexistence of the three Persons that the said Persons were physically and substantially in one another and thereby say they one God They knew not that a substantial Inexistence must either be by the Continuity of the Substances which confounds the Substances or Persons or only by Contiguity or Contact which can no more make three Divine Persons and Spirits to be one God than three Men fitting close on the same Bench are thereby one Man or than God who is in all Spirits whether Angels or Souls and they in him are the same Being or the same Substance not separate Substances In short Dr. Bull and these Fathers say the three Divine Persons are three distinct several Substances and do substantially immeate or inexist in one another yet so that they are not continuous or identified as the Parts of the same numerical Substance are but only contiguous We say hereupon that this will never make
them to be one God because mere Contact is only a juxta-Position not a real Vnion All Philosophers but only the Platonists who understand not Physicks or the Nature of things will assent to this Reasoning and I doubt not it was one of the Causes why the Schoolmen who were learned Philosophers unanimously agreed that three distinct Divine Substances are most certainly three Gods and they the Divines of the Schools have been followed by all the Divinity-Chairs in Christendom from about the Year 1200 to this present time I do not believe there is a Chair in Christendom that will own more than one Divine Substance or will admit that three Divine Substances can be one God Dr. Bull will not approve his Hypothesis to the Chairs or to Universities or Schools of Learning I am of opinion however that so arrogant a Man as Dr. Bull will not let go his Hypothesis it being too the Doctrine of the Fathers and of a great many learned Men who treat of these Questions as Divines not as Philosophers and Dr. Bull having acquired so great a Reputation all over Europe by his Book the Chairs and Nominal Trinitarians will not it may be adventure to attack him But if after all Dr. Bull fearing the Numbers and Reputation of the Nominal Trinitarians will deny his Hypothesis and in hopes to compound with them pretend that it differs not or not materially from the Doctrine of the Schools besides that all discerning and ingenuous Men will laugh at his Pusilanimity I shall not desire an easier Task than to prove from his own Book and from innumerable Quotations of the Fathers that both they and he hold three distinct Divine Substances and consequently so many Minds and Spirits both which are rejected as Heretical nay as Tritheistical by the Schools and their Followers I will conclude this first Part of my Answer with observing that tho Dr. Bull says here that the Fathers believed the three Divine Persons are one God because the second and third are derived from the first have like Substances and Properties with him and all of them do mutually immeate one another yet this is not the Explication of any particular Father much less of all of them but an Hypothesis that Dr. Bull has pieced up from the Writings of divers Fathers The Fathers explained the Unity in Trinity each of them his own way One said the three Persons are one God because they are in one another by mutual Love and Agreement Another said they are one God because of the Subordination and perfect Subjection of the second and third Persons to him who is the first God Another they are one God because the Son and Spirit are propagated from the Father Another because they unanimously govern the World that is they are one God because they are one Monarchy and thereby as it were one Ruler Some of them said three Divine Persons and three infinite Spirits are God and the Godhead in such Sense as all Men are called Man or Mankind As three golden Coins of the same Emperor are called Aurum Gold not Aura Golds in the Plural So in proper speaking three Divine Persons because like three Men or three golden Coins they are consubstantial that is have the same specifick Substances and Properties they are in proper speaking to be called God not Gods This was a very ridiculous Reasoning contrary both to Grammar and Philosophy and yet it was the Explication of some of the most learned of the Post-Nicene Fathers Briefly these two things I affirm That Dr. Bull 's Explication of the Unity of God is indeed taken out of some of the Fathers but it was not as 't is laid down by him the particular Explication given by any one of them much less the agreed and common Explication of all of them but part of it is from some other Parts of it from other Fathers Secondly the Fathers advanced several other Explications on which some of them insisted more and rather than on any part of Mr. Bull 's The Ante-Nicens chiefly urged the Unity of Love or else of Monarchy the most learned but least judicious of the Post-Nicens served themselves of the pretended Consubstantiality or that the three Persons having like Substances and Properties are therefore one God as all Men or Mankind are called Homo and as three or more golden Coins are called Aurum Gold never Aura Golds. But of these things I shall speak fully in the Conclusion of the third Part of this Answer to Dr. Bull. The CONCLVSION I Have said what I intended in this first Part. In the Second I will report the Doctrine of the following Fathers concerning the Trinity and the Person of our blessed Saviour in their own Words By the following Fathers I mean those Fathers who flourished from about the Year 150 to the Nicene Council or the Year 325. In the last Part I shall discover Dr. Bull 's Frauds and Mistakes detect his Sophistries and Elusions and confront his Misrepresentation of the Fathers with the Confessions and Judgment of the Criticks who have either published or commented on the Writings of the Fathers Here and now it remains only that I inform the Reader who hath not seen Dr. Bull 's Books why I have answer'd so indifferently and without any particular Deference to the Merit of his Learning and Abilities for it cannot be denied that this Gentleman is a dextrous Sophister or that he has read the principal Fathers with a more than ordinary Application Diligence and Observation Dr. Bull has written two Books his Defence of the Nicene Faith and Judgment of the Catholick Church designedly and directly against the Unitarians whether they be Arians or Socinians In the first of these he attacks more particularly Chr. Sandius a very learned Arian and the Author of Irenicum Irenicorum who was Dr. Zwicker M. D. a Socinian Dr. Zwicker is complemented by Dr. Bull with such Flowers as these Bipedum ineptissimus the greatest Fop in Nature Omnium odio qui veritatem candorem amant dignus deserving the Hatred of all Lovers of Truth and Sincerity Of Sandius he saith He hath ship-wrack'd his Conscience as well as his Faith a Trifler a mere empty Pretender He adds at p. 331. He hath only transcribed the Author of Iren. Irenicorum and in one Place he prays for Sandius as one that is mad This and such as this is Dr. Bull 's constant Language concerning these two very learned Men nor doth he ever reply to them without pretending an absolute and incontestable Victory and casting some most unworthy Scorn or other upon them by occasion of his supposed Advantage He never calls the Arians by any other Name but Ariomanitae the mad Arians and Socinianism is always with him the Atheistical Heresy I do not remember that he ever calls our Doctrine by a better Name In short he hath expressed such a Malevolence and hath so notoriously and infamously broke the Cartel of Honour and Civility
Trallians I salute you saith he to the Trallians in the Fulness of the Apostolical Character In short no one can read these Epistles with Judgment and impartially but he will see what was the Aim of the Forger of them namely under the venerable Authority and Name of Ignatius to magnify the Reverence and Respect belonging to Church-men This is the Beginning Middle and End of all these Epistles except only that to the Romans where to cover his Design and discover his Folly he only advises the Christians not to rescue him from the Imperial Guards These are all the Apostolical Fathers and Writings that our Opposers can muster up during the first 150 Years of Christianity that is to the Times when the Socinians and all Protestants confess that the Faith began to be actually corrupted I have proved that the Monuments they have to produce are unquestionably and incontestably counterfeit and therefore I do not think my self concerned to examine the few and impertinent Passages alledged out of them by Dr. Bull but before I proceed to his other approved Doctors 't is but reasonable that I should have leave to search what Authors and Books of these times of which we are speaking favoured the Unitarians and particularly the Socinians The Question between Dr. Bull and the Unitarians is what genuine Monuments or Remains there are of the Period which Church-Historians have called the Apostolical Succession that is of the Time in which those Doctors of the Church who had conversed with the Apostles and received the pure Faith of the Gospel from their very Mouths flourished And whether those Remains or Monuments do favour the Unitarians or the Trinitarians whether they teach the Doctrine of one God or of three We have seen what Dr. Bull can produce for their pretended Trinity his Apostle Barnabas the Prophet Hermas both of them rejected as false and soolish by the Catholick Church Next the Revelations of Pionius that is the Martyrdoms of Polycarp and Ignatius and their Epistles all which being almost perished and worn out by Time were revealed to Pionius by one from the Dead It is true our Opposers having been so long Masters have made use of their Power to destroy and abolish as much as was possible whatever Monuments of those first Times that too notoriously contradicted the Innovations in the Faith that were made by the Councils of Nice Constantinople and Chalcedon yet as there is no Battel so bloody and cruel but some tho it may be a very few have the good luck to escape from the Massacre so from this Persecution of Books and Writings some illustrious Testimonies and Witnesses to the Truth are come down even to our Times These are the Apostles Creed an unquestioned Epistle of St. Clemens Romanus the Accounts given by unsuspected Historians of the Nazarens or Ebionites the Mineans and the Alogi who all held as the Socinians now do concerning God and the Person of our Saviour the Recognitions of St. Clemens which tho it may be they are not rightly imputed to him yet are a most antient Book and serve to show what was the current Doctrine of those Times they are cited by Origen in divers Places by Eusebius Aikanasins and others Of the Apostles Creed COncerning the Apostles Creed we must resolve two Questions What it teaches and who were the Compilers of it To the first the Creed it self answers I belâ—eve in one God so this Creed was antiently read both in the East and West the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth In these Words the Father is character'd by these Names Properties and Attributions that he is God the one God Almighty and Maker of Heaven and Earth Concerning the Lord Christ it saith And in Jesus Christ his only Son Gr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only begotten Son our Lord. So the Characters of our Saviour are that he is not the one God but the only begotten Son of the only or one God and that he is our Lord. Our Lord he is as he is our Saviour Teacher and Head of the Church both in Heaven and Earth He is called the only begotten Son of the only or one God to distinguish him from all other Sons of God from Angels who were not begotten but created Sons from Holy Men who are adopted Sons and from Adam who is called the Son of God not because he was generated or begotten but made or formed by God himself immediately Well but it may be this only-begotten Son of God is an only-begotten Son in some higher Sense and namely by eternal Generation from the Substance or Essence of God whereby he is God no less than the Father is God But the Compilers of this Creed knew nothing or however have said nothing of any such Generation so far from that they describe his Generation and his Person by humane Characters and by such only Every thing that they say here either of his Person or Generation is not only humane but inconsistent with Divinity He was conceived say they of the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary was crucified dead and buried he arose again from the Dead ascended into Heaven sitteth on the right Hand of God i. e. is next in Dignity to God Our very Opposers confess that every one of these is a Description of a mere humane Person and Generation even they acknowledg that God cannot be conceived be born die ascend and least of all be at God's right Hand or next to God to be God and next to God are wholly inconsistent There is no answering here that the before-mentioned are intended only as the Characters of our Saviour's Humane Nature For a Creed being an Institution or Instruction what we are to believe in the main and sundamental Articles of Religion especially concerning the Persons of the Father Son and Holy Spirit if the first is described as the one or only God and the Son only by Characters that speak him a mere Man and are utterly incompatible with Divinity it remains that the Compilers of the Creed really intended that we should believe the Father is the one God and the Son a mere Man tho not a common Man because conceived not of Man but of the Holy Spirit which is the Power and Energy of God If they had meant or but known that the Son and Spirit are eternal and divine Persons no less than the Father they have done to both of them the greatest possible Wrong because in the same Creed in which they declare that they believe that the Father is the one God Almighty and Maker of Heaven and Earth they believe the Son was conceived born died descended into Hell ascended into Heaven is next to God that is they believe he is a mere Man and concerning the Spirit they believe no higher thing than of the Church we believe in the Holy Spirit and in the Holy Catholick Church It is evident then and incontestable by any fair and sincere Considerer that whoever
Recognitions imputed to Clemens Romanus They seem to be falsly reckoned to St. Clemens but they are very antient published probably in the Beginning of the 2 d Century or the second Century being but little advanced when so many other spurious Pieces were set forth under the Names of Apostles or of Apostolical Men. The Recognitions are quoted divers times by Origen who began to flourish about the Year 210. But they are much antienter than Origen for in a Fragment of Bardesanes apud Euseb Praep. Evang. l. 6. c. 10. who flourished about the Year 170 there is a Passage taken word for word out of the 9 th Book of the Recognitions Whereas Dr. Cave conjectures that Bardesanes was the Author of the Recognitions his Guess is nothing probable nay a manifest Mistake because the Author of the Recognitions was an Ebionite but Bardesanes a Valentinian that is held the Pre-existence of our Saviour and that he was not as the Apostle speaks made of a Woman but brought his Flesh from Heaven It remains therefore that the Recognitions are antienter not only than Origen but than Bardesanes how much antienter we cannot determinately say but probably published when the 2 d Century was but little advanced when so many affected to countenance their own Productions with the authoritative Names of the Aposiles and Apostolical Men. But tho the Recogaitions are not the Work of Clemens Romanus yet they serve to let us know what Doctrines and Rites were current or in use in those times and to this purpose they are quoted by the severely Criticks of all Parties and Perswasions I shall not need to cite particular Passages out of these Books for 't is consessed by the Trinitarian Criticks and by Monsieur du Pin who hath written last on the Fathers that the Author of the Recognitions was a manifest Ebionite Eccl. Hist cent 1. p. 28. But hitherto of the Apostolick Fathers and the Writings and Remains of the Apostolick Succession I have proved I think that hitherto we have no certain or probable notice that there were yet any who publickly professed to hold the Pre-existence of our Saviour or that he was God in any Sense of that Word But on the contrary the Apostles Creed the true and by all confessed St. Clemens Romanus the Nazaren Minean or Ebionite that is the Jewish Churches the Alogians or Gentile Churches Hegesippus the Father of Ecclefiastical History the most antient Author of the Recognitions were all of them Unitarians that is held there is but one Divine Person and the Lord Christ was a Man only It should seem then that very thing hapned to the Christian Church which had formerly come to pass in the Church of the Jews For as the Author of the Book of Judges Judg. 2.7 says The People of Israel served the Lord all the Days of Joshua and of the Elders that outlived Joshua but when all that Generation was gathered to their Fathers there arose another after them which knew not the Lord so the Children of Israel did Evil in the sight of the Lord and served Baalim i. e. the Gods In like manner while the Apostles lived and those Elders who had conversed with the Apostles the Christian Church kept her self to the Acknowledgment and Worship of the one true God and preserved the true Doctrine and Faith concerning the Person of the Lord Christ that he was a holy Man the great Prophet and Messias promised in the Law and other Book of the Old Testament But 〈◊〉 the Aposiles themselves and the 〈◊〉 of the Apostolick Succussion were gathered to their Fathers then 〈◊〉 Corruptions to prevail apace 〈◊〉 they sancied a pre-existent 〈◊〉 of God God's Minister and Instrument in the creating of all things and but little less than his Father A Son said they who being tho but the instrumental yet the immediate Creator of all things is to be worshipped by us his Creatures A Son who tho with respect to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they still spoke the true and very God the Father is but a Minister and Subject yet with respect to us his Creatures is a God A Son who must be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a God tho only the Father may be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the God that is God by way of Excellence and true Propriety In a word after the Apostles and Apostolical Elders or Pastors were composed to rest the next Generation like the Jewish Church did Evil in the Sight of the Lord and served Baalim that is the half-Gods of their own devising Nemo repente fit turpissimus therefore here they stop a considerable time namely from about the Year 140 and 150 to the Nicene Council or the Year 325. at what time as we shall see hereafter Superstition and Impiety made a sudden and wonderful Advance The first Defender and publick Patron of the Apostacy mentioned in the foregoing Paragraph was Justin Martyr about the Year 150. Our Opposers can quote no Father or genuine Monument older than Justin Martyr for the Pre-existence of our Saviour or that he ought to be called a God in so much as the restrained inseriour Sense before said Dr. Bull indeed pretends to prove the contrary from the counterseit Barnabas the false Ignatius aliàs Pionius and the Impostor Hermas how injudiciously I think hath been competently shown in these present Papers but I will yet oppose to him one Authority which I doubt not will convince the indifferent unprejudiced Reader Eusebius that capital Antagonist of the Nazaren and Alogian Christians and who searched with the utmost Diligence into the remotest Antiquity for whatsoever might seem to make against them quotes H. E. l. 5. c. 28. a very antient Author whom in his foregoing Chapter he reckons among the Ecclesiastical Writers that deserve saith he to be esteemed for their laudable Zeal and Industry This laudable Man you must know wrote a Book against the Theodotians and Artemonites who were Branches of the Alogians what Eusebius there cites out of him is as follows The Unitarians pretend that the Apostles and all the Antients held the very Doctrine concerning the Person of our Saviour that is now maintained by the Unitarians and that it is but only since the Times of the Popes Victor and Zepherin that the Truth has been adulterated and discountenanced This would be credible if first the Unitarian Doctrine were not contrary to Holy Scripture and if divers before Victor and Zepherin had not contended for the Divinity of the Lord Christ namely Justin Martyr Miltiades Tatianus Clemens of Alexandria Ireneus Melito To whom we may add the antient Hymns or Psalms wrote from the beginning by the Brethren which speak of Christ as the WORD of God and attribute to him Divinity I will omit now that all these but only Justin were but Contemporaries to Victor and Zepherin or after them for it is home to my purpose that the first whom our Opposers of those early times could quote was
and by himself as the Athanasian Creed speaks a most perfect God are but one God is so monstrous a Paradox that we might justly wonder such a contradictory and impossible Doctrine being unhappily got abroad was not immediately hissed again into the Hole from whence the Chimera first sallied did we not know that the Propagation and Conservation of this Affront to common Sense and to all the Principles of Knowledg and Silence was the Work and Effect of such penal Laws as would equally have restored the whole Body and System of Paganism While the Question about the Trinity was disputed only by Argument and Authorities of Holy Scripture the Proverb was all the World is against Athanasius and Athanasius is against all the World And in Constantinople it self the then capital City of the whole Roman Empire the Trinitarian Conventicle was so thin that it had more Benches than Men to fit on them and their Preacher was forced to comfort his almost empty Fold with such Reflections as these The Unitaries says he have the Churches but we we Trinitarians are the Temples of God they have the People but the Angels are with us my Flock indeed is little I easily tell all my Sheep but they hear my Voice they follow me and will not follow Strangers Greg. Nazianz. Serm. 35. against the Arians But the Empire falling at length to a Prince who was a bigotted Trinitarian he applied the Imperial Authority and the Awe of his Armies which comfilied for the most part of Souldiers and Officers who had been born bred and continued Pagans to establish Trinitarianism by Terrors and Force He 't was Theodosius and his Successors began with taking the Churches 〈◊〉 in all Unitarians by military Force then they were prohibited to hold their Assemblies Conventicles they were now called within the Preciucts of Cities or Towns Next he called general Councils but admitted none to Session or Vote but Trinitarians to whose Creeds and Canons all that stood for any the very least Church-Preferment must subscribe before they were admitted to their Places Afterwards all Disputes against the Decisions of these Councils were forbid to all without Exception to Churchmen and military Officers on pain of Deposition to Lay-men if they were free under the Penalty of Banishment to Servants under pain of corporal Chastisement and that too saith the Law after the severest manner They proceeded farther they required all Persons to deliver up all Heretical Books that they might be publickly burnt denouncing horrible Punishments to such as should presume to hide or conceal any such Books While the Civil Power acted his Part in this outragious manner the Ecclesiasticks were as industrious another way the Underlings of them sought the Favour of their Superiours by turning Informers against the Hereticks and their Assemblies others that could read and write took upon them the corrupting or as they then spoke the correcting the Bibles adding and leaving out as themselves pleased Nor would they have left to us any Remain of genuine Christianity or suffer'd a single Unitarian to escape their Barbarities but that their Divisions concerning their own Doctrine their own Disputes de Asini umbrâ diverted often their Rage and Treachery from the Scriptures and the Unitaries to the Members of their own Party and Communion Dares Dr. Bull or any other deny any thing of this when they do this and much more shall be proved upon them from the most allowed of their own Historians and from the Codes which contain the Imperial Constitutions We may say then that Trinitarianism is not so much a Religion as the Law of the Bizantine or Constantinopolitan Emperors it was first introduced by military Force then confirmed by Edicts of the Arbitrary Emperors of Constantinople Well but when Folly and Impiety are once establish'd by Law and are the only way to Preferment there will never want a great Number who will court the Favour of the Government by endeavouring to represent the current Doctrine of the Times as possible nay as reasonable and agreeable to Scripture and from hence came the Explications of the Trinity by the Parasites of those times whom now in regard of their Antiquity we call the Fathers These Explications were various and contrary to one another Dr. Bull has made choice of the most tolerable and passable Accounts given by the Fathers and tho he has patched up one Hypothesis or Explication out of many and divers I will be content to take it as he gives it He represents it as the ordinary Explication of all the Fathers as well the Ante-nicene as Post-nicene let us see what it is and then make our Reflections upon it They said there are three infinite Persons known by the Names of Father Son and Holy Spirit each of which has all Divine Perfections and in their highest Degree They are so many distinct tho not divided or separated Substances and Essences they are as much three Spirits as they are three Substances and Persons each has his own proper and personal distinct Understanding Will and Almighty Energy It is true that they said also that the three Divine Persons are consubstantial or have the same Substance but they did not mean thereby the self-same Substance or the same Substance in Number but the same for Kind and Properties that is their Substances are alike Divine Immortal and Unchangable They are consubstantial to one another as Stars are consubstantial to Stars that is their Substances tho divers in Number have the same Properties and Qualities In short the Father Son and Spirit are distinct intellectual Substances and are consubstantial or of the same Substance as their Substances or Essences are alike infinite immutable and immortal they are also and therefore distinct Beings and because they are intellectual and spiritual they are three Minds and three Spirits as much as they are three Persons and Substances Lastly because each has all possible real Perfections therefore each of them is true God I dare to affirm before-hand that Dr. Bull is so well satisfied that this is the Notion that the Fathers had of the Trinity that he will own it for theirs and his and will not disingenuously deny that he intended this Explication or Account of the Trinity in the several Chapters of his Defence of the Nicene Faith where he speaks either designedly or incidentally of this Point And his Book has given him such a Reputation all over Europe even in the Catholick Countries and his Citations out of the Fathers so plainly evince that this was their Sense that I believe no Trinitarian will be so rash or hardy as to call him Heretick or to attack or write against him as such tho others of less Esteem are now loudly challenged of Heresy for this very Explication In very deed it is the Doctrine of the Post-nicene Fathers and of all the real Trinitarians and since the Revival of these Controversies divers learned Writers by Name Dr. Cudworth the late