of our Saviour or the Incarnation We have no Contest with the Catholick Church concerning either of these we do not indeed approve the Churches Language or Terms because they are unscriptural and liable to Heretical Interpretations but we embrace her whole Meaning and Sense 1. The Church says and we assent to it that there is one only eternal infinite and all powerful Spirit or Mind and this Mind or Spirit is what we call God or the Divinity 2. But whereas in God the Church owns also a threefold distinction which she calls three Persons or more explicitly original unbegotten Wisdom the Logos or begotten reflex Wisdom the Procession or Spiration of Divine Love and these for the Reasons above-mentioned are also named Father Son and Spirit three Relations three Properties Modes and divers the like We cry remove your Jargon and give us only the Words of Scripture The Church answers No you shall submit to these Terms because as much as they seem improper being now out of common Use they were once as proper and apposite because in common Use and you admit the whole that we intend by these antiquated Words and Phrases We submit 3. Then as to the Incarnation or that the Lord Christ is God and Creator is to be invocated and worshipt the Church professes that this is said or required only in respect of God in him How in him is the infinite God commensurate to a finite Manhood No but in respect of God in him that is Illuminating Conducting Actuating and as much as Infinite can inhabit Finite dwelling in Him as intimately immediately and powerfully as the Soul the Body Nay exerting in him the Divine Attributes Omniscience or the Knowledg of the Future and of the Thoughts and Omnipotence or Miraculous Actions If the Angel that only represented God and the Cloud illuminated by that Angel have all that often said of 'em in Holy Scripture that is wont to be said of or to God how much more when 't is for Peace and with Liberty of declaring your Meaning may you call the Lord Christ whatsoever they are called Here again we would willingly demur as Nestorius did but Charity and Peace are two such great Goods that we will not Non-conform for the sake of dangerous Terms honestly explained It is by this Declaration of our Meaning that all our Books past or to come are to be interpreted We never intend to oppose any Body in the Article of the Trinity but the Tritheists or Realists who are Hereticks to the Church as well as to us nor in the Article of the Divinity of our Saviour but the Eutychians who make the Communication of Idioms to be Real and not only Verbal which is an Heterodoxy condemned in divers General Councils When we oppose the Doctrine of the Trinity 't is only the Chimerical Trinity of three Infinite All-perfect Spirits when we deny the Lord Christ is God the Creator may be invocated or worshipt we mean not this of the Divinity in him but of the Humanity The inhabiting Divinity or Christ in respect of God in him is God over all all things were made by him and God is undoubtedly to be worshipt and invocated If his Lordship assents not to these things he contravenes the Doctrine of the Catholick Church and espouses Philoponus Joachim Gentilis and Eutychius but we do not in the least suspect that this Learned Prelate will disown the Catholick Doctrine or be of Party to Hereticks that have been condemned by so many General Councils If any object to us that as much as we now claim to be Catholicks and profess to assent to the Churches Doctrine tho we wish she would discharge her humanly-invented Terms and Phrases yet we have been always disowned and opposed nay persecuted by the Church and by that very Party of Nominals whom we pretend to be the Catholick Church I answer there has been an unhappy Misunderstanding between the genuine Members of the Catholick Party The Vnitaries who dislike nothing but the Liberty that is taken to use any other but Scripture-words and Language in declaring the Faith and the Nominals who also wish that all would return to and content themselves with the Simplicity of Scripture have pelted one another as Enemies but upon such a gross Mistake as the two German Cavaliers are noted for in the beginning of the Reformation who quarrelled and challenged one another upon difference of Religion one of them being a Martinist and the other a Lutheran I doubt not that the Author of the Discourse concerning the Nominals and Realists has convinced all Learned and Ingenuous Men that Dr. S th for instance and Dr. Wallis and other Nominals had no more Reason to fall foul on the Unitarians than the Lutheran on the Martinist and the Misunderstanding between them being discovered to proceed from a Mistake of one anothers true Opinions they ought now to own each other as Brethren If the Nominals are shy of closing with us and owning us for Orthodox we seek not their Patronage and the common Opposers of both the Realists will always tell 'em that the Nominals and Unitarians differ just as the Martinists and the Lutherans On the rest of his Lordship's Book and an Application of what hath been said FOR the rest of his Lordship's Book one great part of the first Section is imployed in finding out Answers to the Arguments of some of the antient Unitarians who pretended to prove that St. John was not the Author of the Gospel or the Revelation which now bear his Name The Remainder of the Section is an Endeavour to wire-draw the first Verses of that Gospel to a purpose in my Judgment very contrary to the true Intention of the Evangelist and to impress some other Texts into the Service of the Realists The present Unitarians whether in England or elsewhere receive the Gospel of St. John as his But as Faith has degrees or is not always such a Plerophory of Assent as to be without all Alloy of doubt so we wish this Gospel had never been questioned and that the Reasons of the Alogians who imputed this Gospel and the Revelation to Cerinthus were incontestably satisfied We cannot take his Lordship's Answers or Arguments as at all satisfactory because his Reasonings are oftentimes very Inaccurate and because as often they are contrary to notorious Matter of Fact For instance who can bear it when he says Cerinthus taught that Christ was a mere and a late-born Man but St. John tells us the WORD always was and came down from Heaven and was made Flesh Therefore Cerinthus could not be Author of the Gospel of St. John without most plainly contradicting himself For it is certain on the contrary that Cerinthus never said that Christ was a mere and late-born Man but an eternal and impassible Spirit In the Person of our Saviour Cerinthus distinguish'd Jesus and Christ he called the Humanity by the Name of Jesus but Christ or the WORD according to
Cerinthus was a certain Divine and Impassible Spirit which descending on Jesus at his Baptism dwelt in him and forsook him not till the very moment of his Death when he cried out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Iren. Lib. 1. c. 25. I do not see how this Account contradicts any thing in St. John whose Gospel the Alogians said was written by Cerinthus But I will not dispute with his Lordship about this matter for as I said the Unitarians do receive that Gospel and the Revelation as St. John's as they receive the Epistle to the Hebrews the Epistle of St. James the Second of St. Peter the Second and Third of St. John all which were sometime doubted of nay rejected by divers Catholick Writers and Churches but have at length been owned by the whole Church Tho the Catholick Church now owns these Epistles and some Chapters and Sections in the Gospels as written by the Apostles whose Names they bear yet not with the degree of Assurance that she receives those Parts of Scripture that were never controverted The Assurance cannot be equal where the Grounds of Assent are unequal but the Grounds of Assent to the Writings of which we are speaking cannot be said to be equal because in Matters whether of Record or Fact what was always allowed and granted by all is more authentick and credible than what has been questioned and even rejected by divers of the Antients Writers and Churches who were Catholicks In short concerning all Books and Sections of Books of the New Testament sometime doubted of by some of the Antients the Unitarians acquiesce in the Judgment of the Catholick Church and for the Reasons given by the Church As first because tho they were questioned and even rejected by some Writers and Churches yet it appears they were approved by many more by so considerable a Majority that in a short time they were admitted by all We see in Epiphanius that even Paulus Samosatenus and Photinus received the Gospel of St. John Secondly because not only they contain nothing that is certainly contrary to the unquestioned Parts of Scripture but they are written with the same kind of Spirit that the undoubted Portions of Scripture are there is a Likeness in the Thoughts Expressions and whatsoever else recommends to us the other Books of Scripture as written by Apostles and Apostolical Men. These are sufficient Motives of Assent and ought to prevail with us tho there are some Difficulties not easy to be removed we submit to the weight of these Arguments tho we confess that what has been alledged by the Alogians and others is not despicable or ridiculous To conclude we receive with the Catholick Church the controverted Books without censuring in the mean time much less condemning those Antients or Moderns who were or are of another Mind What remains of his Lordship's first Section is a Scuffle with the Considerer on behalf of the Arch-Bishop's Explication of the first Verses of St. John's Gospel and of some other Texts alledged by his Grace to confirm his said Explication To all which I answer There is no Form of Words that were not conceived designedly to preclude all Exception but is liable to cavil nay our Lawyers scarce obtain their purpose when in Deeds and Conveyances they imploy the whole Art of Grammar to ascertain the Meaning and Intent of the Conveyance or Deed it is not therefore to be wondred at that Persons highly interested by their Education Honour and Parties can and with some colour interpret obscure or ambiguous Texts to a Sense not intended by the Original Author If People are not disposed to be ingenuous a little Wit some Learning and a long Practice in the Polemics will enable 'em to maintain a Squable till Doomsday about the Sense of any ordinary and familiar Context I do not think therefore that the Contention between the Unitarians and the Realists will ever be healed by that Pretence of either Party that theirs is the only Interpretation or Sense of which the litigated Texts are capable in the Court of Grammar and Criticism But towards a Coalition it will be necessary to agree in some common Principles confessed to be clearly asserted in Scripture by Consonancy to which Principles all otherwise doubtful Texts and Contexts of Scripture and their Interpretations shall be judged of This Rule of interpreting is very certain none can distrust it without supposing either that the Sacred Scripture contradicts it self or that the human Understanding is not capable of judging the Agreement or the Dissonance of Scripture with it self No Body I believe will say the former that the Scripture contradicts it self and if any say the other that we cannot judg of the Dissonance or Agreement of Scripture with it self or of particular Interpretations with Principles that are yielded to be found in Scripture all Disputation is at an end on both sides But if the Rule be allowed that some common agreed Principles are to be establisht by which all obscure that is all controverted Texts must be interpreted the Questions and Interpretations debated between us being thus brought before the Bar of Reason and common Sense will soon be judged of Is there but one only God Or if this be a Principle of too much Latitude and capable of more Senses Is there more than one numerical or self-same eternal and infinite Spirit meaning by one eternal and infinite Spirit one eternal and spiritual Substance with one only Vnderstanding Will and Power of Action If it be agreed as a Principle manifestly laid down in Scripture as well as certain in Reason that there is but one such Spirit either we shall all presently accord in interpreting this famous Context of St. John and other obscure and doubtful Passages of Scripture or our difference in interpreting it or them will no way affect any Article of our Creed so that there will be no real Controversy left The Unitarians are far from denying the Trinity of Divine Persons the Incarnation of God the Divinity or Satisfaction of our Saviour provided that those Doctrines be interpreted to a Consistency with this Principle of Holy Scripture and of the Catholick Church that there is but one infinite Spiritual Substance with one only infinite Understanding Will and Energy Or more briefly thus but one infinite and eternal Spirit Either his Lordship says there is but one such Spirit and therefore interprets the Term Persons and the Words Father Son and Holy Spirit not to be so many distinct Spirits but one Spirit distinguished by three Relative Properties in explaining the Nature of which the Church has always indulged some Variety and Latitude and if so we have no controversy with him nor he with us and he may for us interpret the first of St. John and the other Texts on which he insists as himself shall please Or he saith there are three eternal and infinite Spirits and that the Divine Persons are so many spiritual Substances Minds
Doctrines may be both of 'em true when shall any Proposition but a mere Nullity be yielded to be false seeing as I said Falshood is nothing else but a Contradiction to what is true And if Propositions that imply Contradictions to one another may yet both of them be true they must both be true while they are also both false for while they contradict one another and yet both of them are true each denies the other to be true In short I intreat Mr. L. to answer would he believe a Doctrine said to be revealed in Scripture which Proposition or Doctrine himself judged to be a clear and certain Contradiction Or if he would yet are clear and incontestable Contradictions to be believed that are not clearly and incontestably revealed but are founded on Authorities of very disputable Credit and Verity and most uncertain Sense in the Judgment of some of the ablest Orthodox Criticks and Interpreters And lastly can a Doctrine consisting of contradictory Parts be true is it Truth or is it Falshood that contradicts certain Truth I would not have Mr. L. to hope he may elude the first and last of these Questions by saying that real Contradictions or Doctrines that consist of Propositions really contradictory cannot be true but it may happen that what shall seem to us to our corrupted and narrow Reason a Contradiction is not so As for Instance three eternal Spirits each singly and by himself a perfect God and all of them together but one God seems indeed a Contradiction to our corrupted Reason but is therefore not a real Contradiction because 't is revealed in the Word of God For 1. He says Three infinite Spirits each of them a God are all of them but one God This is no real Contradiction because 't is found in Holy Scripture Suppose now he should also say Three finite Spirits each of them an Angel are all of them but one Angel Is it not a Contradiction in what Book soever Mr. L. may pretend to discover it If this latter is a real Contradiction so of necessity is the former because the two Propositions as to the formal Reason of them are identically the same they differ only in their Application One is falsly affirmed of God the other not more falsly affirmed of an Angel but the thing that makes them to be false every one sees is this that concerning one and the same Subject we affirm different Numbers one and three 2. Mr. L's only Elusion to so much sound Sense as the Unitarians object to him is that human Reason is narrow and corrupt and therefore we must not make it a Judg of what is revealed in Scripture but silently adore and believe the Scriptures notwithstanding all the idle Clatter made by Reason concerning Contradictions and Impossibilities I answer First If the Question were concerning something that is expresly delivered in Holy Scripture it might be plausibly alledged that our narrow and as Mr. L. pretends corrupted Reason should silently submit to the Revelation of God infinitely wise If it were said in express Terms There are three eternal infinite Spirits and tho each of them is a perfect God yet all of them are but one God Mr. L. might colourably object the Narrowness of the human Reason when Men offer'd to reject the express Declaration of God as if it implied some obvious Contradictions But the case is otherwise it is this Some People require us to believe there are three infinite Spirits each of them a God and all of them but one God It seems to us a Belief contradictory to it self and inconsistent with the numerical Vnity of God delivered every where in Scripture To the first part of this Exception that the Belief propounded to us by some that falsly call themselves the Church is contradictory to it self Mr. L. answers No Matter for that for the human Reason is narrow and corrupted and therefore must not be allowed to judg of what God has revealed to us in his Word We challenge this Answer of Mr. L. and others of manifest Impertinence because it supposes that we pretend to charge with Self-contradiction a Revelation or Declaration of God and that we reason against something delivered expresly in Holy Scripture which is the Word of God If Mr. L. could show us the Belief he exacts of us set down in express Words in the Word of God his Answer were just and to the purpose but seeing it is confessed to be only an Inference that some Men draw from Scripture Mr. L. in vain insists on the Narrowness or Corruption of the human Reason by occasion of our denying what is only an Inference from Scripture I do not think he will say that the Reason of the Unitarians is narrower or more corrupt than their Neighbours if not what Trifling is it to urge the Narrowness or Corruption of the human Reason for if Mens Reason being so narrow and corrupt as Mr. L. pretends is not to be trusted in judging of or arguing upon a Divine Revelation may it not be as fallible in drawing Inferences from Scripture as in judging the Consistency or the Self-Contradiction of those Inferences Briefly let Mr. L. show me these Words in Scripture There are three eternal and infinite Spirits And again these Words three infinite Spirits each of which is perfect God yet all of them but one God He will say he cannot show me these very Words but there are in Scripture other Words from whence those Propositions may be rightly inferred and the human Reason is too corrupted and narrow that it may be set up as a Judg of what is delivered in the Word of God whatsoever Contradictions or Self-Contradictions Reason pretends to find in the Doctrines of Scripture it is too fallible because 't is both narrow and corrupted to be heard against the infinite Wisdom of God speaking in his Word We reply let the human Reason be as corrupted and narrow as Mr. L. and others fancy it to be yet still it will be as able and fit to judg of the Consistency or Self-Contradiction of Doctrines or Propositions not expresly contained in Scripture but only inferred by Reason from Scripture as it is to infer or draw those Propositions or Doctrines from Scripture If Reason may not be trusted to judg of Doctrines that are but only Mens Inferences from Scripture it can as little be trusted to frame or draw those Inferences from Scripture its Narrowness and Corruption must be distrusted as much in the one case as in the other If Mr. L. hopes to set aside the Contradictions that Reason finds in this Creed there are three infinite Spirits c. we claim it as our Right to set aside that Creed because 't is only an Inference drawn from Scripture by the human Reason which is altogether corrupted he saith and extremely narrow Does Mr. L. deny that the Contradictions we find in this Inference which some make from Scripture There are three infinite Spirits each
and Spirit without Division or Separation which is Orthodoxy We ought therefore to say Dr. Sherlock has only contradicted himself but is not a Heretick He holds what indeed is Heresy three Substances three Minds and three Spirits but he holds also the Truth one individual Substance one Deity His Lordship touches upon this divers times as well in his Book as in his Preface nay he is so satisfied with it that at p. 107. he cannot he saith now see what is the difference between Dr. S th and his Nominals and Dr. Sherlock and the Realists The short of this Defence is that if one part of a Contradiction is true and orthodox the other false and heretical the Person affirming it shall be denominated not from his Heresy but from the orthodox Part of his Contradiction For my part I very readily agree to this charitable way of bringing off the Dr. but then let the Charity be truly Catholick let us extend it to others as well as to him and else it is not Charity but Partiality A Motley of Heresy and Orthodoxy his Lordship says is to be named a parte potiori from the sound part without reckning at all of the unsound but then I pray let Philoponus Joachim and Gentilis be judged by the same Law For they said as the Doctor does three infinite Substances three eternal Minds and Spirits and they asserted also as he does one Deity one Essence and one Substance by the mutual Inexistence of the Persons the Subordination of the second and third to the first and the concurrence of all of them to the Making and Government of the World while Dr. Sherlock resolves the whole Unity of the Deity and of the Divine Substance into only the mutual Consciousness of the three Personal Gods And this not only in all his former Books but in his last Pamphlet or the Distinction between Nominal and Real Trinitarians examined in Answer to the Disinterested A Book so monstrously erroneous that if it escapes all other hands I think verily his Second against the Jesuit Sabrand would take up Arms against him the Foot-boy would detect and expose his gross Heterodoxies We have heard his Lordship's way of ending all Controversies concerning the Blessed Trinity that is to say among Friends Persons of the same Church and Communion namely if they will but say what all have always said even Arius Philoponus Dr. Sherlock and Socinus that there is but one Deity and one Divine Substance let 'em contradict this as much as they will provided they do not absolutely and in Terms renounce it they shall be Catholicks Dr. Pain in his Letter to my Lord the Bp. of R. has much the same Salvo For after he had said Postscr p. 25. that God or the Trinity is an Original Eternal Mind with an Eternal Logos Wisdom or Substantial Ennoia or Knowledg and an Eternal Divine Spirit proceeding from both He concludes p. 26. that whosoever believes this Trinity whether with or without Explications whether with right or with wrong Explications he is undoubtedly Orthodox And at p. 11. he commends the wise Bishops of the Roman Church who tho they have Plenitude of Ecclesiastical Authority suffer the Jesuits and other Learned Men to vent their different Sentiments in these high Questions without interposing much less censuring either Party so long as they subscribe and consent to the general Doctrine of the Church They allow their Writers to say there are three Gods in a Personal Sense or three Personal Gods and to profess three Eternals and three Omnipotents But then he saith this Favour is extended only to Friends to one another to Sons of the Church for if Men of another Communion make the least Trip in explaining what is above all Explication nay is incomprehensible and unintelligible immediately they shall be charged with Blasphemy and Atheism He not obscurely intimates that the like Christian Charity Love and good Will so he speaks p. 13. should be used among Protestants especially among Clergy-men who are of the same Faith If our Friend S th accords to this so will we for we are of the same Faith with the English Church for the Church of England never believed or taught three Eternal All-perfect Minds and Spirits the denial of which is the only Heresy of which we are guilty we submit to all other Explications of the Trinity tho as we have said we utterly dislike some Words and Ways of expressing them His Lordship has also reprinted his Book concerning the Satisfaction with a new Preface to it What he hath affirmed there concerning that Point more than has been granted and assented to in these and 20 more publick Papers is not the Doctrine either of the Catholick Church or of the Church of England 't is only the unauthorised Opinion and Fancy of particular Writers who are as various about those Matters as they are about most others My Conclusion Sir seeing we have been so roughly as well as unjustly treated by these Antagonists shall be only to your self That I am With much Respect and Affection Yours March 10. 1696. FINIS
THE AGREEMENT OF THE Unitarians WITH THE Catholick Church BEING ALSO A full Answer to the Infamations of Mr. Edwards and the needless Exceptions of my Lords the Bishops of Chichester Worcester and Sarum and of Monsieur De Luzancy PART I. In Answer to Mr. Edwards and my Lord the Bishop of Chichester Printed in the Year MDCXCVII In Answer to Mr. Edwards MR. Edwards after having written some trifling Books some indifferent ones divers good ones and one excellent Book his Demonstration of the Existence and Providence of God found an Inclination in himself that he could not resist of contriving a New Religion or rather Impiety and of imputing it to the Socinians By whom he means it appears the Unitarians Those in England who call themselves Unitarians never were in the Sentiments of Socinus or the Socinians Notwithstanding as our Opposers have pleased themselves in calling us Socinians we have not always declined the Name because in interpreting many Texts of Scripture we cannot but approve and follow the Judgment of those Writers who are confessed by all to be excellent Criticks and very judicious As particularly and chiefly H. Grotius who it must be granted was Socinian all over and D. Erasmus who tho he lived considerably before Socinus commonly interprets that way and therefore is charged by Cardinal Bellarmine as a downright Arian Non poterat says the Cardinal Arianam causam manifestius propugnare Erasmus could not more openly espouse the Arian side than he has done in his Notes on the Fathers and the principal Texts of Scripture Pref. ad Libros 5. de Christo But tho as I said we are not Socinians nor yet Arians seeing Mr. Edwards has contrived a Creed for us under the Name of Socinians I will answer both directly and sincerely concerning the several Articles of the Creed which he pretends to be ours As to the References unto places in particular Authors where Mr. Edwards would have it thought the Articles of that Creed are affirmed I have examined some of his principal References and can say of 'em they are either Perversions or downright Falsifications of what the Authors referred to did intend Dr. Wallis whose dishonest Quotations out of the Socinians have been detested by every Body is hardly more blamable in that kind than Mr. Edwards saving that the Doctor being as one rightly tells him somewhat more than a Socinian did but foul his own Nest by his Forgeries but we cannot certainly say what is the Opinion of Mr. Edwards in the great Article in question among us But come we to the Creed which he says is ours As I promised I will answer to every Article of it sincerely and directly I. I Believe concerning the Scripture that there are Errors Mistakes and Contradictions in some places of it That the Authority of some Books of it is questionable yea that the Whole Bible has been tampered with and may be suspected to be corrupted That there are Errors Mistakes and Contradictions in the Bible was never said by any that pretended to be a Christian if by the Bible you mean the Bible as it came out of the hands of the inspired Authors of it As on the other hand that there are Errors Mistakes or Contradictions in the vulgar Copies of the Bible used by the Church of Rome for instance or the English Church was never questioned by any Learned Man of whatsoever Sect or Way and least of all can Mr. Edwards say it He has published a Book concerning the Excellency and Perfection of Scripture in which Book he finds great Fault with our English Bible he saith of it in the Title of his 13th Chapter It is Faulty and Defective in many places of the Old and New Testaments and I offer all along in this Chapter particular Emendations in order to render it more exact and compleat As to the Hebrew and Greek Copies of the Bible 't is well known some are more perfect and some less they differ very much for in the Old Testament the Hebrew Criticks have noted 800 various Readings in the New there are many more Mr. Gregory of Oxford so much esteemed and even venerated for his admirable Learning says hereupon and says it cum Licentia Superiorum There is no Book in the World that hath suffered so much by the hand of time as the Bible Preface p. 4. He judged and judged truly that tho the first Authors of the Bible were divinely instructed Men yet the Copiers Printers and Publishers in following Ages were all of them Fallible Men and some of them ill-designing Men. He knew that all the Church-Historians and Criticks have confessed or rather have warned us that some Copies of the Bible have been very much Vitiated by the hands as well of the Orthodox as of Hereticks and that 't is matter of great Difficulty at this distance of time from the Apostolick Age to ascertain the true Reading of Holy Scripture in all places of it Yet we do not say hereupon as Mr. Edwards charges us that the Bible much less as he imputes to us the Whole Bible is corrupted For as to the faulty Readings in the common Bibles of some Churches and in some Manuscript Copies the Providence of God has so watched over this Sacred Book that we know what by Information of the antient Church-Historians and the Writings of the Fathers what by the early Translations of the Bible into Greek Syriac and Latin and the concurrent Testimony of the more Antient Manuscript Copies both who they were that introduced the corrupt Readings and what is the true Reading in all Texts of weight and consequence In short as to this matter we agree with the Criticks of other Sects and Denominations that tho ill Men have often attempted they could never effect the Corruption of Holy Scripture the antient Manuscripts the first Translations the Fathers and Historians of the Church are sufficient Directors concerning the authentick and genuine Reading of doubtful Places of Holy Scripture Farther whereas Mr. Edwards would intimate that we reject divers Books of Scripture On the contrary we receive into our Canon all those Books of Scripture that are received or owned by the Church of England and we reject the Books rejected by the Church of England We know well that some Books and Parts of Books reckoned to be wrote by the Apostles or Apostolical Men were questioned nay were refused by some of the Antients but we concur with the Opinion of the present Catholick Church concerning them for the Reasons given by the Catholick Church and which I shall mention by and by in the Reply to my Lord of Chichester If Mr. Edwards would have truly represented the Opinion of the Socinians concerning the Scriptures he knew where to find it and so expressed as would have satisfied every body He knows that in their brief Notes on the Creed of Athanasius they have declared what is their Sense in very unexceptionable Words viz. The Holy Scriptures are a
Divine an Infallible and Compleat Rule both of Faith and Manners Br. Notes p. 1. The Church neither requires nor desires that they should say more II. I believe concerning God that he is not a Spirit properly speaking but a sort of Body such as Air or Aether is That he is not Immense Infinite or every where present but confined to certain Places That he hath no Knowledg of such future Events as depend on the Free Will of Man and that it is impossible such things should be foreseen by him That there is a Succession in God's eternal Duration as well as in Time which is the measure of that Duration which belongs to finite Beings That Almighty God is Incorporeal Omni-present and Omni-scient has not only been confessed but proved by the Unitarians of this Nation in divers of their late Prints As to the other that all Duration that of God as well as of Creatures consists in a Succession is affirmed by some learned Men of all Perswasions and Ways as well as by the Unitarians It should seem Mr. Edwards holds that God possesses eternal Life all at once that Eternity is to God one standing permanent Moment St. John is of another Mind for he describes the Duration of God by a Succession by was is and is to come Grace be to you and Peace says he from him who is was and is to come Rev. 1.4 'T is undeniable by any but affected Wranglers that here the Duration of God his Continuance in Being is distinguished by the threefold Succession was is and shall be which is common to all other Beings Eternal Life possessed all at once is one of the monstrous Paradoxes which our Opposers maintain for all that I see merely from a Spirit of Contradiction for it has no manner of ground either in Reason or Holy Scripture I desire to know of 'em how the Duration of God is the less perfect because 't is said to consist in a Succession or what is the same to be distinguished by was is and shall be seeing 't is confessed on all hands that he carrieth all Perfections into every Succession of his Duration But is it not a Scandal that some Unitarians of foreign Parts have denied the Spirituality or Incorporeity of God his Omnipresence and Omniscience saying and contending for it that he is a Body with such Configuration of Parts as Men have consequently that he is in Heaven inspecting indeed and governing all things but by the Ministry of the several Orders of Angels and that he doth not foresee contingent Events but only such Events as are necessarily not arbitrarily produced by their Causes Doubtless but no more a Scandal to the Unitarians than to their Opposers for they are Errors which some of the Fathers even the most Antient Learned and Pious of them have defended as Truths Nay it should seem they were sometime the prevailing Opinions in some Places namely when the Anthropomorphite Doctrine was so zealously espoused that the Hermits and Caenobites could not indure their Bishops if they but suspected 'em of Origen's Doctrine that God is a Spirit without Parts or Passions And in denying the Spirituality and Omni-presence of God they must needs be understood not to believe his certain and absolute Prescience of contingent Events About the Year 400 when almost every body concerned themselves in condemning and departing as far as possible from the Opinions of Origen the Anthropomorphite Doctrine and its Consequences were the Standard-Orthodoxy of many Places and were Heresy no where Even St. John Chrysostom at Constantinople hardly defended the Fratres longi from the Prosecutions of Theophilus Archbishop and Patriarch of Alexandria who was a profest Anthropomorphite and had expelled the Fratres longi for adhering to Origen's Doctrine of the Spirituality and Omni-presence of God But as I said we not only dislike but utterly reject the dangerous Doctrine that God hath a Body is like to Man together with its Consequences that he is neither Omni-present nor Omni-scient It may as well be said he is not at all nay this latter tho the Anthropomorphites see it not seems to be implied and included in the former But we condemn not the Schechinah or glorious Appearance of God in Heaven which learned Men hold neither the spiritual Body of Christ III. I believe farther concerning God that there is no Distinction of Persons or Subsistencies in God And that the Son and Holy Ghost are not God the former of them being only a Man the latter no other than the Power or Operation of God That there was nothing of Merit in what Christ did or suffered that therefore he could not make Satisfaction for the Sins of the World But Mr. Edwards too much mistakes The Question is not at all concerning three Persons or three Subsistencies in God but whether there are three Infinite Substances three eternal Minds and Spirits We deny the latter with the whole Catholick Church against the Realists We never questioned the former Persons or Subsistencies but only as Persons and Subsistencies are taken for Spirits Minds and Beings Whoever denies this to be the true Faith is himself a Heretick and out of the Catholick Church But of this more hereafter in my Reply to the Bishop of Chichester and to the Bishop of Worcester But we say Christ is only a Man and the Holy Spirit only the Power of God No we say the Lord Christ is God and Man He is Man in respect of his reasonable Soul and human Body God in respect of God in him Or more scholastically in respect of the Hypostatical or Personal Union of the Humanity of Christ with the Divinity By which the Catholick Church means and we mean the Divinity was not only occasionally assisting unto but was and is always in Christ illuminating conducting and actuating him More than this is the Heresy of Eutyches and less we never held tho we confess that careless or less accurate Expressions may have been used by both Parties of which neither ought to take Advantage against the other when it appears there is no Heterodox Intention That by the Spirit of God is sometimes meant in Holy Scripture the Power of God cannot be denied but concerning the three Divine Persons we believe as the Catholick Church believes that they are relative Subsistencies internal Relations of the Deity to it self Or as the Schools explain this Original unbegotten Wisdom or Mind reflex or begotten Wisdom and the eternal Spiration of Divine Love But we do not think these Terms fit to express that Sense But do you not say There was no Merit in what Christ did or suffered and that he could not make Satisfaction for our Sins He may for our Parts be Anathema that teaches or believes that Doctrine We believe that the Lord Christ by what he did and what he suffered was by the gracious Acceptance of God a true and perfect Propitiation for Sinners that repent and turn to the good ways IV. In the next
this Discovery is owing to the Sagacity and Dexterity of the English Vnitarians who having first distinguished those that pretend to be the Church into Nominal Trinitarians and Real Trinitarians or if you will into Trinitarians and Tritheists they next prove their Agreement with the former of these the Nominals and then that the Nominal Party is what ought to be called the Church That the Nominal Party is the Church is incontestably proved because their Doctrine or Explication of the Trinity has been directly and in Terms espoused by General Councils and the contrary the Explication or Doctrine of the Realists as expresly and directly censured and condemned by the same Authority The Realists believe that the Trinity is three distinct infinite Substances Minds and Spirits all of them co-eternal of like Dignity Power Wisdom and all other Divine Attributes And as to three such Persons being one God they say Because they immeate or are inseparably in one another therefore they are called one God tho each of them distinctly considered is perfect God Yet this Perichoresis Immeation or Inexistence is not such an In-being of these three Spirits or Substances in one another but that they really remain as distinct Substances Minds Spirits and Beings as three Angels or three Men are But the Nominals abhor this as perfect Tritheism they see plainly and proclaim it aloud to every body that three infinite Spirits tho as Spirits they may and as infinite Spirits they must be supposed to immeate or inexist in one another yet they are no more made to be one God by such alternate Penetration than if they were at never so great a Remotion from one another The Reason is because notwithstanding their mutual Inexistence neither their Understandings or Wills or other Powers nor their Substances become continuous or identified but remain truly distinct several and divers They are supposed indeed to be in one another but as distinctly and without Confusion either of their Substances or Powers as three Angels while they occupy the same Space and exclude not one another are Or to use another perhaps a better Comparison as these three Divine Spirits themselves are in all things in the whole Creation and the whole Creation in them Such an Inexistence as this every one sees is so far from making three eternal infinite Spirits to be one God that we can possibly have no other Notion of three Gods For what is the Conception that any Man has or can have of three Gods but this viz. so many infinite Spirits which so pervade or inexist in one another that notwithstanding their Substances Faculties and Attributes remain distinct and divers This is such a Reason and so obvious that the Nominals utterly reject and with the greatest Abhorrence the Doctrine of three infinite Spirits and explain the Trinity or three Divine Persons in a metaphysical way They say we are not to conceive of the three Divine Persons as we do of created Persons the Conception we ought to have of their Personalities or what they are as they are Persons is as different from the Personalities of created Beings whether they be Angels or Men as the Perfections of the Divinity are superiour to Human or Angelical Perfections God is but one Being but one Substance Mind or Spirit with one only Will Understanding Energy or Power of Action nor are the Divine Attributes multiplied or repeated in the Deity for there is in God no more than one Omnipotence Omniscience or other Divine Perfection It is only God that physically and properly exists as a vital Being or a compleat Spirit and Mind the Persons are only the Substance of God his infinite spiritual and most perfect Substance or Nature with the three Properties to be of none to be begotten and to proceed Some are yet more particular in declaring or explaining what the Personalities and Persons are These consider in God first original Mind or original Wisdom this is the Person of the Father Then reflex Wisdom even the Logos or Wisdom that resulteth from God's contemplating or knowing his own Perfections or what is the same the perfect Image that is generated or begotten by God's knowing and understanding himself which is called the Son Lastly the immanent Act of LOVE by which God willeth or loveth himself his eternal Spiration or as it were Breathing of Love toward himself this is named the Holy Spirit In short the Trinity believed by the Realists is three distinct infinite and pre-eternal Spirits each of which is a perfect God and all of them but one God by their mutual Inexistence or that they are in one another but without Confusion or identifying their Substances or their Powers The Trinity believed by the Nominals is one living eternal infinite Spirit consider'd under this threefold Distinction Unbegotten Begotten and Proceeding or Original Mind which is unbegotten reflex Wisdom which is generated and Divine Love which proceeds Original Mind being unbegotten is therefore named the Father reflex Wisdom being manifestly generated by original eternal Mind is called the Son the last being a Spiration of God has therefore the Appellation of Holy Spirit And tho the Nominals use sometimes other Terms in speaking of the Trinity such as Modes Relations relative Subsistences yet no more or other is meant by them than has been already said This Trinity of the Nominals is most directly as I said and explicitly affirmed by divers General Councils in whom only it is to declare the Faith and to pronounce what is to be deemed Heresy And this also is the Explication that has been followed without any Variation by all particular Writers whether Reformed or Roman Catholicks or of the Greek or Oriental Church since the Year 1215. But if this be the Catholick Faith as it certainly is the Unitarians are as sound Catholicks as any other Denomination of Christians whatsoever They believe the Trinity before-said even one infinite spiritual Substance with its three Properties Unbegotten Begotten and Proceeding One eternal Spirit under the triple Distinction of Original Mind Reflex Wisdom and Divine Love They approve of it that the first of these being unbegotten the second generated and the third a Spiration they be therefore called Father Son and Spirit Indeed the Terms Trinity and Person are unscriptural but we accept them according to the Explication by the Church that is as the Catholick Church has in the manner abovesaid explained her self concerning the three Persons of the Trinity We have therefore no Difference with the Church but only with the Realists who are a few English Writers that have departed from the Doctrine of the Catholick Church It was a strange Imputation on his Grace the late Archbishop that he was an Unitarian his Grace was a Realist He understood by Persons in the Deity not Persons in a metaphysical Sense as the Nominals do and as was before explained but Persons in a physical Sense of the Word or such Persons namely as vitally subsisting and as
really distinct as three Angels or three Men are According to the Modes of Speaking now in use only compleat Beings not Properties or Faculties or immanent Acts are called Persons and his Grace expresly declares that he means by Persons such Persons as we usually intend when in common Discourse we speak of so many Persons or such and such Persons But let us for avoiding Cavils take his Sense in his own Words he saith p. 120. Here I fix that there are three Differences in the Deity of which the Scriptures speak by the Names of Father Son and Holy Ghost and farther speak also every where of them as we use to do of three distinct Persons Therefore I see no Reason to abstain from the word Persons tho I remember St. Jerom desires somewhere to be excused from it It is certain that in common Discourse or as his Grace speaks usually we mean by three or more Persons so many compleat Beings and if those Beings are spiritual we always mean so many Spirits As for Properties immanent Acts mere relative Subsistences Modes tho formerly and properly they were yet now they are not called Persons but are consider'd and spoke of as only the Affections of Persons It cannot therefore be denied to his Grace that he was a Realist the three Divine Persons or the Trinity according to him are three such kind of Persons as are usually meant in common Discourse namely so many compleat Beings and because these Beings are infinite and spiritual therefore three several infinite Spirits My Lord of Chichester having undertaken to write a Defence of his Grace's Sermons 't were not unreasonable to suppose that he espouses also the Archbishop's Notion of the Trinity But however that be we must put it to him either to profess the Archbishop's Explication which would commit him with the Oxford-Heads of Colleges who have decreed it to be Heresy or to say that by Persons in the Deity he understands only three Properties or relative Subsistences considered with the Substance in which they are and particularly unbegotten Mind reflex Wisdom and Divine Love and then we desire much to know why he hath written against the Unitarians who believe that Trinity as much as other Catholicks do I know not whether it be necessary to take notice of my Lord of Sarum's unlucky Trimming between the two Parties of the Nominals and Realists He represents it as a very inconsiderable Difference that some Trinitarians in their Explications of these Mysteries so much adhere to the Vnity of the Deity that their Trinity seems unconceivable while others assert such a Trinity as seems inconsistent with the Vnity By the former of these he means the Nominals by the other the Realists He declares that as different as their Explications are their Religion is the same Just says he as some Protestants believe the Consubstantiation others a real Presence and others only a figurative one or as some believe that the Decrees of God are grounded on his Prescience of future Events while others think that the Decrees of God are the fixed Causes of all Events and yet this Dissent notwithstanding the Litigants on both sides truly have the same Religion Bishop of Sarum 's Letter to Dr. Williams p. 85 86. I observe that some Men overflow with Charity and have a Catholick and boundless Latitude in their Principles but then they dispense both the one and the other wholly by Motives of Policy Sometimes namely when both Parties are powerful they will comprehend the Pharisees with the Sadduces otherwhile the Breadth of a Philactery shall be an intolerable Dissent but the one and the other as the Maxims of secular Policy and the Air of Popularity shall invite His Lordship could afford to write a Pastoral Letter to his Clergy against the Unitarians as Hereticks whose Principles are destructive of the common Christianity but the Nominal Trinitarians who hold neither more nor less than the Unitarians differ so little he saith from the other Trinitarians that they not only have the same Religion but they ought not to be at all offended at one another p. 86. But the Parties concerned are of a very contrary Judgment to his Lordship The Oxford-Heads declare that the Doctrine of three infinite Spirits Minds or Substances is Impiety and Heresy Dr. Sherlock and his Fellow-Realist answer that What the Oxford-Heads have condemned as Heretical and Impious is the very Catholick Faith and that this Decree or Declaration censures the Nicene Faith and the Faith of the Church of England as Heresy and exposes both to the Scorn and Triumph of the Socinians Examination of the Oxford Decree pag. 46. And who indeed but he that wilfully shuts his Eyes can avoid seeing it that to affirm but one infinite Mind and Spirit and to say there are three such Minds and Spirits is a Difference as weighty as 't is unreconcileable They who say the former and they who contend for the latter can no more be said to be of the same Religion than Paganism and Polytheism can be pretended to be the same with Judaism or Christianity But what I chiefly insist on is this that his Lordship being so indifferent whether we hold one or three eternal and infinite Spirits yet he publishes his Invectives against the Unitarians as undermining he saith and ruining the main Articles of Christianity while the whole that can be objected to 'em is that they believe with all the Nominal Party but one infinite and eternal Spirit The Archbishop was of Opinion that the Trinity is three such Persons as we usually intend when in common Discourse we speak of Persons Namely compleat intelligent Beings distinct from every other Being not Properties Relations or other Affections of Beings My Lord of Sarum on the contrary says expresly by a Person in the Trinity is not meant such a Being as we commonly understand by that Word namely a compleat intelligent Being but only that every one of the blessed Three has a peculiar Distinction by which he is different from the other two The Bishop contradicting in Terms the Doctrine of the Archbishop the latter believing three such Persons of the Deity as we usually mean by Persons in common Discourse the other denying expresly that there are any such Persons in the Godhead as we commonly understand by the word Persons and particularly not three distinct compleat Beings it was very expedient a necessary piece of Prudence that the Bishop in the Letters he directs to his Clergy should endeavour to possess 'em that his Difference with his Metropolitan is a mere Trifle and that it matters not whether we hold three distinct compleat infinite Beings and Spirits or one such Being only I am perswaded however that there are great Numbers in the Salisbury-Diocess that cannot be so imposed on they will see that their Diocesan in pursuit of the Principles laid down in his Letters to them should have cautioned them against the Archbishop's Sermons not against the Unitarians
whose Doctrine perfectly agrees with his own Saving that with the Oxford-Heads we believe it to be Heresy to profess the Faith of more than one infinite Being which is a compleat Being distinct from all other Beings but his Lordship holds it to be indifferent whether we affirm or deny three infinite Beings and Spirits His Lordship proposed to write with that Caution and Guard that no Body should be able to attack him and by Trimming between the Nominals and Realists to set up for a Healer of the Breaches a Mediator of Peace But the Event wholly fails him He utterly disobliges the Realists by denying in Terms what the Archbishop with all other Realists had affirmed in Terms and the whole Realist Party look upon as a Fundamental Article The Nominals are as much displeased with him because he sets no Value on the Catholick Faith but represents it as a very indifferent Truth that may be as orthodoxly denied as affirmed The Unitarians complain of him as having pretended to Principles of Latitude and a true Catholick Charity but using neither but perhaps as the turns of Popularity and Rules of secular Policy ingage him But this was a Digression Let us take up our Point again that the Unitarians hold the Faith of the Catholick Church or Nominal Party that is they believe but one eternal and infinite Spirit and as to three Divine Persons they admit the Church's Doctrine viz. that they are relative Subsistences Properties of the Divine Substance concerning them They agree that there are three Distinctions in God which may be fitly called Original Mind Reflex Wisdom and Divine Love the first unbegotten and Generating and therefore named the Father the other Generated and therefore in the Language of Men called the Son the third a Spiration and therefore stiled the Holy Spirit Whether you call these Properties Modes Relations Persons relative Subsistences or ought the like we will not contend with the Church for it being agreed that they are not distinct Beings divers Spirits and Minds several Substances but one infinite Substance Mind Spirit and Being with one only Understanding Will and Energy it is plain that the Unity of God is preserved and that the Terms used are only obsolete and odd but imply no Falshood nor any real Innovation in Religion And I say hereupon that unless my Lord of Chichester will profess three Divine Beings Spirits Substances and Minds contrary to the Decisions of divers General Councils the Consent of Writers since the Determination in the Council of Lateran Anno 1215. and the late Decree of the University of Oxford I say if he will not contravene all these neither ought he to have defended the Archbishop's Sermons nor could he oppose the Considerations that were not for all that I see written against the Doctrine of the Church but the Error of the Realists As we accord with the Catholick Church in the Article of the Trinity so also in that of the Incarnation or the Divinity of our Saviour For when the Church says the Lord Christ is God when she worships him invocates him imputes to him the Creation of all things and for all this alledges Authorities and Examples out of Holy Scripture nothing of all this is intended of his Humanity or to his Humanity but to the indwelling Divinity In short she means that as the Cloud of Glory in the Times of the Old Testament was called God and was worshipped because God dwelt in it after an especial manner so and much more may we call the Lord Christ God and Creator and the rest because of the Godhead dwelling in him after an ineffable unexplicable manner and without measure but whatsoever of Divine is said of him is said merely in respect of the inhabiting Divinity and not of the Humanity The Communication of Idioms as Divines speak is merely verbal not real Christ is God and the Creator is worshipped and invocated because of the Deity in him for tho these things are said of the Man Christ Jesus they are said only in respect of the Divinity and are intended only of that If any say no Indwelling or as the Church speaks Incarnation in what soever manner or measure can give to such Person the Name of God much less of Creator So indeed Nestorius thought and therefore refused to call our Saviour God or to ascribe to him either the Works or Attributes of God and many learned Men have contended that Nestorius was as rashly condemned as he was afterwards barbarously used Yet upon serious weighing the matter it appears not necessary to litigate about Terms and Words on which the Authority that imposes them puts an honest Sense and Meaning The Church would never have obliged Nestorius to call the Man Christ Jesus God and Creator but declaring at the same time that tho it is the Man that is called God he is so called only in respect of the Indwelling of God in him which Indwelling is after a manner so extraordinary so abundant or rather so ineffable that Christians may with greater Right call him God than the Cloud of Glory is so named because of the Angel in it who represented God or than any other Appearance of God whatsoever or in what manner soever mentioned in the Old Testament The Brightness of the Cloud of Glory was only from the Power of the inhabiting Angel yet because the Angel represented God the bright Appearance between the Cherubims was named Jehovah and God How much more may the Lord Christ be so called in whom the Divinity it self did dwell not as a Man in his House but as the Soul in the Body that is to say constantly illuminating conducting and actuating him nay and exerting in him the most glorious Effects of Omniscience and Omnipotence the principal Attributes of the Divinity 2 Kings 19.15 Hezekiah prayed and said O Lord God of Israel which dwellest between the Cherubims thou art God even thou alone 1 Chron. 13.6 David went up and all Israel to Baalah to fetch thence the Ark of GOD JEHOVAH that dwelleth between the Cherubims whose Name is called on it It cannot I think be denied that here the bright Appearance between the Cherubims because God was in it tho only by his Angel not by the Exertion of any miraculous Acts by no Acts of Omniscience or other Divine Attribute is named Jehovah God and only God or alone God The Church never required of Nestorius to say the Lord Christ is Creator or God without this Explication in respect of God in him which seeing Nestorius owned and having the Precedent of the Jewish Church and Writers of the Old Testament who called the Appearance between the Cherubims by all the Names and Titles of God he needed not to have contended but should have consulted the Churches Peace for no words are to be refused when the Authority that imposes 'em interprets 'em to a sound Sense This is what the Unitarians believe concerning the Trinity and concerning the Divinity
and Beings and if so we shall to our Power defend the Doctrine of Holy Scripture and of so many General Councils as have decreed the Doctrine of three Divine Substances and three infinite Spirits to be Heresy Let him therefore be pleased to speak out and to declare himself categorically and explicitly when we certainly know what his Opinion is we promise to take into Consideration not only what he has written but what he shall write on the controverted Texts till then 't is to no purpose to discuss what he has so generally and loosly discours'd that we know not whether he is for us or against us He cites and inlarges on a great many Texts to prove the Deity of our Saviour his Pre-existence and his Incarnation if he means only that our Lord Christ is God and did pre-exist in respect of his Godhead that is in respect of God in him as the Scriptures speak and that God did inhabit after an extraordinary peculiar and unexampled manner in the human Nature of the Lord Christ which the Church calls the Incarnation of God the Unitarians neither now nor in any time past did question any thing of this they never intended to oppose the Churches Doctrine but only the Heresy of the Realists viz. that an imagined Second Infinite and Eternal Spirit for the Tritheists hold three such Spirits was incarnate in the Lord Christ and that God is a Trinity of Spirits not of Persons in the philological and physical Sense of the term Persons I meddle not therefore with the rest of his Lordship's Book no not with the Discourse concerning the little Mysteries as he fancies them to be of the Tritheistick Scheme and the great ones as he represents them of our System of Religion For the Author of the Considerations has so solidly establisht what he said on those Subjects in the Considerations themselves that there is no manner of Fear that his Lordship's Bellows should blow out the Sun There follows a Letter of the Bp. of Sardis to Dr. Williams which we are next to consider and it will give occasion more fully to discuss all these great Points PART II. In Answer to my Lord the Bishop of Sarum Monsieur De Luzancy and my Lord the Bishop of Worcester On the Letter of the Bishop of Sarum HIS Lordship through this whole Letter writes like one extremely netled very angry and acted by a Spirit of Revenge At length the Cause of the great Offence he has taken appears at p. 98 99. it is this After having weighed what his Lordship says in several Places of his Pastoral Letter concerning the Divinity the Incarnation and Satisfaction of our Saviour the Considerer concludes with this that he submits to his Lordship's whole Doctrine which differs in nothing from what the Unitarians ever professed in all their Writings His Lordship assures the Considerer that he takes this as the heaviest of all Imputations And taking occasion at so great a Slander as he pretends this is he hath thought no Hardness of Expression and no Imputation either so scandalous or so dangerous as to forbear it toward the Considerer Whether Cause was given by the Letter to say that the Doctrine of it is perfectly Unitarian I will now examine by an Induction of what is there said on the Points in Controversy between us and the Realists The Doctrine of the Pastoral Letter concerning the Trinity WHen we speak of a Trinity every body knows the Question is not concerning the term Trinity or three divine Persons but concerning what we should mean by the word Persons or Trinity If you make the Trinity or three divine Persons to be only three Attributes of God Wisdom Goodness and Power as some do Or if you say they are only three external Relations of God to his Creatures viz. that he is their Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier as others have taught and were applauded also for it Or if the three Persons are called three relative Subsistences relative Modes or Relations which are not so many distinct Beings Spirits or individual Substances but only Properties or Affections of a Spirit Being or Substance as generally they are named and described Or if yet more particularly they are original Mind reflex Wisdom and the eternal Spiration of Divine Love as some of the Fathers and the Divines of the Schools have affirmed Or if Men will in effect say nothing at all but only name them three somewhats or the three or the Holy three which are Words without any certain Sense Hitherto 't is plain there is no Controversy with the Unitarians for none of these Explications of a Trinity are any way contrary to the Unity of God as believed by them they themselves admit all or any of these Explications The Controversy of the Unitarians with some that are called Trinitarians but should be called Tritheists is this Whether in saying three Divine Persons we should intend by the word Persons so many distinct Beings three spiritual Substances in Number tho called one Substance in respect of Sameness of Properties three Minds with so many distinct Understandings Wills and Powers of Action Or to say all this in Words understood by all three eternal and infinite Spirits He that affirms or denies any of these doth therein and thereby affirm or deny all the rest For instance he that affirms three distinct Spiritual Beings affirms three Minds and three spiritual Substances distinct and divers in Number and he that denies the Divine Persons are distinct Beings denies also they are so many Minds Substances or Spirits This is not contested therefore let us see what kind of Trinity the Letter teaches whether it doth not expresly declare against that Trinity which is denied and opposed by the Unitarians and is the only Trinity that it ever was in their Thoughts to oppose or deny At p. 96. he says By Person in these Questions is not meant such a Being as is commonly understood by that word namely a compleat intelligent Being distinct from every other Being He needs say no more for if the Trinity of Divine Persons are not such Persons as are commonly meant and designed when we use the word Persons and if as he farther adds they are neither distinct nor compleat nor intelligent Beings what Contentions soever he may affect to raise with the Unitarians they will never have any with him concerning the Trinity They oppose no other Trinity of Persons but such as are character'd to be distinct and compleat and intelligent Beings in a word such Persons as are commonly intended by the word Persons which Trinity we see his Lordship expresly disavows And 't is certain that so also does the Catholick Church especially since the Lateran Council Anno 1215. In very deed to be a true Unitarian he needed only to say that the Divine Persons are not three intelligent Beings they are but one intelligent Being for this being granted the Unitarians have gained all they contend for because by but
of them a perfect God all of them but one God are real Contradictions to the human Reason as we now have it No but he says our Reason because 't is so narrow and corrupt is not to be heard against God Right but we expect it may be heard against Men that is concerning the Possibility or Consistency of mere Inferences made by Men from God's Word In a word we contend that the human Reason is as qualified to judg of Inferences as to frame them We insist upon this as a full Answer to this usual Subterfuge and great nay only Defence of all our Opposers We call every body to witness that 't is not only frivolous but wholly impertinent When they have declamed never so long upon the Corruption and Narrowness of the human Reason if it may not be a Judg of Inferences from Scripture neither should it presume to make contrive or draw any such Inferences Our Opposers dare not say this latter therefore neither can they with Consistency to themselves say the former But because this is a famous Topick I will say something farther upon it Secondly When they infer Doctrines from Scripture which by their own Confession imply manifest Contradictions that is seem to our Reason as it now is to imply manifest Self-Contradictions and these Inferences when once made become so sacred with 'em that they must not be judged of no not by that human Reason that made ' em I say when this is the case do they not say hereby that very Reason is infallible which in the same Breath they decry as corrupt narrow and uncapable of making a right Judgment The Doctrines inferred by Reason from the Word of God are certain and sacred they say but when the malepert Unitarian offers to examine the Consistency or Possibility of those Doctrines which Reason inferred from Scripture all on the sudden they surprize us with a contrary Pretence that Reason is narrow and corrupt and therefore has no Right of Suffrage in things of this nature they are above Reason not to be judged by it Methinks there cannot easily be a more apparent Contradiction than this very Defence of our Opposers implies they give and take back in the same Cause and Thing They exclude Reason from a bare Suffrage and yet make it a Judg they allow it to stamp an infallible and sacred Character on the Inferences it makes but will not permit it should re-examine those very Inferences or should review its own Acts to see whether they are consistent yea or no. Reason according to them is all Eye and at the same time 't is Cimmerian or Egyptian Darkness When 't is wire-drawing Doctrines from Scripture its Deductions are as sacred and certain as their Divine Original but it loses all its happy Dexterity and Ability so soon as it presumes to re-examine those Deductions whether they are consistent with themselves or are truly made But this once more How strangely has the Divine Wisdom dealt with Men in the Hypothesis of these Gentlemen He requires us in his Word they say to believe there are three eternal and infinite Spirits and that tho each of them is a perfect God yet all of them are but one God but he has set up in us another Light even Reason that shows us the quite contrary namely That there can be but one infinite all-perfect Spirit and that if there were three such Spirits there would be three Gods and not one only that is he requires us by the written outward Word to believe and by the inward Word to disbelieve he imploys the Authority of his Revelation to tell us one thing and makes Faith impossible by clearly showing us the contrary by Reason It is a most certain Truth in Heaven they say what on Earth seems an over-grown Absurdity the most dangerous as well as the flattest and most obvious Contradiction I grant Divine Revelation is infallible and the human Reason sometimes fallible by Accident as when it makes too much haste in judging and when it soars to Objects that are above it But it has always been held that the Veracity of God is concerned in it that our Faculties should be true and be able to judg truly of what they distinctly and clearly perceive And if this be denied the Doctrine of our Opposers is upon no better bottom not only than ours but than the most Chimerical Figments that Fancy or Invention can advance They can have no degree of Certainty in the clearest Inferences that Reason at any time makes either from the Nature or Revelation of God and consequently also not of their Trinity of the three eternal and infinite Spirits there will always lie this Exception that the Deductions made are indeed clear and distinct but they are concerning Objects above the human Reason Besides it ought to be consider'd that how much soever an Object may be above us yet the things affirmed or denied concerning it may lie within the Sphere of Reason and be as subject to its Cognizance as any other Matters are God is infinitely above me I am infinitely far from knowing all that God is but if I am taught either in express Terms or in Words that imply it that there are three Gods and not one only I can as easily judg of those Words and Expressions and as certainly as if they were said of a finite Being I can as certainly know that to say three eternal and all-sufficient Spirits or to say three Spirits each of which is a perfect God amounts to this or implies this there are three Gods and not one only as I can know three Angelical Spirits or three human Beings implies or amounts to this three Angels and three Men. The mere Sublimity of an Object doth not annul or so much as weaken the Certainty of those Affirmations or Negations concerning it that are common to such Object with other Objects that are the proper and immediate Subjects of Reason If the Definition of God even this an eternal and all-perfect Spirit is multiplied by our saying three eternal all-perfect Spirits We thereby as truly and also as plainly and certainly multiply Gods as when we multiply the Definition of the Sun or Earth or other created and finite Beings we thereby multiply Suns and Earths In a word Propositions that are eternal Verities are also infinite Verities and are as much a Rule by which to judg unerringly concerning an infinite Object as concerning a finite As for the rest of Monsieur De Luzancy's Book or four Letters I know not whether we are concerned in it till I know more certainly in what Sense he holds a Trinity of Divine Persons and the Divinity and Satisfaction of our Saviour He pretends to examine the late Prints of the Unitarians Those Prints are of two sorts or have two Parts one part of 'em contains the Arguments from Holy Scripture or from Reason which evince the Vnity of God by which we mean that there is but
one all-perfect Spirit another part considers the Texts of Scripture that are objected by some against the Belief of the Unity of God or for a Trinity of all-perfect Spirits that is a Trinity of Gods To the Prints or Parts of Prints of the first sort Mr. L. has said nothing at all What he has said upon the other part of our Books tho we do not approve of it yet we might admit or tolerate his Interpretations if we certainly knew as I said but now what kind of Trinity he holds and in what Sense he believes the Divinity and Satisfaction of our Saviour If he directly says the Meaning of his Interpretations is that there are three eternal Minds three infinite Substances three all-perfect Spirits his Doctrine is condemned in terms as heretical and impious by the late Decree of the Heads of Colleges at Oxford in which University if I mistake not he was once a Student And if by the Divinity of our Saviour he intends that the second of three infinite Spirits became incarnate in the Humanity of Christ or that the Divinity was so incarnate that there followed a real and not only a nominal Communication of Idioms it is doubly heretical For the Catholick Church owns but one infinite Spirit And for a real Communication of Idioms whereby God actually physically or properly became a particular Man or a particular Man really became God Almighty 't is the Eutychian Heresy condemned in so many General Councils He is also an Eutychian if he pretends that when he finds or thinks he finds that our Saviour in Scripture is called God has an Omniscience or Omnipotence or an Omnipresence attributed to him or is said to have created or made all things I say he would be an Eutychian if he pretended to ascribe these things to the Person of our Saviour in any other Sense but this to God in him i. e. to God who did inhabit after an ineffable manner in the Humanity of Christ As to the Satisfaction if he will have it that Jesus Christ made an adequate Satisfaction and therefore in Equity not refusable to the Divine Justice for the Sins of Men he were best to consider the Computations of the Bishop of Salisbury to the contrary For us we believe with the Catholick Church that the Lord Christ did truly satisfy Almighty God for the Sins of Men not by paying our Debt to the Divine Justice but by his unblemish'd and perfect Life his willing and exemplary Death the which the Mercy of God accepted on our Behalf tho it was a refusable Payment This Sir is what I thought needful to be sent to you by way of Remarks on Mr. L. his four Letters which he was pleased to publish against the Unitarian Prints He has written after a civil and obliging manner I own that he may claim it as his due that we be ready upon all occasions to make to him like Returns Whether it were his Prudence or his Candor or both he was not I see willing to lose the Esteem of his Erudition and Wit by a snarling sordid and clownish way of Writing against us It may be he consider'd that Generosity and Gallantry in this kind is not only no Blemish or Hindrance to a Writer but serves to recommend his Performance to his very Opposers as well as to his Party and Friends Whereas he blames some of our Prints as deficient in point of Respect to some of our Antagonists he should first have read the Books to which those Prints make answer he would have seen there was a Provocation given that we could not with any Prudence but take some notice of it For it cannot escape a Man so discerning as Mr. L. is that there is a Patience which is the Vertue of a Christian and there is also a Patience which is the Vertue of an Ass On the Vindication by the Bp. of Worcester AND I have read Sir as you also desired the new Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity by the Bp. of Worcester I think what a Man can say of it who would speak in short is He has heartily chode with the Socinians for the Terms and has entirely yielded the things in question to the Unitarians He is such another Anti-Unitarian as our Father Wallis is an Anti-Socinian who made himself famous for almost a whole Year for his Vindication of the Athanasian Creed and his Letters and Sermons against Socinus and the Socinians and has been as remarkable ever since for a Discovery made upon him that himself is wholly Socinian in those very Sermons Letters and Vindication that he opposed to the Socinians 'T is a Mystery this that Men who give up Dr. Sherlock nay argue professedly against him and his Hypothesis of three infinite Substances three All-perfect Minds and Spirits 't is I say a Mystery that they should write Vindications also against us who are in no other Heresy as to these Matters but the Heresy of one infinite Substance one Eternal All-perfect Mind and Spirit Perhaps Father Wallis's Opposition was the Effect of weakning Age but his Lordship is not superannuated and he has read our Books and particularly makes divers Quotations out of the Discourse concerning the Nominal and Real Trinitarians where our Consent with the Catholick Church in the Articles of the Trinity and the Divinity of our Saviour is declared and cleared There was therefore some other reason why the Catelines fall to work against the Cethegi and 't is no hard matter to guess at it nay to ascertain it But of that hereafter The Structure of the Vindication is in the Form and Way of modern Sermons of the present Mode and Cut of the Church of all others as some think the worst The Speaker openly professes his Method that he will prove first then Secondly Thirdly then Fourthly and Fifthly After this Declaration comes the Subdivision or new Divisions of these Firsts Seconds Thirds c. and Lastly that well-known And now Beloved First of the First Men of Wit pretend it is not Method but Confusion for these Firsts Seconds Thirds having their Subdivisions into other Firsts Seconds Thirds and they again most commonly into farther Underling-Divisions about the middle of a Discourse but especially toward the end of it the Hearer or Reader is quite lost he knows not what Second Third or Fourth is meant or on what part of the Subject the Speaker or Writer now is But of all Imperfections Obscurity when a Doctrine is to be explained or a Point to be argued is the most offensive and ungrateful When a Man enters into most of the Books of the true Unitarians the Subject is so clear of it self that it seems as if one came into a well-furnisht Room hung round with radiant Lights which show every thing in it very distinctly and very agreeably A Man sees perfectly every Object and with this Advantage that the clear Light about it shows it more lustrous and more pleasing But on the other